I had a most unpleasant experience earlier today. A decided atheist took me to Exodus 9 and asked me in effect ‘was this history?” to which I answered ‘yes” being prepared to show the historical evidence for the invasion of Canaan as set out in Brights History of Israel, of the movement of people at the time (eg the Phillistines settling) and so on.

He took me to v 8 “Next day the Lord kept his word all the Eygptians livestock died”..so we have all the animals dead…

he then took me to v 10 (About the boils) So they {Moses and Aaron) took the soot from the kiln and stood in front of Pharoah and Moses threw it into the air. And on man and beast it brought out boils” I replied ...ok they were wild animals not livestock

he then took me to v18 Tomorrow therefore at about this time I will cause to fall so great a storm of hail that was never before seen in Eygpt from the ay or its foundation. So now have your livestock and everything that is yours in the fields put under cover...and to v 20 Sine if the courtiers terrified by the Lords threat brought their slaves and livestock indoors

and so on..the livestock apparently destroyed in v 8 is alive again in v 18, 20 and in25 and then again in ch 12:29 and at midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Eygpt..the first born of all the cattle

and again in the crossing of the Sea where the horses are killed.

What the atheist asked is this?
the animals dead are raised to life at least 5 times?

What is the answer please?

You should have turned the tables on him pronto.

Where on earth did he get this idea of all the animals dying again and again?

The boils didn’t kill them.  The hail didn’t kill those brought indoors.  And ‘livestock’ doesn’t include the military horses does it?

The only apparent difficulty is in verse 6 (not 8 as you repeatedly say), in which we understand simply by the later context that it really means “death came upon the Egyptians’ cattle everywhere” - not that every individual cow died.

I wonder why he chose this particular passage for Bible difficulties - or why this means that there’s no God?

Peter

After some thought, and a look at some of the lame explanations in commentaries on the net, I think each time the deaths were restricted to the animals left outside. (And it doesn’t say the boils or hail were deadly? And I guess Pharaoh’s horses were stabled.)

The plagues all led to Passover, when any firstborn OUTSIDE the house - uncovered - died. And any firstborn INSIDE an uncovered house died.* (It was the same with Rahab’s house at the other end of the great chiastic pattern here, which was ‘Atonement’ to this first ‘Passover. There, the blood displayed was a red cord.)

Atonement was the Day of Covering. Your atheist friend is outside the house of Christ, uncovered. That will bring a most unpleasant experience for him unless he allows you to bring him inside, like cattle into the ark.

Blessings,
Mike

*Note that the seven bowls in Revelation also begin with exterior (skin) judgment and move to interior.

Michael Bull - 20 November 2008 11:06 PM

And it doesn’t say the boils or hail were deadly?

Yes it does - verse 19.  However, the previous caveat applies, that not necessarily every single animal out there died of it.

Michael Bull - 20 November 2008 11:06 PM

Atonement was the Day of Covering. Your atheist friend is outside the house of Christ, uncovered. That will bring a most unpleasant experience for him unless he allows you to bring him inside, like cattle into the ark.

Alternatively he could simply emigrate, just like the cattle could have wandered out of the danger zone - because the Flood was a local one, don’t you know.

(wink, wink)

There are a couple of possible explanations for the events in the text. The NET Bible opts to account for the apparent discrepancy by suggesting that “all” in Exod 9:8 doesn’t actually mean “every single one” but is just a convenient way of saying that such a vast number did die that it would’ve felt that way. They also offer an alternative: that “all” doesn’t mean “every single one” but “all types of” and so the text is saying that no type of livestock was spared.

The alternative is to look at the preceding verses a little more closely and go back to verse 3. Here Moses specifies more precisely what is under threat: “on your livestock in the field, on the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks” (flocks usually referring to sheep and/or goats).

There are two things to note here. First, in verses 9, 10, 19, 22, and 25 the reference to afflicted animals uses a word not included in the list of animals in verse 3 (i.e. bĕhēmâ) which seems (in this context) to refer to animals of any type, not just livestock.

Second, verse 3 specifies a certain category of animal: those which are “in the field.” This clause, followed by the subsequent list of animal types, probably restricts the animals specifically to domesticated livestock in a farming setting.

Now this still oversimplifies things a little: “in the field” also appears in v. 19, 21, 25. The last reference presents no difficulties, but verse 19 refers to livestock in the field using precisely the same term found in verse 3 (i.e. miqnēh), although in v. 19 they do not form a single [removed]it reads “all your livestock and everything you have in the field"). Such apparently subtle shifts in the use of the language can signal significant differences to native speakers which are far less apparent to modern readers.

Now I haven’t thought about this enough to decide whether one or all of these explanations best explains the text, but ISTM that the problems are not as insurmountable as your friend would like to make them out to be.

As to the horses which crossed the sea, they would have been military animals used and trained for pulling chariots and not pastoral animals used in farming which, I think, is the implication of the restrictive phrase “in the field” in Exod 9:3.

As previous posters have said, there are various ways to overcome these apparent contradictions. The problem with this approach is that we can appear to be on the defensive trying to paper over cracks in our faith. I think it is also important to identify (and challenge) the assumptions in your friend’s argument as well.

The problem with this sort of argument against the Bible is that is starts with a presupposition that the authors are total idiots and have no idea what they were writing. With this assumption then every minor point of confusion or apparent contradiction can be used to claim the Bible is untrustworthy.

We may have some difficulties reconciling the different accounts of the plagues in the text. But it seems reasonable to believe that the author can at least remember what he has written just a few verses earlier i.e. that he has already killed off the animals.

In other words he didn’t not see the plagues destroying each and every animal in each case. So if we assume that the author has any brains at all then we can conclude that he didn’t see a contradiction in what was written. i.e. there is a way to make sense of this passage even if we are not 100% sure what it is.

Your friend’s argument doesn’t establish whether the Bible is history or not. If his point stands then the Bible is nothing but incoherent gobbledygook. Is he willing to argue that the author of Exodus was a madman who couldn’t string two sentences together?

Martin (Enkidu) Shields - 20 November 2008 11:32 PM

They also offer an alternative: that “all” doesn’t mean “every single one” but “all types of” and so the text is saying that no type of livestock was spared.

And now let’s not hesitate to go and apply this very same approach to a key Arminian proof-text, 1 Tim. 2:4.  An approach which is fully supported by the context from verse 1!

Also who knows what time gaps may have occurred between the plagues allowing livestock to increase in numbers again before the next plague.

Animals could also have been imported to replace those killed.

I have often wondered how long the Plagues took to be complete from start to finish.
The following passages suggest that all the plagues and the Mount Sinai receiving of the Ten Commandments all took place within one year, because Moses starting challenging Pharaoh when he was eighty years old and he died at the age of one hundred and twenty years, after the forty years of wondering was complete.

Exodus 7:7
Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Deuteronomy 34:7
7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.

So I would suggest the plagues that affected the live stock were not spaced out enough for the stocks to be replenished by breading, however the Egyptians may have bought live stock off the Hebrews.  We are not told this however.