I suppose that if someone was actually arguing that Exodus was a historical document, this post might have had a point. You arguing against the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning of Ramses is pretty much the same sort of thing as the TV show arguing against the Hebrews as pyramid-building slaves. They are both straw men arguing against statements that no one is actually making.
But when all we hear is “But no one is making that exact claim” without anyone actually spitting out what claims are being made it gets to be a little frustrating after a while. Are you saying that the entire story is 100% absolute bullshit? If not, then please lay out the real story as you see it-give us a little more than “No-that isn’t it, either.”
Why? Are you desperate to have an argument?
I already laid out what I think in the post that monavis quoted.
We have a tradition, recorded in Jewish scripture. We don’t know what actually happened. The tradition may have been built upon an actual event, (or several different events), that were merged in folklore regarding a group of people who fled Egypt and a group, (not necessarily the same one), that entered the Levant in a series of battles of conquest. Alternatively, the whole thing might be invented from scratch.
Troy was considered a complete fabrication until Schliemann excavated the tel[l] at Hisarlik. Vergil’s Aeneid appears to be complete fiction, despite it beginning in Troy. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Arthur was complete fiction, despite various suggestions that an actual war leader named Arthur was a prominent leader of the Celts following the withdrawal of Rome from Britain.
Did a Hebrew kid, raised as an Egyptian, lead hundreds of thousands of Hebrews out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, to wander around the Sinai peninsula for forty years, only to have his successor lead hundreds of thousands of people to conquer nearly all of the lands along the Jordan River? Certainly not. But it is as equally foolish to declare “it is all fiction” as it is to declare that it happened exactly the way it was depicted in Exodus through Judges.
If someone has genuine information about the events, let them bring it forth. I have no vested interest in defending any particular scenario. I do consider it silly to try to “debunk” Exodus based on claims that are not actually made.
No. It’s just that I would like to get past what we are not talking about and get to what we are talking about.
I know you don’t know exactly what happened. Currently, using sources you trust, what is the best guestimate as to what happened and when it happened?
Other tales for other threads, as far as I’m concerned.
It only becomes “equally foolish” to say that nothing happened when someone presents evidence that something happened.
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Genuine information is what is needed if you what to support your claim that it is foolish to say that nothing happened.
And yet, when I try to act on the assumption that all Palestinian women are easy, I get slapped. 
ETA: In other words, you two have some recent history, so it might be best if you went to neutral corners until you cool off, before this thread gets hijacked.
Genuine information is what is needed if you what to support your claim that it is foolish to say that nothing happened.
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Genuine information is equally required before we can say “nothing happened”, and it is foolish to say that nothing happened without genuine information to show that nothing happened.
In the absence of genuine information, the only honest thing we can say is that we do not know what happened. We can conjecture, and our conjectures may be more or less plausible, but we do not know.
For most poeple who attribute religious value to the story, the question of what exactly happened is not terribly interesting. The question really only interests historians of the period, and theist and atheist biblical literalists.
meh
You are not even paying attention to what I have said. Your dismissal of the parallels to Arthur and Troy reinforce my impression that you are more interested in a fight than anything else.
Two posts have attempted to “debunk” stories that are not even being discussed. I showed how each post was, itself, based on error. It’s the Straight Dope. That is what we do. I have also offered my own opinions of what might have happened along with the reason why we cannot, at this time, know the actual events. I have no burden to prove any assertion that I have not made. I do have the right to provide evidence against other claims–even negative ones. I am not about to make a claim for which I have no evidence. I cannot even think of a reason why you would want me to do so.
I agree that no one knows what really happened, but then one can say anything that would not be provable and was caused by a God who is said to love all mankind, yes, even the Gentiles would cause one to question His Love for most of his other children, and favor one group to the extent that he would kill off a lot of his children to protect one family group, is not the actions of a Loving father, or a just being.
Each believer can put their own spin on the subject.
Also interresting is that the common theme, of a usurper claiming to actually be a prince-laid-foundling, is turned upside down in this story.
The prince turns out to be a simple Hebrew, laid foundling.
Cite? This is commonly trotted out as counter-evidence to the biblical account, but Exodus does not claim that Pharaoh drowned, nor is there any evidence that it was “changed to just say the Pharaoh’s horse.” When are you claiming it was changed and by whom?
According to Exodus, Pharaoh’s army drowned. It is silent on Pharaoh’s personal fate.
