I do acknowledge they are off-topic to Biologos. I merely tried to pick the most appropriate-sounding section for them.
Jon, I hate to be a bother. I read those articles the first time you posted them.
But today a systematic search of BOTH articles for where the name ‘Merneptah’ is used reveals that you have not attempted to link the Merneptah campaign against Israel with any part of the Biblical narrative.
Have you come up with a proposal for this “link” since composing the two papers?
As you are well aware (this was covered previously), the Biblical narrative does not mention the campaign of Merneptah. So you are literally asking me to show you something which does not exist. The best question you have asked is “what part of the bible do you think Merneptah’s “Israelite Campaign” should be most closely associated?”. Obviously I believe the Exodus is the part of the Bible that I think Merneptah’s Israelite campaign should be most closely associated with, and that is clear from the papers I have already posted. So I have already answered that question.
Until you are actually prepared to address the archaeological evidence and the textual evidence, there’s no way forward in this discussion. If you want to talk about imaginary things, there are plenty of threads for that (there’s a great one on demons).
WOW… talk about dancing around with an answer.
Yes… I would agree… Exodus is the “part” to which you most closely associate the Merneptah campaign. But frankly, that’s really not much of an answer.
Do we have an Egyptian raid against the Israel in Sinai? No.
Do we have an Egyptian raid against the Israel in Kadesh Barnea? No.
Do we have an Egyptian raid against Israel in Moab or Ammon? No.
Do we have an Egyptian raid against Israel in coastal Palestine? Or at ANY TIME prior to Solomon? No.
The linkage between the history of Merneptah and the history of post-Exodus Israel is rather poor, wouldn’t you say?
Thank you. I am not dancing around with an answer; I gave an answer and you understood it.
Of course we don’t, for the reasons I have already given. You haven’t addressed the archaeology yet.
No, not at all. It proves Israel was in the land at exactly the time you claimed it was impossible for them to be there. Not only that, it proves the Egyptians only made one attempt to drive them out during the Bronze Age, and when that didn’t succeed they didn’t make any further attempts. This completely disproves your claim that the Hebrews could not have settled in Canaan during the Bronze Age, because the Egyptians occupied the entire territory and prevented anyone from entering.
Jon, What I see is that Israel was a people on the move roughly at the same time as the Sea People … probably on the move BECAUSE of the Sea People! (Like the Goths were pushed into earth-shaking movements by the Huns.) The Bible text I quote specifically links the Philistines to the general warring circumstances of that region … which is GOOD for your scenario … but also specifically says Israel had nothing to do with these warring circumstances … which is BAD for your scenario.
There’s nothing in Mernetpah’s stele which suggests any connection between Israel and a people that had been held in captivity in Egypt…
BUT … if you could come to agree on something like this … I would be willing to say THESE are the Hebrew of Exodus! But if you reject them, I must reject the rest of your version as well.
“The hieroglyphic rendering of the Egyptian word š3sw (Shasu) means “those who move on foot”. The name “Shasu of Yhw”, e.g., the name rings from Soleb and Amarah-West, corresponds very precisely to the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHWH.[13] The demonym ‘Israel’ can reasonably be referred to a Shasu enclave, and it can be concluded that the Shasu originated from Moab and northern Edom and eventually helped to constitute the nation of ‘Israel’ which later established the Kingdom of Israel.[14][15]”
Footnote 13: Astour, Michael C. (1979). “Yahweh in Egyptian Topographic Lists.” In Festschrift Elmar Edel, eds. M. Gorg & E. Pusch, Bamberg; (1979), p. 18
Footnote 14: Redford, Donald B. (1992). Egypt, Canaan and Israel In Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00086-7. p. 272-3,275.
Footnote 15: Rainey, Anson (2008). “Shasu or Habiru. Who Were the Early Israelites?” Biblical Archeology Review 34:6 (Nov/Dec).
That’s irrelevant, the point is that the date of the stele shows Israel was already established in the land at exactly the time that they needed to be under my proposed reconstruction of the events of the Exodus.
Yes I’m prepared to believe that some of the shasu were the Hebrews of Exodus. Note in particular Papyrus Anastasi VI, referring to shasu being permitted to enter the Nile Delta in the thirteenth century, to feed their flocks. But I don’t see you addressing all the archaeological evidence. You have a couple of scraps here and there, and you’re making an entire argument from them, without synthesizing all the data.
The difference between you and me is that you “synthesize all the information” in order to make the overall aggregation of evidence support a bogus piece of biblical narrative.
I disqualify a story by using its own words. Nothing is more clear than Exodus (whatever the Exodus actually was) did not happen until AFTER 1130 BCE.
I am a big fan for following the evidence… but not COOKING the evidence. If the Shasu is associated with some kind of Exodus … that would be interesting … but it also means the Shasu (and/or the Hebrew?) appear to be a DIFFERENT group than the people Merneptah calls “Israel” … which, as you say, was campaigned against by Merneptah.
I’ve always thought Exodus was a combination of different stories… and this discussion only further strengthens my thoughts on the matter.
No, I follow the scholarly literature and accept the scholarly consensus. You have already decided Exodus is “a bogus piece of biblical narrative”, so you need to ignore any archaeological evidence in its favour, whilst dodging difficult questions about why it shows no evidence of having originated in the Persian era.
No, I don’t see that at all.
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One may not fine archeological evidence of a biblical issue, but that is not refutation. Can you give an example of these “refutations” you suggested?
“No recorded history” is not refutation.
Can you rely on this text to conclude that Exodus had to have happened AFTER Merneptah?
Exo 13:17 “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them NOT through the Way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt…”
Jon has already established that Merneptah attacked a people called Israel before this … and this attack is not discussed in connection with the Midianites, or the Hebrew …
So it leads us to conclude that the Hebrew ADOPTED the name of the Israelites after Exodus. The Bible even tells us that the name ISRAEL was ASSIGNED to a people… rather than its original name.
Genesis 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
Jacob’s name was changed to Israel well before the family ever migrated to Egypt. It was in fact changed immediately following the “Jacob’s Ladder” account.
There was at that time, no “nation” of Israel; rather just a small family, and the Exodus didn’t follow until at lease 320 years afterwards.
And Pharoah Merneptah was a Pharaoh who ruled over Egypt in the late 13th century B.C. The son of Ramesses the Great (Ramesses II), Merneptah was the fourth Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty.
I do not believe Merneptah was the Pharoah referenced in the account in the book of Exodus, which took place in 1447-6 BC depending upon which scholar you select for accuracy…
Yes, the story comes across that way.
But what if this is the scribe’s attempt to take some of the inspirational aspects of history and craft a new narrative?
A modern reader knows that the story of Romulus and Remus says they were raised by a she-wolf. But ancient Romans who read the story might have thought it was a pretty obvious reference to two children raised by a prostitute who plied her services in a port town region of the Tiber River. “She-wolf” was a slang term for prostitutes.
Do we literally think that the Cosmic Divine arrived on the scene and gave Jacob a NEW NAME?
Or is it more possible that a patriarch of the Hebrew decided to take the name of a now obliterated people he knew as Israel?
If I took a new name - - I would CERTAINLY SAY that God gave it to me…
I don’t see how Exodus could happen in the 1440’s BCE … when there were no Philistines forcefully occupying the Levant just north of the Sinai…
Is this the main mission of Evangelical interpreters of the Old Testament?.. to find as much historical evidence to ignore and contradict as possible?
If the miracle of your birth is not enough for you you will search for other miracles in vein. Believing in God or Jesus as the son of God based on miracles makes you a poor Christian, as if it takes a miracle to convince you of his worthiness of being a true son of God you better believe the Atheists.
