Do you believe Moses parted the Red Sea?

viole said:

The power of Prayer works also if you pray to a different God. At least according to believers in Gods different from yours.

I suspect you will obtain the same hit ratio if you pray to a glass of water.

Ciao

- viole

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Does a glass of water have the same associations passed down through cultural tradition and expression as a God?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

I like Russell Glasser's approach of intercessory threats ("God, if you don't do _____, I'm going to kick your butt!") - it works just as well as intercessory prayer.

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Oh, the Conan method?

"Crom, grant me REVENGE, and if you do not listen, to hell with you!"

Thing is, I think certain Gods might actually prefer that. LOL

Demonslayer said:

Yes, the flag waiver controls the cars. If he puts a yellow flag up, the cars slow down. If he waives a red flag, the race is stopped.

If I have control over God's actions in the same way as a flag waiver has over NASCAR drivers, I'd say I have TREMENDOUS power.

Ditto air traffic controllers. I get what you're saying, that a certain pilot could ignore the air traffic controller and fly anywhere he or she wanted to. But in reality the air traffic controllers tell the pilots what to do.

Moses told God what to do with the waving of his stick and God immediately did what he was told. That's real power if you ask me.

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The flag waver is not in control of the cars. He is the signaler to get the cars in motion. He has no control over any car. If you truly believe that colored flags control cars, then get your own set of flags and eliminate the congestion on your commutes from work.

Carlita said:

Christ (no insult intended) lived over 2,000 years ago. We only have written records of his miracle just as Jonah and Moses. All are no different (in context not importance). He should not have been the last miracle as if people today should only need faith while the disciples didnt take for granted jesus actual miracles but it nutured their faith in him.

Seeing miracles doesnt mean one doesnt have faith. I have faith my ancestors exist And I have paper work to proove it. I know because I am here and because of my family oral history. I trust/have faith because of the "physical" and spiritual interactions with my family and knowledge I learned from books and nowadays internet.

Likewise with miracles 2000 years ago. They nurtured a believers walk.

Why would christians think we only need faith when "only" 2000 jesus followers has it all? The whole shabang.

I know my ancestors exist from all my senses. I dont depend on just one.

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There are probably as many micracles now as there ever were.
however our threshold of scientific knowledge is so much greater now, that things that might have once been thought of as miracles are today explained in different ways.

While God can do what ever he wants, and we might consider this to be miracles. I rather doubt that he often takes a personal hand in the affairs of man...and when he does so it is because it his his desire, not because it is some thing we want.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

There's much more to Jesus' teachings in the Gospels than just these.

The New Testament describes soldiers converting to Christianity but not resigning their commissions (e.g. Matthew 8).

Also, Christianity attempts to reconcile itself with the Old Testament, which is chock-full of righteous soldiers and holy war.

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First of all, we don't know what that one soldier did after following Jesus because there's no follow-up that appears in any of the gospels (only one centurion is covered in the gospels on that, btw). Secondly, we know how the early church reacted because of their 2nd and 3rd century teachings. [if you can find it, get "Tradition In the Early Church" by Dr. Hanson (Anglican)-- great book that's heavily documented.

BTW, near the end of the 3rd century, the church finally allowed for policing minus soldiering, and it wasn't until the conversion of Constantine that soldiering was allowed-- actually even forced.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

I think we're talking past each other. My point was that if someone doesn't do anything to prevent suffering or correct injustice on the strength of Jesus's promise that he'd do it, then that suffering and injustice will continue uncorrected.

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But that's what I've been saying-- it's the teachings, not the person doing the teachings, that matters most.

When I talk about Jesus, I'm talking about the character in the Bible. How much this character resembles some hypothetical real person is an open question.

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Agreed.

See, we can get along.

metis said:

But that's what I've been saying-- it's the teachings, not the person doing the teachings, that matters most.

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You say "that's what I've been saying" as if we agree, but then the rest of what you say implies we don't.

Jesus's teachings include promises of things to come, and instructions that rely on certain things coming to fruition to be wise or good. If the story is allegory, then these things won't actually come to pass and the teachings fail.

Demonslayer said:

But he had a magical stick, you must be forgetting that part.

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Oh my god I forgot about the stick, that rotten stick.

viole said:

The real question is: Do we really believe the egyptians were so stupid to follow the Jews once their God allegedely managed to part waters to let them through?

Ciao

- viole

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Yeah, that had "sucker bait" written all over it...

Deeje said:

Pharaoh viewed himself as a god so he wasn't going to allow Israel's God to make him look bad and take his slaves away.....who would make his mud bricks?

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The people hired specifically for construction and there is lots of documentation on?

for example

Deeje said:

Ah......the one thing missing from the history of any proud nation like Egypt is its defeats...they were never recorded.

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No matter how much Rameses II tried to spin it, they still recorded the loss (the pathetic loss) against the Hittites.

Deeje said:

Proud nations did not always record anything that might paint their leaders in a bad light....especially not the loss of an entire army and its god/king.

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That's why the Hebrew conquests ALWAYS made sure to be completely rational about the effectiveness of their military strategy? The bible is a book that said that Hebrews lost because the "bad guys" had iron. Is God a fairy now? Does He have an iron allergy?

Riverwolf said:

And even if Egypt didn't record this particular defeat, we'd still expect to find a period of about... what, 30, 40, 50 years? of nothing. After all, in your argument, that particular Pharaoh was stricken from all of Egypt's historical records. There'd be a period where no records existed at all from this culture, which is reputed to have been so meticulous about such things. So, do you know of any broken lines?

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And given they didn't want the future to learn about Akkenaten or Hatshepshut and yet we still know about them, clearly "stricken from every stone and pylon" is not 100% effective.

Deeje said:

This was after 9 requests and 9 times that God halted the plague on Pharaoh's promise to free Israel. How many more chances did he need?

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But Pharoah DID give up after Moses moved the goalposts so often. GOD HARDENED PHAROAH'S HEART ANYWAY.

Deeje said:

Faith requires no evidence apart from scripture.

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But you would think God, who is supposedly "Truth", would tell stories that can be verified as being true.

Deeje said:

Egyptians were not not nice people by all accounts.

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Women had far more rights than Hebrew women. Cruel people were considered cruel, not heroes, like in the bible. That there was more than one dynasty of pharoahs prove that eventually jerks got theirs. edit: Also, during the story of Joseph, his master's wife claims (falsely) that Joe raped her and he went to prison. Does that sound like they don't care about people?

Deeje said:

Because the Hebrews were increasing in numbers, according to scripture, it was decreed that all male infants be put to death.

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So where are all the Hebrew skeletons? Even poor people had cheap desert mummifications...

Deeje said:

Despite justifiably killing an Egyptian guard who was beating one of his brothers, this "son of Pharaoh's daughter" would still face the death penalty and had to flee.

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He was wanted for outright murder. Had he a problem with the conduct of the guard, he was to go, per their own legal documentation, to the vizier. He betrayed Ma'at, and thus deserved punishment.

And probably had an awkward conversation when up on the mountain God got to the "thou shall not murder" part...

Demonslayer said:

But he had a magical stick, you must be forgetting that part.

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Isn't the magic stick also responsible for Moses not getting into Canaan? It was something like, "Moses, I did NOT tell you to strike the rock with your magic stick. Sucks to be you now."

PopeADope said:

I hope it is true. It gives me more confidence when I pray of course to believe that God is going to do something incredible.

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I believe God does miracles, but they are more subtle and not fodder for summer blockbusters.

Demonslayer said:

But the act of lifting the stick controlled Gods power. Don't you think the ability to control God's power is perhaps the greatest power of all?

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And then there's that one battle where Hebrews lost every time Moses put down his arms and eventually people had to hold his arms up ... it's like an ancient Hebrew Konami Code ...

