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The ten biblical plagues as a polemic


kmt_sesh

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I'm currently reading a book by John D. Currid called Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament (Baker Academic, 1997). In it Currid searches out the evident connections between pharaonic Egypt and the ancient Hebrews, and how Egyptian influences colored and affected the development of the Hebrew Bible. Not surprisingly Currid spends a fair amount of time discussing the events of Exodus. I don't necessarily agree with all of the conclusions he reaches but he proposes some interesting ideas.

An essential part of Exodus is, of course, the ten plagues Yahweh visits on Egypt. Currid summarizes the usual approaches historians have taken to explain the plagues, including how each can be explained by natural or environmental events (a conclusion with which Currid does not fully agree). But he also summarizes a theory that I personally had not encountered before, and I found it quite interesting. I thought it might be worth sharing here at UM.

This theory is that the ten plagues can be explained, at least in part, as a polemic against the traditions and religion of ancient Egypt. Each of the plagues could be read as a mockery of a specific Egyptian deity, demonstrating the impotence of Egypt's deities in the face of Yahweh's superiority (1997: 109-113). So I shall list each plague and the Egyptian deity each one mocks, according to the theory. This being me, I'll also comment on what I feel to be the plausibility (or lack thereof) for each stage of the polemic.

  1. The Nile turns to blood. This is a mockery of Hapi, the deity most prominently linked to the Nile River. Plausible, in my opinion.
  2. Infestation of frogs from the river. This is a mockery of Hekhet, the frog-headed goddess of divine power and fertility. Plausible.
  3. Infestation of lice. See the fourth plague.
  4. Infestation of gnats. The third and fourth go together to express an infestation of unclean vermin, and the mockery is against Khepri, the dung-beetle symbolizing the sun at the moment of dawn. Khepri also symbolized rebirth and transformation and was a powerful icon, even though a humble insect. Plausible.
  5. Pestilence of the domestic animals (livestock), Bulls were a powerful symbol of strength and fertility, as well as a royal symbol. The mockery is against the great bull cults such as the Apis and Buchis. Certainly plausible, and these bull cults were extremely important to Egypt, but the plague in Exodus doesn't single out bulls to my knowledge, but cattle in general. That said, I might suggest the great cow-form goddess Hathor, who was one of the most important deities. For that matter the plague is not specific only to cattle but to all Egyptian livestock, which opens the door to numerous other important deities (as one example, the ram and Amun).
  6. An infestation of boils. In older versions of the theory the mockery is suggested to be against Imhotep, the great healer of Dynasty 3 who was worshipped centuries later as a god of healing. But Currid correctly notes Imhotep wasn't deified until the Late Period, long after Exodus is supposed to have taken place. Currid instead suggests the mockery is aganist Sekhmet, the great goddess of war and disease. She was worshipped so as not to cause pestilence. I agree with Currid: much more plausible than Imhotep.
  7. Thunder and hail. A mockery of Egyptian sky gods, especially Nut, the celestial goddess whose body formed the heavens. Plausible.
  8. Infestation of locusts. The theory proposes the mockery is against Senehem, a divine protector against pests. Currid correctly notes that this was a minor Egyptian deity and proposes a better fit is all of the Egyptian deities in general, for their failure to protect the vital crops of the Nile Valley. That seems almost like a copout to me and I would instead suggest Renenutet, a major goddess of nourishment and the harvest.
  9. Darkness upon the land. The mockery is against Amun-Re, who would've been the chief god of Egypt during the historical period when Exodus (or some version thereof) is thought ot have occurred. Definitely plausible, given Amun-Re's solar and creative powers. I might just as easily suggest plain old Re, the sun god.
  10. Death of the firstborn. The mockery is against Pharaoh himself. I definitely find this plausible, and an intelligent choice. While most pharaohs did not consider themselves to be full-blown gods, all pharaohs were considered divine and direct intermediaries to the gods. The final curse also mocks the ever-important Egyptian idea of proper succession, being that in many cases (although not all) the firstborn son was the crown prince. This more or less mocks the entire concept of divine rulership in Egypt.