Language is the transmission of perceived reality by material means and a general cause of confusion. If to you a virgin birth refers to a birth originating in magic with Gods you can as well believe any old greek or roman myth who always insisted on the sons of Gods to be generated by god’s physical interaction with the world. You can get a virgin birth on the NHS these days and it will become common place amongst the feminista. If you consider it to be the difficult birth of an unmarried woman most likely impregnated against her will by the occupying army you would understand what her fate would have been at the time - abortion of mother and child. And they know why they did that as they were not at all aware how children were created. They did not know the precise cell biology but in our modern day arrogance we happily declare them those primitive goat herders. Sure you pull a blanket over everyone’s eyes to say it came from magic,common place all the time. If you look t the poetic language of the bible describing that in Jesus the word of God turned flesh you will understand it’s transcendent meaning and look for it’s spiritual content instead of its material content - albeit hard for today’s materialists. To love thy neighbour, e.g. thy unborn child like thyself at a considerable risk to your own reputation and safety, let alone to raise a child that was forced upon you required a love that goes beyond loving yourself. It requires you to love thyself and thus fulfills the word of God to help creation in his will. Today we just abort the babies.
If you want to use the bible to confirm your materialistic worldview you will be able to force it into a mold that appears to support that as well - but it will break eventually. If you want to find God in the Bible you do well to look beyond the material aspects of it. If you want to stumble than believe Jesus to make the alcohol for the wedding party because as a disciple you would follow a man who appears to do magic tricks you cannot explain. But that only makes you look gullible. If however you see in Jesus a man who is bold enough to shame an entire wedding party for their materialistic expectations confronting them with the purest water that you could get, reserved for the vessels of ritual cleansing that you would recognise immediately, you would understand that in this man was a wisdom that went well beyond the ordinary, a person who could not teach you magic tricks but wisdom.
If you want to become a disciple of Christ take your pick and go beyond the materialistic fasade of the bible stories. Do not look for the remnants of magic wine in glasses but the remnants of Jesus in the eucharist. If you would really think the wine and bread to be his physical body and blood for material magic you should throw up at the thought of it. Get over that one first and then you might be able to open your mind for what is written in the bible and you will find that the Chronology and technical details of the bible are not a stumbling block any more. Be prepared to fall over the message which s far harder to take, as it is not about questioning the material details of the bible but the material details of yourself.
“I don’t see…” is not rebuttal, it is confession to lack of evidence.
" there were no Philistines forcefully occupying the Levant just north of the Sinai… " is not rebuttal to when Israel occupied slave quarters in Egypt, and exited to Palestine.
“No Archeology…” refutes nothing. It is a simple declaration that their history does not show up in their garbage dumps. Refutes nothing, just doesn’t verify it. Lack of evidence is not proof of absence.
“Do we literally think that the Cosmic Divine arrived on the scene and gave Jacob a NEW NAME…” is a confession of lack of faith in a God who can tell us two hundred years prior to an Historical event, and it come true even to the naming of the king involved. Doubt was never the standard for bible study. I do not spend my time trying to disprove everything scripture presents.
Your testimony is not eye witness account, but is your assessment of the veracity of doubter’s account millennia’s after the facts. Scripture consists of two vastly different types of consideration from
"Scholarship;" i.e., eye-witness account and prophesy.
God has written us an account of creation. Our options are mostly threefold; 1) accept it without evidence; 2) examine it for evidence and weigh probability; 3) accept the “Scholarship” of men thousands of years after the timeframe of the accounts under consideration, who express doubt based upon lack of evidence. Again, lack of evidence does not serve to prove absence of fact. At most it serves to display absence of testimony of one having equal credentials with the one that they are seeking to discredit.
THAT would require a “Scholar” having the ability to predict two hundred years prior to the birth of a king, spell out what activity he will be involved in, and how it will impact others, then to prove your thesis, name him, and allow History to testify to its veracity in two hundred-+ years. Please name the “Scholar” you deem to have equal qualifications with the author of scripture. By Author I do not reference the penman who scribed it, but the originator of the information recorded.
As for your “What if…” argument - Argument based upon supposition is not argument, it is supposition which is valueless toward establishing anything other than supposition.
The same for your “Or is it more possible…” assessment. We have no verifiable evidence by which to assess possibilities of such magnitude as to justify our calling God a dreamer, which seems to me to be the result of your assessment. I would rather dream with God than agree with such assessments with no evidence facts, which never proves absence of facts.
Your confession of “If I took a new name - - I would CERTAINLY SAY that God gave it to me…” serves no purpose other than to denigrate the testimony of eye-witness testimony which has not been verified by “Scholars” thousands of years later.
I choose the eye-witness testimony until another witness comes forth having equal credentials with the original author, etc.
