The Bible tells us that the ancient Israelites wandered in the wilderness of the Sinai peninsula for 40 years after fleeing the slavery of Egypt. During this period, they had no means of food production. It was a desert place. They could have eaten their livestock, but the arid Sinai cannot support animal husbandry on a large scale. From the census reports in the Book of Numbers, there was no population growth during this period, human or animal, presumably. The Israelites would not have wanted to eat their breeding stock.
Douglas Vogt suggests that Moses led the people into the “Diehold,” a condition of stasis in a different dimension during which the people experienced a suspension of time for 40 years. He believes this explains why their shoes and clothes did not deteriorate in the razor-sharp rocks of the area. Like a digital existence in a computer, three million people disappeared for 40 years, and then reappeared when they exited the Diehold, which to them, was just a few weeks transpired.
Such a notion would certainly excite the imaginations of science fantasists, but if so, by any other definition, we would have to say that they experienced a death and resurrection. A “digital existence” is not a real existence and would otherwise mean an existence in the mind of God or perhaps the “Divine Logos,” to use New Testament nomenclature. More below.
The Bible tells us that they made bread from a substance called “manna” which covered the ground every morning with the dew (Exodus 16; Numbers 11). It was yellowish-white like a “coriander seed” and tasted like “wafers” made with “fresh oil” and “honey” (Numbers 11:7-8; Exodus 16:31). If left on the ground, it dissolved in the heat of the day. From this manna, the Tribes of Israel – some three million persons if these census reports can be believed – subsisted, along with their animals – for forty years.
At first, the story seems incredulous. We are tempted to believe it is an embellished legend, maybe with numerous moral lessons but scientifically impossible. As believers, we can shrug our shoulders, declare it a miracle and leave it at that. The story has become just another dogma of faith for adherents of Judaism and Christianity.
In response to skeptics, Bible scholars have claimed that sometimes in the Sinai there is a plant which sheds a fluffy seed that floats in the air and leaves a heavy pollen-like layer on the ground which can be harvested and eaten. Here in the Northwest of the United States, our evergreen forests at certain times of the year can shed clouds of pollen which to the observer can look like the smoke of a forest fire. It leaves a thick layer of yellow dust on every surface. Theoretically, a person could sweep it into a container and make a flour out of it: but not year-round for forty years.
Immanuel Velikovsky identifies this alleged plant as the tamarisk bush and discusses at length this “manna phenomenon” under the Ambrosia section of his book Worlds in Collision (p. 134 ff) with the same skepticism:
It is also not easy to explain how a multitude of men and animals could have existed for many years in a wilderness on the scarce and seasonal seeds of some desert plant.
How Hydrocarbons become Carbohydrates
McCanney and others (such as Velikovsky) have argued that the Exodus event with its accompanying miracles and catastrophic phenomena can be explained by a planetary encounter with a large comet. McCanney has explained that small comets draw water into their tails although not onto their core, lacking sufficient gravitational force. Since comets, especially large comets, can have tails many tens of millions of miles long, it is possible that Earth could experience an inundation comparable to the Flood of Noah – 40 days and 40 nights – from being engulfed in the cloud left by a cometary encounter.
Cometary tails also can contain hydrocarbons. McCanney argues that it is a misnomer to refer to petroleum as “fossil fuels” because petroleum is made from natural cometary action. Except for coal – which is probably the only true fossil fuel – hydrocarbons are formed from the atomic mixtures created in comets when they discharge the solar capacitor. Hydrogen which has one proton and one electron is the most common atomic structure that is formed. But more complex atoms are continuously formed, as well. Carbon is common in space. McCanney believes that the pools of oil within the Earth’s crust were deposited by cometary encounters, such as with the planet Venus before it formed its current orbit. Velikovsky and McCanney both believe that it was a Venus-flyby which caused the Exodus event.
Carbon has 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons. All that is needed to make carbon is for the random filament streams of protons and electrons to recombine with neutrons to form a heavier atomic element.
Now, the molecular structure of a simple sugar is C6H12O6. In an electrically charged atmosphere – or perhaps a nuclear reactive one in the Van Allen Belts (see Robert Felix) – if hydrocarbons were to descend through Earth’s ozone layer, they could pick up oxygen and form sugar compounds as they descend through the atmosphere. Theoretically, circumstances could occur in which the sky would literally rain sugar granules.
But for 40 years?
Another possibility presents itself. Earth has its own cometary tail, although scientists call it a magnetic tail. Because Earth has a slightly elliptical orbit, it still discharges the solar capacitor. However, should Earth encounter a close cometary flyby, such a comet, depending upon its orbit could “pollute” Earth’s orbital path around the Sun which would contaminate the atmosphere for many years. If the Venus encounter, for example, left an orbital trail of hydrocarbon pollution, it could take Earth’s cometary tail many years to capture and deposit it on the Earth. Earth would experience a prolonged period of strange lightning, localized inundations of fiery “hail and brimstone,” and morning dews of naphtha residual condensations all over the planet.
If this scenario is true, it would not have been a localized event. The snowy blanket of morning manna should have occurred not only in Sinai, but all over the world. Each day, it would have quickly dissipated but because Moses was Israel’s leader and a scientist, he knew what the substance was and how it could be harvested for human consumption. The Canaanites and other ethnic peoples would have experienced the same phenomenon, but in their ignorance, would not have known what it was (“manna” actually means “what is it?”) or how to use it beneficially.
It would have mysteriously benefited their crops, however. Sugar is an expensive fertilizer. Plants need both carbon dioxide not only for respiration through the leaves, but also as a bio-char for the roots (which is the leading component of humus). Various hydroxyl molecules (di-hydroxide, i.e. water) are needed to thrive. The after effects of such a pollution event would have obscured the Sun (“a cloud by day”) but plants will grow well in the invisible radiation of a solar or non-solar source such as an intense aural borealis sheet from an on-going electromagnetic storm (“a fire by night”) (Numbers 9:16). [Why can plants sometimes grow in caves?] Or, the manna could have been the ash of the nightly burning of the atmospheric naphtha, which would have been a truly surreal, awe-inspiring experience. All of this could have lasted for many years and the land of Canaan could have become, literally, the “land flowing with milk and honey.”* (Footnote below)
Velikovsky came to this very similar conclusion and cites several ancient accounts which describe the manna phenomena in other parts of the world:
Worlds in Collision, (Macmillan, 1950), p. 136 et al
The honey-frost fell in enormous quantities. The haggadic literature says that the quantity which fell every day would have sufficed to nourish the people for two thousand years. . .
Called the “corn of heaven,” [in] ancient Vedic hymns the “ambrosia fell, and streams of honey flowed upon the earth . . . ‘The broad earth shall milk for us precious honey . . . [and] shall pour out milk for us in rich streams.'”
The air would have been electrically charged with generally gloomy, irritating effects. The people probably slept a lot. I don’t think the event represented inter-dimensional existence as suggested by Vogt. It was just an eerie, depressing experience. The manna could also have had a narcotic effect (see esoteric interpretations of Revelation 2:17). Remember Noah’s vineyard?
A Source for Food After the Nova?
A solar nova could have similar results, although all elements of the Periodic Chart would be expelled in the explosion. As a pollution event, localized and global inundations of various elements would be deposited on the Earth or trapped in its recharged electromagnetic fields. Whether the right combination of elements would occur to produce manna cannot be known. The ground will be covered with ash and ice. But testing its constituents would be useful and some of the ash might be edible after the radiation has been depleted.
Vogt recommends living close to the ocean to access marine creatures as a source of food. The threat of tsunamis will continue and will travel far and fast over the exposed plains of the continental shelves. You will have to live in a boat and never venture too far away from it.
A more likely and immediate source of food would be the strange sea creatures which will litter the landscape everywhere. Deep sea creatures, some grotesquely monstrous, should not be eaten except with care after a testing process. While possibly a good and nutritious source of protein, they could contain parasites, exotic diseases and poisons which will kill you.
When in doubt, seaweed would be a safer choice. In hard times, the Irish have survived on it for thousands of years, especially during stupid attempts at genocide by their enemies. It is highly nutritious and perhaps explains the resilience of the race. The slimy green substance seems grotesque to modern sensibilities, but a resourceful cook could make it more palatable. It will be everywhere. And if you want the “luck of the Irish,” learn to like it.
— James Stivers, June 25th, 2022
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*Footnote: I reference “naphtha” in a general sense of petroleum in a highly volatile state, which could include methane, as well. Hydrocarbons also contain sulfur (hence, the brimstone) and nitrogen (from which we also get an important component of fertilizer) which floats freely in the atmosphere but is brought into the soil by lightning. However, to make manna – a carbohydrate – the nitrogen would have to be separated from the hydrocarbon molecule and replaced by the oxygen; although, to make the substance oily, the presence of some nitrogen and sulfur would seem to have been necessary. Also, it was a completed food, presumably a protein source. I will leave it to chemists and nutritionists to decide what molecular structure was needed to make manna a completed food.
