history and myth of Exodus

[TimCallahan]

Though I'm sure this subject has been discussed before, during my arguments with Paul Bethke on a number of subjects, that of the historicity of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan as portrayed in the Book of Joshua came up. Since I could not deal with it without derailing a previous thread, I decided to start this one on the subject.

A number of American archaeologists have excavated sites in the Levant, many of them, such as Joseph Callaway, who was also a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, were searching for evidence that would support the historicity of Joshua. What he and others found was that the cities reported to have been great walled cities utterly destroyed by the Israelites in a blitzkrieg campaign, for the most part, either weren't destroyed, weren't occupied at the time or were small towns. There was no archaeological support for Joshua's conquest. As it turns out, there's also no support for the historicity of Egypt suffering great plagues, followed by the destruction of most of its chariotry, as reported in Biblical accounts of the miracle at the sea.

To examine the possible historical vs. mythic roots of the Exodus / Conquest, we have to locate the drama in time as well as place. The initial basis for dating the Exodus was this passage from 1 Kings (1 Kgs. 6:1):

In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD.

To the degree Solomon can be considered historical, he would have begun to rule ca. 965 BCE. Thus, four years into his reign would be 961 BCE, or we can round it off to 960 BCE. Adding 480 years to this date gives us 1440 BCE, which we can round off to ca. 1450 BCE. The problem of dating the Exodus that early is that Egypt's New Kingdom remained powerful from the expulsion of the Hyksos by Ahmose I (1570 -1546) through the reign of Amenhotep III (1386 - 1349). Thutmosis III, called "the Napoleon of ancient Egypt, reigned from 1504 - 1450, which, if the Exodus is dated according to 1 Kgs. 6:1, would make him the pharaoh of the Exodus. However, rather than suffering a rapid loss of power due to the destruction of 600+ chariots in the Red Sea (or Sea of Reeds), under Thutmosis III Egypt conquered the Levant and western Syria, greatly extending its imperial power.

Under the reign of Amenhotep IV, who renamed himself Akhenaten (1350 - 1334), Egypt suffered a loss of power due to his inattention to the affairs of the Levant. The Hittite Empire, which was expanding at that time, gained territory in Syria and began to encroach on the Levant. With the death of Akhenaten and his son Tutankhamun (1334 - 1325), the eighteenth dynasty collapsed, and there was an interregnum.

Ramesses I (1293 - 1291) established the nineteenth dynasty, and his son, Seti 1 (1291 -1278) led military campaigns into Syria. His son, Ramesses II, styled Ramesses the Great (1279 - 1212), fought the Hittites to a standstill at the Battle of Kadesh (or at least avoided being beaten by them at that indecisive battle). He concluded a peace treaty with the Hittites. After his reign, his son Merneptah (1212 - 1202) put own revolts in Canaan. It is in his victory stele that we find the first mention of a people - one among many in Canaan - called "Israel." With the deterioration of the great powers toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, Egypt began to lose its hold on the Levant. However, in the twentieth dynasty (1185 -1070), Egypt had one last revival of the New Kingdom's power under the reign of Ramesses III (1182 - 1151). He re-invaded the Levant, and archaeological evidence supports the history that Egyptian garrisons were in place in the Levant through his reign.

Thus, history and archaeology support considerable Egyptian involvement in Canaan from ca. 1480 to ca. 1150 BCE. Yet, while the Book of Judges reports the Israelites being oppressed by invading Ishmaelites (Arabs), Midianites, Moabites, Ammonites and Philistines; neither the Egyptians nor the Hittites are mentioned. Therefore, to the degree that any of the stories in Judges are historical, we must assume they date from a period after the last hurrah of the New Kingdom under Ramesses III, in other words after ca. 1150. Even the conquest of Canaan by Joshua would have to have taken place at a time when Egypt was too weak to prevent it. Judges begins immediately after the death of Joshua (Jud. 1:1):

After the death of Joshua the people of Israel inquired of the LORD, "Who shall go up first against the Canaanites to fight against them?"

Judges 1 proceeds to detail the further triumphs and frustrations of the various Israelite tribes against various Canaanite cities. Judges 2 begins the cycle of the people of Israel doing what was, "evil in the sight of the LORD," i.e. worshipping other gods, followed by God bringing in other peoples to oppress the Israelites. The people repent, and God raises up a deliverer to lead them against their oppressors. Thus, there is no gap between Joshua and Judges, into which could fall all the history of Egyptian involvement in the Levant between an exodus in 1450 and the end of Egyptian power there ca. 1150.

This failure to mention the Egyptians or the Hittites, along with the historical and archaeological support for continued robust Egyptian power in Canaan until the early Iron Age, makes a date for the Exodus of ca. 1450 BCE untenable.

There is one period in the 1400s where the archaeology shows sudden, widespread destruction of a number of walled cities in Canaan. However, this serves more as an archaeological support for the campaigns of Pharaoh Thutmosis III (1504 - 1450) than for any exodus dating from that time.

