Origin of the Old Testament Plagues: Explications and Implications

Analyses of past disasters may supply insights to mitigate the impact of recurrences. In this context, we offer a unifying causative theory of Old Testament plagues, which has present day public health implications. We propose the root cause to have been an aberrant El Niño-Southern Oscillation teleconnection that brought unseasonable and progressive climate warming along the ancient Mediterranean littoral, including the coast of biblical Egypt, which, in turn, initiated the serial catastrophes of biblical sequence — in particular arthropod-borne and arthropod-caused diseases. Located beyond the boundary of focal climate change, inland Goshen would not have been similarly affected. Implicit in this analysis is a framework to consider a possibility of present day recurrence of similar catastrophes and their impact upon essential public services.