ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Russian mathematicians have determined the legendary parting of the Red Sea that let the Jews flee Egypt was possible, the Moscow Times reported.
The study, published in the Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, focused on a reef that runs from the documented spot where the Jews escaped Egypt, which in Biblical times, was much closer to the surface, according to Naum Volzinger, a senior researcher at St. Petersburg's Institute of Oceanology, and a colleague based in Hamburg, Alexei Androsov.
The mathematicians calculated the "strong east wind that blew all that night" mentioned in the Bible needed to blow at a speed of 67 miles per hour to make the reef, said Volzinger, who specializes in ocean phenomena, flooding and tidal waves.
"It would take the Jews -- there were 600,000 of them -- four hours to cross the 4.2-mile reef that runs from one coast to another. Then, in half an hour, the waters would come back," he said.
The Egyptian army that followed them drowned in the sea.
"I am convinced that God rules the Earth through the laws of physics," Volzinger told the Times.
