If humans evolved from Ethiopia then the world's greatest civilization should have been found in Africa,Why in Mesopotamia?maybe the garden of Eden is true or maybe the flood(noah) was true
I’d be very interested in seeing your opinion on the Qurans history. They say it was brought to Mohamed just before the Muslim caliphate started conquering land. I would really like to know if there is any historical accuracy to it.
I’m an Egyptian male that was raised in the US. I was born in Alexandria and have been in NJ ever since the age of 4. I wonder what Egypt would be like today if it stayed under Roman rule. Anyways please somehow let me know if you ever decide to do a video about the Qurans historical accuracy.
Surely Balaam's talking donkey was a real historic figure. The only thing left for historians to debate is whether or not his voice sounded like Eddie Murphy.
A talking donkey was placed on the movie because it was considered to be a fairy tale creature. Do I smell dreamworks backing off from the Prince of Egypt era??
@@CCI320 It is the very definition of magic. An impossibly irrational event that defies logic and reason for no actual reason. It just spontabeously occurs like a fart and fades into the background.Saying let there be light and out of nowhere there just is is the same as saying bibidibabidiboo and out of nowhere a pumpkim turns into a carriage wagon
@@matiaspereyra9375 why can’t there be things that our just out of the human realm that we can’t fully understand or control. What’s wrong with saying we don’t know everything and some things we can’t explain cause it’s out of our current understanding.
It is also worth noting that there are 2 rivaling schools in the Israeli Biblical Archaeology, represented by Israel Finkelstein (Tel-Aviv Univ.) mentioned here and Yosef Garfinkel (Jerusalem Univ.) (ironically, they share the same element 'finkel' in their surnames :) ). Finkelstein insists that David and Solomon were mere tribal chieftains, if existed at all, and there was no such powerful and organised statehood as the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel (Biblical minimalism?), while Garfinkel tries to provide more archaeological confirmations for the Biblical narrative.
Whether mythical or legendary, what I like about the stories in the Torah is that most of the characters are completely human (as opposed to godlike or supernatural). They do great things, but they also make terrible errors of judgment that get them in trouble with their families and their God. I also appreciate that there are many stories about strong, brave, and intelligent women. Even when they are vilified, it's interesting to consider their actions from a less biased point of view.
I was reading an article just a few days ago about women in ancient Israel, it said that women could get an education, work, make money, hold their family name, etc.. It wasn't until the Greeks influenced them to think misogynisticly and see women as inferior.
@@manuelalineaerika Do you remember where you read the article? There's a book I really enjoyed that was written by a female rabbi about the women of the Jewish bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). I don't remember the exact title. One of the main points she made was that even though women did not have the same power as men during that time, the scriptures never say it is because they are inferior to men. In fact, there are many times when they are shown to be braver and wiser, or even the saviors of the Jewish people. The last group of proverbs (in the book Proverbs) also describes the "ideal" women as being very industrious, having her own business, being well-respected by important men in the town, and generally being confident, as well as being a good mother and wife. And Jewish heritage is passed down through the mother's side.
Bro there has been an archeological discovery called the moabite stone. In which king Mesha at those time has mentioned about the 'tribe of Gad'. Tribe of Gad is one of the 12 tribes Moses brought from Egypt. So without the exodus events and Moses there cannot be a tribe of Gad.And tel dan inscriptions about David was written 150 years after his death by an enemy king Hazael . So i dont think David and Solomon were normal tribe leaders.
That is. because God only has normal people to work with. You hear about Patton's great tactics at the Buldge, you don't hear about him dying in a fender bender, or any other mundane part of his life. Or mistakes he made. That's why the Bible rings so true compared to other religions. Aside from Christ, who is GOD in flesh, the "heroes" of the Bible are not perfect men or women. They are just trying to serve God and their mistakes are to ensamples/examples for us.
Note: "Palestine" is used in this video in the *geographic* sense, not as a reference to any political entity, past or present. This is similar to how the term "The Americas" can be used, even when speaking about pre-Columbian history. In future, I think I will use the term "Southern Levant" instead in order to avoid any more confusion.
Yes, there are people who belive the arabic knock off, from judeasim. Who don't use the correct names. Just like the romans used the wrong name. It will allways be Poseidon, not Neptune.
As a lifelong Christian, I really appreciate your stance and intentions being stated very clearly at the beginning. Yet another wonderful video, and I eagerly await the rest! ^_^
MC Muhyeon while you’re not wrong, I’m still open to discussing with or listening to (which is more appropriate in this case) others who hold beliefs different from mine, especially differing perspectives on the same thing (in this case, biblical historical records). Just because we believe different things doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other :)
Achilles, while being thought of as 'legend', it is remarkable to me that all these years later, his deal to be remembered throughout the ages has held true. kind of amazing, really.
It's almost like he's a figure in a story meant to explore that specific idea. I just want to make it perfectly clear that my comment isn't meant to attack or insult you because the heavy sarcasm could make it look like it. But since this is me writing and not speaking to you the sarcastic undertones cannot be conveyed by my voice and thus I have to be very heavy handed with the sarcasm in order for the intended meaning to be correctly understood.
Okay let's put aside religion for a minute and just appreciate how well edited and made this video was. Please continue with this style of video! Edit: I'd just like to say thank you very much to everybody who's liked this. We have a little bit less of the amount of likes the pinned comment has, and that's just crazy, I know that 700 and something likes aren't a whole lot, but compared to the pinned comment that is always seen first, I'm just blown away.
One aspect that is not mentioned so much, is that mythology and legends can be stories passed by with the «game of whispers» oral stories passed on from generation to generation until there are little reality left, but still based on something.
It's probably not mentioned much because that is an absolutely stupid idea. Important religious stories are absolutely nothing like a word in game of whispers. In religious stories, you don't whisper them to people with the intent of them mistaking it, and it is not considered a game, it is considered important history or religious belief. Ancient people also probably didn't have mich to do so would have told the stories in detail. Many of the stories were probably made into poems which became popular and may have been memorised by other poets.
@@speedwagon1824 "Ancient people also probably didn't have mich to do " And you base this on what? What is your field of expertise on ancient cultures? You think they sat around all day with nothing to do? I would say they were just as busy as we are today and probably more so. They had little modern conveniences so it took them longer to do the same things we do today that we take for granted with our modern technology. As for telling stories in detail....did you ever play the "telephone game" when you were in school? If you have no idea what I am talking about look it up. Let's say you, me and a few other people are in a room. I tell you a story. You tell it to the person next to you and he tells it to the person next to him and so on. With just a few people the story I told you will not be the same as the one the last guy was told. That's with just a few people within a few minutes. Now spread that story over hundreds of years before someone finally writes it down. The story will be very different than the one first told.
@@speedwagon1824 Whether a story is important or not means nothing when passed along by word of mouth. Something will still get screwed up. Have you ever had a job where important information is passed along or you had to give a detailed message to someone that was important? You better have written it down right away because I guarantee that if you did not you will have messed something up. Add multiple people to the chain of information passing who didn't write it down and you will have something very different than what you started with.
@@michelmorio8026 What are you on about? He literally could've just made a video saying "these are the characters that we have historical records of" and that's that. But instead, he went off and made a political statement calling some of the bible a mere legend and mythology, as if worshipers of Christ don't exist in the year 2020. Maybe in the nihilist dystopia that this ignorant man lives in that's the case. However, we have the right to object to his ignorance.
@@TheWazzoGames And we have the right to roll our eyes when the exact people he's talking about in his pinned comment show up in the comments sections to spread nonsense. I don't suppose you're going to make the "case" that Job wasn't mythology? It's straight mythology even within the context of a Bible where everything else hypothetically happened. The Bible being absolutely 100% grounded in historical fact is just as factually true as saying the Texas state Constitution reserves the right to secede from the United States whenever it wants. In other words, it isn't true, not even when discounting many of the obvious parts where it blatantly isn't true, and anyone with a functioning pair of eyes and basic reading ability can see that.
Thanks for making this, it was really informative and well presented. As a former evangelical christian who has struggled a lot in the past with determining the lines between truth and fiction in religion I appreciate your balanced view on all of this. To any future watchers, don't delve too deep into this comment section, it gets real silly real fast.
pclkid - I hope you find your way through the history and the legend in religion. I'm a Christian, but I don't take the bible literally, otherwise I would have to struggle a lot, too.
As an orthodox Jew who believes fully in the stories of the old testament i want to say, thank you and don't be nervous to continue creating content like this i enjoyed it and found it very interesting
Sargent Cold Country Orthodox Judaism is a type of Judaism where the followers of the faith are very religious and more observant than other branches of Judaism. There is more to it in terms of traditions and culture but I’m a Conservative Jew myself so I can’t speak for them completely and don’t want to make mistakes out of my ignorance. Just know that it has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
Kyle Perlman that’s not necessarily true. Orthodox Judaism is just traditional Judaism. Aka, they believe in keeping all traditional laws and rituals, including niddah, which the Conservative movement doesn’t put a huge emphasis on. Orthodox Jews also believe the Torah is the literal word of G-d, whereas Conservative Judaism is less dogmatic about the origin of the Torah. However, there are Orthodox Jews who eat treif, violate shabbos, etc., and there are conservative Jews who keep kosher and keep Shabbat (to conservative standards, so... *not* kosher or shomer shabbos by most orthodox standards). Orthodox =/= “observant and religious”.
YeetusThatFetus You’re right. I just wasn’t sure how to phrase it. Again, I’m Conservative and am hesitant to speak for an entire sect that I’m not even part of.
I think you missed a chance to plug your Ethiopian Emperors family tree, since that one starts from Solomon. But maybe you were going to mention that in one of the later videos of this series.
How could he plug that, it was just Mythology that Solomon existed... SMH !! that’s why i can’t take his biblical videos serious.. he’s so off base with his liberal mindset of Pre-Historic existence. He needs to stick to the History that we all know happened.
@Lewa263😂 you're right. I'm guessing he didn't do so since he's already made a video on that. I think it's called Ethiopian Emperors (Solomonic Dynasty). Do give that a watch and hopefully it answers your statement. 😁👍
Absolutely love this it's clear, concise and informative, not to mention respectful! I also greatly appreciate that you've listed the dates for the other videos in this series. Thank you
No. Imagine what the they would have learned from the historical records of President Trumps Presidency, the origin of the China Virus, and the 2020 US Presidential elections. They would have learned complete bullshit .... from the fake news media. Likewise with the ancient records from Egypt, where you have butt hurt god king that was forced to set the Israelites free. He's not going to have the writers on the ancient text tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. LMFAO.
Bro there has been an archeological discovery called the moabite stone. In which king Mesha at those time has mentioned about the 'tribe of Gad'. Tribe of Gad is one of the 12 tribes Moses brought from Egypt. So without the exodus events and Moses there cannot be a tribe of Gad.And tel dan inscriptions about David was written 150 years after his death by an enemy king Hazael . So i dont think David and Solomon were normal tribe leaders.
I am an atheist but find religious history fascinating and important. I am often astounded that many Christians don’t know their own history or roots or even how or why they ended up being Christian.
