The Bible is full of mysterious things that we don't know the answers to.
And many of those mysteries have deepened as we've gotten further from the events described
in the holy book, but there are a few Bible mysteries that might have finally been solved.
Noah and the Great Flood is one of the most famous stories in the Bible.
Was there really a flood that covered the entire world?
Not that we know of.
But was there a seriously catastrophic flood in a localized area that killed tons of people
and was probably a huge part of the inspiration for this story?
Yes.
Underwater archaeologist Robert Ballard has seriously legit credentials.
ABC News reports in 1985 he led the team that found the wreck of the Titanic.
When Ballard heard a theory that thousands of years ago an enormous flood formed the
Black Sea as we know it today, he was intrigued.
As the last ice age ended, massive weather changes were occurring and huge glaciers all
over the world started melting.
The Mediterranean Sea grew full to bursting.
The theory says that water exploded over the strip of land where Istanbul is today and
rushed into the Black Sea, which was only a small freshwater lake at the time.
The force of the water is thought to be two hundred times that of Niagara Falls and destroyed
everything in its path.
Ballard went looking for evidence and found that 400 feet below the surface of the Black
Sea was an ancient shoreline.
About 37,000 acres of land, and everything on it, including people and animals, seems
to have been wiped out very quickly.
Ballard and his team were able to date the catastrophic event.
"About 5,000 B.C.”
“And that is about the time that the bible says that Noah and the Great Flood happened.”
“Exactly.”
“I mean 'wow.'
Wow, so it nailed it.”
The event would have remained in people's minds and been passed down from generation
to generation, eventually ending up as the story we all know today.
Sadly, there's no realistic theories about Noah and the whole animal selection process
but we have a pretty good idea how it went down...
"So you told them the wrong time on purpose?”
“Yup, God hates freaks.”
“That doesn't sound like God.”
“(mockingly) That doesn't sound like God."
When the pharaoh in Exodus refuses to let the Jewish slaves go, Moses brings down holy
hell on Egypt.
The ten plagues that God sent included infestations of pests like locusts and flies, frogs overwhelming
the Nile River and covering the country, extreme thunderstorms of hail and lightning, then
days of darkness.
And who could forget everyone's favorite plague?
The water of the Nile River turning into blood.
While there's a lot of debate if any of the events in Exodus really happened, scientists
proved the plagues aren't as unlikely as you might think.
According to the Telegraph, it all comes down to a combination of volcanic eruptions and
global warming.
In 2010, climatologists found there was a dramatic shift in the Egyptian climate during
the end of Ramses II's reign.
Rising temperatures would have dried up the Nile and the stagnant water would have attracted
a certain type of algae that made the water look red, like blood.
Toxic algae causes frogs to reproduce faster, so they would suddenly have been everywhere.
When the frogs died, insects flourished.
An epidemic of mosquitoes carrying disease could have sickened people and livestock.
As for the storms and darkness, the eruption of a volcano 3,500 years ago spewed ash everywhere
and could have resulted in massive storms that blocked out the sun.
The plagues might be possible, but Moses parting the Red Sea is a lot less realistic on its
face.
But can wind, God-controlled or not, actually push back water like that?
According to the Washington Post, software engineer Carl Drews looked into this for his
masters thesis.
It turns out that parting the Red Sea was possible.
The first key is where it happened.
Today, the original Hebrew is usually translated as the Red Sea, but it more accurately means
"Sea of Reeds."
Archaeologists have identified this was probably the Lake of Tanis, a "shallow brackish lagoon."
"Shallow" being the key word.
An atmospheric event called a "wind setdown," basically a gust at 60 miles per hour, would
have been strong enough to push the water away and leave dry land.
So, it is feasible that a shallow lagoon might have briefly parted but it wouldn't have come
close to the epic scale of Moses' greatest movie moment.
"Nothing is ever good enough for you people.
No wonder god hates you."
Two of the gospels mention Jesus' body being wrapped in a shroud before he was buried.
As with any Biblical item, people have been desperate to locate this cloth.
The most famous candidate today is the Shroud of Turin.
According to History, the Shroud first showed up in 1354.
The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist got it in 1578, but it wasn't until major scientific
advances in the 1970s that tests on its age were arranged.
Radiocarbon dating would prove once and for all if the Shroud had the slightest chance
of being real.
Finally, in 1989, scientists released their findings in the journal Nature.
They concluded with 95 percent certainty that the Shroud of Turin was medieval, dating between
1260 and 1390.
This coincides with when it suddenly appeared in 1354, and the science was sound.
That settled it for most people, including the Vatican, which refers to the Shroud as
an icon, more like religious art, and not a true relic.
If that's not enough, another study in 2018 found that the bloodstains on the Shroud are
probably fake because the scientists were, quote, "unable to find a single position [of
a body] in which the blood flowed onto experimental cloths to create the stain pattern."
However, regardless of blood flow, true believers would say that we're missing the point entirely.
"The point is that I work in mysterious ways.
I mean out there."
In the gospels, Jesus wanders around and hands out miracles left and right.
He heals people with leprosy, raises a guy from the dead, and famously, at one point
in the Gospel of Matthew, he walks on water.
How was that possible?
If you believe Jesus was the son of God, it has a pretty simple explanation.
Or you can reject the whole story outright and say that this miracle never happened.
"What happened here was a miracle and I want you to f**king acknowledge it.”
“All right, it was a miracle."
Whether you have faith in divine powers or not, some scientists figured out a way that
walking on water could be doable.
According to Live Science, in 2006, scientists discovered that under very specific conditions,
ice formed in what is now Lake Kinneret.
While you'd never get freezing conditions in that area today, there were two notable
cold snaps, including when Jesus was alive.
There's a section where salt springs flow into the freshwater lake, and this would have
enabled the freezing.
A floating patch of ice just below the surface would have been hard for onlookers to see,
especially if it had rained recently, and it could have supported a human.
While this icy scenario seems extremely unlikely, sometimes you just need to let it go and believe
that it could have happened for purely scientific reasons.
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