The Exodus and LCMS

[FaithT]

What does the LCMS have to say about the Exodus? There’s no evidence to support it other than the Bible. Some people claimed chariots and bones were found at the bottom of the sea but that was false.
I’ve watched the documentary The Red Sea Miracle and it left me with more doubts than before I watched it.
Some experts think the Exodus did occur but on a smaller scale. That doesn’t help because the LCMS believes the Bible has no errors.

 

[JSRG]

What does the LCMS have to say about the Exodus? There’s no evidence to support it other than the Bible.

I'm not LCMS, but wished to respond to the claim of lack of evidence. If I may quote Kenneth Kitchen in On the Reliability of the Old Testament:

"The Delta is an alluvial fan of mud deposited through many millennia by the annual flooding of the Nile; it has no source of stone within it. Mud, mud and wattle, and mud-brick structures were of limited duration and use, and were repeatedly leveled and replaced, and very largely merged once more with the mud of the fields. So those who squawk intermittently, "No trace of the Hebrews has ever been found" (so, of course, no exodus!), are wasting their breath. The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins, never to be seen again... And in the mud, 99 percent of discarded papyri have perished forever; a tiny fraction (of late date) have been found carbonized (burned)–like some at Pompeii–but can only be opened or read with immense difficulty. A tiny fraction of reports from the East Delta occur in papyri recovered from the desert near Memphis. Otherwise, the entirety of Egypt's administrative records at all periods in the Delta is lost (fib. 32B); and monumental texts are also nearly nil. And, as pharaohs never monumentalize defeats on temple walls, no record of the successful exit of a large bunch of foreign slaves (with loss of a full chariot squadron) would ever have been memorialized by any king, in temples in the Delta or anywhere else. On these matters, once and for all, biblicists must shed their naive attitudes and cease demanding "evidence" that cannot exist."

(page 246; emphasis added)

 

[FaithT]

I'm not LCMS, but wished to respond to the claim of lack of evidence. If I may quote Kenneth Kitchen in On the Reliability of the Old Testament:

"The Delta is an alluvial fan of mud deposited through many millennia by the annual flooding of the Nile; it has no source of stone within it. Mud, mud and wattle, and mud-brick structures were of limited duration and use, and were repeatedly leveled and replaced, and very largely merged once more with the mud of the fields. So those who squawk intermittently, "No trace of the Hebrews has ever been found" (so, of course, no exodus!), are wasting their breath. The mud hovels of brickfield slaves and humble cultivators have long since gone back to their mud origins, never to be seen again... And in the mud, 99 percent of discarded papyri have perished forever; a tiny fraction (of late date) have been found carbonized (burned)–like some at Pompeii–but can only be opened or read with immense difficulty. A tiny fraction of reports from the East Delta occur in papyri recovered from the desert near Memphis. Otherwise, the entirety of Egypt's administrative records at all periods in the Delta is lost (fib. 32B); and monumental texts are also nearly nil. And, as pharaohs never monumentalize defeats on temple walls, no record of the successful exit of a large bunch of foreign slaves (with loss of a full chariot squadron) would ever have been memorialized by any king, in temples in the Delta or anywhere else. On these matters, once and for all, biblicists must shed their naive attitudes and cease demanding "evidence" that cannot exist."

(page 246; emphasis added)

What about skeletons and skulls of human and horse remains and what about chariot wheels, spears, etc?

 

[FaithT]

Can anyone help? The more I google and read the more it seems unlikely there was an exodus, at least that size, and an interview I read some of on NOVA on PBS says that Moses wasn’t as depicted either.

 

[JSRG]

What about skeletons and skulls of human and horse remains and what about chariot wheels, spears, etc?

You mean the soldiers and horses who were killed when the Red Sea's parting stopped and they were all buried underneath the water? If this happened, it was about 2500 years ago and in the water. Stuff decays, decomposes, and dissolves over time. Unless circumstances align just right, all parts of a body--even the bones, which take longer than the rest to decay--will decompose and be lost forever. After 2500 years, it would be impressive if we did find records. Especially when one considers the size of the Red Sea and that anything that did manage to survive could have gotten buried by sedimentation, meaning you'd not only have to do an extremely thorough search of it (to my knowledge no such search has been attempted), but do the necessary digging. Given the size of the Red Sea and the length of time that has passed, I do not believe we would expect to find remains of people/horses/chariots in the Red Sea.

Can anyone help? The more I google and read the more it seems unlikely there was an exodus, at least that size, and an interview I read some of on NOVA on PBS says that Moses wasn’t as depicted either.

The number given for the Exodus is astoundingly high, most notably Exodus 12:37's declaration of six hundred thousand men on foot, which isn't even counting the women and children; such an enormous number has been alleged to be logistically problematic.

There are largely three ways of dealing with the alleged logistics problems. One is to say that, despite the apparent difficulties, this would still be possible. Another is to assert that the word translated as "thousands" should be in this case--and others--rendered otherwise, such as "squads" or "families" which would drop the total number down considerably to something like 20,000. This is what Kenneth Kitchen argues in the earlier mentioned On the Reliability of the Old Testament (pages 264-265). The last is to simply say the numbers were not meant literally to begin with, and were rhetorical to emphasize the strength of the Jews.

 

[FaithT]

You mean the soldiers and horses who were killed when the Red Sea's parting stopped and they were all buried underneath the water? If this happened, it was about 2500 years ago and in the water. Stuff decays, decomposes, and dissolves over time. Unless circumstances align just right, all parts of a body--even the bones, which take longer than the rest to decay--will decompose and be lost forever. After 2500 years, it would be impressive if we did find records. Especially when one considers the size of the Red Sea and that anything that did manage to survive could have gotten buried by sedimentation, meaning you'd not only have to do an extremely thorough search of it (to my knowledge no such search has been attempted), but do the necessary digging. Given the size of the Red Sea and the length of time that has passed, I do not believe we would expect to find remains of people/horses/chariots in the Red Sea.


The number given for the Exodus is astoundingly high, most notably Exodus 12:37's declaration of six hundred thousand men on foot, which isn't even counting the women and children; such an enormous number has been alleged to be logistically problematic.

There are largely three ways of dealing with the alleged logistics problems. One is to say that, despite the apparent difficulties, this would still be possible. Another is to assert that the word translated as "thousands" should be in this case--and others--rendered otherwise, such as "squads" or "families" which would drop the total number down considerably to something like 20,000. This is what Kenneth Kitchen argues in the earlier mentioned On the Reliability of the Old Testament (pages 264-265). The last is to simply say the numbers were not meant literally to begin with, and were rhetorical to emphasize the strength of the Jews.

Yes, I was talking about the Egyptian soldiers.

As to your final paragraph, I think the LCMS takes Scripture literally so the number of those in the Exodus would be very high.

 

[Daniel9v9]

Exodus is a historical narrative and to read it anything other than that is highly problematic. If we interpret it a different way, we almost by necessity have to change the story, so it is no longer about God the Redeemer and what it means to be God's people. But it's precisely God's working in time and space, in history, that makes Him a Redeemer, so we cannot compromise on Exodus.

On one hand, there are higher critics who argue that Exodus in its entirety is a myth, and nothing more than a composite work consisting of different ancient religious, social and political ideas. The problem with this view, for starters, is that they can't even agree among themselves - they have no evidence and are more often than not very disconnected from history. They make huge assumptions and read wild ideas into the text that are entirely foreign to Scriptures. The sad reality is that much of what we see on TV and online is heavily influenced by this, but we can and should safely disregard these ideas, as they are, broadly speaking, historically inaccurate and very theologically weak.

On the other hand, there are conservatives who feel the need to attempt to explain the miracles that occur in Exodus (and in the OT in general), though they often have no problem with the miracles in the NT. This approach is very inconsistent and arbitrary, and it doesn't add anything to Scriptures.

Then there are ideas floating around in Evangelical circles that there exist evidence to prove the Exodus, such as Egyptian remains in the Red Sea. Besides not being embraced by the scientific community, there's one big problem with this, and that is: what we refer to as the Red Sea today is likely not to be the red sea the Bible talks about. Scriptures records for us many precise locations, but most of these places are long lost, so we can't identify where the crossing took place. This is further complicated by the fact that we don't know if the "red sea" is a place-name or just a general descriptive term. It can be either. This is an area that has been hotly debated among OT scholars for many years, and though there are some strong theories based on the evidence we do have, no one knows for sure where the crossing took place.

So, this leaves us with a simple reality: There is no hard evidence to prove the Exodus, but there is no hard evidence to disprove it either. But what we do have is God's Word, and that is reliable. There is no reason to doubt God's ability to work miracles, and there is no reason to doubt His Word. When God saves His people, and by that reveals Himself to be the Redeemer, that's what we put our trust in.

 

[FaithT]

I guess the question is, bottom line, is Exodus truth or not? What say you and any other readers?

 

[tampasteve]

I guess the question is, bottom line, is Exodus truth or not? What say you and any other readers?

I think that it is. There is plenty of evidence of the Jews in Egypt, and after/out of Egypt. We even have mention of two Jewish temples in Egypt - one that may have functioned for a bit after THE Temple was destroyed in 70ad. I don't think that they all left, but a large group seems reasonable. I personally don't see the reason to question the historicity of it, or at least the overall arc of the story.

We aren't talking about something that would be super easy to make up - thousands of people would have had been descendants of the event and would have heard the oral tales. Certainly some of them would have fought the remembrance of the event if it wasn't mostly like the written word.

 

[Daniel9v9]

I guess the question is, bottom line, is Exodus truth or not? What say you and any other readers?

It’s true. God is our Redeemer and this historical event culminates in Christ who is Truth.

 

[Roymond]

What does the LCMS have to say about the Exodus? There’s no evidence to support it other than the Bible. Some people claimed chariots and bones were found at the bottom of the sea but that was false.
I’ve watched the documentary The Red Sea Miracle and it left me with more doubts than before I watched it.
Some experts think the Exodus did occur but on a smaller scale. That doesn’t help because the LCMS believes the Bible has no errors.

There is evidence; people just aren't looking at it right.

It probably did occur on a smaller scale; scholars have fairly recently learned that we've probably been misreading the Hebrew all these centuries, taking things as part of numbers that are actually "code" for divisions of people. I don't recall all the details, but it seems that the totals we've been reading are about ten or more times higher than what the Hebrew actually says.

There's definitely evidence for an exodus of Levites, though according to some that's the whole thing.

As far "the Bible has no errors", what the LCMS used to mean by that was no errors in doctrine; it's a more recent idea that it means "no errors of fact".

 

[FaithT]

I think that it is. There is plenty of evidence of the Jews in Egypt, and after/out of Egypt. We even have mention of two Jewish temples in Egypt - one that may have functioned for a bit after THE Temple was destroyed in 70ad. I don't think that they all left, but a large group seems reasonable. I personally don't see the reason to question the historicity of it, or at least the overall arc of the story.

We aren't talking about something that would be super easy to make up - thousands of people would have had been descendants of the event and would have heard the oral tales. Certainly some of them would have fought the remembrance of the event if it wasn't mostly like the written word.

Very true. thanks!

 

[FaithT]

It’s true. God is our Redeemer and this historical event culminates in Christ who is Truth.

Do you believe the Exodus involved as many people as the Bible says or do you agree with Roymond above who says that we’re reading the Bible wrong and the Exodus involved a fewer number of people?

and do you agree on disagree with his last paragraph about what the LCMS believes?

 

[Daniel9v9]

Do you believe the Exodus involved as many people as the Bible says or do you agree with Roymond above who says that we’re reading the Bible wrong and the Exodus involved a fewer number of people?

and do you agree on disagree with his last paragraph about what the LCMS believes?

Well, let me first of all stress that the Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God. However, the texts we have today do seem to contain some scribal errors that occurred during copying. This has been a big topic of discussion among scholars throughout the ages. Even Luther scratched his head over this, and long before him, it was a controversy in the LXX. Still, this is no cause for alarm for it doesn't compromise the integrity of or doctrine in the Bible.

Where we have evidence for scribal errors in the process of copying the Bible is typically in connection to numbers. The way numbers were written in Hebrew is not clear, and the chances of a copyist copying it wrong is not unlikely. The ancient scribes didn't use numerals, but letters without vowels, which could indicate different numbers or even titles or classes, so the data is ambiguous to us. So it's not that the original text is wrong, but unclear. We don't know the meaning of it. Same as mentioned above, we don't know if the "red sea" is a place-name or a descriptive term.

For example, a letter could mean 10, 20, or 1000, or it could be a title. And to further complicate things, the letters contain small marks that can be easily overlooked or misread. A modern equivalent to this could be: "1.1" and "11" — that is, because the punctuation is so small, it can be easily missed (especially when copying old hand-written texts).

