Missing the rains down in Africa--and other likely causes of the Seven Bad Years

In an earlier post, I mentioned in passing what may have caused the 14 years of changed climate reported in Genesis chapters 41-47. I thought my readers would like a more extended coverage of this topic.

Prior to the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960's, the annual flooding of the Nile from June to September was the make-or-break season of the year for the entire Egyptian civilization. The flood level varied from 12 cubits to 18 cubits at the Delta, with the most desired level right between those two extremes.

What made the flood so vital to life in Egypt were two things: the water itself, and the rich sediment it carried. The water extended out toward the limits of the floodplain, soaking the soil enough to supply in one watering the moisture needed to germinate the crops. The sediments were left behind as the flood receded, enriching the soil with nutrients.

There are two ways that agriculture in Egypt could be devastated: one by too much water, and one by too little water. Too much water would rise high enough to wash away the farmers' homes, scour the fertile silt from their fields, and dampen the remnants of the previous year's harvest, damaging their seed and leaving them no grain to subsist on until the next harvest.

Too little water would mean unflooded fields, unable to sustain a crop until harvest.

Now, the scenario in Genesis is 7 years of plenty, during which a huge surplus of crops was stored up. This was followed by 7 years of famine, during which the surplus was eaten. This scenario doesn't fit very well with the too-much-water theory, which would have washed away or at least dampened the surplus grain. The too-little-water theory is a much better fit with the evidence.

Now, what could cause the twice-normal bumper crops for 7 years running? The most likely answer is a biannual flooding of the Nile, allowing two crops a year to be grown.

This is the usual Nile annual cycle:

Akhet (June-September): The Flooding Season. 
No farming was done at this time, as all the fields were flooded. Instead, many farmers worked for the pharaoh (king), building pyramids or temples. Some of the time was spent mending their tools and looking after animals.

Peret (October-January): The Growing Season. 
In October the floodwaters receded, leaving behind a layer of rich, black soil. This fertile soil was then ploughed and seeded.

Shemu (February-May): The Harvesting Season. 
The fully grown crops had to be cut down (harvested) and removed before the Nile flooded again. It was also the time to repair the canals ready for the next flood.


In order to fit in two crops a year, the seasons would have had to be shorter in duration, with each flood following hard on the previous harvest:

Akhet I (July-August) - The First Flooding Season.

Peret I (September-October) - The First Growing Season. 


Shemu I (November-December) - The First Harvesting Season. 



Akhet II - the inundation (January-February) - The Second Flooding Season.

Peret II (March-April) - The Second Growing Season. 


Shemu II (May-June) - The Second Harvesting Season. 


Now, interestingly enough, there already are two annual flood cycles on the Nile: one on the White Nile, and one on the Blue Nile.  Flow on the White Nile starts to climb in March and peaks in October; flow on the Blue Nile and other Ethiopian tributaries begins to pick up in June and peaks in August. Thus the Blue Nile flood is superimposed in the White Nile flood, causing a huge fluctuation in the annual flow of the Nile downstream of Atbara, especially so because, at its peak, the Blue Nile contributes nine times the volume of water than the already-flooded White Nile.

Now, what could possibly cause these two flood cycles to spread far enough apart to occur opposite each other on the annual calendar? Furthermore, it had to have been something that happened only once, as the Nile has never again experienced this sort of 14-year cycle.

The obvious answer is that it had something to do with the melting of Ice Age glaciers in the high mountains of Ethiopia.  Prior to this, Egypt would have only received one flood a year, from the White Nile. Rainfall in Sudan was probably considerably higher than it is now, but still seasonal. Thus Egypt was used to a single annual increase in Nile volume spread out over half the year, from say June to January. But one year the glaciers in Ethiopia began to melt, with just a small outflow the first summer, say from June to August. This, on top of the already rising waters of the White Nile, provided a gentle watering of the river valley suitable for the cultivation of orchard crops such as dates, figs, and pomegranates. As colder weather returned in September, the glaciers stopped melting and the floods receded long enough to allow the orchards to dry out and harvesting to occur.

Meanwhile, the rains in Sudan and Uganda--perhaps even on down into the Southern Hemisphere, if the Nile was longer back then--continued to swell the White Nile to another peak in January, soaking the ground for the planting of spring crops like flax, barley, wheat, and spelt (according to Exodus 9:32, none of these were ripe yet in April). These were just nicely grown to full size for harvesting in May before the water level rose again in June.

