Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Four of Four

Another Exaggeration Problem

by Farrell Till

We noticed in Part One that the Exodus writer began the plague stories with a tit-for-tat premise that quickly created a logistical impossibility. In the first tit-for-tat scenario, Aaron threw his rod down and it became a serpent, but Pharaoh's sorcerers did likewise with their "secret arts" and changed their rods into serpents, which were then gobbled up by the serpent that had been Aaron's rod (Ex. 7:10-12). Hence, the power of Yahweh had from the very beginning proved superior to that of the Egyptian sorcerers. The writer's strategy worked until he had Pharaoh's sorcerers duplicate Aaron's feat of changing the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood, because, as noted in my article linked to above, the writer was at this point claiming a logistical impossibility, for if all the water in Egypt had been changed into blood, there would have been no way for Pharaoh's sorcerers to have done "likewise with their secret arts." It would have been one thing to change existing water into blood; it would have been quite another to change nonexisting water into blood.

The Exodus writer also had a penchant for superlatives that subsequently resulted in other discrepancies. We have already seen how the writer claimed that "all the livestock in Egypt" were killed by a plague of murrain but then later claimed that additional Egyptian livestock were somehow afflicted with boils, killed with hail, and finally killed in the plague against all Egyptian firstborn, human and animal alike. This discrepancy resulted from the writer's consistent use of superlatives to describe the extent of the plagues. The water was changed to blood throughout all the land of Egypt (Ex. 7:19-21); all the dust throughout all the land of Egypt was changed to lice [gnats or mosquitoes] (Ex. 8:17); all the livestock of Egypt died (Ex. 9:6); the hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt (Ex. 9:25)--all seemed to be the writer's favorite word to describe the scope of the plagues. Other superlatives, however, were used to convey that the plagues were unbounded in their scope. Although all the livestock of the Egyptians were killed by the murrain, not so much as one of the Israelite livestock died (Ex. 9:7). The hail was "the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now" (Ex. 9:18,25). Every man and beast in the field were struck down by the hail (Ex. 9:25), which also broke "all the plants in the field" and "shattered every tree in the field" (Ex. 9:25). The locusts were "very grievous" and such as "had never been before, nor ever shall be again" (Ex. 10:14), and they ate "all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left" and "nothing green was left, no tree, no plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt" (Ex. 10:15). Apparently, the Exodus writer just couldn't say that a heavy hail came or that huge swarms of locusts came. No, he had to describe the plagues in superlative terms, i. e., the worst that had ever been or ever would be, which spared nothing in their paths.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Three of Four

     
     Lice, Flies, and the Amazing Livestock of Egypt

by Farrell Till

The Exodus writer began his tales of the confrontation between Aaron and Moses and the sorcerers of Egypt with a tit-for-tat theme. Whatever amazing feat Aaron would perform with his rod, Pharaoh would order his sorcerers to do the same, even when it meant increasing the pollutions of blood and frogs throughout all the land of Egypt. After the second plague, however, the sorcerers were stumped and had to give up. Aaron had caused "all the dust" in Egypt to become lice (or gnats or mosquitoes, depending on the translation), but somehow the sorcerers who had managed to change water that didn't exist into blood were unable to change dust that no longer existed into lice (or gnats or mosquitoes).

Exodus 8:16 Then Yahweh said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats [lice] throughout the whole land of Egypt.'" ¹⁷ And they did so; Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and gnats [lice] came on humans and animals alike; all the dust of the earth turned into gnats [lice] throughout the whole land of Egypt. ¹⁸ The magicians tried to produce gnats [lice] by their secret arts, but they could not. There were gnats [lice] on both humans and animals. ¹⁹ And the magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God!"

