The Exodus Myth

[Leumas]

You do know that there were slave scribes, right? Not everyone, of course, but the institution is attested all over the ancient world, but especially is attested in Mesopotamia LONG before that. E.g., we have a tablet from Mari, late 3rd millennium BCE, which actually identifies 10 female scribes, and 9 of them were slaves. And occasionally taken to extremes like the Romans using literate slaves to educate their children. A slave who could read and write was also extremely expensive, and for that reason they generally tended to be better treated than the guys in the mines.

All the better reason to keep them right where they were needed ...no?

Freeing 42000 scribes might have just put a strain on Babylon's bureaucracy...no?

Yes... I am sure you can see that 42000 of them could not have been scribes...so ho many do you think were? Did the rest suffer slavery?

And I don't see what's unbelievable in the idea that a lot of those would want to come back to their ancestral home. Especially since in Babylon they had just gone from slave to unemployed, so I don't see much to keep them there.

Unemployed freed slaves might want to make it home, but they are not usually given looted treasure from 60 years before that somehow survived intact....no?

Unemployed freed slaves are not usually given slaves of their own...no? Why were those slaves of slaves not freed too?

Unemployed freed slaves are not given camels and horses and asses as well as thousands of pounds of silver and hundreds of pounds of gold and holy Tupperware... no?

Unemployed freed slaves in their 60s, 70s and 80s travelling thousands of miles by themselves across deserts and some of the worst zones infested by highwaymen and brigands do not usually survive the trip.... no?

Unemployed freed slaves when they arrive home if they make it back do not have the authority or the wherewithal to install themselves as rulers over the lands and the "people of the land" that is their previous home BY FORCE...no?

Unemployed freed slaves do not then go about looking down their noses at the "people of the land" who are supposed to be their kin and kith...no?

Unemployed freed slaves when they return home do not make it their entire and all consuming occupation to rebuild a costly temple AGAINST THE WISHES of the “people of the land” and even reject their offers to help accomplish their aims on the grounds that those “people of the land” who are their relatives are not worshiping the same god as them …. No?

Unemployed freed slaves do not scorn the “people of the land” who are their folk and revile them while at the same time claim to be fulfilling orders of Imperial FOREIGN rulers thousands of miles away…no?

Destitute unemployed freed slaves do not have the means or resources to know what correspondences are being exchanged between the "people of the land" and Imperial Courts thousands of miles away...no?

Jobless poor freed slaves do not have the ability to send Imperial letters to Imperial Courts thousands of miles away and DEMAND Emperors to dig up archives of their Great-Great-Great-Grandfathers so as to advocate them continuing to snob over and be racists against the "people of the land" who they despise and disdain so violently....no?

Jobless destitute freed slaves who managed to return to their homeland after 100 years of slavery in foreign lands do not DISDAIN the "people of the land" who are supposed to be their kinfolk and ex-neighbors and ABHOR them to the extent where it is a DISASTER if they marry from among them and then accept orders by other ragtag freed slaves arriving 90 years later to order them to divorce their wives and disown their children and throw them away like garbage....no?

Unemployed freed slaves do not know who is who in the Imperial Courts of an Empire a 1000 miles away and correspond with them and obtain FIATS (no not Ferraris) to collect tributes and taxes for an entire region....no?

 

[Leumas]

Yes, of course. It's just that these kings get quite a good write up in the Bible. In Esther too.

I wonder why there was not a single bit of Esther in the DSS?

Because they released the captives from Babylon, and allowed them to restore the Temple, of course. Not because the kings were really nice.

And how do you know that is a true historical fact?

Please pause and answer the above question without looking within the spoiler below….please CarigB be honest with yourself and do not open the spoiler until you have given the question a good mull over and hearty consideration and actually given yourself an answer.

Is it because a propaganda cylindrical artifact written by Babylonian PRIESTS of Marduk said so? I am sure if that was all there was to it most "scholars" would have taken that for the propaganda it was.... much like when some Egyptian propaganda on a wall in some Egyptian temple is taken with a pound of salt as it should. But why are we inclined to believe the Babylonian propaganda so much??? Could it be because some other propaganda written by PRIESTS of YHWH parrots the propaganda of the priests of Babylon despite the fact that the Babylonian propaganda never mentioned Jews or Judeans of Judea or Israel or YHWH or anything of the sort ? Applying similar illogical unreasoning, reading denials of the holocaust by Russian Stalinists and at the same time reading books denying the holocaust written by Iranian Mullahs would justify believing that Hitler was innocent....right?

 

[MG1962]

Please pause and answer the above question without looking within the spoiler below….please CarigB be honest with yourself and do not open the spoiler until you have given the question a good mull over and hearty consideration and actually given yourself an answer.

Most scholars? Are you going to support that statement?

 

[MG1962]

The Persians and Egyptians were

You really dont know much about the Persians do you

 

[Leumas]

You really dont know much about the Persians do you

I could explain why your comment misses the point by so much, but then that would require me to explain things that you are obviously not able to fathom.


But much like a broken analog clock that is still right twice a day, you are right even though you have no idea.


I suggest you look up the word "sarcasm" in a dictionary and proceed from there and you might eventually happen to get it right for the second time.

 

[Craig B]

I wonder why there was not a single bit of Esther in the DSS?

Its canonicity was long disputed, on the grounds that it nowhere mentions God. It looks like a nationalistic novelette intended to validate an annual festival. Its failure to mention God is a distinction it shares with the Song of Songs, which is a sexy poem. It's canonicity has also been disputed.

And how do you know that is a true historical fact?

Please pause and answer the above question without looking within the spoiler below….please CarigB be honest with yourself and do not open the spoiler until you have given the question a good mull over and hearty consideration and actually given yourself an answer.

No need. It's an issue I have "mulled" and "considered" quite thoroughly.

Is it because a propaganda cylindrical artifact written by Babylonian PRIESTS of Marduk said so?

I am sure if that was all there was to it most "scholars" would have taken that for the propaganda it was.... much like when some Egyptian propaganda on a wall in some Egyptian temple is taken with a pound of salt as it should.

But why are we inclined to believe the Babylonian propaganda so much???

Could it be because some other propaganda written by PRIESTS of YHWH parrots the propaganda of the priests of Babylon despite the fact that the Babylonian propaganda never mentioned Jews or Judeans of Judea or Israel or YHWH or anything of the sort ?

Applying similar illogical unreasoning, reading denials of the holocaust by Russian Stalinists and at the same time reading books denying the holocaust written by Iranian Mullahs would justify believing that Hitler was innocent....right?

Lots of "dog whistle" scare and displacement tactics in that spoiler. You're believing Babylonian PRIESTS! And worse (if that were possible), you're believing Yahwist PRIESTS!! Aaargh. So that doesn't scare you off? Well in that case you haven't mulled and considered heartily enough, because if you had you would agree with my thesis. Convinced now? No? Well then, your argument is of the same kind and force as that employed by people who deny the Holocaust ... Right?

No not right. How about providing some more facts to sustain your thesis instead. I love stuff like that.

 

[Leumas]

No need. It's an issue I have "mulled" and "considered" quite thoroughly.

I noticed that you still have not answered the question. Since you have already thought about it then please answer the question

How do you know that "they released the captives from Babylon, and allowed them to restore the Temple" is a historical fact?​

 

[MG1962]

I could explain why your comment misses the point by so much, but then that would require me to explain things that you are obviously not able to fathom.

I will take your post as confirmation my original comment is indeed accurate

 

[Craig B]

I noticed that you still have not answered the question. Since you have already thought about it then please answer the question

How do you know that "they released the captives from Babylon, and allowed them to restore the Temple" is a historical fact?​

You are the one who proposes a fringe theory. Upon you falls the burden of showing its plausibility.

 

[Leumas]

Lots of "dog whistle" scare and displacement tactics in that spoiler. You're believing Babylonian PRIESTS! And worse (if that were possible), you're believing Yahwist PRIESTS!! Aaargh. So that doesn't scare you off? Well in that case you haven't mulled and considered heartily enough, because if you had you would agree with my thesis. Convinced now? No? Well then, your argument is of the same kind and force as that employed by people who deny the Holocaust ... Right?

No.... no whistling.... just pointing out that kind of circular illogic which can drive people to believe that because Jeremiah said that god will punish Babylon he must have been a real prophet who knew before hand what will happen.

You know that kind of circular unreasoning and wishful thinking that abounds within all sorts of biblical issues.

No not right. How about providing some more facts to sustain your thesis instead. I love stuff like that.

Go follow the cites in this web page

The historical nature of this decree has been challenged.

Professor Lester L Grabbe argues that there was no decree but that there was a policy that allowed exiles to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. He also argues that the archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle", taking place over perhaps decades, resulting in a maximum population of perhaps 30,000.[104]

Philip R. Davies called the authenticity of the decree "dubious", citing Grabbe and adding that J. Briend argued against "the authenticity of Ezra 1.1–4 is J. Briend, in a paper given at the Institut Catholique de Paris on 15 December 1993, who denies that it resembles the form of an official document but reflects rather biblical prophetic idiom."[105]

Mary Joan Winn Leith believes that the decree in Ezra might be authentic and along with the Cylinder that Cyrus, like earlier rules, was through these trying to gain support from those who might be strategically important, particularly those close to Egypt which he wished to conquer. He also wrote that "appeals to Marduk in the cylinder and to Yahweh in the biblical decree demonstrate the Persian tendency to co-opt local religious and political traditions in the interest of imperial control."[106]

 

[Leumas]

I will take your post as confirmation my original comment is indeed accurate

See, I told you that you will not understand.... try again!

 

[Craig B]

Go follow the cites in this web page

OK.

Professor Lester L Grabbe argues that there was no decree but that there was a policy that allowed exiles to return to their homelands and rebuild their temples. He also argues that the archaeology suggests that the return was a "trickle", taking place over perhaps decades, resulting in a maximum population of perhaps 30,000.

 

[Leumas]

You are the one who proposes a fringe theory. Upon you falls the burden of showing its plausibility.

700 years ago you could not have had the argument scripted below because A would have burnt Q on a stake. Even today if A and Q were in a Muslim theocracy A would win the argument INCISIVELY.

200 or so years ago in a land not so far away (but you might even find the same going on now right here):

Q: I am not convinced that there was a Moses… I think he was a mythological figure much like Aeneas or Jason!

A: The new and old testaments say there was a Moses…. and look …. even the Muslims say that their god Allah in the Quran talks about Moses.

Q: But that proves nothing, this is circular illogic.... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A:All biblical scholars say that even without the miracles there must have been a Moses for sure or at least a person upon which he was based. Where would all the Jews have come from then? How could the Muslims have developed their own separate stories about him if he was a myth? Who built the pyramids if it was not Jewish slaves?

Q: But most of these writings are antiquated and full of circular illogic and anachronistic mis-facts and desperado biblical "archaeologists" trying to prove the bible is true..... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A: You are the one who proposes a fringe theory. Upon you falls the burden of showing its plausibility.

 

[HansMustermann]

All the better reason to keep them right where they were needed ...no?

Freeing 42000 scribes might have just put a strain on Babylon's bureaucracy...no?

Well, between what makes economic sense and what people will do in the name of religion, there's sometimes a disconnect. See the Christians' cathedrals later.

The "problem" is that Achaemenids seem to have been strongly against slavery, not that they couldn't have used those slaves for some job or another.

I mean, equally they could have built forts and monuments cheaper with slaves, but as far as we know, they made a point to only use paid labourers.

Yes... I am sure you can see that 42000 of them could not have been scribes...so ho many do you think were? Did the rest suffer slavery?

I don't think there is census data there. If I'm to take a wild guess, given the low literacy of the region, probably no more than a thousand or two, though possibly as low as a couple hundred. Depending if they took more from the cities or from the villages.

Also technically all "suffered slavery". Just, some were more useful for copying scrolls and such, than for working the fields or building stuff. Scribes were expensive, and copied documents were expensive, so it seems it wasn't too long until someone figured out that you could get a slave to copy stuff for you for half the price you'd pay to one of the educated elites. And, as I was saying, the Mesopotamians seem to have been pretty heavily into that. There are even documents of slave scribes being given as dowry and whatnot.

Anyway, these got a work that wasn't exactly backbreaking, and tended to get better fed and stuff, since they were harder to replace, but they would still be slaves.

 

[MG1962]

700 years ago you could not have had the argument scripted below because A would have burnt Q on a stake. Even today if A and Q were in a Muslim theocracy A would win the argument INCISIVELY.

200 or so years ago in a land not so far away (but you might even find the same going on now right here):

Q: I am not convinced that there was a Moses… I think he was a mythological figure much like Aeneas or Jason!

A: The new and old testaments say there was a Moses…. and look …. even the Muslims say that their god Allah in the Quran talks about Moses.

Q: But that proves nothing, this is circular illogic.... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A:All biblical scholars say that even without the miracles there must have been a Moses for sure or at least a person upon which he was based. Where would all the Jews have come from then? How could the Muslims have developed their own separate stories about him if he was a myth? Who built the pyramids if it was not Jewish slaves?

Q: But most of these writings are antiquated and full of circular illogic and anachronistic mis-facts and desperado biblical "archaeologists" trying to prove the bible is true..... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A: You are the one who proposes a fringe theory. Upon you falls the burden of showing its plausibility.

More shadow and light - No one here is quoting biblical sources. No one here is arguing that Moses existed......So exactly who are claiming is using a fringe theory?

 

[HansMustermann]

Unemployed freed slaves might want to make it home, but they are not usually given looted treasure from 60 years before that somehow survived intact....no?

Well, I doubt that they would be given all the old loot. More realistically only the priesthood probably got anything, to ensure their cooperation and loyalty to the new masters.

Unemployed freed slaves are not usually given slaves of their own...no? Why were those slaves of slaves not freed too?

Again, more probably they weren't. The matter there is complicated by the fact that most of the ancient people didn't really have a different word for "slave" and "servant". It's only when you find a document actually talking about someone being bought, sold, given, or part of someone's property, that you can be sure it means slave.

Unemployed freed slaves are not given camels and horses and asses as well as thousands of pounds of silver and hundreds of pounds of gold and holy Tupperware... no?

Actually, the holy Tupperware is kinda believable. As I was saying, ensuring the loyalty of the priests would be a perfect way to control the region. Everyone else, yeah, probably wouldn't get much out of it.

Unemployed freed slaves in their 60s, 70s and 80s travelling thousands of miles by themselves across deserts and some of the worst zones infested by highwaymen and brigands do not usually survive the trip.... no?

Depends on the group size, I would say. Much smaller caravans travelled the same routes all the time.

Plus, again, not everyone went home.

Unemployed freed slaves when they arrive home if they make it back do not have the authority or the wherewithal to install themselves as rulers over the lands and the "people of the land" that is their previous home BY FORCE...no?

I would assume that the "tupperware" and the promise of building them a grand temple eventually, would ensure some some degree of cooperation of the priest caste.

Unemployed freed slaves do not then go about looking down their noses at the "people of the land" who are supposed to be their kin and kith...no?

You'd be surprised at how people still manage to look down on each other anyway.

Unemployed freed slaves when they return home do not make it their entire and all consuming occupation to rebuild a costly temple AGAINST THE WISHES of the “people of the land” and even reject their offers to help accomplish their aims on the grounds that those “people of the land” who are their relatives are not worshiping the same god as them …. No?

I don't think all the people of the land rejected that. In fact, I'm sure most of the priestly caste was just thrilled, especially since that temple was how they collected taxes.

Unemployed freed slaves do not scorn the “people of the land” who are their folk and revile them while at the same time claim to be fulfilling orders of Imperial FOREIGN rulers thousands of miles away…no?

I don't remember anyone actually claiming that.

Destitute unemployed freed slaves do not have the means or resources to know what correspondences are being exchanged between the "people of the land" and Imperial Courts thousands of miles away...no?

Considering that only a handful could read or write, actually I'm not entirely surprised.

Jobless poor freed slaves do not have the ability to send Imperial letters to Imperial Courts thousands of miles away and DEMAND Emperors to dig up archives of their Great-Great-Great-Grandfathers so as to advocate them continuing to snob over and be racists against the "people of the land" who they despise and disdain so violently....no?

Considering that there were a lot of scribes among them, yeah, I'd exactly expect that they could send letters. The expensive part was not the paper and ink (well, ok, those too were expensive by today's standards, but not the most expensive part), but the work of an educated scribe. If you could write and had nothing better to do, that part would be pretty much free.

Or briefer: people wrote letters all the time in the ancient world, you know?

Jobless destitute freed slaves who managed to return to their homeland after 100 years of slavery in foreign lands do not DISDAIN the "people of the land" who are supposed to be their kinfolk and ex-neighbors and ABHOR them to the extent where it is a DISASTER if they marry from among them and then accept orders by other ragtag freed slaves arriving 90 years later to order them to divorce their wives and disown their children and throw them away like garbage....no?

Like most of your stuff on this topic, this is actually circular reasoning. You're ASSUMING that the separate identity as Hebrews is only now appearing out of nowhere, and that those other Canaanites would be the people of the land where those guys return. Then plug that as a premise into nonsense like above, to "support" what you just used as a premise.

But effectively what you just did in all the "THE PEOPLE OF THE LAND" nonsense was just do an ad absurdum disproof of your own hypothesis. If assuming that kind of identity appearing out of nowhere is leading you to a blatantly false or utterly improbable result like the above, then what you just did is show that the hypothesis is false.

In reality, all signs point at that separate identity having formed hundreds of years before.

And there is nothing unbelievable in one group of religious zealots shunning people of different religions or ethnic groups. Even in an advanced country like the USA, see the Amish for example.

Unemployed freed slaves do not know who is who in the Imperial Courts of an Empire a 1000 miles away and correspond with them and obtain FIATS (no not Ferraris) to collect tributes and taxes for an entire region....no?

Why not? SOMEONE had to do the local administration and collecting taxes.

 

[Craig B]

700 years ago you could not have had the argument scripted below because A would have burnt Q on a stake. Even today if A and Q were in a Muslim theocracy A would win the argument INCISIVELY.

200 or so years ago in a land not so far away (but you might even find the same going on now right here):

Q: I am not convinced that there was a Moses… I think he was a mythological figure much like Aeneas or Jason!

A: The new and old testaments say there was a Moses…. and look …. even the Muslims say that their god Allah in the Quran talks about Moses.

Q: But that proves nothing, this is circular illogic.... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A:All biblical scholars say that even without the miracles there must have been a Moses for sure or at least a person upon which he was based. Where would all the Jews have come from then? How could the Muslims have developed their own separate stories about him if he was a myth? Who built the pyramids if it was not Jewish slaves?

Q: But most of these writings are antiquated and full of circular illogic and anachronistic mis-facts and desperado biblical "archaeologists" trying to prove the bible is true..... how do YOU know there was a Moses?

A: You are the one who proposes a fringe theory. Upon you falls the burden of showing its plausibility.

That's right. Because it is impossible to formulate correct ideas where they are forbidden, or where the evidence needed to sustain them is suppressed. But so what? We don't live in such a society.

 

[pakeha]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10186050&postcount=480

Loose loins sink quips.

So, so nomm'ed.

I recently bought her a diamond ring so that should keep her happy for a few hours.

That's a decent start, Leumas.

 

[Leumas]

Jobless destitute freed slaves who managed to return to their homeland after 100 years of slavery in foreign lands do not DISDAIN the "people of the land" who are supposed to be their kinfolk and ex-neighbors and ABHOR them to the extent where it is a DISASTER if they marry from among them and then accept orders by other ragtag freed slaves arriving 90 years later to order them to divorce their wives and disown their children and throw them away like garbage....no?

