To say the least, those Israelites witnessed some amazing miracles while
Moses and Aaron worked to gain their release from bondage, but the wonders
didn't cease when Pharaoh finally relented and gave permission for the
people to leave Egypt. They saw Yahweh going before them in "a pillar of
cloud" by day and in "a pillar of fire" by night (13:21). And these were
not just occasional appearances that Yahweh made to the people, because "the
pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night departed not from
before the people" as they marched out of Egypt (v:21).
One would certainly think that the Israelites, having personally seen
all of these wonders, would have been supremely confident that the power of
Yahweh was on their side and would deliver them from all harm on their
journey to the promised land, but such was not the case. They were no
sooner under way when their faith began to waver. After letting the
Israelites go, Pharaoh experienced a change of heart and gathered an army to
go after them. As the Egyptian army drew near, the people cried out in
protest to Moses:
"Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die
in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of
Egypt? Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, `Let us
alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better
for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness"
(14:11-12).
If there is such a thing as ingratitude, these bellyaching Israelites had to
be the all-time champions of it. Their God had performed unprecedented
wonders to obtain their release from slavery and was journeying with them in
the pillars of cloud and smoke, but then at the first sign of
trouble--without even giving Yahweh a chance to do his stuff--they raised
their voices in rebellion.
This reaction of the Israelites, after all the signs and wonders they
had personally seen, makes the exodus story impossible to believe. If they
had actually seen the plagues and been miraculously spared their horrifying
effects, and if on their journey to the Red Sea they had actually seen their
almighty god traveling with them in pillars of cloud and fire, a more
probable response to their seeing the Egyptian army overtaking them would
have been incredulous amusement. "Well, just look at those stupid
Egyptians," would have been a more likely reaction. "When are they ever
going to learn!"
A critical reader, rather than swallowing stories like these just
because they happen to be in the Bible, will apply the same critical methods
of interpretation to them that he would use in analyzing any other book.
Carl Lofmark expressed the common-sense, critical method to biblical
interpretation like this:
"When you lack evidence, the only way to decide whether or not to
believe something is to ask: Is it likely? If you tell me a bird flew
past my window, I will probably believe you, even though I did not see
it myself and I have no evidence. That is because such a thing is
likely. I have seen it happen before. It is more likely that a bird flew
past my window, than that you are deceiving me. But if you tell me a pig
flew past my window, I will not believe you, because my past experience
tells me that such things do not happen, and so I presume that what you
reported is false. Thus, where there is no evidence we have to rely on our
own past experience of the sort of things that really happen (*What Is the
Bible?* pp. 41-42).
Lofmark applied this principle to several biblical stories-- Noah's flood,
the virgin birth, the resurrection, the ascension, etc.--to demonstrate that
much of what is written in the Bible cannot pass the test of likeliness. In
the absence of corroborating evidence, he concluded, the rational reader
will view such stories to be only myths and legends in the same way that
similar stories in the literature of other nations of that era must be
regarded as myths and legends.
If we apply this principle of likeliness to the events summarized above
from the exodus story, we have to conclude that they aren't very believable.
These Israelites had seen Yahweh perform many wonders just days before and
(according to the story) they knew that this almighty deity was
journeying with them out of Egypt, so how likely is it that, under these
circumstances, they would have so soon forgotten all of those signs and
wonders and been reduced to the shivering cowards who cried out in fear and
anguish upon seeing the Egyptian army coming in pursuit? It just doesn't
make sense to believe that they would have so reacted with tangible evidence
of Yahweh's presence fresh in their memories and even right before their
eyes in the cloud pillar overhead.
Even if we could somehow convince ourselves that the conduct of the
Israelites at this point in the exodus was believable, as we continued to
read, we would immediately encounter a long string of even more unbelievable
events. As the Egyptian army approached, Moses stretched out his hand, and
the waters of the Red Sea parted to allow the Israelites to cross on dry
land. The water formed walls on both sides as the people marched across
(14:21-22), and when their pursuers followed them into the midst of the sea,
Yahweh "looked down upon the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of
fire and cloud" and caused the wheels of their chariots to fall off (vs:24-
25). Moses stretched out his hand again, and the walls of water came back
together and engulfed the Egyptians. "Not so much as one of them remained"
(vs:27-28).
Surely, in the entire history of mankind, no one had ever witnessed a
miracle as amazing as the one that those Israelites witnessed on that day.
One would think that after seeing the power of Yahweh wielded so decisively
on their behalf, the people would have been loyal to him till death, but, if
we are to believe the Bible, it didn't happen that way. The last ripples in
the sea had hardly settled when the people began to bellyache again, but I
will save the other incidents of complaint and rebellion for later. For
now, let's just compare the conduct of the Israelites to modern-day
born-again Christians. These Christians will wave aside all arguments
against the Bible with purely subjective arguments about what they "know in
their
hearts" and the "personal relationships" that they have with God or Jesus.
Not a one of them has ever seen anything nearly as amazing as what the
Israelites saw on the day that Yahweh parted the Red Sea for them and
destroyed the Egyptian army, yet born-again Christians cannot be shaken from
their unyielding faith in what their purely subjective experiences tell
them, whereas the Israelites almost daily witnessed remarkable miracles that
Yahweh performed on their behalf and yet they slipped back into complaints
and rebellions hardly before the dust of the last miracle had time to
settle. How likely is it? Maybe Dave would like to respond to my "biased
conjecture."
(Adapted from "How Likely Is it?" (*The Skeptical Review,* Autumn 1993, pp.
10-11)
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net