Apikorus

Biblical Archaeology Review ran a hilarious (and devastating) review of Wyatt's "Discovered: Sodom and Gomorrah" several years ago. Alas, I can't find it online. Wyatt is a first class nutjob.

Julian

Ron Wyatt has been discussed here at length. Here is a good example: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=127377

gregor

Praxeus

Are you positing Wyatt as a reliable source ?

Doug Shaver

I am aware of no good reason to think so.

How pure does a myth have to be before we can say "It didn't really happen"?

There are many types of fiction. Mythology is one.

Neither am I, but I've read stuff by people who are, and who have examined all the primary sources relevant to the Arthurian legend. Le Morte d'Arthur has no basis in fact, so far as we can tell from evidence known to exist.

That does not logically rule out the possibility that some of the characters in the story actually lived and actually did some of the things Mallory portrayed them as doing. But the mere logical possibility that X could have happened is not evidence that X did happen and therefore cannot justify the belief that X did happen.

Yes, it is possible.

I don't. I am not arguing that it could not have happened because the numbers cannot be accurate. I am arguing that absent good evidence for its having happened, we are not justified in believing that it happened.

There really were wandering tribes, therefore the exodus really happened? I don't think so.

From what I've read, they were not gone but just were not called Canaanites anymore. They were now called Israelites.

rob117

The Canaanites were never effectively "gone." The Phoenicians, including the Carthaginians, referred to themselves as Kana'ani right up until the fifth century AD. The lowland groups of Palestine were still considered Canaanites throughout the Iron II, even though they were politically dominated by Israelite and Aramaean groups. The highland shasu who gave rise to the Israelites and several other groups (i.e. the Moabites, Edomites, etc.) seem to have never actually identified themselves as Canaanites even in the Amarna period, but linguistically and religiously, they were Canaanites.

Diogenes the Cynic

What exactly is Redford's evidence for this? I can't find any. My understanding is that the Egyptians were extremely xenophobic after the Hyskos expulsion and that they did not take foreign slaves any more. The certainly did not take Israelite slaves.
This is hardly a settled fact. The Merenptah stele draws a distinction between the Shasu and the Israelites and even if the Israelites had been descendents of local nomads in the distant past that doesn't mean that "Shasu = Israelites" in the 18th dynasty.
If you're talking about the Karnak relief, it's from the time of Seti I, not Raamses II (Raamses II was his son). The Shasu in the relief are not Israelites, and it's a little too late to represent evidence of a 400 year bondage in Egypt.
The stele makes a distinction between the Israelites and the Shasu. The stel also offers evidence that "Israel" was already an established presence in Israel by the time of Merentpah.
So what? They weren't conquered by Israelites.
Not Israelites.
No. Any time of "wandering" in the desert (i.e. time spent as desert nomads) would have preceded any hypothetical enslavement of the Shasu, not come after it.
There is no evidence for Israel as a "kingdom" in the 13th century. The Merentpah stele just identifies them as a people, not a kingdom or a polity. It also claims to have destroyed them.

And the Israelites WERE canaanites.
It's not "negativity," it's simple observation of the facts. The historicity of the Biblical Exodus is decisively contradicted by the evidence. The Israelites were never enslaved in Egypt, never escaped, never wandered in the Sinai and never conquered Canaan. They were indigenous Canaanite hill people never left southern Canaan. Why is it "negative" simply to acknowledge that?

Steven Avery

Hi Gregor, I respect his work and find a shrill hysteria arises when it is referenced.

The Sodom and Gomorrah issues is a good case and point. The evidence is there, plain as day, you have to be rather blind not to say that at least it is an interesting, or even compelling, case. The best alternative and fits well the Bible account. You can say it isn't conclusive, and offer all sorts of alternative scenarios, that's your right. Yet when a person gets past the hysteria and simply tries to examine (e.g. my question about seeing pictures of comparable natural formations or sand dunes) the critics stonewall and accuse only, or switch gears.

The reactions themselves are quite interesting. And of course, again, anybody discussing the Exodus should at least be aware that folks like Professor Kenneth Kitchen have a different view than the historians mentioned here, that there are significant Egyptian chronology issues, that most of the archaeology is simply looking in the wrong place, and that there is a ton of relevant material in "The Exodus Case" by Lennart Moller to really be examined. Tis an incredible book.

What you tend to get is a lot of hostility and little examination, its like if you can find somebody like a Gary Amirault to cry "fraud", that is enough, you will embrace that view without more consideration. ("You" being the lazy critic).

A symptom of the mental malaise of our times.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Ebonmuse

I see others have recommended The Bible Unearthed, which is a good summary of the state of the art, but it can be fairly technical at times. As it happens, I have a series of articles on this topic on my site:

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html

Toto

Hysterical laughter, you mean.

Chris Weimer

Ron Wyatt? Yeah, laughter. His devoted band of followers - pity.