Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 23/01/2004 16:30, Walter R. Mattfeld wrote:

> Dear Peter,
>
> Thankyou for your most interesting explantion on the term "wall of water,"
> (especially Nahum 3:8) suggesting it need not necessarily be as portrayed in
> Cecile B. DeMille's Exodus movie with Charlton Heston as Moses (a stirring
> movie !).
>
> As regards the flat alluvial plain of the Isthmus of Suez, if I recall
> rightly there is an elevation called Shalluf between the Bitter Lakes and
> the Bay Clysma sits on. For the Red Sea (Gulf of Suez) to "naturally flow"
> into the Bitter Lakes it would have to overcome this barrier. It proved a
> hard nut to crack for the builders of the canal under deLesseps, who used a
> lot of dynamite on it to blast his way through to the Red Sea. ...
Maybe that is because of the route they took (which had to be nearly 
straight), or because they needed to dig 9 metres below sea level. 
Darius, and perhaps others before him, were able to build a canal from 
the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea without the aid of dynamite. Anyway, 
http://www.nrzam.org.uk/Site%20Resources/UnionCastle_odds/SuezCanalSouth.jpg 
suggests that Shalluf (Chalouf) is very near where I viewed the canal, 
and this was not rocky high ground.

Kitchen's book should indeed be read - I don't have it, but thanks, Uri, 
for the recommendation. But Kitchen is not a geologist, and so not 
perhaps the best to tell us whether there is in fact a rock barrier 
between the Bitter Lakes and the Red Sea, or only one of sand and silt.

> ... For the Red
> Sea to be high enough in antiquity to reach the Bitter Lakes as suggested by
> Professors Kitchen and Hoffmeier, the 18th/19th dynasty Egyptian seaport of
> Tell el Merkha on the west shore of the Sinai Peninsula, near the shore,
> would have had to have been UNDER WATER, no such evidence exist that it was
> ever under water. ...

May I just repeat that I agree with you and everyone that there has been 
no significant change in the sea level.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/