History and Literature Not Theology
I'm just letting you know ahead of time that if you continue the debate in a theological manner not to even bother trying to debate with me. I'm not trying to sound like a jerk here, but the facts, concepts, and theories I talk about are from a modern historical and literature point of view. The material that I cover is what is taught in every major university in the world for modern scholarship. If you're going to debate in theology please do it with another person who is talking about theology. I'm talking in a historical point of view, and I really don't want to start a heated debate when we're not even discussing from the same viewpoint.
Kaminari said:
The head of the Red Sea at Baal Zephon is three days forced march from the nearest possible location of Marah. The nearest reed sea on the other hand was close to a week's forced march away. (A reed sea is a sea of reeds - sort of a marshy topography) Given that the Biblical record shows it took 3 days for the Israelites to get from the point of crossing to Marah, the concept that they crossed a reed sea is not tenable.
Biblical record shows that "the entire army despatched by Pharaoh to give chase was drowned (not stabbed to death):" it does not show that the entire Egyptian army was drowned.
First, there were only a few tribes out of the 12 that settled in Egypt. They did this every year because Egypt was a breadbasket with food. The floods from the Nile River made this possible. The Hyksos were in control of the government during that time. The few tribes that settled into Egypt every winter were in the good graces of the Hyksos. You see the Hyksos did not trust the Egyptians for governmental power, and the Egyptians were not really that concerned about political power to begin with. Therefore, the Hyksos would let Hebrews run the government from time to time because they were trusted. It was not until Ramses II took power, and drove out the Hyksos that the few thousand Hebrews were taken into slavery.
The Egyptians did this because the Hebrews were mooching off their land, and it made a very quick profit with slavery. To prove that there were only a few thousand how many midwives were there that killed off the first-born sons? There were only two. It would be impossible to kill off millions of children with just two midwives. Then there is the business about Moses. Moses?f mother put her son in the royal family?fs bath hoping that her son would be found by a royal family member. Naturally, the daughter finds him happy that she literally has a living doll, but cannot nurse him. Therefore, Ramses has Moses?f mother nurse Moses. The whole thing was planned from the start. Therefore, Moses really was saved by the Nile.
Moses knew that he was a Hebrew from early age, and hated the mistreatment of his fellow Hebrews as slaves. When he sees an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew slave, he kills the Egyptian. Later on when Moses sees two Hebrews fighting, and tries to break it up, they ask Moses if he is going to kill them as he killed the Egyptian. It was then that Moses knew that the word was out, and fled into the desert, marries Jethro?fs daughter, and lives the live as a Shepard. When Moses saw the flaming bush, it was not consumed. An angel talks to him from the burning bush, then leaves only moments later to have God appear. The angel was probably never there in the first place as it was added in later by the Priestly Writer. With the Priestly, Writer the Hebrews became a book of the people and vice versa.
Nothing before that point holds much credibility as it was apocalyptic, archaic, and superstitious. However, it is still considered sacred text and left in there. (*The classic question where God asks where man is at in the fall actually means for man, where is God. God knows where man is, but man is always wondering where God is. It is a question that is asked by every generation of man.*) When God speaks directly to Moses, it was probably written down during the time of the Priestly Writer. Moses did not even want to serve God to begin with, namely because he had a price on his head. Still God wants Moses to lead those slaves out of bondage, and only Moses. Before the Exodus and Moses, no one knows for certain what the religion of the Hebrews was, but speculate most likely that it was the Baal?fs.
This is why Moses asks what God?fs name is. He did not know which god was talking to him. However, the point is that God adopts the Hebrews as its people. When God says, ?gI am who I am?h, it means that there is only one true god. We have a name for God during this time, which is Jahweh. A true Jew will never use the most sacred name in the Hebrew scriptures. Even the Hebrews at that time did not know which god they were supposed to be worshiping. You see the four different writers of the Old Testament (Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly) looked back to the time of Abraham to come up with something for a name with the Exodus.
You see the reason why people asked for names during that time was whoever had a name had power. That is why the Hebrews wanted to know God?fs name, as Moses did not know God?fs name, nor did the Hebrews. Even when Jacob wrestles with God he asks God?fs name, but God never gives it to him. However, Jacob gives his name to God, which is later changed to Israel. During that time and even today religious conversions of names is not uncommon.
The reason why Moses?f brother is sometimes speaking and sometimes not is because of the different writers at that time. Aaron was put in by the Priestly Writer during a later edition of the Exodus. When Moses goes to Ramses, the Egyptian gods had no role in the plagues. They are not even mentioned. The magicians are mentioned, but do not last long and are later forgotten. The original plagues equaled out to seven because seven is a sacred number. The last three are added in because you needed to count the plagues with two hands to emphasize the power of God. Each plague can be explained in a natural way except one of them.
First Plague – The Nile became feted with plankton.
Second Plague – Frogs are reproduced because of the plankton. People could not keep the frogs out because they had no windows or doors during that period.
Third Plague – The frogs end up dying leaving many knats to be attracted to the carcasses.
Fourth Plague – This plague is a doublet and was added in by the Priestly Writer. Therefore, it is an irrelevant plague.
Fifth Plague – This plague was caused because knats just love to burrow into life cattle once their entire food source is gone, and leave maggots. Thus, this is what creates your cattle plague.
Sixth Plague – This plague is another doublet added in by the Priestly Writer, and is the same as the fifth plague. Therefore, it is an irrelevant plague.
Seven Plague – This plague happens every year because storm season is the first to begin before the rain season in the desert.
Eighth Plague – This plague is just like the seventh plague, and is still fairly common in the Middle East to this day.
Ninth Plague – This plague was added in by the Elohist, and can be explained yet again due to the same occurrences happening in the Middle East to this day. The plague of darkness is simply a sandstorm.
Tenth Plague – This is the only plague that cannot be explained naturally, and that is the death of every first born.
So to recap:
The Jahwist has seven plagues.
The Elohist writes in the plague of darkness.
The Priestly Writer writes in the doublets.
The reason why the flat bread is a tradition was that the Hebrews had to leave before the bread had risen.
There are several psalms that show that the plagues are not written in stone and constantly change with each writer.
*Shiloh was the religious center long before Jerusalem.*
*Judah was Jerusalem, and Joseph was Israel. So Jerusalem was built as the center for the new religion not Israel.*
The Hebrews were very lacking when carrying out God?fs command. God wanted the word spread out to the rest of the tribes, but naturally, the Hebrews did not follow through. Even the Hebrews were not convinced about this new god.
When Moses takes the people down to the Red Sea it is because if they would have gone through the northern route, they would have been slaughtered. They really did not cross the Red Sea. One it is in the wrong place (it?fs about 300 miles south of were Mount Sionide is located). To follow the exact route to get to Mount Sionide as it states in the Bible they really would have needed to cross the Suez Canal. It is a reed sea. Red and reed are similar (too similar) in Hebrew to tell the difference from one another. When the southwest winds blow, the water runs into the reeds and sand. It naturally creates quicksand (which is nothing more than sand with water running through it). The Hebrews were light enough to cross. Ramses sends the police force after the Hebrews, which was small enough to kill off those few thousand Hebrews that caused so much trouble for him. When the police force got to the Suez Canal, the wind had gone back the other way, which bogged down their chariots in the quicksand, and were knifed to death by the Hebrews. The reason why they were knifed to death was that the Hebrews started to panic when they saw the police force coming, and thought that Moses had just brought them out there to die. At this point in time, they still did not know who God really was.
Moses knew how to survive in the desert, which helped the survival of the few thousand Hebrews that traveled with him down to Mount Sionide. Moses did not immediately come down from the mountain so the Hebrews reverted by to the Ba?fal religion. The golden calf was made because it was the symbol of fertility for the Ba?fal worship. This is why later Moses throws down the tablets in anger because the Hebrews reverted back to the Ba?fal worship.
Moses really came down with the Ten Commandments, and not the hundreds of other laws. Those hundreds of law codes were from the Hammarbbi Law Code. The Ten Commandments and the Holy Code are the only ones that are pure Mosaic because they deal with the common man, while the Hammarbbi Law Code dealt with the wealthy.
*Moses did not write the Book of Deuteronomy. That book did not come until the 650?fs BC, and if Moses did write it then he would have had to been schizophrenic to write about his own death. The Book of Deuteronomy was really written by a piest Jew who wanted to explain why Israel fell to the Assyrians through the words of Moses.*
The 40 years of wondering just means that they wondered around for a long time, and the Hebrews were constantly being apostate all the way until the 550s BC. Before the 550s, it was considered for God to be the god of war, and Ba?fal to be the god of peace.
I could go on with more, but I think those who understand what I?fm talking about know where I?fm coming from.
Original sin was either failing to treat the lord's words as holy or disobedience. It was not a thing external to the person.
No it isn't. When the story of creation first began there was only Adam not Eve, Adam could eat from all the trees, there was no serpent, and there was no falling out. Those things do not come into play until the Priestly Writer writes the book of Genesis. Before that, it was only was the Jahwist has written down. The reason for the serpent and the falling out is to illustrate a couple of points. First of all the serpent is the original sin because it symbolizes sin. Sin seduces our rational, which is why Eve ate from the tree. Sin is the reason why Israel and Judah both fell to the Assyrians and then later the Babylonians. The point of the falling out is just to illustrate why man has certain things happen to him (ex: pain at childbirth).
If it was truly the eating of the apple from the tree that was original sin then why would God put it there in the first place? It was the Priestly Writer trying to point out that we are trying to avoid evil, but that sin will seduce us when we least expect it. Not only that, but God didn?ft come down ranting and raving when Adam and Even ate from the tree did it? Of course not. God knew that they had eaten from the tree, God knew why they were hiding, and God knew why they were ashamed. Still was God upset that his perfect world fell apart so quickly? Of course not. God even made clothes for Adam and Eve before the falling. It just goes to show that God cares about man. Yet it is man who has yet to find and care about God because of sin. What happened to the serpent anyway? It was dealt with accordingly by God for its sin, just like what God does for those who sin. Therefore, whether you like it or not, the serpent is the original sin because it represents sin, not the eating from the tree or the fall.
There was no Hell and there was no Satan before this was written. Only the serpent, and that was what was supposed to signify evil and sin.
The twelve tribes were: Descended from Israel Reuben, Simeon, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun. Descended from Joseph Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, Naphtali.
Levi was a separate grouping, not numbered under their ancestor's name.
Ethnically speaking the 12 tribes looked a lot alike, but they were not in the sons of Jacob of Israel. Only those few tribes in Egypt are considered to be. Until the book of Joshua, it was the belief by the early writers that all 12 tribes were the sons of Jacob of Israel.
That is not true.
Doc :genji:
