There is no evidence that the events described in Exodus ever happened. The primary evidence that it didn’t happen is the fact that there is no evidence that ANY of the events associated with Exodus happened. These alleged events, central to the history of the Israelites are not corroborated in documents external to the Bible or in archaeological findings. In addition, as you will see, all of the events are impossible, even with help from an omnipotent god. No Written Evidence of Existence of Hebrews in Egypt According to Exodus 12:40, the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years. Yet for all this time, there is no literary OR archaeological evidence outside the Hebrew Scriptures that records the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt. There is no mention of Jews or 10 plagues in this extensive history of Egypt. Most Important: The Egyptian records themselves have no mention of anything recorded in Exodus. Egyptians wrote extensively, in their distinctive hieroglyphs, and practiced detailed art that depicted many scenes of Egyptian life yet none depicts any of the 10 plagues. Because they left such a rich legacy, the Egyptians are more familiar to us than perhaps any other ancient civilization. As the archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman noted: [W]e have no clue, not even a single word, about the early Israelites in Egypt: neither in monumental inscriptions on the walls of temples, nor in tomb inscriptions, nor in papyri. Israel is absent – as a possible foe of Egypt, as a friend, or as an enslaved nation Most historians today agree that at best, the stay in Egypt and the Exodus occurred in a few families and that their private story was expanded and “nationalized” to fit the needs of theological ideology. Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog, provides the current consensus view on the historicity of the Exodus: The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad. This whole chain is broken. It is not a historical one. It is a later legendary reconstruction – made in the seventh century [BCE] – of a history that never happened. William Dever, an archaeologist normally associated with the more conservative end of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, has labeled the question of historicity of Exodus “dead.”
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 00:32:53 +0000
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