Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Charles,

Thank you for your thought-provoking and inspiring posting. I am 
grateful to you for bringing our thinking back to the deepest meaning 
of the Exodus etc accounts which is (in part) that YHWH liberates his 
people, that he, not the gods of Egypt, is in control.

However, your description of the thinking of those of us who try to 
tie up the Exodus with historical and natural events is far from my 
thinking, indeed totally opposite. Also, I am not insisting on a 
column of fire thousands of metres high, and I don't think anyone has 
suggested that only the firstborn were killed by volcanic phenomena. I 
can't speak for others' thinking, but let me explain my own thinking.

To start with, I would suggest that "foundation myths" (of any people) 
are commonly not fictional accounts but accounts of real events which 
have perhaps acquired various accretions during centuries of perhaps 
oral transmission e.g. numbers exaggerated, unusual events dressed up 
to become miraculous and then explained as divine intervention etc. 
Compare the Iliad, based on an attack on a real Troy. That makes them 
no less significant as foundation myths. So to say (as some might, I'm 
not saying this) that the Exodus story is an embellished version of 
the historical escape of a small band from Egypt is in no way to 
debunk the wider significance of the event. It is more than "mere 
history", but that does not mean it has no historical core which might 
be discoverable by historical research.

Then you wrote: "But the argument being made seems to be that the 
ancients thought (ha ha) that God did a miracle, but we moderns know 
that it was a volcano that fooled them into thinking YHWH had acted 
for them." That is not at all my argument. I would rather argue that 
they were right, that YHWH did indeed act for them, not by suspending 
natural laws but by providentially arranging for the volcano to erupt 
(or whatever) at just the right time to arrange for the Israelites to 
escape. Now I know that the self-appointed scholars' ha ha's will now 
be directed at me rather than at the ancients. Let them laugh. Or they 
could say that the Israelites cleverly took the opportunity of the 
confusion caused by the natural disasters to escape and then 
attributed the whole thing to YHWH as an example of his sovereignty, 
so fitting the theological purpose of the book. I would not really 
quarrel with that. But in general, the ancients were (as you say) 
smart enough to recognise natural phenomenon for what they were, and 
also perceptive enough to realise that when these phenomenon took 
place at just the time that they were needed, that was not chance but 
the sovereignty of the God who was working for them.

Peter Kirk



______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Date of the Exodus (still shorter)
Author:  <cisbell AT home.com> at Internet
Date:    28/01/2000 10:30


I hope Niels will be pleased that we have found an issue on which he and I 
can fully agree.  Not only is he correct  that the Thera explanation strains 
the credulity by demanding a series of coincidences, but there is an even 
higher hurdle for those who wish to take seriously the biblical account. 
Attributing the plagues (one or all of them) to natural phenomena because we 
are so advanced in our understanding beyond the poor, simple Hebrews 
actually turns the biblical portrayal on its head.  And surely there is no 
one on the list who would argue that volcanic ash from somewhere else killed 
just the first born and not everyone else!

<snip>

..I believe by taking the biblical text seriously, and allowing it to make 
its theological affirmation as it intends to do about the sovereignty of 
YHWH, we are entitled to assume that the ancients were smart enough to have 
recognized a natural phenomenon and would have labeled it properly even 
while attributing it to YHWH.  But the argument being made seems to be that 
the ancients thought (ha ha) that God did a miracle, but we moderns know 
that it was a volcano that fooled them into thinking YHWH had acted for 
them.  How quaint!

And the lengths to which we go to "prove" a particular view of the story.  A 
fire hundreds of feet high so that two million people could see it at once? 
Surely such a fire would have scared hell (sic!) out of the poor simple 
souls presumed to have been completely fogged over by a series of fortuitous 
natural disasters that they foolishly assumed YHWH did for their benefit.

To this day, I along with millions of other Jews on Pesah, begin recounting 
the story of the exodus with the words, (avadim hayinu, "we used to be 
slaves."  That the biblical story reflects a kernel of some event thousands 
of years ago I do not doubt.  But for me, the story is far more than a once 
for all, one time only literary artifact to be dusted off once in a while 
and defended against skeptics like Niels.  It is a foundational myth of 
faith that teaches a clear perspective about who YHWH was/is and the lengths 
to which we believe He will go to create liberation and defeat oppression. 
No single story, chained to a single point in time and imprisoned in a 
single naturalistic, rationalistic explanation, could function over 
centuries of time as the world's greatest myth about liberation and freedom 
wrought by the God of the little guy, YHWH.  Explaining away the story 
destroys it.

Doffing the cap to Niels, Sign Me,
Charles David Isbell, a true believer in Baton Rouge.