WILLIAM SHATNER: A great flood
that wiped out almost all of humanity.
Fire and brimstone that destroyed
two ancient cities.
And deadly plagues sent by a punishing God.
Some of the events recorded in the Bible are so devastating
and so awe-inspiring that for the faithful,
they can only be described as acts of God.
But are these tales of biblical disasters and miracles
meant to be taken literally?
Or are they simply dramatic stories
that were intended to teach moral lessons?
Is it possible that these acts of God
really happened?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
In eastern Turkey,
some 200 miles southeast of the Black Sea,
there is a dormant volcano that is known as Mount Ararat.
At a height of nearly 17,000 feet,
Mount Ararat is the highest point in Turkey.
For centuries, this peak has been considered sacred
because according to the Bible,
after God sent the Great Flood to cleanse the Earth,
Mount Ararat is the location
where Noah's ark finally came to rest.
ROBERT CARGILL: The story of the Great Flood
and Noah's ark is one of the most famous
stories in the Bible.
The story goes that God is
so disappointed at the sinfulness
of all of humankind,
that he's going to flood the Earth.
He's basically going to destroy everything.
And he finds one righteous human...
Noah, and what God wants Noah to do
is build this massive 450-foot-long ark
with three levels on it, and fill it with
all of the animals of the Earth and his family,
and those will be the only
survivors of the flood.
SHATNER: As the story goes, Noah loaded
his family and two of every kind of animal
onto the ark.
And then, God made it rain for 40 days and 40 nights,
flooding the Earth so that even the highest mountains
were covered with water.
After the waters subsided, Noah, his sons, and their wives
left the ark and proceeded to repopulate the Earth.
AMIR HUSSAIN: The Noah's Flood story
is this really powerful story
because here's this transcendent God who loves us,
who's created human beings, but also has a way
for us to behave in the world.
And when we don't behave in the right way,
this God will punish us.
That's the power of God.
Sometimes doing extraordinarily horrific kinds of things.
Sometimes doing wonderful things.
SHATNER: Historians have long debated
whether the story of Noah, the ark, and the Great Flood
is only a myth, or if it was based on real events.
There are some scholars who believe it's possible
that a massive deluge did, in fact, take place.
And as evidence, they point to the fact
that the Bible isn't the only
ancient text that contains an account of a great flood.
The flood story in the Bible
isn't the oldest flood story.
The oldest flood story that we have
in the western tradition is in the Gilgamesh story,
in which there's this old man, Utnapishtim, who's survived
a flood where it's rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
And this happens also in the story of Noah.
So for many of us looking at these stories across cultures,
there's this idea that, yeah, clearly this happened
at some point in human history,
this flood that people remember,
and they write about in different ways.
SHATNER: In addition to historical accounts, might there also be
geological evidence to suggest
that the Great Flood actually happened?
In 1997, geologists William Ryan and Walter Pittman
published a study which concluded
that the biblical story may have been describing
a massive overflowing
of the Black Sea that took place in the 6th century BC.
DAVID MONTGOMERY: The idea that Noah's Flood
was triggered when the Black Sea flooded
is rooted in the basic
geological observation that at the end of the last ice age,
when ice melted off the poles,
it raised sea level.
And what happened when sea level rose?
The Mediterranean overtopped the Bosporus
and spilled into the Black Sea.
That event raised the level of the water in what's now
the Black Sea by about 150 feet within weeks to months.
It would have been catastrophic to the people at that time.
It would have literally flooded the world known to them.
Perhaps it actually seeded the story of Noah's Flood.
SHATNER: Was the biblical flood based on the actual deluge
of the Black Sea?
It's an intriguing notion.
But if the flood really took place, then is it possible
that we might be able to find Noah's ark?
Well, some researchers argue
that the ark may have actually been discovered
in a photograph taken near Mount Ararat
by the Turkish military in 1959.
It revealed a boat-shaped formation embedded
in the surface of the mountain.
