As part of the research for my forthcoming book Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver, I have done a multipart review of Lennart Möller's popular book The Exodus Case, which seeks to prove the Exodus to be a historical event, supernatural miracles and all, as depicted in the Bible.
Here are the three parts of the review, which I created on the forum thread for my book Did Moses Exist?
Did the Biblical Plagues Really Happen?
Did the Exodus Really Happen? Review of The Exodus Case Continued
The Exodus Case Review Conclusion
Here is the entire review in a single PDF:
Did the Exodus Really Happen? The Exodus Case Reviewed by D.M. Murdock
Feel free to distribute widely the above document, print out copies, send electronically via email and post on websites. When posting, excerpting or quoting, please include proper attribution to D.M. Murdock and a link back.
As we can see from reviews of this book on Amazon, the author has managed to convince many people with his arguments. However, as you will read in my review, he has not proved that the Exodus really happened, especially not as depicted biblically, much less demonstrated where it occurred. The conclusion remains that the episode belongs in the realm of myth, much like the national epics of other countries and ethnicities, such as the Homeric and the Indian.
"Congratulations, Acharya. I have never seen the Exodus myth so thoroughly and unequivocally disproved."
Barbara Walker, Man Made God
Table of Contents
Thutmosis II?
Two Million Hebrew Slaves?
The Plagues
Why No Egyptian Records?
The Ipuwer Papyrus
The Philistines
Josephus
The Journey to Midian
Parting the Waters of the Gulf of Aqaba?
Pillars at the Crossing?
Chariot Wheels and Skeletons on the Seabed?
Location of Mt. Sinai
Simple and Childish Place-Names Indicate Mythical Nature
The 12 Wells
Manna from Heaven
Striking the Rock for Water
An Altar?
Moses in Midian
The Golden Calf Altar?
Who Wrote the Pentateuch?
Conclusion
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|2013-02-22 17:11:46 Ron - ExodusIt happen but not for reasons the Bible gives. There was a natural disaster at the time and science has proved it. 1. The volcano on sandurini (sp) erupted causing major disasters around the Mediterranean including in Egypt. 2. There was a solar system disaster at the same time, meteors etc.
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|2013-02-23 06:28:29 TartarusWell, the natural disaster explanation for the "plagues" sounds plausible enough, but it still doesn't explain why they supposedly didn't effect the Hebrews (as natural disasters are indiscriminate in who they effect), nor why the Egyptians don't seem to have spoken of the events in their historical records, nor how Egypt managed to continue thriving so well long afterwards despite the damage such levels of catastrophe would have caused.
Overall, it makes more sense that Exodus is just a work of fiction (though natural disasters might have inspired some of the stuff in the story).
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|2013-02-22 22:44:53 Timotheus - Volcanic holes in theoryThe eruption of the volcano on Santorini is supposed to have occurred 3600 year ago. The apocryphal Moses supposedly existed 3300 years ago. The volcano didn't erupt for three centuries.
A strange aspect of this Exodus theory is that the Egyptians never wrote a thing about Hebrews. Just as there are no contemporaneous writings about Jesus, there are no Egyptian tracts about Hebrews either entering or exiting Egypt. Possibly these writings were destroyed when an Egyptian volcano erupted.
I think that it is absolutely marvelous that five million Hebrews were able to live for forty years in a desert wasteland that could not have even supported twenty thousand.
Even though the Hebrews did absolutely nothing to advance civilization through innovations in architecture, engineering, art, literature, agriculture and any other area of human achievement, we must revere Hebrews as the "chosen people."
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|2013-02-23 19:40:33 River - Nice reviewLooks like this guy is up to the same old apologist tricks.
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It's a shame the trees that were wasted to print this book. This guy should have saved himself some hassle and posted his ideas to an message board. Maybe if he had some foresight into how easily his arguments could be dismantled, he'd save himself some time.
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|2013-02-24 16:36:10 RiverMAlso, the subtitle of the book is ironic, isn't it? A "scientific examination of the exodus story". Christians think that hacks pretending to be "scientific" lends credibility to their argument, and yet, with the sweep of a hand they ignore a great body of scientific knowledge in favor of archaic creation myths.
Why pretend to have "science" on your side? Just call it belief. And how interesting is it that belief is what he resorts to most often in this book.
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|2013-02-25 04:58:26 S. JohanssonHey Acharya
Thank you for this enlightening and very amusing crash course in revisionism.
I have a question for you:
Have you got any kind of reaction from this religious fanatic Mr Möller?
I would not think so, since all his proofs are very effectively crushed by your crystal clear logic and conventional scientific reasoning.
For me this and all of your other work -- including your books -- is a huge and satisfying victory since most of it very clearly point out a common red line:
Hebrews are -- and always have been -- fantastic storytellers....
You also proofs one other thing:
It does not take sharp intelligence to become a professor -- in this case, a Professor of "Environmental Medicine" what ever that is.....
One of “my rules” is as follows and I will always stand by it:
Never trust or have anything to do with religious individuals -- they do not have all horses in the stable and can never be trusted.
Best wishes from Sweden & Take Care
