On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:34 PM, Charles Brown < [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > From: "Jeffrey Fisher" > > > > CB: Not that Jim said there were....but there > were no pyramids in Egypt nor monumental > architecture anywhere in 10,000 BC. Pyramids > were built starting maybe 2650 BC. ( Quick Study bar chart on "Western > Civilization 1") > > When Egyptian civ arose, they didn't "capture slaves". This is a > Mesopotamian, Greek thing from later. > > The Israelites were not captured by the Egyptians. > They were invited into Egypt when Joseph became > the Phaorah's "chief economist". Then they > started to outgrow the Egyptian in population ( See Genesis). > When they didn't institute population > control, they were put under discipline. When they left with Moses,they > weren't escaping , but removed. > > > this is all speculative. we've got no extra-biblical > evidence for any of it. > > > since we're being all historically accurate and stuff . . . :-) > > > j > > ^^^^ > CB: Sure, although, the Biblical text _is_ evidence, > even if it is the only evidence. So, strictly > speaking it's not entirely speculation without evidence. well, i did say "no *extra-biblical* evidence." the bible itself is not exactly evidence, but is ostensibly a record. the problem is that we know from points where we can compare the biblical story to, say, archeological evidence, that the biblical account is often contrary to the likely facts. a good example of the problem is in accounts of the "conquest" of the holy land. first, we have competing accounts in joshua and judges (and even some problems just within joshua). second, and more to the point, the archeological evidence contradicts details of the biblical accounts -- for example, the bible claims that the hebrews destroyed Ai and Jericho, but there had not been cities (much less walled cities) in these locations for a long time before the hebrews would have arrived there. among biblical historians these days, there are competing models of the entry into/takeover of palestine -- the conquest model, which essentially adopts the account in joshua, the immigration or "peaceful infiltration" model, and more recently a "peasant revolt" model. The problem, of course, is that there is virtually no evidence at all to support any of these models, and in the case of the conquest model (the only one with any significant corroborating evidence), significant evidence to the contrary. This is why Miller and Hayes begin their _history of ancient israel and judah_ with, roughly, the establishment of the monarchy (specifically, Judges). they write off genesis to joshua (the "hexateuch") as for all practical purposes worthless in terms of historical data. The conclusion of their discussion of origins (and the methodologies and evidence) begins as follows, "In the first place, we are cautious about saying anything. The evidence, or lack of evidence, is such that a confident treatment of the origins of Israel and Judah in terms of critical historiography is, on our opinion, simply impossible. This is one of those places where the historian must be willing to concede that anything said is largely guesswork." > > I'd add that the claim that the Israelites > were not captured , but went into Egypt > willingly ( readily at the beckoning of their > son Joseph) comes from their own recorded > history. It does not come from a source biased > against the Israelities, in other words. > > I wonder if there are any Egyptian hieroglyphs on it. nope. and you have to know people have been looking everywhere for a long time. only mention of israel before the ninth century is the merneptah stela (aka the israel stela), named for the pharaoh whose drubbing of "Israel" (among other conquests) is being celebrated. that's about 1230 BCE. "Israel" here pretty clearly refers to a people of some sort. but the stela says nothing about them except that they got their butts kicked. also, note that israel's history of itself records no such drubbing. but that's it. there is no egyptian record of hebrew slaves (although there are records of some groups from palestine working in egypt during famine), and certainly nothing to account for the loss of some 2 million slaves through their running away or being kicked out (depending on which version in exodus you decide is historically accurate). the amarna letter's mention in the 14th century BCE of "habiru" or "apiru" is suggestive, but it is pretty clear that at that time the term is a very loose social designation for nomads or something like it. so, long story short, no. :) which, btw, is not to argue that the israelites were in fact conquered into slavery. no evidence of that, either, although i could make that argument pretty easily based on literary-critical analysis of the joseph story (you do remember how he got to egypt in the first place, right? :-). but i imagine most people are bored already. anyway, it just all starts to sound like the demythologization project of bultmann, and the problem is that there's only so much there there in the text we have, and what there is we know is informed by the agendas of the people who wrote it when they wrote it. i can understand looking for more evidence that would give us something to work with. but looking at the same evidence over and over again isn't going to make it any better. j
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