Why do you deny that the Exodus really happened?

Because there is literally no historical evidence of it ever having occured and it contradicts everything we know about egyptian society and egypts relations to the kaananites.

Better question, why 'do' you believe the Exodus happened?

>Secondly, the Israelite's nomadic lifestyle would make it even more difficult to locate traces of their existence.

The bible alleges they spent hundreds of years settled as slaves in Egypt.

Egyptologists have discovered the presence of Semitic names in Egyptian records from the time of the Exodus. They have also found descriptions of forced laborers making bricks in order to meet quotas as we as failures to meet those quotas because of a lack of straw--details that can all be found in the book of Exodus. Also the famed Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner, who was generally dismissive of the historicity of the Old Testament, said "that Israel was in Egypt under one form or another no historian could possibly doubt."

Illiad might be some kind of twisted retelling of actually sacking of Troy that happened (with the horse being originally a poetic term used to describe the earthquake that ravaged Troy before it) during bronze age.

>nomadic
They were allegedly slaves in Egypt before the exodus. There is no evidence for this whatsoever outside of the bible.

>passenger pigeons
Passenger pigeons do not construct buildings, write things down, make tools, or do anything else that leaves a long lasting mark on the areas they inhabit.

One reason there may be a lack of evidence describing the Hebrew slaves leaving Egypt is that the Israelites settled in Goshen (Gen. 45:10), which lies in the eastern part of the Nile Delta. The annual flooding of the Nile into this region would have regularly covered areas with a new topsoil thus making artifacts and documents difficult or impossible to recover.

You should be careful not to make the assumption that ancient historians, like those associated with the Egyptian royal court, would have meticulously and objectively recorded events the way modern historians do. Historians of antiquity usually focused on recording what was useful to the people who paid for their services. That means they often glossed over the failures of their employers.

For example, both the Egyptians and the Hitties recorded the battle of Kadesh as a major victory, but only one side of the battle could have been victorious. Even more interesting is that the commander of the Egyptian forces during this time was Pharoah Ramesses II, who some scholars believe was the pharaoh during the Exodus. If Ramesses's battle with the Hittites was wildly exaggerated in order to hide his failure, couldn't his dealings with the Israelites also have been omitted in order to hide his failure with them as well?

See:

>thus making artifacts and documents difficult or impossible to recover.
That hasn't stopped other cultures from having their material remains found in the nile delta. Moreover, if these cats were integrated into the normative plans of the cities, there'd be no reason for them to be removed from the usual residential locations, if they were slaves/contractors.

>For example, both the Egyptians and the Hitties recorded the battle of Kadesh as a major victory, but only one side of the battle could have been victorious. Even more interesting is that the commander of the Egyptian forces during this time was Pharoah Ramesses II, who some scholars believe was the pharaoh during the Exodus. If Ramesses's battle with the Hittites was wildly exaggerated in order to hide his failure, couldn't his dealings with the Israelites also have been omitted in order to hide his failure with them as well?
That's cool and all, but I still see zero archaeological indication that Exodus was a thing.

>Egyptologists have discovered the presence of Semitic names in Egyptian records
Obviously they did, semitic people lived right next door, what does that have to do with the Exodus myth?

>They have also found descriptions of forced laborers
Because the egyptians made use of slaves, again, what does that have to do with the Exodus myth?

>Also the famed Egyptologist Sir Alan Gardiner, who was generally dismissive of the historicity of the Old Testament, said "that Israel was in Egypt under one form or another no historian could possibly doubt."
Yes, because Egypt ruled Kaanan for a long time, again, what does thaat have to do with the Exodus myth?

Exodus presumes a large population of ethnically and religiously homogenous people who have been detained in eygpt for a long time, as a continous people and somehow "escaped" from the egyptians in a large migration. This is utter nonsense because no such vast migration, let alone of semitic people, has ever been recorded by 'any' source in the region. And the eastern mediterrain has pretty much never lacked in socities that could have taken note of this.
Furthemore the egyptians had historically a extremly strained relationship with kaananite tribes migrating 'into' egypt and messing up their farmland during their settlement abnd had to be driven out continously, the idea the egyptians would willingly hold a large population of them in their land is not very plausible in light of this.

