Great. I live in Jacksonville, and I can pretty much assure all of you that this particular stripper was not making a lot of money anyway. I know several Jacksonville area strippers, and they can only afford to do it as a second job.

Anyways, a few things:

First off, I don't see anything wrong with someone choosing to be a stripper. The reason why it is considered morally wrong is because it 'tempts' men to be unfaithful. Here's the thing: it's the men who are unfaithful who are guilty, not the women who dance.

Also, it is considered to be immoral because of the other things associated with it (prostitution, drugs, etc) and being a dancer is considered to be a gate way to those behaviors, which is valid, but again, it's not the act of stripping that causes problems, it's the individuals choices.

However, I think the ex stripper who is trying to preach to her ex coworkers probably thinks she is doing great work, and all the best to her. She says she doesn't judge, so good. If I was one of the strippers she preached to I would probably kindly thank her for her concern, and then get on with my business.

Sandee,

Just to throw some coal on the fire, why is it that you think stripping is immoral? Be specific, too, so I understand why you think God would not want women to do that. Also, I know you say that it is their choice, and that there are a million other ways to make money for your children, but if these women don't think it is immoral, why wouldn't they strip? Going to school is not always an option (believe me I am a single mother, and I had a hard time) and a lot of these women do not have the skills needed in this day and age to get another job that pays as well as dancing can. It's also a night job, which means they can be home with their kids during the day.

But one thing that I think you need to look at is why you think it's so bad for a stripper (who in Jacksonville can not even reveal her naked breast and must cover about 6 inches of her behind) to dance for men in an adult-only setting, but it's okay for you to have a picture as your avatar that is depicting a holy being in a very provocative position, wearing as much as the strippers do, in a forum where anyone of any age can view it. What is the difference?

ok looks like im going to have to start down to basic logic...is true "God" created everything, yes? if "god" created everything, we know he created us? "God" is all-knowing yes?, so if "God" created us then we know he created us to have free-will? now if "God" was all-knowing then he would have known we were going to sin?(Adam & Eve) if "god" wanted us to be good all the time he wouldn't have given us free will to choose to be good or bad, which leads to the conclusion that "God" is not all good or he wouldn't have created us with choice, to choose to be good or bad.

Not to further take this thread off topic, but..

I agree with the general idea of that article, but I do find a lot of these sort of "feminist rants" to be quite sexist and narrow-minded, as if all men are raving packs of animals brimming with testosterone and just looking for the nearest attractive female to rape.

I don't think feminism was ever honestly seeking equality. The very word "feminism" infers this. Many feminists I have talked with seem to despise men and are as hyper-cynical and pessimistic (towards men) as any racist would be towards another race.

It's not as if the world has become some giant raunch-fest and every 12 year old girl this side of the universe is asking for the sort of clothes that were mentioned. When I was 12 years old (Wasn't terribly long ago), girls dressing like that was by far the exception and not the rule..

I'm not trying to defend the likes of MTV or Girls gone wild or what have you, because I feel they're as worthless as anyone would.. but that article certainly took a very narrow and ignorant view of the world.



I see your logic and raise you a scripture and a prayer!

I think it's quite straightforward, but you'll never get a normal Christian to accept that God is anything but pure and holy, in spite of his mass murders, evil creations, etc.