Because Egyptian power only began to wain after 1200, that is the date when most historians and archaeologists place any possible historical Exodus / Conquest. In my next post, I'll examine the strengths and weaknesses of such a dating.

 

[TimCallahan]

Dating the Exodus ca. 1200 BCE has many attractions. Among them are these:

1) The earliest mention we have of of an entity called is Israel is in the Victory Stele set up by Merneptah, who reigned 1212 -1202 BCE. When using names, the Egyptians added symbols, placed at the beginning of the word, called "determinatives," that indicted what sort of entity was being named. Thus, without a determinative, "Israel" could refer to a person, a tribal group, a city or a kingdom. The determinative used with "Israel" in Merneptah's Victory Stele is that of a people or tribal group, as opposed to a kingdom.

2) Since the 1200s were a time of upheaval, when the great powers of the Late Bronze Age were crumbling, we would expect such an upheaval as a large band of slaves breaking free, as well as the establishment of new peoples. The end of the Late Bronze Age is referred to as "the Catastrophe" because of the many cities that were sacked in the 1200s and into the 1100s. During this time, the great cities of the Aegean region, Troy, Mycenae and many others, were destroyed. Th same is true of Asia Minor. The Hittite Empire fragmented, Assyria, which had been expanding, contracted and didn't begin a second expansion until well into the Iron Age. Egypt managed to ride out the catastrophe, but had to repel major invasions on the part of alliances of groups they had previously used as foriegn mercenaries, such peoples as the Shardana (from Sardinia) and Peleset (Philistines). One of these invasions occurred during the reign of Merneptah (1212 - 1202). Two more occurred during the reign of Ramesses III (1182 - 1151). Ramesses III resettled some of the defeated groups, such as the Peleset, in the Levant as border troops manning his garrisons there. After the decline of Egyptian power, the Peleset or Philistines became an independent power in Canaan. Thus, the scenario of unsettled times and protracted struggles between tribal groups, including mounting pressure on the Israelites from the Philistines, logically flows from this period of upheaval.

We have examples of the appearance of new peoples when various tribal groups split or fuse during chaotic times, from the period of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. One of these involves remnants of the Suevi left behind in southern Germany after the main body of the Suevi had ended up in Spain. The Suevic remnants coalesced into a tribe who called themselves the Bavars, from whom we get the name Bavaria. Likewise, the various Germanic invaders of Roman Britain, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and Franks, eventually became the English. So, we would expect new peoples such as the Israelites, to arise in a period of flux, such as the Catastrophe at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

For all that, however, there are problems with dating the Exodus ca. 1200 BCE. These are as follows:

1) There is no pattern of widespread destruction of the great cities of Canaan ca. 1200 that would fit with Joshua's blitzkrieg conquest. The cities mentioned in Joshua either weren't inhabited at the time; were small, unwalled villages rather than large, walled cities; or were walled cities but showed no signs of destruction.

2) If Ramesses II is the pharaoh of the Exodus, then we would expect Merneptah to have mainly encountered Israelites and only a few other peoples in his reassertion of Egyptian power. Yet, Israel is only one tribal group among many inMerneptahs Victory Stele. If Merneptah is the pharaoh of the Exodus, then how do we account for the failure of the Bible to mention the final assertion of Bronze Age Egypt's power in Canaan by Ramesses III. That monarch could be a nominee for the pharaoh of the Exodus, since Egyptian power declines rapidly after his death in 1151. However, were he the pharaoh of the Exodus, we would have to explain why the Israelites were already in Canaan at the time of Merneptah.

There is certainly no support for the grand conquest of Canaan as portrayed in Joshua. For that mater, Joshua and Judges are at variance with each other, the former depicting a complete conquest, the latter showing the Israelites in control of the hill country, but kept from controlling the plains by the Canaanite chariot forces (Jud. 1:19 and 1:34):

1:19: And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.

1:34: The Amorites pressed the Danites back into the hill country, for they did not allow them to come dow to the plain.

Judges also presents a picture of incomplete conquest of the various Canaanite cities (Jud. 1:27 - 33):

Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Ta'anach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages or the inhabitants of Ileam and its villages, o the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.

And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who dwelt in Gezer, but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.

Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became subjects of forced labor.

Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, or of Achizib, or of Helbah, or of Aphik, or of Rehob; but the Amorites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.

Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.

This is a much more realistic picture in light of history and archaeology. Thus, one can dispense with the grand myth of the conquest in Joshua and see the Israelites in incomplete control of Canaan, mainly holding the hill country and kept from expanding into the plains by the chariots of those inhabiting the city states of Canaan. Thus, Judges does appear to have at least a kernel of history behind its stories.

Since there cannot be found a pharaoh or a time that seems to fit the Exodus, can their be any historical kernel lying at its core? I'll tackle that in my next post.

 

[aggle-rithm]

The most reasonable interpretation I've heard about the Exodus is that it was actually the migration of a small group of people from Egypt to Canaan. They settled in with an indigenous community and shared the stories of their journey, as well as the adoption of one of the religions they picked up along the way, the worship of a god called YWH. Over time the stories got bigger and bigger, until it became a mass relocation of a whole culture.

