Exodus Happened, Says Nutty Scholar

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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Ged
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Re: Exodus Happened, Says Nutty Scholar

Post by Ged »

Seems your "nutty" has more scholarly support than you would like to think?

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Hebrews- ... B09N8L32BZ
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billd89
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"The Torah is infused with Egyptian culture" YES

Post by billd89 »

The title (from The JP) notwithstanding, I think the professor's claims in the article are reasonable, not 'nutty'. Obviously, he's peddling books and tours to the Faithful, but I don't scorn others' magical beliefs. (Most of us have our own - admitted or not.) But his nuanced explanation is perfectly legitimate, I think.

However, according to Prof. Joshua Berman from Bar-Ilan University’s Zalman Shamir Bible Department, some of his colleagues are making a fundamental mistake: They are looking for evidence of the Exodus in Egypt, instead of looking for marks of Egyptian culture in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.

“The Torah is infused with Egyptian culture and its response to it,” Berman said.

“What I find incredibly fascinating is how familiar the Torah is with Egyptian culture, suggesting that the Israelites were indeed in Egypt, and they were there for a long time, but also that the way the Torah engages with this material is what today we would call cultural appropriation – a people using the propaganda of their oppressors and making it their own,” he said.

If (after Gmirkin) we accept the Pentateuch was written in Alexandria c. 272 BC, the 'Egyptian' basis makes perfect sense.

The definition of the Jew (c.272 BC) is one who metaphysically 'comes out of Egypt' (i.e. turns from the sybaritic, hedonic life) to travel to 'Israel' (i.e. to see God). Judaism became a highly literate intellectual religion, created in response to the lesser but older influential Egyptian form, to consciously set itself apart from the decaying Egyptian religion. (Some of the OT Scribes may have been converts, to have known and exploited Egyptian myth so precisely.) On the ground, Semites were far, far more diverse than we can imagine. That chaos needed order. In the literal sense that 'Exodus happened' (as it was written), Judaism effectively became the religion it is by this process.

The Moses Myth - if Völter was correct - appears to have been composed by a former scribe of Thoth. Mosaic 'Sons of God' would likewise have been Sinai and Eastern Desert Semites (whose culture was thoroughly imbued w/ Thoth mythology) consolidating power in Egypt, to ultimately represent factions of many other 'Proto-Jews' under Ptolemaic rule. Their version won; ergo, the Pentateuch.

Some form of Exodus re-enactment - as Philo Judaeus describes the Mareotic colony of geriatrics performing every 50th night, in song - is perhaps the purest and most ancient Jewish theater.

That was a definite 'happening', man!
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