Belief and Disbelief in the Exodus

Marcialou

Marcialou

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LincolnSpector said:
I'm a Jew who doubts that Moses actually led the Hebrews out of Egypt, and doubts the version in Exodus even more.
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I've started a new thread based on Lincoln's comments in the Jewish mother Muslim father thread on the Abrahamic Religions board. Drat. I probably should have posted this there, myself.

Lincoln, I share your doubts. As you may know, there's archaeological evidence that supports this idea although it's controversial. Did you have trouble celebrating Passover after you started doubting? I was disappointed but I soon made my peace with it.
 
Marcialou said:
Lincoln, I share your doubts. As you may know, there's archaeological evidence that supports this idea although it's controversial.
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What evidence? What idea?

Marcialou said:
Did you have trouble celebrating Passover after you started doubting? I was disappointed but I soon made my peace with it.
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The Exodus meta-narrative is one of the most compelling in history. It is absolutely true and may even have traces of historicity.
 
Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman claim that the evidence form archaeological digs shows that Book of Exodus is not historical. They say that the Israelites were not slaves in ancient Egypt and that Moses did not lead them to Canaan. They write about it in “The Bible Unearthed.” I haven’t read it yet but it’s next on my list.

You can see a History Channel documentary where Israel Finkelstein discusses his work. It also includes comments from his detractors.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+bible+unearthed+%28history+channel+version+2009%29

There's also A NOVA episode, which I've only scanned, that appears to make similar assertions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjPLJTAbk64&list=PLPblR4bWCoxmkQ1Kb0-aMHYGxYUR8k1c7


It’s a controversial topic. I’d be interested to hear more from you about it.

I agree the Book of Exodus is a compelling story. Passover is my favorite holiday.
 
Marcialou said:
Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman claim that the evidence form archaeological digs shows that Book of Exodus is not historical. They say that the Israelites were not slaves in ancient Egypt and that Moses did not lead them to Canaan. They write about it in “The Bible Unearthed.” I haven’t read it yet but it’s next on my list.
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It's a very interesting book, and one which I read over a decade ago. Having it as next on your list is fine so long as (a) it's not also last on your list, and (b) that you're very sensitive to the role of selection bias. (I suspect, for example, that you've read none of the more mainstream books on the subject like, for example, Mazar, and that none of them are "next on your list.")

Did the Exodus occur as portrayed? Almost certainly not. Does the Exodus narrative carry an important historical core? In my view, almost certainly so. See, for example, An interview with Richard Elliott Friedman or, better, Avraham Faust's Israel's Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance.

Also in my opinion, the Exodus is - and deserves to be - much, much more than a favorite holiday. Please don't sell it short.
 
Jayhawker,

I read the interview with Dr. Richard Friedman that you recommended. I’ll first summarize it and then make a few comments.

Friedman’s argument is that historical events inspired the Exodus story. His hypothesis is derived mostly from clues in the Bible.

1. A Semitic group from western Asia settled in Egypt for hundreds of years.

2. Some of these Semites, whom he calls Levites, left Egypt for Canaan; a much smaller group than the several million implied in the Bible.

3. With a smaller group, the lack of archaeological evidence isn’t sufficient to prove it never happened.

4. When the Levites got to Canaan they convinced the Israelites to adopt their religion (probably by force.)

5. The Levites were given the role of priests who eventually wrote the passages in the Bible attributed to the Levites (L source.) The D and P sources were derived from the L sources and mostly concur with it. The Yahweh (J source) wrote the rest, which was markedly different from the L, P (Priestly), and D (Deuteronomical ) sources.

6. Levite influence caused the Israelites to adopt the Exodus story as their own.

7. Among the oldest texts in the Bible are The Song of Miriam and The Song of Deborah “Miriam”, a Levite source, does not mention the Israelites, only the “people”.

8. The story of Deborah occurs before the Levites arrived in Canaan. “Deborah” describes how she united the tribes of Israel. The passages refer to Israelites but do not list the Levites among the tribes. That’s because the Levites hadn’t arrived yet.

9. The Levites mentioned in the Bible all have Egyptian names.

10. The Levites carried the Tabernacle that stored the ark with them as they traveled to Canaan in the L writings but not at all in the J. The tabernacles design, is described in great detail in the Bible, It matches that of the battle tents of Ramses II, for which there is archaeological evidence.

11. The Levites introduced Egyptian custom of circumcision to the Israelites.

12. They left us the passages in the Bible that say that you must treat strangers well, because remember you were once slaves in Egypt.

This interpretation feels a lot better than ones that say the Exodus never happened. I think most of us would like to believe that something is behind the story we celebrate every year at Passover. However, I’m not yet convinced it’s the most probable version of all the interpretations out there.

Jayhawker: Friedman strips Exodus of much of its drama and glory. Why do insist its much more than a favorite holiday. It sounds to me that it's only a little more than a favorite holiday.
 
Marcialou said:
Jayhawker,

I read the interview with Dr. Richard Friedman that you recommended. I’ll first summarize it and then make a few comments. …

… This interpretation feels a lot better than ones that say the Exodus never happened. I think most of us would like to believe that something is behind the story we celebrate every year at Passover. However, I’m not yet convinced it’s the most probable version of all the interpretations out there.
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Good summary, but there's much that Friedman does not touch upon..

I really encourage you to read Faust (and, perhaps, Donald Redford's Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times).

Marcialou said:

Jayhawker: Friedman strips Exodus of much of its drama and glory. Why do insist its much more than a favorite holiday. It sounds to me that it's only a little more than a favorite holiday.
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I'm sorry you feel that way. In roughly ten days we remember the murder of Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, a young black man and two Jews. The latter paid the ultimate price for adhering to the dictum: You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. These two boys knew that Pesach was more than a holiday.
 
Jayhawker,

So what you are saying is that Passover is more than a holiday: it's a call to action. I'll second that. We include words to that effect in our Seder, with references to the American Civil Rights movement. That's the main reason it has been my favorite holiday since growing up in the '60s.
 
Marcialou said:
Jayhawker,

So what you are saying is that Passover is more than a holiday: it's a call to action.
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No, I am saying something a good deal more. I am saying that the Exodus narrative provided (and provides) the ethical scaffolding of Jewish Mesorah, all this in addition to whatever imperfect information it may supply concerning Isrealite ethnogenesis.

marcialou, a Rabbi once taught me that a Jew is someone who lives in Jewish Myth and in whom Jewish Myth lives - with "Myth" writ large in acknowledgement and deference.

But we're straying off topic …
 
The Exodus narrative provides the ethical scaffolding for my take on Judaism too. That’s why I try to welcome the stranger because I remember that “we” were once slave in Egypt. That's why, even as a kid I connected the oppression of Jews throughout the years, with the "negro" struggle. I suspect Schwerner and Goodman felt that same religiously inspired connection.

Israel Finkelstein, the author of the Bible Unearthed, the book that denies the Exodus story, says, “One must put a clear line between research and tradition. Therefore, at the Seder, when we read the Hagadah, for one evening every year, it is all history for me.”

I feel that way too. Historical or not, Pharaoh symbolizes the many oppressors Jews and others have experienced throughout history. I have a great deal of interest in and respect for Jewish myth and I don't think your rabbi's comment is off topic.

I will continue to read up on both sides of the subject. Do I seem to “get” what you are saying yet?
 
Marcialou said:
Lincoln, I share your doubts. As you may know, there's archaeological evidence that supports this idea although it's controversial. Did you have trouble celebrating Passover after you started doubting? I was disappointed but I soon made my peace with it.
Click to expand...
Sorry it took me so long to stumble onto this one.

The answer is no. I've enjoyed seders, and I've always doubted the literal history of the story (except when I was sure it wasn't true).

To my mind, myth and ritual have intrinsic value regardless of whether the myth is true and the ritual will make God act more kindly to you. To put it another way, the Exodus happens every spring in my heart. And that's sufficient.
 
I read Exodus as a spiritual commentary on a physical event.

It's the way the Jews saw the world, it seems to me; holistically, not dualistically.

It's like the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. At one level, it was just an ocean crossing. As Jahawker Soule says, it's a narrative. On another, it's an event that shapes the American psyche. The meta-narrative.

But I believe the archaeology suggests that something happened.

And as much as the Pilgrim Fathers are always associated with the founding of America, they weren't the first there, by any means.
 
Circumstantial evidence v exegesis v eisegesis -- its helps to know the difference while appreciating the possibilities.
 
Thomas said:
I read Exodus as a spiritual commentary on a physical event.

It's the way the Jews saw the world, it seems to me; holistically, not dualistically.

It's like the voyage of the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World. At one level, it was just an ocean crossing. As Jahawker Soule says, it's a narrative. On another, it's an event that shapes the American psyche. The meta-narrative.

But I believe the archaeology suggests that something happened.

And as much as the Pilgrim Fathers are always associated with the founding of America, they weren't the first there, by any means.
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Thomas,

This is well put. I realized after I started the thread that the title was too simplistic and the topic wasn't introduced well. As you indicate, Exodus is a defining story for the Jewish people and resonates with many of us today whether we believe the story happened or not, or whether we suspect something vaguely like it inspired the story. It likely gave American slaves and their descendants hope in their struggle for freedom and it gave a American Jews a special vantage from which to view the civil rights movement.
 
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