Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

Karl wrote:

>I think Moses wrote Exodus about 1440 BC telling the true story of the
>exodus. This is what is indicated when cross referencing other
>verses in the Bible. But a Naturalist will come along and say that it
is
>impossible for the story to be true, because of all the claims of the
>supernatural acting into history.

I expect you know better but this isn't why people think the account is
not historically accurate. A principle often quoted on this list is
``absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'', but the reality is,
in many cases, exactly that. I give you an example. Not far from where I
work is a large playing field, the ground is always soft there. Either
it rains or it is irrigated. Suppose someone says that a herd of
elephants ran through the fields last night. Laying to one side whether
this is reasonable thing to claim, if I go to the playing fields and
there are no elephant footprints then this is evidence of absence, i.e.
that no elephants ran through there last night. It is this problem which
plagues the Exodus account and has prompted a few discussions of the
meaning of eleph, usually translated thousand, in these accounts.
According to the accounts there were 600,000+ men not counting women or
children who lived for 40 years in the Sinai region. Even if we grant
supernatural feeding and so on so that there is no question about what
did they eat or drink, there is still no evidence of such large number
of people occupying the Sinai region at that time. So even allowing
supernatural intervention does not solve the problem. Its not a case of
supernaturalist against naturalists, it's a case of whether you allow
outside evidence to inform your understanding of the texts. I see
nothing in either the Christian or Jewish religious traditions which
bars adherents from examining the evidence and allowing that evidence to
influence their understanding of the texts.


Bill Rea, Ph.D. ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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