There are those who believe that this rocky structure
was once Noah's ark and that the wood
hardened and turned to stone over time,
a process that is known as petrification.
ANDREW JONES: It's a streamlined, boat-shaped object that's sitting there.
And there's nothing else in the region that matches that.
So this is a very distinct object.
According to the Bible,
the ark landed in the mountains of Ararat.
And in Genesis chapter 6,
the ark was 300 cubits long.
Now, if you do the conversion, 300 cubits equals 515 feet
and that is exactly the length of this boat formation.
SHATNER: Does the remarkable similarity
between this rocky structure and what's written in the Bible
suggest that it is the remains of Noah's ark?
Since 2019,
a group of archaeologists
leading the Noah's Ark Scientific Project
have used new technology
to learn more about this mysterious formation.
JONES: We hired an American ground penetrating radar team to create
3D images of what is below the ground.
About 20 feet down, they found what looked to be
three different layers.
In the Bible, the ark had three decks.
And according to the scans, you can see the three decks
that the Bible says this giant boat had.
We are hoping will happen next year,
is the Turkish government would then proceed on...
with a small-scale excavation of the site
to show what we're looking at below the surface.
This would be a very exciting, worldwide headline discovery
if this is proven to be Noah's ark.
If you could find evidence for this story,
that would actually prove the biblical account
and maybe get people more interested
in what is written in these holy books.
SHATNER: For the faithful, the search for definitive evidence
of either Noah's ark or the Great Flood
is not only about archaeology.
It's also a quest to understand
how the power of God works in our world.
An act of God is precisely something
that we cannot explain in rational, scientific terms.
HUSSEIN: The Bible tells us that Noah's a righteous man,
it tells us God orders Noah to build the ark,
but doesn't tell anyone else.
It's this miraculous act of God that, by definition,
goes beyond the flooding of the Earth
where God allows God's chosen people to live.
And so there are these astonishing kinds of things
where God intervenes in human history.
So it's that balance of the divine favor
with the divine wrath.
If the story of the Great Flood was ever proven to be true,
it would be a validation of faith
for billions of people, all over the world.
But what about some of the other acts of God
that are recorded in the Bible?
Is there any evidence to support those stories, too?
Well, a group of archaeologists claim there is,
and point to the ruins of an ancient city
that, according to scripture,
God destroyed with fire and brimstone.
SHATNER: In the lower Jordan River Valley,
eight miles north of the Dead Sea,
a distinct ridge rises from the landscape.
But this is no ordinary ridge...
...because buried under layers of dirt and rock
are the ruins of an ancient city
that dates back almost 4,000 years.
Modern archaeologists have named the site
Tall el-Hammam.
When you look at Tall el-Hammam from satellite imagery,
it's long and it's narrow.
It's about a mile from end to end.
We believe that as many as 50,000 people occupied the city.
According to experts,
Tall el-Hammam is shrouded in mystery.
We don't know what it was named
in ancient times or who lived there.
But in recent years,
some archaeologists have theorized that Tall el-Hammam
is actually the ruins of the biblical city of Sodom.
HUSSAIN: In Genesis, you have these cities, Sodom and Gomorrah,
and there's wickedness, there's iniquity in the city.
But then God decides, no.
This city is doing horrible kinds of things,
so I'm literally gonna rain fire,
sulfur down.
I'm gonna destroy this city.
COLLINS: God said enough is enough.
Fire and burning stone came forth out of the heavens
from Yahweh and consumed the city.
In fact, the Bible says that every person,
crop, plant, tree, twig, anything that was living
was destroyed.
HUSSAIN: The Sodom and Gomorrah
story's fascinating in that it's meant to be
a metaphor, an understanding of,
oh, when human beings don't do what they should do,
here's what God does to destroy us.
It's God's power being manifested.
It's an act of God.
SHATNER: The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
has long been associated with the Wrath of God.
Until recently, many scholars thought
that the story was only a myth.
So why do some experts now believe that Tall el-Hammam
could be the remains of the city of Sodom?
