Episode 21 (August 28, 2023), "Did the Exodus Really Happen?"
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Look out, Cecil B. DeMille, because the Dans are coming for you! That's right--making absolutely zero apologies to Messrs DeMille, Heston, or even Kilmer (for all you Dreamworks fans), we're letting the data run roughshod over the story of the biblical exodus.
The tale is beloved: a man of lowly birth but raised among royalty returns to his roots to save his enslaved people from bondage, but did any of it actually happen? How much do we actually know, and how do we know it?
Then we dive deep into Exodus 22:29... because it's horrifying. Is it possible that God commanded his chosen people to sacrifice their own children to Him? That doesn't sound right. Maybe there's another way to interpret that, right? Right???
If you want to support our show, please consider becoming a monthly patron at www.patreon.com/DataOverDogma
Also, follow us on the various social media places:
DataOverDogmaPod
data_over_dogma
This podcast has become my absolute favorite thing on the internet
Yes!
all religion aside, the prince of egypt is just a beautifully crafted work of art
My rule of ancient literature: "the easiest thing to exaggerate is number."
This podcast deserves MUCH wider viewership, I think that for believers and atheists both, greater knowledge of the text is helpful, besides being very informative.
Another great podcast! You both has been healing my soul from the years of Dogma a grew up with. Thanks!
When Dan said "Pod Blasters"the first thing that came to mind was those old school soundblasters you would get for your windows 95 installs.
Nefertiri’s gauzy dress! Right on!
Yeah, a major issue with the Exodus story is that during the time most date the Exodus, most of the Levant was an Egyptian province. So the Hebrews ran from Egypt and escaped...to Egypt.
Also the centuries of Egyptian direct rule, let alone the periods when Egypt dominated the region even if didn't occupy it, trivially explains how Egyptian words ended up in Hebrew.
But if they were truly entirely assimilated then there would be a hard time differentiating them as a group after half a millennium.
Listening to this podcast and Dan's scholarship during my deconstruction has been immensely healing
It's weird that the dominant guess is that the Exodus happened in the 1200s BC. As mentioned, the 10 plagues would have been like running a steamroller over Egypt. And yet, this would have been during the reign of Rameses II, the greatest of the ancient pharaohs, who ruled over Egypt during its cultural and military acme. It makes no sense.
I love your pop culture references. 'When You Believe' from 'Prince of Egypt' won the Oscar for Best Song.
Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments was how I learned my Exodus story, lol.
That would be the Cecille B. DeMille script regularly referenced herein, for whatever this information is worth to you
I look forward to this podcast every week. ❤
Me too
Anything God can do Hollywood can do in technicolor and under budget.
😂😂😂
The so-called tophet has the bones of infants as well as miscarriages before viability. There are no infant bones in Punic cemeteries. There is no reason that the dead babies could not have been offered as sacrifices without being killed.
Came here via Genetically Modified Skeptic. Did hear you guys on Scathing Atheist but, criminally, didn't give you a chance then. I'm sorry I did that because this is great.
Canaan was intermittently part of the Egyptian empire during the time window for the Exodus. My crazy theory is that Egypt left Israel rather than vice versa.
Israelites and Canaanites are friends, relatives and neighbors:
In Exodus 12:40 the Masoretic text reads: “The length of the time the Israelites lived in Egypt was 430 years,” a sentence that has created massive chronological problems for Jewish historians, since there is no way to make the genealogies last that long. In the Samaritan version, however, the text reads: “The length of time the Israelites lived in Canaan and in Egypt was 430 years.”
Is Yahweh the son of El?
Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El (Elohim) in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, but this was removed by a later emendation to the text. With the notable exception of Yahweh himself, the deities worshipped by Israel were also Canaanite. These included El, the ruler of the pantheon, Asherah, his consort, and Baal.
I like the current format!
could mosses be Akhenaten ? the Egyptians erase him out of history because he was monotheistic and i THINK he was exile and they don't have a record of his death.
Have you seen the depictions of Akhenaten? Best evidence of Ancient Alien bs, he certainly looks unworldly. Don’t think the Jews would want to claim THAT guy as their liberator.
Regarding the Exodus: I do believe some sort of migration of people from Egypt into Canaan happened, and that these people likely became the Levites (hence why Levite names in Exodus are Egyptian in origin, such as Moses, and not Semitic; and also why Levites had no land, instead living among the other tribes as priests: they had no claim to land because the other tribes were already there), and that they related themselves as a lost tribe fleeing persecution (perhaps they were remnant of the Aten monolatric cult?), and eventually they integrated their mythic story into the story of all Israel as the tribes further distinguished themselves culturally from the rest of Canaan.
A lot of my view has been shaped by scholars such as Finkelstein and Friedman. However, in recent months I've been presented with evidence of just how late in composition a lot of the Hebrew Bible (as we have it) likely is. I can definitely see the Israelite return from Exile as the perfect time for the Levite Exodus story to be reframed as an Israelite Exodus story to unify the tribes.
As for Moses' name: Could it be a purposeful incomplete meaning to sort of mirror how Yahweh's name in Exodus, "I am", is also incomplete? I could be looking at it through too much of an English language lens, but "Tell them 'I am' sent you" presents the name as rather incomplete. So perhaps Moses meaning "born of" is meant to be empty? If the divine name is not to be said, perhaps "I am" is could to be "I am ____" and thus Moses, taking from Egypt, would have been "Born of ____" with the name of the god purposefully left off the name but inferred? I could also be (and likely am) talking out of my ass. I don't have a degree or anything.
I’ve heard many of those same points from respected scholars, particularly the origins of the Levites. Good to keep in mind that evidence points to the majority of the Israelites being indigenous Cannanites (the Canaanite god El is literally in their name).
@@TheGreatAgnostic this is true but a minor exodus of a few ousted priests from Egypt becoming levites could be true
Thanks!
1750 through 1780 40% of all children died before they reached the age of 15. Extreme waves of high child mortality was not uncommon before mainstream use and application of the scientific method. One of the more fascinating books I've read is by John M Berry titled The Great Influenza. Absolutely fascinating book.
Interestingly, in my german Luther translation bible it says for Hesekiel 20: "Darum gab auch ich ihnen Gebote, die nicht gut waren, und Gesetze, durch die sie kein Leben haben konnten." Meaning: "Therefore I too gave them commandments that weren't good, and commandments through which they could not have (a) life." (Translation by me). Which sounds more like he made the commandment so that they would either have a miserable life, or that they would sin and not have eternal life because of it.
Exodus might or might not demand human or child sacrifice. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do.
I appreciate both Dan's keep it up🎉🎉
Makes me think of the Akhenaten reforms. An influential person brings in certain laws and customs and within a generation they are rejected.
In addition to absolutely loving each episode, I love seeing those subscriber and like numbers going up ever episode. Awesome job.
re: child sacrifice, there's also micah 6:6-8,
"6 With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God."
the sacrifice of the firstborn is given in the context of a bunch of other perfectly legitimate sacrifices.
Child sacrifice was common practice by the canaanites and the whole story of God telling Abram an Amorite to sacrifice his child wouldn't be unfamiliar to his culture and then God provides the scapegoat and this is why the animals instead of children R sacrificed to YHWH.
YHWH also changes his name and the Amorite becomes the Father of the Hebrews and other nations through his descendents.
You might want to check with the whole Bible before trying a dubious proof text verse that you obviously can't interpret in their context.
@davidjanbaz7728 canaanite cultures, including israelites, sacr8ficed both humans and other animals, until abandoning human sacrifice (except for carthage) at some point in the persian period. so israelites weren't unique or special in abandoning the practice, either.
your little song and dance doesn't make sense of the exodus law, nor of ezekiel's response to it, nor of this passage from micah, which would have been written over a thousands years after abram the amorite's foreign ways died with him. then there's jepthah's sacrifice of his daughter (a vow yahweh honored, mind), and the broader context of israelite holy war (herem) as mass human sacrifice.
“29 The Lord your God will cut off(A) before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land,(B) 30 and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared(C) by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.”(D) 31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates.(E) They even burn their sons(F) and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods."
