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Tonight, a deeper look at astonishing
mysteries in the Book of Exodus.

The burning bush, the ten plagues, the
parting of the Red Sea.

What can the modern mind make of such an
incredible series of events?

Were these divinely inspired phenomena,
or do they have a more earthly

explanation? The Bible explicitly says
that God uses the wind to help Moses

the people.

Pyramids were destroyed.

Bodies were floating down the Nile.

Weather phenomena, climate shifts,
natural disasters, all of these could

played a role in the story.

Now, we'll explore the top theories
regarding three legendary events from

Old Testament.

Moses encounters what we call the
burning bush.

How can a plant be on fire and not be
burned up?

What could possibly have caused these
ten deadly plagues in Egypt?

How could Moses and his people have
walked across the Red Sea on dry land?

Is it possible some of these famous
Bible legends aren't parables, but

fact?

The Old Testament Book of Exodus tells
the story of Moses, the great

Hebrew prophet who led his people out of
slavery in Egypt.

Exodus also depicts some of the most
dramatic events in the Bible, events

have sparked the human imagination for
more than 3 ,000 years.

Moses is directly involved in all of
them.

The stories about Moses in the book of
Exodus in the Hebrew Bible are probably

the best known stories that are in the
entire Bible.

Moses is born to a family that's
enslaved.

The challenge is that the king, the
pharaoh of Egypt, at the beginning of

story, has ordered that all male
children of the Hebrews, the Israelites,

to be killed. He's worried that they're
becoming too numerous, and that if they

are too numerous, that they will
eventually rise up and overthrow the

So baby Moses has to be saved from
Pharaoh and from the soldiers that might

to kill him.

Now Moses' mother hides him for three
months, reaches a point where she can't

hide him any longer, so she builds a
basket and puts him in the reeds along

banks of the Nile. She placed the basket
near the place in the river that

Pharaoh's daughter typically went to
bathe. And the stage is set for this

dramatic rescue.

Pharaoh's daughter comes down to the
river, and she goes to bathe and hears

cry and decides to take him in.

In fact, Pharaoh's daughter decides to
raise Moses as her own and even hires

real mother to help with the raising of
the child.

As far as anyone is concerned, Moses is
now a member of the Egyptian population.

He is raised as an Egyptian. He spends
his life as a prince.

but he's also aware of his heritage.

And that becomes the tension as the
story begins, the choice he has between

Egypt and his own people.

Exodus recounts a moment in Moses' life
where he sees a Hebrew slave being

beaten by an Egyptian man.

He decides to take justice into his own
hands and kills the Egyptian man,

essentially in cold blood.

When the Egyptian court... Found out
about this, Moses knew he was going to

executed. And off he goes, out of Egypt
into the wilderness.

He abandons everything that he grew up
with and flees to the desert to this

place called Midian, which is in the
northwestern corner of what today would

Saudi Arabia.

This is a major change of fortunes for
Moses. He has gone from being an

prince to an exile. He is essentially
out there in this sort of hilly

He is a shepherd. He's tending these
sheep. And something dramatic happens to

him that he never would have expected.

He ends up coming to this mountain. It's
Mount Horeb, which is the mountain of

God. And while there, he encounters this
incredible, miraculous sight.

He sees something he cannot explain, and
that's a bush that is burning without

being consumed.

And he goes a little bit closer to see
what it is, and he hears God's voice

speaking to him from out of this bush.

The voice of God tells Moses that he
needs to go back to Egypt and save his

people from the Egyptian pharaoh.

Moses is going to be the guy who brings
the Israelites out of Egypt.

Moses returns and demands that Pharaoh
let the Hebrews go.

Unsurprisingly, the Pharaoh is not
particularly inclined to release the

people. God doesn't like this and sends
a catastrophic series of plagues. And

after that, the Hebrews are allowed to
leave.

But Pharaoh changes his mind, and he
sends a massive army to recapture all of

them or kill them. This leads to the
greatest miracle of all, in which God

miraculously parts, opens up a passage
through the sea for all the Israelites

to cross through.

