Did the Exodus really happen ?

[danielost]

hey daniel... there is Midrash which states that one tribe was appointed to 'clean up' so as not to leave a trail and be followed.

ok, what were they cleaning up sheep dung. or maybe they were recycling anything that broke. again if your mobile it is hard to mine.

[mklsgl]

ok, what were they cleaning up sheep dung. or maybe they were recycling anything that broke. again if your mobile it is hard to mine.

from the Rabbi Wolpe link, here is page 1:

Three years ago on Passover, I explained to my congregation that according to archeologists, there was no reliable evidence that the Exodus took place--and that it almost certainly did not take place the way the Bible recounts it. Finally, I emphasized: It didn't matter.

Some argue that there is no evidence to back my assertion. Endlessly reiterated is the mantra "absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence." In other words, the fact that we have never found a single shred of evidence in the Sinai does not mean the Israelites were not there.

This is nominally true. We have found Sinai evidence of other people who predated the Israelites, and while it is improbable that 600,000 men crossed the desert 2,500 years ago without leaving a shard of pottery or a Hebrew carving, it is not impossible. (Together with women and children, that makes a couple of million, who could actually fill the distance between Egypt and Israel by standing in line.) One rabbi quoted to me the mystical tradition that one tribe was deputized to clean up every trace, which at least shows the Jewish tradition's unease with Sinai's preternaturally clean slate.

However, the archeological conclusions are not based primarily on the absence of Sinai evidence. Rather, they are based upon the study of settlement patterns in Israel itself. Surveys of ancient settlements--pottery remains and so forth--make it clear that there simply was no great influx of people around the time of the Exodus (given variously as between 1500-1200 BCE). Therefore, not the wandering, but the arrival alerts us to the fact that the biblical Exodus is not a literal depiction. In Israel at that time, there was no sudden change in the kind or the volume of pottery being made. (If people suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different from native Canaanites'.) There was no population explosion. Most archeologists conclude that the Israelites lived largely in Canaan over generations, instead of leaving and then immigrating back to Canaan.

Read more: http://www.beliefnet...x#ixzz1JiFTHw9k

Edited April 16, 2011 by mklsgl

[Leonardo]

This is nominally true. We have found Sinai evidence of other people who predated the Israelites, and while it is improbable that 600,000 men crossed the desert 2,500 years ago without leaving a shard of pottery or a Hebrew carving, it is not impossible.

Consider this:

The average walking speed of humans is ~5km/h. If we assume a column of people 20 wide, with an average gap of 1 metre between rows, and there were 2 million people in the exodus (600,000 men, plus women and children) then this column stretches 100,000 m in length. That is 100 km.

The biblical account states that this column crossed the parted Red Sea in one night, but it would take 20 hours for the back of the column to reach where the front had been, and that doesn't take into account the length of the crossing, which was long enough to contain at least a part of the column and the entirety of Pharaoh's pursuing army.

This is discounting that the column might contain wagons, animals, etc, and so might be even longer than 100km.

So, it is, imo, impossible for the story as told to be true, and if the details are not true then the entire story must be held in doubt as to whether it actually happened.

[mklsgl]

Consider this:

The average walking speed of humans is ~5km/h. If we assume a column of people 20 wide, with an average gap of 1 metre between rows, and there were 2 million people in the exodus (600,000 men, plus women and children) then this column stretches 100,000 m in length. That is 100 km.

The biblical account states that this column crossed the parted Red Sea in one night, but it would take 20 hours for the back of the column to reach where the front had been, and that doesn't take into account the length of the crossing, which was long enough to contain at least a part of the column and the entirety of Pharaoh's pursuing army.

This is discounting that the column might contain wagons, animals, etc, and so might be even longer than 100km.

So, it is, imo, impossible for the story as told to be true, and if the details are not true then the entire story must be held in doubt as to whether it actually happened.

Yeah, Leo, I agree. At best, Exodus is legend, as Rabbi Wolpe asserted.

[danielost]

Consider this:

The average walking speed of humans is ~5km/h. If we assume a column of people 20 wide, with an average gap of 1 metre between rows, and there were 2 million people in the exodus (600,000 men, plus women and children) then this column stretches 100,000 m in length. That is 100 km.

The biblical account states that this column crossed the parted Red Sea in one night, but it would take 20 hours for the back of the column to reach where the front had been, and that doesn't take into account the length of the crossing, which was long enough to contain at least a part of the column and the entirety of Pharaoh's pursuing army.

This is discounting that the column might contain wagons, animals, etc, and so might be even longer than 100km.

So, it is, imo, impossible for the story as told to be true, and if the details are not true then the entire story must be held in doubt as to whether it actually happened.

i dont know where anyone is getting millions from. the bible states there were 144,000. this is also the only time that it is made clear that that number included men women and children.

also assuming that they were walking they would get about 10 miles in a day. once they got organized. before that when they were running, they could have moved 20 miles in a day putting the sick on wagons. they didn't have a lot in the way of food other wise god wouldn't have had to send them Marna and birds for food. so no live stock except what was needed to move the wagons.

i believe one tribe was assigned to make camp, ie move out a day or two and set everything up for the tribes when the arrived. which means one tribe would be left to clean it all up after they left. ie pick up the tents and what not. the temple would have taken at least whole day to set up and take down. plus one day to do the prep work such as all of the prayers and sacrifices for the tear down and set up of the temple. the ark would have remained with the main body not the tribe sent ahead or left with the tribe left to clean up.

as for archeology evidence. nomads do not generally leave much evidence.

in 40 years the most, i think, that the population would have grown would be 4 times what it started. 40 years is about 4 generations. although the bible talks as if it was only one.

[Mr Walker]

Consider this:

The average walking speed of humans is ~5km/h. If we assume a column of people 20 wide, with an average gap of 1 metre between rows, and there were 2 million people in the exodus (600,000 men, plus women and children) then this column stretches 100,000 m in length. That is 100 km.

The biblical account states that this column crossed the parted Red Sea in one night, but it would take 20 hours for the back of the column to reach where the front had been, and that doesn't take into account the length of the crossing, which was long enough to contain at least a part of the column and the entirety of Pharaoh's pursuing army.

This is discounting that the column might contain wagons, animals, etc, and so might be even longer than 100km.

So, it is, imo, impossible for the story as told to be true, and if the details are not true then the entire story must be held in doubt as to whether it actually happened.

Just a query. Why assume this was the formation used? Is it recounted in the bible?

And why assume the group crossed at walking speed. Id be running flat out

So if the column 9if indeed it walked as a column was 100 peole wide then it would take only 4 hours to cross even at walking pace.

I dont believe the precise deteils of the exodus. It is clear that it was modified and added to much later. Thus not even the numbers need to be correct.

However the account of exodus is written as a history by peole who appaently believed it was theri history.Aand it includes a number of points which lead credence to its basic truth. The jews took their genealogies and history very seriously. They would not have constructed a lie, althoughthey might have gotten the details wrong by the time they came to write it down.

The egyptians certainly kept "jewish" slaves. I have seen a number of documentaries which illustrate this as historical fact. They dont match the time period given in exodus, but a considerable group of jewish people did live in egypt for some time.

[Makazradon]

It blows my mind that in the 21st Century, there are still those among us who consider the act of channeling the creator of the universe to cause a body of water to split in half, long enough so that it could be crossed as a plausible point of reasonable discourse. Oh well.

Edited April 17, 2011 by Makazradon

[BUG101687]

it possible they brought they entire culture with them. it like walking village. so can survive very long time out there.

there dry land specialist . know water would be at