It seems rather credulous to believe that Egypt could lose an enormous percentage of its population both due to a huge exodus of departing slaves and massive plagues without any recording of it surviving based solely on referring to carrier pigeons and the disputed outcome of a battle.

It sounds more like to desperately want to believe it.

>what does that have to do with the Exodus myth?
Those Semitic people could be an ancestor of the Jews and the originators of exodus.

It's incredibly hard to believe that there were thousands of people living in an area for hundreds of years, but there isn't a single shred of evidence to prove it.

>both sides recorded the battle as a victory
But they still recorded it. The events described in the exodus myth would have had a massive impact on Egyptian society. Your suggestion that it was simply ignored by everyone seems pretty dubious.

The Bible is allowed to be the sole witness to history.

Some people will say "Even if the accounts of the patriarchs, or the exodus, or the Israelites in Canan are not anachronistic, that doesn't prove those accounts describe real events in history. They could just be pieces of historical fiction." But when people say this they are assuming that unless a historical even described in the bible is also described in a non biblical work, then the event either never happened or we have no way of knowing if it did happen.

This way of approaching scripture, what some call "hermeneutic of suspicion," treats the historical accounts in the bible as being "guilty until proven innocent." If a justification is given for this assumption, it's usually that the bible describes miracles, and that makes its historical accounts unreliable. But other ancient historians like Josephys, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Herodotus also record miracles, and their knowledge of the ancient world isn't deemed "suspect" unless someone else corroborates their assertions. In fact, these writers represent our only knowledge of many historical episodes.

Another point to remember is that critics who rejected the bible because it was the only witness to something have been proven wrong before. Prior to the late 19th century, the bible was the only source that attested to the existence of the Hittites. Since no other works or artifacts corroborated their existence, modern critics said this was yet another example of the bible getting ancient history wrong. But in 1880, Henry Sayce delivered a lecture demonstrating that hieroglyphics found in Turkey and Syria showed that the Hittites had actually existed.

>Those Semitic people could be an ancestor of the Jews and the originators of exodus.
Quite likely some of these semitic people are related to later people that adopted the judaic religion. This has nothing to do with the alleged Exodus, because there is still no evidence these semitic people left egypt in a large migration to escape egypt, let alone under the circumstances described in the old testament.

Thats a rather nonsensical contrivance given that semitic people are huge group of which hebrews are a tiny part. Surely some hebrews ancestors might have been related to some people that might have lived in egypt, again, because egypt covered kaanan for a very long time this is even exceedingly likely. But still has no relevance to this alleged mass exodus.
In fact if anything it undermines its credibility because the fact that egypt covered this area means that the exodus must have happened in a time when egypt didn't yet, so that the hebrews could flee there and be outside of egypt.

>treats the historical accounts in the bible
The bible isn't a history book and doesn't make historical accounts. And ALL historical counts are suspect unless they are verified by archeological or other contemporary sources mentioning the same events.
This is true for all old texts.
Furthermore the Exodus is not just suspect because its solely recorded by the Tanach, its suspect because its so implausible given everything else we know and the fact that such a large event 'should' have been recorded in other sources but yet wasn't for some reason.
Additionally the tanach itself isn't actually a historical source because it was written at least a millenia after the alleged event.

>Prior to the late 19th century, the bible was the only source that attested to the existence of the Hittites. Since no other works or artifacts corroborated their existence, modern critics said this was yet another example of the bible getting ancient history wrong. But in 1880, Henry Sayce delivered a lecture demonstrating that hieroglyphics found in Turkey and Syria showed that the Hittites had actually existed.
And when we find archeological evidence of the Exodus having happened you can come back to us about it, but until then the Exodus has to be seen as, what it quite likely is, religiously tinted propaganda by the defeated and driven out kaananites being mythologized into a supposed victory by their descendants.