Like most of your stuff on this topic, this is actually circular reasoning. You're ASSUMING that the separate identity as Hebrews is only now appearing out of nowhere, and that those other Canaanites would be the people of the land where those guys return. Then plug that as a premise into nonsense like above, to "support" what you just used as a premise.

I am assuming no such thing...... please get your facts in order. You are confusing what is being talked about in the post you are replying to with another post entirely.

Even in that post I already said:

Moreover, this is not just something that is only in Exodus and Judges and Joshua and so forth, rather it is right there in Ezra. If Zerubabbel and Ezra et al where returnee captives from Judea then they were Jews descended from Judah since as far back as 1200 BCE at the very least. Also Judea should have been fully Jewish since at least 1000 BCE at the very least. When the Babylonian carried away the elites they did not empty Judea of its Jewish inhabitants, they just carried away leaders and scribes and priests. In other words these returnees in around 500 BCE are returning to Judea that is inhabited by Jews for at least 500 years if not more.

You seem to be confusing matters a little bit.


The "people of the land" in the post you are replying to are Judeans not Canaanites.

You are still hung up on the first post In which I wonder why the Bible in General has polemic after caustic polemic against the Canaanites to the extent of making them accursed blacks the sons of Ham (as opposed to Sham) who violated his father in his drunken stupor and instead of Ham getting the curse the bible manages to make the Canaanites the subject of the curse despite Ham supposedly having other sons and descendent nation who are not even mentioned in the curse.

My original post was indeed wondering why would the Bible in general holds such acerbic polemic against the Canaanites if the writers of the Bible were from a clan of Canaanites regardless of clan clashes.

If clan clashes were the motivator for such bellicose animosity then why go to so much effort portraying the Canaanites as such distinct others to the extent of abhorring and loathing them to the extremes yet they are depicted as the original inhabitants and the incumbent owners of the land.

Why does the Bible go to such extremes to distance the Canaanites while at the same time it represents the Hebrews as FOREIGN descendents of ILLEGAL ALIENS from a distinct people and culture to the Canaanites whom the Hebrews, as runaway slaves descended from generations of slaves out of Egypt, have to genocide and ethnically cleanse out of the land.

If the writers were indeed a Canaanite clan who hated so irrevocably and antagonistically the other clans why not then depict THEM as the foreign illegal alien invaders out of Egypt who failed to disposes the Hebrews of their ancestral title deed to Israel?

Why go to such an extent of depicting the Hebrews as genocidal plundering Babylonian slaves out of Egypt who had to USURP the ancestral lands of the Canaanites by rapine and pillaging and extirpation?

That first post was about the Bible in general and Canaan in General. However, in the post you are responding to above, I am talking about Judea in particular. The phrase "people of the land", as I mention in this post, comes from Ezra 4:4. They are the people the supposedly Judean jobless freed slaves returned to in Judea and were quarrelling with. The "people of the land" as Ezra 4:4 says were the ones in Judea supposedly Judeans who remained in Judea until the slaves came back. They are the people that CraigB wants to argue should have recognized the returnees.

However, what we see in Ezra is that the returnees rejected the "people of the land" who were supposedly Judeans and claimed that they had nothing to do with their God even though the "people of the land" did in fact claim that they worshiped the same god of their ancestors and asked to be allowed to help in building the temple they were building.

In the timeline and narrative I outlined in this post the supposed Judean jobless freed slaves returning to Judea should have considered the "people of the land" as left over Judeans, their kin and kith, and should not have snubbed them and rejected their offers of help regardless of the span of time since their captivity and regardless of them being recognized or not. And as I pointed out in the post the likelihood of the returnees being in fact returnees is extremely dubious to say the least.

 

[Leumas]

More shadow and light - No one here is quoting biblical sources. No one here is arguing that Moses existed......So exactly who are claiming is using a fringe theory?

So besides not comprehending sarcasm you do not understand allegories either.... oh well.... carry on!