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?

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

It doesn't matter to me if the story is a story of it is history or a mix of the two. Either way, I learn the same lessons for the story.

As far as evidence, there is this view - https://archive.org/details/patterns-of-evidence-exodus

That's just an advert; tells us nothing. The only point you make(poor though it is) is the one about 'lessons'.This fails on three counts:

(1) we can learn lessons from Star trek, Lord of the rings and Peanuts. I do and I have; YET...we do not swallow them just because they are in the Book (film or comic strip) but they make us think, question and reason. Is that what you do? Or just wag them about as a pretext to keep crediting a book you know is false: Not the OT, as you said in a recent post.

(b) I forgot. But that was probably it. You use human ethical reasoning to spuriously credit your Holy Book. Hoo boy. You may fool yourself but you are not going to fool us, as we know the trick already.

(3) if this is the result of your conversion to Catholicism, the sooner you deconvert, the better. It has messed your powers of reasoning up, big time.

P.s 'Peanuts?' Really? Apart from the analogy of the Great Pumpkin, there are some great questions and points. "And I still have the same faults" is a great analogy of why the crucifixion appears to have changed nothing. The get out is a snake oil promise. (2) "Why does it ALWAYS rain when I want to go out??" Classic count the hits and ignore the misses. I find far more of use in Charles Schultz than I ever did in the Bible.

(2) worse than buying snake oil - it is only going to work if you join the Book Club, too.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #1]

It doesn't matter to me if the story is a story of it is history or a mix of the two. Either way, I learn the same lessons from the story.

Here's a question to ponder.... And maybe you can ask God himself, since you claim to have a direct relationship with him. Ask him if the intent of the Exodus account, as told in the Bible, was meant to be a literal event, or, just an allegorical story for teaching/learning purposes alone? Let me know what God says?

Further, I always find these answers convenient. I usually get similar answers from 'enlightened' Chrsitians who are aware of the vast improbability of the said event(s). But too, also hold to your same assertion, that Jesus rose from a grave anyways --> because you know this particular claim cannot be falsified

I'll also explain to you, what I have explained to others.... The Exodus account is a rather large claim. If we have little/no evidence to support the claim, that millions of specific people lived in a particular region, at a particular time, for 100's of years, were also enslaved, and further, little/no evidence that ~2 million of them travels from point A to point B, then it does seem quite logical to discard the event as a plausible fiction. ---> Just like you have done, in a round-about way, in your response above, by stating you do not care if its literal or not....

As far as evidence, there is this view - https://archive.org/details/patterns-of-evidence-exodus

What am I supposed to do with this 2 1/2 hour video? I'm not going to do your homework for you. List the points for debate. I'll start with my position, for clarity.

Anyone can furnish a claim. If the claim is large, like THIS ONE, we would look for evidence to affirm the claim. We might expect a fair amount of evidence to substantiate the claim. When we do not have this, it's logical to doubt the claim.

Okay, your turn.

[TRANSPONDER]

I gave it a whirl but really the towering bias evident from the start (not least the well worn 'I used to be a skeptic...like you...but the evidence convinced me..." and we have seen the fiddled 'evidence'already) was a bit much. Yes, let our pal A4G pick out the selling -points and list them.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to 1213 in post #14

But, if Exodus is not true, where do you think Jews came from?

I believe the general scholarly consensus is that the original "Israelites" were Canaanites who rose up and conquered Canaan from within.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to 1213 in post #14

But, if Exodus is not true, where do you think Jews came from?

I believe the general scholarly consensus is that the original "Israelites" were Canaanites who rose up and conquered Canaan from within.

You mean the Hyksos? Although claimed as invaders they were more like peaceful immigrants to the delta, traded, became wealthy, got into politics...next thing you have a Canaanite dynasty in the delta going to war with the Egyptians (1).The Theban (17th dynasty) made war and pushed them out to Canaan, and we will probably agree this could have been the basis for the Exodus story, we might concur it was written in Babylon during the exile because it has so much Babylonian material. As does Genesis. You might even like my idea that the Moses who led the Jews out of Egypt was in fact Ahmose I who kicked the Hyksos out.

But were these Israelites rather than Canaanites? The script is Canaanite and if Hebrew used it later...it doesn't make it Hebrew. The names are Caananite like Pharaoh Yusuf, and that was one of the names used by later Hebrews, but does that make the Hyksos the Hebrews? The story doesn't fit at all. The later history (see Amarna letters) shows Canaanite city states ruled by Egypt but not a scrap of evidence for israel or Hebrews. The problem is 'sufficient evidence'. Which means that if the Exodus can be fitted to the history, if you don't look too closely or ask too many questions. But if one does lookthen even a scap ofpapyrus with some semitic nmaeds on does make an Exodis or enslaved Israelite nation. Wishful Biblical thinking does.

The idea of an Exodus or Conquest really doesn't fit into Egyptian history - ever. Whether it was Egypt, the Hittitites or Mittanni that governed Canaan, Israel would never have has a free hand to do a conquest. Until, that is, the Bronze age collapse when All authority was wiped out and that was when Israel came onto the stage. But from the Northeast hills, it seems and in no credible way from Egypt by way of Sinai. There isn't in fact EVER 'sufficient evidence' for the Exodus.

