The Exodus - Did It Really Happen?

[mfbukowski]

Christians have always made pilgrimages to sites that are considered to be sacred. In 1026, some of those sites were already ancient.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_All_Nations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_Nativity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Orthodox_Church_of_the_Annunciation

Ah yes.  TRADITION.

 

Always scientifically accurate.

[Duncan]

Hey, Duncan, I saw actually footage of Forrest with three Presidents!!

 

 

aw!!!! and the Dr. pepper! I had that once too!

[EllenMaksoud]

Heck people speculate about the moon landing and who killed Kennedy.  You don't have to go back 1200 AD!

Yes, so the important thing is, what is the church TODAY?  And, my own experience very early on galvanizes my faith. It hurts me to see people pick away at the validity of their belief

[EllenMaksoud]

And what of the evidence for transubstantiation?

 

What do the scientists say about that?

I don't believe in Transubstantiation, but respect those who do.

[Robert F. Smith]

It seems unlikely that there was an exodus or a historical Moses, but I'm not sure that's really the point of the story

Exactly the point made by Finkelstein & Silberman, according to the blurbs I have read about their book, and in listening to Finkelstein lecture at UCLA some years back.

 

So nothing more than communal folktales of origin of the Jewish people?  It is as if they were true -- every Passover.

[mfbukowski]

I don't believe in Transubstantiation, but respect those who do.

I respect them also.  But it is hardly provable.  THAT was the point.  Evidence is irrelevant for matters of faith.  It is SUPPOSED TO BE irrelevant or else it would not be called "faith".

[EllenMaksoud]

I respect them also.  But it is hardly provable.  THAT was the point.  Evidence is irrelevant for matters of faith.  It is SUPPOSED TO BE irrelevant or else it would not be called "faith".

And Faith is the gift of God.

[mfbukowski]

Exactly the point made by Finkelstein & Silberman, according to the blurbs I have read about their book, and in listening to Finkelstein lecture at UCLA some years back.

 

So nothing more than communal folktales of origin of the Jewish people?  It is as if they were true -- every Passover.

What is important is the cultural significance of how such ideas bring us to God.  They are as "true" in a religious context as the cultural significance of a child playing with styrofoam balls making a model of an "atom" is in a scientific context.

 

Both are teaching tools culturally constructed to accomplish specific goals and engender specific beliefs.

[mfbukowski]

And Faith is the gift of God.

Exactly!

[Helen47]

I was in an email exchange with a fundi friend over the issue of jericho and the walls and he mentioned some work of  keynon

 

He sent this url

 

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/01/30/Jericho-Does-the-Evidence-Disprove-or-Prove-the-Bible.aspx#Article

 

You first have Biblical Archaeologist like Allbright etc and then come the secular ones like Finkelstein

[saemo]

And what of the evidence for transubstantiation?

 

What do the scientists say about that?

Faith and reason work together.

There are Eucharistic miracles.

[saemo]

I stand corrected but I had in mind something else and am wondering if someone in say Ireland in 1026 would have even heard of these places, let alone visited them. It's like me, I know of countries in central and south America but I don't keep up to date on various findings

Christians have made pilgrimages to Jerusalem since Christianity has existed. Irish are no exception.

"Every man who undertakes the journey to the Our Lord's Sepulcher needs three sacks: a sack of patience, a sack of silver, and a sack of faith." -- Symon Semeonis, an Irish medieval pilgrim

BTW, tall steeples on old European churches are an invention for pilgrims, so they can see where to go when they arrive in a strange city/town.

[mfbukowski]

Faith and reason work together.

 

Prove it. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism

Also:

 

“What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” (246) This question of the relation between reason—here represented by Athens—and faith—represented by Jerusalem—was posed by the church father Tertullian (c.160–230 CE), and it remains a central preoccupation among contemporary philosophers of religion.

“Fideism” is the name given to that school of thought—to which Tertullian himself is frequently said to have subscribed—which answers that faith is in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason. In contrast to the more rationalistic tradition of natural theology, with its arguments for the existence of God, fideism holds—or at any rate appears to hold (more on this caveat shortly)—that reason is unnecessary and inappropriate for the exercise and justification of religious belief. The term itself derives from fides, the Latin word for faith, and can be rendered literally as faith-ism. “Fideism” is thus to be understood not as a synonym for “religious belief,” but as denoting a particular philosophical account of faith's appropriate jurisdiction vis-a-vis that of reason.

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/

 

You know I love you.  I am just as much against Mormons who think archaeology will actually prove anything. 

[Robert F. Smith]

Additionally, there is no evidence that the Jews were ever held captive in Egypt.

The Egyptians did keep written records you know. To this date nothing has been found showing that they held the Jews captive. You would think by now something would have been found concerning millions of Jews held captive for hundreds of years.

We do in fact have records of West Asiatic ʿApiru (Hebrews) hauling huge stones for the main temple at the Pharaonic residence Pi-Rameses in the Delta at Khatana Qantir (Papyrus Leiden 348, 6:6), just as foreign slaves (Canaanite-Syrian & Nubian) are depicted on the walls the 15th century Tomb of Rekhmire making mud bricks for a storehouse of the Temple of Amun at Karnak.  Egyptian texts from the Ramesside period speak both of the lack of straw essential to brick-making, as well as brick-making quotas which sometimes could not be met, both of which are directly reminiscent of biblical texts in Exodus.  

 

The head of a major expedition, Manfred Bietak, thinks that he can distinguish proto-Israelite dwellings in Egypt in the late 12th century B.C. (Dyn XX): and says that there “were probably slaves descended from prisoners of war from Palestine or the desert of Seir–perhaps early or proto-Israelites.”   See his “Israelites Found in Egypt,” BAR, 29/5 (Sept-Oct 2003), 40-47,49,82-83. 

 

As Abraham Malamat and others have argued, the Israelites appear to be part of a larger group of Ḫabiru / ʿApiru  “Hebrews” (a widespread class of people), who are mentioned in the Amarna Letters, for example, as a Late Bronze Age seminomadic people in Palestine, some of whom were in fact enslaved in Egypt, and (if the biblical account is to be taken seriously) a small number of whom presumably escaped and found refuge in the Land of Midian (east of Aqaba and perhaps near Wadi Rumm in present-day southern Jordan and northwestern Saudia – the northern Hijaz), where they remained for an extended period (40 years in the wilderness is probably symbolic).

Edited February 13, 2014 by Robert F. Smith

[saemo]

Ah yes.  TRADITION.

 

Always scientifically accurate.

Jerusalem is a fact, my friend.

Tradition is not discounted in archaeology, it is used as clues, for where to look and what to look for.

[mfbukowski]

There are Eucharistic miracles.

Now you're talking.

 

But don't tell me those are based on "reason" because they would not be "miracles" if they were.

[saemo]

I respect them also. But it is hardly provable. THAT was the point. Evidence is irrelevant for matters of faith. It is SUPPOSED TO BE irrelevant or else it would not be called "faith".

An entire civilization and culture isn't a matter of faith. Only for Mormons and Scientology!

Edited February 13, 2014 by saemo

[saemo]

Now you're talking.

 

But don't tell me those are based on "reason" because they would not be "miracles" if they were.

Google is your friend.

[mfbukowski]

Jerusalem is a fact, my friend.

Tradition is not discounted in archaeology, it is used as clues, for where to look and what to look for.

The use of tradition is a fact, but not all traditions are facts.  Big difference.

 

Clues are not facts.

 

And clues to the resurrection do not prove its religious significance.  One could find the actual shroud- the one from Turin might be, who knows- but suppose somehow it was proven to BE "THE" shroud.

 

It would prove nothing about Jesus being divine.

 

We could find THE nails and pieces of wood somehow genetically proven- (or by whatever technique) to be THE nails of Jesus and it would not prove that he died for MY sins.

 

Raw facts can NEVER prove religious beliefs.

[saemo]

Prove it. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism

Also:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fideism/

 

You know I love you.  I am just as much against Mormons who think archaeology will actually prove anything.

http://m.ccel.org/browse/bookInfo?id=aquinas/summa

[mfbukowski]

An entire civilization and culture isn't a matter of faith. Only for Mormons and Scientology!

You are missing the point.  The culture is not the question- the question is the RELIGIOUS content, not the factual content.

