Quote Misquote Misleading

by ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara

  The latest watchtowel (March 2020) study edition has a question from readers ‘What evidence exists outside the Bible that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt?’ from what I read in The Bible Unearthed there being nothing to base any claims on. The article gives a quote by ‘Dr. Bimson : “The biblical traditions of the bondage in Egypt and of the Exodus have a firm historical basis.” no links or sources given. So I did some research and found a whole pdf from where this was taken from and the quote is no where near what they seem to be wanting the reader to conclude/believe. Personally I do not care any which way it goes.

  But washtowel certainly misquotes dr.bimson. Here is a little gist from where it was taken from and decide for yourself.If I am seeing this wrong let me know: " IN the opening pages of Redating the Exodus and Conquest, 1

  John J. Bimson identifies two major assumptions of his study.

  First, he maintains that "the biblical traditions of the bondage in Egypt and of the Exodus have a firm historical basis."

  It is 2MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS but they write it down as if they were facts.

  F###### Slave-Holders

  Here is the link : https://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/gtj/04-2_245.pdf

  Zing
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  Earnest

  Zing, the quotation comes from Dr Bimson's book Redating the Exodus and Conquest which was first published in 1978 and a second edition in 1981.

  In his book Dr Bimson writes (p.10, 2nd edition)

  It is a fundamental assumption of this work that the biblical traditions of the bondage in Egypt and of the Exodus have a firm historical basis.

  He then goes on to say:

  The present writer would express this historical essence of the tradition as follows: A considerable body of people, who were in some way ancestral to the later tribes of Israel, were pressed into a state of servitude in Egypt. They eventually found their situation intolerable, but escape from it only became possible when Egypt's control over them was broken by events which the Bible depicts as miraculous. Then this body of people left Egypt and moved into the area south of Canaan under the leadership of Moses. Subsequently the group entered Canaan itself and took possession of considerable areas of land.

  It seems legitimate to assume that this basic sequence of events is historical.
  

  It is clear Dr Bimson is himself satisfied from his doctoral research that the biblical traditions have an historical basis. I think you are splitting hairs.
  
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  ZindagiNaMilegiDobaara

  @Earnest, Thank you for clearing it up. Your extracted lines gave me clarity thanks again.

  Zing
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  Anony Mous

  There is no historical evidence of anything in the Bible from Abraham up to King Hezekiah. There are stories that roughly align but the times are all wrong, king David and his lineage never existed, the entire area was continuously occupied and the Jews, although they have historically always lived there (unlike the Jordanians and other invaders currently claiming the land after the British Empire crumbled), until the Persians and Greeks came along never had a unified kingdom. The Greeks and Persians installed kings as an effective means to maintain stability and a feeling of unity within a group.

  As far as the biblical message, yes the Egyptians ruled over the area so it's likely escapee slaves were welcomed in the rebellious area of Israel. The Jews did have a strong written history which made them unique and caused them to be strong predecessors to other organized religions such as Christianity and Islam. Their written history unified them across time and distance lands but a lot of it is allegory and fable written exactly for that purpose.
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  Diogenesister

  Dr.John Bimson is a self confessed Christian, so his work is highly unlikely to be unbiased.

  I haven’t read his book, but having read the Bible unearthed (and watched the documentary} I fail to see from where he got the evidence to make such an assertion. He is not an archeologist and his book is old and out dated, as many watchtower so-called sources are. He probably based his ideas on the works of the likes of Isreali archaeologists Yigael Yadin, (the dude that excavated Masada) Chief of isreali defence forces and someone who used archeology to legitimise Israel’s rights to the land. In other words these guys had an agenda.

  Isreal Finklesteins work is far more recent and backs up Anony mous (above)Many departments of Biblical studies are funded and staffed by religious groups, so their work naturally has a bias toward historicity,
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  days of future passed

  I will always assume, that when the WT gets a lot of questions or hear of murmuring (from dubs or ex jw's) about a subject, they jump into action to find someone of "authority" to support their side.
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  Earnest

  In a review of Dr Bimson's Redating the Exodus and Conquest, Alberto Soggin writes in Vetus Testamentum XXXI, 1 (1981):

  Too often the author presupposes the basic historicity of the biblical sources (pp.16, 68, 199, 202, etc.), although sometimes not without some benefit of doubt (e.g. p. 209: "... if these traditions are historically reliable ..."). Now such a thing cannot be presupposed (or believed, as the author has it sometimes), but must be proved. The ancient Near East is rich in historiographical texts such as chronicles, annals, royal inscriptions, introductions to international treaties and the like, and it is quite obvious that almost none of the texts in the Pentateuch and in the first two books of the "Former Prophets" belongs to one of these categories. But even if some did, it would be necessary to examine them critically. The historicity of a legendary text cannot of course be denied a priori, but it must be confirmed in every single case, a task that is sometimes difficult if not impossible....

  He concludes:
  

  If [the author's proposal for redating the Exodus and Conquest is not convincing] this is due first of all to objective factors ... for which he cannot be blamed; but secondly to the fact that the author seems not to have sufficiently appreciated the historical quality of the literary materials involved. With this limitation, the work remains valuable: the student and the scholar alike will find in it a thorough treatment of the archaeological and topographical problems connected with the Exodus and the Conquest. In other words, no scholar dealing with the problem can avoid a critical examination of the literary sources, as A. Alt and M. Noth taught us many years ago.
  
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  btlc

  So, if I remember correctly, 600 000 men (means a population of few millions) left Egypt, and dwell for 40 years (whole generation!) in the desert with limited resources. Imagine that infrastructure, to meet daily needs for millions of people, it is not easy even today, not even in a well organized megacities, let alone near-east desert 35 centuries ago. There should be millions of relics, artefacts, artificial structures, graves, bones, remnants of daily life. Every other civilization left something, but Israelites left just a fairy tales...
  
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  nowwhat?

  Say you were in the middle of the Israelite encampment. And you had to take a dump. Wouldn't it take at least an hour to zigzag through a million Jews to get to the outside of camp?
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  LeeT

  The source for the James K. Hoffmeier quotes can be found here.
  Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition By James K. Hoffmeier
  
  They also scrape barrel citing David Rohl but not on any of his more contentious arguments.
  
  Great, so they've demonstrated what few doubted, that Egypt was, for much of the 2nd millennium BC home to a range of foreigners which included Caananites, some of whom fell into slavery. That is not evidence of the forced enslavement of an entire people who bred like rabbits for 430 years before a wrathful God made good their escape plans only for them to get sidetracked in the desert for 40 years.