The Exodus Myth

[ddt]

.
That the Magi got there at all is a miracle in itself!

Oh yes, Matthew has the star consistently standing in the East, all the way: both during the first leg, while the Magi travel from Persia (in the East!) to Jerusalem, and during the second leg, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. How it could thus point the way is anybody's guess.

 

[Craig B]

Oh yes, Matthew has the star consistently standing in the East, all the way: both during the first leg, while the Magi travel from Persia (in the East!) to Jerusalem, and during the second leg, from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. How it could thus point the way is anybody's guess.

More Zoroastrian influence!

 

[Paul Bethke]

If you think Exodus is a central point of faith, why haven't you already searched for that alleged evidence years ago? I'll give you a hint: there is none.

There is no need for me to have searched, when I know that the Exodus did take place—it is interesting to see why people reject this>

 

[HansMustermann]

No, because regardless if you think Jesus was the son of God or a third rate country carpenter. If he upset the Roman establishment in some way their preferred go to was crucification.

Not really, and not willy-nilly. Romans didn't just have two options: go free or get nailed. It would have been the default only if Jesus were a slave or a captured armed rebel/bandit.

The bigger problem though is that the account of the crucifixion in the gospels has been tampered with, so to speak, and most of the details given are clearly just symbolic fiction. E.g., the highly irregular trial on a holy day, the good Jesus bad Jesus release game, the seamless robe (that was really a privilege of the high priests not the robe of a vagrant ex-carpenter), dressing him in purple for lulz, forcing an innocent to effectively take a part of Jesus's punishment in the humiliating procession, breaking the rules for the coup de grace, releasing the corpse to a stranger, etc. Some of those would be outright capital crimes.

So it's not just whether some nobody got nailed or not, but is there anything you can take from that lesson? Are there any lessons or anything to be learned? How would you know they're not among the made up stuff?

 

[MG1962]

Matt is pretty clear it's about a star,

Everything was a star back then. The word planet means wandering star. Comets were hairy stars. Supernova, guest stars

hell, they even ask specifically to worship him -- although we can probably agree that the Zoroastrians would not have given a flip about it. On top of that they bring some rather ritual gifts for specifically that kid, not, say, for Herod,

Because I think the Magi were expecting to drop of some goodies for Herod's new born child

and end their mission by outright snubbing Herod, which doesn't sound very diplomatic. It's also unclear exactly what the diplomatic mission would have been with Herod, who was just a Roman puppet king of no real concern to the Persians.

I would suggest doing a little reading on the Roman/ Pathia wars

 

[MG1962]

Not really, and not willy-nilly. Romans didn't just have two options: go free or get nailed. It would have been the default only if Jesus were a slave or a captured armed rebel/bandit.

The bigger problem though is that the account of the crucifixion in the gospels has been tampered with, so to speak, and most of the details given are clearly just symbolic fiction. E.g., the highly irregular trial on a holy day, the good Jesus bad Jesus release game, the seamless robe (that was really a privilege of the high priests not the robe of a vagrant ex-carpenter), dressing him in purple for lulz, forcing an innocent to effectively take a part of Jesus's punishment in the humiliating procession, breaking the rules for the coup de grace, releasing the corpse to a stranger, etc. Some of those would be outright capital crimes.

So it's not just whether some nobody got nailed or not, but is there anything you can take from that lesson? Are there any lessons or anything to be learned? How would you know they're not among the made up stuff?

My position remains the same. The original contention was there is as little evidence for the Crucification as is for Exodus is false. Jesus lived in a place where it was possible to be crucified. Exodus does not even have that going for it.

 

[MG1962]

Looks like MG is in full retreat and is throwing overboard parts of the NT to go faster.

Yeah dreams a cheap - Feel free to hang on to yours

 

[ddt]

There is no need for me to have searched, when I know that the Exodus did take place—it is interesting to see why people reject this>

You just "know". Where's the evidence that you base your knowledge on?

 

[ddt]

More Zoroastrian influence!

I think that was already mentioned, and that was how we got to discuss the Epiphany in the first place. TBH, Matthew never mentions Persia, but he specifically mentions the Magi come from the East.

 

[I Ratant]

My position remains the same. The original contention was there is as little evidence for the Crucification as is for Exodus is false. Jesus lived in a place where it was possible to be crucified. Exodus does not even have that going for it.

.
Sure it does!
There's no rules for fiction!
The author invents a vast movement of peoples in the past, or invents some fancy tale about a zombie... he can do that.
And so it is written.

 

[HansMustermann]

Everything was a star back then. The word planet means wandering star. Comets were hairy stars. Supernova, guest stars

II'll even grant that, but that still wouldn't mean stuff like "constellation" or "astrological sign", like you essentially made it sound in a previous message.

Because I think the Magi were expecting to drop of some goodies for Herod's new born child

It's still not very clear why, since he was a puppet king, of a kingdom that was no immediate concern of the Persians.

More importantly, if they were intended to be the gifts in a diplomatic mission, why then go give them to some nobody in Bethlehem?

I would suggest doing a little reading on the Roman/ Pathia wars

I have. Enough to know that there was no war with Parthia at the time -- meaning around the end of Herod's reign -- and hadn't been one for decades. Augustus was doing a lot of propaganda about having basically conquered the Parthians, but all that he had to show for it was that he negotiated the return of legion eagles from an earlier defeat.

Also, most of the warring and occasional border skirmishing at the time was focused around Armenia. I'm still not seeing how the puppet king of Jerusalem would be important there.

