Here's the thing. Believing that the epic story of Exodus is mostly legend doesn't mean believing that it all fiction. I'm confident that there's a kernel of truth at the heart of it, but that truth doesn't include the Parting of the Red Sea.
To me, the most plausible explanation is this. A small tribal group of Cananites moved to the outer edge of Egypt for a few generations. A charismatic leader convinced them to follow him back to their ancestral home. When they got there the land was largely occupied by people who didn't want them there. After a couple of generations of violence and mayhem the intruders were absorbed into the local population. But the story of Moses was quite inspiring and the legends started to grow almost immediately. They continued to grow for a few centuries, until we got the Epic of Exodus. More like a docudrama, fiction based on a real story, than history. But still very gripping and inspiring.
But the reason people like Wyatt have tried and failed, for centuries, to find any real evidence is because it didn't really happen as told. Not even close.
Tom
So, what you're telling me is that it's not the history that you find hard to believe but the miraculous events associated with the history. In other words, it's God's involvement you don't like.
The trouble is, the Bible does not
just contain accurate history and geography. IMO, it contains a lot more than that. It contains truth at every level, and each is connected to the other. Once you start to unravel one element of truth, you unravel other truths by association.
Take, for example, the death and resurrection of Jesus. For many people the idea that Jesus was crucified by the Romans is understandable. This is what the Romans did to many of their opponents. That's history, you could say. The resurrection, on the other hand, is something quite different. It involves a miracle of God. People don't ordinarily come back to life and show themselves alive. Yet, without the resurrection being a literal, real, event, there would be no Christian faith today. The birth of the Christian Church is down to the grace of God, made possible through Jesus' resurrection and ascension to heaven. It was from heaven that the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost. It was a promise fulfilled.
Now, we have a problem. Do you deny the existence of the Christian Church? It only exists because of the person of Jesus Christ. Do we also deny that Jesus Christ existed? Do we then deny all the prophecies, and types, of his coming found in the Tanakh?
People have tried writing histories of the Bible, with God taken out. It doesn't work!
And I disagree with you about the lack of evidence that has been found to confirm the Bible. There are mountains of artifacts, and other forms of evidence, that fit with the Bible and its account of history.
