We Should Thank Murderers, Here is Why

[Aractus]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A plague specifically targeting every single firstborn son of every Egyptian family in a single night, for example, is a rather extraordinary claim; I would require extraordinary evidence that it happened [nevermind that it's been accepted by historians and scholars as being allegorical anyways]. 2,000,000 slaves up and leaving Egypt all at once without a single shred of evidence to show that Egypt basically lost its entire base in slave-labor literally overnight.

Well, that's if the number itself is correct. As I mentioned before, there are a known handful of errors in the text of the Bible (ie lost from the original), numbers and names are the most easy to corrupt in copying. Although the Jews preserved the OT very diligently, we do know that the authoritative text was lost or destroyed at least twice - both times when the Temple was destroyed; and both times it had to be reconstructed from the "best copies".

Coming from someone who believes in the bible that's a pretty hypocritical thing to say, you know. Don't you essentially believe the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is essentially considered "exact history," given how if it is flawed to enough of an extent it's basically bunk? You COULD say it's been translated improperly, of course, but that doesn't speak anything good of the bible, does it? Seems a terribly un-divine thing, for its supposedly universal meaning to be lost to something so trivial as the passage of time and simple language shift. Nevermind that most of these so-called "mistranslations" have actually been recorded in church history since almost back during the founding days of the Christian faith. Also, worth noting; the reason for the belief of the use of slaves actually makes quite a bit of sense. If you've got a bunch of slaves, why not use 'em, right? And there was a bit of circumstantial evidence showing that slaves might've built them. In light of there being nothing else to really say otherwise, everyone just figured "misewell follow this route." But then opinion changed in light of new evidence...which doesn't do much to back up your idea that historians continue believing things in light of new evidence when, heh, they stopped believing something specifically because new evidence showed otherwise... But no, do tell me more about how anyone of scholarly pursuit is going to never change their minds, Mr. Man of a Religion That Refuses to Change its Collective Minds.

As I said, historians can go from one extreme to another. Sometimes they believe things for which there is only one piece of evidence, and sometimes they don't believe things for which there is abundant evidence - it all depends on their engrained views on what the civilization in question was like. More often then not, they take sceptical views until they see enough proof. This was not the case with the Egyptian pyramids, however, and shows how sometimes they do exactly the opposite.

Essentially you're stating that this can be excused because of a clerical error and/or ancient equivalent of a typo and nobody ever thought to proofread these texts that were basically the guidelines and rulebooks for the divinely-inspired one-true lifestyle?

Actually what I'm saying is that scholars readily debate and reach conflicting conclusions as to how the original text was read.

If the biblical text is not 100% perfectly preserved from the originals than why claim it is divinely inspired at all? This becomes the slippery slope; picking-and-choosing starts becoming a problem.

The Biblical texts are still the best preserved ancient texts in the world. I've already explained the likely cause of textual corruption in the OT (the Temple scrolls being taken, and needing to be reconstructed). Numbers, and Names (especially names of places and obscure titles) are the main things you would expect to see error in. There's no picking and choosing.

No. Not even slightly possible. See, a slave economy tends to be dependent on, well, the slaves and them being there. Ok, see, we have about 300,000,000 citizens here in the US, right? LOTS of them work in retail, factories, clerical positions, construction. Imagine if everyone who worked those jobs just suddenly disappeared overnight. And everyone else still had jobs, better-paying ones, too. And, now, see, they were being paid, too, so the economic impact would be less since technically the companies and people paying them would not have to pay them. Slaves, on the other hand, work for free. They are a minor expense, whom you simply pay for upkeep, and consider that is not much at all. Suddenly your entire labor-force of unpaid workers who equal your population count vanishes. Suddenly you have to pay the new workers who come in, and realize too that the entire population is used to having slaves do this kind of work; they're not as experienced, they're softer, they demand wages, and they are rather unwilling to do the job slaves did anyway. The economy would be utterly annihilated. No such dramatic economic impact shows up anywhere in recorded Egyptian history, and let me be clear, we know quite a bit about Egyptian history. We know the specifics of Pharaohs and population consensuses, of plagues and famine and wars and rises and falls in their strength and size, who they traded with, where, and why. The entire slave economy vanishing overnight? Oh yeah. We'd notice that.

In Old Kingdom Egypt, they didn't even have currency of legal tender. No Egyptian was allowed to own his own land, he "worked it" for the King, and the King took whatever he wanted from the produce of the lands. Because Egypt was in the desert, they still had to trade for Timber and other resources they didn't have. By the way, we don't know why the Old Kingdom ended in turmoil, but it is possible that the Exodus event triggered it.

In other words you have a "it may have happened at this time if it happened at all." The "if" is what keeps me skeptical, you understand.

Well some things about this, even if they are likely, are still only a possibility. Assuming the Exodus didn't happen at all is incorrect, there's too much vivid information about it.

But don't you see? It's all part of the big picture. There's a been a LOT of sifting of the sands between Egypt and Mt. Sinai but...nothing's come up. If 2,000,000 people had been walking the desert with each standing an arms-length to the side of the ones next to them and the ones behind and ahead of them, they would cover an area no less than 150 square miles. 150 miles of moving individuals. Think about that. Think of the logistics necessary to feed and water all of those people. In the desert. See, I attach this to the discussion because even if the Exodus happened, it seems strange that a very long clustered line of skeletons hasn't yet been discovered...which is the fate that would befall such a movement.

Well it probably wasn't 2 million people. I already said that.