Why Miracles?
The miracles of the Bible, both “Old” Testament and New, constitute a central proof confirming God’s intervention in the normal course of human existence.
The Passover season recalls how God provided miracles to affirm that Moses was indeed commissioned by the divine, all-powerful Creator (Exodus 4). These proofs were provided both for the good of the Israelites and the Egyptians (Exodus 7-11). God specified several miraculous signs for Moses to perform – for example turning the staff in his hand into a snake.
The plagues/signs/miracles soon became so undeniable that Pharaoh’s own advisors admitted, “This is the finger of God” (Exodus 8:19).
Then they became so devastating that the advisors petitioned him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?” (Exodus 10:7 NIV)
Israel Today is revisiting these awe-inspiring events to see how they are viewed today, in Israel and beyond. How are people reading these miracles? How are people reconciling the normative patterns of repeating daily phenomena, with the fantastic Bible-era intrusions? (Modern day miracles – and the evidence for them – are obviously a vitally important theme as well, but are beyond the scope of this article.)
Irrefutable proof of cataclysmic judgment from the skies – in the most prestigious of scientific journals
A most startling example of a “hyper-natural” biblical sign/wonder, is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Jordan River Valley Plain. To the skeptical mind, the biblical narrative appears far-fetched. In Genesis 18, Abraham is told how the “outcry” of Sodom’s sin had reached God, and the divine messengers had come to let Abraham know of the impending judgment. They stood at a vantage point in Israel from which they could easily look downward and see Sodom.
When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way…
The narrative goes on in Genesis 19 to illustrate in detail the abominable way of life in Sodom – with gang rapes, both homosexual and heterosexual, being narrowly averted. The two messengers of God urge Lot and his family to quickly get out of the city before it is punished.
When he hesitated, in God’s mercy, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and led them safely out of the city.
They said, “Flee for your lives! …don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”
Then came the singularity of awesome judgment from the skies:
… the sun had risen over the land. Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah – from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land. (Genesis 19:23-26)
Some had wondered in the past if God used a volcanic eruption to do this.
But in recent years scientists have given a more cosmic attribution to this event – the airburst explosion of a huge asteroid rock in the earth’s atmosphere, raining down apocalyptic fire and fury on a huge archaeological mound and the surrounding region of the Jordan River Plain east of Jericho. The central mound today called “Tall el-Hammam” is now widely accepted as being the biblical Sodom.
The prestigious British science journal Nature reported on the biblical-era destruction and compared it to a very similar but WEAKER event that destroyed about 2,000 square kilometers of uninhabited Siberian forest much more recently – in 1908 – in an area called Tunguska (with multiple eye witnesses corroborating and describing the explosion). In the 1908 airburst people standing 100 km away from ground zero were knocked off their feet and windows were shattered.
A team of 21 scientist authors analyzed 14 major lines of evidence at Tall el-Hammam/Sodom, including formation of micro diamonds and shocked quartz due to extreme temperatures and pressures. They came to this conclusion:
“A Tunguska sized [asteroid] airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea.”
The scientists estimated that the rock from outer space was at least 50 meters across (150 feet) and that the energy of the explosion was equivalent to over 22 million tons of dynamite – 1,000 times the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
Their description of the postulated Sodom site and its vicinity:
“An unusual 3,600-year-old charcoal-rich destruction layer at Tall el-Hammam marks the sudden abandonment of a Middle-Bronze-Age urban center in the Jordan Valley close to the north end of the Dead Sea. Across the 30-km-wide lower Jordan Valley, 15 other cities and 100 smaller villages were simultaneously abandoned at the end of the Middle Bronze Age to remain largely uninhabited for ~300-600 years. The remains of this ancient city and adjacent areas appear to be unique compared with those of other times, pointing to the occurrence of some highly unusual catastrophic event.”
Notice again how well the description matches the biblical one:
…Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah – from the LORD out of the heavens. Thus He overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities – and also the vegetation in the land. (Genesis 19:23-26)
Even the “overthrowing” of the region’s vegetation is described in modern science:
“An airburst-related influx of salt… inhibited agriculture, and caused a ~ 300-600-year-long abandonment of ~120 regional settlements within a 25-km radius.”
Movies about cataclysmic judgment from the skies in the form of asteroids/meteors
Dozens of movies have been made on the subject of asteroid airbursts and impacts, due to our human infatuation with sudden drastic “game-changers” and sci-fi doomsday scenarios.
