EssEff

Sorry about that! I did do a search before posting but I didn't expect threads that old because I thought it was a first-run show. Live & learn.

BrianJ

I wasn't aware that we know who the pharaoh was, is his being 'first born' mentioned somewhere?

It has long mystified me as to why such an important character in the Exodus story is not named.

Jabu Khan

What if Egypt came to the Israelites. I mean what if when Egypt expanded its borders and battled Assyria it conscribed Cannan first-borns and sent them to war. The Exodus across the Red Sea could be little more than the Egyptian Empire declining to the point where it no longer reached across the Red Sea.The narratives could have been an attempt to draw trogether a muddled population consisting of refugees from the wars of mighty empires into a shared identity and blaming all their collective woes on whoever the threats were at the present time. The plagues and tests could be little more than a uniting god who got the credit for a decline in Egypt which is still somewhat puzzling today. Fallow fields and rivers full of bodies and disease and pestilence are not exactly rare in times of mass warefare and the plagues could have become symbols. Plagues of frogs could have been added for humor to lighten up the story. Makes more sense to me than any of what I saw on that show. Also seems to me that Ankhenaten more likely brought monotheism to Cannan than the other way around. What evidence is their for the Jews being monotheistic at that time.

Malachi151

This actually sounds somewhat reasonable.

Amaleq13

You do realize that this unsubstantiated speculation in no way constitutes "evidence", right?

No, it isn't as has already been explained. That he would rather have had 10,000 of his own people die than his father neither requires nor implies that anyone besides his father had died.

spin

Trustworthiness though, is that you do know. Manetho can only give us Egyptian traditions.

One of the many problems with Manetho is when he was writing. Perhaps upto 1000 years after the supposed event you are interested in. Another is that you don't have straight Manetho, but other people's handlings of the guy, so it is hard to tell exactly what he is responsible for and what the person who cites him is responsible for. Get the problem??

First you have to understand it. If you imagine your straw archaeologists, then you are going to get your analysis wrong, aren't you?

That sure tells me what the bulk of your books on Akhenaten are: straight off the new age crap shelves.

As to Sigmund Freud, he was not a historian. He knew very little about the subject he was dealing with. He was not analysing it with very much information. Most of it hadn't been discovered at that time. Don't cite Freud and expect to be taken seriously.

Interesting, Redford was recommended for his views on understanding Akhenaten, and you talk about something else. Why can't you try to stay on topic for a few sentences?

I'm glad you got something out of the book. But why don't you learn something about Akhenaten from it?

I've seen how much you quote from sources. I've seen opinions built on much more.

Views mean little in the business. It is always what the evidence points to. Manetho is only evidence for the tradition of the past in his own time.

The only scholar who has really taken much notice of Rohl is Kenneth Kitchen, who was abused by Rohl, so went into detail where Rohl was wrong. Rohl has found his career, adventure tour leader.

And I wouldn't dream of linking the exodus tradition to a volcanic eruption. The exodus has obviously had a long and tortuous career, though it's relationship to historical events has been safely masked by layers of later developed tradition.

Nothing comes of nothing, according to King Lear, so speak again.

You make me think of the guy who would go off looking for the round table after reading the Arthurian literature, or a skeleton whose canine teeth are extended and pointy after reading Bram Stoker.

I mean you have your approach to history totally ass-up. You don't start with an unknown quantity and try to make what is known fit it. You start off learning about what is known and see if you can justify fitting your unknown quantity to what you have learnt.

I wish you had an inkling of why you need the red face.


spin

EssEff

The theory proposed in the documentary was that carbon dioxide was released, blanketed the area, suffocated the first-born (who had a privileged place on beds near the ground) and sparing the younger children (who slept on roofs and other high places)... and also sparing the Israelites who were awake and eating their seder meal. The case they cite is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF10/1094.html

They found that pharoah's son died at about the time of the volcano they blame for the plagues and this carbon dioxide event. I wish I could remember more of it. This part of it seemed very plausible to me.

Malachi151

Its not plausible at all. That lake incident killed entire villages, and carbon dioxide released from a volcano wouldn't hover close to the ground anyway.

Think of how unrealistic this is.

All the first born were on the ground, adults, children, etc. Everything else was above that level. This layer was so dense and so low and spread so evenly over diverse and rough terrain, that even in houses on different elevations the first born only always died, etc., and all first born had to always be sleeping at the lowest level in every house. I seriously doubt that. Most people probably slept at the same level, ground level.

This is just pure speculative fantasy.

That lake situation is very different from what they are proposing.