First off, my avatar and sig, I love angels they are beautiful and I have a lot of different versions of angels in my home. I know some may see them as contradictory but I don't I see them simply as beautiful and they do not show nakedness but they are somewhat provocative guess the short answer is they are kinda like me, I do not dress like your typical christian and probably never will, I can serve God no matter what I wear and my clothes is not a reflection of my faith but my fashion sense. The angels in my posts reflect me I guess you could say. You also have a very good point about my angels and the article, The strippers take off their clothes for financial gain in my opinion that is sleezy and that makes me sound self righteous I know but I wear clothes that do cover me and I do not dress a certain way to attract attention nor to make money but dress how I feel is fashionable. I don't think many women would see stripping as just another job because it involves much more. I can't say whether its the lifestyle or the stripping itself, it just seems wrong to me and also I think it is how your brought up as to whether you would approve or not. I think women should value themselves on a MUCH higher level than stripping for men for money. If a man wants companionship he doesn't have to go about it the "easy" way" he can strive for something better too. My mom always taught me to have great self worth and self respect and I do maybe that is the problem in a nutshell. There's an old saying about about what comes so easily cannot be so good, Think about it name some things that are easy in life to achieve without the hard work usually required now are any of these things debatable on a moral or immoral level? Of course they are because the things we work hard for are far more meaningful and respectful than the easy things we can claim. Just because it may be legal doesn't make it moral or right. As I was reading your post I thought of a conversation I had with Beckys Mom in which I would do whatever it took to ensure my children's health and safety and their very life. So I thought of these women who strip with children and it crossed my mind maybe thats how they feel too and are doing this job simply to keep that promise and while I agree with their logic I think there is other ways but again I am not in their position so I can't fairly say they are right or wrong. I admire that some of these women are going to these extremes to provide for their children and I have no business judging them because frankly no one knows what they would do in extreme conditions. I have a problem with the women at my church because they too judge me without really knowing me they just assume because of the way I dress. I do dress respectful for church and church events but its not to their standards they have set for a christian. I say I am a christian and will dress anyway I see fit and that does not prove I don't have a relationship with God or that I am any less of a woman than they are. I have a lot more in common with the strippers then I would like to admit as in people judging me because of what I wear and not who I am, I do not look down on them I just have a problem with getting naked for men for money.

Always a pleasure

ok looks like im going to have to start down to basic logic...is true "God" created everything, yes? if "god" created everything, we know he created us? "God" is all-knowing yes?, so if "God" created us then we know he created us to have free-will? now if "God" was all-knowing then he would have known we were going to sin?(Adam & Eve) if "god" wanted us to be good all the time he wouldn't have given us free will to choose to be good or bad, which leads to the conclusion that "God" is not all good or he wouldn't have created us with choice, to choose to be good or bad.

===================================================================


One more time the biggest evil of all would have been if God had forced us to be good.

I pinked you! (I love pink, too.)

Anyway, I don't think thats a problem at all. I think it's good that your mother taught you self-respect, and I am not suggesting that you go out and get a job as a dancer just because your angel avatar looks a little...'been around the blockish.'

What I am saying however, is that I believe that stripping is only considered immoral because of society. No where in the bible does it tell you that you cannot be naked, or that you should measure your self-respect on how other people view you (in a sexual way, etc). I think a lot of the stigma that comes with being a stripper has to do with the puritan age, when women were blamed for tempting men, so strippers were put on the same list as prostitutes (as if the men couldn't help themselves, evil women forcing them to do evil things!) I mean, look at belly dancers from way back in history. It was pretty much exotic dancing, and those women were considered beautiful, strong and were highly respected.

The only point I was making about the avatar was that it seemed strange to me that you would use a provocative avatar, and then think it is degrading to women to be that naked. I know there are exceptions, but a lot of strippers find it quite liberating to be able to use a natural resource (their bodies) to make a living, and they feel that it's the men who should be looked down upon, because without the men, there would be no reason for strippers.

Anyway, I know this thread is about the ex-stripper who is going back to her old workplaces to try and change the girls there, and I am sorry I derailed it.

First of all, good and bad are relative. He is good to all in that He gives them rain, air, food, and life. He is good to all in that He provided His Son as a sacrifice for sin so that we could escape the judgment to come .But, when He sends a plague to wipe out a crop (Pharaoh in Egypt), is that good or bad? From our perspective, it would seem bad to allow such a terrible thing to happen, let alone cause it to happen. But since God is not bad, what He does, though tough to understand sometimes, is right. For example, it was right to send the plague upon the Egyptians. They were holding the Jewish people prisoner. Was it loving to the Egyptians? Not really? Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely.
God moves through history carrying out various judgments. Doing so does not mean He is not good or loving. Consider a judge who is a very kind and forgiving man. When a criminal is found guilty, he must pass the judgment upon him, even if that punishment is harmful to the criminal. Does it mean that the judge is not loving or any less loving? Not at all. It means that the judge has acted righteously, according to the Law.
So too with God. He is right and just. He acts according to Law. The Laws that He has given are a reflection of His holy and righteous character. That is why it is wrong to lie, steal, etc. To sin against God is to incur His wrath since that sin is an affront to His holy character. The very fact that He so often withholds His judgment upon us is a very loving and good thing to do. However, when He does allow judgment to come through, He is just as good and loving. But, He is exercising His righteousness for a purpose. In His sovereign will to carry history to its designed conclusion , He delivers righteous judgment to those who oppose Him in sinfulness. This is good and right to do.
Does God bring good and bad upon people? Yes He does. The problem is our perspective. To us it sometimes appears as bad. To God it is righteous.

