Religious history

• Human beings can approach life in different ways:
  1. People can live through a series of events and just 'take them as they come' without giving further thought, purpose or meaning to them because it is 'chance' which dictates what will be. This approach could be seen as accepting a rather superficial way of living. It might appear an easier way but this philosophy can become questionable when things happen that really do force people to think more deeply e.g. the loss of a job, the arrival of illness or the death of someone close.
  2. People can live through events and try to give those events meaning in relation to their personal and national life. The meaning they read into their lives will be dependent on their beliefs about life. That might be religious belief where their life will be seen to have purpose and meaning in relation to their belief in God. This approach prepares the person for all eventualities and gives them a means of interpreting the difficult challenges. A humanistic belief in life, similarly provides the philosophy which gives purpose and meaning to life, albeit in a finite time scale.
  
  
• The Israelites believed:
  1. Their God participated in the history of the world.
  2. This was his method of achieving his purposes.
  3. He revealed himself to people who acted as his agents to accomplish his will.
  4. He revealed himself through natural and historic events to accomplish his goals.
  
  
• With this basis of religious belief, it was quite natural for the Israelites to reflect on everything that happened to them and interpret it or find meaning in it, from this perspective. So for them, history could not be detached from their belief in God. That was the way they understood their history. Consequently, all their historical records are made taking the God-dimension into account e.g. this happened because God was involved in it; that happened because they had forgotten God etc..

What Picture of God do the Plague Narratives Portray?

• These narratives were written for an Israelite audience and were intended to teach:
  1. God's hate for the sin shown in the Pharaoh's enslavement of the Hebrew slaves.
  2. God's concern for his people Israel oppressed by the Egyptians and their deliverance.
  3. God's power in defeating Pharaoh's stubbornness through the power of the plagues.
  
  
• Modern readers find difficulty in the accounts showing God deliberately inflicting plagues upon the Egyptians, culminating in the killing of the first-born, to achieve Israel's release.
  
  
• The difficulties lie not in the facts, but in Israel's interpretation of them. Horrible, exaggerated natural events occur and God is understood to be responsible for them. That was how they believed God worked. They had not grasped at that stage, that God was God of the Egyptians too and also cared about them. See the story of Jonah, written much later, to highlight God's compassion for even the enemies of the Israelites! At this stage Israel's God was very much the military leader who had to gain victory by whatever means were necessary.

Describing God - Anthropocentric and Anthropomorphic Language

• In these early records of Israel's history, God was not understood as distant but very close and very directly involved in events. It is almost as if he is literally present and indeed the use of anthropocentric or anthropomorphic language reinforces this. Humans were regarded as the most important and central factor in the universe ('anthropocentric') and so God is described in human terms. God is also said to be described in 'anthropological' ('human form') terminology. 'Anthropos' means 'man' and 'morphos' means 'form' in Greek. See Genesis 3:8 and Exodus 7:17; 12:23.
  
  
• Anthropomorphic descriptions of God mean that God in a sense is 'reduced' to human dimensions and this fails to convey his absolute superiority, power and transcendence. God is not a 'superhuman', which human descriptions of him imply. While an anthropomorphic picture depicts an immanent, knowable, personable God, there is the danger of leaving people with a distorted, diminished image of a human-type God in which God's transcendence and majesty is missing.
  
  
• In order to balance this way of picturing God, later on, God became removed from the human arena. He was more distant and more transcendent, with the human touch eliminated. Instead of 'appearing' to people in a direct way, in a 'theophany' or through angelic beings (e.g.Genesis 16:7,13; Exodus 3:2, 4), he speaks indirectly through his agents, the prophets. God is understood more as the 'super-being' than 'superman'; he is transcendent and beyond human understanding. Of course, this picture of God has its problems too in making him too remote, disengaged, impersonal and too difficult to describe in any way which could be meaningful to people.

