Moses and the Exodus, Mythical or Real?

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I once watched a documentary that suggested that the timeline of Exodus actually does make sense. There is another timeline that is perfectly reasonable in which Exodus makes sense and a whole lot of other things that aren’t Exodus make sense.
 
Hope1960 said:
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Nita:
Right. And also, if it wasn’t Moses who, who was it
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See post #10, by Elf01.
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Elf01 suggests that when Jesus spoke of Moses it was a verbal reference to a fictional character.
The transfiguration wasn’t a verbal reference - it was a vision. Peter, James and John actually saw Moses.
 
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I don’t really understand how people can believe that Christ was the Son of God, born of a virgin, died and rose again, performed all the miracles listed (and more besides), but anything in the OT is figurative or mythical.
Did God not perform miracles then as well? Why is it so hard to believe that Jonah was 3 days in the belly of a fish, that the Ark was real, that Moses was as well (and the Exodus). B/c they don’t fit science???
Nothing much that Christ did matches science, either. So why all the doubt?
I’m no scholar, but it seems to make God very small when you limit Him to only those things in the NT.
Just my two cents, reading all these ‘mythical/unreal’ posts lately.
No offense meant.
 
Hope1960 said:
Did anyone read the link I posted in post #1?
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Hope, that would take days. It’s a link that contains 27 links - 2 to videos, the rest (25 or so) to documents, one as long as 215 pages!
Of those multiple links, if there’s one specific pdf link that you’re wanting to discuss, could you give us the title. I’d be glad to read it as long as it’s not one of the real long ones.
I didn’t see any titles that seemed to be about Moses and the Exodus.
 
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Nita said:
Hope, that would take days. It’s a link that contains 27 links - 2 to videos, the rest (25 or so) to documents, one as long as 215 pages!
Of those multiple links, if there’s one specific pdf link that you’re wanting to discuss, could you give us the title. I’d be glad to read it as long as it’s not one of the real long ones.
I didn’t see any titles that seemed to be about Moses and the Exodus.
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Try the link in post #4. For some reason the article I tried to post (the one in post #4) didn’t turn up in post #1, but something else, instead.
 
No, in fact I’ve even said that I do believe Moses to be historical. The transfiguration is also evidence of this.

However we do use cultural references as if they are real so Jesus mentioning Moses as a historical figure is not imo conclusive proof that he is historical.
 
I appreciate that and I understand your emphasis. It is just that IMO the bottom line on these kinds of questions is, what good do they do? What is the good in questioning something to which there is no possible empirical answer? In this case, my other question is, why would Jesus allude to a mythical figure in his teaching, knowing that skeptics and those who refuse to accept teaching, would have a convenient way to discount said teaching?

Someone could have valid questions regarding certain aspects of the exodus and the subsequent events, but Moses is said to have been a prince of Egypt, a married man with a wife, a father, a shepherd, a stutterer. I mean, that is an awful lot of extraneous detail for a myth.
 
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Hope1960 said:
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ProdglArchitect:
There have been no discoveries that prevent us from believing in the Exodus. Remember, the lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. We’re talking about a 40-year journey across a desert. There is no terrain on Earth better at wiping away the historical record than the desert.
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What about the lack of record in hieroglyphics? I’ve read that something that major surely would’ve been recorded on stone walls. Then on the other hand, I’ve read that the Egyptians may have wiped those writings out. I’d think that if that were the case, though, there would be evidence that they wiped it out. No?
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Sorry for taking so long to respond.

The lack of hieroglyphs isn’t really that surprising. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the surviving hieroglyphs we’ve found come from tombs. The ones that were left out in the open have, for the most part, been worn away by time.

Since the glyphs in tombs mostly pertained to the lives of the particular person buried, and since we haven’t (to my knowledge) found the tomb of the Pharaoh from the Exodus account, it’s really not that surprising that we haven’t found any account of what happened.

See, the problem with history is that it’s just so big. People expect there to be written account of this or that major event. However, that is really only a reality in our time. For most of history, only the biggest of stories would even make it out of the area where the story took place. While we could assume the Exodus would be one such story, the fact remains that there’s multiple-thousands of years between then an now. That’s a lot of time for a painted piece of papyrus, or even an etched stone tablet, to be lost to time.
 
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Here’s an interesting view from PBS that wpuld also explain why it might not have been as much of a note to the Egyptians.


I also recall a History Channel show (I want to say: Battles of the Bible) where it mentioned how there were records of an exodus of Haibiru/Habiru people that was recorded and suggested that could’ve been the Hebrew Exodus.

It went that the Habirus had come into Egypt as a warrior tribe. When a Pharaoh started them as builders, they left, sacking a city for supplies. Pharaoh sends out his army and the rest is history. It also mentiomed how a common military practice at the time was to burn incense at the front during the day and oil at night. (Pillars of smoke and fire anyone?)
 
I’ve also heard it said that the Egyptians and other peoples at that time would only record their victories in their writings. Losing the Hebrew slaves and most of their army in the Exodus was a major defeat…not something they would want to record for posterity.
 
mVitus said:
Here’s an interesting view from PBS that wpuld also explain why it might not have been as much of a note to the Egyptians.

pbs.org

Moses and the Exodus — NOVA | PBS​

Biblical scholar and archeologist Carol Meyers offers a
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The article you posted seems to say that both Moses and the Exodus have been exaggerated and embellished. As Catholics, is it okay to believe the Bible contains exaggerations and embellishment?
 
ProdglArchitect said:
Sorry for taking so long to respond.

The lack of hieroglyphs isn’t really that surprising. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most of the surviving hieroglyphs we’ve found come from tombs. The ones that were left out in the open have, for the most part, been worn away by time.

Since the glyphs in tombs mostly pertained to the lives of the particular person buried, and since we haven’t (to my knowledge) found the tomb of the Pharaoh from the Exodus account, it’s really not that surprising that we haven’t found any account of what happened.

See, the problem with history is that it’s just so bug . People expect there to be written account of this or that major event. However, that is really only a reality in our time. For most of history, only the biggest of stories would even make it out of the area the story took place. While we could assume the Exodus would be one such story, the fact remains that there’s multiple-thousands of years between then an now. That’s a lot of time for a painted piece of papyrus, or even an etched stone tablet, to be lost to time.
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Thank you for your response.
 
I believe that Moses is real and that the Exodus event happened exactly as the Bible describes it.
 
Hope1960 said:
The article you posted seems to say that both Moses and the Exodus have been exaggerated and embellished. As Catholics, is it okay to believe the Bible contains exaggerations and embellishment
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We don’t need to hold the Bible as literalistic history. For example reading chpt 1 of Genesis in the literal sense doesn’t require a literalalistic six days. Now I will concede I have not done extensive looking as to the literal sense of Exodus nor the historical apsects, but in general I’d say we are free to take a more figurative approach to some of the early books.
 
mVitus said:
We don’t need to hold the Bible as literalistic history. For example reading chpt 1 of Genesis in the literal sense doesn’t require a literalalistic six days. Now I will concede I have not done extensive looking as to the literal sense of Exodus nor the historical apsects, but in general I’d say we are free to take a more figurative approach to some of the early books.
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Thank you.
 
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