Hmm, didn't these guys see the "finger of God" in all the other stunts that Aaron and Moses had performed? One would think that seeing Aaron change the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood would have given these fellows pause to think from the beginning that maybe "the finger of God" was with these two upstarts daring to confront Pharaoh with demands to free the enslaved Israelites, but since they were somehow able to duplicate this feat and change water that didn't exist into blood too, that could explain why they had not yet seen the finger of God in the initial plagues.That wouldn't explain, however, why they could not duplicate the miracle of the lice or gnats. One might argue that they could not have changed dust into lice, because Aaron had already changed "all the dust" throughout all the land of Egypt into lice, but inerrantists should be careful about offering this as an explanation for the inability of the Egyptian sorcerers to duplicate the third plague, because if these sorcerers had been able to change water into blood after the water throughout all the land of Egypt had already been changed to blood, bringing forth some more lice from dust that had already been changed to lice would have seemed like child's play. Ah, the hazards that accompany attempts to find inerrancy in a book riddled with discrepancies.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part Two of Four

Here a Frog, There a Frog,
Everywhere a Frog Frog

by Farrell Till

As I noted in Part One of this series, the problem of the Egyptian magicians having done “likewise with their enchantments” remains unexplained, but that was far from the only problem in the Egyptian-plague stories. Pharaoh, being the impious sort that he was, still was unimpressed after Aaron and Moses had changed the water throughout all the land of Egypt into blood. He witnessed the exchange of miraculous feats between Aaron and the Egyptian sorcerers there by the riverside, then “turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart” (v:23). So Yahweh sent the plague of frogs against Egypt, which was a typical Yahwistic response, by the way. The Egyptian populace had had nothing to do with this dispute between Pharaoh and Moses, but they were the ones who had to bear the brunt of Yahweh’s wrath. Already they had frantically dug for seven days along the Nile for water to drink (vs:24-25), and now, as if this were not enough suffering for their ruler’s obstinacy, Yahweh decided to zap them with a plague of frogs. This Yahweh that biblical inerrantists admire so much has a strange sense of justice and fairness.

Plagued By Inconsistencies: Discrepancies in the Egyptian-Plague Narratives - Part One of Four

                                The Tit-For-Tat Problem

by Farrell Till
For sheer absurdity, few tales in pagan mythology can match the biblical stories of the Egyptian plagues. The incidents that led eventually to the death of all firstborn in the land and quickly thereafter to the Israelite exodus from Egypt began with a tit-for-tat confrontation between Moses and Aaron and pharaoh’s magicians (Ex. 7:8-13). To show the power that Moses and Aaron had in reserve, Aaron, we are told, cast his rod down, and, presto, it became a serpent. Apparently unimpressed by Aaron’s demonstration, pharaoh called for his magicians and sorcerers, who “did in like manner with their enchantments.” Aaron’s rod, however, swallowed the rods of pharaoh’s magicians. At this point, we might wonder why the “inspired” writer of this quaint little tale said that Aaron’s rod swallowed the rods of pharaoh’s magicians. Surely it would have been the serpent that had been Aaron’s rod that swallowed the serpents that had been the magicians’ rods. To spare inerrantists the trouble of lecturing us on the figure of speech called ampliatio, however, I won’t quibble about the word used to designate what swallowed what, although this does seem to be a careless bit of writing by one whose hand was presumably guided by the omniscient god who created the universe. Just suffice it to say that Aaron’s rod or serpent, whichever the case may have been, saved the day by swallowing the magicians’ rods or serpents, whichever the case may have been. Score one for Yahweh and the good guys.

If one accepts the premise that God once routinely and personally intervened in the affairs of men to achieve whatever results he desired, there is admittedly nothing in this story so far that could be characterized as preposterous. Beyond this point, however, as we will soon see, that situation changed dramatically, and absurdity was quickly piled upon absurdity. What we want to glean from this part of the story before we wade through the sea of absurdities that follows is the evident fact that whoever wrote this part of the Bible obviously intended the tale of the Egyptian plagues to be perceived as a confrontation between the power of Yahweh invested in Moses and Aaron and the magic of pharaoh’s magicians. The writer’s strategy seemed to be to tell the story as a tit-for-tat contest between the power of Yahweh and the power of pharaoh’s sorcerers until finally the latter would have to give up and admit that Yahweh’s power was greater than theirs.