EthnAlln

Just a guess as to the ad hoc hypothesis that will patch this up: It is said that bugs "walk on four legs and hop on two." That makes six. And the firmament is that blue thing up there that any fool with two eyes can see.

But wait a minute, doesn't it say that rabbits chew the cud? They don't, you know. (Ad hoc response: they are coprophagic---they eat their own feces. That counts as chewing the cud. Ad hoc wins again, game, set, and match.)

Gullwind

One could always say that bugs DO have four legs. They just have two more in addition.

Kind of like the old "How many months have twenty-eight days?" joke.

bfniii

this is a very broad request. first, we lack a great deal of information regarding this event. second, i have illustrated several scenarios that corroborate the alleged exodus. i probably came the closest to fulfilling this request in one post in post #311.



not totally



they didn't have to have several decades worth. they apparently only wandered for 2 years.



the bible doesn't say that God provided all the water they needed. the oases are just another piece of information that serves to show that water sources weren't completely impossible.



why do any people complain about anything?

bfniii

there are several chronologies. i recognize that none of them are free of difficulties, which is to be expected given the lack of information we have from ancient history.

bfniii

so then why did people continue to excavate jericho after garstang?

bfniii

you haven't shown that i have abused anything



i'm going to attempt to cut through the distractions you are conducting. the various interpretations of the word are based on knowledge of the pertinent culture. why is only one interpretation viable? in what way have i misrepresented the text by presenting the alternatives? i haven't even denied any of them. i have merely stated that we don't know for sure which interpretation is correct at this point. in fact, we may never know. that, in no way, is disowning the meaning. it is your customary dog and pony show for the locals.



i noticed you didn't answer the question. it's yes or no, not depends.



you're still not getting it; traces left behind are what is irrelevant if you don't know where and when to look! there are multiple exodus chronologies. there are multiple proposed routes. the sites of the camps are not known.

it's funny how you try to deflect the issue by stating the the problems i present your position with are "irrelevant concerns". how convenient. nice attempt at not dealing with the issues.



examples?



good grief. you don't even finish your first sentence and you're already mentioning stuff i've covered.



i have already covered all this, pointedly.



i've covered this by stating that we have no idea how long the israelites had to prepare for the exodus. for all you know, they could have been carrying around the taj mahal.



covered



another issue possibly covered by prep time. you act like they were sub-humanoids with no inkling of how to live in harsh conditions.



what about it?



what logistics have i ignored?



this is the strangest response you've given. the location of the camp at kadesh barnea is apparently not known, meaning there is no way to tell if people have been looking in the right place. who knows if they were even within 100 miles of what we think is that place?



show that your interpretation of the word is the only one that can be correct. otherwise, you're just blowing smoke.



and just exactly what have i ignored? the master of obfuscation tells me i obfuscate.

let's go over your scholarly response again:
"Sad fact: it had no useful content."
great start. this response will get you real far in academic circles. dog and pony show, works great for you at infidels.

"It didn't deal with the issues."
spin-speak for "i don't want to go through the trouble of having to respond to your points while making it look like i already have.

"You can't simply point back to a post that didn't succeed as though it did."
why not? you haven't done anything to refute it. in fact, i'll keep referring to it until you post something that has some substance.

"Well, you can, I guess, but don't expect to be taken seriously. "
i'm comfortable with letting readers decide for themselves.



i think it is you who is having a memory problem. i have made three suggestions regarding water: they brought some, they used oases, God supplied some. your drought scenario (as inconclusive as it is) only addresses one of the three suggestions. furthermore, you haven't done anything to show how conclusive this drought is in regards to people's ability to get to water or the amount of water available. provide some hard facts about that particular drought and you might have a point. tossing the word drought around doesn't carry much weight.



now just let everyone in the world know that you've made a decision on the pesky exodus chronology problem that people have been working on for over a century and that they can call off all of the research.



what are you carrying it with? how long did you have to prepare before you went, knowingly, into the desert? you have a habit of assuming that the hebrews were completely idiotic and had absolutely no idea how to sustain themselves.



that's the easiest one of all for you. just prove there isn't a God and that issue will be put to rest.



i know some people who don't.

spin

Why did people explore the frontier after Daniel Boone?

Anat

bfniii, so your best explanation to the number of people participating in the alleged exodus is - it may be a literary exageration? I can understand 600,000 as such a number. But not a list of 12 non-round numbers accumulating to a non-round number.
I understand someone saying 'I told you a million times' but does anyone say: "On Sunday I told you 156,800 times, on Monday 134,700 times, on Tuesday 182,150 times, on Wednesday 114,350 times, on Thursday 93,600 times, on Friday 174,200 times, on Saturday 147,500 times, and in total 1,003,300 times!!?"

Anyone who ever worked as a lab teaching assistant knows that when students fudge results they do just what I did in the above example - decide in advance on the whereabouts of the desired result (a million, in my case), eyeball the average value and produce some numbers under and some over that value, then add them up to get the exact sum. Took me a few minutes, just pen and paper. The author of numbers might have taken a bit longer, because he may have chosen his numbers to reflect ideology (make sure Judah gets the largest number, get Ephraim and Menasseh add up to almost, but not quite, Judah's number and similar considerations) and it would have taken him longer to write it down because of differences in writing materials and writing conventions.

