Silliest Explanations for Parting the Red Sea

OK. You’re on the run with a few hundred thousand of your best friends from the most powerful and dangerous army known to man. The well armed bad guys are right behind you and you come to the edge of the sea. Uh-oh.

And I really mean uh-oh because none of you ever took swimming lessons because you probably thought to yourself “What are the chances of being chased by the world’s most lethal army so that my only escape is the sea?” With logic like that you can’t really be faulted for not learning to swim.

So things aren’t looking good. Bad army. Big Sea. You don’t swim. But all of a sudden the sea parts and allows you and your buddies to run through to safety. Now about then you’re thinking, “What are the chances of something like that happening? It’s gotta’ be ten to one. At least.”

But then as you get across the parted sea the bad guys, after pausing for a moment and considering, “Hey maybe we don’t want to chase these guys that bad” they resume the chase and dash into the parted sea only to be swept away by the sea which collapses on them.

When that sea overcomes your enemies you’re not calculating the odds anymore, you’re thanking God. Now what would you say if one of your companions who just dashed across the sea turned to you and said that the thinks the sea parted because the wind and there was a perfectly logical explanation for all of it.

What would you say to that companion?

Well yesterday, some scientific study declared that Moses had nothing to do with the parting of the sea. It was actually just the wind.

Oh. Well, problem solved. So say we all. Whew. There was almost a mystery there. Thank goodness science jumped in.

But all I’ll say is that has got to be the luckiest wind…evah.

Reuters reports:

Moses might not have parted the Red Sea, but a strong east wind that blew through the night could have pushed the waters back in the way described in biblical writings and the Koran, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Computer simulations, part of a larger study on how winds affect water, show wind could push water back at a point where a river bent to merge with a coastal lagoon, the team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder said.

“The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus,” Carl Drews of NCAR, who led the study, said in a statement.

“The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that’s in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in.”

Now mind you, this of course comes on the heels of a scientific study a few years ago which stated that the parting of the Red Sea was clearly a consequence of a volcano eruption that caused a tsunami which caused the sea to part. They even made a documentary out of that one so you know it’s a big deal.

Oh, there’s also the theory that it wasn’t the Red Sea at all but a nearby kiddie pool that was mistaken for the Red Sea. Seriously.

I’m not saying that God doesn’t necessarily use the wind or a volcano but why study something like this and chat it up to the media like it’s a big deal. It’s just another attempt to crowd out God with the phony facade of science.

I think you can believe the volcano/tsunami theory or the wind one and that’s all perfectly acceptable. You can believe that these things occurred right at that exact moment when they were needed and are never seen again. It’s OK to believe in improbabilities and statistical anomalies, I guess. Just don’t call them miracles.