104 replies to this topic

[Riaan]

One of the arguments sometimes used in an attempt to refute the possible link between the ash cloud of Thera and the biblical pillars of cloud and of fire which led the Israelites by day and by night, is that Thera's ash cloud would not have been visible from Egypt. The distance between Thera (modern Santorini) is about 800 km and Thera's ash cloud would only have become visible above the horizon at a height of 47km. The height of Thera's plume is often stated as 36 km, but there is not way of being sure.

The photograph below shows the mushroom cloud of the Russian Tsar Bomb - it rose to 64 km above sea level. In other words, if the magnitude of Thera's eruption was greater than that of the Tsar Bomb, its ash cloud could very well have extended well into the mesosphere. The cloud obviously drifted towards Egypt as well, increasing its visibility.

Reason why I posted this - does anyone have an idea where I can get hold of a better quality version of this photograph, and also whom I might approach for permission to publish?

[Abramelin]

http://englishrussia...3/20/tsar-bomb/

I didn't see any claims to copyright, so I think it's ok to use this one.

(LOL: it looks like a laughing-clown's face)

.

Edited by Abramelin, 27 January 2012 - 02:31 PM.

[Harte]

Riaan, on 27 January 2012 - 02:00 PM, said:

The distance between Thera (modern Santorini) is about 800 km and Thera's ash cloud would only have become visible above the horizon at a height of 47km. The height of Thera's plume is often stated as 36 km, but there is not way of being sure.

The photograph below shows the mushroom cloud of the Russian Tsar Bomb - it rose to 64 km above sea level. In other words, if the magnitude of Thera's eruption was greater than that of the Tsar Bomb, its ash cloud could very well have extended well into the mesosphere. The cloud obviously drifted towards Egypt as well, increasing its visibility.

"Obviously?"

Not so obvious to me.  Aren't prevailing winds there West to East?  IIRC, Egypt is SW (or SSW)of Thera.

Can't help with the pic.  Why do you want it?

Harte

[Abramelin]

Btw: I vaguely remember this has been discussed in some thread about Ancient Egypt or a thread about the Exodus.

[Abramelin]

This one is really beautifull:


Digitally enhanced picture of Tsar Bomba explosion and mushroom cloud

From the disclaimer (April 2011):

I assume that all images on this site have come from a creative commons source and there for is free for public use.

If I have used your image and it is not in the creative commons category and would not like me to use it or would just like a link to you in recognition I would be glad to. Send me an email.
thank you. Beaslebub@gmail.com

Please leave me a comment below if your image has been used against your will and you have not received proper credit or would prefer your image removed. Let me know which post it is on and describe the image briefly and I will be happy to make you happy.

http://wweapons.blog...ear-weapon.html

[cormac mac airt]

Harte, on 27 January 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

"Obviously?"

Not so obvious to me.  Aren't prevailing winds there West to East?  IIRC, Egypt is SW (or SSW)of Thera.
Can't help with the pic.  Why do you want it?

Harte

Well, actually Southeast Harte. Not that it matters as the evidence shows that the majority of the fallout from the eruption happened to the east and northeast of Thera, which means that the clouds weren't leading anyone anywhere in Egypt.

cormac

[The_Spartan]

double post

Edited by The_Spartan, 27 January 2012 - 03:13 PM.

[The_Spartan]

As a layman, i would like to ask a question.
Does the timeline of the There eruption..match anyway with the supposed time of the exodus?

from wikipiedea, about the Minoan Eruption..

Quote

For most of the twentieth century, archaeologists placed it at approximately 1500 BCE,[15] but this date appeared to be too young as radiocarbon dating analysis of an olive tree buried beneath a lava flow from the volcano indicate that the eruption occurred between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE with a 95% degree of probability.[24][25][26]

source


About the Exodus...

Quote

The traditional answer is 1440 BCE, based on biblical genealogies.
However, scholars say that if there ever was an Exodus from Egypt, it must have been around 1250 BCE, since the Canaanite hinterland, that was to become Israel, remained largely unpopulated until that time.

In fact, most scholars say that there was no Exodus, so there would be no year in which it took place. Finkelstein says, "Today more than 90 percent of scholars agree that there was no Exodus from Egypt."  

Quote

The Israelites are mentioned in 1210 BC by pharaoh Merneptah, therefore The events of the Exodus can be traceable to a late bronze age era, between 1540 and 1210 BC.  

both the above quotes from same source

So, the pillars of fire which occurred during the Exodus should have happened (if the bible genealogies are correct) 1440 BCE or as per scholars 1250 BCE. or if based on archaeological evidences of the Israelites (from the merneptah stele), it should have happened between 140 and 1210 BCE.

None of the above match with the estimated dates of the Minoan eruption.

perhaps, my understanding of the timelines could be wrong. could someone throw more light on this?

Edited by The_Spartan, 27 January 2012 - 03:16 PM.

[MissMelsWell]

When Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, I could see the ash cloud, from Seattle, plain as day within 10 minutes of the explosion, it dominated a good portion of that Sunday morning sky (one of my most vivid childhood memories). The ash column from that eruption was 19km (12 miles), and Seattle is about 100 miles from the mountain. I know some report seeing the column as far away as Port Angeles which is about 230 miles from the mountain. It's always been debatable whether it really could have been seen from Port Angeles although those reports do exist. So given those metrics, could Thera's column been seen from Egypt? Maybe, but it wouldnt' have been all that impressive or noteworthy.

