Quote:
Originally Posted by kevmartin  I didnt look up the quote but "send a bunch of fiery serpents down out of Heaven to eat some people" sounds a hell of a lot like meteorites to me (ones too large to burn up in the atmosphere).
When interpreting anything written thousands of years ago, we have to consider how events would have been rationalized with the total lack of modern science at their disposal that we have, and take for granted, today. |
I dunno, it doesn't sound too plausible to me. I think a meteorite large enough to resist break-up in the upper atmosphere would do a bit more damage than "eating" a few whiners.
For instance, the Tunguska meteor was maybe a couple dozen meters across, but it threw enough dust into the stratosphere (hence, reflecting light) to allow people on the other side of the world to read at night for weeks afterward. Atmospheric pressure variations were recorded as far away as the UK and it blew out windows and knocked people off their feet for hundreds of miles around. And that wasn't even big enough to hit- it exploded a few kilometers over the Earth.
Since Tunguska was way out in the middle of nowhere, nobody much cared at the time. But imagine that hitting somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula- since the Israelites at the time were moving from Egypt to Israel, they'dve gone over the Peninsula. That's right in the cradle of civilization. Multiple impact events in that area would be remembered more vividly than a few verses in the middle of Numbers, and we'd have physical evidence we could check against today.
For reference, Numbers 21:5-6, from whatever translation the Skeptics' Annotated Bible uses:
Quote:
21:5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.
|
It's also debatable whether or not a great big hunk of rock tens of meters across would resemble a "serpent" that "bit" people. Looking a few verses ahead in Numbers, I can see that God told Moses to make a brass snake, and anybody who got bit after that would just need to look at the brass snake would be fine:
Quote:
| 21:9 And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.
|
that must have been one special brass snake to cure a meteorite strike.