L'ame Errant

Well Passover time is coming in my house and the entire family wants me to come and participate (I usually don't like to).

I've been having a problem lately though with the idea of the exodus from Egypt made by the Israelites.

I don't think that the Bible is from God, nor do I think it was written at the time period that the exodus took place in, so why if indeed the exodus never happened do people believe in it so thoroughly???

Native American (and many other) myths of Gods, Goddesses and spirits, all seem to include God and few humans. Even the story of Jesus rising from the grave only a few people saw that, but in the story of the exodus 2 million people supposedly witnessed God descending on Mount Sinai.

I don't recall there being any hard archaeological evidence of the exodus from Egypt, nor of a people enslaved by the Egyptians.
So why the sudden shift in form of belief??? From only a few witnesses, to millions??? How can that be reconciled??

I think that what I'm asking is; if indeed the story of the exodus was made up, how could so many people believe that it took place, especially when there were 2 million supposed witnesses????

I think that question makes sense, and I hope that this is the right forum, because I wasn't sure, but if you need any clarification just ask!!!

Thanks,
Maxine

Marduk

A good book to check out is "Israel Canaan and Egypt in Ancient Times" Redford PSU, and Canaanite Myth & Hebrew Epic by Cross.
in the books of the Bible, following the books of Moses, do any of the Prophets, Eziekeil or Elijah ever mention Moses or Passover rituals? Are there any references to these rites being performed in David or Solomons days or did they start after the Babylonian exile when the books of the law were 'found'???

Roland

Good point.

The Bible says that over 2,000,000 people (plus all their animals) encamped in the Sinai Desert for 40 years. Yet there has never been uncovered even a shred of evidence to show they were ever there. By the way, virtually ALL the people who entered the Desert died there before the Israelites finally made it to the Land of Canaan. Where are the graves? There should be about 2,000,000 by my calculations.

Justin70

Uhm, it never happened? Myth? Stories?

That's what I think.

Asha'man

Don't get distracted by those 2 million witnesses, they are part of the story. A story can include as many witnesses as it wants, because it is just a story.

That is one of the reasons why the biblical claim of 500 witnesses of the resurrected Jesus is so silly, those witnesses are part of the same story as the resurrection.

I could claim that thousands of Elves saw Isildur cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, but that doesn't really add any credibility to the claim, does it?

For witnesses to have any credibility, they have to exist outside the story. You have to be able to name them, talk to them, read their writings.



The real question remains: how did the Jews come to believe in such a myth. I think the answer is simple, they believed what they were told by their priests.

There may have been a time when their ancestors had some sort of relationship with the Egyptians, and the priests used that dim memory and elaborated on it. The memory was hundreds of years old, and there was no good written record, so the elaboration was easy.

Over hundreds of years, the story spread and grew, and eventually everyone in the culture knew it and believed it.

Marduk

"There may have been a time when their ancestors had some sort of relationship with the Egyptians, "


There was, ca 1600 BCE Egypt was run by foreigners from the east, the Hyksos. The Egyptians got an army together and through them out.

L'ame Errant

I have read a theory that said that the Hyksos came to Egypt and took over the northern part, near the Nile delta (land of Goshen), when the Egyptians kicked them out some time later they chased them into Canan.
It is possible that this was used as the jumping off point for the exodus story.

Marduk

“It is possible that this was used as the jumping off point for the exodus story”

another possibility is the story of the monotheistic Pharaoh Achenaten, who was chased out of Egypt with his followers after trying to toss the old gods in favor of his one God (Freud was a fan of this one)

L'ame Errant

I've never heard that exact theory before.
I know that there was one pharaoh who was monotheistic, but after he was assassinated ( I think) the next pharaoh restored the old pantheon.
Do you know of some websites with your theory???
Thanks!

Volker.Doormann

Maxine,

The Passover is taken from real history of the Jews. It is a wonderful myth describing the awaking soul in a human body, which is mortal flesh, while the awaking soul is because of it's immaterial existence is immortal. This is the origin spiritual meaning of the Hebrew Passover.

