Red Sea*

The Red Sea, also known as the Erythraean Sea lies between Egypt and Sudan in Africa and Saudi Arabia and Yemen in Asia. At the southern end lies the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, considered by a few researchers as the location of the Pillars of Herakles.

Pliny the Elder refers to ‘Pillars’ at the end of the Red Sea and then, without pause, inexplicably mentions, Mauritania, Mt. Atlas and Cerne and shortly afterward to an island known as Atlantis!^(c) 

The Red Sea has entered the Atlantis debate mainly because the biblical Exodus has been linked with the 2nd millennium BC eruption of Thera and in turn to the Minoan Hypothesis. Unfortunately, a variety of dates are on offer for the time of the Exodus, which failed to help us pinpoint the date of the eruption or enable the Minoan Hypothesis to provide a definitive date for the destruction of Atlantis.

For many, the Red Sea is associated with the biblical Exodus. However, the term used to describe it in the Hebrew text is ‘yam suph’, which does not mean Red Sea but ‘Sea of Reeds’ that left generations of bible students looking in the wrong place for evidence of the Exodus. Even the ‘Sea of Reeds’ explanation has been disputed in a paper by Bernard F. Batto on the Biblical Archaeology website^(h). Consequently, researchers have turned their attention to other possible location.

One example is a paper offered by Gary Byers who concluded that today’s Ballah Lake in the northeast Nile is the Exodus crossing point! However, the search is not over.

The ‘Red’ is often attributed to the seasonal blooming of a red-coloured bacterium. Some academics think that the cardinal points were ascribed colours, ‘red’ being south! Emilio Spedicato, in his paper^(a) on the location of the biblical Ophir, points out that pumice which is normal volcanic ejecta turns blood-red when mixed with seawater. Immediately to the south is the East Africa Rift, home to dozens of volcanoes, which when erupting may have had pumice dust blown towards the Red Sea!

Coincidentally, the presumed cradle of humanity is situated not too far from the Rift volcanoes and has drawn serious claims^(b) that they may have had a part to play in the evolution of hominids!

The oldest known map of the Red Sea, referred to as the Nuzi Map has had its origins traced back to 120 years before the Flood of Noah^(d)!  George & Dana Brown, a father and son team from Florida, refer to the Red Sea as the Edenic Valley, to the east of which, in northwest Saudi Arabia, Cain’s city of Chanoch had lain and also where, according to the Browns, Noah’s Ark landed^(f)!

^(a) https://2010-q-conference.com/ophir/ophir-27-10-09.pdf

^(b) https://www.seeker.com/volcanic-eruptions-led-to-emergence-of-first-humans-2052178636.html

^(c) Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, BOOK VI. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST, OR FORMERLY EXISTED., CHAP. 36. (31.)—ISLANDS OF THE ÆTHIOPIAN SEA. (archive.org)

^(d) https://www.angelfire.com/fl/BriansHouse/nuzimapdate.html  

^(f) https://www.angelfire.com/fl/BriansHouse/noahsarkeastofeden.html *

^(g) https://biblearchaeology.org/research/exodus-from-egypt/3191-new-evidence-from-egypt-on-the-location-of-the-exodus-sea-crossing-part-I

^(h) Red Sea or Reed Sea? – The BAS Library (biblicalarchaeology.org)