Duvduv

Sarpedon, I guess you have already had good luck getting actual evidence of all of these:

Archaeological evidence for the existence of the entire Samaritan sect from Nablus to Rome to Egypt?
- Archaeological evidence for the existence of Marcion, Marcionites, Valentinians and the rest of them?
- Archaeological evidence for the existence of all those Karaite communities in Persia and Iraq?
- Archaeological evidence for the travels of the Jews who are said to have been the ancestors of the Ethiopian Falashas?
- Archaeological evidence for the mass suicide at Masada?
- Archaeological evidence for the existence of Josephus?
- Archaeological evidence for Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Genghis Khan and Mohammed?
- Archaeological evidence for all the alleged early Christian communities in Palestine?
- Archaeological evidence for those Christian communities allegedly existing in the 2nd century according to writings under the name of Justin Martyr?

Toto

Here's some archaeological evidence of Marcionites (using wikipedia for convenience - this is well known.)

Deir_AliSo you can drop that from your mantra.

Sarpedon

I don't give a shit about any of these things. I haven't looked for any evidence of these things because they have absolutely no importance to me. What do I care if the defenders of Masada killed themselves? It is utterly irrelevant. If any of these things are shown not to be true, I am the same. If Exodus didn't happen, your whole stupid cult comes crashing down. That's the nice thing about not being a cult member. I have no emotional commitment to any historical narrative, and can simply accept whatever the evidence says.

By contrast, this Exodus story is vastly important to many people, and many people have searched, in vain, for evidence to support it. If they'd have found any, you'd be the first to scream it out from the rooftops. Because you have absolutely nothing, you are forced to pretend that there's no reason to believe in Ghengis Khan, who's existence is recorded in the histories of every country his armies touched. You, by contrast, have only the 'records' of a single country, uncorroborated with the records of other involved countries. Where are the egyptian accounts of these calamities? What about the other nations in the surrounding regions?

Now about the evidence. I will accept documentary evidence in lieu of archaelogical evidence, so long as there are more than one source for it. Your stories don't have multiple stories, because the other books that supposedly record the events that were referenced in the Tanakh don't actually exist. I understand that books can be lost, but that's no excuse for lack of evidence.

If you were to find an egyptian document that shows the plagues, I'd accept that in lieu of things I mentioned.

Duvduv

Then you have still misunderstood my point. It isn't a matter of whether you or I CARE about the evidence for those other events and persons, but whether people in general realize that they don't demand this standard for these other cases, and it DOESN'T MATTER how important you specifically decide to classify the Exodus in comparison to anything else.

As far as I know no ancient source ever claimed that the Israelites ended up in Canaan any other way other than through the Sinai. You can check Louis Feldman's survey of what ancient Roman and Greek sources said about the Jews, Moses, etc.

In the meantime, until archaeologists have dug up the whole Sinai desert you'll really never know about this particular case, especially since archaeologists will tend to tie their research to the simple text of the Torah and couldn't care less about any of the other sources and commentaries. What if the location was Kadesh Barnea-B instead of Kadesh Barnea-A? They will have been wasting their time all these years.

Duvduv

That's it?? From the entire competitive sect of the second century??! Pretty weak for these purposes. This can still be disputed. Bring out the texts of Marcion, the names of his followers, successors and towns and villages where his followers lived, etc.
But even before him, at least let's find out where Justin's folks were. At least there are two texts under the name of Justin Martyr, and he claims to be part of a sect with communities, etc. and NEVER names any of them. No colleagues, no predecessors, no communities, nothing.
But it's more than there is from Mr. Marcion........

Sarpedon

Au Contraire. If the Exodus actually happened, it means that the universe was created and is controlled by a mad, racist, demon-god. Whether or not this is true is a matter of INCREDIBLE importance, far exceeding whether or not some bizarre sect exists...after all, if the Exodus did happen, all other religions are false and can be ignored, can't they? Its not as if the events in the Exodus aren't dramatic enough to create signs if they happened. We've already mentioned the tens of thousands of mummies, the economic collapse of one of the world's most important countries, the massive migration of a huge population, the destruction of scores of cities...Surely these aren't small, obscure events comparable to the existance of a petty sect, indistinguishable from their neighbors in all but creed?