That explains the lack of archeological evidence for such a massive journey.

 

[TimCallahan]

The most reasonable interpretation I've heard about the Exodus is that it was actually the migration of a small group of people from Egypt to Canaan. They settled in with an indigenous community and shared the stories of their journey, as well as the adoption of one of the religions they picked up along the way, the worship of a god called YWH. Over time the stories got bigger and bigger, until it became a mass relocation of a whole culture.

That explains the lack of archeological evidence for such a massive journey.

Yes, that's the most reasonable explanation. Another explanation is that the whole thing was made up. One reason to see a small scale exodus as likely is the persistence of Egyptian names among the Levites. Another is that the earliest inscription of the name Yah, a shortened form of Yahweh, appears in what was then Edom, just north of the Gulf of Aqaba. There are earlier inscriptions bearing Yah or some variant, but always in conjunction with another word, such as Yahwi-Haddu. Since the name Yahweh is a form of the verb "to be," and since Hadd, Haddu and Haddad ar forms ofthe name of the west Semitic storm god, Yahwi-Haddu probably means something like, "Haddu causes [this child] to be." It is possible the Levites or a core group of the tribe picked up the worship of a deity called Yahweh, "He who causes to be," in Edom and brought it north to Canaan.

As to the Egyptian names among the Levites, the formost of these is "Moses." The biblical explanation for his name is found in Ex. 2:10b:

. . . and she [pharaoh's daughter] named him Moses, for she said, Because I drew him out of the water."

This is a pun on the Hebrew word mashah, "to draw out." Of course, pharaoh's daughter wouldn't have ben speaking Hebrew. A much more reasonable source of the name is the Egyption suffix rendered in our alphabet either as mose (pronounced MO-seh) or mosis. This suffix means "child," as in Ahmose (AKH-MO-seh), "child of the Moon," Thutmosis, "Child of Thoth", and Ramasses, "Child of Ra." So, pharaoh's daughter called the child she had found, "Child."

Hophni ("tadpole") and Phinehas ("dark one") are two other Egyptian names that keep cycling through stories involving the Levites. They are the names of two of Aron's sons, as well as anmes of the two corrupt sons of Eli (1 Sam. 1:3).

The escape of a band of slaves might be nothing of great moment to the Egyptians. However, it would be extremely momentous for the escaping slaves. In my next post I'll deal with the mythic and (possible) historical bases for the plagues against Egypt and the Miracle at the Sea.

The finding of the infant Moses is pure myth. Sargon the great of Akkad (ca. 2300 BCE) was, supposedly the son of a priestess, who wasn't suppose to bear children. She knew her child would be subjected to exposure; so she kept her pregnancy a secret, bore the child in secret and, when he was in danger of being discovered, set him afloat in a basket caulked with bitumin. Akki, the royal gardener, found the baby floating in an irrigation canal and raised him as his own. Sargon grew up to be a great leader.

The image of the child floating on the waters of the great abyss is a common motif in Egypt, as in the Dama Heroub Papyrus; and Isis suckling to Horus while hiding in the papyrus swamp is another image that foreshadows the tale of Moses.

 

[davefoc]

It has been a while since I thought about this topic. Years ago I read the book, "The Bible Unearthed" which forms the basis for most of my views about the historicity of the Old Testament.

My view is that everything associated with the Moses story is fiction.

What I wrote several years ago on this topic:

The theory put forth in "The Bible Unearthed" is that the Hyksos expulsion may have served as an inspiration for the migration from Egypt portion of the story, but that the actual story is written about 600 bce. This idea is based on a theory by Donald Redford. Redford observed that most of the place names and the political situation are roughly consistent with that time frame and that is the time frame that evidence for the writing of the bible first appears.

The following is based largely on a summary of some of the arguments put forth in "The Bible Unearthed". I looked up most of the references in the Bible to verify that the claim was consistent with what the Bible actually said. I didn't include the relevant sections from the Bible because it made the post too long.

Hyksos expulsion
1. Date is 1570 bce instead of 1440 bce date calculated from 480 years after Solomon’s temple
2. No archeological evidence of a large population (600,000 men according to Bible) moving through the desert.
3. No archeological evidence of a large population (600,000 men according to Bible) at any of the locations named in Bible in this time
4. Well before any evidence of a Hebrew people. First mention in Egyptian Hieroglyphics in roughly 1200 bce
5. No evidence of a mass murder of children by Egyptians
6. Incident involved the forced expulsion of a people and not the escape
7. The city of Ramesses would not be built for hundreds of years after this period

Arguments for it
1. There is evidence for a people believed to come from Canaan at the Tell ed-Daba site where habitation began about 1800 bce and ended at about the time of the expulsion documented in Egyptian hieroglyphics
2. The name of the Pharaoh was Ahmose which is close to Moses

