Was the Exodus fictional?

[polonius]

Is the Old testament fictional regarding the Exodus story?

1. The story begins with Joseph, his faather and his brothers.

2. The Hebrews were supposedly in Egypt for about 400 years.

3. At the time of the Exodus they numbered about 2.4 million, computed from the number of 600 Hebrew soldiers, their wives, children, and men too old or to young to fight.

So evidently Joesph and his brothers were overwhelmed with procreating!

4. And in spite of the number of Hebrews and all the time spent in Egypt, as one archeologisgt put it, they didn't even leave any broken pottery. In short, nothing that showed that 2.4 million had been there.

5. And to make matters worse, Moses l
led them into Canann, a Egyptian terrirtory at that time.

Don't we just love bible stories

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius]

If the Exodus story is fictional, that would have profound implications. At the very least, the Passover Seder would be based on a fiction, not on historical fact. Can Spiritual meaning still be derived from a mythic event? Perhaps.

But this all begs the question, what is historical about the OT/Hebrew Bible? It seems there was an actual King David, and that Israel was indeed an ancient theocracy. I could be wrong, but don't scholars agree on at least that much?

And if Israel was indeed an actual ancient theocratic Kingdom, but the Exodus was fiction, what are the actual origins of ancient Israel?

[John Bauer]

They left a lot of broken pottery. Who was this archeologist and where was he or she looking (i.e., when was "at that time")?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 1 by polonius]

The Hebrews wandered for 40 years in the desert?

Exactly how stupid were these people?

Of course the story is fiction.

[marco]

And if Israel was indeed an actual ancient theocratic Kingdom, but the Exodus was fiction, what are the actual origins of ancient Israel?

Who knows? Egyptian history has nothing to say about a nation of Jews escaping. It is often suggested that Rameses was the poor pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea when God performed his spectacular feat, but we have the mummy of Rameses.

There were plenty of powerful nations around to take care of straggling, hungry immigrants. The methods of the past would not be as benign as those of, say, modern Germaany. 40 years seems a trifle long for people to walk about but then we must remember Methuselah died when he was 969. What a tragedy he didn't reach his millennium but what fantastic record keeping! Odd that the promised land was already tenanted; odder still that the hungry, emaciated refugees, wearing forty-year-old clothes, managed to fight their way to happiness.

[John Bauer]

It is often suggested that Rameses was the poor pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea when God performed his spectacular feat, but we have the mummy of Rameses.

It is often suggested, yes. However, he lived over 1,200 years too late, I believe. The exodus probably took place during the 6th Dynasty under the pharoah Merenre Nemtyemsaf II.

[marco]

It is often suggested that Rameses was the poor pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea when God performed his spectacular feat, but we have the mummy of Rameses.

It is often suggested, yes. However, he lived over 1,200 years too late, I believe. The exodus probably took place during the 6th Dynasty under the pharaoh Merenre Nemtyemsaf II.

My conversations with an informed Egyptologist suggest there was no exodus from captivity. But yes, after many centuries, we can surmise. If the supernatural accompaniment adds doubt, the plague of frogs adds a smile. Heaven could surely have done better. As Macbeth says: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

[ttruscott]

If the supernatural accompaniment adds doubt, the plague of frogs adds a smile. Heaven could surely have done better.

Every plague struck at the Egyptian Gods, proving YHWH's supremacy over them: the foolishness was not in the frog plague but in the religion that worshipped nature:
Heqet (Egyptian ḥqt, also ḥqtyt "Heqtit") is an Egyptian goddess of fertility, identified with Hathor, represented in the form of a frog. To the Egyptians, the frog was an ancient symbol of fertility, related to the annual flooding of the Nile.

Heaven did just fine...

[marco]

Heaven did just fine...

As a competing force perhaps, in human terms, heaven eventually got a result, sending the refugees to wander for 40 years. Modern methods of dealing with refugees seem a little more efficient.

[Checkpoint]

Is the Old testament fictional regarding the Exodus story?

1. The story begins with Joseph, his faather and his brothers.

2. The Hebrews were supposedly in Egypt for about 400 years.

3. At the time of the Exodus they numbered about 2.4 million, computed from the number of 600 Hebrew soldiers, their wives, children, and men too old or to young to fight.

So evidently Joesph and his brothers were overwhelmed with procreating!

4. And in spite of the number of Hebrews and all the time spent in Egypt, as one archeologisgt put it, they didn't even leave any broken pottery. In short, nothing that showed that 2.4 million had been there.

5. And to make matters worse, Moses l
led them into Canann, a Egyptian terrirtory at that time.

Don't we just love bible stories

Yes, we just do love those stories.

Some even love to call them fiction.

But no one so far on this thread, has actually proven their claim.

Grace and peace.