Like Manner or Similar (2)
Dave Gaban drrod@slip.net
Mon, 01 Mar 1999 19:50:00 -0800 (00920368200, 36DB5FE8.42C6@slip.net)
JAlw@aol.com wrote:
>
> TILL:
> << The changing of ALL the water in Egypt into blood would have been such a
> formidable demonstration of power that no one could reasonably argue that
> changing just a couple of pots of water into blood could rightly be called
> doing the same or doing "similar to."
> ===============
> Joe Alward:
>
> If Till accepts--for the sake of argument--that there were a couple of pots of
> water which were not already converted to blood, then he is conceding that not
> all of Egypt's waters were converted to blood. It appears that he is willing
> to concede the existence of just enough water to allow him win an unlosable
> fight against a straw man. Why does he not assume that Egypt still had many
> thousands of ponds and pools of unconverted water after Aaron's magic was
> worked? Is it because that would make the magicians' feat impressive?
Dave G.
I quite understand your quest for evidence that cannot be reasonably
disputed, but to assume there was water unaffected by the initial
"turning into blood", one would have to ignore that *all* the water
was changed into blood, including water in buckets and jars.
There's no room for argument that there was a single water source
above ground (in Egypt), that was not turned to blood. Even if there
was a subterranean water source, no one would have known if the
magicians
were able to "do the same," as the water would have been out of view.
The magicians could only have "done the same" if the blood was turned
back to water, then the magicians copied the act of changing the water
again.
The use of the words "all" and "everywhere" make it clear that all the
water above ground was changed. If the author had intended to suggest
there was water available to the magicians that had not been affected,
wouldn't he have noted something like "nearly all" or "almost
everywhere",
to allow for the attempt of the magicians to do the same?