Elijah
Fire on Mount Carmel

The challenge to the priests of Baal had the two-fold purpose of demonstrating that the God of Israel was greater than Baal, and that it was he who was the giver of rain. According to J. Robinson, "Some scholars have suggested that the pouring of water was a piece of sympathetic magic."

Hugo Gressmann suggested that the fire that destroyed the offering and altar was lightning, while Ferdinand Hitzig and others thought the water poured on the sacrifice and into the ditch might have been flammable naphtha. Baptist scholar H. H. Rowley rejects both views. Robinson dismisses the suggestion of naphtha with the view that the priests of Baal would have been aware of the properties of naphtha. Julian Morgenstern rejects the idea of sympathetic magic, but supports the interpretation of white naphtha possibly ignited by a glass or mirror to focus the sun's rays, citing other mentions of sacred fire, as in 2 Maccabees 1:18–22.
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