The Exodus Myth

[MG1962]

However, if you want to combat the present-day hijackers, you need to point out that the stories in said ancient book are just that - they're not fact.

But restating an argument is not going to do that. Anyone who would be swayed by your argument, would already have moved away from such interpretations of the Bible. I believe a better course of action is to let them try to develop a deeper understanding of what a particular book of the Bible is trying to say, rather than treat it like a history text

 

[tsig]

Excellent point Hans.

I didn't want to offend people's sensibilities....

But now, thanks to you, the job is done!

Wait a darn minute here:

Who's gonna clean up all that crap.

 

[tsig]

It still wouldn't get rid of problem #2. And I do mean the number two problem.

We're talking about two million people, not even counting their livestock. For 40 years straight, I might add. If the average of those humans produced about a pound of feces per day, that's around 1000 TONS of it per day. That's about 15 MILLION TONS of it in those 40 years, distributed over a narrow-ish strip, at most 1000 km long.

That's like fifteen thousand tons, or like 15,000,000 kg of crap per km. If those Jews were walking in a column 1 km wide, that's still 15 kg of crap per square metre. Assuming that density of crap is around the same as water (sometimes it floats), that's about a centimetre and a half layer of crap. (That the guys at the back of the column would be walking in ) Or about 0.6 inches of crap, for you imperials.

Add the cattle and you can probably double that.

Add all the *ahem* watering those millions of people and cattle would do, and the fact that that contains nitrates.

Forget finding relics. You'd have the most fertile strip of land, right across the desert

Early practitioners of Holistic Grazing.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Wait a darn minute here:

Who's gonna clean up all that crap.

The coffee.

 

[tsig]

And John Stewart would not be that far from the truth. The OT is about setting up for the NT. And I dont see how how the nature of the audience negates the value of the document. Remember the Illiad was written for a bunch of drunk thugs. Does knowing that devalue the work that was done?

If the OT was a setting up for the NT then god must have been placing people in places and settings to make it work out so was Mankind was engaged in some sort of stage play culminating in Jesus?

 

[tsig]

But that was why I was not overly impressed with your OP. The balloon that is Exodus got punctured 200 years ago. Most of your arguments have been self evident for a long time. About the only real interest anyone has in Exodus these days is what is the origins of the story.

If Exodus didn't really happen and is just a story then maybe the Crucifixion didn't really happen and is just a story.

 

[tsig]

I recall a short piece of doggerel...

Strong enough to float a bullet; hot enough to melt one.

Though how floating bullets relates to women, I'm entirely sure....

Bullets and women go to the heart.

 

[tsig]

But restating an argument is not going to do that. Anyone who would be swayed by your argument, would already have moved away from such interpretations of the Bible. I believe a better course of action is to let them try to develop a deeper understanding of what a particular book of the Bible is trying to say, rather than treat it like a history text

We can't treat it as a history text, we can't treat it as a science text so I guess a fantasy text it is.

 

[HansMustermann]

But restating an argument is not going to do that. Anyone who would be swayed by your argument, would already have moved away from such interpretations of the Bible. I believe a better course of action is to let them try to develop a deeper understanding of what a particular book of the Bible is trying to say, rather than treat it like a history text

By that kind of thinking, restating the bullet cluster gravity lensing also isn't going to convince those who insist on believing MOND or electric universe or other dumbassery. And showing Obama's birth certificate again isn't going to sway die hard birthers. Etc. So I guess we might as well stop discussing about anything whatsoever, because whoever doesn't want to believe it, still won't.

Strikes me as a bit of a nonsense argument.

Plus, the whole "what is it trying to say", is nonsense modern rationalization. For all information we have about the time, it was taught as actual history. E.g., Josephus tries to link Exodus with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt, because, yes, he thought the Exodus is real. E.g., the authority of God to give laws and demand obedience is repeatedly justified in the first five OT books as some form or another of 'because I got you out of Egypt.' Etc.

Hell, even by NT times, Paul (e.g., in Romans 9:17-18) treats it as real.

