Aaron, Miriam and Moses: all in the family

[PruePhillip]

Did the Exodus Really Happen? Rabbi David Wolpe on the ...
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen
The Exodus was a very small-scale event with a large, world-changing trail of consequences. Some people are surprised, even upset, by these views. Yet they are not new; such views have been a ...

Excerpt:

Some people are surprised, even upset, by these views. Yet they are not new; such views have been a staple of scholarship, even appearing in popular magazines, for many years. Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true. As a scholar who took me to task in print told me privately over lunch, "Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publicly." In other words, tell the truth, but not when too many people will be listening.

There are three primary reasons this is important to talk about:

1. A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history. It is not an historical claim that God created us and cares for us. That a certain number of people walked across a particular desert at a particular time in the past, after being enslaved and liberated, is an historical claim, and one cannot then cry "unfair" when historians evaluate it.

For well over a century linguists, archeologists, historians and Bible scholars have been looking at the Bible in a new way. They understand how much of it is a product of history; how many stories were shared with other cultures whose languages and histories we have just come to understand. We can now appreciate how the vast canvas of the Bible shows different levels of Hebrew language, as would be expected of a work that developed over time. Most people are not aware that there are different manuscripts of the Bible, which show a "transmission history"--that is, constant recopying and variation. Our earliest complete manuscripts of the Bible are only 1000 years old. Even the Talmud (completed some fifteen hundred years ago) sometimes quotes verses differently from the verses as we have them.

continued

One copy of Isaiah we have is about 2200 years old. It's clearly copied.
The New International Version, for one, has updated Isaiah 53:11 for
instance, based on this Dead Sea copy, it reads of Jesus, "After he has
suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my
righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities."

The suffering was death, but in His resurrection He will bear the sins
of His people.

 

[sooda]

And there's evidence for the line of Moses through his brother Aaron.
Moses is an Egyptian name. He came from the line of Abraham -
from Sumer. A "Hebrew" is old Sumerian for "one who crosses over"
(the Euphrates.)
We know the priests were observing the law of Moses at least as
far back as 1100 BC.
After Babylon nothing more was added to the Jewish scripture. We
only see the rebuilding of the temple and the prophecies of the Messiah
and "the one who was to before Him." Meaning John the Baptist.
Certainly the Jews didn't have any numismatic evidence for Moses
et al. It was illegal to create graven images of people. This certainly
wasn't so for Greek mythic figures, or Hannibal.

Most of the OT was written during and after the Babylonian exile.. and the different versions were combined during the reign of King Omri.

The Hebrews were just another Canaanite tribe from NW Syria ..Much of Psalms is lifted from Ugaritic poetry.

Don't you realize that monotheism (Judaism) evolved?

However, the archeological conclusions are not based primarily on the absence of Sinai evidence. Rather, they are based upon the study of settlement patterns in Israel itself.

Surveys of ancient settlements--pottery remains and so forth--make it clear that there simply was no great influx of people around the time of the Exodus (given variously as between 1500-1200 BCE). Therefore, not the wandering, but the arrival alerts us to the fact that the biblical Exodus is not a literal depiction.

In Israel at that time, there was no sudden change in the kind or the volume of pottery being made. (If people suddenly arrived after hundreds of years in Egypt, their cups and dishes would look very different from native Canaanites'.) There was no population explosion.

Most archeologists conclude that the Israelites lived largely in Canaan over generations, instead of leaving and then immigrating back to Canaan.

continued

Did the Exodus Really Happen?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

No one is stigmatizing anything, call it what you will, why look to this literature for history?

Because to exclude such folk narrative as a source of historical information would manifest a pathetically stupid bias.

 

[Harel13]

Did the Exodus Really Happen? Rabbi David Wolpe on the ...
https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/2004/12/did-the-exodus-really-happen
The Exodus was a very small-scale event with a large, world-changing trail of consequences. Some people are surprised, even upset, by these views. Yet they are not new; such views have been a ...

Excerpt:

Some people are surprised, even upset, by these views. Yet they are not new; such views have been a staple of scholarship, even appearing in popular magazines, for many years. Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true. As a scholar who took me to task in print told me privately over lunch, "Of course what you say is true, but we should not say it publicly." In other words, tell the truth, but not when too many people will be listening.

There are three primary reasons this is important to talk about:

1. A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history. It is not an historical claim that God created us and cares for us. That a certain number of people walked across a particular desert at a particular time in the past, after being enslaved and liberated, is an historical claim, and one cannot then cry "unfair" when historians evaluate it.

For well over a century linguists, archeologists, historians and Bible scholars have been looking at the Bible in a new way. They understand how much of it is a product of history; how many stories were shared with other cultures whose languages and histories we have just come to understand. We can now appreciate how the vast canvas of the Bible shows different levels of Hebrew language, as would be expected of a work that developed over time. Most people are not aware that there are different manuscripts of the Bible, which show a "transmission history"--that is, constant recopying and variation. Our earliest complete manuscripts of the Bible are only 1000 years old. Even the Talmud (completed some fifteen hundred years ago) sometimes quotes verses differently from the verses as we have them.

continued

This is one rabbi. There are thousands today, maybe more. Not seeing the "most". If anything, this article actually disproves what you say:

Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true.​

From his wiki page:

On Passover 2001, Wolpe told his congregation that "the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all." Casting doubt on the historicity of the Exodus during the holiday that commemorates it brought condemnation from congregants and several rabbis (especially Orthodox Rabbis). The ensuing theological debate included whole issues of Jewish newspapers such as the Jewish Journal in Los Angeles and editorials in The Jerusalem Post, as well as an article in the Los Angeles Times. Critics asserted that Wolpe was attacking Jewish oral history, the significance of Passover and even the First Commandment.[citation needed] Wolpe asserted that he was arguing that the historicity of the events should not matter, since he believes faith is not determined by the same criteria as empirical truth. Wolpe argues that his views are based on the fact that no archeological digs have produced evidence of the Jews wandering the Sinai Desert for forty years, and that excavations in Israel consistently show settlement patterns at variance with the Biblical account of a sudden influx of Jews from Egypt.

In March 2010, Wolpe expounded on his views saying that it was possible that a small group of people left Egypt, came to Canaan, and influenced the native Canaanites with their traditions. He added that the controversy of 2001 stemmed from the fact that Conservative Jewish congregations have been slow to accept and embrace biblical criticism. Conservative rabbis, on the other hand, are taught biblical criticism in rabbinical school.​

​

 

[sooda]

This is one rabbi. There are thousands today, maybe more. Not seeing the "most". If anything, this article actually disproves what you say:

Not piety but timidity keeps many rabbis from expressing what they have long understood to be true.​

In Babylon the Hebrews admired the richness of the history and mythos of the Babylonian people.

That's when they began writing their laws and rituals and foundational myths for themselves .. to enhance their separate identity. That's why the stories are so grandiose..

Palestine was pretty hardscrabble and arid. … not grand and their population never exceeded 700,000 people.

The pottery record tells the story.

 

[sooda]

One copy of Isaiah we have is about 2200 years old. It's clearly copied.
The New International Version, for one, has updated Isaiah 53:11 for
instance, based on this Dead Sea copy, it reads of Jesus, "After he has
suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my
righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities."

The suffering was death, but in His resurrection He will bear the sins
of His people.

Isaiah never wrote about Jesus.. He wrote about the nation of Israel.

Its not helpful to sabotage scripture. Didn't you say you are a Jew?

 

[Harel13]

In Babylon the Hebrews admired the richness of the history and mythos of the Babylonian people.

That's when they began writing their laws and rituals and foundational myths for themselves .. to enhance their separate identity. That's why the stories are so grandiose..

Palestine was pretty hardscrabble and arid. … not grand and their population never exceeded 700,000 people.

The pottery record tells the story.

Is it really that hard to say: "Yes, I made something up because I couldn't find any sources for my claim, I'm sorry"?

 

[sooda]

Is it really that hard to say: "Yes, I made something up because I couldn't find any sources for my claim, I'm sorry"?

Oh there are plenty of academic sources over the past 50 years... Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written during and after the Babylonian exile. Genesis and Exodus were writer after that. The stories were redacted and amended many times. They gave credit to Solomon for the work of King Omri who was an able administrator and completed many fine building projects but wasn't Jewish enough to suit them.

Diaspora | Judaism | Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Diaspora-Judaism

The largest, most significant, and culturally most creative Jewish Diaspora in early Jewish history flourished in Alexandria, where, in the 1st century bc, 40 percent of the population was Jewish.

Around the 1st century ad , an estimated 5,000,000 Jews lived outside Palestine, about four-fifths of them within the Roman Empire, but they looked ...

 

[Harel13]

Oh there are plenty of academic sources over the past 50 years... Leviticus and Deuteronomy were written during and after the Babylonian exile. Genesis and Exodus were writer after that. The stories were redacted and amended many times. They gave credit to Solomon for the work of King Omri who was an able administrator and completed many fine building projects but wasn't

But zero sources for the claim that "most rabbis of the last 50 years etc".
Seriously, read what bothers me about your claims!
At least take back what you wrote about Chabad...

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

@Harel13 , you might very much appreciate The Exodus.

 

[sooda]

But zero sources for the claim that "most rabbis of the last 50 years etc".
Seriously, read what bothers me about your claims!
At least take back what you wrote about Chabad...

There are several Chabad sources and they don't all agree. The narrative was never intended as history or science. The stories INSPIRE people.

Exodus: fact or myth Habiru meaning 'stranger' in Egyptian, the Habirus who lived for hundreds of years together in labor camps merged their languages just like the Yiddish of the Eastern European Jews was created, thus Hebrew is a cross between Aramaic and the tongues of the fellow laborers of the people who may have left with Akenhaten or Moses or Moshe, who, it is written did not take any Hegerew wife but two wives, one of Midian and one of Cush, to be mothers of the high caste of the Hebrews for ever after: the Levites and Cohanim.
Is the Exodus a Myth? - Passover - Chabad
www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1771/jewish/Is-the-Exodus-a-Myth.htm

 

[Harel13]

There are several Chabad sources and they don't all agree. The narrative was never intended as history or science. The stories INSPIRE people.

Exodus: fact or myth Habiru meaning 'stranger' in Egyptian, the Habirus who lived for hundreds of years together in labor camps merged their languages just like the Yiddish of the Eastern European Jews was created, thus Hebrew is a cross between Aramaic and the tongues of the fellow laborers of the people who may have left with Akenhaten or Moses or Moshe, who, it is written did not take any Hegerew wife but two wives, one of Midian and one of Cush, to be mothers of the high caste of the Hebrews for ever after: the Levites and Cohanim.
Is the Exodus a Myth? - Passover - Chabad
www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1771/jewish/Is-the-Exodus-a-Myth.htm

Stop, stop, holy moly, stop! Nothing will get through to you. Once again, here you are presenting the exact same source but quoting another comment! You are tarnishing the beliefs of Chabad and of Judaism based on completely baseless (in terms of Jewish sources) claims!

 

[sooda]

Stop, stop, holy moly, stop! Nothing will get through to you. Once again, here you are presenting the exact same source but quoting another comment! You are tarnishing the beliefs of Chabad and of Judaism based on completely baseless (in terms of Jewish sources) claims!

The stories were intended to inspire.. They were never literal history.

We are not Bronze Age people..

If you insist that the stories in the Pentateuch are history, you drive people away from faith. Christians don't have to reject science and education.

 

[Rival]

The stories were intended to inspire.. They were never literal history.

We are not Bronze Age people..

If you insist that the stories in the Pentateuch are history, you drive people away from faith. Christians don't have to reject science and education.

Nor must you present your belief as the only right one.

 

[Harel13]

The stories were intended to inspire.. They were never literal history.

We are not Bronze Age people..

If you insist that the stories in the Pentateuch are history, you drive people away from faith. Christians don't have to reject science and education.

Sigh... Why can't you actually address my statements/questions..?

You're blatantly, with much chutzpah (the bad kind), misrepresenting both Chabad and at least a large part of Judaism, if not all of it. Why? State that it's a secular opinion, and leave it at that. Face it, Chabad don't say what you say. Some random people that happen to agree with you posted comments on the Chabad site. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Sigh... Why can't you actually address my statements/questions..?

You're blatantly, with much chutzpah (the bad kind), misrepresenting both Chabad and at least a large part of Judaism, if not all of it. Why? State that it's a secular opinion, and leave it at that. Face it, Chabad don't say what you say. Some random people that happen to agree with you posted comments on the Chabad site. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less.

Just remember, the ignore list is your friend/

Shabbat Shalom ...

 

[Harel13]

Just remember, the ignore list is your friend/

Shabbat Shalom ...

Yeah... I have some thoughts about the ignore function, but never mind that now. Shabbat Shalom!

 

[lukethethird]

Because to exclude such folk narrative as a source of historical information would manifest a pathetically stupid bias.

So all you have got is name calling, OK.

 

[sooda]

Nor must you present your belief as the only right one.

I have not said it is the only right one. I said Christians and Jews are not required to reject education or science.

 

[Rival]

I have not said it is the only right one. I said Christians and Jews are not required to reject education or science.

They're not, but what you may consider education they may consider nonsense. You repeatedly give your view as the scholarly, educated one while undermining others' as myth, superstition and fabrication without even thinking that in a few years, your own version of events may be proven wrong, by continuously making statements of fact rather than belief.