Interesting article about the evidence of the Jewish Exodus

by cappytan 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  freemindfade

  The video "Patterns of Evidence" explains this in depth. There is some compelling evidence there.

  I watched this video, and thought it was awful.

  The problem is that the bible pulled from surrounding realities to come up with their "stories". There are a lot of reason jericho could have fallen, that doesn't mean the bible ludicrous explanation is reality. It makes far more sense to believe that an ancient city was destroyed by an earthquake, volcano, or siege, then the leftover ruins were attached to some story about morality and god's judgment.

  take lots wife for instance, along the sea where this supposedly happened there are naturally occurring pillars of salt, now add imagination and trying to make a story to tell your kids to instill fear of god in them, you see these naturally occurring spires and voila!!! "See that? remember lots wife..." how many other times has god just so happened to turn someone into salt??? Places like Sodom and Gomorrah were visible from well traveled roads, reinforcing the fables.

  My point is this, these patterns of evidence type shows try their damnedest to extract reinforcement for an existing belief. Good old fashioned eisegesis. Trying to apply the myth to reality. If there is an ancient city that was destroyed, and its there and you can see it, and the bible says "god destroyed it". Finding the city doesn't mean that is true.

  Bible stories may overlap with real places and events as they should. That doesn't mean the bible is not a work of fiction. The bible plagiarized stories from other cultures and hijacked natural and man made sites into its narrative.
• 

  Half banana

  The Bible is a mess; it is full of contradictions and it contains epic narratives built merely on shaky rumours yet it is claimed to be divine truth.

  Much better to look at the ancient texts of the Israelite's much more organized and powerful neighbours who made meticulous records and actually controlled the land of Israel.

  The Exodus is not recorded by them and it most certainly would have been if it had occurred.

  The Israelites were mainly a poor and subjugated people given to inordinate exaggeration with a desperate will to achieve worldly ambition.

  Don't believe the Bible...it will only leave you confused if you do.
• 

  fulltimestudent

  The bible attempts to make the Israelites/Jews look important. They were a bit like the North Koreans of contemporary times, who are always trying to make themselves look powerful.

  Why were the Jews doing that? Its because they claimed that their YHWH was the only true god and all the other gods of the nations were nothing. Think of the message in the Elijah and the Baal priests story.

  The message behind the exodus story, is that YHWH is so powerful, that the then mightiest nation in that world era, was no match for YHWH's strength and power.

  For most past events in 'real' history, there is some corroborating evidence that something happened. There is nothing in 'real' history to corroborate this bit of puffery.

  It's all 'piss and wind.' As is the WTS's attempts to prove its true. The WTS's argument is to say that the bible has 'true' history, but the Egyptian record is not true.

  Read it for yourself (See the Aid book, pp 540-548).

  And, keep thinking about why the OT does not mention that Egypt also ruled Palestine for long periods, with Egyptian armies often supporting their local satrap?

  See:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5711077341921280/why-bible-silent-about-real-israel-egyptian-connections
  
• 

  undercover

  There is evidence of Jericho falling as well as surrounding cities however hundreds of years earlier than the supposed time of the Exodus.

  An interesting tidbit about Jericho I learned just recently...

  It predates the date of Noah's flood, and - the date of Adam's creation.

  Amazing how a city existed before mankind existed {insert rolleyes emoticon here}
• 

  ttdtt

  When watching "In Search of Bigfoot" on the Leonard Nimoy TV show - the evidence seemed compelling.

  It's just like the WT. When you show only what you want to show, and put nothing into context with real science or archaeology, and have a point you want to make at the outset, then you can make an argument for anything. But putting all the evidence on the table invalidates those "theories" very easily.
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  James Mixon

  Numbers 14:28-30 "all those who were 20 years old and older who have grumbled

  against me,not one shall come into the land".

  Not one body unearth in the desert, not one rebel have ever been found to prove the Jewish exodus.

  So how many grumbled against Moses? Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua were the only exception.

  In 40 years of people kicking the bucket there should be a lot of graves to be found.

  What is so crazy about this proclamation, how many people lived pass 60 in those days.

  Then you have a person turn 20 years old on the day Moses informed them, Sh--t I'm dead.

  And who would continue on the march if they knew they would never reach the promise land.

  Good by folks we are putting down stakes right over the hill, remember the tribe when we raped and killed

  most of the men, that's where we will be. Have fun suckers! Moses is a nut case.
• 

  oppostate

  Although unconventional there's the "New Chronology" which is quite eye opening and has a lot of research merit.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTA2HhH1-2k
  

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_(Rohl)
  

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rohl
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  James Mixon

  oppostate: This is really eye opening. Thanks.
• 

  Joe Grundy

  I've linked to this before - it's worth watching.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5RfScpEcZ8
  
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  Half banana

  Oppostate, your recording is playing fast and loose with facts and what purport to be facts.

  The primary assumption and fault here is that the author considers the Bible to be a historical record. The mention of Bible characters does not mean they existed. I bridled at the interviewee actually saying that a thing written in stone must be true! This evinces his shallow thinking. He also believes that Bible scholars are an academic fount of knowledge. He is wrong in this, the evidence for ancient history must be the work of historians who are aware of the textual evidence and the archaeology. He confusingly condemns academic scholars with the Bible "scholars". He also quotes (in the Biblical manner) the names of people and events such as the exodus as if they were real.

  His main fault is taking the Bible as the standard text and in the manner of archaeology up to the 1950's and 60's... he is trying to establish evidence for those events. He admits he looks at the Bible this way albeit not religious himself.

  Two things in his favour: the later dates for the pre-Classical world Egyptian history would relate well with the lateness of Bible writing, not the long historical depth normally implied. Second, his chronology does not challenge the historical period after 664 BCE (the burning of Thebes). I.e. the JW 607 BCE is still wrong.

  Nevertheless he projects the Indiana Jones approach to archaeology and not the boring but more evidence based academic one.