Queries & Comments

010

Red Sea and Reed Sea

To the Editor:

As one who has published sixteen volumes of commentaries on the New Testament and the Old Testament and who is currently writing one on the Book of Exodus, I would like to tell you that Bernard Batto’s “Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04, is one of the best articles I have ever seen. I will quote from Batto in my new commentary on Exodus.

To the Editor:

“Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04, was a marvelous answer to a perplexing problem, one I’ve struggled with for some time. Thank you for its publication.

To the Editor:

In his interesting article, “Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04, Bernard Batto states “The Exodus narrative should not be read as a historical account of what actually transpired in those days,” and, “The significance of those original symbols, so meaningful when first written, has been lost on our modern scientific and technological world.”

This presents something perplexing to me. I admire archaeologists’ quest for the truth and the field’s endeavor to seek “what actually transpired in those days.” But what’s unsettling is to realize that one of the assumptions in the method to establish fact, a method based on principles of scientific research, is that the supernatural is ruled out as a possible explanation. The very basis of proof and establishing “what really happened” has this unproven assumption in it. Isn’t this a blind spot in the archaeologist’s world view, possibly limiting his or her openness? If there were supernatural phenomena, then how would the archaeologist by his criteria of reality and proof be able to detect it? In other words, if there were a miracle with Moses crossing the Red Sea, then how could the archaeologist ever interpret the event other than as symbolic, mythical or traditional?

To the Editor:

I read Bernard F. Batto’s humorous article on the “Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04. It is writing like that that helps confirm the Bible, for it is written “professing to be wise, they become fools.”

I am reminded of a teacher in my youth, who said it was the Reed Sea rather than the Red Sea, for the water in the Reed Sea was only three to four inches deep. A thinking young man in the back of the class declared this was indeed a miracle. “Why?” asked the skeptic of a teacher. “Because,” said the boy, “God drowned the whole Egyptian army in three inches of water!”

Mr. Batto lives in yesteryear, still trying to advance last century’s textual criticism. It is pathetic to still read such things as the JEPD theory in a magazine that seeks to be academic.

How can any ancient historian tell of a miracle without “post-Enlightenment scholars” making the story part of a myth of the neighboring pagans? Such foolishness does not deserve the name of scholarship.

Does Mr. Batto think there is any connection between the Parable of the Lost Sheep and Little Bo Peep who lost her sheep? Could there be a connection between the Genesis story of Eve being tempted to eat the forbidden fruit and Little Miss Muffet? Is it possible the serpent in the JEPD account has become a spider in the M.G. (Mother Goose) account? Then again, is it possible that Paul referred to The Three Little Pigs story when he speaks of men building on wood, hay and stubble? Perhaps if we saw “the significance of these original symbols, so meaningful when first given,” we would better understand in this “modern scientific and technological age” what the Scriptures mean.

To the Editor:

In spite of Bernard Batto’s position as Associate Professor of Old Testament History at the University of Dallas, it is obvious that he cannot understand what he reads. Or if he does, he intentionally tries to confuse readers as to what the Old Testament really says.

This type of garbage has caused me to not renew my subscription to BAR Since I was no longer be receiving BAR, I will have no way of knowing if this letter is ever published, but I doubt very much that it will be.

To the Editor:

Your magazine is really very interesting, but I am utterly amazed that Bernard Batto would trot out, at this late date, the old JEPD theory of “Higher” (destructive) criticism. It is just as totally unscientific and outmoded as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

I share this magazine with others and a church library. I dare not now.

I must cancel my subscription herewith, with deep regret.

To the Editor:

I am a happy subscriber to your excellent magazine. As a minister (now retired) my experience has been enriched appreciably through its contents. Although now and then I find a thought or an idea that does not harmonize with my own, I am totally in disagreement with those who are ready to 012bombard your editorial staff and the magazine with invectives, while demanding their subscriptions be cancelled, as if no one has a right to disagree with them. To me this is the epitome of immaturity.

To the Editor:

I wonder if it requires such an exhaustive and exhausting article for Bernard Batto (“Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04) to declare that he thinks that the word really is “sof,” meaning “end” rather than “reeds.” I think that if he wants the translation to be the End Sea, he has the right to his opinion without boring me to death.