As a christian I agree with you about christains not knowing history. "Church history started with Billy Graham" (sarcasm). Unfortunately we have some very bad historians Dan Brown for example. Dan Brown said his book was fiction but 5 years later "The Lost Gospel" says that most of the stuff was true. There is so much bad history that it turns off christians from studying it. Like the council of nicea was about the Bible, invented the trintiy (not defined trinity), apollo's affair with a human woman inspired the virgin Mary, any god that is born not the normal human sexual way is a virgin birth, etc. If you want to get published just say: gospel of ..., the real Jesus, what really happened at (some controversial religious site). Serioulsy, If you want a good story read the Tailor King ( The story of muenster germany). The cages are still on the church, today.
As a Christian, I agree Religious History isn't just Fascinating, it's important, and is a major influence on how people view the world I actually go out of my way to learn about the Histories of other faiths as well, because of the role it plays in our world
@@scotthix2926 Now be fair. Church history didn't start with Billy Graham. It started when God personally set the type for the King James Version of the Bible . (For some reason the "version" part of it seems to get overlooked.)
That's the other USC that is the Trojans. The real USC is the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. We were a college almost half a century before California was even a state.
Love the idea that people can write history to serve their current goals. I can imagine how the idea of an old unified kingdom provoked nostalgic feelings of something that never existed.
Scientific? What is scientific about an *_argument from silence?_* The scientific approach would be that it is not well substantiated if certain individuals existed as described, you wouldn't just decide they didn't exist because it suits your world view. This video is tripe propaganda, misleading people about what a proper academic approach would be.
Van Ivanov Well by the same token you can’t say that they did exist because it fits your worldview. Which is why certain biblical characters are correctly placed in the category of Legend or Myth. The onus is on you to provide extra-biblical evidence for their existence, like the later Israelite kings have and why they are correctly placed as being historical.
Taripar Certainly one can conclude all sorts of people and events as being historical if all they rely on are attestations (Adam and Eve, the splitting of the red sea by Moses, Jesus's resurrection, God creating the world in 6 days, the Iliad and the Odyssey), but if all you rely on are historical attestations, and you do not look at other disciplines such as science, physics, genetics, archaeology, and biology, then you will come up with faulty conclusions about the historicity of certain people and events. We know that Adam and Eve never existed because when we refer to the mother and father of all living people, we refer to mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam respectively, two people who lived many tens of thousands of years apart and whose existence is inferred using hard genetic data and science. Could there have at one point been a couple by the name of Adam and Eve, which lent their names to the biblical story? Sure. Were they the parents of all living human beings? According to science, definitely not. So when we say Adam and Eve, we are referring to characters in the Bible, who may or may not have had real life counterparts, but whom certainly were not the first man and woman that existed. So what the Bible refers to is DIFFERENT than what a well-informed student of science and other disciplines refer to.
This was explained very well. I truly believe that those who insist on accepting every word of the Bible as literal truth, miss out on a broader understanding of real history.
When people insist that the Bible is the Word of God, I respond, 'perhaps, but I assume the must be some data entry and translation errors. After all we're talking about people here. Some see my point as valid; some just seem kind of angry.
Believing the bible to be 100% accurate is useful. Catholics have a hierarchy that can decide what is true or acceptable. Congregationalists can use the bible like a constitution. If you don't have a person who's choice between possible alternatives must be followed then you can have a document. You still have arguments about what the document means, but you also have practical bounds that sub-groups can accept.
@@DavidSmith-kd8mw I'm pretty sure common sense can suffice for any pragmatic implications that taking the bible literally may have. Why would anyone need an old book to tell them something they have the capacity to learn before they can read?
@@demonlord8398 Why does any group need rules or an official leader? While it may not be 'needed', it is useful. On the other hand, I understand that you comment was mostly written as an insult or signal of personal superiority.
@@DavidSmith-kd8mw How is an imaginary leader useful? Real leaders do the actual work. Call me insulting and arrogant all you want but please clarify with pragmatism on the role of an imaginary overlord.
@transylvanian Actually we have as much evidence as we would expect for a first century Jewish preacher in the ghetto of the Roman Empire -- Messiah or no Messiah.
Dude I am so glad I found your channel. It gives me a special place to geek out! And you cover topics exactly the way I like to learn. So, thank you soooo much for doing what you do!!!
While the Deluge obviously is mythology, the Noah story probably originated with the Sumerians. The details and names vary, but pretty much the same story was retold several times across the centuries. It may have begun with an actual river flood dated to 2900 BC, that ended the Jemdet Nasr archeological culture, and preceded the Early Dynastic Period. The Sumerian king list names Ziusudra as the last pre-flood king, but his dynasty is so far back that it was legend already by the time the list was made. It is simply impossible that the Noah story is true, but it is still interesting that there may be a tiny core there that can be traced back to an actual Mesopotamian flood.
Correct. And the Sumerian “Noah” lived in Shuruppak, a 5000 year old city whose mudbrick buildings lie under a layer of river sediment, a sign the city was devastated by a river flood.
From what I know many cultures, some of them very far from each other, have myths of a "great flood", this makes some what historically possible that around those time climate change disasters may have occurred and were "registered" in all those same myth. Of course there is also moral meaning to the story of the flood itself so it may be a combination of both real climate events and religious dogmas.
Stumbled on your channel a few days ago really interesting stuff from the monarchy charts to the biblical charts! Enjoy listening to it while cleaning around the house.
@@azilius5302 it is only like the oldest part of the Bible that is like that I would say King David is History he even have his own Stone David’s House Dated to 800 BC
On the Trojan war, Homer references several cities that would have become uninhabited by the time when the Iliad is considered to have been written. Thus, at least a reasonable part of the cities list is considered true, although the account of the actual war has remained... under question en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Homeric_epics
Homer also talks of the areas of Anetolia and southern Turkey... Gobekli Tepe is what 12,000 years old.. The Athenians believed in the Illiad not because Homer wrote it but because they believed it was their heritage... The golden age of that area, much like Zep Tepe in Egypt.
The BIG DIFFERENCE between the Bible and the writings of Homer, for example, is that no one sane asserts that Homer's writings are divinely inspired or"God's Words" .
@@Frank-mm2yp Apollo and the Oracles at Delphi ?.. The battle of Troy started over an Apple... that eventually led to Paris wanting Helen from Apheradite after selecting her as the farest godess.
I am not a believer, but I remember learning at university that 19th century redaction criticism and later 20th century scholarship has established that parts of Samuel 2 and Kings 1 are based on an original document [now lost] written by a member of King David's court. While this does not prove that the 'unified' Kingdom of Israel was as rich and mighty as the Bible claims, it does prove that Kings David and Solomon actually existed and that they ruled over some kind of kingdom, however petty. So I would say they are both more to the historical rather than legendary side. Interesting stuff as always from your channel; thank you.
Eh I'm just an atheist who loves a good story. Be it an ancient mythology, legend, fairy tale, or a modern sci-fi/fantasy book. And I love your channel because, whether it's a myth, legend or history, you always tell a great story that's easy to follow with your charts
I was raised a literalist Christian. The debate between creationism and The Big Bang/evolution in schools bothered me. The contradiction of the story of Adam & Eve and the need for genetic diversity in endangered species, The Exodus story, etc. Then one day I learned that Catholics teach evolution because they do not take the creation story literally. Then I find out that Jews don't take the Torah literally either, and then I stumble on this channel and the Who Wrote the Bible series. It's been very liberating for me in my religious views, though I feel I don't belong to any particular denomination in Christianity. Thanks for these videos.
Thank you for making this video, I believe the Bible in a lot of instances but being real I don't feel anyone knows the actual timeline but I appreciate you taking the time to hear it down by family tree to try to make it more understandable. So thank you either way.
Great video. I think you did a great job of explaining the reasoning behind the massive difference in accuracy between the earlier and later portions. I also appreciate that you didn’t give the exodus story the “legend” tag as many might. Doing so would be inaccurate, as well as being an injustice to the genuine historical records that appear later
Definitely respect how you open up with your personal beliefs as to make sure the viewers understand where you’re coming from. Although I disagree with some things you bring up and label, I still have great respect for someone who actively researches his/her views. Your effort to be as objective as possible is recognized and appreciated. Great work.
Great video! Here's an interesting note about the flood myth; you can make an argument that some aspects of the flood myth could be considered legend. There appear to be similar flood myths in cultures all around the world, both predating and succeeding the Biblical account. Virtually everybody, from the ancient Babylonians to the Austronesian cultures in Oceania, had some story about the whole world being flooded over after their deities got upset with the people on Earth. Some scholars believe that there *was* an historical "world flood" of sorts, but that flood was limited to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Mesopotamia, and that it occurred during the very beginning of human civilization in that area. This would have been around the end of the Ice Age, when the polar ice receded into the boundaries it has today, which would lead to a rise in sea levels. None of this has been absolutely confirmed, obviously, but it is an interesting theory I thought I'd mention.
@@TorianTammas Every ancient civilization throughout history had their own version of the Flood story. Sumerian: Ziusudra found out that the deities were gonna destroy humanity in a flood and was told by a deity to build a large boat, and afterwards he sacrifices animals, implying that animals were on the ark. Babylonian: Utnapishtim was told by a deity that the deities were gonna cause a great flood, so was told by that deity to build an ark with all the animals. India: manu is told by the deities that they're gonna destroy the world with a flood so is told to build an ark with all their grain and animals. Korea: A great flood happened and Namu Doryeung survived it by floating on wood and he saved all of the animals in the world. Greeks: The deities were gonna destroy all the humans so Prometheus told Deucalion to build a chest to stay in while humanity gets destroyed. Welsh: a great flood was destroying all of people so Dwyfan and Dwyfach carried 2 of every living thing on an ark. Mesoamerican flood myths were found among every Mesoamerican culture. Mayans: Flood was caused because deities weren't happy with their creation. This version had everyone get destroyed. Although I read that they believed Teocipactli survived on a boat. the Tlapanec and Huaxtecs: there was a couple who survived and repopulated the Earth. Hawaii: Nu'u built an ark that protected him during the Great flood. These are all various cultures. I doubt they all plagiarized from each other.
@@comb528491 There is still the chance that various great floods happened all across the world at different times, rather than all of them basing from a flood very early on in human history.
Thank you for a great tree, as always! It is also worth noting that there are 2 rivaling schools in the Israeli Biblical Archaeology, represented by Israel Finkelstein (Tel-Aviv Univ.) mentioned here and Yosef Garfinkel (Jerusalem Univ.) (ironically, they share the same element 'finkel' in their surnames :) ). Finkelstein insists that David and Solomon were mere tribal chieftains, if existed at all, and there was no such powerful and organised statehood as the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel (Biblical minimalism?), while Garfinkel tries to provide more archaeological confirmations for the Biblical narrative.
15:36 I highly doubt the Judeans (?) Made up the mythologies and legends on whim. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would make more sense that these stories come from a long oral tradition from hundreds of years before being written down. And of course oral stories have a way of changing and embellishing on their own over time Certainly once they were written down, the writers would have embellished, but I doubt they made it all up on the spot. Btw good video
Such oral traditions simply do not exist and never existed. Oral traditions change all the time, so the longer the time, the more chance of changes occurring all over the place. After decades one can possibly recognise some continuity, but oral traditions after some decades are hopelessly confused historically.
@@logansmith2703 Actually there is a lot of internal evidence that the text was updated for later generations. Like for instance, in Samuel, the author goes out of his way to say that during the days of Saul, prophets were known as seers. In Judges, the writer refers to the sacking of a city called Dan but says at the time it was called Laish. So a lot of this goes on in the text.
@@hoog19 while I don't agree with Mu51kM4n's premise, I don't entirely agree with yours either. Throughout West Africa oral traditions lasted for centuries before the European and Arab invasions with Christianity and then later Islam. In certain societies those people were and are referred to as Griots. It's very possible that this could have taken place under these circumstances. However, I find it doubtful because forms of writing were quite common in that part of North Africa and the Mediterranean for a few millennia. Ultimately, it's like Joseph Campbell said and I paraphrase, "Myth is more powerful than Truth".
@@atharali1027 and yet there is no evidence he existed, only what Plato wrote about him, and Plato was known for making things up to give an example ex: Atlantis being the human ego and arrogance
As a skeptical Christian I find this truly fascinating. I would really appreciate more videos like this, discussing the blurred lines between the accepted historical/archeological records vs the commonly accepted beliefs of the Judaic/Christian timelines. Thank you for the time and effort you put into these videos.
Hi Matt, I think you did a great job on this video and treated everybody with respect, believers or non-believers. My request, I just rewatched the Hobbit film trilogy and would love to see any Tolkien-related family tree. Thank you!
Literally got a Christian ad before the video... Either way thank you for making these family tree charts. I got inspired and started trying to make my own ones. I just made one about the Rwandan and Burundian kingdoms
It's just a perfect video) thank you a lot. It's extremely comprehensive for such a short format, great job! I used be a fundamentalist, but half a year ago I became an atheist and I decided to find out what really happened then. So I've read the Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein, started studying history of middle east with a textbook for Universities and watched lots of lectures on these topics. And it's so cool to see such a video which is consistent with what I learned, so Im going to use for my fundamentalist mates for giving them a short overview of scientific data
I'm glad you have initiated your journey of knowledge! I was raised Christian but I never believed the Bible as 100% true. A few years ago I became atheist and now seeing fundamentalists makes me sad, because they believe in something which makes them uneducated. Sorry if I didn't express myself good, English is not my first language.
Orthodox Jew here. This was amazingly accurate and very well-organized. And while I believe what you’re saying, it’s a tough sell among most religious fundamentalists.
heilige Einfalt while I believe that Moses was real, there’s no evidence that he was. So unless it’s proven definitely that he didn’t exist, I’ll continue practicing my faith. But proving a negative is (virtually) impossible, so that’s unlikely.
@@arimermelstein9167 I don't know if it's necessarily proving a negative. Instead, it is the story of Exodus which proposes a lot of events that simply aren't found anywhere in historical or archaeological records.
Jagd Töpfer right, and I understand that. But yet I don’t find it necessary to spurn my cultural and religious heritage for something that’s likely true.
@@arimermelstein9167 I totally understand that. Would you agree that it'd be good to know the historical reality that may have inspired the Moses story, if anything? Sorta in the same way that Biblical scholarship has been trying to do with Christ for the last couple hundred years.
Thank you! I've become an avid fan of ancient history in recent years and am currently reading the Bible and wondering when all these Old Testament stories are supposed to have taken place and when they were actually written down. This video provides most of the answers I was looking for! What blows my mind is the idea that the story of Exodus might have actually been inspired by the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt.
i think its vice versa. The story of Hyksos was written by an egyptian guy who was aware of israelites and he conflated the story of joseph and moses and mixed both the stories. the truth is that the Torah is the oldest source known to mankind about the history of Moses.
Loved the video. There's this really interesting book on the Exodus, saying that it might be the embellished and modified records of how the people of Akhenaten were kicked out and moved to Palestine. They go into why this lines up with both history and Jewish oral tradition. It's fascinating. It's called "Secrets of the Exodus"
@@Stimpy8 Yeah idk why the fuck these people always say "palestine" when talking about the ancient levant land lol. It was literally so many things before it was called Palestine lol. Canaan/Phoenicia - 3500 BCE Egyptian controlled Canaan- 1550 BCE Emergence of Israelites and Philistines after withdrawal of Egypt - 1200 BCE Northern Kingdom of Israel - 900 BCE Southern Kingdom of Judah - 850 BCE Assyrian territory where the Northern Kingdom of Israel once was - 720 BCE Babylonian controlled territory where in lands where Philistines once lived - 604 BCE Babylonian controlled territory where the Southern Kingdom of Judah once was - 587 BCE Return of exiles to Yehud/Judea under the Persian king Cyrus II begins, beginning of 2nd temple period - 538 BCE Hellenistic Greek controlled Judea by Alexander the Great begins - 330 BCE Ptolemaic era of Judea begins - 320 BCE Seleucid era of Judea begins - 201 BCE Hasmonean dynasty of Judea, where Judeans had their own kingdom again - 164 BCE Roman controlled Judea province begins - 63 BCE Destruction of 2nd temple in Jewish/Roman war - 70 CE It wasn't until THIS POINT that the land started to be called Palestine: Roman exile of the Judeans and renaming the land Syria Palaestina to mock the Jews and disassociate them from the land - 136 CE
@@Stimpy8 yeah they gotta think long and hard about that one. The only Arab “land” is the Arab peninsula lol. Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morroco, etc shouldn’t be Arab lands. They only are due to extreme colonization and ethnic cleansing lol. Iraqi people are Babylonian and Mesopotamian descendant. Jews are from Judea Samaritan’s are from Samaria (this group has always held a presence in the land) Samaritan’s and Judeans are both descendants of Israelis Assyrians are from Syria (there are groups that speak Syrian Aramaic to this day) Arabs are from the Arabian Peninsula. Ethiopians are from Ethiopia. Coptics are from Egypt Persians are from Iran Pakistani people once were a part of India Yet somehow, all these people are supposedly a part of Arab lands and Arab history lol. Any history they had before Arab colonization doesn’t matter apparently.
@@theflipper404 I'm Jewish myself and i find it funny how 100 years ago people hated us because we are jews, and today people hate us because we are not the real jews and every one else claim to be the "real jews" or some other BS. we just cant get a break lol
The way I was always taught about Genesis was that it was meant figuratively, using the term "day" to mean an era of time, probably lasting millions of years. There's so much cultural crossover between ancient Hebrews and Egyptians that I find it very hard to believe that some of them weren't in Egypt at some point back then.
The way I teach Genesis is "and the evening and morning were the first day" and so on with day 2 through 6, I will without a doubt some day have all questions answered, so until I see Jesus face to face, I will believe we are coming soon to mans 6000th year, great video though
@@harpazzo777 so Alaska and other places where they go about a months without night their day doesn't match the rest of the world and if we are approaching or in the 6000th year we have another 1000 to go before the 7th can begin?
Oh... I just love watching historical stuff that heavily relies on the scientific method and empirical based interpretations. As a person with the passion to learn about history, this content is like a mouth watering pile of desserts. If hopefully, someday, you can make a video on the historical origins of YHWH and how he evolved overtime then I absolutely would wanna see it. Thanks for sharing all this information with a critical eye on history.
William Foxwell Albright says in his book, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan; a historical analysis of two contrasting faiths, "In this chapter we have endeavored to draw sharp distinctions wherever possible, between the Patriarchal Hebrew heritage, the unique contribution of Moses and the movement which he founded, and the influence of contemporary Canaanite culture on the Israelites who were exposed to it. The latter is an exceptionally complex problem, since the early Hebrews were influenced by their Canaanite neighbors, there were beliefs and practices common to both, and there were later borrowings and adaptations from Canaanite culture during the period of the Judges as well as of the subsequent Monarchy. The picture is accordingly, by no means simple. Yet we can state definitively that it does not support the extreme position of the late Yehezkel Kaufmann, who maintained in his great ‘History of the Faith of Israel’ that Mosaic monotheism was a phenomenon entirely peculiar to Israel. According to him, Moses founded Israel, and Israel created monotheism. Mosaic monotheism was, he thought, a creation of Israelite religious genius, as the intellectual achievements of Greece in the 6th-4th centuries BC were a product of Hellenic secular genius. Neither phenomenon can be explained by ordinary evolutionary processes. According to Kaufmann, the Israelites were completely unable even to understand the nature of polytheism, since it was totally foreign to their entire higher culture. Kaufmann’s point of view certainly has an element of truth. Without monotheism, Israel, as we know it, could not have existed. It was indeed Moses who was the principal architect of Israelite monotheism. The pious Israelite probably knew little about many pagan beliefs. But, on the other hand, there was so much exchange of cultural influences between Israel and its neighbors on all sides of its tiny territory, and there were so many irruptions of paganism into Israel, that the ignorance presupposed by Kaufmann’s view is simply incredible. We shall see that there was profound influence from Phoenicia on the literature of later Israel. This Phoenician contribution was pagan in background, but Israelite authors were able to utilize it without permitting it seriously to distort their monotheistic approach. In much the same way Christian authors of the 2nd-5th centuries AD utilized the literary and philosophical heritage of pagan Greece without allowing it, to paganize their religious outlook". He goes on to say at the end of his book, "The contrast between Canaanite and Phoenician paganism, on the one hand, and the faith and practice of Israel, on the other, was relatively just as great as that between Greco-Roman paganism and Judeo-Christian monotheism in the time of the rabbis and church fathers. Israel learned the arts of civilization, including music and belles lettres, from Canaanite-Phoenician neighbors, just as later Jews and Christians learned how to reason systematically from the Greeks. In the process of acculturation heresies arose. There were syncretistic cults and movements at every known stage of the development of Yahwism. Gnosticism had its forerunners among Israelites and Samaritans, even though we can only see dimly at present. But significant pagan influences always came from the older and richer cultures, not from the nomads and semi-nomads of Sinai and North Arabia, as romantically imagined by many biblical scholars. It is high time that we turn from such imaginative fantasies to the real world of antiquity, which has so much to tell our own world of today”.
The flood story is a very interesting aspect of Religion. It predates. Christianity and Judaism by some thousand years, with the cult of the old Mesopotamians, who also had this story. They also found evidence of some flood, that had taken place in this area. It is believed, that this traumatic event was the root of all these stories. I love your way of respecting the religion of others.
Matt, an archeologist recently found proof of a group of semite people living in a Large area oc the nile river valley but the dates differ from the "Ramses the Great" timeline. They were there and then sorta disappeared( thus the exodus). He isnt a Biblical archeologist but nonetheless wanted to prove that "the Israelites" actually lived in Goshen. He found proof of this group of people, and he called them Semites. There is a documentary available on You Tube that is about the Exodus that touches on his findings.
Thank you for making this! All the videos I search for are either all bible or all history and I’ve been trying to see how they are connected for so long
In understanding the realms of mythology and legend, I have found it insightful to understand how pre-literate societies recorded history in carefully crafted stories, using the same sort of memory techniques modern day memory masters use. The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly opened up this new paradigm for me. Some Australian Aboriginal stories have oral stories about geological events that have scientifically been dated as occurring over 10,000 years ago. (see The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn). Similarly, some Aboriginal dreamtime creation stories communicate geography over 800km (500 miles) - critical for survival of a nomadic people in a dry country.
If knowing geography is critical for survival, the geography will be memorized in stories to be certain not to forget it. That sounds unsurprising. But which use would the story tellers have of geological events ten thousand years ago?
Would you make a video exploring the historicity of *actions* and *events* in the Hebrew Bible (maybe in some detail)? You mention the second temple here, and that Cyrus let the Jews rebuild their temple, but make very little mention of the first temple that was being rebuilt (after being destroyed by the Babylonians). I took a class on how imperialism affected the various sacred texts that eventually became compiled into the Bible and the Apocrypha. Some examples of this imperialism being the enslavement by the Egyptians and the exodus, the Assyrian conquest of Israel, Babylon attacking and conquering Jerusalem in three waves, destroying the first temple in the third, the Israelites living in exile in Babylon, Alexander the Great’s hellenification of the Holy Land, the Maccabees reconquering Jerusalem, the Roman conquest, and emplacement of Herod as ruler of Palestine. In my class, we talked about all of these and with a decent amount of detail. I don’t expect you by any means to go into as much detail as we did, but would you be able to touch on some of the implications that your conclusions in this video have on the accounts in the Bible? As an example, you say that David and Solomon likely existed, but were not by any means extravagantly wealthy. Would you explain how that impacts the historicity of the first temple, with perhaps an eye towards the detailed description in Kings? There’s so much I want to ask about because I am so interested in this topic, but I fear I’m going to be asking too much. Could you make a video about the historicity of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible? And perhaps make a video going into detail as to the timeline of the Hebrew Bible (not necessarily genealogy like this one), perhaps touching on areas not discussed in this video like, for example, the book of Judges and the Babylonian conquest and the exile? Have you heard of the theory that the creation story in Genesis took many themes from the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish, from when the Jews were in exile in Babylon? I think some scholars aren’t closed to the idea that there might have been an exodus of a very small group of people (maybe 40) from Egypt to Palestine, though perhaps the timing of that is up for debate. What are your thoughts on that, if any? Damn. Writing this has me giddy, this stuff is so interesting to me. I’m a non-practicing Jew, and a geologist by trade, but unpacking biblical history and the origins of all of the stories is so fascinating to me.
Just a thought, but there's the chance the first temple did, in fact, exist, albeit not at the grand scale mentioned in the Bible and with much less gold. I have yet to look it up though...
It's a bit of a fallacy to say that there is no evidence of Israelites in Egypt. I would check out a document known as the Hayes Papyrus (Brooklyn Papyrus 34.1446). It dates from the Middle Kingdom (pre-supposed Exodus) and features a list of slaves in the estate of a wealthy widow. A surprising number of these individuals bear Hebrew names, some of them being straight from the Bible. Furthermore, the Tel El-daba site has unearthed evidence of a large population of Semitic people in the Nile Delta in the era of the supposed sojourn. There is a house in that community which is exceptionally large with a courtyard containing twelve tombs, the largest of which was pyramid shaped. Within this pyramid shaped tomb is a statue of a Semitic man with a multi-colored coat. Though there is no way of knowing that this is Joseph and his brothers, it is eerily similar and impossible to ignore. All said, the amount of detailed period accuracy regarding Egypt in both Genesis and Exodus have convinced me that the Joseph account and the Exodus should at least be considered to be legend.
Your friendly neighbourhood pagan here! Something on the kings in Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda would be interesting as well, as many legends have been changed so much that they are nothing more than stories today.
The problem about Quran is mostly about Godly stuff and if it's about history or people of the past, mostly they are the same like a Bible and Torah. Like Moses and all Jews prophet. But, I do think it's quite interesting to compare Mahabharata with "real history".
@@mcarr3492 there is a nice genealogy in Ynglingatal, it's interesting to compare it with the Prose Edda. But there is almost no historical information on these kings, they are legendary, or even mythical, if we use the same terms.
As a Christian, I am thrilled every time there are in fact historical findings and evidences found all over the world. But I still have a problem when people assume, that only those things can be true then and dismiss everything else in the bible. We can't just wipe away ancient history just because there are no evidences or some kind of traces told about those centuries.
You said “We can’t just wipe away ancient history because there are no evidences” How is that not arguing for historical events occurring without evidence?
@@2chin4u I guess the dea would be that even though it hasn't been proved in the scientific or historical way, that doesn't mean that it won't ever be proved. Quite a few Biblical places or people have been thought to be fake until someone actually found them
Poster of the full biblical family tree now available: usefulcharts.com/products/biblical-family-tree
If humans evolved from Ethiopia then the world's greatest civilization should have been found in Africa,Why in Mesopotamia?maybe the garden of Eden is true or maybe the flood(noah) was true
I’d be very interested in seeing your opinion on the Qurans history. They say it was brought to Mohamed just before the Muslim caliphate started conquering land. I would really like to know if there is any historical accuracy to it.
I’m an Egyptian male that was raised in the US. I was born in Alexandria and have been in NJ ever since the age of 4. I wonder what Egypt would be like today if it stayed under Roman rule. Anyways please somehow let me know if you ever decide to do a video about the Qurans historical accuracy.
I’m not religious just curious
My brother please , can you do a video of historical places in the bible...please🙏🙏🙏
Surely Balaam's talking donkey was a real historic figure. The only thing left for historians to debate is whether or not his voice sounded like Eddie Murphy.
This comment made my day 😂😂😂
A talking donkey was placed on the movie because it was considered to be a fairy tale creature. Do I smell dreamworks backing off from the Prince of Egypt era??
It was a she-ass, so I’d say it would have sounded like Rasputia.
@@CCI320 It is the very definition of magic. An impossibly irrational event that defies logic and reason for no actual reason. It just spontabeously occurs like a fart and fades into the background.Saying let there be light and out of nowhere there just is is the same as saying bibidibabidiboo and out of nowhere a pumpkim turns into a carriage wagon
@@matiaspereyra9375 why can’t there be things that our just out of the human realm that we can’t fully understand or control. What’s wrong with saying we don’t know everything and some things we can’t explain cause it’s out of our current understanding.
Great stuff. "The Bible Unearthed" is one of my favorite intros to the archaeology of the Bible.
I highly recommend that everyone subscribe to ReligionForBreakfast.
Great channel, helped me a lot with worldbuiling
I was wondering what you would think of this video.
This channel made me realize that I would have been a religious studies major in a closely related parallel universe.
It is also worth noting that there are 2 rivaling schools in the Israeli Biblical Archaeology, represented by Israel Finkelstein (Tel-Aviv Univ.) mentioned here and Yosef Garfinkel (Jerusalem Univ.) (ironically, they share the same element 'finkel' in their surnames :) ). Finkelstein insists that David and Solomon were mere tribal chieftains, if existed at all, and there was no such powerful and organised statehood as the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel (Biblical minimalism?), while Garfinkel tries to provide more archaeological confirmations for the Biblical narrative.
Whether mythical or legendary, what I like about the stories in the Torah is that most of the characters are completely human (as opposed to godlike or supernatural). They do great things, but they also make terrible errors of judgment that get them in trouble with their families and their God. I also appreciate that there are many stories about strong, brave, and intelligent women. Even when they are vilified, it's interesting to consider their actions from a less biased point of view.
I was reading an article just a few days ago about women in ancient Israel, it said that women could get an education, work, make money, hold their family name, etc.. It wasn't until the Greeks influenced them to think misogynisticly and see women as inferior.
@@manuelalineaerika Do you remember where you read the article? There's a book I really enjoyed that was written by a female rabbi about the women of the Jewish bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). I don't remember the exact title. One of the main points she made was that even though women did not have the same power as men during that time, the scriptures never say it is because they are inferior to men. In fact, there are many times when they are shown to be braver and wiser, or even the saviors of the Jewish people.
The last group of proverbs (in the book Proverbs) also describes the "ideal" women as being very industrious, having her own business, being well-respected by important men in the town, and generally being confident, as well as being a good mother and wife. And Jewish heritage is passed down through the mother's side.
Bro there has been an archeological discovery called the moabite stone. In which king Mesha at those time has mentioned about the 'tribe of Gad'. Tribe of Gad is one of the 12 tribes Moses brought from Egypt. So without the exodus events and Moses there cannot be a tribe of Gad.And tel dan inscriptions about David was written 150 years after his death by an enemy king Hazael . So i dont think David and Solomon were normal tribe leaders.
God itself is a flawed character...
That is. because God only has normal people to work with. You hear about Patton's great tactics at the Buldge, you don't hear about him dying in a fender bender, or any other mundane part of his life. Or mistakes he made. That's why the Bible rings so true compared to other religions. Aside from Christ, who is GOD in flesh, the "heroes" of the Bible are not perfect men or women. They are just trying to serve God and their mistakes are to ensamples/examples for us.
Note: "Palestine" is used in this video in the *geographic* sense, not as a reference to any political entity, past or present. This is similar to how the term "The Americas" can be used, even when speaking about pre-Columbian history. In future, I think I will use the term "Southern Levant" instead in order to avoid any more confusion.
love the episodes!
Can't wait for part 5
Thanks!
Still waiting for India patiently...
I AM READY
I like how you included Arabic and Hebrew names too. You really consider everyone, not just Western viewers. Thank you
Saudi Arabia has western culture. So does Turkey.
@@Hypie582 That's not what he meant.
HypieTV yes that’s why women were only allowed to drive recently (because of western culture). Warning: might contain traces of sarcasm
Yes, there are people who belive the arabic knock off, from judeasim. Who don't use the correct names. Just like the romans used the wrong name. It will allways be Poseidon, not Neptune.
@@Hypie582 No it does not. Turkey isn't relevant in this conversation.
I paused video to say , this channel is literally the hidden gem of youtube
I can see why you were so nervous to make this video. I’m very excited for the rest of the series. Keep up the great work!
cantpickauser Yeah, people just love to go batshit over a book
As a lifelong Christian, I really appreciate your stance and intentions being stated very clearly at the beginning. Yet another wonderful video, and I eagerly await the rest! ^_^
Do you worship on sundays? Do you rest on sundays?
Saturday (I’m Seventh-Day Adventist), but yes, I worship and rest on that day.
but this video is against what you believe.
MC Muhyeon while you’re not wrong, I’m still open to discussing with or listening to (which is more appropriate in this case) others who hold beliefs different from mine, especially differing perspectives on the same thing (in this case, biblical historical records). Just because we believe different things doesn’t mean we can’t talk to each other :)
@@jessicablaza5780
but Bible say Bible is the only truth. according to this video, Bible is just mix of history and myth.
Achilles, while being thought of as 'legend', it is remarkable to me that all these years later, his deal to be remembered throughout the ages has held true.
kind of amazing, really.
It's almost like he's a figure in a story meant to explore that specific idea.
I just want to make it perfectly clear that my comment isn't meant to attack or insult you because the heavy sarcasm could make it look like it. But since this is me writing and not speaking to you the sarcastic undertones cannot be conveyed by my voice and thus I have to be very heavy handed with the sarcasm in order for the intended meaning to be correctly understood.
Maybe not just a legend
Man, I need like 5 more hours of this
Okay let's put aside religion for a minute and just appreciate how well edited and made this video was. Please continue with this style of video!
Edit: I'd just like to say thank you very much to everybody who's liked this. We have a little bit less of the amount of likes the pinned comment has, and that's just crazy, I know that 700 and something likes aren't a whole lot, but compared to the pinned comment that is always seen first, I'm just blown away.
Just a great video all around.
Agree.
Throughout the whole video I kept admiring the quality of the video and audio
i love thé editing
Matt Horkan Cause he does not want War of Argument with people and wants to appreciate the masterpiece of editing
One aspect that is not mentioned so much, is that mythology and legends can be stories passed by with the «game of whispers» oral stories passed on from generation to generation until there are little reality left, but still based on something.
Idk about little reality left but they usually preserve salient points of the stories
It's probably not mentioned much because that is an absolutely stupid idea. Important religious stories are absolutely nothing like a word in game of whispers. In religious stories, you don't whisper them to people with the intent of them mistaking it, and it is not considered a game, it is considered important history or religious belief. Ancient people also probably didn't have mich to do so would have told the stories in detail.
Many of the stories were probably made into poems which became popular and may have been memorised by other poets.
@@speedwagon1824 "Ancient people also probably didn't have mich to do " And you base this on what? What is your field of expertise on ancient cultures? You think they sat around all day with nothing to do? I would say they were just as busy as we are today and probably more so. They had little modern conveniences so it took them longer to do the same things we do today that we take for granted with our modern technology. As for telling stories in detail....did you ever play the "telephone game" when you were in school? If you have no idea what I am talking about look it up. Let's say you, me and a few other people are in a room. I tell you a story. You tell it to the person next to you and he tells it to the person next to him and so on. With just a few people the story I told you will not be the same as the one the last guy was told. That's with just a few people within a few minutes. Now spread that story over hundreds of years before someone finally writes it down. The story will be very different than the one first told.
@@speedwagon1824 Whether a story is important or not means nothing when passed along by word of mouth. Something will still get screwed up. Have you ever had a job where important information is passed along or you had to give a detailed message to someone that was important? You better have written it down right away because I guarantee that if you did not you will have messed something up. Add multiple people to the chain of information passing who didn't write it down and you will have something very different than what you started with.
@@ravilcn I mean they wouldn't have sat looking at their phones like today, and would have listened to traditional stories for entertainment
Look at Levi, getting his own lil' paragraph, you go my dude!
Levi is a very special boy. His tribe may have not gotten any land, but they got to be priests or something similar
But which other son of Israel got his own trousers named for him? :D
@@Ugly_German_Truths -- Good one!! 😁👍
That'd be my brother Wrangler.
KENNYYYYYYYY
I truly appreciate how hard you're trying not to piss people off. Good work
Lmao. Calls it "mythology" within the first, like, minute
CrownOfLeon I bet you couldn‘t even differ between History, Mythology and Legend, before etching the Video further
@@michelmorio8026 What are you on about? He literally could've just made a video saying "these are the characters that we have historical records of" and that's that. But instead, he went off and made a political statement calling some of the bible a mere legend and mythology, as if worshipers of Christ don't exist in the year 2020. Maybe in the nihilist dystopia that this ignorant man lives in that's the case. However, we have the right to object to his ignorance.
@@TheWazzoGames And we have the right to roll our eyes when the exact people he's talking about in his pinned comment show up in the comments sections to spread nonsense.
I don't suppose you're going to make the "case" that Job wasn't mythology? It's straight mythology even within the context of a Bible where everything else hypothetically happened. The Bible being absolutely 100% grounded in historical fact is just as factually true as saying the Texas state Constitution reserves the right to secede from the United States whenever it wants. In other words, it isn't true, not even when discounting many of the obvious parts where it blatantly isn't true, and anyone with a functioning pair of eyes and basic reading ability can see that.
Yeah, I hate it when presenters do that.
Thanks for making this, it was really informative and well presented. As a former evangelical christian who has struggled a lot in the past with determining the lines between truth and fiction in religion I appreciate your balanced view on all of this. To any future watchers, don't delve too deep into this comment section, it gets real silly real fast.
pclkid - I hope you find your way through the history and the legend in religion. I'm a Christian, but I don't take the bible literally, otherwise I would have to struggle a lot, too.
Agreed .... very well presented overview and information. Thanks for posting this.
Commenter decides what's silly
The comments are why I am here!
It does.
As an orthodox Jew who believes fully in the stories of the old testament i want to say, thank you and don't be nervous to continue creating content like this i enjoyed it and found it very interesting
What exactly is an Orthodox Jew? Are you ethnic Jew with Eastern Christian faith or a Jew living in a Orthodox nation?
Sargent Cold Country Orthodox Judaism is a type of Judaism where the followers of the faith are very religious and more observant than other branches of Judaism. There is more to it in terms of traditions and culture but I’m a Conservative Jew myself so I can’t speak for them completely and don’t want to make mistakes out of my ignorance. Just know that it has absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.
Why do you call it the “Old Testament”? I’ve only heard secular Jews and some reform Jews call it that 🤔
Kyle Perlman that’s not necessarily true. Orthodox Judaism is just traditional Judaism. Aka, they believe in keeping all traditional laws and rituals, including niddah, which the Conservative movement doesn’t put a huge emphasis on. Orthodox Jews also believe the Torah is the literal word of G-d, whereas Conservative Judaism is less dogmatic about the origin of the Torah. However, there are Orthodox Jews who eat treif, violate shabbos, etc., and there are conservative Jews who keep kosher and keep Shabbat (to conservative standards, so... *not* kosher or shomer shabbos by most orthodox standards). Orthodox =/= “observant and religious”.
YeetusThatFetus You’re right. I just wasn’t sure how to phrase it. Again, I’m Conservative and am hesitant to speak for an entire sect that I’m not even part of.
I think you missed a chance to plug your Ethiopian Emperors family tree, since that one starts from Solomon. But maybe you were going to mention that in one of the later videos of this series.
Those habesha are liars bro first it was the Tigrey then Amhara which claimed the the Gala Oromo as the last king was an Oromo Gala man. Free Ogadeen
How could he plug that, it was just Mythology that Solomon existed... SMH !! that’s why i can’t take his biblical videos serious.. he’s so off base with his liberal mindset of Pre-Historic existence. He needs to stick to the History that we all know happened.
@Lewa263😂 you're right. I'm guessing he didn't do so since he's already made a video on that. I think it's called Ethiopian Emperors (Solomonic Dynasty). Do give that a watch and hopefully it answers your statement. 😁👍
Knowing this channel, he surely will
@@derekchesterton5645 That's what I meant, he could have linked to that video at the end of this one because they're connected.
Absolutely love this it's clear, concise and informative, not to mention respectful! I also greatly appreciate that you've listed the dates for the other videos in this series. Thank you
If only time machines existed. I want to travel to the past were these events exists and know the truth before I die.
This is also what I've wanted to do too
We will all know the truth after we die
That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Always.
You will know the truth, after you die. At least, if you believe in every part of it now. :D
I wanna see deformed animal-human hybrids with many eyes and two sets of wings approach me and say "do not fear"
imagine if you travelled 4000 years into the future and they write a story about kim jong un ruling a united korea with seoul as its capital
Not with the internet, but I understand the humor xD
Something something South Korean demographic collapse within less than a century.
@@eapooda I don't find it likely that what we call the internet will survive 4000 years, or what is written on paper.
@@johanmalm8378 but even minor historical events will be registred
No. Imagine what the they would have learned from the historical records of President Trumps Presidency, the origin of the China Virus, and the 2020 US Presidential elections. They would have learned complete bullshit .... from the fake news media.
Likewise with the ancient records from Egypt, where you have butt hurt god king that was forced to set the Israelites free. He's not going to have the writers on the ancient text tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. LMFAO.
Im a agnostic, this is one of the things ive been wondering about. Thank you for this. I cant wait for part 2
Same, agnostic squadron.
Bro there has been an archeological discovery called the moabite stone. In which king Mesha at those time has mentioned about the 'tribe of Gad'. Tribe of Gad is one of the 12 tribes Moses brought from Egypt. So without the exodus events and Moses there cannot be a tribe of Gad.And tel dan inscriptions about David was written 150 years after his death by an enemy king Hazael . So i dont think David and Solomon were normal tribe leaders.
I am an atheist but find religious history fascinating and important. I am often astounded that many Christians don’t know their own history or roots or even how or why they ended up being Christian.
As a christian I agree with you about christains not knowing history. "Church history started with Billy Graham" (sarcasm). Unfortunately we have some very bad historians Dan Brown for example. Dan Brown said his book was fiction but 5 years later "The Lost Gospel" says that most of the stuff was true. There is so much bad history that it turns off christians from studying it. Like the council of nicea was about the Bible, invented the trintiy (not defined trinity), apollo's affair with a human woman inspired the virgin Mary, any god that is born not the normal human sexual way is a virgin birth, etc. If you want to get published just say: gospel of ..., the real Jesus, what really happened at (some controversial religious site). Serioulsy, If you want a good story read the Tailor King ( The story of muenster germany). The cages are still on the church, today.
The vast majority of people are mindless robots with little desire or curiosity to learn how they got to where they are.
big mood
As a Christian, I agree
Religious History isn't just Fascinating, it's important, and is a major influence on how people view the world
I actually go out of my way to learn about the Histories of other faiths as well, because of the role it plays in our world
@@scotthix2926 Now be fair. Church history didn't start with Billy Graham. It started when God personally set the type for the King James Version of the Bible . (For some reason the "version" part of it seems to get overlooked.)
A really well put-together and fascinating video that differentiates between myths, legends, and history!
I haven't even finished the video but I love it. You are so polite and concise explaining things.
I laughed when you used the Michigan state and USC logos for Spartans and Trojans
Seamus Connolly: Well at least he didn’t use the famous condom brand.
That's the other USC that is the Trojans. The real USC is the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. We were a college almost half a century before California was even a state.
@@ronald3419 lol who cares
@@ronald3419 Fight on! USC
I know. Part of me was thinking, "does this mean the 1990 John Hancock Bowl didn't really happen?". I think more than a few SC fans would like that
Your definition of the Bible in the first minute is the best one I've come across. It is fair, balanced, and straightforward.
Love the idea that people can write history to serve their current goals. I can imagine how the idea of an old unified kingdom provoked nostalgic feelings of something that never existed.
Provoking nostalgic feelings for something that never existed has been the bread and butter of social conservative movements ever since then
I miss back in the olden days before people provoked nostalgic feelings for a time that never existed to promote their own political goals 😭😭😭
You don’t have to imagine at all, that’s basically how Nazi Germany motivated it’s People
It's like the classic "Let's make (insert your country name here) great again!".
@@patrickrowan6001 you mean 5 billion years ago
Thank you for having a down-to-earth, historical and scientific stance on this subject. Some people are not going to be happy, though.
Scientific? What is scientific about an *_argument from silence?_* The scientific approach would be that it is not well substantiated if certain individuals existed as described, you wouldn't just decide they didn't exist because it suits your world view. This video is tripe propaganda, misleading people about what a proper academic approach would be.
Van Ivanov Well by the same token you can’t say that they did exist because it fits your worldview. Which is why certain biblical characters are correctly placed in the category of Legend or Myth. The onus is on you to provide extra-biblical evidence for their existence, like the later Israelite kings have and why they are correctly placed as being historical.
That was a comment meant to antagonise and praise your white lab jacket priests of scientism.
Taripar Certainly one can conclude all sorts of people and events as being historical if all they rely on are attestations (Adam and Eve, the splitting of the red sea by Moses, Jesus's resurrection, God creating the world in 6 days, the Iliad and the Odyssey), but if all you rely on are historical attestations, and you do not look at other disciplines such as science, physics, genetics, archaeology, and biology, then you will come up with faulty conclusions about the historicity of certain people and events.
We know that Adam and Eve never existed because when we refer to the mother and father of all living people, we refer to mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam respectively, two people who lived many tens of thousands of years apart and whose existence is inferred using hard genetic data and science.
Could there have at one point been a couple by the name of Adam and Eve, which lent their names to the biblical story? Sure.
Were they the parents of all living human beings? According to science, definitely not.
So when we say Adam and Eve, we are referring to characters in the Bible, who may or may not have had real life counterparts, but whom certainly were not the first man and woman that existed. So what the Bible refers to is DIFFERENT than what a well-informed student of science and other disciplines refer to.
Van Haven you’ve pissed off all the religious nut cases 😄
Very well done Matt. A very controversial subject that you handled respectfully and objectively. Year another great video!!
This is my first ever comment on UA-cam.
The work that you do on your channel is excellent. Thank you.
As the saying goes: History Becomes Legend, and Legend Fades into Myth.
Let the Dragon ride again upon the Winds of Time...
and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.
And Myth becomes memes
Unless you’re in America, where myth reigns supreme.
And from hearing a myth a man takes action, then he becomes legend himself, time goes on and he becomes myth...
"I'll delve into that at a later date" ... the pain
PAIN!
You want pain? Try waiting for Revelation.
This was explained very well. I truly believe that those who insist on accepting every word of the Bible as literal truth, miss out on a broader understanding of real history.
When people insist that the Bible is the Word of God, I respond, 'perhaps, but I assume the must be some data entry and translation errors. After all we're talking about people here.
Some see my point as valid; some just seem kind of angry.
Believing the bible to be 100% accurate is useful. Catholics have a hierarchy that can decide what is true or acceptable. Congregationalists can use the bible like a constitution. If you don't have a person who's choice between possible alternatives must be followed then you can have a document. You still have arguments about what the document means, but you also have practical bounds that sub-groups can accept.
@@DavidSmith-kd8mw I'm pretty sure common sense can suffice for any pragmatic implications that taking the bible literally may have. Why would anyone need an old book to tell them something they have the capacity to learn before they can read?
@@demonlord8398 Why does any group need rules or an official leader? While it may not be 'needed', it is useful. On the other hand, I understand that you comment was mostly written as an insult or signal of personal superiority.
@@DavidSmith-kd8mw How is an imaginary leader useful? Real leaders do the actual work. Call me insulting and arrogant all you want but please clarify with pragmatism on the role of an imaginary overlord.
Thank you for using the more accurate image of Jesus. I’m tired of people depicting him as a blue-eyed white guy when he lived in the Middle East.
@transylvanian well, Christianity is one of three Abrahamic faiths. Which all began in the Middle East.
@transylvanian
You living under a rock?
There is evidence he existed.
Whether the other details are true is not known.
And I'm tired of people claiming he was black too.
Middle-Easterners are not black.
Stfu Edie
@transylvanian Actually we have as much evidence as we would expect for a first century Jewish preacher in the ghetto of the Roman Empire -- Messiah or no Messiah.
Dude I am so glad I found your channel. It gives me a special place to geek out! And you cover topics exactly the way I like to learn. So, thank you soooo much for doing what you do!!!
This man requires a a great round of applause for his incredible work :)
While the Deluge obviously is mythology, the Noah story probably originated with the Sumerians. The details and names vary, but pretty much the same story was retold several times across the centuries. It may have begun with an actual river flood dated to 2900 BC, that ended the Jemdet Nasr archeological culture, and preceded the Early Dynastic Period. The Sumerian king list names Ziusudra as the last pre-flood king, but his dynasty is so far back that it was legend already by the time the list was made. It is simply impossible that the Noah story is true, but it is still interesting that there may be a tiny core there that can be traced back to an actual Mesopotamian flood.
Correct. And the Sumerian “Noah” lived in Shuruppak, a 5000 year old city whose mudbrick buildings lie under a layer of river sediment, a sign the city was devastated by a river flood.
From what I know many cultures, some of them very far from each other, have myths of a "great flood", this makes some what historically possible that around those time climate change disasters may have occurred and were "registered" in all those same myth.
Of course there is also moral meaning to the story of the flood itself so it may be a combination of both real climate events and religious dogmas.
Stimorolication read the Epic of Gilgamesh for the earliest know flood story. The Biblical story is strikingly similar.
@@taripar4967 You know other places can get floods too right
"It is simply impossible that the Noah story is true" No, it's impossible for that sentence to be true.
I love this channel so much!! Could you please do Indonesian Ancient Kingdoms? Such asa Majapahit, Sriwijaya, etc.
Stumbled on your channel a few days ago really interesting stuff from the monarchy charts to the biblical charts! Enjoy listening to it while cleaning around the house.
I love your charts!! its very important for all of us to learn about everything objectively, keeping our biases and ideologies away..
You are the best! Thank you for giving my classroom these amazing resources!
Amazing video.
Well done! My father always said the bible was a mix of legend, history and mythology, I love your videos. Thank you.
How has that affected you, if at all ?
Thanks
@@capgains What do you mean?
@@gingerbread-woman i think they mean with your relationship with religion.
@@azilius5302 it is only like the oldest part of the Bible that is like that I would say King David is History he even have his own Stone David’s House Dated to 800 BC
On the Trojan war, Homer references several cities that would have become uninhabited by the time when the Iliad is considered to have been written. Thus, at least a reasonable part of the cities list is considered true, although the account of the actual war has remained... under question
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Homeric_epics
Its because the illiad is about the moral mesage of the story, not the historical one
Homer also talks of the areas of Anetolia and southern Turkey... Gobekli Tepe is what 12,000 years old.. The Athenians believed in the Illiad not because Homer wrote it but because they believed it was their heritage... The golden age of that area, much like Zep Tepe in Egypt.
The BIG DIFFERENCE between the Bible and the writings of Homer, for example, is that no one sane asserts that Homer's writings are divinely inspired or"God's Words" .
@@Frank-mm2yp The Titan Mnemosyne and the Muses are typically invoked as inspirers of the Greeks.
@@Frank-mm2yp Apollo and the Oracles at Delphi ?.. The battle of Troy started over an Apple... that eventually led to Paris wanting Helen from Apheradite after selecting her as the farest godess.
I really appreciate you taking the time to work with something so delicate to most of the faithful.
I am just speechless at the quality of your video. You really did a great job here, I learned A LOT from it, thank-you.
Kingdom of Israel: Gets destroyed by Assyria
Kingdom of Judah: It’s free real-estate!
Babylonian Empire: I’m about to end your career!
Cyrus the Great: haha Achaemenid Empire go brrrrr
1 day ago (edited)
Judah: Nooooo! You can't just destroy our kingdom when we wanted to conquer our vulnerable northern neighbor, noooooo!
Only that the Neo-Babylonian empire lasted less than a century, unlike it's predecessor (Assyrians) and successor (Persians).
Also Babylonian empire: NO you can't just end my carreer after I ended his carreer
Persian empire: Haha Babylony go brrr
This is great stuff. You take a complex subject, keep it interesting, and don't waste words. Good job.
I am not a believer, but I remember learning at university that 19th century redaction criticism and later 20th century scholarship has established that parts of Samuel 2 and Kings 1 are based on an original document [now lost] written by a member of King David's court. While this does not prove that the 'unified' Kingdom of Israel was as rich and mighty as the Bible claims, it does prove that Kings David and Solomon actually existed and that they ruled over some kind of kingdom, however petty. So I would say they are both more to the historical rather than legendary side. Interesting stuff as always from your channel; thank you.
The reason the original document is now lost is because it was a forgery.
I'm not a fan of the German relativist theory. The 4 "original" documents this theory talks about were never found. It's a supposition.
As an atheist these videos are very interesting to me, im not religious obviously but i still have a fascination with religion as a whole.
1440 BC I heard some Christians say it’s 1174 BC
I like this host!
THANK YOU! It has been a long time that a "longer" and detailed video had me complaining at the end that it didn't continue! Keep up the good work!
Eh I'm just an atheist who loves a good story. Be it an ancient mythology, legend, fairy tale, or a modern sci-fi/fantasy book. And I love your channel because, whether it's a myth, legend or history, you always tell a great story that's easy to follow with your charts
Litterally everything past David is History so what is your point?
I was raised a literalist Christian. The debate between creationism and The Big Bang/evolution in schools bothered me. The contradiction of the story of Adam & Eve and the need for genetic diversity in endangered species, The Exodus story, etc. Then one day I learned that Catholics teach evolution because they do not take the creation story literally. Then I find out that Jews don't take the Torah literally either, and then I stumble on this channel and the Who Wrote the Bible series. It's been very liberating for me in my religious views, though I feel I don't belong to any particular denomination in Christianity. Thanks for these videos.
i have watched 5 videos of this channel in a day. addicting information
Great video, thank you! Quick pointer - I think it would be much more historically accurate to call the land Canaan rather than Palestine.
With this video you have now officially become my favorite You Tube Channel.
Wow! I don't think I've ever heard the story of the Bible explained so succinctly! Great video!
I am so excited for this series! I think you handled the topic very well 😊
Thank you for making this video, I believe the Bible in a lot of instances but being real I don't feel anyone knows the actual timeline but I appreciate you taking the time to hear it down by family tree to try to make it more understandable. So thank you either way.
Love this video. Like every video you do, is serious, well documented, unbiased and beautifully edited. I want you as my teacher and I'm 30!!
This is probably the best video you have ever made in my opinion, its just so interesting. Keep up the great work Matt.
Have to agree.
As a rather unconventional Catholic, good job here. This was very interesting.
Sup Constantine XI Palaiologos
@@jacksonguillory8114 Not Constantinople 😬
Great video. I think you did a great job of explaining the reasoning behind the massive difference in accuracy between the earlier and later portions. I also appreciate that you didn’t give the exodus story the “legend” tag as many might. Doing so would be inaccurate, as well as being an injustice to the genuine historical records that appear later
I really hope you write a book series some day, with charts, maps etc. I would 100% read it xxxx
Definitely respect how you open up with your personal beliefs as to make sure the viewers understand where you’re coming from. Although I disagree with some things you bring up and label, I still have great respect for someone who actively researches his/her views. Your effort to be as objective as possible is recognized and appreciated. Great work.
Great video! Here's an interesting note about the flood myth; you can make an argument that some aspects of the flood myth could be considered legend. There appear to be similar flood myths in cultures all around the world, both predating and succeeding the Biblical account. Virtually everybody, from the ancient Babylonians to the Austronesian cultures in Oceania, had some story about the whole world being flooded over after their deities got upset with the people on Earth.
Some scholars believe that there *was* an historical "world flood" of sorts, but that flood was limited to the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Mesopotamia, and that it occurred during the very beginning of human civilization in that area. This would have been around the end of the Ice Age, when the polar ice receded into the boundaries it has today, which would lead to a rise in sea levels.
None of this has been absolutely confirmed, obviously, but it is an interesting theory I thought I'd mention.
muggarock - Bliblical flood story comes from the Babylonian stories.
@@TorianTammas Every ancient civilization throughout history had their own version of the Flood story.
Sumerian: Ziusudra found out that the deities were gonna destroy humanity in a flood and was told by a deity to build a large boat, and afterwards he sacrifices animals, implying that animals were on the ark.
Babylonian: Utnapishtim was told by a deity that the deities were gonna cause a great flood, so was told by that deity to build an ark with all the animals.
India: manu is told by the deities that they're gonna destroy the world with a flood so is told to build an ark with all their grain and animals.
Korea: A great flood happened and Namu Doryeung survived it by floating on wood and he saved all of the animals in the world.
Greeks: The deities were gonna destroy all the humans so Prometheus told Deucalion to build a chest to stay in while humanity gets destroyed.
Welsh: a great flood was destroying all of people so Dwyfan and Dwyfach carried 2 of every living thing on an ark.
Mesoamerican flood myths were found among every Mesoamerican culture.
Mayans: Flood was caused because deities weren't happy with their creation. This version had everyone get destroyed. Although I read that they believed Teocipactli survived on a boat.
the Tlapanec and Huaxtecs: there was a couple who survived and repopulated the Earth.
Hawaii: Nu'u built an ark that protected him during the Great flood.
These are all various cultures. I doubt they all plagiarized from each other.
@@comb528491 There is still the chance that various great floods happened all across the world at different times, rather than all of them basing from a flood very early on in human history.
muggarock I Personally think the Flood Story is pure Legend.
@@TorianTammas No.
Thank you for a great tree, as always!
It is also worth noting that there are 2 rivaling schools in the Israeli Biblical Archaeology, represented by Israel Finkelstein (Tel-Aviv Univ.) mentioned here and Yosef Garfinkel (Jerusalem Univ.) (ironically, they share the same element 'finkel' in their surnames :) ). Finkelstein insists that David and Solomon were mere tribal chieftains, if existed at all, and there was no such powerful and organised statehood as the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel (Biblical minimalism?), while Garfinkel tries to provide more archaeological confirmations for the Biblical narrative.
Great video, it has put into context several things I have long mused over as well as fill in some big gaps. I look forward to the follow up videos.
15:36 I highly doubt the Judeans (?) Made up the mythologies and legends on whim. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would make more sense that these stories come from a long oral tradition from hundreds of years before being written down. And of course oral stories have a way of changing and embellishing on their own over time Certainly once they were written down, the writers would have embellished, but I doubt they made it all up on the spot.
Btw good video
Yeah plus place names easily could've been changed for then current readers.
Such oral traditions simply do not exist and never existed. Oral traditions change all the time, so the longer the time, the more chance of changes occurring all over the place. After decades one can possibly recognise some continuity, but oral traditions after some decades are hopelessly confused historically.
@@logansmith2703 Actually there is a lot of internal evidence that the text was updated for later generations. Like for instance, in Samuel, the author goes out of his way to say that during the days of Saul, prophets were known as seers. In Judges, the writer refers to the sacking of a city called Dan but says at the time it was called Laish. So a lot of this goes on in the text.
@@hoog19 while I don't agree with Mu51kM4n's premise, I don't entirely agree with yours either. Throughout West Africa oral traditions lasted for centuries before the European and Arab invasions with Christianity and then later Islam. In certain societies those people were and are referred to as Griots. It's very possible that this could have taken place under these circumstances. However, I find it doubtful because forms of writing were quite common in that part of North Africa and the Mediterranean for a few millennia. Ultimately, it's like Joseph Campbell said and I paraphrase, "Myth is more powerful than Truth".
You mean like John Frum, Arthur, Robin Hood, and Ned Ludd?
This was a very informative video. Well thought out. Plus it takes a lot of balls to tread on a topic as sensitive as biblical history.
I just found a new favourite channel. This is absolutely fantastic
Thank you. Could you make a timeline of the philosophers? (I can help, I teach history of philosophy)
Real quick question but do you believe Socrates was a historical person or a character made by Plato?
@@fpp144 real
@@atharali1027 and yet there is no evidence he existed, only what Plato wrote about him, and Plato was known for making things up to give an example ex: Atlantis being the human ego and arrogance
@@fpp144 What about Aristophanes and Xenophon ?
I’d be so interested in the history of philosophy
As a skeptical Christian I find this truly fascinating. I would really appreciate more videos like this, discussing the blurred lines between the accepted historical/archeological records vs the commonly accepted beliefs of the Judaic/Christian timelines.
Thank you for the time and effort you put into these videos.
Excellent video!
Hi Matt, I think you did a great job on this video and treated everybody with respect, believers or non-believers. My request, I just rewatched the Hobbit film trilogy and would love to see any Tolkien-related family tree. Thank you!
Literally got a Christian ad before the video...
Either way thank you for making these family tree charts. I got inspired and started trying to make my own ones. I just made one about the Rwandan and Burundian kingdoms
It's just a perfect video) thank you a lot. It's extremely comprehensive for such a short format, great job!
I used be a fundamentalist, but half a year ago I became an atheist and I decided to find out what really happened then. So I've read the Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein, started studying history of middle east with a textbook for Universities and watched lots of lectures on these topics. And it's so cool to see such a video which is consistent with what I learned, so Im going to use for my fundamentalist mates for giving them a short overview of scientific data
I'm glad you have initiated your journey of knowledge! I was raised Christian but I never believed the Bible as 100% true. A few years ago I became atheist and now seeing fundamentalists makes me sad, because they believe in something which makes them uneducated. Sorry if I didn't express myself good, English is not my first language.
@@ikad5229 thanks for sharing, English isn't my first language either
Orthodox Jew here. This was amazingly accurate and very well-organized. And while I believe what you’re saying, it’s a tough sell among most religious fundamentalists.
Good question. It seems like it undermines everything.
heilige Einfalt while I believe that Moses was real, there’s no evidence that he was. So unless it’s proven definitely that he didn’t exist, I’ll continue practicing my faith. But proving a negative is (virtually) impossible, so that’s unlikely.
@@arimermelstein9167 I don't know if it's necessarily proving a negative. Instead, it is the story of Exodus which proposes a lot of events that simply aren't found anywhere in historical or archaeological records.
Jagd Töpfer right, and I understand that. But yet I don’t find it necessary to spurn my cultural and religious heritage for something that’s likely true.
@@arimermelstein9167 I totally understand that. Would you agree that it'd be good to know the historical reality that may have inspired the Moses story, if anything? Sorta in the same way that Biblical scholarship has been trying to do with Christ for the last couple hundred years.
4:11 Michigan State vs. USC Trojans
When he mentioned Homer with those emblems still on the screen, I was expecting Simpson's face to appear.
Wow- this makes so much sense. Thanks for putting this together!
Thank you! I've become an avid fan of ancient history in recent years and am currently reading the Bible and wondering when all these Old Testament stories are supposed to have taken place and when they were actually written down. This video provides most of the answers I was looking for! What blows my mind is the idea that the story of Exodus might have actually been inspired by the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt.
i think its vice versa. The story of Hyksos was written by an egyptian guy who was aware of israelites and he conflated the story of joseph and moses and mixed both the stories.
the truth is that the Torah is the oldest source known to mankind about the history of Moses.
Loved the video. There's this really interesting book on the Exodus, saying that it might be the embellished and modified records of how the people of Akhenaten were kicked out and moved to Palestine. They go into why this lines up with both history and Jewish oral tradition. It's fascinating.
It's called "Secrets of the Exodus"
you mean Canaan
@@Stimpy8 Yeah idk why the fuck these people always say "palestine" when talking about the ancient levant land lol.
It was literally so many things before it was called Palestine lol.
Canaan/Phoenicia - 3500 BCE
Egyptian controlled Canaan- 1550 BCE
Emergence of Israelites and Philistines after withdrawal of Egypt - 1200 BCE
Northern Kingdom of Israel - 900 BCE
Southern Kingdom of Judah - 850 BCE
Assyrian territory where the Northern Kingdom of Israel once was - 720 BCE
Babylonian controlled territory where in lands where Philistines once lived - 604 BCE
Babylonian controlled territory where the Southern Kingdom of Judah once was - 587 BCE
Return of exiles to Yehud/Judea under the Persian king Cyrus II begins, beginning of 2nd temple period - 538 BCE
Hellenistic Greek controlled Judea by Alexander the Great begins - 330 BCE
Ptolemaic era of Judea begins - 320 BCE
Seleucid era of Judea begins - 201 BCE
Hasmonean dynasty of Judea, where Judeans had their own kingdom again - 164 BCE
Roman controlled Judea province begins - 63 BCE
Destruction of 2nd temple in Jewish/Roman war - 70 CE
It wasn't until THIS POINT that the land started to be called Palestine:
Roman exile of the Judeans and renaming the land Syria Palaestina to mock the Jews and disassociate them from the land - 136 CE
@@theflipper404 mohamed wasnt even born when the name was invented, yet a according to muslims its an arab land lol
@@Stimpy8 yeah they gotta think long and hard about that one. The only Arab “land” is the Arab peninsula lol. Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Morroco, etc shouldn’t be Arab lands. They only are due to extreme colonization and ethnic cleansing lol. Iraqi people are Babylonian and Mesopotamian descendant.
Jews are from Judea
Samaritan’s are from Samaria (this group has always held a presence in the land)
Samaritan’s and Judeans are both descendants of Israelis
Assyrians are from Syria (there are groups that speak Syrian Aramaic to this day)
Arabs are from the Arabian Peninsula.
Ethiopians are from Ethiopia.
Coptics are from Egypt
Persians are from Iran
Pakistani people once were a part of India
Yet somehow, all these people are supposedly a part of Arab lands and Arab history lol. Any history they had before Arab colonization doesn’t matter apparently.
@@theflipper404 I'm Jewish myself and i find it funny how 100 years ago people hated us because we are jews, and today people hate us because we are not the real jews and every one else claim to be the "real jews" or some other BS. we just cant get a break lol
These videos would shake the whole world up. Great work, n teaching
The way I was always taught about Genesis was that it was meant figuratively, using the term "day" to mean an era of time, probably lasting millions of years.
There's so much cultural crossover between ancient Hebrews and Egyptians that I find it very hard to believe that some of them weren't in Egypt at some point back then.
I think a lot of scholars theorize the tribe of Levi (the priestly tribe, of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel) had connections to Egypt
The way I teach Genesis is "and the evening and morning were the first day" and so on with day 2 through 6, I will without a doubt some day have all questions answered, so until I see Jesus face to face, I will believe we are coming soon to mans 6000th year, great video though
actually it could easily be the other way around, Egypt controlled Canaan for hundreds of years during its new kingdom
@@harpazzo777 It is very easy for you to educate yourself, if you're willing.
@@harpazzo777 so Alaska and other places where they go about a months without night their day doesn't match the rest of the world and if we are approaching or in the 6000th year we have another 1000 to go before the 7th can begin?
Oh... I just love watching historical stuff that heavily relies on the scientific method and empirical based interpretations. As a person with the passion to learn about history, this content is like a mouth watering pile of desserts. If hopefully, someday, you can make a video on the historical origins of YHWH and how he evolved overtime then I absolutely would wanna see it. Thanks for sharing all this information with a critical eye on history.
William Foxwell Albright says in his book, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan; a historical analysis of two contrasting faiths,
"In this chapter we have endeavored to draw sharp distinctions wherever possible, between the Patriarchal Hebrew heritage, the unique contribution of Moses and the movement which he founded, and the influence of contemporary Canaanite culture on the Israelites who were exposed to it. The latter is an exceptionally complex problem, since the early Hebrews were influenced by their Canaanite neighbors, there were beliefs and practices common to both, and there were later borrowings and adaptations from Canaanite culture during the period of the Judges as well as of the subsequent Monarchy. The picture is accordingly, by no means simple. Yet we can state definitively that it does not support the extreme position of the late Yehezkel Kaufmann, who maintained in his great ‘History of the Faith of Israel’ that Mosaic monotheism was a phenomenon entirely peculiar to Israel. According to him, Moses founded Israel, and Israel created monotheism. Mosaic monotheism was, he thought, a creation of Israelite religious genius, as the intellectual achievements of Greece in the 6th-4th centuries BC were a product of Hellenic secular genius. Neither phenomenon can be explained by ordinary evolutionary processes. According to Kaufmann, the Israelites were completely unable even to understand the nature of polytheism, since it was totally foreign to their entire higher culture. Kaufmann’s point of view certainly has an element of truth. Without monotheism, Israel, as we know it, could not have existed. It was indeed Moses who was the principal architect of Israelite monotheism. The pious Israelite probably knew little about many pagan beliefs. But, on the other hand, there was so much exchange of cultural influences between Israel and its neighbors on all sides of its tiny territory, and there were so many irruptions of paganism into Israel, that the ignorance presupposed by Kaufmann’s view is simply incredible. We shall see that there was profound influence from Phoenicia on the literature of later Israel. This Phoenician contribution was pagan in background, but Israelite authors were able to utilize it without permitting it seriously to distort their monotheistic approach. In much the same way Christian authors of the 2nd-5th centuries AD utilized the literary and philosophical heritage of pagan Greece without allowing it, to paganize their religious outlook".
He goes on to say at the end of his book,
"The contrast between Canaanite and Phoenician paganism, on the one hand, and the faith and practice of Israel, on the other, was relatively just as great as that between Greco-Roman paganism and Judeo-Christian monotheism in the time of the rabbis and church fathers. Israel learned the arts of civilization, including music and belles lettres, from Canaanite-Phoenician neighbors, just as later Jews and Christians learned how to reason systematically from the Greeks. In the process of acculturation heresies arose. There were syncretistic cults and movements at every known stage of the development of Yahwism. Gnosticism had its forerunners among Israelites and Samaritans, even though we can only see dimly at present. But significant pagan influences always came from the older and richer cultures, not from the nomads and semi-nomads of Sinai and North Arabia, as romantically imagined by many biblical scholars. It is high time that we turn from such imaginative fantasies to the real world of antiquity, which has so much to tell our own world of today”.
Really love this Channel..
The flood story is a very interesting aspect of Religion. It predates. Christianity and Judaism by some thousand years, with the cult of the old Mesopotamians, who also had this story. They also found evidence of some flood, that had taken place in this area. It is believed, that this traumatic event was the root of all these stories. I love your way of respecting the religion of others.
What’s crazy is that there are Native American/Alaskan Native, as well as Australian Aboriginal stories also of a great flood
Matt, an archeologist recently found proof of a group of semite people living in a Large area oc the nile river valley but the dates differ from the "Ramses the Great" timeline. They were there and then sorta disappeared( thus the exodus). He isnt a Biblical archeologist but nonetheless wanted to prove that "the Israelites" actually lived in Goshen. He found proof of this group of people, and he called them Semites. There is a documentary available on You Tube that is about the Exodus that touches on his findings.
Oh and my degree is Interdisciplanary Studies.
Thank you for making this! All the videos I search for are either all bible or all history and I’ve been trying to see how they are connected for so long
In understanding the realms of mythology and legend, I have found it insightful to understand how pre-literate societies recorded history in carefully crafted stories, using the same sort of memory techniques modern day memory masters use. The Memory Code by Lynne Kelly opened up this new paradigm for me.
Some Australian Aboriginal stories have oral stories about geological events that have scientifically been dated as occurring over 10,000 years ago. (see The Edge of Memory by Patrick Nunn).
Similarly, some Aboriginal dreamtime creation stories communicate geography over 800km (500 miles) - critical for survival of a nomadic people in a dry country.
If knowing geography is critical for survival, the geography will be memorized in stories to be certain not to forget it. That sounds unsurprising. But which use would the story tellers have of geological events ten thousand years ago?
This is brillant. Thank you for explaining things in such an easy way to understand!
Such a beautiful well put together series. I am very eager to see the rest !!
Would you make a video exploring the historicity of *actions* and *events* in the Hebrew Bible (maybe in some detail)?
You mention the second temple here, and that Cyrus let the Jews rebuild their temple, but make very little mention of the first temple that was being rebuilt (after being destroyed by the Babylonians). I took a class on how imperialism affected the various sacred texts that eventually became compiled into the Bible and the Apocrypha. Some examples of this imperialism being the enslavement by the Egyptians and the exodus, the Assyrian conquest of Israel, Babylon attacking and conquering Jerusalem in three waves, destroying the first temple in the third, the Israelites living in exile in Babylon, Alexander the Great’s hellenification of the Holy Land, the Maccabees reconquering Jerusalem, the Roman conquest, and emplacement of Herod as ruler of Palestine. In my class, we talked about all of these and with a decent amount of detail. I don’t expect you by any means to go into as much detail as we did, but would you be able to touch on some of the implications that your conclusions in this video have on the accounts in the Bible? As an example, you say that David and Solomon likely existed, but were not by any means extravagantly wealthy. Would you explain how that impacts the historicity of the first temple, with perhaps an eye towards the detailed description in Kings?
There’s so much I want to ask about because I am so interested in this topic, but I fear I’m going to be asking too much. Could you make a video about the historicity of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible? And perhaps make a video going into detail as to the timeline of the Hebrew Bible (not necessarily genealogy like this one), perhaps touching on areas not discussed in this video like, for example, the book of Judges and the Babylonian conquest and the exile? Have you heard of the theory that the creation story in Genesis took many themes from the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish, from when the Jews were in exile in Babylon?
I think some scholars aren’t closed to the idea that there might have been an exodus of a very small group of people (maybe 40) from Egypt to Palestine, though perhaps the timing of that is up for debate. What are your thoughts on that, if any?
Damn. Writing this has me giddy, this stuff is so interesting to me. I’m a non-practicing Jew, and a geologist by trade, but unpacking biblical history and the origins of all of the stories is so fascinating to me.
I'll probably hit some of these points in future episodes of this series.
Just a thought, but there's the chance the first temple did, in fact, exist, albeit not at the grand scale mentioned in the Bible and with much less gold. I have yet to look it up though...
I mean, Persian Imperialism also influenced Judaism, though probably in different ways. Zoroastrianism had a massive influence on it.
This is great! Just what I was looking for. Thank you so much for putting it together.
It's a bit of a fallacy to say that there is no evidence of Israelites in Egypt. I would check out a document known as the Hayes Papyrus (Brooklyn Papyrus 34.1446). It dates from the Middle Kingdom (pre-supposed Exodus) and features a list of slaves in the estate of a wealthy widow. A surprising number of these individuals bear Hebrew names, some of them being straight from the Bible. Furthermore, the Tel El-daba site has unearthed evidence of a large population of Semitic people in the Nile Delta in the era of the supposed sojourn. There is a house in that community which is exceptionally large with a courtyard containing twelve tombs, the largest of which was pyramid shaped. Within this pyramid shaped tomb is a statue of a Semitic man with a multi-colored coat. Though there is no way of knowing that this is Joseph and his brothers, it is eerily similar and impossible to ignore.
All said, the amount of detailed period accuracy regarding Egypt in both Genesis and Exodus have convinced me that the Joseph account and the Exodus should at least be considered to be legend.
Please do this type of videos on other religious texts such as the Quran and Mahabharata
Your friendly neighbourhood pagan here! Something on the kings in Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda would be interesting as well, as many legends have been changed so much that they are nothing more than stories today.
The problem about Quran is mostly about Godly stuff and if it's about history or people of the past, mostly they are the same like a Bible and Torah. Like Moses and all Jews prophet.
But, I do think it's quite interesting to compare Mahabharata with "real history".
@@mcarr3492 there is a nice genealogy in Ynglingatal, it's interesting to compare it with the Prose Edda. But there is almost no historical information on these kings, they are legendary, or even mythical, if we use the same terms.
Miph True paganism has been long wiped out. Lol.
@@MewxPro chances are you're talking to a neo-pagan, which really just boils down to an atheist who plays dress-up.
Your explanation of things is awesome!!!👍 half the time I don't understand what people are saying ,but I get you !,thank you!!
As a Christian, I am thrilled every time there are in fact historical findings and evidences found all over the world. But I still have a problem when people assume, that only those things can be true then and dismiss everything else in the bible. We can't just wipe away ancient history just because there are no evidences or some kind of traces told about those centuries.
Andrews “You can’t prove it didn’t happen therefore it did” is not a valid argument.
@@2chin4u that’s not my argument.
You said “We can’t just wipe away ancient history because there are no evidences”
How is that not arguing for historical events occurring without evidence?
@@2chin4u I guess the dea would be that even though it hasn't been proved in the scientific or historical way, that doesn't mean that it won't ever be proved. Quite a few Biblical places or people have been thought to be fake until someone actually found them