Exodus Decoded

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2006-08-19 09:40am

Has anyone been seeing the commercials for this? I'm watching Band of Brothers reruns on the History Channel and they keep showing them for this show.

Something to the effect of there being "evidence" for the Biblical account of the Exodus with James Cameron (who evidently narrated) talking about how he "can't dismiss it as fairytale" or that he's excited because there's actual physical evidence, blah, blah, blah. From what I can tell with some quick Googling, we foolish unbelievers got the date wrong. And it all happened, as told, around 1500 BCE.

It also appears that this "documentary" has been around for a little while and screened in Canada. Has anyone seen this? Have any clue what they're babbling on about?

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-08-19 09:50am

Le snore. Another "decoding" of a book of the Bible as supported by "evidence". Seriously, one can "decode" anything to mean virtually anything else if one tries hard enough.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-08-19 09:56am

They're trying to come up with "scientific" explanations for the events of Exodus. Operating under the assumption that any of them, you know, happened.

You must not watch the History Channel much. They whore out for theists something fierce.

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2006-08-19 11:13am

Lord Zentei wrote:Le snore. Another "decoding" of a book of the Bible as supported by "evidence". Seriously, one can "decode" anything to mean virtually anything else if one tries hard enough.

Is that what they're doing? Zeus almighty...

Darth Raptor wrote:They're trying to come up with "scientific" explanations for the events of Exodus. Operating under the assumption that any of them, you know, happened.

You must not watch the History Channel much. They whore out for theists something fierce.

Well, I kinda figured they'd try to mask it in the cloak of science, I just couldn't quite find out exactly how.

And I actually do tend to watch the History Channel, I just normally avoid any of the religious programs. Which have seemed to been growing lately...

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-08-19 11:24am

It's not as bad as it sounds. While the basic idea of starting from Exodus and looking for evidence that fits is methodologically wrong, this documentary at least tries to keep it's theory plausible; IIRC it states that the Hyksos and Moses' people are the same, that their (historical) expulsion was later distorted into the Exodus tale and that the Hyksos' leader was a man named Moses who was related to Ahmose. They base this on circumstantial evidence - mainly linguistic evidence that's open to a wide range of interpretations. It's not a blanket statement of biblical inerrancy, more a possible series of events that *could* have inspired the Exodus story.

Wether it's true or not...well, I don't know enough about the history of the region to say. That said, they're building their theory on a very flimsy foundation, even assuming their physical evidence is genuine and properly dated.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2006-08-19 11:59am

I prefer the "bible as a War Manual" interpretation that they did a while back.

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2006-08-19 12:50pm

Bounty: that's basically what I was wondering about. I was under the impression from the commercials that it was going to be some form of biblical inerrancy. I can believe that the story was a heavily distorted version of a small, militaristic tribe high-tailing it out of Egypt. Though I tend to believe that, like much of the Bible, it was "borrowed" from other sources and used as part of the Isrealite story for whatever reason. I should hasten to add however that that is merely an impression I have not something I have researched heavily.

Majin: I agree. It was interesting. And had some sense of reality to it. At least as far as I could tell from my limited knowledge of the actual history of the area.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2006-08-19 02:10pm

And it all happened, as told, around 1500 BCE.

Then who the fuck was the Pharoah who got his heart hardened? It couldn't have been Ramses. They're basically accusing all the other Christians of being wrong when they say that Ramses wasn't the one who through out the Hebrews.

The Spartan · Post by **The Spartan** » 2006-08-19 02:15pm

Ahmose I think. That's just what I found in some quick searching. I came here because I saw that it had already screened in Canada and I was hoping that someone might have seen it.

As it stands, I'm going to try to catch it tomorrow night when it runs, but I may not be able to, depending upon how some plans I have work out.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-08-19 02:22pm

wolveraptor wrote:
And it all happened, as told, around 1500 BCE.
Then who the fuck was the Pharoah who got his heart hardened? It couldn't have been Ramses. They're basically accusing all the other Christians of being wrong when they say that Ramses wasn't the one who through out the Hebrews.

They're not saying it's Ramses, nor are they taking a view of biblical inerrancy. This is akin to someone trying to date the Trojan War based on the layers of the city; they're attempting to see if the myth has a historical origin, not trying to prove the myth is to be taken as told.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-08-19 02:24pm

This kind of thing is very common. What's always annoying, however, is that fundies see these kinds of documentaries and totally misrepresent them later, saying that they've found physical evidence for the stories of the Bible. They haven't; they've found physical evidence for events which might have been massively distorted into the stories of the Bible.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2006-08-19 02:30pm

Oh, well I guess I misunderstood the OP.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-08-19 02:44pm

Bounty wrote:It's not as bad as it sounds. While the basic idea of starting from Exodus and looking for evidence that fits is methodologically wrong, this documentary at least tries to keep it's theory plausible; IIRC it states that the Hyksos and Moses' people are the same, that their (historical) expulsion was later distorted into the Exodus tale and that the Hyksos' leader was a man named Moses who was related to Ahmose. They base this on circumstantial evidence - mainly linguistic evidence that's open to a wide range of interpretations. It's not a blanket statement of biblical inerrancy, more a possible series of events that *could* have inspired the Exodus story.

Wether it's true or not...well, I don't know enough about the history of the region to say. That said, they're building their theory on a very flimsy foundation, even assuming their physical evidence is genuine and properly dated.

Its a claim with a vague enough justification that it is impossible to show conclusively whether it has merit. Therefore, it has no merit. One can take any number of ancient legends and point to some historic event or other and claim that the historic event was later distorted into the legend.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-08-19 03:27pm

Doesn't matter, as any story which tries to tell us that Yul Brenner wasn't Pharoah just can't be true...

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2006-08-20 10:05pm

Jesus, what a worthless pile of shit that was!

I simply don't know where to start...African lakes have had gas eruptions so the fucking Nile river had a gas eruption?

Contemptibly bad, I've seen documetaries on Atlantis hunting that are as compelling.