The Egyptian army follows them, and it's
at that moment that God slams the door

shut by having the sea drown all the
Egyptian soldiers that were following

After they've safely crossed the Red
Sea, Moses and his people continue north

and east until they reach the Promised
Land, which is now the country of

For religious followers of the Bible,
they've been celebrating this story for

many millennia.

The burning bush, the ten plagues, and
the parting of the Red Sea.

It's a story that has been the center of
understanding God as a liberating God,

as a God of theological belief.

They believe that these are
fundamentally supernatural events that

accepted on faith.

And this is rooted in the Judeo
-Christian belief that God, as the

the world, also has complete dominion
over all nature.

In recent years, more technological
advances have allowed researchers to

investigate the Exodus mysteries through
a more scientific lens.

The first miracle that we see in the
story is that of the burning bush.

Is there any scientific explanation for
this? Could this have actually happened?

The burning bush is really a key point
in Moses' story.

This is where Moses hears for the first
time the voice of God booming out of

this bush, telling Moses what he's
supposed to do.

The big paradox, the big mysterious
thing that happens here is how you can

a bush that's consumed by flames
without...

completely being destroyed. Is there any
plant that would burn without being

fully consumed?

And it turns out that there actually is
one. There's a plant called Dictamus

albus.

This is a plant that's found across
northern Africa, and it's called the

bush or gas plant.

And what makes it so distinct is that it
can look like it's caught on fire.

In hot weather, old flowers or sea pods
on the plant emit an oil that can

ignite. This results in a vapor burn,
which makes it look like the plant's on

fire, even though it's perfectly
harmless to the plant itself, which

way of understanding how Moses saw a
bush that wasn't consumed by flame.

Others have doubts about this.

At a couple of levels. First of all, you
need a source of ignition. This is not

just going to self -combust, so what is
that source of ignition?

For some scientists, there's the
possibility that this bush was ignited

lightning. After all, Moses hears
thunder.

But another question surfaces.

This bush doesn't burn indefinitely.

It turns to ash.

And so the length of time for this bush
to burn...

isn't consistent with the biblical text.

The English physicist Colin Humphreys
comes up with a really interesting idea.

He says, what if it's not a gas plant?
What if, in fact, there's actual natural

gas here? Because remember, Moses is in
the land of Midian. That's northwest

Arabia. Arabia has some of the richest
natural gas and oil deposits in the

world.

Mount Orib is located on the Arabian
Plate, between the African Plate to the

west and the Eurasian Plate to the east.

When these plates collide, it can lead
to all kinds of seismic and volcanic

activity. Any of these earthquakes could
open up small fissures that would allow

natural gas to escape.

You've got natural gas coming out, and
is there, for example, a lightning

that ignites this natural gas? So what
Moses sees...

As a bush that is burning, it's a
natural gas flame that's been ignited by

natural conditions.

But Humphreys believes the burning bush
was not Dictamus albus, as others have

suggested. One theory that Colin
Humphreys advances is that it's an

because the ways in which this tree
burns.

could be very similar to what we hear in
the story, that the wood becomes

carbonized, it becomes essentially like
charcoal. And so you'll see an ember,

something that'll burn, something
that'll glow red hot for hours.

And so this could well have been what
Moses was seeing.

According to this theory, the burning
bush can be traced to natural phenomena,

even if Moses himself would have seen
this as miraculous and attributable to

all -powerful unseen God.

Another issue is that Moses has spent
four decades out here.

He's pretty much seen the wilderness as
the wilderness is. It takes a lot after

40 years to see something and go, I've
never seen anything like that before.

I've got to go see what that's about.
And that leads me to believe this is

something not quite on the grid of
normal expectation.

In the book of Exodus, God's voice,
coming from a burning bush, commands

to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery
in Egypt, changing the course of Judeo

-Christian history.

But what did Moses actually experience
that day on Mount Horeb?

Some scholars think Moses might have
used a more traditional age -old method

contacting the divine.

For millennia, human beings have used
psychoactive plans.

to enter into or encounter the spirit
world.

Psychoactive plants have been around
since the beginning of religion.

