semiopen

Hoffmeister is a maximalist who thinks the Exodus is plausible.

He mentions two possibilities for the lack of archaeological evidence:

From premium content in Biblical Archeological Rview - Jan/Feb2007:

I'm not sure the second reason is more plausible - maybe from a strictly archeological perspective he s right, although one has to wonder why Israelite type artifacts, etc haven't been found.

The bottom line, I think, is that the only people who think the Exodus, etc. happened are those with religious beliefs where this is important.

Nobody disputes that a group of slaves may have escaped from Egypt and made their way to Canaan. It is certainly plausible that a group or groups of these slaves could have joined up with Israelites. Once one gets beyond this, any other claims are speculation,

Celsus

The expectation that the Judahite theology was fully formed prior to Babylon, and did not alter significantly through the experience of alienation and exile, is the one that stretches credulity. In any other social science, such a transformative experience would be immediately tapped for clues as to how it changed the philosophy and outlook of the peoples who underwent such a struggle, whether it's South Africans under Apartheid, or Jews after the Holocaust, or Cambodians coming to terms with a genocide, or Japanese coming to terms with their loss in the Second World War. But the exceptionalism required of a theory of a fully-constructed pre-Exilic J,D,P is really the one that beggars belief. Aside from the logistical hurdle of carting hundreds of sacred xenophobic nationalist texts into exile and then a second exile and back again...

andrewcriddle

I agree that Judahite theology was, in all probability, significantly altered through the experience of exile.

However at least some of the "minimalists" eg Davies, are alleged by their critics to hold that Judahite theology was not just altered by exile but transformed nearly out of recognition.

I can't say of my own knowledge whether this is an accurate statement of the claims of Davies et al, but if it is, then it seems a very different and much less probable idea than that of significant alteration.

Andrew Criddle

spin

One of your myriad probability statements whose weighting seems totally lacking in the post, ie "less probable" reads more like a statement of your desire!

It's hard for me to tell the difference between "significantly altered" and "transformed nearly out of recognition", unless of course by the former one means "changed a bit". When de Vaux can talk of a high place in operation at Malhah near Jerusalem through the 7th-6th centuries (ie including the period of Josiah) ("Ancient Israel", [Darton, Longman & Todd] 1961/1994, p.285). Favissae filled with cult figurines of the goddess were found through Israel representing various periods, one was found even in Jerusalem (though dated 8th-7th c.) while at other places were well into the Persian period. High places with massebah and cultic tree of Asherah is perhaps reflective of a religion that has been either "significantly altered" or "transformed nearly out of recognition" in later times. When is difficult to know. I don't know when Joshua was written, but it talks about its hero setting up a great stone "under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord" (24:26). This reflects the Yahweh and his Asherah of Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom inscriptions. Ezekiel, whose date of writing is hard to provide, can still talk about abhorrent acts going on under every green tree, so Asherah was still going hot.

The Hebrew religion, just on the face of this was at least di-theistic, though there are traces of other deities in the bible, where there are still a few Mot theophoric names, such as Azmot "Azmaveth" ("strong as Death") and Jerimoth ("taught by Death") even in a book as late as Chronicles (see 1 Chr 27:25 and 25:4). With a character as important as Gideon having a Baal theophoric as well as a son of Saul, we can actually find traces of a pantheon.


spin

Celsus

Well some who haven't suffered the brush of "minimalism" would argue that Yahweh's status rises in direct proportion to the diminution of the national status of the Judahite kingdom, and so whereas you'd need a fairly cosmic J (asserted to be pre-exilic), it's hard to see how a cosmic J develops in an era of Judahite kings with fairly mundane concerns about national contestations, given it was most certainly not an age when an angel was smiting all their enemies for them and you can almost imagine Hezekiah asking a prophet of Baal or Yahweh "how many divisions has your god?" (Hezekiah did pay attention to logistics over myth, though the mythic historical reconstruction has his faith and not his attention to logistics to attribute to his success - a mistake that would be consistently repeated until the scattering of the second century - though it would play a part in maintaining their identity).

And in this view, it's hardly surprising that the priestly class invented in Persia come back to Judah a hundred years later with a reconstructed faith and are shocked to find the indigenous peasantry (now 'othered' as the Samaritans) following a faith clearly related but entirely dissimilar to theirs, but which in all likelihood was similar to their pre-exilic one with its small cult sites and local deities (some like spin mentions). And this required new subjugation and conformity, I'd say, the pretext for a post-exilic elaboration of the D and P strands of the Torah particularly.

Is that "nearly out of recognition" or is that simply following a long trajectory that is clearly pre-existing but which needed amplification after the allowance by Xerxes to reconstruct their faith?

The Dagda

Is Moses the author of the Pentateuch?

show_no_mercy

If he was, he had at least four different personalities

The Dagda

That's not the least of it he died before he finished writing it as well which is impressive. And makes Zombie Moses the founder of Zombie Abrahamic religion rather than Abraham.

Obviously Zombie Jesus trumps all though.

andrewcriddle

I wouldn't regard your scenario as a change "nearly out of recognition" although I think some parts are improbable. Eg I think it likely that the idea of a hereditary priesthood is pre-exilic although I agree that the precise rules of who is and who isn't a priest develop during the exile.

My main point re the OP, is that unless one does see the post-exilic faith as changed "nearly out of recognition" then the pre-exilic beliefs almost certainly included some version of the exodus out of Egypt. This does not mean that this tradition was necessarily in any way historical, just that it was much older than the Babylonian exile.

Andrew Criddle

semiopen

The hereditary priesthood before the exile isn't clear. There was probably some concept of a herediary position but the nature of this is far from certain. I doubt it was totally Aaronid.

While I agree with your position that some elements of Judaism were pre exilic, this can be objectively analyzed. For example, passover appears to be post exilic. The position of YHWH as the main god is pre exilic.

From a theoretical framework, the minimalist position has certain advantages, if only to impose discipline on our outlook. Maximalists tend to make the most outrageous claims without this discipline. For example, the tribes dividing the land after the Exodus.