Talk:The Exodus - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Korvex (talk | contribs) at 17:20, 18 December 2016 (Undid revision 755448750 by Korvex (talk) The article does not mention the exodus -- it simply reports on the entire and sudden abandonment of an Egyptian city, which is what happens in the exodus.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 17:20, 18 December 2016 by Korvex (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 755448750 by Korvex (talk) The article does not mention the exodus -- it simply reports on the entire and sudden abandonment of an Egyptian city, which is what happens in the exodus.)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Korvex (talk) 17:20, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

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Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Misplaced Pages, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Misplaced Pages than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
21

This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Dating section

I think the dating section is a mess - propose to split into 4 subsections:

traditional (Jewish, Jewish-adjusted and Samaritan versions of the dating)
Early Exodus (scholar putting the event to 15-16th century BCE)
Late Exodus (scholar opinions putting the event to around 13-14th century BCE)
No basis (scholar opinions claiming that the event is a myth).

This would make the dating a much more clear issue.GreyShark (dibra) 10:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

What you term the "Jewish" date is more normally called the Masoretic; what you term the "Jewish-adjusted" date is more properly termed the Seder Olam dating; and the Samaritan dating is a variant of the Masoretic, though neither is likely the original. None of these are scholarly and none have any followers outside quite extreme Christian and Jewish religious factions. The Seder Olam calendar, in particular, is ridiculous from the point of view of known history, compressing the entire Pwersian Empire into 52 years.

No modern scholars put the exodus in the 15th/16th centuries, nor in the 13th/14th; the consensus is that there was no exodus. Our article reflects this. PiCo (talk) 05:50, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

To deny a theory you need to describe a theory. You are mainly busy with historical revisionism, which has nothing to do with the article. There is no consensus that there was no exodus; maybe there are opinions that there was no exodus in the 13th century, but the occasion of Exodus is a deal of controversy, and there are various theories in this regard. You are not improving Misplaced Pages by removing notable academic sources discussing those issues, basically violating Misplaced Pages's pillars. You may get banned for this.GreyShark (dibra) 20:56, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but the consensus remains, Kitchen and Hoffmeier dissent from the consensus by arguing that the Exodus was "not impossible". To this day there is no external corroboration of the Exodus story from the Bible. A very shorthand introduction to this problem written by an Evangelical historian: . Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

An YouTube documentary is available at . This documentary is in several ways outdated (e.g. Documentary Hypothesis is not widely hold as valid, there is no evidence of David and Solomon's United Monarchy, etc.), but displays statements made by major scholars. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

From the documentary, 0:23:00-0:24:00 (Bietak speaking) dates the possibility of Exodus between 1275-1208 BC. So that's when it could have taken place, if it took place at all. From 0:24:00-0:25:00 Dever says there is no evidence found for a mass migration corresponding to the Exodus. I do not claim this is the only possibility, but only that this is the consensus view. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

So few opinions is unfortunate for a TV show. At least three would do better, especially that entire books and multiple articles have been compiled on 1540, 1512, 1491, 1446, 1312, 1290 as potential exodus dates. Where are those theories in the article? Some of those are refuted for sure, but refuted theories deleted by PiCo implies historical revisionism promoted by radicals. This is a very bad non-encyclopedic practice; certainly also non-academic (but Misplaced Pages is not pretending to be academic of course).GreyShark (dibra) 21:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, you could mention some reliable sources to that extent, but they have to be recent (i.e. not outdated) and written by top scholars (full professors at reputable universities). Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

@PiCo: Masoretic means traditional.GreyShark (dibra) 10:39, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@GreyShark - does it really matter? "Masoretic" means the text of the Hebrew bible curated by the masoretes (or whatever alternative spelling you might like). The Masoretic calendar, which is what you're talking about here, is the internal calendar of that text. It dates events from the Creation, the Year Zero, to a point around December 164 BCE, when the temple was restored after having been defiled by the pagan Greek king of Syria - the span is exactly 4,000 years. The Samaritan calendar is a slightly different and only goes to the end of the Book of Joshua, because that's the last book in the Samaritan bible. The Greek Jewish bible has yet another version of the calendar. None are likely to be the original version. Nor would I call any of them the traditional Jewish calendar - that's the one contained in the Sefer Olam Rabbah, which differs yet again. I think you know all this already. I think you know all this already. None of them are actual calendars in our sense - all of them are primarily religious, and can't be used for dating real history.PiCo (talk) 11:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Masoretic, coming from Canaanite / Hebrew / Samaritan word Masorti = traditional. When i said traditional Jewish or traditional Samaritan it is exactly what Masorti stands for. Just to clarify.GreyShark (dibra) 16:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

