lpetrich

First, Moses, Phineas, Hophni, and Miryam represent a very small haul of names. If the Israelites had lived in Egypt for a couple of centuries, one would expect a much larger number of Egyptian names -- and borrowed Egyptian words.

Consider the names that many Diaspora Jews have had - names from the people they had lived among. Dr. Isaac Asimov once had an amusing encounter with such Gentile naming. Someone once accused him of hiding his Jewishness by appearing in public on Yom Kippur. Dr. A asked for this gentleman's name, which he briefly heard was something like Bob Smith. Dr. A then responded that if he wanted to hide his Jewishness, he would have used a name like Bob Smith.

Also, the argument from imperfection would make Greek mythology historical; one can find scandals galore in it. Just for starters, the Ruler of the Universe, Zeus himself, was pictured as being a shameless womanizer with lots of illegitimate offspring -- does that mean that we ought to convert to Hellenic paganism?

Doctor X

Truly Interested in Archaeology:

Here is a summary I prepared of the archaeological evidence that calls the biblical Exodus and Conquest into question.

Why No Exodus or Conquest:

First of all, let me identify the text properly: Archaeology and the Bible These are direct quotes from the text.

The Problem of "Exodus" Out of Egypt

In fact, this story (or stories) is so essential to the Bible's self-understanding that biblical scholars, and especially "biblical" archaeologists, until recently took for granted that at its core there must have been some "historical" event, however, much it might have been embellished by later generations of Israelites. . . . However, in the past ten to fifteen years there have been a steady increase of the archaeological data that have raised very serious doubts about the historicity of this story, as well as that of Joshua's "conquest" of Canaan. . . .

Literary Evidence:

Except for the biblical story there is no literary evidence that there was ever an Egyptian Sojourn and Exodus as described in the Bible. This is true regardless of the date one assumes for the event, if there as such an "event" at all. [He then discusses the Mernaptah Stela.--Ed.]

Dated to the fifth year of Mernapthah's reign (ca. 1208-7, according to the low chronology), the stela contains a hymn or a series of hymns celebrating the pharaoh's victory over his enemies. . . . . . . This is the earliest reference to "Israel" as a community known from any ancient text. . . . [He gives a reference for "Israel" as a personal name.--Ed.]

Without assuming the biblical story in advance, there is absolutely nothing in the stela inscription itself to suggest to anyone that this "Israel" was ever in Egypt. All that can be reasonably inferred from it is that an Egyptian scribe at the end of the thirteenth century BC could list among the enemies defeated by the pharaoh a group of people living in Canaan known collectively as "Israel" . . . . . . . Papyrus Anastasi V (Wilson, ANET: 259), might allow one to hypothesize that a few Egyptian slaves could have slipped out of Egypt from time to time, but all of the known Egyptian texts put together do not even remotely hint at an "Exodus". . . .

The Archaeological Evidence (see Dever 1997b; Weinstein 1997b):

[He notes some attempts to defend the biblical story and then quotes.--Ed.], "were it not for the Bible, anyone looking at the Palestinian archaeological data today would conclude that whatever the origin of the Israelites, it was not Egypt" (Weinstein 1997b: 98). . . . Any serious doubts regarding the historicity of the "Exodus" also impact upon an understanding of the "Conquest."

Any effort to support the biblical story . . . will have to explain the following: first, if the inhabitants of the Central Highlands of Palestine in the Iron Age I period came from a people who had an extended sojourn (over 400 years according to the Bible, I Kings 6:1) in Egypt, why have excavations and surveys of these villages yielded so little evidence of Egyptian influence. . . ? . . . according to biblical tradition, several million people (cf. Exod. 12:37; Num. 1:45-6) wandered around the Sinai Peninsula for "forty" years. Yet not a single trace of such a group has ever been recovered.

Most telling in this regard is the archaeological history of Tell el-Qudeirat, identified as ancient Kadesh-Barnea. The excavations . . . locate in the northern Sinai . . . have recovered nothing pre-dating the tenth-ninth centuries BC. . . . Kadesh-Barnea played a major role in the biblical traditions of the Exodus and wilderness wanderings (Num 13:26; 20:1,14). . . . Surly, if this event as described in the Bible actually happened, something of the presence of so many people would have turned up by now, if nothing more than camp sites with datable pottery.