Up, up, down, down ...

Riverwolf said:

Ah, yes, I remember hearing about that film. Never saw it; I heard it sucked. Prince of Egypt was very much an exceptional case.

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It's just about the only Exodus tale that doesn't pretend visually that the Middle East is filled with white people.

Riverwolf said:

I've never seen The Ten Commandments with Charleston Heston, and have no plans to.

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Have it almost completely memorized. It's great overblown camp.

DeMille tries so hard to be "epic" and "glorious" that it ends up hilariously overacted. I can't remember many scenes where someone just talks normally.

Riverwolf said:

Does a glass of water have the same associations passed down through cultural tradition and expression as a God?

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Isn't baptism asking water to literally wash away your bad habits?

metis said:

First of all, we don't know what that one soldier did after following Jesus because there's no follow-up that appears in any of the gospels (only one centurion is covered in the gospels on that, btw).

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Personally I suspect he's the reason the guards lost the body. As a repayment for healing his lover/servant/whatever, he gave some orders on the DL to the guards at the tomb...

The bible is really bad about throwing characters out there who have no overt purpose, but surely they were mentioned because they had one, right?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

You say "that's what I've been saying" as if we agree, but then the rest of what you say implies we don't.

Jesus's teachings include promises of things to come, and instructions that rely on certain things coming to fruition to be wise or good. If the story is allegory, then these things won't actually come to pass and the teachings fail.

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On post #105, I may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say. After rereading it, were you referring to heaven? I was taking it that you were referring to suffering while we're still alive and kicking, thus my response.

In that regard, I do not believe in heaven or any kind of afterlife, although I don't deny it's hypothetical possibility, so it's a moot point to me if that's what you were referring to. And just because a person may believe in it doesn't necessarily mean that such an afterlife actually exists.

Kelly of the Phoenix said:

The people hired specifically for construction and there is lots of documentation on?

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Hired? I hardly think so. They went into Egypt as free people but when the Pharaoh who put Joseph in charge of Egypt's affairs died, things changed and the Israelites who had multiplied quite considerably were used as slave labor. (Ex 1:1-14)

No matter how much Rameses II tried to spin it, they still recorded the loss (the pathetic loss) against the Hittites.

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Fighting a battle with swords and war chariots is a little different to getting a getting yourself stuck in the middle of a sea with no way to retreat, and then becoming responsible for the demise of your entire army and war machinery. Hardly the kind of thing one would record for posterity.

That's why the Hebrew conquests ALWAYS made sure to be completely rational about the effectiveness of their military strategy? The bible is a book that said that Hebrews lost because the "bad guys" had iron. Is God a fairy now? Does He have an iron allergy?

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Is your cynicism always so derogatory when addressing issues where you believe God is showing himself to be inept? God has reasons for everything he does...he doesn't owe an explanation to anyone, least of all those who think themselves superior to the one who gave them life. God will show you who and what he is soon enough, but you may not like it.

But Pharoah DID give up after Moses moved the goalposts so often. GOD HARDENED PHAROAH'S HEART ANYWAY.

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There was no need for God to "harden" Pharaoh's heart...it was already hard. What Moses and Aaron asked for was a reasonable request, but he would not consent to it. (Ex 5:1, 2)
When Pharaoh responded by stepping up the harsh treatment of the Hebrews.....

Ex 5:22-6:1:
"Then Moses turned to Jehovah and said: “Jehovah, why have you afflicted this people? Why have you sent me?  From the time that I went in before Pharʹaoh to speak in your name, he has dealt worse with this people, and you have certainly not rescued your people.”
So Jehovah said to Moses: “Now you will see what I will do to Pharʹaoh. A mighty hand will force him to send them away, and a mighty hand will force him to drive them out of his land.”

This was now a case of God against god. If Pharaoh had been reasonable about the first request, that may well have altered the outcome of the whole arrangement, but he set himself against a much more powerful deity...one that was going to teach him a lesson.

