The Bible Unearthed - Exodus

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That is true, I believe such a calamity would cause Egypt to fall into great distress.

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We aren't talking about great distress. You are still underestimating the magnitude of the problem. When half to all of your population walks away en masse, you don't have distress, you have utter destruction. Not only that but in this case, you have utter destruction that doesn't rate a mention in anyone's records, except the records of those making the extraordinary claim. Someone would have noticed if Egypt suddenly fell, but no one did.

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When they entered Egypt, they were but a small band. They had no culture of their own that we would recognize.

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Why do you believe they had no culture that we would recognize? Everyone has a cultural background. Joseph et al did not live in a cultureless fantasy world. According to the Bible, the initial small group expanded to a couple of million in a few hundred years. The culture would have expanded with the people. In other words, there ought to be a trail.

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Then, after the Exodus, you would begin to see their cultural distinction in their artifacts because they had a whole series of events that solidified their religion, government, and lifestyle.

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As slaves? You'd expect to see a loss of cultural identity, not the acquisition of one. This consideration isn't good for either of our positions actually. I'll have to reconsider some things.

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But, according to the story, they looted Egypt, no doubt carrying much of Egyptian jewelry etc. into Canaan. This would make picking out and seperating the two rather difficult.

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ummm.... or not. I believe that there is another version of the story wherein the Israelites left in a big hurry.

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While it is not directly related to the Exodus per se, it is valuable for the sake of the argument at hand because it demonstrates that analyses of archealogical data is frought with uncertainty.

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Of course archealogical data can be troublesome. Still, it is the only data we have.------------------
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Johnm said:"As slaves? You'd expect to see a loss of cultural identity, not the acquisition of one. This consideration isn't good for either of our positions actually. I'll have to reconsider some things."Oh, I dunno. The Aztecs forged themselves an identity (and a persecution complex IMO) out of being slaves and mercenaries consigned to live in a swamp. Slavery could act as an external pressure encouraging the developement of an esprit de corps.

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Oh, I dunno. The Aztecs forged themselves an identity (and a persecution complex IMO) out of being slaves and mercenaries consigned to live in a swamp. Slavery could act as an external pressure encouraging the developement of an esprit de corps.

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What?------------------
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Just to support John's post, could you explain this a bit more?Do you mean that the Aztecs rose from a slave nation to become a great empire, or that they ended up a slave nation?I am not aware of the Aztecs ever being slaves.Brian.

nuklhed promised to do some "research" on the apparent inner biblical contradiction concerning the number of years the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. Was this an empty promise or has anything come of it?

The Aztec were a slave nation. They migrated southwards from the "Heron Place" in search of a "promised land"."In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land."The Aztecs spent a lot of time wandering their own wilderness until Huitzilipchtli showed them the sign of an eagle on a cactus in what would become Tenochtitlan. However, during this period they acted as fairly mobile military clients to the Tepanecs, then the top dog in the conflict between Nahuatl-speaking tribes in the region. The bit of swamp in which they found their omen was ceded them by the Tepanecs.Thus I argue that a model in which a "!national consciousness" is forged while under subjection is not without precedent. I can buy the idea of the Israelites acquiring a national identity while under the rule of Egypt.In neither case should "slavery" be taken to mean the same thing as late European slavery, which was arguably the least humane of all historical forms of slavery. Both Israelits and Aztechs were slaves but this does not necessarily mean "human chattel".

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"In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land."

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You wouldn't be getting your info from No webpage found at provided URL: www.crystallinks.com would you? Anyone notice the similarity?Now, try looking at what the Tira de Peregrinacion actually says. No webpage found at provided URL: http://history.smsu.edu/jchuchiak/Images-Theme%203.htmMost notably, it portrays the Aztec as being Aztec long before they became vassals of King Tezozomoc of Azcatpotzalco. This episode occurs right at the end of the tale and not during the time of their wandering. Also notable is that the land they settled upon was not ceded them by the Tepanecs. They lived there before the Tepanecs took control. Though this isn't entirely clear from this particular codex, the information is not hard to find. No webpage found at provided URL: http://users.hol.gr/~ianlos/v001.htm

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Thus I argue that a model in which a "!national consciousness" is forged while under subjection is not without precedent. I can buy the idea of the Israelites acquiring a national identity while under the rule of Egypt.

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And since your information is not entirely correct, I'm sure you'll reconsider.------------------
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So where is the support for your claim that the Aztecs were slaves ?They seem to have been without a homeland for a signifiant period of time, perhaps exploited as migrant workers still are today, but not actually slaves.As for the Israelites the archaeological evidence has ruled out the idea of an invading horde and the generally accepted view is that Judah and Israel formed from Canaanite people already living in the area.

Exploited migrant workers? Umm I think not.The Aztecs were MILITARY CLIENTS of the Tepanecs; this means they got given the dangerous jobs. It also probably means they were predated upon for human sacrifice candidates. They were not their own people; they were not free. They did not fight, and hence die, in their own interests primarily, but in the interests of the Tepanecs. Thats a pretty firm form of slavery.Now my argument had only to do with the formation of IDENTITY, not the formation of a state. My claim is only that in the face of adversity, a "theory of us" is often seen to form in response to external oppression. Therefore it seems possible, even plausivble to me, that the nucleus of what was to grow into the Israelites had its ideological birth in a captive people.

John wrote:

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You wouldn't be getting your info from Loading... would you?

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No. I don't do superstition. That said I can;t prove it, of course.In the Aztec codex Tira de la Peregrinacion, commonly called the Migration Scrolls. The scrolls have the Aztecs leaving Aztlan, which was described as an island in a lake with Chicomoztoc depicted as seven temples in the center of the island. The Aztecs felt they were the "chosen people" of Huitzilopochtli. The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli their war god was their protector, how had them search for their promised land.Anyone notice the similarity?Now, try looking at what the Tira de Peregrinacion actually says.http://history.smsu.edu/jchuchiak/Images-Theme%203.htm

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Most notably, it portrays the Aztec as being Aztec long before they became vassals of King Tezozomoc of Azcatpotzalco. This episode

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This is not much of a rebuttal. An oral tradition reinforcing the legitimacy of the ruling agency to be the ruling agency - with fully fledged ex nihilo customs of obeisance - is a common feature of origin myths. The codex is a post facto statement of what Aztecs believed, not what Actually Happened. And while it is not impossible that all Aztech customs predate their contact with the heirs of the Toltecs, I have never found a serious claim to this effect; indeed I don't consider the idea that the Aztechs appropriated the modes and metaphors of Toltec-inspired "theory of empire" to be very radical in the extant literature at all (although I grant I am not a professional archeologist or anthropologist).

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And since your information is not entirely correct, I'm sure you'll reconsider.

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No, not really. It seems to me you have attributed motive to my argument; I shall not speculate on why. I put it to you that the assertion that the forms Aztech state can be demonstrated to pre-date Aztech contact with Toltec-informed polities, that the Aztech state emerges fully fledged from initial tribal politics, is a much stronger claim than the one I am advancing and requires some sort of evidence. And if you could indeed do so, I would then need a separate explanation for why the Aztech theory of state so appears ostentatiously similar to its local predecessors.

You generally don't give slaves weapons.Sure the Aztecs worked as mercenaries - but that doesn't make them slaves. And if they got given the dangerous jobs that fits my comparison with migrant workers just as well.

Not at all. Slave regiments occur every now and then. Possibly the most famous are the Janissaries; but there are several penal units in Chinese history and the Jannisaries themselves are based on Persian precedent.I cautioned against extrapolation of late 19th century chattel slavery into history, but that appears to me to be what you are doing, PaulK. There have been many, many groups defined as slaves that experienced consitions radically different from chattel slavery; a Roman slave, for example, could conceivably be manumitted and enter society at the same social rank as their owner; a far cry from chattel slavery indeed. there are many forms of historical slavery; there is no reason to believe, IMO, that either the Aztechs or the proto-Israelites were ever subjected to chattel slavery, and I have never advanced such a claim.

Any indication of any real parallels between the Janissaries or your Chinese units and the Aztecs ?I stand by my comment as a generalisation.And no, I am not talkign about 19th century slavery and it seems that you are raising that issue as a smokescreen. Did I say anything about manumission ? No. (And Roman slavery certainly was "chattel slavery" - see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~thurley/home.html). And the Aztecs were certainly not land-slaves (they got kicked out FAR too often for that).So perhaps you would like to refer to Meso-American forms of slavery - any records of slave-warriors there ? I've seen none in Aztec society.So are you going to offer any real evidence that the Aztecs were slaves ?

This is descending into a semantic argument.From your own link:
"Even in a limited and well-defined social and historical context such as that of the Roman empire, however, the institution of slavery was so complex that we will only be able to 'scratch the surface' in our understanding of it."No kidding. So I will concede the legal structure of C19th Western chattel slavery is derived from the legal basis of Roman slavery. But note the differences - a slave and a child have the same legal status in relation to the patriarch. Roman chattel slavery is the extension of systemic familial patriarchy to non-familial relations. In C.19th slavery, the population of a whole continent was ideologically consigned to legtimiate slavery under conditions very different to those applied to the patriarchs own family, and governed by distinct legal conventions.There are massive qualitative differences between Roman chattel slavery and C.19th. The conflation of Roman and C.19th slavery as "the same" is a purely semantic obscurantism. To apply this to the initial argument is bordering on the dishonest.I await with bated breath an articulation of the argument that the Aztechs were NOT slaves, as I am sure it would be a valuable contribution to the existing body of work on Aztech history. Certainly, I have found terms like "slavery", "servitude", "military client" and "vassal bondage" common in the literature. Even if you were to challenge this on the semantic basis outlined above, you will then have given me the core of my argument by necessarily also demonstrating by implication that the Israelites were not slaves either (in your specific definition of "slavery"). And indeed, I place upon you the burden of proof, as the person advancing the more radical claim.edited to add:

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So perhaps you would like to refer to Meso-American forms of slavery - any records of slave-warriors there ? I've seen none in Aztec society.

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Erm - yes. The Aztechs themselves, that being a signifcant part of their origin story. And we see this system in operation both prior to the Aztech dominance and within the later Aztech system. Which is NOT AT ALL SURPRISING given that it is an Toltec system being consciously reintroduced by the "usurper state" in order to claim historical legitimacy.Lastly:" Aztec laws were simple and harsh. Almost every crime, from adultery to stealing, was punished by death and other offenses usually involved severe corporal punishment or mutilation (the penalty for slander, for instance, was the loss of one's lips). This was not a totalitarian state, however; there was a strong sense of community among the Aztecs and these laws, harsh as they seem, were supported by the community rather than an autocratic judiciary.Slavery was common among the Aztecs; it was not, however, racial or permanent. One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade. "http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM[This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-17-2003]

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Any indication of any real parallels between the Janissaries or your Chinese units and the Aztecs ?

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Yes, primarily the fact that "you don't arm slaves" is a non-argument. I would not be at all suprised that this derives, in the modern context, from the arguments surrounding the American revolution rather than anything else. I mean its easy enough to utterly discredit; Roman gladiators were slaves, and yet armed.