Archeology and the bible???

[Checkmite]

A long, long time ago, I watched a program dealing with the scientific explanation of Biblical miracles. I remember most strongly the section which concentrated on the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. The assertion was that a section of the Red Sea or Persian Gulf was contoured in such a way that a fierce gale would be able to "push" the water more or less off the land in a particular spot. They demonstrated this too, with a plastic cross-section of the "sea bed" in that location, filled with water, and they turned a high-powered fan on. Sure enough, the shallow spot was uncovered...

...but jaxtaposing this experiment on the real world, how high would that wind end up being? Nobody could stand still in such a gale, let alone walk. If the ability of the Israelites to withstand the gale would be attributed to a "miracle", what's the point of trying to find a scientific explanation for the Sea of Reeds crossing at all?

 

[Correa Neto]

There´s some speculation that the level of the Sea of Reeds was lowered due to an incoming tsunami. The jews passed and when the tsunami came, the egyptians were crossing (bad timing)... The tsunami would have ben originated by the climax of the volcanic eruption that destroyed Akrotiri A.K.A. Thera A.K.A. Santorini (and a possible inspiration for Atlantis myth). The ash collumn from the early stages of the eruption during the day would be the "pillar of smoke" and during the night the "pillar of fire" that guided the jews. It is also speculated that minoic populations affected by the tsunami on Crete and surrounding islands (ports were affected and crops suffered due to the ashfall) migrated to the Middle East and became the people that were the "standard enemy" from the Jews in a large part of the old testament (can´t remember their names, I´m typing in a hurry, my memory failed - alcohol corroded my neurons).

Now, what a benevolent God... Wrecks a civilization to help a bunch of nomads... Or was God guiding the evolution, preserving the tribe that had more potential for development? Is the Bible God somehow a follower of Darwinism?

 

[Checkmite]

I've heard of the Santorini explanation; in fact, it is asserted in the link given in the opening post. However, if the Bible is to be given the benefit of the doubt, the Santorini explanation does not work.

Firstly, a few things must be understood. If we are to use the Bible as our primary reference for the story of the Exodus (actually, it's the only reference in history of the story of the Exodus), then we must pay attention to the way it describes the crossing itself.

Exodus 14
19 ¶ And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:

20 and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.

21 ¶ And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.

22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: Heb. 11.29 and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

23 And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.

24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,

25 and took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians.

26 ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.

27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.

28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.

29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

30 ¶ Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore.

This account clearly identifies the pillar of smoke and fire as a dynamic and immediate phenomenon, rather than a static marker on the horizon. Further, the story describes the water as being divided in a specific location, with "a wall on the right and left" of water. This is not consistent with the extreme low tide effect caused by an incoming tsunami. Of course, we may allow that this account (having been written long after the alleged event) is somewhat stylized and "decorated". But there are other problems as well.

Exodus refers to the king of Egypt continually as "Pharaoh", a term which - unknown to most - wasn't used as a title in Egypt until the reign of Horemheb in 1323 BC. That sets the events alleged in the Book of Exodus as having happened in Horemheb's reign or later. Contextual clues in Exodus point to later.

Exodus 1:11
Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raam'ses.

"Pithom" can't be found; however, "Raam'ses" (b.k.a. Pi-Ramses, literally, "the House of Ramses") is well known. Ramses II had the city of Pi-Ramses built for himself during the reign of his father, Seti, and moved his capital there upon his accession to the throne. This places the slavery of the Israelites in the reign of Seti (1294-1279) and later. Since Moses was raised in the "house of Pharaoh", but was 80 years old when he actually came to Pharaoh to demand the release of his people (Exodus 7:7), this places the time of the plagues and all that either in the reign of Ramses II (1279-1213) or Merneptah (1213-1203), so the actual exodus itself would've taken place during or very shortly after that time (This, by the way, is why all the movies name Ramses II as the Pharaoh during the time of the exodus).

Santorini erupted in 1650 BC, during the reign of one Ay (1664-1641), last Egyptian king of the Middle Kingdom, and nearly 400 years before Moses would've been born. It was also what is known nowadays as a Krakatoan eruption, in which a huge underground magma chamber is suddenly and violently evacuated, causing the land above it to collapse into the empty space left behind, forming a caldera. This type of eruption lasts only a matter of hours, and is paroxysmal. It would have produced a column of smoke for only a day or two, but not a column of "fire", and neither would be visible from way down in Egypt anyway.

If we accept the Bible As Truth, the Santorini explanation does not meet the time-and-place criteria. If we insist that the Santorini theory is the most plausible scientific explanation for the events detailed in Exodus, then we must concede that Exodus is in error, and so the entire account would be suspect anyway.

 

[LW]

I
Exodus refers to the king of Egypt continually as "Pharaoh", a term which - unknown to most - wasn't used as a title in Egypt until the reign of Horemheb in 1323 BC.

Are you certain about that? I've read from several sources (e.g. Alan Gardner's Egyptian Grammar) that "Pharaoh" occurs as a title from the reign of Ankhaten (though, the time difference is not great since apparently Horemheb served Ankhaten under the name Ptahemheb).

However, the literary change that happened in Ankhaten's time was apparently a modernization of language. The written text and spoken language had diverged and Ankhaten made the texts to correspond to the usage of his time. So, it is possible that in common speach "Pharaoh" had already been one of the titles of the King of Two Lands for a considerable time.

As for the history of the title, it originally meant "The Great House", that is, king's palace. Later the meaning shifted to king's court, and finally to king himself.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Re: babylon

I thought that they had found the actual Babylon. And that it was dated to be about 5000 years old. And that they had full scale reading and writing at that time (on clay tablets).

If this is not accurate please let me know.

Based on this,we can speculate with reasonable confidence, they knew how to write.. It is harder to prove they knew how to read..

 

[Correa Neto]

Santorini was a caldera, sure, but only the collapse itself is fast. Caldera collapses are preceeded by Plininan-type eruptions that may last days. Study of ash layers in Thera show that several ash plumes have been liberated by the volcano before the collapse, possible for weeks with some quite episodes. This gave Akrotiri population plenty of time to evacuate the island and even return briefly to grab what they left behind or try to bring their lives back to normal. Archeologica findings seem to favor this view. Whne the empty magma chamber collapsed, after a major ash emmission, there was intense explosive activity, since sea water infiltrated along fractures and encountered hot rocks and what remained of the magma on the magma chamber.

But you are right. The Bible mentions a moving pillar (I never had actually noticed that!), while, Satorini´s plume (supposing it could be seen), was static. And the dates also do not match.

Thanks for the clarification!

 

[ShottleBop]

Incidentally, the list has an omission I was not expecting: the bones of St. Peter. I've got a book, cleverly entitled The Bones of St. Peter, by John Evangelist Walsh, which describes the discovery of Peter's bones (suspiciously, somewhere within the Vatican, IIRC). It's been a long time since I read it, but I seem to remember it was actually rather convincing, if somewhat convenient. Quite an extraordinary story, and though I tend to read lots about this stuff I haven't seen it disconfirmed yet. But I would have thought it would have been number one on the list, had it been true, and throughout the whole recent debate thing around the fake James ossuary I haven't seen it mentioned either.

http://www.atheists.org/church/bones.html

Just this past weekend I read an article in a new issue of "Smithsonian" or "Scientific American" or somesuch (wish I could remember which) lending credence to the view that the bones are NOT those of St. Peter.

 

[ReasonableDoubt]

If we accept the Bible As Truth, the Santorini explanation does not meet the time-and-place criteria. If we insist that the Santorini theory is the most plausible scientific explanation for the events detailed in Exodus, then we must concede that Exodus is in error, and so the entire account would be suspect anyway.

Exactly. Furthermore ...

Can archaeology throw light on the question of the origin of Israel? The answer is not affirmative, as the interpretation of the archaeological evidence is not clear-cut. ...

I. Finkelstein pointed to the resemblance between the settlement process in the central hill country in Iron Age I and a similar phenomenon in the region during MB II. He proposed that the MB II sedentary population, after having been forced to adopt a pastoralist and seminomadic existence in the Late Bronze Age, exploited the opportunity of changing conditions in Iron Age I to return to sedentary life. This interpretation can be linked with the theory that the Israelites emerged from local unsettled Late Bronze groups, such as the Habiru and Shasu known from Egyptian sources. Such a theory perhaps explains the origin of most of the components of the Israelite confederation, but it still does not elucidate the identity of that confederation's nuclear group, which initiated Yahwism and was responsible for the traditions concerning slavery in Egypt, Mount Sinai, and the role of Moses. At present archaeology can contribute nothing to answering this question.

-- Archaeology of the land of the Bible; 10,000-586 B.C.E. by Amihai Mazar

The event is suppose to take place in Egypt, yet Egyptian sources know it not. On the morrow of the Exodus Israel numbered approximately 2.5 million (extrapolated from Num. 1:46); yet the entire population of Egypt at that time was only 3 to 4.5 million! The effct on Egypt must have been cataclysmic -- loss of a servile population, pillaging of gold and silver (Exod. 3:21-22, 12:31-36), destruction of an army -- yet at no point in the history of the country during the New Kingdom is there the slightest hint of the traumatic impact such an event would have on economics or society.

[and later ...]

... we can now genuinely speak of unanimity of the evidence. Whoever supplied the geographic information that now adorns the story had no information earlier than the Saite period (seventh to sixth centuries B.C.). The eastern Delta and Sinai he describes are those of the 26th Dynasty kings and the early Persian overloards: his toponyms reflect the renewed interest in the eastern frontier evidence for this period by fort building and canalization. He knows of "Goshen" of the Qedarite Arabs, and a legendary "Land of Ramessses." He cannot locate the Egyptian court to anything but the largest and most famous city in his own day in the northeastern Delta, namely Tanis, the royal residence from about 1075 to 725 B.C., ...

-- Egypt, Cannan, and Israel in Ancient Times by Donald B. Redford