Israel as "occupiers" and other bull poop

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

What do you think God REALLY intended to happen once Moses got the Israelites to the scenic overlook of the Promised Land?

I don't believe that God was REALLY that involved. And I don't believe that God REALLY parted the Red Sea.

And I don't even believe there REALLY was an Exodus.

There is absolutely nothing resembling the Exodus in Egyptian records. There is NO evidence for Jewish captivity in Egypt. Maybe there was a massive cover-up? It's the typical problem of differentiating between mythology and history. The Egyptians chronicled their history in tremendous detail, yet no mention of Jewish captivity. Explain to me why I should believe in the Exodus.

The director of archaeology at Tel Aviv University described the Exodus as "no more historical than the Homeric saga of Odysseus or Aeneas’s founding of Rome.” At a minimum, it's irrefutable that the Exodus couldn't have happened at the time and in the way the Bible says it happened.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug

I don't believe that God was REALLY that involved. And I don't believe that God REALLY parted the Red Sea.

And I don't even believe there REALLY was an Exodus.

There is absolutely nothing resembling the Exodus in Egyptian records. There is NO evidence for Jewish captivity in Egypt. Maybe there was a massive cover-up? It's the typical problem of differentiating between mythology and history. The Egyptians chronicled their history in tremendous detail, yet no mention of Jewish captivity. Explain to me why I should believe in the Exodus.

The director of archaeology at Tel Aviv University described the Exodus as "no more historical than the Homeric saga of Odysseus or Aeneas’s founding of Rome.” At a minimum, it's irrefutable that the Exodus couldn't have happened at the time and in the way the Bible says it happened.

Was there an actual Moses who was an actual prophet?

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Was there an actual Moses who was an actual prophet?

Maybe. I can handle that possibility. I have no problem choosing to believe that Moses was a real person. (It's pretty difficult to exclude the existence of an ancient Hebrew leader named Moses.) It's also difficult to 100% exclude the possibility of Jewish captivity in Egypt, but I think the evidence suggests that it's extremely unlikely to have occurred in the way the Bible says it occurred, if it occurred at all.

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug

Maybe. I can handle that possibility. I have no problem choosing to believe that Moses was a real person. (It's pretty difficult to exclude the existence of an ancient Hebrew leader named Moses.) It's also difficult to 100% exclude the possibility of Jewish captivity in Egypt, but I think the evidence suggests that it's extremely unlikely to have occurred in the way the Bible says it occurred, if it occurred at all.

Perhaps if we can just ascribe myth or symbolism to everything in the scriptures, we can truly make God in our own image.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MudphudCoug

The director of archaeology at Tel Aviv University described the Exodus as "no more historical than the Homeric saga of Odysseus or Aeneas’s founding of Rome.”

No shit?

[MikeWaters]

who was it who war arguing that the founders of Israel were religious?

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by Indy Coug

Perhaps if we can just ascribe myth or symbolism to everything in the scriptures, we can truly make God in our own image.

Maybe some people refuse to see that scriptural authors sometimes incorporated their own views and made God in their own image (hence the multiple personalities of God in scripture).

Have you ever noticed contradiction in scriptures? What's your explanation? Mysterious nature of God? Mysteries that we will understand someday but cannot understand today?

[Oxcoug]

It's not adequate to simply frame everything Israel does as "reaction." And I didn't intend to. Israel has taken numerous missteps in the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But on balance (after gliding past several massive simplifications put forward by SiEQ... like Israel's alleged "excessive use of force" which is almost always found, on close examination, to be less excessive than hoped for, like the laughably debunked Jenin "massacre" in which Israeli troops repeatedly risked their own lives to protect Palestinian civilians, or the nonstop fun of Paliwood videos showing fictionalized cases of Israeli brutality that the western media outlets and Waters lap up) here are the relevant and immediate facts:

1. Israel was ready for peace throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s - overwhelmingly. They changed textbooks, a majority of Israelis had accepted the two-state solution, they fostered exchange programs, they gave back Gaza - they did much of what they were meant to do under Oslo.

2. Palestinian leadership, on the other hand, did NOTHING it agreed to do subsequent to Oslo. In fact, it did the opposite on almost every count. Israel took numerous steps in good faith and was rewarded with an increase in suicide bombings and more shelling of civilians.

3. Whatever you think of the morality of 1967 or 1948 there is simply no grounds for conversation when your counterpart thinks that blowing up your kids and grandparents is the way to move the discussion forward and when it refuses to acknowledge that you have the right to exist. Every other consideration is simply obliterated when your counterparts attitude is "you should die and disappear and we're going to help make that happen." That is no exaggeration of the Palestinian position.

I could go on but I don't have as much time to waste as I would like - bottom line, Israel has been ready for a two state solution and proven that. Palestinian leadership has repeatedly defaulted on public agreements in return.

[Oxcoug]

It's an interesting quote, I've read it before. And I'd also say it's totally irrelevant to the merits of the current case. Leaders make offhand remarks - and most have contradicted themselves into every corner on the map.

Isolating odd comments is not much of a way to look at history.

Still - even if we are to take DBG at face value here, so what? He died before most of the modern conflict took shape. Before suicide bombing was a regular feature of the conflict. The fact is that Arab leaders DID enter into an agreement and an overwhelming majority of Israelis were ready to work with that agreement. Until it was broken, repeatedly, by their counterparts.

[Oxcoug]

There's absolutely no reason to not believe Exodus.

Archeology, as I'm sure you know, is a hugely inexact process of chasing history through rocks, bits of pottery and the deliberate intent of many historical figures to mask or misrepresent their own legacies. It almost never arrives at anything that can be called "certain."

Given how routinely Ramses II defaced earlier monuments to claim credit for things he had not done it would only be surprising if, in his absolute control, he had allowed any trace of his humiliation vis a vis Israel to survive for posterity. The dude was obsessed (as were all pharaohs) with packaging his legacy - and any evidence of what happened with Moses would have left him a laughingstock.

The burden of proof here is really on the skeptics to explain it away. The Israelites entered Canaan from somewhere. We know that. Israel maintained long and active ties with Egypt for centuries afterwards. We know that. So all the marks of historical plausibility are there, and there is nothing in the archeological record to refute it.

Pompous archeology profs who like to make declarative statements aside, saying there is no evidence for is not the same as saying there is any evidence "against."