roncuomo

Here is a quote from Robert G. Ingersoll:

" In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years. "

Any comments?

Julian

There are endless reasons for why the exodus story is fiction, Ingersoll only mentions one minor one. There is no doubt that the exodus story is complete fiction. It may have sprung from stories about the Hyksos but who knows...

Julian

John A. Broussard

This is really a rather weak argument for something which has been demonstrated false for other, sounder reasons. The bible errantists will simply scrounge around and find words in Hebrew that sound like Egyptian words and vice versa.

Much more serious is the missing estimate of the number of Israelites involved. A handful would have had little affect on the larger population, and could have preserved their own culture and language more easily than a large immigrant population.

Wallener

No problem. It works far better as myth than as reality, since once you've allegorized the basic plot line, you have a free hand to allegorize all the unpleasantly nasty plot points.

roncuomo

Does anyone have any references I could read that allude to this fiction?

Julian

This is an excellent place to start:

The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein and Silberman

Julian

roncuomo

Thanks Julian.

Diogenes the Cynic

The Bible Unearthed

Godless Wonder

Ebonmusings has some stuff: The Exodus.

Toto

The Ingersoll quote is from What Would You Substitute for the Bible as a Moral Guide?. I don't see a date for it, but 1868 is a reasonable guess. Ingersoll did not have the advantage of modern archeological information.