For those who want proof of the exodus

[Whateverist]

For those who want proof of the exodus .. there is only evidence but not very much and nothing of any substance.  But whether or not you can justify it objectively, one can still claim their faith.  And it would mean more in my eyes if you did so while admitting your reasons are all internal.

[athrock]

May I assume from your pointed questions above that you have, in fact, watched the documentary?

No not yet, but I will respond to this:

If scientists like Einstein can make errors in their formulas, is it inconceivable that Egyptologists can be off by a few centuries in theirs?

We're talking about two completely different regions. Egypt and Canaan. Egyptian timeline is, I believe, well established and accounted for with some, but little uncertainty over dating. As far as I'm aware, c.1300 BC we're only talking a single century of leeway. Not enough to shift the Exodus into the Middle Kingdom (which ended around 1700 BC).

On the other hand we have Canaan cities. And 4 of 5 of them, pretty much the only fortified cities at the time, were Egyptian up until the mid 12th century - when they were abandoned without conflict, thought to coincide with the fall/dwindling power of the New Kingdom. From these cities we find hundreds of cuneiform tablets detailing messages (telegraphs, if you will) between Egypt and their Canaanite territories. But not one single letter of Hebrew - in fact the earliest known Hebrew writing accepted by scholars as Hebrew is 2 centuries later in the 10th century BC (the Zayit Stone). And there's only one Hebrew inscription from that period that has ever been found and proved to be Hebrew.

If the Exodus happened the way the Bible explains then the conquest of Canaan has happened sometime between 1400-1200 BC. If that's the case then there should be lots of Hebrew writing to be found in the Cananite cities from at least the 11th century on (or the 13th century on if you favour the earlier date). But there isn't any. None at all.

But centuries aside or not, not one letter of Hebrew has ever been recovered from ancient Egypt. Despite their supposed enslavement. If there were really 1,200,000 Jews enslaved in Egypt - and they'd been living there for centuries - then we'd be able to dig up millions of their graves. They'd be everywhere.

There were no Jews in Egypt because there were no Jews anywhere until the rise of the kingdom of Judah in the 8th(/possibly 9th) cent. BC. Judah rose on its own. There was never a pre-existing Kingdom that was later split in two, which is what the Bible claims. No, there were always two different kingdoms. The kingdom of Israel rose in the 10th cent. BC. Where did it come from? See if there was an Exodus in 1250 BC then it should have been established in the late 13th century BC - but it wasn't. It wasn't there for another 300 years.  And if you instead take the early Exodus date then it takes 500 years between when the Bible says that Joshua conquered Canaan and when the ancient kingdom of Israel actually rose in Canaan. Of course Israel had to exist somewhere in the Canaan region so they could rise to power, but they were nothing more than a pathetically small tribe of herders (or tribe of some description) that didn't even have a city to their name.

Sorry. I was travelling a bit during the holidays.

The point that the documentary seems to make is that physical evidence seems to suggest that the commonly accepted dating of Egyptian history may be the problem. Historians want to point to Rameses as the pharoah of the Exodus, but the archaeological findings point to the Middle Kingdom as the more likely date for the Exodus. If true, this may mean that the dating of ALL of Egyptian history (which isn't really anchored by anything else) may be off. And since much of ancient history is dated with reference to this arbitrary dating of Egyptian history, then you can see why scholars may be reluctant to re-consider the dates of the various Egyptian Kingdoms.

I'll read through the rest of the thread to see if you have made further comments after watching the documentary. Thanks!

[athrock]

The film goes completely off the rails at the 18:35 mark.  At that point, Mahoney evaluates all the evidence which has told him that the story is bullshit and says roughly " if it wasn't Ramesses II then who was it?"  Right there he reveals that he is a believer not a scholar.  He has decided that there HAD to be a pharaoh of the Exodus and if it wasn't Ramesses II then it HAD to be someone else.

No.  It doesn't.

Baloney. I think you have missed Mahoney's point. 

He asks, IF the Exodus really occurred, then WHY did it have to occur during the reign of Rameses?

Well, it didn't HAVE to occur then. So, what Mahoney does is to look for the six key elements of the Exodus story to see whether they (in sequence) could be documented from any other point in history. If not, then NO Exodus.

However, Mahoney DOES find these six sequential elements in Egyptian history, and they occurred during the Middle Kingdom.

So, you are simply wrong in your assertion that Mahoney ignored the evidence. Instead, Mahoney re-evaluated the evidence that he did find and realized that it fit an earlier time period.

[Pat Mustard]

Do you have proof of moses splitting the red sea?

I misread this as "Moses spitting on the Red Sea"... lulz.

Noses spitting the red for me.

[Cyberman]

"Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
Moses he knowses his toeses aren't roses,
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!
Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
A mose is a mose!
A rose is a rose!
A toes a toes!
Hooptie doodie doodle
Moses supposes his toeses are Roses,
But Moses supposes Erroneously,
For Moses he knowses his toeses arent roses,
As Moses supposes his toeses to be!"

[athrock]

Again this is addressed very simply by the movie. What is disturbing is how quickly you rush to a conclusion when you don't have 1/2 the information.

This is you believing your own in house hype about yourself, and made to look the fool when it's pointed out how far off you are.