Note that I am not by any means arguing for the historicity of the story. But if you’re going to argue against a literal interpretation, at least try to know what the text says.
So what?
The OP was a straightforward question as to how much archaeological support anyone has found for the story in Exodus. (It could easily have been placed in General Questions.) Every post to this thread has noted the lack of archaeological evidence for the events as reported in Exodus.
You then provided two posts trying to prove that the events of Exodus never happened by attacking claims that no one in this thread, (and only the most literalist believer), would hold to be true. Now you are creating another straw man that challenges literalist beliefs when not one poster to this thread has offered any expression of such beliefs. It is almost as though you are trying to post in some other thread, (such as one might find in a message board connected to answersingenesis.org or focusonthefamily.com).
The relevance of all of this, besides just plain historical interest, is that the law and the 10 commandments were supposedly given during a long camping trip that almost certainly didn’t happen. That’s kind of like demonstrating that there was no Continental Congress during the time the Declaration of Independence was supposedly adopted.
And this has nothing to do with literalism.
I’m not sure why this is significant. If the events surrounding the creation of the Declaration of Independence where party or wholly mythical, would that make the Declaration any less important - or for that matter, the US Constitution?
We have a political tradition of the wise Founding Fathers whose words should be interpreted literally - or strictly. What would this do to Supreme Court decisions if it was found that some schlub in the Grant Administration actually wrote them?
Mr. Scalia would have an aneurysm.
Yes, but the numbers and dates seem to be way off. In other words, the basic story is plausible and agrees with the general archaeological data, but there’s no solid proof and the numbers are pretty much implausible.
No. It does require literalism to make an issue of it.
The Commandments (either 10 or 613) are part of a tradition in which God selected the Jewish people to be a beacon of righteousness to the rest of the world. That tradition was encapsulated in stories that embody the mythology that supports that tradition. It is simply not necessary for the events to have happened, either in the manner they are portrayed or in some other manner, for that tradition to be true. The belief may be true or false, but as myth, in the anthropological sense, it need only be Story, not history.
The Declaration of Independence is a specific document that historically was used to sever ties between two peoples. If there was no Continental Congress, someone still wrote that document, (that we still possess), a war involving at least five nations was fought, and the nation of the United States still did come into existence. Even if someone proved that the DoI was part of a grand conspiracy, the results continue to this day.
Discovering whether any part of the Exodus story actually occurred might provide insight into the reasons behind various laws or traditions, but it would not change the basic Story and proving that it was invented would not change the meaning of the story.
You appear to be conflating the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
At any rate, we do still have the documents for each of those efforts over which we can wrangle interminably. Discovering that there was a Grand Conspiracy to create either or both documents would certainly shake up the country, but we have two hundred years of specific laws and legal renderings based on them that would not need to go away, even in the unlikely event that we did discover that they were forged.
Christianity has already done something similar with regard to the Torah, deciding that all the ritual laws regarding diet and and liturgy could be set aside for those who are not observant Jews.
Actually I was responding to Malthus who added the Constitution - which was a good addition.
I was referring specifically to those justices who put special weight on what the Founding Fathers wanted/were thinking. And I have enough posts to make me hope that you don’t think I was seriously proposing that they were forged - unlike the Bible, that is, which was forged. (Standard practice in the day, true.)
The reason I mentioned the Ten Commandments, not the dietary laws, was that Christians are still hot for the Ten Commandments, at least bozo Alabama judges. I think the passage where the dietary laws are made inoperative is one of the funnier ones in the NT.
When I went to Hebrew school there was a distinction between events happening before Abram, which were not taught as history, and events after, which were. The Covenant between Abraham and God was not seen as just tradition but as a specific event. Kind of like if Christ’s death and resurrection was seen not as an actual event but just as a tradition.
This has nothing to do with what really happened. Even as an atheist I still appreciate my heritage and the traditions - but I’m not calling that religion.
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If you read Exodus chapter 15 verse 19, in the older Douay version you will note it says the Pharaoh went in on horseback with his chariots and horsemen into the sea; and the lord brought back upon them the waters of the sea; but the children of Israel walked on dry ground in the midst thereof. Then read Chapter 15 Verse 19 in a newer K J V starts with: for the horse of the Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen etc. .One can take what ever they choose, Could one be a mistranslation ? why the difference? How does one know if many mistakes were made through the years or if they were done on purpose.?..we do not know.