So there it is, the ten plagues as a powerful polemic. Please be aware I am not insisting that the above is hard fact; it is only theory. And I simply found it interesting and worth sharing. I think Currid did a good job in presenting his case. In my opinion, overall, Currid goes too far in trying to present the events of Exodus as fact, at least in some historical context, but it's proving to be a fascinating book.

I welcome comments and thoughts.

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An interesting idea to say the least. But I wonder, what deities do you think would cover horses, donkeys or camels for part of the 5th plague?

cormac

Edited by cormac mac airt
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An interesting idea to say the least. But I wonder, what deities do you think would cover horses, donkeys or camels for part of the 5th plague?

cormac

For donkeys I could say Erich von Däniken but that would be mean, so I won't say that. Wait, I already did. So be it.

But you bring up an excellent point. The diseased livestock includes not only cattle but asses, horses, and camels (as well as oxen and sheep). I cannot read biblical Hebrew (an old desire of mine) so I can't express the precise wording except in English translations. Like I said above one could suggest Amun for the ram (i.e., sheep or goats), as the ram was one of the animal forms of this ever-important god (as well as how Re was depicted in his nighttime form), but I know of no deities for horses.

The historical period for Exodus is supposedly the New Kingdom, and by now most scholars suggest specifically during the reign of Ramesses II, who died in 1212 BCE. I am not advocating the historicity of Exodus and in fact have written countless UM posts expressing my doubt in its historicity; I am only relaying what current scholarship largely suggests. That being said, donkeys had been in use in Egypt since the beginning of pharaonic times, and horses were definitely common in the chariot corp of the New Kingdom but were not common in Egypt prior to the New Kingdom.

In some cases the donkey is associated with Set, the god of chaos. There's one possible connection, if a stretch for the case of this theoretical polemic. I cannot think of an Egyptian deity associated or connected with horses. That's a problem. The camel is, however, a bigger problem for the historicity of the plagues. There were wild species of camels in Egypt since prehistoric times, but the Egyptians did not domesticate them. They did not enter Egypt as a domesticate until the Assyrian period, beginning in the eighth century BCE (Late Period Egypt). This is long after the supposed historical period of Egypt. It might also reinforce the argument that at least parts of Exodus were written a very long time after the fact, a subject which Currid discusses in his book but which he takes pains to refute.

He doesn't mention the problem with camles (at least that I've read so far, and I've read most of the book by now). You mentioned camels, cormac. There you go, poking holes in a professional historian's arguments. :w00t:

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For donkeys I could say Erich von Däniken but that would be mean, so I won't say that. Wait, I already did. So be it.

But you bring up an excellent point. The diseased livestock includes not only cattle but asses, horses, and camels (as well as oxen and sheep). I cannot read biblical Hebrew (an old desire of mine) so I can't express the precise wording except in English translations. Like I said above one could suggest Amun for the ram (i.e., sheep or goats), as the ram was one of the animal forms of this ever-important god (as well as how Re was depicted in his nighttime form), but I know of no deities for horses.

The historical period for Exodus is supposedly the New Kingdom, and by now most scholars suggest specifically during the reign of Ramesses II, who died in 1212 BCE. I am not advocating the historicity of Exodus and in fact have written countless UM posts expressing my doubt in its historicity; I am only relaying what current scholarship largely suggests. That being said, donkeys had been in use in Egypt since the beginning of pharaonic times, and horses were definitely common in the chariot corp of the New Kingdom but were not common in Egypt prior to the New Kingdom.

