Why the Biblical Exodus Matters (John Oswalt)

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  • Опубліковано 29 лис 2024

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  • @princeamoakwa4057
    @princeamoakwa4057 4 роки тому

    This man is a great story teller. So much character in his narration and presentation. God bless you for making the Bible exciting.

  • @carmelo1509
    @carmelo1509 8 років тому +3

    I believe the exodus story is real because, if it isn't, I would be wrong. That's basically the circular thinking that this video offers. Dr. Oswalt declares that the exodus account is historical but does not offer a shred of evidence. The archaeological evidence is that Israelites were, in fact, subjects of Egypt, but not living there. They were Canaanites, and Canaan was a colony of Egypt. Their "migration" was only from the valleys of Canaan to the hill country of Canaan. Not from the Nile. Not across the Red Sea.
    I think the Napoleon comparison that Dr. Oswalt brought up is spot on, though. Believing you are Napoleon is no more an illusion than believing in something like the exodus.

    • @diegodvs
      @diegodvs 8 років тому +1

      This guy knows his shit! Give him a cookie!

    • @carmelo1509
      @carmelo1509 8 років тому

      +Ian Wright
      "Where else would the collective memory of slavery in Egypt come from?" is a darn good question. But, by itself. it doesn't make the exodus story likely. It's like asking where the idea of deities come from. We don't know, but it doesn't make the existence of gods likely. Stories do not need a historical basis. The author of Harry Potter did not need a historical basis for his creations.
      But I do have a theory. I think the collective slavery, to use your words, happened in Babylon, not in Egypt. The Bible was probably put together during the 6th. century BCE by Jews living in captivity in Babylon. They were no doubt influenced by Babylonian religions, among which was the monotheistic Zoroastrianism. The Jews were desperately trying to make sense of their misfortune. They were wondering why their god had abandoned them and why the Babylonian god was mightier than theirs. That's when they became monotheistic. They made their god the only god, blamed all their ills on having worshiped other gods, and created stories to make Yhwh all-powerful and still favor them over all other people. Egypt and a nameless pharaoh were only an allegory used to forge an identity and propel them out of bondage and into a brighter future.

    • @carmelo1509
      @carmelo1509 8 років тому

      Ian Wright
      This is an interesting conversation, but I have to disagree with you on the burden of proof. All cultures have national stories, yes, but does this mean I have to believe the aboriginal dreamtime stories or Homer's rendition of the Trojan horse account? The Exodus is just another one of these. The burden of proof is always on the one making the claim and never on the one rejecting it.
      The archaeological evidence of Hyksos in Egypt, which is what I think you referred to, dates from the seventeenth century BCE. This seems to be well before the birth of Israel. Ancient Hebrew seems to ahve been a dialect of a Canaanite language spoken in Ugarit in the 12th. century BCE. So I wouldn't make a connection between the Hyksos and Israel.
      The pre-exilic dating of the Song of Moses seems to be a Jewish version of the Baal Cycle. There is a full dissertation of this in the book "The Song of the Sea" by Brian D. Russell. I don't have the book but I read portions of it online. Psalms 82 and 89 also seem to be derived from Canaanite poems to El or Baal.
      And Yhwh's temporary abode on the sacred mountain... well, that's typical of gods. Hardly evidence of slavery in Egypt!
      Israel did of course have a historic relation with Egypt. It is too close geographically not to. Besides we have evidence. The Merneptah stela of around 1208 commemorates a supposedly decisive Egyptian victory over Israel. Egypt seems to have sway over Israel then and again prior to the Babylonian conquest. There is no record that the Egyptians took Jewish slaves to Egypt, but, of course, that would be well within the possibilities.
      Any evidence of the influence of Zoroastrianism is merely circumstantial. But there is more than just monotheism that later religions seem to have adopted. This article: www.iranicaonline.org/articles/eschatology-i
      expounds the eschatological thinking that, in the author's words, "seems to have had a deep impact on neighboring religions, notably on Judaism, and through it on Christianity and Islam, as well as on Manicheism."
      Whether is was Zoroastrianism or not, both biblical and archaeological evidence indicate that the Jews worshiped multiple gods prior to the exile but adhered to a monotheistic faith after their return from Babylon.

    • @carmelo1509
      @carmelo1509 8 років тому

      +Ian Wright
      The Greeks certainly set foot in Troy. The battle might have happened. The horse is a stretch. But Homer goes farther than all of that. He designs the war in heaven and gives Zeus and various goddesses a major role. At this point I become convinced that his imagination is taking over anything that could have happened. It's the same feeling I get with the Bible stories.
      I enjoyed the chat too. In the end we will probably never know who's right or not right or partially right, but that matters less than being able to reason things out and present ideas freely.

    • @dagwould
      @dagwould 2 роки тому

      @@ianwright1078 If you start with a materialist frame you will get materialist conclusions. A sort of circular and self-referential QED. So, let's start with a defense of materialism.

  • @mobaby1979
    @mobaby1979 8 років тому +7

    Wait WHAT? There is no evidence here to be found - not even reference to evidence. This is a case study in fallacy.

  • @cjcaufield007
    @cjcaufield007 10 років тому

    Excellent as he always is.

  • @liberalinoklahoma1182
    @liberalinoklahoma1182 9 років тому +6

    Biblical Scholars!!! As impressive as having a PHD. on Star Trek.

  • @konradv7
    @konradv7 9 років тому

    The Trojan War occurred in historic times and is filled with stories/myths of the gods.

  • @cornbreadatheist2137
    @cornbreadatheist2137 9 років тому +5

    Christian apologetics always remind me of that polar bear that looks pitiful on the chunk of ice. Bit by bit, the truth gets chipped away. It's the literal word of God until it suddenly morphs into metaphor. Now that people can check sources independently of their parents for the absolute truth, the abandonment rate is going to speed up dramatically.

    • @carmelo1509
      @carmelo1509 8 років тому

      +Cornbread Atheist. That's a good analogy. As an older guy I have one with a Laurel and Hardy movie (old, black-and-white Hollywood). In this movie the pretentious Hardy refuses to admit that his wife is cheating on him. At first he vows she is totally devoted to him. Then, oh maybe she enjoys a little flirt with the guys, but that's okay. When he catches her making out with someone, he is a little shaken at first but then he dismisses it. One has to keep an open mind "these days," he says. His wife ends up sleeping with another man in her (Hardy's) camper and poor Hardy is still trying to say that his wife is true to him!

  • @Khirbet
    @Khirbet 9 років тому +1

    Bless this man, he speaks a lot of truth. Read my book . 'Where Moses Stood'. It confirms much of what he says, and more - much much more.

  • @jfarr206
    @jfarr206 9 років тому +3

    The Bible presents its stories differently from other myths? ..."point by point by point"? Seriously? The Old Testament presents us with stories of talking animals (Gen 3, Numbers 22), magic (Ex 7:11, 22), spirits that rise from the underworld (1 Sam 28:13-14), people living extraordinary life-spans (Gen 5), God riding clouds down to earth (Ex 19:9,18;33:7-11, Ezek 1) - and let's not forget the enormous parallels between Heracles and Samson! As a matter of fact, the Bible even portrays God as defeating chaos dragons to establish order at Creation, just like in the earlier Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat (Ps 74:13-17)! All of these and more are traits shared with the myths of other cultures. And the Western world believes in Truth because of the Old Testament? The Bible has had a tremendous impact on Western thought to be sure, but so have the sages of Ancient Greece like Socrates. His name is practically synonymous with logic and reason. The Jews were not the first people to be interested in Truth. Much older writing depicts law codes about truth-telling and thoughtful inquiries into how the world operates. People have been interested in Truth for a very long time.This guy has either given no thought to his statements or else he's not concerned with the facts. How can he expect other people to be convinced of his religion if he gives arguments that would only convince a third-grader?

    • @samsonmoses7747
      @samsonmoses7747 9 років тому

      This guy thinks that whatever plane of existence god lived on before it created the heavens and the Earth, is a proven place on Earth? What the fuck?

    • @jfarr206
      @jfarr206 8 років тому

      ***** You are just too funny. I never said monkeys and apes talk! I think you need to read some science books so you can understand the arguments for Evolution better. You're either misunderstanding what you read or getting straw-man arguments from whatever Creationist you happen to be following these days.
      And every time "they" say something is a myth, it's proven true? As a blanket statement about all myths - no! - though I know the kind of things you're referring to: mundane things like people or places that were thought to be legend. For instance, historians used to doubt the existence of the city of Troy. They thought it was a fabled city made up by Homer for the Iliad. But then, archaeologists found it. So what does that prove? It proves that Troy really existed. That's it. Does it prove that Achilles was dipped in a river to render him invincible? No, of course not! So just because archaeologists find some historical reference to David or Solomon, does that mean that a snake talked or that the Red Sea split and turned into walls of water? No! It means that David or Solomon might have been actual people - that's it. It doesn't prove every little miracle or claim written in the Bible! That would be a HUGE assumption on your part.
      And judging from your comments about the Red Sea, I think you're probably buying into some claims that are bogus.

    • @jfarr206
      @jfarr206 8 років тому

      ***** I know. I've heard what Creationists say. The dating is supposedly circular. It's not. They date fossils according to the age of the strata they're found in.
      But what do you think about stellar dating? We already know that light travels at 186,000 miles per second. We know the distances from earth to these stars, and can therefore determine how long it took the starlight to arrive at the Earth - billions of years in some cases. So cosmologists know that the universe is at least billions of years old. I hope you at least accept that the universe is billions of years old, even if you don't accept the age of fossils.

    • @jfarr206
      @jfarr206 8 років тому

      ***** Yes, the Biblical writers thought that the sky was actually a "firmament" - a hard metallic material (job 37:18) that God stretched over the earth "like a tent" (ps 104:2). God then placed a large body of water "above" this firmament (gen 1:6-7) as a barrier to separate the waters above it from body of water below it. He then decorated the firmament with the sun, moon, and stars, placing them "in" this firmament (gen 1:14).
      Basically, the Bible presents a picture of the world similar to how other ancient cultures did: an ocean above us and an ocean below us, separated by a vast metallic dome in which were placed the sun, moon, and stars.
      If you really don't think this is the case, I'd love to hear you explain how there could be an ocean "above" the sun and moon, as the Bible says.

    • @jfarr206
      @jfarr206 8 років тому

      ***** I'm having a hard time making sense of your incoherent sentences anyway. Good luck, Mr. Science.

  • @haroldcrenshaw5630
    @haroldcrenshaw5630 6 років тому +1

    You cannot command your misconceptions! We dont know if its historical

  • @jamesroe4968
    @jamesroe4968 Рік тому

    Did it happen? No Arch. evidence? The Red Sea crossing site at Newaba Beach at the Gulf of Aqaba or Red Sea. Coral encrusted Egyptian chariot wheels and axles, and human and horse remains on the sea bottom, strewn along the bottom from west to east. The real mount Sinai, glyphs and altars and burnt mountain tops. Found in 1978 by Ron Wyatt. Others have also verified the artifacts on the sea bottom and at Mount Sinai. So it happened, just not with Chuck Heston, lol.

  • @dougzembiec9995
    @dougzembiec9995 8 років тому

    Where the 50 000 chariots?

    • @manfredrehorn614
      @manfredrehorn614 8 років тому

      Exodus 14:6-9 (never 50000, and not the Gulf of Aqaba)!

  • @noroux
    @noroux 8 років тому +2

    Mainstream history and archaeology now consider the Exodus never to have happened, and the story to be an entirely fictional narrative put together between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE.
    Despite being regarded in Judaism as the primary factual historical narrative of the origin of the religion, culture and ethnicity, Exodus is now accepted by scholars as having been compiled in the 8th-7th centuries BCE from stories dating possibly as far back as the 13th century BCE, with further polishing in the 6th-5th centuries BCE, as a theological and political manifesto to unite the Israelites in the then‐current battle for territory against Egypt.
    Archaeologists from the 19th century onward were actually surprised not to find any evidence whatsoever for the events of Exodus. By the 1970s, archaeologists had largely given up regarding the Bible as any use at all as a field guide. The archaeological evidence of local Canaanite, rather than Egyptian, origins of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel is "overwhelming," and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40‐year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness."
    The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult objects are of the Canaanite god El, the pottery is in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing Israelite villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones. It is considered possible that those Canaanites who started regarding themselves as the Israelites were joined or led by a small group of Semites from Egypt, possibly carrying stories that made it into Exodus. As the tribe expanded, they may have begun to clash with neighbors, perhaps sparking the tales of conflict in Joshua and Judges. William Dever, an archaeologist normally associated with the more conservative end of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, has labeled the question of the historicity of Exodus “dead.” Israeli archaeologist Ze'ev Herzog provides the current consensus view on the historicity of the Exodus;
    "The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad. This whole
    chain is broken. It is not a historical one. It is a later legendary reconstruction - made in the seventh century [BCE] - of a history that never happened."
    Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology Eric H. Cline also summarizes the scholarly consensus in his book Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction
    (published by Oxford University Press and winner of the 2011 Biblical Archaeology Society's "Best Popular Book on Archaeology");
    Despite attempts by a number of biblical archaeologists - and an even larger number of amateur enthusiasts - over the years, credible direct archaeological evidence for the Exodus has yet to be found.
    While it can be argued that such evidence would be difficult to find,
    since nomads generally do not leave behind permanent installations,
    archaeologists have discovered and excavated nomadic emplacements from
    other periods in the Sinai desert.
    So if there were archaeological remains to be found from the Exodus, one would have expected them to be found by now. And yet, thus far there is no trace of the biblical "600,000 men on foot, besides children" plus "a mixed crowd...and live stock in great numbers" (Exod. 12:37-38) who wandered for forty years in the desert.
    ua-cam.com/video/Gfd4kFPWjzU/v-deo.html

  • @uxinox58
    @uxinox58 Рік тому

    Dr Oswald declares that the bible is true and that the Exodus had to be an historic event or biblical faith has no foundation. I would agree with him, but this video in no way addresses the argument that is mainstream right now, namely that there is no archeological evidence for the Exodus. This argument is stated flatly and without equivocation. There its pretty much an academic consensus on this point. Most professional archeologists don't believe the Exodus happened because they cannot find any physical trace of it. To be convincing Oswald has to to more than make assertions, he has to cite the work of archeologists that refute the mainstream position (Israel Finkelstein et al) or put forward theories for why there is no evidence (the Sinai has never been properly excavated or some such thing) or refute the attacks on David Rohl's very interesting work an an alternate dating for the Egypian dynasties and hence a different interpretation for the Biblical narrative in terms of what cities existed and when.

  • @MasticinaAkicta
    @MasticinaAkicta 9 років тому +3

    That failed hard.
    Is there really so little left to grasp upon? Is there really nothing left to go by? Right then.. Exodus is just another mythical story that is retold. And knowing how those kind of stories are created.. it was never true.
    Apologetics says it in the name.. make apologies where things are proven wrong.

  • @haroldcrenshaw5630
    @haroldcrenshaw5630 6 років тому

    You see its like this. The jews didnt have cameras and dailies back then. So they wrote the bibles n such. Cause the had no hollywood back then.

  • @javierbernal2952
    @javierbernal2952 8 років тому

    Oh I get it....... 2+2 = 3 only because I believe it dose. Now I'm going to fly to the moon on my Air Jordans. I don't need a space suit because you can breath air on the moon.

  • @dmurray6828
    @dmurray6828 8 років тому +4

    You would think a video like this would address whether there is any evidence of an Exodus! What a joke!

  • @edgarhomero
    @edgarhomero 8 років тому

    What??????What he daid?????

  • @haroldcrenshaw5630
    @haroldcrenshaw5630 6 років тому

    No the exodus is not the basis of their unique theology. The law is. The egotistic ranting of god is. They are granted the law and the kingship long before the exodus. This guy is trapped in some wierd uneducated belief. Abandon all belief and try thinking. It only hurts for a little while

    • @dagwould
      @dagwould 2 роки тому

      When you've published as many books as Oswalt, I'll listen to you, Mr Thinking Person.

  • @nicoletaungurean5230
    @nicoletaungurean5230 7 років тому +1

    Well this was completely useless.

  • @castrokobe24
    @castrokobe24 7 років тому +1

    "There has never been any archaeological evidence for the Exodus"
    Maybe because we have been looking at the wrong timeline the entire time but stubborn scholars will never adjust.

  • @carmeladicen5157
    @carmeladicen5157 3 роки тому

    whaaaaaaat?

  • @chosenskeptic5319
    @chosenskeptic5319 4 роки тому

    Special pleading 🥺 again, smug in his deciet