EXPLAINING A MIRACLE

Via Arutz Sheva

A six-month study by a senior researcher at St. Petersburg's Institute of Oceanology and a Hamburg-based colleague seeks to explore and detail the physics behind the Biblical account of the Jews crossing the sea during their flight from slavery in Egypt.

The study, published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences and reported upon today in The Moscow Times, concludes that a reef running along the north side of the sea could have been the "dry land" upon which the Jews crossed - providing that a 30-meter-per-second (67 mph) wind blew across the sea all night, leaving the reef dry. The cessation of the wind would then lead to the drowning of the pursuing Egyptian forces, trapped on the reef as the waters returned, as recorded in the Bible.

The Russia-based researcher, Naum Volziger, who specializes in flooding and tidal waves, told a Moscow Times reporter, "It would take the Jews - there were 600,000 of them [male Jews "aged 20 and over" - ed. note] - four hours to cross the seven-kilometer reef that runs from one coast to another. Then, in half an hour, the waters would come back."

Volziger said he and his colleague studied the issue "strictly from Isaac Newton's point of view." However, the researcher did acknowledged, "I am convinced that G-d rules the Earth through the laws of physics."