The god of Exodus 13:17-40-33 was inspired by a volcano.

Pro has certainly provided some very interesting points! However, I believe that I can satisfactorily show that the verses used by my opponent do not actually provide proof that God revealed Himself as a volcano, a.k.a. Mt. Sinai. (Any bible verses that I quote can be found in the ESV translation of the Bible unless stated otherwise) Exodus 13:21-22 • Pillars of Cloud and Fire While there may be some evidence in these verses of volcanic involvement, there's more evidence to prove that the pillars of cloud and fire were actually freely moving objects instead of a stable mountain. The NIV says that neither of the pillars "left its place in front of the people." The ESV says that "The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people."* Now, we know that the people themselves were constantly on the move, so if the pillars never departed from before the people, wouldn't they also be on the move? Pro has brought up an excellent point in that they could have simply been walking straight towards a distant and unmoving volcano, but the Bible gives us a different idea. The definition of the Hebrew word translated "before" in verse 22 coupled with the way it's used suggests that the pillars were in the very presence of the people[1]. The word is "paniym." When it's used with a preposition, in this case it's used with the preposition "from," it gives the idea of "being in the presence of." So, the verse could be correctly translated as "The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not leave the presence of the people." Also, Exodus 14:19 and 24 both document the pillars moving. In verse 19 the pillar of cloud moves from in front of the people to behind then and in verse 24 both pillars look down upon the Egyptians in the middle of the sea. Exodus 14:27-28 • Drowning the Egyptians Pro suggests that tectonic activity may have caused the event that drowned the Egyptians and also caused the volcano that the Israelites followed. I believe that I have sufficiently proven that the Israelites weren't following a volcano in my previous point, so I'll move on and tackle the "tidal wave" mentioned by my opponent. The Bible actually tells us what caused the waters to fall back into their normal place. Exodus 15:10 says "You [God] blew with Your wind; the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters." We see here that it was wind that caused the water to recollect in its natural position instead of a tidal wave. Exodus 19:16-18 • God On The Mountain With regard to verse 18, Pro states "this says that mount Sinai was both covered in smoke an on fire." This is correct, but there is no need to turn the mountain, or God, into a volcano in order to explain this. The text clearly says that there was smoke because of the fire of The Lord, not because of the fire of the mountain. This passage also shows that the fire descended upon the mountain. Generally, that's not how volcanoes work. The fire or lava comes up out of the mountain itself, it doesn't come from the sky. The Commandments I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with our debate... I would appreciate your enlightenment if you could do so. Sources [1] http://www.blueletterbible.org... *I want to explain my use of the ESV Bible instead of the NIV as my opponent is doing. There are two basic types of Biblical translations. The "phrase-for-phrase," which generally translates each sentence, and the "word-for-word," which generally translates each word. Phrase-for-phrase translations give the connotation/intent of the passage as best they can, while the word-for-word translations give the literal meaning as best they can. NIV is phrase-for-phrase and ESV is word-for-word. A combination of the two can sometimes help the reader understand what's being said in any particular passage.