Talk:Plagues of Egypt
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[edit] 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
Murder is murder. no matter who commits it. How about mass-murder?--68.85.27.47 23:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
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- 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)
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- 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)
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- 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)
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| 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.
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.
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
[edit] One month later
I thought it would be nice to remove all those NPOV/totallydisputed tags. They're a defacement, and there is no debate. JFW | T@lk 30 June 2005 20:59 (UTC)
So you say! There is much debate, especially regarding the entire OT/Torah staory possibly being a complete fabrication. --Tombombadil 20:21, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Mythology debate
I think the problem is that adherents to the bible, both Jewish and Christian, differentiate between myth and belief when it comes to religious personages and events. So calling all of it "mythology" isn't going to fly.
I propose something along the lines of "tradition," in this case perhaps "Abrahamic tradition" or "Biblical tradition." I feel "tradition" has a sense of 'believing for believing sake' without the implied connotation of 'wrong' or 'unbelievable' that "mythology" carries. Grika 02:45, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi Grika,
That is a very good suggestion, and numerous users as well as admins have come up with many similar suggestions and less offensive alternatives; but so far, not one of the suggested compromises has been able to appease the single intransigent user --who is seemingly determined at all costs to tag every page to do with the Christian, Jewish or Muslim faiths as "mythology", as if only his definitions are right, and everything else is wrong. See Category Talk:Christian mythology for the fullest discussion on this. Still, I wish you good luck in your efforts to reconcile the situation, and I shall add your excellent suggestion to the list of suggested compromises. Regards, Codex Sinaiticus 03:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Just to clarify a few things, since good ol' codex is at his lies again, even though alternatives have been suggested, every single one has been shot down. Codex here is personally biased against any thing that does not portray the bible and his religion as absolute truth, even though the dictionary definition of mythology fits the topics accuratly. He likes to pretend to not be able to read a dictionary, or to understand one. He likes to generalize my actions and say that every topic concerning an abrahamic religion is getting categorized, when the truth is only those that fit the strict definition of "mythology" are. He refuses to offer an alternative, or compromise, since nothing less that implying his religion is fact appeases him. He has gone so far as to propose that the mythology categories be removed, which was resoundingly shot down. If you were to look back at the history of the changes he insits on lying to get his way. I am more than open to alternatives, as long as they are accurate and cover what needs covered. FestivalOfSouls 18:43, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] mysterious artifact in Leiden
Removed:
- One artifact, now sitting in the Archeological Museum of Leiden, the Netherlands, describes an ancient Egyptian account of plagues that closely resembles the account found in the Book of Exodus.
because it's terribly vague. What is this artifact? Where in Egypt was it found? To what era is it dated? What, exactly, does it describe? How closely does its account resemble the Biblical account? Who thinks it does? Who thinks it doesn't? Without any kind of citation nobody can even begin to answer these relevant questions. —Charles P. (Mirv) 23:19, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
- It's called the Ipu-Wer papyrus. It is a litany describing various disasters, some of which bearing uncanny resemblance to the Biblical events. JFW | T@lk 17:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
- See Ipuwer papyrus. Says it all. JFW | T@lk 17:43, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] full descriptions
Please leave the full descriptions of the 10 plagues. I address this particularly to FDuffy who has recently tried to remove them a few times, justifying this in the name of conciseness. I think the descriptions are the most useful part of this page. The short, one line summaries are almost useless to those of us (like myself) who don't know the stories. Hayne 03:28, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
The point of an encyclopedia is not to regurgitate the text it is describing. An encyclopedia article is about subjects, not a rephrasing of them. For example, see how professional encyclopedias treat the topic. It should be also considered that there is a very large difference between an encyclopedia and a commentary. This is an encyclopedia. There is a bible commentary project at WikiBooks, which is sure to contain the detailed description (at least it aims to if it doesnt already). Or, alternatively, you can read the relevant parts of the Bible if you want the exact detail. --User talk:FDuffy 14:13, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
What I expect from an encyclopedia is a quick one-stop source of information on all topics. It doesn't have to be the definitive source of information on a topic. But it should be possible for someone who wants to know what the "Plagues of Egypt" are about to read the Wikipedia article and come away with the basic info. The rest of the "Plagues of Egypt" article is the commentary - discussion of whether these events were real in the historical sense, etc. That is useful but I think that the most important thing for a reader of this article is to know (at a reasonably detailed level) what people mean when they refer to the "Plagues of Egypt". It should not be necessary to refer to other sources or the Bible to get a sense of what was described in those biblical passages. In other words, I think it is quite reasonable that this article should have a "plot synopsis" akin to what is found in other articles on literature - e.g. that on Oliver Twist Hayne 00:26, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Future plagues
"'Then Jesus and his Companions will pray to Allah, and He will send insects who will bite the people of Gog and Magog on their necks, so that in the morning they will all perish as one. Then Jesus and his Companions will come down and will not find any nook or cranny on earth which is free from their putrid stench. Jesus and his Companions will again pray to Allah, Who will send birds like the necks of camels; they will seize the bodies of Gog and Magog and throw them wherever Allah wills.