What I don't remember is for how long the column was visible for that day... I want to say that it wasn't all that long, a couple hours maybe. It drifted off and dumped its payload all over eastern Washington which is where the pervailing winds carried it. Seattle itself got less ash fall out than Shanghi China did. Seattle didn't get any ash fallout until almost 3 weeks after the eruption after the cloud drifted all the way around the world.

Edited by MissMelsWell, 27 January 2012 - 03:44 PM.

[cormac mac airt]

No Spartan, your understanding of the timeline isn't wrong. The most current dating for the eruption is 1613 +/- 10 BC.

Thera eruption in 1613 BC

Ramesses II whom some wish to portray as the pharaoh of the Exodus reigned c.1280 BC and Tuthmosis II c.1450, making both well after the eruption of Thera so there's no connection.

cormac

[kmt_sesh]

cormac mac airt, on 27 January 2012 - 03:33 PM, said:

No Spartan, your understanding of the timeline isn't wrong. The most current dating for the eruption is 1613 +/- 10 BC.

Thera eruption in 1613 BC

Ramesses II whom some wish to portray as the pharaoh of the Exodus reigned c.1280 BC and Tuthmosis II c.1450, making both well after the eruption of Thera so there's no connection.

cormac

I'm glad to see someone's on the ball, right, cormac? Big gold star for Spartan. It's the first thing I thought of when I read the OP.

The prevailing winds from the coast of Egypt are north to south, although I don't know what they might be out in the Mediterranean. Regardless, I've little doubt that some after-effects of the Theran eruption were quite noticeable in Egypt. But the eruption itself was so far in time before the emergence of the Hebrews and anything associated with them, that it cannot have had anything to do with them.

However, numerous scholars have posited that events which occurred long before the Hebrews worked their way into early Judaic folk traditions. Thus, the expulsion of the Hyksos does entail a large group of Western Semitic peoples leaving Egypt, even if the Hyksos had no relation to the Hebrews and were violently driven out rather than escaping; and the Theran eruption from more than a century earlier than that could've caused some climatic upheavals that worked their way into the Exodus story as the Plagues. So some peripheral connections might be there, but they're certainly not literal or historical connections as far as Exodus is concerned.

Editing to add: We have the term "Lego-linguistics" to refer to the half-baked word games certain posters like to use at UM; someone clever should come up with an equally descriptive term to refer to posters' tendencies to ignore timelines and compress everything into the same unrealistic time frame. But I'll leave that to someone clever. I am not.

Edited by kmt_sesh, 27 January 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[Leonardo]

Bear in mind that scholarship places the writing of the Jewish scriptures, which make up the biblical Old Testament, around the start of the 6th century BCE and, while some written sources may have been used, it is likely a lot of the stories which precede that date are related from oral traditions.

Thus, using the bible (or the Jewish scriptures) as an accurate historical document, particularly for those tales of very early biblical/Jewish history is very contentious.

[cormac mac airt]

kmt_sesh, on 27 January 2012 - 04:32 PM, said:

I'm glad to see someone's on the ball, right, cormac? Big gold star for Spartan. It's the first thing I thought of when I read the OP.

The prevailing winds from the coast of Egypt are north to south, although I don't know what they might be out in the Mediterranean. Regardless, I've little doubt that some after-effects of the Theran eruption were quite noticeable in Egypt. But the eruption itself was so far in time before the emergence of the Hebrews and anything associated with them, that it cannot have had anything to do with them.

However, numerous scholars have posited that events which occurred long before the Hebrews worked their way into early Judaic folk traditions. Thus, the expulsion of the Hyksos does entail a large group of Western Semitic peoples leaving Egypt, even if the Hyksos had no relation to the Hebrews and were violently driven out rather than escaping; and the Theran eruption from more than a century earlier than that could've caused some climatic upheavals that worked their way into the Exodus story as the Plagues. So some peripheral connections might be there, but they're certainly not literal or historical connections as far as Exodus is concerned.

Editing to add: We have the term "Lego-linguistics" to refer to the half-baked word games certain posters like to use at UM; someone clever should come up with an equally descriptive term to refer to posters' tendencies to ignore timelines and compress everything into the same unrealistic time frame. But I'll leave that to someone clever. I am not.

I'd agree with you on that one and as The Spartan has shown it's really rather obvious that these events, actual or literary, didn't happen at the same time. And it's understandable as the early Hebrews had already shown a literary tendency to rewrite history based on myths and legends from various earlier sources, reapplying that history as if it originated with them. Case in point, the FLOOD stories.

As to your edit kmt_sesh, "revisionist history" pretty well sums it up for me. With a bit of Christian Apologetics thrown in to boot.

cormac

[theminstrels]

Even if the timelines would have concided then the feasability of the ash cloud remaining visible long enough would surely have debunked this theory.

[Riaan]

Harte, on 27 January 2012 - 02:15 PM, said:

Can't help with the pic.  Why do you want it?

Harte

I have finally completed the manuscript of a book I'll call Thera and the Exodus, matching my website page of the same name. Much more detailed than the few web pages, of course. I have begun the daunting task of trying to find a publisher and obtaining permissions for the copyrighted photographs and maps I need to use. This one is not really required, but it would have a great visual effect. I did e-mail the address listed with the photograph, but received a reply in Russian with a new address to contact, which in turn no longer exists. So not much hope there.

PS: I dedicate one chapter specifically to the reconciliation of the 1613 BCE eruption of Thera (100% correct) and the conventional Egyptian chronology (not 100% correct).

Edited by Riaan, 27 January 2012 - 05:23 PM.