Proving Exodus

[Hunter24]

That’s fascinating. Could you point to any sources I could read?

(Btw us Catholics don’t hold that it’s literallly accurate in all respects either; I feel sorry for the denominations who reject some basic scientific principles because it clashes with what they believe to much, like evolution and all, so you have an “either/or” situation with science and religion rather than a “both” situation. I think it hurts all of Christianity when people are *way *too literal with it.)

Yes I was raised catholic and went to catholic school, my senior year we had to watch videos whic first tried to prove a God initiated big bang and theistic evolution, and then moved to historical evidence for the bible. I don’t remember the exact sources quoted in the videos but I will look for them, they were Egyptian references to “the nomads of the Habiru” and spoke of their fifty or so years of wandering after leaving Egypt. They also offered archeological evidence for Jerico, as well as Egyptian diplomatic writing which hold Isreal as being the major power in Palestine and thus important to be On friendly terms with because it is directly between the Egyptian and Hittite empires. I’m going to do some digging and try to find the references.

 

[patrick457]

That’s fascinating. Could you point to any sources I could read?

(Btw us Catholics don’t hold that it’s literallly accurate in all respects either; I feel sorry for the denominations who reject some basic scientific principles because it clashes with what they believe to much, like evolution and all, so you have an “either/or” situation with science and religion rather than a “both” situation. I think it hurts all of Christianity when people are *way *too literal with it.)

If you want sources in that direction I think James K. Hoffmeier’s Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition might be of some help.

 

[nordskoven]

If Jacobovici is useful for anything, it is to provide a battering ram to get that disreputable Egyptian chronology re-examined. The Egyptian chronology, so debased that one of their priest-historians, Manetho, openly wondered at the tinkering of his predecessors, is brutally applied to every other chronology to force a fit into the Egyptian scheme. The art of archaeology is well served by the likes of Jacobovici in shattering the phony certitude of a timeline that is more the product of inter-office politics–atheists versus believers–than scholarship.

Here’s Wiki’s take on Manetho on Osarseph–Joseph?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osarseph

Off the top of my head, I’d say the Exodus happened because the Jews aren’t in Egypt anymore. How’s that? Plus when you have God demanding an “eternal ordinance” to celebrate the Passover, that’s as emphatic as it gets. This is why Catholics, enjoined to celebrate every weekly sabbath together, must without fail celebrate Easter, the Paschal sacrifice that most explicitly complies with God’s demand for the celebration of this “eternal ordinance” commemorating our collective monotheist deliverance from Egypt.

I like reading Albert Einstein’s buddy, Immanuel Velikovsky’s books that are anathema to the atheists because he is citing other extra-biblical contemporaneous sources that state there were strange doings correlating with the Exodus. This includes the precipitation of manna in, as I recall, Peru. Velikovsky gets props for predicting through extrapolation of ancient texts of planetary movements, that Venus was too hot to handle when in the fifties Venus was considered most like Earth. Like Jacobovici, Velikovsky might not have all the answers but he is asking all the right questions and basing theorems on data. Velikovsky’s works appear online, and many are helping correct flaws in his initial work in the spirit of inquiry, not rancor.

torrentz.eu/d4c53ec3bc3d2de4eacc035fc1bc184aa654ebd1

The burning bush is a scientific likelihood because a desert bush is full of silica, and being exposed to a high-energy event, would create a lovely incandescent glow. We also find that fire itself is a rectifier-amplifier, and like glass–chiefly silica–able to be used as a loudspeaker. Oy! Thanks, Bose experiments.

There was high political intrigue in Egypt in a battle of (cannibalistic) heterodoxy versus orthodox monotheism that was the initial religion of Egypt, and revived by Akhenaton. The priests of the bad guys freely demonized the good guys and toyed with the timelines to excise various persona non grata. The battle was so intense that it is suggested that Melchizedek, priest-king of Salem, was a hunted refugee from Egypt of the Shem lineage or Shem himself per extra-biblical Jewish commentary. The same struggle for truth and persecution goes on today.

May the Most High enlighten the eyes of our hearts. AMEN

 

[farpinho]

There was high political intrigue in Egypt in a battle of (cannibalistic) heterodoxy versus orthodox monotheism that was the initial religion of Egypt, and revived by Akhenaton. The priests of the bad guys freely demonized the good guys and toyed with the timelines to excise various persona non grata. The battle was so intense that it is suggested that Melchizedek, priest-king of Salem, was a hunted refugee from Egypt of the Shem lineage or Shem himself per extra-biblical Jewish commentary. The same struggle for truth and persecution goes on today.

I’m interested in reading more about this version. Do you have any Bibliography talking about this account? Thanks!

 

[PazzoGrande]

The burning bush is a scientific likelihood because a desert bush is full of silica, and being exposed to a high-energy event, would create a lovely incandescent glow. We also find that fire itself is a rectifier-amplifier, and like glass–chiefly silica–able to be used as a loudspeaker. Oy! Thanks, Bose experiments.

Thanks for this response. In your opinion though, would you say that it is dangerous to classify the Burning Bush as a scientific event?

I don’t mind giving the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea a natural explanation, but I have trouble saying that the Burning Bush would have been natural. For me it would be akin to saying that the Transfiguration was a scientifically natural event, when theologically it was a supernatural one. Wasn’t the Burning Bush too theologically transcendent for us to say that it was a scientific likelihood?

 

[chosen_people]

I was reading articles on Exodus, and notably the one in Wikipedia says something to the effect that archaeologists generally agree that it wasn’t a factual account.

Of course, Wikipedia isn’t a great source. So does anyone here know of any resources (especially online ones) where I can read about proof for Exodus?

At least in my mind, it feels that the truth of Exodus is important. If Judaism is a religion that believes in the God who revealed Himself, the story of that revelation is an important one. It seems that without it, Judaism wouldn’t have much basis. At least that’s how it works in my mind; if anyone here cares to enlighten me, I’d appreciate that greatly.

We Christians have it better off on this issue because we know a lot more about how the Gospels were written and they had witnesses attest to the general gist of it before the stories were compiled. Still, the truth of Judaism – and of Exodus – is important because Christianity was rooted in Judaism and the Transfiguration had Moses appearing with Jesus.

Perhaps the best proof in in the fact that it involved the entire nation (some 600 thousand men - some three million people). Even accepting a view that these events were recorded only after several hundred years, the written events would have to concur with the oral histories of every living descendant in order to be accepted. Without a basis in a shared historical national experience, this would seem to be impossible.

 

[Hunter24]

Perhaps the best proof in in the fact that it involved the entire nation (some 600 thousand men - some three million people). Even accepting a view that these events were recorded only after several hundred years, the written events would have to concur with the oral histories of every living descendant in order to be accepted. Without a basis in a shared historical national experience, this would seem to be impossible.

Your saying the exodus included 3 million people?

 

[chosen_people]

Your saying the exodus included 3 million people?

A census of 600 thousand males would lead to such a figure. However, even if the real figure is 300 thousand or thirty thousand, the importance is in the fact that we are talking about events relating to an entire people.

 

[edwest2]

That’s fascinating. Could you point to any sources I could read?

(Btw us Catholics don’t hold that it’s literallly accurate in all respects either; I feel sorry for the denominations who reject some basic scientific principles because it clashes with what they believe to much, like evolution and all, so you have an “either/or” situation with science and religion rather than a “both” situation. I think it hurts all of Christianity when people are *way *too literal with it.)

I don’t think anyone can make any blanket statements about what’s literal and what’s not. It goes on a specific, case by case basis. That is the correct approach, and it does hurt Christianity whenever anyone makes a blanket statement.

Science has been in error and has limits. I refuse to blindly follow anything anyone writes when trying to compare Biblical events to any science. Scientists cannot study God or the supernatural and there are no peer-reviewed papers about anything in the Bible.

Peace,
Ed