People who experience these psychoactive
episodes based on these naturally

occurring plants tell of what can only
be defined as spiritual encounters.

Many native cultures still use
psychoactive plants today. They believe

through these plants, spiritual leaders
can enter into trances, combat evil

spirits or disease.

They can even control the weather.

Cultures have made use of psychoactive
materials as a way to contact the

to be in relationship with their
ancestors, to rethink the relationship

natural environment.

This is the idea that...

Our physical world is paralleled in a
spiritual world. And that if there's

something wrong in the spiritual world,
it affects the physical world and vice

versa. If someone else can look into
that spiritual world, they can see

wrong and they can tell us what to do.

Maybe out there alone in the desert,
surrounded by sheep, Moses did the same

thing.

One psychologist has come up with a
pretty controversial theory about how

could have seen a burning bush.

Dr. Benny Shannon at Hebrew University
has suggested that this is what was

on at the burning bush with Moses. He
was actually experiencing one of these

psychoactive substances and had one of
these mind -altering experiences when he

thought that he was communing with God.

We call these substances entheogens,
from the Greek, God within.

For cultures that use them, entheogens
are believed to be the source of true

knowledge. In 2008, Dr.

Shannon writes a controversial paper
comparing Moses' burning bush encounter

experiences induced by ayahuasca.

Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic tea that's
made by brewing a blend of plants that

are psychoactive when you combine them.

This has been used in mostly South
American cultures as long as there's

South American religions. And it's
understood to be a spiritual or divine

encounter. What Dr. Shenone has
recognized is that there are two plants

Sinai Peninsula where Moses encountered
the burning bush.

that can also induce powerful vision.
These would be the acacia plant and

root. Is it possible that Moses out
there in the desert could have been

involved with taking an entheogen?

A psychoactive substance certainly would
explain the specific miracles that

Moses is asked to perform in front of
the burning bush.

In the Exodus story, God gives Moses a
demonstration of his power. He tells

Moses to take the walking staff, the rod
in his hand, and cast it to the ground.

And when Moses does it, it turns into a
snake.

Dr. Shinnom points out that experiences
like visions of serpents, fire, or a

light you perceive to be God are common
among cultures that use ayahuasca or

other hallucinogenic plants.

Critics of this theory know that while
we have great evidence of the use of

ayahuasca among indigenous peoples in
South America going back to 900 BC,

there's little evidence that Middle
Easterners are making their own

hallucinogenic brews, even though the
plants were available to make them.

The only evidence which...

some people could point to is there is
an interesting passage in the writings

the Roman Jewish historian Josephus.

Josephus describes the ceremonial
headpiece worn by the high priest of the

Jerusalem temple.

The plant depicted on this ceremonial
headpiece is henbane.

It's a plant that's known to have
psychoactive properties.

It's a flower that contains the powerful
hallucinogenic agent scopolamine.

While there's no hard evidence that
Moses is ingesting mind -altering plants

the wilderness, some believe it's the
best explanation for the fantastic

and supernatural things he sees.

In the book of Exodus.

Moses wins the freedom of his enslaved
people after God ravages Egypt with a

series of ten terrifying plagues. It
starts with the Nile being turned to

And then the land overwhelmed by frogs.
These frogs are everywhere.

Then there are midges. Then there are
sable flies.

Then you have the death of the
livestock.

Then you have boils on people.

After boils...

There's hailstorms like never before.
After hailstorms, there's locusts.

After that, there are three days of
darkness upon the land.

And finally, the tenth, probably the
worst, all the firstborn sons of Egypt

Is it possible that these plagues really
happened?

And if so, what might have caused them?

Beyond the Bible, there are ancient
sources that document series of natural

catastrophes that did devastate the land
of Egypt.

The Greek historian Herodotus dates the
exile of the Hebrews from Egypt to

around 1570 to 1550 BCE.

Now, that's during the reign of an
Egyptian pharaoh whose name was Amos I.

Amos I is...

someone who is known to have been the
pharaoh at the time when something

the Tempus Sele was produced.

It lists the cataclysmic events that
have happened in Egypt. You get it from

word Tempus.

The Tempest Delay records a series of
tremendous rainstorms that cause

and destruction of the temples and of
other buildings around at the time. But

it's not just that. After that, there's
a period of darkness.

And after the period of darkness, the
Temple Delay goes on to say that there

dead bodies floating in the Nile.

So it's an interesting thing that there
are various kind of elements in the

Tempest Delay that seems to possibly tie
into what we know about the plague.

There's another piece of external
attestation that really supports this

of the plague, and that's a poem that's
written by an Egyptian scribe by the

name of Epur.

Epur's poem dates from maybe 1600 to
1300, so it covers the right kind of

period, and it talks about a series of
catastrophes that happened in the land

Egypt. The admonitions describe the
river being full of blood

with dead bodies.

floating along the water. It is a
tremendous period of disruption.

A catalog of natural disasters, some of
which look exactly like the 10 plague

story. But many scholars wonder, if the
10 plagues were as catastrophic as the

Bible says they were, why would they
simply appear in the Exodus account and

these two small sources, the tempest,
Selah, and the pure papyrus?

One reason there's not more
documentation of the plagues could be

himself. No leader wants to record all
of the failures in their reign.

No ruler wants to say, and then these
ten terrible things happened while I was

in control.

If God is on the Egyptian side, this
looks really bad for the God of the

Israelites to defeat the Egyptians.

Some experts believe the first of the
ten plagues is a catalyst for many of

plagues that follow.

The first of the ten plagues is known as
the River of Blood. In the story, Moses

strikes the Nile and it turns to blood.

The Pure's poem notes that the river
turned to blood and that there were many

dead bodies in the river.

As to whether the Nile literally turned
to blood or just looked that way,

scientists have their theories.

The American epidemiologist John S.
Maher has speculated that this first

was the result of a catastrophic algae
bloom.

When the Nile turns red, we're probably
talking about a red tide or an algae

bloom. And we have accounts of these in
both ancient literature and in modern

literature. We know that when you have
an algae bloom, it causes problems.

A red tide is when there's a microscopic
algae bloom. The algae release

substances into the water that causes
the water itself to take on a reddish

tint. Red tides are very deadly.

The algae multiply in large enough
numbers that they actually manage to

oxygen out of the water.

So it's deadly for fish.

Red tides cause large fish kills around
the globe.

Between March and April of 1998, a
series of red tides in Hong Kong killed

,000 tons of fish, wiping out half of
their fish stock in just four weeks.

Conditions in Egypt at the time may have
been perfect for a red tide.

If there was a dry period in Egypt, this
could cause the Nile to be a bit

sluggish, and this is what generates a
red bloom, basically the formation of

this red algae, which can kill all of
the fish.

The Book of Exodus talks about this
plague, saying that the fish in the

died, and it smelled so bad.

This is exactly what you would expect to
see when you have the red tide.

And then the horrible smell that comes
off the water when you have this amount

of dead fish.

The massive amounts of dead fish could
have set off a series of ecological

disasters which would match a count of
the first six plagues.

The red tide might be the cause of the
frogs coming up onto

land. And they can't return to the water
because it's contaminated.

The frogs are ultimately going to dry
out.

in Egypt, in the desert, and they're
going to die. And when they die, what do

expect to happen? You're going to get
these frogs beginning to decompose. And

you might expect to see gnats, and then
you're going to see flies.

So plagues of gnats or plagues of flies,
which were themselves kind of

contaminated or carrying toxins in their
bodies, could have stung or bitten the

livestock.

causing the livestock to die, and biting
or stinging humans, causing boils in

them. So the theory of the red tide
could account for up to six of the

plagues. But we have four more plagues
to go. What if there was a hailstorm?

That's the next plague. What if that
hailstorm leaves the ground moist? All

sudden, now you have the plague of
locusts breeding on the wet soil.

Recent history suggests those locusts
may have led to the ninth plague, three

days of darkness.

Locust swarms are enormous. They can
cover vast tracts of land.

In 1875, people witnessed a swarm of
Rocky Mountain locusts flying

over the Great Plains. It blocks out the
sun for five whole days.

