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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!christians one of our own is defending Our Lord in the den of Redditors
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So the historicity of the Exodus is conflicted primarily on the basis of a lack of archeological data: however, the sites that have been extensively examined are predominately if not exclusively surrounding the Red Sea (based on KJV translation/longstanding tradition). However, the original Hebrew states that it was a "sea of reeds" which opens up a number of sites (geographically, arguably more reasonable ones) and this interpretation owes to a later tradition.
Also worth throwing out there that the Hebrew for the number of Jews in question (100k?) is also subject to interpretation based on historical practice of exaggeration/standardization of terms.
The Merneptah Stele demonstrates pretty conclusively that if carbon dating holds any water, the state of ancient Israel was founded prior to c. 1200 BC.
!Christians !Catholics !historychads stop fricking with the foundations of Western civilization please.
![:carppope: :carppope:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/carppope.webp)
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!Christians !Catholics !historychads oh man, for months now I have been reading and listening about the supposed historicity of the Exodus from the point of view of non-Fundamentalist and non-Young Earth Creationist Christians and Jews who believe in a historical Exodus, yet at the same time, adhere to the le heckin scientific-historical method and use sources from heckin fact-checked archaeologists and historians, instead of the Atheist-breeding nonsense and even outright con artists and false prophets that American Young Earth Creationists come up with, and I have so much to say about this subject, I was expecting that this topic would have inevitably been mentioned here on rDrama, but I am afraid that talking a lot about this subject would result in me revealing too much about my power level, and I also do not have a lot of spare time to do an effortpost about it, but overall, some random stuff about thos topic that I can summarize is that:
1. Some kind of historical Exodus would have taken place in the Ramesside period during the 19th Dynasty, presumably under Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC, therefore the Ten Commandments and The Prince of Egypt might have nailed it as portraying Ramesses II as le heckin nazi MAGA voldemort pharaoh who genocided heckin cute and valid Israelites), and not during the reign of Amenhotep II in the 18th dynasty (1427-1401 BC), like how American Young Earth Creationists have long claimed, so that their neurodivergent 19th century Young Earth chronology would make sense.
2. The city of Avaris is itself highly important to a presumed historical Exodus, it was a Semitic-inhabited city that was abandoned during the reign of Ramesses II.
3. Since American Young Earth Creationists and Protestant Fundamentalists have had so much influence in Biblical history and archeology discourse in Anglophone media, given their money and media power in the mid-late 20th century, usually the "Early Exodus" proponents have had more influence in Exodus discourse in Bible archeology, so when non-Christian archaeologists think of the Exodus, they immediately assume the date that all of these mutts
keep babbling about, that is, the 18th Dynasty from 1427 to 1401 BC, which there is few evidence for any sort of Exodus occurring at this date, for example, Norman Finkelstein of course easily points out that there was no Exodus in this period at all, so the entire Exodus and Conquest narratives are deboonked, but Finkelstein has not yet commented on a supposed Exodus happening more recently under Ramesses II, which is more difficult for it to be deboonked given that there is more evidence for it.
4. In their eternal neurodivergent crusade to DEBOONK evolution and the old age of the earth, they have not only bred a ton of New Atheists and made American Protestantism become an absolute laughingstock, but Young Earth Creationists are either willingly or unwillingly ignoring the evidences for a historical Exodus, because an Exodus in the Ramesside period would shatter their 19th century "Young Earth" chronology, that they hold to as being as important to Christianity as the resurrection of Jesus himself
5. A lot of what the entire world knows about the Exodus comes from pop culture media such as The Ten Commandments and the Prince of Egypt, which are media that are heavily romanticized, and thus, the Western world expects the Biblical Exodus to have been an epic fantasy LOTR-esque action adventure masterpiece like how Hollywood makes it to be, interpreting the text from a modern-day Western view, instead of what the point of view of Bronze Age Semitic peoples, for example, about the plagues, such plagues were actually common in Egypt at that time, they were not intended to be something apocalyptic, and nor would the Egyptians have been unacquainted with such plagues.
6. The number of Israelites was absolutely not in the millions at all, this misconception comes from translations and not from the Hebrew, which IIRC, can simply mean anything from "army" to "host", and once again, the "years" that for example are now also incorrectly transliterated into modern-day Gregorian Western years, Dr. David Falk estimates that the total number of Israelites partaking in some kind of Exodus were less than 5.000-100.000 people, based on recent lexicographical work on the readings of the Israelite census in Numbers 1-2 and Numbers 26, and also the resources and population of Egypt and the Near East at the time.
