David B

But what about unfaithfully recorded? Events with a real background being retained, though with embellishments? There do seem to be cases where folk memories or myths of expreme events survive for hundreds of years - he Amerindian accounts of the effects of the last big movement of the Cascadia fault being one case that springs to mind. That is only 300 years - but still a long time.

As I recall, the swamp idea (particularly it's location near the Med, rather than on the Red Sea) makes the tsunami from Santorini idea more plausible rather than less.

I dunno. It wouldn't make any significant difference to my world view if it were to be confirmed that these myths were related to Santorini, or if it were to be confirmed that they were not.

But if folk memories of real events, particularly extreme ones, survived for periods of hundreds of years in oral form, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

David B

Wads4

Yes that all sounds very reasonable, and I agree the "Red sea" actually means the swampy "Sea of Reeds" in the northernmost area of the Gulf of Suez (or maybe Aquaba);- but could not the memory of a large volcanic eruption far out at sea have made a big psychological impression, and its subsequent local effects have been passed on by oral tradition, (or indeed written down closer to the event, but later lost), and therefore survived until being finally written down about 700BCE, or maybe after the Exile? With the Israelites enthusiasm for tradition and "God's covenant" and all that, maybe it was an inaccurate memory in which the later Jews thought of their ancestors mistakenly as the Hyksos, but ascribed them to the 19th dynasty ?Rameses II, or Mer-en-Ptah, instead of the 16th dynasty Hyksos kings? Lots of could-haves I know,-but it sounds plausible in the light of the OT tradition. A large exodus of Hyksos in the 1600's BCE could have been mis-remembered as an exodus of oppressed Israelites in the 1200's BCE,-and would have been celebrated as the Passover, and given them a glorious pseudo-history.

Malachi151

It wouldn't make a great deal of difference to me either, but I think that it requires a lot more than coming up with plausable natural explanations.

One problem with the idea of coming up with plausable natural explanations is that we then get back into the problem of chance. If you take a random myth from any culture, and then look for natural explantions that could fit and you draw on history that covers 1,000 or 2,000 years, your chance of finding something that you can say "See this kinda fits" is pretty high.

That's not to say that this approach should be completely discounted, but it does have to be used with caution.

The other thing to look at, however, is the allusionary, mythical, and cultural value of the imagery used in stories.

You have to be careful to compare myths to other myths, and to other events.

For example, you mentioned the "fire by night and columns of smoke by day".

We have the issue now of wondering, is the use of this in the Torah a record of something that the writers of the Torah experienced, part of a story that was passed on to them about a real event that their ancestors experienced when they were on an exodus journey, an event that was experienced that was just integrated into the story because that's how fiction writers work and they wanted to integrate this element, part of a different culture's history that they adopted into their own, part of a different cultures mythology that was integrated into their own, part of several old legends that were inspired by real events that happened to a once powerful culture that this group of people integrated into their own in order to try and link themselves with this once powerful people, etc., etc., etc.

This is kind of like the "Jesus Myth" issue.

At what point do you call something "made up" and at what point do you call it "inspired by true events", and at what point do you call it history.

Did "Jesus" exist?

Jesus who? Jesus exactly as described in the NT?

A person who was a rabble rouser who took on the Jewish priesthood and had a small following?

A person who did the above and was also crucified?

A person who's saying are faithfully recorded in the NT texts?

At what point is "Jesus" Jesus?

Did the person have to have the name "Jesus"? (Yeshua)?

So, these things can be hard to pin down.

I'm inclined to think that most of what is in the Torah is made up stuff that is made up for allusionary and political reasons.

Are some of the stories perhaps inspired by real events in teh past that had become legenary, perhaps, IMO trying to do things like explain every one of the plagues of Egypt with a methdical naturalistic explanation is just nonsense. It starts with the supposition that the story in the Torah is 100% accurate in describing some real events, which is not a leap I would ever consider making.

I'm sure that the events probably had some basis in things that people had seen before, such as red water or raining frogs, or what have you, but this was all probably jst cobbled together into a story about an event that never happened.

I mean try to explain how the first born sons all died, that's foolishness, the much more likely explanation is that this was an allusionary element that was added because first born sons were the most highly prized and so their death in the story was symbolic of a great tragedy. IMO, the symbolism outweights any likely natural explanation in this case.

What I always ask is, what is more likely, that this is symbolic or natural. In most cases with the Torah, symbolism seems to outweight naturalism.

Kosh

the Santorini eruption would have appeared in the North, and the Exodus would have been heading east....

Anat

Isn't the 1620s date for the Theran eruption a bit early for the end of Hyksos rule, which should coincide with the beginning of the New Kingdom in Egypt and the Late Bronze Age in the Levant, both commonly dated to the middle of the 16th century BCE?

David B

From what I read somewhere, neither date is absolutely solid. I think the data on the date of Santorini is C14 based, which has an capacity for error. And are the Dates of the Egyptian dynasties really solid?

David B

Anat

I don't know, I just see them repeated a lot. What about the beginning of Late Bronze? How was that determined? How many of these dates are independent of one another?

David B

I'm not an expert. But I do recall reading something that made sense to me, that said that, while the conventional wisdom was that Santorini and Exodus had different dates, there was enough room for error in both dates to allow them to match.

I think it was in Mike Baillie's book 'From Exodus to Arthur'.

Baillie is a Christian, apparently, but not a fundy, and a top dendrochronologist. The crux of the argument of his book, as I recall, is that lots of major events in history and myth can be tied in with tree ring anomolies, some of which can be attributed to vulcanism, and more than have been given credit for to impact events.

David B

aa5874

Isn't it possible that it was the Israelites that were exterminated by the volcano and one of the very few survivors wrote some fables called Exodus.

I am of the opinion that whoever wrote Exodus, if indeed it was one person, would not have thought that thousands of years later the fables would be believed by intelligent people.

Sauron

That would depend upon where the alleged crossing of the Reed Sea was made. Had the Israelites crossed at the south end of the Red Sea, then the island of Santorini would have been due north of them, and would have been in the correct position to fulfill the role of a beacon.

I only mention this, because some christians believe that the crossing took place further south, down near the gulf of Aqaba or near Suez. Note that I haven't heard an explanation for why Hebrews, allegedly in bondage much further north in Lower Egypt would go to the trouble of trekking hundreds of miles southwards through the open desert to make a crossing at Aqaba or Suez, instead of just going horizontally.

Also, the Santorini explosion has been dated to the 1620s BCE, using ice cores and dendrochronology. Britannica:



That's several hundred years too early for the date of the Exodus. Britannica again:



I don't know of any wiggle room in these dates that would allow all the above-noted issues to be sorted out successfully.