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIV
@jrhirsch1 yes, the authors of deuteronomy didn't like real mosaic-izraelite traditions. including human sacrifice
Isn't child sacrifice practices likely driven by economic scarcity? If you sacrifice people at the beginning of the growing season, then fewer mouths to feed at harvest time is going to make the food appear to have gone further. You see a similar thing with cannibalism where the practice often seems to grow out of a scarcity of other forms of protein. People and societies are really good at finding rationalizations for horrendous things.
Really love listening to this podcast lately
The sacrifice would only be a sacrifice if what was sacrificed was important. Sacrificing something one does not care about is not a sacrifice. Yawh targeted the first born of Egypt when He wished to make a point , Yawh was under the impression the Egyptians cared about their children. A 5th century greek play have the mother having the father killed who sacrificed their daughter , at the first chance she got.
I do so love Data Over Dogma Day! 😃
Edit: I dunno why anyone would wanna date the Exodus, they're always running away from ya... 😃
The good liars asked someone if he consumed pig. Cause that was also forbidden.
He is not wearing his square glasses this time.
Everyone knows Exodus was released in 1977. 😄
LOL...Bob Marley was the goat.
This is false. Exodus didn't even form until 1979.😮
@@DenUngeHerrHolm beo what
Let my people go !
You are thinking of Genesis.
I keep thinking about the time between the fall of Israel and the exile from Judah. There was a mass of refugees from the north into Judah, and that must have had an effect on the northern stories, which then got folded into the combined lore with the southern stories. I've seen some analysis on how the northern influx impacted the reform movement in Judah and the view on the Covenant, but Schmid's "Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel's Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible" hasn't made it to the top of my To Read stack yet.
Don't call me Shirley
It occurred to me that there might be some significance to the line “ Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day.” The eight day is beyond the cosmic week if you follow my line of thought.
On the topic of how societies relate to their offsprings when there are low resources and is high infant mortality, I’ve been told of native societies in Venezuela that don’t name their children before they are one year old, on the basis that there’s a high chance of not making it. (I wish I had more precision, since the source has worked in different parts of the country I don’t recall exactly which nation was being referred, my impression was one of the peoples of the Orinoco Delta region, or one of those of the southern region).
Great episode, Dans! to BEECHER: you know there's more than 3 Abrahamic faiths, right?
Re the records kept regarding the Exodus story, as well as few records still existing, did Egypt keep records of huge defeats like this?
“29 The Lord your God will cut off(A) before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land,(B) 30 and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared(C) by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.”(D) 31 You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates.(E) They even burn their sons(F) and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods."
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 NIV
Always wondered if worshipers of Istar, Ra and El came together to form Israel.
The historical 'kernel' behind the Exodus is simply that the Egyptian empire extended over the Palestinian territory and so made the pre-Hebrew Canaanites subjects of the Pharaoh. They were destroyed by the Bronze Age collapse, and retreated, leaving behind the power-vacuum from which the later Jewish theocracy would form. The point of the story is to justify the law freeing (Hebrew) slaves after 6 years.
LOL 😆 : AND It's 7 years ,so try making up stories with the correct facts!
@@davidjanbaz7728 It's six years, the seventh year is when you go free. The point of Exodus to this day is to justify this law freeing slaves, because Jews say "You were slaves in Egypt".
"Hey, if you use us as the frame of reference, the Egyptian empire leaving us is, like, basically the same as us leaving the Egyptian empire." -- Ancient Hebrew Einstein, probably 💁
@@AtheismActually They had no idea what happened, these people were barely literate and didn't have historians. What they knew is that they had some Egyptian customs from way back, and a strange sense that Egypt was powerful over them, and they had somehow overcome "mighty Egypt" and gained their freedom. This theme is what Exodus is about, it's creating a fantasy about liberation from oppression, where the Egyptian supermacists are defeated. You can see this is why Exodus is inspirational to oppressed groups all over the world.
Seriously, though: how much did or could stories about the Hyksos rule and expulsion impact the stories that would later become the text of Exodus?
some jewish scholars in the hellenistic period believed their ancestors to have been the hyksos
Just finished Vol 1 and 2 of The Atheists' Guide to The Old Testament.
Do think that Egypt was suffering climate change then. People were leaving the cities but slowly. Those plagues may have happened over centuries.
