Exodus Archeology Evidence

[Dimi95]

And from where do we get this information about huge numbers of Israelites coming to Canaan?

https://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/rendsburg/877-ch-3-text-notes

You can read this paper and tell me what you think.

Because most scholars believe that Israelites lived with Canaanites all along.

I would ask you to name them , since you can see that otherwise is also plausible.There is evidence from archeology as you can see in my answer to @Bharat Jhunjhunwala

Are there any extrabiblical references for your claim?

Well , these is only observations.You may comment on how reliable they are.There are just observations on what we have as evidence in History and archeology.I have also said that "Full scale, undeniable hard evidence of an Israelite presence in Egypt between 1700-1300 BC. has yet to emerge."
This is still something to be studied..

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Israel Finkelstein archaeologist, ... has written an excellent book in my opinion, called The Bible Unearthed.

It is, indeed, excellent and highly readable. It's also over two decades old.

 

[Ajax]

The conclusion that the Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible seems irrefutable when we examine the evidence at specific sites where the children of Israel were said to have camped for extended periods during their wandering in the desert (Nurnbers 33) and where some archaeological indication -if-present- would. almost certainly be found. According.to the biblical narrative, the children of Israel camped at Kadesh-barnea for thirty eight of the forty years of the wanderings. The general location of this place is clear from the description of the southern border of the land of Israel in Numbers 34. It has been identified by archaeologists with the large and well-watered oasis of Ein el Qudeirat in eastern Sinai, on the border between modern Israel and Egypt. The name Kadesh was probably preserved over the centuries in the name of a nearby smaller spring called Ein Qadis. A small mound with the remains of a Late Iron Age fort stands at the center of this oasis. Yet repeated excavations and surveys throughout the entire area have not provided even the slightest evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, not even a single shred left by a fleeing band (600,000 -1.000.000*) of frightened refugees.

Ezion-geber is another place reported to be a camping place of the children of Israel. It is mentioned in other places in the Bible as a later port town on the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, has led to its identification by archaeologists at a mound located on the modern border between Israel and Jordan, half way between the towns of Eilat and Aqaba. Excavations here in the years I938-I940, revealed impressive Late Iron Age remains, but no trace whatsoever of Late Bronze occupation. From the long list of encampments In the wilderness, Kadesh-barnea-and Ezion-geber are the only ones that can safely be identified, yet they revealed no trace of the wandering Israelites.

Repeated archaeological surveys in all regions of the peninsula, including the mountainous area, around the traditional site of Mount' Sinai, near Saint Catherine's Monastery, have yielded only negative evidence: not even a single sherd, no structure, not a single house; no trace of an ancient encampment. One may argue that a relatively small band of wandering Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world. Indeed, the archaeological record from the Sinai peninsula discloses evidence for pastoral activity in such eras as the third millennium BCE and the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. There is simply no such evidence at the supposed time of the Exodus in the thirteenth century BCE

Extract from The Bible Unearthed.
* My numbers according to the Bible.

 

[Tamino]

The Biblical narrative of the Exodus begins to make sense when read in the light of the Indus Valley. I give below various levels of evidence in support of this.
Textual Evidence

I'm sorry, I know this is your pet theory, but I still think your evidence is mostly speculation

1. Lack of Egyptian Records:

• There are no Egyptian texts mentioning a large-scale exodus of Hebrew slaves, unlike the biblical account.

So maybe that's because it didn't happen at all?

1. Josephus and Mahabharata:

• Josephus, citing Aristotle, mentions Jews originating from India, known to Indians as Kalami.

So, you are following a 1st century Jew, who's quoting a 4th century BC Greek about the Bronze Age origin of a people?
I might do that if there is absolutely no contemporary sources or archaeological evidence. But we have plenty of evidence and it all points to a local origin in the Levant.

• The Mahabharata describes Krishna (whom Jhunjhunwala equates with Moses) leaving the Indus Valley to an unknown place, which he suggests is Israel.

That's pure speculation. There are a lot of stories of heroes who leave a place...

Ethnographic Evidence

1. Beliefs in India:

• Some Indian communities, like the Krishnaot Yadavas, believe they descend from Krishna, similar to the biblical Hebrews.

Again, plenty of cultures tell stories of divine descent.

• Various scholars and texts suggest a link between Yadavas and Jews.

They still don't have a lot of evidence apart from superficial similarities, have they?

Genetic Evidence

1. Ashkenazi Jews and R-M124 Gene:

• Although Ashkenazi Jews' genetic makeup largely traces back to the Middle East and Europe,

There you have it

• the R-M124 gene, prevalent among certain Indian communities, is found in a small percentage of Ashkenazi Jews.

So a small bit of some genes is similar to a small bit of some Indians? That just proves that humans are a mixed batch

• This gene might have originated from the Indus Valley population that migrated westward.

Possible. But not like that was a huge migration movement and the main origin of the Jewish people or we'd expect some MORE evidence than a random strand of genes

Linguistic Evidence

1. Loan Words:

• A minimal percentage of Egyptian loan words in Hebrew suggests limited direct contact.

But there are some loan words, and both languages fit into the Afro-Asiatic language family . What similarities do you present to Indian languages?

• Similarities in signs between the Indus Valley script and Northwest Semitic scripts imply possible linguistic connections.

"Imply possible connections"? Cute. At the same time, we now have plenty of evidence for the origins of the Hebrew alphabet, tracing the development back to Semitic miners in the Sinai region who adapted Egyptian hieroglyphs to make an alphabet. See "Proto-Sinaitic"

Archaeological Evidence

1. Mud Bricks and Straw:

• The use of straw in making bricks, significant in the Indus Valley, aligns with biblical descriptions of Hebrew slaves collecting straw, which is less emphasized in Egyptian construction.

Remind me again... How many cultures around the globe came up with the idea to mix clay with plant fiber for building materials?
The answer is: most of them.

1. River Events:

• The first plague (river turning red) aligns with the drying of the Yamuna River in the Indus Valley rather than any Egyptian event.

Let me get this straight: you equate a drought of the Yamuna with the Nile turning to blood? By that principle, what would keep me from equating the first plague with any random event with any large body of water? Algae blooms, mud floods, rivers poisoned by volcanic activity... there are plenty of things that can happen with rivers.

Narrative Parallels

1. Stories and Names:

• Parallels between Hindu texts and biblical stories include the love story of Moses and Tharbis (Krishna and Rukmini) and the golden calf incident (grounding of a pestle).

A love story and a cow? Again - are there true connections or just superficial similarities that can be found in plenty of stories ?

• 22 names appear in both Hindu texts and the Bible in the same sequence, suggesting common origins.

Names like Manu?

Geographical Evidence

1. Water Bodies and Volcanoes:

• Three significant water bodies mentioned in the Bible could correspond to the Indus River and other geographical features along a hypothesized migration route from the Indus Valley.
• Mount Sinai's volcanic activity could be analogous to Mount Taftan on the migration path from the Indus Valley.

There's a lot of water and mountains on this world. I'm sure we can plot a lot of travel routes on this globe that will lead from a big river, through a lagoon or shallow lake, to a mountain and the into a desert...

Conclusion
I conclude that six out of eight categories of evidence favor the Indus Valley hypothesis for the origin of the Jewish people, with the remaining two categories being neutral.

I conclude that the evidence for your hypothesis is largely circumstantial. You are drawing connections from superficial similarities while dismissing all the very solid archaeology and evidence that links early Hebrew tribes to their Middle-Eastern Homeland.

 

[metis]

Israel Finkelstein archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa has written an excellent book in my opinion, called The Bible Unearthed. You will understand why Exodus never happened. You can buy it or download the pdf file from many sites, including Scribd.

Excellent book, but it is controversial.

IMO, the Exodus is so controversial that I cannot take it as "gospel", nor does that particularly bother me. So, in my case, I take the position "Whatever happened, happened".

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

have you read my file?

Have you read my request? See post #4.

 

[Spice]

And there is one detail in Exodus 12 , after the 10 plague.
"During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, 'Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested."

I really want to know where did the Israelities live and where Pharaoh lived since during the night he summoned them.
The primary source is still the book of Exodus , don't forget that.

I haven't given it thought as I take the book of Exodus as a story of mythology to encompass the migration of early humankind out of Africa. I don't assume the tale is a Hebrew/Egypt only oral tradition to be written down, but an accumulation of cultural memory reduced down fir substance over detailed facts.

 

[Spice]

There is no possibility of the Hebrews having crossed at the Red sea anywhere, whatsoever there are no natural phenomena that matches with it. My study shows that the Indus River could have been the yam-suph of which they crossed. The area has mud volcanoes that spew out mud instead of lava. The eruption of such a volcano upstream of the point of crossing would have stopped the flow of the Indus River for some time, and enabled the Hebrews to cross the river. Then the mud may have gotten eroded and the water may have come back and drowned the Pharaoh. So, we are looking at the wrong place to find the yam-suph or the crossing. I think we need to rework the whole fundamental geography, instead of looking at Egypt, we have to look at Indus Valley.

Please see my response to another in post #67.

 

[Dimi95]

The conclusion that the Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible seems irrefutable when we examine the evidence at specific sites where the children of Israel were said to have camped for extended periods during their wandering in the desert (Nurnbers 33) and where some archaeological indication -if-present- would. almost certainly be found. According.to the biblical narrative, the children of Israel camped at Kadesh-barnea for thirty eight of the forty years of the wanderings. The general location of this place is clear from the description of the southern border of the land of Israel in Numbers 34. It has been identified by archaeologists with the large and well-watered oasis of Ein el Qudeirat in eastern Sinai, on the border between modern Israel and Egypt. The name Kadesh was probably preserved over the centuries in the name of a nearby smaller spring called Ein Qadis. A small mound with the remains of a Late Iron Age fort stands at the center of this oasis. Yet repeated excavations and surveys throughout the entire area have not provided even the slightest evidence for activity in the Late Bronze Age, not even a single shred left by a fleeing band (600,000 -1.000.000*) of frightened refugees.

Ezion-geber is another place reported to be a camping place of the children of Israel. It is mentioned in other places in the Bible as a later port town on the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, has led to its identification by archaeologists at a mound located on the modern border between Israel and Jordan, half way between the towns of Eilat and Aqaba. Excavations here in the years I938-I940, revealed impressive Late Iron Age remains, but no trace whatsoever of Late Bronze occupation. From the long list of encampments In the wilderness, Kadesh-barnea-and Ezion-geber are the only ones that can safely be identified, yet they revealed no trace of the wandering Israelites.

Repeated archaeological surveys in all regions of the peninsula, including the mountainous area, around the traditional site of Mount' Sinai, near Saint Catherine's Monastery, have yielded only negative evidence: not even a single sherd, no structure, not a single house; no trace of an ancient encampment. One may argue that a relatively small band of wandering Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world. Indeed, the archaeological record from the Sinai peninsula discloses evidence for pastoral activity in such eras as the third millennium BCE and the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. There is simply no such evidence at the supposed time of the Exodus in the thirteenth century BCE

Extract from The Bible Unearthed.
* My numbers according to the Bible.

Please consider the fact that this Book is outdated and many new hypothesis came out which are more reliable.Facts in History are never apsolute as not everything has been found.

How much archaeological evidence is their now of all the places where they had stayed over the years? A simple challenge… since when have Bedouin been living as nomads in the Sinai? Can we even tell that from the archaeological evidence? And this is not asking for evidence from over 3000 years ago (unless we have evidence of Bedouin in the Sinai from 3000 years ago… in which case my question would be, how do you differentiate them from the Israelites?).

Nomadic tent-dwellers do not leave the same level of archaeological remains as permanent settlements. Kadesh-Barnea only became settled (instead of being a stop-over for nomadic tribes) in the 6th-8th centry BCE. And this is assuming that the current archaeological site of Kadesh-Barnea truly is the same as that of the Biblical

It is probable that the term 'Kadesh' , though applied to signify a 'city', yet had also a wider application to a region in which Kadesh-meribah certainly, and Kadesh-barnea probably, indicates a precise spot.

In classical Hebrew it is called Qadesh-Barneʿa(קָדֵשׁ בַּרְנֵעַ).Etymologically, the name has identifiable Aramaic, Hebrew and Syriac roots. Kadesh and Barnea, it seems, means 'holy' and 'wilderness wandering'.
Althrough we see in Numbers 20:1 where Kadesh only is used.
A desert is actually just a place that has very little precipitation. Subtropical deserts like the Sahara are what people generally imagine when they think about the desert. The Sahara has rocky plateaus as well as sand dunes.We have ta assume that it was place with many rocks if we consider the narrative in Numbers 20.

The name Kadesh-barnea occurs about ten times in the Bible as alternative for just Kadesh, which occurs about sixteen times. The city named Kadesh-barnea was situated in the far south of Canaan (Numbers 34:4), and would be part of the territory allotted to the tribe of Judah (Joshua 15:3).

If it is a city , then why there is no water there?

They wanted to pass Edom , but Edom refused.That means they were trapped somewhere with rocks.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

... I take the book of Exodus as a story of mythology to encompass the migration of early humankind out of Africa. I don't assume the tale is a Hebrew/Egypt only oral tradition to be written down, but an accumulation of cultural memory reduced down fir substance over detailed facts.

