Be careful in watching the cable television show Biblical Mysteries Explained. For that matter, be careful watching any television show purporting to “explain” matters of the Bible and Christianity.
The television show has as its first priority to disprove divine intervention and explain away or twist Biblical accounts to make them appear as though God was not required, and no miracles actually occurred. In other words, they want to do away with God.
While I was engaged in an in-depth study of the exodus, I happened across an episode of Biblical Mysteries Explained on the exodus. The first “mystery” raised was the pillar of cloud and fire. The show’s creators posited that the cloud and fire were from a distant volcano which created a feature in the sky toward which the people of Israel were marching. As evidence of the volcano, the creators attempted to claim that astronomers documented rocks of fire falling from the sky in regions across the Mediterranean and southern Europe at precisely the same time.
The obvious problem with this “theory,” if it can be called a theory, is that the pillar of cloud and fire moved with the people, and the people walked in circles by God’s design. At some times the pillar led them, and at other times it followed them when God had in mind to confuse the Egyptians. God was completely opposite of distant and fixed, and not some vague, natural phenomenon that coincidentally occurred at precisely the right time.
The second mystery is crossing the Red Sea. The show’s creators attempted to demonstrate how the people were close enough to the “beach” of the Red Sea that a freak storm could have rolled back the sea away from the land, widening the beach.
There are two problems with this “theory,” again, if it can be called a theory. First, Scripture says they walked between walls of water, and the water closed around the Egyptians, drowning them. This would not be possible if on one side of the people was a beach and on the other was water being held back by a freak storm. If this was the case, the Israelites would surely have been slaughtered.
Second, Scripture goes to extreme lengths to locate the place where the people camped before crossing the sea. Ancient maps identify where these points, landmarks and places were located. The website bible.ca assembled some of these maps to illustrate the approximate route taken across the Red Sea. From the point of beginning across the sea, the crossed the open sea quite a long distance from land and not anywhere close to a beach. Crossing the sea would have been impossible except by boat, even at extremely low tide with a freak storm.
If that is not enough, the exodus is one of the most often cited accounts in the entire Bible. It is recalled in the major prophets and in the New Testament epistles. It was a monumental event, not necessarily for the miracle, rather, for its aid to faith and demonstration of God’s power. If we were to dispense with the miraculous accounts of the exodus, a large part of the Bible would need to be removed; more than this, the Bible would essentially fall apart.
The only conclusion we can make about the television show Biblical Mysteries Explained is not that they are doing us a service by explaining anything or helping our faith; rather, the show purports to dispense with God, invite doubt, disprove the Bible, and twist Scripture to accomplish its goal of removing God from public debate.
Be careful what you watch on television. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23, “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.” Everything we ingest into our minds and hearts through our eyes and ears must be filtered against these two things: Is it profitable to my faith, and does it edify – does it build my faith and promote Christian wisdom and holiness?
Like this post? Subscribe to stay up to date on new posts.