Christians: Please explain the Exodus

[The Grand Nudger]

-and yet they do not seem to have done a very good job, nor would this speculation be a huge revelation - as the egyptians are already known to have flirted with monotheism, and engaged in propaganda of a variety of sorts.

So let's get this straight, the fact that -we can and have- found a lost building...and the fact that we can and do extrapolate wider conclusions about egyptian culture - which does have evidence- to back it up......somehow excuses the exodus narrative for having no supporting evidence and a mountain of contradictory evidence?

You're going to want to get out of the evidence game Drich, you're fucking horrible at it (and you would be, in any case...as you have no experience in this regard). Go back to peddling magical incantations.

[RobbyPants]

The commentary in the ESV Bible reads in part:

• "Doubts have often been cast on the historical reliability of the exodus account. It is true that no remains of the Israelites have been found in the area of Goshen in the eastern Nile delta or in the wilderness of Sinai. But in neither area would such remains be expected to survive. The mud-built huts of the Israelites have long been destroyed by repeated flooding, and, wandering through the wilderness, the people would not have left buildings or other permanent traces. It thus is unreasonable to expect such archaeological evidence. Furthermore, one should not expect to find extrabiblical texts regarding Israel’s stay and departure from Egypt, because the story is negative about Egypt. Egyptian texts are quite propagandistic and such a defeat would not mention such a defeat."

I don't think the person making this argument realizes that it's not really helping him, either. I mean, yeah, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence in and of itself, but we have to remember what's being discussed: a civilization wandering through the wilderness for forty years being fed daily by magic sky-food. Apart from the Bible's claims, there's no evidence for this, either.

It seems more reasonable to just assume it didn't happen until we find some other reason to believe it.

[Aractus]

Ever hear of the lost prymid?
http://www.gigalresearch.com/uk/publicat...rawash.php

The Egyptians of that era had a nast habbit of wiping out what they considered to be 'failures.' This prymid is a good example of that. If the egyptians erased a pharroah they did not like what would be they willing to do with serious egg on their face?

No, but so what? It wouldn't be the first "lost" pyramid discovered. Where's the archaeological evidence at Mt. Sinai or in the Sinai peninsula? is your argument that the Egyptians came and buried it?

[The Grand Nudger]

-and then manufactured a great deal of evidence regarding actual isrealite history and culture..........just for good measure. Damn those egyptians - they thought of everything!

[Aractus]

I don't think the person making this argument realizes that it's not really helping him, either. I mean, yeah, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence in and of itself, but we have to remember what's being discussed: a civilization wandering through the wilderness for forty years being fed daily by magic sky-food. Apart from the Bible's claims, there's no evidence for this, either.

It seems more reasonable to just assume it didn't happen until we find some other reason to believe it.

Actually, the archaeologists say there is evidence of absence. That the 200 year search should have yielded at least some evidence in a variety of errors, but all evidence to date is negative. For example, archaeology shows that none of the cities that the Israelites claim were invaded by them were invaded at the time of the Israelites when they were petty much all abandoned:

And what of other settlements and peoples mentioned in the account of the Israelites' wanderings? The biblical narrative recounts how the Canaanite king of Arad, "who dwelt in the Negeb," attacked the Israelites and took some of them captive - enraging them to the point that they appealed for divine assistance to destroy all the Canaanite cities (Numbers 21:1-3). Almost twenty years of intensive excavations at the site of Tel Arad east of Beersheba have revealed remains of a great Early Bronze Age city, about twenty-five acres in size, and an Iron Age fort, but no remains whatsoever from the Late Bronze Age, when the place was apparently deserted. The same holds true for the entire Beersheba valley. Arad simply did not exist in the Late Bronze Age.

The same situation is evident eastward across the Jordan, where the wandering Israelites were forced to do battle at the city of Heshbon, capital of Sihon, king of the Amotites, who tried to block the Israelites from passing in his territory on their way to Canaan (Numbers 21:21-25; Deuteronomy 2:24-35; Judges n:r9-21)• Excavations at Tel Hesban south of Arnman, the location of ancient Heshbon, showed that there was no Late Bronze city, not even a small village there. And there is more here. According to the Bible, when the children of Israel moved along the Transjordanian plateau they met and confronted resistance not only in Moab but also from the full-fledged states of Edom and Ammon. Yet we now know that the plateau of Transjordan was very sparsely inhabited in the Late Bronze Age. In fact, most parts of this region, including Edom, which is mentioned as a state ruled by a king in the biblical narrative, were not even inhabited by a sedentary population at that time. To put it simply, archaeology has shown us that there were no kings of Edom there for the Israelites to meet.

The pattern should have become clear by now. Sites mentioned in the Exodus narrative are real. A few were well known and apparently occupied in much earlier periods and much later periods - after the kingdom of Judah was established, when the text of the biblical narrative was set down in writing for the first time. Unfortunately for those seeking a historical Exodus, they were unoccupied precisely at the time they reportedly played a role in the events of the wandering of the children of Israel in the wilderness.

(The Bible Unearthed)

[Drich]

-and yet they do not seem to have done a very good job, nor would this speculation be a huge revelation - as the egyptians are already known to have flirted with monotheism, and engaged in propaganda of a variety of sorts.

So let's get this straight, the fact that -we can and have- found a lost building...and the fact that we can and do extrapolate wider conclusions about egyptian culture - which does have evidence- to back it up......somehow excuses the exodus narrative for having no supporting evidence and a mountain of contradictory evidence?

You're going to want to get out of the evidence game Drich, you're fucking horrible at it (and you would be, in any case...as you have no experience in this regard). Go back to peddling magical incantations.

You've jumped the gun here, and are speaking well beyond the prameters of the OP.

The question was loosly asked in the Op, 'Why don't christians accept the historical account the ancient egyptians have left in the way of records?'

My answer concerning the Lost prymid covers that.

In short the egyptian historical record is far from being complete. The example of the lost prymid covers that completely. Nothing else is being discussed here.

[The Grand Nudger]

No it doesn't. If the egyptians were all that adept at wiping -even their own records- we would not know that they wiped their records.

[Drich]

Ever hear of the lost prymid?
http://www.gigalresearch.com/uk/publicat...rawash.php

The Egyptians of that era had a nast habbit of wiping out what they considered to be 'failures.' This prymid is a good example of that. If the egyptians erased a pharroah they did not like what would be they willing to do with serious egg on their face?

No, but so what? It wouldn't be the first "lost" pyramid discovered. Where's the archaeological evidence at Mt. Sinai or in the Sinai peninsula? is your argument that the Egyptians came and buried it?

See above.

My arguement is that the egyptians destroyed their historical records to cover up an unfavoriable point in their history by completely dissassembling a prymid, and destroying the artifacts inside.

Because they are known to do this to such an extreme (who knows how many generations this process took) thier historical records are less than reliable. Therefore to point to their self proclaimed history as proof of anything other than the victors write history is foolishness.

[Mister Agenda]

I don't think the person making this argument realizes that it's not really helping him, either. I mean, yeah, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence in and of itself, but we have to remember what's being discussed: a civilization wandering through the wilderness for forty years being fed daily by magic sky-food. Apart from the Bible's claims, there's no evidence for this, either.

It seems more reasonable to just assume it didn't happen until we find some other reason to believe it.

Archeaologists are more than capable of finding old campsites, if they're there to be found. Especially if more than a million people are traipsing around. It's nonsense to propose we wouldn't be able to find evidence of that. If we DID find evidence of that tomorrow, they'd change their tune in a heartbeat.

[Drich]

No it doesn't. If the egyptians were all that adept at wiping -even their own records- we would not know that they wiped their records.

...and for 3000+ years we had no clue. It wasn't till satalite imaging that we made this discovery.