The Exodus! Did it Really Happen?

[POI]

The Bible claims an Exodus took place. Many state it was not an actual event. Since the Bible makes a positive claim, in that an 'Exodus" took place, do we have positive evidence to support the claim?

For Debate:

1. Outside the Bible saying so, do we have evidence? If so, what?

2. If it should turn out that the Exodus did not take place, does this fact sway the Christian believer's position at all? Or, does it not matter one way or another?

[POI]

One of the reasons I don't care what you believe, is because I only care about any proof of Bible errors, not about claims of error for the purpose of not believing.

But I already gave you one demonstrated Bible error a while ago, and you hand-waved it away. Did you already forget?

I long ago understood, that it's not the miracles, spiritual kingdom, nor claims of error found in the Bible, that turns people from the God of the Bible, but it's simply the 'Thou shalt not..." And the judgment for doing it anyway...

I would first have to believe there really exists some claimed invisible cosmic agency who is actually there to judge, in order for your statement to gain any traction.

Now, getting back on topic:

1. Outside the Bible saying so, do we have evidence? If so, what?

2. If it should turn out that the Exodus did not take place, does this fact sway the Christian believer's position at all? Or, does it not matter one way or another?

[otseng]

I'm suggesting that not all available evidence is always posted upon the 'internet'. And I'm not about to go on a search to locate textbooks/books, read all of them, and hope I run across this exact topic, about "why the Hyksos were expelled rather than enslaved". Nor am I going to attend a class or seminar where the professor or speaker may or may not evidentially bring up this very specific topic.

This is quite ironic since the skeptics bash the believers for not presenting evidence, and now you as well will not present any evidence. What if believers responded similarly that evidence exists but it's not available on Google or that he's not willing to do any research on the subject?

You stated earlier:

When ChatGPT fails, we can always get whatever answer we want or desire, if we search long enough

As you're discovering, we can find any claim if you search long enough for it, but it's not easy to find evidence for any claim, even if you search long enough for it. What's important is not how many times the claim is made or who makes the claim, but the evidence and logic to support the claim. And if there's a lack of evidence produced to support a claim, then why should anyone accept that claim?

As an aside, I experienced this this past Saturday. It's been claimed the No Kings Day protesters were paid, violent rioters. So I went to the Atlanta protest at the Capitol to see it for myself. They were peaceful protestors that exercised their right for freedom of speech and protesting. They were not violating any laws and as far as I'm aware, this was the case for the over 2000 demonstrations across the US.

I'm also suggesting that 1) more obscure topics, or 2) less debatable topics, would have even less 'internet' published information on the web anyways. And it seems reasonable to apply the claim of a direct "Hyksos"/Israeli connection to both 1) and 2).

The Exodus event is not an obscure topic. I'm simply presenting one piece of evidence - the Hyksos - to support my position. Now, granted, given the unreliable testimony of Manetho and the constant revisionism of Egyptian history, it's difficult to make an accurate reconstruction of the Hyksos. But, given the picture that we can reconstruct from the evidence that we do have, it fits with the Biblical narrative.

But yes, there is still other evidence(s) to suggest the Hyksos are not the Israelites. A matter of fact, I posted two links in my last response:

(https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601)
(https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-is ... the-hyksos)

The first source confirms the Hyksos came in peacefully:

According to a paper published in the academic journal PLOS ONE last week, the Hyksos were not invaders, but rather Asiatic immigrants who settled in Egypt – specifically in the Nile Delta region – lived there for centuries and eventually managed to stage a takeover of power.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601

The only argument they present the Hyksos were not the Israelites makes no sense:

The Hyksos and their people were Canaanites who lived 500 years before the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan; therefore, they do not share the same ancestry, Goldwasser said.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601

If anything, it'd confirm the Hyksos were Israelites since it would've been around 470 years between the time the Israelites entered Egypt and when they left and started to conquer Canaan.

It also admits others believed the Hyksos were the Israelites:

The tradition of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, however, induced the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus to construct a connection between these two people.

The concept has been frozen in the Egyptian memory to the point that to this day, the average person in Egypt thinks the Hyksos were Jews and associates them with destruction and chaos.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601

He then claims, "But this is not part of real history, the archaeologist said." But his argument that he presented actually supports it, rather than rejects it.

The second link has an interesting argument based on the route the Israelites took out of Egypt. This requires a separate post to address.

