Free Republic

With Passover here, it is a propitious time to address the central issue of the holiday: the Exodus. Specifically, did the Exodus happen? My friend Rabbi David Wolpe announced some years ago that it didn’t matter whether the Exodus occurred. In his words, writing three years later: “Three years ago on Passover, I explained to my congregation that according to archeologists, there was no reliable evidence that the Exodus took place — and that it almost certainly did not take place the way the Bible recounts it. Finally, I emphasized: It didn’t matter.” “The Torah,” he continued, “is not a...

As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting By MICHAEL MASSING braham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation. Such startling propositions — the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 ...