All Angels Are Male!!!

Doesn't it also make sense for them to appear as men, because at the time men were more likely to be identified as authority figures?

I think so.

Quote: FrGamble

This is of course not the whole truth. The Egyptians in particular were not keen on keeping records of defeats or anything embarrassing to them.

That's not entirely true. Egypt lasted for thousands of years. While it was a very conservative culture, it wasn't petrified. Generalizations are often inaccurate. Not to mention you paint the Exodus as a defeat. Why should it be?

Let's examine instead the Big Black Hole in the evidence: no mention at all of large numbers, or even substantial numbers, of Israelite refugees used as slaves at all. Do you think after the Exodus, if it happened, all record of these slaves would be so thoroughly erased in Egypt, Mittani, Hatti, Mycene, etc? Or that these same civilizations, some of which competed with and fought against Egypt, wouldn't keep any record?

Please.

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We know that many different groups of people found themselves coming to Egypt during famine times because they had resources.

Sometimes.

But Egypt knew bad times and famine, too. Less often than others, but it happened. Most Egyptologists think the collapse of the old kingdom was due to low Nile floods.

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They also had slaves and were sometimes frightened of these foreign peoples growing strong and taking over.

Everyone had slaves.

To be sure, a group of Semitic people known as the Hyksos did take over Egypt during or after the collapse of the Middle Kingdom, inaugurating the Second Intermediate Period. The records say they invaded from the sea. Most Egyptologists think they were a group residing in Egypt for some time. Afterwards they were driven out, at the onset of the New Kingdom.

Well into the New Kingdom era, pharaohs campaigned in Canaan and Syria to keep the locals from getting any ideas about moving south and east. But every pharaoh who did bragged about this incessantly. Ramses ][ blundered badly at Meggido (or Kadesh??) and spun a draw into his major triumph. Later on there is a mention of Israel, but only to note an Egyptian victory over it.

If this supports the myth of the ten plagues and Jehovah's orgy of infanticide, then the discovery of Ilium validates and supports the Greek deities and the Homeric Hero Achilles.

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So despite Nareed's claim that absence of evidence is evidence of absence the Exodus even happened but most likely not in the numbers of people that the Bible reports.

I never said evidence of absence. That's a childish alliteration I would never use.

What I said is there is no evidence at all to support the Exodus myth.

Quote: Nareed

I never said evidence of absence. That's a childish alliteration I would never use.

I want to publish a coffee table book, called "Evidence of Absence." With Pictures!

Proof that there was once a Great Pyramid in Arizona

You could store a whole lot of grain in that thing.

Quote: rxwine

Proof that there was once a Great Pyramid in Arizona

Did you find grain? :)

Quote: Dalex64

You could store a whole lot of grain in that thing.

Carson should have exhibited his Egyptology
credentials more often, people love a good
laugh. I read a list of whacky ideas he has.
Scary for a man as smart as he claims to be.

In re the Exodus myth, there's also the Joseph myth.

That one's more plausible, up to a point. The point being perhaps Joseph was sold into slavery and wound up in Egypt, and perhaps he found success there and rose to hold a government position. But that position was 99.999999% likely NOT the vizier or the king's right-hand man.

There are records of many viziers and viceroys and governors and so on, but these are by no means complete. But Joseph allegedly saved Egypt from falling by warning the pharaoh seven lean years would follow seven fat years. The story goes on to say food was stored for those seven good years, to carry over Egypt's populace through the seven bad years.

Egyptians believed in prophetic dreams. everyone could have them, and very likely most people did. Still, a dream that saves the kingdom has to be sent by a powerful god. Any pharaoh receiving such a dream would trumpet it as loudly as possible for as long as possible. Come, even minor victories are preserved in stone for all eternity. Certainly a pharaoh chosen by Amun or Ra to receive advance notice of the future would have recorded this in every temple in the land, and he'd set up stelae all over Egypt.

We see no evidence of this.

I would also question how much grain could be preserved and for how long. Grain keeps well, if kept dry and cool, but not for years. Meats, dairy, fruit and vegetables are much more perishable.