Literature has been around as long as man. Early man used pictographs to convey his messages even before there was a written language. Literature is used for many purposes, everything from entertainment to education. One of the most important pieces ever written is The Bible. The Bible may appear to be a single book, but it is a veritable library. It is divided into two major parts, the Old Testament and New Testament. The Old Testament contains examples of all types of literature. Within its volume is everything from history to prophecy. There are numerous depictions of people, places, and events contained in the Old Testament. One of the more intriguing events, told in the Old Testament, involved the ten plagues of Egypt. The plagues were allegedly brought on by God so that the Pharaoh would release the Israelites from Egypt. However, is that truly the case? Did the plagues actually even happen? If the plagues did happen then were the plagues an act of God or were they just normal occurrences in nature?.
The first plague, described in Exodus 7:14-24, was the reddening of the Nile. "All the water in Egypt- right from water already in buckets and jars, to ponds, canals, streams, even the Nile River- turned to blood" (Execulink). Obviously, to a religious person this appeared to be a miracle. The question lies in what was actually turned blood in color. Was it every drop of water or just the Nile? If the body of water in question is just the Nile there is a simple biological event that could have caused the reddening. There was a similar reddening of waters in the United States in nineteen hundred and eighty-seven. Due to the exceptionally hot weather in the Carolinas, there was an outbreak of the toxic algal bloom pHysteria. The algae dissolved the still living fish and made the water toxic (Ten Plagues of Egypt). This is quite similar to the events that happened in ancient Egypt.