Talk:The Exodus/Archive 15

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Sidebar on the Numbers Censuses

[quote from Korvex]Before addressing the consensus issue, I will respond to Haploid somehow claiming that this is view is some sort of attempt to make the biblical data line up with the evidence, if I understood him correctly -- this, if he indeed invokes it, is blatantly false. From what I have seen, the biblical data allows for no other interpretation -- the biblical data specifically only allows for a translation of family/troop. Deuteronomy 7:7 for example, tells us that the Israelite's were the fewest of all the peoples. It is impossible to support a 'thousand' translation in light of this text. [end quote from Korvex]

The main discussion on the censuses of Numbers is and should be about what can or cannot be found in reliable sources. I'm adding this sidebar because what I have to say is relevant to an argument raised by Korvex, but could derail the conversation above if I had placed it in that section. User:Korvex, in the discussion above, has raised the objection that the Bible cannot actually mean "thousand" by elef, for various reasons including Deuteronomy 7:7. The reference to Deuteronomy 7:7, which implies a people much smaller than two million in population, is irrelevant for three reasons.

First, Deuteronomy only tells us what the author of Deuteronomy believed about the Israelite population in the wilderness. It does not tell us what the author of Numbers believed. We should not assume that all the biblical authors represent a single, agreed-upon point of view.

Second, there is the problem of Numbers 1:46. It is possible to get a coherent reading out of the rest of numbers 1 if you substitute the word "troop" (or something) for "thousand" ever time you read it. So instead of Reuben having 46,500 soldiers, it has 46 troop units and 500 total men. Similarly for the other tribes. Here's the problem. If you total up all the troops and men for all twelve tribes on this theory, you get a total of 598 elephs and 5550 soldiers. And yet Numbers 1:46 tells us that the total is 603 elephs and 550 men. That is, somewhere when you come to Numbers 1:46, five additional elephs have appeared, not found in the individual tribal listings, and 5,000 (that is, approximately 90%) of the soldiers counted in the census have suddenly gone missing!

If eleph means "troop" or something, Numbers 1:46 is unintelligible, because it presents an impossible sum total for all the troops counted. On the other hand, if eleph is a thousand, then Numbers 1:46 makes perfect sense in its passage. The same issue, though with slightly different numbers, occurs at Numbers 26:51.

Third, this kind of thing is why we should stick to what is published in reliable sources, and not try to argue out on Wikipedia talk pages "what the Bible itself clearly means." My argument here is not a direct argument for including the "thousand" interpretation on the basis of Numbers 1:46 and 26:51. I'm simply demonstrating that direct appeals to the biblical text won't serve Korvex's goals as easily as he hopes, so that we should stick to the published sources instead. Alephb (talk) 02:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

In both cases, Numbers (where there are many Israelites) and Deuteronomy (where they are few), the authors are making a theological point, not attempting to write accurate history. Back in Genesis God tells Abraham that his progeny will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens; a little before that, God instructs Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply. So there's a theological bias towards multiplying and filling the earth, hence the increase from the 70 who go down with Jacob into Egypt and the 2 million or so who leave again with Moses. I terms of normal demographics this just doesn't work - you can't go from 70 people to 2 million in 400 years, or 320, let alone in three generations (read Exodus carefully and you'll discover there are only three generations between Levi and Moses - and it's the line of Levi that the author is concerned with, not the line of David). Then in Deuteronomy the Israelites are the smallest of nations - why? Probably because this is post-exilic and reflects a reality of the time, when the "Israelites", a pure people dedicated to God, were indeed very few - the "Canaanites," who were in fact simply those who refused to join "Israel," were the majority. Anyway, there are plenty of arguments about this, but all agree that it's a mistake to read the Pentateuch as history.PiCo (talk) 06:45, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both for your calm, reasonable responses., which have certainly illuminated this area for me. Doug Weller talk 07:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

The backward and forward links in the Pentateuch (of which what I said above is an example) is one of the major problems in trying to decide its origins and compositions - there are many signs of multiple authorship over a considerable period, but these linkages look like the work of a single author. They all seem to be Priestly in intent (or content), hence the widespread belief that the final redactor was from the Priestly school. The author of Deuteronomy was an early post-exilic Deuteronomist, the author of Numbers a late post-exilic priest.

Regarding the numbers in the census, there's an interesting discussion in this recent book. PiCo (talk) 07:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Aleph, I agree we should stick to reliable sources -- but I only have one note, and that is that you more or less answered your own "problem" with the sum of the numbers, LOL. You point out that in the first "census", you have 598 elephs and 5550 troop men -- whereas in the other one, you have 603 elephs and 550 troop men. So, where do these 5 elephs come from? It comes from the 5550 troop men of the first count -- 5000 out of 5550 are counted as an extra 5 elephs, and if you take that in consideration, both censuses yield exactly 603 elephs and 550 troop men. A perfect fit! But, we should keep this discussion restricted indeed to reliable sources. I have more criticisms of your arguments, if you want to discuss those you should go to my talk page. PiCo himself has some overwhelming errors in his interpretation, but I will agree to only debate/discuss this text on my talk page. But let's restrict this discussion to reliable sources now.

Doug seemed to have two problems with the initial edit I put forth. They are 1. Use of Waite's paper and 2. My reference to eleph being meant as troop/family/tribe as a majority position. So what can we see about these points?

1. It seems to me that Doug defines "reliability" as in number of citations -- however, this view is highly questionable. The only thing that citations reflects is how much a paper is discussed, not it's reliability. Citations is only one way to affirm reliability -- I find that there are three different ways. 1) The publisher of the paper/book, 2) Citations and 3) Academic career of author. You'll notice, criteria 1 is the sole criterion in Wikipedia's official policies -- and so this is obviously the most important one. Lo' and behold, Waite's paper was published to Vetus Testamentum, removing all doubt regarding its reliability. However, for the purposes of discussion, I will not include this paper in the exodus edit so everyone can be happy.

2. Doug questions that eleph meaning troop/clan/tribe is still the majority position of today, but this is rather obvious when you take a look at the discussion. You'll remember Mendenhall's paper from the 1950's refers to this as a consensus -- taking a look at the current literature, can we assume that the consensus has either been broken, or that it is no longer even a majority? The answer is obviously no. What are our sources? Aside from Mendenhall's paper, it was Aleph himself (I think) who brought my attention to Humphrey's work on the census numbers -- the work of Humphreys fully supports the eleph-troop interpretation, and he has published 2-3 papers on this. For one of Humphrey's papers taking this interpretation, see The number of people in the Exodus from Egypt: Decoding mathematically the very large numbers in Numbers i and xxvi -- the paper has a good number of citations as well as has been published to Vetus Testamentum/Brill. A third recent paper on the subject by GA Rendsburg titled AN ADDITIONAL NOTE TO TWO RECENT ARTICLES ON THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE EXODUS FROM EGYPT AND THE LARGE NUMBERS IN NUMBERS I AND XXVI also supports this view. Furthermore, a major 2006 Exodus commentary by D.K. Stuart also supports this interpretation (90 citations). This further includes Waite's own paper. All these sources are published into credible publishing sources and some of them have been largely influential, whereas I can only find two credible works since then that has actually rejected this interpretation, the first by paper by Rudiger Heinzerling -- and in fact, I actually included it in the bibliography in my initial edit! The second advocates for a thousand interpretation as well (35 citations). So taking a look at the papers that actually discuss this in the last two decades, you'll see they overwhelmingly support the eleph-troop/clan interpretation.

One more note -- as I was reading through recently published commentaries/papers as I was typing this comment, I accessed another reliable source supporting my position that have a rather large number of citations. It is titled Large Numbers in the Old Testament by J.W. Wenham, this paper considers elef/eleph to mean something like 'tribal chieftain' or something such as that with some 36 citations. This should help underline the majority position of what I'm putting forwards. I'm also not sure, but it seems that a major 1997 commentary of the Pentatuech by Everett Fox (page 321) also supports me here, and this one has 150+ citations. Every single work we've seen with over half a hundred citations supports the family/troop/tribe interpretation, whereas about 60-90% of papers with less than 50 citations support this -- an obvious majority by any interpretation. All these sources are reliable as well. Are there any remaining problems?Korvex (talk) 14:57, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Korvex, am I Doug this time? Any outside reader might have a hard time deciding. You need to read more about our policies and guidelines. Our guideline for reliable sources says " Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people." It then goes into detail about various situations. This of course echoes our policy at WP:VERIFY, particularly WP:SOURCE. You're wrong to say the publisher is the sole criteria. Reliability isn't enough, even if we decided that Waite is a reliable source, there is still WP:UNDUE and that in particular is where citations come in. Then of course there's the fact that one person, ie you, can't decide definitively that a source is reliable. You need consensus on Waite. If you can't get it, you can try RSN.

Then of course there's your decision as to what is the majority position and what "most scholars" think. This is based on your own research, right? Which you can do here, but you can't add to the article. There we need sources, and probably attributed statements saying what is the majority decision. Maybe even quotes. And although I've used citation counts, they are very very tricky. Google Books and Google scholar happily include the most fringe stuff you could imagine - it's probably a breach of some trades description act for Google to use the word "scholar". We can't use counts to determine a majority. Doug Weller talk 15:36, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Most authors have abandoned reading the censuses of Numbers as reflecting a historical reality. The people still talking about the exact meaning of eleph in the scholarly world are the minority who are still trying to salvage some kind of history from the Exodus account. This is why "counting up recent papers" may not be a reliable guide to where mainstream scholarship is on the issue of "eleph" specifically. You'd make your case much stronger, Korvex, if you could find a recent scholar who thinks the "eleph = troop" interpretation is a majority position, but I don't think we've seen a citation of that sort yet. And as for the odd claim that "603 eleph" (Num 1:46) is actually Numbers' way of saying "598 little groups of 5 to 15 guys plus 5 big groups of 1000" guys, I'm not even going to try interacting with that kind of reasoning, on your talk page or anywhere else, especially when you introduce a weird claim like that by LOLing at me. Alephb (talk) 16:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Doug -- I have already stated, for purpose of discussion, that Waite's paper will be excluded (although bringing up WP:UNDUE is a good point). I will no longer try to add Waite's paper -- however, you seem to have no problem with the other sources I mentioned. You confuse me when speaking about citations, though. If Google Scholar telling you that a paper has been cited 5 times is not enough, what is? Your original criterion that you told me was for Wikipedia to reference a paper, it must have a good number of citations. If you actually take a look at the several hundred citations amassed in the 7 or 8 or so papers/books I referenced, you'd be hard-pressed to say that 3% of them are "fringe", especially when I referenced recent major commentaries such as D.K. Stuart's commentary on the Exodus or Everett Fox's commentary on the Pentatuech. So, although I will happily agree to excluding Waite's paper for this discussion, all my other sources qualify Wikipedia's policies with flying colors.

Next, Aleph claims that "most scholars have abandoned" the position I'm advocating -- that is not only conjecture, but utterly false. I would go into more detail, but the mere large amount of sources I gave in my previous response establish beyond a conceptual doubt that most scholars have NOT abandoned this. Where Aleph gets this idea, especially without providing any evidence at all, whatsoever, is rather confusing. Aleph claims scholars are trying to "salvage" historicity from Numbers, which is also fanciful at best. Aleph makes one third point, that my claims on the census's from Numbers 1 and 26 are "wrong", and he doesn't give explanation as to why. Although -- there is no point to even discuss or try to compare the census numbers between Numbers 1 and Numbers 26, because these are two different censuses. So why exactly should two different censuses conducted 25 chapters apart (probably spanning several yeard) yield the same results? They shouldn't. Aleph's response is simply a reflection of his opinions and he provides no evidence to back up his claims, regarding the opinion of scholars on the meaning of eleph or his interpretation. Aleph has said that we shouldn't "assume" Deuteronomy and Numbers have the same author, but even if that is granted, Numbers 3:43 says that the total population of men one month or older in all Israel was slightly over 22,000 people -- making a 603,000 interpretation of the censuses utterly impossible. Again, Deut. 7:7 says the Israelite's were the fewest of all the peoples and Exodus 23:30 says that the Israelite's were so few that they couldn't even inherit the entire promised land at once because they wouldn't be able to populate it. Doug's points are valid (and I have addressed them), but Aleph has offered nothing new.

So -- let's go back to my last response. I gave countless sources, and agreed that I will not use Waite's papers. All other papers/books I cited have an impressive number of citations, and some of the works I noted are quite grand in academia. So I don't think there's any question regarding their reliability. As far as the evidence has been shown on this Talk Page, I would contend that the evidence clearly shows a majority position -- however -- I do not even need to do this. Unless any other editors can show evidence that there are other prominent interpretations of the census lists, then we do not even need to include any reference to other interpretations. If someone is able to provide reliable sources for other interpretations, but not as much as the sources we have for the troop/family/tribe interpretation, then the coming Wikipedia edit should primarily speak about the family/tribe interpretation, and give a much smaller amount of discussion to other views. So far as it is, the current Wikipedia page gives far too much space and discussion to the eleph=1000 interpretation. So the question is for Doug and Aleph -- before I go forwards and make an edit -- do you have any of your own reliable sources regarding other interpretations of eleph that warrant discussion? If not, then naturally all discussion will be focused on eleph=family/troop/tribe.Korvex (talk) 00:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The germane policy for establishing academic consensus/majority or minority positions is WP:RS/AC: a top scholar literally says that the consensus/majority position is ..., and we cite his statement. We don't crunch the number of citations in order to establish who's the majority. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Korvex, you've badly misread my comments about Numbers 1:46 and I'm not going to try to bother to correct your misunderstanding, because it would be pointless. We are reaching the point where were entering WP:FILIBUSTER territory. Since December 18th, the talk page for the Exodus has been one long disagreement between you and all other registered users. You've made no headway in convincing anyone to accept your viewpoint, and you continue writing long, angry essays in favor of your position. You're filibustering. It's become clear that your attempts at persuasion aren't working, but you just keep going. It's not productive. It's time to give this campaign up and move on to something else, because the other users have already demonstrated that the edits you've proposed aren't being accepted on this page. Alephb (talk) 08:35, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Korvex, do you remember the advice I gave you at Talk:Christ myth theory, which you very graciously accepted? I'm sorry to say that it applies here, too. It's time to accept one of two things: 1) You're wrong; or 2) You're right, but you're not going to get your way. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:19, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Tgeorg -- it looks like you are right, painting this view as a consensus seems to contradict Wikipedia's policy as such a thing requires a quote. Before I continue though, I must address Mjolnir -- Mjolnir, if you actually scroll and read through the discussion on Numbers 1, you'll find that everyone has already accepted that this is a prominent view of academia and that it should be allowed on the page. The only thing being discussed was whether or not this can be painted as a "majority" view, which, although it is, I concede will not be added to the Wiki page for Wiki's policies forbid adding such a thing unless a direct quotation explaining the majority view is given. I do have such a quotation, but it has been rejected because it was made in the 1950's.

Aleph points out that my edits have been "rejected" -- this is false, since my comments have in fact influenced the page in 2 minor ways or so. They also aren't "angry" essays, and one of them have been rejected for utterly no reason whatsoever. But aside from the eleph=troop/tribe not being a majority, it definitely warrants inclusion considering all the sources I noted.Korvex (talk) 22:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Mjolnir, if you actually scroll and read through the discussion on Numbers 1, you'll find that everyone has already accepted that this is a prominent view of academia and that it should be allowed on the page. I have read the discussion and I see no such consensus. I do see, however a fairly clear consensus that your arguments suffer from a large number of problems, not least of which is your propensity to make claims of fact that are easily refuted. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

More on Petrovich's theories: http://asorblog.org/2017/04/14/response-douglas-petrovichs-hebrew-language-behind-worlds-first-alphabet/ PiCo (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

So a scholar responded to Petrovich's book by pointing out (among other things) that Petrovich has fabricated quotes and doesn't understand the difference between a syllable and a letter... Jesus. I knew Petrovich was a fringe figure, but I thought he was the "scholarly minority" type of fringe. I didn't realize he's the "What do you mean I need to understand the subject to be an expert in it?" type of fringe.

