Nomad

Apikorus

My problem with your reasoning is your continued insistence on having types of evidence that are almost certainly not going to exist. The first written texts of Moses still currently available to us almost certainly date to 400+ years after his life, yet amongst the ancients this is more often the rule than the exception. Our first biography of Alexander the Great did not appear until 400 years after he was dead. Plutarch was writing about Crassus, Pompey and Caesar over a hundred years after they died. And in the cases of these men, they ruled great empires, so we can and should expect archaeological evidence to support their general historicity. In the case of a leader of a relatively small band of exiles, Moses would not enjoy similar opportunities to build cities and the like, so we should not demand similar levels of evidenciary support that he lived.

I would place the level of credibility for the claim of an historical Moses to be very good, and find the Exodus itself to have high explanitory power for the history of the people of Israel. It certainly should not be ruled out, and if such an exodus did take place, then we should expect to see leaders of such a thing. Further, the name Moses itself is not unheard of in Egypt, and given that its origins are Egyptian rather than Hebrew lends credibility to the account as well. After all, an invented figure need not have born an Egyptian name.

I have done a quick read through of one of Blenkinsopp's essays and have found it very interesting. If I may quote from him:

...there is a more radical perspective on the Pentateuchal story, and the exodus in particular, namely that it is an example of an invented (emphasis in original) tradition. It would therefore be comparable to the Roman myth of Trojan origins... but arguments e silentia are always risky, and it would be rash to conclude from the relative or even absolute absence of inscribed or artefactual evidence that either tradition was a pure invention. And in fact the name Aeneas appears on a fourth century BC inscription from Tor Tignosa... It is true that we have no archaeological evidence for the exodus from Egypt or Palestine, but we can at least be certain that the tradition was in place long before the Persian period."
(J. Blenkinsopp, "The Penteteuch", The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation, [Cambridge University Press: New York, 1998] pg. 184-5)

I think a key point that must be made here is that stories that are mythical are not necessarily stories that are also pure fabrication or fiction. The evidence for an historical Moses is better than that which we have for many other figures of antiquity that are commonly accepted, and to wall off one claim simply because it has important theological implications is not useful or conductive to sound research. Bottom line, one need not accept the legend to accept the man behind that legend, and given the difficulties inherent in postulating pure fictional history, I think we should be cautious not to throw out the historical baby with the legendary bath water.

Nomad

Kosh

So Nomad, am I to understand that you believe
the exodus was small enough in size to be
unnoticeable (from and external documentation) standpoint,
and also small enough to leave no definitive
archeological evidence?

Does this mean you think the numbers (600,000
men) are exagerated? If this is the case,
what other parts of the story do you think
are exagerations or fabrications? The burning
bush? The 10 commandments? the Red (reed) sea?

Thanks.

Apikorus

Nomad, again I do not deny that there was an historical Moses. I'm simply saying that the evidence is rather unconvincing. Personally I happen to like the model of Baruch Halpern very much - that of two proto-Israelite groups, one of which did emerge from Egypt. It is not only Moses (Moshe) who has an Egyptian name, but in fact, quite notably, many of the Levites: Moshe, Pinchas, Hophni, Miriam, Merare are all Egyptian in origin. (Incidentally the bare Moshe is unique to the Hebrew Bible. It means "child" or "is born" in Egyptian and usually follows the name of a God, e.g. Ramose (Ramses), Thotmose (Thutmosis), Kamose, Ahmose, et al.)

We are far more secure in our knowledge of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great than in our knowledge of Moses. Your apology for Moses as leading a small rebellion already diverges from the Bible, where he leads millions. The fact that e.g. Kadesh-Barnea is archaeologically a blank from LB through Iron I is not good news for proponents of an historical exodus. (And there is yet more bad news.)

I agree with Blenkinsopp that the exodus tradition was probably an early one (though van Seters would challenge this). I'm less of a skeptic than you might think. But I do believe that in default of any corroborating extrabiblical evidence, it is dangerous to speak with any confidence about an historical Moses.

[ September 04, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Nomad

I would say that this looks like the most reasonable probability, yes.

