History to Poobah (My Reply as Promised)

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>TERRY

<snip>


>Furthermore, the absence of information concerning Israel, might be

>expained by the Egyptians not mentioning things that place them in a bad

>light.  This is not surprising, since the Egyptians not only refused to

>record matters uncomplimentary to themselves but also were not above

>effacing records of a previous monarch if the information in such records

>proved distasteful to the then reigning pharaoh. Thus, after the death of

>Queen Hatshepsut, Thutmose III had her name and representations chiseled

>out of the monumental reliefs. This practice might explain why there is no

>known Egyptian record of the 215 years of Israelite residence in Egypt or

>of their Exodus.

>The pharaoh ruling at the time of the Exodus is not named in the Bible;

>hence, efforts to identify him are based on conjecture.  I believe this

>partly explains why modern historians' calculations of the date of the

>Exodus vary from 1441 to 1225 B.C.E., a difference of over 200 years.  Now

>Brian, for these reasons and more,  I believe the Flood occured before the

>events you listed.  I know this will not satisfy you, but hopefully it

>will show you that I do have my reasons for my beliefs.


Bruce:

You know, I am never ceasing in amazement at the depth of "wishful thinking"
that literalists, in their desperation to mesh their religious beliefs with
what is known of history, will stoop to.  So strong is their "belief" that
even the wildest speculation, with absolutely no basis in supporting
evidence, will be blindly accepted as plausible without a second thought--to
hell with what science, archaeology, and documented history has to say about
it!  "If it doesn't match what the Bible says then by god it HAS TO BE WRONG
BECAUSE THE BIBLE IS PERFECT AND INFALLIBLE!"

The thing I find most perplexing though is that you will frequently find
that these same individuals will use common sense and critical thinking
skills in every aspect of their daily lives (well, at least I have found
this to be true).  However, as soon as their religion comes into play a
transformation occurs that defies logic, since those same reasoning skills
they were utilizing moments earlier suddenly vanish.  For example, you could
be discussing Medusa of Greek mythology and how men are instantly turned to
stone if they should see her face.  To this, our friend might comment on
what a nice story it is.  However, if you were to suggest that the story is
actually an historical fact s/he would look at you like you were an idiot
for believing such nonsense: "p-l-e-a-s-e . . . people turning to stone from
looking at a woman's face . . . don't insult my intelligence!"  They have no
problem seeing such a preposterous story for what it really is, a
mythological tale.  But amazingly these people have no qualms whatsoever
with believing that Lot's wife actually turned into a "pillar of salt"; or
that Jonah lived for three days in the belly of a fish (whale?); or that Eve
was created from Adam's rib; or that the secret to Samson's strength was the
length of his hair; or that two (seven?) of every animal and creepy crawly
(creepy crawly?  was that the best name Adam could come up with?) could fit
into an ark, let alone be cared for, fed, watered, and cleaned up after by
only eight people for nearly an entire year; or that a massive flood
engulfed the earth to the tune of 30,000 feet above current sea level and
then drained off somewhere (???), leaving in its place all the necessary
vegetation and prey necessary for all the animals to step off the ark and
continue on their merry way; or people being resurrected from the dead; or
masses of people being satisfied of hunger with only two fishes and five
loaves of bread; or that there was an actual physical "tree of knowledge of
good and evil", etc., etc. . . . Why?

When dealing with a complete lack of archaeological or historical evidence
for little things like the Exodus, fundamentalists don't give it a second
thought to concoct whatever unsupported fantasy they please to account for
the problems.  In the above example Terry speculates, as fundamentalists
have time and time again, that the reason you don't find any evidence for
the Exodus of Israelites from Egypt is because it was a profound defeat to
the Egyptians and they just selectively chipped out all of the records in
Egypt having any mention of Israelites, or of armies getting wiped out in
the Red Sea (or the Reed Sea).  They will cite Akhenaten, the heretic king,
for whom there is evidence of his name being destroyed in their records, to
lend support to their claims of record tampering by the Egyptians, regarding
the Exodus and the Noachian flood.  
However, they won't let on to the fact that archaeologists have still been
able to trace the life of Akhenaten and many historical accounts of his
actions while he was Pharaoh.  We also have plenty of records dealing with
the Hyksos, who actually conquered Egypt and ruled it.  We don't have
problems finding accounts of Egyptian history which they considered less
than glorious, but can still be corroborated through archaeological and
historical evidence.  

What we don't have is evidence of any mass exodus of Israelites from Egypt,
after having been held in bondage for over four-hundred years mind you
(there should be a plethora of evidence and references)!  We don't find
corroboration of this in Egypt itself and we don't find corroboration of
this miraculous event from the history of other nations as well.  Indeed, to
find history of the alleged Exodus, you have to go to the Bible . . . Why?
Somehow 2.5 million Hebrews, and their leader Moses, just escaped the
attention of Egypt and the rest of the world, after which they wandered
aimlessly in the Sinai for forty years and yet managed not to leave a single
archaelogical trace they were ever even there.  

Incidently, Moses would never have been given the chance to make such
demands of Pharaoh in the first place, let alone inflict ten plagues upon
Egypt (none of which would have been necessary anyway if God hadn't
"hardened Pharaoh's heart" to begin with).  He would have been put to death
after the first one, if even that . . . game over!  Moreover, why do you
suppose it is that the actual name of the Exudus Pharaoh is not given in the
Bible?  Perhaps the Israelites feared a libel suit from the Egyptians for
defamation of character and so changed the names?

Yours In Truth,

Bruce Monson    

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