@ 57 mins in, I think Dan was trying to say that if this stuff wasn't practiced amongst the Israelites back then, how did it make it to the 2nd century bce? How did the tradition of "judaic" practices carry on for so long?
One of the things that was not mentioned was that people had to pay the priesthood to redeem their infant, mentioned, but that Israel
1. Born out of the LBAC.
2. No way to enforce support for the various priesthoods.
3. Often under vassal status to much larger polities.
So this discussion need to begin here with the acknowledgment that within Israel is the longest surviving neolithic society that begins at Natufia, somewehere settled betwee. 14 and 16 kya and continued as Jericho and then probably expanded as various settlements that represents the substratum of bronze age levant.
When you exist in a society of that age population growth is in a dynamic equikibrium with various forcing factors, in other words, over 100s of typical years, society is not noticibly growing. And yet society coukd grow at a factor of 2 fold or more per generation.
So if we look at this not from a moral but from a practical perspective we deal with the fact that
1. During a period of famine, a father would less likely to be able to redeem his offspring
2. If the father had doubts about the paternity of his child he could elect not to redeem, or he might choose to hand him over to the priesthood.
3. For a couple that did not get the blessing of the father or give a large enough dowry, they might not have enough livestock or land to redeem their child. This is a way that the elders might have for leveraging arranged marriages over love-marriages.
4. As seen in other societies there was a high premium on male births, which woukd cause distortions if female babies were dumped in the local heap. Offering first born males may be a way of reducing conflict and drive to warfare whoch would be important in trading societies.
5. If the cost of redemption was sufficiently high its possible that this redemption would be facilitated by the assistence of the grandparents, allowing them to put their rubber stamp on the birth, or rejecting it as something they did not desire. The other possibility is that relatives might seize the child via redemption, force adoption.
One of the problems with the hypothesis is that a sizeable fraction of Judean, Edomite, and Midianite societies were nomadic, and so redeeming themselves at the local shrine is not always going to be a thing. So it seems like it would be more of a thing with agricultural societies. In mesopotamian societies there is the appearance that warriors were preferentially obtained from the nomadic or pastoral herding groups, and this may be the case because they had excess of males over females.
Usually the earlier period is based on the Meneptah Stella but if there was already Israelites in the land and the Exodites are a group of cananites slaves that flew Egypt and join the Cananites free society in the hills , bring a God they found in the way YHW ( yauh) it makes sense to me the Exodus occurred in the Bronze Age collapse and these new commers are the tribe of Levi ( the Priestly class)
The main reason Exodus must be considered fiction is that Egypt controlled the southern Levant throughout the late Bronze Age. Leaving the Nile delta and fleeing to the Judean hills would be like German Jews fleeing to Poland to escape the Nazis in 1940.
It is much more plausible the Egyptians left Palestine, and the folks living there, during the late Bronze Age collapse. Exodus has the story exactly backwards. Which is not surprising as it was written hundreds of years after the events it supposedly describes occurred.
If one imagines a fairly rich Egyptian Empire and a fairly poor Palestine, the inhabitants of Palestine might want to go to Egypt for work. The work the Egyptians don’t want to do. Like working mines in the Egyptian Desert. Which is where the evidence of early Semitic writing has been found. Those Palestinian inhabitants that did not assimilate to Egyptian Culture and returned home would not remember they were looking for a job when they left, they would remember the terrible working conditions.
Y'all aren't updating on Spotify? Thought y'all went away!
Almost.... Fence Riders on every subject 50/50 60/40 is a waste if time.
The Nile delta is north not south
The only large exodus of Canaanites out of Egypt was that of the Hyksos -- which Josephus identifies as the Israelite Exodus. It is silly to suppose that the later biblical story would be accurate. What is actually intriguing is that, already in the mid-2nd millennium B.C., Canaanite religion contains so much of what appears to be Israelite cult. How is that possible, if such cultic observances take place before the events upon which they are based?
Does Abraham commanded to sacrifice Isaac coincide with the this command?
Please don't fire Dan Beecher. He really adds an extra perspective to the discussion.
I agree! Please don’t fire Dan Beecher! (Do you know something I don’t know?)
