Origins of Ancient Israel

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Is it essential to our faith that the Exodus and the founding of Israel be truly historical?

How do we understand the lack of archeological evidence that is available to support this event? I do not reject the Exodus even with a lack of evidence, but it’s very hard to trust this event happened. I do not want to be one of the fundamentalists that stick their head in the sand and ignore all counter evidence (which there isn’t: simply no direct evidence).

How can we interpret the Merneptah Stele from 1200 BC?: “laid waste to Israel. his seed is not”. I understand the interpretation of Israel as a people group named after someone named Israel (like Jacob). If this is true the Exodus might have occurred in the reign of Ramses II (around 1250 BC).

The Exodus recounts all of Pharaoh’s army being destroyed in the Red Sea and Israel conquers Canaan. The Stele might be interpreted as Egypt’s army not being destroyed but Israel actually is destroyed. I’m not sure what to think.

How many Hebrews were involved in the Exodus? Trent Horn thinks it’s implausible for 2 million Hebrews to be involved. He states the word thousand, elep, might mean a clan or military unit.

Numbers 1 recounts a census with exact numbers of certain groups (i.e. Gad group has forty-five thousand (elep), six hundred and fifty (v. 25)). Would this mean 45 clans + 650 men? If so, if you add up all the groups it totals 598 clans + 5,550 men. In another census it totals 603 clans + 550 men. This would translate to 1 clan = 1000 men, thus around 600,000 men: perhaps about 2 million people total.

Would this be accurate? (This is not my information, I got it from someone else). Thanks for your help!
 
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Veritas6 said:
Is it essential to our faith that the Exodus and the founding of Israel be truly historical?
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My answer to this first question would be No, it’s not essential. At the same time, it’s my impression that, on the whole, the archeological evidence does tend to support the Biblical account.

If you’re looking for a really revisionist view of the Exodus, you’ll enjoy Freud’s last book:

https://www.amazon.com/Moses-Monoth...:freud,p_28:moses&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1
 
The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman is another revisionist account. According to them, the Israelites weren’t foreign to the land of Canaan. Instead, they arose peacefully from within in it and eventually a legend was born, perhaps of some earlier small scale event, of the Exodus.
 
I recently watched National Geographic with Albert Lin who went to the Holy Land with lots of state of the art tech to search the story of the Israelites and crossing the Red Sea.

My impression: he was too human.
Example. If they crossed the Red Sea, it likely was here because it’s the shortest crossing from land to land. The sea is not as wide there. If God is actually parting the Red Sea, this is not an issue. Albert Lin was looking at it like if he was an engineer looking to build a bridge, this would be a good spot. No. Then his complaint was that the water was too deep and that would mean this many tons of water would be moved, so that wasn’t likely. Again, not a problem when you’re God.

What made my eyes roll was that Lin said that maybe instead of the Red Sea, it was really the Reed Sea. Such a similar name, and the Reed Sea is only 6 feet deep. They must have crossed there. In the original language, not English, is Reed Sea and Red Sea that similar? He shrugs his shoulders and says ‘Maybe it was the Reed Sea?’. That’s more believable.

My point is, scientists already have a bias that God did not do that and it never really happened. They treat it like Santa Claus and presents appear but there is a very rational explanation to it all, like mom and dad went shopping, wrapped the gifts and hid them until Christmas came.

So someone thinks it’s ‘implausible for 2 million Hebrews to be involved’. Why? Jesus fed 5 thousand with a few loaves and fish.
 
Veritas6 said:
Is it essential to our faith that the Exodus and the founding of Israel be truly historical?
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You may find the answer in your question.

The operative word is “faith”.

Think of last week’s Gospel reading, when Christ said, “Blessed are those who have not seen but believe.”

Faith does not require physical proof. Faith is spiritual, not worldly.

Peace!
 
In the Old Testament there are over 600 pieces of text that point forward to when Christ would take on flesh, go to the cross, and redeem the world. Now that this event has happened, we can go to those texts and recognize Christ.

The plagues on Egypt, the suffering of the Hebrews, the death of the first born of Egypt, the Passover by the blood of the lamb, and the separation of the Hebrews from Egypt with the crossing of the Red Sea all points forward to Christ’s second coming. It’s the separation of the sheep and the goats Jesus speaks of. It’s the big chasm that is in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. All these point forward to an event yet to come in human history. When you read that story, keep that in your mind. Pay no attention to unbelievers who try to give some human explanation to the divine, and then fail. We are in a very interesting time. The first born of Egypt have already died when they were slaughtered through abortion.
 
I don’t have that hard of a time believing The Exodus story. It seems unlikely, that a fiercely monotheistic people, would make up a story about being slaves to pagan polytheists.
 
BartholomewB said:
My answer to this first question would be No, it’s not essential. At the same time, it’s my impression that, on the whole, the archeological evidence does tend to support the Biblical account.
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Do you mean the Catholic Church doesn’t require belief in a historical Exodus? If so, how are we supposed to understand the references to the Exodus in the New Testament? Catholic Answers affirms the Exodus happened and the Exodus was read as history over time.
 
Veritas6 said:
which there isn’t: simply no direct evidence)
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That actually isn’t true. The problem is, is that we’re looking at Egyptian evidence, but the truth is Egyptian records do show that there was a group of people that came from Southwest Asia, although they would not have called it that, into Egypt. I also want to point out, that a lot of things that are distinctly Egyptian in the Old Testament, we had no records of outside of the Bible until we could decipher hieroglyphics.
 
There is no requirement to twist ourselves into knots trying to force historical consistency into the book of Exodus. What we can accept is that it is sacred myth with a historical basis.

What irritates me is that these so-called “scholars” are so quick to dismiss the Exodus event on the flimsy claim that there is no evidence. Well, there is evidence: the Book of Exodus. It is an ancient writing that deserves the same scrutiny as other sources. I don’t get why scholars dismiss it outright. Just because it’s a sacred text?

The historical event is probably somewhere in between, and that Israelite society formed out of native Canaanites and a group that did move from Egypt. There was probably a real movement, maybe even a water crossing. It may even explain the conflation between the gods El and YHWH.

Here’s a perspective from a Reform Jewish scholar. Take it with as much salt as you want, but it provides a reasonable theory as to what the real Exodus might have been like. The fact that he’s Reform allows him to approach this with a bit more openness but he does not dismiss the Exodus altogether. If this were in fact what happened, this would not affect our Christian teachings at all.

 
porthos11 said:
There is no requirement to twist ourselves into knots trying to force historical consistency into the book of Exodus. What we can accept is that it is sacred myth with a historical basis.
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I definitely agree, but what does it mean as a “sacred myth with a historical basis” when the Exodus is mentioned by Jesus? I think we affirm there was slavery in Egypt, perhaps this group did move out of Egypt.
 
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Hey, if you could get a hold of Jimmy Akin, because he’s really into egyptology and stuff, he might be able to help you.
 
Veritas6 said:
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porthos11:
There is no requirement to twist ourselves into knots trying to force historical consistency into the book of Exodus. What we can accept is that it is sacred myth with a historical basis.
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I definitely agree, but what does it mean as a “sacred myth with a historical basis”? What would the historical basis be when the Exodus is mentioned in the New Testament? Thanks
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The New Testament (and our own liturgies) quote Exodus at face value, that is, the book as it is written.

The historical basis is archaeology, oral traditions, and more ancient texts, some of which have been incorporated into the Torah. For example, the Canticle of Miriam is an ancient text that once stood independently of Exodus, and incorporated later by an editor.

Read the article I linked; it’s an easy read and from a Reform Jewish scholar. Jewish is important because Exodus is central to the Jewish faith, Reform because he would not be stuck in a literalistic reading of Torah. You don’t have to accept it without skepticism, but it provides an example of how the Exodus was in fact historical, but “mutated” into the myth now in our Bibles.
 
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Veritas6 said:
Do you mean the Catholic Church doesn’t require belief in a historical Exodus? If so, how are we supposed to understand the references to the Exodus in the New Testament? Catholic Answers affirms the Exodus happened and the Exodus was read as history over time.
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I have no reason to doubt that the Exodus happened. I also believe, as I said, that the archeological evidence tends to support the Biblical account. Does that mean that every Catholic is required to accept as historical fact every single detail in the book of Exodus? I don’t think so.
 
Correct me if I’m wrong…but don’t the Jews celebrate the passover…much as we Catholics celebrate the Eucharist…it was a one time event and the Jews still celebrate that one event…not in memory…but the actual event…in a similar we Catholics celebrate the Eucharist…not Christs sacrifice over and over…but the one sacrifice…I’ve also read that some scholars even suggest that Moses wasn’t a real person…just a mythical figure like the Exodus
 
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@Veritas6, depending on what kind information, exactly, you hope to find on this subject, you may like to take a look at Colin Humphreys’ book that I linked to in my post #5. I haven’t read the book myself, because Moses and the Exodus is not a subject I focus on. Humphreys is not a Catholic, in fact he’s on the other end of the Christian spectrum as an “evangelical Christian”. By profession he is a professor of materials science, which means he’s not likely to make the kind of mistakes that the anti-miracle dogmatists like to pick on to discredit their opponents.

Here’s how Humphreys describes himself: “I am a Professor and Director of Research at Cambridge University, UK … I am a physicist and materials scientist, with a long-standing interest in biblical studies and the interface between science and faith…. I am a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering: these are the leading science and engineering societies in the UK. I am a Christian and a scientist and I would like to say to “new atheists” like Richard Dawkins that it is indeed possible to be both a Christian and a scientist!”
 
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Veritas6 said:
Is it essential to our faith that the Exodus and the founding of Israel be truly historical?
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How can it be important to faith? Does faith require proof?

If it is important to anything it is important to history in the same way American history is important to the US Constitution. The Constitution speaks for itself, and so does Catholicism. Preserving the history of how each of those things came to be is important for future generations to learn from. But the fruits of those things are more important to upholding one’s faith in them than is the history of those things.
 
Veritas6 said:
Is it essential to our faith that the Exodus and the founding of Israel be truly historical?
Click to expand...
I have a hard time saying that the Exodus, which the Bible presents as a historical event is nothing more than myth or allegory, while at the same time insisting that Christ is the historical savior come to redeem the world, particularly when Christ’s coming is presented as the greater fulfillment of how Israel was redeemed from Egypt.

That being said, the good news is that I think there are lots of archeological finds that would indicate that the exodus did have a historical setting, even if we might be locating it in the wrong century. Semitic peoples such as the Hebrews did move to Egypt, and were eventually expelled from Egypt. That is a fact that archaeological evidence readily supports.
 
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