Then Allah will send rain which no house or tent will be able to keep out, and the earth will be cleansed, until it will look like a mirror. Then the earth will be told to bring forth its fruit and restore its blessing. On that day, a group of people will be able to eat from a single pomegranate and seek shelter under its skin (i.e. the fruit will be so large). A milch-camel will give so much milk that a whole party will be able to drink from it; a cow will give so much milk that a whole tribe will be able to drink from it; and a milch-sheep will give so much milk that a whole family will be able to drink from it.
At that time, Allah will send a pleasant wind which will soothe them even under their armpits, and will take the soul of every Muslim. Only the most wicked people will be left, and they will fornicate like asses; then the Last Hour will come upon them.' (It was related by Muslim)."
The above passage is some Islamic eschatological beliefs - seems a lot like the ten plagues...Should a reference to this be included? [Source]freestylefrappe 03:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Sfardaya
Frogs just hits me wrong, but I guess it is very commonly used. Rashi does not describe frogs, that is for sure. I would prefer reptiles, but the article isn't about my preferences. Comments, sources and cookies are gratefully accepted. PhatJew 10:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Angel of Death?
The Torah describes God as actually passing through Egypt to kill all firstborn, but passing over (hence "Passover") houses which have the sign of lambs' blood on the doorpost. I don't read or speak Hebrew, so I can't vow for the Hebrew version, but it is at least a tradition that an angel of death killed the firstborn children, not God. It mentions this later on in the article. Is the italicised sentence worth changing? Especially when my NIV Bible has no mention of an Angel of Death anywhere in the story. El Pollo Diablo (Talk) 01:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Hebrews = Hyksos?
This bit:
- In an historical context, the greatest candidate for the Israelite presence in Egypt is that of the Hyksos. However, rather than being slaves who escaped, the Hyksos were rulers who were chased out of Egypt. The extreme resistance, in the story, of the unnamed Pharaoh to releasing them therefore, according to such an historical-critical view, serves to provide an explanation of why an Egyptian Pharaoh so angrily chased after the Israelites.
... is a bit in contradiction with the article on Hyksos; or at least, maybe it makes too strong a claim (I'm not sure about the "greatest candidate" bit. If someone whith a good knowledge of this stuff could help harmonize this article with Exodus and Hyksos ... Flammifer 06:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Vandalism
Many ignorant people believe that the plague consisted of reptiles. These people are incorrect douchebags. It was frogs.
I am going to take this out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yolkavich (talk • contribs) 02:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
[edit] Frogs or Reptiles?
In the listing of the plagues, the second plague is shown to be reptiles. (Exodus 7:26-8:11) reptiles (commonly believed to be frogs)
However, when you reach the Plagues section, the article is shown to be frogs.
Frogs (8:1 - 8:11) צפרדע
The second plague of Egypt was frogs, not reptile, but in fact frogs. God commanded Aaron to stretch his staff over the water, and hordes of frogs came and overran Egypt. Pharaoh's sorcerers were also able to duplicate this plague with their magic. However, since they were unable to remove it, Pharaoh was forced to grant permission for the Hebrews to leave so that Moses would agree to remove the frogs. To prove that the plague was actually a divine punishment, Moses let Pharaoh choose the time that it would end. Pharaoh chose the following day, and all the frogs died the next day. Nevertheless, Pharaoh rescinded his permission, and the Israelites stayed in Egypt.
Someone should change this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Yolkavich (talk • contribs) 02:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
