Would confirmation of the "Biblical Exodus" add any support for God

First, we must figure out what we mean by 'Biblical Exodus'. If the 'Biblical Exodus' is the story exactly as told in the Bible (particularly Ex. 12:31—14:31), then it would be right and necessary to conclude that 'if the Biblical Exodus was real, then God (at least) existed', since God's existence is necessary for several of the parts of the story to be real, e.g.:

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Ex. 14:26, 30 (NRSV):

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Then the Lord said to Moses, ...
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Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; ...

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So, to be considered a 'confirmation of the "Biblical Exodus"', how much of the as-told story must be verified?Jon

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Well, those are just examples. There are instances in which the story involves God in ways other than conversation:

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Ex. 14:21 (NRSV):

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Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided.

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Must God be confirmed as the cause of the east wind in order to say this part of the story has been confirmed? How in-depth must our confirmation be?Jon

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Indeed. But the story has two parts.Part one: East wind blows all night.
Part two: God caused east wind in part one.To 'confirm Exodus', do we have to confirm each part? If so, how would we even confirm part two? It doesn't follow from confirmation of part one.Jon

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Well, all the physically-confirmable parts of the story involving God can be broken down the same way: (1) X happens; (2) God is claimed to have made X happen. We can, in theory, prove all the part ones, but that says nothing about the part twos; we'd still have to prove them independently, and that leads us to the problem you hinted at in Message 3: 'how do we know we know...'; well, when it comes to proving God, we can't and we don't. Proving the provable parts of Exodus doesn't fix that problem. We're still left no closer to the answer than when we started.BUT, the question of the thread is: Would confirmation of the "Biblical Exodus" add any support for God? Since part one must be true for each part two to be true, then proving part one makes part two a possibility at the very least; I'd say, then, that confirming the Biblical Exodus (the references to God excluded) would 'add support for God', at least the God of the Exodus. Proving something possible that wasn't thought possible before, I think, is a way of adding support, even if just a little.Though, no, it still doesn't confirm anything about God.Jon

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It provides support for the God of the Exodus in as much as making possible that god's existence. And yes, the same can be said for the Zeus of the Iliad. Granted, the support provided is minimal and not overly significant, but it is more than what was there before. For example:There was a 'God who did X' (where X is something that does not contain a reference to 'God')If we can find evidence that X never happened, then it disproves the existence of the 'God who did X'. If we find evidence that X did happen, then it provides support for the 'God who did X'though, admittedly, not much. Before finding that X happened, it is unknown whether the 'God who did X' is possible or not. Finding that X happened, then, makes the 'God who did X' a possibility; I'd say this is an example of adding support.And, of course, you can replace 'God' with anything, and X with anything as well (so long as X does not contain a reference to 'God' or whatever takes its place).Jon

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What do you mean by 'they'?JonEdited by Jon, : No reason given.

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I see this as only one part of the problem you've brought up in the OP, though. You say:

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jar in Message 1:

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But the key question is that even if we're able to reach some rough agreements about dates, events, travel routes, number of people, how does one get from "the Exodus happened" to "God exists"?

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I think this is the more important questionas you call it, the 'key question'. If our goal is to address the issue of whether or not the God of the Exodus exists, we should first determine whether or not our particular type of evidence will be of any help in addressing this issue. Because the God of the Exodus certainly cannot be real if the Exodus never took place, showing that it did take place would be a good first step, in my opinion; especially since many of the events in the Exodus are difficult to grasp as being realistic, and so almost 'falsify by improbability' outright the God of the Exodus.If, on the other hand, we are hoping that proof of the Exodus will somehow serve as proof of the God of the Exodus; the truth of the matter is that it won'tthere is no reason to even bother looking if this is what we want to do with our evidence.We cannot prove the God of the Exodus merely by proving the Exodus.
We can, however, add support for the God of the Exodus by proving the Exodus.Jon

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It's not; 'Zeus of the Iliad' is made more plausiblethough an almost insignificant amountby finding Troy.Evidence that Troy never existed falsifies 'Zeus of the Iliad'. Evidence that it did exist adds a small (really small) amount of support for 'Zeus of the Iliad'.Jon

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The 'God of Madame Curie who worked with radium' is made more plausible if we can show that Madame Curie existed and that she did work with radium.It proves nothing, but it does make such a God more plausible. If we find there was no Madame Curie, then we cannot have a 'God of Madame Curie'clearly. By searching for what would falsify our claim and finding that it does not falsify the claim, we add a small amount of support to our claim. No?Jon

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You can, when the metaphysical claim links itself to that story. I take these 'God who did X's to be part of the definition of whatever God it is we are examining. Proving that X never happened clearly falsifies the statement 'There is a God who did X'. Such God cannot exist. Not that a 'God who didn't do X' cannot exist; but I don't see how that God is relevant to the topic of the other God. They're different Gods.So if you want to talk about some 'God in general', I take that as an entirely different character (providing part of that character's description doesn't involve the Exodus). In which case, yes, I'd agree; proving Exodus has nothing to do with that God.Jon

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'The man who killed John Doe' cannot exist if John Doe wasn't killed. I would consider 'The man who killed John Doe' and 'The man who didn't kill John Doe but was accused of killing John Doe' to be two separate conceptualizations that may, at different times, reference the same physical being. Obviously the changing of our conceptualizations does not impact the reality of the things to which those conceptualizations may refer in the physical world.Now, this seems all silly when talking about actual things in the real world that we can see, touch, etc. But, this is not silly when talking about God (or pretty much any unevidenced being), because when it comes to God, all we have access to is our conceptualizations. Those conceptualizations are as close to the reality as we can ever hope to get; they are all we have to work with.If we say that GOD is not affected by the evidence found in relation to the Exodus, then I would certainly agree. But when we start talking about God, who has a specific set of characteristics, then we can certainly disprove this critter by showing those characteristics to be incompatible with reality or logic. So, in the Exodus, we have 'God of the Exodus'; part of this God's characteristics is its doing of certain things. Thus, the 'God of the Exodus' is 'The God who made the east wind blow', 'The God who tossed the Egyptians into the sea', among other things. Showing these characteristics to be incompatible with reality (or logic) makes it impossible for the 'God of the Exodus' to be real. It would be like falsifying any fictional character or other figment of the human imagination. Whether based on real beings or not (the God of the Exodus may be), we can still disprove the character.Jon

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Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr