Published: 2009-04-09 07:02 AM
(中央社記者曹宇帆特拉維夫9日專電)舊約聖經出埃及記記載,因上帝顯神蹟降災於埃及全境,屈服頑梗的法老王,摩西帶領猶太人出埃及。不過美國地質學家席維特森卻說,因火山爆發猶太人才離開埃及入迦南地。
美國芝加哥大學(the University of Chicago)的地質學家席維特森(Barbara J. Sivertsen)撰著「海的分開」(Parting of the Sea)一書,以全都出於自然界可解釋的現象,反駁聖經詳述猶太人經歷的出埃及神蹟。
她在以色列「國土報」(Haaretz)電話專訪中說,猶太人出埃及應是在西元前1628年,因這年位於愛琴海上的桑托里尼島(Santorini)發生大規模火山爆發,桑托里尼島近乎全毀。
席維特森表示,火山爆發影響埃及氣候發生巨變,產生酸性的火山灰雲,且天空雷電大作,萬物陷入蒙灰的黑暗中。她質疑為何沒有科學家認真解釋,這些非神蹟而是出自於自然界的現象?
Exodus 12:37 refers to 600,000 adult Hebrew men leaving Egypt with Moses, plus an unspecified but apparently large "mixed multitude" of non-Hebrews; Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550.
If taken literally the total number involved, the 600,000 "fighting men" plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude," would have been two million or more, equivalent more than half of the entire Egyptian population of around 3-6 million. The loss of such a huge proportion of the population would have caused havoc to the Egyptian economy, yet no such effect has been discovered. Archaeological research has found no evidence that the Sinai desert ever hosted, or could have hosted, millions of people, nor of a massive population increase in Canaan, estimated to have had a population of between 50,000 and 100,000, at the end of the march. The logistics involved also present problems: Eric Cline, points out that 2.5 million people marching ten abreast would form a line 150 miles long, without accounting for livestock.
咁多人喺曠野四十年,剩係大小二便已經係問題啦。或者呢位 Dr. Sivertsen 睇中咗架波子 911 GT3 想「借」D funding?