You have quite well captured the hypocrisy in archeology. In any other case a fragment or a single clay pot would be enough to assume truth, while the Bible has pages upon page of recorded history, and it is assumed to be fabrication at face value.

I don't think exodus alleged a lot of people left. I don't recall numbers given. It could have been a few thousand people, the Bible leaving it ambiguous. Hell it could have been a few hundred. Perhaps i'm wrong though and they purport is was a large exodus.

The event was probably not nearly as large as some critics here presume.

Its possible that the numbers recorded in the texts are either exaggerated based on the literary genre of the time, or they are mistranslations. The latter suggestion is plausible because the Hebrew word in these passages that is translated thousand, elep, can also mean "clan" or "military unit." For example, Gideon speaks of his elep (or clan) being the weakest in Israel (Judg. 6:15), and David presented a gift to the commander of Israel's elep (1 Sam. 17:18). So, rather than 600,000 "men of foot" leaving Egypt, there may have been just 600 families or 600 groups of fighting men who left, not the million people that people commonly believe.

>In any other case a fragment or a single clay pot would be enough to assume truth
But in terms of the archaeological record, Exodus doesn't even have that.

>It could have been a few thousand people
A few thousand people would be a pretty large group. And even a few hundred people would be notable, especially more so because a few hundred people forcing the hand of the powerful eggyptian kingdom would have been noted by other regional sources.
Yet they didn't. The assumption of the Exodus is, that a at least stable population sized group, so at least a few hundred people, managed to forcefully extract themselves from control of the egytpians. This is a notable event no matter how you slice it.

>pages upon pages
>written hundreds of years after the supposed event
>by anonymous authors
Gee, I wonder why this isn't considered evidence.

>>written hundreds of years after the supposed event

We may as well just dismiss all of history then. It's all written after the fact, sometimes even thousands of years later. That doesn't make it wrong.

youtube.com/watch?v=nOLnXkP5i2c
bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-exodus-route.htm

Look at all this evidence.

>chariot wheels found in the bottom of the Red Sea
check

>millions of brimstone balls found in Jordan
check

>the rock that Moses cracked open found
check

>carvings found in Mt Sinai walls of bulls (golden bull idolatry)
check

Atheists pretend there is no proof for Exodus when infact there is.

It's not historical fiction. Spiritual text have different meaning and should be used as such. The Jews in the desert for 40 years is absolute an allegory. Likewise it isn't stretch to assume exodus has a spiritual meaning beyond first glance. It isn't fiction though, just a different type of text.

>It's all written after the fact
No its not. What a silly claim, of course people wrote down events as they happened and have increasingly done so since writing existed.

Well guys, looks like Julius Caesar, Hannibal and Alexander never existed!

Don't forget the ruins of Jericho has also been found.

Archeology solidly proves the Bible right. Don't forget the whole Hittite affair.

That doesn't even refer to the OT. It's completely irrelevant to this discussion.

How is any of that evidence for the Exodus?
>chariot wheels found in the bottom of the Red Sea
Egyptians used Chariots and many of their enemies did, why would it be unusual for there to be chariot wheels in the red sea?

>millions of brimstone balls found in Jordan
Volcanos exist.

>the rock that Moses cracked open found
I think you mean "A rock with a crack was found"

>carvings found in Mt Sinai walls of bulls (golden bull idolatry)

Bulls have been religious symbols in the region for as long as we have record of such things.

None of this is proof of anything. its not even indication, its just random things which would logically exist in the region. Now riddle me this, has there been evidence these findings date to the same period?

>Well guys, looks like Julius Caesar, Hannibal and Alexander never existed!
All of which are verified by multiple sources independent of eachother, I'm not sure what you are claiming here?