But then, mass embellishment/other likely came forth with all of this as well... I just don't think 'the Exodus' is really one of those claims which holds much water at all.

Sure, embellishments can exist, but how can one discern what was actually historical or not? And as I've been arguing, we have to look at the archaeological and historical evidence and piece together a narrative that makes sense of all the data. And again, there is no viable alternative of the Hyksos that is supportable by evidence. Instead, the Biblical account makes the most sense given the evidence we currently have.

Meaning, along with the claimed super-natural parts being of serious question, so too are the mundane parts in which you are I are now discussing. And as I've also repeated prior, (no "Exodus", no Bible). Which is why you may find it absolutely imperative to link another group to the said 'Israelites.'

How can it be mundane and also be absolutely imperative? And again, I've never claimed any supernatural event yet, so what's under question?

[POI]

This is quite ironic since the skeptics bash the believers for not presenting evidence, and now you as well will not present any evidence. What if believers responded similarly that evidence exists but it's not available on Google or that he's not willing to do any research on the subject?

As I've told other interlocutor(s), it depends on the claim. I just don't think the claim regarding "the Hyksos being the Israelites" carries much weight or traction within scholarship. Meaning, it seems to be a settled topic, aside from the fringe who still argue for it. Much like the aforementioned "flat-earthers".

As you're discovering, we can find any claim if you search long enough for it, but it's not easy to find evidence for any claim, even if you search long enough for it. What's important is not how many times the claim is made or who makes the claim, but the evidence and logic to support the claim. And if there's a lack of evidence produced to support a claim, then why should anyone accept that claim?

I'm not sure anyone has bothered to publicly furnish any/all reason(s) academia has determined the Hyksos were expelled. But I doubt such a conclusion was reached merely by a) haste or b) denial of the Bible? Do you? Again, I just think this particular topic does not resonate with many, Hence, not much is posted, as most don't side with your position here anyways. This is also evidenced by the fact that this topic has been here for 2+ years, and we only encounter the other position, via 'we have no evidence for this very large claim'.

The Exodus event is not an obscure topic.

No, it's not at all. It's a huge one. But to claim "the Hyksos are the Israelites" seems to be, 1) as practically no one has ever heard of it, 2) scholarship does not give it it's due, and 3) no one here is coming to your rescue.

I'm simply presenting one piece of evidence - the Hyksos - to support my position. Now, granted, given the unreliable testimony of Manetho and the constant revisionism of Egyptian history, it's difficult to make an accurate reconstruction of the Hyksos. But, given the picture that we can reconstruct from the evidence that we do have, it fits with the Biblical narrative.

I disagree. If we have no true starting point, then it is instead wishful thinking to link the 2 groups without just cause in doing so.

The first source confirms the Hyksos came in peacefully

If they came in peacefully, then it would make more sense to kick them out, or expel them, rather than enslaving them after their power was taken away.

The only argument they present the Hyksos were not the Israelites makes no sense

I beg to differ:

"The authors from Bournemouth University and Durham University in the United Kingdom and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna reached this conclusion by analyzing the remains of 75 individuals buried in Tell el-Dab’a, the Hyksos’ capital. Investigating the strontium isotope ratios of tooth enamel allowed them to differentiate between those who spent their childhood in the northeastern Nile Delta and those who grew up somewhere else and then moved to the region.

The study marks the first time that archaeological chemistry was used to investigate the issue of the Hyksos’ origin.
“Canaanite groups and individuals kept immigrating to Egypt for thousands of years,” Orly Goldwasser, head of the Department of Egyptology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post. “Egypt was the United States of the antiquity, full of water and rich, while Canaan was much poorer and drier. The Hyksos’ and the Israelites’ stories belong to this same pattern.

As far as the Hyksos are concerned, it is known that around 1750 or 1700 BCE, the central royal government in Egypt was very weak, and groups of Canaanites that had been infiltrating the country and settling in the north became stronger and were able to seize power, she said.

The Egyptians resented foreign rule, and around 1530 BCE they managed to expel them. This experience left a deep mark in Egyptian culture, causing the Hyksos to receive a very bad reputation.

Long after the Hyksos’ domination ended, people from Canaan continued to reach Egypt, and among them may have been the Proto-Israelites. Some archaeologists think the story of the sojourn in Egypt was invented much later to create a unified historical framework for the Israelites. Others look at different elements described in the Bible, such as the names and the geographical description of places, and are of the opinion that there is a core of truth behind it, even though the text is not to be taken literally, Goldwasser told the Post.

What is described fits a dynamic that is not unusual in the history of Egypt: A group of people from Canaan moved there, one of them became a leader and later fell from power, the group was recruited for massive public construction works and later ran away. Even though the earliest written sources about the Hyksos known today were produced at a much later time, decades of excavations at Tell el-Dab’a have offered ample proof and insights into their life, leaving no doubt that the city was a Canaanite center, with burials and temples devoted to its gods, especially to Ba’al.

One of the rulers is even mentioned in a later Egyptian text as committing the sin of only worshiping Ba’al instead of a plurality of gods, in a de facto monotheism. In the 14th century BCE, the idea of an individual god was adopted by an Egyptian king, which was later shunned and considered a heretic.

Rather than reading these parallels between the Hyksos and the Israelites as a sign that they might have indeed been the same people, they should be analyzed as a phenomenon of different fragments of memories conflating in the narrative of the ancient Egyptians and from there in the following millennia, Goldwasser said.

The paper published in PLOS ONE has not brought new information, but rather confirmed what was already known about the Canaanite identity of the Hyksos and that it would have been beneficial to analyze more individuals, she said."

Sure, embellishments can exist, but how can one discern what was actually historical or not?

1) Is the source bias/slanted, like FOX, MSNBC, CNN, NewsMax, etc? If so, then it's very likely full of embellishment/other. I place the Bible in the exact same category.

2) Does the source(s) also speak of supernatural phenomenon? If so, then it is again much more questionable, or prone to embellishment.

the Biblical account makes the most sense given the evidence we currently have.

If you freely admit what you admitted above. then we are back to square one, with no real starting point.

How can it be mundane and also be absolutely imperative?

All naturalistic claims are mundane, like enslavement, roaming the desert, etc etc etc

All supernatural claims are not mundane, like a river of blood, the red sea parting, etc etc etc.

It's imperative that you find a way to link another tribe. Otherwise, you are with all the other believers in this thread.

And again, I've never claimed any supernatural event yet, so what's under question?

I know. It's just that you have to take it with (all or nothing). And the Bible makes many supernatural claims too.

[Clownboat]

Faith is necessary to believe the Author of the Bible is who He says He is.

Faith is also necessary if you want to believe that something false is actually true.
If you want to believe in Big Foot, this would take faith.
Same for Nessie.
Alien abductions.
Fairies.
Allah.

I acknowledge that faith is in fact necessary to believe that someone knows the author of the Bible, a book that had many authors.

Simple reason is all that's needed to acknowledge He can be believed, since His Book is unerring.

I acknowledge that you think this book doesn't have any errors.

Blind faith and blind disbelief are only for those who don't care whether the Book is erring or unerring.

I fear I am now dumber having read this. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

[Clownboat]

I don't dodge arguments from people arguing about a Book, that they don't believe nor care what the Book says. I only show they are arguing about a book, that they don't allow to speak for itself.

This is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

The dodging part is on people talking about a book, that they don't believe nor care what it says of itself, and also think they are making an argument from the book.

Talking about a book that a person doesn't believe in nor car about is in fact not dodging.

How can anyone be arguing about Plato's Republic, when they don't believe nor care what Plato says, but only what others say about his Republic, who also don't care to argue from what it says?

Easy! Begin with an argument about Plato's Republic, but this is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

Anyway, the Bible says Moses wrote the book of Moses, as well as prophecying of the coming Messiah in two other books.

We know you are a human that has accepted one of many available religious beliefs. This is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

The author of a book is not the authority of his own book??

They are not an authority and you know it.
The proof is:
I could write a book about delusional Christian beliefs. Am I now some sort of an authority on delusional Christian beliefs in your world? Yes or no?

What authority about a book is there, than the author's own words?

Zero, unless we are talking about a law book I suppose. Why do you ask?
au·thor·i·ty
/əˈTHôrədē/
noun
1.
the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.

See again my book on delusional Christian beliefs. Since I'm the author, do you actually think I have the right to give orders about such things?

Who is that authority on the book, that is greater than the author himself?