COLLINS: There is more
geographical data in the biblical text
for the location of Sodom
than there is for any other biblical site.
The Bible was very, very clear
that it was north and east of the Dead Sea,
and it was very clear
that it was east of Jerusalem.
And Tall el-Hammam matches the geographics of the text,
it matches the time frame of the text,
it matches all the possible descriptions
as the text describes it.
SHATNER: The idea that Tall el-Hammam matches the location of Sodom
in the Bible is intriguing.
And researchers also claim
that there is physical evidence on site
that confirms the biblical description
of Sodom's destruction.
The actual destruction event is recorded
in just two verses in Genesis chapter 19, verses 24 and 25...
...where it talks about the fact that rock and fire
came down from the heavens and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
One theory
is that an incoming meteor,
or meteor fragment,
exploded over the north end of the Dead Sea...
...and destroyed Tall el-Hammam.
There are numerous proxies that
give strong indication that an airburst
or impact event have occurred.
The first is the evidence of thermal damage
that's represented through melted building materials
and partially melted
pottery fragments.
The second is the appearance
and occurrence of microspherules--
very, very tiny, spherical-shaped,
melted pieces of mineral, grains, and sands.
And the third is
a high concentration
of rare earth elements.
Rare earth elements are very common in asteroids,
not so common on the Earth.
COLLINS: What's interesting is that the middle layer
of Tall el-Hammam
has a really high salt concentration.
It's so salty that, a lot of times, we excavate pottery
that's just coated with thick salt crystals.
That's pretty unusual.
Why is that layer so salty?
Well, it's the same salt that's found in the Dead Sea.
Probably because this airburst event
pushed a massive amount of dirt, water,
and salt over the landscape.
SHATNER: A meteor explosion in the sky?
If Tall el-Hammam really was Sodom,
could such an explosion be the reason why the city
is now buried in dirt that has a high concentration of salt?
Some experts believe the answer is "yes,"
and they point to the biblical story
for further evidence of the connection
between the destruction of Sodom and salt.
CARGILL: The story of Sodom
essentially picks up in Genesis 19,
where you have these two angels that look like men
who travel down to visit Lot, who's living down in Sodom.
And Lot shows them tremendous hospitality,
and you are supposed to be kind to immigrants.
You're supposed to be kind to foreigners, as Lot has done.
God has decided to destroy the city
because of its wickedness.
So the angels grab Lot and his family,
and as they're leaving Sodom,
the angels give them the command,
"Don't even look back."
And then you have this fascinating detail,
where it says that Lot's wife
turned and looked back,
and she turned into a pillar of salt.
SHATNER: What could be the significance
of Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt?
Does this detail from the story support the theory that a meteor
explosion in the sky buried Sodom in dirt and salt?
Perhaps.
But is a meteor explosion a natural event
or is it an act of God?
There's been a lot of question about fire and brimstone
coming down from the heavens.
Right? This is one of these unexplained mysteries.
And there have been a lot of theories
and this probably has something to do
with wanting evidence that proves faith.
A lot of people believe in these stories,
and archaeology can confirm them.
I think from a point of view of sciences,
we look at the biblical text and we look at the statement of
this was fire and burning stone
from God out of the heavens.
If such an event actually occurred,
would it have left some evidences around?
Well, of course, yes.
That's all confirmed by the science.
Now, science can't tell me one way or the other
whether it's an act of God.
But the event is confirmed.
For the faithful, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah
is a powerful demonstration of the wrath of God.
And there's a group of archaeologists
who claim to have found evidence to suggest that another story
of divine destruction really happened.
One that involves a stairway
built to reach the heavens.
SHATNER: In central Iraq,
60 miles south of Baghdad,
lie the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon,
which was once the capital of the Babylonian Empire.
At its height in 600 BC, Babylon was estimated
to have been the largest city in the world,
with a population of more than 200,000 inhabitants.
Perhaps the most intriguing ruin that remains in Babylon
is the foundation of an ancient,
crumbled brick tower that was known as
the Etemenanki Ziggurat.