[He notes the connection between problems with the Conquest and Exodus dovetail.--Ed.]

The Emergence of Early "Israel":

[Summarizes the biblical story.--Ed.] The clear impression one gets from this story is that a united Israel attacked Canaan from the east and that the defeat of its inhabitants, at least in the Central Highlands, was sudden, swift and complete. That something is seriously wrong with this picture is an understatement. [He then summarizes previous models for interpreting the occupation.--Ed.]

The catalyst for starting much of this discussion [Revolution in understanding of emergence of early "Israel."--Ed.] was the publication of I. Finkelstein's book, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement, in 1988. . . . . . . Finkelstein showed that there were hundreds (more than 300, p. 333) of new villages or hamlets that had sprung up in the Central Hill Country of Canaan during the Iron Age I. . . . . . . Finkelstein estimated the entire population of the Hill Country peoples to be no more than 50,000, if not fewer . . . a remarkably small number when compared with the millios who supposedly left Egypt with Moses only "forty" years earlier. . . .

Other studies . . . have also argued that the people who moved into the highlands were farmers and horticulturists, not nomadic raiders from the east. . . . These, and other archaeological data, have led Dever to conclude that the Iron I inhabitants of these Central Hill villages were anything but invading nomads from the desert as portrayed in the Bible. Rather, they "appear to be skilled and well-adapted peasant farmers, long familiar with local conditions in Canaan" (Dever 1992c: 549-50).
Until recently it was assumed by most scholars that the Iron I inhabitants were Israelites. . . . . . . thanks to the pioneering efforts of archaeologists such as Dever and Finkelstein, this is no longer acceptable.

Although Dever . . . has agreed with Finkelstein that the Iron I village people were not nomads invading from the east, he has disagreed with Finkelstein completely on the question of their origins. For Dever, most of the Iron I Central Hill villagers came from the already sedentary Canaanite population . . . not from non-sedentarized pastoralists. [In a funny footnote, Laughlin notes the "disagreement" between Dever and Finkelstein extends to the highly specialized field of ceramics and advises to "Stay tuned!"--Ed.]

--J.D.

leonarde

What you aren't taking into account is: we have no way of knowing exactly how many Egyptian names there were: all we have are the names in religious texts and/or those that have been preserved to this day. Ditto with whatever (common) vocabulary items there were. The Babylonian Captivity lasted 60 or 70 years (ie 3 to 4 generations); how many certifiably "Babylonian" names are in evidence among Jews today?

The degree of assimilation depends on the social and economic context in which it occurred: at some point the Hebrews became forced laborers. Their identity probably was tied up with language AND religion. For some, retaining and perpetuating Egyptian names may have been as repugnant as retaining "slave" names is said to be for American Muslims/Black Muslims (see: Muhammed Ali versus Cassius Clay, Kareen Abdul-Jabbar versus Lew Alcindor etc.).

The Jews of the Russian Empire were there for centuries yet (mostly) they retained identifiably Jewish names, even in the face of rampant anti-Semitism (Trotsky's family name was Bronstein, Kamenev's Rosenfeld etc.)

Saying "there should be X number of [Egyptian/Yiddish/Ladino/Hebrew/whatever] names" is, in my opinion, really going out on a limb about things we cannot judge.

Cheers!

leonarde

I'm sorry, "stuff" doesn't quite cut it. You'll have to be WAY more specific.

Cheers!

leonarde

The only blessing is: a person with your attitudes would never go into archaeology at any level: it is full of the stories of "goat herders".

leonarde

Partial post by Doctor X (quoting book):That is exactly what I said a few posts ago: when you have only one written record of a (presumed) event you must carefully parse the degree of historicity of the account. But as I already mentioned that is NOT the attitude most salient on this thread: instead we have (mostly ) preemptory dismissal of ANY POSSIBLE historical basis of the Biblical account of the Exodus. Big mistake and NOT what even the author quoted is doing.....

Doctor X

The author of the textbook notes the old tendency to "assume" the OT represents history and to wander about "with a Bible in one hand and a shovel in the other."

This view has fallen by the wayside since acheaology has shown otherwise.

