A common "proof" for the existence of god and the "truth" of judaism is based on the fact that the bible states that the entire jewish people saw and experienced the miracles of the egyptian exodus (10 plagues - parting of the red sea - 10 commandments).
Since these events are not based on a single witness, or an ancient event, rather an entire nation witnessed and started immediately celebrating and commemorating these events without modification to this date. This proves it has to be true...
You can view a google translation to english of one of the many posts in the following link:
http://tiny.cc/d4lluy
How would you respond to these claims?
Counter-examples of known false events (="miracles") that are believed to be witnessed (and believed) by a large population
Historical facts, e.g. when did the israelites/jews started celebrating the holidays that commemorate the exodus? how long after the initial event....
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Historical evidence supports the theory that what we know as the Jews were a mercenary force employed by the Egyptian Pharaoh to defend the Nile delta while the Egyptian military conquered their south. Eventually, probably because they became more of a problem than a solution, they left Egypt, moving eastward. They intended to conquer what is now known as Israel, and spent forty years building up their population, before they made their final move and conquered that part of the world.
Historic evidence does not support the biblical tales.
Just one source of this history
https://www.quora.com/What-archaeological-evidence-exists-to-show-that-t...
BIBLE? FACT? Wow are we off to a rocky stat.
First, the Bible (AKA The Big Book of Lies) is not a historical document. There is no reason to believe anything at all it says without corroborating evidence. It is a mythical religious text.
Next. If you are going to assert that the exodus of the bible is true, you must support your claim with evidence. The only exodus we know to be historically accurate was the exodus form Babylonia. The one where the Jews invented their god to mirror the Babylonian gods.
@ an entire nation witnessed and started immediately celebrating and commemorating these events without modification to this date.
Ha ha ha ha ha ...... You are of course aware of Jewish sects. Goats are now forbidden to be killed at the Wailing Wall, though chickens are routinely slaughtered. You can't possibly believe traditions have not changed. That is massively ignorant.
Prove that you exodus is true. Prove that anyone saw it happen. All you have is a religious myth. We know for a fact the Jews in Egypt were not slaves but held high ranking positions in Egypt.
"It is hard to believe that 600,000 families (which would mean about two million people) crossed the entire Sinai without leaving one shard of pottery (the archeologist's best friend) with Hebrew writing on it. It is remarkable that Egyptian records make no mention of the sudden migration of what would have been nearly a quarter of their population, nor has any evidence been found for any of the expected effects of such an exodus; such as economic downturn or labor shortages. Furthermore, there is no evidence in Israel that shows a sudden influx of people from another culture at that time. No rapid departure from traditional pottery has been seen, no record or story of a surge in population.
In fact, there's absolutely no more evidence to suggest that the story is true than there is in support of any of the Arab world's conspiracy theories and tall tales about Jews."
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/were-jews-ever-really-slaves-in-egypt-1.5...
A very brief internet search will bring you to millions of articled debunking the Biblical myth of the Exodus.
EDITED FOR REALITIES SAKE: Anyway Ron, That's what I would say/ Nice to meet you. (The shot feels so good!)
@Ron
Hey there, Ron. Welcome to the AR. Umm... If you don't mind, hold on a sec, please....
@Cog
Hmmm.... *scratching chin while studying Cog*.... The "vitamins" must be wearing off...*filling syringe*....Hey, Cog, roll up your sleeve...*grabs Cog's arm as he tries to run away*.... Stop resisting! It only makes things worse!....*gives injection through sleeve after brief struggle*....*wiping sweat from forehead*... Phew! There. Now calm down. Look at Ron's profile. Ron friend. Ron okay. Ron asking for advice on how to counter theist claims....*gently patting Cog's head*.... There ya go.... Goooood Cog....*hands Cog a banana*....
@Ron
Okay, sorry you had to see that, Ron. Cog is cool, though. Just his "medication" sometimes doesn't last as long as expected. Anyway, glad to have you aboard. As you can see, rarely a dull moment around here. Hang around and wait 'til it REALLY gets fun, though. LOL
Cog Stupid. Cog has bananas on the brain. Cog never looks at profiles. Oh hell! I will just join Michael!!!
Never heard of Judaim! Fill me in!
chimp3,
"Never heard of Judaim! Fill me in!"
A variation of Judaism from the mid 13th century = https://www.etymonline.com/word/judaism
It's the most successful BS fairy tale of all time.
It seems to me that your assertion is that because a group of people still believe in the same old stories means the stories are true. If so, then all gods and supernatural entities that people still believe in are true including Thor, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Nike, Janus, fairies, unicorns, ghosts, etc. etc. etc. etc
A claim in a book isn't evidence, let alone proof.
Many religions have antiquated rituals celebrating claims for miracles, this also is not evidence let alone proof.
Here's another news flash that you might find edifying. The farther back into human history we go the more superstitious people were, and thus their ignorance of the natural world inclined them to attached supernatural causation to events all the time.
Given the patriarchal and hierarchical nature of societies in that epoch how likely is it each individual simultaneously made a choice as you are implying? Very unlikely I'd have thought. The fact that people tend to accept their ancestors beliefs as valid proves nothing, that's axiomatic I'd have thought.
Sorry but this argument is not at all compelling. I'd have been dubious if the title had been "Evidence of Judaim (sic), but proof is pure hyperbole here. The best you have is conjecture borne out of the inherent religious bias that faith inevitably produces.
"Historical facts, e.g. when did the israelites/jews started celebrating the holidays that commemorate the exodus? how long after the initial event."
