
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 14, 1992                   TAG: 9203140318
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COMPUTER SAYS BIBLE'S RED SEA ACCOUNT PLAUSIBLE

Sophisticated computer calculations indicate the biblical parting of the Red Sea, said to have allowed Moses and the Israelites to escape bondage in Egypt, could have occurred precisely as the Bible describes it.

Because of the peculiar geography of the northern end of the Red Sea, researchers report that a moderate wind blowing constantly for about 10 hours could have caused the sea to recede about a mile and the water level to drop 10 feet, leaving dry land in the area where many biblical scholars believe the crossing occurred.

An abrupt change in the wind would have then allowed the waters to come crashing back into the area in a few brief moments, a phenomenon the Bible says inundated the Israelites' pursuers.

This explanation "should not affect the religious aspects of the Exodus," wrote meteorologist Nathan Paldor of the University of Rhode Island and oceanographer Doron Nof of Florida State University. "Some may even find our proposed mechanism to be a supportive argument for the original biblical description of this event."

Their findings will be published in Sunday's Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Oceanographer Gabriel Csanady of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., said the scenario was "very plausible." Csanady was one of the reviewers who recommended publication of the report in the Bulletin.

The Israelites' flight is described in the second chapter of the Book of Exodus: "The Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground."

Most scholars agree that the Israelites did not cross the Red Sea itself, but the Gulf of Suez, which is a northern extension of the sea.

Paldor, who is on sabbatical in Rhode Island from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said he became interested in the problem because of his acquaintance with the biblical descriptions and because it is an "interesting, unsolved problem in physical oceanography. The problem consists of simple physical laws - which are very well-known - and a very complicated set of equations that describe what happens to the water when the wind acts on it."

He said he and Nof simplified the equations so the calculations could be performed in a reasonable amount of time without an expensive supercomputer.

What they found was that the geographical configuration of the gulf makes its parting physically possible. Because the gulf is so long and shallow, Nof said, "the wind can lift a lot of water. It's like blowing across the top of a cup of coffee. The coffee blows from one end of the cup to the other."

by CNB