And there those who believe
that the giant ziggurat may have actually been
the Tower of Babel.
IRVING FINKEL: The real Tower of Babel,
from which the account in the Bible derives,
was built by King Nebuchadnezzar II
at the beginning of the 6th century BC.
If you go to Babylon today,
you can easily see on the ground where the ziggurat was,
because it is a rectangular ditch
with a kind of black square
full of mud and oily water
which delineates the entire profile
of this great tower of which
nothing else is left.
The tower was built and made of mud brick.
The building was seven stories
with a little temple at the top.
And there was a brick staircase without banisters
so that king Nebuchadnezzar II could mount the staircase
and go up and up to the very top.
So, it was definitely the national monument
of the greatest amount of pride.
SHATNER: Historians have estimated that the ziggurat
stood nearly 300 feet high
or roughly as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
But is it possible that this Babylonian structure was,
in fact, the real tower of Babel?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
the story that is recorded in the Bible.
HUSSAIN: In Genesis chapter 11,
you have the story of the Tower of Babel.
Human beings are united, they speak the same language,
they build this tower...
...to go up into the heavens.
But then you have God saying,
"Wait a minute, what are these people doing?
They're going to build this
and they're going to come up to where I am."
And so, God basically confounds these people
by having them speak different languages,
so they're not able to understand each other.
CARGILL: God says, "Let's scramble their languages,
"and then they won't be able to communicate
with one another."
This is one of the most famous stories of the Bible.
I think that the Tower of Babel is based on a ziggurat.
If you're an ancient Hebrew, an Israelite,
and you walk up to one of these
large ziggurats, you're gonna be overwhelmed. Right?
You've never seen anything like this.
MARK ALTAWEEL: It's very possible that the ziggurat of Babylon
may be associated with the Tower of Babel.
There's a lot of parallels.
One is the location.
Babel is another name for Babylon.
That's more of a Semitic name.
So the location's certainly correct and it certainly was
a very tall tower, as suggested by biblical sources.
SHATNER: Some archaeologists claim that the most intriguing
connection between this structure and the Tower of Babel
can be found in the remaining bricks
from the foundation of the ziggurat.
FINKEL: Some of the bricks that we have
have on the upper or lower surface
a thick black deposit.
And this is the remains of bitumen,
which, when the original building was put together,
functioned as cement.
And in the account in Genesis, it is pointed out
that the Tower of Babel was built of mud brick
with bitumen in between.
So this is a very convincing piece of evidence
that the one building is predicated on the other.
SHATNER: But if this ziggurat was the Tower of Babel,
then how was it destroyed?
According to an ancient Hebrew text
known as The Book of Jubilees, God was so angry with humans
for building the Tower of Babel that he summoned a mighty wind
to knock over the tower.
Is it possible it was brought down
by the power of God?
PHILLIPS: Some experts believe
that the story of the Tower of Babel
and its destruction by God is based on an historical event,
an earthquake in ancient times.
In fact, quite a few ancient towers in the city of Babylon,
in what's now Iraq, were destroyed by earthquakes.
Archaeologists know that that area was and still is
prone to earthquakes, because in the year 2017,
there was the largest magnitude earthquake
in the world in that year
and the epicenter was only 100 miles
from what was the ancient city of Babylon.
SHATNER: If an earthquake did destroy the ziggurat,
that could lend support to the theory that it was
the legendary Tower of Babel.
But many experts believe
the true power of the Tower of Babel story
is that thousands of years later, its warning
about the consequences of challenging God still endures.
CARGILL: The story of the Tower of Babel is
absolutely fascinating because
you have God basically curse all of humankind
by scrambling all of the language.
And the moral to the story being
you're not supposed to show that kind of arrogance.
You shouldn't try to be like God.
Did an earthquake topple the Tower of Babel?
And if so, is it possible that catastrophic disasters
can actually be directed by the hand of God?
Perhaps further clues can be found by examining
the Plagues of Egypt,
where God is said to have harnessed the power of nature
not once but ten times.
SHATNER: The Nile River, Egypt.
At a staggering 4,130 miles,
this river that winds
through the deserts of northern Africa
is considered to be the longest in the world.
In ancient times, the Nile was the center
of the Egyptian civilization.
But the Nile is perhaps most famous for being the site
of the Plagues of Egypt,
a miraculous series of events that is recorded
in the Book of Exodus.
HUSSEIN: In the Book of Exodus,
the chosen people of God, the Israelites, are in Egypt
and they've become enslaved by Pharaoh.
And so here's God, who sends Moses
to Pharaoh, saying,
"Let my people, my chosen people, go."
Pharaoh, of course, isn't going to let his workforce go.
And so God sends these ten plagues.
SHATNER: As the story goes, God turned the water of the Nile River
to blood.
When that didn't convince the pharaoh,
God rained down frogs from the sky.
And he sent lice, flies, pestilence, and boils
to harm the people and animals.
Then God summoned a mighty thunderstorm of hail and fire,
followed by a swarm of locusts
that covered the land of Egypt.
When Pharaoh still didn't listen,
God created a darkness
that lasted three days to fill the people's hearts with dread.
Finally, God sent the angel of death
to claim Egypt's firstborn sons,
including the pharaoh's oldest son.
Only then did the pharaoh
finally set Moses and his people free.
CARGILL: According to the Bible,
God is clearly responsible for the plagues.
However,
you might be able to understand how the pharaoh
might see these plagues
as coincidence, as naturally occurring phenomenon.
But when so many plagues occur back-to-back,
then he's convinced.
It's a story about how God wants people to be free,
and not oppressed and not exploited.
SHATNER: Were the ten plagues really acts of God?
Or can they be explained by other means?
Many biblical historians agree
that before that question can even be answered,
it must first be established
whether the ten plagues actually happened at all.
PHILLIPS: There exists an ancient
Egyptian text called the Ipuwer manuscript...
...written at the time that the Exodus is supposed
to have occurred, that tells us that Egypt was
afflicted by what the Bible describes as plagues.
It talks about the river Nile turning blood red.
It talks about plagues of flies and locusts.
It talks about boils on people's skins,
and it talks about cattle dying in the fields.
So, according to the Ipuwer manuscript
the plagues of the Exodus could actually have happened.
SHATNER: But if the Plagues of Egypt did in fact take place,
then how did so many different calamities occur
in such a relatively short period of time?
Some researchers suggest that a natural disaster
may have been the cause of the plagues.
PHILLIPS: What's fascinating is that many of the plagues
described in the book of Exodus
bear an uncanny resemblance
to the effects of a volcanic eruption.
For example, when volcanoes go off,
you get volcanic ash clouds that cover the skies,
day turns to night.
And then you get something called iron oxide,
which is a red substance
that can be thrown out of volcanoes,
and when it goes into the water, turns the water red.
You might think that frogs and flies
are nothing to do with a volcanic eruption.
But what happens is when a volcano goes off,
the larger predators are killed
by inhaling the volcanic dust.
And because of this,
smaller animals that would have been eaten
by the larger predators survive.
So you end up with millions of frogs,
flies, locusts,
other insects
that you wouldn't have had otherwise,
just like the plagues in the Bible.
MICHIO KAKU: If you have atmospheric anomalies
created by the eruption of this volcano,
all of a sudden, everything you're accustomed to seeing,
night and day and cycles of temperature,
get thrown out of kilter because of a major eruption
that has taken place.
That may have caused the ten plagues
mentioned in the Bible that afflicted Egypt.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the Plagues of Egypt
were caused by fallout from a volcanic eruption?
Perhaps.
But what could explain the tenth and final plague:
the death of Egypt's firstborn?
HUSSEIN: There's no easy explanation
for this angel of the Lord who slays
the firstborn of Egypt
or why this happens, other than this is God saying,
"Okay, here's the last straw."
But oftentimes, the point of the story
isn't to talk about scientific truths.
It's to talk about human relationships.
It's about what do we do when we're not living
in right relationship with God or with each other.
The story of the ten plagues
persists because it's not about the science of the miracle.
It's about freedom.
When God successfully gets the Hebrews out of Egypt,
that's when they turn to the heavens and say,
"God works in mysterious ways."
Were the ten plagues caused
by a naturally occurring volcanic eruption
or by an act of God?
For many, the answer may simply come down to a matter of faith.
But perhaps we can learn more about the power of faith
by examining how the ancient Hebrews escaped Egypt
when Moses held out his staff
and God parted the Red Sea.
SHATNER: In northeastern Egypt,
there's a 120-mile stretch of the Red Sea
that separates Africa from the Sinai Peninsula.
In addition to being
one of the busiest shipping routes in the world,
the Red Sea is also widely believed to be the site
of a miracle that continues to capture our imagination.
CARGILL: Following the story of the Exodus,
Moses successfully gets the Hebrews
out of Egypt and they take off,
but then the pharaoh, in his anger
and in the realization that he's lost his free labor,
says, "I changed my mind,
go get those guys."
And so now the Hebrews find themselves on the run,
with this massive body of water ahead of them--
understood to be "the Red Sea"--
and the Egyptian army behind them.
SHATNER: According to the Bible,
as the Egyptian soldiers were closing in on the Israelites,
Moses held out his staff across the waters
and God parted the Red Sea.
HUSSEIN: The Israelites are able
to walk across the sea, and then Pharaoh's army
comes rushing in after them, and the sea closes in,
collapses and kills them.
And so the story gets resolved
by Moses and the Israelites escaping through the miracle
of God with the parting of the Red Sea.
SHATNER: Biblical scholars point to the parting of the Red Sea
as a story that is meant to show that the power of God
can bring salvation to those who are downtrodden.
HUSSEIN: The parting of the Red Sea,
it's this amazing kind of story because it very much is
this vengeful God
who has this extraordinary power
saying, "Okay, here's the reward for the righteous."
Moses and his people are able to get free.
Here's the punishment for the wicked,
you know, Pharaoh and his army.
SHATNER: On the surface,
the parting of the Red Sea may seem farfetched
compared to other acts of God
that resemble natural occurrences,
such as the Great Flood or the ten plagues.
But there are some researchers who believe
that there is evidence to suggest that the literal parting
of an enormous body of water is actually possible.
And they claim a clue can be found in the way
the Bible says God used his power to part the Red Sea.
CARL DREWS: The biblical account
of the parting of the water is told in Exodus chapter 14.
And there's two key verses. I will read them.
"Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea..."
So there's this detail in the account that says
how the wind blew, and the water shifted,
and the dry land emerged from the sea bottom.
SHATNER: But what was the mysterious wind
that God used to part the Red Sea?
Well, according to some scientists,
it could have been an unusual weather phenomenon
that is known as "wind setdown."
DREWS: When a strong wind blows
on a body of water, the body of water shifts,
all the water in one direction.
Now, on one side it's called "storm surge,"
because the waters are gonna build up there.
On the other side, the level drops,
and that's called "wind setdown."
Then, when the wind stops, the waters come back again
just like the Bible says.
One theory is that Moses could have timed it.
He knew when the next rush of water would come in.
And the Egyptians would blindly walk
into the trap and get flooded.
DREWS: This kind of event happens only by hourly timing,
and the Bible reports that God told Moses to be at this place
and at this time and be ready for what's gonna happen.
So, the mystery here is really in the timing.
Could the parting of the Red Sea have been the result
of a weather phenomenon?
Some scientists believe that it's plausible,
particularly since there are multiple historical accounts
of strange wind activity in this area.
In the year 1798,
Napoleon and his troops
were crossing over the Red Sea area.
But then, water suddenly rushes in,
and Napoleon's troops almost drowned as a consequence.