How do you know what an angel looks like? What makes it beautiful? If it is a non-physical being, does it even reflect light, allowing it to be visible to you? Why would it have legs if it always flew? Why hair if it does not need to keep warm? Why is it even male/female if it does not reproduce?

Angels were created to look this way in the human mind. If they existed they probably would look nothing like it, but.. human desires are what the vision comes from, and so an angel is a super beautiful and scantily-clad human being.

Just some food for thought.

I see some born again Christians that have given up their life of crimes and sin and they will literally push you into trying to believe they are changed instead of the message of a loving God. So I get that some people find it difficult to believe some have changed and truly want to help others, its sad that it has come to questioning someone who is delivering the word of God.
Thanks for the compliment on my angels, I think they are beautiful but some do find them a bit provocative and controverscial.
Always a pleasure

Whilst not really believing in God, should he exist i sincerely hope he's not how you describe. It would be quite a let down to find out he's a mirror reflection of man's own traits - unfair and biased judgement, punishing the many for the actions of a few, selective help and guidance and delusions of grandeur (although i suppose he could get away with the last one )

but see how would we know that, we don't, it's alot of "what if's" and "buts" we don't know, we have to go on facts, and logical thinking, im sure if he had forced us to be good we wouldn't know the difference, because we would of had it from birth, ahhh the contradictions in the bible huh

theres no real fact to that statement, you could be the most perfect, nice person in the world and you can die, a nun could get the plague, how is that seen as just that nice people are taken instead of the evil ones?

here I thought real history uncovered recently ( the last few years ) that in fact they didn't hold the Jewish people prisoner. ?

that actually it was the egyptian people themselves that built the prymides. thier cities and building sites uncovered. A matter if public pride and it kept the economy moving. put people to work.

Did the Exodus Really Happen?
Knowing the Exodus is not a literal historical account does not ultimately change our connection to each other or to God.


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.

cont ..........

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/157/story_15723_1.html

Then please do not listen to me or my veiws because that would not be fair to you, Do your own research and find out who God is and don't take my words as the gospel after all I could be wrong. I am not one who will say I am right when I am not so I very well could be wrong. I do study the bible and I am still learning but I will never know everything and when I do pos things about the bible its my opinion and not fact.
Always a pleasure

A new wave of scholars is now dogmatically declaring that the Exodus never took place. They insist it’s just a myth concocted centuries later in the time of Josiah to justify the existence of a Jewish state. Some of these new sceptics, such as Zeev Hertzog and Israel I Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University, are Jewish themselves!

The implications of their teaching are profound. They insist that, historically, there really is no such thing as a Jewish or Israelite people descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There never was an Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. Moses was a myth, and never wrote the first five books of the Bible. The so-called Israelites are just Canaanites that emerged in Palestine, were joined by a few nomads, and concocted a new religion.

If these new theories are true, then:

The Jewish people have no historical claim to either the land of Canaan, being a nation, or maintaining the State of Israel today. According to the new historians, Israelites aren’t Israelites, just Palestinians.

Christians can’t rely on the authority of the Bible if the very events that foreshadow the death and sacrifice of Jesus Christ are myth. The Passover in Exodus 12 points to His death and He observed as a memorial as did Paul’s converts in I Corinthians who recognized vital spiritual lessons in the Hebrew Exodus.

The new archaeological theories present a fundamental attack on the very foundations of both Judaism and Christianity.

Denial of the Exodus and the reality of the Biblical account is nothing new. Neither are these arguments. The sceptics have been around for over 200 years, and much of their teaching has been the accepted wisdom in universities for a long time. The theories are now being recycled because of a lot of new archaeological evidence that Professor Finkelstein and others have uncovered. This evidence, it is claimed, provides no evidence for the Exodus or the Bible.

