(July 30, 2011 at 9:00 am)Rhythm Wrote: I would actually love to see your theory rehashed with no exodus. That's my entire point. It's not something we need an explanation for, we know that it didn't occur. That a natural disaster happened in one part of the world, that could in theory explain the exodus narrative is irrelevant, when we know the narrative is a work of fiction.
That's what I mean by saying that things happen. There are vast resources of events in history one could draw on in support of any position whatsoever, if enough leeway is given to time, uncertainty, and location. We don't need to do this in the case of exodus, because we have actual data, which rules out the Santorini armchair theory. It makes for good TV though, obviously.
Notice that I'm not arguing that the hebrews would not have been aware of these events, or that the exodus story could not have been influenced by events like Santorini. Only that exodus is not a story that is based on those events as a historical reference. It may very well be that there was a group of refugees exactly as you have described, but these people would not have been hebrew, because we have directly contradictory evidence as to where they came from that leads us to the conclusion that the hebrews were most likely canaanites.
If you said less you might convey more. You contradicted yourself in your post. I never said the Bible should be used as a historical reference. I do, however, believe there is a vein of truth in it but that that vein has been elaborated, mystified and glorified. To say it's useless and shouldn't be used to try to work things out is as bad for free thinking as a Christian who refuses to believe any part of it could be wrong or even elaborated. This is a riddle and everything needs to be considered.
By the way, two thirds of the Habiru names were Semitic. Have you read up about them? It's very interesting reading.