>With fake evidence like Chariot wheels, the split rock, the altar of Moses etc., Wyatt and Cornuke have had a great impact on rethinking the exodus route but have done more damage than good.

?????

> If you want to find chariot wheels from pharaoh's army, hire James Cameron who filmed the Titanic to find them here! Send me the discovery royalties when my prediction is validated!

??????????????????

OT has archeological evidence going for it, aswell as Pagan cultures mentioning the same names that the Bible mentions (aswell as there being over 200 global flood stories all over the world)

The flood stories are all over the world because they have a transcendent meaning, but because of Noah and the ark.

why are atheists so retarded?

they always deny facts

But we have plenty of evidence that they existed. It's not like Alexander etc. are only spoken of in a single text. There's shitloads of stuff written about the people you mentioned. There's also plenty of artifacts from the period.

this has nothing to do with the damn new testement. fact the oldest fragment of the torah dates to the 6th century. the torah is not written anywhere near contempory to the events they describe. the most extremely generous estimates would put them in the 10th century in some form and even this is 400-200 years after the Exodus. a more realistic estimate would be the 8th century (and deuteronomy in the 7th), 700-500 years after the exodus

I just copied those lines from your "source." The guy from your second link is saying that the chariot wheels etc. were bullshit.

>chariot wheels found in the bottom of the Red Sea
So you're saying it's impossible that a barge went down carrying said wheels and that it MUST be because of the parting of the sea?

>millions of brimstone balls found in Jordan
K. Not sure what this has to do with Exodus being real, but ok.

>the rock that Moses cracked open found
I'm gonna need a peer reviewed source that the stones you're referring to are without question those that Moses struck.

>carvings found in Mt Sinai walls of bulls (golden bull idolatry)
Surely, this cannot be simply another upper Neolithic series of drawings.

>OT has archeological evidence going for it
By which you mean the Old Testament refers to some things which have actually happened, because of course it did. How does that matter to the conversation? The different parts of the Tanach which were tranlsated into the Old testament were written by different people over a vast stretch of time. Its a collection of stories of which some are more truthful accounts than others.

My christian faith does not require me to believe anything in the bible as completly accurate historical accounts, especially not the Old testament. The Bible, including the Tanach, was written by people, people can and often lie and distort facts for many reasons.

We've found Joseph's tomb, the real Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia, the Semitic dwellings in Avaris, the account of Amenemhat III taking control economically during a famine, and the Ipuwer Payrus.

*not because

The shovel and spade have confirmed that the historical information of the Bible is both accurate and reliable.

bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology.htm

Atheists can't handle this because it contradicts their Darwinian mythology.

because the Hebrew yam suf means "reed sea", not "red sea".

Youve been beleiving in a mistranslation.

>Surely, this cannot be simply another upper Neolithic series of drawings.
Why do you assume that and true Moses are opposed to one another?

>caring about some kike slaves and their escape routes when we should be figuring out how ancient indians had flying chariots and weapons of mass destruction

>Atheists can't handle this because it contradicts their Darwinian mythology.

THIS.

The only reason why atheists vehemently oppose Biblical history so much is because accepting it would mean admitting evolution is wrong. Cognitive dissonance.

I don't even bother responding to them when they do that. They're completely unwilling to have a serious discussion of the facts and they're only interested in "winning" a debate. They believe that conceding any ground is "losing" so they won't do it no matter how good your arguments or evidence is.

Because I have a well known archaeological record of one but not the other.

>We've found Joseph's tomb, the real Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia, the Semitic dwellings in Avaris, the account of Amenemhat III taking control economically during a famine, and the Ipuwer Payrus.
Now, show me the archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements in Egypt at the time just prior to Exodus.

Then why would you believe any of the Bible? Jesus referred to Moses and Noah. He fulfilled prophecy from the OT given by different people. The whole idea of Christianity has to start from the Garden of Eden. Through Adam came sin and death by sin. If death just exists without cause, then what's the point of Christ dying in our place?
According to the Biblical view the future seems weirder than the past, so what can you even accept?