Are the sceptics right? They are looking at the right evidence, but at the wrong time. Dating in the history of Egypt and Palestine is based on a couple of assumptions that professors have handed down over the decades. First, they assume the Exodus took place, not when the Bible says it did, around 1450-1447 BC but around 1300 BC. The Bible says the Hebrews built the city of Ramesses and that existed around the time of Ramses II who is dated around 1290. There is no evidence of Hebrews or an Exodus at that time.
What if, however, the Hebrews built the city of Avaris, which existed before the city of Ramesses? Also, what if the Egyptian chronology itself has been wrongly focused? At the very time the historical establishment was more and more rejecting the Biblical record, a handful of archaeologists were questioning the accepted wisdom. In 1991 a group led by Peter James published a book called Centuries of Darkness. Four years later British archaeologist David Rohl published A Test of Time,
marketed in America as Pharaohs and Kings. Both of these books argue, convincingly in my opinion, that the traditional dating of much of ancient history before 1000 BC in most history books is flawed.

Both James and Rohl did not start out with an agenda of trying to prove the Bible. They just went to the Egyptian tombs and monuments and concluded that several of the later dynasties ruled side by side. This meant that earlier dynasties were placed anywhere from one hundred to three hundred years further back than they should have been. The three hundred year ‘Dark Age’ which historians describe in Greece, Phoenicia, and other places, shrinks and even disappears.

The Pharaoh Shishak who invaded Jerusalem has been identified with Soshenk. But Soshenk never attacked Jerusalem but northern Israel! Another Pharaoh did attack Jerusalem. ..the famous Rameses II. In Egyptian he is Ra Me Shi Sha, the Shishak being a Hebrew nickname for ‘The Destroyer’. Rohl concluded that Shishak was Rameses, that the splendid late Canaanite period was the time of Solomon, that the period of the El Amarna letters was the time of Saul and David.

Rohl’s biggest discovery, though, was in finding the evidence for the Exodus in the Thirteenth Dynasty. His findings are summarized by John Fulton, a supporter of David Rohl:

‘Before Moses, the Bible records that the Israelites were enslaved by their Egyptian hosts (Exodus 1:8-14). In the Brooklyn Museum (p.276, fig. 310) resides a papyrus scroll numbered Brooklyn 35:1446 which was acquired in the late 19th century by Charles Wilbour. This dates to the reign of Sobekhotep III, the predecessor of Neferhotep I and so the pharaoh who reigned one generation before Moses. This papyrus is a decree by the pharaoh for a transfer of slaves. Of the 95 names of slaves mentioned in the letter, 50% are Semitic in origin. What is more, it lists the names of these slaves in the original Semitic language and then adds the Egyptian name each had been assigned, which is something the Bible records the Egyptians as doing, cf. Joseph’s name given to him by pharaoh (Genesis 41:45). Some of the Semitic names are biblical and include:- Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (cf. Exodus 1:15-21).

That 50% of the names are Israelite means that there must have been avery large group of them in the Egyptian Delta at that time, corroborating the testimony of Exodus 1:7 which alludes to how numerous the Israelites became. The sceptics look for Israel in the Egypt of the Nineteenth Dynasty and remain sceptics, because the proof is in the Egypt of the Thirteenth Dynasty. The site of Avaris has been uncovered by the Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak in the land of Goshen underneath that of
the city of Ramesses. It provides plenty of proof, says Fulton, for Israel’s presence and sufferings in Egypt:

‘The people who lived in Avaris were not Egyptian but Asiatic Palestinian or Syrian. The finds there included numerous pottery fragments of Palestinian origin. Several factors about the graves were particularly fascinating:- 65% of the burials were of children under 18 months of age, the normal for this period being 20-30%. Could this be due to the killing of the male Israelite children by the Egyptians, recorded in Exodus 1:22? A disproportionately high number of adult women as opposed to adult men are buried here, again pointing to the slaughter of male Israelite babies. There are large numbers of long-haired Asiatic sheep buried which indicate these people to be shepherds. Large numbers of weapons found in the male graves indicate the warlike nature of the people.’

According to the Bible, Moses was bom around 1527 BC, in the reign of Neferhotep I. A few fragments of ancient records from a Jewish historian called Artapanus were preserved by the Catholic historian Eusebius. They say that the Pharaoh’s daughter at the time Moses was born was called Merris. She married the Pharaoh Khenephres, also called Sobekhotep IV.

Moses or Mousos, meanwhile became a great general who invaded Nubia and Ethiopia. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 2.10.1-2 tells the story. The Ethiopians had invaded Egypt and had practically overrun the country:

‘The Egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies; and when God had given them this counsel, to make use of Moses the Hebrew, and take his assistance, the king commanded his daughter to produce him, that he might be the general of their army ... So Moses ... cheerfully undertook the business’ and defeated the African invaders by marching through a snake-infested region and taking them by surprise: ‘When he had therefore proceeded thus on his journey, he came upon the Ethiopians before they expected him; and, joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the Egyptians, and went on in overthrowing their cities, and indeed made a great slaughter of these Ethiopians.’