So, some people think that what happened
to Napoleon and his troops
might have happened on a much larger scale
to the Egyptian army.
DREWS: There is an account from 1882
where a British general, Major Tulloch,
was surveying along the shores of the Suez Canal
in the eastern Nile Delta.
He describes how the wind blew all night long from the east,
and he had to go into his tent and hunker down.
The next morning,
he reports that the natives were walking around on dry ground
where the previous day they had been in their boats.
Immediately, it flashed to his mind:
this is like Moses and the Israelites
and the parting of the Red Sea.
ROBERT RUSSELL: The miracles of the Bible
in some way reflect our limited knowledge
of the way the world works.
People didn't have the science
to describe the underlying events in nature.
And even now, we don't have
enough knowledge to know why some events happen.
The point is that scientific knowledge of natural processes
doesn't exclude God bringing them about.
God acts through these events.
The debate as to whether God could be responsible
for inexplicable natural phenomena
is not limited to stories from the Bible.
In fact, there are many who wonder whether
some of the most powerful disasters in our world today
could also be signs
of divine intervention.
SHATNER: A 7.2 magnitude earthquake levels the country,
and more than 2,000 people are killed.
In the hours following the initial jolt,
aftershocks collapse hundreds of thousands of weakened buildings
and torrential rains flood the streets,
causing billions of dollars in damages.
HUSSEIN: Haiti is an example of good people
who have horrible things happen to them.
The fact that you have people who are religious...
...having to do burials literally in the rubble...
...and as they're doing the burials, a flood comes.
How do you make sense of this?
Why does this happen if God is just?
If God is powerful, you know,
are we cursed?
SHATNER: It can sometimes seem like our world is being
constantly rocked by cataclysms.
Disasters such as tsunamis,
tornados and hurricanes often devastate
vulnerable communities, wreaking havoc
on innocent people's lives.
It's easy to see how these events
might have been interpreted as acts of God in biblical times
when our scientific understanding was more limited.
But there's many who believe that a higher power
continues to influence our world
in mysterious ways that we don't fully understand.
Our brain cannot stand chaos.
We hate it when natural disasters happen
and there's no meaning at all.
And so we interpret our religious, our ethical
standards to that event,
and we try to make a lesson out of it.
It was the will of God himself that created that disaster,
or that anomaly.
And so, we're hardwired to do this.
We can't help it.
Because a feature of the human brain
is that we try to find meaning.
To this very day,
there are people, when there's a drought,
who get together to pray for rain.
When people feel helpless,
when people have nowhere to turn,
especially during natural disasters,
that's when they turn to the heavens.
We still call them "acts of God."
And it goes back to all of these ancient stories in the Bible.
SHATNER: Biblical scholars and historians
suggest that humanity's search for meaning
is one reason why the acts of God from the Bible
continue to have relevance today,
thousands of years after they were recorded.
COLLINS: Science can tell us a lot of things
about the ancient world,
but can science say that the Bible is
factual, historically factual?
That's why archaeologists continue to dig.
Because if we thought we were satisfied
with what we know at the present time,
we'd stop.
CARGILL: For the believer,
there's faith-affirming power in these ancient
stories in the Bible
about a flood, or a hailstorm, or a plague,
or fire and brimstone that destroys a city
when there's lots of scientific evidence that supports it.
Because at the end of the day, they can say
this is the hand of God.
(man chanting prayer)
HUSSEIN: We talk about the mystery of faith
because we're human beings.
What's really key here is that
the hand of God is at work all around,
whether it's in wonderful, we would call blessed events,
or whether it's in horrific events.
Is God there in the hurricane? Yeah.
Is God there in the birth of the new child? Yeah.
And both these things are examples of the hand of God.
The power is God all around us.
So, what do you think?
Were some of the most famous disasters and miracles
described in the Bible really acts of God?
Well, at the very least, there are plenty of reasons
to think that these events did, in fact, happen.
But as to whether they were caused
by a higher power...
that, my friends, is a question that will continue to remain
unexplained.
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