The eruption of the Minoan island of Thera, or Santorini, has popularly been linked to the legend of Atlantis. However, many researchers also attempt to connect it to another famous story: the Ten Plagues.
The Bible tells the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt in the Book of Exodus. Is it possible that the eruption of Thera really could have resulted in these famous Ten Plagues?
How the eruption of Thera supposedly explains the Ten Plagues
According to advocates of this theory, the eruption of Thera resulted in a chain reaction of natural phenomena which caused the Ten Plagues to take place in Egypt.
In the Book of Exodus, we read that the first plague was the Nile River turning into blood. Supposedly, this was caused by ashfall from Thera, contaminating the water and turning it red, perhaps from the sulfur in the volcanic material.
The next plague is the plague of frogs. Huge numbers of frogs left the Nile River and infested the land. According to the theory, this was a natural result of the contamination of the Nile River.
The next two plagues involved two different types of flies. These supposedly could have been the result of the frogs dying on the riverbanks, unable to re-enter the water due to the contamination. After this, the fifth plague was the death of countless domestic animals. Theorists argue this was the result of the animals consuming vegetation contaminated with sulfates.
Volcanic causes for the other plagues
The idea that the eruption of Thera caused the Ten Plagues continues through the following plagues. As the Bible describes, the sixth plague afflicted the Egyptians with boils. This was supposedly the result of infected lesions caused by acid rain.
The seventh plague was one of hail and ‘fire from heaven,’ perhaps a reference to lightning. This would be from the enormous ash cloud thrown into the atmosphere by the eruption of Thera. The eighth plague, which was a plague of locusts, supposedly occurred due to the increased precipitation causing locusts to reproduce in unusually higher numbers.
The ninth plague was a plague of darkness. The obvious explanation for this in the context of this theory is the thick ash that fell on Egypt. Finally, the death of the firstborn has been connected to the supposed fact that the firstborn child would take the uppermost part of the family’s stock of grain, which had been infected by toxins from the volcano.
Issues with this theory
Despite the convenience of this theory, there are many serious problems with it. To begin with, sulfur does not turn water red. There are many places where sulfur perpetually contaminates the water, so we know exactly what it looks like. One example is a sulfur spring at Thermopylae, which is not remotely reddish in color.
The idea that such volcanic material may have motivated frogs to leave the water is not unreasonable. The explanation regarding the plagues of flies also sounds reasonable on the surface. However, these are the only plagues that make any sense in the context of the eruption of Thera.
Attributing the plague on livestock to contaminated grass is not viable. If the volcanic eruption of Thera had caused such strong levels of contamination in Egypt, then we would surely expect humans to have died from it as well, yet the Bible never mentions that in this part of the Ten Plagues story.
Geographical and temporal criticisms
There is a clear geographical reason why the eruption of Thera cannot have caused the rest of the Ten Plagues. The Bible makes it quite clear that the Ten Plagues (after the first few) did not affect the Israelite settlements. Yet the Israelites lived in Goshen in the north of Egypt.
Thus, the Israelite settlements should have been affected by the natural consequences of the eruption of Thera more than almost anywhere else in Egypt. Yet this completely contradicts the Biblical narrative.
Additionally, the boils that may have resulted from acid rain would have occurred very early on, certainly prior to the plague of frogs, flies, and the death of livestock. The same can be said regarding the hail and lightning storms and the plague of darkness.
This issue of geography likewise applies to these same plagues, as well as to the plague of locusts. There is simply no way to harmonise what the Bible says about the order and geography of these Ten Plagues with what would have actually happened as a result of the eruption of Thera.
The chronological reason why the Ten Plagues and the eruption of Thera cannot be linked
Finally, there is another issue involved in this theory. If we take the Exodus narrative at face value, then Egypt was struck by all these devastating plagues and had an enormous slave force escape within a short space of time. Pharaoh’s army was also devastated.
For these reasons, the most convincing placement of the Exodus relative to Egyptian chronology is not during the start of the New Kingdom. This would not make any sense since that was a period of prosperity.
Rather, it makes sense to place the Exodus just prior to the start of the New Kingdom, as some have argued. At this time, the northern dynasty collapsed and was driven out by the southern dynasty. This is believed to have occurred at approximately the same time as when the Bible places the Exodus in the sixteenth century BC.
In contrast, the eruption of Thera definitely occurred in the reign of Ahmose I, which was after that northern dynasty had already been driven out. Therefore, the Ten Plagues would have occurred before the eruption of Thera.
