According to the Bible, yes. Which is most likely not true. Remember that Zionism started as a secular movement, with religious people getting more (very) on board relatively recently
The history has scant evidence, but we can discount the whole exile story. Slaves tend to be maltreated and are the last ones to be fed during famine, and that leaves physical evidence on their skeletons. We don’t have evidence of that in Egypt; for the most part, their monuments were built by farmers who didn’t have anything else to do when the Nile flooded. Also, a large nomadic group–which Israel would have been under Moses according to the Biblical account–should leave behind a lot of trash for archeologists to find today.
Fundie Christians like to say “Egypt wouldn’t have told stories about a time they lost”, but that doesn’t matter. First, you better bring some good evidence to say the Red Sea parted and people could walk on dry land. Second, as shown above, there should be physical evidence that we can find. It’s not there, and it’s hardly for a lack of trying. This is one of the most picked over parts of the planet by archeologists.
What seems to have happened is that they just came from there in the first place. Yahwah started as a war god among a larger pantheon. The people who later became the Hebrews worshiped that god as their primary; they didn’t discount the existence of other gods, but they worshiped this one as their primary one (still polytheism at this point). This later evolved into discounting the importance of other gods (henotheism), and much later disregarding the existence of other gods altogether (monotheism). That especially came into play with Persian Zoroastrian influence after the Babylonian Exile.
In short, it was a religion that evolved out of the beliefs of the people already living there, and they mostly stayed right there. The Egyptian slavery bits were probably from oral stories at a time when Israel had a conflict with Egypt.
According to the Bible, yes. Which is most likely not true. Remember that Zionism started as a secular movement, with religious people getting more (very) on board relatively recently
Interesting… Is there more accurate information about how the Israelites ended up in that region? Did they just never do the whole Egypt thing?
The tribes of Israel were most likely Canaanites that made up the whole came in and conquered everyone in the area after being slaves story.
The history has scant evidence, but we can discount the whole exile story. Slaves tend to be maltreated and are the last ones to be fed during famine, and that leaves physical evidence on their skeletons. We don’t have evidence of that in Egypt; for the most part, their monuments were built by farmers who didn’t have anything else to do when the Nile flooded. Also, a large nomadic group–which Israel would have been under Moses according to the Biblical account–should leave behind a lot of trash for archeologists to find today.
Fundie Christians like to say “Egypt wouldn’t have told stories about a time they lost”, but that doesn’t matter. First, you better bring some good evidence to say the Red Sea parted and people could walk on dry land. Second, as shown above, there should be physical evidence that we can find. It’s not there, and it’s hardly for a lack of trying. This is one of the most picked over parts of the planet by archeologists.
What seems to have happened is that they just came from there in the first place. Yahwah started as a war god among a larger pantheon. The people who later became the Hebrews worshiped that god as their primary; they didn’t discount the existence of other gods, but they worshiped this one as their primary one (still polytheism at this point). This later evolved into discounting the importance of other gods (henotheism), and much later disregarding the existence of other gods altogether (monotheism). That especially came into play with Persian Zoroastrian influence after the Babylonian Exile.
In short, it was a religion that evolved out of the beliefs of the people already living there, and they mostly stayed right there. The Egyptian slavery bits were probably from oral stories at a time when Israel had a conflict with Egypt.
Do you have any sources to start learning about/researching this? This is very fascinating and haven’t heard much, if any, of this before.
Religion For Breakfast is a pretty good YouTube channel for this. Would also recommend Bart Ehrman’s podcast.
This is great to know! Thank you