Hi Drediock,
Originally posted by DREDIOCK
What's not a miracle at all is the getting water from a stone as nomads to this day manage to find water (underground springs actually)in the same way Moses did
Course. if you've never seen it before and didn't know it possible all these events would seem like miracles
Respectfully, Moses was raised as the son of Pharaoh's daughter in Pharaoh's household. Throughout his childhood he was surrounded by tutors and raised to be a prince of Egypt, as Stephen puts it in Acts 7:21-22
"But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds."After he was forced to flee from Egypt, Moses spent many years as a Shepherd in Midian, the desert wilderness of southern Sinai. As such, we have a man who was both exposed to the best teaching available at the time and who was intimately familiar with the ways of life in the Sinai Desert. He had also been in the region of the Red Sea most of his life, and there was a direct and frequently travelled trade route between Egypt and Canaan that went through the area of the adjacent to the sea of reeds.
So Moses was far more familiar with the area than almost all modern commentators and yet he recorded it himself as a Miracle, in which the Lord directly acted to show his mercy by effecting the salvation of his people and his justice through the destruction of Pharaoh's army:
"And the LORD said to Moses, "Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. "But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. "And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen. "Then the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gained honor for Myself over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen." And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided. So the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left." (Exodus 14:15-22)
Now, if you are reading this text and your inherent presupposition is that either there is no God, or if there is a God, He is not capable of acting directly in His creation, you will immediately dismiss his working as an invention. Therefore you'll try to figure out another way to get Israel over the Red Sea, and Pharaoh's pursuit thwarted without the intervention of a God you believe cannot intervene. Hence the theory you presuppose. You then explain the way it is recorded as the superstitious wonder of ignorant ancients who didn't understand the way the world worked and so explained natural phenomena with "God did it!"
First this displays an obvious predisposition to unbelief, but also the modern tendency to what C.S. Lewis called "Chronological arrogance", or the belief that merely because we are further along in the time frame we are smarter that all our stupid forebears. It seldom occurs to us for instance, that the average ancient Shepherd understood nature far better than a modern office worker, and while he may not have had a microwave, he could find his way and survive in inhospitable circumstances where modern men would have quickly died.
Anyway, Dred, I personally have no problem with people saying "I don't believe that God parted the Red Sea" but, my teeth personally clench when people come up with rationalistic and untenable explanations that presume that everyone in the past was thicker than a brick. Personally, I think we live in an age of declining, not increasing, wisdom.
- SEAGOON
