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?

[RBD]

You're not arguing about anything except just making claims and false comparisons. I'm asking for a definition of the Hyksos, which the only response from you has been just claiming they were not the Israelites and comparing it to a flat earth.

My claim is that I see no evidence to support the Bible's claim of an "Exodus". And so far, I have seen no correspondence to suggest there is evidence to support this very large claim.

Now here is what delusion by blind disbelief is all about. Not only is the evidence of Exodus given by the eyewitness Moses, not evidence, but his recorded writing itself isn't even rated as correspondence.

While some can be excused for ignorance about rules of evidence, where an eyewitness testimony is accepted as direct evidence, no one can be excused for not understanding, that a written account is correspondence. A person doesn't even have to know how to read and write, to know that written correspondence is something that's written.

Talk about blind belief or disbelief denying reality...

[RBD]

Marke: I find your attempt at reasoning self-defeating because the logical conclusion that must be drawn from your argument is that no records of any kind can be trusted or else we must trust Mormon records as well.

From what I understand, you are correct. The reason being that some people do not accept historical records as historical evidence, unless it is a physical object. Therefore, only the object written on is historical, and is evidence of something historical. But what is inscribed is not evidence of anything historical, unless some other object can be seen or touched to prove it.

Therefore, neither the Bible, epic of Gilgamesh, code of Hammurabi, book of Mormon, Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, or merchandize record is 'evidence' of anything....Such as a merchant's account of selling 100 sheep, can't be evidence of such a sale, unless those sheep can be found, and counted...

[RBD]

What sort of 'proof' do you need before believing historical records of Jews and Egyptians?

Good question. I honestly do not know.

Very telling:

Luk 16:31And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

[RBD]

- We have tons of evidence, from the exact same era, of the Egyptians, all over the place.

Which is the point. From bones alone, no one can tell if they are Egyptian or Hebrew in Egypt. Neither can their dwellings necessarily make a difference, since the Hebrews were productive accepted occupants of Egypt for hundreds of years.

It's can example of someone looking for all evidence to only apply in one predetermined direction, not in the possible directions they lead.

- We have many records of the Egyptians trying to erase evidence from other people, in which they were embarrassed of.

Non sequitur. How is there evidence for erased evidence, unless it is incompetently done? Exactly what is this evidence of incompletely erased evidence?

The only expected evidence about Exodus, that ought be found, is any record of the Egyptian king contradicting a lie of Exodus , that was promoted and written by the Hebrews. He would have more political and social incentive to expose such a lie, than the disbelieving bystanders who only wish it were a lie...

[RBD]

I would like to go on record here, for anyone who is not aware of my position. I claim some of the Bible tells the truth, some is fabricated, some is parable, some is other. But in this case, I raised this topic because common Christian consensus suggests this is one storyline which is required to be factually true. And it would appear not to be.

This is the problem with people who only argue from personal belief or unbelief: It's not about the evidence at hand, but only about what they want to think about it. That's why they continue to argue about who believes or doesn't believe, and not about what the evidence says.

Perhaps they don't want to realize that what they believe or disbelieve about things, is irrelevant. (Except of course to themselves...)

I have nothing to do with Christian consensus, nor do I require anything of the recorded facts in the Bible, other than not to be contradicted by other indisputable facts.

That's why I only argue about rules of evidence, and what facts are available to judge the evidence as true or not.

[RBD]

[Replying to otseng in post #462]

The problem that I find is, we have those on this site who freely admit to being a convinced Christian well into adulthood, who freely admit they did not engage the mind in order to be convinced that a man rose from the grave, who freely accepted the story of the Exodus without question along with any other claims contained in the Bible. Then, through certain chains of events, these folks come to realize that they did not engage the mind, and they also come to realize that the overwhelming majority of Christians do not engage the mind and do not really know what it is they believe, nor why they believe it, and it is this which causes these folks to change the mind concerning Christianity. Notice, I did not say, "the thinking process has changed" but rather it was a change of mind.

Now that the mind has changed, these folks seem to be just as convinced Christianity must and has to be false, as they were when they were convinced Christianity to be true. Moreover, most of these folks will insist there is no evidence whatsoever in support of what they were once so convinced of, and when one supplies such evidence, they usually do not engage the evidence but simply insist that the evidence which has been supplied is not really evidence in their eyes.

And there are those raised as Christians, who do not become Christians themselves, until by their own conversion to Christ. (The same can be said of any religion.) Whether it's conversion to or from something, conversion itself does not prove anything other than someone now believes or disbelieves...

Jesus Himself says it's better to firmly believe or not believe something for oneself, than to be an unmoored boat at sea:

Eph 4:14That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Rev{3:16} So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

The bottom line is, there is indeed evidence there was an exodus out of Egypt whether it was the Israelites, or the Hyksos. That is a fact. There is evidence and reasons to believe the Hyksos may have been the Israelites. There is also evidence, and reasons to believe the Hyksos were not the Israelites, and this is why we have the debates which is to discuss the evidence we have on both sides.

The reason there are debates on both sides, is because one or both sides isn't arguing from the Exodus record. Nowhere in Exodus nor the Bible, does the Author even equate the children of Israel with 'Hyksos' people, nor of ever ruling in Egypt, other than Joseph, and certainly never as oppressors... Therefore, any attempt to relate those Hyksos to the children of Israel is false.

You see, when one is intellectually honest, they are able to acknowledge the evidence from the opposing side, while those who are not intellectually honest refuse to concede there is any evidence or reason involved whatsoever on the side of those opposed to them.

The problem is when the argument moves from one thing to something different, which can be the way of undisciplined debate. Someone who sticks to the issue at hand, is not the 'discourteous' one, that sees no more reason to continue a debate that has lost track.

When you go on to point out the fact that we have enough evidence to convince even the critical scholars that the early followers of Jesus (including the apostles) were truly convinced they had witnessed Jesus alive after death, which means these followers were not making the reports up, these folks refuse to accept this as evidence of anything at all, when the fact is, this is the sort of evidence which demands some sort of explanation.

Which is the simple point for judicial and historical evidence: Eyewitness testimony.
To deny such evidence exists, is to deny the testimony given and preserved, which is pointless.

Therefore, as with all recorded testimonies and documents, the evidence given must either be believed, doubted, or disbelieved.

To doubt without other supportive physical evidence, is skepticism. However, without any contrary evidence, to say the testimony is untrue, is to accuse the witness of either being decieved or lying or both.

The point is it seems to be a waste of time to discuss with another when we cannot even agree as to what would constitute evidence.

True. The simple facts of a matter, such as rules of evidence, can only be offered once or twice, before the effort itself becomes foolishly pointless. We can try to correct, but we cannot make anyone who wants to believe B is not A, when A is B...

[RBD]

And so, the question is simple: where did their new livestock come from? Or, can it only be imagined that the old dead livestock had to live again to be killed again, or the Author forgets within several verses, that all their livestock was now dead and couldn't possibly be killed again?

You missed one:

You skipped the one possibility, and now sidestep it.

the stories of the plagues weren't intended to be accurate in historical detail.

If so, then it's not accountable to accuracy, and so can't be accused of contradiction.

in order to avoid the possibility of cohesion in an accurate account, you dismiss both contradiction and cohesion as any issue at all, by now making it only allegorical or mythical, and not intended to be accurate. (Some pseudo-believers of the Bible do the same in places, that they also don't personally like...)

Since you're arguing from incredulity that a single author wouldn't leave such a historical contradiction, your assertion of intentional historical detail is simply question-begging.

You're the one that was arguing a historical contradiction, but now that you deny it was written to be historically accurate at all, so as to sidestep the cohesive possibility, by simply begging off from the charge itself.

The real-life practice of replacing dead livestock with live livestock, does not need to accuse the record of being contradictive, whether by error or on purpose...

From Propp's Exodus 1-18 volume of The Anchor Bible, pp. 347-348:

Any rigorous attempt to explain the whole Plagues narrative as a naive but basically accurate report of a chain of natural calamities is doomed from the start. Rationalistic explanations for miracles, common in Hellenistic times (e.g., Artapanus) and revived to counter Enlightenment skepticism, are anachronistic today. To believe that the Bible faithfully records a concatenation of improbable events, as interpreted by a prescientific society, demands a perverse fundamentalism that blindly accepts the antiquity and accuracy of biblical tradition while denying its theory of supernatural intervention. It is particularly unmethodical to discern causal links between events narrated in different documentary strata, all the more since Psalms 78 and 105 prove that the Plagues' number and sequence were fluid in Israelite tradition. Exodus itself never refers to written sources about the Plagues, but rather implies a chain of oral tradition (10:2). Not surprisingly, many aspects of the biblical Plagues find parallels in world folklore.

This reinforces what we've seen with the other contradictions so far: the problem isn't so much that the Bible contradicts itself or reality, but that the Bible contradicts what you want it to be.

So, it's one thing for the Bible to contradict reality like all supernatural myths, but it's the ones believing the supernatural that contradicts reality. Of course, this argument can only be made by those who reject the eternal things of the spirit, and only believe in the temporal things of nature:

1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.


In any case, I do applaud your logical sophistry. You first give learned a-supernatural rhetoric, sprinkled nicely with just the right amount of convincing scholarly words, and then conclude it's the ones believing the Bible, that contradict it, not the ones disbelieving the Bible. That is unique indeed. I've never been accused of contradicting the Bible, by believing it's true.

However, once again, that sophistic accusation can only be made by those who do not believe the Bible is recorded fact, but only allegorical myth.

So, like all myths, the Bible cannot really contradict itself, but the only ones 'contradicting it' as not being myth, are the neo-superstitious, prehellenistic, counter-enlightenment, concatenatiously a-scientific, rural rubes, that laughably ( ) believe those supernatural events, that are written exactly as witnessed by other neo-superstitious, prehellenistic, counter-enlightenment, concatenatiously a-scientific, rural Hebrew rubes...

2 Timothy{6:20} O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:

In any case, I'm only interested in anyone presenting facts, that would prove the Bible contradicts itself, and is not just being mythically inclined.

