Elijah and Baal's Priests: dumping "water" on the sacrifices

I think I saw this on either the History Channel or Discovery channel a while ago. It was some program trying to offer possible scientific explanations for events in the Bible.

One of the things they brought up was the story of the prophet, Elijah, and his challenge to the priests of the Baalim (hereinafter “priests”) (story here).

Short story made even shorter:

The challenge is a sacrifice, a bull, to be made by the priests and Elijah. Neither party is to light a fire themselves. The true God will send his own fire.

The priests pray to the Baalim (I’m presuming this is plural; I think -im is a Hebrew plural ending) for hours to no avail. Elijah’s turn comes up, but before he prays to God, he has his sacrifice doused with water. He then begins calling on God, who consumes the bull with fire from heaven.

So anyway, onto my actual question (since this is General Questions, not Great Debates): The program I mentioned above said there was a liquid that may have been known to certain ancient people (Elijah possibly being one of them) that very much resembled water, but in the heat of the desert, could burst into flames.

Did anyone else see this program? What was this stuff called?

What you’re missing here is that Elijah didn’t provide his own “water”, but rather told the multitude to bring water and pour on the altar. Assuming the crowd simply went to a nearby stream and filled up the barrels, when did Elijah pull the old switcheroo?

Elijah impregnated the sacrifice with a chemical that undergoes an exothermic reaction with water? The water is normal.

Not that I think it actually happened this way, but if I were going back in time to set myself up as a prophet, that’s what I’d do.

Nice theory - but what chemical? Most group 1 and group 2 metals on the periodic table will do this, but unfortunately, the know-how to isolate and purify them didn’t exist until the 1700s at the earliest. Any other contenders?

Larry Gonick, in his Cartoon History of the Universe, has the priests of baal expostulating as they’re dragged off:

“Wait! Think! We’re in a drought! Where did he get the water? And didn’t you see him fumbling up his sleeve? Waitaminnit!”

Obviously, it was powdered sodium given to Elijah by God. :wink:

Yeah, I was going to say “elemental sodium” too…

Of course (and I know I’m fighting the hypothetical here) the most likely theory is that it’s a myth…

I did.
IIRC it was naphtha,

Whether the period distillate was the same as the commonly available “VM&P” naphtha the show most likely used remains, at least, a question.

CMC

The priests were in control of all the set-up: The animal, the wood, and then at Elijah’s request, the water.

If you want to postulate that there really was such a contest and that it really ended with a big bonfire and the only natural way it could have happened was with secret and ancient chemistry… well then that’s a postulation. A postulation that has lots of holes in it when you try to figure out how Elijah got the priests to use anything special other than animal, wood, and water.

If you want to postulate that it wasn’t miraculous and the natural laws are always in effect, then the easier solution is that it’s just a hero-story and didn’t actually happen.

Wouldn’t such a liquid have to be odorless as well? Most flammable things smell.

Naphtha has an intensly strong smell. Nobody – and I mean absolutely nobody – is going to mistake it for water.

Didn’t they have any clear alcohols they could have used?
I think trying to come up with modern explanations for biblical miracles is a recipe to create more humdingers.
How did god make the earth stand still? Obviously he had a series of nuclear bombs set of in succession that created an EM pulse that stopped their pocket watches, since we all know digital watches weren’t invented yet.
But I guess it’s fun.

There’s some dispute over who invented distillation and when, but they’re all well into the AD period (900 AD or later).

Without distillation, you can’t get the alcohol percentage high enough for the liquid to burn, so I think we can rule that option out.