Archaeology and the Exodus

Last night we watched a recorded History Channel presentation some friends loaned us about the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The entire program was aimed at proving if and when the exodus occurred through scientific archaeological evidence. Then it went on to explain how the 10 plagues and the parting of the Red Sea could have happened. Hmmm...

The science used in pinpointing the century the exodus occurred and IF there actually was a large number of Hebrew slaves living in Egypt was pretty convincing. Archaeologists dug up several papyrii and inscriptions which referred to the Hebrew people and their God, El. I won't contest their findings here.

The explanation of the 10 plagues is another story. Here's a summary of their theory: immense seismic activity along the several fault lines in the Eastern Mediterranean area caused a concentration of a heavy gas to seep up through the ground. This gas oxidized the iron present in water, turning it deep brown-red (made rust like on your car). This in turn caused all animal life in the waters to die, except the frogs, which could hop out onto land. All the rotting fish resulted in lice, flies, and airborne bacteria which caused painful boils to appear. An incredibly huge volcanic eruption 700 miles north of Egypt occurred from this seismic activity causing an earthquake storm. This means bits of ash flying through the atmosphere serve as a nucleus forming hail, which fall to the ground with the fire from the explosion. Thus the hail of fire and ice. The huge ash cloud accounts for the plague of darkness.

And the death of the firstborn? The same gas mentioned earlier was said to eventually rise out of the water and spread out over the ground at night. The Israelites were not affected by this gas because they were STANDING while eating the Passover feast that night. The Egyptians apparently had the practice of honoring the firstborn males with a low bed to sleep on at night, while all others had to sleep on the roof. Sleeping so close to the ground, the gas would have killed them much like carbon monoxide. By morning the heavy gas would have dissipated into the atmosphere. All this actually happened in Cameroon a few decades ago!

The program quickly explained the parting of the sea as a drop in water level as the crust of the earth rose about a meter in this area as the plates ground against eachother. A resulting tsunami wave rushing back inland neatly did away with Pharoah's army. Oh, and the original words for the Red Sea - Yam Suf - mean Sea of Reeds, so this all happened in a much smaller & shallower nearby lake which would've been a great place for many reeds to grow.

If you know your Bible, you can easily spot some problems with this theory. Namely, how would you explain the Israelites being excluded from the bugs, diseases, darkness, etc.? And the objectivity of the science is to be questioned; many of their archeaological finds seemed to be forced to fit into their pre-drawn conclusions.

So my question is: *IF* all the above is accurate and true, does it make the miracles any less miraculous if God uses the laws of nature to do His work? Should we be surprised to find God using His creation to do His work?