Feldman in his book "Exodus" makes a believable claim for the number of israelites moving from Egypt having been much smaller than described in the bible. THe group that left Egypt are the Levite tribe, and they are the only tribe with egyptian names. There is also evidence for groups of semites/hebrews who immigrated to and from egypt in the late bronze age.

BIBLE HISTORICITY REHABILITATED THROUGH CHRONOLOGY by Gerard Gertoux from The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy-tale or real history? 19-14,

Regarding biblical chronology, the Vatican's biblical scholars made Abraham enter into Canaan in 2138 BCE (Vigouroux: 1899, 737), while nowadays they say 1850 BCE (De Vaux: 1986, 1805). How can one explain such discrepancies in dates? The present chronology of the Bible is an elaborate system of life-spans, “generations”, and other means which delineate the events over the 4,000 years of narrative time between the Creation of the world and the re-dedication of the Temple in 164 BCE. Establishing such a chronology was theological in intent, not historical in the modern sense, and functions as an implied prophecy whose key lies in the identification of the final event. Furthermore the chronology of the monarchy, unlike that of earlier periods, can be checked against non-Biblical sources and numerous disagreements appeared with historical synchronisms. Possibly the most widely followed attempt to reconcile the contradictions has been that proposed by Edwin R. Thiele in his The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, but his work has been widely criticised for, among other things, introducing “innumerable” co-regencies, constructing a “complex system of calendars”, and using “unique” patterns of calculation; as a result his following is largely among scholars “committed ... to a doctrine of scripture's absolute harmony”. The weaknesses in Thiele's PhD dissertation have led subsequent scholars to continue to propose chronologies, but, there is “little consensus on acceptable methods of dealing with conflicting data”.

First, one must get an accurate biblical chronology. In order to check the accuracy of the Bible chronology one must use only the durations of reign given by the biblical text (marked by #). As Thiele had understood in his PhD work, the reigns of Judean kings (like Rehoboam) have begun on 1st Nisan with an accession year (year 0), which was a system of Babylonian origin, and the reigns of Israelite kings have begun on 1st Tishri (year 1) without an accession year, which was a system of Egyptian origin adopted by King Jeroboam I (dates in bold are absolute dates
calculated by astronomical events14). Several reigns (highlighted) [with an asterix] have been confirmed by archaeology (Kitchen: 2003, 604):

[I could not copy the chart itself. I give here in simplified form.]

SK1 Rehoboam* (977) - 17
SK2 Abijah (960) - 3
SK3 Asa (957) - 41
SK4 Jehoshaphat (916) - 25
SK5 Jehoram* (893) - 8 (2 year coregency)
SK6 Ahaziah* (885) - 1
SK7 Athaliah* (885) - 6
SK8 Joash (879) - 40
SK9 Amaziah (839) - 29
SK10 Azariah/ Uzziah (810) - 52
SK11 Jotham* (758) - 16
SK12 Ahaz* (742) - 16
SK13 Hezekiah* (727) - 29
SK14 Manasseh* (698) - 55
SK15 Amon (643) - 2
SK16 Josiah* (641) - 31
SK17 Jehoahaz (609) - 3m
SK18 Jehoiakim* (609) - 11
SK19 Jehoiachin* (598) - 3m
SK20 Zedekiah* (597) 11
total years for reign - 391

[the above dates and reigns are mine. Gertoux gives this footnote - 390 = 17 + 3 + 41 + (25 – 2) + 8 + (7 – 1) + 40 + 29 + 52 + 16 + 16 + 29 + 55 + 2 + 31 + 11 + 11. I differ with him, in that he does not recognise that the years given for the reign of each king does not always match the actual regnal years. This does not give a difference in the total, however, bu in how we mark the actual dates. He comes to 390 years, and ends the reign of Zedekiah in 587, where the destruction of Jerusalem actually occurred in 586. He made the mistake of trying to make the history fit the Bible instead of allowing for the bible to be conformed to history. The problem was solved by recognising the Ezekiel uses a fall to fall calendar for the captivity of Jehoiachin and a spring to spring calendar for the reign of Zedekiah. To get the 390 years, he counted Ahaziah's one year as part of Jehoram's 8 years.]

NK1 Jeroboam* (977) - 22
NK2 Nadab (955) - 2
NK3 Baasha (953) - 24
NK4 Elah (931) - 2
NK5 Zimri (930) - 7d
NK6 Tibni & NK7 Omri (930) - 5
NK7 Omri (926) - 7 (sole)
NK8 Ahab (919) - 22
NK9 Ahaziah (898) - 2
NK10 Joram (896) - 12
NK11 Jehu* (884) - 28
NK12 Jehoahaz (856) - 17
NK13 Jehoash (841) - 16
NK14 Jeroboam II* (823) - 41
Interregnum - 11
NK15 Zechariah (771) - 6m
NK16 Shallum (771) - 1m
NK17 Menahem* (770) - 10
NK18 Pekahiah (760) - 2
NK19 Pekah* (758) - 20
Interregnum - 9
NK20 Hoshea* (729) - 9

The previous chronological reconstruction of all the Judean and Israelite kingdoms (from 977 to 561 BCE) can be verified in three different ways: ! There is absolutely no contradiction between the reigns of the kings of Judah and those of the kings of Israel, there is a perfect fitting. There is absolutely no contradiction between the sum of Judean reigns going from [Rehoboam to Zedekiah], from the split of the Judean kingdom in October 977 BCE to the destruction of Jerusalem in October 587 BCE, and their total given in Ezekiel 4:4-6 of 390 years, from the 1st year of Rehoboam to the 11th of Zedekiah, is indeed 390 years. This period began when the 40-year reign of Solomon (1Ki 11:42) broke apart in two rival entities: Israel and Judah. This revolt (in October 977 BCE), considered as a major fault (1Ki 12:19), ended after the destruction of the Temple when the Jews of the exile (Jr 25:8-12) arrived in Babylon around October 587 BCE. Similarly the Babylonian world domination of that era lasted exactly 70 years (Jr 25:11-12; 29:10; Is 23:13-17), starting in the beginning of the kingdom of Jehoiakim (Jr 27:1-7), in October 609 BCE, and ending in October 539 BCE when Cyrus subdued all nations, including Babylon, and freed the Jews (Is 45:1-7). A 70- year period of desolation (Dn 9:6), without worship at the Temple (Mt 24:15), began in October 587 BCE and ended in October 517 BCE when the worship at the Temple restarted after the 4th year of Darius I (Zk 7:1-7). ! There are at least 7 precisely dated events which occurred during these reigns (highlighted in grey) which can also be dated by some synchronisms with other chronologies (Babylonian, Assyrian and Egyptian), as follows:

[I have not included his chart]

The double counting system of the years of rule was used until the destruction of the temple, thus the 8th year of Nebuchadnezzar II (2Ki 24:12), according to the Egyptian reckoning, was also his 7th year of reign (Jr 52:28) according to the Babylonian reckoning (in 598 BCE). There was no ambiguity because the 10th year of Zedekiah (in 588 BCE) was also the 18th year (Egyptian reckoning) of Nebuchadnezzar II (Jr 32:1).

WHY THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS IS NOT SCIENTIFIC by Gerard Gertox from The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy-tale or real history? 19-14.

The word “Pentateuch” refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Tanakh, also known as the Torah, or Old Testament, as it is known to Christians. These books are as follows: 1) Genesis, 2) Exodus, 3) Leviticus, 4) Numbers and 5) Deuteronomy. According to Richard Elliot Friedman, biblical scholar and professor of Jewish studies at the University of Georgia: Moses is the major figure through most of these books, and early Jewish and Christian tradition held that Moses himself wrote them, though nowhere in the Five Books of Moses themselves does the text say that he was the author. But the tradition that one person, Moses, alone wrote these books presented problems. People observed contradictions in the text. It would report events in a particular order, and later it would say that those same events happened in a different order. It would say that there were two of something, and elsewhere it would say that there were fourteen of that same thing. It would say that the Moabites did something, and later it would say that it was the Midianites who did it. It would describe Moses as going to a Tabernacle in a chapter before Moses builds the Tabernacle (Richard Elliot: 1997, 17-18). Because of these alleged contradictions the majority of modern scholars, whether biblical, textual, or historical, no longer regard these books as having been written by Moses, they consider that early and credulous traditions attributed the authorship of these five books to the possibly mythological lawgiver of the Israelites, Moses.

Today the majority of academic scholars accept the theory that the Torah does not have a single author, and that its composition took place over centuries (McDermott: 2002, 21). From the late 19th century there was a general consensus around the documentary hypothesis, but this general agreement began to break down in the late 1970s (Wenham:1996, 3-13), and today there are many theories but no consensus, or even a majority viewpoint. Variations of the documentary hypothesis remain popular especially in America and Israel, and the identification of distinctive Deuteronomistic and Priestly theologies and vocabularies remains widespread, but they are used to form new approaches suggesting that the books were combined gradually over time by the slow accumulation of “fragments” of text, or that a basic text was “supplemented” by later authors/editors (Van Seters: 2004, 74-79). At the same time there has been a tendency to bring the origins of the Pentateuch further forward in time, and the most recent proposals place it in 5th century BCE Judah under the Persian empire (Knoppers, Levinson: 2007).

Several variant views of the documentary hypothesis exist, but perhaps the most popular is that of Julius Wellhausen proposed in 1895. Wellhausen put dates to the alleged four sources and none were earlier than around 900 BCE. As highlighted Gleason Archer, an Old Testament scholar: Although Wellhausen contributed no innovations to speak of, he restated the documentary theory with great skill and persuasiveness, supporting the JEDP sequence upon an evolutionary basis (Archer: 1994, 95). Even though a great many scholars and much of the public have now accepted this view, is it really true? First of all, one must be aware that these scholarly attacks to discredit the authenticity of the Old Testament, made by some academics (for the most part Egyptologists and archaeologists) as a means to eradicate religious obscurantism, are in fact, paradoxically, the result of an ideological propaganda initiated by the Nazi Party in 1933 to impose a vision of a world governed solely by eugenics (the Brave New World). Despite the aversion of the Nazis against culture, German scholars (nation with the most Nobel prizes at that time) were able opportunely to provide their service to Nazi authorities showing them clear links between the ideology of Plato's Republic and Hitler's Mein Kampf (Chapoutot: 2008, 53,92,179,244-249). One must know that shortly after being introduced to Reichsführer-SS Himmler in September 1933 at a conference of the Nordische Gesellschaft, Karl Maria Wiligut was inducted into the SS (under the pseudonym “Karl Maria Weisthor”) to head a Department for Pre- and Early History which was created for him within the SS Race and Settlement Main Office9 (RuSHA).

Two academic areas have been particularly active in supporting the Nazi propaganda: doctors, in order to teach the theory of evolution and its practical applications such as eugenics, as well as archaeologists, in order to teach a new Indo-Aryan prehistory. Thus 69% of German doctors were members of, at least, one of the Nazi organizations (Nazi Party, League of Nazi doctors, SA or SS) and the number of doctors increased by 35% between 1939 and 1944 (Hasapis: 2010, 19-20). In 1931, there was only 1 rescue archaeological unit in Germany upgraded to 9 in 1939 and then to a staggering 14 in 1943, at the height of the war. The archaeological profession was particularly prone to political engagement, and no less than 86% of all registered archaeologists adhered to the Nazi party (Legendre, Olivier, Schnitzler: 2008, 135-138). The number of archaeologists multiplied by 6 during this period (Archéologia n°442 mars 2007, 42-57). This figure is impressive when we consider that fewer than 10% of the population held a Nazi membership card. As explained PhD Joseph Goebbels in his diary, the purpose of all this academic teaching was to eradicate the “Judeo-Christian gangrene” from European people (Goebbels: 2007, 394, 665, 684). As no Nazi archaeologist was involved at the Nuremberg Trial, they were able to train a new generation of archaeologists according to their former (Aryan) ideology. This poorly known point explains why archaeologists and Egyptologists of today are generally opponents of the Bible.

The Nazi regime was a complete disaster for the civilized world but also for the intellectual world since the Nazi doctors were able to paganize the world, replacing the divine origin of man, creation of Adam according to the Bible, by the myth of Tarzan popularized by the theory of evolution, and the Nazi archaeologists have succeeded in replacing the origin of confusion of languages (Tower of Babel) by the Indo-European myth (Demoule: 2014, 593-596). These post-war archaeologists as well as most Egyptologists began publishing articles, mainly from 1980 (Hoffmeier: 1996, 3-5), to prove that the text of the Old Testament should be considered without historical value. It is to be noted that the more these academics are close to political power the more their attacks against the Bible are virulent and ideological.

The documentary hypothesis is above all a sceptical attack on the Bible and there are many scientific and logical reasons to reject it. First, consider what the Bible itself says about the authorship of the Pentateuch. Biblical witness to Mosaic authorship: The chart below shows that the Pentateuch states that Moses wrote these books. In his rejection of Mosaic authorship, Wellhausen nowhere discussed this biblical evidence. It is easy to deny Mosaic authorship, if one ignores the evidence for it. But that is not honest scholarship. We also have the witness of the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament is also clear in its testimony. The divisions of the Old Testament were clearly in place in the Jewish mind long before the time of Christ, namely, the Law of Moses (first 5 books of the OT), the Prophets (the historical and prophetic books) and the Writings (the poetic books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc.). So when Jesus referred to the Law of Moses, his Jewish listeners knew exactly to what he was referring. Even Hecataeus of Abdera (c. 310 BCE), a Greek historian and sceptic philosopher, knew (before the Septuagint) that there were the “words of Moses”. Fallacious reasoning of the Sceptics! They assumed that the Bible is not a supernatural revelation from God, which implicitly reveals that they are Deistic or atheistic in their thinking. This view is faulty because not only the inexistence of God can not be proven but in this case all historical records of the past would be dismissed because they all involve god(s)' intervention. For example, all pharaohs were believed to be "sons of the Sun" (Ra-mes) generated by Horus, but it is obvious that this (erroneous) belief does not affect the existence of Pharaohs. Based on evolutionary ideas, they assumed that the art of writing was virtually unknown in Israel prior to the establishment of the Davidic monarchy; therefore there could have been no written records going back to Moses’ time. This claim not only attacks the intelligence of the ancient Israelites, but also the Egyptians who trained Moses. Were the Egyptians incapable of teaching Moses how to read and write? Since the time the documentary hypothesis was first proposed, archaeologists have discovered scores of written records pre-dating the time of Moses. It is hard to believe that Israel's ancient neighbours knew how to write, but the Jews could not. Their subjective bias led them to illegitimately assume that any biblical statement was unreliable until proven reliable (though they would not do this with any other ancient or modern text) and when they found any disagreement between the Bible and ancient pagan literature, the latter was automatically given preference and trusted as a historical witness. The former violates the well-accepted concept known as Aristotle's dictum, which advises that the benefit of the doubt should be given to the document itself, rather than the critic. In other words, the Bible (or any other book) should be considered innocent until proven guilty, or reliable until its unreliability is compellingly demonstrated. Liberal Bible scholars allegedly based their theories on evidence from the Biblical text and yet they evaded the Biblical evidence that refutes their theories. Theirs was a "pick and choose" approach to studying the Bible, which is hardly honest scholarship in pursuit of truth. They arbitrarily assumed that the Hebrew authors were different from all other writers in history — that the Hebrews were incapable of using more than one name for God, or more than one writing style regardless of the subject matter, or more than one of several possible synonyms for a single idea. Although many examples have been found of an ancient Semitic author using repetition and duplication in his narrative technique, sceptical scholars assume that when Hebrew authors did this, it is compelling evidence of multiple authorship of the biblical text. The sceptics erroneously assumed, without any other ancient Hebrew literature to compare with the biblical text, that they could, with scientific reliability, establish the date of the composition of each book of the Bible. To date, no manuscript evidence of the J-document, E-document, P-document, D-document, or any of the other supposed fragments have ever been discovered. And there are no ancient Jewish commentaries that mention any of these imaginary documents or their alleged unnamed authors. All the manuscript evidence we have is for the first five books of the Bible just as we have them today. This is confirmed by the singular Jewish testimony (until the last few centuries) that these books are the writings of Moses. The documentary hypothesis developed by Julius Wellhausen is a literary criticism in disguise (Guillemette, Brisebois: 1987, 232-238) called sources criticism, which is in fact contradicted by linguistic analysis (Radday, Shore: 1985). This fanciful hypothesis was proposed first by physician Jean Astruc who postulated in 1753 that the Pentateuch came from 2 (not 4) sources: a Jehovist document (J) and an Elohist document (E) because God had two names: Jehovah and Elohim. It was his evidence that two authors (anonymous) had produced these two texts (at an unspecified date), which were then cleverly merged by a third author (also anonymous and date unknown). Wellhausen improved this hypothesis and taught his students that everything about the Temple had been written either by the priests, the priestly document (P), or at Jerusalem, the Deuteronomist document (D).

This hypothesis is untenable (it resembles children's stories that begin with “once upon a time in a faraway land”) since ancient authors never mention one of these missing links (those opposed to Judaism and Christianity, using challenged Apocrypha, never mentioned this “Do it yourself Pentateuch”). In addition, even if the fragmentation of the text in four sources is consistent with Darwinian evolutionism, it is contrary to common sense. Indeed, why would an author use only one name for God? If this hypothesis was correct, we should have a variety of sources: a Mercifulist document (M) when God is called Merciful, Olamist (O) when God is called Olam “Eternal”, Elyonist (El) when God is called Elyon “Most High”, Shaddayist (Sh) when God is called Shadday “Almighty”, etc. In addition, it is easy to check the fallacy of this hypothesis. Indeed, if these multiple sources (J, E, P and D) had actually existed before being amalgamated, they would have been assembled into an undefined order (if the authors were independent) as was the case, for example, for the scrolls of the minor prophets (and even the four Gospels), however all the manuscripts of the Pentateuch have the same arrangement of chapters and its 5 books are always in the same order. This logical argument also applies to the work of Homer because in the same way it is not randomly assembled episodes recitations, but an editorial choice made by a single author who thought out that long poem as a whole, why not call it Homer since tradition is unanimous (Schnapp-Gourbeillon: 2002, 285-287)? The Pentateuch had to be written by someone, why refuse to call him Moses? In fact, are alleged anachronisms invoked to discredit the Pentateuch real?

