Onyx8 wrote:Indeed, Wyatt also claimed to have found a sample of the blood of Jesus, with only half the number of chromosomes!!!

Christians - you gotta love 'em !

The Egyptologist K.A. Kitchen rips Finklestein and Silberman a new one on the historicity of the Exodus in his book On the Reliability of the New Testament. Concluding a long and deeply considered chapter on the subject, Kitchen writes:

"99 percent of all New Kingdom papyri are irrevocably lost, the more so in the sopping mud of the Delta ... a handful of wine-vintage dockets from broken jars is the sum total of our administrative texts so far recovered from Pi-Ramesse. No buildings at Pi-Ramesse are above ground level, either mighty temples or proud palaces -- so why should we expect to find the fleeting mud and reed hovels of slaves, long since returned to the mire?

"The exodus and Sanai events are not hereby proven to have happened ... but their correspondence not just with attested realities (not Sargon-style fantasy) but with known usage of the late second millennium B.C. and earlier does favor acceptance of their having had a definite historical basis."

(p. 310-312)

The key statistic here is "99 percent of New Kingdom papyri are lost." We have virtually no written (Egyptian) records at all for the period that an "Exodus" might have occurred, so it seems to me that we're in no position to make some sweeping statement like, "There's no evidence that the Exodus ever happened." Come on ... we're talking 3100-3600 years ago! The best we can say is, there may or may not have been an Exodus, all we have basically are Biblical sources and those aren't always the most reliable.

So your position on evidence is that if we DON'T have it, then that means we should assume the chances are 50/50 that it DID happen ? That the evidence we DON'T have, if we somehow did get it, would be evidence that Exodus occurred ?

In the absence of evidence showing that Hebrew slaves were at Pi-Ramesse and then "escaped" en masse, the only rational statement which can be made is "there is no evidence that the Exodus ever happened." That's it. That's not a sweeping statement. It's a simple statement of fact. There is no evidence that it ever happened.

Did it ? Who knows ? What kind of evidence should we expect to find if it really had happened ? I don't expect even one single papyri to survive. It never occurred to me that they would. But I expect that the Hebrews, supposedly miraculously delivered by their god, and supposedly divinely inspired by their god in recording the history, would at least get the names correct. And those Hebrew texts did survive and we do have copies of them, with all their puzzling omissions and mysterious little errors.



I would be interested to know what Kitchen thinks is "correspondence with attested realities" and what his physical evidence is.

Blood wrote:Kitchen writes:

"99 percent of all New Kingdom papyri are irrevocably lost, the more so in the sopping mud of the Delta ... a handful of wine-vintage dockets from broken jars is the sum total of our administrative texts so far recovered from Pi-Ramesse. No buildings at Pi-Ramesse are above ground level, either mighty temples or proud palaces -- so why should we expect to find the fleeting mud and reed hovels of slaves, long since returned to the mire?

"The exodus and Sanai events are not hereby proven to have happened ... but their correspondence not just with attested realities (not Sargon-style fantasy) but with known usage of the late second millennium B.C. and earlier does favor acceptance of their having had a definite historical basis."

(p. 310-312)

By the way, this quotation is slightly doctored from the version available in google books. So I am concerned with where you got the quotation. Did you transcribe it yourself, or did you copy it from someplace else on the internet ? (In which case, you need to supply a link to your source - it's the rule.)

I must say I'm a little disapointed. I found the show very interesting. I have no interest in the bible as it's intended but I'm very interested in history.

Karen Armstrong's perspective, from her "History of God":

These myths [of the old gods] were not intended to be taken literally, but were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. These dramatic and evocative stories of gods and goddesses helped people to articulate their sense of the powerful but unseen forces that surrounded them... [page 5]

The Genesis account of Abraham and his immediate descendants may indicate that there were three main waves of early Hebrew settlement in Canaan, the modern Israel. One was associated with Abraham and Hebron and took place in about 1850 BCE. A second wave of immigration was linked with Abraham's grandson Jacob, who was renamed Israel ("May God show his strength!"); he settled in Shechem, which is now the Arab town of Nablus on the West Bank. The Bible tells us that Jacob's sons, who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, emigrated to Egypt during a severe famine in Canaan. The third wave of Hebrew settlement occurred in about 1200 BCE when tribes who claimed to be descendants of Abraham arrived in Canaan from Egypt. They said that they had been enslaved by the Egyptians but had been liberated by a deity called Yahweh, who was the god of their leader, Moses. After they had forced their way into Canaan, they allied themselves with the Hebrews there and became known as the people of Israel. The Bible makes it clear that the people we know as the ancient Israelites were a confederation of various ethnic groups, bound together principally by their loyalty to Yahweh, the God of Moses. The biblical account was written down centuries later, however, in about the eighth century BCE, though it certainly drew on earlier narrative sources...

The final myth of the Exodus, as it has come down to us in the bible, is clearly not meant to be a literal version of events... There is little attempt at realism. When the Israelites recounted the story of the Exodus, they were not as interested in historical accuracy as we would be today. Instead, they wanted to bring out the significance of the original event, whatever that may have been. Some modern scholars suggest that the Exodus story is a mythical rendering of a successful peasants' revolt against the suzerainty of Egypt and its allies in Canann. This would have been an extremely rare occurrence at the time and would have made an extraordinary experience of the empowerment of the oppressed against the powerful and the mighty. [page 19]

klazmon wrote:

dionysus wrote:The most common piece of evidence people present for Exodus is the existence of chariot wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea. To which I always reply "Okay, then does the existence of tires at the bottom of Lake Michigan mean that Lake Michigan was split open by god so that some guy could escape a car chase?".

This sounds like one of the hoaxes put about by Ron Wyatt.

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/c/chariot-wheels.htm

I didn't know where that claim originated so thank you for pointing that out! That being said, even if it WAS true they'd still be no closer to verifying Exodus. After all, it's quite a leap to go from "chariot wheels in the sea" to "god split the sea open and drowned the Egyptians in it". If you think about it, finding chariot wheels in the sea (chariots being popular vehicles at the time) is no more remarkable than finding tires in Lake Michigan. So really, even if it wasn't a fraud this argument would still be a non-starter.

Onyx8 wrote:Indeed, Wyatt also claimed to have found a sample of the blood of Jesus, with only half the number of chromosomes!!!

Yeah, I'm sure if that was true it would be all over the news. After all, the news will even report on people seeing Jesus in a piece of toast so they'd be killing each other for exclusive coverage of something like this. Given that news here in the US is all about sensationalism if this finding was even remotely plausible it'd be everywhere.

GakuseiDon wrote:Karen Armstrong's perspective, from her "History of God":

These myths [of the old gods] were not intended to be taken literally, but were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way. These dramatic and evocative stories of gods and goddesses helped people to articulate their sense of the powerful but unseen forces that surrounded them... [page 5]

The Genesis account of Abraham and his immediate descendants may indicate that there were three main waves of early Hebrew settlement in Canaan, the modern Israel. One was associated with Abraham and Hebron and took place in about 1850 BCE. A second wave of immigration was linked with Abraham's grandson Jacob, who was renamed Israel ("May God show his strength!"); he settled in Shechem, which is now the Arab town of Nablus on the West Bank. The Bible tells us that Jacob's sons, who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel, emigrated to Egypt during a severe famine in Canaan. The third wave of Hebrew settlement occurred in about 1200 BCE when tribes who claimed to be descendants of Abraham arrived in Canaan from Egypt. They said that they had been enslaved by the Egyptians but had been liberated by a deity called Yahweh, who was the god of their leader, Moses. After they had forced their way into Canaan, they allied themselves with the Hebrews there and became known as the people of Israel. The Bible makes it clear that the people we know as the ancient Israelites were a confederation of various ethnic groups, bound together principally by their loyalty to Yahweh, the God of Moses. The biblical account was written down centuries later, however, in about the eighth century BCE, though it certainly drew on earlier narrative sources...

The final myth of the Exodus, as it has come down to us in the bible, is clearly not meant to be a literal version of events... There is little attempt at realism. When the Israelites recounted the story of the Exodus, they were not as interested in historical accuracy as we would be today. Instead, they wanted to bring out the significance of the original event, whatever that may have been. Some modern scholars suggest that the Exodus story is a mythical rendering of a successful peasants' revolt against the suzerainty of Egypt and its allies in Canann. This would have been an extremely rare occurrence at the time and would have made an extraordinary experience of the empowerment of the oppressed against the powerful and the mighty. [page 19]

Wonderful. True, I'm "prejudiced" - I love Karen Armstrong. I need to get this book, maybe our library has a copy or can get one on inter-library loan.

