NOGO

What I want to know is how two million slaves can afford a to eat a meal with meat in an otherwise agrarian society?

Also with that many working hands gone the Egyptian economy must have taken a heavey blow. Where is the evidence for that?

Asha'man

Is this the same Vanderzyden who is so hyper-skeptical that he won’t accept DNA evidence when provided with a complete sequencing?

But from one little document providing a few non-Egyptian names, he is confident that the entire Exodus is proven true?

I’m sorry, even a minimum level of skepticism will reveal that there is absolutely no convincing evidence of the Exodus story.

Ted Hoffman

Mfaber took out the wind out of Vanderzyern's sails before I could. Damn!

That was an excellent post. Need I add more to what Reasonabledoubt has? Lets see...

First, let me add more supernatural crap that leaps at us from the myth:
Like Jesus, Moses isolated himself and went without food for 40 days and nights:
Exodus 24:38:
Worse still, 40 years without their clothes growing old:
Deut 8:4 Nehemiah 9:21
But more seriously, lets look at Moses. Was he a flesh and blood man?
We are told that Jochebed, his mother, put him in a papyrus ark and placed it at the bank of the river Nile when hiding him from Pharaoh (like Jesus was "hidden" from Herod). Then of course Pharaohs daughter stumbled upon it and adopted Moses, just as Jochbed expected!

Several other birth legends in the world are similar to this. in the hindu epic Mahabharata, a child was also hidden in a small basket, placed in a river and subsequently adopted by a stranger, like Moses, this child was said to be radiant a "son of the sun". In Romes legends, Romulus and Remus were also abandoned in the flooding river Tiber in a trough, which foated down to what was alter to be the future city of Rome. A third example of this abandoned child motif is from Greek mythology, the infant Oedipus is locked in a chest and thrown into the sea, whereupon he is washed ashore by the waves and adopted by a royal household, just like Moses!

The closest parallel to Moses' story is the "birth legend" of Sargon, king of Agade, the ancient capital of Akkadian people. Who was born close to the banks of the Euphrates, was born in secret andwas set in a basket of reeds and cast into the river. He was taken by Akki, the drawer of water, whose son reared him and later made him a gardener. It was while he was a gardener when Innana (Ishtar) loved him and he became a king.

These extreme parallels demonstrate that Moses, like the characters in the examples provided, was a mythical character.

More importantly, the ark, baskets, troughs etc that saved these people, (like Noahs ark) which are coated in bitumen (both Noahs Ark, Moses' ark and Sargons arks were coated in bitumen) represented a vessel that carried these "heavenly" figures from heaven, down to the celestial river to the earth (or the underworld). This is a story that was rewritten from earlier myths where "saviours" and kings are born in heaven and taken down to the underworld (the earth).
This interpretation is supported by the name "Moses", which derives from an Egyptian suffix mss which means "born of" or "begotten of". Such a name would normally be prefixed with the name of a god, as in the names of the Egyptian Kings Ra-messes (for King Ramesses) or Thit-mosis.

There is this good reason to beleive that Moses might have been a divine child, just like the Egyptian Kings. When one goes further, one realises that the Exodus story did not tell of Israelites eslavement in Egypt, but from a mythical subterannean world. The original story, was not even about Israelites.

If anyone is interested in this interpretation, start a new thread. Suffice it to say that mfaber has done a good job of exposing the Exodus story for what it is: unmitigated myth.

There is also the "language argument" - about the Israelites not having any borrowed words from the Egyptian language - anyone familiar with it?

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

Amen-Moses

Amen!

Amen-Moses

gsx1138

The amount of info being thrown around is pretty impressive. I must admit I´m humbled, to say the least. My reasons for not believing the Exodus story seem tame by comparison. I just always had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that 2 million people could wander around a semi populated region and not be noticed. Is this the part were christians whip out the ´God was hiding them from their enemies´ line.

mfaber

Thanks and Hi, fellow Tallahassean!

ReasonableDoubt and Intensity, thanks for the encouragement and another "thank you" for the additional info!!!!

Yes to both questions.....
<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ October 02, 2002: Message edited by: mfaber ]</p>

offa

offa; Egypt in Scripture is pseudo. The Egypt in Exodus was local to Jerusalem (within 25 miles). The pharoah was Abraham's brother Haran. Haran's wife was Abraham's sister Sarai and they produced Lot. Abram kills Haran and takes Sarai (who is still a Virgin even though she is a mother). Moses kills an Egyptian and buries (hides the corpse) him in the sand. David's first wife has the same name as Saul's wife. Bathsheba had a previous spouse and we do not realy know who Solomon's real father was. Jacob's first love had big eyes (not a cherry). On and on goes Scripture.

thanks, Offa

Vanderzyden

This is as far as I am willing to read your post at the moment. Why should I bother to read further? Your opening paragraphs indicate that your opinion matters more than critical analysis. I am fully confident that the remainder of the post is equally unsubstantial.

You provide nothing to support your opinion or off-the-cuff remarks. Here's is the characterization of your method of persuasion:

-- "I think..."
-- "who seemed to be almost as anal..."
-- "this usual bit of Christian tap-dancing..."
-- "Until you find some..."

Is this my work? No. Is the author alone in drawing his conclusions? No.

You are not serious. To you, life is apparently a game.

Good day,

Vanderzyden

Vanderzyden

Hardly. Nor have you done anything to justify your assertions.

You will also recall the request when I opened this thread:

Vanderzyden

mfaber

How presumptuous you are to claim to "know" my motives or read my mind, but I guess you need any pretext (the out-of-context quotes) as an excuse for NOT confronting the FACT that there is no archeological evidence for Exodus, despite several decades of searching for same.

I did you the courtesy of reading your article.
However, you have just admitted that you didn't bother to read the rest of my post,so your proclaimation that you are "fully confident that the remainder of the post is equally unsubstantial" only brands you as being afraid to confront the evidence I presented.

Again, I remind you that you admitted that you didn't read my post, so you really don't have a clue (and really don't want to know) what sort of validation that I have for my postion. Your presentation of these out-of-context fragments as your justification for IGNORING the FACTS is an eloquent witness that you will go to any length to preserve your opinion in the only place it can survive..the no-questions-asked vacuum.

Again, I remind you that you admitted that you didn't read my post, so where you got this delusional idea I have no idea....I NEVER said that "this"(your article?) was your "work".

Vander, it doesn't matter how many people agree with him in his conclusions, that won't alter the FACT that he, you, and they are giving it a significance (a single record of 95 "asiatic" slaves, 8-9 with "biblical" names) that it doesn't deserve,i.e., proof that the entire nation of Israel (2 million+ persons) were captives of the Egyptians and that Exodus is a fact!

Where is the proof for this assertion("Is the author alone in drawing his conclusions? No.")? This a fallacy known as argumentum ad numerum (argument from numbers):

Argumentum ad numerum
This fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct.........

Argumentum ad populum(since it's mentioned above, what it is)
This is known as Appealing to the Gallery, or Appealing to the People. You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. For example:

"For thousands of years people have believed in Jesus and the Bible. This belief has had a great impact on their lives. What more evidence do you need that Jesus was the Son of God? Are you trying to tell those people that they are all mistaken fools?" from: <a href="http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html</a>

Another way to put it. For thousands of years, many millions of people believed the world was flat (flat-earthers). The world was still round, in spite of their belief.

I am very serious, don't know about you though...

More arrogant presumption...this time you claim to know my life's goal!!! Quick! someone alert Ms. Cleo of this new competitor, "the Great Vanderzydeni"!!! (just couldn't resist!)

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: mfaber ]</p>