@@danielbeecher8053 I coudl have sworn I heard you say the format of Data Over Dogma was changing and you would be leaving, sometimes I hear things wrongly, sorry, I really enjoy your contributions
19:03-19:20 i disagree in the sense that new texts were created after the exile (Leviticus, Ezekiel [post humous], and numbers/jeremiah composites) reinterpreting Exodus rather than people actually tampering with the Exodus text itself. The premises of the documentary hypothesis are largely correct (interpolations, composites, different authors), but the conclusions are debatable. i don’t see a post 10th century BCE author in the Exodus text outside of light touch-ups (I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob).
The first few verses of Exodus are later, but still.
Well.....god believed in child sacrifice, therefore he sacrificed his own son!!!!! So.. so..sad
That’s why I believe the early church turned him into God. I struggle to believe that he would do that. I go back to 1st John. Paraphrasing “ In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with him in the beginning!” Yada yada.
Question: did they not have a physical written record of Exodus until after the exile? Because in the video you said that Exodus was influenced by the exile. So, before that did the Israelites not have a hard copy of the Exodus (or Genesis either)???
Guys, look, this is simple. The third Giza pyramid is half the size of the other two because God said let his people go. Case closed! 😂
"Moses" is the Greek version of his name just like "Jesus" for Yeshua. In Hebrew the name is "Moshe" with an "sh" sound which is a different letter in Egyptian than the "s" in "mss" born, born of, son of etc. So there seems to be a problem claiming "Moses" is an Egyptian name. But what do I know?
Why didn't Yahweh just show up instead of having Moses be his mouthpiece? Lol
Too much work for him.
@@wannabe_scholar82 agreed haha
No, see, this was like Elder Scrolls. The Daedric Princes are under the Coldharbour Pact. They can't invade another Prince's realm, but their agents can go there. The Israelite god had a whole procedure to go through before he could show up and throw down in another god's land!
Sooooo…. I already sacrificed 32 of my children before finding this video. 😬I’m starting to think I’ve made a grave mistake.
[Genesis 1 Elohim vs Genesis 2 Yahweh Elohim]:
"Deus" means "God", "Dea" means "Goddess", and "Dei" could either mean "gods" (plural) or "God's" (possessive) based on context.
The Hebrew counterparts to the Latin above are El, Elah and Elohim.
The Elohist uses the possessive context for Elohim (except when referencing the false Elohim).
The Yahwist, Priestly and Deuteronomist use the plural context for Elohim (except when referencing the true Elohim).
What is the heresy of two powers in heaven?
The basic heresy involved interpreting scripture to say that a principal angelic or hypostatic manifestation in heaven was equivalent to God. The earliest heretics believed in two complementary powers in heaven, while later heretics believed in two opposing powers in heaven.
The Bible isn't about El/Theos/Deus or whatever language you want to say the title (not a name) meaning God. The Bible is about Elohim (sons of El).
Good vs evil Elohim,
True vs false Elohim,
Chosen vs adopted Elohim,
Necessary vs contingent Elohim,
Genesis 1 Elohim vs Genesis 2 Yahweh Elohim.
Bibles should note when Elohim is used as plural or possessive.
Theology comes from combining two Greek words: Theos, meaning God, and Logos, meaning Word or rational thought.
[The Word is Elohim from Genesis 1]
(not to be confused with Yahweh Elohim, the false Elohim, from Genesis 2)
Compare John 1: 1-5 with Genesis 1: 1-5:
John 1: 1-5
Names of God Bible
The Word Becomes Human
1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was already with God in the beginning.
3 Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him.
4 He was the source of life, and that life was the light for humanity.
5 The light shines in the dark, and the dark has never extinguished it.
Genesis 1: 1-5
Names of God Bible
The Creation
1 In the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth.
2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Ruach Elohim was hovering over the water.
3 Then Elohim said, “Let there be light!” So there was light. 4 Elohim saw the light was good. So Elohim separated the light from the darkness. 5 Elohim named the light day, and the darkness he named night. There was evening, then morning-the first day.
Jesus (Yahweh Elohim from Genesis 2) the Christ (Elohim from Genesis 1).
There is a problem with the way your question is framed, You assume that the God of the Bible is the one true God. Aka the Jewish God...
Thanks!