Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

Arutz Sheva News Service
<http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com>
Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004 / Tevet 27, 5764

EXPLAINING A MIRACLE

A six-month study by a senior researcher at St. Petersburg's 
Institute of Oceanology and a Hamburg-based colleague seeks to 
explore and detail the physics behind the Biblical account of the 
Jews crossing the sea during their flight from slavery in Egypt.

The study, published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of 
Sciences and reported upon today in The Moscow Times, concludes that 
a reef running along the north side of the sea could have been the 
"dry land" upon which the Jews crossed - providing that a 
30-meter-per-second (67 mph) wind blew across the sea all night, 
leaving the reef dry.  The cessation of the wind would then lead to 
the drowning of the pursuing Egyptian forces, trapped on the reef as 
the waters returned, as recorded in the Bible.

The Russia-based researcher, Naum Volziger, who specializes in 
flooding and tidal waves, told a Moscow Times reporter, "It would 
take the Jews - there were 600,000 of them [male Jews "aged 20 and 
over" - ed. note] - four hours to cross the seven-kilometer reef that 
runs from one coast to another. Then, in half an hour, the waters 
would come back."

Volziger said he and his colleague studied the issue "strictly from 
Isaac Newton's point of view." However, the researcher did 
acknowledge, "I am convinced that G-d rules the Earth through the 
laws of physics."