Before we get that pesky cart in front of that pesky horse again, start with the fact that none of the decades of archaeological evidence supports the Exodus myth.
QED.
@ ron …..
"Historical facts, e.g. when did the israelites/jews started celebrating the holidays that commemorate the exodus? how long after the initial event...."
Well... as previously mentioned there was no "initial event".....
the "Passover" celebrations seem to be rooted firmly in the Canaanite societies......
"The origins of the Passover festival antedate the Exodus. The Passover ritual, prior to Deuteronomy, is widely thought to have its origins in an apotropaic rite, unrelated to the Exodus, to ensure the protection of a family home, a rite conducted wholly within a clan. Hyssop was employed to daub the blood of a slaughtered sheep on the lintels and door posts to ensure that demonic forces could not enter the home. A further hypothesis maintains that, once the Priestly Code was promulgated, the exodus narrative took on a central function, as the apotropaic rite was, arguably, amalgamated with the Canaanite agricultural festival of spring which was a ceremony of Unleavened Bread, connected with the barley harvest."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover
Find more information here....
"the origin of how the Passover celebration came to be in its present form is a result of the adoption and transfer of two earlier customs - each borrowed from other neighbouring cultures by the Hebrews "
http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/passover/passover-seder-meal.html
Hope this helps...
I would argue that they are not based on any witnesses! Doesn't that presume the accuracy of the account to begin with, begging the question as it were?
We may ask why the stories about the plagues of Egypt have any truth at all? Perhaps a glorious origin of the Jewish state was deemed necessary and was created by the stroke of a pen long after the time in question. Or maybe there was some false legend, perhaps a gross distortion of real events, that was put to ink long afterward. Why assume that the account was factual. We demand the kind of evidence that allows serious historians to say that something happened in history.
@ cognostic
If religious traditions have not changed why isn't Deuteronomy 21:18-21 still used or Lamentations 5:7.
Gotta be the wrong post. My assertion was that they have changed. It's a silly assertion to assume they have not changed.
The Exodus was written by one person and was plagiarized from many other myths and legends in that region.
Do some research. You'll see not one thing mentioned in Exodus is actually true.
For one, the OLDEST Egyptian artifact found that even mentions the Hebrews (Jews) dates to only 900 BCE. The Hebrew people did not exist until 1000 BCE and were from Assyria (modern day Syria). Yet the events in Exodus are supposed to have happened in 1440 to 1400 BCE. Do some research and you will see the same things I have when I traveled in those regions in later half of the 1980s to find such proof that the Bible was accurate. Only problem was I found the Bible was nothing but a bunch of bullshit.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO archaeological evidence that the Hebrews were ever enslaved in Egypt. Do some research and you shall find the truth. You shall not find such truth in the Bible, Torah, Talmud, etc.
rmfr
arakish,
"There is ABSOLUTELY NO archaeological evidence that the Hebrews were ever enslaved in Egypt."
Ancient Egypt included all of the territory in the Levant up to the Tigris River. So if the Hebrews were there during that time period they were under Egyptian control. https://www.ancient.eu/image/538/
Diotrephes
I know. But what I was referring to was the supposed enslavement IN Egypt, at the Nile region. Yes, Egypt did have control of the Levant up to what is modern day Lebanon, but the Hebrews were never enslaved IN Egypt proper.
Thanks for the clarification.
And further, from all the evidence I could find when my wife and I traveled in that region during the later half of the 1980s, the "Hebrew" people did not come into existence until around 1000 BCE in Assyria. NOT Egypt. And the Exodus was supposed to have happened around 1440 to 1400 BCE. Not that is problem I find very difficult to reconcile.
rmfr
The witnesses to the plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea never made it to the Promised Land. The Abrahamic god made sure they all died and it this was one reason that they wandered around the wilderness for 40 years. Why? Because while Moses and Yahweh were working out the details for the 21 commandments and 613 other little rules the Hebrews made a gold idol to worship. They simply were not impressed by the miracles they saw, Moses and his god were gone for a month up on Mt Sinai. So even before they got to Canaan the large population of witnesses were already dead. The miracles had already passed into legend and myth.
Its a stupid, nasty vicious story about a psyco god character with more plot holes than your average Hollywood movie.
Personally …...
I'm coming to the opinion that ,what we now consider to be Judaism did not exist until after the time of the Babylonian Exile.
Certainly there are major changes between pre Exilic and post Exilic Judaism.
Many of the books of the old testament show major revisions in the wake of the Exile.
IE Book of Genesis….. recent thinking is that the Yahwist was written either just before or during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BC, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after.
Book of Joshua.... The earliest parts of the book are possibly chapters 2–11, the story of the conquest; these chapters were later incorporated into an early form of Joshua written late in the reign of king Josiah (reigned 640–609 BCE), but the book was not completed until after the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, and possibly not until after the return from the Babylonian exile in 539 BCE.
Book of Samuel...… scholarly thinking is that the entire Deuteronomistic history was composed in the period c. 630–540 BC by combining a number of independent texts of various ages.
(All taken from Wikipedia entries for ease of access.... )
The only problem I have with this is that the oldest Bible manuscripts only date to about 600 to 400 BCE. The oldest Torah date only to about 1000 to 900 BCE. And I never truly investigated the Talmud, but if memory serves, the oldest versions of it only date back to about 400 CE. NOT even BCE.
If I am remembering correctly, this means that everything in those "holy" texts are nothing but the earliest fantasy novels.
rmfr
P.S. - Suffering a migraine. Thus I ain't feeling like digging around too much.