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]

Your revision is of the evidence given. Their control was over their trade route cities, not over all of Canaan. The victory records of the Pharaohs are over cities in Canaan, nor over Canaan.

The "promised land" in Canaan refers to the territory, not a specific city, that God promised to the descendants of Abraham.

I guess that's why it's called the promised land, and not city...

The Egyptian history in Canaan refers to cities, not the land.

[POI]

No, I cannot prove this.

Then it's speculation. However, as I've stated to both you and Clownboat, the stakes are low for the skeptic and high for the believer. Hence, it makes little sense for the secular scholar to hand-wave away one set of dating, merely because it may more-so coincide with the physical claims from an ancient book.

My speculation is one reason is that they won't accept anything that matches the Biblical account.

Either dating set, (earlier 1400's BCE vs later 11-1200's BCE), presents it's own set of unique problems regardless. But until we can establish which one is actually right, it's almost pointless to address.

I you don't have any idea what their true story is, then on what basis can you say the Biblical story is false, esp given I have extra-Biblical evidence to corroborate it?

I answered this at the very beginning of our exchange... Just because I do not know the real answer, does not mean I still cannot rule out some of the wrong ones. Example... When you take a multiple-choice test, you may not always know the answer, but this does not detour you from still successfully ruling out one or two of the given options.

ChatGPT of course.

ChatGPT also states:

"So, while there could have been overlapping cultural and historical contexts, especially in the broader Semitic world of the ancient Near East, they are not generally considered to be the same group in historical scholarship."

So, I guess we are done here?

Logical answers would be based on evidence to support them. Without evidence, it's speculation.

When referencing any selected source, we must consider the following:

- Does the source possess any possible bias?
- Does the source possess any religious and/or political motivation?

Since the answer for the two above is (yes), when it comes to the Bible, it becomes suspect. As I stated prior, the stakes are very low for secular scholarship, regarding this large claim. I've already explained why.

Because it would make no sense. At a minimum, they'd have to believe it was all true, even if it was not true. Why would they willingly base their belief, traditions, practices, and customs on what they know to be false?

The same can be asked of any/all competing set of core beliefs.

I don't think it's really answering anything. Anyone can make this claim about any belief.

Sometimes the answers are so simple, the believer must hand-wave. Ideological beliefs, whether they relate to religion and/or politics, sometimes transcend logic. Meaning, cognitive dissonance is abundant, especially when tapping once's core beliefs. I made an entire topic about it here (viewtopic.php?t=41906). Conclusion.... We all possess cognitive dissonance in some arena(s). Case/point, I should be a vegetarian, but I'm not. I should also be 100% against any and all abortion, but I'm not.

Yes, and many people have falsified them.

Well, it depends on who you ask now, doesn't it... I mean, even ChatGPT states the Hyksos are not the "Israelites", and yet, here you are still fighting the fight. Why? Because anyone can argue for almost anything. Which is why, from the jump, I mentioned the "flat earth society".

Death is required to atone for sin.

Why?

The sacrificial system was also a type of what Jesus did for us, by him giving his life on the cross for us to atone for our sins.

I may make a new topic about this....

[RBD]

Ok, so now we have the charge, that the children of Jacob never left Canaan. Which would make Exodus and Judges books of mythical legend.

And so, what is the written or archeological evidence, that the Hebrews were in Canaan all along, when according to Exodus they should have been in Egypt?

Also, what is the written or archeological evidence of Hebrews being called, or being Canaanites?

This is just the current state of ANE archaeology.

The earliest likely reference to Israel is the Merneptah Stele, dated to the late 13th century BC. William Dever, Beyond the Texts, p. 168:

In summary, the excavated Iron I sites in the central hill country, taken together with survey sites, indicate a precipitous growth from thirty to forty sites in the Late Bronze Age to at least two hundred in Iron I. Most are small villages established de novo, 1–3 acres in extent. That could suggest a population of 100–200 each, or a total of 30,000 or more. The sites are close to each other but distant from the few continuing Canaanite cities (Megiddo, Beth-Shean). That denotes an agro-pastoral lifestyle, a redistributive economy, and a tightly knit social structure. We shall argue here that these people of the central hill country were Merenptah’s “Israelites.”

One more time: The shaping of power in Canaan after the Hebrew arrival from Egypt, has nothing to do with any pre-Exodus proof of Hebrews in Canaan, when they were Biblically in Egypt.

The excavated sites were continuously settled, with Canaanites at one end and Israelites at the other, but with no bright line between them.

Nor does later Israelite disobedient intermarriages with the natives, have anything to do with proving Hebrews originated as Canaanites.

The Bible record never suggests any 'ethnic' difference, but only that of law and worship of their God Yahweh, separated entirely from that of the pagan Semites in Canaan.

According to the Genesis 9:18, Canaanites weren't Semites: "And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham is the father of Canaan."

Right, and the sons of Shem were not the sons of Ham, nor were the sons of Isaac, the sons of Ishmael, nor the sons of Jacob were the sons of Esau.

Abraham peacefully settled in the land of Canaan as a stranger. His tribal offspring by Isaac and Jacob, also lived in the land for a season. Hundreds of years later, their tribes invaded the land of Canaan to supplant and rule their own settlements, eventually establishing their own kingdoms.

So far, there is no hint of evidence pertaining to the Hebrews in Canaan before their rise to power, other than their time with Jacob, before their move to Egypt.

Because we were talking about the Exodus in particular and the evidence for or against the migration.

Which has included a phantom suggestion of Hebrews being Canaanite Semites in Canaan at the time. All that is offered, is evidence of the recorded local change of events, after their time in Egypt.

The argument against Hebrews being in Egypt, due to no evidence in Egypt, hypocritically ends when not applying it to Hebrews supposedly in Canaan, where there is no evidence at all.

The Israelite highlands were settled by Canaanites moving out of the cities, not Israelites escaping Egypt. No Israelites from Egypt, no Exodus.

Seriously? It was just an en masse 'move' from suburbia to hillside retreats? Like a majority of Danes in Denmark, suddenly deciding to forsake their city homes for their country homes, rather than only vacationing there??

Over a century or so, but yes.

And so, a Canaanite prophet named Moses converted and began a peaceful resettlement of fellow Canaanites into their new hill country homes, to worship a Canaanite god called Yahweh...

The reasons aren't all clear,

That usually happens in absurd revisionism, but it's certainly a peaceful kumbaya legend for all Canaanites to enjoy.

Was Moses a fellow Semitic Canaanite, who rose up as a great hill country prophet, with a new law and worship in the name of a new God?

Moses probably wasn't a real guy.

Not even a legendary name for a Canaanite prophet of the Canaanite god called Yahweh?

[RBD]

The writer of the parenthetical insert spoke of Moses' meekness above all others of the day. A contradiction would be the Bible saying that Moses was not the meekest of his day, or that another during his time was as meek as he...

It's more than that. Much of Numbers and Deuteronomy could not have been written by Moses, as these books refer to Moses in the third person

Arguing against 3rd person autobiographies, is as meaningless as arguing against something with no evidence against it...

'Adam and Eve' were not the first humans, which is why you must fight evolutionary biology.

Dishonest evolutionists argue human evolutionary theory, as though it were biological evolutionary fact. Human evolutionary theory spuriously rides the back of biological evolutionary science. Dittoes with the Big Bang theory falsely piggy-backing universal expansion science.

[Clownboat]

Arguing against 3rd person autobiographies, is as meaningless as arguing against something with no evidence against it...

I would like to grant this (POI may not though) in hopes you can answer an honest and on point question:
Do you think we will ever find any evidence that millions of people wandered the Sinai for decades as told in the exodus story we find in the Bible?

Dishonest evolutionists argue human evolutionary theory, as though it were biological evolutionary fact. Human evolutionary theory spuriously rides the back of biological evolutionary science. Dittoes with the Big Bang theory falsely piggy-backing universal expansion science.

For the sake of debate, lets assume that people that accept evolution actually are dishonest. I'm even ok if you want to consider them to be devil worshiping doody heads as it would be completely irrelevant to this debate.
Do you think we will ever find any evidence that millions of people wandered the Sinai for decades as told in the exodus story we find in the Bible?

[POI]

Of course, there's archeological evidence for Hebrews in Canaan

And yet, none at all, for when they were claimed to have been in "other-Egypt", kept as slaves, by the millions in numbers, for hundreds of years.

