history and myth of Exodus

[Paul Bethke]

And that proof is . . .?

As you said you want to keep this thread dedicated to your topic—so I can leave it there—but let me add just one point—the repeat of what is recorded will substantiate the whole.

 

[Oystein]

I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.

It occurs to me that you and others might get more out of it, though, if an overview of the Biblical source documents were provided.

Most folks tend to think of the Bible in terms of its various books, which is fine for the New Testament of the Christian Bible, but doesn't work well for the early books of the Hebrew Bible, such as the ones we're discussing here.

That's because the current books are woven together from a variety of sources. (So are the New Testament books, but not in quite the same way.)

This was discovered when scholars noticed that in some passages of the Pentateuch (the first five books) it was asserted that God was known by the name YHWH (Yahweh) from very early times, while in other passages it was asserted that God did not reveal his name to anyone before Moses.

Long story short, decades of investigation has found that there are several early sources which are identifiable by a number of elements which divide them into clear sets. These include:

• The language used, including vocabulary and time period (e.g. it isn't hard to distinguish between a passage from Dickens and a passage from Hemingway)

• References to things which existed at that time or earlier but not later, or at that time and later but not earlier, such as cities, structures, practices, etc.

• Theology, political stances, and cultural norms

• Literary devices, such as whether puns are prevalent or absent, whether placenames are given origin stories or not, which stock phrases are repeated, and so forth

...
The Context
...
The Old Judean Torah (or the Yahwist Torah, or "J")
...
The Old Ephraimaic Torah (or the Elohisitc Torah, or "E")
...
The Combined Old Religion Torah ("JE")
...
The Hezekian Torah (or the Priestly Torah, or "P")
...
The Josian Torah and History (The Deuteronomic History, or "D")
...
What does it all mean for this discussion?
...
I hope that outline has been worth the reading, and that it helps in establishing a more effective framework for looking at and discussing the Biblical stories of the alleged exodus.

Wow! And thanks again!

I was aware in the briefest outline of the fact that the Pentateuch is stitched together from several source documents written centuries after the supposed events, and took it for granted that much of it must have been spin by and for the political and clerical elites. So that's what I meant that the discussion so far was on a level that suited me fine.
Of course I knew practically none of the details - excellent post, will see if Tim and Hans mostly agree with your summary.

# oysteinbookmark

 

[OCaptain]

And therein we have the first problem with its historicity.

Per-Rameses is the old Avaris, which existed for a looong time, and ended up capital of the Hyksos pharaohs. So if Josephus was right about the Hyksos connection, actually moves the date of the exodus to the time of their expulsion, which incidentally is also when Avaris is razed by the assaulting Egyptian armies.

The site would remain uninhabited until Rameses II rebuilds the city. So, ah-ha, we have a possible dating of when those Hebrew slaves were supposed to have done it.

Pithom -- i.e., Per-Atum, "house of Atum" -- is a whole different story. The site at Tell-el-Maskhuta doesn't quite put it at the same time. In fact the oldest layer that shows a city, is from the 6'th-7'th centuries BCE. You know, a whole half a millennium after Per-Rameses or the supposed band of Levites legging it from Egypt.

The only thing that seems to have been there before that is... a fort from the Hyksos times. Hmm.

There is much hype about the Tell-el-Maskhuta site, not the least because someone found a structure made of bricks without straw. Woohoo, that shows the Exodus is right, right? Well, it would, except it's from the Roman period

There are also some anachronistic statues from the Ramesside period there, but the sane working hypothesis is that they were moved there, a practice which was actually bog-standard at the time. Cities bought and sold and hauled statues and obelisks from old abandoned cities all the time. It doesn't mean the city was built by Ramesses II any more than the obelisks in Alexandria mean it was built by Thutmoses III (ETA: or for that matter, Byzantium, now Istanbul, has an obelisk of Thutmoses III. So there we go, proof that Byzantium was built by the Egyptians in the 15'th century BCE)

So what we really have is an anachronism. The book of Exodus, written circa 6'th century BCE, mentions a city that existed in their time, but almost certainly didn't at any time suitable for the events in the book.

If you will, it's as if I were to write a Spanish-colonial-age-themed novel, where stuff happens in Fordlandia. Actually that city didn't even exist until 1928 when Ford built it.

So, you know, one more reason to not take it as a very historical source. Those guys knew stuff around their time, but don't seem to actually know what happened half a millennium before.

Although the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses mention is best explained as anachronisms, the reference to Hebrews being used as forced labor to build structures made of mud bricks isn't best explained as an anachronism. Tel Amarna, the breakaway capital of Akhenaten, was made of mud bricks.

 

[Piggy]

Bear in mind that, with no territory of their own, the Levites were in a position of dependency on the host tribes. In amphictyonic leagues, each tribe or city had the responsibility of supporting the central shrine for one month a year, hence the 12 tribe or 12 city divisions. This support in no way indicated the that any priestly tribe was in charge.

But the question of the moment here is: How did that arrangement come about?

How did this group manage to put themselves into that position? Why did they not have a territory of their own?

And of course the priestly caste held power among the ancient Hebrews, just as they did among the Egyptians. Akhenaten didn't remove the priests from power just because he didn't like them -- they were a real threat to his throne. The conversion to monotheism was a power-play, not some opening of Pharaoh's heart to the one true God.

The priestly caste among the Hebrews -- or at least the elites among that caste -- co-ruled with the judges and later the kings. The Levites ruled for a thousand years under that system, while various lines of judges and kings came and went.

To say that this was not a power structure is just absurd, and the documents we're dealing with here were a tool for maintaining that power, and fighting for power within the Levitical caste.

They are Egyptian Hebrews who, with Judah and Ephraim, overthrow Benjamin and establish a thousand-year rule.

Well, actually, this is speculation on your part. To prove it you would first have to demonstrate Benjamin's initial primacy. Then you would have to demonstrate a conspiracy on the part of the Levites, Judah and Ephraim.

All of this is necessarily to a certain degree speculative. It's history.

And for any bit of history, you can take every single piece of evidence and propose at least one alternate explanation.

But this is trivial. The question is whether the entirety of available evidence can be taken and formed into a comprehensive alternate explanation that is more probable than the one at hand.

I haven't seen you doing that yet.

Aaron is recognized as High Priest and Moses as Lawgiver, positions of the highest power within a ruthlessly warlike culture.

Most likely, their leaders were aware of Egyptian military strategies, established their own territory in Sinai which they held by force -- what other means was there? -- then returned to Canaan and made themselves top dogs by being the baddest of the bad-asses.

There was no ping-pong diplomacy or "leading from behind" in those days.

And by the way, I don't believe the events described in the story of the golden calf ever occurred.

Again, your assetions are not backed up by much evidence, particularly if you reject any factual basis for the golden calf story.

No matter what story you propose for any of this, you will find that it is "not backed up by much evidence".

But if we are to ask what is more likely and what is less likely, then we have to try to put it all together into a comprensive hypothesis. Short of that, it's just looking at it through a soda straw, which gets nowhere.

There is very good reason to assert that the story of the golden calf is merely anti-Aaronid propaganda promulgated by Mushites. In fact, excellent reasons for concluding so. If you have an alternate explanation that doesn't come from a soda straw, I'd be happy to hear it.

My views are very flexible here, and there might be evidence yet to be discovered that will change our ideas of what is more or less probable.

So the story of the golden calf tells us something about the politics at the time it was written. Only when taken together with other evidence can we place it into a historical trajectory which helps us understand what is likely to have happened centuries earlier. By itself, it has nothing at all to say about a historical Moses or Aaron, if they existed.

