Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
between 1250 and 1350
BC.
For a long time, the passage presumably referred to the Red Sea, or more pre-
cisely the Gulf of Suez, an arm of the Red Sea that separates Egypt from the Sinai Peninsula. But in the
past thirty years, biblical scholars have reinterpreted Hebrew texts of the topic of Exodus as saying the
Israelites crossed the “Sea of Reeds,” a marshy area at the northern end of the Gulf of Suez, not the Red
Sea itself. Other Old Testament historians have suggested a spot even farther north at Lake Manzala, on
the Mediterranean coast.
But Nof and Paldor point to the Gulf of Suez, which is narrow and fairly shallow, with mountains on
either side of the gulf capable of channeling the winds. The two scientists showed that a strong, steady
wind blowing for ten to twelve hours could push water from the shoreline and expose an underwater ridge.
They refer to the biblical account, which describes a strong wind blowing for the entire night before the
Israelis made the crossing, as being entirely consistent with their theory.
Another proposed explanation for the parting of the waters was the huge sea wave caused by the vol-
canic eruption of Mount Thera. (See Chapter 1, “Imaginary Places: Was There an Atlantis?”) But the date
of that catastrophe seems to be too early to have had any connection with Exodus. If you want to hedge
your bets, you can always say that God caused the volcano, or earthquake, that knocked down the walls at
Jericho or the winds that parted the seas. That's essentially what Dr. Paldor told the
New York Times.
“Be-
lievers can find the presence and very existence of God in the very creation of the wind with its particular
properties, just as they find it in the establishment of a miracle.”
No one can prove you wrong, and you're safe should the day come when you have to meet your Maker!
IMAGINARY PLACES: Was There a Troy?
Certainly less controversial than questioning the veracity of the topics of Exodus and Joshua are questions
about the sources of Greek mythology and literature. Ironically, we know more about the events described
in Homer's epic
Iliad
and its companion
Odyssey
, the starting point of Western literature, than we do about
the historical fall of Jericho or the actual Exodus, even though these events may have been separated from
each other by only a few hundred years. For that matter, we now also know more about Troy than we do
about the presumed author of these poems, a blind poet who recited these stories around 800
BC
, about four
hundred years after the events they describe took place.
Homer's Troy (also known as the Greek and Roman city of Ilium, which is where the name
Iliad
comes
from) was a coastal city of ancient Asia Minor. Around 1250
BC
, a war was fought there between the Tro-
jans and an alliance of Greeks. According to the Homeric story, the Greeks sought to avenge the abduction
of Helen, the wife of Sparta's King Menelaus, by Paris, the son of Troy's King Priam. Recited for gen-
erations until it was finally written down, Homer's epic recounts, in the words of historian Barbara W.
Tuchman, “ten years of futile, indecisive, noble, mean, tricky, bitter, jealous and only occasionally heroic
battle.” It is a universal, human story of the two camps, their respective heroes, and the often petty involve-
ment of the Greek gods of Mount Olympus who took such an active part in the war's outbreak, fighting,
and eventual outcome.
Troy falls when the Greeks leave behind the wooden horse in which Greek soldiers have hidden them-
selves. The horse is brought inside the walls of Troy, the concealed Greeks let in the rest of their army, and
Troy is sacked and burned. (Among Troy's survivors is the warrior Aeneas, who went on to found Italy,
a story recounted in the
Aeneid
, the Roman epic by Virgil.) The ploy of the wooden horse was the work
of Odysseus (called Ulysses by the Romans), whose adventures in wandering for ten years were told in
Homer's
Odyssey.
To generations of Greeks, these poems provided a cultural heritage almost as sacred as the Bible itself.
But the city of Troy remained a mythical place until it was rediscovered between 1870 and 1890 by Hein-
