Does it bother you that the OT describes Israelites being enslaved by Egyptians...

[Boojatta]

yet doesn't describe any proposals for Egypt to pay reparations?

Jordan shall stand up like a wall,
Let my people go,
And the walls of Jericho shall fall,
Let my people go.

Go down, Moses,
Way down in Egypt's Land.
Tell ol' Pharoah,
Let my people go.

Your foes shall not before you stand,
Let my people go,
And you'll possess fair Canaan's land,
Let my people go.

[theophilus]

1. I'm not sure what your point is.............but read about it. Israel despoiled

Egypt when they left. They were given massive wealth by the Egyptians as they went out the door.....


and a little later most of the Israelites wanted to go back anyway. A strange story.

[Sequoia]

2. Well, that's all water under the bridge now.

At least they got instant karma when the Red Sea walls smacked down on the mean ole king...or so I've read leastways.

[golddigger]

3. Well, one thing is...there is no evidence that a wandering tribe ever

crossed the desert for 40 years.

[Nihil]

14. Sounds like one of those apocryphal "GPS on the blink" tales. (n/t)

:-)

[grassfed]

4. Exodus Debunked

Palestine was part of Egypt when the Exodus supposedly occurred .

[zonmoy]

5. Bothers me more that there is nothing in the egyption records that collaberates their story

but nearly everybody believes it. Makes me worry that if people believe stuff with no evidence and evidence against it then anything that any jury believes should be considered suspect.

[Igel]

6. That's expected.

By and large, the official records for Babylon, Assyria, the Hittite Kingdom, Egypt, and the various smaller satrapies contain only victories. There are some exceptions, but you learn of Egyptian defeats in Assyrian records, and of Assyrian defeats in Babylonian records.

As a counter-example, the Sea Peoples turn up in a few places. But those are sort of extra-paradigmatic events, nothing like losing a battle and honor to a traditional enemy. Instead those are examples of extreme injustice, and an excuse for some defeat (usually not recorded, and if recorded, not elaborated upon).

Mostly you infer honor-losing set-backs by having several great victorious campaigns which all conquered the same town, or by gaps in the record in which the great victories were petty, or by evidence of destruction. And, in Egypt, by having bits and pieces of carved hieroglypics survive being completely erased--rock as palimsest.

A proud nation or group doesn't typically join its foes in flinging poo at itself.

[edhopper]

7. The Exodus myth in the OT

is a retelling of an earlier Babylonian myth that the Israelites took when they were conquered by Babylon. As there is no historical record of slaves in Egypt as described in the OT.

[Boojatta]

8. Did any reputable historian ever assert,

before the Rosetta stone was discovered, that some alleged events were "myths" on the grounds that no records could be recognized, at the time that the reputable historian made the assertion, as providing adequate evidence that the alleged events actually occurred?

Is the tactic of asserting more than you know acceptable provided that you feel confident that no major corpus of texts written in scripts currently undecipherable will be deciphered in the near future?

[edhopper]

11. My comment

is based on the fact that now that we can interpret hieroglyphics, there has been no evidence to support anything that happened in Egypt in the OT. If you have any counter evidence. I am open to hearing about it.
What scholars thought hundreds of years ago, given their lack of understanding of Egyptian texts and their minimal scholarship by today's standards is irrelevant.

[Meshuga]

9. I think they called it even...

...after the plagues and after the Egyptian army was crushed by the parted sea.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. As theophilus pointed out in reply #1, but you've ignored so far, they got reparations

Exodus 12 35-36: "35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians."

The author clearly felt his characters deserved a bit of booty.

I believe your quotation is from the musical treatment, not the original novel. Never trust lyricists.

[Boojatta]

12. What was the total mass of the silver and gold and what did the Israelites do with it?

How high was the quality of the clothing? How many articles of clothing did the Israelites receive?

[Meshuga]

13. A $150K shopping spree. Similar to Sarah Palin's

You know... $75K at Neiman Marcus, $40K at Saks Fifth Avenue, a few grand at Bloomingdale’s... (all that without taking into consideration any inflation adjustment!)