>bible contains true history
>yet it doesn't mention how an entire island nation that was probably the most powerful state of its rea was swallowed by sea

Is YWHW jealous of competition or was he afraid that people would actually start following deities that actually do shit and don't just fart out fire tornadoes?

>My christian faith does not require me to believe anything in the bible as completly accurate historical accounts, especially not the Old testament. The Bible, including the Tanach, was written by people, people can and often lie and distort facts for many reasons.
If only the Catholic church could admit this and stop hiding behind "it's a metaphor". I really find this position no better than creationists beyond it's practicality

Again, do we know the funciton? We may have one idea in our head but the truth was the golden calf imagery was the same the OT authors were referring to.

>crazy insane magical shit happens
>never to be seen again in an age where it can be undeniably verified

And Peter told us as much 2000 years ago.
biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 Peter 3&version=NIV

samefag

Why is it a "golden calf" and not just, y'know, a regular bull?
What is the arcaheo-historical proof of a connection between this bull and that bull?

That's a good one first off, but also it totally does.
biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis 6&version=NIV

>Then why would you believe any of the Bible?
Because I have faith in the trueness of its spiritual message. The Bible is not a history book, taking its worldly accounts at face value with unquestioning and uncritical mind would be making little of the gifts I have been given by god.
Some of the things written in it are true, some are not, thats all there is to it.
If you want to blindly believe in a book written by man being 100% accurate and unquestinable, I suggest you try Islam.

>The whole idea of Christianity has to start from the Garden of Eden.
No, the whole idea of christinaity starts with God and our savior Jesus Christ having come to earth to give us salvation.

Doesn't the doctrine of infallibility come from applying a clause in Rev. to the entire later collection of texts anyway?

Sorry m8 but rain flood with survivors does not equal an island sinking earthquake with no survivors.

>If you want to blindly believe in a book written by man being 100% accurate and unquestinable, I suggest you try Islam.

So why don't the arguements put forth for yourself beleiving in the bible not work for the Qu'ran?

You're just a spiteful hypocrite. It's even more funny as the Qu'ran has more integrity than the bible and more substance than the bible on introspection too.

I suggest you turn the other cheek and get buttfucked by your priest little lamb.

>Doesn't the doctrine of infallibility
The idea, at least in catholicism, is that the authors are the holy spirit speaking through them.
This is not actually even supported in the Bible itself anywhere and mostly a invention of the 19th century.

>Doesn't the doctrine of infallibility come from applying a clause in Rev. to the entire later collection of texts anyway?

Tradition relies on several texts, but one most especially. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus asked his apostles what sorts of things people were saying about him. They gave him a summary of the current rumors. Then Jesus asked them, collectively, who they thought he was. And Simon answered for the group:

Simon Peter replied, "you are the Christ, the son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but for My Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Note first that Simon served as a spokesman for the group, and he uttered a profound doctrine: the dogma of the incarnation (see Jn 6:68-69). Jesus explained to Simon that such truth could not be gained by natural means; Simon had received a special revelation from god. And Simon, with god's help, had spoken infallibly. Jesus then gave Simon a new name, Peter--literally, "Rock"-- a name that appears nowhere in the historical record before that moment. Jesus promised to build a divine edifice upon that rock foundation. He called the edifice "My Church"; for it would be not merely a human institution. It would be, in some sense, incorrupt, too: "the powers of death [or 'gates of hell'] shall not prevail against it." So we see that god himself gave a guarantee to preserve Peter's authority.

1/3

Now, some critics argue that Jesus referred to himself when he spoke of the "rock" on which he would build his church. They point out that the word used for "rock" is the Greek 'petra'--meaning a large rock--whereas the name he gave to Simon was the Greek 'petros', meaning a small rock. The critics say that Jesus meant, essentially, that Peter was a little pebble, and Jesus was the boulder from which the church would rise up.

There are several problems with that interpretation. First of all, Jesus probably did not speak Greek in this exchange. It is very likely that he spoke Aramaic, and his words were later translated into Greek when the gospels were written. In Aramaic there is only one word that could be used for "rock": 'kephas'. In Aramaic, there would have been no distinction between Peter's name and the church's foundation.

Still, critics might press the point, noting that the holy spirit inspired Matthew to employ two different Greek words in his written gospel. But Matthew did not have much choice. Jesus was speaking of a foundation stone, so 'petra' would certainly be the right choice; but 'petra' is a feminine noun, and so it could not have served as Simon's new name. A male could not adopt a feminine name; the name would have to be adapted, be given a masculine form. Thus Matthew, guided by the holy spirit, did something that was obvious and practically necessary: he used the masculine form, 'petros', to render Peter's name, 'Kephas.'

Was Jesus giving Peter a unique role in the church? The answer seems obvious from the remaining pages of the New Testament. Peter is everywhere, shown to be the chief spokesman, preacher, teacher, healer, judge, and administrator in the newborn church.

2/3

Did Peter exhibit any signs of infallibility when he taught doctrine? Critics might point out that, almost immediately after Jesus commissioned him, Peter fell; he contradicted Jesus, telling him he must not suffer. Jesus then reproved Peter in the strongest terms, calling him "Satan"! Critics note too, that much later in Peter's life, he found himself in conflict with Paul over the treatment of gentiles in the church. And Paul publicly corrected Peter! Now, how could a man graced with the charism of infallibility endure public correction by both Jesus and Paul?

We should note right away that both Jesus and Paul were reproving Peter not for his doctrine, but for his failure of will. Indeed, they were faulting him for not living up to his own doctrine. In Matthew's passage, Peter had moved from confessing the lord's divinity to rejecting the lord's will. In the conflict with Paul, Peter had moved from eating with gentiles himself to forbidding other Jewish-Christians to practice such fellowship. Both Jesus and Paul were exhorting Peter merely to practice what he infallibly preached.

Is there biblical justification for our calling Peter the "vicar of Christ"? Doesn't that put Peter in a place occupied by god alone? No, because Jesus himself had said to the apostles: "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Lk 10:16). Jesus is clearly assigning the twelve as his vicars. He is telling them that he will act vicariously through them. And what Jesus said of all apostles is pre-eminently true of the prince of apostles,

Same reason I deny the existence of Hogwarts.

>>supposedly have shitload of jew slaves
Sorry but the people in the story are not Jews, they went naked into the desert, or without religion.

Moses was the prophet, or religion. The people were polytheistic pagans and thus started worshiping a Sacred Calf/Bull.

The OT is about prophets trying to convert Polytheists to Monotheism.

Christ was the last prophet to do this, and cursed the Polytheists/Jews for their stubbornness.

>So why don't the arguements put forth for yourself beleiving in the bible not work for the Qu'ran?
They do, I take no issue with anyone who believes in it. I don't. I find its spiritual message not something I could have faith in as the will of our Creator.
Is there evidence supporting one over the other? Maybe not, but I have faith. And it is 'my' faith, not the faith dogmatics swinging a unquestionable book written and rewritten over centuries wants me to have.

>It's even more funny as the Qu'ran has more integrity than the bible
The Quran was rewritten by the first and third Caliphs and there are multiple historical accounts of more surah having existed prior to that than the 114 that ultimately ended up in its codified version, which was made only after Muhammad had died.

It wouldn't be Jewish settlements because the Jews didn't separate from the rest of the tribes until the fourth king of Israel. Since we're talking about the establishment of the Israelites and a unique people, the settlements would be of a generic Canaanite/Syrian culture. That is what we find at Avaris.

>Jews didn't separate from the rest of the tribes until the fourth king of Israel
You mean 6th. don't forget Abimelech and Ishbaal

You are an idiot and I say this as a Christian