That would depend on the book. A biography would be different then a law book, but either way, this is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

What some reader has to say about the author's words, is more authoritative than the author's own words?

Yes, this is very possible.

<snipped some of your faith based beliefs you hold about the Bible for not being interesting, nor worthy of debate>

Whether anyone accepts the Bible's authority for themselves, is irrelevant to whether it can be accepted as authoritatively true by inerrancy.

This is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

I'm only interested in anything proven internally errant or factually untrue. I don't care whether someone wants to believe and accept it as true.

This is not interesting, nor is it worthy debating. Do you think we will ever find evidence for the Exodus story as told in the Bible?

The Bible is the authority of what the Bible says.

The Bible is actually religious promotional material and hasn't been shown to be any actual authority any more so than the Quran has. I personally don't see religious promotional material as being any sort of authority and neither do you. Except for when it comes to the Bible, which isn't interesting nor worthy of debate if you ask me.

So long as there's no evidence proving the record untrue, then it doesn't matter. I can still believe it.

You can believe whatever you want to believe. I acknowledge this, find it very uninteresting and don't wish to debate what you can or cannot believe.

The track record however is 1 for the Bible. Many didn't believe it's record of the Assyrian empire, until the evidence was found. Some then believed, and some then just moved on to something else to find fault with. But those who believed before the evidence was unearthed, didn't need it to be, and simply continued on believing.

Do I have your understanding correct here?:
Because a claim about the Assyrian empire was shown to be correct, all the claims made in the Bible are true and an authority?

<Snipped more talk about your personal faith. It is not interesting, nor is it worthy of debate and it is certainly not on topic here>

However, I can make the case from the Bible itself, that all such evidence will come to light in the day of the Lord, when He comes to set all things straight:

I offer you a gentle pat on the head. Be well!

[Clownboat]

Am I wrong to doubt the exodus story as told in the Bible?

Yes.

Your reasoning is not compelling and is against the rules of this forum.
You will know them by their fruit.

Seriously? Talk about a rock-bottom desperation.

An honest yes/no answer to a yes/no question is not 'compelling'. It proves nothing is compelling to someone that's not interested in being compelled.

And then a set-up question used for manipulate the rules against making accusations against people.

This one example alone, proves the dishonest pretense of scholarly debate.

Your emotional response is acknowledged.
Your reply, which was 'Yes' and only "Yes' is in reality not compelling. In place of addressing this, you went off on an emotional rant. I trust you now feel better getting this off of your chest, but having an emotional reaction in place of a compelling argument should be avoided in debate.

That your reply was against the rules is also a reality. That I didn't report you is also a reality, therefore your emotional rant about having a set-up questions is just plain silly.

'Yes' alone is not compelling. You can accept this or let your emotions get the best of you. The choice is yours.

[Clownboat]

Dear Freeman. You need to THINK about it. Such as who you are dealing with: Someone who thinks a yes/no response to a yes/no question, is not 'compelling'.

An ad hominem fallacy is a logical fallacy where someone attacks the person making an argument instead of addressing the argument itself. This type of attack is irrelevant to the validity of the argument and is used to discredit the person's viewpoint, often by focusing on their character or circumstances.

Readers, is 'yes' compelling?
com·pel·ling
/kəmˈpeliNG/
adjective
evoking interest, attention, or admiration in a powerfully irresistible way.

However, keep up the good work for objective observers. Just don't expect anything from the 'uncompellable'. Afterall, who else would try to disprove facts about a dry desert, by going to wetlands for evidence against it...

I don't care where you have to go in order to find evidence that millions wandered the Sinai as told in the Bible. Do you think we will ever find evidence for this event as it was told? I have asked you this question many times now.

When you struggle to answer this question, I would recommend you slander me instead as it is par for the course from you sadly.

[otseng]

As I've told other interlocutor(s), it depends on the claim. I just don't think the claim regarding "the Hyksos being the Israelites" carries much weight or traction within scholarship. Meaning, it seems to be a settled topic, aside from the fringe who still argue for it. Much like the aforementioned "flat-earthers".

You're just repeating the argument from authority fallacy, the ad populum fallacy, and red herring fallacy.

As you're discovering, we can find any claim if you search long enough for it, but it's not easy to find evidence for any claim, even if you search long enough for it. What's important is not how many times the claim is made or who makes the claim, but the evidence and logic to support the claim. And if there's a lack of evidence produced to support a claim, then why should anyone accept that claim?

