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Old 05-10-2013, 08:17 AM   #1
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Default The Exodus

A comment on another thread pointing out how ridiculous it is to think a group could be wandering for 40 years in the Sinai without leaving a trace got me curious.

Cairo to Jerusalem is only 264 miles.

An interesting take, maybe they had been kicked out of Egypt and the biblcal story is a spin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus

'...According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock.[15] Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550.[16] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people,[17] compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3.5 million.[18] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long...'

'...The earliest non-Biblical account of the Exodus is in the writings of the Greek author Hecataeus of Abdera: the Egyptians blame a plague on foreigners and expel them from the country, whereupon Moses, their leader, takes them to Canaan, where he founds the city of Jerusalem.[47] Hecataeus wrote in the late 4th century BCE, but the passage is quite possibly an insertion made in the mid-1st century BCE.[48] The most famous is by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BCE), known from two quotations by the 1st century CE Jewish historian Josephus. In the first, Manetho describes the Hyksos, their lowly origins in Asia, their dominion over and expulsion from Egypt, and their subsequent foundation of the city of Jerusalem and its temple. Josephus (not Manetho) identifies the Hyksos with the Jews.[49] In the second story Manetho tells how 80,000 lepers and other "impure people," led by a priest named Osarseph, join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem, to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria, where Osarseph gives the lepers a law-code and changes his name to Moses.[50] Manetho differs from the other writers in describing his renegades as Egyptians rather than Jews, and in using a name other than Moses for their leader,[47] although the identification of Osarseph with Moses may be a later addition..'
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Old 05-10-2013, 09:29 AM   #2
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Historians are dubious about the veracity of the Biblical account.
A million+ would have been a significant proportion of the Egyptian population. Such a mass would have formed the largest population cluster of the ancient world; bigger than Babylon, bigger than Caesar's Rome, wandering in the desert, with no infrastructure, agriculture, water source or anything capable of supporting such a massive population.

That they were there for 40 years and left no archaeological residue is remarkable, as is the lack of Egyptian historical records of what must have been a huge cultural disruption.
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Old 05-10-2013, 10:01 AM   #3
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The exodus has always struck me as a story of immense stupidity if its given just a little thought. Part of my many problems with it as with many bible stories tend to make people laugh but as is usual in most fiction writers tend to forget the every day mudane things we do as animals. We create waste. This as any military man will tell you is a huge problem in small groups let alone a huge moving city.

Just from the standpoint of feeding the numerous people animals and keeping them hydrated is an immense task.

Then there is the math of travel. I did the math a long time ago when FRDB was called something else not sure if I can find it but I will see if it is in the archives. But just looking at normal troupe movement and applying ten people abreast (which is huge by the way and hard to maintain for any practical time) it would take 50 days for the front of the line to the back of the line to pass a standing point or origin such as a well for example. 50 days is a huge time. It also kind of throws the whole they left in the night without the Pharaoh knowing they were leaving part of the story as suspect. Keep in mind used normal troupe movement of healthy men. The actual time would have been much slower considering sick, elderly, women and children.

Then even assuming that bread and birds were supplied by divine hand that also is suspect again because the story writer tended to forget what happens when you scatter bread with birds. Most of the bread would be unpalatable, not saying people wont eat bread with bird crap on it but it does beg the question. But even ignoring that little part looking at the amount of people and the amount of caloric intake needed daily the amount of protein contained in the birds is less than 300 calories if memory serves me right it would take 4 birds a day per person approximately unless of course the doves back then were the size of today's turkeys.
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Old 05-10-2013, 11:15 AM   #4
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Of late, there seems to be a lot of invoking "but the authors expected the
reader to know that that was just an exaggeration" to cover issues such
as this, so when we see over a million people, then considering the logistics,
that should be normalized down to a much smaller number....a few thousand?
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Old 05-10-2013, 01:04 PM   #5
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"Three hundred miles? Forty years? Ben Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!"

Mark Twain
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Old 05-10-2013, 02:26 PM   #6
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Israelit4s factually evolvbed from displaced Canaanites after 1200 BC.

From 1200 BC to 1000 BC there was a gradual increase in the number of homes on the highlands leaving no room for the mythical exodus. The inhabitants were identical to Canaanites and not Egyptians.
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Old 05-10-2013, 02:27 PM   #7
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Hi Horatio Parker,

Note from Wikipedia:

***
Benjamin "Ben" Holladay (October 14, 1819–July 8, 1887) was an American transportation businessman responsible for creating the Overland Stage to California during the height of the 1849 California Gold Rush. Ben Holladay created a stagecoach empire and he is known in history as the "Stagecoach King".
***

Twain knew that making an entertaining story requires exaggeration. So what if they changed 60 families to 600,000 and 40 days to 40 years. The writers didn't know that 2500 years in the future, there would be incredibly stupid, brain dead people who took the story literally.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

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"Three hundred miles? Forty years? Ben Holliday would have fetched them through in thirty-six hours!"

Mark Twain
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Old 05-10-2013, 06:03 PM   #8
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Quote:
maybe they had been kicked out of Egypt and the biblcal story is a spin.
More likely the story is pure bullshit.
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Old 05-11-2013, 09:17 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Minimalist View Post
Quote:
maybe they had been kicked out of Egypt and the biblcal story is a spin.
More likely the story is pure bullshit.
Not really.

Memories of tribes going in and out of Egypt trans Jordan Style, or a small group settled in Israel's highlands early on that had escaped a Egyptian slave camp.

Either would or could start oral tradition around campfires that could lead to a culture trying to build a grand identity
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Old 05-11-2013, 10:23 PM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by outhouse View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minimalist View Post
Quote:
maybe they had been kicked out of Egypt and the biblcal story is a spin.
More likely the story is pure bullshit.
Not really.

Memories of tribes going in and out of Egypt trans Jordan Style, or a small group settled in Israel's highlands early on that had escaped a Egyptian slave camp.

Either would or could start oral tradition around campfires that could lead to a culture trying to build a grand identity
It is allegory wherein Moses parted the water to lead innocent believers into the promised land Billy Graham style instead of walking on top of that water to get in.

It is their greatest fear still today and should be as well, so they will not end up like holy rollers like them, thumping bible passages day after day, and singing patient endurance songs when their fingers get soar from flipping those pages again and again.
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