Debunking the Exodus Code

[Dancing David]

It probably is. I was responding to what the documantarian claimed as the explanation. He thinks the story is true and the firstborn were killed by CO2 asphixiation while everyone else in Egypt slept on roofs. He neglected the livestock, though. I suppose it could have just been awfully crowded with livestock (except the first born of all the cattle, goat, sheep, etc. which I assume shared some priveleged place in the Egyptian world and stayed on the ground at night) on the roofs with all the rest of the population.

ROFLMAO!

You owe me a monitor.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Really? I didn't grasp that he would be angry at a god that would do all of these wonderful feats in Exodus but does nothing of the kind today? Hmm. Part of that "anger" is simply at how silly the belief is, the other part is a fictional anger directed towards a fictional god. It's like being angry at a movie character for doing something stupid.

Ah, we seem to be a bit closer in approach that pure polemics.

If God is, then being mad at Him is going to do you jack sh** of good.

If God isn't, then one is exercising what you so nicely put as "being mad at a fictional character."

In either case, it's a waste of time and emotion.

How nice, that you and I occasionally come close to an accord.

DR

 

[jimbob]

The most remarkable explaination was the one given for the death of all the first born males...

All those children were given special places in the home, first born males supposedly sleep on a low bed near the front of the home, whil other children slept in bunk beds or the roof. CO2 being a heavy gas, and a dealy one, first born males were in a bad place at the wrong time.

*literally* incredible...

350mi+ for the co2 to travel.

I think it would get somewhat diluted by the time it reached Egypt.

Now, ergot affecting the wheat, given in preferance to the first born... (no I don't know if that would have happened,) but at least it could.

Jim

 

[jimbob]

double post

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

*literally* incredible...

350mi+ for the co2 to travel.

I think it would get somewhat diluted by the time it reached Egypt.

Now, ergot affecting the wheat, given in preferance to the first born... (no I don't know if that would have happened,) but at least it could.

Jim

Well, he did say that the CO2 was from undergound deposits from a local earthquake rather than from the Santorini volcano. This, however, doesn't solve th problem of the CO2 needing to seep over the entire Nile region and kill all the firstborn in all of Egypt as well as cause the development of the "bloody Nile" (neglecting in the process that the only instance of this ever happening was in a dead lake with no movement of water and the Nile is sort of a big river with water sort of moving along it sort of, and like, you know, well, yeah, so).

To the filmmaker's credit, he makes it sound so credible if you don't examine the details.

 

[jimbob]

tirple post FUBAR

 

[thaiboxerken]

Ah, we seem to be a bit closer in approach that pure polemics.

If God is, then being mad at Him is going to do you jack sh** of good.

If God isn't, then one is exercising what you so nicely put as "being mad at a fictional character."

In either case, it's a waste of time and emotion.

How nice, that you and I occasionally come close to an accord.

DR

You seem to miss the point that King is simply pointing out that if that biblical god exists, he thinks it must be a rather evil god indeed.

 

[ReligionStudent]

Interesting, wouldn't it be more parsimounious to think the hebrai were nomads and the other ca'ananites were sedentary.

I always thought the oral tradition of the exedous became codified during the babylonian exile.

The pyramids were built by local farmers in egypt.

The idea of the Hebrew is not necessarily as nomads, a term that hs been shown to be historically inaurate to the region, but that they existed on the fringe of society, and that this is what the term meant, not a cultural or religious designation. Thus, the local Canaanites who joined the group or who were eperate from the exodus group, but still did not fit within the society would be aptly called Hebrews. They could be culturally Canaanite, but would be what we called to day hobos or wanderers or somthing like that. Think of someone who just does odd jobs to get by and doesn't pay taxes because it is all under the table.

The time of writting for different portions of the HOT is often debatable, with Exodus and many other parts of the Torah, it was probably pre-exilic, giving the monarchy a historical basis and myth in which to exist. The system of ancestors was likely mythical and stemmed from ancestor worship, still present in Israel/Judah at least until the Exile, creating a fictive tribal system.

The pyramids were not built by the Israelites:
A) they predate the Exodus by a long long time (they are clearly Old Kingdom).
B)Things that were built during the time that the exodus likely refrers to were probably constructed by Egyptian laborers. However, there were certainly foreigners living within Egypt even if unlinked to the construction. We see this throughout the Ancient Near East in powerful and important nations. They would have been religious and political figures, and maybe others who left home nations in search of better lives.