Ex 9:13-17:
"Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Get up early in the morning and station yourself in front of Pharʹaoh, and say to him, ‘This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said: “Send my people away so that they may serve me. 14 For now I am directing all my blows to strike your heart, your servants, and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have thrust my hand out to strike you and your people with a devastating plague, and you would have been wiped out from the earth. 16 But for this very reason I have kept you in existence: to show you my power and to have my name declared in all the earth. 17 Are you still behaving arrogantly against my people by not sending them away?"

There was only going to be one winner here. No one opposes the true God and gets away with it. Is there a lesson here?

But you would think God, who is supposedly "Truth", would tell stories that can be verified as being true.

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Why? He has no need to prove anything to anyone. He is God and he can do as he pleases. He doesn't need to provide evidence because believing in him requires faith. If you have evidence for everything there is no need of faith.

Women had far more rights than Hebrew women. Cruel people were considered cruel, not heroes, like in the bible. That there was more than one dynasty of pharoahs prove that eventually jerks got theirs. edit: Also, during the story of Joseph, his master's wife claims (falsely) that Joe raped her and he went to prison. Does that sound like they don't care about people?

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Potiphar's wife was no ordinary woman. She was the wife of one of Egypt's most powerful men. Joseph did go to prison, but it was whilst in prison that he came into contact with two men in the king's service. Both had dreams that Joseph interpreted. It was this that put him in place to interpret Pharaoh's dream and to save Egypt through a terrible drought and eventually become Prime Minister of the whole land. When the foretold seven year drought struck, Joseph had secured as much food as Egypt could store and it was enough to take them through the drought and acquire much land when people sold their possessions to obtain food. This is when Jacob's sons first came to Egypt looking for food. Not recognizing the younger brother they had sold into slavery years before, Joseph held back his identity until he was sure that they had changed their ways. He also realized that God had sent him ahead of them so as to secure the family line through which the Messiah was to come.

So where are all the Hebrew skeletons? Even poor people had cheap desert mummifications...

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Perhaps the Hebrews has different burial practices to the Egyptians....after all they worshipped a different God and had different beliefs about life after death.

He was wanted for outright murder. Had he a problem with the conduct of the guard, he was to go, per their own legal documentation, to the vizier. He betrayed Ma'at, and thus deserved punishment.

And probably had an awkward conversation when up on the mountain God got to the "thou shall not murder" part...

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He was defending a fellow Hebrew from abuse....and this was quite a while before the law was given to the liberated Israelites.

Demonslayer said:

Egads.

Although really, why would that be impressive? If God created the sun, and 5000 bazillion other stars, from scratch using nothing, no matter, and then set all these stars in motion...holding one steady for an hour seems very UN-impressive really.

Now if He grabs the sun, Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri and starts juggling, THEN I'll be impressed.

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How about this preceding God's forces?

Joe 2:10 The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:
Joe 2:11 And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?

Joe 2:5 Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array.
Joe 2:6 Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness.
Joe 2:7 They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:
Joe 2:8 Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

Zec 14:2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Zec 14:3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

Zec 14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

Just let answer the bible here. Why we think about Moses if he parted the red sea or not? Maybe it is good time to understand that those events was not happened on that time but in the future when Jesus was on earth. Why I said that?
JOHN
5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

I find this story totally moronic and an insult to god.

So as we read it, god is powerful enough to bring on the plagues of Egypt, to part the red sea and to murder hundreds of innocent Egyptian children when he could have simply killed Rameses and the Egyptian slavers?

This story describes someone that is petty, vengeful, hateful and dramatic, not the god I know..

metis said:

On post #105, I may have misinterpreted what you were trying to say. After rereading it, were you referring to heaven? I was taking it that you were referring to suffering while we're still alive and kicking, thus my response.

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Yes, I was referring to Heaven among other things.

In that regard, I do not believe in heaven or any kind of afterlife, although I don't deny it's hypothetical possibility, so it's a moot point to me if that's what you were referring to.

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No, it's not moot. Your personal beliefs are irrelevant when trying to figure out the author's intent.

And even if you might think that a promise of a literal Heaven is doomed to be broken, this doesn't mean that the promise wasn't made.

And just because a person may believe in it doesn't necessarily mean that such an afterlife actually exists.

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That's right: a promise of literal Heaven would be broken if Heaven doesn't literally exist and might be fulfilled if it does literally exist. Either way, we would interpret the meaning of it very differently from a metaphorical promise that can't be literally broken or fulfilled at all.

Deeje said:

Fighting a battle with swords and war chariots is a little different to getting a getting yourself stuck in the middle of a sea with no way to retreat, and then becoming responsible for the demise of your entire army and war machinery. Hardly the kind of thing one would record for posterity.

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Really? It seems like exactly the sort of thing that the usurpers of that dynasty would play up: "they were unrighteous - just look what happened to them. OUR new pharaoh hasn't had ANY of his armies drowned by gods."

Perhaps the Hebrews has different burial practices to the Egyptians....after all they worshipped a different God and had different beliefs about life after death.

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They do have different burial practices. Are any Hebrew-style graves found in ancient Egypt?

Norbert Tinca said:

Just let answer the bible here. Why we think about Moses if he parted the red sea or not? Maybe it is good time to understand that those events was not happened on that time but in the future when Jesus was on earth. Why I said that?
JOHN
5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.

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Christian revisionism, IMO.

The Bible gives the answer; They crossed the ''Red Sea'' near the town ''Baal Zephon'' at (Pi Hahiroth) which translates to- ''the end of the canal! The town Baal Zephon were plus minus 60 kilometres from the Mediteranean sea. Some 100 kilometres north of The Gulf of Suez which is the one or left horn of the red sea which is south of the gulf of Suez. The suez canal was dug by hand from the end of the gulf of Suez to the Mediteranean sea. Effectively they never crossed the red sea. During the reign of Ramesses 2 he was busy with maintenance on the canal. Ramesses 2 lived between 1303 and 1214 B.C. Moses lived between 1393 to 1273 B.C. These are approximate dates; presumably they lived in the same time frame. The maintenance on the canal was done as follows.
There were walls or gates built across the canal in order to remove the sludge that used to build up and still do due the slow fall of the ground between the Mediteranean and the Gulf of Suez. There were numerous gates at regular intervals. You close two closest to each other and then the sludge is dredged out of the canal by using animals towing buckets through the canal from one side to the other, today it is by more modern methods but the same result is achieved. In those days the canal was much smaller and much shallower. The boats used back then were called Triremeres. It was row boats using thirty rowers on a side. They were approximately 30 meters long 5 meters wide and the kiel or bottom lay 1,5 meters under water. The canal were designed to take two of them alongside each other at a time. Effectively the canal had to be plus minus 2 meters deep and 15 or 18 meters wide taking into consideration the distance rowing bars would protrude.
Moses if he lived probably sabotaged the gate at the end of the canal after he and a small band of people escaped to prevent perhaps twenty soldiers to get them. There are no written history of a mass exodus nowhere in the very well recorded history of Egypt.

Pound away, pound away, pound away !
~
'mud

PopeADope said:

Yes, no , maybe so?

Wish I could edit this and start a poll.

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The Most High God parted the Red Sea for Moche and the Hebrews.

PopeADope said:

Yes, no , maybe so?

Wish I could edit this and start a poll.

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Yes, why not ... IMHO the entire exodus event seemed to involve seismic & volcanic activity ... including a darkness you could feel, red water (when waterways heat up here during heat waves, they suffer poison algae blooms), stinky dead fish, fire raining down burning the crops, seeing fire by day and thick cloud by night, and the sea going back ... and a thundering mountain spewing fire and thick clouds ... sounds like volcanic activity and related tsunami issues possibly?