This becomes extremely clear when one read's Petrovich's response to that review: A Reply to Alan Millard's Response to My "Hebrew as the Language behind the World's First Alphabet?" - Douglas Petrovich. Among the many gems in that are a persecution complex (academics said they "wanted nothing to do with" his book, therefore he was robbed of the chance for peer review), the casting of false aspersions on others (stating that Millard had read part of his book before coming to a conclusion on it, then later stating that that Millard "presupposed" the thesis to be false), hand-waving away his own fabricated quotes and offering a "correction" to something Millard asserted which actually paints Petrovich's logic in a much worse light. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:11, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

The Exodus vs Book of Exodus

I have recently made an edit on Exodus disambiguation page to clarify the difference between Biblical Book of Exodus which is religious and The Exodus which is not religious. my edit, under the Religion Heading "The Exodus is an article dealing with controversy of the Biblical story of The Book of Exodus - migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan." user older have reverted my edit without saying anything on the talk page. when i left him a message on the article page, he said my information is wrong! Igor Berger (talk) 17:00, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

i find it offensive how user older is addressing me, " barely intelligible rant above" Talk:Exodus#Article The Exodus is not Religion, but challenge to the Bible story! Igor Berger (talk) 17:10, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Why are you saying that the "Book of Exodus" is religious while "The Exodus" is not religious? What does that mean? For the record, it's not just older. I also find you "barely intelligible." My guess is that you're upset that the article The Exodus doesn't agree with the Bible, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying.Alephb (talk) 18:21, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

This editor was community banned and then unblocked under the condition that they edit only certain articles and not join any wikiprojects or related discussion. If they had not been unblocked they would still be blocked and have to appeal. I've asked the Admin involved with the unblock to comment. Doug Weller talk 19:05, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Exodus 2:2

In the section Dating the Exodus we read: "In Exodus 2:2 God had decreed that the start of the Israelite's calendar, and the beginning of their Exodus from Egypt, would come in the spring."

However, Exodus 2:2 says no such thing. It says "The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months."

Apparently the Bible reference is wrong. But what should it be?

--Oz1cz (talk) 08:07, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@Oz1cz: Exodus 12:2. Alephb (talk) 08:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Founding of Jerusalem in Judaea

In David's time Jerusalem was an insignificant village of 3 to 4 hectares according to The Bible Unearthed documentary (Israel Finkelstein and Ronny Reich stating it), or less than 5 hectares according to God and Sex by Michael Coogan. So, there is no evidence of the Exodus having founded Jerusalem. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:59, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Or, let me rephrase it: he/she who claims that the Exodus has founded Jerusalem has to cite evidence of that claim. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

There's a little bit on this, plus some references, in the last section of the article where it talks about Manetho. I'm not sure whether the idea comes from Manetho or Hecataeus, but there was certainly a tradition that Moses founded Jerusalem. It might just have been Hecateus getting things garbled, but it might also have been an alternative narrative that later got lost. Certainly, though, the Masoretic version of Exodus wasn't the only one around in the last few centuries BC, it's just the one that survived. PiCo (talk) 13:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Another bit: Jewish tradition and the Bible text state that the area of Jerusalem was never conquered and King David had to buy this land from the Jebusites (see references to Jerusalem in the books of Joshua and Judges). So it couldn't have been taken over by Moses - especially since it states in the Bible text that Moses never crossed into the Promised Land. Ckruschke (talk) 17:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)Ckruschke

New Book

An interesting new contribution on exodus research.

Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt? Biblical, Archaeological, and Egyptological Perspectives on the Exodus Narratives (Eisenbrauns 2016) https://www.eisenbrauns.com/ECOM/_4YO1FH9K4.HTM — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.229.114.12 (talk) 01:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg

What do you think of this author, an Israeli archaeologist and self-professed "proud Zionist" who suggests that Judaism arose in context of some fusion of Egyptian and Hyksos traditions in the Amarna period.

He puts it loud and clear: "Evidence there is none". Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:28, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Judaism arose after 500 BC, which is a bit late for a fusion of Amarna and the Hyksos.PiCo (talk) 07:00, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

To put it briefly, Wikipedia is a website meant for rendering mainstream science and mainstream scholarship (at least in such matters). Wikipedia will render Rosenberg's view if and when it becomes a mainstream scholarly view. Not beforehand. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:45, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu, do you know how to load external internet files into Wikimedia? I'd like to have that map of yours as a possible resource - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/images/map-1300bc-hittite-2.jpg. PiCo (talk) 09:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

And our poster from the top of this thread really should read our article, and then read the books that back it up. First find out the mainstream view, then you'll have context to read more widely. PiCo (talk) 09:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I know how to load them, but isn't it copyrighted? Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:49, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, ok. PiCo (talk) 10:21, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Here's a present for you - our friend would love it :) http://asorblog.org/2017/08/15/yhwh-dionysus-god/ PiCo (talk) 10:29, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Amarna theories

Regarding dating the Exodus, it is basically wrong not to put the Amarna period first on the list of potential dates. This is by far the most defensible date from both historical and Biblical perspective, even without considering the connection to Egyptian monotheism. It is also the very oldest theory posited by anyone claiming to be a historian of any kind (Manetho or his translators, Josephus likely relying on him but also on other lost sources), due to the story of Osarseph and the claim that he changed his name to Moses. It is also the only theory that any archaeologist whatsoever has ever stated much of a case for. The following was the text I added that some POV censor chose to revert, pretending that archaeologists writing op-eds in their own field in major newspapers on extremely controversial topics that will destroy their careers if they are wrong, citing facts that are undisputed and heavily referenced in other articles, is somehow not valid. Religious Jews and Christians as a rule do not like the Amarna theory as it clearly relates the origin of their faith to Egyptian monotheism, thus they try to crapflood this valid theory out of the way with lots of nonsense from pious "scholars". However here is the case as I had stated it in my version:

Reign of Tutankhamun (1330 BCE)

Conditions at the beginning of the reign of Tutankhamun closely match those described in Exodus:

• a large mudbrick city having been just constructed by slaves of Akhnaten in two years at El Amarna, a site with little straw, and being abandoned with his religion
• a disenfranchised monotheistic priest class displaced by followers of the old gods of Saqqara & Luxor being restored
• extremely specific predictions of disaster - recorded on his restitution stele - claiming "old gods would punish him if they were not given back their old rights and positions:
  • Hapi, the androgynous god of the Nile, would make its waters undrinkable;
  • Kermit, the goddess of fertility, would release her frogspawn to swarm over the land;
  • Osiris, the god of corn, would not prevent the locusts from consuming his cereals, and
  • Ra, the sun god, would refuse to shine."
• strong resemblance (cherubim, carrying poles) between a pharoah's battle shrine and the portable Mishkan or Tabernacle that went into the desert with other riches - from a city that was abandoned
  • extremely strong similarity between the treatment of this portable shrine and the Temple rituals (inner and outer room) at Jerusalem.

Rosenberg further suggests that this date can be reconciled easily with Exodus 12:40 claiming 430 years in Egypt - since 1760 BCE - and the theory that the Israelites came to Egypt with the semitic Hyksos, as proposed by Josephus Flavius, which modern scholars place within decades of that time. An also, that if the Solomonic Temple was built 12 generations after the Exodus (I Kings 6:1) and these are actually 30 not 40 real years, 360 years after 1330 is 970 BCE, again within decades of modern estimates.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk • contribs)

Map (1350 BC): [1]. Does the map tell you something really obvious? Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:48, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe this map does: [2]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Or this: [3]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

First, you do know that some scholars have suggested dates even earlier than Tutankhamun for the Exodus? Do you intend to rule all mention of them out? Almost all are relying overmuch on Biblical timelines notably the 40 year generations, but "430 years" is not a period seemingly derived from that as it's not a multiple of 40.

The maps plus the 12 generations (360 years according to Rosenberg vs. 480 in Biblical translations) it took to establish the Temple all suggest that the Biblical narrative is avoiding mention of taking over Egyptian territory or provinces, and aggrandizing and characterizing the Israelites as one unified people genetically, all to suit the Persian expectations or requirements for national recognition, and suggests a longer struggle to conquer the region, possibly a clandestine effort rather than a "national identity" being there from the start, subverting formerly Egyptian cities one by one, starting in a period of chaos after Amarna when Egypt was under severe internal stress and could not control these outlying areas. One has to reject EITHER the very exact 430 years given in Exodus 12:40 and the 1750 BCE date given to Hyksos arrival AND the Kings 6:1 claim of 12 generations given until the Temple was founded (for which 40 year generations rather than 30 make it even earlier and when the Egyptians are not in any period of internal chaos or turmoil), OR one has to reject the narrative that says Israel was a well organized state from the beginning rather than a bunch of rebels who slowly turned an Egyptian region into their own empire. If it took 12 generations to establish a Temple, very clearly, it took a long time to gain control of the area, so there is really no problem with them arriving in nominally Egyptian territory and taking 360 or 480 years to establish more than base camps and temporarily conquered cities.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk • contribs)

One has to make sure to define the event he/she means. An army of 600 000 fighting men was never seen in the Ancient world and it was enough to conquer the whole Egyptian Empire, the whole Canaan and the whole Hittite Empire. If 600 slaves have escaped, then that's another matter, another event, one might say. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:15, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

That is completely correct. Basically no one accepts 600,000 fighting men, but such a claim is consistent with aggrandized claims to impress the Babylonians/Persians. The Osarseph story places the number squarely in between at 80,000 lepers and other outcasts. lso the entire East Med region plunges into chaos for centuries within about a century after Amarna so there are plenty of opportunities to take over. This is the late Bronze Age "dark ages" when several whole civilizations collapse, and Egypt pulls back to the Nile and ceases to assert control over territory that Semitic peoples are taking over, and came from in the first place. The whole Egyptian control of the region comes from Hyksos alliances such as marriages, so why can't it collapse at this time in favor of Israel? The Bible would not mention fighting Egyptians for a very obvious reason: they wrote their history to present it to the Babylonians / Persians, who would have used any such admission as evidence that they were not a legitimate state but a bunch of terrorists who stole Egyptian territory. You have to understand how those empires assessed legitimacy to get that. It was standard to require claims - similar to modern land title claims - that the rulers were descended from particular forebears. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 03:20, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

OK: says who? We need WP:SOURCES for verification. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:22, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, who is a Senior Fellow at an Israeli archaeology institute but who seems to not have published his book yet. And of course all the Osarseph commentators who believe the story (like Josephus Flavius and Menatho and its names that almost certainly come from Amarna period or Hyksos peoples. And everyone that copied Menatho and thought it credible that he had said that Osarseph renamed himself Moses - despite there being no Greek copy of the Book of Exodus for him to read (did he read Hebrew?). Oddly there wasn't much said about this theory between the very old (3rd BCE to 1st CE) and very new historians, probably because it's controversial to suggest that the Bible deliberately left out any mention of struggles with Egyptians or Hyskos once they got to Canaan, and assigned weird extinct tribe names to the Israelites' enemies so as to deny that they had taken anything from the Egyptian or Hyksos empires, when it's very clear from all sources that they did. When you think about it, it's just totally not credible that Israel never had to fight anyone in 12 generations from either of the two great empires that existed on either side of them, not even colonies or outposts. That in itself suggests censoring all mention of those empires to avoid getting into uncomfortable situations when talking to their ambassadors in Babylon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.11.94.233 (talk) 03:32, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Great! No empirical evidence, no scholarly sources, this means no allowable edits. Tgeorgescu (talk) 03:37, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi folks, I'd like to suggest a possible solution. Perhaps Amarna theories of the Exodus could be treated by WP:FRINGE rules? My impression is that there is a significant minority of modern scholars who believe that the Amarna period is a reasonable date for the Exodus, while most scholars disagree. That is, most scholars believe the Exodus is basically a legend that never happened, and Moses never existed? So, what we need is a separate article that explains this fringe view, and also gives the reasons why most scholars disagree.

Then within this general article about the Exodus, we would give a brief explanation of the Amarna theory, with a few citations, and a link to the fringe article. The new article on Amarna theories would need to establish notability, but that should be easy enough. Sigmund Freud, for example, dated the Exodus to the Amarna period, and his book has been widely noted. JerryRussell (talk) 20:43, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Freud was a guru of psychology, not a Bible scholar. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Missing?

It seems weird that this article doesn´t have a "Biblical narrative" section, am I wrong? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:59, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Nice comment. I think it was removed long ago by editors who were against anything that supported the historicity of the Bible - even tangentially. Seems like a short narrative would be in order though. Ckruschke (talk) 18:01, 25 August 2017 (UTC)Ckruschke

Yes.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:03, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Below is what that section looked like in 2010, I don't know when it was finally removed. Woscafrench (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

The Book of Exodus tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh reveals himself and offers them a Covenant: they are to keep his torah (i.e. law, instruction), and in return he will be their God and give them the land of Canaan. The Book of Leviticus records the laws of God. The Book of Numbers tells how the Israelites, led now by their God, journey onwards from Sinai towards Canaan, but when their spies report that the land is filled with giants they refuse to go on. Yahweh then condemns them to remain in the desert until the generation that left Egypt passes away. After thirty-eight years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea the next generation travel on to the borders of Canaan. The Book of Deuteronomy tells how, within sight of the Promised Land, Moses recalls their journeys and gives them new laws. His death (the last reported event of the Torah) concludes the 40 years of the exodus from Egypt.

There are many well-known incidents in the story of the Exodus, including the crossing of the Red Sea (possibly more accurately, the Sea of Reeds), the revelation at Sinai, the giving of the Tablets of Law, the incident of the golden calf, the gift of manna in the desert, the miracle of the rock of Meribah, the treachery of the Amalekites, Balaam and his talking donkey, and the story of the scouting of Canaan.

That looks good to me. Go ahead and put it back in. (Bit worried that people will be tempted to keep adding to the list of Famous Incidents ad infinitum, but willing to risk it). PiCo (talk) 22:10, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes the events in the second paragraph should really be merged into the first paragraph. I'll put the first paragraph in for now, and may slot in the stuff from the second paragraph later. Woscafrench (talk) 10:11, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I was too slow - the section has already been added.Woscafrench (talk) 10:15, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I shortened the new section a bit from what's here in Talk. You're welcome to add more detail, but please don't make it too long - this is one of the best-known stories in the world already.PiCo (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Date of the Exodus.

I added a section giving Josephus Flavius' chronology for the Exodus, which is circa 1558 BC. This is valuable information from a very early and generally relaible source, and yet is was deleted by the editors. Why? This is an interesting assertion by Josephus that equates very well with his parallel assertion that the Israelites were the Hyksos (as per the paragraph in the Hyksos section). The quote from Josephus is cited, as is the aposite section in Wiki that support this additional information. So why was it deleted? It has been replaced in the Exodus dating section. Tatelyle (talk) 13:41, 11 August 2017 (UTC) Tatelyle (talk) 13:41, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

According to the person who reverted you: Because you deleted well-sourced information and replaced it with information that seems to have been gleaned by combining information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion not stated in any of the sources. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:02, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Also, having looked at the edit myself, I can say that placing dating speculation before contextual information about dating (and our inability to realiably do so) is a poor structural choice. Given the nature of the article, I would not be surprised if someone felt that you were attempting to minimize doubt about our inability to date it in an attempt to undermine the modern consensus that it never happened. Please understand that I'm not accusing you of this myself: I'm perfectly content to believe that you are working at improving the article for the sake of improving the article. But this can be a contentious article, because it documents a marked split between the expert view (that the Exodus never happened) and a widely held popular view (that the Exodus did happen), and editors are often quick to react to any perception of POV pushing on such articles. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the section. It still includes the Josephus dating, and should address any other concerns. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:11, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

• after this revert by Zero0000, I double checked the source and I have to agree that it's not a summary of what Josephus says, but a synthesis of several different things he says. @Tatelyle: I would suggest you rewrite it, using direct quotes from a reputable translation of the source (being sure to put them in quote marks!) if you want this put back in. Bear in mind the changes I made to the ordering: Josephus' writings do not belong before the statements outlining the troubles with dating. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:17, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

pinging @Zero0000: for anything they might have to add.ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:31, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I checked an edition of Antiquites and found that the editor noted that Josephus gave at least two different values for the number of years between the Exodus and the destruction of the Temple. Moreover, there is no accepted date for the destruction of the Temple so it makes no sense to combine the two. A reliable secondary source which discusses Josephus' chronology might be worth a brief mention but combining bits and pieces from the primary source like this is not. Zero^talk 21:14, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

I strongly recommend not using Josephus. He was in no position to know anything about the exodus (he lived more than a thousand years after it happened, if it happened at all), and he had a program (trying to prove that the Jews were older than the Greeks). Stick to modern scholarly sources. PiCo (talk) 07:52, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

**Pico** So you are saying that Josephus is unreliable, because he lived a 'thousand years' after the Exodus. But modern historians are much more reliable because they live 3,500 years after the Exodus. How do you square that circle? Remember that Josephus had the original Torah or Tanakh from the Second Temple (courtesy of Vespasian) dating from 600 BC, which is much earlier than any modern Torah, so he had access to data that is no longer extant. (Which is obvious if you read his 'Antiquities of the Jews', which differs significantly from the modern Torah or Tanakh). And he had access to all the other historians he mentions, like Manetho, whose chronicles are also no longer extant.

**Zero** The date for the construction and destruction of the Temple is reasonably well established. The accepted Wiki pages date Solomon's reign to 970 - 930 BC. The date for the destruction of the Temple is 587 BC, as derived from many sources, and this gives a date for construction of about 997 BC, possibly because King David started the construction of the Temple. So we have a 50-year span for the construction of the Temple of between 1,000 BC and say 950 BC - as is approved in other Wiki pages. A 50-year chronological peg is not bad for this era. 592 years before this date gives the Exodus a range between 1590 and 1540 BC. And all of this is from secondary sources and from approved Wiki pages. (Or is Wiki not to be trusted as a Wiki source?). (Yes, Seder Olam Rabbah gets a mention in Wiki, when his date is clearly wrong. But because he is an approved secondary source his erroneous date is worth a mention, while Josephus' assertions and analysis are constantly deleted.)

Quite clearly Josephus Flavius is a secondary source. He is chronologically removed from the Exodus and is providing an analysis of the accounts by primary sources, of which he cites many but primarily Manetho. Josephus agrees with some of what Manetho says, but disagrees with other sections - which constitutes an analysis. Josephus is not simply quoting Manetho. So 'Professor' Josephus is a secondary source, every bit as much as Professor Finkelstein is. (It is highly likely that his assertion that the Exodus was 592 years before the Temple is based upon his parallel assertion in 'Against Apion' that the Israelites were the Hyksos people, and so the Israelite Exodus was the Hyksos Exodus.)

So we have a series of Wiki sources and secondary sources (ie: Josephus) that point towards an earlier date for the Exodus, which is certainly worth a mention. And if you do not like the phraseology in my amendment, perhaps you could rewrite it. But please do not simply delete it because you cannot accept an earlier date for the Exodus. What Josephus says about the Israelite Exodus being the Hyksos Exodus makes a great deal of sense, but there is a dearth of modern historians who will talk about this, presumably because it is politically/religiously unacceptable. But I thought that Wiki would be above such partisan opinions and omissions. Josephus is most definitely a secondary source, when it comes to his historical account of the Exodus (which does not agree with the biblical account), and so his assertions are as valid as any modern theologian or historian - if not more so. Tatelyle (talk) 13:11, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

*** Alternate wording ***

New Version for "Dating the Exodus"

Since MPants says that historical dating should be given precedence, I have moved the biblical sentence to the end - so the historical analysis can go first and set the scene.

However, I cannot let the assertion that Jericho was unfortified stand. What Finkelstein says is that: "In the case of Jericho there was no trace of a settlement of any kind in the 13th century BCE ... There was no sign of destruction ... Thus the famous scene of the walls tumbling down is a romantic mirage." (paraphrased from p81-82 of The Bible Unearthed). What Finkelstein means is that THERE WERE NO WALLS IN THE 13th CENTURY BC. In great contrast Wiki says: "The city was surrounded by extensive defensive walls strengthened with rectangular towers .... Kathleen Kenyon reported that 'The defenses ... belong to a fairly advanced date in that period' and there was 'a massive stone revetment... part of a complex system" of defenses (pp. 213–218)' ". Clearly, if the date for the Exodus is much earlier (as Josephus maintains), then the statement that Jericho was unfortified is in error. Jericho WAS a fortified city in the 16th century BC.

Also, the assertion that the Israelites were 'escaping from Egypt to Egypt' is in error for the same reason, as that again depends on the era of the Exodus. This may be true for the middle 18th dynasty, but it is not true of the Hyksos Exodus era. And Josephus clearly states that the Israelite Exodus was the Hyksos Exodus.

• • • New wording is as follows... ***

Dating the Exodus

Attempts to date the Exodus to a specific century have been inconclusive. William F. Albright, the leading biblical archaeologist of the mid-20th century, proposed a date of around 1250–1200 BCE, but his so-called "Israelite" evidence (house-type, the collar-rimmed jars, etc.) are continuations of Canaanite culture. The lack of evidence has led scholars to conclude that it is difficult or even impossible to link the exodus story to any specific point in history. Finkelstein and Silberman also place the Exodus in the 13th century BC and debate the accuracy of the biblical account. They state that Jericho was unwalled and does not show destruction layers consistent with the Bible's account (e.g., Jericho was "small and poor, almost insignificant, and unfortified (and) [t]here was also no sign of a destruction". (Finkelstein and Silberman, 2002). This assessment is based upon a 13th century chronology for the Exodus, and does not apply if the Exodus took place at an earlier date. It is universally accepted that Jericho was a fortified city before its destruction in the 16th century BC.

Although controversial, earlier dates for the Exodus are given in several texts. The biblical Book of 1 Kings 6:1 places the Exodus 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple, and based upon the accepted date for King Solomon's reign this places the Exodus in c. 1446 BCE. However it is widely claimed that the time period in 1 Kings merely represents twelve generations of forty years each. In a similar fashion Flavius Josephus says the Exodus occurred either 612 or 592 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple, placing the Exodus in 1578 or 1558 BCE. This earlier date would equate the Israelite Exodus with the era of the Hyksos Exodus, and agree with Josephus' assertion that the Israelites were the Hyksos people (as discussed below).

Possible sources and parallels

Ipuwer Papyrus

Manetho and the Hyksos

The Greek author Hecataeus of Abdera (c. 320 BCE) wrote a history of Egypt in which he told how the Egyptians blamed a plague on foreigners and expelled them from the country, whereupon Moses, their leader, took them to Canaan. A similar and more famous story is told by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BCE), chief priest at the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis, which is preserved in two quotations by the 1st century CE Jewish historian Josephus. In the first volume of Manetho's History of Egypt, as retold by Josephus, Manetho describes the Hyksos, their lowly origins in Asia, their invasion and dominion over Egypt, their eventual expulsion, and their subsequent exile to Judaea and their establishing the city of Jerusalem and its temple. In the second volume Manetho defined the Hyksos as being the Hyksos or "Shepherd Kings" or "Captive Shepherds" who invaded Egypt, destroying its cities and temples and making war with the Egyptian people to "gradually destroy them to the very roots". Following a war with the Egyptians a treaty was negotiated stipulating that these Hyksos Shepherds were to exit Egypt. It is Josephus who identifies the Hyksos with the Jews, not Manetho. Josephus says:

"[The Hyksos] kept possession of Egypt five hundred and eleven years. After this ... the other parts of Egypt made an insurrection against the shepherds ... the shepherds were subdued and were driven out of other parts of Egypt, but were shut up in a place that contained ten thousand acres named Avaris ... Despairing of taking the place by that siege [Thummosis] came to an agreement with them: that they should leave Egypt ... After this agreement was made, they went away with their whole families and effects, not fewer in number than two hundred and forty thousand; and took their journey from Egypt, through the wilderness, for Syria. ... where they built a city in ... Judea ... and called it Jerusalem. In another book Manetho says, “That this nation thus called shepherds, were also called captives in their sacred books.” And this account of his is the truth. For feeding of sheep was the employment of our forefathers ... and as they led a wandering life in feeding sheep they were called shepherds. Nor was it without reason that they were called captives by the Egyptians, since one of our ancestors, Joseph, told the King of Egypt that he was a captive.

In his analysis of the accounts by Manetho, Josephus is equating the Hyksos people and Exodus with the Israelite people and Exodus. And in paragraph 26 he calls the Hyksos 'our people'. However, Josephus strongly disassociates the Israelites from Manetho's second story, which tells how 80,000 lepers and other "impure people", led by a priest named Osarseph, join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem, to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria, where Osarseph gives the lepers a law-code and changes his name to Moses, although the identification of Osarseph with Moses in the second account may be a later addition.

The stories told by Hecataeus and Manetho are clearly related in some manner to the biblical account of the Exodus, and the era of the Hyksos Exodus equates well with Josephus' early date for the Exodus. However, it is impossible to tell whether these accounts bear witness to actual historical events or whether they are a polemical response to the Exodus story, or indeed whether the Exodus story is a response to the Egyptian accounts.

. Tatelyle (talk) 15:58, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle, I have told you on your talk page that Josephus is WP:PRIMARY since he isn't a modern historian. Wikipedia goes by contemporary scholarship. Wikipedia editors are in no position to evaluate the truth claims of Ancient historians. We trust contemporary historians with doing that job. And indeed, per WP:CIRCULAR Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. To give you an inkling what's wrong with that theory, see File:Egypt_1450_BC.svg and [4]: the Israelites have flown from Egypt to Egypt. After the Egyptians defeated the Hyksos c. 1550 BCE, Egyptians were left without competition (at least in Canaan). The gist of our work at this article is quoting contemporary mainstream scholars: if you can't do that, we're done here. See also WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:12, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu. Josephus is 1,500 years removed from the Exodus, so how can he be considered to be a primary source? Show us where a secondary source has to be a modern historian - or are you making this up as you go along? Indeed, the secondary source example given in the Wiki manual is the 'History of the Kingdom of Voxu' dating from 1615. If you cannot show me where secondary sources have to be modern, I am taking this matter straight to Wiki arbitration. And your assertion that Josephus' chronicle cannot be used in Wiki without a modern historical filter is utterly fallacious. If you look at Wiki entries, Josephus is used on numerous occasions as a reference even when he was almost a contemporary primary source. Look at the Wiki entry for Herod the Great, for instance.

Your 'modern secondary source' reasoning is worse than circular. You will not allow Josephus to be quoted for reference, even though modern historians depend upon Josephus Flavius for their historical analyses. But you will allow Finkelstein and Silberman's comments to stand, even though they were too dumb to see any possibilities outside their 13th century BC academic bubble. So Finkelstein and Silberman are hailed as being correct by Wiki when they say Jericho was an undefended village, when the ancient texts clearly state that Jericho was a large walled city. Thus the ancient texts are a fantasy - apparently. But we know that Jericho was a large walled city in the era that Josephus says the Exodus happened, but we cannot cite Josephus because he was contemporary with these events - even though he lived 1,500 years after these events. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?

And to show you are 'correct' you show us a map of uncertain provenance that incorrectly shows 'Egypt' controlling all of the Levant during the 15th dynasty File:Egypt_1450_BC.svg. But you obviously have no idea that the land of Egypt was divided during the Second Intermediate Period, and the Hyksos controlled Lower Egypt. Which means that the 'proper' Egyptians only controlled Upper Egypt and not much more, and had absolutely no control over the Levant. And nor did the Egyptians control the Levant at the start of the New Kingdom, because the Hyksos controlled Judaea, just as Manetho says. So the point of showing this map was?? Tatelyle (talk) 23:41, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle, you're wasting your time if you think you're going to succeed at getting around the requirement that Wikipedia relies primarily on contemporary academic sources, or if you think you're going to succeed in getting WP:SYNTH material into this article. It doesn't particularly matter if you think Finkelstein is dumb, or if you think Josephus is on par with a modern historian. Wikipedia has a way of doing things. We're not here to find the truth. We're here to represent what contemporary scholarly sources say. If you're not here to do that, and if you instead insist on cooking up your own dates from Josephus, then you won't get very far here. Arguing about whether something is "primary" or "secondary" doesn't change the fundamental situation we find ourselves in here. Wikipedia has quality standards for what counts as a reliable source, and Josephus isn't one. Alephb (talk) 23:55, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

I concur. Tatelyle, drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. You aren't gonna change the ground rules of this website. The choice is yours: obey WP:PAGs or be blocked and eventually banned from Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:58, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Quote: "Wikipedia has quality standards, and Josephus isn't one." Except that Josephus is quoted throughout Wiki as a source, so Wiki standards and goalposts are not worth the screen they are printed on. Tatelyle (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome to read WP:RS again. In the meantime, if you try to violate WP:SYNTH and homecook your own dates via Josephus, a WP:FRINGE character who teaches, among other things, Young-Earth Creationism, your edits will continue to be reverted by other editors. If you persist, you'll probably be blocked sooner or later. It may or may not be all that you hoped Wikipedia would be, but it's how Wikipedia is. Maybe it's crazy. Maybe it's evil. But it is what it is. If other articles are misusing Josephus and mistaking him for a reliable source, then that's a problem. But I would recommend not trying to spread that problem to this page as well, because you'll just be wasting your own time. Alephb (talk) 00:34, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle, look, Bart Ehrman quotes Papias of Hierapolis because Papias' testimony is notable for historical reasons. But then Ehrman adds that Papias is untrustworthy in almost any verifiable respect. So, the fact that you're seeing many quotations from Josephus should not deceive you to think that we consider Josephus as having written WP:RS. The gist of your argument is that you want to break the ground rules of Wikipedia with impunity. No experienced editor is going to allow you to do that. The irony is that many dates have been advanced by modern scholars, so one does not need to go as far back in time as citing Josephus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:19, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Despite the consensus of the Wiki community, Tatelyle is just going to ignore it all. I've already reverted two edits by the user, and I feel this will just be reverted back. If he/she does revert again, I think a block would be necessary on the grounds of WP:NOTHERE. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

The 'consensus' here has allowed commentary on Manetho's assertions WP:RS (?) and on the Tanakh's assertions WP:RS (?), but not on the assertions by Josephus Flavius (Judaism's greatest historian). Which is illogical, at the very least. So the matter has been sent to dispute resolution. Tatelyle (talk) 10:38, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

The dispute resolution page is here: Tatelyle (talk) 10:46, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't know where Tatelyle is, but the verdict appears to have been that Tatelyle's section can (broadly) go in. Woscafrench (talk) 22:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Who's verdict? Please provide diffs. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

If you mean Mark Miller's closing, then the deal is this: there is absolutely no direct evidence that the Exodus has ever happened as described in the Bible, some speculate that there would be circumstantial evidence, others claim that it wasn't like in the Bible but a much smaller scale Exodus, and this tiny Exodus was embellished in the Bible. Since most archaeologists think that if were any direct evidence, it should have been found by now, most mainstream archaeologists have lost interest in digging for the Exodus. There are yet other scholars who analyze the Exodus story as literature, i.e. as historically unproven event (they are concerned with storytelling, not with its historicity, and seek to recover the historical background of the scribes who wrote about the Exodus). The gist is that Josephus is not a WP:RS pretty much as the Bible isn't a WP:RS: it is an Ancient document to be analyzed by present-day scholars, and we render their conclusions. Of course Josephus may be cited, but such quotations do not establish objective facts stated in the voice of Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:54, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

The DRN neither failed or succeeded. It was kicked back to the talk page with a recommendation for an RFC to get broader community input. Having said that, editors should be aware that it is the opinion of the moderator (per Wikipedia standards, policies and guidelines) that Josephus can and has been used as a reliable source. I have gone as far as to quote our guideline about ancient sources and a major contributor to ancient history articles and a major contributor to the reliable sources noticeboard has also stated that Josephus is a reliable source. I have explained fully our guideline on primary sources, so please review the discussion and closing comments. Because moderators have no special powers, my interpretations of policy and guideline are not the deciding factor, consensus is.

I personally believe this article has enough issues that more eyes are needed. As with any article at Wikipedia, we do not use the encyclopedia's voice of authority to state reference source conclusions as the article conclusions unless there is actual academic consensus. I do not believe editors have demonstrated that the current academic consensus is as they state (see the DRN discussion). Look, this isn't up to me or any other single editor to tell you what to do. Collaborate. Work together and find consensus even if a compromise is not perfect but garners a tentative consensus of editors. Aloha and Happy editing!--Mark Miller (talk) 02:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

One last note. Please remember: conclusions are not made from a lack of evidence. Conclusions are drawn from "conclusive evidence". Please...go from there.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:34, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Mark Miller - thanks for your work on this. I don't want to intrude on your time and patience too much, but your comment here is important - where you say you see multiple issues with the article. Could you describe what you see, very briefly? PiCo (talk) 03:15, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Of course. One issue is my perception of what I see as conclusions preceding theory in the origins section that are sourced to individual references for each claim as if they are non controversial or unlikely to be challenged. Contentious material should be sourced with multiple reliable sources and such precision requires further prose and sources to explain how such exact conclusions have come about with no added balance to other theories or sources that may counter these claims.

Another concern I see is the very first sentence. The issue to me is that the first line defines this as a clear myth, again, with no balance and drawing conclusions before a complete explanation of the subject. The exodus is the biblical tale of the flight of the Israelites from Egypt. Why is that not the specific opening line (or something close to that). What we have right now is a tad self assured in text that I absolutely dispute is as absolute as presented, but also is limited to only a single origin theory and makes no actual mention of how it became a biblical (or Christian) story. Here is what is stated; "The Exodus (from Greek ἔξοδος exodos, "going out"; Hebrew: יציאת מצרים‎ yetzi'at mitzrayim) is the founding, or etiological, myth of Israel, telling how the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant." I have a couple of problems with that. First is what I just stated, the presentation of this as an absolute fact with a single source when this is clearly contentious information. Balance is missing from this as well as the actual origin as being "biblical" or correct me if there is some mention of the earlier myths but this is particular to the two religions and their sacred texts. Next is the first note next to the first reference. It sates; "Charter (i.e., foundation) myths tell the story of a society's origins, and, in doing so, provide the ideological foundations for the culture and its institutions." (Sparks (2010), p. 73". Uhm....that explains what a myth is but is far from explaining the actual text it accompanies as an explanatory note to the claim itself. You don't need a note explaining what a myth is...you need a note explaining the claim being made. I would also note that the exodus is a part of at least two religions and the origins only explain conclusions or opinions of authors and historians and does nothing to explain the other religion(s) with this specific tale. This is my basic overview of just the immediate things I saw before a need for more participation to determine a consensus of editors. A nutshell of my concerns could well be that the origin seems too limited and draws conclusions from the start of the article without proper context, proper sourcing or proper balance with the lead seeming to reflect a bias that may be aimed at defining the overall subject per a Google search. Oh..I forgot. I also have a problem specifically about the following line; "and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant." This is one of the issues I saw that seemed to be drawing a conclusion without an explanation. Readers will need a more detailed explanation of that. Is that basically saying they were the "Chosen people" sort of thing? Please clarify this, and add more sources to support it.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:01, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks :) PiCo (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Just to mention that I am not arguing that religion or the religious view should take precedence to facts, just that this is a subject about a religion topic. With the absence of archaeological evidence or historic documents, first hand accounts etc., what else is there? The religious aspects perhaps? The article comes across as "The debunking of the exodus myth" which I really don't think is in the spirit of Wikipedia or the article itself. While I am sure there are enough sources to discuss the theory that the event did not happen, I don't think the article should put too much emphasis on a single view. Perhaps a very detailed section with subsections (even a very long and detailed section with subsections) but I feel the article has taken a single view and given it undue weight.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I fully agree. I am an Atheist, but I was still surprised by the tone of the article. It really needs biblical arguments for, and historical arguments against. And one of those arguments for is the fact that the entire biblical exodus narrative concurs with what we know about the Hyksos exodus from Egyot to Jerusalem. They are almost identical, bar the date. But there again, the biblical and Josephus accounts both point towards an earlier date. Tatelyle (talk) 08:43, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle, you are seriously confused about both the bible and the Hyksos. The bible does not say that the Israelites went from Egypt to Jerusalem, nor in real history did the Hyksos do that. Nor are the exodus story and the Hyksos story "nearly identical" - the Hyksos were kings not slaves, and the Egyptians didn't want them to stay, and they didn't worship one god (they worshiped the same gods as the Egyptians in fact), and they didn't all leave Egypt. Most importantly though, Wikipedia is not about giving arguments, either for or against. What we do is give the views of modern scholars, starting with the majority opinion, then any significant minority opinions. Please go to the bibliography and READ! PiCo (talk) 10:26, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Mark Miller, I'm not sure how much time you want to spend on this, but if you do have the time to spare on this, I've got three main questions about Josephus. The first is this -- Josephus, in Antiquities of the Jews, gives a history from the creation, less than 10,000 years ago, to a global flood in the time of Noah, to Moses parting the Red Sea with a staff, to David, to the Babylonian captivity, to Alexander the Great, to Fadus the Procurator. About where in that timeline do you see Josephus's claims become reliable? My second question is about the contributor to the reliable sources noticeboard. Could you point me in the direction of the claim made by that editor you speak of so I can see more precisely what he said about Josephus? Thanks for your time. Third, Tatelyle has repeatedly made statements to the effect that Josephus is more reliable than modern scholars on the Exodus, on the basis of the idea that Josephus (1500ish years later) was closer to the alleged events than us (3500ish years later). Does this strike you as a reasonable position in keeping with Wikipedia's ideas about reliability? Alephb (talk) 05:10, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• About where in that timeline do you see Josephus's claims become reliable? There is a difference between an author and source being reliable per Wikipedia standards and practices, and the individual claims made by the author in the source. What is considered to be a reliable claim made by any source is determined in discussion by actually talking about each and the context of how it is used. There are somethings in Wikipedia where sourcing is attributed; Josephus states... and in other places the author is just referenced as an inline citation. Any historian, even today, has to have claims weighed to determine if their claims are about facts, opinion or just the gathering and interpretations of other sources.
• Instead of searching through the history of a closed DRN to find the editors statement, pinging them to at least ask their opinion seems more appropriate. Doug Weller, if you have a moment could you give your opinion of Josephus as a reliable source for ancient history.
• In disputes and content discussions, people's opinions about authors and sources vary. Discuss the contribution and not the contributor.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:28, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Mark Miller, I don't see there an answer to Alephb's question, at what point do you see Josephus becoming reliable? He begins with the Creation, about 4,000 years before his own time, and follows Jewish history down to the 1st century AD. He believes that the Jewish scriptures are reliable historical works, and that they were written by Moses under divine dictation and then preserved intact by an unbroken line of priests. In short, according to Josephus we must accept accept all of the Book of Genesis as history. So, do you agree, and if not, at what point do you regard the Jewish scriptures as becoming reliable?PiCo (talk) 02:14, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I gave an answer. It is directly above in the first bullet point. The question is far to broad to be answered and instead must be looked at as far as any specific statement or claim in regard to the subject. It's called "context" and is part of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:07, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

So what's the context of Josephus, vis-a-vis the Exodus, bearing in mind that his sole source for it was the Book of Exodus? This is quite different to his context on the Jewish Revolt, where he was a participant. Should he be regarded as equally authoritative on both?PiCo (talk) 06:11, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Mark Miller, I'm getting a little bit confused following you on this point: are you saying that Doug Weller weighed in in the recent DRN? I don't think he did, and so for the moment I don't think I can agree with your statement that "a major contributor to ancient history articles and a major contributor to the reliable sources noticeboard has also stated that Josephus is a reliable source." Perhaps you could clarify for me who it is that you think made that statement, and what the statement contains. If I'm misreading you somehow, or if I missed a previous statement by Doug Weller on Josephus, I would appreciate some clarification about what, precisely, you're claiming here. Given that you're leaning on a witness for support here which I can't seem to find, I really do think a diff or something like that would be appropriate here. Alephb (talk) 05:02, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

You should be confused and I am sure Doug Weller is probably used to the confusion as well but you are correct...he did not comment. Whatever weight I put on the comment is actually attributed to Dweller. My eyes betrayed me.

I think that we all agree that Josephus may be cited. The rub is about whether quotes from Josephus alone establish objective historical facts, stated in the voice of Wikipedia. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:30, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

What we do on Wikipedia is set out the balance of scholarly opinion, from consensus if such a thing exists, to majority if it doesn't, to significant minority if such a thing exists. In this case the almost-unanimous consensus of scholarly opinion is that the exodus never happened and that trying to put a date to it is pointless, which makes Josephus superfluous.PiCo (talk) 06:08, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure reliable is a good word to use for Josephus - he was a traitor after all. But his view of the Exodus is notable as it is almost 2000 years old, and he would have known oral traditions about how the story was understood that have since disappeared. Is it really so hard to say "this is what Josephus said" and "here are some things that make Josephus's views questionable"?. Woscafrench (talk) 09:47, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

That would be ok with me, seen that Ehrman quotes Papias only to explain below such quote that Papias is unreliable in almost any verifiable respect. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Just to remind what we're talking about: two works are involved, "Against Apion" and "Antiquities of the Jews." Both are attempts to defend the idea that the Jews are an older people than either the Greeks or Egyptians, both of whom looked down on the Jews. In order to do this Josephus identifies the Hyksos, whose story he finds in Manetho, with the Jews. Josephus actually had no idea who the Hyksos were, apart from what he read in Manetho. Manetho never said the Hyksos were the Jews, that was Josephus. Also, Manetho was wrong about the Hyksos - he's not a reliable source. They certainly existed, but modern Egyptologists, who read ancient inscriptions, have a much better idea than Manetho did as to what happened. The story Manetho told is actually a conflation of the true history of Akhenaten and that of the real Hyksos. This is why Josephus is not regarded as a reliable source on the Exodus or on the Hyksos. (And he didn't have access to oral sources - he used Manetho). It follows that it would be totally unacceptable to mention Josephus. Although we could and should mention Manetho.PiCo (talk) 10:12, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

You did not address the model of Ehrman quoting Papias. Josephus was wrong, that's the scholarly consensus, so we may state what he said and why he was wrong. Tgeorgescu (talk) 10:25, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Josephus was wrong, agreed, but I see no reason to quote him. He himself was quoting Manetho, and Manetho is the important one. Not Manetho only, either, but other Greek writers who tell an Exodus story quite different from the one in the Bible. What we have to do is point out how the Exodus story was apaprently a reformulation of an original Egyptian story that conflated Akhnaten and the Hyksos and was later turned into an anti-Jewish story, from which the Exodus story emerged. The sources are Assmann, Grmirkin, and others. Not Josephus, who was unaware of all this. PiCo (talk) 10:53, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand how facts work. What you are describing is a hypothesis. I'm not saying that the hypothesis is wrong but it is a hypothesis. And you are now saying that the article should be purged of all historical records that don't correspond with your hypothesis. Why can't you just be honest about what you don't know? Woscafrench (talk) 11:32, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I know nothing at all. I wasn't in Egypt 2500 years ago, nor do I read Egyptian hieroglyphics, nor demotic Greek, not Latin. I do, however, know how to write history, because I'm a historian and a writer. I know how to find, weigh, and use sources. As this is Wikipedia. those sources are modern historians and students of the Bible. This is why I mention people like Assmann: Assmann is the leading scholar in this area. Grmirkin represents a minority view, but his book gives an excellent overview of Hellenistic scholarship on the Pentateuch. And of course there are people like Redmount and Meyers. You need to be across these before you go on to Josephus.PiCo (talk) 11:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

As usual inside Wikipedia, editors don't decide the notability of a claim, the WP:SOURCES do that for us. Therefore the WP:BURDEN is upon he/she who wants to include the citations from Josephus. I won't object to quoting Josephus if he is shown to be germane to the article. Tgeorgescu (talk) 12:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Josephus is definitely not a reliable source on the date of the Exodus - he bases it on the Biblical chronology, which is universally recognised to be nonsense.PiCo (talk) 12:29, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I didn't say that Josephus would be WP:RS. The gist is: Papias also wrote nonsense, but he is mentioned very often in reliable sources. Das Kapital and Mein Kampf are notable, but not reliable. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:04, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

PiCo says: Josephus is definitely not a reliable source on the date of the Exodus - he bases it on the Biblical chronology, which is universally recognised to be nonsense. This is patent nonsense. Josephus was quoting and discussing ancient historians, like Chaeremon, Lysimachus, and Manetho. His arguments were NOT based upon biblical chronology, it was based upon his assertion that the Israelites were the Hyksos people. Tatelyle (talk) 21:27, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Tgeorgescu said: The WP:BURDEN is upon he/she who wants to include the citations from Josephus. But in what way? I can demonstrate that Josephus and the Torah were probably correct, because their chronicles clearly state that Jericho was a large fortified city that was destroyed. And it was, in the era of the Hyksos, which is exactly when Josephus says the Exodus happened. And how would these texts have known that, if they were not based upon real history?

And in the 'Dispute Resolution' debate, it was said that Josephus was certainly a Secondary Source for the events of the Exodus, in which case he can stand alone as a reference without modern commentary. And this Exodus assertion is certainly not from the 'unreliable' sections of Josephus, where he discusses 'legends', as he does in 'Antiquities' when he relates the biblical account of the Exodus. No, this is from 'Against Apion' where Josephus is discussing real history, as recorded by Chaeremon, Lysimachus, and Manetho. And in this historical section of his works, Josephus and the Torah can be shown to be correct - Jericho was indeed a major fortified city that was destroyed at the time Josephus says the Exodus happened. Tatelyle (talk) 21:56, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

As you know, this discussion went to 'Dispute Resolution', and their conclusion was:

The opposing editors have used a number of contradicting Wikipedia policies and guidelines in an attempt to exclude a source and author. WP:RS under WP:AGE MATTERS is VERY clear; "With regard to historical events, older reports (closer to the event, but not too close such that they are prone to the errors of breaking news) tend to have the most detail, and are less likely to have errors introduced by repeated copying and summarizing" The guideline says that; "newer secondary and tertiary sources may have done a better job.." (bolding for emphasis) not that they absolutely have done a better job. They are neither preferred or the only sources used. Whether or not academic consensus is clearly against a specific event such as this, does not mean that older references cannot be used as the bases for reliable sourcing. The current consensus among archaeologists (not all of academia) is that there is no evidence that it happened, not that that it never happened. There are other historians and scholars that theorize that it did. Claims of academic consensus do not seem to be accurate.

They have suggested that a request is made for further comments, which is what I will do. Tatelyle (talk) 21:27, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Joesphus' problem isn't that he's a primary source, but that he's an ancient source. He just wasn't a historian in the modern sense. Stick with the modern consensus of scholars. (And he did base his dates on the Bible he says it was 612 years before the Temple was built, arrived at by counting years in the totally fictional Book of Judges).PiCo (talk) 22:18, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, PiCo, but that is NOT what WP:RS says. And Wiki Dispute Resolution upheld the view that Josephus is a reliable source, quoting WP:RS which says: With regard to historical events, older reports ... tend to have the most detail, and are less likely to have errors introduced by repeated copying and summarizing. Besides, when I did quote two modern historians, who analysed Josephus' assertions for an early Exodus, my update was again deleted and I was threatened with a ban. This has been the trouble with this entire discussion - I have fully complied with three different requests, and still my update gets deleted.

And Josephus did not simply use a biblical date. His main reasoning is his assertion that the Israelites were the Hyksos, and so the Israelite Exodus was the Hyksos Exodus. If so, then the Israelite Exodus must have happened in about 1570 or so, which happens to agree with his number of years before the Temple. Please see the 'Requests for Comments' below. Tatelyle (talk) 22:46, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle, we should stick to modern scholarly sources for history. This is because history is an ongoing discussion among experts - new evidence becomes available, new interpretations are made, and the scholarly majority (if there is one) shifts accordingly. In the case of the exodus, the current consensus is that it never happened, and ergo there is no date. You'll find the references for that in the article. But the consensus is also that something lies behind the exodus story, even if exactly what that someing is, is now lost. A lot of biblical scholars do indeed feel that the Hyksos event might be involved, but we get the Hyksos from Manetho and from contemporary Egyptian records, not from Josephus (even though he's the one who preserved Manetho, so we thank him for that). Modern scholars also feel that the Hyksos stories from Manetho's time, which includes some Greek authors, has conflated the Hyksos story with the story of Akhenaten, and that it's possible, though unproveable, that theBible story itself was written as a reply to those those late Greek and Egyptian stories. So, in brief, Josephus is too far removed from current scholarship to be useful to us.PiCo (talk) 23:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Tatelyle Quit cherry picking policy, your quote on policy does not state its mandatory to use ancient sources on Wiki articles. Per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, WP:WPNOTRS, and WP:PSTS, secondary sources are recommended to be used such as mainstream academia. You also go by WP:CONSENSUS, that means by the Wiki community, not your demands. — JudeccaXIII (talk) 23:11, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

User:PiCo is correct in saying that Josephus bases his chronology from the Exodus to the Temple on the biblical story, which Josephus just paraphrases. He didn't get the 592 years from some Greek source, despite what User:Tatelyle is claiming. :::::::::::::::::::::Tatelyle, you keep saying that Josephus didn't get his chronology of the Exodus from the Bible. Josephus himself said, at the close of his section on the Exodus, that his account of the Exodus copies that in the Bible. Start in Antiquities 8.3.1, and just do a CTRL+F string search for "years." There, Josephus gives 592 from the Exodus to the dedication of the temple. Then work through Antiquities, books 5 through 8 looking at occurrences of the word "year." It's not hard to find where Josephus gets that span of time -- not from some history of the Hyksos, but from adding up the figures he gives in his paraphrase of the biblical account: 40 years in the wilderness, 25 years to the death of Joshua, 18 of anarchy, 8 of oppression, 40 for Othniel, 18 for Eglon, 80 for Ehud, 20 for Jabin, 40 for Barak, 3 for Midianite oppression, 40 for Gideon, 3 for Abimelech, 22 for Jair, 18 for the Ammonites, 6 for Jephthah, 7 for Ibzan, 10 for Helon, 40 for the Philistines, 20 for Samson, 40 for Eli, 12 for Samuel, 40 for Saul, 40 for David, 3 before Solomon began the temple = 593 years. The discrepancy is just 1 year, not surprising because Josephus was bad at adding things up (or badly copied, though the end result is the same). The Josephus chronology for this period is derived from the biblical chronology, not something he cooked up by analyzing other historians and sifting carefully through their accounts about the Hyksos.Alephb (talk) 05:10, 27 August 2017 (UTC)