WVIncagold

One of my hardest to accept parts of the OT is the exodus. while a fanciful story as a child it was not hard to have a problem with it taking 40 years to get from Egypt to Israels promised land. Lode stones were around then as well as maps. I mean pull up a map of Egypt and Israel. I find it hard nobody in 40 years went to moses and said "hey dude let me seed that map!". Anyways here lies a major problem for me but expressly in the why didn't BG do something i would like to find theist response top the following.
The problem is if BG exist why did he not take the Israelites to a new promised land say like Kansas. I imagine that fields of grain as far as the eye could see would appeal to herdsman. After all the bible claims a boat was built to accommodate all living creatures why not one to accommodate all Israelites and their earthly possessions. Think of bronze age tribesman with chariots and bows as well as bronze swords over the stone age tribesman of the plains. They would of been a formidable force. Surely BG would have known this area existed and could of provided the means to get there. Why is it BG could only lead the Israelites around 300 miles and it took 40 years to do it?

Sheshbazzar

According to The Book of Mormon...........

Headache

If it was Kansas, I would support nuking it!

Jayco

Because if Yahweh does exist, he'd be the most nonsensical deity every imagined. :Cheeky:

No, but seriously, I think you have a valid point -- why not any area of the world exclusively "promising" for agriculturists. The real answer, of course, lies insofar that for some reason Yahweh's limited knowledge of the world coincides perfectly with the original author's (and by extension society's) limited knowledge of the world. Just another example of the intellectual shortcomings of an "omniscient" creator-god.

WVIncagold

Thanks Jayco you got the point. To me it would make allot more sense or at least be a miracle and one could accept a 40 year trek if the tribes had built a massive ark sailed across the Mediterranean, out the straights across the Atlantic into the gulf and up the Mississippi to come to their new promised land of milk and honey. They would of had a great deal of technological advantage over the natives of the time. Not only that but it would of spread "the word" much faster as it would then be on two continents. I know i am playing devils advocate here but many Fundies seam to like to bring up the whole exodus and its miracles such as mana from heaven. What they leave out is that it took 40 years to get around 300 miles. Even if they were traveling in circles and performed a nautilus search pattern with an ever widening search it still could of been accomplished in less than a year. At twenty miles a day thats a 3 week trek at best, considering these people were slaves and stronger and fitter than the average Joe today but even if you halved it to ten miles a day thats a lazy walk up the beach of the Mediterranean sea that takes 30 days. Then there is the logistics of supporting that many people on a march for 40 years. the exodus was no miracle it if nothing else was one of the worst people movements ever conducted in history. Maybe i am just looking at this incorrectly but i sure would like to hear some comments from Christians defending this tale.

Sheshbazzar

That scenario would have made sense. But making sense is not biblegawds forte.
First this all-knowing gawd starts off by making a couple of defective humans, that with his foreknowledge, he ought to have known exactly what and where they would fail. Then he proceeds on to the creating one defective civilization after another, so that he can have something to be permanently pissed at, and just drown or smash up whenever he gets a bug up his ass.
Certainly not a good example of how one ought to play with their toys.

Then there are those poor damned Hebrews that he penned-up and terrorised for forty years in the desert, if any attempted to escape his clutches, why, he just saw to it that they starved, or died of thirst in the attempt, and if those methods didn't suffice he'd just sic his sycophant camp guards on them and have them brutally murdered for wanting to escape from his insane and tyrannical rule.
Of course he always retained the power to take matters into his own hands and just "smite dead" anyone at any time, that took care of any of those whom he "loved", who might be of a mind to wander off a few miles in the "wrong" direction, and perhaps get a little too close to escaping.
Think of it as YHWH's billion-volt invisible electric fence.

According to The Bable, now he is still not satisfied with what he has made, and now has plans on burning everything up, (I recall a "problem" child down the street, that suffered from a similar mental abberation) and it is puny mankind's fault that he just can't get anything done right.

Quite obviously that is the case, because it was man that first created HIM, and have "made" him to do all of those evil things.
He can't help being created a "gawd" in our own image, and after our own likeness.

lpetrich

I think that it could have been feasible, but it would have been awfully difficult, and there would have been many nice places along the way to stop and settle in.

It would have been very risky to go far from land, so I'll imagine a coast-hugging route.

Starting at Egypt, you go westward along the north African coast; the climate along most of it is subtropical semidesert, though some parts of it have been able to support sizable populations. Consider the ancient city of Carthage, in what is now Tunisia.

Once you reach the Straits of Gibraltar, however, you turn north and follow the coast north then east then north then east, arriving at the English Channel. Now turn north and arrive at Great Britain. Go north along its coast until you reach its north end. Somewhere along the way might be a good place to stop for the winter, because the next steps will require good weather.

From the north end of Great Britain, go northwest until you run into Iceland.

From there, go westward until you run into Greenland.

From its southern tip, go southwestward until you run into Labrador, Canada.

Once there, follow the coast southward, skipping past the St. Lawrence River. The weather will get warmer, and you may be able to make it out of the colder areas before the next winter.

As you go, you will see some interesting fauna:

* A black badger with a big bushy tail and a white stripe on its back; it can squirt a stink onto you

* A big hedgehog covered with spines

* Venomous snakes with rattles on their tails

You will reach the southward extent of your journey as you pass by a big swamp that is inhabited by crocodiles; keep traveling along the coast, west, then north, then west, until you find another such swamp where a very big river empties into the sea.

Go north up that river until you see a big branch of that river going westward; go west up that river until it turns northward.

You will now be at the east end of Kansas.

It is all grassland, and you will see big herds of wild oxen with the manes of lions.

WVIncagold

I believe it is feasable, they had the technology. So as funies claim "god blesses america why did he take so long to get here? The rebuttal from the faithful is deafening.

Sheshbazzar

He didn't know about the American continents? or was too busy, and just plain having far too much fun making all those poor Middle Eastern civilizations suffer the consequences of being the recipients of his "love"?

ughaibu

There was even a second coming of opportunity. In 1947 Israel could've been stuck somewhere spacious, like Texas, where it wouldn't lead to this ridiculous never ending conflict.