Scientist Defends Account Of Exodus

Washington Post ^ | 4-10-2003 | Richard N. Ostling

[blam]

Scientist Defends Account of Exodus

By RICHARD N. OSTLING
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 10, 2003; 12:18 PM

A British scientist is making two claims about Jewish history this Passover season that could surely spark discussion over the Seder meal.

Colin J. Humphreys of Cambridge University has concluded that science backs traditional beliefs that the Israelites' exodus from Egypt was led by Moses pretty much the way the Bible and the Haggadah ritual tell it.

He also says that Mount Sinai, where Scripture says Moses received God's Law, is located in Saudi Arabia, not Egypt's Sinai Peninsula - moving a key site for Judaism into the nation where Islam was founded.

Humphreys' theories come at a time when his close, literal reading of the Book of Exodus is far out of fashion among Conservative and Reform Jews, though it may be welcomed by Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians.

He details his ideas in a readable new book, "The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories" (HarperSanFrancisco).

[blam]

I agree with his account except for these few things:
*The Exodus began in 1628BC when Santorini exploded.
40 is a translation error and should mean 'many.'
Earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. from the explosion of Santorini 'parted' the Red Sea.

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[stanz]

Many Egyptologists believe there was no Exodus.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[LiteKeeper]

Could be that they are wrong, too.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Blah, blah, blah. More non-believers taking their cheap shots.

A boy was relating the story of the Jews exodus from Egypt and got to the part about Moses parting the Red Sea when a (non-believer) teacher pointed out that Moses didn't really part the Red Sea but it was actually the Sea of Reeds and that tides and winds made the water only six inches deep.

The boy looked at him and said, "Wow! It's a miracle!"

The teacher, perturbed and told the boy that it was NOT a miracle and that natural forces were at work and it was just luck that the Jews got there.

The boy, unfazed, said, "Sure it was. God drowned all those Egyptians in only 6 inches of water!"

[Junior]

Humphreys doesn't feel his lack of expertise is a problem: He believes it gives him an open mind. "I am not preconditioned to accept standard interpretations," he says.

I lack expertise on particle physics; it's not likely any reputable physicist would accept my open-minded views on the nature of matter. I also noticed that this fellow decided to publish for the public rather than submit his thesis to peer review — a sure sign his hypothesis would never stand up to such scrutiny.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Neither do most atheists. Admit it, most Egyptologists are university professors and most university professors are liberals and most of the university liberals are hard core and atheists.

To those who believe, no further proof is required. To those who refuse to believe, no proof will suffice.

[Illbay]

I use the example of Exodus all the time in my "discussions" with the bible literalists that believe the Bible is all "factually proven."

There is in reality absolutely NO historical record that the Exodus ever occurred. No record that Hebrews ever lived in a "land of Goshen"--about which there is no record, either.

The Bible has meaning because one has faith in its message, not because it is observably true.

It is interesting to speculate on the physical location of Mt. Sinai, or Mt. Ararat (yes, there's one in Turkey but no one is positive it's the one the Bible mentions--it's like saying you grew up in "Paris," without also relating that you're talking about "Texas," not "France").

But in the end the facts don't matter nearly so much as the reality of personal, spiritual witness of faith.

[Dog Gone]

It certainly is inconvenient that the vast Egyptian historical record doesn't seem to support the Exodus story, and it's not as if Biblical scholars haven't been looking.

[RightWhale]

Many Egyptologists believe there was no Exodus.

It's a magical journey, with a lot of proto-science tossed into the alchemy.

[Blood of Tyrants]

As if they would keep records of having their butts kicked by the god (the way they would spell it) of a bunch of slaves.

[stanz]

The general consensus among those who accepted the Exodus as an historical event was that the Pharaoh Rameses II was the central figure. Later, some speculated that Merenptah, a son of Rameses might have been the more accurate choice. This was based on chronological assumptions and the fact that his mummy bore a peculiar feature. His remains, particularly his face was cracked and crumbling which is atypical of the type of embalming performed during that period on a royal personnage. Some felt that salt (from the Red Sea) was responsible for his dessicated condition.
At any rate, students of Egyptology reject the story of the Exodus and maintain that the Hebrews were never in bondage - - -at least to the extent described in the Bible.

[Dog Gone]

The problem with that is that those pharoahs reigned during Egypt's golden age and there is nothing recorded in Egypt during this time which bears the slightest resemblance to the events of the Exodus.

There is no record of famine, destruction of crops, massive destruction among cattle and other domestic animals, dreadful pollution of the Nile nor economic ruin of Egypt.

[RightWhale]

The Parting of the Red Sea is the most remarkable Passage in the story. Means nothing in translation, of course.

[bert]

there is no historical record of an Exodus event.

[stanz]

True. There weren't the type of building projects during the time of Rameses II which would have required the use of slave labor on the same scale as the building of the Pyramids. They weren't built by slaves either. The work was performed by entire villages of paid workmen living with their families during the period of the Nile flooding.

[Invincibly Ignorant]

Earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. from the explosion of Santorini 'parted' the Red Sea.

Ya right and when the waters receeded it was just in time to drown Pharoh and his army but none other. Takes more faith to believe these theories that spawn from unbelief.

[stanz]

That's what I'm saying.

[ckilmer]

There is in reality absolutely NO historical record that the Exodus ever occurred. No record that Hebrews ever lived in a "land of Goshen"--about which there is no record, either.
////////////
There are egyptians records of Jews living in Egypt after the destruction of the 1st temple or about 550 bc. But those were likely ones that Jeremiah pleaded with--not to go to Egypt.

Explicit corroborating mention of Jerusalem in Egyptian records only goes back as far as about 950 BC when Egyptian records record the Egyptian Phaoroh Neco's sack of Jerusalem after the death of Solomon. This corresponds to the bible record of the sack.

Incidently, until 1993 there was no non-biblical evidence for David. That year they found a Syrian inscription dating to c.850BC that mentioned "King Asa of the House of David". The inscription celebrated the defeat of King Baasha of Israel by Asa and the Syrians - an event recorded in Kings and Chronicles.

And then there is this from:DID THE EXODUS HAPPEN? ANSWERING THE SCEPTICS


http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/exodusscptcs.html


‘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.’