Timetospend

I do not know if it was the biggest story throughout the world at the time but yes I think that other countries would have taken notice of it. Note Rabah's testimony:
Josh 2:9-10
9 and said to the men: "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that dread of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt in fear before you. 10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
NRSV

HelpingHand

I don't know Hebrew, but it seems to me that if 'all' doesn't mean 'all' in this instance (I mean if the original really states that all cattle in Egypt died, which I do not know), then 'resurrection' probably means 'getting up after a nap' etc.
If every word in the Bible can have different meanings, according to your preference, then it is always inerrant.
What I would like to see is some evidence that 'all cattle' means something else than 'all cattle'.
Not that it matters that much, since if the plagues really occurred, that must have been impressive enough to convince pharao and if there were really ten plagues in a short period of time it would have weakened the position of Egypt considerably (especially when a good part of the Egyptian army was swallowed in the Red Sea). Yet to my knowledge (and I can be mistaken of course) there is no record outside the Bible of this occurring.

Greetings

Walter

Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following Scriptures:

Exodus 9:1 Then the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

2 For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still,

3 Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain.

4 And the LORD shall sever between the cattle of Israel and the cattle of Egypt: and there shall nothing die of all that is the children's of Israel.

5 And the LORD appointed a set time, saying, To morrow the LORD shall do this thing in the land.

6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died: but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one.

Johnny Skeptic: If all the cattle in Egypt died, it is reasonable to assume that all of the horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep died too. If all that had happened, there most certainly would not have been any need for God to send any more plagues to Egypt. Egyptian society would have been in complete disarray. Pharoah and all other Egyptians would have been terrified.

Of course, the notion that an all-powerful God would have chosen a motley, barbaric group of Jews to be his chosen people, protect them on some occasions, kill them with parasites (which have killed more people than all of the wars in history), plagues, disease, and hurricanes on other occassions, and allow hundreds of thousands of Jews to be killed by their enemies on other occasions, is utterly absurd.

Jayrok

Beyond the plagues that would have devastated Egypt, even moreso is the fact (alleged) that Pharoah's entire army was destroyed in the Sea of Reeds.

Exodus 12:32 -- Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me."

Pharoah lets the Israelites leave with their flocks and herds even though all the Egyptian livestock were destroyed. I'm sure that would happen. You have cows and livestock we could use to replace our losses, but take them and go. Sure.

Second, if all the Egyptian livestock were destroyed in the plague, where did Pharoah's army get the horses to power the chariots?

Speaking of crippling the Egyptian's hold on the region... losing livestock and having your river system turned to blood is one thing, but to lose your entire Army in one battle... well, any surrounding ambitious nation would be lining up at the door to pillage and conquer a defeated Egypt, yeah?

It seems any kind of historical documentation on Egypt's regional power during and after that supposed timeframe would be enough to squelch any validity to an Historical Exodus... at least to the extent claimed in the Bible.

Jayrok

On AMC or The History Channel, they often air shows that attempt to explain how the Exodus could have taken place. They offer natural explanations to how the Jews could have crossed a shallow portion of the Reed Sea, etc.

Why won't some producer make a documentary to show just how devastating the plagues and subsequent total military defeat would have been on Egypt and show how the following decades would have transpired in a real case scenario?

We get documentaries on copycat myths that Christians don't pay attention to anyway. Instead of philosophy and what ifs, and could have beens... why not document how a global flood would have really affected the world, or how the exodus, if accurate, would have affected Egypt's history?

Johnny Skeptic

And a resurrection can mean a spiritual resurrection, not a physical resurrection. Noted skeptic Bible scholar Richard Carrier, among other sketpic Bible scholars, has argued that Paul believed that Jesus spiritually rose from the dead, not physically. If I recall correctly, some Gnostic Christians believed that too.

Sure, many things CAN mean many things, what what do they ACTUALLY mean? Did the writer of the story of Adam and Eve intend that people believe that the story was literal? How about the claims that a donkey talked, that a great fish swallowed Jonah, that there was a global flood, and even the claims that there were Ten Plagues and the Exodus? Following your same line of reasoning, how can anyone ever be reasonably certain what actually happened during Bible times? If the Bible had been written better, there would be little need for modern debates regarding what it means. My word, even Christians themselves have never had a unified set of beliefs. They have often killed each other over disputes regarding how to correctly interpret the Bible. What else would you expect from a God who never shows up tangibly, in person, to mediate disputes?

Your beliefs seem reasonable to you, but under some other circumstances it is probable that your beliefs would be much different than they are now. For instance, if you had been taken as a newborn baby and raised by Muslim parents in Syria, you probably would be a Muslim today. Statistics back that up. The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004 says that Syrians are "overwhelmingly Muslim."

Timetospend

By the way, I will likely not have much time for response for the next few days, but might have a few minutes to look into iidb.

OK. Some Gnostics did believe this way.

Not sure if I am suppose to respond, but I would go with Paul’s rather clear statement.
1 Cor 15:14
14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.
NRSV

What I would be if born into a Moslem home is not clear to me. According to the Bible, apparently God chose where I would be born:
Acts 17:26-28
26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us.
NRSV

My impression is that you are fishing for why I believe the Bible. As I understand the rules of this forum, I am not suppose to give a testimony. So, let me just write that my belief in God is the basis for any belief in the Bible. I see God working better when I use the template of the Bible. As such, when you ask me questions or make statements to me like the above I tend to offer back some verses as the basis for response. Again, without getting into a full-blown testimony, not sure how to answer you.

Again, I might not be able to respond quickly for a while, perhaps even a week or longer.

Thanks,

Minimalist

Which is a polite way of saying that it didn't happen at all.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Timetospend: You are wasting your time quoting the Bible. Most skeptics at this forum know the Bible as well or better than you do, and many of them, including me, are former Christians. Quoting Scriptures is not an argument. It is proselytizing, and no one is interested in your proselytizing. If you have any evidence to present why people should believe what the Bible says, please present it. Otherwise, how do you expect to make any progress?

Chuck Rightmire

While I do not believe in the plagues personally, I think a couple of the arguments against them have some fallibility. In the case of the news being written somewhere other than the Bible, there are those, generally not considered good scholars, who point out that at least twice in the 3,000 year history of the Egyptian culture, that there is a break in the written tradition. One of those intervals, both of which as I recall (someone may correct me) lasted more than a century. Little is know of them because few if any records survive.

Second: why didn't the neighbors have any record of the collapse? The answer there is the same reason that for centuries the western world credited Egypt with being the birthplace of western civilization rather than the Mesopotamian world where much of our culture can be traced to: when Egypt was not sending its emissaries out into the world, it was essentially isolated by deserts and mountains with other civilized parts of the world. There is little record of contact between Mesopotamia and Egypt until almost a millennium after both began their climb to what we call a higher civilization.