In some cases the donkey is associated with Set, the god of chaos. There's one possible connection, if a stretch for the case of this theoretical polemic. I cannot think of an Egyptian deity associated or connected with horses. That's a problem. The camel is, however, a bigger problem for the historicity of the plagues. There were wild species of camels in Egypt since prehistoric times, but the Egyptians did not domesticate them. They did not enter Egypt as a domesticate until the Assyrian period, beginning in the eighth century BCE (Late Period Egypt). This is long after the supposed historical period of Egypt. It might also reinforce the argument that at least parts of Exodus were written a very long time after the fact, a subject which Currid discusses in his book but which he takes pains to refute.

He doesn't mention the problem with camles (at least that I've read so far, and I've read most of the book by now). You mentioned camels, cormac. There you go, poking holes in a professional historian's arguments. :w00t:

As you've said, horses weren't common until the New Kingdom so in a way I could understand why they never took a place of importance in the mindset of the Ancient Egyptians until then. Camels on the other hand are a bit harder to rationalize that way as they existed in Egypt, as you noted previously, since prehistoric times. Yet they never reached a position of prominence either as regards to domesticated animals, until much later, nor as a representative within the Egyptian pantheon even though the Egyptians would have had to know that they were well adapted to desert life and would have made an excellent symbol of that endurance. Now 'that' is a mystery to me.

cormac

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I think we do need to look at the original scripts (or the oldest scripts) where this legend is described. I'm not entirely convinced by the premise, but would be willing to look at the idea. Is there any sort of source material cited?

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As you've said, horses weren't common until the New Kingdom so in a way I could understand why they never took a place of importance in the mindset of the Ancient Egyptians until then. Camels on the other hand are a bit harder to rationalize that way as they existed in Egypt, as you noted previously, since prehistoric times. Yet they never reached a position of prominence either as regards to domesticated animals, until much later, nor as a representative within the Egyptian pantheon even though the Egyptians would have had to know that they were well adapted to desert life and would have made an excellent symbol of that endurance. Now 'that' is a mystery to me.

cormac

I thought the camel came in around the time the horse did, from Saudi Arabia. http://phys.org/news/2014-02-archaeologists-date-domesticated-camels-israel.html

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I always wondered that if there was a historical Moses, if he was worshipping Aten and not El Shaddai who was Abraham's "God". The earlier Exodus book uses "Elohim" and many biblical scholars think Elohim and El Shaddai were 2 different "Gods".. I also wondered if the "Golden Calf" storie was actually that Moses wasn't happy about the way the Israelites were worshipping Elohim. El, the Proto-Western Semitic "God" was worshipped as a bull or calf in his earliest form

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John Currid's book seems fairly recent -1997, unless there were earlier publications. But I heard these very points made by an archaeologist in the 60's. Some of your suggestions / interpretations are more in line with the latter, like the last plague being against the sun god Ra.

The Egyptian gods are quite numerous, especially with the following dynasties, each god representing some natural occurrence and the interpretation of it. So it is not hard to match these deities with varying circumstances.

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A quick question, why would the one true existing God that created everything and all for no reason other than to make it happen or perhaps because said God wanted to make sure that cookies happened within this very cosmos.............take any time, at all, to diss some BS gods of a people who would ultimately be conquered by the Arabs....presuming, that this God, was in fact omnipresent?

I mean God already knew the outcome of history so why bother making a point of shaming or otherwise discrediting another nation's Gods? Much less going through a long complex list that would take 2,000 or so, years to untangle.

Would a God interesting in making a point not just say...hey Bro, I gots yer 10 biggie rules and heres whys yers other gawds is awl gotts it wrawng.

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It's a good, thought-provoking, hypothesis, kmt - but I wonder, why limit the polemic to being made against the deities of ancient Egypt of that time? Why not consider the polemic to be addressed against the culture/society of that era's Egypt?

For sure, this would include 'ranting' against some of the deities worshipped - as religion played such a vital role in that society. But the scope of what the polemic is aimed against wouldn't then be limited to the (or specific) Egyptian deities and so it would be simpler to 'fit' the various curses into a context.

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A polemic hey? I had to look that one up.

