The Genesis Fraud

[Undeceived]

You would like the works and findings of the Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Ze'ev Herzog, who said;

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells.

I would find Herzog's conclusions more interesting if he was honest.
Below quotes from this:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/mfkolarcik...hanks.html

Instead, Herzog begins to contradict himself. He admits that "many [Egyptian] documents do mention the custom of nomadic shepherds to enter Egypt during periods of drought and hunger and to camp at the edges of the Nile Delta." This suggests that it is at least plausible that the Israelites (or the Israelites in formation) were among these groups. And Herzog fails to mention that the Egyptians tell us that these shepherds (and others) came from Asia and that they settled in precisely the area where the Bible tells us the Israelites settled.

If you read Herzog carefully, he grudgingly admits that there probably was an Egyptian sojourn and an Exodus: "At best, the stay in Egypt and the exodus occurred in a few families," he concedes. That poses a different question. Now we are really talking about how big the group was, not whether there was such a group. Perhaps it was only a few hundred, or a few thousand. But that is a far cry from trumpeting as fact that "the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert." ... Herzog [then] admits that during the period identified with the Israelite settlement (Iron Age I, 1200-1000 B.C.), "hundreds of small settlements were established in the area of the central hill region of the Land of Israel." ... Herzog mentions a famous Egyptian stele that refers to "Israel" as a people in Canaan in 1208 B.C.

Herzog also relies heavily on gaps arguments, meaning he uses lack of evidence for something as proof it didn't exist. An equivalent of this tendency is saying we can't find the remains of any early-human Mesopotamian settlement, therefore there were no early humans (the first part is true; no what evolution would call "cave men" establishments have been discovered). In asserting a total lack of evidence, Herzog ignores plausible evidence:

An Austrian archaeologist has identified a so-called four-room house usually identified with Israelites that he discovered in Goshen, the part of the Nile Delta where the Israelites settled. A prominent English Egyptologist has noted that the price for which Joseph was sold into slavery was the price at the time of the supposed event, rather than the much higher price that prevailed when the story was composed. All scholars agree that in the mid-second millennium B.C. Egypt was ruled by some Asiatic interlopers known as the Hyksos.

More evidence:
http://individual.utoronto.ca/mfkolarcik...rdhess.htm

Below contains extra responses to Herzog. They are links, not articles written by the site owners. I think you'll find them sound.
http://individual.utoronto.ca/mfkolarcik...erzog.html