You are obviously a person of great faith.
But remind yourself that historians think there is a different, but also valid, set of eye-witness testimonies … the eye-witness testimony of archaeology … the eye-witness testimony of historical analysis … used to pull away the dark veil from events that no one else lives to tell us about.
The Bible, in Exodus, SAYS the Philistines existed before Exodus. In fact, the Bible, in Genesis, SAYS the Philistines existed in the age of Abraham.
There are only a few ways to explain this… and other than the hilarious apologia that a Greek merchant colony in the Levant was ALSO called the Philistines … these few ways of explaining this point to the credible hypothesis that the stories that make up Exodus and parts of Genesis come from a post-Sea People historical age.
THIS is Testimony, purporting to be written by a scribe, and authored by “GOD” WHATEVER that may mean.
Genesis 21:34 And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days.
Evidence by reason of research as to terminology:
Philistine = MEANS “immigrants” = an inhabitant of Philistia; descendants of Mizraim who immigrated from Caphtor (Crete?) to the western seacoast of Canaan
As for the timing… It was NOT written in Abraham’s day, but several hundred years after Abraham. Moses wrote the account after the Exodus from Egypt, and the entry of Israel into Caanan.
What is the best evidence? The best evidence is the testimony concerning the experience perceived by eye-witnesses, of an event not experienced by others. For example, you may experience an event, but in order to share your perception, you will be required to testify as to what you perceive “was” the reality of your experience,
For you to give testimony sufficient to convince others that your perception is close to reality, you must be able to communicate not only sight, but sound, sometimes color, and sometimes compatible analysis of what you think you saw and heard. The testimony must be lucid, comprehensible to the hearers, and a testimony to the possible.
The impossible takes a little longer to convince.
Consider the Newspaper accounts during world war II which told of Bombers flying over jungles filled with people who had never seen Aircraft of any kind. They thought they had seen the Gods and heard their roaring, according to the news accounts of the day.
Perception is based upon experiences of the possible, and the possible is based upon the totality of exposure to real events. In every civilized nation, there are courts in which trials are exercised to give a semblance or justice, based upon evidence of testimony, usually of eye-witness experience; and usually eliminating “hear-say” as incompatible with the level what is considered to reach the “Proof” required for jury consideration, by which a plausible and fair verdict may be rendered.
Scripture does exactly what the trial of peers does, i.,e., presents eye-witness testimony for evaluation, consideration, and acceptance or rejection based upon reasonableness of testimony, possibility of perceived activity, probability of results, and perceived veracity of the Author of testimony, coupled with a belief that the scribe has given an accurate accounting of the Author’s offering. This becomes even more acceptable when that same author offers later corrections as to the scribe’s misstatements. And sometimes the Author even states through a different scribe, “That prior scribe did not give my words truthfully.” All of the current paragraph is experienced in the pages of scripture.
And when the Author tells the scribe "I am going to have a servant in some future time, who will send you people back from captivity, to your home in Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple, and the city walls. He will sustain the costs of transport and sustenance for the journey, and will pay for the cost of the rebuilding. Oh, and by the way, His name will be “Cyrus” and he will be the king of Persia; and I name him so when it happens He will know I am the God of Israel.
At the time this prophecy was given, Israel was NOT in captivity, Cyrus was not a name known among men, His parents were not yet born, nor were his grandparents. Over two hundred years later, Israel was in captivity to the Meads, who were joined by Persia to become the Medo-Persian Empire. Israel was in Persia as a captive nation. King Cyrus heard the telling of the prophecy, and fulfilled it to the letter; even to acknowledging That Jehovah was indeed the God of Israel.
When another Author denies the account of creation and all following activity, and can demonstrate equal credentials by duplicating the successes of Jehovah, the God of Israel, I do not say I will believe him, I say I will have to reconsider what I already believe of what Jehovah has Authored and caused to be written and fulfilled.
Exo 13:17
“And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt:”
Are these words to be taken seriously or not? If words of the Old Testament are so empty and incapable of meaning as to be relied upon to explain why the Hebrew turned towards the Sinai … then is there really ANYTHING we can find in the Old Testament that we can rely upon because the Bible says so?