Remember the Bible? In the Book of Exodus, the Israelites escape from the army of the Egyptian Pharaoh and wander half-starved in the desert for forty years. Death by hunger in freedom is preferable to life in chains. According to the text of the Scriptures, when they ran out of food, God sent them "manna from heaven." White groats fell from the sky.
Manna, heaven-sent food that sustained the Israelites for a forty-year campaign, has long captured the minds and imaginations of scientists. Many have studied Bible verses for clues. But the analysis of the Bible only added to the mystery. The Scriptures indicate that on hot days, manna melted in the sun. If it was not eaten quickly, then it began to deteriorate, rot and worms started in it.
From the Book of Exodus, she is described as coriander seeds - white and tastes like waffles with honey. In the Book of Numbers, the scent of manna is likened to the scent of fresh butter, and the author describes how the Israelites pounded it in a mortar, baked it, or made cakes from it.
In addition to the fact that it could be eaten, manna also possessed supernatural powers. It played spontaneously every morning. And on Friday, on the eve of Saturday, she appeared in double quantity. Even the Lord kept the Sabbath!
Collecting manna from heaven. Tintoretto. 1577 year.
According to the Hebrew mystical treatise known as The Zohar, the use of manna had a sacred meaning. Another Hebrew text, The Book of Wisdom, indicates that the taste of manna miraculously changed depending on the addiction of the person who ate it.
We find mention of the manna of heaven not only in the Old Testament and other Hebrew texts, but also in the New Testament. For example, in the "Gospel of John" and "The Revelation of John the Theologian" ("Apocalypse"). In a sermon delivered shortly after feeding five thousand people, Jesus compares the divine manna from heaven, which nourishes the body, with his own ability to nourish the souls of people.
Reference to the manna from heaven is also present in Islamic texts. In one hadith, the Prophet Muhammad compares truffles from the desert with manna from heaven.
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Moses and his followers were obviously baffled by their strange food. The Book of Exodus says that they "did not know what it was," they did not understand what they were eating.
Collecting manna from heaven. Anonymous author. 1460-1470
Bible translators and scholars disagree on how the Israelites reacted when they first saw the miraculous food. In the King James Bible, the phrase man hu is interpreted as "this is manna." Others translate it as "this is a gift." Perhaps the Israelis were simply wondering, "What is this?" The confusion as to what is manna from heaven was present from the very beginning.
Over the years, a number of scientists have tried to find a real analogue of manna. For some of them, for example, the Israeli entomologist Shimon Fritz Bodenheimer, such an activity has become an excellent opportunity to attract ancient sources to collect information about little-studied natural phenomena. Biologist Roger Wotton in his study "What is Manna?" analyzed various theories of its origin and concluded that further study of this issue may lead to a more skeptical reading of the Bible.
Many consider the honeydew of the tamarisk bush to be heavenly manna.
Scientists come up with many different ideas.
In their book Biblical Plants, botanists Harold and Alma Möldenke argue that manna from heaven is not a specific food, but several types of food, united by a common name. They believe that the "manna" includes a fast-growing alga from the Nostoc species. She covered half the desert in Sinai. A sufficient amount of dew falling on the ground allowed it to grow. In addition to her, scientists include in this concept several species of lichen (Lecanora affinus, L. esculenta, and L. fruticulosa) that grow in the Middle East. Plants shrivel and travel like tumbleweeds in the wind. Nomad pastoralists used lichen to make bread. According to scientists, the lichen theory explains how the Israelites prepared manna and why they spoke of it as falling from heaven.
It is believed that these are manna flakes isolated from the resin of the tree.
The Cambridge historian R. A. Donkin notes that the lichen of the species L. esculenta was also used in the Arab world as a medicine or an additive to honey wine. Lichens were used as food by the army of Alexander the Great. They could satisfy their heads during a military campaign. In the 19th century, French troops stationed in Algeria also consumed them.
But the lichen theory has one big drawback. It is this type of lichen that does not grow in Sinai.
Other scientists have suggested that "manna from heaven" is not algae and lichens, but a sticky secretion that remains on ordinary desert plants. Insects that live on the bark of some shrubs leave behind a substance that, when hardened, turns into pearly and sweet-tasting balls. In the East, they are used for both culinary and medical purposes.
The mystery of the origin of biblical food has not yet been solved.
Pavel Romanutenko