If we look at other cultures in that time and place, and the bits of history we're able to piece together based on archaeology, including the Biblical texts (properly viewed as artifacts), the most boring, dull, plain Jane explanation available is that the Levites were Egyptian Hebrews who allied with Ephraim and Judah to displace the Benjaminites.

Otherwise, why do they bother creating stories to explain Egyptian names and origins even though there is no indication that they are not culturally and ethnically Hebrew, why do they bother creating a story that slanders Benjamin to justify an earlier war against that tribe, why do they hold no land but are supported by all the other tribes with tribute, why do they claim to have led all the tribes out of Egypt when this is not true, why is it universally recognized that they introduced the first written law code among the Hebrews, why do even the political enemies of Mushite sectarians accept that it was Moses (not their guy Aaron) who established the earliest Law code without so much as a peep of protest, and so on?

The most reasonable explanation is that they were in fact a powerful group of Hebrews -- perhaps the descendants of captive elites, perhaps a splinter tribe who dwelt in the south and intermarried with Egyptians -- who came up from Sinai (perhaps sometime in the 1200s BCE), brought with them Egyptian names and Egyptian ideas such as the consolidation of power around a single code of law given to a single warrior-priest leader, allied with Ephraim and Judah to displace Benjamin, and secured a priestly dynasty that lasted a milennium.

Can anyone prove that happened? No.

Are we pretty darn certain it happened? No.

Is it the best comprehensive explanation available? I think so.

I'm perfectly open to alternate explanations, but those explanations have to be comprehensive and answer all the questions in a consistent way which all points to the same conclusion.

Like I said, the biggest piece of evidence for any of this is not any single bit of evidence, it is the convergence of the evidence.

 

[Piggy]

Actually, Genesis 14 only says the victors despoiled the cities of the their riches. After Abraham rescues Lot and the other captives, the king of Sodom offers him some of the captured goods.

Yes, there are contradictions between the first and second halves of this story.

But that is irrelevant to the point: There is a source quoted in Genesis which provided a military account of the fall of the cities of the plain with no interference from God.

Genesis 14 is not from J, E, or P. And it tells the story in a very different way from J, which asserts that these cities were destroyed because God thought the people in them were evil.

(Note that this source also provides a very different account of Abraham and Lot. In this account, Lot is taken captive and Abraham and his men chase his captors for over 200 miles up to present-day Syria to free him and bring him back.)

 

[Piggy]

I'm missing something here. Nothing in the Book of Joshua is true. What is your point?

Yes, you are missing something here.

There is an important difference between saying that a story about George Washington is pure fiction and saying that George Washington himself is pure fiction.

It is simply incorrect historical reasoning to assert that, because a story about Joshua is fiction, then Joshua was therefore fiction.

Instead, we have to look at these stories and ask why they exist, why they were composed. And we have to ask ourselves which is more likely: that the folks who told these stories made up the events and the hero, or that they made up stories about a tribal hero who actually lived?

Remember, this is not old myth. This is not Adam and Eve we're talking about. This is the Levitical account of the wars between the Hebrew tribes and other tribes.

Some Levitical sects place great importance on Joshua and write a great deal about him. Others say nothing about him, or very little, according to their political relationship with Ephraim/Israel and the Mushites Levites.

The most likely explanation here, it seems to me, is that Joshua was indeed a military hero from Ephraim who went into battle with surrounding non-Hebrew tribes in the region, and that his name was appropriated for later stories which exaggerated and glorified and expanded his deeds.

After all, if you're going to make up propaganda, it's much more effective to use the name of a long-revered warlord than to make up someone that nobody has ever heard of.

 

[Piggy]

But how would you feel if you were wrong in your analysis?

Some of my analysis is bound to be wrong, just from a statistical point of view.

History is a matter of taking the most probable path. But for every million events, you can expect that a once-in-a-million freak event will likely occur.

Which means that any reconstruction of history based on what is most likely is bound to be wrong in places, because the most likely thing is not always what actually happens.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Although the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses mention is best explained as anachronisms, the reference to Hebrews being used as forced labor to build structures made of mud bricks isn't best explained as an anachronism. Tel Amarna, the breakaway capital of Akhenaten, was made of mud bricks.