There is no indication whatsoever that it was revered as just God's angsty teenage poetry back then. In fact all the signs point out at it being supposed to mean exactly what it says.

Just because some modern day dishonest lemmings want to salvage it as some metaphor, when it became utterly untenable as literally true, doesn't mean it actually was some metaphor in the first place. Just wanting to delay dealing with reality by pretending it means something else, doesn't mean it actually meant something else, nor that anyone has a duty to take part in that nonsense pretense.

 

[tsig]

The coffee.

Poor old Juan Valdez?

 

[I Ratant]

Poor old Pour Juan Valdez?

.

 

[MG1962]

We can't treat it as a history text, we can't treat it as a science text so I guess a fantasy text it is.

Because they are the only three possible options

 

[HansMustermann]

What other options are there? It can try to convey some information about what happened (i.e., history), and/or it can try to convey some information about how stuff happens or happened (i.e., science), or if it fails both, really it is just a made up novel.

It can be maybe metaphorical about the first two, though even then the onus is on the one claiming to have found a valid allegory in there to actually say which it is, but ultimately still, either it does it or it doesn't.

But either way, if you have a better category for it, please don't keep us in suspense. Share that wisdom.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What other options are there? It can try to convey some information about what happened (i.e., history), and/or it can try to convey some information about how stuff happens or happened (i.e., science), or if it fails both, really it is just a made up novel.

It can be maybe metaphorical about the first two, though even then the onus is on the one claiming to have found a valid allegory in there to actually say which it is, but ultimately still, either it does it or it doesn't.

But either way, if you have a better category for it, please don't keep us in suspense. Share that wisdom.

One possible category is "social control".

 

[Leumas]

It still wouldn't get rid of problem #2. And I do mean the number two problem.

We're talking about two million people, not even counting their livestock. For 40 years straight, I might add. If the average of those humans produced about a pound of feces per day, that's around 1000 TONS of it per day. That's about 15 MILLION TONS of it in those 40 years, distributed over a narrow-ish strip, at most 1000 km long.

That's like fifteen thousand tons, or like 15,000,000 kg of crap per km. If those Jews were walking in a column 1 km wide, that's still 15 kg of crap per square metre. Assuming that density of crap is around the same as water (sometimes it floats), that's about a centimetre and a half layer of crap. (That the guys at the back of the column would be walking in ) Or about 0.6 inches of crap, for you imperials.

Add the cattle and you can probably double that.

Add all the *ahem* watering those millions of people and cattle would do, and the fact that that contains nitrates.

Forget finding relics. You'd have the most fertile strip of land, right across the desert

Puts Isaiah 40:3 in a whole new light.

 

[Rincewind]

But restating an argument is not going to do that. Anyone who would be swayed by your argument, would already have moved away from such interpretations of the Bible. I believe a better course of action is to let them try to develop a deeper understanding of what a particular book of the Bible is trying to say, rather than treat it like a history text

Well, I guess YMMV...

So - I'll pass this interpretation over to you.

Best of luck!

 

[I Ratant]

But restating an argument is not going to do that. Anyone who would be swayed by your argument, would already have moved away from such interpretations of the Bible. I believe a better course of action is to let them try to develop a deeper understanding of what a particular book of the Bible is trying to say, rather than treat it like a history text

.
Whyncha do something useful and talk to Paul Bethke here?

 

[HansMustermann]

One possible category is "social control".

Even granting that as obvious, that's more like a statement of purpose than a statement of genre, so it's kinda orthogonal. You can try to influence and control people with stuff about history (e.g., "we must hate country X because they took our province Y in the crusades!!!"), or based on at least some pretense of science (e.g., social darwinism was just that), or you can just make up stuff.

 

[tsig]

Because they are the only three possible options

This would be a much stronger post if you had suggested any other options.

 

[tsig]

.
Whyncha do something useful and talk to Paul Bethke here?

The 'sensible' believers never want to lock horns with the true believers.