Talk:The Exodus/Archive 20

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Two main positions

Grabbe lists different positions, he doesn't list "some historical basis" as the "majority" position.

Grabbe says "...most scholars reject the historicity of the 'partiarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan..."

Also, "The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account"

So we could just list the two main positions, instead of saying that the first is the "majority" position. "One position is that..." "The other is that..." Bilto74811 (talk) 14:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The term majority is from the other references, which are very explicit that it is the majority position. We don't have to have each sentence cited in every word to one source. Nor is the sentence that says "majority" cited to him, but to Redmount, Faust, and Sparks.

This is what Faust says, which you can check since the paper is at Academia: While there is a consensus among scholars thatthe Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, surprisingly most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, and that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt. See here. That satisfies WP:RS/AC and is why the position is called "majority," not because Grabbe says it is.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:09, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Im not convinced thats the current majority opinion just because one source says so. Especially given the next sentence talking about the increasing trend among scholars. But I guess we can leave it for now, since at least it says the other position "has seen increasing scholarly support" Bilto74811 (talk) 17:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Faust is from 2015, so it's recent. Most sources assume it - see Sparks on "mythologized history" etc. If it changes there will be a new source giving WP:RS/AC that states that.

I might note that there is also "only" one source saying that there's an increasing tendency. We don't get to pick and choose on these things.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Sparks says " reflects genuine history in some form or fashion...."mythologized history". So then every myth from every religion is "mythologized history". But only this article has the term. see warshy's comment on this above

Scholars say different things and use different terms, so we often have to choose which best represents academic consensus. See Sparks: "But whatever label we use". Just like you think we should choose to add "primarily" into Shaw and Barmash's wording. Bilto74811 (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

And your point in bringing a dispute about something else to this section is?--Ermenrich (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Its to counter your comment about "we dont get to choose" by showing that you choose in another section. See one of your edit summarys for the article where you pointed out something you though was a contradiction in my edits to make a point, and then rudely said I was being "disingenuous" when it was really your misunderstanding?

Without the negative unnecessary and uncalled for aspersion, Im bringing up your choice in that section which contradicts your statmeent here. Countering your point that "we dont get to pick and choose" how to word it, by showing an example of you choosing how to word things. And in that case, it wasnt even a choice between two scholars terms (as Im trying to do in a different section above) as neither scholars use your choice of the word "primarily"

What do you think of using "mythologized history" only here but not on the other religious mythology pages for the relevant religions for The Exodus and all religions' myths' wiki pages? ex: see warshys examples above Bilto74811 (talk) 17:52, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

So no reason then? Just to be contentious?--Ermenrich (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

No, see the explanation above. Its not clear what you are confused about. You also seem to have missed the question at the end addressed to you, did you read the comment youre responding to? Bilto74811 (talk) 20:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

First of all, please write shorter posts, it will aid others in parsing them. Second of all, this section is ostensibly about the issue of whether or not Grabbe says that there are two main positions and whether other sources say one is in the majority. Do you still dispute something about the AC or the word majority? If not, the thread has come to an end.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

When you ask for clarification repeatedly about things I already explained and cast aspersions about the intent, it takes time to re-explain it. Read it the first time and we can both save a lot of time typing/reading

If you want to again ignore that this is the only article about relgions' myths that refers to its myth as "mythologized history" I guess Ill address that in another section.

For example see above where I wrote "But I guess we can leave it for now..." in reference to "majority", that should have been the end of the thread, so clearly its already done. Bilto74811 (talk) 20:20, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Moving Forward

Instead of the endless arguments on Talk about terminology, how about somebody proposes an actual wording change here, and we all discuss and reach consensus on that wording? Wdford (talk) 20:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

That seems logical.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so those 3 sections are proposals for actual wording changes - "Moses" "Meyers section" "hunter gatherers".

Ill make one more for "core" vs "basis"

Bilto74811 (talk) 20:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

hunter-gatherers

The article says "Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say that while archaeology has found traces left by small bands of hunter-gatherers in the Sinai, there is no evidence at all for the large body of people described in the Exodus story..."

But this wasn’t what the source says. It says: "even if the number of fleeing Israelites is wildly exaggerated…some archaeological traces of their generation-long wandering in the Sinai should be apparent…except for Egyptian forts…not a single campsite or sign of occupation from the time of Ramesses II and his immediate predecessors and successors has ever been identified in Sinai. And it has not been for lack of trying. Repeated archaeological surveys in all regions of the peninsula…not even a single sherd..house..encampment. One may argue the that a relatively small band of wandering Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracking even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world. Indeed, the archaeological record from the Sinai peninsula discloses evidence for pastoral activity in such eras as the third millennium BCE and the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. There is simply no such evidence at the supposed time of the Exodus in the thirteenth century BCE."

so I changed it to "Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say archaeology has not found any evidence for even a small band of wandering Israelites living in the Sinai..." Bilto74811 (talk) 20:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd say make the change - thank you for clearing up the source issue.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, your welcome Bilto74811 (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Moses

Heres the quote from the source "Yet the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure; that Yahwism was highly syncretistic from the very beginning; and that true monotheism developed only late in Israel's history"

So I wrote "Academic consensus is that Moses is a mythical figure" Bilto74811 (talk) 20:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"Mythical" does not mean that there is no historical basis for Moses. Dever (2001) writes: A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the mid-late 13th century B.C.. This postdates the article you're citing. Why do you want us to say that Moses was mythical anyway, this article isn't about Moses. The current wording No modern attempt to identify a historical Egyptian prototype for Moses has found wide acceptance, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus is cited to Grabbe 2014, which is even more recent. I don't see any reason to make the change.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I didnt say it did, nor does that source contradict the source I listed (as you basically point out by talking about "mythical". Why talk about Moses? Because you or someone else wrote that point about Moses in the article, showing that one of the central characters is not considered historical person, but that a "Moses-like figure" may have existed. Which is vague and could be said of literally any mythical person. Its similar in vagueness to "mythologized history" or using "mythologized science" for creationism.

We could write this: "Academic consensus is that Moses is a mythical figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus."Bilto74811 (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I can live with that.

And not to belabor the point, but maybe you can say it about anyone, but the point is that reliable sources do say it about Moses.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:56, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I get that distinction from a Wikipedia sourcing standpoint, Im just saying that it doesn't seem to have any meaning beyond "there could have been someone". Bilto74811 (talk) 22:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I have a residual concern with using the phrase "retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed", because this creates the impression that maybe the Biblical Moses really did exist exactly as described. I would prefer that this be reworded slightly to make it clear that there is a distinction between "a Moses-like figure" and "the Biblical Moses". Wdford (talk) 08:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I’m not sure how anyone could confuse “Moses-like” for “exactly like the biblical Moses”. We could add back in the bit from Grabbe that no attempt to identify the “origin” of Moses has been widely accepted by scholars?—Ermenrich (talk) 12:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Best to be as clear as possible. How about this: "Academic consensus is that the Biblical Moses is a mythical figure, although it is possible that some of the details may have been based in part on an unidentified historical person, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus". ?? Wdford (talk) 16:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Length of second paragraph of historicity section

The second paragraph of the historicity section has gotten very long. Can we draft some ideas of how to cut it down without losing any relevant information? For reference, this is the current text:

Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree the Exodus stories to have been written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories. The Book of Exodus itself attempts to ground the event firmly in history, dating the exodus to the 2666th year after creation (Exodus 12:40-41), the construction of the tabernacle to year 2667 (Exodus 40:1-2, 17), stating that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41), and including place names such as Goshen (Gen. 46:28), Pithom and Ramesses (Exod. 1:11), as well as stating that 600,000 Israelite men were involved (Exodus 12:37). However, the numbers involved are fantastical, as the Sinai Desert could never have supported the 603,550 Israelites mentioned in Numbers 1:46. The geography is vague with regions such as Goshen unidentified, and there are internal problems with dating in the Pentateuch. Academic consensus is that Moses is a mythical figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus. Some elements of the story are clearly meant to be miraculous and defy rational explanation, such as the Plagues of Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea. Lester Grabbe argues that "attempts to find naturalistic explanations [for these events] [...] miss the point: the aim of the narrative is to magnify the power of Yhwh and Moses." The Bible also fails to mention the names of any of the Pharaohs involved in the Exodus narrative. While ancient Egyptian texts from the New Kingdom mention "Asiatics" living in Egypt as slaves and workers, these people cannot be securely connected to the Israelites, and no contemporary Egyptian text mentions a large-scale exodus of slaves like that described in the Bible. The earliest surviving historical mention of the Israelites, the Egyptian Merneptah Stele (c. 1207 BCE), appears to place them in or around Canaan and gives no indication of any exodus. Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say that archaeology has not found any evidence for even a small band of wandering Israelites living in the Sinai: "The conclusion – that Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible – seems irrefutable [...] repeated excavations and surveys throughout the entire area have not provided even the slightest evidence." Instead, modern archaeology suggests continuity between Canaanite and Israelite settlement, indicating a primarily Canaanite origin for Israel, with no suggestion that a group of foreigners from Egypt comprised early Israel. Some scholars such Jørgen Knudtzon, identified the Hebrews with the Habiru, however in recent years this is been suggested to be a false cognate.

I'll let someone else start making proposals (I had to cut off part of the last reference because I wasn't able to scroll down on this page for some reason).--Ermenrich (talk) 13:44, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Before cutting anything, I'd propose a slight reorganization like so and splitting it in two:

Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree the Exodus stories to have been written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories. The Book of Exodus itself attempts to ground the event firmly in history, dating the exodus to the 2666th year after creation (Exodus 12:40-41), the construction of the tabernacle to year 2667 (Exodus 40:1-2, 17), stating that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41), and including place names such as Goshen (Gen. 46:28), Pithom and Ramesses (Exod. 1:11), as well as stating that 600,000 Israelite men were involved (Exodus 12:37). However, the numbers involved are fantastical, as the Sinai Desert could never have supported the 603,550 Israelites mentioned in Numbers 1:46. The geography is vague with regions such as Goshen unidentified, and there are internal problems with dating in the Pentateuch. The Bible also fails to mention the names of any of the Pharaohs involved in the Exodus narrative. Some elements of the story are clearly meant to be miraculous and defy rational explanation, such as the Plagues of Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea. Lester Grabbe argues that "attempts to find naturalistic explanations [for these events] [...] miss the point: the aim of the narrative is to magnify the power of Yhwh and Moses."

While ancient Egyptian texts from the New Kingdom mention "Asiatics" living in Egypt as slaves and workers, these people cannot be securely connected to the Israelites, and no contemporary Egyptian text mentions a large-scale exodus of slaves like that described in the Bible. The earliest surviving historical mention of the Israelites, the Egyptian Merneptah Stele (c. 1207 BCE), appears to place them in or around Canaan and gives no indication of any exodus. Academic consensus is that Moses is a mythical figure, while retaining the possibility that a Moses-like figure existed, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus. Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman say that archaeology has not found any evidence for even a small band of wandering Israelites living in the Sinai: "The conclusion – that Exodus did not happen at the time and in the manner described in the Bible – seems irrefutable [...] repeated excavations and surveys throughout the entire area have not provided even the slightest evidence." Instead, modern archaeology suggests continuity between Canaanite and Israelite settlement, indicating a primarily Canaanite origin for Israel, with no suggestion that a group of foreigners from Egypt comprised early Israel. Some scholars such Jørgen Knudtzon, identified the Hebrews with the Habiru, however in recent years this is been suggested to be a false cognate.

I welcome your thoughts.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Splitting this paragraph works for me. However I would suggest to move the second half up to the top? Wdford (talk) 16:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

So leaving the introductory sentence "Mainstream scholarship...", placing what is now the second paragraph after that, and beginning the new second paragraph with "Most scholars agree the Exodus stories to have been written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories"?--Ermenrich (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe so. Or else even put the second paragraph ahead of "Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts .." Wdford (talk) 17:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

To follow that up, perhaps we should then try to group the sentences on some sort of category-basis - perhaps one para for scriptural pointers, and the other for external scientific stuff? Wdford (talk) 17:11, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

That's sort of what I was going for - what do you think should still be shifted around?--Ermenrich (talk) 20:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Use the talk page please

@Bilto74811: please use the talkpage before making further changes. This article has been stable for a long time and you are making little changes left and right without taking into account the long discussions that accompanied the current wording. Please discuss first before making changes. This is a controversial subject and we need to have a firm foundation for changes, some of which not all editors are going to agree with--Ermenrich (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Ive been using the talk page extensively. I chose edits I though might be controversial to start with a talk page section. Minor edits where I just make the wording match the wording in the source, or when I use wording we already use elsewhere in the aritcle like one of my recent edits (see edit summary) I choose to go ahead with. See WP:BRD for more info. You can undo edits you disagree with. Bilto74811 (talk) 19:58, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm asking you to discuss before making changes. That's not a tough ask.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:00, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I use discretion where I think an edit will be controversial and start on talk. As you have demonstrated, youre well aware that you can undo any of my edits and send it to talk. No edit is permanent.

And I can see just in the past few days where you make edits without first discussing them on talk. See WP:BRDBilto74811 (talk) 20:24, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Also, it would be helpful if you put some reason in your edit summary for why youre undoing a given edit Bilto74811 (talk) 20:27, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

That's what this talk page post is for ;-). You can't add an edit summary if you use the rollback tool.

I don't believe I've been making controversial edits. If you do, feel free to object. But I'm concerned about all these changes with the claim "this isn't what the source says". You need to view the paragraph as a whole, not each sentence individually. I'm also fairly certain that i.e. that there are remains of hunter-gatherers in the Sinai and that isn't unsourced here. Nor is changing Semitic-speakers to Asiatics a logical thing to do - they mean the same thing in this context and our other sources use Semitic speakers explicitly. I also object to the changes made to e.g. our presentation of the figure Moses (see how Moses does it).--Ermenrich (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

if you want to make a talk page section explaining your undo in the future, then put the reasoning for the undo in that section. I dont believe Ive been making controversial edits either, especially the last few where its just matching the wording to the sources and the prior use in this article.

Ill make another section for the hunter-gatherers point. The source explicitly says the opposite, that even a small band should have left evidence, and that none was found.

See the Asiatics section. Why even bring them up again, its already addressed in the 2nd paragraph. It says there is no secure connection to the Israelites

Ill edit the Moses wiki page to match what the source says the consensus is eventually. Note that in that same article it later actually matches the source too and says "mythical figure". Bilto74811 (talk) 21:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for adding edit summaries when undoing, theyre helpful for making more modifications Bilto74811 (talk) 15:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Lester Grabbe intent of original authors

We have this line about Lester Grabbe- "Lester Grabbe argues that "attempts to find naturalistic explanations [for these events] [...] miss the point: the aim of the narrative is to magnify the power of Yhwh and Moses."" This is not relevant to the section. And I dont think we can say the intent of the authors. The point of the section is why most scholars see the narrative as implausible, so this sentence can be removed, which would help shorten it anyways. Bilto74811 (talk) 20:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

We quote him exactly though, and this has nothing to do with the "intent" but with the function. I also think it is directly relevant, as there's a small industry of trying to explain the plagues and crossing of the red sea as natural events.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The intent of the authors is either that those plagues literally happened (which means Yhwh is powerful) or that their just "stories" (and they make Yhwh seem powerful). But the Lester quote implies the authors didnt intend for it to be taken as literal history. I dont think we can say their intent.

The previous sentence- "Some elements of the story are miraculous and defy rational explanation, such as the Plagues of Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea." and your explanation - "there's a small industry of trying to explain the plagues and crossing of the red sea as natural events" is the whole concept of "not history" but "maybe some historical basis". Ie the plagues didnt happen but maybe some natural event did occur. Like the flood myth. There are floods. Not global floods with arks carrying 2 of each species of animal. But maybe it was based on some local flood. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I think you're confusing attempts to explain that the plagues of Egypt were the result of e.g. a volcano (but all happened) with the way that events are seeded and transformed in collective memory. The former is usually done by people who want the bible to be more accurate than scholars generally think that it was. But fine, go ahead and remove it, the paragraph is too long.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:16, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Israelites... "in this period"

thanks for edit summary explanation. However, I dont agree that there being archaeological evidence for a resident group of Israelites in Egypt is "WP:BLUE" ie an "obvious" fact. The fact that it says "archaeological evidence" makes me think it might be a WP:SYNTH issue

Here is what the source about the Assyrian period you mention says: "since many Judaeans probably went to Egypt.... We know in particular that some Palestinians-including Judaeans and Israelites, presumably-had been planted there by the Assyrians as garrison troops" it says "probably" and doesnt mention evidence so maybe we should not include "in this period" Bilto74811 (talk) 21:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There is a well known Jewish temple at Elephantine from the Assyrian period, which I already pointed you to. Do you really want me to source that it existed? Because I can, but it strikes me as very unnecessary. See [1] for instance.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:11, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

"Do you really want me to source". Yes thats why I wrote in my edit summary "if you want to add this we need some source". Your source does say that they were there. it doesn't specifically say "archaeological evidence", but if it is well known they were there, the arcaheological evidence probably exists, right? Bilto74811 (talk) 21:19, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

It's primarily collection of papyri from Elephantine, which I believe counts as archaeological evidence. There's also the temple itself, see [2] (just a news article, to clarify, but its free to view), and here which I unfortunately can only see in snippet view [3]. I believe there's more on it - the Elephantine article shows a supposed picture of it and I'm certain it's been excavated - but I've just been looking at the Wikipedia pages rather than a larger search.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Here's a whole article about it from Near Eastern Archaeology [4], and here's a somewhat older article on JSTOR if you have access [5]--Ermenrich (talk) 21:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I dont see arcaheological evidence in these sources, maybe just because some are behind paywalls. Another concern I have is the difference between "Jews in Egypt" vs "resident Israelites in Egypt". It sounds like were saying that at some point there were "Israelites" (Jewish slaves who left Egypt for Israel), not just Jews in Egypt. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:33, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Are you not looking at this free article ('edit: actually, you need to search the article on google scholar, apparently, but then its available for free) that discusses the excavation of a Jewish temple in Elephantine? I'm a bit confused about what you're confused about: no one is saying that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, the problem is that without "in this period" the text means that there was never archaeological evidence for Israelites as "a resident group", which is not true - they were certainly there in the 6th century during the Assyrian period.

We actually don't need a specific citation to add "in this period" and your current addition of one doesn't make sense, as it has nothing to do with the topic of the sentence. We don't need to be so myopic about what's in each sentence compared to the source: we have to be able to place statements from sources in context. No one disputes that Jews lived in Egypt in other periods of time, and that they have left archaeological evidence for it (see also Cairo geniza for a much later example).--Ermenrich (talk) 15:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

'never archaeological evidence for Israelites as "a resident group", which is not true

but is there archaeological evidence for Israelites? or Jewish people? There is a difference. Today and then. And it seems youre presenting evidence for Jewish people. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

In the 6th century, I don't think there was much of a difference, particularly as these people seem to have been from the northern kingdom of Israel (and thus by definition "Israelites").

Some quotes Their excavations uncovered an "Aramaic" quarter of the 27th Dynasty, the early Persian period, which equates to that of the Jewish colony. Eventually in 1997, at the heart of this village, they found a piece of tiled flooring much superior to that found in the mudbrick houses around. They identified this as the floor of the Jewish temple, which was confirmed by the location given in the documents researched by Porten (1968). Parts of the walls of the temple and the surrounding courtyard were identified, but a large section of the western end of the site had been lost because of the land falling away, due to erosion or subsidence.

The style and layout of the Elephantine Jewish Temple suggests that the Jewish mercenaries originated in the former northern kingdom of Israel and not in Judah at the time of Manasseh, or later, during the conquests of Jerusalem.

If, as Cross has suggested, the memory of the Mishkan remained with the people of Israel (the northern kingdom) then their setting up of a shrine in its form would be much more likely than building one on the lines of the Solomonic Temple.

--Ermenrich (talk) 15:50, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

So if they were there, then were going off the tiles and were calling it arcaheological evidence although the source doesnt explicitly say this is archaeological evidence for their existence there. Is that an issue with OR or synth? also, shouldnt we change "in this period" to "in the period the Exodus was supposed to have taken place"

Separately, the last paragrpah says: "than the traditional dating to the second millennium BCE.[51] Rejecting the traditional view that the Exodus records pre-exilic traditions, Philip..." Do we need the qualifier "Rejecting the traditional view that the Exodus records pre-exilic traditions" on Phillips statement"? Bilto74811 (talk) 16:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, the Papyri were found there as well, so they were used to understand the archaeological remains. And research papers produce original research by definition, they aren't bound by our rules against it. I can quote at length for further reasons why it's identified as the Jewish temple there (it's structure for instance, its location matching that given in the papyri, the fact that it was destroyed and then rebuilt as stated in the papyri...), but it's a little off topic for this page. The point is, there is definitely archaeological evidence for people from the kingdom of Israel at Elephantine in the Assyrian and Persian periods - well after any supposed Exodus, mind you, but early enough that I think we need to qualify when there isn't archaeological evidence for Jews/Israelites in Egypt.

I fully approve of both your suggested changes. We can get rid of the qualifier as well.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There were probably a few Israelite families living in Egypt in every period since Israelites were invented, but they don't show up in the record because they were small in number. Perhaps the sentence should read "There is no archaeological evidence for any substantial resident group of Israelites in Egypt or in the Sinai in the period in which tradition places the Exodus." Wdford (talk) 10:16, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I think that’s good wording.—12:08, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

we cant add in "substantial" because it is OR and changes what the source says. It also would go against what Finkelstein and Silberman say. I think "in this period" or "in the period the Exodus was supposed to have taken place" is more clear. "tradition" seems less clear to me, maybe "in which most scholars place". But "in this period" probably is fine and the section is getting long so maybe we just leave it. Bilto74811 (talk) 13:33, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

"core" vs "basis"

scholars use both terms about The Exodus: "some historical core" and "some historical basis" In the origins and historicity section we agreed to use "historical basis", but we disagree on the lede. It currently uses "historical core" but I think we should use "historical basis" there too. I propose changing the lede wording to "historical basis". Ive laid out the arugment in the thread above, but basically "historical basis" is clearer and leaves no room for confusion for the casual readers as to what it means. Since we have to choose between the two terms that are both used by scholars I think the lede should say "historical basis" Bilto74811 (talk) 21:02, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Given a straight choice, I also prefer "historical basis". To use the phrase "historical core" once again creates the impression that the Biblical tales are factual, although seemingly even those sources who use the phrase mean that the "core" referred only to a very small number of people. Whenever we use the word "core" - especially in the lede - we should clarify what the word means in this particular context, and perhaps also add that this is based on folklore rather than archaeological evidence. The footnote is useful, but the distinction is perhaps important enough to be presented in the main text as well. Wdford (talk) 08:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

How would you like the distinction discussed in the main text? Do you have a specific proposal?—Ermenrich (talk) 12:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

How about this – tweak existing paragraph 3 - my changes in CAPS:

"WHILE THERE IS A CONSENSUS AMONG SCHOLARS THAT THE EXODUS DID NOT TAKE PLACE IN THE MANNER DESCRIBED IN THE BIBLE, a majority of scholars nevertheless still believes that the Exodus has some historical basis,[6][7] with Kenton Sparks referring to it as "mythologized history."[1] Despite a TOTAL lack of archaeological evidence, most scholars believe that a small group of people of Egyptian origin may have joined the early Israelites.[d] William Dever cautiously identifies this group with "the house of Joseph".[40] Most scholars who accept a historical BASIS of the Exodus date this possible Exodus group to the thirteenth century BCE at the time of Ramses II, with some instead dating it to the twelfth century BCE at the time of Ramses III.[6]"

We should also tweak the lede to match. Wdford (talk) 17:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think TOTAL lack is a bit of overkill, but otherwise it looks fine to me. It may true but it looks like we're taking sides rather than just neutrally stating the facts. Lack of archaeological evidence means the same thing, after all. We don't say "partial lack" or anything like that.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:57, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, how about: "Despite the absence of any archaeological evidence .... " ?? Wdford (talk) 10:10, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

That seems fine.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

So are we in agreement to change to "basis"? Can I change it in the lede for now while we discuss wording for the other parts of the article? Bilto74811 (talk) 21:35, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

go ahead!—Ermenrich (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes please make the change. Wdford (talk) 21:51, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Names of God in this article

This article, in multiple situations, links to Yahweh (an article on the god of the Ancient Canaanite religion). My understanding is that the only primary source is the Hebrew Bible, which should reference the Hebrew god, aka God in Judaism. Do other editors agree? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 05:15, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Yahweh is the name of the God of Judaism, And particularly in biblical times, and is used as such in the secondary literature, so no, you’re understanding is incorrect.—Ermenrich (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Source

Closed as discussion has deteriorated to a personal discussion. As for the source, it will not be added as perWP:RS and WP:FRINGE. Now move along

@Ermenrich: You removed the source I added as "not scholarly or reliable" and stated that the book is "an atheist attack book" and cited some other book she wrote. But I found this book by searching google scholar about the topic. I can go through our sources on this wiki article and find religious scholars and find books they wrote about their particular religion being real, but that does not discredit their valid books on google scholar or themselves. I remember one source we use (not sure which) in a book on google scholar saying "God acts in history". That sounds very biased to me. I dont agree with the term "'atheist attack book' or a hypoethetical equivalen 'religoius attack book'" but I personally think some of the sources are apparently biased for their own particular religion. But I can not discredit them for their religiosity and I cant discredit their specific books that are on google scholar. Am I missing something about wikiepdias rules? Bilto74811 (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC) Bilto74811, yes indeed. You are missing WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and your whole argument is an example of it. If there are unsuitable sources in this article or elsewhere, that's a separate problem and they should probably be removed. In no way can the existence of other unsuitable sources be used as an argument to add another unsuitable source. Jeppiz (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2021 (UTC) That is not my argument. I am not saying the source that says "God acts in history" (whichever it is) or any others we use are unsuitable sources. I am saying the opposite. Just because the author is religious, or because I think some of the sources we use are biased, does not mean they are discredited or we can not use them. I said: But I can not discredit them for their religiosity and I cant discredit their specific books that are on google scholar.". So the same should apply to the source I used. Those sources I think are biased are on google scholar so I am not going to remove them. Thanks for the repsonse though. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:27, 10 April 2021 (UTC) D. M. Murdock is not a reliable source. For context, see Wikipedia's article about her. This isn't about her point of view; it's about the quality of her work. It's no more reliable than that of, say, Bryant Wood, to take an example from the opposite ideological pole. This article already cites many impeccably qualified sources, and if one is added to the list, its credentials should be checked beforehand. A. Parrot (talk) 15:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC) Thanks for the explanation. The only part the throws me off is about the credentials. I see D. M. Murdock has a bachelors and Bryant Wood has a masters. If both are not reliable does that mean we can only cite PhD? Or is it based on their work? I see Bryant Wood is a young earth creationist, which is a fringe theory. Does that mean we can't use anyhting Bryant Wood says? Or does is it just that any individual work from anyone just needs to be published in a scholarly press? Bilto74811 (talk) 15:47, 10 April 2021 (UTC) (edit conflict)The source Bilto's complaining about is the extremely reliable Oxford History of the Biblical World, which he's quoting out of context (the point is that the exodus is probably a historical event because the principle of the Bible is that God acts in history, so it would not make sense to invent a historical event). Even if there are religious scholars being quoted, that only affects whether or not they're reliable if they subscribe to biblical inerrancy or are otherwise fundamentalist. We've had this debate with people trying to add "Christian" or "Jewish" scholarship many times. At any rate and more to the point, the presence of a book on Google scholar does not show that it is reliable. The author, Acharya S, subscribes to the fringe Christ myth theory and has no valid credentials besides being a conspiracy theorist. The book is not published with a scholarly press, the work is aimed at a broad audience, and it's purpose is to discredit religion, not to examine the history of ideas about Moses and the Exodus. We already have ample sourcing on the subject of the lack of historicity of the Exodus.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:17, 10 April 2021 (UTC) I take issue with you stating "Bilto's complaining about". I just asked you a question. WP:CIVIL. I don't know if I can strike out that rude comment (Ive seen this done but don't know if thats how its suppposed to be handled) or if you want to delete your comment violating WP:CIVIL... I said I didnt remember which source it is and I explicitly stated that it was not unreliable. I said I think its biased and I think others Ive read are biased, but that they are not unreliable because of that (I stated this multiple times). the presence of a book on Google scholar does not show that it is reliable. The book is not published with a scholarly press this is all you needed to say. "it's purpose is to discredit religion, not to examine the history of" this is just your opinion. you can remove the WP:CIVIL violating parts of your reply. See A. Parrot's response and Jeppiz's response for WP:CIVIL repsosnes to someone asking explicitly for an explanaiton of the rules. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:41, 10 April 2021 (UTC) I think you're stretching the definition and applicability of wp:CIVIL there - this doesn't even qualify as a heated exchange. And please don't edit other people's comments.--Ermenrich (talk) 15:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC) If you weren't aware its very rude to dismiss someones question as "they're complaining". Your beginning of your whole comment was a self-sexplanatory violation of WP:CIVIL. Exchanges can become heated when you make WP:CIVIL violating comments like that. You need to WP:AGF, especially at the first response to someone epxlicitly asking you for ana epxlanation. If you still dont see the issue, compare your beginning of your repsonse to the WP:CIVIL responses of A. Parrot and Jeppiz. I think the fact that you took the time to remove the strikeout and kept in the rude comment proves the violation of WP:CIVIL. Your answer I quoted in green was all you needed Bilto74811 (talk) 15:49, 10 April 2021 (UTC) If you have complaints about my civility, this talk page is not the place to discuss them. At any rate, I would suggest you calm down and not take things so personally.—-Ermenrich (talk) 16:18, 10 April 2021 (UTC) It takes two to tango, I would suggest not responding vs responding and then telling someone else not to repsond. As a general rule also do not tell people to "calm down" as it also has rude implications. I merely tried to explain to you your violation of WP:CIVIL, and point you to WP:CIVIL responses by both A. Parrot and Jeppiz to help you avoid further breaking the rules. Youve stated "this is not even a heated exchange" and I tried to explain to you that this is how you make exchanged heated. You dont seem to understand your breaking of the rule but I am not going to keep trying to explain it to you. You have again decided to take the time to repsond and keep in the rude violation of WP:CIVIL, somtehing that would be easy to remove, a poor choice. I have asked you to remove it and you can't even do that much, but thats your choice. Bilto74811 (talk) 16:43, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Canaanite conquest vs genocide (cherem)

Here are academic sources stating that it was genocide. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Here is a relgious source 2 (chabad) saying it was genocide. So my proposal is to say it as such. We should make it clear that this is what the narrative states and that this is not history and that no such genocide occured. Bilto74811 (talk) 18:05, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

While I don't think you're wrong, I don't think that's a topic for this article, but rather for Violence in the Bible (where I believe it's mentioned) and/or The Book of Joshua (I don't think we have an article on the conquest as such). Where/why would we mention this?--Ermenrich (talk) 18:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

The Book of Exodus does not have this part of the story, but it is the end of The Exodus story. I saw the conquest already menitoned in the Narrative section of this article and added it to the lead. I figured that since its in the article it should be properly labelled according to the sources. Are you suggesting we remove any mention of the conquest from this article? Bilto74811 (talk) 19:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

The addition of the conquest to this article isn't supported by the source you're using, which states: The Exodus saga in the Bible incorporates events in Egypt after the death of Joseph through the Israelite departure, the wilderness wanderings, and the Sinai revelations up to but not including the conquest of Canaan. [6] The article follows Redmount exactly in that it summarizes events just prior to the conquest, which begins when the Israelites cross the Jordan after Moses's death. Note that while there is some conquering going on before that, it doesn't count as "the Conquest" yet (see the next page in the link to Redmount - she includes the dividing of the land by lot and the conquest of the Amorites and Bashan). So I would remove the mention of the Conquest from the lead, which I stress that I think was an honest mistake on your part.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:23, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate the AGF, I was basing it off of the narrative section in this aritcle talking about conquests and then specifcally about the Canaanite Conquest "Yahweh tells Moses to summon Joshua, whom Yahweh commissions to lead the conquest of Canaan". Ill remove it from the lead. Should that last quote above be removed too or does that count as part of the Exodus? Bilto74811 (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

No, that last quote should stay I think - the whole point is that Moses won't be able to lead the conquest, which God originally told him to do. The Exodus and the Conquest are often discussed together but we don't do that here for whatever reason (I guess the topic would be too big) - really a lot of the material on historicity at the Book of Joshua should be moved to a Conquest of Canaan article.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:59, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Meyers source

The Meyers source says Asiatics. The 2nd paragraph also refers to this topic and says "Asiatics", so to match the source and the 2nd paragraph I changed it to say "Asiatics" Alternatively we could not bring the Asiatics part up again as it is just repeating what the 2nd paragraph said- that some texts mention them there and that there is no secure connection to the Israelites Bilto74811 (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

We use "Semitic speakers" just below based on Baden, who uses the term explicitly. Other sources also use Semitic-speaker. I don't see changing it to Asiatics as an improvement.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we just remove the first part of that sentence entirely. The "Asiatics" are addressed in the 2nd paragraph by saying they were there and that there is no secure connection to the Israelites.

We could take out the "Ancient Semitic-speaking people" first part of the sentence, leave in the "folklore and culture" part, the "names origin" part and combine it with the Baden sentence. Baden's point stands on its own.

Also, Baden says "Semitic slaves" not "Semitic-speaking slaves" Bilto74811 (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we should remove the sentence. It's used as evidence of potential historical connections that could be the basis of an Exodus. Can you propose a wording for a combined sentence with Baden?

Semitic-speaking is less confusing as many people have misconceptions about what a Semite is (someone started trying to remove it at one point as "anti-Semitic" as I recall as well, maybe at this page maybe someplace else).--Ermenrich (talk) 21:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Right, I think Semitic people will cause confusion. The word "antisemitism" refers to discrimination specficially against Jewish people (at least how it is used now), whereas Semitic applies to a very broad group of people and does not mean Jewish. We could at least link one of the usages of the word "Semitic" to the Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples wiki page too.

Instead of the proposal I just gave, keep the two sentences. but add in the explanation from the 2nd paragraph that these Semitic-speaking slaves cannot be securely connected to the Israelites. otherwise readers will not make the connection since it says "Asiatics" in the 2nd paragraph and "Semitic-speaking slaves" in the 3rd.

"Joel S. Baden notes the presence of Semitic-speaking slaves in Egypt who sometimes escaped in small numbers, however they cannot be securely connected to the Israelites." Bilto74811 (talk) 22:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Also can we remove these-

"He writes that while "[a] onetime mass exodus of all Israelites from Egypt cannot be maintained, a relatively steady trickle of Semitic slaves making their way through the Sinai to the northeast seems eminently reasonable." this and also this part "Despite a lack of archaeological evidence, most scholars believe that a small group of Egyptian origin may have joined the early Israelites.[d] William Dever cautiously identifies this group with "the house of Joseph".[39"

"seems reasonable", "despite lack of evidence, may have occurred"? these dont sound like they belong in an encyclopedia. It sounds out of place in a historicity section when it explicitly states that there is no evidence or that it just "seems reasonable"

We could delete the qotes and leave the second one as "Most scholars date a possible exodus group..." Bilto74811 (talk) 22:46, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to remove - those are what scholars say about the majority view, which is admittedly based on the biblical text and requires a certain degree of informed speculation. Wikipedia isn't limited to just reporting iron clad facts, few of which exist in the humanities anyway. We also aren't limited to the perspective of archaeology. We report what reliable sources say, and this is what they're saying. To quote Faust again Archaeology does not really contribute to the debate over the historicity or even historical background of the Exodus itself, but if there was indeed such a group, it contributed the Exodus story to that of all Israel. While I agree that it is most likely that there was such a group, I must stress that this is based on an overall understanding of the development of collective memory and of the authorship of the texts (and their editorial process). Archaeology, unfortunately, cannot directly contribute(yet?) to the study of this specific group of Israel’s ancestors. We need to discuss the views in proportion to their number of adherents, per WP:DUE. As this is the majority position, we can include various theories (and in this case, I'd say that Baden Dever, etc. are followed by most, but not all scholars). The one theory that doesn't get mentioned at much length is the Hyksos one, but you can see the discussions over at Hyksos for that. Sources and parallels of the Exodus would be an ideal place for even greater detail, but the article is a complete mess.

I believe adding a source saying that the slaves cannot be securely connected to the Israelites is WP:SYNTH - if I'm not mistaken this paragraph is about the majority position that an "Exodus group" existed, not a paragraph arguing against such a group's existence. Clearly the RS wouldn't mention this fact if it weren't being used as evidence of such a group.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

to avoid WP:SYNTH we can just separate the quotes.

Joel S. Baden notes the presence of Semitic-speaking slaves in Egypt who sometimes escaped in small numbers. However, Barmash notes that these slaves cannot be securely connected to the Israelites."Bilto74811 (talk) 00:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I still have a concern that many readers will misunderstand the phrase "Semitic-speaking slaves" to be a confirmation that the Biblical stories are historically accurate. My understanding from these sources is that "Semitic-speaking" means generic Asiatic, and that they were more likely to be Canaanite than Israelite (if there even was a difference back then). We do already mention lower down that the Hyksos were also "Semitic-speakers", but that could also create the impression that the Hyksos were the Israelites - the family of Jacob and Joseph. How could this be safely clarified? Wdford (talk) 08:29, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps we can provide a definition of Semitic? Also, I'd note that Barmash saying the slaves cannot be directly connected to the Israelites is something for the next paragraph, which I see Bilto is expanding.

In the interest of decreasing the length of the section, I'd be fine combining the two sentences cited to Baden as follows: Joel S. Baden writes that while "[a] onetime mass exodus of all Israelites from Egypt cannot be maintained, a relatively steady trickle of Semitic slaves making their way through the Sinai to the northeast seems eminently reasonable."{{sfn|Baden|2019|p=7}} We'd keep it in the same place in the paragraph.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I am happy with the proposed Baden tweak. Perhaps we could add a blue link to Semitic languages as well?? Wdford (talk) 16:55, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The issue with the Baden sentence is that it flows from "a mass exodus of all Israelites cannot be mainatained, but a small trickle of Semitic slaves seems reasonable". It implies "all Israelites" and "Semitic slaves" are interchangeable and the point of the sentence is just that "mass exodus" of Israelites cannot be maintained but "steady trickle" can be. "Asiatics" might clear this up, or we could explicitly define Semitic. Adding in Barmash's quote would also be helpful as it directly explains this point.

Barmash's sentence here is an important explanation about who those slaves were and that there is no secure link to the Israelites. If we separate these into different paragraphs then you lose the context. Bilto74811 (talk) 20:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

But obviously the proponents of "cultural memory" see precisely those slaves as a potential source, whether the link is secure or not. I don't think we should be deconstructing their arguments as they are being made - we already include Barmash elsewhere in the article that the slaves cannot be securely linked to the Israelites.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:35, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes "obviously" as a potential source and Barmash's statement is not against that idea. As a potential source for the story to be based on, but not as evidence of Israelite slaves as the Exodus story says. Its not "deconstructing" their arguments its just clarification of that difference. The two sentences from Baden and from Barmash are not opposed. The Barmash statement just clarifies that those Semitic slaves are not securely connected to the Israelites. It is not a coutner point to the fact that those small number of Semitic slaves may have existed and left Egypt which could be a "basis" for the eventual myth.

Barmash's statement in the 3rd paragraph would have the same purpose of clarification as Lesters statement in the 2nd paragraph. Lester isnt opposing the point that the miracles defy ratioanl explanation but adding context.

And you could just say the same of Badens quote not being needed in the 3rd paragraph. "Barmash already states that there were "Asiatics" living in Egypt that in the 2nd paragraph". Instead of restating parts of the point with "Asiatics" in one paragraph and "Semitic slaves" in the next, we can have the 2 sentences in the 3rd paragraph. The separation and the different terms makes it harder to follow for readers. Bilto74811 (talk) 20:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, let's not start comparing one thing or another, please, but stay on topic. That seems to be working fairly well so far in avoiding things getting out of hand.

Why don't you propose a new wording and we'll see if we can't agree on it. I accept your point on Barmash in principle.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I dont get why you think comparisons are "off topic". Analogies are helpful, Im saying we do this elsewhere, so it would be the same thing here.

"Joel S. Baden notes the presence of Semitic-speaking slaves in Egypt who sometimes escaped in small numbers. However, Barmash notes that these slaves cannot be securely connected to the Israelites. Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples includes peoples across Western Asia who speak a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, used by more than 330 million people today." Bilto74811 (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

That does sound better. Wdford (talk) 10:08, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm still not certain we need to both say that they cannot be securely connected to the Israelites and explain that it includes a lot more people than the Israelites. My preference would be for the latter.--Ermenrich (talk) 13:18, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The problem with that is the latter just implies what the former explicitly states. I like both sentences as the second gives more context, but if we only add one sentence it should be the former as it is more clear. Bilto74811 (talk) 20:55, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I am happy to have both sentences. Wdford (talk) 09:30, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

What if we put the latter right after and the former in the last paragraph like you suggested earlier Ermenrich? It seems Ermenrich you like the separation of each paragraph by argument group. So to do that but keep the connection that Barmash and Baden are talking about the same group, int he last pargraph we could write "Barmash notes that the Semitic-speaking slaves, the "Asiatics", from Egypt cannot be securely connected to the Israelites."

Also are we okay with just "Joel S. Baden notes the presence of Semitic-speaking slaves in Egypt who sometimes escaped in small numbers" from Baden or do you want the other quote from Baden in there too? I think we can just leave this one quote from Baden. Bilto74811 (talk) 00:12, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

It's been a while without any concerns about this edit so I'm just going to go ahead with it. Feel free to undo it or adjust it if you have concerns about it. Bilto74811 (talk) 16:40, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

lede change

The old phrasing in the lede was better, it was "but contains little that is accurate or reliable”. now it is “but that few elements have been, or can be, proven historical”. I propose we change it back. Saying there are few elements "that can be proven historical" is misleading. Scholars have spent a few centuries looking for evidence for the Exodus events but not finding. So to say that "there is little that could be proven historical doesnt reflect that. Bilto74811 (talk) 21:02, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the wording that few elements "could be" proven historical is actually addressing the issue that evidence erodes over the millennia. However I agree that it is ambiguous, and I am happy to change it back as proposed. Wdford (talk) 09:28, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Fine by me.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:38, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Bilto74811, This has been discussed here exhaustively. You MUST provide a sources if you want to challenge the current source, and stop inserting language that directly contradicts the current, footnoted source. GordonGlottal (talk) 19:36, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

"discussed exhaustively" is quite the stretch. you proposed changing how it was written, 1 editor said they didnt see a problem with current wording another proposed changing Bible to Book of Exodus and then "whatever, just don't too closely paraphrase". not exactly consensus.

"contains little that is proven" is accurate. "contains little that is proveably reliable" is not true and just confusing. if the past few centuries of searching for evidence found it to be reliable then we would write that it was reliable, but the opposite happened. see the Finklestein and Silberman quote, we've found evidence for much smaller groups longer back in history. the Exodus account is known to be mostly innacurate, see this very wiki page weve written for the sources

the wording I changed, with agreement from other editors, is completely in line with the source listed. So I propose that wording I changed it to ("...but contains little that is accurate or reliable" - which is true according to this very source) or to what we wrote in the historicity section:

"Most modern scholars believe that the story of the Exodus has some historical basis, although there is little of historical worth in the biblical narrative." Bilto74811 (talk) 16:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Its been 3 days and Gordon hasnt said anything and no one else brought any concerns so Im going to go ahead with the edit. Its 3 editors for and only 1 against, so if you want to change it Gordon, youll need consesnus. Bilto74811 (talk) 00:32, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Lede quotes

Tgeorgescu You're still improperly synthesizing. The first quote on pg. 63 refers only to the Exodus story, not to "the Bible," and discusses intent. The second quote doesn't make any statements about the accuracy of the Exodus story, but makes one statement about the Bible as a whole and one statement about the independent reliability of the Exodus story, viz. (1) the Bible as a whole doesn't meet modern historical accuracy standards, and (2) the Exodus story contains "little of proven or provable historical worth or reliability", which (a) is not the same thing as accuracy and (b) is not the same order of statement as (1) because it refers specifically to the Exodus story. So the line overall is not found in this source with regard to either the Bible or the Exodus story. (It wouldn't matter for this article if it was found for the Bible generally, but it happens to not be). GordonGlottal (talk) 03:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Is all you want for it to be changed to “the Exodus story”? Otherwise I can’t see how this could be regarded as synth. The quotes support what the text says. I don’t personally see any problem with the current wording.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

First clause should be "biblical Exodus account" and second clause shouldn't include "accurate". The question isn't whether the quotes "support" what he text says, but whether the claims in the article are found in the source. The first quote doesn't make the claim cited to it, that the Bible overall isn't intended as historical, no matter how misleadingly it's been trimmed, and a claim about the Bible overall wouldn't be relevant anyway. That claim is actually found in the book, but that's the wrong citation and it's not relevant to this page. The second quote describes the Bible as not meeting modern historical accuracy standards and the Exodus story as containing "remarkably little of proven or provable historical worth or reliability"; the claim in the article is an explicit synthesis and results in a claim not found in the source, viz. that the Bible overall contains little that is accurate, very different from not meeting modern accuracy standards (1 claim about the Bible + one claim about Exodus story does not = two claims about the Bible). If you just changed the whole thing to the Exodus story, the first part would be OK but the source never says the Exodus story isn't "accurate" just that it shouldn't be considered independently reliable. (1 claim about the Bible + one claim about Exodus story does not = two claims about the Exodus story either.) The source never describes anything as containing "little which is accurate," and this article should include its description of the Exodus, that it's not intended as historical and not independently reliable. GordonGlottal (talk) 16:28, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Interested in what Achar Sva who put it there in September thinks. Seems to be an honest mistake. Proposed sentence reflecting the source found here GordonGlottal (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

If you want to change Bible to Book of Exodus, fine, no big deal. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, The Book of Exodus is not at all the same thing as the Exodus narrative, and the extension of claims about the narrative to the Book is original scholarship (and would in any case belong on a different page). As regards the second point, the source simply does not say that the Bible, the Book of Exodus, or the Exodus narrative "contains little that is accurate or reliable". It says that the Exodus account contains "remarkably little of proven or provable historical worth or reliability", which is a completely different statement. The source says that the historical character of the Exodus narrative is that few of its claims are falsifiable and few have been corroborated, not that most claims have been falsified. The separate claim that the Bible "cannot meet modern canons of historical accuracy and reliability" is similarly distinct from containing "little that is accurate or reliable", but in any case a claim about the Bible generally does not belong in the lede here. Note that the first claim is about the Exodus account and the second is about the Bible, so the combination of the two to describe either is inaccurate WP:SYNTH.

I propose, as linked above, the source-reflective line "but the Biblical Exodus account was never intended to function as history, and contains little of proven or provable reliability." GordonGlottal (talk) 02:28, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Whatever, just don't too closely paraphrase, since that also is to be avoided. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:22, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, OK. GordonGlottal (talk) 05:09, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

The second quote explicitly says that "no reliable independent witnesses attest to the historicity or date of the Exodus events." It is referring to a lack of corroborating evidence for the Exodus, yet we fail to summarize that this is what primarily undermines any claims concerning the historicity of the narrative. Dimadick (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Dimadick, This is exactly right. The claim is that there is no evidence for historicity, and that the nature of the claims make evidence impossible in most cases, not that the Exodus account is known to be mostly inaccurate. The page should be altered to reflect that, as I suggest above. GordonGlottal (talk) 02:36, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

but the Biblical Exodus account was never intended to function as history, and contains little of proven or provable reliability."

Of course, any suggestion, source-based or otherwise, that we know what the original intentions of the writers, editors and redactors of biblical stories were, is pointy. Ancient cultures generally had a different concept of 'history'. Our modern criteria differ from those of deeply religious people in antiquity, who could devise a just-so story without complicating it by worries about verifiability or strict accuracy, esp. since the authorship ultimately, in the belief system, came directly from the tetragrammaton's inspiration. Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I remain with two questions: 1) If the account "was never intended to function as history," then what was it intended as? I agree with Nishidani that we can't really know the intentions. But throughout history, and certainly up to the 17th century it was always understood as history. Even today, for most religious people, who still claim to understand the Bible "literally," it is understood as history.

And 2) If it is true that the Exodus account was not "intended as history," an assertion I do agree with mostly (certainly not with the post-Enlightenment concept of "history"), then why is it not true also of the other Biblical accounts, such as the Garden of Eden, the Flood, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the Monarchy, and the First Temple? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 15:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

'The past is another country' etc. Certainly as Warshy notes, it has been taken as history for millennia. So too Thucycides, whose magnificent speeches were nonetheless composed either from memories of the gist, or according to the probabilities the author thought would fit the occasions when such speeches were made. And this holds right throughout for numerous classical authors. In the Jewish tradition, narratives also had a moral function, and were adjusted to that end,- Greek tragedians may have thought myths stemmed from real events but each spun them out, with innovative changes wrought on the tradition - to elicit distinct messages -but I don't think that the composers of such texts were afflicted by our contemporary distinctions about what constitutes 'ψεῦδος' which can mean a (a) lie (b) an error or (c) a fiction. At that period, though the daughter of the voice, or bat kol was losing its prophetic audibility, rabbis still trained themselves to overhear it, and whatever was thought audible as they wrote according to their inner promptings, would not have been judged as a fiction or a fabrication but a real past revealed to them (as they mulled over what tradition or texts had survived in reconstructing the past. So it was most probably shorn of our moddern conceptions, and elaborated in good faith as 'true'.Nishidani (talk) 16:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm just a little surprised that the conclusion from this discussion seems to be that there is not enough modern scholarship for Wikipedia to declare in its own voice that the Exodus narrative is simply *NOT* history, as the concept is currently and commonly understood in the Western world. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 17:51, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

It isn't. Editors just need a set of prime sources stating that the is a consensus that Exodus is not history, full stop. We are, as usual, hampered by the limits of our editorial remit. And of course, as long as there are authoritative sources suggesting there may be an historical core, a number of editors, in lieu of evidence for a scholarly consensus stating the obvious, has elbow room to challenge any such summary formulation of the obvious.Nishidani (talk) 18:03, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Historical core is not the same as being history. As our article says, mythologized history fits best this story. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:16, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed.Nishidani (talk) 18:21, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

True, but the problem is that “historical core” and “mythologized history” are misleading. They imply to casual readers that The Exodus is history, but maybe altered a bit, which is not accurate. Which was was likely the intent of the people who originally created the term “mythologized history”. I can’t find the comment, but I read an old comment that I think was from Tgeorgescu explaining how the Bible was eventually treated with the same scrutiny as other religion’s books, and after religious scholars pushed back by spending decades looking for evidence for the Bibles myths and not finding any, the Bible stopped being treated as a history book. This is likely when the shift to “mythologized history” started, to preserve some use of the word “history” by connecting the event to any unrelated thing in history that has sounds somewhat similar.

Like people moving in and out of Egypt. Ie “despite the lack of any evidence scholars think a “group of Egyptian origin” (note not Jewish people) may have joined Israel ”

Or the non-Jewish, non-slave Hyskos ruling over Egypt. Then being kicked out, on “an exodus”. Not The Exodus.

Or the Canaanites, who were not slaves and not in Egypt. But “the memory was transferred to Egypt”. Sure and the entire story of The Exodus created out of thin air.

If this qualifies as the terms “mythologized history” or “historical core”, without having any real relation to “The Exodus” story, then why not the Sisyphus is mythologized history

or creationism as “mythologized science”?

These terms are misleading and unnecessary oversimplifications and imply history and science in the stories. Rather than clearly identifying that the Exodus is not history, but there are some completely unrelated stories with no Jewish people or slavery or not even in Egypt, which may be history. And of course, people moved in and out of Egypt like all countries.

Unfortunately it is still an issue because it depends on the sources and how they phrase things. And Nishidani explains the issue well, in that our hands our tied by the Wikipedia rules and the fact that if some scholars want it to sound gray in saying “historical core”, then some editors can push that, and we can’t state the obvious. That the Exodus is not history. The Canaanites and Hyskos stories are, but they have little to nothing to do with the Exodus. As the last paragraph states clearly that the recent trend among scholars is that the Exodus is an invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish communities with little to no historical basis. Although it is buried at the end of the history section, which is problematic considering how prominent the “historical core” is; its in the lede.

I am in favor of one of this instead:

”A myth with little to no historical basis”. This is a much more accurate picture of the truth than “historical core” which implies significantly more historical connection than is accurate. Bilto74811 (talk) 14:48, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Bilto74811, Unfortunately that's just your POV and we cannot include it. "Historical core" is the standard academic language. GordonGlottal (talk) 15:35, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

We already included it. I said the last paragraph states that the recent trend among scholars is that the Exodus is an invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish people, with little to no historical basis. The scholarly consensus is that it is a myth. I am just suggesting replacing "historical core" from that one source with the language in other sources because it is a much more accurate picture of the academic consesnsus.

One source wrote "historical core", so to say its "standard" is exaggerating. Bilto74811 (talk) 15:42, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Bilto74811, that's not true as you'll find if you read the sources. Moore/Kelle: "authentic core", Meyers: "historical core" and "core of reality". Grabbe: "historical core". Faust isn't writing his own POV, he analyzes a bibliography as "most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core;" see his sources as well. It's a standard academic term, and even those voices which disagree use it. It's important to understand that "myth" and "historical core" do not contradict each other: "Taking Exodus as a myth does not mean we are dealing with pure fiction without any historical core. Myths may very well be based on historical experiences. " (Assmann) GordonGlottal (talk) 17:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, and scholars also use the terminology that I am suggesting. Scholars use different terms when referring to this and all events. So that leaves us to choose which gives the most accurate picture of the academic consensus. The downside of choosing “historical core” is that it implies to casual readers that the core of The Exodus story itself is historical, rather than “some historical basis” which at least could apply to the completely unrelated events of the Hyskos and the Cananites. Or the “people moved in and out of Egypt”. “Some historical basis” makes it clear to casual readers that it could be “based” on something. Whereas “historical core” gives the false impression that the core of the story is history. In this case myth is referring to a fictional story. The Exodus story itself is not historical. Scholars give consideration, with actual evidence, to the Hyskos, the Canaanites, and the idea that “people moved in and out of Egypt”. This is not the central “core” of the story but some completely different event (see my first comment above) that “could be tied to it” if you really want to use the word “historical” in some way when referring to the myth.

Of the available choices to us that scholars use, we should go with the consensus that it is myth, which we already do. And we should go with the accurate descriptor that is the recent trend among scholars:

the recent trend among scholars is that the Exodus is an invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish people, with little to no historical basis

That’s why I favor: “A myth with little to no historical basis”

It is accurate, it is the recent trend among scholars, and it states clearly that there is a possible “historical basis”.

Bilto74811 (talk) 18:38, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I, for one, endorse all the arguments and suggestions brought up by Bilto74811 above. Thank you! warshy ^(¥¥) 20:20, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

You guys will have to cite sources if you want to get anywhere here. Note also that we refer to it as a myth in the opening line, and that we say some historical core. I'm never against rewording if an editor misunderstood -- the reader is always right on clarity -- but I don't think your language is a rewording, rather a minority POV. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:26, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

I got it from the article, the last paragraph, it is already sourced. Here are some more:

From Redmount (from the quote this section is about): "There is, in fact, remarkably little of proven or provable historical worth or reliability in the biblical Exodus narrative." Also, see the first paragraph of the historicity section where it says the same quote , “little of historical worth in the current biblical narrative” and lists sources

"Some" doesnt solve the inherent issues with "historical core" to the casual readers that I listed above. It is still worse than "little to no historical basis", which is the recent trend among scholars and accurately describes the fact that the exodus could be based on some historical event, no matter how disparate (see above). We use myth because that is the accurate terminology according to academic consensus. I would prefer "myth", but we could use "story" instead:

"the story of the Exodus has little to no historical basis"

Bilto74811 (talk) 22:33, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

your edit warring is not appreciated ermenrich. you cited my talk section below saying "per talk" given that noone challenged it for 5 days. I did the same for the discussion above because no one challenged it for 5 days and I say "per talk", same as you.

Do not edit war in the future. Take it to talk. Bilto74811 (talk) 16:05, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see wp:ONUS. Justify your edits on talk if they are reverted. And I challenged it now, as did GordenGlottal before. Not everyone wants to get caught in an endless ideological debate.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see the discussion above. If someone says per talk, that should be an indication to see talk. GordenGlottal asked for sources and then I provided them. I met their request. I met the ONUS with sources. Their was no conflict on talk. After meeting GordenGlottals request and with warshys support I made the edit. Your concern was "it wasnt agreed to", which it was per talk. And "Faust said so", that was adressed above. Any other questions? Bilto74811 (talk) 16:10, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

One person can't decide when wp:CONSENSUS is met. Yes silence is often a good indicator, but it is not always - if someone reverts your edit then that means they disagree and you need to reach consensus. As I said, this article is an exhausting battlefield and not everyone wants to chime in every time someone proposes basically the same arguments again and again. I'd suggest waiting longer.

someone has to. you had and have plenty of time to comment. no one "chimed in". its a new proposal and one GordonGlottal requested sources for, I did that on their request. Bilto74811 (talk) 16:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

And I see no problem with using "historical core". You have a POV you're trying to push, which is that the Exodus has no basis in fact, but this term is getting in your way. But this is the term that the sources use, and arguments that our readers won't understand it correctly don't strike me as relevant. Who's to say that you're understanding it correctly?--Ermenrich (talk) 16:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

That is false, and not what I am arguing at all. Again, I do not appreciate you putting words into my mouth and casting WP:ASPERSIONS about POV pushing. See WP:AGF

"core" is one of the terms the sources use. They also use "basis". So even if you dont like it, we have a choice to make. If you dont read the thread above that your commenting on how will we discuss it. I explained why its confusing to the casual readers. The core of the story is not what theyre referring to as "core" or "basis". See the link you gave me, where A. Parrot explained this to you:

"We have at least three hypotheses: a migration out of Egypt toward the end of the New Kingdom by a very small group who later became part of Israel (Faust and others); a much older folk memory of the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt at the beginning of the New Kingdom (Redford); and a folk memory of Egyptian rule in Canaan during the New Kingdom (Na'aman, with Bietak supporting a combination of this and the first hypothesis). Technically, all three of those count as "a historical basis"".

Its confusing to say the core is historical because it makes it sound like the core of the Exodus story is historical. The Exodus "core" story is not history. The only quesiton is what unrelated event (see directly above and much further above - ie "see talk") it is "based" on. Of the multiple terms the scholars use, the best choice is "basis". Youve provided no explanation otherwise, just saying "its what they say" (its only one of the terms used) or you cast aspersions about POV pushing

Bilto74811 (talk) 16:32, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. Historical core is not confusing: the core of the story is that a group of Israelites left Egypt and came to Canaan. That is what the majority says happened, see, again, Faust. What part of that do you think is misleading to our readers?

And considering you've spent the last three years editing this page under one sock or another always pushing these same changes, I think I have a pretty good idea of what you're after. That's not casting aspersions, that's reality.--Ermenrich (talk) 16:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I would advise thinking about the tone of your comments to other editors to avoid making every disagreement so contenious. Ever heard of ad hominem? its what you spend most of your time doing in these discussions, diverting from the topic to cast aspersions. Your assumptions about what Im trying to accomplish are false and further its unnecessary to constantly accuse me of POV pushing which is untrue and WP:DISRUPTIVE

I keep trying to make sourced edits because you (and only you) fight sourced edits at every opportunity.

The Canaanites, the proposal with clear evidence of actually happeneing, does not have a group leaving Egypt.

"Core" to causal readers sounds like the actual storys core, that a large group of Jewish slaves (note Faust does not say this) escaped Egypt to live in the desert and then conquest Canaan, kill the locals, take their land, and start Israel. None of this is true history. Not true for the Israelites, or for how Israel is founded.

Do you agree that "some historical basis" accurately describes that the Exodus could be "based" on some historical event? And that it leads to no chance of potential confusion? Bilto74811 (talk) 16:51, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

When I say "see Faust", I expect you to actually look at Faust, which is free and online before posting again. But since you clearly haven't, here's what he says: While there is a consensus among scholars that the Exodus did not take place in the manner described in the Bible, surprisingly most scholars agree that the narrative has a historical core, and that some of the highland settlers came, one way or another, from Egypt (cf. Bietak 2003;Gottwald 1979; Herrmann 1985: 48; Mazar 2001: 76; Na’aman 1994: 245; Stiebing 1989: 197–9; Friedman 1997: 82–83; Halpern 1992: 104, 107; Halpern 2003; Dever 1993: 31*; 1995: 211; Tubb 1998: 169; Williamson 1998: 149–150; Hoffmeier 1997; Weisman 1984: 15–16; Malamat 1997; Yurco 1997: 44–51; Machinist 1991: 210; 1994; Hendel 2001, 2002; Knohl 2008; see also Levy and Holl 2002; and see many contributions to this volume). In this, I am not referring to the various traditions of Israel’s interaction with Egypt resulting from the era of Egyptian control in Canaan or from some relations with the Hyksos, which found their way into the Bible (Russell2009; see also Hendel 2001; Knohl 2008; Na’aman 2011; more below), but to the possibility that there was a group which fled Egypt, and brought this story of Exodus with it. Though the size of this group is debated, most of the above scholars agree that it was in the range of a few thousands, or even hundreds (some give it more weight, e.g., Hoffmeier 1997). Still, despite the limited size of this group, it appears that during the process of Israel’s ethnogenesis its story became part of the common history of all the Israelites. That a group came from Canaan is exactly what he means by historical core, which you seem to be trying to deny.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Weve been discussing Faust and I quoted what Faust said, so if you read my comments, you can see your expectation was already met.

Did you read the quote from Faust you just copy/pasted? Faust says: "In this, I am not referring to the various traditions of Israel’s interaction with Egypt resulting from the era of Egyptian control in Canaan or from some relations with the Hyksos, which found their way into the Bible, but to the possibility that there was a group which fled Egypt

Faust is referring to the "possibility" of a group from Egypt. Faust explicitly says not the Canaanites or Hyskos. Contrary to what you just said "That a group came from Canaan is exactly what he means by historical core". This is not true. "core" is confusing to you as an editor, do you think it could cause confusion to the readers"

The Canaanites did not come from Egypt, contrary to what you just stated was the "core". you said: "the core of the story is that a group of Israelites left Egypt and came to Canaan". What Faust meant by "core" is confusing to you as an editor, so do you see the confusion for readers?

"some historical basis" causes no such potential confusion

As Ive been saying the word "core" is confusing to casual readers. I expect you to read my comments before responding to them. see where in the very last comment I write ""Core" to causal readers sounds like..."

This question from my last comment is what were discussing, the choice of which term to use "core" or "basis", so could you answer the question this time: Do you agree that "some historical basis" accurately describes that the Exodus could be "based" on some historical event? And that it leads to no chance of potential confusion? Bilto74811 (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

You're talking "possibility" out of context. He's referring to a majority of scholars supporting that possibility, not the other possibilities that have been mooted. Look at the whole quote. I no where said that "the Canaanites came to Egypt", you're arguing with a straw man, and obviously I meant "the group came from Egypt." Faust is quite clear that a majority of scholars believe that part of the Israelites came from Egypt "somehow," lists estimated numbers, etc. You're reading it to mean something it does not.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Well then thats your "typo" that you didnt fix, thats on you, not a strawman. Correct, the Canaanites did not come from Egypt. Faust says one of the possibilities is that some of the highland settlers came from Egypt, note: not slaves or Jewish people as I pointed out. And thats the point of this whole thread, what "core" refers to is confusing to the casual readers who will think that the actual storys core, that a large group of Jewish slaves (note Faust does not say this) escaped Egypt to live in the desert and then conquest Canaan, kill the locals, take their land, and start Israel. And as I pointed out none of that is history.

Ill ask the third time: the choice is which term to use "core" or "basis" - Do you agree that "some historical basis" accurately describes that the Exodus could be "based" on some historical event? And that it leads to no chance of potential confusion?

The question is in bold I dont know how you keep missing it. You got to read the comment youre replying to carefully. Bilto74811 (talk) 21:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

GordonGlottal The separate claim that the Bible "cannot meet modern canons of historical accuracy and reliability" is similarly distinct from containing "little that is accurate or reliable". thats literally what that quote means. the nature of the claims make evidence impossible in most cases, not that the Exodus account is known to be mostly inaccurate.. evidence is not "impossible" to find. its just that we have been searching exhaustively for centuries and not found any. see the Finklestein and Silberman quote, we've found evidence for much smaller groups longer back in history. the Exodus account is known to be mostly innacurate, see this very wiki page weve written for the sources. Bilto74811 (talk) 01:48, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I found a source that describes in detail the story from the old comment I referred to above in my first comment in this section, that I think was from Tgeorgescu, about the Bible and patriarchical period slowly losing their status as historical. It talks about the push for "biblical archaeology" to establish the historicity of the Bible and the resultant end the old consensus. It also mentions nomads moving in and out of Egpyt over thousands of years. I bring this up to give a source I found for the comment I was referencing, and because I may add some of this to the article. some quotes:

"Many documents do mention the custom of nomadic shepherds to enter Egypt during periods of drought and hunger and to camp at the edges of the Nile Delta. However, this was not a solitary phenomenon: such events occurred frequently across thousands of years and were hardly exceptional." "Most historians today agree that at best, the stay in Egypt and the exodous occurred in a few families and that their private story was expanded and "nationalized" to fit the needs of theological ideology." "there is no factual basis for the biblical story about the conquest by Israelite tribes in a military campaign led by Joshua." "The archaeological findings blatantly contradict the biblical picture" "This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai" "Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells" ​Bilto74811 (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2021

It is unnecessarily derogatory and presumptive to describe the Exodus as a myth. 174.228.4.233 (talk) 20:21, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:31, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 May 2021

The first sentence reads, "The Exodus (Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Yeẓi'at Miẓrayim: lit. 'Departure from Egypt') is the founding myth of the Israelites". This is wrong, it is not a myth it is a belief. Random2235 (talk) 16:21, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Run n Fly (talk) 16:22, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

The most accurate descriptor is mythologized history, see the article. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:27, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that since this same issue has come up twice in the last few weeks (se edit request above), something should be done about it. The first sentence does seem inappropriate as readers would be interested first in finding info about what the Exodus is when looking at this article. Not what scholars consider it to be today. I just rearranged the lead to reflect context before critique.Ramos1990 (talk) 04:55, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Ramos1990, The first sentence does seem inappropriate as readers would be interested first in finding info about what the Exodus is when looking at this article. Not what scholars consider it to be today. This is a distinction without a difference. What scholars consider it to be today is quite literally the best possible way to describe what it is, and we have reams of policies to support this, primarily WP:V: a core principle of this project.

I understand that some people may be offended by the term "myth" and may even consider it wrong on an intellectual level, but it is the proper term, and the objections are all sourced in ignorance of what a myth really is, and usually combined with ignorance about the textual and archeological evidence surrounding the Exodus is.

In other words, if you disagree with the use of the word, you would be better served by reading this article and Myth than you would arguing about it here. There's quite literally no room for interpretation. The Exodus is a myth in every sense, full stop. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:51, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I never disputed the word. I left it in the lead as that is what the source actually said [[7]]. I merely rearranged the sentences to fit the structure of the article. I moved it down in the lead to the paragraph where all the scholarly views are. So this has nothing to do with WP:V, I am afraid.Ramos1990 (talk) 15:58, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Ramos1990, This is edging awfully close to an admission of POV pushing, though I'm sure that wasn't your intent. You acknowledge that the word is proper and the best term, but deliberately made edits to minimize it? At best, this sort of thing falls under WP:NOTCENSORED, because the best argument for such an edit is to claim to be avoiding offending others, and that's not something we concern ourselves with here, because that unbalances WP:NPOV.

It really doesn't matter how many IPs show up to complain here: it's not a problem with the article, but a problem with the knowledge of those making complaints, a problem this article could very well help with, provided we don't waffle or cater to their offense. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:15, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I reverted your edit. I find it offensive that you changed sourced information than this is an origin myth just to appease "true believers". Dimadick (talk) 07:43, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I did not change the sourced information. I merely moved it down in the lead and generalized the sentence as it is only one source (Sparks) that says it is founding myth (I left that in and only moved it down see my edit [8] the "story" was left alone as that was originally there). The article is about the Exodus generally not just about what scholars think about it. The lead should first have what the exodus is, then it should be followed by the composition paragraph and then it should mention what scholars generally believe about it. Its just a rearrangement of the lead that would be needed since already you have some editors mentioning the same issue.Ramos1990 (talk) 08:18, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Rearrange the lead for consistent flow - simple fix should satisfy all parties

Hi,

Just piggy backing over the last two sections above. Seems prudent to raise the issue formally in a section here on talk. It seems that the issue of the first sentence has been brought up by two editors recently in two section on the talk and I think a simple rearranging of one paragraph in the lead and moving one sentence to the scholarly views paragraph in the lead would fix the issue so that everyone is happy. The lead does look a bit choppy at the moment.

The article explains the narrative - what the Exodus is - and also talks about the composition - how the narrative was recorded an passed down. It also talks about the cultural significance and the scholarly views.

I think the lead needs to have better flow: The "is the founding myth of the Israelites." sentence is a scholarly view and belongs in the paragraph on scholarly views where it says "The consensus of modern scholars is that..." It would make more sense there.

So the first paragraph would explain what the Exodus is about - the narrative, then the next paragraph - about the composition, then the significance paragraph, then then the scholarly views paragraph. I think this would be an easy issue to fix. It aligns better with the article structure too. Kind of how like the Encyclopedia Britannica has it structured [9]. What do you think? Ramos1990 (talk) 16:25, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

I think that the rearrangement would work as it would keep things consistent with the general structure of the article by section. And at the same time would not lose the current content. desmay (talk) 17:47, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the first paragraph should explain what the the Exodus is about. That is exactly what the current wording does - it explains that the Exodus is the founding myth of the Israelites. Moving that crucial fact elsewhere diminishes its impact, and may create the impression that the Exodus story is historical truth. Wdford (talk) 20:00, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Not sure I follow. The claim would remain in the lead in the scholars views paragraph. It not going away from the lead. But just establishing what the actual narrative is first before anything else. For more consistency with article structure.Ramos1990 (talk) 20:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree, except that the actual narrative actually is the founding myth of the Israelites. This key fact should thus remain in the opening sentence. Wdford (talk) 20:48, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

No, the exodus is a story that is told in the Bible. Whether it is historical or not is a secondary concern after addressing that fact, in my opinion, as is it’s cultural importance. I agree with the proposed rewording.—-Ermenrich (talk) 22:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

The Bibles, both the Hebrew one and the Greek one, are, in my view, largely a collection of religious myths. However, these two collections of religious myths have been also fundamental for the development of Western civilization. They have been in fact so fundamental, that they have been considered factual historical truth for most of the history of this Western civilization. Up to the so-called modern Enlightenment period (roughly from the second half of the 17th century and up to the great French Revolution of 1789), no one ever dared to even start to question the historical truth of these religious narratives or myths. Wikipedia tries to continue in the digital age the rationalistic traditions of the Encyclopedists of the Enlightenment period, who did question the historical truth of these myths. By the second half of the 20th century, Western thought and philosophy got close to almost completely denying there was any historical truth in them. These are the sources that open this article. However, this rationalistic turn of civilization never struck any deep roots in the popular minds of the countries in the Western world. The majority of the populations in these countries, including in the United States, are still fundamentally religious. They are still brought up to think that the Bible they read and study in their own native language is the absolute, final truth in the world. As such, by and large they are still definitely believed to contain the the factual historical truth of the ancient periods in which they were collected and put together. And so, the thin veneer of rationalism achieved by Western civilization by the second half of the 20th century is about to be wiped out by a new wave of religious fundamentalism. This current discussion here is just one of the harbingers of this new wave that is surging and is about to overwhelm Western civilization as we know it, I feel. warshy ^(¥¥) 23:14, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Melodramatic much? Wikipedia is not some battlefield in a dualistic, apocalyptic conflict between religion and rationality.

"Founding myth" does not mean that the story is not true. If this is why you want this to be in the first sentence, you've fundamentally misunderstood the meaning of myth in a scholarly context. No one is arguing we should say that the Exodus story happened as described in the Bible. But, as you're own apparent misunderstanding of the issue shows, stating "myth" in the very first sentence makes it sound like a made-up story without any factual basis. That is not the majority position of scholars, who believe that the Exodus includes garbled historical information. Sparks, who is being used for "founding myth", also calls it "mythologized history", after all. Wikipedia does not begin its article on, say, the Hegira by stating its "the founding myth of Islam" or the Resurrection of Jesus by stating its the "founding myth of Christianity" (and for the record, this last one is unlikely to have historically occurred). The rearrangement does not lose any information and actually defines what the exodus is rather than immediately interpreting what it is.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:58, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Wikipedia is not some battlefield in a dualistic, apocalyptic conflict between religion and rationality. There are a lot of POV pushers trying to bias our religious articles towards endorsement or denial of religious claims. Not sure where you've been, but I've seen this across a wide swathe of religious articles.

Also, you are correct: "Myth" does not imply that the story is not true, so the objections about the word making it sound as if we're implying it isn't are meritless; it doesn't actually make it sound untrue.

Oh, and the story as told is, in fact, not true, and that absolutely is the majority position of experts on this subject, so it absolutely is something we should be clear about in this article, so the objections to a word making it sound as if it were untrue are unfounded; that's a feature, not a bug.

Wikipedia does not begin its article on, say, the Hegira by stating its "the founding myth of Islam" or the Resurrection of Jesus by stating its the "founding myth of Christianity" (and for the record, this last one is unlikely to have historically occurred). We should start those articles that way. We don't because the !vote count in every RfC about doing so heavily favors the majority of Christians in the West, to the point where weighing arguments is pointless, because any close based on the merits of the arguments in favor of doing so is destined to be challenged ad nauseum. But our policies and guidelines 100% support us writing those articles that way.

Finally, I've a question which is not answered by anything in this section or the one above;

What, exactly, is The Exodus, if it is not the founding myth of Israel? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:12, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The Exodus is the biblical story about the Israelites leaving Egypt. Saying anything beyond that is an interpretation that doesn't belong in the first sentence of the article. After that, sure.

The majority position is that the Exodus has a historical core, not that is a made up story. This is amply documented in the article, but I can supply quotes if you want.

Objections to rewording the lead that accuse supporters of simply moving "founding myth" out of the first sentence are founded on seeing this article as a battlefield between religion and rationality, as I said. This is a convenient good vs. evil narrative, but it ignores what's actually going on in this case. No information is going to be lost, and "founding myth" is going to stay in the lead.

Now can we simply "rationally" discuss the actual proposal rather than framing it as a step toward the collapse into religious fanaticism?--Ermenrich (talk) 21:23, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Ermenrich, Saying anything beyond that is an interpretation that doesn't belong in the first sentence of the article. The notion that stating a well-accepted fact which is the consensus view of experts and is thoroughly documented in reams of reliable sources is "interpretation" sounds more like some of that POV pushing I just mentioned than a reasonable argument, so I think we'd both be better served by abandoning that line of argumentation and moving on to another topic with less adverse implications for the behavior of editors here.

The majority position is that the Exodus has a historical core, not that is a made up story. That is a distinction without a difference, unless and until you can demonstrate that this "historical core" bears some resemblance to the biblical narrative. I would note, before you set off to do so, that the majority position explicitly refutes that possibility.

Objections to rewording the lead that accuse supporters of simply moving "founding myth" out of the first sentence are founded on seeing this article as a battlefield between religion and rationality, as I said. My objections have nothing to do with that view, but with the illogic behind this complaint about the lede.

As for the proposal... I don't see any proposal. I see complaints about the use of the word "myth," with absolutely no replacement proposed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:34, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The Hegira did occur as an historical event. The Exodus and the Ressurrection certainly did not occur in history in a manner that could even remotely resemble the mythological, theological form they do have in the Biblical narrative. I may have over-emphasized the overall cultural implications of the debate that does go on daily on Wikipedia also. As for changing the article, I am with MPants. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 21:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Warshy, You are correct about the Hegira. I got it confused with the Isra and Mi'raj. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:31, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Why would the Resurrection be relevant here? Jesus' biography is full of mythical material (miracles, encounters with angels and demons, etc), as it derives from unreliable sources. That has nothing to do with the historicity of the Old Testament, but only with the lack of plausibility in the New Testament's myths. 06:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)06:40, 2 June 2021 (UTC)~~

Like others have already mentioned, I think the proposed rearranging is an improvement and simple thing to do. The structure does look a bit odd right now. It would make the lead less bumpy without losing the essence.216.2.69.77 (talk) 20:08, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

From what I have read so far, the "historical core" is actually merely a suggestion that a small number of Egyptians may have crossed the desert into Canaan at some point, and retained (and communicated) their experiences. This is not even remotely like the Exodus story of the Bible, which has literally millions of people rampaging around with a magic box behind a pillar of fire, eating magic food that falls from Heaven, slaughtering cities and tribes but leaving zero archeological traces of their passing. We should therefore be very clear in the first sentence that this particular Bible story is not even vaguely historical. If anything, the true extent of the assumed "historical basis" needs to be further clarified. Wdford (talk) 22:24, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

People also argue about the "historical core" of the Illiad, that does not mean it does not contain myths. See Historicity of the Homeric epics: "Others accept that there may be a foundation of historical events in the Homeric narrative, but say that in the absence of independent evidence it is not possible to separate fact from myth." 06:48, 2 June 2021 (UTC)Dimadick (talk)

I should point out that I've read serious scholars discussing a historical core of Beowulf, and Michael Crichton can back me up on this. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Since Troy was "discovered" at Hisarlik 150 years ago, the stories of the Iliad clearly have some sort of "historical basis". However the specific characters in the stories may not all be real historical figures, and it is highly unlikely that the gods Apollo, Hermes, Poseidon etc really were active participants as described. Therefore should we say that the story of the Iliad is historical, or mythical? The context of the Beowulf story is valid, but did an actual Beowulf character exist, and did he really contend with dragons? "Historical basis", perhaps, but probably mostly mythical? The context of the King Arthur story is valid, but did an actual Arthur character exist, or was that story essentially mythical? Ditto Robin Hood? Scholars seem to agree that a person named Jesus of Nazareth did exist in history in the right area at the right time, but that the supernatural details of this story (i.e. everything that was not about a human Jewish teacher who confronted the Romans) is not historically accurate. And the Exodus story? No evidence inside Egypt, no evidence in the desert, and no evidence in Canaan either. A probability that some Egyptians journeyed to Canaan, as many people journeyed from Canaan to Egypt as well, but hardly supportive of the Bible stories. The extent of this "historical basis" needs to be clarified, and the lead should clearly describe the Exodus story as presented in the Bible as a myth. There is nothing "bumpy" about the current wording. Wdford (talk) 16:23, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 August 2021

In the beginning of the "Development and Final Composition" section, the claim is made that Isaiah shows no knowledge of the Exodus. I suggest this be modified to "the southern prophet Isaiah also demonstrates an awareness of the Exodus tradition." This is in light of Isaiah 11:15 - 16, which reads (JPS 1985 translation):

The LORD will dry up the tongue of the Egyptian sea.—He will raise His hand over the Euphrates with the might of His wind and break it into seven wadis, so that it can be trodden dry-shod. Thus there shall be a highway for the other part of His people out of Assyria, such as there was for Israel when it left the land of Egypt.

This appears to be a reference to the crossing of the Red Sea, which is explicitly associated (as in the actual account on the Book of Exodus) with the Israelites leaving Egypt - in other words, what should be a textbook definition for a reference to the Exodus.

Again, this is not Deutero-Isaiah, this is the first half of Isaiah, in which the burden of proof to demonstrate that the passage is not part of the original falls decisively on the shoulders of any would-be excisor. Bemused7 (talk) 05:24, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

please provide a reliable secondary source for your claims. The claims about Isaiah are currently sourced reliably.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:05, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Adding to the above, per WP-philosophy, we as editors don't draw conclusions from Bible-text ourselves, but if scholarly sources do so, we can use those sources. See WP:RSPSCRIPTURE. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: Per the responses of Ermenrich and Gråbergs Gråa Sång, this request is closed as not done. Bemused7, due to the apparent high traffic that this article receives from editors, I would advise attaining consensus before wishing to alter the content of this article. Cheers! —Sirdog (talk) 15:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I understand the need for secondary sources, and readily confess my ignorance of both the secondary literature on the Isaiah reference I've provided and the reference to Lemche given in the article (I have been unable to access it). Still, as it stands the article seems to be making an untenable claim. If Lemche addresses it in the citation you've provided, I'd welcome the Wikipedia article placing a link to the referenced verses in Isaiah and giving the explanation for why it isn't conclusive - as it does, responsibly, with the Micah reference in the same paragraph. But as it stands the certainty of the claim should at least be modified, and a link to the text provided Bemused7 (talk) 18:30, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

tgeorgescu, the article says "Isaiah and Micah show no knowledge of an exodus", but Lemche p325 [10] seems to clearly say that there's Exodus-stuff in Isaiah, am I reading it wrong? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:00, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

There are actually three or more authors of the Book of Isaiah. So, it depends upon which of them we speak. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:03, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Hm, Deutero-Isaiah, it seems. Maybe that doesn't count. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:07, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I believe the distinction is Isaiah and Deutero-Isaiah and Bemused7 is saying that the verse he has quoted is not Deuter-Isaiah - but we need a source to that effect before we can make any change.—Ermenrich (talk) 20:20, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

It’s also worth checking what Lemche actually says - I left that sentence in from an earlier draft when I expanded that section, but there have been some partisan efforts on this page in the past to make the exodus tradition seem very recent, so it’s possible he’s being misquoted.—Ermenrich (talk) 20:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

On page 314, Lemche actually refers to the passage of Isaiah that Bemused7 cites, but he says "there is general agreement that both Isa 10:23–26 and 11:15–16 are late and inauthentic; they may even be of postexilic date." A. Parrot (talk) 20:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Yep, good find. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:36, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Interesting... Is the Isaiah passage somehow less credible than the Micah passage? Bemused7 (talk) 23:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Lemche doesn't seem to specify the reasoning, though he has a footnote at the end of the sentence I quoted, referring to "Wildberger 1972:418f. and 466f., and Kaiser 1963:119 and 131ff". The preview doesn't allow me to really see the bibliography, though from a snippet I can gather that Wildberger 1972 is the first volume of a commentary on Isaiah (Jesaja) by Hans Wildberger. A. Parrot (talk) 23:57, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

"partisan efforts on this page in the past to make the exodus tradition seem very recent" Define recent. The sources on the article about the Book of Exodus state that the original composition of the book dates as early as the 6th century BCE. Off-Wiki, I have read Israel Finkelstein's theories that the core of the Deuteronomistic history dates back to religious reforms of the 7th century BCE, and the Deuteromist certainly bases his narrative on knowledge of the Exodus. This at least suggests that a version of the Exodus narrative may have circulated before the foundation of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Exodus narrative in its familiar form mentions Pi-Ramesses, a city that was largely abandoned in the 11th century BCE. Which suggests at least some familiarity with the city's importance for the New Kingdom of Egypt. Dimadick (talk) 18:54, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

I mean efforts to make the article say that the Exodus was not or was barely a tradition prior to the composition date of the Torah/Pentateuch. There are indeed some scholars who say that, but as we now (thankfully) document, they are not in the majority. No one denies that the version found in the Book of Exodus etc. is based heavily on the realities of the time of composition.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:05, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 October 2021

"God" not "god" 190.4.142.157 (talk) 01:56, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Unclear where in the article you’re referring to. In any case, god is only capitalized if used as a proper name.—Ermenrich (talk) 02:00, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Deborah and Miriam

the article is forgetting the Song of Deborah and the Song of Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21), which several (I think most) scholars date to the 12th century, both of which mention the crossing of the Red Sea. Tuxzos22 (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Sources?--Ermenrich (talk) 20:37, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Semitic people in Egypt

this source says this on page 112. There is no doubt that there was a significant Semitic population throughout Egypt during the New Kingdom. I don’t see this being mentioned on this article.CycoMa (talk) 03:25, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Hoffmeier is an extreme maximalist, so he cannot be trusted about the Ancient history of Israel.

See http://www.umich.edu/~proflame/neh/arch.htm : in times of droughts and famines Canaanites/Israelites flew to Egypt. As Herzog says, this was nothing extraordinary and it happened for many millennia, century after century. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:30, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I honestly don’t research all that much on this topic in general. So thanks for that, just trying to help Wikipedia out.CycoMa (talk) 03:33, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

tgeorgescu wait a minute didn’t you say something about the CHOPSY test. The book I presented is from Oxford, which is one of those schools you talk about. Question what school is the source you present from?

Also the source I presented said there were Semitic people in Egypt not there were Israelites there.CycoMa (talk) 03:39, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Also what is wrong with the source in general? I looked at the guys Wikipedia and I don’t see any mention of him being considered fringe.CycoMa (talk) 03:48, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Also I didn’t read the whole source.CycoMa (talk) 03:57, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

What do you think about this source? I’m asking because I don’t know anything about this topic. I’m merely just trying to help Wikipedia.CycoMa (talk) 04:20, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Who the heck got to decide if it was a myth or not?! the first sentance says "origin myth". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Personthehuman2 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@CycoMa: AFAIK Collins is legit. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:08, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

At [11] there is a report upon Hoffmeier's speech during the 'Archeology and the Bible' conference at University of Liverpool, stating that Hoffmeier (among other speakers) tried to show that the scholarly consensus upon the historicity of the Exodus must be false. Well, that's and oblique way of admitting that there is a scholarly consensus and that Hoffmeier disagrees with the scholarly consensus. Q.e.d. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

A year before that, Kitchen was there, arguing that the scholarly consensus must be false. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Quoting myself. Link is archived at [12]. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:20, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

tgeorgescu the link you presented doesn’t work so I’m not sure I can trust you on this. Also I honestly don’t understand why you like to quote yourself or other users. It doesn’t make your claims appear reliable.CycoMa (talk) 06:40, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

@CycoMa: Click on the link above (number 5 now). tgeorgescu (talk) 07:49, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Both the Hyksos and the escape of Semitic slaves are already mentioned in the article. So actually this information is already there, just not stated as provocatively as by the maximalist Hoffmeier.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:32, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

How is Hoffmeier an "extreme" maximalist? If he is so extreme, why has Oxford University Press published his works, twice!?! Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jhanna82 (talk • contribs) 18:38, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Because his specialism is not mainstream Bible scholarship: he is an extreme maximalist in regard to mainstream Bible scholarship, but, again, that's not his specialism. He is a reputed Egyptologist, but not a mainstream Bible scholar. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:49, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Clester07.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:02, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 January 2022

Good afternoon, I noticed some grammar errors and an objective phrase could be changed from this,

Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories.[5] The Book of Exodus itself attempts to ground the event firmly in history, dating the exodus to the 2666th year after creation (Exodus 12:40-41), the construction of the tabernacle to year 2667 (Exodus 40:1-2, 17), stating that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41), and including place names such as Goshen (Gen. 46:28), Pithom and Ramesses (Exod. 1:11), as well as stating that 600,000 Israelite men were involved (Exodus 12:37).[30] The Book of Numbers further states that the number of Israelites in the desert during the wandering were 603,550, including 22,273 first-borns, which modern estimates put at 2.5-3 million total Israelites, a clearly fanciful number that could never have been supported by the Sinai Desert.[31]

To this,

Mainstream scholarship no longer accepts the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most scholars agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories.[5] The Book of Exodus itself attempts to ground the event firmly in history, dating the exodus to the 2666th year after creation (Exodus 12:40-41), the construction of the tabernacle to the year 2667 (Exodus 40:1-2, 17), stating that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41), and including place names such as Goshen (Gen. 46:28), Pithom and Ramesses (Exod. 1:11), as well as stating that 600,000 Israelite men were involved (Exodus 12:37).[30] The Book of Numbers further states that the number of Israelites in the desert during the wandering was 603,550, including 22,273 first-borns, which modern estimates put at 2.5-3 million total Israelites.[31]

The bold format is for emphasis on the grammatical errors, (you may reestablish the format), and the objective phrase “a clearly fanciful number that could never have been supported by the Sinai Desert,” which was deleted.

Thank you very much for your time and attention. Enzo Triaoc Ma'Raja (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

The phrase "a clearly fanciful number that could never have been supported by the Sinai Desert" is an objective fact (perhaps you meant subjective?). There's no way that many people could live there. It's sourced as well, and removing it would remove the reason for including the number of Israelites (you seem to have missed the point of the sentence). You can suggest rewording it, but it should not be removed. No comment on the other proposed changes.--Ermenrich (talk) 20:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

No name to the God who called Moses

49.207.198.226 (talk) 02:56, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I see several contents to have controversial claims, being a social media page where people are exposed to these contents in a wrong way, I'm a little concerned about the content. One such content is When God called Moses from the burning bush, he did not have any name, he said "I am the I am" Moses went from Mount Horeb knowing a God whose name was "I am the I am" why then it was written "Yahweh" which was later developed by the biblical scholars by adding vowels to it.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Founding Myth

A founding myth? Really? Like how it was Columbus who 'discovered' America ? 212.129.86.188 (talk) 17:48, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

As the divine Pterry noted, just living there doesn't count. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2022

The statement "a clearly fanciful number that could never have been supported by the Sinai Desert," should be deleted because this comment is very biased and goes directly against the evidence the source gives. Marietin (talk) 05:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Source:[13]. Afaict, WP reflects the source (p18-19), apart from the 22,273 first-borns which don't seem to be mentioned there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:45, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 09:34, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

'modern scholars'

Should perhaps be worded as 'contemporary scholars' 71.64.116.11 (talk) 00:10, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that:

• The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive;

• The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;

— Beardsley Ruml, Shaye J.D. Cohen's Lecture Notes: INTRO TO THE HEBREW BIBLE @ Harvard (BAS website) (78 pages)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 00:47, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

And would you consider any of the experts listed in this work [1] as "modern bible scholars"? Potatín5 (talk) 16:37, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: Tell me, do you regard James K. Hoffmeier, Allan R. Millard, Gary A. Rendsburg, Richard C. Steiner and many other more as "modern Bible scholars"? I want to know your answer. Potatín5 (talk) 17:22, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: Your unwritten assertion is that the deck is stacked. True. But I didn't stack the deck. At Wikipedia the deck is stacked against fringe theories. It is not our job to relitigate the mainstream academic view. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: The mainstream academic view is that the Exodus narrative is essentially legendary while it is likely that it an historical core. Outside of this mainstream view, there are some minimalists scholars who do not regard the Exodus narrative to have any historical core and some maximalist scholars who support at least the basic historicity of the biblical account. Since the Wikipedia article has no problem in including the opinion of minimalist authors when discussing the historicity of the Exodus, I don't think there should be any problem with including a reference to maximalist views on the subject. Potatín5 (talk) 18:44, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I'd say that anyone wishing to start a debate on these issues should first get well acquainted with the at least the following basic WP pages: Historicity of the Bible, Biblical maximalism, and Biblical minimalism, and with all the main reliable sources used there. That were the current debate should start, in my view. Once these three pages are consolidated at a certain level, the debate can then spread to other cognate areas, such as this one. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are different types of "mainstream", though. On Wikipedia, there are effectively three ways to approach an issue:

• One is when the scholarly consensus is overwhelming, and any opposing views are worth discussing as views that were historically widely held or have significant impact outside the academic sphere. E.g., Wikipedia gives no support to the belief that the primeval history in Genesis is true, and the belief to the contrary is treated as a fringe theory worth discussing only because of its religious and political impact, as in the debate over whether public schools should teach evolution. A less extreme example, and one more relevant to this page, is the belief that the Exodus really did take place 400 years before the Temple in Jerusalem was built, which would put it around the time Canaan was being conquered by Egypt. It's clearly nonsense, and only literalists like Bryant Wood adhere to it.
• Another is when there are effectively two (or more) mainstream views that have similar standing in the scholarly community, so Wikipedia gives them roughly equal weight. E.g., as discussed many times on this page, some scholars believe there may have been a small group of Semitic peoples migrating out of Egypt who became part of the "mixed multitude" that formed Israel, and this kernel of truth got passed down through the generations and vastly magnified into the Exodus story. Other scholars believe that it's not necessary to posit such a group in order to explain how the Exodus story originated. These hypotheses, as far as I can tell, have similar weight in academia and thus in this article.
• The third is where there is one mainstream view (or more), and another view that a minority of scholars adhere to. In such circumstances, Wikipedia's job is to mention this position and clearly indicate that it is a minority viewpoint. I increasingly think that Hoffmeier, Rendsburg, et al. belong in this category. I haven't yet read the book that Potatín5 mentions, but I doubt I would find its arguments personally convincing; but I don't think its contributors are in the same league as Wood. (Hoffmeier actually criticized Wood's arguments for a 400-years-before-Solomon date, if I remember correctly.) A. Parrot (talk) 18:32, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Would you agree A. Parrot, that the literalist/maximalist position is usually a religious theological/ideological position, and should therefore be handled carefully as such? Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 18:54, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I would. A. Parrot (talk) 19:13, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Let me try to preempt for a moment the contrary argument, that the minimalist position is also an ideological position stemming mostly from atheism. I'd say it stems from a philosophical position that is based on Logic and Reason, and which believes that intellectual discourse in general, and historical discourse in particular, should be logic, rational, and completely free of religious dogma. Thank you, warshy ^(¥¥) 19:27, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Philip R. Davies was an outspoken atheist and sympathetic with the Christ myth theory, which is rejected by virtually almost all scholars in the field of New Testament studies (as acknowledged by Wikipedia itself). If that is what you call "a philosophical position that is based on Logic and Reason", then there is no need to say more... Potatín5 (talk) 19:40, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Spreading organized skepticism all over the field was the reasonable thing to do, even if in the end Davies will be proven wrong. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:49, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Biblical minimalism is basically a philosophical position that is currently mostly used in the field of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. But it is starting to slowly expand into the field of the Greek Bible too, so there will be a lot more to say about all this in the coming years, I hope. warshy ^(¥¥) 19:46, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Taking into account that rejection of Biblical minimalism in Hebrew Bible scholarship has been on the rise, specially since Dever published his work Beyond the texts (which contains a strong criticism against it [1]), I would doubt whether minimalism will ever become a mainstream view in New Testament studies. Ultimately, time will show what will happen. Potatín5 (talk) 20:07, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Of course, we are forgetting that Biblical minimalism is just the latest development, at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, of Biblical criticism. The term best employed for the New Testament was Rudolf Bultmann's Demythologization. What is needed now is a combination of Biblical minimalism and Hermeneutics with a healthy demythologizing approach to the overall field of Historicity of the Bible. But we'll see. In the meantime, at least Wikipedia is still here. warshy ^(¥¥) 20:18, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Some WP:RS/AC-compliant claims:

Grabbe, Lester L. (23 February 2017). Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?: Revised Edition. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-567-67044-1. The impression one has now is that the debate has settled down. Although they do not seem to admit it, the minimalists have triumphed in many ways. That is, most scholars reject the historicity of the 'patriarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and are cautious about the early monarchy. The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account. On the other hand, there is not the widespread rejection of the biblical text as a historical source that one finds among the main minimalists. There are few, if any, maximalists (defined as those who accept the biblical text unless it can be absolutely disproved) in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes.

At [14] there is a report upon Hoffmeier's speech during the 'Archeology and the Bible' conference at University of Liverpool, stating that Hoffmeier (among other speakers) tried to show that the scholarly consensus upon the historicity of the Exodus must be false. Well, that's and oblique way of admitting that there is a scholarly consensus and that Hoffmeier disagrees with the scholarly consensus. Q.e.d. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

A year before that, Kitchen was there, arguing that the scholarly consensus must be false. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

https://web.archive.org/web/20160722024905/https://www.thesphinx.co.uk/2013/05/archaeology-and-the-bible-at-liverpool/

What's better than one Harvard professor? Two Harvard professors. Watch them both at https://player.vimeo.com/video/76323651 .

"Kenneth Kitchen, one of our greatest current Archaeologists" Kenneth Kitchen is not remotely reliable when it comes to Biblical history. The man has a serious bias: "Kitchen is an evangelical Christian, and has published frequently defending the historicity of the Old Testament. He is an outspoken critic of the documentary hypothesis, publishing various articles and books upholding his viewpoint, arguing from several kinds of evidence for his views showing that the depictions in the Bible of various historical eras and societies are consistent with historical data." In other words, Wikipedia:Fringe theories applies. In general evangelical pseudo-scholars should be distinguished from reliable, secular sources. Dimadick (talk) 13:01, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

I think Kitchen comes up so often in these sorts of discussions because he's a serious, credible scholar on Egypt but super-maximalist on ancient Israel and the Bible. It's like a trained rocket scientist opposing evolution -- the rhetorical gambit used is to transfer credibility from one field onto another one. That and his avoidance of full-blown Young-Earth-Creationism can create an impression that his works on the Bible are somehow mainstream. Alephb (talk) 19:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, the IP seems to think that the historical method is the most pestilential doctrine ever vomited out of the jaws of hell. Sorry, we cannot turn back the clock several centuries! Hoffmeier and Kitchen don't say "the Exodus has been proven true", but "it has not been proven false". Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:19, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

True; I misspoke. There is no evidence proving the Exodus true, so "It has not been proven false" is all they can say while retaining any scholarly credibility. A. Parrot (talk) 19:54, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Note that Grabbe was applauded for remaining neutral in the quarrel between minimalists and maximalists, see https://www.jstor.org/stable/23970868 .

And, to answer the charge: neither Davies nor Dever have produced the much wanted smoking gun for the claims, the difference being that Davies demanded evidence, while Dever seeks to dodge Davies's demands. Dever considers that once upon a time there was enough evidence, but then there came the minimalists and Finkelstein, who have ruined its claims to truth. For all I know, what Dever claims about the United Monarchy could be true, but he does not have evidence to back that up, and that is a big problem. In science and scholarship, the side which demands to see the smoking gun and the side which fails to show the smoking gun aren't equal. Science and scholarship have their decks stacked against the gullible. Unless there is evidence, skeptics win the game by default. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:30, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: No, Kenneth Kitchen and Hoffmeier are not the only scholars who believe in a historical Exodus, and their arguments are not limited to say "it has not been proven false"; if you study carefully their works, you will note that they truly attempt to provide evidence to argue that the Exodus narrative, while not directly corroborated (something which is reasonably explainable in light of circunstancial evidences), is likely to be true due to other kinds of evidence.

And regarding Dever I tell you the same: He does actually provide evidence for the United Monarchy of David and Solomon. Concretely, the main evidences are the Tel Dan Stele (corroborating the existence of David and his dynasty) and the existence of several urbanized settlements in the Palestinian region during the 10th century BC, which supports the existence of an Estate at that time. That is evidence, and minimalists' refusal to recognize it is not Dever's fault. Potatín5 (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: If there were clear-cut evidence about either, we wouldn't have this discussion. There would be the mainstream academic view and the denialist fringe.

Greenberg, Moshe; Sperling, S. David (2007). "Exodus, Book of.". In Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael; Thomson Gale (Firm) (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 6 (2nd ed.). pp. 612–623. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4. OCLC 123527471. Retrieved 29 November 2019. Current scholarly consensus based on archaeology holds the enslavement and exodus traditions to be unhistorical.

This is from a Jewish conservative encyclopedia. Even they realized what the mainstream academic view is. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:22, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

The same encyclopedia states in his entry on the Pentateuch:"There is, however, a great deal of circumstantial evidence from Egyptian textual and archaeological sources in support of parts of the biblical narrative. The Bible itself also yields historical memories and other clues to the veracity of the basic Exodus story." You seem to have omitted that part. Potatín5 (talk) 22:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: It is not such huge claim as you might think. "Parts" and "memories" could mean little.

In an opposing view, Reform Rabbi Steven Leder of Wilshire Boulevard Temple argued that “defending a rabbi in the 21st century for saying the Exodus story isn’t factual is like defending him for saying the earth isn’t flat. It’s neither new nor shocking to most of us that the earth is round or that the Torah isn’t a history book dictated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.”

Quoted from Tugend, Tom (2001-04-26). "Furor over L.A. rabbi's reading of Exodus". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 2021-04-19.

The strong consensus is that there is at best sparse indirect evidence for plausibility of these biblical episodes, and for the conquest there is considerable evidence against the biblical description.

— Peter Enns, 3 Things I Would Like to See Evangelical Leaders Stop Saying about Biblical Scholarship

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 22:49, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: In the end, all these discussions with you have become tedious. Either WP:CITE WP:RS or beat it. We will say what Dever stated, but we won't say it as WP:THETRUTH. Propose concrete changes to our articles or beat it. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:32, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: The only concrete change I would propose is that suggested by A. Parrot: That it should be refered in the article that, while most scholars regard the Exodus account as essentially legendary, a minority of scholars (like those I listed at the beginning of our discussion) argue on the basis of several combined circunstantial evidences that the Exodus event did likely happen. Potatín5 (talk) 22:53, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Potatín5: In general, Wikipedia has little sympathy for the side which has lost the academic dispute. But in this case I will wait for what A. Parrot has to say. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:04, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I think it's worth having a sentence about it, though probably nothing more extensive. A. Parrot (talk) 01:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

And to give you an image about Dever's stance: Ursa Major has seven apparently big stars. People tell you that represents a bear. But that's just projecting an image upon a geometrical configuration consisting of seven points. Dever projects his take upon the United Monarchy upon the scarce archaeological data. The data are insufficient to say if he is right or wrong, and there is a strong case for skepticism. Even if we take for granted his identifications of those ruins (while many mainstream Israeli archaeologists don't), he is still far from having evidence for a glorious United Monarchy. If the Tel Dan Stele says anything, is that hundred years after David all Judahite kings got stomped upon by a small Aramean king. So, obviously, the Judahite monarchy did not mean much.

The author admits that Jerusalem in those days was too small to be a regional force. The author also admits that the total population of all of Judah and Benjamin in the Iron IIA period would have been at most about 20,000 people, and that this horde "provides a sufficient demographic basis for an Israelite state in the 10th century BCE." At least half of those people would have been women, and at least half would have been children, so even if every able bodied man and boy able to wave a stick were drafted, the army would have been maximum 5000 strong. Hardly the regional super-power of the Bible stories.
— User:Wdford

Wdford writing about a paper by Amihai Mazar. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:30, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Exodus: Myth or Fact?

Needs to be addressed first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Absolutely Certainly (talk • contribs) 01:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Myth or factAbsolutely Certainly (talk) 01:19, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Myth. There is nothing factual about this narrative. Dimadick (talk) 04:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

References to The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS)

Any reference to the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (JHS) should be removed. Their peer review policy is appallingJHS peer review policy. The JHS decides which manuscripts they receive gets peer reviewed. Only two peers are necessary for their process. Absolutely Certainly (talk) 01:45, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Double Blind peer review is pretty standard - not sure what you’re complaining about. No journals editor sends everything to peer review.—Ermenrich (talk) 12:41, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Founding myth

'Founding Myth' makes it sound like you want the reader to look at it as though it isn't true. Could it be changed to founding story or something like that? 71.213.36.183 (talk) 02:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

"Founding myth" is the proper term for such stories, which is evidence by the fact that it's a blue-link.

Furthermore, it is far more likely than not that the Exodus myth is not, in fact, true, as there is extensive archeological evidence that the Hebrew people arose more-or-less peacefully from the existing Canaanite population of the region, rather than being a population of escaped slaves from Egypt who conquered Canaan. There is, to my knowledge, no archeological evidence whatsoever that the Exodus myth is completely accurate. Happy (Slap me) 12:20, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

"no archeological evidence whatsoever that the Exodus myth is completely accurate" Or that Moses existed. Jewish mythology is not history, and can tell us very little about the Bronze Age. Dimadick (talk) 11:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Archeologically, there are so many holes in the story that it shatters any doubt the whole tale is patent nonsense. No independent verification by the Egyptians of any of the events of the story, no mention of the characters in Egypt, no burial chambers of the multitude of afterlife-obsessed Egyptians who supposedly died. The people of Israel were never even in Egypt to begin with; they were enslaved in Babylon, and Egyptian and Babylonian records have been found that both verify that fact (the story setting was fictionalized to get crap past the Babylonian censors). Then this fictional story was plagiarized and incorporated into the early Torah. So yes, while it makes great movie adaptations, "myth" is absolutely the correct and only term that appropriate for the Exodus story. --Terminator484 (talk) 06:11, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The modern scholarship section is repetitive

The section mentions that the exodus is viewed as a founding myth twice. The section also mentions twice that it has some historical basis.CycoMa1 (talk) 18:04, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

You're ignoring the fact that the section is divided into subsections. The first section is a summary of the main points, followed by more in-depth discussions.--Ermenrich (talk) 18:40, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Changing the meaning

@Brevitate: In respect to with no suggestion that early Israel comprised a group of foreigners from Egypt: I think no scholar worth his salt is claiming something like that. All scholars accept that at some point of early Israel a few slaves who escaped from Egypt joined the early Israelites, so there is no controversy about that. But they deny that more than two million people who escaped from Egypt have occupied Canaan in a blitzkrieg.

E.g. according to Shaye J. D. Cohen, "Most Israelites were actually of Canaanite stock; their ancestors did not participate in an Exodus from Egypt; Israelites did not build the pyramids!!!" tgeorgescu (talk) 02:55, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

The narrative of Israelite conquest depends on the Book of Joshua, which contradicts the historical and archaeological record in its depictions. That is not the problem of the Exodus narrative. My late grandfather used to read the Exodus narrative to laugh out loud and point out that the numbers were made-up and ridiculous. I would assume that the average grade-schooler can do math and realize that there was no way that the Israelite horde numbered in the millions. Dimadick (talk) 18:55, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Merger

I may have missed this discussion in the past, but why do we have separate articles for The Exodus and Book of Exodus? The Exodus only exists in the Bible, not in real history, so what is actually the difference? Should we not merge them? Wdford (talk) 16:46, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, although I don't have time to find it. The arguments against are, as I remember:

1. The Exodus "event" takes place over more than just the Book of Exodus. If you look at the article over there, you'll see it includes events from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy;
2. The article "The Exodus" is where the potential historicity of the Exodus as described in the Bible is discussed. It's not so simple as saying "The Exodus only exists in the Bible" - many scholars believe there are real-world origins, in the same way that a historical Trojan War may have inspired the Iliad;
3. Whether it occurred or not, the importance of the Exodus is not the same as the impact of the Book of Exodus - the Exodus is referenced elsewhere in the Bible, sometimes in ways that contradict the Book of Exodus.--Ermenrich (talk) 17:06, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

In addition, it's very common to have articles on biblical events separate from articles on the biblical books that describe them. The Exodus is arguably the pivotal event of the entire Hebrew Bible—other biblical books often treat it as the ultimate symbol of the Abrahamic deity's relationship with his chosen people—so it would be strange not to have a separate article for it, when lesser biblical events do have articles of their own. A. Parrot (talk) 17:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Here is one previous discussion: Talk:Book_of_Exodus/Archive_2#Merger_proposal. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, understood. Wdford (talk) 08:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)