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The Passage of the Red Sea is the account of the march of Moses and the Israelites through yam suph, commonly translated as the Red Sea, as described in Exodus (mostly at 14:22-31).

1 Locating the crossing
2 Four versions
3 Historical Context
4 Naturalistic explanations
5 External links

[edit] Locating the crossing

Though yam in the phrase yam suph clearly means waters, but the reading of suph has given rise to great diversity of opinion as to the precise place where the crossing occurred. Though the location of the crossing is vaguely indicated by the locations given as the prior and subsequent ports of call, the difficulty of arriving at any definite conclusion on the matter is much increased by the consideration of historical oceanography that the head of the Gulf of Suez, which was the branch of the sea which was crossed, must have extended at the time of the Exodus probably 80 km (50 miles) farther north than it does at present. A few have argued that the crossing took place opposite the Wady Tawarik, where the sea is at present some 11 km (7 miles) broad, but the opinion that seems to be best supported is that which points to the neighbourhood of Suez.

[edit] Four versions

According to the documentary hypothesis, there are three separate but interleaved prose accounts of the crossing. The earliest of these is that attributed to the Jahwist, the next to the Elohist, both of which are believed, amongst critical scholars, to be based on the Song of the Sea, a poetic account, also present in the torah, which predates them. The third prose account is that of the priestly source, which the documentary hypothesis states is based on the interlaced Jahwist and Elohist accounts.

In the Jahwist account, it is a pillar of cloud which blows the sea away by a strong wind, and frightens the Egyptians, and when the sea naturally flows back, the egyptians are consequently drowned. The Elohist, however, prefers the intermediary action of Angels throughout its writings, and so here the Elohist describes an angel protecting the Israelites, standing between them and the Egyptians, and then taking off their chariot wheels, disabling their approach. The priestly source, on the other hand, prefers huge shows of divine power, and in its version presents the sea as being split into two giant walls of water, which the Israelites walked through, and which are subsequently collapsed onto the Egyptians. The earlier Song of the Sea, which the documentary hypothesis implies is the version the others are based upon, presents a much more realistic scene, similar to the Jahwist tale, where the wind blows the sea away, and then brings it back upon the persuing Egyptians.

[edit] Historical Context

In recorded history from non-Biblical sources, the most likely candidate for the Israelites are the Hyksos; however, the Hyksos were being chased away rather than being chased in order to be recaptured. Sinai was still part of the Egyptian empire at that time and so crossing the Red Sea would still leave the Israelites in Egypt, although the historic army chasing away the Hyksos would have been behind them by that point. History records that the persuing egyptian army sucessfully persued the Hyksos as far as southern Canaan to Sharuhen, and so were certainly not defeated by the Red Sea.However, rewriting the story, to have the Egyptians stopped at the Red Sea, turns the embarrassing defeat of the Hyksos into an heroic escape.

[edit] Naturalistic explanations

Speculation backed with proofs of how the passage of the Red Sea was achieved naturalistically is not new. Gregory of Tours argued against this naturalistic approach, in his Historia Francorum ("History of the Franks"), written in the decade before 594:

And many tales are told of this crossing, as I have said. But we desire to insert in this account what we have learned as true from the wise, and especially from those who have visited the place. They actually say that the furrows which the wheels of the chariots made remain to the present time and are seen in the deep water as far as the eye can trace them. And if the roughness of the sea obliterates them in a slight degree, when the sea is calm they are divinely renewed again as they were. Others say that they returned to the very bank where they had entered, making a small circuit through the sea. And others assert that all entered by one way; and a good many, that a separate way opened to each tribe, giving this evidence from the Psalms: "Who divided the Red Sea in parts. [Ps. 135:13] But these parts ought to be understood according to the spirit and not according to the letter." (Book I.1)[1].

Nethertheless, the locating of yam suph indicates that the portion of the Red Sea that they would have crossed was particularly near the landfall of the Gulf of Suez. Consequently, it was not necessarily a particularly difficult area to cross, as, aside from the obvious land route, the sea is much narrower than the main portion of the Red Sea, and also more shallow. Indeed, some consider yam suph to be refer to a sea of reeds, as Red Sea is a corruption of the more accurate translation Reed Sea, and thus the Israelites merely needed to cross a marshy freshwater swamp.

Whatever the truth of any miraculous nature surrounding the crossing by the Israelites, it is certainly true that the army of Alexander the Great made an easy crossing of the sea, as his army were able to cross with the water coming up only to their chests. It was said of the time that much of the sea had simply been blown away by a strong wind, without any divine miracle being attributed to the event.

However, it is possible that a more memorable crossing occurred which became associated with the Israelites, whether or not it was them who were the people which made the crossing historically. Whatever sea the story refers to was clearly considered by the writer(s) of the text to be substantial enough to defeat an army of Pharaoh, and it is hard to imagine the author relating a story of how the entire Egyptian army was drowned in six inches of water. However, such extent of the waters may just be an elaboration due to narrative license.

In 1600BC, the Greek island of Santorini, which was the cap of a volcano, exploded, resulting in a tsunami. The size of the explosion would have been enough for the tsunami to draw billions of gallons of water away, not only from the shore, but from rivers and lakes, resulting in dry land for as long as two hours - enough time for a large collection of people to cross a narrow stretch of mud. The mud would have prevented chariots and other heavy vehicles from crossing, thus disabling the Egyptian army, as recorded by the Elohist's claim of the chariot wheels being taken off. Such a volcanic eruption could have also triggered the plagues of Egypt, and so they would noticably have occurred at a similar period in history, however, not only is the time period much earlier than the exodus is traditionally placed in history, but the plagues would have occurred after the parting of the red sea, if caused in this manner.

This entry incorporates text from the public domain Easton's Bible Dictionary, originally published in 1897.