From: Kharin (kharin@kharin.com)
Date: Tue Sep 09 2003 - 14:01:13 MDT
"Russell Stannard is now emeritus professor of physics at the Open
University."
One is tempted to observe that the only sensible thing to do when faced with employment at the Open University is to turn to either drink or religion. On the whole, I feel the individual in question made a poor choice between the two.
"He believes in the story of Moses, as recounted in the biblical book of Exodus. He believes in it enough to have explored Egypt and the Holy Land in search of natural or scientific explanations for the story of the burning bush, the 10 plagues of Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and the manna that fell in the wilderness -and then written a book about it. "
The above neglects to mention that this author, who has no qualification in archaeology or history, expects us to believe that the parting of the Red Sea manifested itself by means of a constant eighty-mile-per-hour wind that held the sea back for several hours while the Israelite nation (including, one presumes, small children and elderly people, flocks, herds and supplies) ambled across across, presumably while enjoying the pleasant weather.
Such lunacies are, of course, not uncommon. Arguably the leading exponent of them was William Buckland, Prof of Geology at Oxford and later Dean of Westminster, who sought to reconcile geology and the biblical account of creation by arguing that each of the days mentioned in the Genesis account was an epoch, a geological period covering countless millions of years. Naturally, the geological record failed to support this rather tenuous theory and, not to put too fine a point on it, he was rewarded for his efforts with a stay in the asylum from which he never recovered.
"He not only believes in God, he believes in the Church of England."
Good grief! We must have him dissected, pickled and studied. A rare specimen indeed!
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