Most of Egypt's houses and mastabas in all ages were made of mud bricks AFAIK, so yes, the mud bricks were not the anachronism I was talking about. Per-Rameses and Per-Atum being built at the same time, and both before the Exodus, that was the anachronism.

 

[I Ratant]

Of course, the Israelites were supposed to have spent 40 years in the Sinai. That's a bit different from an army passing through in about 4 days (by a factor of 3,650; i.e. 365 days in a year multiplied by 10).

ETA: I Ratant, sorry to step on your post. I didn't see it until I was done making mine. Great minds . . . .

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Yes, we do.
I'd read that a really good proof of Exodus would be the 10's of thousands of corpses in the graveyards in the Sinai.
There are none.

 

[I Ratant]

As you said you want to keep this thread dedicated to your topic—so I can leave it there—but let me add just one point—the repeat of what is recorded will substantiate the whole.

.
Man up and start your thread on your proof.

 

[Piggy]

I guess I can only repeat this, but I expect I'll be generally ignored....

Debating about the details of the exodus story is not the way to get at the question of whether it happened or not, or how much of it is real.

Yes, we do need to understand that there's no archeological evidence for it, and all archaeological evidence is against it.

But it's only when you slice the modern text up into its source texts that the story of the exodus becomes comprehensible in terms of why it was written and by whom and when.

On the whole, it is a propaganda tool to help maintain Levitical power -- it is a claim that they didn't just come up out of the south and take power, but rather that they are the liberators of all the tribes, that they were given power by God himself to do this, and therefore they are owed an eternal debt.

When you get into the details of the various versions of the story, written by different Levitical factions, you can then see how elements of these stories serve to support the power of one faction over another, and deny power claims by opponents.

To ask "Who was the Pharaoh of the exodus story?", for example, is like asking "What sort of swan did Zeus turn himself into when he raped Leda?" The question itself is pointless, and a waste of time.

 

[I Ratant]

My own personal research has led me to interface with professionals in many fields that touch on the topic at hand. I've been doing it off an on again since 1987, and in earnest since 2003.

.
If you disagree with the 40 years, then there must be other things you disagree with.
How about talking snakes, or talking burning bushes?
That Flood?
The sun stopping in its travels..
How many of these must there be to pretty much prove the whole book is a legend?

 

[TimCallahan]

Hi Tim Callahan,

Haven't mastered the quote thingy yet...but thanks for the reply...

Still, I can ask, even if it's mud brick storage, would you want disgruntled slaves to be in charge of your food storage? Or storage of anything of value?

You just move your cursor to "quote" and click on it.

Of course, the assumption that the slaves of Egypt were treated cruelly is also part of the Exodus myth. A slave amounts to a certain investment; so you would want to excessively mistreat a slave.That's not to say that slaves enjoyed being slaves, nor that they didn't, from time to time, make a break for it. Probably, though, most just accepted it as their lot in life.

In any case, as HanMusterman has pointed out, there are considerable problems of anachronisms regarding the cities of Pithom and Ramesses.

 

[TimCallahan]

.
Yes, we do.
I'd read that a really good proof of Exodus would be the 10's of thousands of corpses in the graveyards in the Sinai.
There are none.

One rationalization I've heard is that nomadic peoples often put their dead up on raised platforms until they are desiccated, then carry their bones with them to certain burial sites.

Of course, the bast explanations are that either there was no Exodus event or that it involved a small band.

 

[TimCallahan]

Yes, you are missing something here.

There is an important difference between saying that a story about George Washington is pure fiction and saying that George Washington himself is pure fiction.

It is simply incorrect historical reasoning to assert that, because a story about Joshua is fiction, then Joshua was therefore fiction.

