Talk:The Exodus

- Unveiled - The History of Israel in Egypt

You are cordially invited to a comprehensive critical fact check of newly discovered archeological matchings with the Bible regarding the strictly biblical time of Israel in Egypt: www.IsraelinEgypt.com In case I could arouse Your interest You are also invited to join us in our Archeology Group „The History of Israel in Egypt“: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2700339426924248/?ref=share

No name to the God who called Moses

49.207.198.226 (talk) 02:56, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I see several contents to have controversial claims, being a social media page where people are exposed to these contents in a wrong way, I'm a little concerned about the content. One such content is When God called Moses from the burning bush, he did not have any name, he said "I am the I am" Moses went from Mount Horeb knowing a God whose name was "I am the I am" why then it was written "Yahweh" which was later developed by the biblical scholars by adding vowels to it.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Founding Myth

A founding myth? Really? Like how it was Columbus who 'discovered' America ? 212.129.86.188 (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

As the divine Pterry noted, just living there doesn't count. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

'modern scholars'

Should perhaps be worded as 'contemporary scholars' 71.64.116.11 (talk) 00:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that:

• The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive;

• The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;

— Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 00:47, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

And would you consider any of the experts listed in this work [1] as "modern bible scholars"? Potatín5 (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: Tell me, do you regard James K. Hoffmeier, Allan R. Millard, Gary A. Rendsburg, Richard C. Steiner and many other more as "modern Bible scholars"? I want to know your answer. Potatín5 (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: Your unwritten assertion is that the deck is stacked. True. But I didn't stack the deck. At Wikipedia the deck is stacked against fringe theories. It is not our job to relitigate the mainstream academic view. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: The mainstream academic view is that the Exodus narrative is essentially legendary while it is likely that it an historical core. Outside of this mainstream view, there are some minimalists scholars who do not regard the Exodus narrative to have any historical core and some maximalist scholars who support at least the basic historicity of the biblical account. Since the Wikipedia article has no problem in including the opinion of minimalist authors when discussing the historicity of the Exodus, I don't think there should be any problem with including a reference to maximalist views on the subject. Potatín5 (talk) 18:44, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I'd say that anyone wishing to start a debate on these issues should first get well acquainted with the at least the following basic WP pages: Historicity of the Bible, Biblical maximalism, and Biblical minimalism, and with all the main reliable sources used there. That were the current debate should start, in my view. Once these three pages are consolidated at a certain level, the debate can then spread to other cognate areas, such as this one. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are different types of "mainstream", though. On Wikipedia, there are effectively three ways to approach an issue:

• One is when the scholarly consensus is overwhelming, and any opposing views are worth discussing as views that were historically widely held or have significant impact outside the academic sphere. E.g., Wikipedia gives no support to the belief that the primeval history in Genesis is true, and the belief to the contrary is treated as a fringe theory worth discussing only because of its religious and political impact, as in the debate over whether public schools should teach evolution. A less extreme example, and one more relevant to this page, is the belief that the Exodus really did take place 400 years before the Temple in Jerusalem was built, which would put it around the time Canaan was being conquered by Egypt. It's clearly nonsense, and only literalists like Bryant Wood adhere to it.
• Another is when there are effectively two (or more) mainstream views that have similar standing in the scholarly community, so Wikipedia gives them roughly equal weight. E.g., as discussed many times on this page, some scholars believe there may have been a small group of Semitic peoples migrating out of Egypt who became part of the "mixed multitude" that formed Israel, and this kernel of truth got passed down through the generations and vastly magnified into the Exodus story. Other scholars believe that it's not necessary to posit such a group in order to explain how the Exodus story originated. These hypotheses, as far as I can tell, have similar weight in academia and thus in this article.
• The third is where there is one mainstream view (or more), and another view that a minority of scholars adhere to. In such circumstances, Wikipedia's job is to mention this position and clearly indicate that it is a minority viewpoint. I increasingly think that Hoffmeier, Rendsburg, et al. belong in this category. I haven't yet read the book that Potatín5 mentions, but I doubt I would find its arguments personally convincing; but I don't think its contributors are in the same league as Wood. (Hoffmeier actually criticized Wood's arguments for a 400-years-before-Solomon date, if I remember correctly.) A. Parrot (talk) 18:32, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Would you agree A. Parrot, that the literalist/maximalist position is usually a religious theological/ideological position, and should therefore be handled carefully as such? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:54, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I would. A. Parrot (talk) 19:13, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Let me try to preempt for a moment the contrary argument, that the minimalist position is also an ideological position stemming mostly from atheism. I'd say it stems from a philosophical position that is based on Logic and Reason, and which believes that intellectual discourse in general, and historical discourse in particular, should be logic, rational, and completely free of religious dogma. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 19:27, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Philip R. Davies was an outspoken atheist and sympathetic with the Christ myth theory, which is rejected by virtually almost all scholars in the field of New Testament studies (as acknowledged by Wikipedia itself). If that is what you call "a philosophical position that is based on Logic and Reason", then there is no need to say more... Potatín5 (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Spreading organized skepticism all over the field was the reasonable thing to do, even if in the end Davies will be proven wrong. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Biblical minimalism is basically a philosophical position that is currently mostly used in the field of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. But it is starting to slowly expand into the field of the Greek Bible too, so there will be a lot more to say about all this in the coming years, I hope. warshy ^(¥¥) 19:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Taking into account that rejection of Biblical minimalism in Hebrew Bible scholarship has been on the rise, specially since Dever published his work Beyond the texts (which contains a strong criticism against it [1]), I would doubt whether minimalism will ever become a mainstream view in New Testament studies. Ultimately, time will show what will happen. Potatín5 (talk) 20:07, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Of course, we are forgetting that Biblical minimalism is just the latest development, at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, of Biblical criticism. The term best employed for the New Testament was Rudolf Bultmann's Demythologization. What is needed now is a combination of Biblical minimalism and Hermeneutics with a healthy demythologizing approach to the overall field of Historicity of the Bible. But we'll see. In the meantime, at least Wikipedia is still here. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:18, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Some WP:RS/AC-compliant claims:

Grabbe, Lester L. (23 February 2017). Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?: Revised Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-567-67044-1. The impression one has now is that the debate has settled down. Although they do not seem to admit it, the minimalists have triumphed in many ways. That is, most scholars reject the historicity of the 'patriarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and are cautious about the early monarchy. The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account. On the other hand, there is not the widespread rejection of the biblical text as a historical source that one finds among the main minimalists. There are few, if any, maximalists (defined as those who accept the biblical text unless it can be absolutely disproved) in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes.

At [1] there is a report upon Hoffmeier's speech during the 'Archeology and the Bible' conference at University of Liverpool, stating that Hoffmeier (among other speakers) tried to show that the scholarly consensus upon the historicity of the Exodus must be false. Well, that's and oblique way of admitting that there is a scholarly consensus and that Hoffmeier disagrees with the scholarly consensus. Q.e.d. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

A year before that, Kitchen was there, arguing that the scholarly consensus must be false. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

https://web.archive.org/web/20160722024905/https://www.thesphinx.co.uk/2013/05/archaeology-and-the-bible-at-liverpool/

What's better than one Harvard professor? Two Harvard professors. Watch them both at https://player.vimeo.com/video/76323651 .

"Kenneth Kitchen, one of our greatest current Archaeologists" Kenneth Kitchen is not remotely reliable when it comes to Biblical history. The man has a serious bias: "Kitchen is an evangelical Christian, and has published frequently defending the historicity of the Old Testament. He is an outspoken critic of the documentary hypothesis, publishing various articles and books upholding his viewpoint, arguing from several kinds of evidence for his views showing that the depictions in the Bible of various historical eras and societies are consistent with historical data." In other words, Wikipedia:Fringe theories applies. In general evangelical pseudo-scholars should be distinguished from reliable, secular sources. Dimadick (talk) 13:01, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I think Kitchen comes up so often in these sorts of discussions because he's a serious, credible scholar on Egypt but super-maximalist on ancient Israel and the Bible. It's like a trained rocket scientist opposing evolution -- the rhetorical gambit used is to transfer credibility from one field onto another one. That and his avoidance of full-blown Young-Earth-Creationism can create an impression that his works on the Bible are somehow mainstream. Alephb (talk) 19:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, the IP seems to think that the historical method is the most pestilential doctrine ever vomited out of the jaws of hell. Sorry, we cannot turn back the clock several centuries! Hoffmeier and Kitchen don't say "the Exodus has been proven true", but "it has not been proven false". Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