The offer still holds: find full professors who advocate such dating in reasonably recent publications (but not merely in order to dismiss such dates as fringe). Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:39, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

What Tgeorgescu says.PiCo (talk) 23:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

There is some information at The Exodus#Date, mentioning 1446 BCE and why it is not credible. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but the whole paragraph in the lead is referring to 13th century BCE exodus theory (correct me if i'm wrong). To my view readers should know that "the historic and archaeological evidence points out that there was no exodus"... in the 13th century (Late Exodus). This is clearly said by all archaeologists in The Bible Unearthed. Nothing about Early Exodus dates.GreyShark (dibra) 19:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment - @PiCo: considering your remark on my talk page concerning Hill et.al., do you agree to add information about the Early and Late Exodus dates?GreyShark (dibra) 19:56, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I'll reply in the section at the bottom of this page - it's confusing having two conversations on the same topic.PiCo (talk) 02:23, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment - Prof. Larry Geraty makes a fair summary of various dates at Dates for the Exodus I Have Known lecture during the UCSD EXODUS CONFERENCE in 2013. That is a fair basis for the article section: conventional Early Date, conventional Late Date and Other theories (very early date, Thera theories, very late exoduses, etc).GreyShark (dibra) 22:34, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

With the mention that the date from Seder Olam is completely WP:FRINGE/PS as far as historians are concerned, although it may have a religious significance for certain true believers. It's not the only instance of fringe dating of the Exodus from that video. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:41, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

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Historicity

We don't need to extensively discuss the historicity, but the lead is just vague enough to dismiss any attempt at it. "The historicity of the exodus continues to attract popular attention, but most histories of ancient Israel no longer consider information about it recoverable or even relevant to the story of Israel's emergence." Now it pretty much says 'No that doesn't matter, shut up though'. Then the final unattributed quote of that section makes it even more enigmatic. If we're going to have a lead section about historicity, it really shouldn't be this mystical when archeologists have literally given up on it. Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 10:19, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Kitchen's and Hoffmeier's religiously biased arguments amount to nothing but speculation (possibly.....possibly). To finish the summarizing section with this quoatation seems extremely biased. A similarly biased quotation on the other side would be Michael Sherman's quote in the lead of the rationalwiki article on Evidence for the Exodus:

"We are told that these people spent 40 years wandering around in the desert — they escaped, as slaves from Egypt, and so forth. There is not a shred of archaeological or historical evidence, outside of the Bible, that this is even true! That it ever even happened! You would think that if a people spent 40 years wandering around in the desert they'd leave some archaeological evidence? There's absolutely none. There's no evidence that somebody named Moses even existed."

I believe this article would greatly benefit from a more neutral, evidence-based review of the historicity of the Exodus Greenman262 (talk) 15:01, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Comparing the current lead with the crude and clearly biased statements from RationalWiki does not necessitate finding a middle road. The last sentence in the lede is referenced and attributed and is not really even a debatable statement - the Exodus "narrative" is often referenced by many people groups. Also the historicity section already says there is essentially "no evidence" for the Exodus and that Kitchen and Hoffmeier and their theories are ignored by the rest of the scientific community. So I guess I'm struggling to understand your point.

That being said, if you have specific suggestions on improving the page, please feel free to express them. As you are new to Misplaced Pages, you may not be aware that statements placed in Talk to the effect of "this page is terrible" are generally ignored unless the editor also poses some solutions to the problems he/she sees.

Yours - Ckruschke (talk) 16:14, 26 October 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke

I;m not familiar with wp policy. My original point was that the section as currently presented is biased (albeit far less so than the rationalwiki counterexample). Their arguments as presented here are merely speculation and essentially 'absence of evidence does not imply absence of evidence'. The summary of the historicity section should in my view be based on historical evidence.

