Diogenes the Cynic

My agenda is only to recover accurate history, and accusing me of an ideological agenda is really just a kind of ad hominem which really don't address the evidence.
Too bad there were no such thing as Israelites at that time, and that nothing about the Hyksos expulsion matches the Exodus story, and that the book of Exodus itself (which is the on we're actually talking about) indicates that the Israelites were still there during the 13th Century, so basically this means nothing. The Hyksos rebellion was not the Exodus.
No one is saying there isn't a connection. The Exodus narrative probably is a highly mutated descendent of the Hyksos story, but it's fallacious to say that means there is anything historical about the Exodus narrative. There is more accurate history in Hogan's Heroes than there is in the Exodus narrative.
We aren't talking about oral traditions. The Exodus narrative is not based on any oral tradition, it was fabricated on the page, weaving in elements of other existing traditions, and perhaps containing some earlier embedded oral material (like "Song of the Sea"), but we are talking about a literary creation, not an oral history.
I think you're seeing this absolutism where it doesn't exist. I don't know of many people (not informed people anyway) who say that nothing in the Bible can be historical. It just has a very low level of overall reliability. The Penteteuch, especially hovers very close to zero, but it does have some place names right.

Johnny Skeptic

Do you have evidence that the biblical Exodus story is probably true?

outhouse

As stated there was never Israeli's in Egypt.


What were left with now is trying to find a possible migration pattern of the legend we know was created in the 5th-6th century.


Im under the following that there is a oral tradition this legend was fictionally created from.




One thing missing in this thread is follwing Yahweh's trail to look at the possibilities of possible tribes that carried Yahweh to what would be Israeli's.

We know he Shasu tribe is the earliest mention of Yahweh, but we dont know that they were the orignation of Yahweh and we dont know of a connection at all to Isareli's.


As far as the fictional account in the bible, were left with more questions then answers un fortunatly regarding a possible historical core.

Duvduv

Archeological evidence, the answer is no as far as i know. But my religion does not require archeological discoveries to confirm its history.

outhouse

we are talking more about history then religion.


religion = mythical content


history = the best explanation for past events.



Faith has no place in defining history

Duvduv

History is not restricted to the findings of archeology, and the lack of archeological findings does not mean that history is myth.

outhouse

all of that i will agree.


but that does not negate the fact that the exodus as written in the 5th-6th century is a legend and has no historicity as a reality, however it does have a theological foundation to give cultural identity to Israeli's

Duvduv

That is your opinion and interpretation that you cannot of course prove empirically.

outhouse

LOL :constern01:


It is those that make a claim [like the exodus] that have to back their position.

what do you have besides faith???



I have a clear indication when the myth was written, and why. We have a lack of historical evidence in literature, and archeology in Israel that is definitive proof the story did not happen as written or when it is said to have happened.

We also have archeological records from egypt that show there was never a enslaved race of israeli's EVER and we have a absense of any records from Egyptians of said people. this is from people who kept accurate recods of everything.


What we do have as well is a clear indication that the majority of what would be Israeli's were in fact semetic speaking Canaanites and Mesopotamians and a few Egyptians that did slowly migrate to what would be Israel around 1200 BC.


before this time there is only record of what would be the foundation for the Israeli people found on the Merneptah stele, indicating a semi nomadic people around 1209 BC. There are no Israeli's before this period as were written in text.

Diogenes the Cynic

It's a bit facile to try to argue that lack of archaeological evidence can't necessarily be strong evidence of absence. If a hypothesis predicts taht something should be found, and that thing is not found, then it falsifies the hypothesis.

The Israelites were supposedly in Egypt for 400 years. Even if we cut that down to the 200 year number, that's still roughly analogous to the amount of time that the North American continent enslaved black people. How easy would it be to eradicate any trace of archaeological evidence that African slaves had any presence in the American colonies during that period. It would be virtually impossible to erase all evidence even by intention, so what are the odds it would all just vanish by natural means?

There is also Kadesh-Barnea, a small oasis where the Bible says the Israelites stayed for 38 of their 40 years in the Sinai. 2 million people supposedly lived there for 38 years (at an oasis far too small to support 2 million people, by the way, but that's another issue). Two million people is a city. I live in a US metropolitan city (St. Paul, MN) which is less than 300,000.

Using modern technology, archaeological surveyors are able to find the remains of small, ancient campfires from small groups of nomads camping for a single night, yet at Kadesh Barnea, not a single trace of human presence has been found from anything close to the time of the Exodus. A population of people roughly the size of Manchester, England lived at this oasis for 38 years, but did not leave a single potsherd, bone, tool, cemetery any kind of landscaping or altering of terrain, nothing.

Sometimes absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.