I'm puzzled though by what looks like a contradiction between the idea that the third wave (claiming descent from Abraham) arrived from Egypt - which if true, would have been the Exodus in a physical sense, presumably minus the miraculous parting of the Red Sea and the forty years surviving on manna - then the possible revolt against the Egyptians in Canaan, which if true would have been the Exodus only in a political sense with no physical journey.

Or is she suggesting that the two strands, at two separate times, were then united by the scribes in the mythic-history of the Exodus when they finally wrote it in 700 BC ? I'm confused ...

What more would Karen Armstrong know about the Exodus than people who were there?
She pushes a "history of mythology" agenda because it is easy to be an expert or an author about something as nebulous as "symbolism" and "metaphor".

Lion IRC wrote:What more would Karen Armstrong know about the Exodus than people who were there?
She pushes a "history of mythology" agenda because it is easy to be an expert or an author about something as nebulous as "symbolism" and "metaphor".

I would love to hear what the people who were there had to say. Have any of that, Lion?

Exodus 14:10 ?

Lion IRC wrote:Exodus 14:10 ?

Nope, Try again.

The bible says 600,000 adult males left the country in a hurry.
I could walk from Egypt to Israel in a couple of seconds.

The bible says the Egyptians were happy to see them go.
Here take plenty of food and money for your journey.

Ramses and Succoth arent metaphors - they are actual places.

Lion IRC wrote:Exodus 14:10 ?

Interesting. Now it would be even more interesting if you could tell us who wrote that passage and how we can know that they they wrote it.

Lion IRC wrote:The bible says 600,000 adult males left the country in a hurry.
I could walk from Egypt to Israel in a couple of seconds.

Ah, yes, that makes for a total of, what, about 3 million people, who then when on a stroll through the desert for 40 years and didn't leave any evidence?

Lion IRC wrote:The bible says the Egyptians were happy to see them go.

So why did Pharaoh chase them afterwards, then, according to the same book?

Lion IRC wrote:Ramses and Succoth arent metaphors - they are actual places.

Places that were uninhabited at the time, as mentioned here before. Try again?

Crocodile Gandhi wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:Exodus 14:10 ?

Interesting. Now it would be even more interesting if you could tell us who wrote that passage and how we can know that they they wrote it.

It's a shame Pharaoh's name isn't mentioned anywhere, too.

Lion IRC wrote:The bible says 600,000 adult males left the country in a hurry.
I could walk from Egypt to Israel in a couple of seconds.

The bible says the Egyptians were happy to see them go.
Here take plenty of food and money for your journey.

Ramses and Succoth arent metaphors - they are actual places.

The Philosopher's Stone says that hundreds of students took the Hogwarts Express from Kings Cross Station,
I could buy a ticket from that station in a couple of seconds.

The Philosopher's Stone says that the Dursleys were happy to see Harry go.
Here take your horrible magic and leave us alone.

Kings Cross and London aren't metaphors - they are actual places.

Dr. Kwaltz wrote:The History Channel of all places had a pretty good documentary on the topic were they basically broke down all parts of the story.

The conclusion basically was the exodus never happened and any possible similarity could only be traced to some persecution of the Hyksos people and not to any Israelis.

But I think the Hyksos are unlikely to the the ancestors of the Israelites, as the latter did IIRC arose from the indigenous Canaanite population about 1200 BCE.

hotshoe wrote:I'm puzzled though by what looks like a contradiction between the idea that the third wave (claiming descent from Abraham) arrived from Egypt - which if true, would have been the Exodus in a physical sense, presumably minus the miraculous parting of the Red Sea and the forty years surviving on manna - then the possible revolt against the Egyptians in Canaan, which if true would have been the Exodus only in a political sense with no physical journey.

Or is she suggesting that the two strands, at two separate times, were then united by the scribes in the mythic-history of the Exodus when they finally wrote it in 700 BC ? I'm confused ...

I think she is suggesting that there were two strands: The Canaan peasants and the Israelites. The Canaan peasants overthrew their Egyptian overlords, and then moved or expanded into territory controlled by Israelites. Their gods merged into the Yahweh of the Old Testament. So no "Exodus", in the sense of mass migration of an entire people, but slow fusion as some of them moved north.