The Exodus Decoded

[Zoso318]

Has anyone seen that Exodus special on the History Channel? I was surprised as it was one of the first History Channel shows I've seen that proves something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_Decoded

That link will show the evidence presented in the show. The guy even claims to have found the true Mount Sinai which is now in a military zone for the Egyptian Army so he sneaked in. I must admit I was a skeptic at first but by the end it would be pretty hard to argue against all that he said.

Discuss

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I saw this show. It really puts a stomp to Creationists and the like. Though I don't know how you overlooked how much the History Channel proves in any one show.

 

[Zoso318]

I'm usually talking about the archaelogical shows, where people like Josh Bernstein ask these questions, find some answers but none are satisfying. I like Josh Berstein's shows but he's always like, "Hey let's find the Holy Grail" then and hour later he's like "oh well" or like, hey lets find some lost ancient Maya city, then doesnt find anything.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I saw this show. It really puts a stomp to Creationists and the like.

How does it stomp Creationists? It doesn't have anything to do with Creationism! Religion, perhaps, but this very much strengthened their position, not weakened it.

 

[sydhe]

The Egyptians invaded Palestine several times after the reign of Ahmose I, which I think would cause problems for the thesis. The authors of the Book of Judges would remember something like that.

However, I also think memories of Santorini and Hyksos might very well have found themselves into the Exodus story, combining episodes from several time periods.

 

[Plotinus]

Attempts to demonstrate that Biblical miracles really happened but were actually natural events are always pretty stupid. This line of argument was popular in the eighteenth century but was fairly conclusively debunked in the nineteenth - but somehow, at the popular level, it continues. The plagues of Egypt, as described in Exodus, have in the past been explained as really the results of volcanic eruptions, peculiar weather patterns, and even a comet nearly hitting the Earth. All such explanations are just daft. The events described in Exodus are explicitly supernatural and are not the sort of thing that happens in the normal course of nature. If anyone thinks it reasonable to suppose that there were real, natural events which were subsequently misinterpreted, why isn't it just as reasonable to suppose that it never happened at all, and we're dealing here with mythology? That is the obvious way of looking at it and it's the approach of most biblical scholars.

It seems to me extremely forced to identify the Hyksos with the Hebrews. As I understand it, the Hyksos were an extremely powerful military people who essentially conquered much of Egypt for some considerable time. That doesn't sound much like the slave nation described in Exodus. Again, if you're not prepared to take the biblical text at face value, why try to salvage anything at all from it?

I'm not saying that the various claims are impossible - but I don't really think there's enormously good reason to believe them.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I don't see why, when people take these sort of things apart and find that some eruption or something caused the disaster, that we immediately need to say "well that proves it wasn't an act of God, since it was X." Why, the evidence is right there in front of you! All you need to do is put two and two together, and make sure you get four!
X event is said to be an act of God.
X is later proven to be caused by event Y.
Therefore, event Y is the act of God, because it caused event X, the previously identifed act of God.

The evidence is whatever you make of it, if you are determined to show that God and religion are BS, then you're going to find evidence to do so, and if you want to prove that God did something, you're going to find evidence that says just that.

 

[Kosez]

Collective memory is very powerful. But is not allways accurate. Especially not when it comes to religious scripts.

 

[puglover]

I saw this show. It really puts a stomp to Creationists and the like.

A bit anxious aren't we?

 

[SimSimSalabim]

The Exodus is the result of semetic peoples influenced by Pharoah Akhenate fleeing Egypt. There. Thats all. Its nothing to it. They're were fleeing Egypt because Egypt got control of itself after the invasion by the Semetic peoples like the Hittites

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

The Exodus is the result of semetic peoples influenced by Pharoah Akhenate fleeing Egypt. There. Thats all. Its nothing to it. They're were fleeing Egypt because Egypt got control of itself after the invasion by the Semetic peoples like the Hittites

And a bunch of people rampaging across the desert caused:
The Nile to turn blood red
Frogs to overrun Egypt
Locusts to eat the crops
Flies to swarm across Egypt
Gnats to swarm
Famine
large boils and burns to develop on people's bodies
Darkness during the day
Hail and Fire to fall from the Sky
The First born son of every family to die in his sleep.

I'm glad we've taken to plausible proof of things.