Josephus was right. A monument in the British Museum tells of Khanferre or Khenephres invading Sudan and Ethiopia, the only Thirteenth Dynasty ruler to do so. Remains of an Egyptian government building with the Pharaoh’s statue has been found hundreds of miles south of known Egyptian territoy

Sobekhotep IV/Khenephres was the Pharaoh of the Oppression from whom Moses fled, about 1487 BC. The forty years Moses spent in Midian were likely to have been 1487-1447 BC. The Pharaoh of the Exodus was Dudimose. Fulton records that the Austrians found evidence both of God’s slaying of the firstborn and the sudden departure of Israel from Goshen:

‘The Tenth Plague to be sent on Egypt just before the Exodus was the plague on the first-born, recorded in Exodus 12:29,30. At the end of stratum G/l at Tell ed-Daba or the ancient city of Avaris (p.293), archaeologists found shallow burial pits into which the victims of some terrible disaster had been thrown. These death pits were not carefully organized internments; the bodies were simply thrown in on top of one another. Could these be the burial pits of the first-born Egyptians? What is more, immediately after this disaster, the remaining population left Avaris en masse; this fits perfectly with the Exodus of the Israelites following the final terrible plague.’

Manetho, the Egyptian historian wrote how Egypt collapsed in the reign of Dudimose:

‘Tutimaos: In his reign, for what cause I know not, a blast of God smote us; and unexpectedly, from the regions of the East, invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land (Egypt). By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow and having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods and treated all our natives with cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others.’

The invaders were the Amalekites Israel encountered after leaving Egypt. They found Egypt, devastated by Divine judgment an easy prey.

‘The continuing archaeological discoveries’ says Fulton, ‘here in the ancient city of Avaris mirror exactly the early Israelites revealed in the Old Testament. For two centuries no evidence was found for the Israelites when looking in the strata of the 19th Dynasty. Now that the chronologies have begun to be amended and the sojourn in Egypt placed in the 12th and 13th Dynasties, we have a wealth of archaeological evidence corroborating the Biblical account.’



[ECCLESIASTES 11:4] "HE THAT OBSERVETH THE WIND SHALL NOT SOW; AND HE THAT REGARDETH THE CLOUDS SHALL NOT REAP."

[ECCLESIASTES 11:6] "IN THE MORNING SOW THY SEED, AND IN THE EVENING WITHHOLD NOT THINE HAND: FOR THOU KNOWEST NOT WHETHER SHALL PROSPER' EITHER THIS OR THAT, OR WHETHER THEY BOTH SHALL BE ALIKE GOOD."
http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/exodusscptcs.html

In light of modern day archaeological capabilities, the Exodus story has to be highly suspect when after so many years of repeated archaeological surveys using the latest scientifically advanced equipment and techniques in all regions of the peninsula including the mountainous area around Mt. Sinai, provides not a single archaeological artifact, not a single sherd, or not a trace of a campsite from the alleged 2,000,000 Israelites wandering 40 years in the desert.


Did The Exodus Writer ( Moses ? ) Demonstrate A Knowledge of Bronze Age Egypt ?

Though the Exodus story utilizes a few names derived from Egyptian history and geography such as the Red Sea, the river Shihor ( Jos 13:3), and Raamses, this falls far short of proving the historicity of the Exodus. The Exodus story gives several clues to a late 7th , early 6th century authorship:

A. Israel’s alleged home in Egypt, "the land of Goshen" is a name derived from Geshem, a 5th century Qedarite royal family name, not Bronze Age Egypt.

B. The Exodus writer gives no name of any Pharaoh at the alleged time of Joseph or Moses. The Exodus author’s avoidance of king/pharaoh names suggests the objective is something less then an accounting of datable, historical fact.

C. The Exodus writer does name the "Philistines" stating God would "not lead them through the land of the Philistines" (Ex 13:17), but archaeologists have determined the Philistines did not begin to appear in Canaan until the late 13th century and did not establish themselves governmentally until the 10th century BCE.

