Author	Topic:   Was There An "Exodus" ?
Don Barone (Moderator)	posted 4/27/01 1:38 PM       Hi folks. Another interesting article found coutesy of the Daily Grail. Here is the link. What say ye ? http://www.theage.com.au/news/2001/04/14/FFX475HTGLC.html
fred l	posted 4/30/01 9:18 PM       i tried the link,but it went to a redundant pag
Don Barone (Moderator)	posted 5/1/01 11:56 AM       Here is the article:Exodus: let my people know By TERESA WATANABELOS ANGELESSaturday 14 April 2001A prominent American rabbi has chosen the holiest time of the Jewish and Christian calendar to question one of the greatest religious stories ever told.For centuries, the biblical account of the Exodus has been revered as the founding story of the Jewish people, sacred scripture for three world religions and a universal symbol of freedom that has inspired liberation movements around the globe. But did the Exodus ever actually occur?On Passover last Sunday, Rabbi David Wolpe raised that provocative question before 2200 faithful at Sinai Temple in Westwood, California. He minced no words."The truth is that virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all," Mr Wolpe said. His startling sermon may have seemed blasphemy to some, but the rabbi was merely telling his flock what scholars have known for more than a decade. Slowly and often outside wide public purview, archaeologists are radically reshaping modern understanding of the Bible. It was time for his people to know about it, Mr Wolpe decided.After a century of excavations trying to prove the ancient accounts true, archaeologists say there is no conclusive evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt, were ever enslaved, ever wandered in the Sinai wilderness for 40 years or ever conquered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. To the contrary, the prevailing view is that most of Joshua's fabled military campaigns never occurred - archaeologists have uncovered ash layers and other signs of destruction at the relevant time at only one of the many battlegrounds mentioned in the Bible.Today, the prevailing theory is that Israel probably emerged peacefully out of Canaan - modern-day Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan and the West Bank of Israel - whose people are portrayed in the Bible as wicked idolators. Under this theory, the Canaanites took on a new identity as Israelites were perhaps joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt - explaining a possible source of the Exodus story, scholars say. As they expanded their settlement, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps providing the historical nuggets for the conflicts recorded in Joshua and Judges."Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we've broken the news very gently," said William Dever, a professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona and one of America's pre-eminent archaeologists.Professor Dever's view is emblematic of a fundamental shift in archaeology. Three decades ago as a Christian seminary student, he wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but "no one would do that today", he says. The old emphasis on trying to prove the Bible - often in excavations by amateur archaeologists funded by religious groups - has given way to more objective professionals aiming to piece together the reality of ancient lifestyles.But the modern archaeological consensus over the Exodus is just beginning to reach the public. In 1999, an Israeli archaeologist, Ze'ev Herzog, of Tel Aviv University, set off a furore in Israel by writing that stories of the patriarchs were myths and that neither the Exodus nor Joshua's conquests occurred. Mr Herzog also argued that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, "grand and glorious" in the Bible, was at best a small tribal kingdom.In a new book this year, The Bible Unearthed, Israeli archaeologist Israel Finklestein, of Tel Aviv University, and archaeological journalist Neil Asher Silberman raised similar doubts and offered a new theory about the roots of the Exodus story. The authors argue that the story was written during the time of King Josia of Judah in the 7th century BC - 600 years after the Exodus supposedly occurred in 1250BC - as a political manifesto to unite Israelites against the rival Egyptian empire as both states sought to expand their territory. Professor Dever argued that the Exodus story was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to a people and distinguish them from others by claiming a divine destiny.Some scholars still maintain that the Exodus story is basically factual. Bryant Wood, director of the Associates for Biblical Research in Maryland, argued that the evidence falls into place if the story is dated back to 1450BC. He said that indications of destruction around that time at Hazor, Jericho and a site he is excavating that he believes is the biblical city of Ai support accounts of Joshua's conquests.But Mr Wood cannot get his research published in serious archaeological journals. "There's a definite anti-Bible bias," he said.The revisionist view, however, is not necessarily publicly popular.Mr Herzog, Mr Finklestein and others have been attacked for everything from faulty logic to pro-Palestinian political agendas that undermine Israel's land claims. The scholarly consensus seems to be the story is a mix of myth, cultural memories and kernels of historical truth. Perhaps, muses Ron Hendel, a professor at UC Berkeley, a small group of Semites who escaped from Egypt became the "intellectual vanguard of a new nation that called itself Israel", stressing social justice and freedom.Whatever the facts of the story, those core values have endured and inspired the world for more than three millenniums - and that, many say, is the point.LOS ANGELES TIMES
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