You're talking about 500 square miles?

of insect invasion, insects that are
eating 400 million pounds of plant

products. You're talking about an
annihilation of the food resources

Egypt. Some scholars suggest that this
massive damage to Egyptian food crops

could have led to the 10th plague, the
death of the firstborn of Egypt.

Locusts would have left feces on already
damaged plants.

Conditions were such that Egyptians
would have to keep in their storehouses

damaged and wet crops.

Some scientists argue these wet crops
produce mold, and that from this mold

developed mycotoxins that, when
ingested, kill.

Some scholars believe this ripple effect
would go on to have devastating

consequences for Egypt's firstborn son.

In patriarchal cultures such as Egypt,
firstborn sons take pride of place.

They're the first who are going to
inherit their family's wealth, and so

enjoy special treatment, special
privileges.

The firstborn son is the one that you
take care of. The firstborn son is your

heir. The firstborn son is the one that
you would feed and feed first.

And so, not surprisingly, if the food
supply, the grain... becomes

then the firstborn sons would be the
ones who would die because they're the

first ones being fed this.

Ingesting mycotoxins can lead to death
even as quickly as in a few hours.

This could have given the impression of
a systematic death of the firstborn

child in every Egyptian family.

It is entirely possible that these
plagues are just a series of horrible

naturally occurring ecological
disasters.

But there also could be a very different
kind of explanation, cataclysmic, earth

-shattering event that could be linked
to all of these ten deadly plagues of

Egypt.

Thousands of years after the events in
Exodus supposedly occurred, many

questions remain.

To find connections to the Exodus
stories and known historical events,

scholars are turning to science and
geology to explain events like Egypt's

plagues. Some believe these notorious
events began with just one cataclysmic

natural disaster.

We don't actually need to go all the way
back to antiquity to know how

catastrophic a volcanic eruption could
be.

The best example of this was a huge
eruption that took place on the

island of Krakatoa in 1883.

This volcanic eruption on Krakatoa is 10
,000 times

more powerful than the atomic bomb that
was dropped on Hiroshima.

You have five cubic miles of rock,
earth, sand that is blown out

of this volcano, blasted out.

There's a vast volcanic ash cloud that
covers many places on earth, blocking

the sun for long periods of time and
producing these really spectacular red

sunsets. Perhaps another enormous
explosion.

3 ,300 years earlier set the stage for
the entire sequence of Egyptian plagues.

Somewhere between 1600 and 1500 BC, on
the Greek island of

Thera, now known as Santorini, you have
this extraordinarily powerful volcanic

eruption.

This eruption, known as the Minoan
eruption, was five times...

more powerful than the Krakatoa
eruption.

This eruption could have produced
tsunamis 200 feet high, causing death

destruction.

It caused tidal waves to absolutely
devastate all the surrounding areas of

the Mediterranean, wiped out cultures
and civilizations.

Many experts believe this cataclysmic
event could have also wreaked havoc in

ancient Egypt.

Massive clouds of ash would have been
unleashed that could have floated all

way to Egypt.

These clouds could have contained
cinnabar, which is a toxic mercury

that would have been extremely deadly.

This mercury sulfide would have
increased the acidic nature of the Nile,

have also changed the color of the
water, would have made it blood red.

And then we go back to that domino
effect.

The fish die in the water because of the
ash turning it acidic.

That then causes the frogs to leave.
That then causes the insects to feed on

rotting carcasses of the fish and other
animals in the river.

They would then go out and bite the
livestock, but also biting people.

And several things could have happened
based upon those bites.

Livestock could have experienced blue
tongue virus.

or African horse illness, which would
have killed them off.

Stable flies would have bitten animals
and humans, resulting in itchy boils.

You also have the acid rain from the ash
falling on the skin that has already

been exposed by these insect bites, and
that leads to the boils.

This volcanic eruption...

would also account for the other
plagues, because you have the hail

one of the plagues. Well, this is the
volcanic rock, the ash that's falling on

the Earth, would have been the hail of
the seventh plague, literally falling

from the sky.

Any kind of a fall of volcanic ash like
this... would have caused basically acid

rain. That acid rain falling down onto
the crop would have caused the kind of

moist environment that was necessary for
locusts to breed.

You then could very well have the
darkness.

You'd either have the locusts blotting
out the sun or the ash from the volcano

blotting out the sun. So either way, you
have those plagues covered.

That extended period of darkness would
have then caused the growth of toxins in

moldy crop, which would cause widespread
childhood death. And there's the 10th

plague. So you have these plagues in the
same order explained through this

volcanic eruption.

This wouldn't have been recorded in the
historical record as volcanic activity.

It occurred so far from Egypt that
Egyptians would have only seen the

and not have known the source.

The people who would have experienced
these harrowing events would have had no

clue that this was coming from a volcano
700 miles away.

The natural inference for them is that
this is a heaven -sent divine judgment.

Critics of this theory say this doesn't
work out because there's real problems

with the timing here. That this eruption
in Santorini actually takes place much

earlier than what happens around the
events of the plague.

Actually, if you take a look at it, we
think that the events of the Exodus are

taking place somewhere from like 1446 to
around 1200 BCE.

The eruption at Santorini, that's maybe
1500.

Well, there's not a whole lot of
difference between 1500 and 1446 BCE,

you're looking at maybe, you know, 54
years there. That's nothing in the scale

of the ancient world.

It's one of the Old Testament's greatest
escapes, the parting of the Red Sea.

The parting of the Red Sea is one of the
most dramatic events in the Bible.

Here's Moses and the Israelites fleeing
from Pharaoh and Pharaoh's army. They

come to the sea. Well, how are they
going to cross the sea?

The Israelites see the Egyptians coming
and they're just thrown.

Why would Moses bring them out of Egypt
only to have the Egyptians kill them?

Moses takes this concern to God and God
says, not to worry. I have this under

control. You're going to take your staff
and split the sea.

So Moses does as God instructs. Moses
extends the staff and the water divides.

So the Israelites can walk across on dry
land. The Egyptians follow them, and

once the Israelites are safe on the
other side, the water collapses and

Pharaoh's army.

Some people think this is a myth. For
others, this is an accurate description

the power of God.

But yet, this story we come across is so
miraculous.

Because the Red Sea is massive at points
1 ,500 feet deep,

to be able to split that would require a
massive amount of power.

But what if there was another
explanation?

Some scientists argue there is a
scientific way to understand what took

For some, the Minoan eruption... on the
island we now call Santorini, doesn't

simply explain the 10 plagues. It can
also be used to explain the parting of

Red Sea.

This theory is based on a rather widely
held notion that there might actually be

a mistranslation in English Bible, that
the parting didn't actually occur at the

Red Sea.

In Hebrew, the phrase that's usually
translated as the Red Sea actually is

words, the yam soup.

Now, yam is easy. That definitely refers
to a sea.

The question is whether we've gotten
soup right by saying that that's red.

The other translation of soup is
actually more like reed, which would

not talking about the Red Sea, but the
Sea of Reeds, a body of water that was

much, much shallower.

then the Red Sea would have been.

The location of this Sea of Reeds is
also subject to debate.

There is one location in Egypt which
could be a candidate for something

the Sea of Reeds, and it's called Lake
Balad. It actually doesn't exist anymore

because in the 19th century, with the
building of the Suez Canal, it just kind

of got obliterated. But during the time
of Moses, this would have been a

substantial shallow lake.

According to this theory, earthquakes
triggered by the Minoan eruption would

have caused the Nile Delta to slide off
the African continental plate. This

would have led to massive disruptions of
land, causing shifts with water moving

from higher ground to lower ground.

So you have the people crossing over the
Sea of Reeds, which is very shallow

water, and then with this catastrophic
movement of this continental shelf and

the Nile -Delta waters pouring into it,
that that would have caused the waters

to come rushing back in and devastate
the Egyptians who were trying to cross.

And in the story, we have the Egyptian
army drowned in a massive wave.

There are some geologists who think that
this happened because of the Minoan

eruption.

Others think it happened a couple of
hundred years later with another

eruption in the Aegean Sea.

Experts have identified an underwater
volcanic eruption near the island of

in the Aegean Sea right about the year
1450 BCE, which would also place it in

a window of time when you can imagine
the exodus taking place.

So here you've got a volcanic eruption.

happening in a place at almost exactly
the same time as the Exodus story.

This would have also produced
significant seismic activity that would

shifted the water and would have given
the impression of the lake being split.

It could have also triggered a series of
tsunamis that would have drowned the

Egyptian soldiers.

So ultimately, we can say that it's a
well -founded theory.

But we simply don't know if this is in
fact what happened. And of course, there

are other natural forces besides
earthquakes with the power to part the

The parting of the Red Sea is one of the
few events in Exodus in which the Bible

explicitly states that God draws upon
nature to deliver his people.

In Exodus, it says that Moses stretched
out his hands over the sea, and God

caused a strong wind to come from the
east to blow over the water all night

until dry land appeared.

It's this wind in the text that blows
all night that separates the water,

allowing the Israelites to walk across
the land.

We see that there was this massive,
intensive, and somewhat prolonged event

described in the text.

In the ancient Near Eastern world, where
you don't have science that is allowing

you to explain these natural phenomena,
you simply yield fully to the theology.

And now I think we can do a little bit
of both. And we can begin to unpack

how the manipulation of naturally
occurring events, things that the

and Israelites had experienced before,
create the fundamentals for this story.

Some meteorologists recently conducted a
study suggesting that the parting of

the Red Sea might be attributable to
something called a wind set down.

When you have a very strong wind blowing
persistently for many, many hours, it

can literally take the water of a lake
and displace it.

move it from one shoreline to the other
so that you dry the surface on the

upwind side and pile up water on the
downwind side.

You see this regularly in Lake Erie,
where water levels around Toledo, Ohio,

might be 16 feet higher than around
Buffalo, New York.

Atmospheric modeling of a wind set down
looks exactly like the story in the book

of Exodus. The Exodus narrative talks
about a strong wind and a strong wind

blows for hours, which is precisely what
you would need for a wind set down.

Atmospheric researcher Carl Drews notes
that there are four aspects to a wind

set down. One, it takes hours of a
strong wind blowing. Two, it exposes.

the bottom of a body of water thirdly
the effect is greater in shallow water

fourthly the event can be reversed in
minutes they ran a computer model to see

what's the strongest wind that people
can walk through because you have a

wind but you still have to be able to
walk through this wind And so with a 63

mile an hour wind blowing for 12 hours,
you would have the condition for people

to be able to walk across this distance
that would take them approximately four

hours to escape.

We have at least one example of this
wind set -down phenomenon that took

in 1882 in the Nile Delta, where folks
observed sustained wind blowing the

to such a degree that one day they were
fishing, and the next day it was simply

mud and almost dry land.

People end up walking on the bed of what
was formerly water, right where they

had been fishing the day before.

But the parting of the sea is just half
the story.

Exodus tells us... that at the end of
this crossing, the waters return and the

Egyptian chariots and soldiers are
completely overwhelmed and drowned.

In many ways, this is even harder to
understand than other parts of the

If this is occurring at daybreak, as the
story says, how is it that the Egyptian

army doesn't suddenly see massive waves
coming towards them? Why don't they try

to get to safety?

And if their chariot wheels are stuck in
the mud, why don't the Egyptian

soldiers just get up and run?

For some theorists, the only way to
understand the Exodus account is to

that the Egyptian army didn't have time
to escape.

Leading us to believe that it was a very
immediate event.

You might be a religious believer or
not, but science has demonstrated that

least at some critical moment, natural
phenomena could produce the kinds of

things we find in the Exodus story that
would have aided the liberation and

survival of an entire people.

The incredible events in the book of
Exodus, full of awe and mystery, still

capture the human imagination.

Whether divine interventions, natural
events, or both, they are among the most

enduring legends in human history.

I'm Lawrence Fishburne. Thank you for
watching History's Greatest Mystery.