Greenman262 (talk) 15:36, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

But there is no historical evidence. There are only religious texts written after the alleged events occurred. And even historical evidence rarely trumps physical evidence - after all, they say "History is written by the victors". That's not quite true as historical evidence can, for instance, include diaries, shopping lists, etc. But I digress. Whoever told you that absence of evidence does not imply absence of evidence was misleading you:

If someone were to assert that there is an elephant on the quad, then the failure to observe an elephant there would be good reason to think that there is no elephant there. But if someone were to assert that there is a flea on the quad, then one's failure to observe it there would not constitute good evidence that there is no flea on the quad. The salient difference between these two cases is that in the one, but not the other, we should expect to see some evidence of the entity if in fact it existed. Moreover, the justification conferred in such cases will be proportional to the ratio between the amount of evidence that we do have and the amount that we should expect to have if the entity existed. If the ratio is small, then little justification is conferred on the belief that the entity does not exist. in the absence of evidence rendering the existence of some entity probable, we are justified in believing that it does not exist, provided that (1) it is not something that might leave no traces and (2) we have comprehensively surveyed the area where the evidence would be found if the entity existed...
— J.P. Moreland and W.L. Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview

You are also asking us to delete the positive evidence, eg "The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains are in the Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite." Doug Weller talk 16:18, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

References

Moreland, J.P.; Craig, W.L. (2003). Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. InterVarsity Press. pp. 155–156. ISBN 9780830826940. LCCN 2002154307.

What I'm asking is to move or delete the baseless conjecture and make the section reflect the evidence (historical, physcial) or in this case, complete lack thereof. I agree with you with respect to the salient differences between different instances of 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. My view is that Kitchen's and Hoffmeier's conjecture attempts to give credence to treating this as an instance of a search for a 'flea' rather than an 'elephant' which seems disingenuous. It is true that not every grain of sand in the Sinai desert has been turned over but the substantial amount of excavation which has been performed has not yielded one iota of positive evidence. :::: Greenman262 (talk) 08:46, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Greenman262 - What would that be? Doug Weller and I have already stated that the statements in the text that you have specifically stated that you took issue with were fair and corroborated by legitimate references. So which "baseless conjecture" would you like to move or remove that you have not already cited? Not trying to be difficult, but Misplaced Pages isn't meant to mirror everyone's specific POV - its meant to reflect the consensus POV. Ckruschke (talk) 16:49, 18 November 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke

Not every publication in academic literature is worthy of being called a legitimate reference. The arguments by Kitchen and Hoffmeier as presented here are:

1. possibly the Egyptian records of the presence of the Israelites and their escape have been lost or suppressed;

2. possibly (or probably) the fleeing Israelites left no archaeological trace in the desert;

3. possibly the huge numbers reported in the story are mistranslated

1. There is no positive evidence whatsoever for the Exodus OT narrative, despite Egypt's 3000+year history of writing. Nor is there any evidence whatsoever for widespread Hebrew servitude or plagues.

2. what did they do for decades in the desert? how did they survive? The 'or probably' is especially disingenuous in my opinion

3. possibly the story is made up?

The 'consensus POV' on the historicity should be based on the scientific consensus, which pays no mind to Kitchen's and Hoffmeier's religiously biased speculations. Why then end the summary of the historicity section with this? Greenman262 (talk) 17:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

To the user who undid my edit: Can you or anyone else please explain why the summary of the historicity section should end with speculations? It drives the narrative of the article in a disingenuos way. The article defines the message of the Exodus as

that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant. It tells of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt following the death of Joseph, their departure under the leadership of Moses, the revelations at Sinai (including the Ten Commandments), and their wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan.

I'll grant your side that the absence of archaelogical evidence in the Sinai desert is not sufficient in itself to deny the possibility of Hebrew people having traveled from Egypt through the Sinai. However, the notion of the Mosaic covenant, which is THE central part of the Exodus story, has ZERO historical support whatsoever outside the old testament. Is is too much to ask that the SUMMARY OF THE HISTORICITY (!!) section reflects this fact and does not attempt to muddy the waters with religous-based speculation?

As to the credentials of James K. Hoffmeier, he is Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology at Trinity evangelical divinity school. Note that this is NOT a university but a seminary, whose mission statement is to be 'an evangelical learning community united around the gospel of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.' I would hardly call this a reliable source. Furthermore, although he has published in numerous archaeolical journals he fails to provide a shred of actual evidence for the Exodus.

I'm fine with it being moved to some other part of the article but it should not be the final sentence of the summary of the historicity. Greenman262 (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't undo your edit, but you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of how edits work if there is established consensus on a section and other editors disagree with your opinion. Both I and Doug Weller have given you our opinions as to how we believe your edits are contrary to the consensus version of the page. You seem to think if you put up a wall of your opinion and then wait, that you can just go ahead and make whatever changes you want, consensus be damned. This is not how it works.