Now, let's say it took seven years for the Ethiopian glaciers to melt. It was also about this time that the Sahara was turning from green to brown, so the rainfall in Sudan probably dropped considerably as well. Wind patterns keep moisture-laden air from reaching the Ethiopian highlands where it could precipitate to fill the Blue Nile tributaries. The level of the Nile began to drop after the 7th year, and just kept getting lower and lower. It would half-heartedly flood each summer, but not enough to reach the fields--the fruit trees survived the drought with greatly diminished harvests, but the grainfields remained too parched to even plant, year after year.  Finally, after another seven years, wind patterns shifted around to once again bring those rains down in Africa, and one June the Nile began to rise to pre-drought levels.

Well, this is just one scenario. Another possibility is that the seven bad years were caused by double floods that kept the fields too wet to plant until there wasn't enough time left to harvest before they were flooded again. I don't know which is the more likely, or better fits the evidence; but at least I've fleshed out one theory for the origin of the Seven Good and Seven Bad years of Genesis 41-47.

One last comment: the Nile is now able to support a greatly increased population due to irrigation schemes that allow most of inhabited Egypt to grow two crops a year. The downside is that the Aswan High Dam has ended all the benefits of the annual inundation.

In that sense, every agricultural year in modern Egypt is equally both Good and Bad.

UPDATE 12/12/12: This just in:
Matt Konfirst, a geologist at the Byrd Polar Research Center, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, presented evidence of a devastating drought in Sumeria about 4000 years ago. He estimates it lasted about 200 years. I would propose that he is off by a factor of 20.

UPDATE 03/23/13
Well, according to research reflected in the map at this website, there were no Ice Age glaciers in Ethiopia. In fact, no tropical glaciers are thought to have existed. So, back to the drawing board--either for me, or for them. Probably for AIG--this website clearly shows that there are equatorial glaciers in Africa now; surely there also were then.
"Despite Mount Kilimanjaro’s location in the tropics, the dry and cold air at the top of the mountain has sustained large quantities of ice for more than 10,000 years"

UPDATE 09/23/2018
This academic article makes quite a case for the bad years being caused by non-receding floodwaters; I suppose it obvious that Joseph would have had the foresight to locate the granaries up in the desert where they wouldn't get flooded. Thus the image of starving cattle emerging from the same Nile as the fat cattle would have symbolized a second flood un-doing all the benefits of the first one, on whose heels it followed.

On the ingenuity of spammers

I just checked my comments and saw that I had three of them. One was clearly spam, but it wasn't until I took a closer look at the other two that I realized they were spam as well. One of the comments appealed to my vanity. It thanked me for the video I had posted and asked me to please write more (since I was so good at it) and not rely on just posting a video. I was about to reply when I realized that this comment was to a post that didn't have a video! The true giveaway, though, was that the poster included a link to his own commercial website. The other commenter appeared to ask a question: "I have a blog like yours, and I get a lot of spam comments. How to I avoid this?"  Very, very, clever. The best clue in this case was that the comment was vague enough that it could have been sent to thousands of blogs. The other clue, of course, was the link to his own site. The last clue was that all 3 comments had been to the same post. Well, keep trying guys. You may as well know now, though, that I'm not going to approve any comments that appear to be spam. And a link to your own site is usually a dead giveaway.

Legislators laze, pilots perish

It is with great sadness that I read of this plane crash in Oregon today. Apparently one of the wings just fell off, causing the plane to fall out of the sky, killing both occupants. This sort of thing never happened twenty or thirty years ago, when small planes were manufactured by companies like Cessna, Piper, and Taylor. These mass-produced planes were simple to fly and incredibly airworthy. But none of these companies are in business today. Why? Every time a plane crashed due to pilot error, the manufacturer was held liable for the damages. Small plane manufacturers were sued out of existence. The result was fairly predictable--since the demand for small aircraft continues unabated, pilots have to fly their own homemade planes--a situation that has set general aviation back 100 years. Homemade planes were notorious for crashing then--and they are now. The blood of these pilots is on the hands of America's legislators, who sat on their hands while general aviation was being sued out of existence.

The prophetic rabbi--and what he allegedly predicted

This amazing prophecy from World Net Daily:

Following the Christian crusades to the Holy Land, between 1096-1270, a regular correspondence developed between the Jews in the Holy Land and the Christian West. Thus, for example, the rabbis in Worms and Regensburg in Germany knew that Saladin’s Ayyubids had been ruling in the Holy Land since 1187.
At this time, Judah Ben Samuel published the results of his biblical calculations (Gematria) and astrological observations and summarized as follows:

“When the Ottomans conquer Jerusalem they will rule over Jerusalem for eight jubilees. Afterwards Jerusalem will become no-man’s land for one jubilee, and then in the ninth jubilee it will once again come back into the possession of the Jewish nation – which would signify the beginning of the Messianic end time.”