True; I misspoke. There is no evidence proving the Exodus true, so "It has not been proven false" is all they can say while retaining any scholarly credibility. A. Parrot (talk) 19:54, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Note that Grabbe was applauded for remaining neutral in the quarrel between minimalists and maximalists, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/23970868 .

And, to answer the charge: neither Davies nor Dever have produced the much wanted smoking gun for the claims, the difference being that Davies demanded evidence, while Dever seeks to dodge Davies's demands. Dever considers that once upon a time there was enough evidence, but then there came the minimalists and Finkelstein, who have ruined its claims to truth. For all I know, what Dever claims about the United Monarchy could be true, but he does not have evidence to back that up, and that is a big problem. In science and scholarship, the side which demands to see the smoking gun and the side which fails to show the smoking gun aren't equal. Science and scholarship have their decks stacked against the gullible. Unless there is evidence, skeptics win the game by default. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: No, Kenneth Kitchen and Hoffmeier are not the only scholars who believe in a historical Exodus, and their arguments are not limited to say "it has not been proven false"; if you study carefully their works, you will note that they truly attempt to provide evidence to argue that the Exodus narrative, while not directly corroborated (something which is reasonably explainable in light of circunstancial evidences), is likely to be true due to other kinds of evidence.

And regarding Dever I tell you the same: He does actually provide evidence for the United Monarchy of David and Solomon. Concretely, the main evidences are the Tel Dan Stele (corroborating the existence of David and his dynasty) and the existence of several urbanized settlements in the Palestinian region during the 10th century BC, which supports the existence of an Estate at that time. That is evidence, and minimalists' refusal to recognize it is not Dever's fault. Potatín5 (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: If there were clear-cut evidence about either, we wouldn't have this discussion. There would be the mainstream academic view and the denialist fringe.

Greenberg, Moshe; Sperling, S. David (2007). "Exodus, Book of.". In Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael; Thomson Gale (Firm) (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 6 (2nd ed.). pp. 612–623. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4. OCLC 123527471. Retrieved 29 November 2019. Current scholarly consensus based on archaeology holds the enslavement and exodus traditions to be unhistorical.

This is from a Jewish conservative encyclopedia. Even they realized what the mainstream academic view is. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

The same encyclopedia states in his entry on the Pentateuch:"There is, however, a great deal of circumstantial evidence from Egyptian textual and archaeological sources in support of parts of the biblical narrative. The Bible itself also yields historical memories and other clues to the veracity of the basic Exodus story." You seem to have omitted that part. Potatín5 (talk) 22:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: It is not such huge claim as you might think. "Parts" and "memories" could mean little.

In an opposing view, Reform Rabbi Steven Leder of Wilshire Boulevard Temple argued that “defending a rabbi in the 21st century for saying the Exodus story isn’t factual is like defending him for saying the earth isn’t flat. It’s neither new nor shocking to most of us that the earth is round or that the Torah isn’t a history book dictated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.”

Quoted from Tugend, Tom (2001-04-26). "Furor over L.A. rabbi's reading of Exodus". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 2021-04-19.

The strong consensus is that there is at best sparse indirect evidence for plausibility of these biblical episodes, and for the conquest there is considerable evidence against the biblical description.