Regarding the water question - you know what, I don't believe a family could carry its own water for even one year. And besides, if they had several months' supply with them, why the urgency to find water in the early phases of the journey? And no, you do not seem to understand the realities of obtaining water at an oasis: only a few people can stand at the well at any given time, there is a limit to how much they can lift and it takes them time. thus there is an upper limit to the people that can be supplied by such a well, even without considering the amount of available growndwater.

Your best response to the question of camp hygiene is that they must have done it some other way than the one specified by God if the latter doesn't seem to work. Which brings to question what God had in mind when he gave them bad hygiene instructions.

Oh, you didn't solve the problem of how could all the required individual sacrifices have possibly been scheduled (in addition to the regular ones) on just 2 altars.

The method seems to be - the story must be taken as true, but if something doesn't seem to make sense then either that one detail shouldn't be taken literally or some unmentioned miracle took care of it. Which all amounts to 'the story exists, therefore it must have taken place, and if it doesn't make sense that isn't my problem'. You would have accepted any story as long as it was contained in your hly book.

spin

bfniii post 326

To avoid the significance of (LP meaning "thousand" you have to abuse the text. It's the same logic of abuse when you dodge the meaning of YLD. You ignore what the text literally says, the way it is translated in all the major translations and strike out into unfounded waters to bleat it can't mean what everything indicates because it is unpalatable.

You simply dodge the meaning of the text. You don't believe that the bible says what it says, you believe it says what you want.

There is no problem with a word having alternate meanings. Consider the word "minute" in English which could indicate a length of time and a size. However your approach is analogous to thinking, when someone was says "you haven't been here one minute", that "minute" could be a reference to size and ignoring the implication of the original statement.

Yes, I did. I said it was an illusion. In reality obviously no. But you aren't dealing with reality. That's why you didn't get my clear response.

Whose talking about routes? You are trying to obfuscate when we talk for example about Kadesh Barnea and Arad, you ignore the fact that we have definite references. You are giving more evasion. What is the point of you deluding yourself by chasing your own tail?

You are practising others' rhetoric. The Roman camps at Masada were unknown before people looked for them in the 20th c. People did surveys and found them. People did surveys for signs of Hebrews during the exodus in known locations and didn't find them. They know for example that there was no Arad in the late Bronze age. Your avoidance problem is showing again.

Already cited in this thread. Check for Ben-Tor.

Denial is not a response. Your linguistic abilities are proven as non-existent. Youur abilities to fantasize are well-known.

Your attempts to deal with things have been taken to task. You have to face it some day.

Ridiculous responses cannot be not taken seriously. A human being needs at least 2 litres of water per day -- in desert climates well over that. Foodwise let's say they need 300 grams to be extremely spartan. That means for ten days preparation they need to carry 23 kilos without even carrying a change of underwear. They were in the desert for forty years in the same underwear.

Avoided again.

You are to get a few million to act like a few dozen. You have no sense of scale.

It can't support the population you are trying to put in there.

The sort that mayors of cities of a few million have to deal with.

Reality is strange for you.

Do you understand what an archaeological survey is?

Do you understand that place names in antiquity were preserved for thousands of years.

How far is it from the point of the Sinai peninsula to Aqaba?? We are not dealing with Texas.

Your exaggerations to avoid simple inevitabilities would allow you to move theis exodus to some other continent.

Your utter ignorance on the matter has already been shown in this thread. You'll catch up with it eventually.

I'm pleased that you've at least learnt a little vocabulary here.

You have ignored literal meanings of the biblical texts, such as the significance of (LP in a simple context.

Everyone here knows that you have a delusional approach to your avoiding any issue that you come here for.

The ridiculousness of "they brought some" would embarrass most people proposing it. Remember two litres minimum per person per day. That's 29 thousand kilos of water each for forty years. How much of that do you think they could have carried? Where is your embarrassment?

The several analyses of the issue show that plant species were reduced, that occupation levels at habitation sites were reduced. You are force feeding an enormous population through an area with greatly reduced water sustainability.

I've already mentioned the article by Parpila and Neumann.

The only people who need to work on it for centuries are those who wish to deny plain evidence. The research you refer to is how to resurrect an erroneous tradition. Perhaps you could deal with that evidence rather than pointing toother people's problems dealing with, as though their problems will make you feel any better. Start with (Pi) Ra'amses and when it got its name. Otherwise accept the chronological evidence and forget the exodus as history.

After living in Egypt for hundreds of years they weren't nomads. Before thenthey were pastoralists. They were not adapted to living in the desert. Notwithstanding, the desert is unable to supply the population of the exodus. That's why there has never during historical times been a population of a 100th that of the exodus in the area.

You miss the issue. You don't have to argue anything when you say it was done by god. By definition, god being omnipotent can do anything, such as go against any system he has created. All you are doing is insulting god by saying that he needs to go against his earlier actions.

You see one when you look in the bathroom mirror.


spin

BrianJ

How does this square with 1 Kings 6:1, which places the Exodus during the reign of Thutmosis III?

Brian.