Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Dave Hawkins · 10-06-2007, 05:54 AM

MODERN SCHOLARS THINK EXODUS IS A MYTH
Many modern scholars (including liberal Christian scholars) believe that the epic events described in the Book of Exodus and depicted in the excellent movie starring Charlton Heston, The Ten Commandments, are simply myths.

Yes, that's right.

They think there was no oppression of the Israelites, no 10 plagues, no Passover, no mass exit during the night, no miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, no wandering in the desert, no conquest, no miraculous deliverance at Jericho, etc.

They think all this is made up and they believe that some Jewish scribe or scribes who lived in the kingdom years wrote down all the "tall tales" of Exodus from various sources they received which in turn were written down from oral tradition because supposedly Moses was a dumb goat herder who didn't know how to write. They even question whether there ever was such a person as Moses!

Incredible.

Yet, that's what they think and many scholarly(?) papers have been written to defend this view.

WHY DO THEY THINK THIS?
Well, there are probably many reasons, but one key reason is that no one could find any archaeological evidence of the existence of the Israelites in Egypt ...

UNTIL RECENTLY ...

Turns out that the following evidence for Israel's activities DOES exist ... scholars were looking in the right places, but they were looking in the WRONG TIME PERIOD!!

DAVID ROHL SOLVES THE MYSTERY
As I point out in my ever-expanding book review of Rohl's Pharoahs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, some of the evidence uncovered by looking in the RIGHT time period is ...

Quote:

* A Papyrus dated to the generation just prior to the birth of Moses listing slaves with Hebrew names–Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (one of the names of a Hebrew midwife listed in Exodus 1:15-21) (p. 276)
* Manetho wrote that that in the reign of Dudimose (the Pharoah of the Exodus under the New Chronology), ‘a blast of God smote us’ (i.e. the Egyptians) (p. 283)
* The 13th Dynasty of Egypt ended abruptly with the reign of Dudimose and we are told by Manetho that a foreign power took over the rule of Egypt. This would make sense if Dudimose’s army had just been destroyed as related in the Book of Exodus.
* The archaeology of Avaris (northern city in the land of Goshen) shows that, at approximately at this time, there was a terrible catastrophe–shallow burial pits all over Avaris into which victims had been hurriedly cast. (p. 279)
* The palace and cult statue of Joseph the Vizier of Egypt (p. 327)
* Evidence for the fallen walls and burned city of Jericho in the correct time period thus vindicating Garstang and refuting Kenyon (p. 299)

WHY WERE SCHOLARS LOOKING IN THE WRONG TIME PERIOD?
This is explained in two of my recent posts HERE and HERE in which I show that ...

* Conventional Egyptian Chronology is out by several hundred years
* This is because of an assumption by Egyptologists that Shoshenk I = the Biblical Shishak
* But this is wrong as shown by the map below and my articles linked above
* The assumption is based upon an ERROR by Champollion, the Father of Egyptology, and has never been questioned until Rohl

Dean Anderson deemed this information to be off topic recently when posted on the "Genesis: Oral Tradition? Or Written History?" thread, so I have started a new thread to discuss it. If the mods want to merge my other post over here, that's fine with me.

Read my short article, see if you agree and give me some feedback. While you may not agree with Rohl on other points, do you agree with him regarding Champollion's Big Mistake?

Pappy Jack · 10-06-2007, 06:01 AM

Four times now, Dave:

Quote:

And do you, Dave, accept Rohl’s evidence and chronology uncritically? If yes, why? If not, what parts of it do you reject and why?
As to your bullet points from Rohl's work:
• Shishak/Shoshenq - disputed and unresolved.
• C14 is not the only RM method used for dating the Egyptian chronology. Thermoluminescence is also used. Do you and/or Rohl have problems with this as well?
• Hebrew names in Egyptian papyri? So what? Egypt was both a military and commercial empire with links throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Near and Middle East. What other papyri and other textual sources are there that include non-Egyptian names? What does this lead us to conclude about Egyptian society?
• Egypt was a society with a deep-rooted belief in magic and the power of the gods. How many other pharaohs' reigns saw 'blasts of (the) god(s)' or other supernatural events recorded? If none, Manetho's observation may have some value; if many, then precious little. And are we certain that these are Manetho's own words rather than an interpolation by a later writer seeking to reinforce Biblical 'truth'? This is a pertinent question as Manetho's original work is lost and preserved only in fragmentary translations by Josephus (70 AD), Africanus (early 3rd century AD), Eusebius (early 4th century AD) and Syncellus (800 AD).
• And what is your interpretation of the 'terrible catastrophe' at Avaris? How does this provide 'evidence for Israel's activities'?
• Ditto Garstang and Kenyon's 'work at Jericho'?
• Joseph? Well, here's a comment from Dennis Forbes' review of A Test of Time.....:

Quote:

.....I began to wax sceptical when Rohl goes on to claim that the Austrians have found at Tell ed Daba: (1) foundation evidence of the house built by Joseph for his father, Jacob; (2) ruins of his own retirement palace Joseph built over the former site; and (3) the tomb of Joseph on these same palace grounds, near which was uncovered (4) the badly battered head of a non-royal colossal cult-statue, which Rohl believes depicts Joseph himself(!), and of which he has done a full-color (coat of many colors) reconstruction, using lots of imagination.

Regardless of Rohl's work, however, and even if 350 years was to be lopped off the accepted chronology for Dynastic Egypt (unlikely, if you follow the links to the reasoned criticisms of Rohl's work and conclusions), this does nothing to help you provide supporting evidence for [Piazzi] Smyth or to explain the existing evidence for Early Dynastic and Predynastic settlement in Egypt that your mythical Flood should have wiped from the face of the Earth.

VoxRat · 10-06-2007, 06:14 AM

Quote:

Read my short article, see if you agree and give me some feedback. While you may not agree with Rohl on other points, do you agree with him regarding Champollion's Big Mistake?

I'll read it when it passes peer-review by recognized scholars on the subject.

(Presumably scholars who know how to spell "pharaoh")

PhilosopherJay · 10-06-2007, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

MODERN SCHOLARS THINK EXODUS IS A MYTH

DAVID ROHL SOLVES THE MYSTERY
As I point out in my ever-expanding book review of Rohl's Pharoahs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, some of the evidence uncovered by looking in the RIGHT time period is ...

Quote:

* A Papyrus dated to the generation just prior to the birth of Moses listing slaves with Hebrew names–Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (one of the names of a Hebrew midwife listed in Exodus 1:15-21) (p. 276)

Since we know that the religious imagination is fertile, let us look at this evidence to see if it is really evidence or just imagined evidence in the eyes of an imaginative and bold fellow.

Where may we find this papyrus?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Lucretius · 10-06-2007, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Quote:
* A Papyrus dated to the generation just prior to the birth of Moses listing slaves with Hebrew names–Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (one of the names of a Hebrew midwife listed in Exodus 1:15-21) (p. 276)

Yet again there seemsto be some confusion in the minds of YECs between the simple English words "some" and "all".
The fact that here may be a papyrus listing slaves with "some" Hebrew names on it does not prove that "all" people who had Hebrew names were slaves.

Dave Hawkins · 10-06-2007, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilosopherJay

Since we know that the religious imagination is fertile, let us look at this evidence to see if it is really evidence or just imagined evidence in the eyes of an imaginative and bold fellow.

Where may we find this papyrus?

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Brooklyn Museum, catalog #35.1446, see Rohl, ch. 13 for other details of this papyrus.

Dave Hawkins · 10-06-2007, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucretius

Quote:

Quote:
* A Papyrus dated to the generation just prior to the birth of Moses listing slaves with Hebrew names–Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (one of the names of a Hebrew midwife listed in Exodus 1:15-21) (p. 276)

Yet again there seemsto be some confusion in the minds of YECs between the simple English words "some" and "all".
The fact that here may be a papyrus listing slaves with "some" Hebrew names on it does not prove that "all" people who had Hebrew names were slaves.

No. We YECs are not confused. The point is that critics allege that there IS NO evidence of the events described in Exodus ...

This papyrus (and other evidence) proves them wrong.

Lucretius · 10-06-2007, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucretius

Yet again there seemsto be some confusion in the minds of YECs between the simple English words "some" and "all".
The fact that here may be a papyrus listing slaves with "some" Hebrew names on it does not prove that "all" people who had Hebrew names were slaves.

The point, however, is that critics allege that there IS NO evidence of the events described in Exodus ...

This papyrus (and other evidence) proves them wrong.

But it doesn't Dave all that this one papyrus can be said to prove is that there were SOME slaves with Hebrew (or Hebrew like even) names NOT that the whole race was enslaved .
I know someone who is descended from black slaves in the West Indies and he has the surname Jones ,that does not mean that the entire population of Wales were slaves in the West Indies.

Dave Hawkins · 10-06-2007, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucretius

Quote:

Originally Posted by afdave

The point, however, is that critics allege that there IS NO evidence of the events described in Exodus ...

This papyrus (and other evidence) proves them wrong.

But it doesn't Dave all that this one papyrus can be said to prove is that there were SOME slaves with Hebrew (or Hebrew like even) names NOT that the whole race was enslaved .
I know someone who is descended from black slaves in the West Indies and he has the surname Jones ,that does not mean that the entire population of Wales were slaves in the West Indies.

Right. SOME Hebrew slaves = SOME evidence. Doesn't prove Exodus happened by itself. Not saying it does. But SOME evidence does exist ... contrary to assertions by skeptics.

Pappy Jack · 10-06-2007, 06:49 AM

I tell you what, Dave, I'll reduce it to just two points:

1. Hebrew names in Egyptian papyri? So what? Egypt was both a military and commercial empire with links throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Near and Middle East. What other papyri and other textual sources are there that include non-Egyptian names? What does this lead us to conclude about Egyptian society?

2. Egypt was a society with a deep-rooted belief in magic and the power of the gods. How many other pharaohs' reigns saw 'blasts of (the) god(s)' or other supernatural events recorded? If none, Manetho's observation may have some value; if many, then precious little. And are we certain that these are Manetho's own words rather than an interpolation by a later writer seeking to reinforce Biblical 'truth'? This is a pertinent question as Manetho's original work is lost and preserved only in fragmentary translations by Josephus (70 AD), Africanus (early 3rd century AD), Eusebius (early 4th century AD) and Syncellus (800 AD).

Waiting patiently.....

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10-06-2007, 06:49 AM	#10
Pappy Jack Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: French Pyrenees Posts: 649	I tell you what, Dave, I'll reduce it to just two points: 1. Hebrew names in Egyptian papyri? So what? Egypt was both a military and commercial empire with links throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and Near and Middle East. What other papyri and other textual sources are there that include non-Egyptian names? What does this lead us to conclude about Egyptian society? 2. Egypt was a society with a deep-rooted belief in magic and the power of the gods. How many other pharaohs' reigns saw 'blasts of (the) god(s)' or other supernatural events recorded? If none, Manetho's observation may have some value; if many, then precious little. And are we certain that these are Manetho's own words rather than an interpolation by a later writer seeking to reinforce Biblical 'truth'? This is a pertinent question as Manetho's original work is lost and preserved only in fragmentary translations by Josephus (70 AD), Africanus (early 3rd century AD), Eusebius (early 4th century AD) and Syncellus (800 AD). Waiting patiently.....

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