Aberrant El Niño - another explanation for the Plagues of Egypt

“The vivid Old Testament saga of the 10 plagues that devastated the land of Egypt and its people (Exodus 1-12) has intrigued some to seek rational explanations for a chronicle of disasters that befell one population yet spared another. Indeed, biblical scholars in a 21st century translation of the Old Testament concede that from an historical standpoint, the first nine plagues resemble natural events well known in the Middle East, save for their patterns and rapid succession”. N Joel Ehrenkranz and Deborah A Sampson I (Damien Mackey) am not completely averse to the theory that God may have used natural phenomena, catastrophism, to effect the Plagues of Egypt and also some aspects of the Exodus. I have been struck by the incredible likeness of the series of phenomena accompanying the Mount St. Helens eruption and the biblical Plagues - almost identical in some cases, except as to the order in which they occurred. N. Joel Ehrenkranz and Deborah A. Sampson have written (for Yale J Biol Med. 2008 Jul;81(1):31–42): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2442724/ Origin of the Old Testament Plagues: Explications and Implications Abstract Analyses of past disasters may supply insights to mitigate the impact of recurrences. In this context, we offer a unifying causative theory of Old Testament plagues, which has present day public health implications. We propose the root cause to have been an aberrant El Niño-Southern Oscillation teleconnection that brought unseasonable and progressive climate warming along the ancient Mediterranean littoral, including the coast of biblical Egypt, which, in turn, initiated the serial catastrophes of biblical sequence — in particular arthropod-borne and arthropod-caused diseases. Located beyond the boundary of focal climate change, inland Goshen would not have been similarly affected. Implicit in this analysis is a framework to consider a possibility of present day recurrence of similar catastrophes and their impact upon essential public services. Introduction The vivid Old Testament saga of the 10 plagues that devastated the land of Egypt and its people (Exodus 1-12) has intrigued some to seek rational explanations for a chronicle of disasters that befell one population yet spared another. Indeed, biblical scholars in a 21st century translation of the Old Testament concede that from an historical standpoint, the first nine plagues resemble natural events well known in the Middle East, save for their patterns and rapid succession [1]. In light of present day knowledge, we offer a fresh, cohesive, and rational explanation of these events, with the implication that they could recur. The 10 plagues are: 1. the Nile River turns bloody, fouling drinking water and killing fish. 2. Frogs leave the Nile for dry land, invade Egyptian homes and die, causing a great stench. 3. Annoying small insects swarm. 4. Annoying large insects swarm. 5. An epizootic kills different types of livestock in pasture. 6. Boils afflict beasts and humans. 7. An especially severe thunderstorm with lightning and hailstones destroys crops near harvest. 8. Strong winds bear swarms of locusts to obliterate remaining crops. 9. “Palpable darkness” obscures all light. 10. Firstborn Egyptians and their surviving firstborn animals die, while Israelites and their livestock live. Brief Literature Review In parallel with scientific advances, succeeding authors have offered progressively rational explanations for the plagues, as well summarized by Marr and Malloy [2]. Over the past half-century, authors of four key papers have put forward competing scientific views. These are characterized by differing suggestions for origins of plagues 1 and 5, and whether there was a common source for some plagues, or alternatively serial connections between them. In the late 1950s, Hort attributed the bloody appearance of the Nile River and the fish kill of plague 1 to reddish silt and freshwater flagellates (Euglenia sanguinea, Haematococcus pluvialis) being carried downstream by torrential waters to overflow onto the flood plain of the Nile Delta [3,4]. She proposed that the unusually strong river overflow caused anthrax spores in contaminated soil to germinate and initiate the epizootic of plague 5 and attributed all but the hail of plague 7 to Nile overflow. Several decades later, Schoental suggested that red tide due to pigment-producing marine dinoflagellates was responsible for the bloody Nile and fish kill. She, however, proposed a sequential plague connection, e.g., the flies of plague 4 transmitting an unknown infectious agent to cause plague 5 [5]. Hoyte, in 1993, postulated different fresh water dinoflagellates (Gymnodinium and Glenodinium sp.) as causing plague 1, but agreed with Schoental that the flies of plague 4 transmitted the agent of plague 5, and also caused plague 6 [6] As origin of plague 5, Hoyte rejected previously suggested bacterial and viral agents — including Bacillus anthracis and Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) — based upon differing livestock susceptibilities to infectious agents, offering instead the protozoon, Trypanosoma evansi. Thereafter, Marr and Malloy suggested a different species of freshwater dinoflagellates (cyanobacteria) for plague 1 and made a connection with plague 2 by proposing that dinoflagellate toxins forced frogs to flee the river. Moreover, they presented a model in which each of the first nine plagues shaped the next, thereby greatly advancing the concept of sequential plague causation. They also revived consideration of viral origin for plague 5 by suggesting that two viruses — African horse sickness and Bluetongue — were responsible, having been spread by vector insects of plague 3 [2]. In contrast to varying opinions as to plagues 1 and 5, authors of the three papers addressing plague 9 all agreed the cause was a sandstorm [2,4,6]. Therefore, while differing in detail, previous scholars have considered that living agents and abnormal climatic conditions (also manifested in the hail of plague 7 and the winds of plague 8) account for the first nine plagues. It is the 10th plague — the seemingly inexplicably pattern of selective killing of Egyptian firstborn humans and animals yet sparing all Hebrew humans and animals — that has posed the thorniest problem for rational elucidation. Attempts to explain plague 10 vary greatly. Hort essentially avoided the issue by proposing translation and transcription errors. In her view, the original Old Testament concept of this plague was the “destruction of the first-fruits” — meaning crops, not children. Hoyte also downplayed the significance of firstborn deaths, maintaining it was symbolic for the death of the pharaoh’s eldest son from typhoid fever. (Hoyte also took note of hyperbole or poetic license in quantitative biblical descriptions, e.g., death of “all” animals or contamination of “all” waters, as do current biblical scholars [7]). Somewhat more creatively, Schoental, and later Marr and Malloy, argued that the firstborn died from lethal mycotoxins (e.g., Stachybotrys atra) arising in moldy granaries. The latter argued that primogeniture permitted firstborn humans to have had first and greatest exposure to the moldy food, as did dominance for firstborn animals. They attributed survival of younger human and animal siblings to their prompt perception and avoidance of dangers lurking in moldy granaries — but offered no support. There is also contention as to the location of the biblical land of Egypt: Hort considered it to have been the whole Nile valley as far south as ancient Nubia, whereas Hoyte argued that the Hebrews of the Old Testament would have perceived it only as the Nile Delta. In either event, it would have likely included the places of forced Hebrew labor at the “treasure cities” of Rameses and Pithom in the northeastern Nile Delta and Egyptian dwelling places close to the Mediterranean coast (Figure) [7-9]. By contrast, scholars generally agree that the part of the land of Egypt known as the region of Goshen would have been further inland, north of present day Wadi Tumilat and under desert climate influences [2,3,7]. Situated at a periphery of the coastal plain, Goshen would have been a pastureland for settled and transient foreigners, including semi-nomadic Hebrew herders. ….