"BIBLE HISTORICITY DENIED BY THE “DOCUMENTARY THEORY”

"Denigration of biblical texts by archaeologists is based primarily on the following fallacy: the current lack of archaeological evidence is evidence of the lack of historical evidence. It is important to understand why this reasoning (mainly from 1970) is false because it is the cornerstone of archaeologists whereas for historians today the cornerstone is the testimony of early historians. First, one must know that the complete disappearance of past things, including some impressive buildings of stone, is the rule and not the exception, even the main capital of the first empire of Akkad (Aggad) has still not been found. Major periods of history, like the one that followed the attack of the Peoples of the Sea and lasted 400 years (1150-750) are called “Dark Ages” because they are completely empty of inscriptions. Similarly the kings of the Elamite empire “disappear” completely out of history for more than 3 centuries (1100-770) and although the Etruscan civilization is newer and prospered from 750 to 300 BCE we do not have any literature. Indeed, there is currently no document datable from the period of the Judges (1500-1000) but it should be noted, by way of comparison, that the Kassite dynasty, which also lasted 5 centuries (1650-1150), left no text and yet it was far more powerful than the Jewish jurisdiction. How can one explain that a known writing could disappear for several centuries without leaving any archaeological trace. Thus the Elamite cuneiform was used from 22nd to 4th centuries BCE but disappeared during the period 1100-770. It is obvious that Elamite writing did not disappear but as chancelleries ceased to produce documents in large quantities, due to disturbances in the empire, the number of documents of this period that have survived today has decreased drastically to reach virtually zero. For the same reasons when the Babylonian empire was destroyed by the Hittites (in 1499 BCE) it was replaced by a small provincial Kassite kingdom without Chancery, and therefore without written documents The appearance of writing is in fact closely linked to the activities of a Chancery. Furthermore a second factor has likely played a significant role (poorly known): the perishable nature (or not) of support.

"The ‘documentary theory’, which suggests that the five books of Moses were created around 450 BCE by combining four originally independent sources, known as the Jehovist, or J (c. -900), the Elohist, or E (c. -800), the Deuteronomist, or D, (c. -600), and the Priestly source, or P (c. -500), as set forth by J. Wellhausen in 1895, was accepted by the majority of academic scholars for many years without notable controversy. However, the ‘documentary theory’ sequence is only based on an evolutionary theory popularized by German archaeologists during World War II to combat Jewish and Christian fundamentalism. In fact, no manuscript evidence of the J,E,P,D documents or any of the other supposed fragments have ever been discovered and there are no ancient Jewish commentaries that mention any of these imaginary documents or their alleged unnamed authors. In addition, if these multiple sources had actually existed before being amalgamated, they would have been assembled into an undefined order (if authors were independent) as was the case, for example, for the scrolls of the minor prophets (and even the four Gospels), however all the manuscripts of the Pentateuch have the same arrangement of chapters and its five books are always in the same order. It is not randomly assembled episode recitations but an editorial choice made by a single author who wrote that long text as a whole. In addition, contrary to what most archaeologists say there are four chronological markers (datable elements but insignificant at the time of writing) which allow dating the five books of Moses (see page 135): 1) the rate of inflation in the slave price, 2) the proportion of Amorite names with a conjugated form in the imperfect, 3) the structure in patriarchal treaties and 4) the type of calendars used." Gerard Gertoux, The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy-tale or real history? 8-9.

"For historians, “historical truth” is based on two main pillars: 1) an accurate chronology (Herodotus’ principle) anchored on absolute dates and 2) reliable documents (Thucydides’ principle) coming from critical editions.

"To check the accuracy of the patriarchal narratives, one should not be content with merely quoting eminent experts, including Bible scholars, that’s why I strongly disagree with Finkelstein's method as exposed in his book The Bible Unearthed: 'The main problem (sic) was that the scholars who accepted the biblical accounts as reliable mistakenly believed that the patriarchal age must be seen, one way or the other, as the earliest phase in a sequential history of Israel. Some Tell-tale Anachronisms: (...) The mention of Gerar as a Philistine city in the narratives of Isaac and the mention of the city (without the Philistine attribution) in the stories of Abraham (Genesis 20:1) suggest that it had a special importance or at least was widely known at the time of the composition of the patriarchal narratives. Gerar is today identified with Tel Haror northwest of Beersheba, and excavations there have shown that in the Iron Age I —the early phase of Philistine history— it was no more than a small, quite insignificant village. But by the late eighth and seventh century BCE, it had become a strong, heavily fortified Assyrian administrative stronghold in the south, an obvious landmark. Were these incongruous details merely late insertions into early traditions or were they indications that both the details and the narrative were late? Many scholars —particularly those who supported the idea of the "historical" patriarchs — considered them to be incidental details. But as Thomas Thompson put it as early as the 1970s, the specific references in the text to cities, neighboring peoples, and familiar places are precisely those aspects that distinguish the patriarchal stories from completely mythical folktales. They are crucially important for identifying the date and message of the text. In other words, the "anachronisms" are far more important for dating and understanding the meaning and historical context of the stories of the patriarchs than the search for ancient Bedouin or mathematical calculations of the patriarchs' ages and genealogies. So the combination of camels, Arabian goods, Philistines, and Gerar —as well as other places and nations mentioned in the patriarchal stories in Genesis— are highly significant. All the clues point to a time of composition many centuries after the time in which the Bible reports the lives of the patriarchs took place. These and other anachronisms suggest an intensive period of writing the patriarchal narratives in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE.' (Finkelstein, Silberman: 2001, 36- 38).

