Jabu Khan

If the Exodus did happen it would be like fleeing the US govt. by moving from New York to Texas. Egypt was at war with Assyria. The borders of Egypt were the no mans land in Anatolia (Turkey). They would have been fleeing into a more heavily fortified part of Egypt with more armies.

About the flood mythology. Cultural patterns spread from Africa around the equator and slowly radiated out towards the poles long before oceanic voyages became routine. Totem rituals, animal cults, astrological cults, temple priests, regecides, agriculture. These cultural changes often carried myths as a way of conveying these lifestyle changes. This is another place where some Jung or Joseph Campbell would help.

Gullwind

Could have, its possible.

Sure, there are multiple explanations for the narrative. The point is that in order to make the narrative realistically possible, you have to add a lot to it that isn't there. There were seven days between the first and second plagues. Each one after that says "Then the Lord said . . ." Do you really imagine that there were months between each one, time to get more animals imported in from other countries? The text certainly doesn't indicate any such time frame. A plain reading indicates only a day or a few days between each plague. The plagues would have had be spread out over a year or two in order not to force the population to abandon the country to find food.

Its possible that the plagues were caused by an alien device that was beamed back up to the mothership after the Hebrews left, but would you be willing to accept that as a viable explanation without some evidence? I wouldn't, and I'll bet you wouldn't either. I simply take the same position on the plagues themselves. Its possible, but without some actual evidence, the logical position is that they didn't happen. (At least not the way the bible describes them.)

Sven

This was already addressed. There's no evidence at all from other cultures that the Egyptians gathered horses and other livestock from them.

Since there were far more Egyptians than Hebrews and since the latter left Egypt with their lifestock (IIRC), this is negated by the text itself.

And the point is that we have one explanation which is consistent with what we know, and others which are just made up without a shred of evidence, for the only reason to prevent the bible from being not inerrant.

xaxxat

Those are some piss-poor excuses. 2-3 million people spending 38 years at Kadesh-Barnea should have left a shitload of artifacts...

You might as well say gawd used some sort of cloaking device on the Hebrews... :huh:

Gullwind

Well, the bible doesn't say he didn't . . .

xaxxat

Right...

Doug Shaver

I assume you meant something other than "without peer." Maybe you meant that his conclusions are not undisputed?

Of course there are people who disagree with him. It is not possible to say anything about biblical archeology without somebody saying you're full of crap. It is no refutation of Finkelstein's work merely to note that some people disagree with him.

If you're going to refute him, you must tell us specifically what mistakes you think he makes in his arguments. What relevant evidence is he ignoring? What evidence does he base his argument on that you think fails to support his argument? Which part of his argument is fallacious, and what specific fallacy does he commit?

If you can answer none of those questions, you're just blowing smoke.

Wads4

I think that is shifting the burden of proof. The conventional account is that the Philistines were a part of the "sea-peoples" who invaded Canaan in the 12th century BCE, and tried to invade Egypt, but were repulsed by Rameses III. Some were Shardana from Sardinia. They might have been Minoans and/or Mycenaens who were displaced by eruptions on Santorini, which destroyed Minoan civilisation. There is no reason to suppose they existed in Abraham's time,--which is generally supposed to be around 1900 BCE.

RED DAVE

From xaxxat:
To say nothing of a shitload of shit.

Where are the latrine trenches?

RED DAVE

bfniii

Khirbet Nisya was occupied from the middle bronze to the early roman. while it has not been conclusively shown to be the location of the ai battle, it is a strong possibility. there are many acres of unexplored land around the traditional ai site so the answer to this one may not be forthcoming for some time.



the buildings don't have to be destroyed for a conflict to have taken place. they could have drawn the opposition out away from the city, as in the battle at ai. also, the various strata at tell beit mirsim show the same canaanite -> egyptian -> hyksos -> hebrew progression of occupational levels.



this doesn't preclude what the hebrews might have done previously



this conclusion is not supported by the excavations and doesn't match your own ealier statement that much of what is mentioned in the bible just hasn't been found yet (much like the exodus). furthermore, based on your own analysis that there is still much work to do, the conclusion that there is "negative evidence" is spurious.



to each his own