The 10 plagues in Egypt described in Exodus 7 -11 is outlined in an interesting way in Tyndale's New Bible Dictionary. Certainly sounds like the work of one ruling force. This is taken straight from the above mentioned publication with the exception of the 9th and 10th plague. I'm not attempting to use scientific explanations to disprove the involvement of God. If anything, I think it shows otherwise because of the "pre-designed" nature of the course of some of the plagues. I was reminded of this information while participating in a thread discussing whether or not and how God intervenes in the world. This struck me as very interesting, so I wanted to share it with everyone here.
#1 The Nile floods every year, and due to an unusually high flood one year the river soaks up red earth that is higher on the bank. The plague of blood results (the writer records what is seen). The problematic point in this explanation would be the blood found in the water vessels (unless it was water drawn from the Nile of course).
#2 The sudden introduction of protist organisms found in the red earth disturbs the river's ecosystem and the fish die. This next disturbance of the ecosystem causes a mass migration of frogs onto land (2nd plague).
#3,4 That ecosystem cannot support this many frogs at once, and they die. Flies and gnats (some translations, maggots or lice[?]) move in to decompose the frogs (3rd, 4th plague).
#5,6 This situation is ripe for pestilence which in turn kills livestock (5th plague), and people get boils from a communicable skin disease (6th plague).
#7 This chain of cause and effect seems to end here with the 7th plague being a hailstorm.
#8 The 8th plague brings a locust swarm which would certainly not be unusual there in Egypt.
#9 When I initially read about the 9th plague "darkness that could be felt," I first thought sandstorm. Michael Grant, in his Ancient Meditteranean, writes of a volcanic eruption in the Cretan colony of Thera dated c. 1450 B.C. which in intensity dwarfed the Krakatoa eruption of 1883 (this event killed 36 thousand in Indonesia). He adds that this event most definitely could have caused dark sooty air in Egypt.
#10 Egyptian firstborn die. Certainly the extraordinary event to provide the foundation of an independent people.
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