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Month: January 2015

Two Nights of “Exodus”

This week I saw two movies with “Exodus” in the title within six days. Both concerned the biblical story of the Israelites’ Exodus from 400 years of slavery in Egypt over 3,000 years ago. The first was the documentary “Patterns of Evidence: Exodus” and the second was the Ridley Scott film “Exodus: Gods and Kings” starring Christian Bale as Moses.

The two films, one a documentary and the other a narrative film, were, of course, very different. The documentary “Pattern of Evidence: Exodus” (www.patternsofevidence.com) challenged the long-accepted chronology of the Exodus and the oft-repeated scholarly orthodoxy that there is no archaeological evidence of the biblical account.  It seems if you modify the chronology by 200 years, there’s quite a bit of evidence. The movie is very well done and even handed, which enhances its credibility.

The other movie, “Exodus: Gods and Kings” was a spectacle worthy of Cecil B. DeMille but with a 21st-Century cynicism. If the writer and director of “Exodus” saw the evidence presented in “Patterns of Evidence”, they might not have taken as many liberties with the story.

“Exodus” does a great job with some things. For instance, the gritty texture of the film more effectively conveys the culture and difficulty of life in the Bronze Age than earlier portrayals of Bible stories. Movies in recent years have often been so concerned with “realism” that they take us to other times and places by means of atmosphere down to the smallest set and costume detail. However, they sometimes fail to stay in their time frame and culture when it comes to dialog and cultural attitudes. “Exodus” manages to maintain its equilibrium between being intelligible to a modern audience and being true to the setting.

Where “Exodus” disappoints is in the liberties it takes with the story. A point that “Patterns of Evidence” makes is that the Exodus story is foundational for both Judaism, Christianity and, to a lesser degree, Islam. So a LOT of people know the story very well.

The most glaring difference with the biblical story is that God is represented by a 10-year-old boy that only Moses can see. I suppose it would be difficult to know how to depict Moses’ encounters with God, but using a small boy just seems bizarre. The first appearance of the boy/God is, as in the original story, at the burning bush. However, the encounter comes after Moses is hit on the head with a rock in a landslide. This alarmed me because it seemed to predict that the movie would avoid any reference to the supernatural.

That turned out not to always be the case, though. Except for the involvement of crocodiles in the plague of Nile-River-turned-to-blood, the rest of the plague sequence is definitely supernatural. And epic. You definitely feel the effects of the flies, frogs, locusts, etc.

However, this also points out another problem with the movie: It almost completely leaves out Moses’ appearances before Pharaoh, demanding that Israel be allowed to leave Egypt, so the plagues don’t appear to have a real justification. In fact, Moses seems to oppose the boy/God concerning especially the last plague: the death of all the first born.

The film invents quite a few scenes just to enhance the action. For example, when the Egyptian army is pursuing the Israelites to the Red Sea, Moses takes Israel over a narrow mountain trail that causes half the Egyptian army to die in a landslide. It’s exciting but there’s no basis for it in the original story and it doesn’t really add anything but excitement.

However, the Red Sea crossing, while also introducing some unexpected events, still keeps the supernatural element. That scene is also Epic. At first it appeared that the movie might try to depict the Red Sea crossing like some scholars present it: that they crossed at low tide or in a narrow, shallow strait. But the way the movie presents the sequence, it could only be supernatural. The difference between the rapidly decreasing water level so the Israelites could cross and the 75-foot tidal wave that obliterates the Egyptians could not have been a natural event.

So, to sum up: my conclusion is that, for believers, “Exodus: Gods and Kings” can really fill in a lot of blanks when it comes to understanding the culture and the way of life during ancient Bible times, if we can see past some of the glaring liberties taken with the story. However, someone who is not familiar with the Bible story might have a hard time understanding the points the Bible wants its readers to get. But that was not the producers’ goal anyway.

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Unsettling Science

“Settled Science”.

That’s what they tell us about Global Cooling / Global Warming / Climate Change, etc. But there have been enough fraudulent incidents that have tarnished the reputation the vaunted “scientific method” that it’s hard to think of any science as “settled”.

Never mind the instances where scientific theories have been totally upended by new discoveries, the desire for accolades, the pursuit of funding and the desire to confirm theories even if the evidence has to be “helped” have resulted in several incidents of scientific fraud.

