You are of course free to believe what you will (and to do the research to validate those beliefs), but that is far different than pointing to the fact that a tradition is long-lived as evidence of worth.
What a magnificent post!
This reminds me of your posts from over a decade ago.
Yes, of course my lack of beliefs are just personal, I'm not intending to fight bloody debates over their lack, and sadly I'm stuck with only a mobile at this time for communication.
Now, to the traditions around Passover and exodus.....
Furthermore, the long-lived character of the exodus was and is in many ways the consequence of a story being successfully promoted via a vernacular alphabet and later deemed scripture. In a very real sense it is not a long-lived tradition but a long-lived text.
Very long lived indeed, and no doubt reaching back to the very limits that tradition could hold on to, but I wonder how many cultures celebrate these same or similar events?
And why "escaping of slaves on a large scale" rather than the Hyksos "expulsion," or an 'exodus' by a small group of Egyptian priests later relabelled as Levites, or ... ?
Exactly how many waves of migration have swept through Egypt, through both Upper, Lower and more southern nations and up in to 'Palestinian', Israeli and Syrian districts I have no idea, but I do expect that the passover/exodus story has some fact within it's depths, is all.
As for relevant evidence, the
Elephantine papyri and ostraca is intriguing. Note, for example ...
The Elephantine papyri pre-date all extant
manuscripts of the
Hebrew Bible, and thus give scholars a very important glimpse at how Judaism was practiced in Egypt during the fifth century BCE,
[10] as they seem to show evidence of the existence in c. 400 BCE of a
polytheistic sect of Jews. It is widely agreed that this Elephantine community originated in the mid-seventh or mid-sixth centuries BCE, likely as a result of Judean and Samaritan refugees fleeing into Egypt during the times of Assyrian and Babylonian invasions.
[11] They seem to have had no knowledge of a written
Torah or the narratives described therein.
[12]
Judean and Samaritan communities....interesting that there was a division as far back as those times. I wonder how far one would need to go back to find a more united community.
With constant oral repetition maybe a written document was not required, and the law kept safe by sages, rather like the Islamic Hafiz of later centuries?
Also important is the fact that the papyri document the existence of a small Jewish temple at Elephantine, which possessed altars for incense offerings and animal sacrifices, as late as 411 BCE. Such a temple would be in clear violation of
Deuteronomic law, which stipulates that no Jewish temple may be constructed outside of Jerusalem.
[10]: 31
The laws were constantly and continually being broken, and then returned to, and since Deuteronomy was a second review of all I wouldn't worry about clear violations. That the original Temple was itinerant then this might have caused communities who ceased travels to set up their own centres, maybe?
Furthermore, the papyri show that the Jews at Elephantine sent letters to the high priest in Jerusalem asking for his support in re-building their temple, which seems to suggest that the priests of the Jerusalem Temple were not enforcing Deuteronomic law at that time. Cowley notes that their petition expressed their pride at having a temple to Ya'u, '
Yahweh ' (no other god is mentioned in the petition) and gave no suggestion that their temple could be heretical.
[12]
If there was a Temple in Jerusalem at that time then the ancient history predates even those distant times?
Imagine that......seeking permission from the centre to bust the old law.
You mentioned Samaritans back in those times, so there was a parallel culture/religion with separate places of worship already.
That Samaritans and Jews were celebrating Passover(exodus) and booths(travels) 2000 years ago sends these traditions so far back before scholarship launches in to the migrations over those lands does suggest to me that there is substance within their memories of such amazing migration as happened to the Semitic people.