A polemic is a contentious argument that is intended to establish the truth of a specific understanding and the falsity of the contrary position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about very controversial topics. The art or practice of such argumentation is called polemics. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is a polemicist or a polemic.[1] The word is derived from the Greek πολεμικός (polemikos), meaning "warlike, hostile",[2][3] which comes from πόλεμος (polemos), "war".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic

Interesting. My 'word for the day.'

My opinion is, seems blatantly obvious now it's pointed out. Yahweh is humbling the Egyptian deities, certainly.

demonstrating the impotence of Egypt's deities in the face of Yahweh's superiority

I'd be interested in the parts about "Currid goes too far in trying to present the events of Exodus as fact, at least in some historical context," to blend both together.

Edited by The Puzzler
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I think we do need to look at the original scripts (or the oldest scripts) where this legend is described. I'm not entirely convinced by the premise, but would be willing to look at the idea. Is there any sort of source material cited?

Good luck finding any of them. If there are "older versions" they must be at least 2000 years old because at the time of the destruction of the temple and expulsion of the Jews of Israel a uniform abridged version of the Torah was decided upon to keep the teachings consistent without the need of calling a concile. This was needed because there was no more "central authority" reigning Judaism. All other scripture was more or less abandoned at the time and the Talmuds created to fill in the void of religious progression caused by a rigid tradition.

As far as the mocking of the deities, it might have been the start of the legend... but less grown on Jewish manure but much more on Assyrian. We always keep forgetting that what we identify as Jewish nowadays has its roots in the first and second centuries CE and that before that there was a host of other cultural influences in Holy Land, in fact a pure "Jewish culture" has only happened in very scarce times when no Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian or Greek (besides a bunch of other cultures) ruled the area.

Edited by questionmark
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In thinking about this, the first thing I considered was the time frame. From Wikipedia:

"Traditionally ascribed to Moses himself, modern scholarship sees the book as initially a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus

So the events would be no earlier (perhaps) than 800 BC, with 700 BC or later more likely. The main problem with the idea, then, is that Egypt by this time is in the Third Intermediary Period or is under Persian rule. The question, then, is which state gods were prominent at that time.

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Interesting, but one obvious objection would be that with Egypt's large plurality of Gods and Godlets, it's very easy to retroactively take each plague and plug in whichever Deity one thinks would fit in and declare it a theory. I'm also thinking it likely that if it were indeed a polemic, the Gods being mocked would have been named or at least inferred with less obscurity. Certainly there is no shortage of naming and shaming rival Deities in other parts of the Torah.

Edited by unclefred
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In thinking about this, the first thing I considered was the time frame. From Wikipedia:

"Traditionally ascribed to Moses himself, modern scholarship sees the book as initially a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus

So the events would be no earlier (perhaps) than 800 BC, with 700 BC or later more likely. The main problem with the idea, then, is that Egypt by this time is in the Third Intermediary Period or is under Persian rule. The question, then, is which state gods were prominent at that time.

Ah, if we also consider time frame and archeology the whole story ends up in the realm of fiction... and therefore not warranting a discussion....

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Would that mean the subtext to "Thou Shalt have no Gods other then I" bit is "because they're frankly a bit silly - look what I did to the Egyptian ones"?

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I thought the camel came in around the time the horse did, from Saudi Arabia. http://phys.org/news...els-israel.html

For domesticated camels that's true, but AFAIK there is evidence for camels (likely wild) in Egypt from at least the Late Predynastic/Early Dynastic Period (Ripinsky, 1985). That they may have been non-domesticated at that time wouldn't have kept the Egyptians from recognizing that they were rather hardy animals that apparently thrived in desert conditions.

cormac

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oooh v.interesting kmt_sesh !

