"The conclusion - that the Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible - seems irrefutable when we examine the evidence at specific sites where the children of Israel were said to have camped for extended periods during their wandering in the desert (Numbers 33) and where some archaeological indication would almost certainly be found. According to the biblical narrative the children of Israel camped at Kadesh-barnea for thirty eight of the forty years of the wanderings. ... yet repeated excavations a d surveys throughout the entire area have not provided even the slightest evidence for activity in the Late Bronze age, not even a single sherd left by a tiny fleeing band of frightened refugees" p.61
In those forty years a lot of them would have died. Where were they buried? People produce things , nothing like pottery etc What did they eat?
Exactly. It's why Dever also says the Exodus as depicted in the Bible is a non-event, a mere fabrication written from a far later time for different purposes than simply remembering the past. They were doing nothing of the sort, they were creating propaganda. On this, the two gents agree, without question. Now the literalness of the Exodus and the various allusions to it in the Book of Mormon is quite problematic and something for the apologists who demand a literal history get to work through. I don't envy them!
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When I read The Bible Unearthed I could see that Yul Brunner and Chartlton Heston were playing fictional characters. as Finkelstein shows the Egyptians had garrisons in Canaan.
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aussieguy55 wrote:When I read The Bible Unearthed I could see that Yul Brunner and Chartlton Heston were playing fictional characters. as Finkelstein shows the Egyptians had garrisons in Canaan.
Egyptian garrisons, and I believe there are extant letters from these garrisons. I am not sure how you are seeing that information as clarifying the origin and meaning of the Exodus story.
It is possible to be interested in how this story came to be accepted by a real historical people as their history. Their acceptance does not guarantee that historical events happened just as told of course. On the other hand invented in c450 bc as mere propaganda seems farfetched.
The archeological, linguistic, and anthropological evidence suggests that the Israeli's were already in Canaan during the time frame of the exodus. The pottery evidence is telling a different story than the Bible.
It is better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener at war.
Some of us, on the other hand, actually prefer a religion that includes some type of correlation with reality. ~Bill Hamblin
SteelHead wrote:The archeological, linguistic, and anthropological evidence suggests that the Israeli's were already in Canaan during the time frame of the exodus. The pottery evidence is telling a different story than the Bible.
This would seem to depend upon what one meant by Israeli in the period 1000 plus bc. I understand that the people are all of the same general linguistic and cultural family. Families can have a lot of various subgroups. Somebody spend a bunch of energy fighting other somebodies and in the long run a bunch of people self identified as followers of Moses whoever that was.