Oh, science. You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you? Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research believe that Moses’s parting of the Red Sea may actually be based one fact–and they’ve got the computer simulation to prove it.
The biblical parting, they believe, may have been based on “wind setdown,” a natural phenomenon in which wind moves water. The actual location described in Exodus has long been the subject of scholarly debate, though it is commonly understood to have taken place at the Red Sea.
Displacement of that much water, however, would require the wind strength of a hurricane. NCAR scientist Carl Drews and his team suggest that it’s more likely that Moses and the Israelites were stationed closer to the Nile. Says The Guardian,
Oceanographers have calculated that an ancient branch of the Nile River, the Pelusiac Nile, flowed into a coastal lagoon then known as the Lake of Tanis. The two bodies of water would have come together to form a U-shaped curve.
If wind blew at 63 MPH for 12 hours, a 2 to 2.5 mile landbridge would have appeared from under six foot deep waters, the scientists believe. “The simulations match fairly closely with the account in Exodus,” Drews told the paper. “The parting of the waters can be understood through fluid dynamics. The wind moves the water in a way that’s in accordance with physical laws, creating a safe passage with water on two sides and then abruptly allowing the water to rush back in.”
