Did the Biblical Exodus ever happen?

Yes, the text states pretty plainly that Pharoah knew where the Israelites were. It also states plainly that God's plan was for Pharoah to think they were trapped. It was all a ploy to draw Pharoah out so that his army could be destroyed. It's a classic military maneouver.There's nothing in the text to suggest that the Israelites were very far from Goshen - i.e. it seems pretty unlikely that they would have travelled across the Sinai to Aqaba before Pharoah decided to pursue.But your nitpicking about the route adds nothing to the topic anyway. An eroded rock and a pictograph, neither of which is unique, are not evidence that a large group of people passed through the area.You seem to suffer from Indiana Jones Syndrome, just like Ron Wyatt did. You want to find the headline-grabbing artifacts like the "altar" but archaeology and history don't work like that. You need to think of evidence in more mundane terms, like fire pits and garbage dumps. There are no shortcuts, no single piece of evidence that will prove your pet hypothesis. You need a body of evidence, a vast number of tiny clues.

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Life is like a Hot Wheels car. Sometimes it goes behind the couch and you can't find it.

As I said before, the only corroborating evidence that matters relative to Nuweiba (or any other location) is evidence that the people were there. There are a thousand ways that chariot wheels and pictographs could have gotten there and a thousand locations where chariot wheels and pictographs can be found.Your evidence does nothing whatsoever to corroborate the Biblical account. The Exodus was supposedly a crowd of people. You need evidence of a crowd of people.Edited by ringo, : Edited a word out and then back in.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

Why do you keep ignoring my point? The only relevant corroboration of any route would be evidence that a group of people used that route. All the chariot wheels and pictographs in the world corroborate nothing unless you can show that the people were there. Why don't you ever address that point?

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

Well, speaking of manna:

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Num 11:8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.

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We'd expect to find remnants of the utensils they used, the mills, the mortars, the pans, etc.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

You asked what evidence we'd expect to find and I told you. Broken crockery is a pretty common artifact in places where people have lived. It seems pretty unlikely that the children of Israel could have made such a journey without breaking anything.But the thread is about presenting evidence, not making excuses for why you don't have any. The evidence you need is evidence of a large group of people. A chariot wheel here or there is NOT evidence of the Exodus.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

The wheels are irrelevant. If they are real, they only prove that chariots were there. They indicate NOTHING about the Israelite people.There were chariots all over Egypt for centuries on end. Finding a chariot wheel in Egypt is like finding a hubcap beside the highway. What you need to show is evidence that the PEOPLE were there.Edited by ringo, : Musspelled "centuries".

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

On the contrary, unless you can relate the chariot wheels to a specific event - i.e. the Exodus - they are irrelevant. There is nothing to distinguish them from any other chariot wheels. The same goes for the so-called "corroborating evidence". You've done nothing to link any of it directly to the Exodus.The Exodus was a group of PEOPLE escaping from Egypt. If you have no evidence of the people, you have no evidence of the Exodus.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

We need evidence which is more than just "consistent" with the Exodus story. We need evidence that actually supports the Exodus story. A hubcap from a '56 Chevy is consistent with a conspiracy to assassinate JFK but it adds no credence to a conspiracy theory.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

I'm not proposing that we ignore the evidence. I'm saying that even if the evidence is authenticated, it still needs to be connected to the actual events in question.We know there were '56 Chevys at the time of the JFK assassination but no, finding a hubcap in Texas is not corroborating evidence for a conspiracy theory. We know that there were Egyptian chariots at the time of the Exodus but no, finding a wheel is not corroborating evidence for the Exodus. There are a thousand and one ways that it could have gotten there and it's up to the claimant to draw a positive connection to his claim.Since the creationists are already at a disadvantage, it does no good to encourage them to pursue lines of evidence that don't even strengthen their case.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

For what it's worth, Strong suggests that "entangled" means "perplexed" and that "wilderness" means "open field" or "desert".-------------If anybody's interested, hop into Google Earth's flight simulator and fly around Nuweiba Beach. It doesn't look like a place you could get a large crowd of people into easily, much less an army of chariots. On the other hand, the area around Suez suits the scenario much better.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Nuweiba is a non-starter. It's on the wrong side of Sinai. It's much, much too far away. There's no conceivable reason for the children of Israel to have gone that way.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

The Biblical record indicates a short period of time between the Children of Israel leaving Goshen and Pharaoh's army beginning its pursuit:

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Exo 14:5-7 And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us? And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him: And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.

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It would have taken weeks to march the children of Israel to Nuweiba; it's just ludicrous to pretend that the Bible suggests any such time frame. The crossing would have had to be somewhere near Suez to fit the Biblical account. God could destroy Pharaoh's army anywhere. Dragging them to hell and gone across Sinai makes no sense at all.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Even if you did have any evidence from the Nuweiba site available for testing, it's still in the wrong place. Nuweiba doesn't come close to fitting the Biblical account.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

The Biblical account is very clear that it was Pharaoh who was entrapped. He was fooled into thinking that the Israelites were lost/confused.Here it is again, in case you want to actually address what the Bible really says:

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Exo 14:1-4 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in. And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.

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Clearly, the Israelites were only pretending to be lost. And Nuweiba doesn't meet the geographic requirement. It's in the wrong place. It's much too far away.Edited by ringo, : Speling.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Your evidence doesn't corroborate anything because it's in the wrong place. Why don't you address that issue?

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"