Freethought & Rationalism Archive

show_no_mercy · 09-29-2009, 09:39 AM

I'm pretty sure the point of the Exodus story is to establish Israelite monotheism and to have a holiday (Passover) that explicitly reminds returning Jewish exiles of their monotheism (which just so happens to coincide with the first harvest of spring).

Anat · 09-29-2009, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

That the Exodus was rewritten as an allegory of their exile in Babylon should give you a clue as to the motivations of coming up with the story in the form we know it today - slaves escaping a mighty power. For all we know, it was originally as "historical" as Pilgrim's Progress or the Narnia books to them, but eventually became thought of as historical, so powerful was the message to those who read it.

Do you think the description of public celebration of Passover (under Josiah in Kings, under Hezekiah in Chronicles) originates post-exile? Or was there an attempt to form a unifying mythology after the fall of Samaria that got amplified post-exile? Hmm. Perhaps a pre-exile celebration was intended as a substitute for those who were used to celebrating at Beth-El and the whole Exodus context was only added post-exile?

Do you think the occasional mention of Egyptian origins of the Israelites or wanderings in the desert in the books attributed to the various prophets are pre-or post-exile in origin?

bacht · 09-29-2009, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

That the Exodus was rewritten as an allegory of their exile in Babylon should give you a clue as to the motivations of coming up with the story in the form we know it today - slaves escaping a mighty power. For all we know, it was originally as "historical" as Pilgrim's Progress or the Narnia books to them, but eventually became thought of as historical, so powerful was the message to those who read it.

Do you think the description of public celebration of Passover (under Josiah in Kings, under Hezekiah in Chronicles) originates post-exile? Or was there an attempt to form a unifying mythology after the fall of Samaria that got amplified post-exile? Hmm. Perhaps a pre-exile celebration was intended as a substitute for those who were used to celebrating at Beth-El and the whole Exodus context was only added post-exile?

Do you think the occasional mention of Egyptian origins of the Israelites or wanderings in the desert in the books attributed to the various prophets are pre-or post-exile in origin?

I'd like to know that too. The exodus out of Egypt was mentioned already by Amos and Hosea (8th C bce), unless these references were interpolated later.

John Kesler · 09-29-2009, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

I've made this point before but I love going over it anyway: Just thinking of the logistics of clearing 2 million people's worth of shit over 40 years in the desert floors me :P

Keep in mind, too, that the Israelites were not allowed to relieve themselves anywhere within the confines of the camp, lest Yahweh see the "indecent" human waste and "turn away" from the Israelites. Going outside a camp composed of roughly two-million people every time one had to use the "bathroom" would prove difficult to say the least.

Quote:

Deuteronomy 23:12-14
12 You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go. 13With your utensils you shall have a trowel; when you relieve yourself outside, you shall dig a hole with it and then cover up your excrement. 14Because Yahweh your God travels along with your camp, to save you and to hand over your enemies to you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Whether intended as such or not, the Bible offers apologetics for various other logistical problems that would be encountered during the Exodus--how did they see to travel and know the way; how did they get food and water; why didn't their clothes and shoes wear out--but apparently waste removal was never considered or was deemed too offensive to discuss.

Quote:

Deuteronomy 8:4, 15-16a
4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years...15 [Yahweh] led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know...

Deuteronomy 29:5
5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out;

Exodus 13:21-22
21 Yahweh went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Nehemiah 9:12, 15a, 21
12Moreover, you led them by day with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire, to give them light on the way in which they should go...15 For their hunger you gave them bread from heaven, and for their thirst you brought water for them out of the rock...21Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

There was even a midrash that developed about the water-giving rock, which stated that the rock traveled with the Israelites from place to place. Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 10, in which he claims that the "spiritual rock that followed [the Israelites]" was Christ.

Celsus · 09-29-2009, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anat

Do you think the description of public celebration of Passover (under Josiah in Kings, under Hezekiah in Chronicles) originates post-exile? Or was there an attempt to form a unifying mythology after the fall of Samaria that got amplified post-exile? Hmm. Perhaps a pre-exile celebration was intended as a substitute for those who were used to celebrating at Beth-El and the whole Exodus context was only added post-exile?

Do you think the occasional mention of Egyptian origins of the Israelites or wanderings in the desert in the books attributed to the various prophets are pre-or post-exile in origin?

I'd like to know that too. The exodus out of Egypt was mentioned already by Amos and Hosea (8th C bce), unless these references were interpolated later.

Prizes for guessing when the passover celebration began? The festival of Purim was contested as late as the 2nd century CE and Esther was probably at earliest a 2nd century BCE fiction. As for Amos and Hosea, why do you expect them to be 8th century, either in whole or in part?

No one would argue against an Egyptian connection, indeed there are numerous Egyptian links (don't forget the tradition of Jeroboam, first king of northern Israel, fleeing to Egypt in a manner that recalls Jesus' father Joseph fleeing from Herod and indeed the patriarchal move to Egypt; secondly the record that the Judahite exiles who did not go to Babylon went to Egypt, following Jeremiah). But why we should expect any of the Exodus to bear any semblance at all to actual history? The passover liberation from Egypt, I could imagine, might easily have been a mode of subversion that either began in Babylonian exile, or shortly after, in much the way Santeria venerates Catholic saints who are actually traditional African (mostly Yoruba, in fact) deities remembered in other forms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kesler

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

I've made this point before but I love going over it anyway: Just thinking of the logistics of clearing 2 million people's worth of shit over 40 years in the desert floors me :P

Keep in mind, too, that the Israelites were not allowed to relieve themselves anywhere within the confines of the camp, lest Yahweh see the "indecent" human waste and "turn away" from the Israelites. Going outside a camp composed of roughly two-million people every time one had to use the "bathroom" would prove difficult to say the least.

Whether intended as such or not, the Bible offers apologetics for various other logistical problems that would be encountered during the Exodus--how did they see to travel and know the way; how did they get food and water; why didn't their clothes and shoes wear out--but apparently waste removal was never considered or was deemed too offensive to discuss.

None of which actually would have been sufficient to deal with the problem, because they, like us, have no idea what the scale of numbers actually means (we simply can't comprehend a number like "2 million"). IIRC, a pit latrine about 6-10 feet deep, with just 300-400 people sharing it (typical refugee camp conditions) took about 3 months to fill up if not cleared. These had to be specially built so as not to contaminate groundwater (recommended 30-50m distance from living area + concrete lining), especially in the rainy season, and moreover benefited from modern clearing techniques that I doubt the Israelites had. Though I suppose God might have worked as their toilet cleaner during this time.

semiopen · 09-29-2009, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

I'd like to know that too. The exodus out of Egypt was mentioned already by Amos and Hosea (8th C bce), unless these references were interpolated later.

Prizes for guessing when the passover celebration began? The festival of Purim was contested as late as the 2nd century CE and Esther was probably at earliest a 2nd century BCE fiction. As for Amos and Hosea, why do you expect them to be 8th century, either in whole or in part?

No one would argue against an Egyptian connection, indeed there are numerous Egyptian links (don't forget the tradition of Jeroboam, first king of northern Israel, fleeing to Egypt in a manner that recalls Jesus' father Joseph fleeing from Herod and indeed the patriarchal move to Egypt; secondly the record that the Judahite exiles who did not go to Babylon went to Egypt, following Jeremiah). But why we should expect any of the Exodus to bear any semblance at all to actual history? The passover liberation from Egypt, I could imagine, might easily have been a mode of subversion that either began in Babylonian exile, or shortly after, in much the way Santeria venerates Catholic saints who are actually traditional African (mostly Yoruba, in fact) deities remembered in other forms.

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Kesler

Keep in mind, too, that the Israelites were not allowed to relieve themselves anywhere within the confines of the camp, lest Yahweh see the "indecent" human waste and "turn away" from the Israelites. Going outside a camp composed of roughly two-million people every time one had to use the "bathroom" would prove difficult to say the least.

Whether intended as such or not, the Bible offers apologetics for various other logistical problems that would be encountered during the Exodus--how did they see to travel and know the way; how did they get food and water; why didn't their clothes and shoes wear out--but apparently waste removal was never considered or was deemed too offensive to discuss.

None of which actually would have been sufficient to deal with the problem, because they, like us, have no idea what the scale of numbers actually means (we simply can't comprehend a number like "2 million"). IIRC, a pit latrine about 6-10 feet deep, with just 300-400 people sharing it (typical refugee camp conditions) took about 3 months to fill up if not cleared. These had to be specially built so as not to contaminate groundwater (recommended 30-50m distance from living area + concrete lining), especially in the rainy season, and moreover benefited from modern clearing techniques that I doubt the Israelites had. Though I suppose God might have worked as their toilet cleaner during this time.

I have my doubt about Amos and Hosea being 8th century BCE, certainly regarding the passsover reference.

The first clear evidence of passover is from Elephantine where there is the famous letter from King Darius. I think that also shows the double celebration where passover and the holiday of matzohs are two different events.

The Chronicler mentions it in conjunction with Hezekiah, where they fucked up and missed it by a month. I'm not sure how true that is since the Chronicler is post exilic, but kind of a weird thing to put in there.

It's also mentioned in Joshua, but this book is also clearly post exilic.

Waste is discussed in the bible. One wasn't allowed to take a dump in the camp, so with the 2 million people, this could have been a 2.5 mile walk.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14

Quote:

Choose a place outside the camp where you can go [to relieve yourself].

You must carry a pointed stick as part of your equipment. When you go outside to squat, dig a hole with it. When you're done, cover up your excrement.

The LORD your God moves around in your camp to protect you and hand your enemies over to you. So your camp must always be holy. This way, the LORD will never see anything offensive among you and turn away from you.

Quote:

God: I'm walking around the fucking camp and there's shit lying around?

I saw a Christian commentary which claims this is just for soldiers (makes you think).

My latest reading on Esther and Purim is "Esther's Revenge at Susa: From Sennacherib to Ahasuerus (or via: amazon.co.uk)" by Stephanie Dalley. Makes a lot of sense but the footnotes are a little scambled on the Kindle edition.

bacht · 09-29-2009, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

I'd like to know that too. The exodus out of Egypt was mentioned already by Amos and Hosea (8th C bce), unless these references were interpolated later.

Prizes for guessing when the passover celebration began? The festival of Purim was contested as late as the 2nd century CE and Esther was probably at earliest a 2nd century BCE fiction. As for Amos and Hosea, why do you expect them to be 8th century, either in whole or in part?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating traditional dating for any biblical book. I just wonder when the idea of an exodus from Egypt became "official" Jewish tradition (does this automatically include Passover?) Amos and Hosea may or may not date in whole or part from the 8th C, I don't know the technical arguments.

You seem to be among those who date much if not most of the OT material to the post-600 period. I prefer to see the post-exilic editors playing with older bits and pieces while adding their own interpretation. I'm open to the idea that the whole pre-exilic package of history & prophecy was created later if the evidence supports it.

A common comparison is Homer, writing over three hundred years after the siege of Troy. I don't if anyone contends that the entire Iliad was fiction, since there really was a significant society in Mycenae in the late 2nd millenium.

Clivedurdle · 09-29-2009, 01:33 PM

Quote:

1 Corinthians 10, in which he claims that the "spiritual rock that followed [the Israelites]" was Christ.

Thank you for reminding me of this! My Pentecostal background - look at Dake's Annotated Bible - majored on this type of connection, and creating this wonderful interconnected and completely interdependent story.

That there are no connections to reality anywhere is a concept that is very difficult to grasp once one had drunk of the wondrous story of the Christ, the Alpha and Omega.

It is as if we are all infected and addicted to this mind drug.

Another antidote.

Laughing Jesus (Religious Gnostic Wisdom) (or via: amazon.co.uk)

Quote:

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1: GNOSTIC SPIRITUALITY AND LITERALIST RELIGION

The letter kills but the spirit brings to life. —Paul, Letter to the Ephesians

Wake up! Rouse yourself from the collective coma you mistake for ‘real life’. See through the illusion of separateness and recognize that we are all essentially one. Although we appear to be isolated individuals, in reality there is one awareness dreaming itself to be everyone and everything. This is our shared essential nature. The simple secret to enjoying this dream we call ‘life’ is to wake up to oneness. Because, knowing you are one with all, you will find yourself in love with all. You will fall in love with living. This is the message of the original Christians, who symbolised this awakened state with the enigmatic figure of ‘the laughing Jesus’.

Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing? Probably not, because we have inherited a distorted form of Christianity created by the Roman Church in the fourth century, which focuses exclusively on Jesus the ‘man of sorrows’. The image that has dominated our culture is that of a man being tortured to death on a cross. But the original Christians didn’t see Jesus as an historical man who ‘suffered for our sins’. They viewed Jesus as the mythical hero of a symbolic teaching story, which represents the spiritual journey leading to the experience of awakening they called ‘gnosis’, or ‘knowing’.

The original Christians were inspired men and women who saw how good life could be if we would just wake up and live in love. They imagined a new world that would no longer be divided into slaves or citizens, men or women, Gentiles or Jews. But inadvertently, this band of non-conformists gave birth to a totalitarian regime that would rule Europe with an iron fist for over a thousand years. The result was not Heaven on Earth, but the Holy Roman Empire. The dream became a nightmare.

The Roman Church did all it could to suppress the teachings of gnosis and the image of the laughing Jesus. It succeeded so well that it now seems strange to even suggest that Christianity was originally about awakening. But in the middle of the twentieth century some of the texts of the original Christians were found in a cave near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. In these texts the message of awakening is proclaimed loud and clear.

Those who have realised gnosis have set themselves free by waking up from the dream in which they lived and have become themselves again.

.....
This book is a damning indictment of Literalist religion and a passionate affirmation of Gnostic spirituality. Let’s start by clearly discriminating Gnosticism from Literalism:

Gnostics teach that the important thing is to wake up and experience gnosis for ourselves.

Literalists teach that the important thing is to blindly believe in religious dogmas.

Quote:

The Baby and the Bathwater

The time has come to say enough of this madness and consign Literalist religion to the garbage can of history. But we must be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Religion isn’t all bad. It has answered the profound human yearning to understand the mysteries of life and death. It has inspired people of all cultures to create sublime works of art, glorious cathedrals and temples, transcendental music and songs. It has this power because at its heart is Gnostic spirituality. In this book we want to rescue the teachings of gnosis from under the accumulated debris of religious dogma, so that we can jettison outdated religious Literalism but retain and revivify the perennial wisdom of awakening.

Let’s stop blindly believing in old books and listen instead to those heretical voices that have been drowned out by the cacophony of Literalist war cries. Just imagine for a moment that what Gnostics have been telling us throughout the ages is true. We appear to be separate, but essentially we are all one. The awareness that is conscious in you is the same awareness that is conscious in everyone. And if you recognise this, you will find yourself in love with all.

Imagine what would happen if we actually began to wake up and live by the Gnostic teachings of oneness and love. If we started to truly love our neighbours, and even our enemies, because we recognise that they are actually expressions of our own deeper self. If we saw through to the reality that there are no Jews, Christians or Muslims. There is no ‘us versus them’. There is only us. This is the Gnostic vision that has inspired us to write this book.

In Part 1, ‘The Bathwater,’ we undertake a religious detox to flush the poison of Literalism out of our system. We take a good hard look at the supposedly ‘sacred’ scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam,

Laughing Jesus is very rude about the Judaic fantasy factory - we are looking at the creation of a history, like Henry VIII rewrote history. Did Jews exist at the time of the Pharoahs, let alone camel trains?

semiopen · 09-29-2009, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celsus

Quote:

Originally Posted by semiopen

You may well be right. I always wanted to be a detective - probably a Columbo type. The central importance of Egypt for the Israelites bothers me and I just think there is something behind it.

Don't forget the Egyptians controlled Canaan for much of the bronze age.

At the time of the supposed Conquest, Egypt controlled Canaan. Which means the Israelites escaped out of Egypt then conquered Egyptian land with nothing but the clothes on their backs and wherever they happened to find enough iron to forge millions of swords in 40 years in desert. Stretches credulity, does it not?

As for the Egyptian obsession, there's nothing unusual about a small nation being obsessed by a larger more powerful immediate neighbour (and sometime foe, sometime ally). It happens all the time.

Quote:

Just mentioning stuff like this annoys some people, but there are also similarities between Moses et al and Pharoes like my acquaintance, Dr. Hobeth claims:

http://arismhobeth.com/

Aris is a little extreme and a theist, but the issue of Moses and Egypt receives significant scholarly attention.

Erm Velikovsky is ... how do I put this nicely... a complete whackjob.

Keep in mind that I agree with you.

Egypt's hold on Canaan significantly weakened during this time, but the coastal road in the Sinai was fortified and they were present. Conceivably, a small bandit group could operate in Canaan without provoking an Egyptian response.

Regarding the Iron, I'm not sure what this means in the late bronze/early iron; but the Israelites were Iron challenged well into the Iron Age, relying on the Phoenicians for this "advanced technology."

Egypt/Moses seem important. The serious scholarly attention I've seen, (and I'm far from well read on this) doesn't suggest an Exodus, etc as the source of Egyptian influence on Israelite religion.

Zeluvia · 09-29-2009, 03:49 PM

So, what if the "jews" were the people of Canaan who embraced Egyptian culture, modified their thinking, and their religion, accepted education, and were appointed "leaders" over the others for their pro-egyptian stance? Wouldn't the other Canaanite tribes have pretty much hated them for this? Did this domination last even after Egyptian influence waned? Is the whole slave/conquest story created for the Exodus ALSO a form of apologetics for their superiority in the area, as well as being a source of hope after the Babylonian exile?

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09-29-2009, 09:39 AM	#31
show_no_mercy Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Dancing Posts: 9,940	I'm pretty sure the point of the Exodus story is to establish Israelite monotheism and to have a holiday (Passover) that explicitly reminds returning Jewish exiles of their monotheism (which just so happens to coincide with the first harvest of spring).

09-29-2009, 03:49 PM	#40
Zeluvia Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Texas Posts: 5,172	So, what if the "jews" were the people of Canaan who embraced Egyptian culture, modified their thinking, and their religion, accepted education, and were appointed "leaders" over the others for their pro-egyptian stance? Wouldn't the other Canaanite tribes have pretty much hated them for this? Did this domination last even after Egyptian influence waned? Is the whole slave/conquest story created for the Exodus ALSO a form of apologetics for their superiority in the area, as well as being a source of hope after the Babylonian exile?

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