I could also attribute # 7 to Set

But if I dont do that, I can also see them representing (with a similar 'validity' ) the 'Qlippoth' ... an averse manifestation of the 10 spheres of the Tree of Life ... bummer the time frames dont match for that :D

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I always wondered that if there was a historical Moses, if he was worshipping Aten and not El Shaddai who was Abraham's "God". The earlier Exodus book uses "Elohim" and many biblical scholars think Elohim and El Shaddai were 2 different "Gods".. I also wondered if the "Golden Calf" storie was actually that Moses wasn't happy about the way the Israelites were worshipping Elohim. El, the Proto-Western Semitic "God" was worshipped as a bull or calf in his earliest form

I saw an interesting doco about the when, where and why of the 'construction' of the Hebrew Holy Books. A Rabbi in the doco commented "Well, it may be a made up story ... but its a great story! ... And it has helped us!" ..... bugeyed.gif

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I am running off memory here ... so ? :

I thought I read a translation somewhere that the Hebrews were told to leave Egypt because they wanted to make a 'forbidden sacrifice' . - Apocryphal ? Fantasy ?

However, it does make their lists of what was needed to take with them interesting ... especially the concept of the 'ark' .

A 'mobile shrine' containing 'regalia' and 'equipment' is not unknown, even today .

Of course, back then, one would move it around by carrying it, as they did, with poles and people.

king_tut_tomb_1.jpg

One might even be able to examine those 'supplies' and see how one could construct a 'mobile shrine' and the High Priests 'outfit' with them ?

kohen-garments.jpg

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Would that mean the subtext to "Thou Shalt have no Gods other then I" bit is "because they're frankly a bit silly - look what I did to the Egyptian ones"?

Yes. If the writings were much later, made up from a hotch potch of sources ie. a ruling elite creating a back story to take over pagan goddess worshipers - 2 Kings 21-23, also stuff , like;

http://www.academia....Ancient_Israel_

"Our people have been like this and doing this for millenia ! We kicked Egypt's butt bad once. "

(Once .... remember all those prophets that said Yahweh would get even ... they spent a lot of time cursing Egypt .... they didnt get to 'kick butt until recently though ;)

... Oh ,,, make that " We kicked Egypt's butt bad twice ! " )

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If one considers :

The Hebrews monotheistic culture was invented in 'retrospect'.

They were in captivity in 'Babylon' .

Nebuchadnezzar kept them there, he was a dedicated to Marduk and a follower of 'native' Babylonian religion.

Cyrus overthrew him and released the Jews. He was a Zoroastrian. The first monotheistic religion.

'Abraham's' ( he may not have been an actual person, perhaps a mythic personality, or a construct of various 'patriarch figures' that migrated out of the area ? - the name can be rendered as 'father' ) lived with his father Terah, supposedly in Harran. Terah was "a wicked idolatrous priest who manufactured idols. Abram, in opposition to his father’s idol shop, smashed his father’s idols and chased customers away." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terah

Some say, after writing up their books in captivity ( and borrowing some stuff 'a bit' ) , they returned to a pagan world with a new back story. The 'new doctrine' certainly has many similarities with Zoroastrianism .

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I think we do need to look at the original scripts (or the oldest scripts) where this legend is described. I'm not entirely convinced by the premise, but would be willing to look at the idea. Is there any sort of source material cited?

I thought the camel came in around the time the horse did, from Saudi Arabia. http://phys.org/news...els-israel.html

Let me discuss the camel first, a topic on which I freely admit I'm not an expert. This could make for a useful research project but I don't have the necessary time for a lot of digging this weekend, so I turned to two basic reference sources for a quick and dirty appraisal. It's my understanding species of wild camels are in evidence since prehistoric times, but the camel as a domesticate is another matter. In my own reading I recall that it was the Assyrians who first brought domesticated camels to Egypt, and this is mentioned in Shaw and Nicholson's Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (1995: 59). I mistakenly dated it to the eighth century BCE in my previous post, where I should have written seventh century BCE.

Then I checked Baines and Malek's Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt (2000: 19, 52), where it states the camel became common in Egypt only in Ptolemaic-Roman times. However, jumping back to the Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Shaw and Nicholson regard this as outdated and explain the earliest evidence for the camel as a domesticate in the Nile Valley can now be dated to the ninth century BCE—so actually slightly earlier than the Assyrian period. The horse first seems to have become a widespread domesticate in the Nile Valley late in the Second Intermediate Period, but in my own case I've never come across explanations in the literature that the camel can be dated that early, too.