 

And indeed as is shown in this thread, Catholics are not quite ready to throw out the bible because there is no evidence of the exodus- are they?

 

If archaeology proves faith then ALL Christians need to throw out the Bible RIGHT NOW because it has been DISPROVEN.  THERE IS NOT EVIDENCE for vast portions of the Bible, just some general points.

 

So if evidence PROVES the bible, then lack of evidence DISPROVES it just as well.

 

Well- what are you waiting for?  Catholics must now disavow the bible on that logic.

[Robert F. Smith]

I was in an email exchange with a fundi friend over the issue of jericho and the walls and he mentioned some work of  keynon

 

He sent this url

 

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/01/30/Jericho-Does-the-Evidence-Disprove-or-Prove-the-Bible.aspx#Article

 

You first have Biblical Archaeologist like Allbright etc and then come the secular ones like Finkelstein

Wrong.  You have the extremists (maximalists and minimalists), and then you have those like Albright and the Baltimore School who hewed a middle path between the extremes -- based on hard science, linguistics, and sound exegesis of texts.  It was the strong belief of Albright that good scholarship is not based on preconceived notions: atheists, Jews, Protestants, and Catholics should come to the same basic conclusions based on the evidence.

[mfbukowski]

http://m.ccel.org/browse/bookInfo?id=aquinas/summa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99jVPJUeqr4

[Flyonthewall]

Oh, I like that I can read about places in the Bible, and look at them today (pictures; never been to the Middle East). One of my favorites is Caesarea Phillipi. It gives a depth of meaning that otherwise isn't there. It is a very ancient site of worship, going back Ba'al, the "nemesis" of the Elohim culture in the Old Testament. It is near the "way of the sea", mentioned by Isaiah. Later, it was dedicated to the pagan god Pan. It is a site of ancient Greek battles, and Alexandrian conquest. During Jesus' lifetime a pagan temple stood, built on the rock formation of the area, in front of a grotto that according to Josephus had never had its depths measured (couldn't find the bottom). It was therefore considered to be a gate to Hades. So understanding the setting, its history, its usage through time, brings meaning to the words of Jesus when he told Peter he was the rock that his church would be built on, and the gates of hades would never prevail against it.

 

God is present in history and so we find history (including historical artifacts) and the places where God acts in human history, woven together, not separated by time. Evidence is there.

 

The Book of Mormon has no such places, anywhere on the planet. I don't know how anyone can look at that and not go, "wait a minute".

Just because you can see places today that existed a long time ago does not give any credence to stories that take place there...The Illiad and the Oddysey mention places that can still be seen and visited today... doesn't make those stories factual.

I can read about places in The Bourne Identity too, in fact the whole series of books mention places that really exist and can be visited, but that doesn't make them true...

Book of Mormon places may have already been found but not realized. Instead of Zarahemla, it may be known as Mexico City, or Chicago, or something else.

Nephites and Lamanites could be known as Olmec, or Aztec, or Mayan, or Navajo or Comanche, or Utes, or something else.

[pogi]

Faith and reason work together.

 

 

I agree, but to me it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that I have no clue where Zarahemla was, and still believe in it.  It is also reasonable to suggest that our perspective is limited.  While evidence may support reason, the lack of it does not destroy it.  As they say "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  That sounds reasonable to me. 

 

This was a talk in a 2012 conference that talks a little about this:

 

“If, because of unbelief or doubt, you find your faith wavering, remember that even the ancient Apostles implored the Lord to “increase our faith.” Bearing in mind that faith and reason are necessary companions, consider the following analogy: faith and reason are like the two wings of an aircraft. Both are essential to maintain flight. If, from your perspective, reason seems to contradict faith, pause and remember that our perspective is extremely limited compared with the Lord’s. Do not discard faith any more than you would detach a wing from an aircraft in flight. Instead, nurture a particle of faith and permit the hope it produces to be an anchor to your soul—and to your reason. That is why we are commanded to “seek learning … by study and also by faith.” Remember, faith precedes and produces miracles for which we have no immediate explanation within our experience, such as a Dutch oven full of food from two small biscuits or simply enduring in faith against all odds.”

 

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/by-faith-all-things-are-fulfilled?lang=eng