One jubilee is 50 years (Leviticus 25). It is the 50th year after seven times seven years, the year in which each person should regain ownership of his or her land. Ben Samuel’s calculations were purely theoretical; there was absolutely no sign at that time of their being fulfilled. He himself was not able to experience their fulfillment, for it was only 300 years after his death that the first of his predictions were to come true.

The Mamluks, who had been reigning in Jerusalem since 1250, were conquered in 1517 by the Ottoman Turks. They remained for eight jubilees (8 x 50 = 400 years), that is to say they were in Jerusalem for 400 years. Exactly 400 years later, in 1917, the Ottoman Turks were conquered by the British. The League of Nations conferred the Mandate for the Holy Land and Jerusalem to the British. Thus, from 1917, under international law, Jerusalem was no-man’s land.

Then, when Israel captured Jerusalem in the Six Day War of 1967, exactly one jubilee (50 years) after 1917, Jerusalem reverted to Jewish-Israeli ownership once again. Thereby, according to the prophecies of Judah Ben Samuel, the Messianic End Times began.

Many scholars have studied and made reference to Judah Ben Samuel’s writings in an effort to understand how he reached his conclusions. Among those referencing Ben Samuel were Rabbi Isaac Ben Solomon Luria, a mystic dealing with the messianic world (Jerusalem, 1531-1572, Safed); Joseph Solomon Delmegido (1591 Candia – 1655 Prague), a mathematician and astronomer (“Mazref le-Chochma”), Azulai I (1724-1806), a famed bibliographer; Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865), a Bible scholar; historian Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891); and Torah scholar Jacob Epstein (1925-1993).
The secret of how Judah the Pious arrived at such accurate predictions has less to do with the actual calculations than it does with the fact that he had consecrated his life to God. His pupils Rabbi Isaac ben Moses (Vienna), Rabbi Baruch ben Samuel (Mainz) and Rabbi Simcha (Speyer) testify that Ben Samuel was a model of abstinence and selflessness and was awaiting with a burning desire the coming of the Messiah.

Ben Samuel was often called “Light of Israel.” Even bishops came to him for advice. If anyone asked him where his wisdom came from he would answer, “The prophet Elijah, who will precede the Messiah, appeared to me and revealed many things to me and emphasized that the precondition for answered prayer is that it is fueled by enthusiasm and joy for the greatness and holiness of God.”

 In AD 1217 this scholarly and pious rabbi prophesied that the Ottoman Turks would rule over the holy city of Jerusalem for eight Jubilees. Now, keep in mind, he made this prediction 300 years before the Ottoman Turks seized control of Jerusalem in 1517. If indeed 1217 and 1517 were jubilee years as Judah Ben Samuel believed, then his prophecy was exactly right, because exactly 400 years after the Turks took control of Jerusalem they were driven out of the city and the holy land in 1917 by the Allied forces under the command of General George Allenby – on Hanukkah, by the way.

But it gets more interesting still.
The rabbi also prophesied that during the ninth Jubilee Jerusalem would be a “no-man’s land.” This is exactly what happened from 1917 to 1967, due to the fact that the Holy Land was placed under British Mandate in 1917 by the League of Nations and literally “belonged” to no nation.

Even after Israel’s war of independence in 1948-49, Jerusalem was still divided by a strip of land running right through the heart of the city, with Jordan controlling the eastern part of the city and Israel controlling the western part of the city. That strip of land was considered and even called “no-man’s land” by both the Israelis and the Jordanians.

It was not until the Six Day War in 1967 when the entire West Bank of the Holy Land was conquered by the Israeli army that the whole city of Jerusalem passed back into the possession of Israel. So once again the prophecy made by the rabbi 750 years previously was fulfilled to the letter.

It certainly would be significant if both 1917 and 1967 were Jubilee years, considering the significance of what happened in Jerusalem on those years. But it gets even more interesting, because Judah Ben Samuel also prophesied that during the 10th Jubilee Jerusalem would be under the control of the Jews and the Messianic “end times” would begin. If he’s right, the 10th Jubilee began in 1967 and will be concluded in 2017.

“The Bible should be our standard for prophecy and interpretation of prophetic events,” said Joseph Farah, editor and founder of WND, upon learning of Judah Ben Samuel’s predictions in Israel Today. “But one cannot ignore what this 12th-century rabbi said and wrote. It’s well-documented. And I applaud Israel Today for bringing it to light. The implications of these predictions is staggering to say the least.”

Forget the Mayan Calendar.  Forget, if you will, the Papal Prophecies attributed to Máel Máedóc. With Rabbi ben Samuel, we have a prophetic timetable that has proved true for eight centuries. And it's in its final decade's run.

Soon we will either conclusively determine that these were false prophets, or we will conclusively determine that they weren't.

Stand by. ADDED NOV 30: I've been trying for ten days now to track down the source of this prophecy, as WND has proven not to look too deeply into the veracity of some of its sources. So far, this is the best I can come up with: 1906 Jewish Encylclopedia

Ethical writer and mystic; died Feb. 22, 1217 ("Oẓar Ṭob," 1878, p. 045; Berliner, "Magazin," 1876, p. 220; "Kerem Ḥemed," vii. 71 [erroneously 1216]; "Ben Chananja," iv. 248 [erroneously 1213]). He was descended from an old family of cabalists from the East that had settled in Germany. His grandfather Kalonymus was a scholar and parnas in Speyer (died 1126). His father, also called "He-Ḥasid" (= "the pious"), "Ha-Ḳadosh," and "Ha-Nabi" (Solomon Luria, Responsa, No. 29), was president of a bet ha-midrash in Speyer, and from him Judah, together with his brother Abraham, received his early instruction. Samuel (see A. Epstein in "Ha-Goren," iv. 81 et seq.) died while Judah was still young (idem, "Jüdische Altertümer in Worms und Speier," in "Monatsschrift," xli. 41, 42). About 1195 the latter left his native place and settled in Regensburg (Ratisbon), on account of an "accident" (Moses Minz, Responsa, No. 76)—most probably persecution experienced by the Jews of Speyer generally.

He founded a yeshibah in Regensburg and secured many pupils. Among those who became famous were Eleazar of Worms, author of the "Roḳeaḥ"; Isaac ben Moses of Vienna, author of "Or Zarua'"; and Baruch ben Samuel of Mayence, author of "Sefer ha-Ḥokmah." Eleazar applies to his teacher in several passages terms expressive of the highest esteem, such as "father of wisdom" (Paris MS. No. 772, fol. 73a; comp. Epstein in "Monatsschrift," xxxix. 459).

Legend describes Judah as an excellent bowman who at the age of eighteen was ignorant of the daily prayers. When, however, enlightenment suddenly came upon him he performed many miracles. He restored fertility to a young married woman. The prophet Elijah is said to have partaken of his "Seder" meal and to have been seen by him in a synagogue. He miraculously prevented a Jewish child from being baptized, and knew the exact year of Israel's redemption.

I need a lot better fact-checking than that, before I give any credence to WND's version of this prophecy.

UPDATE Feb 27, 2013 (not 3013)
I was able to find one other source for this story, besides WND:
http://destination-yisrael.biblesearchers.com/destination-yisrael/2012/12/rabbi-judah-ben-samuels-jubilee-prophecy-gives-the-year-of-the-messiah.html
 There may be a slight problem with the 1917 date though--it's after that year's Rosh Hashanna.

The First American African President

The White Man never forgets that no one is perfect, especially he. So when I do recognise a mistake in what I wrote, I prefer to be the first to announce it. This is one of those times.

It came to my attention today that, despite claims that Barack Hussein Obama had no ancestors who were American Slaves, he actually appears to be descended--through his 'white' grandmother--from the very first African to be enslaved in Anglo America: John Punch.

PROVO, UTAH – July 30, 2012 – A research team from Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, has concluded that President Barack Obama is the 11th great-grandson of John Punch, the first documented African enslaved for life in American history. Remarkably, the connection was made through President Obama’s Caucasian mother’s side of the family.
The discovery is the result of years of research by Ancestry.com genealogists who, through early Virginia records and DNA analysis, linked Obama to John Punch. An indentured servant in Colonial Virginia, Punch was punished for trying to escape his servitude in 1640 by being enslaved for life. This marked the first actual documented case of slavery for life in the colonies, occurring decades before initial slavery laws were enacted in Virginia.
In the 372 years since, many significant records have been lost – a common problem for early Virginia (and the South in general) – destroyed over time by floods, fires and war. While this reality greatly challenged the research project, Ancestry.com genealogists were able to make the connection, starting with Obama’s family tree.
President Obama is traditionally viewed as an African-American because of his father’s heritage in Kenya. However, while researching his Caucasian mother, Stanley Ann Dunham’s lineage, Ancestry.com genealogists found her to have African heritage as well, which piqued the researchers’ interest and inspired further digging into Obama’s African-American roots.
In tracing the family back from Obama’s mother, Ancestry.com used DNA analysis to learn that her ancestors, known as white landowners in Colonial Virginia, actually descended from an African man. Existing records suggest that this man, John Punch, had children with a white woman who then passed her free status on to their offspring.