Posted: May 08, 2016 2:32 pm
Zwaarddijk wrote:Agrippina wrote:
4) The Egyptians circumcised. If any of the Jewish people lived in Egypt, they would have been familiar with circumcision, Moses' supposed circumcision as an adult is nonsense.
I've never seen references to Egyptian circumcision being practiced throughout all classes. Granted, I have not read all that much on Egypt, but every reference I've seen has dealt with it being exclusively the practice of the priestly classes. OTOH, and here's an important caveat, I don't keep mental track of different Egyptian eras either, so my recollection may pertain to the wrong era. Care to provide sources?
Herodotus.
Agrippina wrote:As a jew he would've been circumcised before his mother put him in a basket as in the story of how Sargon the Great was floated in a basket. A story the Jews got from their exile in Babylon.
This is a great detail, that really should make us suspicious of the whole Moses narrative.
Yes.
Agrippina wrote:5) The 10 plagues are improbable. How did the animals reanimate after they were killed in every plague. Also read the plagues critically: Moses supposedly struck every drinking vessel with his stick to cause the water to turn into blood. So how did he do this? Did he walk from house to house, and stream to stream, and well to well, to strike them, has anyone with believes this actually looked at the size of Egypt?
With regards to Moses striking 'every drinking vessel', you're really coming up with stuff out of thin air. Sure, this miracle didn't occur, but the text doesn't really say what you want it to say, unless you rely on some idea that Hebrew "al-" signifies physical touch. I am inclined to think that "-עַֽל" signifies some ritualistic/magic sense there - simply put, it means Moses was meant to perform a thing that has its effect on all of them, not that he was supposed to touch all of them.
Exodus 7:19 19Then the LORD said to Moses, "Say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their reservoirs of water, that they may become blood; and there will be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.'"
Sounds to me like, take your stick and beat every vessel in Egypt.
Other than that minor detail, you've got some very solid arguments there - you don't need to inflate your good arguments with ones that rely on a flawed understanding of what the text says.
Not flawed. If the text says "put your stick over every container of water" then it means "take a hike through Egypt and touch every vessel of water". Of course I'm being a little ridiculous, but then the claim is ridiculous. How did Moses know if someone had a cup of water on a table in an obscure house on the fringes of society. The whole thing is ridiculous, and anyone who believes that Moses just struck the water of the Nile, and every single cup and teaspoon of water in Egypt turned to blood is being ridiculous.