So maybe that's because it didn't happen at all?
But Tamino, it is as much your speculation that it didn't happen at all. My point is that the Hindu texts do talk about Krishna going away to an unknown country. Hence, there is evidence in Indus Valley and none in Egypt.
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.
I don't think there is plenty of evidence that there was local origin of the exodus in the Levant. This local origin theory has been developed only because we have not found evidence of Exodus in Egypt. If we look for evidence of exodus from the Indus Valley, then the Exodus is established historically and there is no need to look for a local origin. Furthermore, if we consider local origin, then there is no need for crossing of the sea. There is no need for God's intervention to help them cross the sea and there is no explanation for the plates. There are so many contradictions that it just does not gel.
I am not following first century Jew. I am only saying that there is an undercurrent in the Western literature that the Jews are from India and that requires us to look at this hypothesis more seriously.
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
The difference is that RM-124 is found in 50 to 100% of the Indians in northeast India and it is also found in large number of Ashkenazi Jews. So, the question is where did it enter from? And we cannot simply escape this problem by saying that they are mixed batch. Of course, the humans are a mixed batch, but the task is to unravel that mixedness and find out where this RM-124 got in.
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
I agree with you that there was most likely no huge migration movement. The figure in of 605,000, for example, may have only 605 persons with thousands as a hyperbola. We do find more evidence of exodus from the Indus Valley in terms of the Taftan volcano, crossing of the Indus River and others that I do not want to repeat here. I am attaching a video RM-124 gene that I have posted elsewhere, and this will give you more evidence on this point.
But there are some loan words, and both languages fit into the Afro-Asiatic language family . What similarities do you present to Indian languages?
I cannot provide you reply in terms of loanwords, because the Indus Valley language has not been deciphered, but I am providing list of 24 proper names which are found in the same genealogical sequence as in the biblical genealogy. So, the curiosity is, that not only the names are found, but they are found in the same genealogical sequence, which indicates that this must have been from the same event.
"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"
There is no evidence whatsoever that Semitic miners created a language because there were no Semitic miners in Sinai at all. The whole idea flies into the face because the Sinai and Canaan were under the control of the Egyptians, and if Semitic miners had been mining in Egypt, they would have been oppressed by the Egyptians as easily as they oppress the others.
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.
Indeed, you are right that mud bricks are made everywhere, but the question is that the conflict with the Pharaoh was regarding collection of straw and straw constitutes a very small part of the manufacture of mud bricks, but it constitutes 50% of the cost of baked bricks. Hence, it is more likely that the conflict on straw was in an area where baked bricks was used, which was in the Indus Valley.
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.
You got me wrong. I am equating the Yamuna with the Hakkara river, which does not flow now, but the dead course of which can be traced. This was flowing to the east of the Indus and it stops flowing around 1900 to 1500 BCE and turned into pools and that is why the Bible says that it turned into blood.
A love story and a cow? Again - are there true connections or just superficial similarities that can be found in plenty of stories ?
You got it wrong, my friend. The question is that how do we find exact parallel stories? The question is not whether it is a cow or not. The question is why do we have exact parallels in these stories, in the Hindu texts and the Bible, where there is nothing similar in the Egyptian texts. So, we have to look dispassionately at the evidence rather than come from the Egyptian angle.
You cannot pick up one name and dismiss the 21. Why don't you read the all 21 names and look at the Hindu parallels, and show me where you find similar parallel names in the Egyptian literature.
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...
I beg to disagree with you. You cannot plot a number of travel routes on this globe from a big river to Israel. Please do provide me 2 or 3 such alternatives and then we will discuss.
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.
I'm aghast! See, the point is that you have to make a comparative study. Take the 22 names. If you have 40 parallel names in Egypt and 22 names in Indus Valley, then it would make sense to say that exodus took place from Egypt. But you are asking for absolute evidence from Indus Valley. While there is zero evidence in Egypt. So, you have to make a comparative study and comparatively see which is more fitting the circumstances.