Like I said, it might be useful to dig into this further, when time permits.

Now, as for your first point, I cannot read or translate biblical Hebrew (or modern Hebrew, for that matter). I can't say exactly how it's worded in the Hebrew Bible, but I'd have to imagine the oldest extant versions of Exodus would be from Qumron (although, to be honest, I can't remember if Exodus is among the many texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls). I can't say I fully embrace the polemical theory shared in Currid's book, but I simply find it interesting. In my mind it might also work toward the argument that Exodus is not so much historical as foundational mytho-history.

In the relevant chapter Currid actually presents quite a lot of citations (including those against the polemical approach), but he tends to do this on most every page of his book. Currid is clearly serious about supporting his material, which works in his favor. One citation is C. Aling's Egypt and Bible History (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981) and another is J.J. Davis's Moses and the Gods of Egypt (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986). It's not clear to me how or if these or other cited authors turned to the original source material. Unfortunately it is known that no version of Exodus predates late antiquity and most in fact date to quite later, so the original penned versions of the story are long lost to us.

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A polemic hey? I had to look that one up.

A polemic is a contentious argument that is intended to establish the truth of a specific understanding and the falsity of the contrary position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about very controversial topics. The art or practice of such argumentation is called polemics. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is a polemicist or a polemic.[1] The word is derived from the Greek πολεμικός (polemikos), meaning "warlike, hostile",[2][3] which comes from πόλεμος (polemos), "war".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polemic

Interesting. My 'word for the day.'

My opinion is, seems blatantly obvious now it's pointed out. Yahweh is humbling the Egyptian deities, certainly.

demonstrating the impotence of Egypt's deities in the face of Yahweh's superiority

I'd be interested in the parts about "Currid goes too far in trying to present the events of Exodus as fact, at least in some historical context," to blend both together.

I don't wish to take the discussion too off track because I'm trying to concentrate our objective on the plagues as a polemic, but I suppose most anything related to Exodus would be fair play.

So for example, Currid follows up the polemical theory with another, peripherally related theory that the plagues can be regarded as de-creation. That is, the chaos Yahweh inflicted on Egypt turns the rightful biblical order of Yahweh's creation on its head: the Hebrew god, in a sense, undoes to Egypt what he had done when he created the world. For instance, on Day 1 God created light out of darkness; in Plague 9 light is removed from Egypt. On Day 2 of creation there is the ordering and separation of the waters, whereas in Plague 1 destruction is brought upon Egypt when its waters are turned to blood. On Day 3 comes the creation of dry land and vegetation; in Plagues 7 and 8 Egypt suffers the destruction of its vegetation by hail and locusts. Et cetera.

Currid is quick to point out that the order of the plagues does not match the order of creation in Genesis, but posits that perhaps that is intentional on Yahweh's part; the entire idea, after all, is the infliction of chaos, which is in fact one of the things the Egyptians most feared. I find the de-creation theory perhaps less convincing than the polemic theory, but still very interesting.

As a final example, Currid includes a chapter on the itinerary the Hebrews used in their flight from Egypt to their arrival in Canaan. For this he turns primarily to Numbers 33:1-49 and a selection of independent, supportive historical documents. It's a rather well-done and interesting chapter, but overall I think he stretches the historicity of certain biblical sites as related to actual historical sites. Some of it is plausible, some of it isn't. Currid argues that the itinerary as laid down in Numbers is practically the same as military campaign records such as those from Egypt and Assyria, and while I think this is somewhat overstated, there is some merit to it and perhaps validity.

Overall I think Currid tries to make the biblical Exodus as historically plausible as possible, even though he never comes out and plainly states that he thinks it's an historical event as presented. More so he seems to be arguing that some aspects of it might be founded in actual history, and I myself don't have a problem with that.

