Moses and the Exodus

[Haruko]

I read an article by a Paul Tobin titled Moses and the Exodus.

I'm wondering what your thoughts on the article are and if this guy's argument is sound, or if you think he's lunny or just full of holes in his argument. I'm especially curious because a program about this on the History Channel I watched months ago seems to have been in complete contradiction to what I'm reading in the above linked article.

Perhaps some of you can make things clearer for me.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Regardless of whether or not Moses really existed, the guy in your article makes a LOT of leaps of reasoning which aren't necessarily supported by his evidence.

[Darth Wong]

What contradictions to the above article did you see in this documentary? It's true that the Exodus did not actually happen as described; that part of the article's conclusions is well-accepted by archaeologists who have failed to find a shred of evidence for this mass exodus (to say nothing of the practical difficulties of a mass migration with no supply train across the desert). Whether Moses' entire life story is fictional (or at least so heavily adulterated that it might as well be fictional) is up for debate, but certainly it's not out of the question.

[Joe]

Didn't the Exodus supposedly take 40 years, too? No way crossing the Sinai into Israel could have taken that long.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Didn't the Exodus supposedly take 40 years, too? No way crossing the Sinai into Israel could have taken that long.

According to the Bible, they were basically "circling" until everyone who disobeyed the Lord died.

[Stark]

A heathen holding pattern?

[Haruko]

What contradictions to the above article did you see in this documentary?

Unfortunately, it's been months ago so my memory's blury (I was likely half asleep in the middle of the night watching it, like on most occasions when I'm watching documentaries). I shouldn't have brought it up. However, the documentary seemed to portray the Exodus as being heavily supported, which would contradict what the author of the article I linked to said, or it simply failed to bring up the fact that whether the Exodus ever took place is not soundly concluded.

Whether Moses' entire life story is fictional (or at least so heavily adulterated that it might as well be fictional) is up for debate, but certainly it's not out of the question.

Interesting.

[Lagmonster]

Much of Moses' life is doubtless stolen outright from other local cultures' mythology - the "Abandoned baby becomes important" story was already featured in Greek (Oedipus) and other stories from the same age and area.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Much of Moses' life is doubtless stolen outright from other local cultures' mythology - the "Abandoned baby becomes important" story was already featured in Greek (Oedipus) and other stories from the same age and area.

I'm not positive, but I believe the story of Moses predates the story of Oedipus.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm not positive, but I believe the story of Moses predates the story of Oedipus.

It's all part of the same thing. Religious/Historical figures being orphaned babies from one tribe to another very often serves to give the figure the "right" parents. Moses could of been an Egyptian in fact, but the legend requires him to be Hebrew as well.

I like the idea of them circling in the same tiny patch of land for forty years though. That's so deliciously evil.

HEBREW BOB:"Moses, we passed that boulder formation three days ago and two weeks before that! Look, I wrote my name on it every time we pasted it and there are thirty freaking "Bobs" on it! Face it, north is that way."
MOSES: "Uhh... conference call with G-D! I'm getting a vision! "Thou shalt not make thy boss look like an ass"... the LORD says to stone him."
*HEBREW BOB is dragged off and stoned*
MOSES: "Man, Israelites do nothing but complain, I swear to God."
HEBREW JEFF: "Isn't that taking the LORDs name in vain, Moses?"
*MOSES snaps his fingers and points to HEBREW JEFF, who is dragged off and stoned*
MOSES: "Anyone else?"
HEBREWS: "No, we are good! Yay, Moses!"

[Edi]

The Exodus story is a mixture of many different tales, liberally interspersed with fiction and suffering from a lot of backward projection and other inaccuracies. This is something like the fourth or fifth time this same topic has come up. You can find the other occasions by doing a foruum search for "mica mine" for my posts to get more details.

Edi

[Darth Wong]

It's actually amazing that anyone could have ever taken the Exodus myth seriously. When you look at how difficult it was for entire nations to support large military expeditions of a few tens of thousands of men, and how such campaigning armies would typically leave famine in their wake because the land could not support them for long, the idea of a huge mass exodus of totally unsupported slaves across the desert becomes almost comically absurd.

Are they marauders, raping and pillaging and living off the land? It's the fucking desert! And how could they be so militarily powerful, when they've supposedly had all the males in their entire ethnicity culled for a generation and they would have neither weapons or military training? Does anyone even try to explain how it is that every male Hebrew child in Egypt was being killed for a generation, yet the Jews start the Exodus with six hundred thousand able-bodied men at arms? Where the fuck did these guys come from? Really well-preserved guys in their sixties?

What's really funny is when people desperately try to come up with evidence for this childish story, citing things like the occasional campsite or evidence of a small tribal migration (which actually undermines the myth even further, by demonstrating how even small groups leave traces of their movement, so a huge group of hundreds of thousands of people should leave so much evidence you could choke on it).

[Ariphaos]

Much of Moses' life is doubtless stolen outright from other local cultures' mythology - the "Abandoned baby becomes important" story was already featured in Greek (Oedipus) and other stories from the same age and area.

Moses' story was written suring the time of David (around 800 B.C.E.), and to my knowledge, in this specific case, is one of the first such. It may have been taken from elsewhere (certainly large parts of the Pentatauch were) but it's certainly older than the Greek tale.

[Count Dooku]

Just out of curiosity, when was Moses supposed to have lived, and how long after his 'death' was his story first written? I'd venture to say that the difference is in the thousands of years.

Have any of you seen the similarities been Mithra, Jesus, and the Hebrew religion? If not, I'd LOVE to post what I've got on it. It practically thwarts Christianity, and any shed of legitimacy it might have.

[Ariphaos]

Just out of curiosity, when was Moses supposed to have lived, and how long after his 'death' was his story first written? I'd venture to say that the difference is in the thousands of years.

It cannot have been before 1645 (the introduction of chariots to Egypt), or after 1100 (the sacking of Israel by Egypt - though Israel has no record of this).

It is generally accepted by Christians to be circa ~1,200 B.C.E. because Ramses II had his firstborn son die. There's no record that every firstborn son died, as is claimed, of course.

Have any of you seen the similarities been Mithra, Jesus, and the Hebrew religion? If not, I'd LOVE to post what I've got on it. It practically thwarts Christianity, and any shed of legitimacy it might have.

The various godman myths are pretty well-known. Dionysius is a funner one, who brought the concept of heaven into Christianity.

Regarding the Hebrews, I find their relation to Hinduism vastly more interesting.

[Knife]

Are they marauders, raping and pillaging and living off the land? It's the fucking desert! And how could they be so militarily powerful, when they've supposedly had all the males in their entire ethnicity culled for a generation and they would have neither weapons or military training? Does anyone even try to explain how it is that every male Hebrew child in Egypt was being killed for a generation, yet the Jews start the Exodus with six hundred thousand able-bodied men at arms? Where the fuck did these guys come from? Really well-preserved guys in their sixties?

There is a book out there by some author, and a history channel special about it, where the guy puts a military slant on the exodus story. In that instead of slaves, the hebrews might have just been tribes living on Egyption land (something to do about the translation of what ever word is in the Hebrew bible for the word *slave*).

Ramsey's wanted them gone, sent the army after them, the Hebrews left and pillaged what Egyption towns were along the way. The whole 'splitting the Red sea thing', he explained, was a tactical withdraw across a river or other water barrier durring low tide, etc....

He went on further to suggest that the ~40 years of wandering, was probably or could have been the Hebrews camping out, building an army to march on Canaan for their new 'homeland'.

Anyway, I havent read the book, though I want to, but the show was interesting to a degree. It went into specifics that I really don't remember, about translations and references from the bible that could have been a bit of tactics or military manuvers rather than god like shit.

Wish I could remember the dudes name....

Anyway, I don't even remotely believe anything about a massive refugee group from Egypt, but it was a fun theory to suggest, plus I suppose that perhaps a small enough group/tribe could have been the genesis of the story. (sorry for the bad pun)

[Molyneux]

Just out of curiosity, when was Moses supposed to have lived, and how long after his 'death' was his story first written? I'd venture to say that the difference is in the thousands of years.

It cannot have been before 1645 (the introduction of chariots to Egypt), or after 1100 (the sacking of Israel by Egypt - though Israel has no record of this).

It is generally accepted by Christians to be circa ~1,200 B.C.E. because Ramses II had his firstborn son die. There's no record that every firstborn son died, as is claimed, of course.

Have any of you seen the similarities been Mithra, Jesus, and the Hebrew religion? If not, I'd LOVE to post what I've got on it. It practically thwarts Christianity, and any shed of legitimacy it might have.

The various godman myths are pretty well-known. Dionysius is a funner one, who brought the concept of heaven into Christianity.

Regarding the Hebrews, I find their relation to Hinduism vastly more interesting.

Okay, wha? I would love to hear this. There are links between the origins of the Jewish religion and Hinduism?

[Edi]

There is a book out there by some author, and a history channel special about it, where the guy puts a military slant on the exodus story. In that instead of slaves, the hebrews might have just been tribes living on Egyption land (something to do about the translation of what ever word is in the Hebrew bible for the word *slave*).

I call bullshit on that. There is zero archaelogical evidence to support that view, as well as not enough room in the land between Egypt and Israel to support those tribes.

Ramsey's wanted them gone, sent the army after them, the Hebrews left and pillaged what Egyption towns were along the way. The whole 'splitting the Red sea thing', he explained, was a tactical withdraw across a river or other water barrier durring low tide, etc....

The "pharaoh" of Exodus is most likely the regional Egyptian governor near Israel and the Exodus a small group of dissenters taking a hike beyond the border, which happened to be a river at the time. Egyptian holdings at the time extended pretty far into prsent day Israel, but were declining in the face of competition from teh other regional powers.

He went on further to suggest that the ~40 years of wandering, was probably or could have been the Hebrews camping out, building an army to march on Canaan for their new 'homeland'.

The 40 years of wandering in the desert is most likely the result of escaped slaves wandering in and their stories being conflated with the other one and exaggerated.

Anyway, I havent read the book, though I want to, but the show was interesting to a degree. It went into specifics that I really don't remember, about translations and references from the bible that could have been a bit of tactics or military manuvers rather than god like shit.

Wish I could remember the dudes name....

If what you said of the documentary was an accurate reflection of the book, you might as well not bother, because it's bullshit. I recommend John Mann's AlphaBeta instead. The history of our writing system requires a pretty good understanding of historical event in the region where it developed and also comes at things from very interesting angles.

Anyway, I don't even remotely believe anything about a massive refugee group from Egypt, but it was a fun theory to suggest, plus I suppose that perhaps a small enough group/tribe could have been the genesis of the story. (sorry for the bad pun)

Yes, a small tribe at the outskirts fleeing and then inflating their own sense of self-importance is the most likely culprit. Mann makes that point pretty eloquently himself, though it's a complete sideshow to his main focus (the alphabet).

Edi

[Ariphaos]

Okay, wha? I would love to hear this. There are links between the origins of the Jewish religion and Hinduism?

Yes, it's sparse and tenuous (we're talking a thousand years between them here), the only thing I can remember offhand is that Yahweh was actually the sky god of the Hebrew pantheon - a la Deus Pitar. The language doesn't mesh, but the concept does, and Yahweh is an extremely old such sky god - compared to Zeus and Tyr, anyway. Yahvah is also another name in the Rig Veda's for Agni.

Advaita_Vedanta and Kabbalah also share some definite links. There is likewise a parallel between the rise of Buddhism and the development of early Christianity - particularly the Gnostic sect, where some have observed (not without reason) that the original Jesus seems to have been trying to bring Buddhism west.

There's also a blatant link between the concept of the messiah and Vishnu. It means more if you see some of the art, I think, it was eleven years ago - in high school, but one picture through the entire class for a loop, I wish I could remember what specific myth of Vishnu's it referenced.

[Imperial Overlord]

One of the convienent things about archeology in the Middle East is that old Jewish settlements are easy to identify by the lack of pig bones in the middens. I'm sure that none of you here are shocked that there is no archeological evidence to support the existence of a massive Hebrew Kingdom. The Torah, on the other hand, has been subject to frequent revision, with the latest version being done around sometime between 400 and 200 BC. One of the ways you established you were the rightful ruler of an area, back in the day, was to brag about how mighty your conquering armies were and how you had seized it by force of arms. In that context, lies about ancient and mighty armies that never existed not only become useful but rather predictable.

[Knife]

Snip the Edi-ster

Meh, I don't think his theories are 100%, but it was an interesting proposition. Even if he is indeed on the right path, there is no doubt that the Isrealies were not some massive group, rather a small tribe. But I digress.

Yes, a small tribe at the outskirts fleeing and then inflating their own sense of self-importance is the most likely culprit. Mann makes that point pretty eloquently himself, though it's a complete sideshow to his main focus (the alphabet).

Edi

I agree.

[Coyote]

I was there and studied the exact subject in Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel. I took a class from Prof. Steven Rosen, speciafically "Biblical Archaeology". The source book we used was "The Archaeology of Ancient Israel" edited by Amnon ben-Tor. The basis of the class was "let's take what the Bible said and see what evidence supports it, or, what comes close to supporting it".

Professor Rosen taught us that we can trace migratory bands of herdsman through a desert since the arid conditions allow for things to be well-preserved. Burn traces, seed shells, food bones, etc, can be found all over the Sinai but nowhere near in enough quantities to support the supposition of such a large band.

Bear in mind that when Israel held control of the Sinai Peninsula, archaeologists scoured the place to find some trace of evidence to support their biblical claims to the land. Nothing was found that would support the story told in the Exodus. Not even old latrines, certainly not enough food residue or campfire residue.

Actually, a lot of evidence was found to point out that the earliest Hebrew tribes were still practicing polytheistic paganist rites well into their re-entry to Canaan. The god "Dumuzi" ("Tammuz", a god of an agriculture rite) is represented on a slab found at Arad in Israel; Bull's heads (bulls were common fertility fetish objects) were located at Jericho from the Early Bronze Age.

At the time, Egypt controlled a sizable portion of the region and part of the area now called "Gaza Strip". Parts of it had a small river running through it as a barrier-- once that river was crossed, a refugee could say that he had crossed out of the land of Egypt and into free territory. Such stories, embellished to sound more daring and rugged in later years, could easily have been the foundation for a lot of mythos.

Take a few minor events, things that actually happened and inflate them. Fish stories. The numbers get bigger with each re-telling until a river crossing by five families becomes an epic take of survival and derring-do by a cast of thousands. Thus are national legends born.