Were the Jews ever slaves? (moral, Moses, exodus, bible)

[EtuMalku]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

Click <= the sound of the light bulb suddenly illuminating.

Whoa.

The BIRTH of a religion then? No wonder the Egyptians had no clue and no record. They were just another nomadic clan they enslaved.

But then, how do we explain the dearth of Egyptian references to those plagues??? That does not make sense.

Well, the plagues are only mentioned in the Old & New testaments which of course were conceived of way later in history.
Also I would like to mention that although there were 'true' slaves in Egypt this was not as common as it is made out to be, slavery was used to pay off debts and criminal infringements upon civilians.

[Autodidact]

Originally Posted by EtuMalku

I don't think you guys are hearing Sola'lor . . . there were no Jews yet! They were Israelites, no Judaic religion was around until Moses split and took a bunch of people with him on his Messiahic quest to reinvent the Egyptian religion.

We Jews see it differently. But then, who are we to define ourselves? We're lucky if you allow us to exist.

[Somkid]

Originally Posted by logician

Well, if you consider concentration camps a form of slavery, yes.

I was not aware that the Egyptians had concentration camps???

[Somkid]

I'm just trying to get an understanding of this because many stories are in conflict. Here is another article I checked out.

Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Egypt

[Scuba Pete]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Sources please Pete.

That's kinda the point. "Dearth" means "lack of".

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by Scuba Pete

That's kinda the point. "Dearth" means "lack of".

Oh yeah, duh, my excuse is that I skim-read your post...

Originally Posted by tomspug

What was stopping the Egyptians from saying that they 'owned' land that actually wasn't theres?

Nothing to stop them saying that, but if you go to Jaffa in Tel Aviv you can see ruins of ancient Egyptian buildings from when they did rule it.

[Scuba Pete]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Oh yeah, duh, my excuse is that I skim-read your post...

I am sure you gave it more time than it merited.

[Jayhawker Soule]

All available evidence suggests that the Exodus/Conquest is powerful folklore. To (again) quote William Dever ...

Let me begin by clarifying which books of the Hebrew Bible I think can be utilized by the would-be historian, whether textual scholar or archaeologist. With most scholars, I would exclude much of the Pentateuch, specifically the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. These materials obviously constitute a sort of "pre-history" that has been attached to the main epic of ancient Israel by late editors. All this may be distilled from long oral tradition, and I suspect that some of the stories -- such as parts of the Patriarchal narratives -- may once have had a historical setting. These traditions, however, are overlaid with legendary and even fantastic materials that the modern reader may enjoy as "story," but which can scarcely be taken seriously as history.

- What Did the Biblical Writers Know and when Did They Know It? (page 97)

After a century of exhausive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible historical figures. Virtually the last archaeological word was written by me more than 20 years ago for a basic handbook of biblical studies, Israelite and Judean History. And, as we have seen, archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. Indeed, the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness. A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the middle 13th century B.C., where many scholars think the biblical traditions concerning the god Yahweh arose. But archaeology can do nothing to confirm such a figure as a historical personage, much less prove that he was the founder of later Israelite religion. As for Leviticus and Numbers, these are clearly additions to the "pre-history" by very late Priestly editorial hands, preoccupied with notions of ritual purity, themes of the "promised land," and othe literary motifs that most modern readers will scarcely find edifying, much less historical.

- ibid (page 99)

Now let us turn to the biblical data. If we look at the biblical texts describing the origins of Israel, we see at once that the traditional account contained in Genesis through Joshua simple cannot be reconciled with the picture derived above from archaeological investigation. The whole "Exodus-Conquest" cycle of stories must now be set aside as largely mythical, but in the proper sense of the term "myth": perhaps "historical fiction" ...

- ibid (page 121)