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in exodus
Could they perform miracles too?

They were alien vegetable robots.

We used to have a Protestant here who would make claims like that with (apparently) a straight face.

Haven't you seen Indiana Jones?

Jack3 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2026 5:45 am in exodus
Could they perform miracles too?

Sorcery

Or perhaps they were simply magicians, like those of today.

The most common answer is that the Egyptian magician's staffs were always snakes, but they had been hypnotized into being stiff until being thrown down.

I have no idea if that is even a credible natural explanation.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 16, 2026 10:35 am They were alien vegetable robots.

We used to have a Protestant here who would make claims like that with (apparently) a straight face.

What do the Fathers and exegetes and saints say about it?

That they were not vegetable robot snakes?

I don't think I have a compilation of the Fathers on Exodus.

Actually I do!

City of God: 10.8 Then, too, there were all the extraordinary miracles performed through Moses for the purpose of rescuing God’s people from the yoke of servitude in Egypt, where the sorcerers of Pharaoh — that is, the king of Egypt, who was oppressing that people by his domination — were permitted to perform certain miracles of their own only so that they might be vanquished even more miraculously. They achieved their effects by the sorceries and magical incantations to which the evil angels (that is, the demons) are devoted; but Moses, as much more powerful as he was more righteous, easily overcame them in the name of God, who made heaven and earth, with the angels’ help.

The Ignatius Study Bible suggests that it was either by “tapping dark and demonic powers” or by illusion and trickery.

It goes on to say that Moses's snake ate the snakes of Pharaoh's magicians, so God allowed them to exhibit some power in order to demonstrate that God's power was even greater.
Their power only lasted for just so long. It ended with the plague of gnats in ch. 8.

Politicians existed in Ancient Egypt