The best examples for this come from Dr. David Falk, a bona-fide accredited Egyptologist and Christian who believes in a historical Exodus, yet at the same time, he deboonks the absolute BS pseudo-history and pseudo-archaeology that American Young Earth Creationists have been pushing for decades, and have turned Biblical archeology into a circus, so now other Christian jannies are forced to literally clean it up for free.
Watch this very recent video from him for example where he talks about the supposed location of Mount Sinai proposed by the Amerimutts, which ends up making no sense and ignores the evidences for a historical Exodus, the evidences for a historical exodus ironically also deboonks their 19th century Young Earth Chronology, even Allah himself has deboonked Young Earthoids ebic style![:marseyshapiro: :marseyshapiro:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/marseyshapiro.webp)
He even explicitly calls out apologists who are unaware of Egyptology, Inspiring Philosophy took down his video on the Exodus because David Falk told him that it was full of incorrect information:
And also view a playlist of some of his videos on this topic, I love this neighbor so much, he is fully apolitical, very respectful towards everyone, and also very importantly, he actually cites credible and even non-Christian/Religious sources to his views (this guy even cites specific book pages from the top of his head
), Christianity needs more folx like him, there is a ton of evidence for the historicity of the Bible, but Amerimutt Young Earth Creationists are willing to ignore evidence and drive Christians to apostasy, because evolution le bad or something ![:amerimuttdance: :amerimuttdance:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/amerimuttdance.webp)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJDJ1utc3Qdpfr9QryZ10ZemPWEDH9Pxt
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!friendsofbwc
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It's worth noting that our ebic
Atheists and most fundamentalist !Christians agree with each other much more on how to read the Bible than either heckin' scientists or !Catholics/Orthodox. They formed an uninformed literalist interpretation of all events, and polling demonstrates that the majority of shift between religious to "nones" has occurred within the fundamentalist sects realizing that their preconceived notions of how to interpret things have failed initial archeological excavations.
You expanded well on my premise. Having said that, Ten Commandments and Prince of Egypt are beautiful documentaries and I'll maintain whatever cognitive dissonance is necessary between my views of the films and the history involved.![:marseyclapping: :marseyclapping:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/marseyclapping.webp)
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I also updated my post with other information, such as the misconception that there were as many as 3 million Israelites partaking in the Exodus, which of course there is no evidence for, instead of 5.000-100.000, which is closer to the lexicography of the Israelite census in the Book of Numbers and the resources and demographics of Egypt at the time.
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Where does Moses using a Beyblade fit into the facts?
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Holy shit that's funny
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We !macacos loved playing with BeyBlades during the early-mid 2000s, I had a BeyBlade literally made out of Metal and I always won against the plastic BeyBladecels![:marseyboomer: :marseyboomer:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/marseyboomer.webp)
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W BWC post.
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Love to see my neighbor
Norman get some love
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I'll have to check this guy out, thanks![:marseydetective: :marseydetective:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/marseydetective.webp)
The Bible is cool because it's the single thing that is the center of the most autism in human history
And you're welcome for making this post so you could![](https://i.rdrama.net/i/typing-hands.webp)
longpost on it
Not sure I understand the argument about the censuses. Is it a translation issue or something else? I kind of suspected there might be some numerology going on about the different tribes' counts since the Bible is chock full of it
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BWCgods.... I kneel.....
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Moses is kind of like King Arthur. He may have some basis on a real person but the scale is widely exaggerated, it could have been a small group of dozens of hebrews crossing the sea of reeds but with the following centuries the legend was embellished and enlarged.
!historychads
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He was absolutely a real person by any recognizable standard for determining these things. Compared to King Arthur, there are fewer miraculous/reason-stretching events needed to explain what happened. Almost all of the Biblical plagues are naturally occurring cyclical events which very easily could have coincided.
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The oldest mention of Arthur comes from the 6th century, a book by Gildas where he's allured as a great warrior everyone knows by name.
The earliest mention of Moses is the Song of the Sea, which is possibly the oldest section of the Bible as the poem was composed in Paleo-Hebrew which is older than the language the rest of the Exodus was written, but dating it it's still complicated as it comes from oral tradition. The "sea of reeds" is the one mentioned in the Song of the Sea and it does resembles a possible event. I personally like to believe in happened even in some small scale as is a cool story.
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I'm curious
what your perspective is. Do you believe
in any of it and if you do is it all metaphorical or only some in your opinion?
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Legends and myths often have some real life basis instead of coming out of thin air.
