The historicity of Moses and the Exodus account

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Hi, Ranen.
The Bible can’t prove itself, well not in this particular case, so if the Bible says it and nothing else says it if it is history, it’d be very dubious indeed.
George Washington many of his contemporaries wrote about him,we have his writings that can be attributed to him. The Bible is surrounded with much less certainty.

As to it is not de fide that anyone wrote anything, how one gets sure that the prophet/apostle/evangelist wrote it or approve of it? How can I that this is God’s word?

JDEP says what it says because, well, the Pentateuch is dated to be later when Moses supposedly lived. Also, the Pentateuch in its original language seems like a patched up work of other earlier work, that’s different from copying or using an earlier work.
Also, how can Moses rely on available sources, he is supposedly the law giver, if the law and much of the Pentateuch sources existed before Moses, it begs the question where did it come from? How can the Hebrews know the law of God before God even speaks?
 
Well it’s easy to diagnose your first problem - you think fundamentalism represents religion. You need to start by learning more about Catholicism, that actual Church that Christ founded as opposed to the redneck churches telling you that the universe is ~8,000 years old (it isn’t). Evolution is not contradicted by scripture at all.

None of the historical figures you mentioned are really all that central to Catholicism. That Jesus existed is accepted by scholars to the same extent that evolution is accepted by scientists. that is to say that everyone accepts it except a few loony toons that aren’t taken seriously.

The philosophy answer is two fold; free will has consequences, hell is separation from God. Hell is for people who have rejected God. How could God not seperate from people that have rejected him!? Then there’s the fact that you are trying to squeeze the logic of a supernatural being into the logical framework of a human. I recommend this video, starting from 1:19:00 if you really want to understand the profound importance of that:
 
Renan said:
The written tradition of the Church (the Bible) says it, as well as its oral Tradition.
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If this is your criteria then is it your position that every character that appears in the Bible existed in reality?
 
I believe back in the 60’s national geographic ran an article on the Exodus. Apparently the Red Sea was known has the reed sea, which has an ocean side phenomena of cycling between being flooded and bone dry. It is believed the chariots started to cross over in this seasonal period, but was washed away in a natural flooding which is a common occurrence for this area The ancient peoples would describe it as the work of God, and indeed God can do his work spectacularly or make it a natural event. Regardless, either way the “parting” did indeed happen and the people did get saved, which was His intent.

From the Egyptian end, the article also mentions that hieroglyphics were found mentioning a brief event where charioteers were sent to settle the issue of problematic people, and the soldiers were lost. The archeologists conclude that the few mentions of this huge failure of this mission would not be something a pharaoh would want spread among his people. This was the practice. Bad PR was shunned since a pharaoh wouldn’t want his failures recorded through the centuries.

Also if I recall Jericho was also found and evidence of a was found of a seige.

One can go on and on with this linking all the verified facts. The Hebrews had an accurate and reliable written history.
 
Evolution as defined by the Church is not verifiable. And why bring it up here?
 
That’s just word salad games, typical of people who have zero evidence to support their own fundamentalist belief
 
Ah, Ahkenaten was probably one of the top five most famous pharaohs. In Egyptian religion, you had a bunch of triads-- like Osiris/Isis/Horus (of Abydos) or Amun/Mut/Khonsu (of Thebes) or Ptah/Sekhmet/Nefertem (of Memphis), or whatever-- and different gods would be powerful in different regions and at different time periods. Like, for example, if the capital was at City X, then the deities associated with City X would achieve national importance. Later on, when City Y became the center of power, then the gods associated with City Y would rise in prominence. There were plenty of other gods, of course, and different gods were associated with other different gods as aspects of that god, etc, etc, etc, but just for conversational purposes, the powerhouses were in the temples and amongst the priesthoods of those major triads.

So, the thing with Akhenaten, was that the 18th Dynasty was a Theban dynasty. So the priests of Amun had a whole lot of power. (We think of it today as the temple at Karnak.) Akhenaten ascended the throne as Amenhotep IV. (Note the difference in the name-- Amen = Amun.) And then he decided to start a new religion, which worshiped the aten- the sun disk-- and he changed his name to Akhenaten (note the name- Aten.) He decided to build a new capital, at Armana, dedicated to the worship of his god. Roughly speaking-- for conversational purposes-- the pharaoh proclaimed himself the “living incarnation of a single all-powerful deity”, the sun disk, and even went so far as to close the other temples in Egypt, and suppress the practice of non-Aten religion. And Akhenaten was the only mediator between God and man.

So, of course, there was a whole lot of upset-ness among the Egyptian priesthood that Akhenaten had just canceled thousands of years’ worth of tradition and actively suppressed their livelihoods, their political power, etc, etc, etc. There’s been gallons of ink spilled on the Heretic King and his changes. Ultimately, Akhenaten died; he got erased from several king lists and his city was reclaimed by the desert; his son, Tutankhaten, ascended the throne; his son, Tutankhaten, quickly changed his name to Tutankhamun (you might have heard of that one?) to help appease the priests and get Egypt back to normal; Tutankhamun died, young and obscure, after about a nine-or-ten-year reign; he was succeeded by his Vizier, Ay; Ay was succeeded by their General, Horemheb; and that was the end of the eighteenth dynasty. After that, you get into the great pharaohs of the Ramessids-- Ramses I, Seti I, Ramses II (the famous one), Merneptah, and so on.

But the point being, Akhenaten introduced his own special brand of monotheism to ancient Egypt. Up until that point, the pantheon was pretty expansive, and deities could be added or merged, no problem. But Akhenaten was different. He claimed that his god was not only the best god, but it was the only god— and all the other gods were suppressed.
 
I presume you did catch that the half the point of the plagues was for the Hebrew God to show his superiority over the Egyptian gods, right? When the Nile was turned to blood, that was the Hebrew God showing that he was greater than Hapi, the Nile god. When the frogs came up, that was the Hebrew God showing he was greater than Heket, the frog-headed fertility/renewal goddess-- the Egyptian magicians could summon frogs, but only Moses could make them go away. Geb was the god of the earth, and the lice came from the dust of the earth. There was the plague of flies; Kephri, the creation-god, had a beetle head. Hathor was the cow-headed goddess of love; the livestock became diseased. Isis was a medicinal goddess who had resurrected the dismembered Osiris with her power; the Egyptian population came down with boils and sores that rendered them ritually unclean. Nut was the sky goddess; hail rained down from the sky. Set was the storm god/god of disorder; locusts ravaged the land. Ra was the sun god; there were three days of darkness. And finally, Pharaoh was the living god on earth… and all the firstborns of man and beast died.
 
There’s also the Ipuwer papyrus.

“The contents of this papyrus have an oddly familiar ring to those who know their Old Testament. ‘Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere…The river is blood…Gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire…. Cattle moan…The land is not light’”. Literary analyses would put the original, of which the Leiden papyrus is a copy, at some time during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and the very beginning of the turbulent Hyksos period.”

 
Raafat said:
Hi,
I’m Raafat, a new member here. I wasn’t born Christian, Muslim to be specific.
I left religion due to issues of science, philosophy and history.
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I’m a revert Catholic. I was born Catholic, then fell away. For similar reasons, I suppose. Then I came back.
I want here to ask about specific historical events, in particular did Moses exist? Did Exodus really happen?
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Yes, I believe he did. We consider the Torah to contain testimonial evidence of that which happened in the time of Moses and Joshua.

However, the Jews also kept an “oral Torah” during those centuries. It was passed down by father to son through all those years, but was finally written down in the 3rd century AD.
Did Moses even write the Torah?
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Most of it.
If so, how come it contains the account of his death?
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Moses had organized a nation with a system of law. By the time of his death, he had many people under him, some of which also were his secretaries. We believe those things which were written after his death, were written in his name by his subordinates.
What about the JEDP theory of Torah?
If a topic can’t satisfactorily answer these point, may anyone redirect me to books or websites addressing such issues.
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Sure, there are many bible studies. One of my favorites is the Great Adventure. It is a set of CDs which is very understandable. I believe there is also a website:

https://biblestudyforcatholics.com

Another bible study that I enjoy is:

Thanks,
Looking forward to discussing with you.
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Me too. Feel free to ask more questions.
 
One error to avoid is treating historical accounts as though they are not historical accounts simply because they also are religious books.

How do you prove that my great great great × 32 grandmother existed? My existing. But, what if she had a friend named Ugr, who had no children. See the issue here?

It seems to me you say many of the same old things that modern day atheists on the internet say. I suggest a variance in the source material!
 
Raafat said:
Hi, Erikaspirit.

Pardon me, but I don’t get the point of the

Iinked reply.

I mean, it says, if the story is fictional, then the Jewish/Christian/Islamic is indeed fictional, and that is my point.
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I guess you didn’t read MY posts in the other thread. So I’ll repeat myself. The official teaching of the Catholic Church on the Bible is found in both Dei Verbum (a document of Vatican II) and the Catechism, which is really a paraphrase of Dei Verbum.

from the Catechism, sections 109 & 110:

“In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.

In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking, and narrating then current. ‘For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression.’”

notice: “…what the human authors TRULY WANTED TO AFFIRM and to what GOD WANTED TO REVEAL TO US…” So first, you have to understand the Bible is not a history book, although there may be some history in it–but that’s not what God wanted to reveal. Each story has a point to it. It may be very simple, something like “Obey God” or “There is only one God.” It may be a moral command, like “Be kind to other people.” It may be a symbolic or metaphorical message about salvation: “God saved the Jews in the Red Sea; God will save you, too. But the Egyptians were evil, and God punished them. If you are evil, God will punish you.”

But, although obviously (?) there are some historical facts in the Bible, they don’t matter. The message is a religious message, not an historical message. God doesn’t care if you think Moses made the Exodus in 1250 BC or 1280 BC. That’s not the point of the story. And if you think it is, you are (literally!) missing the point. Was there a person named Moses? Probably. Certainly it was an Egyptian name; we know there were people called the “Habiru” (Hebrew?) wandering around in the desert near Egypt. We know the Hyksos invaded and ruled Egypt, and that they were from the East and were eventually driven out. So there certainly are suggestions that all or part of the Exodus story may be true.

I assume you know the story of the Prodigal Son. What is the point of the story? That a father will forgive almost any sin of his son. So God (your father) will forgive you. Now what if, after hearing the story, some of the Apostles went to Jesus and said, “But you didn’t tell us the son’s name. What was his name? What village was he from? When did this happen? Exactly when did the son return to his father–summer? fall? How many cattle did the father own? Did the son get married after that? Etc.” Stupid, right? None of it matters, right? And yet you are concentrating on the same sorts of details. Don’t.
 
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KevinK said:
That is a good point.
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Ah, Kevin from the other thread! Religious books are religious books. They MAY contain history, but that’s not their purpose–it wasn’t their purpose when they were written, and it’s not their purpose today. So it might be interesting to see if you can find evidence of historical events in the religious books in archaeology, historical records of other peoples, etc. it doesn’t matter from a religious point of view if you do or if you don’t.

Let’s take the Bhagavad Gita. The prince Arjuna has a long conversation with his charioteer Lord Krishna.
Should Arjuna fight against his relatives? Should he follow dharma? Or should he side with his relatives and ignore his duty as a warrior? It’s a good moral question for anyone, not just Hindus. Are there historical bits and pieces? Sure! Chariots! Horses! Warriors are important! Yoga! But was there actually a Prince Arjuna? Was there an actual war with the Pandavas? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn’t matter, does it? That’s not the point of the story. It’s an examination of a moral question set within a story that may or may not be true, and we shouldn’t care if it is or isn’t.
 
Raafat said:
But if it only boils down to blind faith, then how do you argue for your faith?

To prove that it is true.

I’m speaking for myself here, if I’m sufficiently convinced, next day you’d find me getting baptized.
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Does it matter if the Moses we read about in the Old Testament actually wrote the Torah himself? No.
Do we have (and have we had for 2,500 years) a book called the Torah? Yes. Have the Jews traditionally said that Moses wrote it? Yes. Does it matter if it was written by someone else, using the name “Moses”? No. Why should it?

To some extent faith is blind, yes. As Kirkegaard said, there is a “leap of faith.” Reason can only get you so far. No one can “prove” with mathematical certainty that God exists, etc. etc. And of course that makes logical sense: if you could “prove” it the same way you can “prove” 1 + 1 = 2, then you would have no choice but to believe (does anyone out there believe 1 + 1 does NOT = 2?). If you have no choice, that eliminates free will. If you have free will, you are able to decide for yourself.

But having said that, is there an internal logic to a religion? Are there contradictions–or are the contradictions in your head? Does it make sense that a religion (any religion) would continue to define various doctrines (not change the doctrines, but refine them) over time? For example, does it make sense that Jesus was not seen as divine by the Apostles at the beginning? But then some of them began to believe it, and by the Gospel of John (c. 90 AD) Jesus was clearly seen as divine? Does it make sense that theologians would then begin to think about how that could work–was Jesus completely divine? Completely human? Half and half? And each time they “solved” one question, a few other questions would pop up. Does that make sense? Does it make sense that the Qur’an is eternal, even though a lot of it refers to actual incidents in Muhammad’s life? Does it make sense that 100+ (depending on who you ask!) verses are abrogated? Does it make sense that 'Uthman had to re-call all the Qur’ans in existence, burn them, and then issue an “official” version? These are all questions you have to ask yourself–is there an internal logical consistency? Or maybe you decide no religion has an internal logical consistency. You decide.
 
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
None of the historical figures you mentioned are really all that central to Catholicism. That Jesus existed is accepted by scholars to the same extent that evolution is accepted by scientists. that is to say that everyone accepts it except a few loony toons that aren’t taken seriously.
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Well, these not-so-central people if proven nonexistant, then how come we trust a book which is based on fiction for no apparent reason, all the while, labeling it as authentic history.

If you can detach the Church from the past, then on what does it rest?
What gives it authority?

If a ring breaks in a necklace, then the whole thing just falls apart.
stupidisasstupiddoes said:
The philosophy answer is two fold; free will has consequences, hell is separation from God. Hell is for people who have rejected God. How could God not seperate from people that have rejected him!? Then there’s the fact that you are trying to squeeze the logic of a supernatural being into the logical framework of a human
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Is Hell just ‘separation of God’ or an eternal torment with fire, coming from a horrific movie?

This same God said an eye for an eye, then, how come an indefinite amount of eyes for the same eye?
God might separate himself from the wicked, but then they were limited wicked, they must have limited punishment.
Also, Jesus, when cruxified, mended the God-Human relations, if I had to take Adam’s sin just because it happened, then I must be saved just because it happened.

And God ought to make himself presentable in our terms, to diffrentiate himself from nonsensical imposters.
 
Kei said:
One error to avoid is treating historical accounts as though they are not historical accounts simply because they also are religious books.

How do you prove that my great great great × 32 grandmother existed? My existing. But, what if she had a friend named Ugr, who had no children. See the issue here?

It seems to me you say many of the same old things that modern day atheists on the internet say. I suggest a variance in the source material!
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I don’t assume they are not historical, merely, because thry are religiius accounts! No, no, no, tge point is they are isolated which might cast doubt on its historicity.

Your example of your Grandma, as I see it, is totally off the point, I won’t prove your Grandma the same way I try to prove an event happened.
 
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