Nothing is quite so entertaining than a thousands of years old cultural memory.

 

[Spice]

Nothing is quite so entertaining than a thousands of years old cultural memory.

From what I've read over the years, and per this thread, others have as well, it's a compelling hypothesis of human evolution. A great many physical and mental attributes of the species have gone through extensive metamorphosis. Bump that "thousands of years" to tens of thousands of years, or more. Surely you can see as humankind becomes more intelligent it becomes dumber.

 

[Ajax]

Because most scholars believe that Israelites lived with Canaanites all along.

'I would ask you to name them , since you can see that otherwise is also plausible.There is evidence from archeology as you can see in my answer to @Bharat Jhunjhunwala

Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, after analyzing in depth with powerful evidence the emergence of the first Israelites, conclude:

The process that we describe here is, in fact, the opposite of what we have in the Bible: the emergence of early Israel was an outcome of the collapse of the Canaanite culture, not its cause. And most of the Israelites did not come from outside Canaan -they emerged from within it. There was no mass Exodus from Egypt. There was no violent conquest of Canaan. Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people - the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were -irony of ironies- themselves originally Canaanites!

+++

Modern scholarship considers that the Israelites emerged from groups of indigenous Canaanites and other peoples....Efforts to confirm the biblical ethnogenesis of Israel through archaeology has largely been abandoned as unproductive. Many scholars see the traditional narratives as national myths with little historical value, but some posit that a small group of exiled Egyptians contributed to the Exodus narrative....The Israelites used the Canaanite script and communicated in a Canaanite language known as Biblical Hebrew. The language's modern descendant, modern Hebrew, is today the only surviving dialect of the Canaanite languages....Gary Rendsburg argues that some archaic biblical traditions and other circumstantial evidence point to the Israelites emerging from the Shasu and other seminomadic peoples from the desert regions south of the Levant, later settling in the highlands of Canaan. Israelites - Wikipedia

This is for your information, because you asked for it. Not interested in debating..

 

[Dimi95]

This for your information, because you asked for it. Not interested in debating..

Pretty cool that you don't allow me to answer it since these two are not enough as their research is not accepted among the majority of their colleagues.
I have explained why.

The second point has many issues and needs explenations, but since you are not interested in debate , then have a nice day.

 

[Ajax]

Pretty cool that you don't allow me to answer it since these two are not enough as their research is not accepted among the majority of their colleagues.
I have explained why.

The second point has many issues and needs explenations, but since you are not interested in debate , then have a nice day.

How can I not allow you to answer? I only said that I'm not interested in debating. I'm not the only one writing in this thread.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

From what I've read over the years, and per this thread, others have as well, it's a compelling hypothesis of human evolution.

It is nonsense.

 

[Spice]

It is nonsense.

Introduction: What is Cultural Memory? (Chapter 1) - Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome

Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome - May 2023

www.cambridge.org

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Introduction: What is Cultural Memory? (Chapter 1) - Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome

Cultural Memory in Republican and Augustan Rome - May 2023

www.cambridge.org

Generally speaking, for one to cite something that (a) he or she may have never read, and (b) something that he or she almost certainly doesn't understand, is problematic at best. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Please quote a single peer reviewed author who suggests that a founders myth can be explained by a centuries long process that took place some seventy thousand years ago.

 

[Spice]

Generally speaking, for one to cite something that (a) he or she may have never read, and (b) something that he or she almost certainly doesn't understand, is problematic at best. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Please quote a single peer reviewed author who suggests that a founders myth can be explained by a centuries long process that took place some seventy thousand years ago.

Suit yourself. I am not a scholar and do not pretend to be. I do read such articles whether I understand them well or not. I first read about this hypothesis in the neighborhood of 16 years ago and after your request, a quick Google shows it's still viable thought. If you disbelieve the possibility, help yourself. I found it interesting.

And BTW - For more than 50 years I've bumped heads with "intellectuals." No degree from any university is going to make someone "smart." Stay Calm and Carry On.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Suit yourself. I am not a scholar and do not pretend to be.

You don't have to be. Just confirm that you read and generally understand the article you chose to cite at least well enough to know that it's relevant to a process occurring tens of thousands of years ago.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Jews usually don't have a problem with that. Afaik, there is no Jewish variant of AiG.

Maybe someone should try to get them interested. We could sent them Ken Ham and Ray Comfort as a buy one get one free deal