Exodus under Ramesses II
1. Date is about 150 years after the date calculated based on 480 years after Solomon’s temple
2. No evidence for mass migration through the desert
3. No evidence for habitation of any of the sites mentioned as stopping points in the Bible
4. No evidence at this time for the mass expulsion or escape of a large population
5. At this time the Egyptians had an organized system of border guards documented both through hieroglyphics and archeological evidence. A mass escape of a portion of the Egyptian population could have been resisted by them and would have been noted by them. There are no records or evidence of such a confrontation.
6. The first mention of Israel does not occur until Ramesses II son has taken over

General comments that apply to both theories for the Exodus
1. The bible does not mention a pharaoh by name. This is strange given that later pharaohs are mentioned and the major importance that the pharaoh plays in this story.
2. The stories have the clear tone of a propaganda piece designed to give a population a puffed up sense of their own place in history. By modern standards the stories might be judged as racist.
3. The story is vague when it comes to details that can be verified and is at least somewhat anachronistic with regards to the likely possible time frames.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, as Tim was saying, just about half the Pharaoh names are going to sound like "Moses" -- if you fill in the right vowels, that is, because really we only have the consonants and nobody has a flipping clue if it's Ahmoses or Ahmeses or Ahmisisu or whatever -- because the "ms" or "mss" particle at the end means "child of", or more accurately "born to". In fact, it has to do strictly with birth, or descent, as "child" is actually IIRC "khered", and "son" is IIRC "sa".

Add a "t" and you get the feminine, btw: "daughter" is "sat". As in, for example, the princess Satsobek, i.e., "daughter of Sobek". Generally, IIRC female names of such divine descent were generally the "sat" kind of construct, as opposed to the "born of" that was pretty much the standard for male names of that type.

So actually taken as Egyptian, Moses's name is an even more complete nonsense. It doesn't even mean "child", it means "born". Right, I'm so totally believing that an Egyptian would do that complete nonsense

But anyway, of course that just about every other male prince would kinda sound like it has "moses" at the end, if you fill in the right vowels. Ahmoses, Kamoses (also involved in the Hyksos conflict,) Thutmoses, Ramoses, etc.

 

[TimCallahan]

It has been a while since I thought about this topic. Years ago I read the book, "The Bible Unearthed" which forms the basis for most of my views about the historicity of the Old Testament.

My view is that everything associated with the Moses story is fiction.

What I wrote several years ago on this topic:

The theory put forth in "The Bible Unearthed" is that the Hyksos expulsion may have served as an inspiration for the migration from Egypt portion of the story, but that the actual story is written about 600 bce. This idea is based on a theory by Donald Redford. Redford observed that most of the place names and the political situation are roughly consistent with that time frame and that is the time frame that evidence for the writing of the bible first appears.

In fact, Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews, identified the Jews with the Hyksos, saying that the Egyptians drove them out of Egypt; but, because of their great leader, Moses, they were able to exploit the Egyptians on their way out. In other words, Josephus was saying, "We didn't start out as mere shepherds. We were princes, warriors and one-time rulers of Egypt."

I suspect Redford is wrong about the story only dating from ca. 600 BCE. As far as I know the "J" Document is most likely from ca. 850 BCE. In Who Wrote the Bible?, Richard Elliott Friedman argues persuasively that "P" was written during the reign of Hezekiah (715 - 687 BCE) or ca. 650 BCE "E" would, then have been written sometime between the two, perhaps ca. 700 BCE. Thus "J" might bear the same relationship to any historical kernel dating from ca. 1200 BCE as the writings of Homer bear to any kernel upon which was based the grand myth of the Trojan War.

The following is based largely on a summary of some of the arguments put forth in "The Bible Unearthed". I looked up most of the references in the Bible to verify that the claim was consistent with what the Bible actually said. I didn't include the relevant sections from the Bible because it made the post too long.

Hyksos expulsion
1. Date is 1570 bce instead of 1440 bce date calculated from 480 years after Solomon’s temple
2. No archeological evidence of a large population (600,000 men according to Bible) moving through the desert.
3. No archeological evidence of a large population (600,000 men according to Bible) at any of the locations named in Bible in this time
4. Well before any evidence of a Hebrew people. First mention in Egyptian Hieroglyphics in roughly 1200 bce
5. No evidence of a mass murder of children by Egyptians
6. Incident involved the forced expulsion of a people and not the escape
7. The city of Ramesses would not be built for hundreds of years after this period

Arguments for it
1. There is evidence for a people believed to come from Canaan at the Tell ed-Daba site where habitation began about 1800 bce and ended at about the time of the expulsion documented in Egyptian hieroglyphics
2. The name of the Pharaoh was Ahmose which is close to Moses

Exodus under Ramesses II
1. Date is about 150 years after the date calculated based on 480 years after Solomon’s temple
2. No evidence for mass migration through the desert
3. No evidence for habitation of any of the sites mentioned as stopping points in the Bible
4. No evidence at this time for the mass expulsion or escape of a large population
5. At this time the Egyptians had an organized system of border guards documented both through hieroglyphics and archeological evidence. A mass escape of a portion of the Egyptian population could have been resisted by them and would have been noted by them. There are no records or evidence of such a confrontation.
6. The first mention of Israel does not occur until Ramesses II son has taken over

General comments that apply to both theories for the Exodus
1. The bible does not mention a pharaoh by name. This is strange given that later pharaohs are mentioned and the major importance that the pharaoh plays in this story.
2. The stories have the clear tone of a propaganda piece designed to give a population a puffed up sense of their own place in history. By modern standards the stories might be judged as racist.
3. The story is vague when it comes to details that can be verified and is at least somewhat anachronistic with regards to the likely possible time frames.

