Name:Dennis •
Title: On the Evolution of the Exodus / Resurrection Theologies •
Date posted: 03/06/07 2:27
Q: Folks,
It’s also important to remember that the Biblical Exodus has also a problematic historicity. Certainly it did not happen as described in the first five books of the Bible. Why? Because one would expect that the the presence of a ½ million people living in the deserts of the Sinai peninsula for 40 years would leave an archeological record. No evidence of such a large habitation in the deserts of the Sinai peninsula exists. Yes, there are tantalizing tidbits in the archeological record. A petroglyph - a drawing on a rock outcropping, depicting what appear to be two tablets, with ten (empty) boxes on them. Several other petroglyphs picture a serpents twisted along a stick. Even though the Serpents at least could have had a much different historical context, something like this described in Numbers, where Moses is said to cure people by “raising a bronze serpent on a stick, and all who looked on the serpent were healed.
What is clear however is that _no where_ has there been found evidence that a ½ million people lived out there in the desert, and lived there for 40 years. So at the minimum, the Exodus event would have been _much smaller_ than that described in the Bible.
On the other hand, _some kind of Exodus event_ must have been experienced by at least _some people_ who later contributed to what became the Israelite people, because it’s hard to imagine it being invented out of whole cloth. Fine strip away the miracles ... still it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that there could have been at least _some group_ (perhaps small) that escaped slavery in Egypt by fleeing into the desert. And that such a group happened to be Semitic does make sense because there is archeological evidence of periodic Semitic inhabitation of parts of Egypt (the famous “Hapiru” mentioned in some recovered Egyptian texts / inscriptions.
It has been suggested that the “Exodus” experience of this relatively small group, may have been sufficiently close to the experience of either (1) marginalized / previously enslaved people who fled established Canaanite cities to the hill country of Canaan, where the Israelites first seemed to inhabit when they first came on the scene in Canaan, or (2) the “arrival / infiltration experience” of various Semitic tribes from parts outside of Canaan, to the same Canaanite hill country. The experience of these two other possible constituent groups that eventually made up the Israelite people, may have been sufficiently close to that “Egyptian Exodus group” that they too could make the “Exodus story/myth” their own.
It has been suggested also that the origins of the Passover feast, may have been a re-interpretation of pre-existing Canaanite lambing / barley harvest commemorations, re-interpreted in light of the Exodus event (both lamb and unleavened bread have become elements of Passover celebrations).
I say all this because, the question could be asked ... if the historical Jesus, did not rise from the dead ... how could the idea that he did first be born, and then find such phenomenal acceptance throughout the Greco-Roman world.
It could be imagined that the event of Jesus’ death was such a traumatic event for his followers, that at least some of them needed to find a theological explanation for it. It’s clear that within the canonical New Testament, that at least part of what became the Christian community came to interpret Jesus’ death in line with Isaiah’s depictions of the “Suffering Servant of Yahweh” and especially the Song of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh of Is 52:13-53:12. (This passage is even explicitly mentioned in Acts 8:26-40). Thus at least some of Jesus’ followers must have come to believe that Jesus could not have really died, or that he, in fact, rose from the dead. And this message then both surprisingly and wildly accepted by the larger Greco-Roman (previously pagan) world, because the possibility of a dieing and rising God was something within their “horizon of possibility” because of various other pagan Gods / heroes having “died and rose.” Christianity offered to the pagan world a historical context in which the previously ahistorical myths actually played out. And the hope that one could transcend suffering and even death, has certainly a near _universal_ appeal, particularly to a populace which often found life both cruel and senseless.
The Passover meal, previously reinterpreting pre-existing pagan celebrations, came to be reinterpreted in terms of the “New Passover” / “New Covenant” where Jesus himself became the Pascal lamb, the “Bread of Life”, “The Manna that came down from Heaven.” And a wildly successful new religion was born... one promising hope even in face of death, and promising it in an actual historical context (pre-Jewish war Jerusalem) rather than simply in ahistorical Myth.
Now could the discovery of the actual bones of Jesus destroy the success of this story? Obviously, we’ll wait and see ... but the _need_ for the story, _or some such story_, will probably continue to exist, so long as parents watch helplessly their children die, and incidents of flagrant injustice (that “cry out to heaven”) continue to exist in this world.
In the end, the Gospel of the New Testament is a Gospel of Hope. All other arrogance(s) may be stripped away in the end (as Isaiah 2 says, “on that day they will throw away their idols to the bats and to the moles). So a _far more humble_ Christianity may result from all of this ... but a Gospel that gives Hope, will and ought to remain ... after all, what else can _anyone_ give to the victim helplessly watching loved ones unjustly die.