I'm not sure anyone has bothered to publicly furnish any/all reason(s) academia has determined the Hyksos were expelled. But I doubt such a conclusion was reached merely by a) haste or b) denial of the Bible? Do you?

Who knows? But it's interesting they base it on such a dearth of evidence.

But to claim "the Hyksos are the Israelites" seems to be, 1) as practically no one has ever heard of it, 2) scholarship does not give it it's due, and 3) no one here is coming to your rescue.

None of those add any weight to your arguments. Rather, they point to the fact that you have no further evidence to present.

I disagree. If we have no true starting point, then it is instead wishful thinking to link the 2 groups without just cause in doing so.

What starting point are you referring to?

If they came in peacefully, then it would make more sense to kick them out, or expel them, rather than enslaving them after their power was taken away.

How so?

The only argument they present the Hyksos were not the Israelites makes no sense

I beg to differ:

"The authors from Bournemouth University and Durham University in the United Kingdom and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna reached this conclusion by analyzing the remains of 75 individuals buried in Tell el-Dab’a, the Hyksos’ capital. Investigating the strontium isotope ratios of tooth enamel allowed them to differentiate between those who spent their childhood in the northeastern Nile Delta and those who grew up somewhere else and then moved to the region.

(rest cut out)

Instead of just copying the entire article as a response, please address my arguments:

The only argument they present the Hyksos were not the Israelites makes no sense:

The Hyksos and their people were Canaanites who lived 500 years before the arrival of the Israelites in Canaan; therefore, they do not share the same ancestry, Goldwasser said.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601

If anything, it'd confirm the Hyksos were Israelites since it would've been around 470 years between the time the Israelites entered Egypt and when they left and started to conquer Canaan.

It also admits others believed the Hyksos were the Israelites:

The tradition of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, however, induced the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus to construct a connection between these two people.

The concept has been frozen in the Egyptian memory to the point that to this day, the average person in Egypt thinks the Hyksos were Jews and associates them with destruction and chaos.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/enigm ... say-635601

He then claims, "But this is not part of real history, the archaeologist said." But his argument that he presented actually supports it, rather than rejects it.

Sure, embellishments can exist, but how can one discern what was actually historical or not?

1) Is the source bias/slanted, like FOX, MSNBC, CNN, NewsMax, etc? If so, then it's very likely full of embellishment/other. I place the Bible in the exact same category.

2) Does the source(s) also speak of supernatural phenomenon? If so, then it is again much more questionable, or prone to embellishment.

You didn't answer my question. But you did give a clue about your bias.

[otseng]

Addressing the second article you posted ...

But yes, there is still other evidence(s) to suggest the Hyksos are not the Israelites.
https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-is ... the-hyksos

The Israelites Are Not the Hyksos!
The hidden polemic in the Torah’s note that “Israel did not escape by way of the Philistine coastal route”
https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-is ... the-hyksos

The article gives a convoluted argument, but the main crux of his argument is about the route the Israelites and the Hyksos took when they left Egypt.

"This brings us back to square one: Why would E even mention the possibility of travelling up the coast when the entire storyline is aimed at taking Israel into the wilderness to the Mountain of God?"

In the above, E is referring to Elohist in the documentary hypothesis. So, one of the author's basic assumption is the documentary hypothesis is true.

However, the field has become so fragmented that DH has been abandoned by scholars.

Bart Ehrman states:

It is impossible to speak about a single scholarly opinion about the Documentary Hypothesis today. Some scholars reject the idea that J and E were separate sources; some think that there were far more sources than the four; some propose radically different dates for the various sources (for example, one increasingly popular proposal is that the earliest sources were written in the 7th century; other scholars maintain that none of the sources was produced before the Babylonian exile in the 6th century). A number of scholars have produced mind-numbingly complicated proposals that try to take better into account all of the nuances of the data.

https://ehrmanblog.org/modern-views-of- ... entateuch/

It has been replaced by "fragmentary" and "supplementary" models and DH no longer holds.