To the Editor:

Bernard Batto makes a strong case. Whether or not his hypothetical derivation of suph (soph: end) is correct, the view that some contexts call for a symbolic rather than a geographical reading is highly persuasive. The prayer of Jonah cited in confirmation certainly derives more force from a sea felt to be associated with ultimate annihilation than from one improbably and irrelevantly clogged with weeds.

The association of suph with Sheol and Abyss in the Jonah passage, and especially with the speaker’s anguished sense of being cast out of the presence of God, suggests a collateral confirmation overlooked by Mr. Batto namely that Jonah’s secret destination in taking flight from the Lord was Tarshish. Though the name of Tarshish is freighted with symbolic values in its approximately 20 occurrences in the Old Testament—a kind of Shangri La of the maritime world—it has never been shown to have had any physical existence. Even if one accepts its occasional conjectural identification with Tartessos, near the Strait of Gibraltar, Tarshish remains essentially symbolic, as a place of fabulous promise in a terminally remote location.

The conjunction of Jonah’s mythical goal with his expressed sense of the sea as a moral or metaphysical wilderness lends considerable credibility to the idea of yam suph as a place at least as much in the mind as on the map.

To the Editor:

Bernard Batto’s article about “Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04, is a fascinating study in linguistics, ancient history and mythology.

Although I have some reservations about some of his conclusions, I could not find the answer to what seems to me to be a missing piece of the puzzle, that is why the original redactors of the Septuagint chose to translate sûp as “Red” in the first instance.

Professor Bernard F. Batto replies:

The Septuagint translators did not translate the Hebrew word sûp by “Red.” Rather, they correctly understood yam sûp to refer to the body of water which they called the Red Sea (Erythra Thalassa) and translated accordingly. As to why the Greeks called it the Red Sea in the first place, there are several opinions. The name is usually attributed to the reddish color of the surrounding cliffs or the coral reefs within the sea itself. Other authorities note that strong winds often blow clouds of desert sand which settle on the water in great reddish streaks. Still others call attention to the presence of a certain algae which can go a red hue to the waters. In any case, one should compare analogous geographic names such as the Red River, the Black Sea, the Black Forest, the Blue Nile, etc. The Red Sea or Arabian Sea, like many other places has borne a variety of names over the centuries. Interestingly, one of the ancient Egyptian names for it was the Great Green Water, a name 014which applied equally to other seas such as the Mediterranean; see further Maurice Copisarow, “The Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew Concept of the Red Sea,” Vetus Testamentum 12 (1962), pp 1–13.

To the Editor:

Professor Batto’s article on “Red Sea or Reed Sea?” BAR 10:04, was a real “goodie.” I only wish he could have written it without involving all that JEPD stuff and without making the statement, “The Exodus narrative should not be read as a historical account of what actually transpired in those days.”

Aside from those things, there is one aspect of his study and conclusions that should be reevaluated. He says that yam sûp could not refer to a Sea of Reeds because “there are absolutely no reeds in the Red Sea (or in the Gulf of Suez).” He says the ancients would surely not have referred to reeds if there were none.

That may be correct, but it doesn’t seem fair to state categorically what conditions once were, based on what they are today. Things have a way of changing over the millennia. For example, many mountainous areas give evidence of having been under water at one time. And again, the country of Lebanon was at one time forested with cedar trees, stately and valuable enough to be exported for construction of palaces and temples. Pictures of Lebanon today do not hint at that kind and density of vegetation.

Thank you for such enlightening articles, and a fine magazine.

Professor Bernard F. Batto replies:

Rev. Friedmeyer has confused two very distinct situations.

It is true that the hills of Lebanon (and Palestine) have been denuded of their forests within historical time, as is amply documented in records stretching from the third millennium B.C. to modern times. Long before David and Solomon began acquiring the prized cedar of Lebanon for their magnificent building projects, royal expeditions from both Mesopotamia and Egypt had already exploited those mountains for their lumber. And what trees escaped the successive war machines of Roman, Crusader and Moslem armies were devoured by Turkish locomotives in our own century.

The presence of marine fossils and sedimentary deposits in mountainous regions is quite a different case. These ordinarily derive from geological activities which antedate the historical period by millions of years. There is absolutely no evidence of any major climatic or geological change in the Sinai Peninsula or the Red Sea within the historical period.

