An Unbelievable Story

From the Errancy Discussion List, 1997:

Izz 4/29
Three million people leave Eygpt, and we have no records of it by the 
Egyptians. Strong evidence that it simply did not happen, or that the
numbers are highly exaggerated. Maybe at one time 300 people left, 
and the tale later grew in the telling. But we have already swallowed
greater miracles than believing in the size of the exodus. At the start,
we had to believe that sticks turned into snakes and rivers to blood.
And we had to believe in the slapstick story, that it was not enough
that Aaron created a plague of frogs; Pharaohs's magicians created
a plague of even more frogs! I bet that made Pharaoh happy:

Exodus 8:6-7 "So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt,

and the frogs came up and covered the land. But the magicians did the
same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the
land of Egypt."

Yoel has pointed out that the Bible was pornographic; here we see it also
invented comedy. Pharaoh probably lined up his magicians and slapped
them all at once, like in the "Three Stooges", for being idiots and making
more frogs.

TILL
This is a point that I made in a written debate with Jerry Moffitt, which
he has apparently abandoned. It is unreasonable to believe that when
Aaron and Moses changed all of the water throughout all the land of
Egypt into blood, pharaoh's magicians would have done "likewise with
their enchantments." Well, as I have already noted in an X but not X
posting, it would have been a logical impossibility for the magicians to
have done likewise with their enchantments, because there would have
been no water left for them to change into blood. But if we assume that
such a feat was logically possible, it was certainly a stupid act on
pharaoh's part. If, for example, terrorists should contaminate all water
east of the Mississippi with a deadly chemical, the president would be
an idiot if he ordered his agents to do the same thing to all water west
of the Mississippi. How idiotic! The story would have been more
reasonable if the magicians had been presented as agents of
pharaoh who undid the plagues that Aaron and Moses inflicted on
Egypt. Instead, we find this tit-for-tat premise in the story of the plagues.
At the beginning whatever Aaron and Moses did, the magicians did
likewise with their enchantments. A & M changed all of the water
in Egypt into blood, and then the magicians somehow changed all of
the water in Egypt into blood. A  M brought forth the plague of frogs,
and then the magicians brought forth even more frogs. Who can believe
such nonsense? Why didn't the magicians show their power by taking
away all of the frogs?

Farrell Till