If the Exodus actually occurred, it was one of the most important events in human history. You can't treat it like a run of the mill event like the fall of a single fortress. You see, that's what justifies the double standards...If true, this absolutely was a unique event, one that CANNOT be compared with any other. This was literally the hand of god touching the earth. Compared to this, what was Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Justin Martyr? No one and nothing.

I can have double standards about this, because it is, by definition, a unique event of unmatchable significance, incomparable to any mundane historical event. This is why so many people have searched for evidence to support it for so long. And utterly failed.

The fact that you treat it like another historical event cheapens it and denies its divinity.

Duvduv

So be my guest and go do a Google search for Kadesh Barnea and see how many different options you come up with, i.e. whether there were two places named Kadesh or if a place was in Jordan. Anything. And if your archaeologists are convinced that one location could have had 10,000 people, then you are back where you started from about the over one million.
And while you are at it, go ahead and dig up the whole Sinai peninsula just for good measure.
Methodologically it is not anything "unique." It is a conceptual question: whether you are satisfied to accept history, i.e. the cases I presented without, let me repeat that, WITHOUT any empirical evidence. PERIOD.

Sarpedon

My archaelogists? They are the State of Israel's archaeologists.

And I don't give a flying fuck about the events that you obviously cherry picked as events without empirical evidence. It's pathetic. You go and dig up an irrelevant detail like the mass suicide at Masada. There is evidence that there was a siege at masada. The records show all the defenders were killed. Whether or not there was a mass suicide is an irrelevant detail attached to an established historical fact.

You are being dishonest in claiming there is an equivalence between a detail and an event. There is no equivalence, and you know it. The only way the Exodus and Masada would be equivalent if there were also no evidence that there was such a fortress of masada, there was no evidence that there was a siege, there was no evidence that the Roman Empire invaded Judea (after all, fewer romans came to judea than the alleged population in the exodus), the date was unknown, the emperor was unknown (or given some fake, non-latin, obviously made up name).

The difference in scales of these things are so utterly different that no honest person could compare them. One is a tiny drama involving a few dozen people. The other one would have ruined two nations (Egypt and Canaan) and given birth to another (Israel). No amount of lying will ever make one of these things comparable to another. I will not accept that a nation can be so crippled and ruined as Egypt would have been during the Exodus, and there be no evidence after the event that it happened. Only an IDIOT or a LIAR would possibly say that it should be believed.

semiopen

The first hit I got with Kadesh Barnea Archaeology was

Kadesh Barnea: A Reevaluation of Its Archaeology and HistoryKadesh Barnea: A Reevaluation of Its Archaeology and History

I don't think there is an issue with the location of this place.

Who disputes that this isn't Kadesh Barnea?

Adam

To: Sarpedon:
Hey, I get you about the two million--the Pentateuch does seem to be overstated. (It's my personal view that someone in Moses's time did write about these events, and they and an earlier record commissioned by Joseph got transcribed in at least three records that up to a millennium later were compiled with consequent doublets and even triplets of the same events. By that time they did not understand the terms for families or numbers and exaggerated them enormously.)

However, you ignore that during the 18th Dynasty there was a third pharaoh in the Delta, and the expulsion of this Hyksos king is recognized as history that renders your Post #218 quite a false dichotomy. Would lack of archaeological evidence for the Hyksos leaving Egypt make you deny they ever left? The Exodus involving Moses could have been that or something similar that did not involve 38 years in a particular location, much less the particular site excavated as Kadesh that was only labeled as such since 1916. Wandering in the Wilderness could have been in Trans-Jordan or Arabia in sites not yet excavated or (in Arabia) accessible.

Just saying. Calm down.