Instead, we have to look at these stories and ask why they exist, why they were composed. And we have to ask ourselves which is more likely: that the folks who told these stories made up the events and the hero, or that they made up stories about a tribal hero who actually lived?

Remember, this is not old myth. This is not Adam and Eve we're talking about. This is the Levitical account of the wars between the Hebrew tribes and other tribes.

Some Levitical sects place great importance on Joshua and write a great deal about him. Others say nothing about him, or very little, according to their political relationship with Ephraim/Israel and the Mushites Levites.

The most likely explanation here, it seems to me, is that Joshua was indeed a military hero from Ephraim who went into battle with surrounding non-Hebrew tribes in the region, and that his name was appropriated for later stories which exaggerated and glorified and expanded his deeds.

After all, if you're going to make up propaganda, it's much more effective to use the name of a long-revered warlord than to make up someone that nobody has ever heard of.

Well, it's always possible. However, this still remains speculative.

 

[I Ratant]

Well, it's always possible. However, this still remains speculative.

.
The basic question is "Is the story of Exodus in the OT fact?"
"It isn't" is the correct answer, based on all these examinations of the history of the time.
Along with all the other misstatements of fact in the book, its source cannot be divine, by extension.

 

[davefoc]

.
...
Along with all the other misstatements of fact in the book, its source cannot be divine, by extension.

I don't think you're going to find a lot of people in this thread arguing that the OT has a divine source. But just to be a pedantic jerk: The fact that the OT has errors in it doesn't preclude the possibility of divine involvement in the creation of it. Maybe God isn't perfect and he made mistakes about history or maybe God is perfect but people get in and mess with his words and that's what leads to errors or maybe God was just inserting the errors to mess with us. (Please feel free to ignore this pointless speculation).

 

[I Ratant]

I don't think you're going to find a lot of people in this thread arguing that the OT has a divine source. But just to be a pedantic jerk: The fact that the OT has errors in it doesn't preclude the possibility of divine involvement in the creation of it. Maybe God isn't perfect and he made mistakes about history or maybe God is perfect but people get in and mess with his words and that's what leads to errors or maybe God was just inserting the errors to mess with us. (Please feel free to ignore this pointless speculation).

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God had nothing to do with the OT.
It's a collection of head noises by seriously deluded people.
That god would permit errors though, does fit in with the general conclusion that the god of the OT would be a sadist, were it real.

 

[Piggy]

Well, it's always possible. However, this still remains speculative.

Well hell, man, come up with any scenario that's not, for this time and place, and you win a prize!

ETA: As far as odds go, I would give precious little over even-money for Joshua being real. I think it's only somewhat more likely, given the current state of the evidence. Of course, I'd take extremely long odds over Hezekiah being real, because we have Assyrian records about him as well as Judean records, and they match. I'd take equally long odds for a historical Jesus who is crucified by Pilate. As for Moses as lawgiver and Aaron as High Priest of Yahweh, I suppose I'd bet $25 to get $15 that they were real.

 

[Piggy]

It's a collection of head noises by seriously deluded people.

I have to disagree with this. The authors of this section of the Hebrew Bible are quite sane. They are also, in many ways, profoundly cynical.

I don't think they were "deluded" in any pathological sense. It's just that the world around them, given the technology they had and the human brains they were looking at it with, seemed like it was controlled by gods.

When Akhenaten of Egypt inherited his father's expanded empire, there were a lot of folks who might not have been content to simply let him climb up into that throne.

He knew this, of course. And he came up with a truly brilliant idea.

He declared monotheism.

All the priests of all the temples of all the other gods, they were now out of power, their shrines removed or converted.

And the highest priest of the one true God was, of course, Akhenaten.

Levitical Yahwism follows much the same pattern in Canaan a century or so later. And the first 11 books of the Hebrew Bible are collected and pieced together from documents of the official religion of different regions or groups, written by various competing sects of Levites over a period spanning several hundred years.

It's not the ramblings of street preachers or anything like that. This is high literature used as an instrument of power.