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Offlinesaved7
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EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? * 2
    #26564544 - 03/29/20 05:39 AM (4 years, 20 hours ago)

I started a thread on this topic in another forum, but thought it might generate more interest here...

(I'm assuming most people here are familiar with Exodus.... Egyptian plagues, parting of the Red Sea, pillar of cloud and fire, manna from heaven, water from the rock, etc. )



Basically, the question is: How do you create a national memory of the miraculous events recorded in the Book of Exodus?

The point is that the events described in the Book of Exodus are said to have been witnessed by the entire nation (everyone's great grandparents).  Many of the most miraculous events were *not* private revelations of a prophet or seer or high priesthood,  they were witnessed by the eyes of the entire nation.  (or claimed to be) ...  Something like that has to really have a lot of substance behind it for virtually everyone in the nation to believe that these things literally happened in these specific geographic locations only centuries ago and everyone's ancestors were eyewitness to it... not a mysterious and distant legend of origins, but passed on to each Israelite generation as literal historical events that everyone's grandparents directly participated in.  Their whole nation was etched out of the shared belief that these events really happened to them in recent history.


"Applied to the case at hand: the fraudster would not have successfully sold the Torah to a later generation of Israelites because the Torah describes itself as the law of the land, and the audience would have discovered no such thing: just as no fraudster could invent a book of statutes or acts of parliament for England, and make it pass upon the nation, as the only book of statutes that ever they had known,so too no fraudster could have persuaded the Jews, that they had owned and acknowledged the Torah, all along from the days of Moses. Convincing a nation to adopt a long-lost history or a new code of law would be hard enough; convincing a nation to adopt history and laws that are supposed to have been long-preserved is even harder."

from Proof of Exodus - by Tyron Goldschmidt
https://a15b40df-7210-4c2a-bc68-852e76a7c6b7.filesusr.com/ugd/a91655_560a07ef86b54ae692674756a576c013.pdf



A good explanation is that the accounts of the Book of Exodus are actually true.


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OfflineBuster_Brown
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26564664 - 03/29/20 07:35 AM (4 years, 18 hours ago)

Force, and a threat of force, can convince people to agree.

Moses killed a man before leading the Israelites; therefor if you disagree with the Israelites you face the penalty of death, as demonstarated by their leader.

A threat of discomfort is all it takes to convince most people to follow the Party Line.

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OfflineMoonlightblue
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Buster_Brown]
    #26564701 - 03/29/20 07:50 AM (4 years, 18 hours ago)

You have to believe it on your own.
There's no requirement for a national day in the bible.

Not everyone will be saved, God said.

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OfflineBuster_Brown
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Moonlightblue]
    #26564760 - 03/29/20 08:27 AM (4 years, 18 hours ago)

Quote:

Moonlightblue said:
You have to believe it on your own.





You could also prove to your children that it's best to be dishonest if they expect to share in the Kingdom.

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Offlinesaved7
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Buster_Brown]
    #26565624 - 03/29/20 03:59 PM (4 years, 10 hours ago)

Quote:

Buster_Brown said:
Force, and a threat of force, can convince people to agree.

Moses killed a man before leading the Israelites; therefor if you disagree with the Israelites you face the penalty of death, as demonstarated by their leader.

A threat of discomfort is all it takes to convince most people to follow the Party Line.




As far as I know, ancient Israel's "national witness" character as described in the OP is quite unique in world history. 

If it were based on something as common as the threat of force or tyrannical rulership, you'd expect such phenomena to be common.


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OfflineSvetaketu
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26565695 - 03/29/20 04:52 PM (4 years, 9 hours ago)

It is common. Very common.

But it's not always threats or force, sometimes it's just a genuine inability to understand what has just happened. Over the years, the story gets embellished more and more. What would ancient people's have said if they saw Halley's comet? They probably would have thought it was a literal angel or celestial being or something. Wait a couple hundred years, and that alone will devolve into all sorts of crazy stories.

Some stories might have a concrete event that made them so memorable (but would clearly be misremembered and embellished after years) and some may just be stories someone made up. The Bible has a little of this and a little of that most likely, it's rather hard to tell the difference 2000 years later.

It's just also common to demonize and kill anyone who believes in a different crazy story than you do, especially when it comes to creation and God, so most of the wackier stories have coalesced into the more prominent ones.


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OfflineBuster_Brown
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26565765 - 03/29/20 05:24 PM (4 years, 9 hours ago)

Quote:

saved7 said:


Basically, the question is: How do you create a national memory of the miraculous events recorded in the Book of Exodus?

from Proof of Exodus - by Tyron Goldschmidt
https://a15b40df-7210-4c2a-bc68-852e76a7c6b7.filesusr.com/ugd/a91655_560a07ef86b54ae692674756a576c013.pdf



A good explanation is that the accounts of the Book of Exodus are actually true.





In the link 'Truth' is defined by what people 'Accept' to be true.

We can beat Christianity or any other faith in to our children until they 'Accept' it as true, but that doesn't mean it occurred as described.

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Offlinesaved7
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Svetaketu]
    #26566630 - 03/30/20 06:46 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Svetaketu said:
It is common. Very common.

But it's not always threats or force, sometimes it's just a genuine inability to understand what has just happened. Over the years, the story gets embellished more and more. What would ancient people's have said if they saw Halley's comet? They probably would have thought it was a literal angel or celestial being or something. Wait a couple hundred years, and that alone will devolve into all sorts of crazy stories.





If it is common, can you offer an example?  We can do some side by side comparisons with ancient Israel.

These are some of the components of ancient Israel that are claimed to be directly based off the entire nation's witness of God's miracles during the Exodus.

1.  divine miracles witnessed by all the eyes of the nation  (the stunning claim that every single person's great grandparents saw it and participated in it..)
2.  rooted in real-world history and familiar geography (not mysterious "long ago and far away" type legends)
3.  elaborate system of strictly enforced laws and codes governing all manner of daily life and resources
4.  elaborate system of tabernacle and temple architecture and rituals
5.  elaborate system of calender festivals and holy days


Eager to see what kind of comparisons you come up with.


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OfflineSvetaketu
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26567372 - 03/30/20 01:48 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Just compare it to like... The thousands of other religions on planet Earth?

Have you not heard any of the crazy stuff various cultures believe?

We don't even have to go back in time, at this very moment in North Korea, there are thousands of people who all collectively believe their dictator is a God, people even claim he is capable of miracles.

1. The key word here is "claimed". You have no proof that an entire nation witnessed this. A story doesn't count as proof or evidence, it's a story, one that's been heavily skewed by 2000+ years of telephone.

2. All religious stories are rooted in real world geography, it's not very hard to use your surroundings and nearby landmarks to make a more compelling story. It's sort of common sense really, if you want someone to believe a story really happened, it helps to make it take place somewhere familiar. It even still happens today, the Mormons nonchalantly announced that the garden of Eden was in Missouri :lol:

3. Again, see every religion ever.

4. Temple architecture and rituals?? What does that have to do with the story? Architecture and rituals are just a human thing, look at any culture with sufficient resources, they built things and made up rituals.

5. Again, no idea what this has to do with the story of Exodus, all cultures attempt to make some kind of calendar to keep track of time, and holy days are just like holidays, they even sound similar :lol: holidays are just an exercise to bring a group of people together, it's basically a nation-wide bonding exercise, also extremely common in various would cultures.


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Edited by Svetaketu (03/30/20 01:48 PM)

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Offlinesaved7
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Svetaketu]
    #26568498 - 03/31/20 06:21 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Just compare it to like... The thousands of other religions on planet Earth?

Have you not heard any of the crazy stuff various cultures believe?

We don't even have to go back in time, at this very moment in North Korea, there are thousands of people who all collectively believe their dictator is a God, people even claim he is capable of miracles.

1. The key word here is "claimed". You have no proof that an entire nation witnessed this.




You're completely missing the argument, but your skepticism is kind of the point.... the claim that the entire nation witnessed such amazing things, would be incredibly easy to disprove to anyone in that nation, if it were in fact, false.  Such a claim would only be sustained if there was substantial truth to it.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
2. All religious stories are rooted in real world geography, it's not very hard to use your surroundings and nearby landmarks to make a more compelling story.




Then show me your example to compare with Exodus.  We have to go into the details.  Ancient Israel had a very specific migratory trek, visiting many real-world landmarks.



Quote:

Svetaketu said:
It's sort of common sense really, if you want someone to believe a story really happened, it helps to make it take place somewhere familiar. It even still happens today, the Mormons nonchalantly announced that the garden of Eden was in Missouri :lol:




Ah, but Mormonism is based off of private revelation.  The claim with Israel is the divine miracles were witnessed by everyone and the memory was passed on directly to everyone's children, and their children's children, etc.... 

You'll have to deal with this distinction eventually.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
5. Again, no idea what this has to do with the story of Exodus, all cultures attempt to make some kind of calendar to keep track of time, and holy days are just like holidays, they even sound similar :lol: holidays are just an exercise to bring a group of people together, it's basically a nation-wide bonding exercise, also extremely common in various would cultures.





Again, the distinction with Israel is that all of their festivals, holy days, rituals, etc.  are based on the claim that everybody's grandparents had the story of the Exodus passed down to them, because it would have had to have been witnessed directly by everyone's great, great+ grandparents.  If you walked to the other side of the country and asked the elders over there, they would have to confirm the same thing... that their ancestors had witnssed the Exodus miracles as well (e.g. parting of the sea) .... 

In other words, how do you trick an entire nation into believing the Exodus story had been handed down to them from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.  ?  If it was a fraud, it would have been immediately exposed. 

It's not simply the existence of these religious practices, it is the distinct manner in which such practices were presented to the nation of Israel.

Thought experiment:
Imagine trying to convince all Americans that alien beings from Mars had come down and intervened in the American Revolution, and that everyone's ancestors had seen it with their own eyesAll you'd have to do is ask a few of your local elders around town, and you'd quickly discover none of them had any memory of being taught such a thing from their own parents.

It's the same idea as with Israel.  How do you fake a shared national witness account of such magnitude as the events in Exodus?


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OfflineSvetaketu
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7] * 1
    #26569103 - 03/31/20 01:05 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

saved7 said:

the claim that the entire nation witnessed such amazing things, would be incredibly easy to disprove to anyone in that nation, if it were in fact, false.  Such a claim would only be sustained if there was substantial truth to it.




I disagree. You missed the quip about north Korea. That entire nation has been convinced over a few decades that their tyrannical leader is actually not human, and is some form of a supreme deity. They even have "miracles" to back it up.  Are you saying they are right because the whole nation believes it?

You have to remember that in biblical times people didn't live very long. Average life expectancy in the time of Jesus was 35. It wouldn't have been very long at all until everyone who had actually seen Moses or Egypt was dead, and then this story is just being told to their grand kids by second hand sources.

At that point there are multiple paths the embellishment could have taken. It could be something like Kim Jong il, a person who seizes control, and forces people to believe a certain narrative through threats or severe punishment (as we've seen, this option works fast. We have 2000+ years to account for, something like this could have happened in as little as 100).

Or it could have been something totally different, like a small group of survivors who are super proud that they escaped Egypt alive, so they make up some harmless embellishments so that their kids will get a more entertaining story, and start to gain a sense of national pride, because "we are the Israelites, and we escaped Egypt because God was on our side!"

You're side-stepping the need for evidence here, plenty of cultures have wacky origin stories, just because they believe their own origin story doesn't mean it actually happened just like in the story :lol:

The fact that Israel exists does not mean their origin story is factual.

Quote:


Then show me your example to compare with Exodus.  We have to go into the details.  Ancient Israel had a very specific migratory trek, visiting many real-world landmarks.




Do we actually have to go into the details though? Seems like your just trying to bog this discussion down and make it much more complicated than it actually needs to be. You can say I'm being overly skeptical, but you don't appear to be applying any amount of skepticism to this story, your just willing to accept it took place as described :shrug:

Not much of a conversation if you already assume your conclusion to be true.

But just cause I'm in a good mood, consider the Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer. In the times these books were written, the stories were widely accepted to be factual. If you read them, there are all kinds of clearly fictional things, like giant cyclops, literal sea monsters, all sorts of crazy stuff. Yet there is real history mixed in there; the Greeks are clearly a real culture that has survived to this day. In the story they visit real islands, they talk about real landmarks, and the city of Troy is a real place! There is just as much evidence that Odysseus found a entire island of cyclops Giants as there is that Moses actually parted the red Sea.

I don't believe either because that amount of evidence is 0 evidence. It's a story, that was probably waaayyy different 2000+ years ago, but that's what people do to stories with time; they embellish. They make them more fantastical and more entertaining to hear, which helps the story survive.

Quote:


Ah, but Mormonism is based off of private revelation.  The claim with Israel is the divine miracles were witnessed by everyone and the memory was passed on directly to everyone's children, and their children's children, etc.... 

You'll have to deal with this distinction eventually.




Just imagine if Mormonism managed to become one of the dominant religions in a much smaller world over the next 2000 years... You think 2000 years from the time they made that claim people would still think it was "personal revelation"? No, it would be mythicized fact. No one would even know who's personal revelation it was, they would just know that this is what God said to someone at some point in the past.

It's not even a distinction because you have no proof that it was witnessed by an entire nation... You've convinced yourself that because the story "claims" the entire nation witnessed the miracles then that must be what happened. I've beaten this to death above already; you have no idea what parts of the story are real, and which parts are embellished! Maybe in reality, there was a group of 40 people who escaped Egypt on a makeshift boat who eventually became the nation of Israel. Over the next 2000 years when other people asked where they came from, they made up a fantastical story about them producing miracles, escaping the clutches of the evil Egyptians, and clearly the only way they managed it was because God was on their side. Every time they told it, they embellished a little more, because that's what a good story teller does!

Quote:


Again, the distinction with Israel is that all of their festivals, holy days, rituals, etc.  are based on the claim that everybody's grandparents had the story of the Exodus passed down to them, because it would have had to have been witnessed directly by everyone's great, great+ grandparents.  If you walked to the other side of the country and asked the elders over there, they would have to confirm the same thing... that their ancestors had witnssed the Exodus miracles as well (e.g. parting of the sea) .... 

In other words, how do you trick an entire nation into believing the Exodus story had been handed down to them from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.  ?  If it was a fraud, it would have been immediately exposed. 

It's not simply the existence of these religious practices, it is the distinct manner in which such practices were presented to the nation of Israel.




Israel has holidays and rituals that are based on made up nonsense just like most of the other holidays. The fact that they use this myth as a base for some of their culture does not prove the myth to be factual.

Because you say it would have been immediately exposed does not make it the case, you are making massive assertions about an origin story you cannot investigate. It may not have even been a trick, it's entirely possible that the survivors of Egypt may have collectively decided to embellish the story to make it a better story :shrug:

Biblical scholars give crazy numbers like 600,000 men escaped Egypt, and traversed the desert for 3 months. There is literally 0 evidence of this happening! 600,000 people is a ridiculously large amount of people and they would have left a mark. Humans are still terrible at math 2000 years later, do you really think they counted up all the people to 600,000?? No! They saw that it was "a lot" of people and they embellished for 2000 years until that number became 600,000. It's just like the fishing story where the fish gets bigger every time you tell it. The fact is, you have no way to differentiate the fictional aspects of this story from the factual ones.
Please demonstrate how you know that the entire nation of Israel witnessed these miracles, then demonstrate how you know that the entire nation of Israel at the time was more than 40 people.

Quote:


Thought experiment:
Imagine trying to convince all Americans that alien beings from Mars had come down and intervened in the American Revolution, and that everyone's ancestors had seen it with their own eyesAll you'd have to do is ask a few of your local elders around town, and you'd quickly discover none of them had any memory of being taught such a thing from their own parents.

It's the same idea as with Israel.  How do you fake a shared national witness account of such magnitude as the events in Exodus?




It's not at all the same, because the magnitude is part of the story! You have no way to investigate how many people actually witnessed this miracle. You also have no idea how long it took for this story to be created, you have the "claim" for when it was created, but it easily could have been implemented a 1000 years after the fact (I'm exaggerating but you get the point I hope).

Your analogy also falls short for numerous other reasons, technology that can document evidence, modern history keeping, and the sheer number difference even if we accept the nonsense numbers given by some biblical scholars (600,000 people vs 327,000,000)

This all boils down to that single point... You are accepting that the story took place as described with 0 evidence.

You're asking me how a large amount of people could possibly have become convinced of this story without evidence, while meanwhile, you are one of the millions who accept this story even though you have no evidence! Have you considered that maybe the elders who (by your logic) should have been there to set the story straight might have been the ones making up the story?? Because they wanted to be remembered? Because they wanted to be revered?
There are a million ways this story could have been created.


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Offlinesaved7
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Svetaketu]
    #26571428 - 04/01/20 03:00 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Svetaketu said:
I disagree. You missed the quip about north Korea. That entire nation has been convinced over a few decades that their tyrannical leader is actually not human, and is some form of a supreme deity. They even have "miracles" to back it up.  Are you saying they are right because the whole nation believes it?




What do the North Koreans believe, exactly?
It is one thing to have slavish devotion to a leader and ascribe all sorts of divine attributes to them.  That type of cult of personality is very common around the world.

But what if you could visit every single ethnic North Korean household, and find that each family received a tradition from their parents that their ancestors had directly witnessed the Lord Dangun descending from heaven with 3,000 of his angelic followers onto Baekdu Mountain.  (as the legend goes)

Furthermore, what if the Korean nation's entire legal/political/religious system was structured around the accepted belief that every individual's great, great  grandparents had directly witnessed and participated in communing with this supernatural angelic army atop the mountain.

That is the type of scenario we find with Israel.  It is a nation-wide tradition based on the claim of a nation-wide direct eyewitness and experience.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
At that point there are multiple paths the embellishment could have taken. It could be something like Kim Jong il, a person who seizes control, and forces people to believe a certain narrative through threats or severe punishment (as we've seen, this option works fast. We have 2000  years to account for, something like this could have happened in as little as 100).





There's something really awkward about your threat of force scenario.

If the goal is national obedience, why make that goal so much more difficult to achieve by making it so easy to disprove? (for reasons I've already repeated) ...  In my opinion it's a very poor explanation.  But we can delve into it deeper if you want.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Or it could have been something totally different, like a small group of survivors who are super proud that they escaped Egypt alive, so they make up some harmless embellishments so that their kids will get a more entertaining story, and start to gain a sense of national pride, because "we are the Israelites, and we escaped Egypt because God was on our side!"




On that note, do you find it interesting that the Israelite people are often humiliated within their own narrative?  They are constantly screwing up, bumbling, grumbling, complaining, doing evil.  Not exactly the kind of narrative you'd fabricate if you were trying to instill national pride. 

Look how noble most other cultures/nations try and present themselves in their founding propaganda.  It's normal for a people to try and puff themselves up.... yet the Israelites portray themselves very negatively in their own founding narrative. 

The self-humiliation is a mark of authenticity.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
You're side-stepping the need for evidence here, plenty of cultures have wacky origin stories, just because they believe their own origin story doesn't mean it actually happened just like in the story :lol:





And how many of those cultures base their origins off of a National Witness type of event?  If it's so common, let's see some examples.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:Do we actually have to go into the details though?




Yes of course, especially when you're basing your arguments on only vague generalities.  e.g.  "plenty of cultures have wacky origins stories"

It is precisely the details that make ancient Israel so unique.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Not much of a conversation if you already assume your conclusion to be true.




I already know the Book of Exodus is 100% true. (and that's coming from someone who thought it was a joke for most of my life)

However, I am totally open to the OP being a bad argument.  I haven't really tested it yet.  So far, you've yet to mount a sufficient challenge.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
But just cause I'm in a good mood, consider the Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer. In the times these books were written, the stories were widely accepted to be factual. If you read them, there are all kinds of clearly fictional things, like giant cyclops, literal sea monsters, all sorts of crazy stuff. Yet there is real history mixed in there; the Greeks are clearly a real culture that has survived to this day. In the story they visit real islands, they talk about real landmarks, and the city of Troy is a real place! There is just as much evidence that Odysseus found a entire island of cyclops Giants as there is that Moses actually parted the red Sea.




I am no expert on the Illiad, but am happy to delve into it more deeply with you.

My first reaction is this

The Illiad obviously written as epic poetry, though indeed situated around some actual historical events.

The Book of Exodus, on the other hand, is written more like a travel journalThe people walks to this specific geographical spot and then X happens, then they walk over to that spot and Y happens.  There is a 'down-to-earth' thread of realism coursing through the whole narrative.  The Israelites are not glorious conquerers.  They are constantly grumbling and complaining over practical things, threatening mutinies against their leaders.  If you read it, you actually get a sense that it's probably how real humans would actually behave in such a situation.

Really the Illiad and the Exodus seem dissimilar in every way, except for the fact that they both contain claims of divine intervention by a God or gods.

Where in the Illiad does it claim that the entire Greek nation witnessed a visibly divine miracle?  Where does it say that every Greek family already knows about this story because their ancestors directly experienced it?


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
I don't believe either because that amount of evidence is 0 evidence. It's a story, that was probably waaayyy different 2000  years ago, but that's what people do to stories with time; they embellish. They make them more fantastical and more entertaining to hear, which helps the story survive.




And again, these conditions:

1. a Nation-wide witness and experience
2. that every Israelite already knows the story from their parents
3. it is already the Law of the Land

Make such embellishments and fabrications even more difficult to accomodate.

It's hard to sell an elaborate fairy-tale when part of the fairy-tale is that everyone in the audience has already heard the story from their parents, (whose ancestors are said to have seen it all with their own eyes and taught it to their descendents)

On top of all that, the Exodus narrative also establishes itself as the basis for the Law of the Land.  Imagine trying to get Americans to accept a new U.S. Constitution based on the claims of a National Memory, that nobody actually remembers or had taught to them from their parents.  It's absurd to think about.  And ancient Israel's law held strict guidelines over every facet of daily life.



Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Just imagine if Mormonism managed to become one of the dominant religions in a much smaller world over the next 2000 years... You think 2000 years from the time they made that claim people would still think it was "personal revelation"?





So... in that scenario, when does the insertion of a national memory become likely?  This is the same problem you keep coming up against, and it just can't be hand-waved away like you want it to be. 
You're trying to find somewhere in the timeline of the nation where the conditions are more optimal to insert a fabricated national memory (i.e. events claimed to be witnessed by the entire nation) , but you come up against the same problem every time.



Quote:

Svetaketu said:
It's not even a distinction because you have no proof that it was witnessed by an entire nation... You've convinced yourself that because the story "claims" the entire nation witnessed the miracles then that must be what happened. I've beaten this to death above already; you have no idea what parts of the story are real, and which parts are embellished!





This shows me that you clearly don't understand the argument. 
It doesn't matter whether the National Witness is true or not.  What matters is that it is CLAIMED to be true, and therefore the nation of Israel could easily test and disprove it by consulting a few of their neighbors.  "Hey, has your dad ever heard of this crazy Red Sea story?  Mine sure hasn't...."


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Maybe in reality, there was a group of 40 people who escaped Egypt on a makeshift boat who eventually became the nation of Israel. Over the next 2000 years when other people asked where they came from, they made up a fantastical story about them producing miracles, escaping the clutches of the evil Egyptians, and clearly the only way they managed it was because God was on their side. Every time they told it, they embellished a little more, because that's what a good story teller does!





Okay, so even anti-Biblical scholars will admit Israel is an established 'Canaanite' nation well into the 2nd millenium BC.  So here come a plucky band of 40 escaped slaves from Egypt.
"Hey, guess what guys, we saw all these miracles, and now we're going to restructure every last bit of your daily lives around what we saw... Oh yea, and you're all going to start lying to your children that you all saw it, too."


The Exodus story comes pre-loaded with the claim that everyone already knows about it. 
How do you sell a fake story to a community, when the story itself says you already heard the story from your parents... oh and by the way, every one of your neighbors's parents already knows the story, too. 


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Because you say it would have been immediately exposed does not make it the case, you are making massive assertions about an origin story you cannot investigate. It may not have even been a trick, it's entirely possible that the survivors of Egypt may have collectively decided to embellish the story to make it a better story :shrug:




While portraying themselves as bumbling fools, whiners, and near perpetual failures, right?  I'm sure that went over great with all the co-designers of this collective fraud.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Biblical scholars give crazy numbers like 600,000 men escaped Egypt, and traversed the desert for 3 months. There is literally 0 evidence of this happening! 600,000 people is a ridiculously large amount of people and they would have left a mark. Humans are still terrible at math 2000 years later, do you really think they counted up all the people to 600,000??




There is actually plenty of evidence for the historical Exodus events, it's just that the Egyptian chronology is off a couple centuries.  I made a thread on this topic here if you're interested.

https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/26552821/gonew/1#UNREAD

In any case, there seems to be agreement that ancient Israel was a well established 'Canaanite' nation well before the 1st millenium BC.  With populations of hundreds of thousands at the least, up to several million people.


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26573603 - 04/02/20 04:23 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

North Korea believes all sorts of wacky stuff. probably too much to go into. a quick google search says that at the time of Kim-jong il's death "a fierce snowstorm "paused" and "the sky glowed red above the sacred Mount Paektu".

But again, thats beside the point. I'm not drawing a direct parallel to the exodus story, no two stories are exactly alike, it would be a waste of time to look for an identical one. I'm simply demonstrating that humans have no problem taking dishonesty to the national level.

I'm not debating the fact that the story of Exodus is indeed a unique story, or that it has had some unique effects. Your question was "how do you make a national memory of a miraculous event". I'm outlining some possible scenarios of how a national memory could have been distorted, and you come back with "but its claimed to be a national memory, so its unique". It doesn't matter how unique it is, The point is there are lots of scenarios that could have ended with the perception of a "national memory". Out of all the possible ways a national memory could have come about, Moses actually having parted the red sea is objectively the least likely scenario.

Quote:


There's something really awkward about your threat of force scenario.

If the goal is national obedience, why make that goal so much more difficult to achieve by making it so easy to disprove? (for reasons I've already repeated) ...  In my opinion it's a very poor explanation.  But we can delve into it deeper if you want.





You're assuming it would be easy to disprove. Again, you have no idea what the actual conditions surrounding this myth were, you only know about the parts that happened to survive out of what they chose to write down.

I'd agree the tyrannical dictator scenario is not the most likely one, but it is a possibility. The point it drives home is that you have no idea what may have taken place over the 2000  years from when the potential "event" was suppose to take place. There could have been entire wars and mass destruction of historical documents in that time period. If you lie to a nation they might notice for the first few decades, But if you're in power and your progeny keep it up for 200 years, everyone who is currently alive will think this is just the way things have always been; Thus a fiction could become a national memory with the right circumstances. after hundreds of years there would be no way to tell the difference.

Quote:


On that note, do you find it interesting that the Israelite people are often humiliated within their own narrative?  They are constantly screwing up, bumbling, grumbling, complaining, doing evil.  Not exactly the kind of narrative you'd fabricate if you were trying to instill national pride. 

Look how noble most other cultures/nations try and present themselves in their founding propaganda.  It's normal for a people to try and puff themselves up.... yet the Israelites portray themselves very negatively in their own founding narrative. 

The self-humiliation is a mark of authenticity.





I don't find that unusual. It was obviously (at least in part) meant to portray real human behavior; These are all things normal humans do on a regular basis.

I think it's the mark of a good story teller. The flaws in character make them more relatable, and it makes the story more entertaining. It also plays very heavily on the whole ‘we are all sinners, we need God to show us what is right’; If you want people to trust you, it's very effective to convince them God is on your side, if nothing else that is firmly established in the story. Why is God on their side? no reason, they are just "the chosen people".

It is a bit interesting how many dogmatic christian principals have been worked into the story, e.g. Humans are worthless sinners who require help from a celestial source to be "saved", even once seeing proof of miracles they conveniently "forget" and go back to their sinful ways, without the gospels they are "lost", ect. Just like Christianity, it instills you with the feeling that you are not good enough, and the only way to be better is to accept God as your master.

Sort of reads like some other parables, some of which we know to be made up stories.

To me it reads like indoctrination, pure and simple. Convince someone that they are inherently flawed and incapable of coming to the right answer without the help of God. Then convince them that God speaks through you, and that you can provide that help and direction. Done correctly, you have just taken control of that persons decision making process.


Quote:


And how many of those cultures base their origins off of a National Witness type of event?  If it's so common, let's see some examples.





Another expert attempt to side-step the need for evidence. It doesn't matter if the other origin stories aren't identical, of course they won't be; because they are different stories.

A claim is a claim. Moses claims he parted the red sea and that everyone saw it. Do you have any evidence that everyone saw it? do you have any evidence that he even did it? No, all you have is a claim, and a widespread church with a questionable history that has taken the story and adapted it for their purposes.


The uniqueness of a claim doesn't increase the chance that it's true... it decreases it actually :lol:

I'm basing my arguments on logic. I'm giving you vague cultural references to show that people make up stories, defend them zealously, and adapt old stories to suit their own needs.
The point of this is that you should never accept a claim without evidence.

Moses saying that he parted the red sea and the whole nation saw it is an extraordinary claim.
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have 0 evidence.


Quote:


I already know the Book of Exodus is 100% true. (and that's coming from someone who thought it was a joke for most of my life)

However, I am totally open to the OP being a bad argument.  I haven't really tested it yet.  So far, you've yet to mount a sufficient challenge.




Right, but how do you know its 100% true?

Your argument hinges on the fact that you've already decided exodus is 100% true. This is circular reasoning.

Even if there was a perfect identical example that also somehow had proof that it had been made up, I think you would just ignore it and think "well, exodus is different" for X reason.

Quote:


I am no expert on the Illiad, but am happy to delve into it more deeply with you.

My first reaction is this

The Illiad obviously written as epic poetry, though indeed situated around some actual historical events.

The Book of Exodus, on the other hand, is written more like a travel journalThe people walks to this specific geographical spot and then X happens, then they walk over to that spot and Y happens.  There is a 'down-to-earth' thread of realism coursing through the whole narrative.  The Israelites are not glorious conquerers.  They are constantly grumbling and complaining over practical things, threatening mutinies against their leaders.  If you read it, you actually get a sense that it's probably how real humans would actually behave in such a situation.

Really the Illiad and the Exodus seem dissimilar in every way, except for the fact that they both contain claims of divine intervention by a God or gods.

Where in the Illiad does it claim that the entire Greek nation witnessed a visibly divine miracle?  Where does it say that every Greek family already knows about this story because their ancestors directly experienced it?





Im no Greek expert either, but the Iliad is not really a story of glorious conquerors. Its the story of people who take 7 damn years to show up to a battle, have a horrible time fighting, many of them die or make terrible decisions, and then troy eventually falls. Hector (on the side of troy) even comes out looking like the good guy depending who you ask. Followed by The Odyssey, where the survivors take 7 years to get back home because they crash their boat and end up stranded.

Again, the fact that they "claim" it was witnessed by a nation is not evidence of anything. Until you have actual evidence that this claim is factual, it is meaningless to bring it up.

Quote:


And again, these conditions:

1. a Nation-wide witness and experience
2. that every Israelite already knows the story from their parents
3. it is already the Law of the Land

Make such embellishments and fabrications even more difficult to accomodate.





Difficult maybe, but impossible? Not by a long shot. I think you are underestimating what humans could have created in 2000 years.

But this really ties back to your circular reasoning. You've already decided the story of exodus is 100% factual, and so you've given up looking for evidence. But thats where this all starts! without any evidence that these claims are factual, they are just claims.

Quote:


It's hard to sell an elaborate fairy-tale when part of the fairy-tale is that everyone in the audience has already heard the story from their parents, (whose ancestors are said to have seen it all with their own eyes and taught it to their descendents)





your circular reasoning is already leading you to assume you know the nature of how this story began. Its likely that the story was different 2000 years ago, and has evolved along the way.
Again, potentially harder to sell? maybe, it depends on the circumstances. impossible? definitely not.

The exodus story isn't built on the claims of a national memory, the national memory claim is part of the story, a part that could have been added in at any point in the past 2000 years. These modern day analogies are not holding up, you are entirely ignoring the sociopolitical environment of the time in which this story is thought to have been created.



Quote:


So... in that scenario, when does the insertion of a national memory become likely?  This is the same problem you keep coming up against, and it just can't be hand-waved away like you want it to be. 
You're trying to find somewhere in the timeline of the nation where the conditions are more optimal to insert a fabricated national memory (i.e. events claimed to be witnessed by the entire nation) , but you come up against the same problem every time.





No, I'm being purposely vague because I'm trying to demonstrate that there are hundreds of points in the past 2000 years where a fabricated national memory could have been inserted. we can't even accurately say how many ways it could have happened, because large swaths of the 2000 year period were not sufficiently documented. I don't think its possible for me to identify the factual path the evolution of this story took based on logic alone, that would be a miracle all on its own.


Quote:


This shows me that you clearly don't understand the argument. 
It doesn't matter whether the National Witness is true or not.  What matters is that it is CLAIMED to be true, and therefore the nation of Israel could easily test and disprove it by consulting a few of their neighbors.  "Hey, has your dad ever heard of this crazy Red Sea story?  Mine sure hasn't...."





Not sure how much more of this I can take... already said this so many times...
Please try to understand!

You don't know if it could have been easily tested.
You don't know when or how this story was implemented.
You don't know who created this story or why.

Without knowing any of those things, you've already imagined a scenario where theres an entire nation who has never heard of this story, and some small group just starts telling everyone to see what would happen. You have no way of knowing which path the evolution of this story took; it could have started as pure history and devolved into a fairy tale through embellishment.


Quote:


Okay, so even anti-Biblical scholars will admit Israel is an established 'Canaanite' nation well into the 2nd millenium BC.  So here come a plucky band of 40 escaped slaves from Egypt.
"Hey, guess what guys, we saw all these miracles, and now we're going to restructure every last bit of your daily lives around what we saw... Oh yea, and you're all going to start lying to your children that you all saw it, too."





I mean, your still assuming a whole bunch about how the story started but... yeah, I mean thats one possibility out of many. If a bunch of people escaped a massive nation like Egypt and they claim it was all thanks to a bunch of miracles, I think most people would take them very seriously, especially that far in the past. This is before people had access to logic... most people today still don't know how to use logic! thousands of years ago I have no doubt that you could convince large groups of people of ridiculous things with nothing but your word.

Quote:


The Exodus story comes pre-loaded with the claim that everyone already knows about it. 
How do you sell a fake story to a community, when the story itself says you already heard the story from your parents... oh and by the way, every one of your neighbors's parents already knows the story, too. 





You're assuming it came pre-loaded with that claim. It could have been added after the fact.

Apologies if I missed anything, had to edit it down for size. Too many quotes :willynilly:


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Svetaketu]
    #26575296 - 04/03/20 02:05 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Svetaketu said:
North Korea believes all sorts of wacky stuff. probably too much to go into. a quick google search says that at the time of Kim-jong il's death "a fierce snowstorm "paused" and "the sky glowed red above the sacred Mount Paektu".




So... peculiar weather and seeing some colors in the sky....

Consider the Exodus events... it would be an extreme fraud to lie to your children that you yourself, had directly participated in such a miraculous, incredible event as the Red Sea parting...  physically walking across the dry sea floor, with giant suspended walls of water on each side...
It would have been a total sensory experience of something clearly and unambiguously supernatural.
Either you actually did something like that, or you are participating in an extreme fraud by lying to your children about your direct participation.  There's not really any middle ground. 


Let's think of an extreme hypothetical with NK.
Would the entirety of North Korea accept a fake national memory that their glorious leader had carried each and every one of their Korean ancestors on a miraculous cloud across the skies and set them down upon the ground to inherit their current land.

Included in this fake national memory is the claim that every single North Korean family *already knows* this story, not because of official state propaganda, but because they were taught it from their parents at an early age... and their parents from their parents...  This is part of the lie. 

So not only are you creating the lie of a national memory, you are also creating a lie between each individual North Korean child and his parents.

I find this scenario extremely unlikely.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
The point is there are lots of scenarios that could have ended with the perception of a "national memory". Out of all the possible ways a national memory could have come about, Moses actually having parted the red sea is objectively the least likely scenario.




Which scenario do you think is the best explanation, exactly?  Which do you feel is likely?

I think the simplest and best explanation is that the Exodus events really happened, at least the essential, memorable aspects of it.


Quote:

Svetaketu said:
Quote:


The Exodus story comes pre-loaded with the claim that everyone already knows about it. 
How do you sell a fake story to a community, when the story itself says you already heard the story from your parents... oh and by the way, every one of your neighbors's parents already knows the story, too. 





You're assuming it came pre-loaded with that claim. It could have been added after the fact.




I think those are the direct implications of the claim itself, not something I'm assuming.  (though it is also explicitly stated in the Exodus account that this became an oral tradition)

If it is a claimed national experience, in the scope of an event like the parting of the Red Sea, where every single member of the nation directly participates... surely it would solidify a national oral tradition.  As a parent, it's hard to imagine any other national memory that would take priority over such a thing.

Look at comparitively mundane national memories of experiences, such as the American revolutionary war, and what powerful national traditions those events created.  How much more powerful a national tradition would something like the claimed Exodus events create.  What would you be more excited to teach your children?



Wanted to respond to more but under time constraints.  We should maybe try and focus our essential arguments more concisely.


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7] * 1
    #26582086 - 04/06/20 04:25 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

I have read that article a week ago or so and I can follow that logic but what I think is that this story has been told for a couple hundred years before even being written down.
No one ever told their children that they themselves experienced this, they always said "in the times of your great grandfather...blabla"

Many scholars think that Moses did not exist at all and that everything in Exodus is a complete myth. Kind of make sense to me.
There is no proof whatsoever for anything that happened in Egypt. Which pharao is it again, do they even say?
They have the mummies of the pharaos from around that time, strange with him having drowned in the red sea and all. So which one is it?
They can name 5 ancestors of person xyz but they cannot name the ruler that enslaved them?

Its a myth that gives a certain tribe their identity, there you have the reason for a collective belief in this story.

Quote:

saved7 said:

3.  elaborate system of strictly enforced laws and codes governing all manner of daily life and resources
4.  elaborate system of tabernacle and temple architecture and rituals
5.  elaborate system of calender festivals and holy days




All this nonsense is perpetuated by cast of priests that want to stay in power and probably trace their lineage back to the mythical leader that did not exist, chosen by a god that did not exist.

People celebrate festivals for all kinds of things and its easy to invent a story around them and to re purpose them. People are probably unaware that what they celebrate today were once the bacchanalia from ancient Rome.

Its also easy to reinvent older rituals from a pe-monotheistic time and make them fit your story. Muslims take pilgrimages to some object that was worshiped before Islam existed.

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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: LittleBoard]
    #26583346 - 04/07/20 06:53 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

LittleBoard said:
I have read that article a week ago or so and I can follow that logic but what I think is that this story has been told for a couple hundred years before even being written down.
No one ever told their children that they themselves experienced this, they always said "in the times of your great grandfather...blabla"




This is what makes the claim of a nation-wide experience and witness so unique and resistant to such attempts to dismiss it.

In the case of the Exodus account, whenever the supposed storytelling fraudster begins saying "in the times of your great grandfather..." .. the direct implication has to be that every Israelite family has already heard about it from their own elders.  Why?  Again, it is because these claimed divine miracles were claimed to be experienced and witnessed by the eyes of the entire nation.  Such an experience must be embedded in the memory of the entire nation.  It would be absurd to be told by some elite priesthood that the entire nation experienced this thing, but everyone simply forgot about it, or otherwise ceased recounting the story to their children.

This is what makes the Exodus account so unique, and so difficult to dismiss in the way you would dismiss a supernatural or divine account claimed only through private revelations of an individual or small priest class. 

Naming the entire nation as a direct eyewitness changes the whole equation.


Quote:

LittleBoard said:
Many scholars think that Moses did not exist at all and that everything in Exodus is a complete myth. Kind of make sense to me.
There is no proof whatsoever for anything that happened in Egypt.




There's actually a great deal of evidence for the Exodus events if you use the right Egyptian chronology.

I have a thread about this here if you're interested.
https://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/26552821/gonew/1#UNREAD

Here's one such piece of evidence, The Ipuwer Papyrus from the Early or Middle Kingdom period (where most scholars insist the Exodus didn't happen)... just one section of it.  Hmmmmm... what does this sound like to you?

"Indeed, poor men have become owners of wealth, and he who could not make sandals for himself is now a possessor of riches.
Indeed, men's slaves, their hearts are sad, and magistrates do not fraternize with their people when they shout.
Indeed, [hearts] are violent, pestilence is throughout the land, blood is everywhere, death is not lacking, and the mummy-cloth speaks even before one comes near it.
Indeed, many dead are buried in the river; the stream is a sepulcher and the place of embalmment has become a stream.
Indeed, noblemen are in distress, while the poor man is full of joy. Every town says: "Let us suppress the powerful among us."
Indeed, men are like ibises. Squalor is throughout the land, and there are none indeed whose clothes are white in these times.
Indeed, the land turns around as does a potter's wheel; the robber is a possessor of riches and [the rich man is become] a plunderer.
Indeed, trusty servants are [. . .]; the poor man [complains]: "How terrible! What am I to do?"
Indeed, the river is blood, yet men drink of it. Men shrink from human beings and thirst after water.
Indeed, gates, columns and walls are burnt up, while the hall of the palace stands firm and endures.
Indeed, the ship of [the southerners] has broken up; towns are destroyed and Upper Egypt has become an empty waste.
Indeed, crocodiles [are glutted] with the fish they have taken, for men go to them of their own accord; it is the destruction of the land. Men say: "Do not walk here; behold, it is a net." Behold, men tread [the water] like fishes, and the frightened man cannot distinguish it because of terror.
Indeed, men are few, and he who places his brother in the ground is everywhere. When the wise man speaks, [he flees without delay].
Indeed, the well-born man [. . .] through lack of recognition, and the child of his lady has become the son of his maidservant....
"

http://www.touregypt.net/admonitionsofipuwer.htm


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7] * 1
    #26583717 - 04/07/20 10:53 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

saved7 said:
Wanted to respond to more but under time constraints.  We should maybe try and focus our essential arguments more concisely.




Glad you said something, this was getting out of hand :lol:

It's easy to get carried away, because there seems to be multiple areas where this falls apart to me.

But if we're focusing on essentials, I'd start with your circular reasoning.

I've mentioned multiple times that you don't really know how this story came about. You have the story as we know it today, that's all. Any assertion about the circumstances surrounding this story are based on literally nothing; because we can't investigate what was actually happening there that long ago, all we have left are fragments that can be arranged in a lot of different ways.

You keep bringing up the "implications" of the whole nation claiming to have witnessed it, and then you make a bunch of assertions about the time, place, and circumstances that surround this story.

This story is EXACTLY the same as a supernatural or divine account claimed by personal revelation or a small priest class, because the nation eyewitness claim is unverified. It doesn't count for anything if it's not verifiable.

You respond by going on about how they must have seen it, otherwise how could it have been implemented? Based on what the story tells us about these people, they wouldn't have been fooled that easily.

This is completely circular. Your assuming the story is 100% true and then using elements of the story to explain your rationale in believing the story.... It makes no sense!

You can't assume that the conclusion of your argument is factual, and then use that as one of the premises. This is demonstrably fallacious.


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: Svetaketu]
    #26584596 - 04/07/20 06:14 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Svetaketu,
I still say you are not quite understanding the argument.

We don't need to prove the historical account true in order to support the argument. The logic of it exists on its own merits.  The argument would still be just as effective, even if we were only speaking of a hypothetical ancient ethno-national history.

When you're claiming to tell the truthful origins of a nation's founding, if you add the condition that everyone's great, great, great, grandparents witnessed and experienced it firsthand... then there is an overwhelming sense of understanding that one would definitely have heard this story from one's parents.  The 'ethos' of the Exodus events would have had to permeate the culture... (the same way the American Revolution permeates U.S. History, except far more impactful) ... 

You simply could NOT insert a fake national memory like that.  The story claims such extreme intimacy with every single ancient Israelites' direct ancestors, such permeation of their entire family being... Such a story as the Exodus would immediately be recognized as a fraud, if it were not true.

You could only make such a "national witness" claim as we see uniquely in the Exodus account, if it were, essentially, true.  I think this is the conclusion that our reason leads us to... if we take the time to think it through.

But are we really willing to entertain the possibility that the biblical Exodus could be true?


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26584722 - 04/07/20 07:01 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

If Exodus is the unimpeachable proof you claim it to be, why in Numbers were the Israelites already bitching about what God was asking from them?

How could people who were literally saved by God and shown unequivocal proof of his existence behave like this?

Better, even after these negative Nancy's are killed by God's loving hand - again in what you claim was full witness of everyone - they still go on to refuse God's orders again to invade Canaan. To which God answers with more death and wandering until those you claim to be super believers are gone and a new generation has replaced them. When you are a slave master I guess you have to harshly punish any dissent if you are to maintain your flock.

Quote:

saved7 said:Their whole nation was etched out of the shared belief that these events really happened to them in recent history.





Your own source makes it sound like this was not true.

And why would a benevolent, loving God kill 15,000 of his "chosen" people for complaining?


Quote:

saved7 said:
Quote:

Buster_Brown said:
Force, and a threat of force, can convince people to agree.

Moses killed a man before leading the Israelites; therefor if you disagree with the Israelites you face the penalty of death, as demonstarated by their leader.

A threat of discomfort is all it takes to convince most people to follow the Party Line.




As far as I know, ancient Israel's "national witness" character as described in the OP is quite unique in world history. 

If it were based on something as common as the threat of force or tyrannical rulership, you'd expect such phenomena to be common.




Killing 15,000 people seems pretty threatening.


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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #26585600 - 04/08/20 05:45 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

HagbardCeline said:
If Exodus is the unimpeachable proof you claim it to be, why in Numbers were the Israelites already bitching about what God was asking from them?

How could people who were literally saved by God and shown unequivocal proof of his existence behave like this?





Indeed.  And I think that profound question is leading us to an uncomfortable truth about ourselves.  In the accounts of ancient Israel, we are being taught something about the human heart... how our own selfishness can override the truth, no matter how plainly revealed to our senses. 

How many times has someone claimed "I'd believe in God if he just showed me a miracle!"  ?

We only pretend to be ultimately swayed by such external evidence.  As much as we might not like to admit it, it's probably the same way we would respond to such a miracle today.  Just like Israel.  We would be amazed at first, and then eventually go back to our moaning and whining about what WE want.

It's why we need new hearts through surrender to the cross of Christ, and why access to truth ultimately comes through faith, and not a sensory demonstration.


--------------------
"Who do you say that I am?"
- Jesus quoted in the Gospel of Matthew

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: saved7]
    #26587358 - 04/08/20 08:59 PM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Deflect much?

What the story implies is that the Bible is a piecemeal work of oral communications, that Exodus was likely embellished and not the self-proving story you claim because such super believers would not rebel so easily (see modern suicide bombers.)

On the other hand it makes perfect sense for the priest/elder class to manipulate the flock (as all religions do) by getting them to believe they alone have favor with God and doing his bidding (which even your own source claims to have been dictated to elite/elders) is the only way. To refuse means death.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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Offlinesaved7
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Registered: 06/10/19
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Re: EXODUS: How do you explain the nation of Israel? [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #26588026 - 04/09/20 05:21 AM (3 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

HagbardCeline said:
Deflect much?

What the story implies is that the Bible is a piecemeal work of oral communications, that Exodus was likely embellished and not the self-proving story you claim because such super believers would not rebel so easily (see modern suicide bombers.)





It wasn't a deflection at all.  And one of the conclusions we can draw is that many of the Isrealites were not "super believers" ...  They had to be dragged along kicking and screaming towards their salvation.  (Like I've mentioned elsewhere, one of the marks of authenticity of the story is just how embarassing and badly-behaved the protagonists of the story are portrayed.)

In the Exodus, Israel is saved again and again by God's miraculous intervention... and they all see it happen and participate in it.  And yet, a little while later we find them griping and moaning that it isn't enough and they'd rather be back in slavery in Egypt, (where at least they had a routine, and knew where they were going to eat and sleep every day.)  At this time, Israel was in the Wilderness.  It was a place of Testing, where Israel was constantly faced with the decision to either trust in God's salvation or let the worries and desires of the world pull them back into bondage. 

Put yourself there, in the Wilderness with Israel.  Every day, all your worldly senses are telling you you're going to die (no food, no water, powerful enemy nations circling around you, etc.) ... You are constantly faced with the decision of surrendering your livelihood to God based on faith that he will save and sustain you again and again... or on the other hand, giving in to your fears of the natural world and rebelling against an apparent suicide-mission led by Moses.

I think you feel like it is a deflection because of what I mentioned in my last post.  We, as modern 'rational' humans in the 21st century, like to pretend that we base our worldviews around facts and evidence.  We project ourselves onto the ancient Israelites and insist that such visible miracles would be all the proof we need.  But the reality is we have hardened hearts just like the Israelites.  God could demonstrate his presence directly before us, and the next day would find us griping and moaning and following our lusts, just as before.  The offensive truth here is that we don't really care about evidence as much as we pretend we do.  Evidence is not what guides our lives, it is our selfish hearts which rule us.  (Jesus is the answer to this problem, because he gives us new hearts.)


--------------------
"Who do you say that I am?"
- Jesus quoted in the Gospel of Matthew

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