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Good luck finding any of them. If there are "older versions" they must be at least 2000 years old because at the time of the destruction of the temple and expulsion of the Jews of Israel a uniform abridged version of the Torah was decided upon to keep the teachings consistent without the need of calling a concile. This was needed because there was no more "central authority" reigning Judaism. All other scripture was more or less abandoned at the time and the Talmuds created to fill in the void of religious progression caused by a rigid tradition.

As far as the mocking of the deities, it might have been the start of the legend... but less grown on Jewish manure but much more on Assyrian. We always keep forgetting that what we identify as Jewish nowadays has its roots in the first and second centuries CE and that before that there was a host of other cultural influences in Holy Land, in fact a pure "Jewish culture" has only happened in very scarce times when no Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian or Greek (besides a bunch of other cultures) ruled the area.

In thinking about this, the first thing I considered was the time frame. From Wikipedia:

"Traditionally ascribed to Moses himself, modern scholarship sees the book as initially a product of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), with final revisions in the Persian post-exilic period (5th century BCE)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Exodus

So the events would be no earlier (perhaps) than 800 BC, with 700 BC or later more likely. The main problem with the idea, then, is that Egypt by this time is in the Third Intermediary Period or is under Persian rule. The question, then, is which state gods were prominent at that time.

Any researcher who tries to pin down biblical events to recognizable historical times in the Near East inevitably encounters many problems. Currid himself is careful to admit this. Still, he outright argues that the origins of the Exodus story when first penned far predate the later dates assigned by minimalists. I used to be somewhat of a minimalist myself and largely still am, but I've been caused to soften my approach in matters of dating. (Other things, such as the wide and sweeping empire of Solomon and his influence in the Levant do, indeed, seem to be biblical foundational fiction.) The truth is, more recent findings in archaeology and philology have been heavily destructive to the minimalist cause, and the hardcore minimalists are now suffering a lot of problems with credibility.

The Exodus is a good example of something with conflicting avenues of evidence. We have things like the camel, which came into Egypt long after the historical period of Egypt, so it seems nonsensical that they're mentioned in the plagues. Most biblical scholars now agree that a reliable time period for the setting of Exodus is the reign of Ramesses II, a conclusion with which Currid agrees. In so far as placing Exodus into an historical timeframe, so do I. This doesn't mean I argue for the historicity of Exodus (I do not), but the overall clues fit. The mention of the city of Ramses, for instance, is a critical clue. Pr-ramss as the capital and key city of Egypt existed only because of Ramesses in the Late Bronze Age. By the time of the Babylonian exile, however, this city had been long abandoned and was replaced by newer and more prominent Delta cities like Tanis and Sais. Hebrew scribes living in Babylon or in post-exilic times are unlikely to have known anything about Pr-ramss, unless they were working from much older documents in which the city was named.

At the same time I also admit it's not that simple. There are clues that place Exodus at different times, such as 480 years before the time of the founding of Solomon's temple, but this clue and others simply do not work historically. This is why it's anyone's guess, and why all sorts of historians have placed Exodus anytime from the dawn of the New Kingdom to the Late Period.

Although Currid advocates as much biblical historicity as possible, he is also professional enough to point out weaknesses. This is one reason I'm enjoying the book. I may not agree with a lot of his conclusions, but he takes the time to explain opposing viewpoints, too. As an example, there is the story of Joseph who is bought by the Egyptian official called Poitphor. People have long been curious about when this story fits into history, too. It would of course have to predate Exodus. Well, the biblical name Potiphor in origin is the Egyptian name pA-di-pA-ra ("that given by Re"), which is in fact a well known ancient Egyptian name—except it is not attested until Dynasty 21, which dates to about 1064 BCE. Of course this is after the time of Exodus, so we have an obvious and inconvenient problem.

And so it goes. But I suppose this is just one of the things that makes biblical scholarship so interesting.

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