Bible Animations

 - Apparent contradictions
In the Bible there are many so-called contradictions. Many of these are purely based on information that's not there or that seems to conflict. In this post, and the video, I get to focus on one I came across this week in regards to Pharaoh's livestock. In the murrain plague, it clearly states that all of Pharaoh's cattle died (meaning all his livestock, not just cows and oxen), but nothing of Israel's died. Later, in the hail plague, we see GOD telling Pharaoh that he needs to make sure his livestock comes in from the field or they'll die. So which is it? Are they all dead or what? hahaha.

The answer is both.
Egypt had a bartering economy at this time, which means that all taxes and loans, etc, would be paid through things, instead of money as we know it. Despite that, Egypt was also a very agricultural country and if Pharaoh's cattle were killed for whatever reason, guess most of whose cattle would be up for grabs. Pharaoh would think nothing of seizing slave property (if they even had property and weren't just considered property). So even if chronology would present us with a coin system at the time of the Exodus (which is unlikely, since Israel got all sorts of things from the Egyptians on their way out), Pharaoh would still take at least some of their cattle for himself to work his own lands. One article said that Pharaoh was party to redistribution of food - that's a nice way of mentioning a totalitarian approach to ruling.

Since we have a space of one plague between the cattle dying and the cattle being in danger in the fields, there is enough time for Pharaoh to seize upon some of Israel's cattle.

 - Placement for Joseph
Joseph was an interesting situation here. According to one article, even in the Old Kingdom, they stored up food for famine and had officers over the land, etc. Guess who instated that? Joseph.


 - Chronology issues
Egypt's chronology is famous for having a multitude of accuracy problems, so personally, I would shy away from using their system on it's own, to say the least. What I do believe can be used to reconstruct theirs properly, would be to use surrounding civilizations to corroborate events and records and bring their chronology into the right place. I'm certain that I would not be the first person to get that message, so I'm sure it may be on-going atm. I do know one thing - it is very difficult to get good and multiple sources that are that old and still in one piece and accurate, hahaha.

 - Methods of showing (counting live stock)
This is a cool, yet difficult task. I don't want to bind myself to hieroglyphics only, because I think it can get rather old rather quickly (hahaha), but it certainly serves the time space that I'm working in. While editing the vlog for today, I was at that specific frame when I felt GOD show me that I have to show that both had cattle in a grid and to X out all the cattle (livestock) of Egypt. Of course the hard part here is to demonstrate that Pharaoh would seize or tax cattle in order to gain some again before the hail plague actually hits (the hail plague's timing indicates harvest season, so tax season would probably have been on-going at this point). It may also be that Pharaoh was smart enough to wait on reception of the cattle until the murrain plague passed.
Eitherway, I like the idea of doing a pictographic record keeping type visual. Encouraging was that they most likely used papyrus for these records as they went out to tax. Can you imagine having to carry a steele, hammer and chisel, hahaha.

 - Speeding up narrative
As we move along in the plagues, it's clear that Moses was giving us less and less information to drop repetitive things and leaves us consistently with:


The cool part about this sort of thing is that I can almost flow between the plagues, but the difficult part is to keep the chain of events intact and not flying too fast through the narrative... I just depend on the HOLY SPIRIT to show me what to do, because it is extremely difficult to stick to the Word and not add anything, you know. Taking away is not (for me) a temptation, adding is, because there are so many omitted details, hahahaha.

Sources:
- Government in Egypt
http://www.ancient-egypt-online.com/ancient-egypt-government.html

- Bartering economy and Tax in Egypt
http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/economy/taxation.htm

- Rinderpest (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderpest

- Cattle Plague (SciShow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS28WOp02RY

- Viruses (SciShow)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THh5xrkH0eA

- Original language for cattle
http://www.studylight.org/desk/interlinear.cgi?search_form_type=interlinear&q1=Exodus+9%3A6&ot=bhs&nt=wh&s=0&t3=str_kjv&ns=0
(click on Cattle if it isn't expanded with the definition)

- KJV Dictionary for Cattle
http://av1611.com/kjbp/kjv-dictionary/cattle.html

- Something to mention
As most of you know, I luv luv luv doing tutorials. GOD has placed in me a teaching gift and I absolute luv sharing it, especially to share the Gospel! :D
   This week, a friend on G+ asked me if I had any videos on Cycles and my immediate reaction was "not really", hahaha. While I do have about 4 that cover toon shading and compositing, I tend to shy away from it, because it is such a fussy engine for toon-style NPR - seriously. Having said that, it can be done and it will do wonders for your render times if you have a really really great GPU. So, at the end of the vlog, I showed you guys something GOD helped me put together, so that will be, GOD willing, shared today as well! :D

For reference
- Better Caustics texture (not in Cycles...) Exodus Vlog
https://youtu.be/0eb94KTOteQ?t=47m19s

Latest tutorial:
- Workflow Tip - Node Groups
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SNc8lvLj9A