Exodus Part Two: Population of the Exodus Group.

A myth:

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A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society:

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The Exodus is a myth by the definition here (American Heritage dictionary). The Exodus isn't a 'stat', but it contains 'stats'. Most myths do contain information pertaining to numbers or: Indeed, myths do make reference to all of these things. See the mythology set out in Homer for more details. You seem to be sensitive about the word 'myth' because its informal usage has come to mean 'false or made-up story'. The term myth is still used to mean something quite different in academia, where it retains its 'credibility'.

whoops, firefox crashed during posting. Edited by Modulous, : double post

No. What I am saying is that calling something a myth is not making a truth judgement on any part of it. A myth could be 100% true or 100% false or it could be anywhere in between, it would still be a myth if matched the description (or suitable varieties thereof) I gave in the post you were replying to here. Each detail should be examined on its own merit. Sure, if a documenter wrote about three volcano eruptions that can be verified archaeologically and one that cannot, we might be tempted to accept that a fourth one he describes also occurred despite a lack of archaeological evidence to confirm it. However, if he said that the volcano's eruptions were so severe the dead awoke and roamed the land, terrifying the living and drinking their blood...we might not assume that report is credible.

No, Exodus is a myth. Exodus is a traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society.I'm saying those two sentences above mean the same thing. By calling it a myth I have made no claims about the accuracy of some parts or about veracity of others. I am simply saying its an ancient story about supernatural beings and ancestors/heroes and that it is a reflection of the culture and ideals of the Bronze Age Hebrew people.I will say again - my central point is that the word 'myth' is not a measure of veracity. My second point was that confirming one detail in a report is not enough to be confident of other details - each detail's credibility must be examined separately.

No ancient does not mean myth. Myth means a traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors or heroes...explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society. Exodus is a story, it is both traditional and ancient. It deals with supernatural beings and ancestors, and possibly hero archetypes. It explains the customs and ideas of the Bronze Age Hebrews. No, commerce receipts are clearly not traditional stories, they are not about supernatural beings or ancestors or heroes. Tombstones may contain mythology, it depends on the tombstone, documents that tell of stories of deities battling for supremacy sounds like mythology to me.Mythos means approximately: 'narrative' so obviously you can write off receipts and other similar documentation. One of the definitions in the OED is:

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A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces or creatures , which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon

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Others like to draw lines between folktales, legends and myths. Here is wiki:

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Myths are narratives about divine or heroic beings, arranged in a coherent system, passed down traditionally, and linked to the spiritual or religious life of a community, endorsed by rulers or priests. Once this link to the spiritual leadership of society is broken, they lose their mythological qualities and become folktales or fairy tales

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Then it lists various different types of myth. One of them being: Prestige myths which are 'usually associated with a divinely chosen king, hero, city, or people'. And it goes on:

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Significantly, none of the scholarly definitions of "myth" (see above) imply that myths are necessarily false. In a scholarly context, the word "myth" may mean "sacred story", "traditional story", or "story about gods", but it does not mean "false story". Therefore, scholars may speak of "religious mythology" without meaning to insult religion. (For instance, a scholar may call Christian and Muslim scriptures "myths" without meaning to insult Christianity and Islam.) However, this scholarly use of the word "myth" may cause confusion and offense, due to the popular use of "myth" to mean "falsehood".

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I have given you the definitions, you have the internet at your disposal to look up more. If you feel that Exodus is still ill described then so be it. I however have definitely substantiated the definition now through two dictionaries and an encyclopaedia. My only point was that the word should not be thought of as a word which is used to pass judgement on the truth value of a narrative but only describe the nature of the narrative. Hopefully now you know that mythical does not inherently mean 'false'. I don't agree with your assessments with regards to the book, but have no desire to debate them with you at this time. Given that this is inherently a debate thread I feel our subtopic should now come to a close. If you feel strongly about the topic enough to continue debating it, perhaps it is time for a new thread? Perhaps I will contribute to that, it seems preferable to clogging up this thread.