Thus, one may safely assume that papyrus did not grow in the Red Sea in Biblical times. Papyrus grows in fresh water. The Red Sea has a higher saline content than the ocean itself due to a narrow southern channel which restricts ocean currents from easily diluting the saline concentration caused by rapid evaporation from the high winds and extreme temperatures in that region.

Lack of Evidence Proves the Exodus

To the Editor:

Your article on the Sinai (“Fifteen Years in Sinai,” BAR 10:04, was quite interesting—in particular the section dealing with the Exodus, and the lack of archaeological evidence for it.

The whole Biblical account of the Exodus shows us that this was not a normal worldly thing but a supernatural experience.

Perhaps the lack of evidence is in fact the greatest proof that it happened. The Biblical account gives ample information to the effect that nothing was wasted and the only thing left in the desert was the bodies of the people which would tend to vanish in the sands of time in a desert condition.

If one approaches this problem from this angle (hypothesis), then each nonexistent 016proof would in fact be a proof of the validity of the account.

This Exodus experience as detailed in scripture is a unique experience in human history—the lack of archaeological evidence conforms to the scriptural account and therefore tends to prove it rather than question it.

Explains Order to Forge Chains in Ezekiel 7:23

To the Editor:

Yigael Yadin’s article in the July/August 1984 BAR (“The Mystery of the Unexplained Chain,” BAR 10:04) suggests an answer to a problem that has long caused puzzlement to translators and exegetes of Ezekiel 7:23. A very literal rendering of verse 23 might be as follows: “Make the chain, for the land is full of judgment of blood and the city is full of violence.” The Hebrew word translated here as “chain,” is rattôq.

But what is the sense, in this context, of a chain or of making a chain? The RSV assumes textual corruption and emends the text to read “and make a desolation,” instead of a chain. (The RSV also connects the phrase to the end of verse 22 instead of beginning verse 23 with it as in the Masoretic Text.) The New Jewish Publication Society translation says the meaning of the Hebrew is “uncertain.” The Jerusalem Bible says “the text is doubtful.” Nor have the two distinguished commentators who shared the BAR prize for the best commentary on the Old Testament been able to cut the Gordian knot. Moshe Greenberg in the Anchor Bible says that “the versions guess desperately and we can do little better” (p. 154). Walther Zimmerli simply states that “in details the meaning remains obscure” (Ezekiel, p. 200). Greenberg translates the phrase: “Forge the chain!” He then mentions the common view that a generalized command to the inhabitants of Judah is issued to “make preparations for an exile train” (p. 154). In other words, the chain would refer to the bonds by which the survivors would be tied together for deportation to Babylon.

The context of chapter seven is a message announcing the imminent fall of Judah, and Jerusalem in particular, to the Neo-Babylonian juggernaut of Nebuchadnezzar. (Preparations for the siege are referred to in verse 14.) Verses 15–22 portray the grim realities of siege warfare. Against that backdrop the context seems to me to refer to a call for the inhabitants to prepare chains, though it is clearly a counsel of despair, since the doom of the city is certain.

In light of Yadin’s interpretation of the 018“Lachish chain” and the evidence of the Assyrian siege reliefs, may we have a solution to the meaning of the enigmatic order in Ezekiel 7:23? Perhaps what is intended here is that the city of Jerusalem is to follow standard operating procedure in preparing for siege warfare—have the smiths quickly forge long chains to be employed on the wall against the battering rams.

The strength of the interpretation is that the larger context of the passage does not speak of exiles being led away, but of the fall of the city (as noted by Greenberg). While this suggested interpretation is not without problems (the immediate connection with the rest of verse 23 seems to imply a punishment for crimes committed), it deserves some consideration.

It was also just after reading Yadin’s article that I learned of his untimely death. He has made such an important contribution to the discipline of Biblical archaeology. He will be sorely missed.

Finally, a word of appreciation for your splendid publication which puts within the laps of “armchair archaeologists” like myself many hours of delightful and stimulating reading.

Nine-Year-Old Decides To Be an Archaeologist

To the Editor:

I have been a long-time reader and admirer of BAR. Its articles are informative, stimulating, and pictorially beautiful. Thank you for this unique magazine.

