"Scholarly consensus" sees Moses as a mythical figure?

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Aulef said:
I didn’t check this link in particular but northwest Saudi Arabia is the most likely place where Mt. Sinai is. Many important landmarks we read in the Exodus event can be seen there.

Having said this, I am worried with the fact that many protestants seem to be obsessed with it.
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They’re obsessed with it because they’ve lost or removed so many other things in their “reform” of the faith, they don’t have much left to focus on except Bible history.
 
I think most reasonable objective people would find the website you referenced quite comical. Try to break free from confirmation bias where you surf through the internet seeking support of your preconceived beliefs and you ignore evidence to the contrary.
 
I thought they have discovered chariot wheels and things at the bottom of the Sea??
 
I think Bible history is important. It is convenient to show the world that events described in the Sacred Scriptures are true, even ancient ones that happened 3500-4000 years ago.

But some people seem to be focusing on happenings that are less important than the ones we should actually focus on, which are in the Gospels.

Our God is infinitely wise. We are rich in NT relics and landmarks and unsure about OT equivalents for a reason: our minds and hearts are to be focused on Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church.
 
John Paul II, after his general audience of 19 Sep 1979, attached a note about myth to the published text, from which the following comes:

“If in the language of the rationalism of the 19th century, the term “myth” indicated what was not contained in reality, the product of the imagination (Wundt), or what is irrational (Levy-Bruhl), the 20th century has modified the concept of myth.
…[various insightful, scholarly definitions]…
“In short, the myth tends to know what is unknowable.
“According to P. Ricoeur: “The myth is something other than an explanation of the world, of its history and its destiny. It expresses in terms of the world, indeed of what is beyond the world, or of a second world, the understanding that man has of himself through relation with the fundamental and the limit of his existence… It expresses in an objective language the understanding that man has of his dependence in regard to what lies at the limit and the origin of his world” (P. Ricoeur, Le conflit des interprétation [Paris: Seuil, 1969], p. 383).”

I just felt this needed to be part of the conversation, in case it helps some readers understand why they are talking past one anoher.
 
I wouldn’t worry about it. The Bible says Assyria was s great empire. Scholars insisted that was a myth until the 1930s when the ruins, including a library, of an extensive Assyrian empire were discovered! In fact, until quite recently scholars believed King Favid was a myth, then they “discovered” two different inscriptions mentioning him. So, just wait for those unbelieving scholars to catch up!
 
Moses was a mythical figure, his story was told to help reveal what is beyond this world. It was not told as a factual account meeting the standards of modern historians.
To be read “literally” the story needs to be read as the author intended, as the foundational story of the Jewish people. The author probably did not intend it as a history textbook. Whoever the author was (Moses? God? others?), the text is meant to be heard and to be taught to the sons and daughters of Israel. It is a call to a particular lifestyle.
None of those conclusions tell us if it was written by Moses, or if Moses was real, but those are separate issues from the literal meaning of the text. Nothing tells us if it is an account like historians write, or if it describes “another time” as is common in myths from other cultures.
God gave the Law to Moses, who promptly broke the tablets it was on to destroy the Golden Calf. Sp God gave the Law to Moses again, making him copy it onto tablets himself.Trust the Law, teach it to your sons and daughters. It comes to you as a gift from God whether Moses was real or not.
 
I don’t know where you got your hundres of thousands or two million figure from. I have never heard any numbers along those lines. More likely in the thousands or low tens of thousands. And they were nomads for a few decades in an arid area. Very unlikely they stayed together as a wandering group during this time. More than likely became nomadic shepherds, etc. You expect nomads to leave evidence?

As for the article that says there were the guy says there were no Jews in Egypt, that does nothing but show a misunderstanding of Biblical history. Moses is credited for starting the Jewish faith, the Jews, as a people did not exist at that time as we think of them today. There were certainly semitic people enslaved by the Egyptians.

The entire story of the Exodus cannot be taken literally, I agree with that. But I believe Moses was a real person in history.
 
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Let’s consider a few things:

How would one find every possible species and sub-species of animal on earth; especially when many would not have been known to Moses?
How would one extended family cram enough food and deal with the waste of so many animals for months?
Where would all of the water come from in the first place? There is not that much on earth.
Rain is fresh water, it would have diluted the seas so much as to pose serious trouble to salt water fish.
Like wise, fresh water fish would also have been in serious trouble.
Flood stories are relatively common in the area.
Ramses (II or Great) was a well know and arguably greatest of the Egyptian Pharaohs, it’s not a surprise that he would show up in a people’s origin story.
 
PJH_74 said:
Let’s consider a few things:

How would one find every possible species and sub-species of animal on earth; especially when many would not have been known to Moses?
How would one extended family cram enough food and deal with the waste of so many animals for months?
Where would all of the water come from in the first place? There is not that much on earth.
Rain is fresh water, it would have diluted the seas so much as to pose serious trouble to salt water fish.
Like wise, fresh water fish would also have been in serious trouble.
Flood stories are relatively common in the area.
Ramses (II or Great) was a well know and arguably greatest of the Egyptian Pharaohs, it’s not a surprise that he would show up in a people’s origin story.
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You’re confusing Moses with Noah.
 
Aulef said:
But some people seem to be focusing on happenings that are less important than the ones we should actually focus on, which are in the Gospels.
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Moses is important to us largely because Jesus references Moses and the Law many times in the Gospels.
It’s necessary for us to have a good handle on the OT in order to understand what Jesus was fulfilling in the NT, as well as all of Jesus’ references to the OT. Jesus was a scholar of the prophets and scripture that had originated before Him and explained things in that context.
 
You know instead of arguing with somebody who knows the scriptures if your that desperate to know the truth, you could get a flight to egypt and go see mount sinai yourself for the evidence.

How does it feel to be the blind guy groping the wall?
 
Like I said, the story of Moses and the old law are important to be known. They help deepening knowledge because they give us context and a sense of evolution in Divine Revelation. And that’s it. Nothing more. They are insufficient to save our souls.

On the other hand, only knowing the fully revealed and perfect Law, which are the teachings of Jesus Christ and the infallible teachings of the Holy Church, and receiving the necessary Sacraments save our souls.
 
Of course anything but Jesus is insufficient to save our souls. And there are likely plenty of people who believe in Jesus enough to be saved without having much of a clue about The OT, scholarship about it, historicity etc.
 
babochka said:
Mythological does not necessarily preclude being true and historical. It is a term used broadly to describe a particular type of story and does necessarily mean that it is false. It just fits a certain type.

I’ll try to add more when I am not on my phone.
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This. Depending on the scientific discipline you´re working at, “mythical” and “historic” differ in their definition. A specialist for literature would differentiate more precisely the texts about Moses in their proper literature fields, and a mythos doesn´t mean it´s a “wrong fairy tale” . As a historian, it´s very hard to prove the historical reality because of the lack of datable sources, back-up facts ect. This has nothing to do with some kind of belief, or even the idea that an histroian needs to think there was no Moses, but the scientific prove is not given. And this is perfectly fine - we can´t accept to weight theology and belief with the wrong tools. I won´t prove a flu with a math calculation - wrong scientific field.
I do know alot of christian scholars (historians, art historians, literature experts) who are faithfull and still proper researchers in their fields.
 
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Hope1960 said:
I thought they have discovered chariot wheels and things at the bottom of the Sea??

Last night I was reading an old thread on this same subject and they said that that was proven to be a hoax.
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Yeah, same old problem: an item fitting in the right time and place is aboslutely not proven to be “the” chariot. How should it? That´s not how science works. If I search, I´ll find.
 
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