Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9164 total)
2 online now:
Newest Member: ChatGPT
Post Volume: Total: 916,907 Year: 4,164/9,624 Month: 1,035/974 Week: 362/286 Day: 5/13 Hour: 0/2


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Would confirmation of the "Biblical Exodus" add any support for God
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17828
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 18 of 56 (595213)
12-07-2010 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by jar
12-07-2010 7:45 AM


I see two issues here.
1) Positive evidence.
Proving that some minimal Exodus occurred (e.g. without the miracles, and using the lower numbers some have suggested) would do almost nothing to confirm the existence of God. It would be more comfortable for moderate and liberal Christians than the present situation but that is about all.
2) A lack of contrary evidence
The absence of the Exodus is a problem for Jews and Christians. The Exodus is the foundation myth of Israel - or at least Judah. Without it the whose notion of the "Promised Land" and the Chosen People" are questionable - and with them, the notion of the Messiah. Proving the Exodus would solve this problem. But the problem is only fatal for those who require the Bible to be literally accurate - and to them it is only one problem of many they must deal with to try to protect their dogma from the truth.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by jar, posted 12-07-2010 7:45 AM jar has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17828
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 32 of 56 (595267)
12-07-2010 6:11 PM
Reply to: Message 31 by jar
12-07-2010 5:41 PM


Re: What is the Exodus?
Before we get into details like that I think we need to decide what the Exodus needs to be - i.e how close events need to be to the story to count.
Do we need a full 2 million Hebrews ? A few thousand ? A few dozen - or less - who inspired Canaanite tribesmen ?
If we decide that we need everything right, if we could confirm the numbers leaving Egypt, spending 40 years in the Sinai, invading and conquering Canaan then proving that would do a good deal to prop up the accuracy of the Bible. Maybe it wouldn't be good evidence for God, but it would be something (those numbers are impressive). If we add in evidence for the Plagues - and especially for the Hebrews being spared the death of the firstborn ten I'd say that we had something worth paying attention to, even if it fell short of proof.
But we don't have that. We don't have the depopulation of Egypt. We don't have a huge tribal confederation spending 40 years in Sinai, as a unit. We don't even have an outside people coming in and conquering Canaan - the Israelite ancestors seem to be as Canaanite as their enemies. And if we can find poor matches for parts of the story even they don't fit together.
But if we go for some smaller event, a few thousand Israelites at most then it seems that we don't have much evidence supporting Judaism or Christianity there. And we don't even have evidence for that. It seems that the Exodus is at best a distorted memory of historical events, events either too far from the story for us to reliably identify them or too small to leave traces we can find today.
Perhaps we should be asking if the failure of the Exodus story is significant evidence against the Christian of Judaic God.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by jar, posted 12-07-2010 5:41 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 33 by frako, posted 12-07-2010 6:28 PM PaulK has not replied
 Message 34 by jar, posted 12-07-2010 6:31 PM PaulK has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17828
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 35 of 56 (595282)
12-07-2010 7:01 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by jar
12-07-2010 6:31 PM


Re: What is the Exodus?
quote:
If we did find some evidence, for example a chariot wheel, is there any way to connect that to a particular even like the Exodus?
If the event happened as described we shouldn't have to worry about dealing with small scraps of evidence. That was one of the points I made. If we had the big pieces we could use our knowledge of those to fit the little pieces into the story. But we don't have them - and because we don't have them the little pieces don't matter. The absence of the big pieces of evidence - evidence which must be there if the story is literally true - is enough to sink any real hope that anything we can find could be evidence for God, even if we could connect it to whatever real events might underly the story (if any do).
quote:
And if we did find some evidence that something like the story happened, does that add more support to there being some Judaic God than the fact of Troy adds the existence of Zeus and Hera and Aphrodite and Eris and Athena?
And again this is a point that I have answered. If it is merely something like the story then no, it does not help much. If the story were demonstrated to be literally true - even restricted to things we might hope to be able to support archaeologically or historically - e.g. a major depopulation of Egypt, mainly through the vanishing of a Semitic underclass, mass graves from the same period - of Egyptians only. the death of the Pharoah's heir and more. But we don't have that. We have an absence of the evidence that should be there.
quote:
And the third question, would verification of the Exodus add any weight or support to unrelated biblical fables and stories. Would the existence of Troy lend weight and support to the veracity of the Odyssey?
Maybe. The Exodus is if anything more testable through history and archaeology than the fall of Troy - the period and the location and the scale contribute to that. If the Bible were shown to be highly accurate there (and it would have to be more accurate than the Illiad has been shown to be !) then we should be more inclined to trust stories of subsequent events, especially if they could be shown to come from the same author. The support might be weak (since there are many other considerations) but it would count for something.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by jar, posted 12-07-2010 6:31 PM jar has seen this message but not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17828
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.3


Message 45 of 56 (595326)
12-08-2010 2:44 AM
Reply to: Message 42 by jar
12-07-2010 9:35 PM


Re: Try to be serious folk.
quote:
To know that would we need to know precisely which Pharaoh?
Which wouldn't be a problem if we had the big evidence, as I explained above.
It doesn't really answer the question to say that the evidence dictates what "the Exodus" was, because we only know that it left no marks on history and archaeology that we can identify. We have to answer the question starting with a notion of what "the Exodus" was, and looking at the evidence we could get from that. Which is what I've been doing.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by jar, posted 12-07-2010 9:35 PM jar has seen this message but not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024