Talk:The Exodus
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[edit] 1510 BC?
The traditional Catholic Christmas liturgy actually suggests a precise date by intoning that Christ was born 1,510 years after the Exodus. I was curious to see where this notion comes from. Even if it isn't accepted by current archaeologists, it seems to indicate a once-common notion. Can anyone comment on this? (I suppose that would actually be 1514 BC, wouldn't it?)
- I am in no way a scholar on this, but I would suppose that it is actually closely tied to the approximate 1525 date. Jesus was most likely born in 8-6 BC. The reasoning for this is in the account of Matthew, the astrologers from the east first visited Herod the Great, who died in 4 BC. The account also states that Jesus was child, and does not use the Greek term for baby. Furthermore, Herod ordered the execution of all boys under the age of two to be put to death. Assuming that Herod did not die in the following years and that Jesus was getting close to the maximum age limit (3yrs), this could put Jesus' birth as early as 10 BC. But the latest likely year of birth would probably be 5 BC. Hence the 6-8 BC. If we instead assume 10 BC, add 1510 to get 1520, we are now very close to the 1525 approximation. BobertWABC (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] "Material culture" and Interpretation section
Two problems I spotted in the article. First, the phrase "material culture" is used throughout the article, without ever explaining what it means. Most commonly it is used in the form "proto-Israelite material culture". Without a clear definition lines like the following one from the Interpretation section would leave many scratching their heads:
- It would appear we have what may reasonably be described as proto-Israelite material culture transitions which can be dated with reasonable accuracy, and occur at unexpectedly late dates.
Based on the comments here it I'd hazard a guess that the phrase comes from edits by ThaThinker (talk). Perhaps he or someone else could convert the phrase into something less "jargony" per Wikipedia:Explain jargon. I note that material culture actually redirects to the Archaeological culture article, which seems to be a clearer phrase to me, however the article itself actually muddies the water for me on whether we should be using the term at all. I think the phrase needs to be changed, but I don't know how.
Also, "It would appear we have" and "what may reasonably be described as" seem to be redundant phrases that both serve the same purpose in the line above; to weaken the assertion that follows. There is no citation for that paragraph, so it's not clear where this came from, or if it is original research or a case of synthesis, neither of which would be good. Furthermore the Interpretation section is loaded with weasel words that need sources and some other unsourced claims. I have marked a number of items there with "fact" and "views needing attribution" tags. -- HiEv 20:11, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
- This doesn't seem to be a hot issue of debate, but a good definition of material culture: material culture is the artifacts, both portable and non-portable, that are identified with a given archaeological site and stratum. The relationship between material culture and ethnicity or social culture is not always clear or easy to define. In modern Hebrew material culture is used and an exact translation of the English phrase: תרבות חומרית Material culture is the term generally used in archaeological literature. Hkp-avniel (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
- Should the "Interpretations" section just be deleted? As noted above, there's a distinct lack of citations, and doesn't seem particularly neutral. The third paragraph is definitely the worst, as it constantly uses "we" in a strange fashion. Lord Seth (talk) 02:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
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- Yeah, I think deleting is the way to go here. It doesn't say anything new, rather it seems like a last ditch effort for the author to plug his/her opinions once again. Ratatosk Jones (talk) 05:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
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- We still have "Most archaeologists[who?] working on the territories of ancient Israel now support chronologies differing from the biblical Conquest of Canaan by some centuries, and if it turns out they are right, we may have to revise our historical view of the Exodus accordingly. In spite of what appears to be a discrepancy of archaeology with the Bible, the work of archaeologists does suggest the reality of the overall 'sweep of events' - e.g. an arrival in Canaan by this proto-Israelite material culture some centuries before the time that Solomon and David are believed to have lived, and Egypt had been known to enslave Semites." etc which is simply an editor's OR or maybe WP:SYN and certainly not encyclopedic, I'll delete that now. Doug Weller (talk) 17:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Velikovsky
Should not the Velikovsky mention be expanded considering his dating results in Egyptian and Israeli history matching up to some degree? For example there was known to be large Asiatic slave population of possible Semitic origin living in Egypt during the 12th dynasty which vanished in the 13th, "abandoning their tools and other possessions" according to Petrie. Archaeologists have found evidence of nomads wandering the Sinai destroying cities in this period and this dating also allows the Biblical Jericho and Gibeon to match up. Regardless that the chronology is not accepted I feel some mention of events that are reconciled should be made purely because it is of interest that many events do line up. Wayne (talk) 17:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- The section The_Exodus#Greatly_lowered_Egyptian_chronologies is all that needs to be in this article until such point as any of these revised chronologies gains mainstream acceptance.
- Speaking as someone who has done a great deal of work in the area myself, I do not expect my work or anyone else's to appear in Wikipedia when it's still fringe. That's not what Wikipedia is for. If you're interested in more info on the subject, though, you could try this. -LisaLiel (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
NEO CANAAN EGYPT : In grael sequalogy - back to the smithsonian having similar regards COMIX!, through radio city - finding this time 'he he', that Morgan Freeman is Ramasees, Samuel L jackson is Orpheus, "wonders tutenkahmun",, and lawrence fishburne is morpheus is pharoah --- direct meditated proof of this, is that the bible says pharoah-ae-ramasees in some Jamsein ways, leading to find well if egypt is still here, then these guys must be too --- somewhere who is at in this way, oh, i see, VARIANT ORPHEUS BARAK O BAMA, : --- but the obvious one is now that being older or elder and not being bill cosby - because of familiarity instead of kings - has that Morgan Freeman is ramasees as it comes, LLL... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.175.167 (talk) 16:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
- Wow. That's... intense. Can I have some of whatever you're having? -LisaLiel (talk) 17:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Latest Archaeological Finds
An article from the Supreme Council of Antiquities discusses the latest finds here. They confirm the accounts of the pharaohs and leave no room for the Exodus to have happened before the reign of Ramesses II. The archaeological evidence seems to support the Exodus being based on the expulsion of the Hyksos. Wayne (talk) 06:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't know French. This is English Wikipedia. Could you give a brief explanation of why there's "no room" for the Exodus to have happened before the reign of Ramesses II? For example, why could it not have happened at the end of the 6th Dynasty? -LisaLiel (talk) 12:33, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
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- Ahhh sorry. Go to this site and copy/paste the url. You get a reasonable translation of the page. I'm not saying Zahi Hawass is right, but he is credible and represents the current state of knowledge. Wayne (talk) 05:18, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Repetition
There are frequent cases of repetition in the article where things are stated that had already been stated in a manner as if they had not yet been stated even though they had. Okay, that was a little blatant and it isn't so obvious in the article, but it is there. In particular, the Hyksos expulsion is re-introduced several times. The article could be shortened and become easier to read if those instances were cleaned up. BobertWABC (talk) 17:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Misunderstanding of Paul's Dating
The article currently states:
In the New Testament (Acts 13:18,20), Paul says after the 40-year Wandering, the period of the judges lasted 450 years, but still does not take into account the reign of the kings Saul and David, which suggests a total period of at least 580 years. Josephus gave 592 years as the time between the Exodus and the Temple.
This seems a significant misunderstanding of his statement in Acts 13:16-20:
Acts 13:16 So Paul stood up, gestured with his hand and said, "Men of Israel, and you Gentiles who fear God, listen: 17 The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay as foreigners in the country of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it. 18 For a period of about forty years he put up with them in the wilderness. 19 After he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave his people their land as an inheritance. 20 All this took about four hundred fifty years. After this he gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. (New English Translation)
Paul's reference to 450 years seems to include the 400 years spent in Egypt before the Exodus, plus the 40 years wandering in the wilderness, plus 10 years conquering the nations of Canaan. The time of the judges is explicitly stated to be "after this" and no attempt is made to describe its duration.
Based on this, I'm going to rework that section. TexasTwister (talk) 15:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The King James Bible and modern translations seem to differ on the 450 years. In the King James the 450 years refer to the period of the judges. Youngs Literal Translation has "And after these things, about four hundred and fifty years, He gave judges -- till Samuel the prophet", which is ambiguous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wjvermeer (talk • contribs) 00:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] New Conquest of Canaan article or add section below to Exodus page?
I'm wondering...what do other editors think...should we create a dedicated article to the Conquest of Canaan? Maybe just a redirect of "Conquest of Canaan" to this page The Exodus. This could then be used as a stub in several articles dealing with the issue, including The Exodus and the history articles on the United Monarchy and Divided Monarchy.
Regardless, here's what I think is a useful addition to your article or a unified article on "The Conquest of Canaan". There are references but they may not show up on the discussion page. You can see them if you click "edit this page" but all (except one) are based on this article: Israel Finkelstein, "The Great Transformation: The 'Conquest' of the Highlands Frontiers and the Rise of the Territorial States," Pp.349-365 in Thomas E. Levy, ed. The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, Facts on File: New York, 1995 (one of the "standard" texts we are using at the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I. Finkelstein from Tel Aviv University is known as an out-spoken critic of the Conquest of Canaan and the very existence of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon, but his data on Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements is very interesting...see below. This section can be expanded with other sources, etc.:
[edit] Three Models for the Emergence of Early Israel
In the archaeological literature there are three "classic" views of the emergence of early Israel, but all agree that there was a single, historical event that could be associated with the Israelite settlement of Canaan.[1]
The first, held by archaeologist W.F. Albright and his students and adherents, understood the conquest as a military conquest by the ancient Israelites who entered and engaged the Canaanites of the Bronze Age and destroyed their city-states and settled to some extent on the sites of the Canaanite settlements. This first view is most commonly associated with the traditional view of the Conquest of Canaan by the ancient Israelites. Criticisms of this view include the archaeological finds that suggest the settlement was a gradual process that lasted for an entire century, and that the material culture of Iron Age I sites suggest a similarity to the previous inhabitants of the Late Bronze Age in Canaan.
A second view, held by archaeologist A. Alt interpreted the Israelite settlement as a gradual peaceful occupation of Canaan, starting in the highlands, and only then engaging the Canaanite city-states. After this the nation state was consolidated and expanded towards the lowlands. Israel Finkelstein's criticism of this view is similar to that of the first, in that, he indicated there was no archaeological evidence to connect the "incoming population" to other people groups or locales in the ancient Near East.[2]
The third view, proposed by archaeologists G. Mendenhall and N. Gottwald, interpreted the settlement in terms of a "Marxist social revolution." The destruction of the previous Canaanite-city states was due to a clash between social classes, in which, a hierarchical established class was brought down by those seeking social equality, in essence destroyed from within. This view requires a population migration from the lowland sites to the highland sites, for which there is no direct archaeological evidence.[3]
The most dramatic increase in archaeological sites in Canaan during the biblical period took place during the Iron Age I and II periods, while the most notable decrease of sites occured during the Late Bronze Age. Israel Finkelstein reported that in the central hill country of Canaan the transformation was from 248 sites in the Middle Bronze age to 29 sites in the Late Bronze Age and rose to 254 in Iron Age I and increased further to 520 in Iron Age II. Iron Age II (980 BCE - 732/701 BCE) through Iron Age IIIA (732/701 BCE - 586 BCE) is generally believed to be the period of the United Monarchy of Solomon and the Divided Kingdoms of Judah and Israel among many archaeologists working in Israel today.[4] In the transjordan plateau, a total of 96 sites in the Middle Bronze Age dropped to 32 in the Late Bronze Age and rose to 218 in Iron Age I and increased further to 262 in Iron Age II.[5] Hkp-avniel (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You might also want to add this chunk from the Merneptah Stele. Hkp-avniel (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
