DaveM: Sorry, but I DO keep up with the latest research and scholarship on the period roughly covered by the Exodus, assuming it took place between c 1800-1000 BC. My speciality is in the ate Ramesside period and third intermediate period of Egypt - when Pi-Ramesse ('Ramses') was abandoned and Tanis became the northern capital. I wish I'd had more experience in the field, but the limited experience I have had, plus the articles published by authors such as Redford, Ikram, El Mahdy, Dodson, Kemp, Rijks, the EES,, the MMA,not to mention the recent work from Poland, Austria and Russia, back up the conventional view of the convoluted history of Northern (lower) Egypt at this time. As yet, Egyptologists have found no evidence for a large slave population - Semitic or otherwise - near Piramesse. Unless the Hebrew slaves walked thirty miles each day before they started work on 'Ramses' - they did not exist as the Exodus claims they did.
Hi AM. I am not sure why but from your posts I sense that you feel that I have questioned and am being critical of your knowledge and understanding of archaeology during the period under question. I do not understand what I said to create this impression. If I did so then I certainly apologise. It was certainly not my intention. Perhaps you would be so kind as to point out to me which particular statement(s) in my posts created this impression.
My initial involvement in this thread was simply to provide some information to Spud to the effect that there are sincerely held different views on this topic, and these by deeply committed Christians. I used the ESV commentary as an example. There are many areas in Scripture, not central to the faith, where this type of situation applies. I will cite one other, totally unrelated to the present topic, as an example.
The majority of Christians view the early chapters of Genesis as not being literal historical truth but rather teaching great truths, a theological treatise to coin a phrase often used by Hope. But consider the following quote.
“It is fashionable nowadays to regard the story of Adam and Eve as ‘myth’, not history. But the Scripture itself will not allow us to do this. There may well be some figurative elements in the first three chapters of Genesis. We would not want to dogmatise, for example, about the precise nature of the seven days, the serpent, the tree of life or the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But this does not mean we doubt that Adam and Eve were real people who were created good but fell through disobedience into sin. The best argument for the historicity of Adam and Eve is not scientific (e.g. the homogeneity of the human race) but theological. The biblical Christian accepts Adam and Eve as historical not primarily because of the Old Testament story, but because of New Testament theology. In Romans 15:12-19 and 1 Cor 15:21, 22, and 45-49 the apostle draws an analogy between Adam and Christ which depends for its validity on the historicity of both. Each is presented as the head of a race – fallen humanity owing its ruin to Adam and redeemed humanity owing its salvation to Christ. Death and condemnation are traced to Adam’s disobedience, life and justification to Christ’s obedience. The whole argument is built on two historical acts – the self-willed disobedience of Adam and the self-sacrificing obedience of Christ.”
So a theological position which demands that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals, initially sinless, who then sinned thus bringing death and condemnation into the world. Is this the misguided rantings of a wooden biblical literalist of the six day YEC brigade? Certainly not!
The above is a quote lifted verbatim from the writings of the late John RW Stott - a man recognised as probably the most influential conservative evangelical of his time. A man included by Time magazine in the year 2000 as amongst its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
So here is a person who believed in an historical Adam, and by implication an historical Abraham and an historical Moses. Yet I doubt he could ever be accused of being a man who compartmentalised his brain so that his faith was not impacted by logic. But his belief in the primacy of Scripture was such that he was prepared to stick his neck out and proclaim what he believed irrespective of the amount of flak that anthropologists and others might throw at him.
Indeed it was this same John RW Stott who published a little booklet entitled, ‘Balanced Christianity’ with the sub-title, ‘ A Call to Avoid Unnecessary Polarisation’ in which he quoted the famous epigram, ‘In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things charity (love)’. This has probably always been, and still is, one of the biggest single challenges to the Christian Church.
With that I will bow out of this thread as I feel I have said all I can usefully (or otherwise) say.