"All these statements, which are regularly cited by major media, are false! First, Finkelstein fails to mention that, without any inscriptions (usual situation in archaeology), identification of cities of the past is often controversial. For example, the Philistine city of Gerar (between Gaza and Beer-sheba) is believed to have been either Tell Jemmeh, Tell Abu-Hureyra (Tel Haror), Tell esh-
Shariah or Tell et-Tuwail. What makes the situation even more complex is uncertainty regarding the site of Tel Haror, which is supposed to be Gerar, because it is also identified by some archaeologists either as Bat-Markaboth, Gath or Sharuhen (Negev, Gibson: 2006, 220,254). What a mess! And to make matters worse, dating the city of Haror is also disputed, but the city flourished during the Middle Bronze (2000-1550) and this urban settlement was one of the largest in southern Canaan, occupying an area of about 38 acres. Therefore the only serious method of investigation to authenticate an ancient narrative cannot be based on archaeology but only from an accurate chronology (based on absolute dates) combined with historical evidence. Finkelstein says that the geographical place-names in Biblical accounts are reliable for the 7th & 6th centuries BCE, but not for earlier times, showing that the biblical text cannot be regarded as a “history” of those earlier times, as a result of which the narratives of Abraham would be myths. However, if we use a chronology based on absolute dates (it was the purpose of my PhD dissertation), combined with ancient witnesses as well as historical writings, we can reach historical truth.

"Criticism of Finkelstein against the Pentateuch is all based on an absence of archaeological evidence that would be historical evidence of the absence and his statement that, according to the documentary hypothesis, there had not been any biblical writing in the time of Moses is simply false. The Amarna letters (on clay tablets in cuneiform), which are mostly diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru (dated 14th century BCE) have shown that the scribes of Canaan knew writing because these letters were written primarily in Akkadian (in fact Babylonian Standard), the regional language of diplomacy for this period, with marginal notes in Ancient Canaanite, their mother tongue. For archaeologists, Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because Paleo-Hebrew only appeared after circa 1050 BCE, at Byblos, and scribal schools in Palestine only began to exist circa 800 BCE. According to Finkelstein: Modern archaeology has shown that the concept of archives kept in Jerusalem with writings of the tenth century, is an absurdity based on a biblical witness and not on factual evidence. Bible stories would rank therefore among national mythologies, and would have no more historical foundation than the Homeric saga of Ulysses, or that of Aeneas, founder of Rome, sung by Virgil (Finkelstein: 2005, 73).

"These statements and these dates are historically grotesque since these authors are well aware that the Semites who came from Egypt and lived in Palestine knew the old writing called proto-Canaanite, the ancestor of Old Hebrew. For example, several inscriptions in proto-Canaanite have been discovered in Egypt (Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai and Wadi el-Ḥôl north of Thebes) and in Palestine (Lachish, Gezer and Shechem). These inscriptions are difficult to date, between 1850 and 1500 BCE for those in Serabit el-Khadim or Wadi el-Ḥôl and around 1600-1500 for those in Palestine. The spelling of the name of Canaanite cities in execration texts (dated c. -1950)4, founded on shards and figurines, is variable but their meaning is clearly Hebrew. In fact the oldest epigraph in paleo-Hebrew is dated 1550-1480 (Dalley: 2009, 1-16, 112, pl LIII, CLIIV), exactly the time of Moses and the Exodus! One has to notice that this latter example comes from a professional scribe who inscribed his name in cuneiform: Ali-dîn-ili of Kup[patu?] (a-lí-di-in-ì-lí ša ku-up-[pa-tu? “high building”]) and engraved it in paleo-Hebrew on the edge of the tablet as: ’LDN’L GB‘ (Aldinel of Gaba “hill?”). This paleo- Hebrew script is close to that much later one (c. 950 BCE) found at Tel Zayit (Colonna d'Istria: 2012, 61-63)." Gerard Gertoux, The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy-tale or real history? 5-8.

Theodore James Turner below appeals to the work and theories of Gerard Gertoux in what appears to be an attempt to gain credence for his own theories. Gertoux identifies himself on Academia.edu as a graduate student at the Universite de Lyons. Gertoux's own CV states that various university authorities have refused to pass his work or allow him to continue registration. He says that he has appealed to the French government, alleging that he is a victim of discrimination on religious grounds.

http://univ-lyon2.academia....

I shall wait for confirmation from recognized experts in the relevant fields that Gertoux's theories deserve serious attention. Until then, time growing short, I dismiss them. If Turner's theories mirror Gertoux's, as he seems to maintain, similarly, I shall not spend time investigating them until/unless they gain recognition on the part of experts in the relevant disciplines.

You have assumed wrong. I do not "appeal" to Gertoux. I merely think that opened minded people may want to take a look at his work, since it provides astronomical and scientific data to examine the Exodus.

My work looks at the internal consistency of the chronology of the Bible. i show that the chronology has a structure that has not been noticed until now.

Not an assumption. You wrote this: "I suggest you read my work and that of Gerard Gertoux. His work parallels mine in many places. He uses the same astronomical approach. He is also an expert in Egyptian and Assyrian archeology. He can give you the archeological details that may [sic] work lacks."

You are directing us to read Gertoux for things that you think supplement or support your conclusions.

yes...and?

It is not an appeal to gain creedence. He presents evidence.

I looked up Gertoux. From what I've seen so far, no one wanted to defend or accept his thesis because his ideas were too close to some off-the-fringe fundamentalists; and no one wanted to publish his work, in France or the US. So either everyone is so terrified of JWs that they won't touch anything that looks connected to them, or this guy's ideas are such crap that no one even wants to risk a limited run of them. That might all be the result of a religious vendetta and conspiracy, but it's more plausible to suspect it's because his work is crap.

Thanks for the cite, but does anyone have it in English?

The Merneptah stele is the earliest piece of extra-Biblical evidence for Israel... and contradicts the Bible. We shouldn't be surprised.

To borrow a leaf from the scholars who want to maintain the exodus really happened, we could propose that the exodus stories were some kind of response to the Egyptian invasion of Canaan that crushed the Israelite people group so thoroughly. A tale of how their god helped them escape from the scary Egyptians in the past would be a useful myth to have.

That's just spit-balling. My preferred view is that the exodus/conquest stories were a product of the post-Babylon exile when the Jews returned "home" and needed to justify turfing out the people who already lived there. Establishing a prior claim to the land would be important in that case.

