Diogenes the Cynic

I'm actually saying there probably IS a historical kernel for the Exodus in the Hyksos event, but that this does not mean that the Exodus was historical. It was probably partially inspired (in a garbled way), by the Hyksos story, but a story being inspired by history does not a historical narrative make.

outhouse

What has been discounted? I'm not suggesting in any way that the Hyksos actually had any historical connection to the Israelites, I'm just saying one story drew from another story.

stephan huller

I like you Michael but this is a ridiculously skewed summary of the evidence. There is evidence but you just want to smash the Exodus so badly that you won't recognize it. Manetho was seen as a respect authority by the pagan world. You say he was stupid, misinformed, beneath your intellectual standards or capabilities. Fine. No one in antiquity is up to your standards. All the pagan authorities (remember you guys are used to laughing at Jews and Christians for being intellectual lightweights but now even the pagans are all idiots too). All the people who had access to documents and traditions that we no longer possess are not 'up to' your intellectual standard.

Well if we discount all of antiquity and their acknowledgement that the Egyptian priestly records supported the existence of a historical Exodus then yes, Michael, there is no evidence.

But this is mountainman logic albeit masked in intellectual snobbery.

I used to know a comedian in Canada who would go out and do the worst set and if he got one laugh he'd come off stage and announce 'I killed!' This is perhaps a constructive application of your methodology.

Diogenes the Cynic

I think you need to define what you mean by the "Exodus" if you don't mean the Biblical narrative.

outhouse

thats possible

sorry for the confusion

stephan huller

Here's how the ancients made the connection - Egyptian society imploded and the Hebrews were the descendants of that rebellion.

outhouse

There wasn't any big migration OUT of Egypt or into Cannan, but migrations INTO Egypt happened during drought because the reliable annual flooding of the Nile gave the Egyption agricultural cycles a lot of stability. Egypt lasted a ling tome because it had the Nile and didn't have to depend on rain.

Lots of people would go INTO Egypt when times were bad. It was a refuge during drought.

After the Hyksos, the Egyptians became paranoid and xenophobic and stopped letting people in. They weren't trying stop anybody from leaving. If anything, they wanted people to leave.

Funny thing is, though, going to Canaan wasn't leaving. Egypt occupied Canaan at the time. The Israelites would have just been basically escaping to an Egyptian province.

outhouse

what I want to know is how can people claim they want to know the history of a legend and then ignore the evidence provided???


We are not talking about a lack of evidence at all.


We are talking about the fact that Israel's population gradually increased in size starting around 1200 BC

And the fact they are listed as a semi nomadic tribe in 1208 BC

And the fact the pottery shards in 1200 BC show no difference from Canaanite pottery of that exact period.

PLUS the writing style and composition shows it to be created in the 5th-6th century BC some 600 years after the formation of the hebrew culture.





what evidence is there of the exodus? mythical parables that state the whole world was flooded and were all inbred from adam and even and then again with noah [facepalm]

disregarding every other culture that shows no break in its writing in the last 6000 years.

might as well start claiming YEC and start following Harold Camping [facepalm]

Diogenes the Cynic

Egyptian society didn't implode, and the ones who were "rebelling" were the Egyptians themselves. The Hyksos were not slaves they were occupiers. They were kicked out by Ahmose I (i.e a guy named "Moses"), chased into Canaan and wiped out. The "descendants of that rebellion" were Egyptian. The Hyksos were wiped out and the Israelites were not their descendants. The Israelites did not arise until several centuries later, and came right out the indigeonous Canaanites. There is absolutely no historical connection between the Hyksos and the Israelites. The Israelites just plundered the Hyksos story for plot ideas when fabricating an origins myth for itself. They did a reversal on the story to make the semites the slaves and the Egyptians into the oppressors. Even the Moses in the bullrushes story is a reversal of the Egyptian Sargon myth.

stephan huller

outhouse, if you had any knowledge of the actually literary evidence you wouldn't allow your desires to direct what you think is or isn't possible. Why does Celsus say this about the Jews:

So let me get this straight. All these haters of the Jews couldn't figure out what you folks hit up on - you all with a tenth of their learning and education. Americans no less. Somehow 'figure out' what Manetho, Apion, Poseidonus, Celsus and Julian couldn't come up.

'It's all a lie.'

Only in America.