Here's an example of a passage that may contain a scribal error:

1 Kings 4:26 — "Solomon also had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen."

2 Chronicles 9:25 — "And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem."

There are different theories about this and similar verses, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe the copyist of 2 Chronicles corrected the copyist of 1 Kings? But what I can say is this: It can be more helpful for us to simply think of something as "many", "average", or "few". The exact number is unfortunately not clear to us, just as the meaning of some ancient names or expressions are also lost to us. But this by no means compromises the events recorded for us. So, regardless of how we read the text, we should understand the Exodus to involve many people.

If you're interested in learning more about this controversy, I can dig up some materials for you.

Blessings! +

 

[FaithT]

Well, let me first of all stress that the Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God. However, the texts we have today do seem to contain some scribal errors that occurred during copying. This has been a big topic of discussion among scholars throughout the ages. Even Luther scratched his head over this, and long before him, it was a controversy in the LXX. Still, this is no cause for alarm for it doesn't compromise the integrity of or doctrine in the Bible.

Where we have evidence for scribal errors in the process of copying the Bible is typically in connection to numbers. The way numbers were written in Hebrew is not clear, and the chances of a copyist copying it wrong is not unlikely. The ancient scribes didn't use numerals, but letters without vowels, which could indicate different numbers or even titles or classes, so the data is ambiguous to us. So it's not that the original text is wrong, but unclear. We don't know the meaning of it. Same as mentioned above, we don't know if the "red sea" is a place-name or a descriptive term.

For example, a letter could mean 10, 20, or 1000, or it could be a title. And to further complicate things, the letters contain small marks that can be easily overlooked or misread. A modern equivalent to this could be: "1.1" and "11" — that is, because the punctuation is so small, it can be easily missed (especially when copying old hand-written texts).

Here's an example of a passage that may contain a scribal error:

1 Kings 4:26 — "Solomon also had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen."

2 Chronicles 9:25 — "And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem."

There are different theories about this and similar verses, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe the copyist of 2 Chronicles corrected the copyist of 1 Kings? But what I can say is this: It can be more helpful for us to simply think of something as "many", "average", or "few". The exact number is unfortunately not clear to us, just as the meaning of some ancient names or expressions are also lost to us. But this by no means compromises the events recorded for us. So, regardless of how we read the text, we should understand the Exodus to involve many people.

If you're interested in learning more about this controversy, I can dig up some materials for you.

Blessings! +

Thanks for your help….again.

 

[Roymond]

Well, let me first of all stress that the Bible is the true and inerrant Word of God. However, the texts we have today do seem to contain some scribal errors that occurred during copying. This has been a big topic of discussion among scholars throughout the ages. Even Luther scratched his head over this, and long before him, it was a controversy in the LXX. Still, this is no cause for alarm for it doesn't compromise the integrity of or doctrine in the Bible.

Where we have evidence for scribal errors in the process of copying the Bible is typically in connection to numbers. The way numbers were written in Hebrew is not clear, and the chances of a copyist copying it wrong is not unlikely. The ancient scribes didn't use numerals, but letters without vowels, which could indicate different numbers or even titles or classes, so the data is ambiguous to us. So it's not that the original text is wrong, but unclear. We don't know the meaning of it. Same as mentioned above, we don't know if the "red sea" is a place-name or a descriptive term.

For example, a letter could mean 10, 20, or 1000, or it could be a title. And to further complicate things, the letters contain small marks that can be easily overlooked or misread. A modern equivalent to this could be: "1.1" and "11" — that is, because the punctuation is so small, it can be easily missed (especially when copying old hand-written texts).

Here's an example of a passage that may contain a scribal error:

1 Kings 4:26 — "Solomon also had 40,000 stalls of horses for his chariots, and 12,000 horsemen."

2 Chronicles 9:25 — "And Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem."

There are different theories about this and similar verses, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Maybe the copyist of 2 Chronicles corrected the copyist of 1 Kings? But what I can say is this: It can be more helpful for us to simply think of something as "many", "average", or "few". The exact number is unfortunately not clear to us, just as the meaning of some ancient names or expressions are also lost to us. But this by no means compromises the events recorded for us. So, regardless of how we read the text, we should understand the Exodus to involve many people.

If you're interested in learning more about this controversy, I can dig up some materials for you.

Blessings! +

Interestingly, when the early church called the scriptures "inerrant", they meant that they always struck their target!