This 911roofer post introduced me to /r/wikipedia, a subreddit where apparently redditors post wikipedia articles . From a brief glance it seems that most of these posts are blatant agenda posts designed to bait politisperging and slapfights
Let's take a look shall we?
I found this thread pretty quickly: the linked article is Sources and Parallels of the Exodus. Immediately redditors jump in crowing how fake the bible is:
Very few people create a myth where they were all slaves at some point in the past.
Another comment springs a multi pronged
He gets dunked on immediately for being such a neckbeard
Ok Ted take it easy. It wasn't meant in the literal sense…see what I did there (-41)
Why is this guy calling the other one Ted? I don't get it. Anyhow, the other side of that chain:
Never fear though Christcels , a champion has arisen to defend your honor!
An actual good faith engagement with this?
A separate subthread:
You think Moses parting the sea is historical rather than mythological?
This really got them mad:
After reading this incredibly intelligent discussion I wanted to go into the article itself to see what was happening
No real drama on the talk page unfortunately but I did notice
some fun stuff in the article itself:
Hmm, very interesting. So just in these few lines we have: the Jews were kicked out (chuds is this country 1/109?) and the Hebrews were originally insular, antisocial, and criminal?
And all written by a guy named Assman
I highly encourage all dramatard to seek out arguments on this wonderful subreddit
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Isn't it pretty widely accepted that many Jews were forcibly taken to Babylon during their conquests, (which the Babylonians did to many conquered people to enforce compliance, by keeping huge numbers of "hostages" living and working in Babylon itself) and after the Persian conquest of Babylon in 500s BCE they were then free to return to the modern-day Holy Land swearing fealty to the Persian Kings, but that the modern Torah was written hundreds of years after the fact and so Egypt was used as the "evil empire" stand-in because it would have been a better metaphor for audiences who didn't know what Persia was?
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How would we expect to confirm a story that took place in the Bronze Age in a space of 40 years?
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Tech lover, IT Admin, heckin pupper lover and occasionally troll. I hold back feelings or opinions, right or wrong because I dislike conflict.
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There's still stuff written down, carvings, DNA evidence and archaeological evidence. It's all a bit spotty but there are some things that can be roughly confirmed using data from different sources
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For audiences who didn't know what Persia was? Neighbor what?
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Well consider that this was an era where most people were illiterate, Persia had ceased to exist before living memory, the Levant was becoming increasingly culturally Greek, and Egypt was the closest local power that people would have had context for. Plus, ancient world writers were the kings of "source: trust me bro" and just kinda wrote whatever made for a good story, combined myths and factual events, and generally weren't concerned about the finer details.
My favorite example is how Darius became king of Persia. Basically, he was a sort of Chief of Staff for Cyrus the Greats son, who died from some sort of infection. Cyrus had another son, who claimed the throne upon hearing of his brothers death and was ruling some small Kingdom in the far north of Iran.
Anyways Darius just said "no, thats not Cyrus son, because, uh, Cyrus had him killed, it's uh, ackshully some frickin wizard shape shifter
" and then stabbed him to death with a bunch of accomplices and became king. An absolutely classic Iron Age Bamboozle
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Darn I thought our election season was wild.
Follower of Christ
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People need to be more woke to the shape-shifting wizard menace. We absolutely need to shut down all wizard migration until someone can figure out what's going on with the wizards!
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If I had to guess though most people would know of Persia. Sure people may have not read, but they certainly talked, and in the context of educated "clergymen", they would've known the basics of Babylon and all. They also wouldn't think Egypt was the only power to ever exist, they'd know of Persia and likely of some stories of the Greeks and Alexander the Great. All because these were myths and legends ingrained into their local consciousness.
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There might have been a political element as well, with Egypt being the biggest threat for the Holy Land, and contemporaries wanting an immediately relevant story
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