Talk:Book of Exodus

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We shouldn't be saying that the book "describes" as that is explicitly saying that it happened. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. How about "It relates the myth of the Israelites' deliverance from slavery ..."? Wdford (talk) 19:47, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Something like that perhaps, but perhaps more refined. Doug Weller talk 19:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Should add that we lack, as far as I can see, an adequate disambiguation for 'Israel' here which the average reader here will associate with the modern country, and not as a people covenanted with YHWH centuries before the rise of the northern and southern kingdoms.Nishidani (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Also, the Babylonian dating leaves the general reader no clue about the dating implied by the text, and, in my view, the first para should include something like 'a series of (putative) events that would have occurred sometime around the 13th century' BCE.' (the scholarly consensus, even if that is later than the traditional religious backdating). Only something like this puts the Babylonian date into perspective, i.e., the story was composed several centuries after the ostensible period setting. ? Nishidani (talk) 07:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC) Nishidani (talk) 07:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

"a people covenanted with YHWH centuries before the rise of the northern and southern kingdoms." The main article for the people is Israelites. Dimadick (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Doug Weller What's wrong with using "describes"? It just means "writes down". It doesn't have any implication of truthfulness. Pride and Prejudice describes a courtship in 19th-century Britain; Mr Darcy doesn't have to have existed for the novel to be descriptive. The practice of "description" is synonymous with "writing". GPinkerton (talk) 18:10, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
  • GPinkerton that's not necessarily the case. Oxford defines it as "give a detailed account in words" with the example "he described his experiences in a letter to his parents" and says nothing about writing. Cambridge does use the word wrote, but says "to say or write what someone or something is like" which implies a real thing. The lead also says it "does not accurately describe historical events" so it would be a bit confusing to use it earlier in a very different sense. So "It describes the Israelites' deliverance from slavery" is presenting the story as something that actually happened. Doug Weller talk 18:29, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't follow at all. If someone "describes in a letter", that is the exact same as saying "writes in a letter". A letter is an inherently written thing. Neither of the definitions give so much as hint the description needs to reflect reality, I don't know where you're getting that from. "Detailed" is not the same as "real". On the contrary, Geoffrey of Monmouth gives a detailed account of the reign of King Arthur, and in detail describes the Battle of Badon Hill. Neither is likely to have happened in reality, but the History of the Kings of Britain still describes the fictitious history. The Book of Exodus is fantastically detailed to the point of tedium, but it is still a description of the exploits of Moses and his adventures in the desert. GPinkerton (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the verb "describes" in the context of the lead to this article points more in the direction of "history that really happened," then the direction that the story is a religious story, and as such, is much more likely just that: i.e., a story. You could, rarely, say that a story describes something, but more commonly you would say that a story "tells" or "relates" something. Wdford's suggestion above sounded OK to me, but Doug said he hoped we could come up with something "more refined." We should probably at this point start considering different practical suggestions for the agreed upon sentence/s. warshy ^(¥¥) 23:19, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Too short

This article is way too short. This article has sections that uses only one source or doesn’t have many. Also for some reason The Exodus is a separate article. It would be a better idea to merge the two articles.CycoMa (talk) 03:07, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

The Exodus discusses events from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, so no it doesn't really make sense to discuss it here.--Ermenrich (talk) 12:57, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Pitre

Pitre is WP:FRINGE, see Talk:Brothers of Jesus#Pitre. Jedi mind tricks only work upon simpletons. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:47, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

In response: Brant Pitre most definitely does not represent a "fringe opinion;" on the contrary, he represents a significant number of Catholic theologians currently teaching and writing. He earned a Ph.D from Notre Dame, has been published by reputable companies, and is a leading voice in Catholic biblical theology.

Simply applying a false label does not constitute grounds for removing any reference to Pitre's work, particularly when it pertains directly to a disputed edit. Wikipedia policy clearly states that "all majority and significant-minority views published in reliable sources should be represented fairly and proportionately." I provided a reliable source, and could provide many more--not just from Dr. Pitre--to support the claim made in my edit. This is not a dispute over the historicity of Exodus; it is a dispute over the views of scholars on this topic. To continue to remove reference to the view that Bergsma and Pitre articulate is, in my view, wholly unfaithful to the explicit policies of this site as well as its stated goal.

Secondly, the description of "mainstream biblical scholarship" you provided is flatly wrong in its characterization of how Scripture scholars view the Bible. It sounds more like a manifesto than an objective description. While many scholars certainly do subscribe to the views it enumerates, many others do not.--AchatesFortis (talk) 05:43, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

This is a fringe book by a catholic fundamentalist, we have multiple statements that his position is fringe. Almost no mainstream scholar argues that the exodus is “essentially historical “.—Ermenrich (talk) 13:02, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

A scholar is mainly concerned with facts. Pitre is not a scholar, but an ideologue. His reasoning is something like "It is theologically true, so it must also be historically true." He thinks that if the Doctors of the Church agree it's true, that makes it scholarly true.

And, hey, it's a free country. If that's all he wants to be or all that he can be, he is allowed to be an ideologue. But the idea that he writes WP:SCHOLARSHIP is disinformation.

But it is good that you have deleted some of your own arguments. I heard those many times, and they never worked inside Wikipedia. There is no particular reason to admit those would have worked this time.

Why? Because Wikipedia is a WP:MAINSTREAM encyclopedia, heavily based upon mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP, i.e. that sort of scholarship from the Ivy League, described at WP:CHOPSY. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

Your opposition to my revision is based on either innocent ignorance or an undetected bias. Let's avoid ad hominems about authors and look at the facts. The fact that concerns me is that the scholarly consensus is not that Exodus be construed as a myth. Ermenrich, as a Ph.D. in medieval literature, you've been adjacent to theology for long enough to know this. It is simply false to assert that scholars have reached a consensus on this sort of interpretation.

My wording of "essentially historical" could certainly be improved, I fully own; but even it is a far sight better than what preceded it. Ermenrich, you have carefully curated the general "Exodus" page and you actually cite several sources that bear out my contention about the lack of scholarly consensus on the historicity of the Exodus. If there is division in mainstream scholarship on the historicity of the Exodus itself, it would be nonsensical to suggest at the same time that the book is construed as myth by virtually all scholars.

We all agree that the article should not endorse any particular religious viewpoint on the Bible; we are concerned with stating facts, not endorsing beliefs. But if this is so, then we ought to carefully consider what we state about scholarly consensus.AchatesFortis (talk) 07:01, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I tried to adjust my wording to be more accurate; I think it could still be improved, as the scholarly positions are legion and do not fall as simply into the black/white dichotomy of "fact" or "fiction." But to say that scholars just say "fiction" is much worse. Here is an example of a middle position from a Jewish scholar: "Like most peoples, the Israelites developed a story of their origins that is based partly on fact, partly on a particularistic reading of much larger events, and partly on folklore" (Schendlin, Raymond P. A Short History of the Jewish People. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.) This text was used in undergraduate courses at Northwestern University circa 2010. This directly contradicts the prior claim of the article that Exodus is construed as myth by virtually all scholars. If this source is not considered reputable or mainstream, then I am a monkey's uncle--and Wikipedia's claim to objectivity is pure fantasy.AchatesFortis (talk) 07:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Saying that "Wikipedia is biased" or that "Wikipedia fails to follow its own neutral point of view rules" is not a set of magic words that will cause Wikipedia to accept your favorite conspiracy theory, urban myth, pseudoscience, alternative medicine or fringe theory.

While the Exodus story might be based upon some nuggets of historical facts, it is far from having historicity. If you want mythologized history is its most accurate description: i.e. it has originated as a sort of Ancient historiography, but it has been embellished beyond any resemblance to historical fact.

E.g. if you want to posit that the Exodus is based upon the escape of 60 slaves from Egypt, I have nothing against that. But not 600 000 adult men (warriors).

Why? Because in the Antiquity it was impossible to move an army larger than 100 000 soldiers.

At the height of its power, the Roman Empire had in total something between 300 000 and 450 000 soldiers.

An army of 60 000 soldiers could be moved only by a mighty empire (they had to eat and drink while the enemy tried to prevent that). tgeorgescu (talk) 16:07, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

You seem oddly convinced that I am trying to make the article endorse a historical reading of the book. But what I am actually suggesting is that to characterize its interpretation as mythical is a vast and misleading oversimplification. I'm basing this assertion on actual scholarship, of which I have produced two different sources from authors of diverse perspectives.

I'm not concerned with debating the historicity of the Exodus; I am quite concerned with Wikipedia being accurate and objective. AchatesFortis (talk) 17:42, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Here's what The Exodus says on historicity in the relevant section:

There are two main positions on the historicity of the Exodus in modern scholarship. The majority position is that the biblical Exodus narrative has some historical basis, although there is little of historical worth in the biblical narrative. The other position, often associated with the school of Biblical minimalism, is that the biblical exodus traditions are the invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish community, with little to no historical basis. The biblical Exodus narrative is best understood as a founding myth of the Jewish people, providing an ideological foundation for their culture and institutions, not an accurate depiction of the history of the Israelites. The view that the biblical narrative is essentially correct unless it can explicitly be proven wrong (Biblical maximalism) is today held by "few, if any [...] in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes."

This is more or less what we say in this article as well, in the appropriate section if not the lead. So your original wording arguing that the account is seen by some as historically accurate is certainly fringe. At most we can say that a majority of scholars believe that the "myth" has some basis in history.

Note that myth does not mean "untrue story", but has a specific meaning in religious studies. I've advocated for using legend in the past to avoid this ambiguity, but that got shot down pretty hard at talk:The Exodus/Archive 20#Rearrange the lead for consistent flow - simple fix should satisfy all parties, I don't think that it's going to fly here either.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:14, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

References

Yup, others suggest that it is based on factual history is incorrect;

others suggest that it is very remotely based on factual history is correct. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:47, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that Pitre is no scholar, this sentence is confused: "The other position, often associated with the school of Biblical minimalism,[5][6] is that the biblical exodus traditions are the invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish community, with little to no historical basis." (1) Biblical minimalism is the idea that the Bible is a late text motivated by theological concerns, and therefore should take second place to archaeology and archaeologically-based philology (i.e., texts of the period discovered in situ). This has no relevance to the historicity of the Exodus, except in so far as the Torah, our only source for it, is a late text (c.450 BC by the majority opinion, c.200 BC by the minority). (2) The Exodus TRADITIONS are much older than the Torah, as they can be traced back to the pre-exilic period - i.e., they're not an invention of the exilic and post-exilic communities. What these communities invented was the exodus NARRATIVE, the one in the Torah. (3). The historical basis of the narrative is the traditions; the historical basis of the narrative is irrecoverable, and the idea that it draws on the Hyksos experience is attractive, but speculative. Achar Sva (talk) 09:49, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Not sure what you’re getting at. We have sources connecting the exodus debate specifically to minimalism and maximalism, as well as for the Hyksos theory (among others). This isn’t the hard sciences, humanists are allowed and even encouraged to speculate based on the evidence. The question is whether the speculation is mainstream and common or not in the RS, which in this case it is.—-Ermenrich (talk) 13:24, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The point is that the article is confusing traditions and narratives. The exodus story in the torah is a narrative, the traditions behind it are something else (they're found in the prophets and some old poetic passages). Achar Sva (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Historicity

Please explain why the historicity discussion has been deleted? What am I missing? Wdford (talk) 11:16, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I restored it, as it was the only section of the article I found worth reading. User:Achar Sva deleted it, claiming "Historicity belongs in the article on the exodus narrative (the book is about far more than history". Without this section, readers might believe that there was a historical Moses or that Biblical Egypt has a factual basis. Dimadick (talk) 11:51, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I deleted it because what's being discussed is the historicity of the exodus (an event), not the historicity of the Book of Exodus. Exodus isn't a history book, it's theology, and about half of it is a law code (which no one ever reads). It should be pretty obvious that it isn't history, since its full of miracles and information about god, and it one point it even describes a meal in heaven, which frankly strikes me as pretty improbable. What's needed is a discussion of genre, not historicity. Achar Sva (talk) 16:47, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I think that the average reader of WP is not aware of the fact that "Exodus isn't a history book, it's theology." For the average reader, even as late as this new century, the Bible is not only the word of God. It is history as it really happened. So any reminder of all these basic rational, logical truths is helpful. I'd recommend that it stays... Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it should stay.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

The historicity discussion is definitely needed, but we can also have a genre discussion as well. The two will probably overlap a bit, but not to the point of being a problem. Wdford (talk) 23:14, 17 November 2021 (UTC)