The only (AFAIK) identifiable artefact of Merneptah in Palestine is a small plaque bearing his name found in stratum VI (Iron Age) at the Egyptian military outpost of Beth-Shean, and most of the Nineteenth Dynasty objects there are found either in that stratum or in Stratum V (also Iron Age). The dateable objects in Stratum VII (Late Bronze 2) are almost exclusively of Amenhotep III, including the foundation deposits of "Seti's Temple".
The use of the name Israel in the late 13th century seems anachronistic. We don't know how the early Israelites self-identified of course, but there is no other non-Biblical reference to them by that name until much later. The Greek/Mediterranean peoples in Libya that Merneptah refers to in the early part of the stele also seem anachronistic (though some of them appear in the list of the Sea Peoples of Ramesses III). The Greeks themselves said that the first arrival of the Greeks in North Africa was during the reign of Psammetichus I (664-610 BCE).

The long list of places (visited over 40 years) reminds me of the long list of ships in the Iliad. That is a result of combination/amalgamation - what was many different options for what to include in the oral tradition gets combined into a single comprehensive list in the written form. But no storyteller would've ever told the story with the whole list. If they were in Athens, they'd mention the ships from Athens and a few places the Athenian audience cared about, and that would be it.
In Exodus we have a ridiculously long list of places that takes the Jews all over the map in a seemingly crazy back-and-forth journey. But maybe this is also just a result of combining different oral storytelling options. Maybe the full list is all the places any storyteller could have mentioned, depending on what community he was telling the story in, but any given oral telling would've talked about a shorter trip visiting only those places having some emotional connection to the local audience. In this case, then, the list of place names tells us about where the story was told, not necessarily where any individual group of Jews thought the journey occurred.

Just an idea.

Another problem is linguistics. How did Moses, raised as an Egyptian, know how to supposedly write the first five books of the O.T. in Hebrew ( 1450 B.C.+/-) when the earliest records of written Hebrew seems to show nothing earlier than 1000 B.C. ? I know that most fundamentalist are mathematically challenged, but that's 450 years after the so-called Exodus. BTW, where would Moses have gotten the items needed to write with in the first place. I'm pretty sure that stationary stores were a rare thing in the desert back then. Then there's the lack of any archeological evidence of any sizable group living in the desert. But perhaps I'm just being overly critical withy these pesky observations.

"when the earliest records of written Hebrew seems to show nothing earlier than 1000 B.C"

This, of course is an outlandish claim.

"DID MOSES WRITE THE PENTATEUCH?
"Criticism of Finkelstein against the Pentateuch is all based on an absence of evidence that would be evidence of the absence and his statement that, according to the documentary hypothesis, there had not been any biblical writing in the time of Moses is simply false. The Amarna letters (on clay tablets in cuneiform), which are mostly diplomatic correspondence between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru (dated 14th century BCE) have shown that the scribes of Canaan knew writing because these letters were written primarily in Akkadian (in fact Babylonian Standard), the regional language of diplomacy for this period, with marginal notes in Ancient Canaanite, their mother tongue. For archaeologists, Moses could not have written the Pentateuch because the paleo-Hebrew only appeared after circa 1050 BCE, at Byblos, and scribal schools in Palestine only began to exist circa 800 BCE. According to Finkelstein:

'Modern archaeology has shown that the concept of archives kept in Jerusalem with writings of the tenth century, is an absurdity based on a biblical witness and not on factual evidence. Bible stories would rank therefore among national mythologies, and would have no more historical foundation that Homeric saga of Ulysses, or that of Aeneas, founder of Rome, sung by Virgil.'

"These statements and these dates are historically grotesque since these authors are well aware that the Semites who came from Egypt and lived in Palestine knew the old writing called proto-Canaanite, the ancestor of Old Hebrew. For example, several inscriptions in proto-Canaanite have been discovered in Egypt (Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai and Wadi el-Ḥôl157 north of Thebes) and in Palestine (Lachish, Gezer and Shechem). These inscriptions are difficult to date, between 1850 and 1500 BCE for those in Serabit el-Khadim or Wadi el-Ḥôl and around 1600-1500 for those in Palestine. The spelling of the name of Canaanite cities in execration texts158 (dated c. - 1950)159, founded on shards and figurines, is variable160 but their meaning is clearly Hebrew...

"The oldest epigraph in paleo-Hebrew is dated 1550-1480161. One has to notice (below [see book]) that this latter example comes from a professional scribe who inscribed his name in cuneiform: Ali-dîn-ili of Kup[patu?] (a-lí-di-in-ì-lí ša ku-up-[pa-tu? “high building”]) and engraved it in paleo-Hebrew on the edge of the tablet as: ’LDN’L GB‘ (Aldinel of Gaba “hill?”). This paleo- Hebrew script is close to that yet much later (c. 950 BCE) found at Tel Zayit." Gerard Gertoux, Moses and the exodus: what evidence? 113-114.

Of course, this map might help clear things up...during the time you're mentioning, much of the Land of Milk and Honey washttps://uploads.disquscdn.c... Egypt.

It's all fables, there is no evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt as slaves, or in any large number at all. There's no evidence that anyone, let alone a sizeable number roamed the desert for any time. And there's still the language problem of no such thing as written Hebrew until more than 4 centuries after the alleged time of Moses. That store has more holes in it than a fishing net.

If you start with a false assumption, you will draw wrong conclusions. For one, what evidence are you looking for? Do you know if there has a been an archoelogial survey to look for this evidence?

Also, it is not true that Hebrew did not exist until four centuries after the time of Moses. You repeat something that the evidence denies.

Criticism of Finkelstein against the Pentateuch is all based on an absence
of archaeological evidence that would be historical evidence of the absence and
his statement that, according to the documentary hypothesis, there had not been
any biblical writing in the time of Moses is simply false. The Amarna letters (on
clay tablets in cuneiform), which are mostly diplomatic correspondence between
the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru
(dated 14th century BCE) have shown that the scribes of Canaan knew writing
because these letters were written primarily in Akkadian (in fact Babylonian
Standard), the regional language of diplomacy for this period, with marginal
notes in Ancient Canaanite, their mother tongue. For archaeologists, Moses
could not have written the Pentateuch because Paleo-Hebrew only appeared
after circa 1050 BCE, at Byblos, and scribal schools in Palestine only began to
exist circa 800 BCE. According to Finkelstein "Modern archaeology has shown that the
concept of archives kept in Jerusalem with writings of the tenth century, is an absurdity based
on a biblical witness and not on factual evidence. Bible stories would rank therefore among
national mythologies, and would have no more historical foundation than the Homeric saga of
Ulysses, or that of Aeneas, founder of Rome, sung by Virgil" (Finkelstein: 2005, 73).
These statements and these dates are historically grotesque since these authors
are well aware that the Semites who came from Egypt and lived in Palestine
knew the old writing called proto-Canaanite, the ancestor of Old Hebrew. For
example, several inscriptions in proto-Canaanite have been discovered in Egypt
(Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai and Wadi el-Ḥôl north of Thebes) and in Palestine
(Lachish, Gezer and Shechem). These inscriptions are difficult to date, between
1850 and 1500 BCE for those in Serabit el-Khadim or Wadi el-Ḥôl and around
1600-1500 for those in Palestine. The spelling of the name of Canaanite cities in
execration texts (dated c. -1950)4, founded on shards and figurines, is variable5
but their meaning is clearly Hebrew. In fact the oldest epigraph in paleo-Hebrew
is dated 1550-1480 (Dalley: 2009, 1-16, 112, pl LIII, CLIIV), exactly the time of
Moses and the Exodus! One has to notice that this latter example comes from a
professional scribe who inscribed his name in cuneiform: Ali-dîn-ili of Kup[patu?]
(a-lí-di-in-ì-lí ša ku-up-[pa-tu? “high building”]) and engraved it in paleo-Hebrew on
the edge of the tablet as: ’LDN’L GB‘ (Aldinel of Gaba “hill?”). This paleo-
Hebrew script is close to that much later one (c. 950 BCE) found at Tel Zayit
(Colonna d'Istria: 2012, 61-63).

Yes, there have been a few digs and nothing so far. I realize that absence of evidence is not conclusive but those that have made the claim for the positive case have been the ones looking and have so far failed. Sort of like UFOs and Big Foot. If it's true; then they need to provide proof, otherwise it's just conjecture. As to claim that Hebrew did exist prior, I've seen no reliable evidence from any linguist to support your counterclaim. If you have such evidence I'd like to see it if you please. But only serious, peer reviewed evidence in a major publication.

If you would read Gertoux's book on the Exodus, you would see the evidence you are looking for. The evidence has been there all along. It is just that egyptologists were misinterpreting it. I dislike conjecture. I would not believe in something that there is zero evidence for. I have seen the reliable evidence with my own eyes.

Why does the evidence have to be in a book that has the "imprimatur" of your "pope"? You can find it but it takes a lot of digging. Gertoux does present the evidence from such books. However, it would take a long time for me to give you all the references. Gertoux has done it for us.

It's not peer reviewed and therefore just a book, which by the way, panders to believers and makes him a bit of money. You'll have to a whole lot better than this. Just another case of confirmation bias , nothing more. As for your "pope" reference, I don't follow, but then again, I was never very good at non sequiturs.

First, He gives the book away for free. He does not make any money from the book. And he is working on getting his PhD.

What he does is present the compiled evidence from the standard works. It does not matter whether or not his book is peer-reviewed. You can look up the information, since he has the references.

I always think it a bit ridiculous that people claim that they are open-minded sceptics but will not read anything that is not first approved by passing through their "pope" (peer-review).

An expert in a field might choose to read something from that field that isn't peer reviewed. In essence, they are acting as an informal reviewer. But for somebody who is not a specialist, it is silly, and a waste of time, to read something that hasn't already been vetted by experts. That's the only way a non-specialist really has to not get bamboozled by nonsense.

There are three conditions under which a wise researcher will read something: they themselves are an expert in that field, the author has a solid reputation in that field, or the work has been subjected to peer review.

.and you condemn JW's.

What are you talking about?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go...

Why depend on something that has proven unreliable?

I have no problem reading material from experts. There are ways to know whether information is useful. First, if you can find that they use sources correctly. Second, they represent opposing views accurately. I find that many writers who have a view to promote will often minimise or distort opposing views. When this occurs, I am less prone to read more of the author.

The real way we can know we are understanding correctly is that we understand the problem correctly.

Jonathan's blog is not a reliable source of information on whether or not there is evidence for the Exodus. It is merely a propaganda piece for sceptics. He misrepresents both the problem, in that he exaggerates the lack of evidence and fails to take into account opposing views. Any reader of anything he has written is merely going to receive a distortion of the subject. Do not get me wrong, there is a time for polemics. If there are injustices, they can be addressed in this manner. Also, there are times it can be entertaining.

If I want to know what is true, I must begin with premises that are true definitionally. I do not like speculation. I always examine my premises. I read extensively from points of view that differ from my own. I prefer objective facts over subjective ideas. I also believe that it is important to be able to not just understand opposing views but to be able to explain them in a way that those who hold them can agree that it is their view. If I am discussing with someone and they say, I have misrepresented them, I have to accept that. I cannot say, "you are saying this but you really mean this". For one, I cannot win them that way. For another, I have no way of knowing whther or not they are correct.

I would take you guys way more seriously, I you would read Gertoux and show me where he is wrong. To just dismiss something out of hand that you know nothing about is pretty lame.

I realise you all have an agenda to justify your beliefs. This blog is apparently a place where you can pat each other on the back a say how smart each other is for not believing in the Bible. that is fine, if that is what you want to do. I have no interest in doing that myself. If I am wrong, I want to know it so I can change my views to that which is correct. I spent years objectively examining the evidence. I have read almost everything I could get my hands on. The evidence points to the Exodus being an actual event in history. You my not like it, the experts may not even like it, but it is the truth.

Why depend on something that has proven unreliable?

Because it hasn't proven so. It is a key component to conducting science, and science is- by far- the most reliable and successful mechanism humans have ever employed to understand the natural world.

According to peer-reviewed studies, peer-review is unreliable.

Peer-reviewed doesn't mean right. It just means that the work has passed the burden of not claiming something objectively wrong (like that a global flood occurred a few thousand years ago), or that the author has failed to address other work, or that there are obvious systematic errors.

The paper you link is essentially an opinion piece. And while the author is certainly right that the system doesn't always work, I think he fails in demonstrating that it is regularly unreliable. As someone who has been both reviewed and a reviewer, my observation is that it works very well, indeed. I cannot envision how formal scholarship could possibly operate without it.

Also, how did he write about his own death?

Uh. You think this is an objection? He did not write about his own death. Obviously, this would have been written by someone else., probably Joshua, as Anat points out.

Excellent point! It's all made up fables to keep the kids entertained.

Well, one traditional view in Jewish commentary was that Yahweh dictated to Moses the story of his death before it happened (up to verse X YHWH spoke and Moses wrote, from that point on YHWH spoke and Moses wrote tearfully). Another is that Joshua wrote that part.

There are a number of problems with most scholar's understanding of biblical chronology. First. the commonly accepted dates of the kings of Judah and Israel are those of Edwin Thiele. He imagined coregencies that do not exist and shorten the reign of the Kings of Judah by 46 years. Rehoboam's reign began in 977, not 931. Jeroboam is offering upon the altar in Bethel on November 22, 977 BC, when he is given a prophecy of Josiah that finds its fulfilment 350 years later in the 13th year of Josiah. Of course, people who do not believe the Bible, do not believe the Bible. anything that shows the Bible is inspired, they dismiss as being written after the fact. However, in Ezekiel 4:4-6, this prophecy of josiah is used to commence two time prophecies that are based upon a day-for-a-year. From the giving of the prophecy of Josiah to the start of the siege of Jerusalem in 587 is 390 years. From the fulfilment of the prophecy of Josiah in 627 to the siege is 40 years.

When we have a correct biblical chronology, every piece of the puzzle fits perfectly. Solomon;s temple is dedicated in November 1006 BC. The second temple is dedicated 490 years and four months later March 12, 515 BC. It had lain in ruins for 70 years and 7 months. It was burned by Nebuzaradan on the 10th day of the 5th Jewish month Av. The second temple , which had been decorated and embellished by Herod the Great, was destroyed on the 10th of Av in 70 AD.

From the laying of the foundation of Solomon's temple in 1013 BC, which was seven years before its dedication, back 480 years to the Israelites crossing the Jordan (this is when they finally depart fully from Egypt, brings us to 1533 BC. For this chronology, I suggest you read the work of Egyptologist Gerard Gertoux.

Oh goodie!! Numerology!! The purest of fantasy.

How is this numerology?

Oh dear...you don't know?

Quick, what's the importance of the number 7 in your timeline?

This has nothing to do with numerology. there is nothing magical about the numbers. The sabbatical cycle was set up to apply to weeks and years. When Israel failed to follow the sabbatical rest of the land, the corrective judgements that were to fall upon them were based upon the sabbatical cycle.

Numerology ascribes magical properties of numbers.

You did not answer my question. Why is the number seven have symbolic importance?

I was not using seven as a symbol. However, as a symbol, it refers to completion and perfect, since it associated with the Sabbath.

Of course, this has nothing to do with numerology.

And there it is. Numerology! Perfection!! Magic!!!

You don't even realize it.

Nobody's buying what you're selling.

I do know what numerology is. You do not seem to. When you say a number symbolises something, that is not numerology. Nothing magical happens.

You do not have to listen to anything I say, just as i can ignore you. I think it is foolish, on our part, to accuse someone of numerology as an argument. It simply makes you look like a dufus.

The simply fact is that God uses seven days for a week and seven years for a sabbatical cycle of rest for the land. When he prescribes a punishment, it occurs in patterns of seven. If you think this is numerology, you are alone.

"God uses seven days for a week..." A MAGIC number !!! "Prescribes a punishment..." DARK MAGIC!!!

This "God" thing is pretty evil.

Before we start detailing how these specific numbers are important to this "God" thing, first we have to start from the beginning. I'm afraid we're going to be in this for a long time.

First, evidence is required of the existence of this "god" thing. I'm not familiar with it ... I've scoured all the physics texts and come up with a blank. What does it consist of? Is it made of quarks? Dark energy? How do you know? Where can I confirm its existence?

I'm sure 100% of all believers in this "God" thing agree with you in every respect with regard to these questions ... right? If not, well, why not? How do I know that what you're describing is the correct thing, if some other theologian somewhere says that the god's (or gods') preferred number is 8, or 10?

Why not 10 by the way? We have 10 fingers and 10 toes. Ten's a WAY better number than 7. No, I'm gonna stick with 7 being some sort of a MAGIC number.

My eyeballs almost got stuck in the back of my head.

And so you can't answer the questions. Good to know. Why are you here, exactly?

You do realize this is an atheist's blog ... right? The crazy Christian blogs are elsewhere. Peddle your fish there. We're not buying ... cuz yours is about 2000 years past its "sell by" date.

Everything in the bible, even slavery, rape, and genocide, can be made post hoc consistent or somehow acceptable, but that doesn’t give it any credibility. Attempts to give chronological consistency always appear contrived, certainly never achieving the level of ‘every piece fits perfectly’. And your comment that people who don’t believe the bible don’t believe the bible, is sort of putting the cart before the horse. In reality what you are saying is that you should read the bible, believe it, then find a reason to believe it. Do you take a similar approach to the Q’ran?

I agree that attempts to give chronological consistency appear to be contrived. That is because they are. That is why I did not start with any assumptions. My purpose of my comment is to show that people start with assumptions. They see what they want to see. I think people should look at the facts objectively. look at every possibility, before they come to conclusions. We tend not to do that. Yes. I used a similar approach with the Quran.

My purpose of my comment is to show that people start with assumptions.

In that case, you failed. You showed no such thing, and part of the reason for that is that that opinion is false: some of us really do start from observations and knowledge, not just "assumptions."

Really? Can you demonstrate this? I started with no assumptions.