(1) I love how the Hyksos King started a war with the native Dynasty on the worst pretext since the White Elephant war The roaring of the Hippos in the Nile was keeping the Hyksos king awake and if the Theban Pharaoh didn't keep them quiet he'd have to come south and do something about about it.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to POI in post #22]

It matters not to me what you do with the video. I am only responding for the sake of those that stumble upon these threads, so they know there are alternative views, and they might go watch it.

[POI]

[Replying to POI in post #22]

It matters not to me what you do with the video. I am only responding for the sake of those that stumble upon these threads, so they know there are alternative views, and they might go watch it.

In your honor

viewtopic.php?t=40714

[Miles]

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?

I recommend people to read Dr. Lennart Möller's The Exodus Case, I think it shows nicely evidence for the Exodus.

AND

Möller's book shows nicely connections between Imhotep and Joseph, and Moses and Senmut.

A professor of environmental medicine chimes in on the supposed Exodus. How impressive. Like, who cares? Give me a hotel manager/criminal like Erich von Däniken to ferret out the real truth.

Lennart Möller (24 September 1954 – 19 November 2021) was a professor of environmental medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received a doctorate in Medical sciences from the Karolinska Institute in 1988, with a thesis "2-nitrofluorene, in vivo metabolism and assessment of cancer risk of an air pollutant."

Möller was the author of The Exodus Case, a 448-page book based on findings of [someone else] Ron Wyatt published in 2002 and revised and expanded in 2008. The book expounds Möller's theory about the route of the biblical Exodus from Egypt, in particular that a mountain called Jabal al-Lawz in Saudi Arabia is the biblical Mount Sinai.
A review by Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist stated that "Möller emphasizes that he is neither a theologian, a historian nor an archaeologist" and concludes with, "The Exodus Case is such an extreme example of pseudo-science that any reasonably well-informed reader will wonder if Möller is joking.

A review on the Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen (Word and Knowledge Study Community) website, whose members take a literal approach to the Bible, stated that it contained such "serious substantive and methodological errors" that it could not be recommended while agreeing that the Exodus took place. Peter van der Veen and Uwe Zerbst specifically criticized his identification of Jabal al-Lawz with Mount Sinai and a number of the geographical locations he thought to be part of the Exodus route.
surce

Comment and emphasis my own.

.

[TRANSPONDER]

Thank you. While our Pal A4G didn't appeal to his doctorate, but just recommended the book, it is always worth keeping in mind that a qualified doctor or professor when talking on a subject outside of his or her field of expertise is just another layman. It does not impress that with all of archaeology to call on, he prefers to follow the pseudo archaeology of Wyatt. I don't think his case for the Moses Sinai site (in Saudi Arabia, no less) stands up too well, with the photo of the supposed Calf Altar deliberately cropped to pick out the Bull -carving as though it was the only one on the heap of rocks. and that claim of an inscribed pillar on the Saudi side is very dubious. Not only misinterpretation of features, but I suspect deliberate fabrication.

The evidence isn't as hard against the Exodus, not like against Genesis (which doesn't stop the Believers dismissing the evidence) but it all adds to the pile of doubt; the Merneptah stele putting the Israelites in Canaan before Ramesses III settled the Philistines in Gaza, after which the exodus supposedly avoided them, going into Sinai instead. The similarity of Moses in the Bulrushes to the story of Sargon, suggesting Babylonian borrowing. The lack of any real support for enslavery of Israelites on the scale proposed by Exodus (archaeology on the workforce of any construction -site suggests a different system, and mainly all during that period when various dates for the Exodus are proposed, Egypt had control of Canaan and the Israelites would hot have had a free hand. The possible exceptions are during the Armarna period where the rulers of Canaan appealed to Pharaoh to protect them against attack (by the 'habiru', I note) but got no help, and the political and cultural vacuum after the devastation by the Sea peoples, which is when Israel did 'conquer' Canaan, but not on all the evidence from a roundabout route through Sinai, but from the hills in the Northeast,where they had long lived, it seems, herding their goats until the markets they used to sell their goat hair or whatever vanished and they moved in themselves. I recall a Bible passage about herding was the only fit life for a Hebrew, not farming. It suggested to me that they never forgot their herdsman origins and also were at pains to keep themselves separate,which is why the invented rules (The Law) to prevent them becoming like their neighbours, a fault that the Northern Kingdom fall into much to the disgust of the Judean prophets. Being too tolerant of Foreign ways was also disapproved on by the OT.

[1213]

....
A review on the Studiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen (Word and Knowledge Study Community) website, whose members take a literal approach to the Bible, stated that it contained such "serious substantive and methodological errors" that it could not be recommended while agreeing that the Exodus took place. Peter van der Veen and Uwe Zerbst specifically criticized his identification of Jabal al-Lawz with Mount Sinai and a number of the geographical locations he thought to be part of the Exodus route.
surce[/indent]

For me, the one with best arguments and evidence wins, that I why I think Möller is more convincing than them who try to discredit him. I think the evidence shown in the book is good, no matter who says it.