D. The Exodus writer is ignorant of the Egyptian forts in northern Sinai or the Egyptian strongholds in Canaan, especially in the 15th to 13th century BCE when Egypt became the dominant power of Middle East.

The Exodus writer’s ignorance of Bronze Age Egypt only increases the probability of Exodus being a much later folkloric or mythical creation having little or no basis in historical fact.


Summary Of The Biblical, Historical, and Archaeological Questions Raised By The Exodus’ Vagaries

Why does the bible contradict itself as to the years when the Exodus occurred? Why doesn’t the Exodus writer Moses name specific Pharaohs? Specific Egyptian forts? Why does the Exodus story use names of peoples (Philistines) who are non-existent at that time?

Does Egypt’s detailed chronology record Egypt’s pharaohs, major events, i.e. wars, treaties, commerce, personalities?...Yes.

Does Egyptian chronology mention Joseph and the 7 year famine?...No. Israel’s 600,000 male population?...No. Moses?...No. Moses confrontation with Pharaoh?...No. Israel’s 2,000,000 people Exodus (50% of Egypt’s then total population)?...No. Pharaoh’s army including 600 chariots drowning in the Nile?...No. Egypt’s total desolation from the Exodus?...No. Would events of this magnitude merit mention in Egyptian papyri, stele, or tomb inscriptions?...Yes.

Does Near East archaeological evidence confirm the Exodus era?...No. Israel in Egypt?...No. Moses?...No. The Exodus?...No. The 40 year wilderness journey of 2,000,000 people?...No.

cont .......... please read.

http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2002/03...pt-actually.php

144,000 male population. 12 tribes, 12,000 each .


The have evidence of the 600 chariots being real. They have found chariot parts in the red sea but at the tip of the Sinai near Arabia. The land of goshen is on the Nile delta near the Sinai. The Israelites were part of the border guards there. The Egyptians were afraid that they would turn against them and cut off their supplies making them go and get their own food.

most famines do not make it into the history books. Joeseph had an Egyptian name. So if he is recorded in their history they would use his Egyptian name not his Israelite name. Moses probable had an Egyptian name too since he was raised as an Egyptian and not an Israelite.

The forty years in the wilderness was again with 144,000 people at the start. It also turns out that they were training for war during that time.

A war of conquest.


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Does Egypt’s detailed chronology record Egypt’s pharaohs, major events, i.e. wars, treaties, commerce, personalities?...Yes.
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The answer to this is no they did not record ever pharaoh. an example King Tut. We stumbled onto his tomb by accident.

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Why does the bible contradict itself as to the years when the Exodus occurred? Why doesn't’t the Exodus writer Moses name specific Pharaohs? Specific Egyptian forts? Why does the Exodus story use names of peoples (Philistines) who are non-existent at that time?
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since the Greeks were the ones who translated it to Greek and we translated it from Greek. There may have been another group of people living in the Gaza strip area and the Greeks just called them philistines either because they didn't no the name of the group, or they couldn't translate the name, or the was another group of people calling themselves philistines.

I know, i only said it tongue-in-cheek, i wouldn't expect to find any answers to something as complicated as the possible existence of God on an internet forum.

I know I just wanted to say I could be wrong, I am going by the bible but my interpretation could be off or all together wrong. Always a pleasure

I like your honesty, it's a refreshing change.

Is it complicated or are we making it complicated.

this is what always confuses me regarding religion.

im just curious to see what people think on the matter of free will.

those who believe god gave us free will and yet also say god knows everything, is that not contradictory?

if he knows we will sin in the future what free will do we actually have according to religion?

It's not complicated if your prepared to put your faith in something regardless of the lack of evidence. It is complicated if your not prepared to do that.

Being a graduate of a theatre-studies degree, I can agree with you to an extent. There is nothing inherently wrong with nakedness. I have even been involved in shows that required nudity and sexuality to get across pressing social issies.In principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with nudity. HOWEVER, when it comes to strippers, their job description implies dancing in sexual manners to illicit sexual feelings. They aren't using nakedness to symbolically show the hurt that someone feels when a parent abandons them. They are doing it purely for the purpose of arousing sexual thoughts in the minds of those who watch. And that is forbidden by the Bible (see Jesus' sermon in Matthew 5, too tired to check sources tonight).

So while nakedness is not an issue, sexualising said nakedness turns it into something else. I don't think it has anything to do with any "puritan age", but more a fact of life.

Just a thought.

~ PA