Talk:Ten plagues
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how to describe the last plague ?
I don't think "murder" is the appropriate English word.
"murder" is defined as "The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially ..." -- http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=murder
Since there is no human causing the deaths of the last plague, it was not murder.
Is there a more appropriate English word ? PleaseDiscuss. - (unsigned)
Exodus says the Lord said he would smite the first-born: perhaps "killing" is the word you're looking for? -- Nunh-huh
Hebrew transliteration
Okay, for the record, I'm not a fluent Hebrew speaker, but I can read the script well enough to know that:
- עשר מכות מצריים
doesn't say Eser Ha-Makot, more like "Eser Makot Matzrayim".
Anyone know Hebrew enough to clarify this inconsistancy? Eric 21:44, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Since there are no other "Ten Plagues", both experssion are valid (and used interchangeably) to refer to the 10 Plauges of Egypt. However, what written in Hebrew above read "Eser Makot Matzrayim". (The Ten Plauges of Egypt). MathKnight 11:06, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Moved from The Ten Plagues talk page
Firstly, this article needs to make clear this is a piece of Christian doctrine and attribute clearly. However, I know that Christian churches differ widely on their interpretation of the Bible, so if there is divergence in interpretation that needs also to be made clear.
Secondly, as a stylistic point, I don't think using the convention in Christian writing of capitalizing "his" when referring to the Christian deity is appropriate for Wikipedia. --Robert Merkel 04:24, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Capitalizing "His" is POV. Also, this should be at Ten plagues of Egypt or something like that. Definitely not "The", definitely not upper case, definitely not without some idea of where the plagues were. RickK 06:17, Jun 8, 2004 (UTC)
- I think that The Ten Plagues become a proper noun in Bible and in Western Society. Rantaro 06:50, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The table which seeks to correlate each plague with an affront to an Egyption god is someone's clever work rather than a standard reading of the of the text. We need to find the name of the person who advanced this theory and include it.
- I thank you to your idea. But please write in talk page.Rantaro 09:12, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Rantaro, you're correct that this should have been placed on the talk page, but could you please respond to the substantive point here. How much of this is a consensus interpretation of the Bible, and if bits aren't (such as the table), whose ideas are they? The neutral point of view requires that opinions must be attributed to the person or group of people who advocate it. --Robert Merkel 13:00, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I don't know what you mean. You mean this isn't consensus? Of course, this idea is mine.Rantaro 14:10, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- If it's only your idea, it can hardly be consensus. One person can't have a consensus. I am reasonably certain that various Bible commentators have tried to draw a correlation between the plagues and the Egyptian gods, but they don't always agree which gods and sometimes must strain to make the correlation. I'll move the table here, then, and replace it with a simple list which makes no unattributed speculation. When we can find the name of those who have postulated the correlations we should return them to the article as their speculation or commentary rather than as fact...if as a table, one using simplified wikisyntax rather than html, as html is harder to edit. - Nunh-huh 21:29, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
| Plagues | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Nile and other waters turned to blood. Nile-god Hapy disgraced |
| 2 | Frogs. Frog-goddess Heget powerless to prevent it |
| 3 | Dust turned to gnats. Thoth, lord of magic, could not help the Egyptian magicians |
| 4 | Gadflies on all Egypt except Goshen where Israel dwelt. No god was able to prevent it-not even Ptah, creator of the universe, or Thoth, lord of magic |
| 5 | Pestilence on livestock. Neither sacred cow-goddess Hathor nor Apis the bull could prevent this plague |
| 6 | Boils. Healer deities Thoth, Isis, and Ptah unable to help |
| 7 | Thunder and hail. Exposed the impotence of Reshpu, controller of lightning, and Thoth, god of rain and thunder |
| 8 | Locusts. This was a blow to the fertility-god Min, protector of crops |
| 9 | Three days of darkness. Ra, the preeminent sun-god, and Horus, a solar god, disgraced |
| 10 | Death of the firstborn including Pharaoh's, who was considered to be a god incarnate. Ra (Amon-Ra), sun-god and sometimes represented as a ram, was unable to impede it |
I saw these ideas represented by a certain Rabbi Jeff (Yochanan) Kirschblum: the gods "disproved" by each plague were:
- 1. Osiris, 2. Nut/Sobek, 3. Ra, 4. Set, 5. Isis, 6. Nephythys, 7. Tefnut, 8. Geb, 9. Shu, 10. Pharaoh (who was served as a god) URL (http://www.torah.org/learning/outsidethebox/5764/vaera.html).
The fact that he arrives at a completely different list shouldn't surprise us - this is more an exercise of the mind, as the Jewish sources don't mention the names of the Egyptian gods. JFW | T@lk 10:09, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Set is god of the desert, Osiris is god of death, so I don't see how (1) or (4) apply to them.
And it never mentions Apep, god of evil. Nor does it mention Neith, (by this time) god of creation. Thoth was not god of rain either, he was god of the moon, and wisdom.
- Oh, and it doesn't take into account of the fact that an extremely heavily silted annual river would have caused almost all of the 10 "plagues" in sequence - the "blood red river" being the colour it goes when it is heavily silted - thats plague 1.
- Frogs always happened in large numbers on the annual flood, if the river was silted there would have been more - that would have happened pretty much as soon as the flood - that is number 2.
- Plague of gnats from dust - again, thats caused by the river silt - it makes the river a bit stagnant, which encourages gnat breeding, so we have number 3.
- 4 - again insect breeding caused by change in river properties - which wouldn't affect anywhere away from the nile, e.g. Geshen.
- So we move onto 5 - with too dry silted a river, there isnt much clean water, and with the stagnation and so forth, that such silt causes, partly by slowing the river down, disease is harder to keep under control, which would affect the cattle first, as they don't have as clean a food supply as humans do.
- Eventually it would affect humans. N.b. boils can be caused by drinking stagnent water (which is much more likely to be full of disease). - plague 6.
- Finally, after such a sultry environment, a storm occurs, just like meteorology requires, and happens every time the weather has been really warm but slightly moist, but without raining; high pressure zone - plague 7.
- Now the weather is the perfect condition for locusts to attack.
- Either the description of how bad the locusts were or a solar eclipse -plague 9.
Thats only one naturalistic explanation, and very very basic, and not professionally constructed, and it still explains things easily, doesnt require a highly unusual event, just bad weather.
biased section touting ridiculous purported "scientific explanations"
"were the plagues a miracle or natural disasters" - this section seems to have been added to make any documentarian/scholarly view of the bible look ridiculous. scientists are portrayed as desperately scrambling to come up with explanations, with comically far-fetched results. in reality, most serious historians simply do not see any historical evidence for the plagues having happened at all.
the whole section is so biased that just rewording it is probably not enough.
Would Jfdwolff like to explain why he removed my addition? This entry currently adopts the Biblical narrative as unquestioned fact and contains such howlers as "these plagues proved that the gods of Egypt were powerless" and "It would be highly unlikely to attribute them as mere coincidences or random occurrences". There is not the slightest note of skepticism nor the least hint that this story might possibly be mythic. No wonder the article's neutrality is disputed. —E. Underwood 06:48, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Continuing Bias
As I noted above, there is a serious problem with the entire section on "natural" explanations for the plagues. It is little more than a (perhaps somewhat unintentional) biblical-literalist attempt to make secular and scientific perspectives on the ten plagues look far-fetched and ridiculous.
Various semi-absurd "natural explanations" are offered in great detail as "secular" or "scientific" views of the events in question, and then easily refuted and made to appear ridiculous. This neglects the reality that almost all secularists simply see the plague stories as allegorical, or handed-down accounts of various unrelated and separate disasters, largely fictionalized.
One obviously doesn't have to agree with that secular perspective, but to pretend that secular views on the Ten Plagues are limited to silly and wild "scientific explanations" of the exact account of the plagues given in the Bible...it's not fair.
What you have here is a long, detailed "secular explanation" of the Plagues, provided by someone from the other side of the debate in order to make secular views appear absurd. Can't we come to an agreement wherein Christian literalist views are represented honestly and openly in their own section, while the secular perspective (which does not consist primarily of wild "scientific explanations") is not set up as such a preposterous strawman?
- How about signing your name with the good ol' ~~~~ tildes, so that people "down here" can know who the heck you are, without having to wade through all the "upper" debates. IZAK 10:18, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
The section is quite bizarre. It's an exercise in how to accept the Biblical record without attributing the plagues to Divine intervention. This is quite dissonant to me: either you believe in God and the plagues were miracles, or you don't believe in Him and the Biblical account was probably made up by some people during the Second Temple period. Odd. JFW | T@lk 08:24, 31 May 2005 (UTC)