Drippy, you dumb fuck, this is why any pretense at 'scholarship' is wasted on a moron like you.  You don't care that the opinions presented by your gallant xtian researchers are rejected by mainstream archaeology and other jesus freaks.  All you want is someone, anyone, to tell you that your fucking bullshit fairy tales are true.  Once you get that you think that everything is fine no matter what the actual evidence shows.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Drippy, stick with your fucking bible.  It's all you can handle and leave the heavy thinking to people who are equipped for it.

Go fuck yourself.

Was there ever a time when the Big Bang Theory was rejected by mainstream cosmology?

[Minimalist]

The film goes completely off the rails at the 18:35 mark.  At that point, Mahoney evaluates all the evidence which has told him that the story is bullshit and says roughly " if it wasn't Ramesses II then who was it?"  Right there he reveals that he is a believer not a scholar.  He has decided that there HAD to be a pharaoh of the Exodus and if it wasn't Ramesses II then it HAD to be someone else.

No.  It doesn't.

Baloney. I think you have missed Mahoney's point. 

He asks, IF the Exodus really occurred, then WHY did it have to occur during the reign of Rameses?

Well, it didn't HAVE to occur then. So, what Mahoney does is to look for the six key elements of the Exodus story to see whether they (in sequence) could be documented from any other point in history. If not, then NO Exodus.

However, Mahoney DOES find these six sequential elements in Egyptian history, and they occurred during the Middle Kingdom.

So, you are simply wrong in your assertion that Mahoney ignored the evidence. Instead, Mahoney re-evaluated the evidence that he did find and realized that it fit an earlier time period.

You like him conveniently ignore any evidence which counters the proposition he wants to push.  Remember, he made it perfectly clear that he could not accept the conclusions of mainstream archaeology that his fucking fairy tales were bullshit.  So he trotted out some crackpot to pretend that all you have to do is move Egyptian history (only) around by some 3 centuries and he can make a case.  Well, that's cherry picking horseshit and ignores the reality of what was going on in the ANE during the Middle Bronze Age. 

The Egyptians came out of the Second Intermediate Period when Ahmose I drove the Hyksos, who were Canaanites if not "Israelites" out of the country and set the stage for 4 centuries of Egyptian domination of Canaan.  The Hyksos were a foreign dynasty ruling Lower Egypt, they were not "slaves."  The Amarna library gives us a clear picture of what was going on in Canaan during the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten and there are no fucking "Israelites" mentioned.

Much as when later xtian writers arbitrarily picked a period to stick their jesus myth the writers of the OT clumsily tried to shoe horn their story into earlier history but it simply does not work.

Be like drippy if you like.  But the world has enough assholes already.

[GrandizerII]

The film goes completely off the rails at the 18:35 mark.  At that point, Mahoney evaluates all the evidence which has told him that the story is bullshit and says roughly " if it wasn't Ramesses II then who was it?"  Right there he reveals that he is a believer not a scholar.  He has decided that there HAD to be a pharaoh of the Exodus and if it wasn't Ramesses II then it HAD to be someone else.

No.  It doesn't.

Baloney. I think you have missed Mahoney's point. 

He asks, IF the Exodus really occurred, then WHY did it have to occur during the reign of Rameses?

Well, it didn't HAVE to occur then. So, what Mahoney does is to look for the six key elements of the Exodus story to see whether they (in sequence) could be documented from any other point in history. If not, then NO Exodus.

However, Mahoney DOES find these six sequential elements in Egyptian history, and they occurred during the Middle Kingdom.

So, you are simply wrong in your assertion that Mahoney ignored the evidence. Instead, Mahoney re-evaluated the evidence that he did find and realized that it fit an earlier time period.

You can't just look for selective evidence that fits your beliefs and then dismiss all the evidence to the contrary. That's not how it works.

[Whateverist]

You can't just look for selective evidence that fits your beliefs and then dismiss all the evidence to the contrary. That's not how it works.

Afraid I have to call out one of our own. Irrational, the actions of Assrock and Drippy put the lie to your claim. Sorry.

[athrock]

And you do not see the irony here I suppose?

No, actually I don't. I'm not the one pinning everything on a collection of ancient books being right to buttress the beliefs that I have accepted. You're the one who needs the Exodus narrative to be true to even begin to validate Paul, in whom you put so much stock. I, on the other hand, could be persuaded that an exodus of Jewish slaves happened and would not be one inch closer to accepting the NT narratives as true, since they do not necessarily follow -- you know, as the Jews never tire of pointing out.

True. However, it often appears that some folks are equally too eager to dismiss ALL that the OT has to say because to admit that some of it might be true opens a crack in a door just a smidge, and they really, really want that door to stay firmly sealed.

As much as you natter on about how we should all drop everything to watch your documentary, as Stimbo has pointed out you have not made the case here that was supposedly made in your source. Nor, as far as I can tell, have you ever bothered to read any of the sources written by archaeologists that I know have been suggested to you in the past (Finkelstein would be a good start).

I don't remember seeing Drich tell anyone to "drop everything"...however, if you have watched the documentary and want to comment on its strengths and weaknesses, then knock yourself out.

What doesn't make sense to me...knowing that this forum is largely populated by people who accept the scientific method...is all the comments from those who have posted all sorts of things about the Exodus without having considered objectively what the filmmaker actually said. Even Minimalist immediately went all ad hominem on David Rohl rather than dealing with the material Mahoney presented in the course of making his case.

Guess I'll watch it again just to see how critical Rohl is to the overall presentation.