Any historical kernel upon which the myth of the Exodus was based would have to have involved a very small band of slaves who caught a lucky break and escaped from Egypt. Several small-scale events could also have been telescoped into one in the process of being mythologized. The general theme of an exodus from Egypt might also be based on the proto-Israelites leaving the Egyptian-sponsored city states of the plains of Canaan and moving into the hill country to practice small scale dry country agriculture, using cisterns to catch and store rainwater, plus animal husbandly, also on a small scale. I'll talk more about this in a later post.

 

[TimCallahan]

Well, as Tim was saying, just about half the Pharaoh names are going to sound like "Moses" -- if you fill in the right vowels, that is, because really we only have the consonants and nobody has a flipping clue if it's Ahmoses or Ahmeses or Ahmisisu or whatever -- because the "ms" or "mss" particle at the end means "child of", or more accurately "born to". In fact, it has to do strictly with birth, or descent, as "child" is actually IIRC "khered", and "son" is IIRC "sa".

Add a "t" and you get the feminine, btw: "daughter" is "sat". As in, for example, the princess Satsobek, i.e., "daughter of Sobek". Generally, IIRC female names of such divine descent were generally the "sat" kind of construct, as opposed to the "born of" that was pretty much the standard for male names of that type.

So actually taken as Egyptian, Moses's name is an even more complete nonsense. It doesn't even mean "child", it means "born". Right, I'm so totally believing that an Egyptian would do that complete nonsense

But anyway, of course that just about every other male prince would kinda sound like it has "moses" at the end, if you fill in the right vowels. Ahmoses, Kamoses (also involved in the Hyksos conflict,) Thutmoses, Ramoses, etc.

Thanks for this extra information, Hans. I'll be sure to keep in "on file" in my memory. Many times on this forum, when I think I know something, I find out from you, Marduk and others how little I actually know.

 

[Senex]

I'm interested in knowing if I can call the Exodus woo without being contradicted.

I have already said that to an ex Jewish girlfriend who was a friend with benefits and now isn't.

I was right to call woo wasn't I?

 

[Loss Leader]

Since we know that the Exodus from Egypt did take place, it's really just a matter of discounting any purported evidence that appears to contradict it.

 

[TimCallahan]

One of those things glaringly absent from both the historical and archaeological record is any evidence to substantiate the miracles of Exodus: the plagues against Egypt and the destruction of the Egyptian chariot force in the miracle at the sea.

Finding a "natural" explanation for the plagues, often a single unifying cause, is a favorite hobby-horse for those trying to rationalize, thereby making historical and "scientific," the miracles of Exodus. Immanuel Velikovsky, of course, blamed the whole thing on close encounters with the planet Venus. While I was researching Secret Origins of the Bible, I came across a book in the Fuller Theological Seminary Library, written by two fundamentalist engineers, that based every miracle in the Bible on the planet Mars formerly having an eccentric orbit that, at odd periods, brought it close to that of the earth. The authors not only used these many close passes by the red planet to explain the miracles of the Exodus, but the Jordan drying up for the Israelites to invade Canaan in Joshua (a version of the miracle at the sea), as well generating the earthquake that caused the walls of Jericho to fall down. They even used one of these passes to explain the "plague" that supposedly wiped out Sennacherib's army of 185,000 men in a single night; that plague being Mars sweeping a swarm of meteorites into the orbit of the earth. These apparently fell on the Assyrian army, while completely missing Jerusalem.

Some years ago, I was regularly attending lectures of an organization called the "Museum of Ancient Art." There was a guy attending those lectures who always asked leading questions, fishing for support for his favorite theory, that the miracles of Exodus, plus a whole lot more, were attributable to the volcanic eruption on the isle of Thera. I used to think of him as "the Thera nut." According to the Thera theory (hey, that has a nice ring), the Nile turning to blood was from stuff dumped in it by the eruption. This pollution drove out frogs, which invaded the homes of the Egyptians (plague #2). They died in large numbers generating a population explosion in gnats and flies, et cetera, et cetara. Finally, another in a series of eruptions created a volcanic plume visible from Egypt, the pillars of smoke by day and of flame by night. An earthquake generated by the eruptions created a tsunami in one branch of the Red Sea, beginning with the tide pulling far out, allowing the Israelites to cross the seabed dry-shod, then rolling back in to drown the pursuing Egyptians. This is all very neat, but the problem is, IIRC, the eruption of Thera occurred ca. 1600 to 1500 BCE.

