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Author Topic:   Is there any evidence for the Exodus?
Artemis Entreri 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4228 days)
Posts: 1194
From: Northern Virginia
Joined: 07-08-2008


Message 16 of 17 (474787)
07-10-2008 11:38 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Brian
07-10-2008 1:49 PM


quote:
Perhaps there was a mini Exodus of a few dozen families or more, but certainly nothing on the scale that the Bible suggests (2-3 million).
yeah that doesn't even seem possible. I had thought it was more like a migration in the begining with other tribes gradually joining over the "40 years" of wandering.
Im not trying to argue here but i just wanted to share what i thought.
from the last thing i read i thought Ai (Ha-Ai, which was Hebrew for "the ruins"), was the older site of a city, located between Jerico, and Gibeon, and that it was a Military outpost rather than a city. though it ws located at a former city site, and therefore had the necessary resources to easily maintain the defensive outpost. and was a short battle between 4000-5000 combatants. Using the bible more as a source of the event, not a literal work of the event.
after Ai the book covers another battle called "The Waters or Merome", which took place after Ai at the waters of merome valley in Galilee. and was more of the key battle to give the Israelites some land, instead of wandering around. Joshua's army through tactics and good planning (its a military history book, not a religion book), defeated a confederacy of allied Caananites and Amorites.
i really dont have alot of sources. its just a topic i found very interesting.
quote:
The thing is there's nothing appraoching the scale of the rout that Joshua's book claims. Now for Josh's account to be accurate we need to find evidence of complete destruction at all locations in Palestine within either a 5 or 7 year period, this depends on certain biblical interpretations. We do not have that.
yeah probably not, the bible's version seems to me to be VERY imbellished.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by Brian, posted 07-10-2008 1:49 PM Brian has replied

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 Message 17 by Brian, posted 07-12-2008 7:34 AM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
Brian
Member (Idle past 4959 days)
Posts: 4659
From: Scotland
Joined: 10-22-2002


Message 17 of 17 (474919)
07-12-2008 7:34 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by Artemis Entreri
07-10-2008 11:38 PM


Hi Art,
A few different sites have been proposed for Ai, but Ai really is the only plausible location for the biblical narrative, and if we leave the biblical narrative and assign any evidence of destruction at any other site to Joshua then we MAY be stealing someone else's history and giving it to Israel.
Calloway had a nice response to people who tried to place Ai elsewhere, he simply asked them, " so, tell me, where have I been excavating for the last 9 years!"
Calloway was a southern baptist minister who went to Ai to try and prove the Joshua narratives, he admitted that he had to change his view of the Bible in light of the evidence.
One thought I have about Ai could be that it is an aetiological tale, thnk about it, why were people living in a city called 'the ruin'? Is it not more plausible that people living long after the city had became a ruin just claimed its destruction for Joshua's armies?
There's actually 2 exodus myths woven into one, and there's also a different 'conquest' given in the Book of Judges.
The one in Judges is far more plausible, but the real problem is identifying remains that we can definitely call 'Israelite'.
Archaeologists have suggested various material culture that they thought we unique to Israel, the four pillar house and the rim collared jar were the two main ones, but evidence of these have been found all over the near east now so these are rejected.
It is a massive subject, and I don't think Joe Public realise the intensity of the debate that is going on in academia about this. I got into this subject whilst studying under Keith Whitelam, at Stirling Uni, if you do a Google you will see he is a big player in this debate.
I also had the pleasure of spending a few hours chatting (and drinking!) with Philip Davies, another major player, whilst studying at Glasgow Uni.
It is a massive area of research, and probably the only thing that is agreed upon by both sides is that we need to reinterpret the biblical texts, they really cannot be taken at face value, which is fine, all ancient peoples exaggerated their history, so why should we expect Israel to be any different?
Nice to have you here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Artemis Entreri, posted 07-10-2008 11:38 PM Artemis Entreri has not replied

  
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