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How do you explain the other miracles of the exodus, like the parting of the Red Sea, the manna from the skies, or the water from the rock? Were the people Imagining things when they heard God speak from mount Sinai or when they followed the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day?
It is possibel they did, but why would I need to explain these claimed miracles? Why should I need to explain them at all when there exists no evidence it ever even happen but are just mentioned as written stories in the Bible or do you expect me to believe any claim I read to be truthfully and actual historical events? Do you know what is meant with "burden of proof" in cases like this?
That aside, even if it was this what people thought was happening it may have some other, perfectly natural, explanations than the action of a supernatural force. For instance mass hallucinations is a well documented phenomena with modern people. Modern, educated, people can with some tricks be followed to believe in just anything not to mention if you are illiterate then it is even easier to do so. Because we human are programmed to see pattern - even where there exists no patter we see patterns. (Just look at a sky with cumulus clouds and you may understand what I mean - this pattern seeking behavior goes for sounds as well - we easily imagine we hear voices in noise where there are no voices - the sound of a small earth quake can be made to be a god speaking if one is biased to believe it is possible that god can speak from the sky). Ignorance and illiteracy is key elements here and these factors was definitely the norm case with the majority of all bronze age people, in particular the nomadic Hebrews tribes so I would not rule out things like deception, biased conclusions or simply hallucinations due to starvation and/or exhaustion in favor of a supernatural explanation to explain the written accounts...
Besides that you questions drifting away from (read: avoiding) the issue at hand....
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