I could continue with my compliments, but instead let me tell you of an incident that happened two weeks ago. We had a guest in our home for dinner one evening, and in the course of conversation he asked my nine-year-old son, Jonathan, what he wanted to be when he grew up. Jon thought for about 15 seconds and then said, “An archaeologist.” You see what BAR has wrought!

More on the Turin Shroud

To the Editor:

Thank you for your informative and interesting magazine. It is extremely well done. Though I may not agree with everything you publish, I do enjoy its contents. The recent article on the Shroud of Turin (“The Shroud of Turin—Probably the Work of a 14th-Century Artist or Forger,” BAR 10:02) by Robert A. Wild was outstanding, scholarly, scientific, readable and enjoyable. I have since read the letters to the editor in Queries & Comments, BAR 10:04, and also feel compelled to speak.

I would like to comment from the Biblical perspective. The Bible never assigns holiness to things in this age! The Bible itself is the closest we ever come to a “holy relic.” Isn’t it strange that millions of “the faithful” and “pilgrims” do not line up to look at this holy book or to scrupulously examine its contents?

The “shroud” shows a man laid on top of it with the remainder simply lying on top of him, in sandwich fashion. The Bible clearly states the disciples “wrapped Him” and “wound Him” in linen clothes (plural) (Mark 15:46, Matthew 27:59, Luke 23:53, John 19:40).

The Bible-believer rests his faith in the inspired, inerrant Word of God, not in relics, images or symbols.

To the Editor:

The widespread obsession with the Shroud’s “authenticity,” pro or con, seems totally irrelevant. Whether it was Jesus’ shroud or one belonging to some other of the many thousands crucified by the Romans proves nothing. Either Jesus was what Christians (of the 200+ varieties) say he was or he was not. That is simply and exclusively a matter of faith—just as it is with the belief in Mohammed, the angel Moroni or, for that matter, Zeus.

My impression is that this exaggerated concern with the Shroud’s authenticity reveals so fragile a faith that many of these people are grasping at straws. Their dilemma seems rooted in the idea that somehow they ought to have faith, while at the same time they are (more or less unconsciously) aware that divine truths, if any, are and always will be unknowable as fact.

Many folks can’t face this, hence religion, which is an amalgam of hopeful rationalization and superstition—both egged on by spellbinders gifted in the arts of imagery and oversimplification. The result is a disturbing and dangerous situation wherein the more eagerly credulous of them mistake belief for knowledge, unaware that this is the form of pride on which intolerance is based. Faith and fanaticism are thus divided by a very fine line, indeed.

When such people cannot grasp moral or philosophical principles, they are drawn instead to symbolic labels. The Shroud of Turin is obviously yet another of them.

The Zodiac—In the Synagogue and Elsewhere

To the Editor:

In “Synagogue Excavation Reveals Stunning Mosaic of Zodiac and Torah Ark,” BAR 10:03, you ask what a zodiac is doing in a synagogue. In Job 38:32 we read of Mazzaroth or the twelve signs. In Judges 5:20 we are told that the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. Perhaps the stars do play a significant part in our birth, life and death, but all is the hand of God.

To the Editor:

In the May/June issue you picture the Greek god Helios (Sun) surrounded by a zodiac, from the Hammath Tiberias synagogue, and you ask the question, “What is a zodiac doing in a synagogue?”—a theme repeated in several ancient synagogues. And so the struggle goes on for a satisfactory explanation.

What are zodiacs doing in the Egyptian temple at Dendarah? Why does the oldest church in Rome have a zodiac in the floor? Why does the Canterbury cathedral have a zodiac medallion in the mosaic pavement behind the main altar? Why does the lintel above the “Last Judgment” of the Autun cathedral in Burgundy have the zodiacal signs in the arch? Why is the zodiac found in some of the rose windows of medieval cathedrals?

We lose part of ourselves when we lose part of our history.

Modern man turns up his nose with supercilious ridicule at these things. This attitude shows up in the narrow-mindedness of modern writers and their blatant ignorance of the development of man’s conception of nature when they sneer at the greatest men of former times for their “quaint” beliefs.

The zodiac is the circle of life. It is the greatest scientific heirloom of the human race. Lost in the clouds of antiquity predating the Babylonian and Egyptian empires, the study of the skies opened the minds of men to their world and led to the development of mathematics, astrology (later astronomy), alchemy (later chemistry), and religion. Every group of people that became civilized had their zodiac. It describes the local situation in which we find ourselves in the Milky Way galaxy, two-thirds of the way out from the center, in the direction of Sagittarius. The 12 020months, an understanding of time and the seasons—astrology and astronomy. Truly we are the children of the Sun, in this galaxy made by God out of a cloud of gas! How’s that for a miracle?

Even the days of the week have their origin most likely in astrology, as each day is named after one of the seven planets of antiquity—not quite so evident in English, but quite recognizable in French and Latin. The ancient Israelites detested that naming of the days and stuck to their own system of the “1st day of the week,” the “2nd day of the week,” etc., thus refusing to pay homage to the planetary deities.

The oldest epic in existence is the Epic of Gilgamesh describing the journey of a good man through the 12 departments of life. The 12 labors of Hercules as well as the Odyssey of Homer can be placed on the 12-spoked wheel. Strangely enough, the 10 Commandments, the 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer, as well as the Apostle’s Creed, and the 12 sons of Jacob can all be placed on the zodiac wheel. It is just in knowing where to start … and the unfolding begins.

The number 12 is mentioned 180 times in the Bible (nine times as often as the numbers 11, 13 or 14): 12 kings, 12 cities, 12 thrones, 12 servants, 12 princes, 12 pillars, 12 stones, 12 chief priests, 12 tribes, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 gates of Jerusalem, 12 precious stones in the breastplate of the high priest, 12 foundations of the sacred city.

(The 12 apostles of Osiris, 12 titans, 12 shields of Mars, 12 assessors of the Scandinavians, 12 disciples of Buddha, 12 tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the 12 companions of Mithra, 12 altars of James, 12 knights of King Arthur.)

The number 7 is mentioned 524 times in the Bible (twice as often as 5 and 6, four times more often than 8 and 9): 7 candlesticks-Menorah, 7 angels, 7 days, 7 lamps, 7 spirits, 7 seals, 7 eyes, 7 heads, 7 mountains, 7 churches, etc.

(The 7 gates of Thebes, the 7 stories of the tower of Babylon, the 7 flutes of Pan, 7 books of fate, book of the 7 seals, 7 Egyptian castles, 7 East Indian castes, the 7 days of the week.)

Near Glastonbury, England, is found a giant zodiac 30 miles in circumference (less than 10 miles in diameter) dating from 4,000 to 2,000 B.C. What does its existence 071portend?

The words of our Lord God are written eternal in the heavens for all to see.

Reactions to BAS Vacation Seminars

What follows is a paragraph from a letter from Dr. Joe D. Seger, professor at Mississippi State University and a faculty member at two of last summer’s BAS Vacation Seminars—in Montreat, North Carolina, and in Alfred, New York. The other faculty member was Dr. P. Kyle McCarter of the University of Virginia.

A safe return after two successful seminars in Montreat and Alfred. From my perspective, all went very well indeed. Credit the right ingredients! Kyle McCarter made a simply super contribution in both places. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. Similarly, both coordinators were excellent. Jackie Walker was the perfect facilitator/hostess; took good care of all business without being intrusive; molded the group into a very congenial band of students. John Fasano was equally efficient and congenial and worked very hard indeed to see that both seminar groups got maximum opportunity for learning and enjoyment. Both of the settings and facilities were perfect. Finally, the groups were wonderful. (If BAR has nothing else to its credit, it must be said that it knows how to assemble “great” seminar participants.) It is so refreshing to work with interested, knowledgeable adults.

To the Editor:

The Pomona Vacation Seminar was one of the most memorable and exciting weeks of my life. Aside from the weather (which none of us can control!) from early morn to late evening (sometimes very late or even earlier morn!) the fellowship and leadership from two overwhelming representatives of the scholarly world [Dr. Victor Gold of Pacific Lutheran Seminary in Berkeley and Dr. Siegfried Horn]—and the society of people—were incomparable to any other event in which I have ever participated.

Thanks to BAS and company, my life shall never be the same.

To the Editor:

This was the fourth time that I participated in a BAS Vacation Seminar. The seminars seem to get better from year to year.

The group of 31 people came from all walks of life—a country doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a banker, an engineer, several teachers and several ministers—a pleasant mix. All loved the Bible; many had been to Israel and some also to other Near Eastern countries in the past or were planning to go there soon. It was a joy to work with them.

Professor Horn is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology and History of Antiquity at Andrews University. He was one of the instructors at the Pomona Vacation Seminar.—Ed.

To the Editor:

Your Oxford Seminar was my first experience with a BAS Travel/Study program, and I consider it to be one of the high points in my adult life.

Archaeology as an “Objective Science”

To the Editor:

Thank you for the series of letters responding to Mr. Vander Kooi (Queries & Comments, BAR 10:02), respecting the relationship between a science such as archaeology and the miraculous. I enjoyed that stimulating discussion.

I have great difficulty, however, believing that educated men who responded could have such mythic, naive faith in the “objective science” and “the facts” of archaeology. I thought this view had died out among scientists. Imagine bringing up the old, ethnocentric saw which equates belief in the miraculous with the primitive societies, mythology and unreliable reporting! Even worse is the belief that science deals only with “the facts” and “brackets out all philosophical perspectives” (B. W. Anderson, Queries & Comments, BAR 10:03). Nonsense.

Perhaps one cannot expect archaeologists to be up on contemporary physics and mathematics (e.g., quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg principle, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, or Skolem’s paradox) and their implications for the theory of knowledge. Perhaps archaeologists cannot be expected to know of contemporary philosophers like Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, or Hans-Georg Gadamer, and their work in the theory of knowledge and of interpretation (hermeneutics). Surely, one can expect those who write on this subject to know something of the philosophy of science, as in the work of Michael Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge (Chicago 1958) or T.S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Chicago 1968).

The implications of modern physics, mathematics, and philosophy, are that there is no such thing as “objective” science or a “fact” apart from a theory that interprets it, and gives it meaning (a hermeneutic). Whether one accepts or rejects the possibility of miracles will determine what one accepts as “fact,” as well as one’s hermeneutic of “the facts.” We cannot ignore or bracket beliefs, and then concentrate on “proven facts.” Rather, our beliefs define what “the facts” are for us.

Of course, archaeology like any science 072must demonstrate objectivity (or what Polanyi calls “universality”) if by this one means that our theories and interpretations should not ignore or invent data to fit them, and that they should appeal to the universal audience of all rational people (as Chaim Perelman puts it). But I find it harder to believe the mythological objectivity of archaeology than to believe in the intervention of God in human history.

Can a Fundamentalist Be an Archaeologist?

To the Editor:

In Queries & Comments, BAR 10:02, in response to a query from Ken Vander Kooi, Joseph A. Callaway writes:

“Like many people, my ideas about the Bible were as sacred as the Bible … but I learned one day that the Bible can’t be boxed up in the narrow limits of my understanding.”

Later in the May/June issue (Queries & Comments, BAR 10:03), Kevin G. O’Connell says he “grew up taking for granted that traditional assumptions about the historical significance of … Biblical narratives … were … always correct. Gradually however I began to see that those narratives … do not demand such traditional assumptions.”

Getting to the heart of the matter, Rev. Robert I. Brown adds his “own roots go back to a more fundamentalist mind set when it comes to assessing … Biblical matters … I have slowly come to see how much we have driven this apologetic perspective to its tendentious extreme … ” (Queries & Comments, BAR 10:03).

My question to you is this, as it appears to be a contradiction of terms to be a fundamentalist and an archaeologist, are there in fact any fundamentalist archaeologists? As I see it, though it may be possible (though unlikely) for a fundamentalist to become an archaeologist, or an archaeologist to start out as a fundamentalist; I don’t see how that person can remain true to the practices of both. An archaeologist who “deal(s) with the evidence as it presents itself” has to “relocate his perspectives.” The alternative, as Vicki Geisler demonstrated in that same issue, is to take a “stand against anything which disparages the reliability of the Bible.”

In short, I would expect any belief that requires a literal acceptance of its scriptures to have a poor showing in the field of archaeology. Can this be verified?

Red Sea and Reed Sea

To the Editor: