7 comments:

Kiwifactor46 said...

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Kiwifactor46 said...

On a related note, Inspiring Philosophy just posted a video you might find interesting, regarding the historical context of the event, entitled; Exodus Rediscovered: Documentary.

HashemIsBeautiful said...

Good timing for Passover, maybe I'll check that out soon.

Thanks, and keep checking back as I update this fairly regularly. In fact, you can subscribe (at the top of the page in the blue box labeled Subscribe!

HashemIsBeautiful said...

That was fantastic! Inspiring Philosophy's videos never let me down in terms of quality of research and interesting subject matter. Someone in the comments section of this video said that he is Agnostic; that is certainly hard to believe!

I did some research and found Capturing Christianity podcast, which refers to Inspiring Philosophy as a theist, which honestly makes a lot more sense.

I wrote the following comment, which I think answers his initial question about the dating of the Exodus discussed near the beginning of the video:

According to Jewish sources, the First Temple was completed in 833 BCE, not 966. Further, the Jewish tradition records that the slavery in Egypt only lasted 210 years (although the original decreed number was 430 years). Working backward from 833 BCE, and with the slavery being 210 years long, the period of slavery began in around 1522 BCE, 28 years after the beginning of the New Kingdom (1550 BCE), i.e., during the right time. If you use the 430 year figure, this puts the slavery beginning in 1742 BCE, during the Middle Kingdom, which is the wrong time!

Kiwifactor46 said...

I was finally able to watch the video all the way through. I wanted to see it, then read your comments, but right after viewing it, Michael Jones (Inspiring Philosophy) took it down!! He posted on facebook that after further research, he believes that the time frame is off, and will do a video to replace it. Kudos, to him at least for admitting his error! That had to be tough! As to Michael being an agnostic, his content doesn't support it, and Cameron Bertuzzi (Capturing Christianity) is a good friend of his, so I would believe Cameron.

HashemIsBeautiful said...

Haha, I see; I'll have to wait for his new one, if he makes one.

For some reason I actually copied and pasted my original comment on this page (above), so you can see what I wrote.

The part that I didn't copy was that the Jewish tradition records that other slaves left Egypt along with the Jews. They are attributed with conceiving of the idea of worshiping the Golden Calf.

The other part was that the Hebrew word for "evil," "ra," is basically the same as the name of the Egyptian deity "Rah." This is relevant in terms of what Jones was saying because it indicates a familiarity with the Egyptian pantheon. In context, when Moses asks the Pharaoh for permission to leave Egypt for a three-day journey to sacrifice animals, the Pharaoh calls him a liar on the account that Moses asked to bring the children along, and "everyone knows that children don't offer sacrifices!" The Pharaoh told him, "See that Rah is opposite your faces." In our own understanding, he used his idolatrous rites to see the future (apparently invoking Rah), a word that doubles as "evil."

Of course, we believe that Moses dictated the entire Five Books of Moses from God, so his familiarity with the Egyptian pantheon is not the reason that he accurately referred to Rah.

Kiwifactor46 said...

Praying for Israel