Where is your cite then? Look, several of us have admitted that the Bible, pre David is myth and Legend, not historical fact. This is known by archeologists. But legends often have some basis in fact. The Kingdom of Israel is a fact, it happened. (the details are still argued and discussed of course). It came from somewhere- and it wasnt aliens.
or is this Stele fake? (No one thinks it is, mind you)
The Merneptah stele is considered to be the first extra-biblical reference to ancient Israel in ancient history and is widely considered to be authentic and providing historical information. It’s believed to be mentioning Israel as people not as a nation,[31][32][33][34] with Charles Krauthammer regarding the Stele as the earliest record of an ethnic or religious group of today.[35]
And as others have said, no this has nothing to do with the pyramids. We know they were built before Exodus is supposed to have happened. And there’s is no biblical claim about Hebrews building pyramids, it’s
The first is from exodus 1:11, and the part about straw is in Exodus 5:6-19
The claim about the pyramids is certainly a myth, reported by (and possibly invented by) Josephus.
Just want to point out, sorry no citations, that the PhDs (in relevant areas, with degrees from accredited schools) I’ve heard talk about the building of cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses come with impossible timeline problems.
It is only proper when someone attacks a cite for being biased, that person comes up with a cite of their own- that is not so biased- or so they think.
I think we all here agree that the Exodus, as recounted in the Bible- didnt happen like that. That should not be surprising, because in those ancient times, little recounted history- mostly monuments and such- also didnt occur like that. It is hard to find a monument of a great victory that either wasnt so great or whose numbers of troops isnt off by a factor of ten. Hell even the basic list of Pharaohs has a number of mythological or legendary figures to start, then has several suspicious additions, date changes or deletions. The Egyptians tried to delete Akhenaten from all monuments, lists etc. Also Hatshepsut who had the temerity to be an effective female ruler- and there are more. And they kept comparatively great records- for that time.
So if you are trying to prove that the early books of the Bible- up thru King David and somewhat after- are full of myths, legends and large exaggerations- yeah, everyone here and all History scholars already know that. The interesting parts come from what is the nugget of truth in there, what tale is based on truth, and how much. For centuries, it was thought King David was entirely mythological. Now, we know he existed, and was well known that someone mentioned “the House of David”. Does that mean all the Biblical tales of the United Kingdom are true? David slew a giant with a sling, for example? Almost certainly not. But Geo Washington didnt cut down his father cherry tree with his "little axe’ either.
Excavations at the Tell El Retabeh have shown that the site was first settled during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt. Following the expulsion of the Hyksos during the reign of Ahmose I, a short-lived Egyptian settlement followed but ended in the middle of the 18th Dynasty…Some scholars, such as Manfred Bietak and Kenneth Kitchen, have argued that this was the ancient Pithom…In the spring of 1883, Naville believed he had identified Pithom as the archaeological site Tell El Maskhuta. The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is at the eastern edge of Wadi Tumilat, southwest of Ismailia. Petrie agreed with this identification. John S. Holladay Jr., a more recent investigator of the site, also supports this opinion. Alternatively, the recent Italian excavators have suggested identifying the site as the ancient city of Tjeku (Biblical Sukkot).[19]
Here was found a group of granite statues representing Ramesses II, two inscriptions naming Pr-Itm (Temple of Atum), storehouses and bricks made without straw. Recent excavations have also uncovered a significant New Kingdom tomb at the site.[19] The excavations carried on by Naville for the Egypt Exploration Fund uncovered a city wall, a ruined temple, and the remains of a series of brick buildings with very thick walls and consisting of rectangular chambers of various sizes, opening only at the top and without any entrances to one another.
So, legends, quite possibly based upon fact. Ancient dates are screwy, even lists of Egyptian Pharaohs are often found to be off.
I actually think a lot of stories in the Bible are easy to dismiss. Sodom and Gomorrah, that golden calf incident, mannah from heaven feeding the Israelites for years. Or in the Christian Bible, the whole birth of Jesus is obviously made up from whole cloth, along with the three wise men.
I took a couple of college courses on the Bible, with a focus on historical context and archeology. My professor gave advice about how to interpret ancient inscriptions. " There’s a tree on Cambridge Commons with a plaque under it that says, ‘George Washington addressed his troops under this tree’. The tree is about 30 years old. The plaque is obviously not literally true. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no such person as George Washington. The existence of the plaque, and its claim, do tell you something. But what it tells you is open to interpretation."
If an ancient Egyptian plaque says, “our glorious soldiers defeated 600,000 Edomites”, that doesn’t mean there were 600,000 Edomites. But there probably was a war between Egypt and Edom. And there were probably a lot of soldiers. And enough of the Egyptians made it home to declare victory.
You shouldn’t reject it because 600,000 is an important number any more than you should reject my claim if having gone to a concert “and a gajillion people were there” just because you know the venue only holds 2000 people. But not rejecting it doesn’t mean accepting it is literally true, either.
The Exodus story is less likely to be true, because unlike that plaque, it isn’t contemporaneous with the story it tells. It was written later. But it tells us something. It tells us that Egypt was important to the people who wrote the story. It tells us that they had important people who traced their decent to Moses and Aaron. It tells us something about how they worshipped and what mattered to them. It tells us they cared about keeping the Sabbath.
Did (some of them) come out of Egypt? Yeah, people traveled a lot, and Egypt was big and important. Almost certainly some traced their descent to Egypt. Was there a large group of escaped slaves? That’s less likely. But not because the story claims 600,000.
There aren’t even three magi anywhere in the Biblical account of the Nativity. That’s made up out of whole cloth outside the Bible.
The early Israelites were indigenous Canaanites. There’s absolutely no archaeological evidence to the contrary. There’s very clear material cultural continuity from Canaanite to Israelite settlements - pottery, architecture, agriculture - and Hebrew is a Canaanite language (probably more correct to say it’s the one surviving dialect of the group), early Israelite religion emerges from the broader Canaanite religious matrix, and the overall archaeology changes match the much more plausible narrative of in situ recovery from the Bronze Age Collapse as opposed to any conquest narrative. A handful of Egyptian immigrants who left no measurable archaeological impact aren’t a necessary addition to that story at all outside of the obvious ideological imperatives.
Canaanites moved back and forth between Egypt and their homelands, and there’s plenty of evidence for longer-term Canaanite settlement in Egypt. This is not the same as the Exodus narrative, however, and not properly distinguishing between the two is just the modal fallacy.
Yes, the single gospel narrative about that visit mentions three offerings and tradition took care of making that mean three persons then ran with it. A lot of what people believe is “based on” scripture is not textual.
And to the thread subject a lot of what is in scripture is working in the other direction: a repackaging of parts of the oral traditions and legends, into a story to make a point.
You are telling me the Christmas carol is not true? Gasp… next you will tell me that there was no “little drummer boy, parapapumpuming” next to baby Jesus?
When a slew of traditions accumulating for centuries arises where we KNOW it’s not part of the original narrative, it makes one wonder just how embellished the original narrative is. Which in turn makes one wonder even if there IS a God how lying, credulous human beings could purport to know anything about Him.
10 When they [the wise men who followed a star to find the newborn king of the Jews] saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
“Three” is not canonical, but the rest of the story is.
I guess i may as well add the background, Matthew 2:1-2
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise mend from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising,e and have come to pay him homage.”
I think the natural reading is “one group of wise men, who were traveling with multiple treasure chests. And from those chests they collectively gave gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby”.
But as i said when we started taking about this digression, I think the entire nativity story was obviously made up of whole cloth, or embellished to the point where nothing interesting is left. There are a bunch of issues with it. Stars don’t do that, just to start.
Just like most of the Exodus story is obviously made up. A huge band of people didn’t wander around in the desert following a floating cloud for years, either.