A big one was the “Piltdown Man” deception, where human and orangutan bones were mingled. It was accepted as fact from 1912 until it was proved a forgery in 1953. Then there’s an Israeli archaeologist who faked biblical archaeological finds. Also, specific to the Global Warming debate, the researchers at the British university that created the first “hockey-stick” graph showing temperatures rising at an alarming rate fudged the data by including just three trees in their study of tree rings to determine past average temperatures. They didn’t include three TYPES of trees or three REGIONS of trees; just three trees. That was the only way they could get the data to come out they way they wanted.

I’m not saying this kind of thing is common. Most scientists are principled and conduct their research rigorously, but fraud does happen. Now a new one has come to light (read here). German rock-star-anthropologist and Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten has been drummed out of his university in Frankfurt for falsifying the carbon dating of multiple human bones. He had been feted for his ground-breaking discoveries that now have been shown to be false. This had been going on for decades, so some say the entire history of the evolution of mankind may have to be revised. 

Some scientists tell us that science is solid, reliable and based entirely on unbiased evidence, unlike religion, but scientists are people too and the pressures of reputation with peers, the need to justify research dollars and sometimes just the desire to see a theory vindicated can lead the people who do science to do what people sometimes do in any field; cheat.

But these cheaters, along with the periodic changes in paradigm brought about by new discoveries, make it pretty clear that the term “settled science” is an oxymoron.

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2014: Farewell and Good Riddance

I am an optimist. I am so optimistic that every morning I wake up thinking it’s going to be 72 degrees and sunny, and when I discover it isn’t, I’m disappointed.

So I have to apologize for this post. It’s going to be a downer. That’s because it’s about 2014, which has NOT been a good year.

I’ve lived long enough that I know that most years can be seen as either good or bad and it really depends on your perspective how you experience them. That’s one reason I’m an optimist, because one’s attitude has a lot to do with how one experiences life.

But, I’m sorry, 2014 was not one of those ambivalent years that could be seen either way. It was bad; very bad.

I’m not saying I can’t find things to appreciate about 2014, but there’s just so much to dislike about what happened during this year. Here are some examples.

World Events:
ISIS. What could be worse than an organization that combines misogyny and religious bigotry with AK-47s and butcher knives? I can think of nothing as horrifying as people who think they are doing God’s will by beheading children who refuse to convert. Even Al Qaeda condemned them. So the rise of ISIS tops my list of all that was wrong with 2014.

The Missing Malaysian Airliner. Plane crashes are terrible, but at least there’s closure. The loved ones of those on the Malaysian plane that is still missing must be suffering terribly, not knowing what happened.

United States:
Not United At All. Yes, I know, it was worse during the Civil War, but the unfortunate deaths of at least two young black petty criminals at the hands of police and the subsequent senseless riots and looting, not to mention the assassinations of innocent policemen, have laid bare the seething hatred that some feel and that charlatans like Al Sharpton live to exploit. It also once and for all killed any hope that the election of the first black president would end the racial divide.

A Seismic Election. While I am glad the Republicans won in landslides at every level of government in November, it points out that many people who had so much hope in 2008 are now thoroughly disillusioned. Again, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about the outcome, but I’m sorry that so many people are so disappointed in the president and Democrat majorities they elected in 2008. I wish I believed the majority who voted for Republicans this year would always choose Liberty and Responsibility from now on, but I fear the see-sawing of power will continue.

Personal:
The Year of the Hacker. I put this under Personal because, not only was Target and Home Depot and countless other business and governmental organizations hacked and private information disseminated, but my own business has been affected, with hackers succeeding with us and our customers just as they did so many others. We have been able to secure ourselves, but it has been at great cost.

Dying Too Young. This is probably the most important reason 2014 has been a bad year for me personally. I have had several family members and friends who have died this year before their time. The youngest was my nephew at 39. He was ill, but none of us knew just how ill he was. He died alone and it was two weeks before anyone found him.

Then there was my daughter’s father-in-law. At 64, he went a few inches off the road on his moped when he flipped and crashed. He never regained consciousness and died 24 hours later.

A friend whom my wife and I sometimes met for Tex Mex had a heart condition and went for a scheduled test, but died unexpectedly a few days later. He was 68.

Then there was one of my wife’s friends who was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and was dead in six months at 66.

Just Bad:
One of my clients put on Facebook that 2014 has been the worst year of her life. Another, after taking her father to the emergency room, said this was the worst Christmas ever. Someone close to me and my wife is going through a messy divorce.

So I’m sorry to be such a debbie-downer,  but I’m glad to be saying goodbye to 2014. 2015 just has to be better. Has to be.

So HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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