The island of Thera, formerly Kiliste, lies in the Cyclades, sixty-nine miles north of the island of Crete. It is a volcanic island that had erupted several times in the past, until it was finally destroyed in the 16th century bce. following an eruption of unparalleled proportions. Charles Pellegrino, the archaeologist that studied the eruption, dated it around 1550 bce. Compared to other eruptions it was monsterous. It was estimated to have been 5 to 6 times greater than Krakatau in 1883,which cracked walls and broke windows up to 80 miles away. The explosion was heard 3,000 miles away and shops 160 miles away reported that they were covered with dust three days after the end of the eruption. In fact the dust cloud completely shrouded the area, so that it was dark even 257 miles away from the epicenter. The period of darkness lasted twenty-four hours in places 130 miles distant and fifty-seven hours,50 miles away. The black-out in the immediate vicinity continued for three days and was so total that not even lamp-light could penetrate it. The eruption on Thera dwarfed the explosion on Krakatoa, in which witnesses spoke of burning ashes raining down, blistering and killing people.
Stones from the Thera explosion have been found as far as the Black Sea. According to Charles Pellegrino, “On easternmost Crete, more than seventy miles away from ground zero, the great palace of Zakros fell amid flames and ashy deposits. Stone slabs were slammed horizontally across the ground in a manner originally attributed to an earthquake, but all the stones seem to have toppled in the same direction as if pushed over by a great wind. Like Herculaneum, Zakros perished so quickly that people did not have time to flee with household objects. All the implements of Minoan life were left behind: gold rings, razors, tweezers and rare perfumes. At the same time, Phaistos, second in size only to Knossos, was utterly carbonized on the southeast coast.” The eruption changed the island from circular to crescent shaped when it’s center fell into the sea. More than seventy miles east of Thera, directly in the path of the cloud, Southern Turkey and the islands of Kos, Rhodes and Cyprus received more than a foot of ash. In those places the cloud, even if it had shed all of its heat (which it probably had not), would have suffocated almost everyone caught outdoors.”Ash identified as coming from the [Thera] eruption has been found in coastal sites as far away as Israel and Sardis in Anatolia. The wind may have been blowing from the south or west. The belief that the eruption was too far from Egypt to have been noticed has been contridicted. Scientists have estimated the eruption to have been 70 miles high, which could have been seen from the Delta as well as parts of the Canaanite coast. They also know that the ash cloud traveled in a south westerly direction, taking it over the eastern part of the Nile delta and southern Canaan. The belief by some historians that the Biblical hail was volcanic stones, is unlikely considering the distance these stones would have had to travel before dropping to earth. The Biblical hot rocks or tephra is referred to as brimestone, and was not confused with hail. Larger rocks,fall close to the center of the eruption,and only the fine powered ash will travel a long distance. It is not likely that stones big enough to be confused with hail would remain aloft for 500 miles.
Ash clouds have been known to generate hail as well as lightening. Following the eruption of the Surtsey volcano in Iceland in 1966 observers noted “fallout of icy pyroclasts onto local ships described as hail showers with a grain of ash within each hailstone”. The presence of water in an ash cloud can create lightening under the right conditions. Positive and negative particles bang together and build up a static charge. In a thundercloud smaller, positively charged hail generally gathers above larger, negatively charged clumps of faster falling ice; if the cloud rises high enough, the two regions are dragged far enough apart to trigger lightning. It is believed that the same thing occurs in a volcanic eruption. That would contradict those who believe that Goshen wasn’t near enough to the volcano for the Israelites to have seen a “pillar of Fire”. Besides lightening, the ash cloud can be so hot a glow can be seen coming from inside, especially at night. According to scientific reports, the volcanic ash in the sky would be very impressive in the morning and evening (red sky)and probably had some effect during the day. In an attempt to prove that the plagues of Egypt were caused by natural phenomenon, Computer simulations by Mike Rampino, a climate modeler from New York University, show that the resulting ash cloud could have plunged the area into darkness, as well as generating lightning and hail. The purpose was to downplay the plagues as being miraculous, and having nothing to do with God. By doing so, he has become a critic with the evidence to back up Scripture.
The Minoan culture on Crete ended around 1550 BCE and was replaced by Mycenaean Greek culture. The only major Minoan structure surviving was the palace at Knossos. In the days that followed, volcanic ash covered some settlements, and defoliated the island. Buildings were completely covered in volcanic ash by the cataclysmic explosion. It was noted that famine followed the destruction. Some Archeologist’s still insist on dating the volcanic ash to 1650 BCE,and the destruction of the palaces to 1450 BCE, which they blame on an invasion. Famine will follow an invasion if there is a long siege of major cities, or if fields are burned, and livestock are slaughtered. One of the things that never occur during an invasion is large boulders being rolled around the landscape or shoved into buildings. According to archaeologist stone slabs were slammed horizontally across the ground in a manner originally attributed to an earthquake, but all the stones seem to have toppled in the same direction as if pushed over by a great wind. Many of those stones weighed tons. Common scholarly opinion has it that a series of eruptions, culminating in a cataclysmic explosion, destroyed a major part of the island of Thera around the year 1470 bce. The explosion not only destroyed a major part of the island, including much of the Minoan population both there and on Crete, but so weakened the Minoan civilization that it soon succumbed to an invasion of Mycenaean Greeks and vanished from history.
One unidentified author summarizes the event as follows: In summer, circa 1470 BC, Santorini exploded. Volcanic ash filled the sky, blotted out the sun, and triggered hail and lightning. A heavy layer of volcanic ash rained down over the Aegean, covering islands and crops. Earthquakes shook the land, and stone structures fell from the motion. Apollonius of Rhodes wrote”
“And then straightaway, as they moved swiftly over the great Cretian deep, night terrified them, the night which they call ‘the pall of darkness’. No stars nor moonbeams pierced the deadly darkness. It was black chaos coming down from the sky, or some other darkness rising from the inmost recesses of the Earth. They did not in the least know whether they were voyaging on the water or in Hades.”
In Jaffa, ancient Ioppis (currently comprising a section of Tel Aviv),a dust layer was discovered 5 m. above sea surface. The massive roars were heard far beyond Scandinavia, central Africa and mid-Atlantic Ocean. Strong earthquakes must have preceded as well as followed the eruption, caused by the dislocation of the lava crust. The power of the eruption was approximated as equal to the one that hundreds of hydrogen bombs would provoke. The Mount Saint Helens eruption blasted millions of tons of volcanic material skywards, creating a cloud of fallout ash over five miles high. The prevailing wind blew it over 800 miles to the southeast. It is very possible that an eruption 70 miles high could have drifted 500 miles to the Nile delta of Egypt, and possibly another 300 miles into central Egypt to the Capital at Thebes.
For weeks after the Mount Saint Helens fish in thousands of miles of rivers were found floating on the surface, killed by chemical pollutants in the water. The pungent odor of pumice permeated everything, and water supplies had to be cut off until the impurities could be filtered from reservoirs. Thousands of tons of iron oxide was discharged into rivers, not only poisoning the water ,but also staining it blood red. After the Mount Saint Helens eruption fallout ash rained down for hours over 500 miles from the volcano, suffocating wildlife. Cattle perished or had to be destroyed, due to prolonged inhalation of the volcanic dust. In the days following the eruption in the Montana town of Billings, 600 miles from the volcano hundreds of people were taken to hospital with boils and skin rashes due to exposure to the acidic fallout dust. In the 1883 eruption of the Krakatau volcano the ash cloud rose a mere 20 miles into the air, flaming cinders fell on islands as much as 100 miles away, setting fire to buildings and trees. Mount St Helens exploded with a force of 50,000 kilotons and Krakatau reached an incredible 1,000,000 kilotons. Thera dwarfs them all with a staggering 6,000,000 kilotons, equal to 6,000 of the most destructive modern nuclear warheads. The Mount Pelee eruption on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1902,caused swarm of insects and animals, including flying ants that that attacked on the sugar plantations. They not only drove away workers and devoured entire plantations, they were even reported to have attacked and killed defenseless babies while they were still in their cribs. These swarm have not only been reported after an eruption, but in some cases, before one.
Modern Archeology and the Bible 
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