Yes.

I see absolutely no means available to us to prove the burning bush happened. It was a unique experience to Moses alone, and like all unique experiences, it can not be proven or disproven by standard means of inquiry.

Now, do I believe it happened? Yes I do, but it would not trouble me over much if it was not historical.

This is almost certainly historical, and bears evidence of being a very old code of laws.

I would agree with Anderson and Darr (among other scholars) that something happened at the Reed Sea. As to what exactly happened, I am content to accept the account in the Bible, recognizing that it may contain elements of legendary development.

Nomad

Ulrich

Did you even follow any of the links I provided you, or baring that, did you do as I suggested and visit Google.com and search yourself? The debunkling of the first episode was very thorough and consisted of such evidence as naming one of the actors who portrayed a Russian soldier in the supposedly real footage of the downed UFO, as well as the fact that the Russian newspaper that they used as confrimation for the event never published the article attributed to it. With this kind of demonstratably false information in the first episode, one can only speculate as to what lengths the producers went to in the second episode to decieve their audience.

As far as the NSA covering this up, they are surely doing an extremely poor job of it. Nine out of ten links to information on this video/DVD are actually people trying to sell me a copy of it. The producers of this thing are making assloads of money off of it, and laughing all the way to the bank. They are also threatening legal action against some of the websites that have debunked their product, does that sound like someone who has nothing to hide?



I was answering the specific remark you made about the entire USAF being located underground. My security clearance while I was in the USAF was Secret, as I worked with nuclear weapons, but there is also a thing called 'Need to Know'. No matter what your security clearance in the military, if you do not have the need to know a specific piece of information in order to perform your duty, then you will not be allowed to access that information. That said, I did have the opportunity to work on one weapon system that was a "Secret project" at the time. It was dealing with the f-117 stealth fighter, which hadn't even been named or officially revealed to the public at the time.

Area 51 is not located underground, it is in the center of a dry lake bed in Nevada. I know it has been the pipe dream of every wacko who ever chased a UFO to get inside of Area 51 and take a gander at the spaceships parked there, but I doubt that any such vehicles exist. I am equally sure that tests are conducted at area 51 on weapons, propulsion, and avionics systems for possible inclusion into USAF platforms, and that they have very good reasons for keeping civilians out, as well as for not telling you what they are working on.

The Learjet is a civilian aircraft built by Bombardier Aerospace, who despite their name, does not build military aircraft. Why it would be named after a USAF test pilot and supposed CIA operative is beyond me.

truthseekar

Ulrich
I found your post very interesting and I have looked at the web pages you put up and see what you are saying.

If you type into yahoo search JOHN LEAR it will bring up heaps on this cia agent and there was a testamony from a nucliar phycisist from area 51 that says that he was employed to work out the propelsion system of alian air craft and he says that thay were alian as thay called him in to work out how it worked and he had never come across the alian fuel and he says much more of what he was told on a need to no bases.

Ulrich

I assume that you are referring to Bob Lazar, perhaps you should know that Stanton Friedman has thoroughly outed the man. He is not a nuclear physicist, he has no degrees or credententials, and he did not work for Los Alamos National Labs, but rather an outside contractor.

You can find out more about this particular fraud here: http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/sflazar.html

For the record, Stanton Friedman does belive that UFOs exist, and that they are piloted by aliens. He simply has a vested interest in outing the frauds, as they hurt the UFO community by their actions, and he is a high profile person in that comunity.

Ulrich

I have answered my own question in this case. It turns out that John Lear is the son of William Lear, that man who designed the original LearJet. William Lear also invented the 8-track tape. From the bit I have gleaned from sources on the net, it would appear that John Lear is a scoundrel, having been involved in the Air America opium lifts, as well as the Iran-Contra affair. His father even disowned him and wrote him out of his will.

In recent years his credit with the UFO community has run dry as well, with many claiming that he has actually been employed by the CIA to spread disinformation within that comunity. Of course conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen, especially with the UFO crowd, but his involvment with running drugs and weapons is nigh undeniable.