It is one of the greatest mistaken in Theology of the abrahamitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) to take or claim the wonderful myths ('stories') of the Pentateuch historically.

The elements of this Passover are taken from the Indian vedas p.e the 'Rigveda' doormann.org/rv1-10.txt and from the 'Laws of Manu' the 'Manusmriti' doormann.org/manuslaw.txt. In this Indian text the physical life is called as the 'firstborn' and the awaking of the spiritual soul later in life as the 'twiceborn'. Because a monthly similarity is to observe, if the moon is crescending for 14 days from Newmoon until Fullmoon gain the physical growth in nature, and a decrescending in growth from Fullmoon to Newmoon, these cycle of nature is taken as reference to symbolize both the birth of a firstborn body of a fleshly mother and the twiceborn soul, which is of no fleshly properties, and did not need much physical food. The time after passover is a time of fasting for the Jews (but they did not know why).

IsraEL is the fight of the human creature to escape from this physical consciousness and bondage to some spiritual alocal and eternal home, where is no sorrow and no Karma. Indians call this Nirvana and this means literally 'Where the wind of Karma do not blow'.

In the Hebrew myths a lot of stories telling about a soul, which comes from 'heaven down', because in ancient times the gods of heaven are assumed in the planets of the sky only seen in the night above. This 'coming down' is symbolized as a travel down in a 'narrow place' (the physical body after the birth) and it is called 'Mitzrayim' in the Hebrew scriptures. In the stories this 'Mitzrayim' is symbolized with 'Egypt'.

From this the meaning of all myths in the pentateuch, and also the Exodus of 'IsraEl' from 'Egypt' telling always about the eternal soul coming down in a body in a spiritual dark world of social bondage (remember your family claims) and the escape from this bondage Egypt. This is dramatized symbolically wonderful in that Passover myth. While the soul is free from physical bondage, because of the spiritual consciousness about the eternal spiritual realms, the fleshly body as the first born representing Egypt has no use for the spiritual, and 'must' die. ' The firstborn of Egypt must die', while the soul represented through 'Israel' or the twelve houses of Israel as well known twelve spiritual (astrological) houses from other myths in the Pentateuch is free from that 'Mitzrayim' or only body consciousness also synonymed by the term 'Egypt'.

Because for each human creature the awaking soul consciousness creates conflicts with it's social environment this myth can be taken to learn, that the process of emancipation from the physical and social bondage is a process regarding to all creature, not only to Jews. Most people today have done this emancipation from the social environment, family, mother, father, church or religions.

This Passover is remembered by the Jews every year exact in the night of the first full moon 14 days after the spring equinox, because of the ending of the physical growth of nature, symbolized as death and celebrated as a death with the killing of a lamb in the religion of the Jews and celebrated by the death of the physical body of Jesus, while his soul is free from this physical world - wonderful dramatized as myth in the gospels, which also have no any historical meaning, which can be seen by the origin meaning lying in the symbol of the path of the moon with its four stations per cycle over a month transfered from the Indian culture 4000 years ago.

With the lost understanding of spiritual symbols in Judaism and the claim to take the twelve astrological houses of Israel as physical historical events as the twelve tribes of Israel (until today) religions have claimed these stories for a secular power position. Only a very few Jews with knowledge in Jewish mysticism may have knowledge about this matter. Christianity was never aware about this, only him, who has stated his parables, which are was build to gospels, did had have knowledge about this symbolism, and some fragments in the gospels contain the Indian term 'newborn' or demonstrate the stupidity of Jewish scholars to Jesus to that time.

To understand these ancient myths in the Hebrew bible collected from other myths of other cultures, one must understand the eternal symbols in the myths. These symbols are present to each human creature, who is sensitive to spiritual qualities like love or harmony. Then there may no more need for a historically search for logistically nonsense.

Best

Volker