Archaeology and the Bible - does it stand up?

Why The Exodus as described in the OT did not happen

The Exodus is used to describe the emancipation of the Jews from Egypt. Biblical scholars who still believe in this as an actual event attempt to twist modern archaeological thought. Modern archaeological investigation however is starting to shed light on the event as little more than a myth with very little in the way actual facts to support it. Even Jewish scholars (more later) are coming to terms with the fact this event just did not happen.

014:27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.

14:28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.

The Chariot was introduced to Egypt by an invasionary peoples named "Hyksos". Their invasion came at the end of the Middle Kingdom and takes us into what is called "The Second Intermediate Period". The Hyksos reign over Egypt lasted just over a century and the conquest was swift over an increasingly fragmentary Egyptian kingdom. It also showed up their lack of military prowess. The New Kingdom was founded with the expelling of the Hyksos (more later)

The biblical passage above then, gives us a clear New Kingdom date. The king of Egypt is "Pharaoh", a specific title granted to those adhering to the Egyptian way of life. It is a spiritual as well as a temporal title. At the time of writing of the Exodus, Pharaoh would have applied only to kings of the New Kingdom so we are further given a Terminus Post Quem of that period.

Yet biblical literalists persist. They point to the archaeology in an attempt to make the evidence fit the answers they already have. They point to chariot wheels in the Red Sea. They point to Deir El-Medina and they attempt to justify The Exodus by claiming it is a stylised version of the expelling of the Hyksos. I'm going to look at some of this "evidence".

Chariot Wheels in the Red Sea?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33168
http://www.wyattmuseum.com/red-sea-crossing-05.htm

Christian treasure hunter Ron Wyatt claimed to have found practically every artefact that proves the validity of the bible. Most of which have either been refuted, many more he simply left in situ and could not find when he returned with a team of proper archaeologists.

In this instance he claims to have found chariot wheels in the Red Sea. Testing has revealed these objects to be coral formation. Wyatt claimed to have removed one from the sea bed but the Egyptian government official that Wyatt claimed was present has never been found, neither has the wheel. Neither have they attempted to get their "findings" published in any archaeology journal or even any credible Theology journal. I wonder why?

Besides which, if there were chariot wheels in the Red Sea, it would prove nothing.

Deir El-Medina

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/medina.htm

Picture the scene: An enclosed village, secretive and walled out in the desert near the impressive tombs of The Valley of the Kings. This remarkable site is held up by bible literalists as further proof of enslaved groups of people used to build the monuments to the despotic Pharaohs and their cruel, wicked underlings. As "touregypt" explains, nothing could be further from the truth.

The community, and the secrets they carried, were protected from intruders (the walls were to keep people out, not in). Documentary sources show they were well paid and lived a life of luxury with their families. The houses are large and luxurious

Make no mistake. This was an elite community of highly skilled artisans for the especially priveleged in society. They were paid handsomely and were protected from the outside world while they fulfilled their vital tasks on the rOyal tombs.

The Hyksos and the beginning of The New Kingdom

As previously stated, the Hyksos were an invading force who conquered Egypt at a time of political instability. They came with chariots and other superior weapons with which to defeat the crippled Egyptian kingdom. Their reign lasted over a century. But they did not entirely rule over Egypt. The Priests of the temple of Karnak held out in Waset ((Thebes) or modern Luxor)) and established a new Dynasty that would culminate in a rebellion so large and thorough, it would completely remove the Hyksos from Egypt, drive them back to Canaan and establish the New Kingdom. Egypt would never again have a third rate military.

Where do bible literalists draw the comparison, I hear you ask? Well, the Hyksos, it seems, were a Semitic people who were forced back into Canaan after they were expelled. Therefore The Exodus was the liberation of Egypt with a few pinches of artistic licence.

Some artistic licence! The Hyksos, as invaders, were the occupying force of a sovereign nation. A modern analogy would would be 3,500 years from now the German descendants had a story of a man named Adolf Hitler who led them to liberation after hundreds of years of cruel repression by Poland!

Destroying the records

Another excuse for the lack of evidence in support of the Biblical Exodus is the notion that Egyptians kings were always keen to remove traces of events and people that they did not like. Though this is certainly true, imagine the scale of having to remove an event like Biblical Exodus from all records? Not only would they have had to have altered all of their own writings, monuments, tombs, temples and papyrii, they would also have needed to send out scribes to their own allies as well as their enemies to remove all trace from their monuments, tombs and records. The scale of the job would be impossible.

Touregypt discusses some other problems:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/egyptexodus.htm


Some links on Ron Wyatt (from Christians):
http://www.tentmaker.org/WAR/
http://www.tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew7/D7-AGreatChristianScam.html

And other links:
http://articles.latimes.com/2001/apr/13/news/mn-50481
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsOF_o4BvJQ&feature=player_embedded

Who was Pharaoh?

A quick look around the interwebs at Bible literalist sources.

Ramses II
Why him? He led military campaigns into Syria and Israel to ensure that the Hittites never again threatened the Egyptian kingdom. Built a large city of Pi-Ramesse
Why not him? Died an old man (92) quietly in his bed, not at the bottom of The Red Sea. His body has found in its tomb.

Amenhotep II
Why him? Campaigned in Syria. Xenophobic toward non-Egyptians living in his kingdom.
Why not him? His body has found in its tomb. Dates of rule when compared to biblical texts don't add up. His reign is too early

Merenptah
Why him? Campaigned in Israel. The "Israel Stele" discusses Israel being wiped out. The Koran claims he was the Pharaoh of the Old Testament.
Why not him? His body has been found too. Clear signs of dying of natural causes.

Thutmose III
Why him? Militaristic Pharaoh who campaigned in Syria.
Why not him? Father of Amenhotep II. Died of natural causes. Body identified.

Akhenaten
Why him? Written evidence suggest the Jewish arrival in Canaan coincides with his reign. Amarna letters refer to Israelites in some detail
Why not him? Non-aggressive Pharaoh who became a recluse when he abandoned the old gods, concerning himself only with his city of Akhetaten and writing poetry.

Evidence agains a global flood as reported in the OT

1) 2304 BC +/- 11 years. http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v4/i1/noahs_flood.asp
2) 3000 BC http://www.ancientdays.net/flooddate.htm
3) 2500 – 2300 BC http://www.creationtips.com/flooddate.html
4) Dec. 7, 2349 BC http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/lds/meridian/2003/deluge.html
5) Sat 16 Nov 2343 BC http://www.trustbible.com/noah.htm

I'm not going to focus on the argument of whether the earth is young or old. There seems to be people on both sides of that particular fence. So I am going to focus on the dates primarily and contemporary sources.

Firstly the issue of monuments that pre-date this that show no signs of water damage. The oldest date is source 2 which quotes 3000BC. Megalithic culture is fluorishing at this time, not drowning.

The Avebury stone circle has been dated to construction around 3000BC. If it was built before this supposed flood then it should show signs of water damage. It doesn't. If it was built after the flood then who built it? How was the world populated so quickly? And why would descendants of Noah build a monument strictly against the deity that had just wiped out most of the population of the planet?

Most of the other dates centre around 2300BC. All of them fall within the time period known as "The Old Kingdom" of Ancient Egypt. This first kingdom period signified the beginning of the golden age of ancient Egypt. During the Old Kingdom immense pyramids are built including those at Giza. The Old Kingdom did not collapse until 2100BC, the final dynasty of that kingdom beginning around 2300BC.

Yet the kingdom survived, experiencing internal conflict until that point. No mention of a flood and apparently a civil war must have been fought under water if you accept a worldwide inundation as a historical event.

Neither do the mesopotamians speak of a flood during their Early Dynastic period or the Akkadian empire.

Talkorigins has this to say:

10. Historical Aspects

Why is there no mention of the Flood in the records of Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations which existed at the time? Biblical dates (I Kings 6:1, Gal 3:17, various generation lengths given in Genesis) place the Flood 1300 years before Solomon began the first temple. We can construct reliable chronologies for near Eastern history, particularly for Egypt, from many kinds of records from the literate cultures in the near East. These records are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as dendrochronology and carbon-14. The building of the first temple can be dated to 950 B.C. +/- some small delta, placing the Flood around 2250 B.C. Unfortunately, the Egyptians (among others) have written records dating well back before 2250 B.C. (the Great Pyramid, for example dates to the 26th century B.C., 300 years before the Biblical date for the Flood). No sign in Egyptian inscriptions of this global flood around 2250 B.C.

How did the human population rebound so fast? Genealogies in Genesis put the Tower of Babel about 110 to 150 years after the Flood [Gen 10:25, 11:10-19]. How did the world population regrow so fast to make its construction (and the city around it) possible? Similarly, there would have been very few people around to build Stonehenge and the Pyramids, rebuild the Sumerian and Indus Valley civilizations, populate the Americas, etc.

Why do other flood myths vary so greatly from the Genesis account? Flood myths are fairly common worldwide, and if they came from a common source, we should expect similarities in most of them. Instead, the myths show great diversity. [Bailey, 1989, pp. 5-10; Isaak, 1997] For example, people survive on high land or trees in the myths about as often as on boats or rafts, and no other flood myth includes a covenant not to destroy all life again.

Why should we expect Genesis to be accurate? We know that other people's sacred stories change over time [Baaren, 1972] and that changes to the Genesis Flood story have occurred in later traditions [Ginzberg, 1909; Utley, 1961]. Is it not reasonable to assume that changes occurred between the story's origin and its being written down in its present form?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#history

Where did they get that idea?

There is barely anything original about Christian mythology. Every little tradition and tale has its roots elsewhere. In this first post I am going to look at rivals of Jesus and show potential influences that point to the stories of his life being taken from elsewhere.