They include:
- The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)
- Without Warning (1994)
- Asteroid (1997)
- Deep impact (1998)
- Armageddon (1998)
- Melancholia (2011)
- Ice Age – Collision Course (2016)
- Don’t Look Up (2021)
The movie Melancholia is an interesting example in that it echoes the biblical description of normal life leading up to cataclysmic change. Why? A main actress is planning her wedding while the great collision is about to happen, echoing the biblical description of people “eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark” (Matthew 24:38).
Modern telescopes try to see these frozen chunks of rock and ice flying through our solar system and help predict which ones will fly close to earth. But it is a big challenge even for modern technology to see these relatively small bodies against the background of empty space and giant planets and stars. Therefore asteroid/comet impact, along with big earthquakes, remain a resounding question mark emphasizing the fragility of human existence and civilization.
How does modern Israel view miracles?
There is a range of Israeli approaches to the literal/historical narrative of unusual events reported in the Bible. One baseline approach is skepticism, reflecting a large percentage of Israelis. Another sizable portion of the population holds a range of orthodox and traditional worldviews with a lot more room for a genuine divine being and divine deeds on earth.
As one of the founders of Israel said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” His name was David Ben-Gurion, our first prime minister, and not himself an orthodox adherent to a traditional Jewish belief system.
Case of modern science convincing some Israeli skeptics of Biblical truth
The name of the Israeli ultra-Orthodox news outlet “Hidabroot” means roughly “let’s have a civil discussion.” Their take on the airburst annihilation of Sodom is:
”History and archeology
”New research reveals: This is how God destroyed Sodom…
”Archaeological excavations at Tel al-Hammam, northeast of the Dead Sea, have revealed enormous destruction caused to the site about 3,650 years ago. According to scholars, this may be the biblical city of Sodom that was destroyed by G-d as punishment for its sins.”
Another Hebrew news outlet reported:
“For years many have considered the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah as a parable. Now it is being linked to a real catastrophe that actually occurred.”
The mainstream Hebrew news outlet Walla also seemed surprised that science could corroborate such a wild Bible account as Sodom and Gomorrah, as you can see in this translation:
“Science confirms: The biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah is true and accurate: One of the most famous biblical cities, Sodom, is mentioned in the book of Genesis as being completely destroyed by God due to the culture of sin prevalent in it and in another city – Gomorrah. Scholars now confirm that the biblical story is accurate – and that ‘fire and brimstone’ coming from the sky led to their destruction.”
Walla also conducted a survey to ask Israelis if they believed the biblical narrative regarding Sodom and Gomorrah. Amazingly, this one piece of modern scientific corroboration is causing numerous Israeli skeptics to reconsider the truth of the Bible:
- 12,700 Hebrew-reading Israelis responded.
- 76% said “Yes, it’s in the Bible.”
- 8% said “No way.”
- And 16% said, “I thought not, but this (scientific) study is giving me second thoughts.”
Miraculous timing of ultra-rare natural phenomena?
Even secular scientists freely admit that the fine tuning of the universe, the balance of the forces of physics, the perfect conditions for life on earth and the simplest living cell are all staggeringly unlikely – miraculous in their own right. That famous evangelist for scientific atheism named Dawkins, admits that the basic replication and DNA system in every cell is essentially miraculous (“…how miraculous, a single event we are allowed to postulate.” – The Blind Watchmaker).
The origin of the physical universe is far beyond a miracle.
The origin of even the simplest bacteria is far beyond a miracle.
The fact that our bodies’ hundred trillion cells work together as well as they do (even after generations of DNA replication and exposure to solar radiation) is far beyond a miracle.
Therefore, if some of the miracles of the Bible have possible ties to exquisitely timed, vanishingly rare hyper-natural occurrences, may that not be a stumbling block to anyone’s faith in the divine Creator God of Israel.
All of this is a timely subject as the time draws near for these phenomenal events to recur. The world powers are feverishly spending time and treasure on the satellite projection of various ways of projecting power for physical diversion or as a weapon to destroy these “space objects”.
I read an article years ago that explained the explosion of a large meteorite hitting a mountain in Europe with the results of the explosion from the meteorite going in the direction north of Israel at a hyper speed sending the force and products of the explosion backwards of the direction it was going, and all of the fallout landed on Sodom and outlying area.
I have been around large explosions and know from experience that explosions will effect the areas inline with the direction the projectile was moving. I have been in an ammo dump that went up and got out before it got totally involved and know things can get really bad very quickly, but none of that can even begin to explain the event of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As we look on the face of the planet today, do we see miracles, events by weather, earthquakes, the sun, moon and stars as simply events? or as was stated in Matthew 24 as, “the beginning of sorrows?”