If you would like to make revisions, please place the EXACT sentences and your proposed edit into Talk and we as a community on this page will look at it and come to a consensus on your proposal. Please do not make any more unilateral changes on this page. Ckruschke (talk) 20:34, 6 December 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke

The following sentences in my opinion have no place in a summary of the historicity of the Exodus

possibly the Egyptian records of the presence of the Israelites and their escape have been lost or suppressed; possibly (or probably) the fleeing Israelites left no archaeological trace in the desert; possibly the huge numbers reported in the story are mistranslated

My point is that ending this particular section with these sentences drives the narrative of the article in a disingenuous manner. These sentences could be moved to a separate section titled "'Fringe Views' or could be integrated into sections such as 'Numbers and logistics' and 'Archaeology' Greenman262 (talk) 15:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Greenman262, shouting and writing everything in capitals is a poor strategy to convince people about the merits of your arguments. As for some of these arguments: "not sufficient in itself to deny the possibility of Hebrew people having traveled from Egypt through the Sinai". It is probably sufficient to indicate that they did not spend a significant period as desert nomads and/or did not have the numbers to leave evidence of their presence behind. However, Misplaced Pages does not care what its editors feel or think about any particular subject. It needs sources which make the connections and deductions for us. It is a frustrating aspect of the Misplaced Pages experience, but you have to realize it if you want to participate. Find sources which support your arguments.

"the Mosaic covenant ... has ZERO historical support whatsoever outside the old testament." While I honestly think that Little Red Riding Hood has a better claim at historicity than the Book of Exodus (less need of suspension of disbelief and more plausible motivations for the characters), if our sources do not bring up the historicity of divine intervention, we can not address the matter in a Misplaced Pages article. Remember, no original research.
"Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern History and Archaeology". So Hoffmeier probably is knowledgeable in the relevant fields of study and could even be called an expert. The likelihood of his personal bias on the matter and that his workplace sounds fishy is not enough to erase his comments. Editors should not delete whatever they or goes against their personal beliefs.
"I would hardly call this a reliable source." It would be unreliable in whatever article has to do with the resurrection of Jesus. However, that does not mean that they are fans of Biblical literalism and are necessarily in denial of evidence.
"he fails to provide a shred of actual evidence for the Exodus". He does not have to provide evidence. Historians and archaeologists provide interpretations of the historical record and of various specific sources. Not every conjecture is based on concrete evidence, but that does not mean we can casually reject potential explanations for this or that problem. Dimadick (talk) 11:16, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. My main point which I capitalized for clarity is that K&H's views should not end the summary of the historicity section but should rather be moved to a seperate "Fringe Explanations and Views" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenman262 (talk • contribs) 13:33, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The section you are referencing is a summary of the Historicity section. You cannot move this content into a separate section as it would no longer summarize all viewpoints/issues of the section.

I really think you are making a bigger deal out of the two sentences than is merited - simply because it is the last two sentences doesn't mean it carries more weight. Whether you believe it or not, this is still a scholarly viewpoint of those with literal Biblical backgrounds. As I state and others have as well, not all content on a Wiki page is not required to be agreeable to all readers. Ckruschke (talk) 19:41, 9 December 2016 (UTC)Ckruschke

Taking into account "Patterns of evidence:The Exodus"

Hi, I just finished watching "Patterns of evidence:The Exodus" on NetFlix.

This documentary makes in my opinion several valid points that can be followed up be viewing the materials referenced concerning the digs in Avaris.

I have no "bone in this fight" as I am a non religous person.

Regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arneno1 (talk • contribs) 17:03, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I've just edited a section of the 'Archaeology' under the Historicity of the Exodus. Previously, it stated that there was no evidence whatsoever for the exodus (leaving of peoples from Egypt), which is false. During the reign of Amenhotep II a city of Egypt and major military base known as Avaris was entirely abandoned, which would coincide with the exodus assuming the exodus date of 1446 BC (which I will make further edits on this Misplaced Pages page later on). I cited a paper from the journal JAIE which clearly cites this abandonment, and then shows that this abandonment indeed took place under the reign of Amenhotep II. A sudden abandonement of a city that probably hosted tens of thousands of inhabitants (25,000-30,000 from what I read) is definite evidence for the historicity of the exodus, which indicates a massive exodus of the Hebrew peoples from Egypt all at once, consistent with the sudden abandonment of Avaris which entirely happened all at once. Is this absolute evidence for the entire story? No, but it is some evidence, and that was the point of my edit (which I may need to re-do if it gets removed because I may have missed an editing step or something).

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