Red Sea - Changes

Historical texts record that the Romans built a town called Aila at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba to act as a port for ships. The ruins of Aila are still there. However, they are now several hundred yards north of where the water in the Gulf of Aqaba ends. This is clear evidence that 2000 years ago the water in the Gulf of Aqaba was higher and came further north.

In times past the water level was higher than it is now. ~100 year ago coral was still dying a the top of the Gulf of Aqba, because of the dropping water level.

The whole Red Sea including the Gulf of Aqba is part of the 4000 mile long “Great Valley Rift”. A rift in the earth’s crust that’s constantly moving. This causes the water level to slowly drop over the centuries since Moses. And with that the area’s with reeds continuously shrinks.

Geological, oceanographic, and archaeological evidence suggests that the gulf of Suez stretched further north than it does today and that the southern Bitter Lake extended further south to the point where the two could have actually been connected during the second millennium. This linking may have stood behind the Hebrew naming the lake Yam Suph as well as the Red Sea to which it was connected . ... In view of· these observations) it is possible that the body of· water called yam suph. in the exodus narratives, Numbers 33:8 through 10, and elsewhere in the Old Testament could refer to the line of lakes (especially the Bitter Lakes) on Egypt,s border with Sinai as well as the northern limits of the Red Sea.93

Israel in Egypt -click-

A Biblical History of Israel -click-

Others claim the Bitter Lake and Gulf of Suez were connected at least part of the year (higher water levels)

If the gulf and the lake was completely, nearly or seasonally connected the connecting area likely was marshland. If so both heads of gulfs has freshwater marshlands that were both ‘Red Sea’ and ‘Sea of Reeds’ → Red coral and reed plants.

That gives extra credit to the theory that there were freshwater reeds in a predominantly saltwater area.

…had explained Moses’ crossing of the Red Sea by assuming that its level at the time of the Exodus was some 25 feet higher than at present and that it thus extended northward all the way to the Bitter Lakes
Field 1948, 802

…Evidence suggests that the Gulf of Suez stretched further north than it does today and that the southern Bitter Lake extended further south to the point where the two could have actually been connected in the second millennium. This thinking may have stood behind the Hebrew naming of the lake yam sup as well as the Red Sea to which it was connected…it is possible that the body of water called yam sup in the exodus narratives…could refer to the line of lakes (especially the Bitter Lakes) on Egypt’s border.
Hoffmeier 1997, 209

2. Lower sea levels during the Exodus

The Suez Canal is also affect by the movement in the earth crust.

Currently the only connection between the ‘Gulf of Suez’ and the ‘Great Bitter Lake’ 17 miles north of it is the the Suez Canal. Possibly the area’s were also connected during ancient times. Because of different water levels (earth crust movements) but also because there are indications that in ancient times there was a canal at the same location.

Even today reeds are growing in the ‘Great Bitter Lake’ (which is slightly salty).

…a time-honored assumption...that the Red Sea in Moses’ time extended all the way to the Bitter Lakes—notably at high tide—and that the crossing then took place between the gulf and the lakes. But this assumption is geologically untenable. The discovery of an Egyptian settlement on the coast of the Sinai Peninsula near Abu Zeneimeh has shown that the water level has not risen more than three to six feet (1-2m), if at all, in thirty-five hundred years, and the same thing was previously observed on the Gulf of Aqabah at Tel el Kheleifeh
Kraeling 1962, 104.

The findings, dating from the 18th and 19th Dynasties, suggest a 2 m (6.5’) rise in sea levels since 1525-1069 BC (S.E.P.E. 2005).

Similar data have emerged from another site further south on the Egyptian Red Sea coast, where excavation of the Ptolemaic seaport of Berenike revealed a 1 m rise in sea levels since its 3rd-century- BC founding (Baldridge 1995).

Archaeological work at Dor, Israel showed that sea levels were about 1 m lower 3000 years ago, and about 2 m lower 4000 years ago (Klein and Sneh 1984).

Sivan et al. (2001) cited archaeological evidence indicating that the Mediterranean was as much as 3 m below present levels ca 6000 BP, and that it remained below the current levels until about 2000-3000 BP.

Galili et al. (1988) found that the sea level rose at a mean rate of 5.2 mm/year in the eastern Mediterranean between 6000 and 1500 BP, but has since remained relatively stable.

We may assume, until positive evidence is adduced to the contrary, that as in the time of Darius, so in that of Moses, the Red Sea did not connect with the Bitter Lakes, but that the ridge of Chaloof, rising far above the highest known seas…was then, as now, an impassable barrier (ibid. 162).

3. The Nile delta

The area around the Gulf of Suez and the lakes near it, are is slowly sinking.

That means the Nile Delta is now bigger than it was in the time of Moses.

The Menzaleh, Sirbonis, and Ballah lakes didn’t even exist in his time. So that rules them even more out as a crossing site.

Reason, as mentioned above, the sea level during the Exodus was about 1.5m (5ft) lower than they currently are.