Appolonius of Tyana was believed to have performed many miracles including:
* Able to perform magic
* The ability to heal the sick
* Could predict the future
* Attempted to reform cult practices
* Had visions
* Strained relationship with popular cults
* Advocated care of the poor
* Against blood sacrifice
* Conflict with Roman authorities - arrested
* Ascended to heaven
* Manifested after his death
* Hierocles commented on the similarities with Jesus
* Exorcised demons
* Could summon the dead
* Resurrects a dead girl

Simon Magus
* Presented as a mage
* Had a cult following
* Presented himself as a god
* Descended to earth to free mankind
* Projected himself as the triune god father, son and holy spirit
* Claimed to be born of a virgin

Goes to show how truth is relative. The Christians here will no doubt call these people pretenders or liars desperate to get some of Jesus' success. Truth is relative. If things would have been different then Judaism would be only a niche religion with Christianity a long-dead cults. Educated Appolonians today, knowledgeable of their ancient religious texts would no doubt refer to Jesus as a mythical figure, one of a myriad of cultists who made extraordinary claims who are forgotten by history. He couldn't be the son of God because we know his only son was Appolonius.

I have already addressed several key issues in the debate such as The Exodus and Noah's Flood and the plagiarisms. There are other general issues that need addressing.

First, Isaac Newton's is a name that gets banded around quite a bit. "He believed in God! He was a creationist! He believed in the accuracy of the bible". This quote: "I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane [secular] history whatsoever” ...is a bizarre appeal to authority. Newton died in 1727 when the Antiquarian movement had barely started and modern archaeology was still 200 years away. Therefore he was not privy to modern excavation methods, he lived in a time before Darwin, before radiocarbon dating, before geophysical survey, even before the essential methods of stratigraphy and artefact typology. Therefore, why should a signle quote from a man who has been dead for nearly 300 years prove anything? Does the fact that Imhotep (a great mathematician, physician, philosopher, architect) believed in Amun prove the existence of that Egyptian deity?

The second problem is that flimsy evidence is being used to "prove" all of the events within the bible. Pointing to the mention of cities such as Nineveh is supposed to prove the historicity of the bible. This is what sensible people call "the Spiderman fallacy". Spiderman lives in New York, New York is a real place, ergo Spiderman is a real person.

I have also seen in use that the bible mentions Egyptians using mud brick for their houses. This technology was in use by the Egyptians from the pre-Dynastic period and only stopped around 1950 when the Aswan dam was built (the Nile no longer has an annual flood) and the practice became illegal.

Avraham Biran is said to have found a tablet with the inscription "House of David". But so what? Proving that David or his House existed is not the same as proving the rest of the bible. Proving the existence of David is small fry compared to proving the events about his supposed life and, as we will see, there is no corroborating evidence outside of the bible to back up the biblical series of events.

A good case in point is Homer's Iliad which mentions real places and people. However, is this enough to prove all of the events depicted in the literature? No, in the same way that pointing to the real places in the film Cloverfield and the fact that it too was set in New York, does not prove the existence of the characters or that a giant monster attacked the city.

Imagine this. You could write a book about Elvis Presley and his miraculous healing powers, how he could fly and could morph to look like other people. Proving the existence of Elvis Presley does not prove the statements made about him.

Other problems with the bible:
* Archaeological evidence points to David being a tribal chief in charge of a single village that never ruled Israel
* Jerusalem remained a tiny village until way into the Greek period
* In-situ evidence from the gates of Megiddo and Hazor show no link between the monuments and scriptural detail
* Aramaeans are frequently mentioned, but no ancient text mentions them until around 1100BCE
* Assyrian records show that Edom was founded after the conquest of the region by Assyria
* The Bible refers to camel-based traders carrying gum, balm, and myrrh. No evidence for this until the 8th-7th centuries BCE, when Assyrian rule enabled this Arabian trade to expand into the region
* The land of Goshen has a name that comes from an Arabic group who only dominated the Nile Delta in the 6th and 5th centuries.
* Was Canaan conquered in only a few years? The authors view this account as the result of 'reimagining' destructions caused by other events as archaeological evidence reveals the destructions are not contemporary
* Destructions of Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer have recently been dated to anything between 100-200 years after the biblical dates to the Omride period. Ai was completely abandoned for about 1000 years before Jericho was destroyed
* The bible claims that the Omrides were insignificant but archaeological evidence has shown a vast empire with advanced technology and influence. The writers suggest that this was hijacked and the situations reversed in the literature
* Judah marketed the story of Joshua's conquest in order to give moral justification to their territorial expansion
* No evidence that there were any Israelites in Egypt (refer to the link above for further details)

Source: Finkelstein, I & Silberman, N.A. 2002: The Bible Unearthed

Both are mainstream writers at the top of their field and this list is not exhaustive. Both men are Jewish, one is an Israeli and has come under fire from conservative elements within the community determined to preserve mythological authoritarianism over historic