— Peter Enns, 3 Things I Would Like to See Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 22:49, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: In the end, all these discussions with you have become tedious. Either WP:CITE WP:RS or beat it. We will say what Dever stated, but we won't say it as WP:THETRUTH. Propose concrete changes to our articles or beat it. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:32, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: The only concrete change I would propose is that suggested by A. Parrot: That it should be refered in the article that, while most scholars regard the Exodus account as essentially legendary, a minority of scholars (like those I listed at the beginning of our discussion) argue on the basis of several combined circunstantial evidences that the Exodus event did likely happen. Potatín5 (talk) 22:53, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: In general, Wikipedia has little sympathy for the side which has lost the academic dispute. But in this case I will wait for what A. Parrot has to say. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:04, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it's worth having a sentence about it, though probably nothing more extensive. A. Parrot (talk) 01:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

And to give you an image about Dever's stance: Ursa Major has seven apparently big stars. People tell you that represents a bear. But that's just projecting an image upon a geometrical configuration consisting of seven points. Dever projects his take upon the United Monarchy upon the scarce archaeological data. The data are insufficient to say if he is right or wrong, and there is a strong case for skepticism. Even if we take for granted his identifications of those ruins (while many mainstream Israeli archaeologists don't), he is still far from having evidence for a glorious United Monarchy. If the Tel Dan Stele says anything, is that hundred years after David all Judahite kings got stomped upon by a small Aramean king. So, obviously, the Judahite monarchy did not mean much.

The author admits that Jerusalem in those days was too small to be a regional force. The author also admits that the total population of all of Judah and Benjamin in the Iron IIA period would have been at most about 20,000 people, and that this horde "provides a sufficient demographic basis for an Israelite state in the 10th century BCE." At least half of those people would have been women, and at least half would have been children, so even if every able bodied man and boy able to wave a stick were drafted, the army would have been maximum 5000 strong. Hardly the regional super-power of the Bible stories.
— User:Wdford

Wdford writing about a paper by Amihai Mazar. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:30, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2022

The statement "a clearly fanciful number that could never have been supported by the Sinai Desert," should be deleted because this comment is very biased and goes directly against the evidence the source gives. Marietin (talk) 05:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Source:[2]. Afaict, WP reflects the source (p18-19), apart from the 22,273 first-borns which don't seem to be mentioned there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:45, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 09:34, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Founding myth

'Founding Myth' makes it sound like you want the reader to look at it as though it isn't true. Could it be changed to founding story or something like that? 71.213.36.183 (talk) 02:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

"Founding myth" is the proper term for such stories, which is evidence by the fact that it's a blue-link.

Furthermore, it is far more likely than not that the Exodus myth is not, in fact, true, as there is extensive archeological evidence that the Hebrew people arose more-or-less peacefully from the existing Canaanite population of the region, rather than being a population of escaped slaves from Egypt who conquered Canaan. There is, to my knowledge, no archeological evidence whatsoever that the Exodus myth is completely accurate. Happy (Slap me) 12:20, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

"no archeological evidence whatsoever that the Exodus myth is completely accurate" Or that Moses existed. Jewish mythology is not history, and can tell us very little about the Bronze Age. Dimadick (talk) 11:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Exodus: Myth or Fact?

The disclaimer should read: This article is about a story related in the Bible. The lead needs to address this point. The "founding myth" misdirection is not encyclopaedic.Absolutely Certainly (talk) 01:16, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

But it is a founding myth and depicts fictional characters, like Moses. Dimadick (talk) 04:58, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Exodus: Myth or Fact?

Needs to be addressed first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Absolutely Certainly (talk • contribs) 01:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Myth or factAbsolutely Certainly (talk) 01:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Myth. There is nothing factual about this narrative. Dimadick (talk) 04:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

References to The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS)

Any reference to the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS) should be removed. Their peer review policy is appallingJHS peer review policy. The JHS decides which manuscripts they receive gets peer reviewed. Only two peers are necessary for their process. Absolutely Certainly (talk) 01:45, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Double Blind peer review is pretty standard - not sure what you’re complaining about. No journals editor sends everything to peer review.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:41, 17 June 2022 (UTC)