Monotheism

• Judaism became a monotheistic religion but this involved a development of beliefs over a period of time. In the early days of Israel's history, God was certainly the only God for the Israelites but they believed that other countries had their own gods, even though their God was more powerful and no other god could be compared to him. Only with time did they come to understand that their God was God of everyone. There was only one God. That was challenging because the Israelites had enjoyed being the special people of God and it came as something of a shock to realise their God had to be shared with everyone!
  
  
• The plague narrative is reading back a pure monotheism into the account which was not there at the time of the plagues.

Miracles

• A miracle in the biblical sense is an event which happens in a manner contrary to the regularly observed processes of nature i.e. to what is known of nature. In the Old Testament / Hebrew Bible there are two main groups of miracles: those associated with the Exodus (the plagues, the Red Sea etc.) and those associated with Elijah and Elisha in 1 and 2 Kings. Each group has to be assessed on its own merits.
  
  
• In relation to the Exodus, there is no contemporary evidence. The accounts of the Exodus were written down centuries after the events recorded. Hence a historical account of what happened cannot be reconstructed. But it must be said that something quite remarkable must have happened because of the lasting impact on the Israelites.
  
  
• It is historically probable that the distinctively biblical recognition of God as the Lord of history took its origin in those events. The biblical religion was not evolved from some theory concerning God's power, but arose through an actual historical manifestation of that power. The deliverance from Egypt was the symbol of all God's deliverances in history and the basis of Israel's hope. God's salvation revealed itself in the concrete events of history. God cannot be known to humans in his inner being but only in so far as he reveals himself through his actions.
  
  
• An event becomes a miracle for those who see it as such, because of the way they have chosen to interpret it. If something unusually good happens because of its nature or timing, it can be understood as a miracle i.e. God's hand is at work in it, or it can be interpreted as good luck. Those who believe in God's providence will interpret the event as evidence of God's involvement, others will interpret it as the result of chance.

Denial of God

• The plagues narrative highlights the Pharaoh's determination to deny the existence of the Israelite God. Even though he has received plenty of evidence of God's power, he is still unable to accept his existence. Of course he believed he himself was divine so he would not wish to recognise a rival.
  
  
• Atheism (denial of God's existence) was not seen as an option in biblical times. All nations had their own gods but they denied the power of any other gods. However, Israel appears rather different. They were constantly tempted to follow other gods, believing they had more power than their own God. Rather than denying their God, they ignored him, by not obeying his laws, in preference to their own sinful ways. By disregarding God and by being disloyal towards him they failed to take him seriously enough.
  
  
• It is a feature of the way God works that people are left to decide about God's existence for themselves. Although there are plenty of signs for those with eyes to see, no one is forced to believe in God against their will. And no one seems able to believe in God without a certain spiritual insight.

Blessings

• After the tenth plague, the Pharaoh agrees to let the Israelites leave Egypt and his final words are, 'Also pray for a blessing on me' (Exodus 12:32). It appears from this request that the Pharaoh is indirectly acknowledging the superior power of Israel's God and that was the purpose of the plagues, according to the text.
  
  
• Blessings feature in the Bible and were and are very much a part of Jewish everyday life. Blessings, like curses, were considered automatically effective and could not be recalled. Blessings had different forms:
  1. a prayer to God to bestow his goodwill or grace which would result in prosperity and happiness.
  2. a thanksgiving to God for his gifts such as food at a meal.
  3. an expression of greeting when people met or parted.
  
  
  
• Doubtless the Pharaoh was requesting a blessing for prosperity (long-life, increase in family, crops and herds, peace, wealth and health) because that would be a sign that God had accepted the Pharaoh's change of heart.
  
  
• Later on, God's blessing was understood in terms of right-living and peace.
  
  
• Blessings were pronounced by people but it was understood that they imparted a divine blessing because they stood near to God, as in the case of priests or saintly individuals.
  
  
• The circle of blessing is completed when people bless God.
  
  
• Blessings were used in connection with food and drink. In Jewish usage, it was the name of God that was blessed and not the food.
  
  
• Blessings as greetings can still be seen in 'Good-bye' ('God be with ye') or in the farewell 'God bless you'.