But if you know something I don't, the neighbourly thing would be to actually say it, not just imply that it exists.

 

[HansMustermann]

My position remains the same. The original contention was there is as little evidence for the Crucification as is for Exodus is false. Jesus lived in a place where it was possible to be crucified. Exodus does not even have that going for it.

Err... "Evidence" doesn't mean "it's not impossible." I mean technically it's not impossible that you're a serial killer, but that doesn't mean there's evidence you are.

 

[ddt]

Because I think the Magi were expecting to drop of some goodies for Herod's new born child

WTH would they do that? Herod the Great had 10 wives, 9 sons and 5 daughters that we know of (so, probably more, esp. daughters). If the Magi did this for every child, they would have had a full-time job. A new child at the time - estimated at 5 or 4 BC - would have been nothing special whatsoever. Even after executing two sons for treason and accusing a third for attempted patricide, there were enough sons left for the Romans to partition his land and leave some other sons landless.

I would suggest doing a little reading on the Roman/ Pathia wars

I mentioned Carrhae before. At the time, due to Pompey and Marc Anthony, Palestine and Syria was solidly Roman. So what special would there be?

 

[ddt]

I mean technically it's not impossible that you're a serial killer,

I'm shocked, I say, shocked, to hear that MG1962 is a serial killer.

It's a bit disappointing that the best info in this thread comes form the non-believers. Of the two believers, one "just knows" that an impossible story is true, and the other introduces all kind of conjecture to make another tall tale, of a known fantasizer (Mattie), true.

But that also seems to be the wider case with the whole discipline of theology. You start out with a modestly-sized, ancient "Holy Book", full of vague or outright contradictory statements, and then you write tome after tome with made-up details and with lame rationalizations to iron away the wrinkles in the original story.

 

[ddt]

I have. Enough to know that there was no war with Parthia at the time -- meaning around the end of Herod's reign -- and hadn't been one for decades. Augustus was doing a lot of propaganda about having basically conquered the Parthians, but all that he had to show for it was that he negotiated the return of legion eagles from an earlier defeat.

Carrhae, wasn't it? Crassus' attempt - and catastrophe - to overcome his inferiority complex vis-a-vis his triumvirate buddies in prowess on the battlefield.

 

[Giordano]

.
Sure it does!
There's no rules for fiction!
The author invents a vast movement of peoples in the past, or invents some fancy tale about a zombie... he can do that.
And so it is written.

Exactly! No rules for "true" magic (a subset of fiction), either. You can invent whatever you want. Prove it with even more fiction or magic if someone challenges it. Apparently, it does not even need to be self-consistent.

 

[Giordano]

There is no need for me to have searched, when I know that the Exodus did take place—it is interesting to see why people reject this>

Think about this statement and why it would fail to convince the others here.

 

[Belgian thought]

Just on a personal note - this is one of the finest threads I have visited.

It has, for a 50+ year old man, opened my eyes again and given me arms, which I often never had, helping me understand, and now back-up, my very early (when about 5 years old) religious misgivings (about the bible both OT and NT), strongly condemned both at home and school when I dared to espouse them.

Both the OT and NT and the continuations based on them i.e. Islam, Mormonism - were/are/will be based on bollocks.

Thank you to the gorilla guy, and the OP opener too, and all others who have clarified things, and also thanks to those who have tried to continue to muddy the waters allowing even more clarity to shine through...

This is good JREF stuff.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm shocked, I say, shocked, to hear that MG1962 is a serial killer.

It's a bit disappointing that the best info in this thread comes form the non-believers. Of the two believers, one "just knows" that an impossible story is true, and the other introduces all kind of conjecture to make another tall tale, of a known fantasizer (Mattie), true.

But that also seems to be the wider case with the whole discipline of theology. You start out with a modestly-sized, ancient "Holy Book", full of vague or outright contradictory statements, and then you write tome after tome with made-up details and with lame rationalizations to iron away the wrinkles in the original story.

Eh, that's actually more like theology lite.

You know you have REAL theologians at work, when they write tome after tome after tome about stuff that's not even in any of the books. Like the whole assumption of Mary or for that matter the immaculate conception. It's not even ironing wrinkles in an existing story, it's making extra stuff up from whole cloth, because it... err... made sense to someone that God would totally do that.

Or there is actually a whole discipline in Catholic theology called "Josephology." Look it up, I'm not making it up. There are whole tracts and studies into Joseph, the husband of Mary, and his role in universal salvation. And he isn't even mentioned in more than a handful of verses total as doing not much more than being just the guy who married Marry.

I keep comparing theology with Fan Dumb, but yeah, for that reason. If someone spent many years and wrote many pages arguing the role of Captain Pike in saving the galaxy, in the original Star Trek series, via his influence of Spock and Kirk, even most die-hard trekkies would think it's not healthy to be that (A) obsessed and (B) into taking one's own ass-pulls as reality. But you do that for Joseph, they call you Pope John Paul II.

Just trying to believe a story is lightweight stuff. You're really a theologian when you make a whole new story up and argue it's true because it makes sense to you, and cite a few equally unsubstantiated paragraphs from Augustine and Eusebius for why it's true

So, yeah, most people on this board aren't anywhere near bad enough to actually call theologians

 

[HansMustermann]

Carrhae, wasn't it? Crassus' attempt - and catastrophe - to overcome his inferiority complex vis-a-vis his triumvirate buddies in prowess on the battlefield.

The eagles were from Carrhae indeed.