I think it's possible there was some Moses guy, some Egyptian as Moses is an Egyptian name, who led a small group of Canaanite slaves out of Egypt and into their homeland while running from some guards who got stuck in the mud of the sea of reeds. They formed a tribe, told others of their deeds, generations passed and it got mixed up with other legends (the Hyksos who ruled Egypt who were likely the base for the story of Joseph) and by the time the story us written centuries later Moses is a legendary figure who was the Pharaoh's adopted brother and whom God himself entrusted the deliverance of hundreds of thousands of hebrews.
But if you wanna know if I believe miraculous talking bushes in flames, rivers turning into blood and firstborn children being killed by divine intervention, then no.
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We have Ramses II's body (supposedly contemporary with Moses). We have Sumerian and Akkadian and Egyptian texts from before the time period Moses purportedly lived, detailing the accomplishments of their various rulers. Plenty of people from these time periods had actual contemporary references made to them. I'm a lot more confident that Hammurabi existed than I am Moses.
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Christians aren't wrong that the lack of cross references in Egyptian culture would be expected, they had a longstanding tradition of failing to mention (or outright lying about) military losses/humiliating events.
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Sure, but it's still a lack of references! It is absolutely not true that he's "a real person by any recognizable standard for determining these things"; there are lots of real people that old or older that we have much better evidence of them existing.
The truth is we'll never have a good understanding of Canaanite history or politics or rulers from this period because they didn't write it down, and that's OK! It's better to just to say we don't know than it is to take the word of someone writing about it 500 years later.
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Truth
is none of us know and we can only make guesses.
If there
is an all powerful and all knowing god any of the Bible
could be 100% literal.
I don't believe
it's 100% literal the entire Bible
but it's possible if there
is a god.
That said Jews are well known to exaggerate even today![:marseyclueless: :marseyclueless:](https://i.rdrama.net/e/marseyclueless.webp)
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I don't understand why would God hide evidence though, unless he likes to troll us with fossils lmao. The geological record disproves the Noah's Flood, and there's no archeological nor geological evidence for the Egypt plagues, I won't even delve into the Garden of Eden stuff.
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There was a massive regional flood event in the ANE region that impacted several nations and forms a pretty coherent naturalistic explanation.
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As a regional event is possible, there's the Black Sea deluge hypothesis which also explains why so many cultures shared the flood myth. But not as a Global Flood.
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Do you think they knew how large the Earth was at the time? You do know that Catholics hold the Bible was (inspired Divinely but) written by human authors, right?
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Yes, I'm aware catholics are not adepts to biblical word-by-word literalism like most evangelicals and rather take a more nuanced view of the events of the Old Testament, particularly the Genesis.
I was just pointing out the stuff biblical literalists take seriously like the Great Flood being a global event.
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I know it's an answer
most people dislike
but there's a lot we don't know about god or why he does things like he does. The not knowing and being okay with it is part of Christianity. It's why we have sacred mysteries
if you take it 100% literal I would
agree
but there
is evidence of a huge large
scale
flood in the Middle
East at that time
We have little
archeological evidence for most of human
history. Troy was a myth with no city to find until relatively recently. Just because we haven't found
it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I understand it to be metaphorical rather than literal but again if you believe
an all powerful god exists idk why he couldn't literally
do it that way
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What is the Catholic church's stance on the historical accuracy of most event in the Old Testament?
Follower of Christ
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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Not dogmatically declared and thus open to a few orthodox interpretations with precedence in history/tradition, depending on which part.
That the Bible uses literary exaggeration for emphasis is hard to argue against, and while this might seem like pure
it's been a way of reading scripture going back to the second century at latest.
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Depends on who you ask from personal experience. Some will be literalists and some will say some is hyperbole. From what I've seen it depends on the priest. Idk if there
is a church
stance on every book tbh
Edit: I will say the most prevalent view I've seen is that everything past genesis
is 100% historical
and genesis
is written as poetry so is more metaphorical
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Do you think Genesis is purely poetry? I've heard it argued that the fact Genesis establishes a "beginning" the universe as undiscovered truth for the longest time (supposedly scientists believed in a "steady state" universe before the Big Bang was taken as most likely).
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No I think
it was a metaphor for creation. A metaphor can contain many truths but it doesn't mean it is to be read literally. In the same way Jesus
spoke many parables that contained
many truths but they weren't literal accounts of events that happened
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zoz
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zle
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zozzle
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When I pee really hard in the bath it creates a water path maybe Moses just really had to pee okay
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