Historical problems with the old testament

[Gorgias]

The question is where did they come from and how could they prevail? The exodus is the answer.

The exodus is an answer, not the only possible answer. (It also happens to be the best-attested answer, but that’s beside the point of this particular tangent we’re quibbling over… )

 

[whatistrue]

Something of that magnitude would leave some archaeological evidence.

And it apparently did. See previous posts in this thread for details.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

I would argue that the lack of evidence from major events such as half a million slaves escaping Egypt, a large monarchy under the rule of David and Solomon, is in of itself evidence against the events. What is the catholic view of these stories? Can you interpret certain things in non literal ways etc?

All of these events happened. The archaeologists have their dating wrong, see The Bible vs. Archaeology You decide http://www.scripturescholar.com/BibleArchaeology.pdf

 

[JSRG]

I would argue that the lack of evidence from major events such as half a million slaves escaping Egypt, a large monarchy under the rule of David and Solomon, is in of itself evidence against the events. What is the catholic view of these stories? Can you interpret certain things in non literal ways etc?

In regards to the escaping of slaves, I feel Kenneth Kitchen said it well in On The Reliability of the Old Testament, page 246:

“The Delta is an alluvial fan of mud deposited through many millennia by the annual flooding of the Nile; it has no source of stone within it. Mud, mud and wattle, and mud-brick structures were of limited duration and use, and were repeatedly leveled and replaced, and very largely merged once more with the mud of the fields. So those who squawk intermittently, “No trace of the Hebrews has ever been found” (so, of course, no exodus!), are wasting their breath. The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins, never to be seen again. Even stone structures (such as temples) barely survive, in striking contrast to sites in the cliff-enclosed valley of Upper Egypt in the south… And in the mud, 99 percent of discarded papyri have perished forever; a tiny fraction (of late date) have been found carbonized (burned)–like some at Pompeii–but can only be opened or read with immense difficulty. A tiny fraction of reports from the East Delta occur in papyri recovered from the desert near Memphis. Otherwise, the entirety of Egypt’s administrative records at all periods in the Delta is lost (fig. 32B); and monumental texts are also nearly nil. And, as pharaohs never monumentalize defeats on temple walls, no record of the successful exit of a large bunch of foreign slaves (with loss of a full chariot squadron) would ever have been memorialized by any king, in temples in the Delta or anywhere else. On these matters, once and for all, biblicists must shed their naive attitudes and cease demanding “evidence” that cannot exist.”

 

[preacher_of_christ]

Yes because lack of evidence can be proof. If we find a document that said that there was a nuclear bomb dropped over New York 1967, we would concider it false since there would be major indications of the event yet there aren’t. Of course, the case of David is not at all like that, but its the same principal.

 

[whatistrue]

but its the same principal

Huge difference between evidence left by a weapon of mass destruction in a densely populated location and that supposedly occurred while numerous people still alive (such as myself for instance) were old enough to remember events, and evidence of a wandering group of people walking through a desert living in tents and making campfires (if they could find something to burn). So no, it isn’t even close to the same.

ETA: And in fact there is actual “evidence of absence” in the case of a purported nuclear weapon detonated in New York in 1967: Namely buildings built prior to that time that are still intact.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Yes because lack of evidence can be proof. If we find a document that said that there was a nuclear bomb dropped over New York 1967, we would concider it false since there would be major indications of the event yet there aren’t. Of course, the case of David is not at all like that, but its the same principal.

No, because you cannot compare the Deity and testimony of the God-Man Jesus and His authority of the events of the OT, with a hypothetical note about a bomb dropped in New York in 1967. The two are not even close to having the same authority.

 

[po18guy]

I would argue that…

Well, stop arguing! No one really ever “wins” an argument. Do some more research into the actual history (NOT modernist revisionism!) and you will see that the sacred scrolls, perpetuated at great human cost - including the shedding of blood - was not done simply because they were amusing, or were the ancient edition of National Enquirer.

These cannot ALL be fake…