[RBD]

This is an interesting alternative

'Interesting' = Oh fiddle stix. Houston, we have a problem...

however, the context and other Scriptures forbid it:

No, they don't.

The writer of Matthew also thought the earth was a round/flat disk. No matter how high you go, you cannot see the back side of the earth.

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Now, this is an interesting observation, that could be used as clear error in the Bible about verified fact: Let's look at other possibilities, than the accuser's default of teaching a flat earth.

First a couple that don't work:

1.Some suggest the high mountain is on the moon, and so Jesus would see the whole earth in a day of rotation. Although Satan had power in the heavens and on the earth, Jesus' natural body could have at least temporarily weathered the highest mountain on the earth, but not on the moon. We have no evidence of Satan being able to sustain a natural body's life. (No Zombies)

Also, the exceeding high mountain spoken of, must be read as on earth, and so rotating with the earth.

2. Some suggest it's only in a vision like that of Ezek 8, or John in Revelation, but unlike those examples, the Scripture does not specifically say Satan shows Jesus anything in a transported vision.

Now some that could work:

1. Mat 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

The problem is thinking of nations and kingdoms around all the earth today, especially those with glory to show for it.

Nations and kingdoms are not migratory, nor hunter-gatherer disassociated groups, nor even new settlements without governmental and judicial rule of law. Also, Satan is only showing those established kingdoms with glorious history and presence. And so, the question in seeing them all from one exceeding high mountain, is how far did they expand?

In the 1st century A.D., that was only from Rome to China. Not around the whole globe. Therefore, the flat earth scenario need not apply. And since someone would think a flat earth could be seen to it's far corners, then they can certainly accept a much reduced territory of land.

If they say no such amount of land could be seen anyway, then their argument has nothing to do with the shape of the earth, but only their own disbelief.

2. Luk 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.


This shows what really happened. Luke clarifies the viewing was in a moment of time, not a visual scan in normal time from the mountain top.

And so, this is clearly a supernatural viewing, such as comprehending in a flash many different things all at once. The common thread being the glory of man's kingdoms on earth. The Scriptures only says, that He is shown all the kingdoms and their glory, not the whole earth.

Anyone objecting to the Bible record of such an event, is once again now only doing so by disbelief, not by any contradiction with the physical earth.

[RBD]

By your unbelief in the Book, you argue against what's written in the Book. By my objective reading of the Book, I only teach what the Book says...

Do you not see this as yet another example where you are dodging an argument you know you cant win

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.

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.

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?

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

[POI]

[Replying to RBD in post #727]

Sure, the Christian apologist can always come up with (ad hoc / post hoc) excuses for why their beloved Bible has not actually failed them, when common sense instead dictates that their Bible book does fail them. This is what Christian apologetics is all about. This is why Christian apologetics is so necessary. It acts as a protective shield. This is also why folks, like Otseng & company, now argue that the Bible does not have to be flawless. They now recognize it is not, which means they pivot, or switch gears, and trek forth with a new set of rules and arguments. But in this case, he acts as the Lone Ranger, by shoehorning in the 'Hyksos.'

Matthew 4:8 clearly speaks from the perspective of an author who deemed the earth as flat. We all know this. Which is why you must scramble to perform damage-control, ala 'Christian apologetics.'

[POI]

Arguing against 3rd person autobiographies, is as meaningless as arguing against something with no evidence against it...

Not so fast. Again, many areas in the Pentateuch speak of Moses in the 3rd person. This means that at least one other author is involved. Who is this fellow, and how do we know he was associated with Moses? We know the Pentateuch was not completed until centuries later. Which means there may have been many author(s)? If 'eyewitness' testimony is what you deem as direct evidence, then the Pentateuch is not a very good candidate.

And simply repeating Carl's Sagan's slogan continues to do you absolutely no favors. Again, it depends on the claim.

Dishonest evolutionists argue human evolutionary theory, as though it were biological evolutionary fact. Human evolutionary theory spuriously rides the back of biological evolutionary science. Dittoes with the Big Bang theory falsely piggy-backing universal expansion science.

From the perspective of someone who follows Sola Scriptura, when science does not conflict with the perceived translation, it's fine. When it doesn't, then ignore it, or villainize it. In honor of post 490, here is a 4-minute video: