Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Charles,

Thank you for your response. I will try to answer your points below.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
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Subject: Re[3]: Date of the Exodus (still shorter)
Author:  <cisbell AT home.com> at Internet
Date:    31/01/2000 09:27


Dear Peter:

As you have seen, I have been sidetracked in my efforts to respond directly 
to you.  But I think you have raised some important issues.  Thank you for 
the kind words.  To you I use two well known quotations:   "Thou art not far 
from the kingdom" (I think this is the correct form, apparently from the NT 
and once used by a well meaning Christian student to me) and as John Wesley 
said of his doctrine on original sin.  "I differ from Calvin not a hair's 
breadth."

I agree that no one has suggested that the volcanic ash caused the death of 
selective first borns in Egypt.  But  the point to me is that here, at the 
crux of the biblical story, we encounter an affirmation of faith that simply 
stands outside ANY attempt at scientific or rationalistic explanation. 
Either we accept the Egyptian myth of the seamless movement from ruler to 
ruler (Horus becoming Osiris while his bekhor becomes Horus) or we choose to 
believe that the YHWH of the exodus and He alone kills and makes alive, or 
in the words of the Yom Kippur liturgy, determines "who shall live and who 
shall die."  If we agree on this point, all others become possible.

PK: I agree that there is a fundamental contradiction between 
different religious systems at the heart of the Exodus narrative, and 
indeed at the heart of many religious differences in the modern world. 
It is fashionable to say that all religions are really the same, but 
when you look carefully they are fundamentally contradictory. But I 
won't say more in that direction as it takes us well off topic.

Your formulation:
{"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."}

Here is the problem with such a formula, as I perceive it.  How can we peel 
off the layers of embellishment to reach the "core?"  I think we must avoid 
an ideologically informed pick-and-choose method.  Niels would move  the 
story out of the genre of "history," and in so doing is in many ways acting 
faithfully to the text itself.  I am continually struck in reading the story 
by the absence of the kind of details any of us would demand of each other 
were we to offer a history of any period.  So how do we determine what is 
"biblical history?"  As I would say, in agreement with Dave W, the reason 
Puah and Shifrah are named and rewarded with "batim" while the two pharaohs 
are nameless functionaries has to do with the perspective of the biblical 
narrator even though this perspective does not serve our modern thirst to 
know all the details.  To her (surely chapters one and two were written by a 
woman!), anyone who feared god was more significant than someone who 
pretended to BE god.

PK: Perhaps here I am coming from a different perspective from that of 
the professional historians. But we need to distinguish ontology from 
epistemology, what really happened from how we can know whether it 
happened. Here I am referring to ontology in saying that foundation 
myths are based on real events. Now very likely it is now impossible 
for us to know, by historical research or any other means, what 
actually happened; we simply cannot peel off the embellishments to 
find anything of which we can be sure it is not an embellishment. On 
the other hand, I am not as pessimistic as some in that I think that 
we can be reasonably sure of that some parts of a story are accounts 
of actual events rather than embellishments (even in a narrative which 
is not in the genre "history", in fact perhaps particularly in one 
which is not!) Also, I do not see why the Biblical narratives should 
be judged by quite different standards from tablets dug up in 
Mesopotamia.

PK: Now historians may be justified in saying of some supposed event 
"this is not historical" in the sense that "this event cannot be 
verified by historical research". The problem is that the statement 
"this is not historical" is very often understood to mean "this did 
not happen". Laymen certainly think that; and it seems to me that even 
the professional historians (including those on this list) often fall 
into the same logical trap of slipping from epistemology into 
ontology. Now I might accept a statement "the Exodus is not 
historical" if that means "the Exodus event cannot be verified", but 
not in the sense "the Exodus did not happen".

Peter Kirk again:
{"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."}

Here again, I would raise a simple issue.  First of all, I recommend 
Hoffmeier's book on ISRAEL IN EGYPT about the Thera explanation and about the 
supposed Hyksos connection.  Hoffmeier, who was a student of Redford, comes 
close to a balanced presentation on both points.  Second, I fear that such a 
view of the providential workings of God to explain otherwise "miraculous" 
biblical events turns things upside down.  I do not wish to make science, or 
the modern understanding of natural laws, the final arbiter of what can and 
cannot be considered valuable in a biblical narrative.  So I will repeat an 
earlier question to Dave.  Where in all of history anywhere in the world do 
we find results of a volcano hundreds of miles away which produce ten things, 
in precise biblical sequence, such as are found in Exodus?  If there is a 
similar phenomenon, we have just destroyed what the Bible itself says about 
YHWH's activity in Egypt being totally unique.  If there is not, the volcano 
falls as a credible explanation of the biblical tale.  Either way, I think it 
is more authentic to deal with volcano ashes in one forum and biblical 
power-of-YHWH stories in another.  Neither one bears on the other, it seems 
to me, except that biblically, I am certain that "Moses" would ascribe all 
volcano activity everywhere to YHWH.

PK: Your question to Dave is actually quite misleading, because you 
seem to be assuming that any unique event is miraculous. This just 
doesn't work. Take a modern eruption like the one a few years ago on a 
Caribbean island, and read the records of the phenomena as observed at 
a measuring station on another island. No doubt falls of ash, pumice 
etc, periods of darkness etc were recorded. "Where in all of history 
anywhere in the world do we find results of a volcano" which produce 
precisely the same sequence of phenomena at the measuring station? 
Nowhere, of course, for the course of this eruption was unique. But 
no-one would try to invoke any miracles or divine intervention to 
explain these observations - except perhaps someone who escaped the 
destruction of their home because (to an outside observer) they 
happened to be at the right place at the right time to avoid the 
destruction. No, uniqueness does not imply that something is 
unscientific or did not take place. It might imply that something is 
unverifiable, but that is a different issue.

Third, would you say about the resurrection stories in the NT the same thing 
that you say about the exodus?  Are they too merely a suspension of natural 
law for a moment in a providential arrangement to allow the raising of Jesus? 
 Or do they not stand outside the parameters of natural law and science?  
Must there be a historical kernel of veracity to the resurrection also?  I 
realize that I am out of my depth here, but is not the resurrection the major 
foundation myth of salvation for Christianity?  How can such a story be 
related to history? I am asking because I do not know, not in a rhetorical or 
caustic fashion.

PK: This goes away from the scope of this list, so I will give a brief 
answer. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus was a unique 
miraculous event with suspension of natural law, and not just a 
providential arrangement, and that this event actually took place. The 
Exodus and other miracles may also be in this category, it is 
something we can probably never know. In the case of the resurrection 
of Jesus, although we cannot of course prove it in a way which will 
satisfy the "scholars" and historians who have decided a priori that 
it is impossible, I believe that it can be demonstrated that the 
narratives can only be explained satisfactorily by saying that a 
unique event actually took place. Also, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 
15, it is central and essential to the Christian faith which he held 
that the resurrection was not just a story but an actual historical 
event, unique in that it had not happened before but the first of a 
series which will be continued in the future.

I look forward to your responses.  Thanks to you too for the tone we have 
established in the exchange.

Charles David Isbell