The consensus around the classical documentary hypothesis has now collapsed.[5] This was triggered in large part by the influential publications of John Van Seters, Hans Heinrich Schmid, and Rolf Rendtorff in the mid-1970s,[7] who argued that J was to be dated no earlier than the time of the Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE),[8] and rejected the existence of a substantial E source.[9] They also called into question the nature and extent of the three other sources. Van Seters, Schmid, and Rendtorff shared many of the same criticisms of the documentary hypothesis, but were not in complete agreement about what paradigm ought to replace it.[7] As a result, there has been a revival of interest in "fragmentary" and "supplementary" models, frequently in combination with each other and with a documentary model, making it difficult to classify contemporary theories as strictly one or another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

So, the author's basic assumption that DH is true is outdated and not held by modern scholars.

Key passages in his argument:

Exodus 3:12
And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this [shall be] a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

Exodus 13:17
And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not [through] the way of the land of the Philistines, although that [was] near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:

What is the mountain referred to in Exodus 3:12? Mount Horeb.

Exodus 3:1
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, [even] to Horeb.

There's no consensus on where Mt Horeb is actually at.

"Scholars have come up with twenty-three different suggestions for the location of Mount Sinai/Horeb/Mountain of God."

But a clue is in Exodus 4:19:
And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life.

Midian is located east of the Gulf of Aqaba in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was in the "northwest Arabian Peninsula, on the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midian

So, going from Egypt to Mt Horeb would require going on the King's Highway (the red road below).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_ ... _(ancient)

The author claims the Hyksos went along the Via Maris (purple road) along the coast. He bases this on the attack on Sharahen.

"According to Ahmose Son of Abana's autobiography, the final stage of the battle against the Hyksos was when the Egyptian army besieged the city of Sharuhen for three years."

Here's the text:

Then Avaris was despoiled, and
I brought spoil from there: one man, three
women; total, four persons. His majesty gave
them to me as slaves.

Then Sharahen was besieged for three years.
His majesty despoiled it and I brought spoil
from it: two women and a hand. Then the gold
of valor was given me, and my captives were
given to me as slaves.

https://www.sjsu.edu/people/d.mesher/hu ... eading.pdf

There's the assumption the Hyksos were expelled after these attacks. But the text doesn't mention that. Rather, it only mentions taking slaves, not expelling them. So the attack on Sharahen being a sequence of expelling the Hyksos towards Canaan is only an assumption.

Interestingly, the author also states:
"Many modern scholars believe that Manetho is preserving an authentic, ancient tradition, and thus identify the Israelites with the Asiatic rulers of Egypt, the Hyksos."

It sounds like it says the Israelites were the Hyksos.

"If this were so, then the Israelite claim that they were enslaved in Egypt and the Egyptian claim that they were conquered by the Israelites contradict and are in direct tension with each other."

There's no conflict. Both happened.

[POI]

You're just repeating the argument from authority fallacy, the ad populum fallacy, and red herring fallacy.

Nah, instead, you are placing rubberstamps upon my basic observations to avoid just that, which is obvious basic observations.

Who knows? But it's interesting they base it on such a dearth of evidence.

You don't have a position here? Do you think academia is basing a conclusion upon a) haste, and/or b) to spite the Biblical account?

Further, maybe the given fringe position regarding "the Hyksos being the Israelites" is the actual dearth in and of itself?

None of those add any weight to your arguments. Rather, they point to the fact that you have no further evidence to present.

Sure they add weight. You just don't like it. See above, about the actual expressed dearth in question.

What starting point are you referring to?

If we know not of who the "Hyksos" really were, then how might one know how to link them accordingly?

Instead of just copying the entire article as a response, please address my arguments:

It's good to place the author's complete context, so others reading along can make up their own minds. The title of the article states the Hyksos are not the Israelites, and gives reasoning. We cannot draw a two-way dialogue with the authors to ask them what they really mean. As I stated prior, information pertaining to this specific topic is limited, and lacks any real depth. Maybe there is a reason for this? And I've already stated what this reason may be. Which is no one really takes this very specific claim too seriously. This would include all of the interlocutors following along here in this thread, which includes believers.

Or, I can also just as easily label your given responses as 'ad hoc', or other, as well. Maybe like when I addressed the pottery claim, with a bunch of contextual rationale, you just left it alone and then later labelled it.

You didn't answer my question. But you did give a clue about your bias.

If applying the basic historical method is being bias, then I guess you can call me "bias." (i.e.):

Meaning, is there a high probability that a) the source is politically/religiously motivated? And that b) the source expresses supernatural events to boot? And the source we are referring to is the Bible.