The problem has to do with the reliability of the texts. The Deuteronomistic History was written quite a long time after the events it proports to portray--even then it refers continually to a text we do not have. Indeed, with regards to the Exodus-Conquest, we can see how the DH changes the story from earlier authors such as J/E and P.

Such rewriting calls the reliability of a text into question. Nevertheless, when a text attempts to portray an impossible event and events shown to be incompatible with archaeology--as the text demonstrates with regards to the Exodus-Conquest--we have no choice but to recognize it is not recording history as in what actually happened.

On the contrary, the author of the text and posters here would and do consider the historical worth of the Exodus-Conquest narratives. The problem is they have been shown to be unhistorical.

The story of Washington chopping down the cherry tree represents history in that Washington once existed as a child . . . other than that . . . it is fantasy.

What other posters have asked anyone who wishes to support the Exodus-Conquest narratives to do is provide evidence for them and account for the evidence against them.

--J.D.

Postcard73

The dismissal is not preemptory. It is the result of having examined archaeological evidence which routinely contradicts what should be found if the Exodus and Conquest were true.

This thread is eight pages long now, and there have only been three points I can recall reading which even remotely indicate any evidence supporting the historicity of the biblical account:

1) A few Egyptian words in the Hebrew lexicon. Given the length of the supposed Israeli slavery in Egypt and the near total lack of impact the slavery had on Israeli culture (as evidenced by archaeological excavations), I think it is far more likely that Egyptian influences on Hebrew are the result of the proximity of the two cultures and not the result of Israeli slavery in Egypt. I believe this better explains the minor influence Egypt had on the region of Canaan.

2) Indications of destruction at a few of the sites mentioned in Numbers and Joshua. While I suppose this could signify some hint of truth in the Biblical story, I don't think it represents much. Many of the towns supposedly destroyed as the Israelites rampaged through the region have been confirmed as uninhabited until well after the Conquest should have occurred. Moreover, some of the sites that show the greatest destruction are not mentioned in the Biblical account at all. The sites were inhabited when the stories were written, not when the events were happening. As Dever notes, "We must confront the fact that the external evidence supports almost nothing of the biblical account of a large-scale, concerted Israelite invasion of Canaan, either that of Numbers east of the Jordan, or Joshua west of the Jordan." (Who Were the Early Israelites, 71). Italics in original.

3) The Hyksos Exodus. This seems to me to provide the most likely inspiration for the Exodus as it appears in the Old Testament, but it still conflicts with the biblical account in several important ways. Most obviously, they weren't Israelites. Also, they weren't slaves. The Hyksos ruled northern Egypt for a brief period. The Hyksos also didn't leave Egypt following a series of supernatural miracles. They left following a series of military campaigns which led to their defeat. Thutmosis III supposedly led 21 offensives against the Hyksos and campaigned as far east as the Euphrates River. That is a far cry from the Red Sea swallowing the Egyptian army.

Obviously, I just touched on the ideas we've discussed. I don't remember reading anything else that might be indicative of the validity of the biblical tradition, but I didn't go back and re-read the entire thread either.

spin

You do have grave linguistic problems. Did you note the passive implied in "problems set for you"? Of course not. I in no way gave any indication of what the agent for the act of setting was. As you set yourself up as a judge -- remember:

Alas, Sauron's reading skills have failed him as much as his skills as ... an historical linguist.....

-- it might eventually dawn on you that you set yourself the problems.

But I guess hope springs eternal.

You have chosen to go tilting at windmills whose significance haven't reached you, while boldly charging imaginary beasts. When you see the windmills for what they are, then you might have a chance of recognising what you need to know and of then being able to do something.

So far you have proven you don't understand even the problems before you. You have dealt with no substantive argument that have come your way. You ought to run along and find route 66.

Cheers!


spin

Weltall

Archaeological evidence. That wasn't so hard now was it? Show me a peer-reviewed journal article where an archaeological expedition has found evidence for the Exodus story. Once you've found that I'll go on and explain what else can constitute extra-biblical evidence.

You're talking to someone for whom history is a favorite subject. Unlike you however I can distinguish between the stories that are told and the historical fact surrounding them. I rather enjoy hearing your goat herders stories but I don't believe they're true until I see some historical evidence backing them up. Maybe you could provide some evidence rather than insulting the intelligence of everyone here.