Using the Documentary theory, we can rationalize the plagues somewhat. Since both E and P deal with the plagues, and partially overlap, there are, in fact only seven, rather than ten plagues. For example, one word in Hebrew is translated as both "gnats" and "flies" (plagues 3 and 4). If there are seven plagues, this fits a ritualistic formula of one plague for each day of the week. The plagues themselves are elaborations of seasonal ills that regularly afflict Egypt. However, I'll deal with these in more detail in a later post.

The J version of the Exodus myth omits the plagues. Moses says to Pharaoh, "Let my people go." Pharaoh says, "No, I won't let your people go." Moses tells his people, "We're going, anyway." The Egyptians pursue the Israelites and are wiped out in the miracle at the sea. When we tease apart the J, E and P sections of Exodus, the E version of the miracle at the sea is reduced to Yahweh clogging the Egyptians' chariot wheels and making them run heavily. A historical basis of the miracle at the sea, based on E, would be this: A band of slaves escaping from Egypt on foot are pursued by a group of Egyptian chariots, which are sure to run them down. However, they are saved by a clever stratagem: They flee on foot across a tidal flat as the tide is coming in. The pursuing chariots' wheels sink into the soft, wet sand, and the people are saved.

While this could have been a historical kernel upon which the miracle at the sea was based, we must also remember that God dividing the sea is a metaphor repeated many times in the Bible. Ultimately, it derives from Marduk dividing the carcass of the sea monster, Ti'amat, to create the ordered world in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma elish. It is interesting that Ti'amat is cognate with the Hebrew word tehomot ("the depths"), the feminine plural of tehom. Tehom seems to be related to tohu, the word for the formless abyss at the beginning of creation (Gen. 1:1, 2):

In the beginning, God created [or possibly "divided"] the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form [tohu] and void [bohu], and darkness was on the face of the deep [tehom]; and the Spirit [or "wind"] of God was moving over the face of the waters.

If bohu is related to other words as tohu is to tehom, tehomot, then perhaps we could get bohu, behom, behomot or behemoth; but this is just speculation on my part. What is important is that there is a mythic basis for the miracle at the sea.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

The problem with Venus is that it's only, you know, the brightest thing in the sky after the Sun and Moon, so as soon as any civilization starts being able to count at all, it starts counting the cycles of Venus. Just about anyone from China to middle east to the mesoamericans counted the days in those cycles and all.

E.g., from the middle east such a record are the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, from circa 17'th century BCE. It's not the only one, nor even the earliest IIRC.

So we kinda have a pretty darn good idea of what Venus was doing at such historical times, and the basic answer is: same thing it's doing today. There was no Venus flying out of orbit at any suitable time for that exodus, or anything.

And the thing about space is, as Douglas Adams put it, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." But really, space in the solar system is MUCH larger than any representation you'd find on paper or the internet of the solar system, and people don't really understand how much more space than planet size there is. And any gravitational influence is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

What I'm saying is that the main thing causing a gravity well around us is really just the Sun, followed by the Moon. Everything else is lost in the decimals. To put it in perspective, IIRC all other planets combined have less gravity pull on you than the ball when you're playing football or basketball. Even something as gigantic as Jupiter, its influence can be technically described as "bugger all".

So, yeah, it ain't gonna rain frog because Venus or Mars got to be only 56 MILLION kilometres away.

I mean, to put it into perspective how little Mars would do, let's assume that instead of Mars we'd actually have something with the same mass as Earth. I.e., a seriously beefed up Mars. Earth's mass causes 1g gravity at 6400 km. Mars gets as close as about 56 MILLION km. That's a little under 9000 times as far as the centre of the Earth. If it had the same mass as Earth, Mars's gravity pull on you would be about 80 MILLION times smaller than Earth's gravity. That's about 0.000001g. No, really, that's the actual exact number of zeroes after the decimal point. That's a millionth of a percent as order of magnitude.

But Mars is actually only a TENTH as heavy as the Earth, so you can add another zero there. No, seriously, the worst pull Mars will ever have on you is about 0.0000001g. A tenth of a millionth of a percent of Earth's gravity.

So anyone who expects that to cause rivers to float uphill, and tectonic plates to upheave, and such nonsense, just told me they're frakking stupid.

ETA: Heck, anyone expecting even subtle influences, horoscope style, is still frakkin' stupid. The cat moving around the house on the day of your conception or the doctors around you when you're born, will have more gravity pull than Mars to influence things

 

[davefoc]

I'm interested in knowing if I can call the Exodus woo without being contradicted.

I have already said that to an ex Jewish girlfriend who was a friend with benefits and now isn't.

I was right to call woo wasn't I?

Well, if I wanted to get laid, I think avoiding topics like this might be a good idea.

Probably, only a very small percentage of the population is even aware of the idea that there might not have been an actual flesh and blood Jesus but I think the percentage of the population that has considered the possibility that Moses didn't exist is even smaller. It is a myth that we grow up with, even people like myself that have no memory of religious belief assume that Moses existed and only the super natural stuff was made up.

I have participated a bit in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict discussions around here and periodically somebody refers to Moses like he was a real character.

It is always risky to openly express one's skeptic beliefs in public without a pretty good understanding of your audience. But I think announcing a view that the Moses narrative was made up either entirely or almost entirely to a general audience could be very problematic. But if truth is your only issue I think you can feel fairly confident that the entire Moses narrative is fiction with only the possibility of the slightest inspiration from reality.

And if truth is your only issue you have definitely distinguished yourself from every other horny guy is the world.

 

[Lowpro]

Well if you at least throw it out there it'll be a first time for them to hear it and let those neurons loosen some cobwebs ya know.

 

[pakeha]

... his favorite theory, that the miracles of Exodus, plus a whole lot more, were attributable to the volcanic eruption on the isle of Thera. ...This is all very neat, but the problem is, IIRC, the eruption of Thera occurred ca. 1600 to 1500 BCE. ...

Ah, yes, the Thera Theory^TM.
It came up in an after dinner conversation last week. Amazing what a pull it has even today, isn't it?
As you say, it is 'all very neat'.
Shame the dates are wrong.

 

[Senex]

Well, if I wanted to get laid, I think avoiding topics like this might be a good idea.

This was an ex girlfriend I considered marrying. She wasn't Jewish at all when we dated but now she has a daughter and she wants her daughter to have all the Jewish stuff.

My relationship with the ex (let's call her Nancy because that is her name) was initially based on sex because she is a social worker and I was the unenlightened as far she was concerned. Our relationship worked. I don't wish to brag but I'm a good listener and I am able to handle women who are difficult nuts to crack. Some get married and miss me and that's why we still are friends with benefits 24 years after we broke up. She is now divorced.

However she started inviting me to Saders and other such bulloney. I had to be clear I'm an atheist and can be at these events but don't expect me to react appropriately.

She was OK with this as long as I changed her locks and did some plumbing. She was angry about me calling woo but she truly was pissed at something else. When I told her there is no evidence in the Sanai peninsula of Jews being lost she was pissed.

 

[aggle-rithm]

One of those things glaringly absent from both the historical and archaeological record is any evidence to substantiate the miracles of Exodus: the plagues against Egypt and the destruction of the Egyptian chariot force in the miracle at the sea.

To me, some of the miracles are given credence by their uncanny resemblance to cheap parlor tricks. Like Moses making his hand turn leprous.

Really, Moses? This is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and the best he can do to demonstrate his power is indistinguishable from a lame magic trick?

 

[aggle-rithm]

I mean, to put it into perspective how little Mars would do, let's assume that instead of Mars we'd actually have something with the same mass as Earth. I.e., a seriously beefed up Mars. Earth's mass causes 1g gravity at 6400 km. Mars gets as close as about 56 MILLION km. That's a little under 9000 times as far as the centre of the Earth. If it had the same mass as Earth, Mars's gravity pull on you would be about 80 MILLION times smaller than Earth's gravity. That's about 0.000001g. No, really, that's the actual exact number of zeroes after the decimal point. That's a millionth of a percent as order of magnitude.

But Mars is actually only a TENTH as heavy as the Earth, so you can add another zero there. No, seriously, the worst pull Mars will ever have on you is about 0.0000001g. A tenth of a millionth of a percent of Earth's gravity.

So anyone who expects that to cause rivers to float uphill, and tectonic plates to upheave, and such nonsense, just told me they're frakking stupid.

ETA: Heck, anyone expecting even subtle influences, horoscope style, is still frakkin' stupid. The cat moving around the house on the day of your conception or the doctors around you when you're born, will have more gravity pull than Mars to influence things

Randi mentions this in "Flim-Flam". He said in order to cancel out the gravitational influence of Mars, all you have to do is sit down.

 

[TimCallahan]

The problem with Venus is that it's only, you know, the brightest thing in the sky after the Sun and Moon, so as soon as any civilization starts being able to count at all, it starts counting the cycles of Venus. Just about anyone from China to middle east to the mesoamericans counted the days in those cycles and all.

E.g., from the middle east such a record are the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, from circa 17'th century BCE. It's not the only one, nor even the earliest IIRC.

So we kinda have a pretty darn good idea of what Venus was doing at such historical times, and the basic answer is: same thing it's doing today. There was no Venus flying out of orbit at any suitable time for that exodus, or anything. . . . (mega-snip . . .

It gets better. If you've ever read one of Velikovsky's books, you'll find that he believed Venus erupted out of Jupiter - as an asteroid no less! Manna falling from heaven had its origins, according to Velikovsky, because Venus actually got close enough to earth that the two planets actually traded a bit of atmosphere, that of Venus being mainly hydrocarbons (remember that it erupted out of Jupiter). These hydrocarbons, upon entering our atmosphere, were partially oxidized into carbohydrates, and - voila! - we have manna falling from heaven!

So, even aside from the minor problem of preserved documentation Hans brought up, to accept Velikovsky's theory, we have to believe that a rocky planet erupted out of a gas giant, that Venus had an reducing atmosphere made up of hydrocarbons - though we know it has an oxidized atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide - and that it came close enough to the earth that their atmospheres mingled - but, miraculously, this didn't result in the combined gravitational fields ripping both planets apart.

Even Velikovsky's theory that that the human race repressed the memory of the traumatic encounters with Venus, letting them resurface from the subconscious in the form of mythic narratives is woo. As psychologist Carol Tavris has noted, regarding repressed memories, the problem of traumatized and abused people isn't that they can't remember the abuse / trauma. It's that they can't forget it.

 

[TimCallahan]

If we look at the ten plagues against Egypt from he perspective of the Documentary Theory, they divide between E and P as follows:

1. Nile turned to blood - found in E & P
2. frogs - found in E & P
3. mosquitoes or gnats (Hebrew arob) - found in P
4. flies (Hebrew arob) - found in E
5. sores on cattle - found in E
6. boils on beasts and men - found in P
7. hail - found in E & P
8. Locusts - found in E
9. Darkness - found in E
10. death of the firstborn (or the flower of Egyptian youth) - found in E and P

Since the word in the original Hebrew, arob, has been translated two different ways in plagues 3 and 4, and one is P while the other is E, it's plain to see that there's really only one plague here. The duplication is an artifact of two overlapping documents. The same is true of plagues 5 and 6 which only vary slightly, E having it as sores on cattle alone (plague 5) and P having it as boils on cattle and men (plague 6). Teasing E and P apart we get the following list of plagues from E:

1. Nile turned to blood
2. frogs
3. flies (arob)
4. sores on cattle
5. hail
6. locusts
7. darkness
8. death of firstborn (Passover)

The list of plagues from P is:

1. Nile turned to blood
2. frogs
3. gnats (arob)
4. boils on beasts and men
5. hail
6. death of the firstborn (Passover)

Both the eight plagues of E and the six plagues of P can be rationalized into a seven day week if E saw the passover as being separate from the other plagues, and if P saw it as one of six plagues, with a seventh day, the sabbath, as holy, being devoid of plagues.

The list of plagues is somewhat complicated by two other versions, found in the Psalms. In Ps. 78:44 - 51 they are listed as:

1. Nile turned to blood
2. flies
3. frogs
4. caterpillars (eating the crops)
5. locusts (eating the crops)
6. hail, frosts and thunderbolts
7. death of the firstborn

In Ps. 105:28 - 36 we have yet another version, where the plagues are enumerated as:

1. darkness
2. Nile turned to blood
3. frogs
4. flies
5. hail
6. locusts
7. death of the firstborn

Psalm 78 omits darkness, but adds caterpillars to eat the crops, along with the locusts. This sort of redundancy only makes sense if it was ritualistically important that the number of plagues total as seven.

Since the plagues against Egypt seem keyed to the period of a week in all four versions, and since the versions all vary from one another, what we are dealing with here seems to be a ritualistic representation, rather than anything historical.

Is there any sort of naturalistic explanation for the plagues? Herbert May, Old Testament editor of the 1962 version of the Oxford Annotated Bible (OAB), sees the plagues as part of a seasonal cycle :

1. At the height of summer, just before the annual flood, the Nile turns a reddish color due to suspended particles plus some naturally occurring microorganisms.

2. The excess of frogs occurs just after the annual flood.

3. Gnats, flies and mosquitoes increase in number in the autumn as the flooded areas begin to dry up, leaving behind stagnant pools of water.

4. The sores and / or boils on cattle and humans would be a logical consequence of many mosquito bites, as well as diseases spread by flies.

5. The plagues of hail and locusts are not part of the regular seasonal cycle, but would fit the time of harvesting the crops, which these two plagues would destroy.

6. The plague of darkness would fit the khamsin, a hot wind blowing off the desert and carrying so much sand and dust that it greatly obscures daytime visibility. This occurs in May, just before the Nile turns reddish with suspended material.

7. The death of the firstborn would, of course, be something entirely outside the seasonal cycle. Thus, it is interesting that Passover is the plague that breaks Pharaoh's will and causes him to let the Israelites go.

So, the plagues against egypt were seven in number, rather than ten. They were ritualistically tailored to fit into a week culminating with Passover. To the degree that they were based on anything real, it would have been an elaboration of Egyptian seasonal cycles.

I should note that Passover and most of the other great Jewish holidays were probably originally based on seasonal, agricultural cycles. After the return of the exiles from Babylon, there occurred the watershed event(s) that resulted in the conversion of Yahweh from a henotheistic deity, having a wife and ruling a small pantheon, to a deity that was universal and monotheistic. As part of this conversion, time was seen in linear terms rather than cyclic. God, the all-good, was involved in a historic battle with evil. History was seen terms of this struggle, one that wold ultimately culminate in a final battle. Thus, monotheism was implicitly apocalyptic, historical in orientation and dramatic. Thus, historical themes were imposed on the agricultural festivals. Passover, originally the festival of first fruits and the barley harvest, became, in addition, the celebration of release from bondage in Egypt - a metaphor of worldly power.