It's only an assumption that the Egyptians didn't get any new livestock, which is nonsensical, since they would certainly do so if at all possible. The only question is whether there was motive, time, and opportunity to do so. The motive answers for itself: they needed to replenish their herds, because all their livestock was dead.

The accusation of a contradiction therefore only pertains to time and opportunity, which is based upon two assumptions about time and opportunity: There wasn't any time nor opportunity to replenish their herds before the second killing of their livestock. Both of which are proven false by the text:

They had plenty of time between the two killings to replenish their livestock, especially with the urgent motivation to do so. First there was an intervening plague of boils, which took time, and also Moses had to visit Pharaoh's court two more times to confront him with the same demand. That time alone included several days, especially since some plagues took as much as a week to accomplish. We than add the time of warning to the people themselves, and we have plenty of days for the urgent Egyptians to get new livestock.

You're simply expecting us to believe that one bit of narrative nonsense is solved if you add some of your own.

I'm not expecting anything from people, who dismiss all self-contradiction or possible harmonies of cohesion from a Book of myths, that is never intended to be historically accurate and factual in the first place.

I only expect someone offering evidence of Bible self-contradiction from the Book itself, or from other provable evidence.

Otherwise, people who do make the charge, can just alternate between it being written as fact, in order to make the charge, and then only written as allegorical myth, in order to dismiss the harmonious cohesion.

all the more since Psalms 78 and 105 prove that the Plagues' number and sequence were fluid in Israelite tradition.

They did fluidly follow one upon another distinctly as written, and they were fabulous. It doesn't make them myths.

Ps 78 is not about the plagues in Egypt, but rather the miracles in the wilderness outside of Egypt.

Exodus itself never refers to written sources about the Plagues, but rather implies a chain of oral tradition (10:2).

The Bible says Moses was the writer of Exodus:

Mar 12:26And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

Ps 105 continues in the tradition written by Moses own eyewitness account.

Not surprisingly, many aspects of the biblical Plagues find parallels in world folklore.

As well as the flood. The world has written many secondhand accounts of such things in the Bible, and skewing them to one degree or another to fit their own imaginations.

But only the Bible is written by eyewitnesses in great detail exactly as they happened.

And though some even write of fantastical myths about the childhood of Jesus, that does not make the recorded witness untrue...

[RBD]

The spiritual teaching and revelation of the Bible is not only literal, but more real than the present natural things.

I reject this claim for being absurd.
That humans can prophecy the future.
That decomposing bodies reanimated and appeared to others.
That a man lived in a fish for days.
That fish and loaves were conjured up.
That a snake and donkey spoke.

Of course you do. My interest is not in what you believe or not, but only in any evidence of Bible errancy.

These claims are NOT more real than the present nature of things.

These recorded events by firsthand witnesses, that have remained over thousands of years, without any evidence contradicting them, are more real than your own personal unbelief. (Except in your own personal life of course.) They were here on earth before you, and will be here after you...

Jas 4:14 For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

God is Spirit, and the spiritual things were before, and will endure beyond the natural.

After your claim above, please don't expect for this to be taken seriously. I for one don't believe you have special information that escapes the rest of us.

The Bible is the most common book on the planet. The spiritual aspects of it are easy to read and understand. They only escape them that don't want to believe people are spiritual beings, and not just natural brute beasts.

Jhn 1:2The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men…And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Jde 1:10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts...

[RBD]

I read through post 486.
Was there any evidence for an Exodus as told in the Bible RBD? If so, please present it as I missed it.

The written evidence of the eyewitness Moses speaks for itself. If you don't want to believe it en lieu of any other evidence, then that's your choice.

Anyone saying there is no evidence of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, because they say there no eyewitness account written, or they have not read it for themselves. Then they can read it as written, since it remains on earth exactly as written.

However, anyone trying to deny that eyewitness accounts are evidence of anything, then that's a kind of blind disbelieve, that becomes delusional in courts of law and historical review...

2Th 2:10And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

[POI]

That's because your definition of evidence excludes the great majority of all evidence in law and historiography, which is eyewitness testimony and historical record. And the Bible is both, especially that of Exodus written by Moses.

No, it's not. "The Exodus" account was written 100's of years after the said event. Hence, an 'eyewitness' could not have written about this event. And there is no other 'evidence'. You spend response after response re-confirming this.

Hence, besides the claims from the Bible, what evidence do we have? Still nada.

My argument is, that only direct evidence contradicting the Bible interests me, and I'm still waiting for any against Exodus.

There is no direct evidence. There is one claim, unsupported by neither direct nor indirect evidence. Later writers mentioning dudes from a prior told story is not indirect evidence. I've explained elsewhere.

And yes, there is evidence against it. I already mentioned this too. But you are so far behind on your responses, I have to repeat myself. The 'promised land' was still owned by Egypt. The story makes no logical sense.

I'm not interested in the absence of such evidence.

This is the only play you have, because you know there is no evidence. Rinse/repeat... A claim of this magnitude would leave tons of evidence. The hot and dry desert would also preserve a lot of this evidence. The Egyptians tried to erase evidence of other's inhabitance and failed miserably.