Does the Bible suggest how long each plague lasted? If not, do the theologians have an opinion on this?
According to the Talmud, IIRC, eah plague lasted three weeks. I’m going to have to go check on this.
So apparently it was one week of plague per month, according to the rabbi at askmoses.com. Our conversation was rather confusing, because we couldn’t coordinate our typing, and the rabbi was chatting with four other people as well. So here’s the transcript, for what it’s worth:
[QUOTE=askmoses.com]
MewsesCat : How long did the plagues last?
Rabbi Avi : Welcome. I’ll be with you in a moment…How are you today and what is your question for me?
Rabbi Avi : Join us in making history: check out our new Cyber Torah page:
http://www.askmoses.com/torah_home.html
MewsesCat : I don’t remember if it was three weeks or what.
Rabbi Avi : each plague lasted a month
Rabbi Avi : approx
MewsesCat : A month?
Rabbi Avi : 1 week for the plague
MewsesCat : I thought it was weeks.
Rabbi Avi : 1 week to of warning
MewsesCat : Are there different opinions?
Rabbi Avi : 1 week of recovery
Rabbi Avi : of course we’re all jewish
Rabbi Avi : but the actual plague was a week long
MewsesCat : ?
Rabbi Avi : however the whole process was a month per plague
MewsesCat : So there was a plague per month?
MewsesCat : For ten months?
Rabbi Avi : We are still connected. As I am currently chatting with 5 people please be patient.
MewsesCat : ok
Rabbi Avi : I have not forgotten about you. We are currently experiencing high volume of traffic, please continue to hold.
Rabbi Avi : yes
MewsesCat : So what happened to the other week?
MewsesCat : There are four weeks on a month.
MewsesCat : And was the Plague of Darkness three times as long?
Rabbi Avi : it was an interuption
Rabbi Avi : when Moshe was given istructions?
MewsesCat : It took a week to say, “Hey, Mo, tell those Egyptians that we’re raining frogs in a week?”
Rabbi Avi : 
no, it wasn’t IN ORDER to give him instructions
Rabbi Avi :
MewsesCat : What then?
MewsesCat : 1 week warning, 1 week plagueing, 1 week time off for bad behavior. Still missing a week.
Rabbi Avi : off for bad behavior N
Rabbi Avi : it’s not missing
MewsesCat : A month has four weeks.
MewsesCat : We’ve accounted for three.
Rabbi Avi : what makes you think that every one of the days in the month needed to be connected to the plague?
Rabbi Avi : one week of OFF TIME
Rabbi Avi : to allow the egyptians to forget
MewsesCat : Because “off time” sounds to me exactly like “time not pertaining to the plague”.
MewsesCat : So there were two weeks of nothing happening?
Rabbi Avi : why two weeks?
Rabbi Avi : one week
MewsesCat : Let’s go over this again.
MewsesCat : FOUR weeks in a month.
MewsesCat : ONE week of warning.
MewsesCat : ONE week of plague.
MewsesCat : That leaves TWO weeks of nothing.
Rabbi Avi : one week of cleanup
MewsesCat : Okay, so the missing week is one week of normal.
MewsesCat : Thanks, that makes more sense.
[/quote]
Originally Posted by askmoses.com
* <snip>*
- MewsesCat : Okay, so the missing week is one week of normal.
<snip>
*:eek: Egypt must have been some badass “normal” empire to handle every month a week of impending doom (which they didn’t believe, apparently), a total shitstorm once a week, each requiring a week of cleanup, and then be a normal country for a month.
…Ok, so on a related note, what’s the deal with Egypt and the Horrible Asp? (Boy, they’ve had some problems down in Egypt, eh?)