I'm very maskim to you actually, but the field of Biblical Archeology does compare it with actual findings and stuff, and dates the Torah externally. Perhaps you'd appreciate that field more than biblical criticism.
I think you're overgenaralizing the term "Biblical Criticism" and loosely equating it with the Documentary Hypothesis. I'm sure you know the various strand of thought in Biblical research and the sub-disciplines like "Higher Criticism" and "Lower Criticism" and perhaps you think the whole complex is bunk but you conflated a lot in this. I suggest you be more careful, although I notice the main purpose of the article was hawking the book.
Before commenting on the actual discussion, your presentation of this debate as a discussion outside mainstream biblical scholarship which threatens the entire edifice is inaccurate. Linguistic dating of the bible is a well developed field beginning in the 70's with scholars such as Hurvitz and Young who developed various models of the evolution of biblical Hebrew. It is one of the central kinds of evidence taken into account when attempting to date the bible or develop theories of authorship.
Regarding the content, while I don't buy into the DH wholesale, I think it is wise to clarify what we are dealing with. J and E are widely considered to from the oldest sources in the entire bible, dating the 10th/9th centuries BCE. (For reference, the earliest prophets weren't written until the mid 8th century.) D is widely considered to be from the 7th century, which still predates most biblical books including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and definitely the post exilic books. (Only several books such as Hosea, Amos, some source material of Judges (or other deuteronomistic books), and several psalms predate this.)
The central discussion relevant here is when P was written. (The core of the biblical narrative are attributed to JE, and Deut. is D, so we're left with some collected narrative material, and many law codes.)
Everyone concedes that P contains many law codes which date to the preexilic era. There is a fierce debate of P itself is preexilic (which is likely even before D) or post exilic. The arguments this author is presenting could at most argue for an earlier relative dating of P, which would then influence the absolute dating to go back until the 7th century.
Many scholars (such as Hurvitz) use this to argue on Wellhausen's model of a late P. Other scholars (such as Young) dispute the linear model of CBH vs. LBH and argue that P could reflect an earlier form of Hebrew although some books from the same period were written in a demonstrably later Hebrew.
Now I'm not taking the liberty here of discussing the methods which are used for dating, but there are dozens of forms of evidence which are used, some better than others, and together they give us some strong conclusions, some weak conclusions, and room for speculation or even wild guessing. A serious scholar should refrain from making claims he cannot strongly support (which unfortunately not all scholars reach that standard, but I don't feel the consensus has seriously deviated from that).
I did just want to mention about the historical evidence as opposed to the textual evidence which came up in the comments, it is almost indisputable in light of modern findings that Israel is an iron age civilization which arose domestically out of the bronze age collapse (along with Edom, Ammon, Moab, the Philistines, etc.). This dates to approx. 1200 BCE (or the beginning of Iron I). There was little in way of sophisticated societies in the broader region until Iron II, or 1000 BCE, and more prominently in Iron IIb c. 900 BCE, which is when the monarchies of Israel and Judah appear on the scene. (The exact dating is disputed.) After this point, we begin to see Israel appear in the historical and archaeological records, with evidence of smaller groups going back to Iron I.
The campaigns mentioned in the bible prior to 900 BCE are often implausible given the historical record, and seem to reflect a more developed Israel forming traditions about it's early period which don't necessarily align with the historical record. As we enter the 8th century we begin to see more accurate and precise and recording of events in the bible, suggesting the rise of the more developed scribal schools recording these events about that time.
Obviously everything I'm saying is just an extremely short overview of broad fields in academia, and do not constitute a strong argument on its own, but I just wanted to set the record straight.
Far from being indisputable, many serious scholars who have studied the issues do not agree that the Israel is an iron age civilization which arose domestically. Rather, they maintain that Israel is a late bronze age civilization that came from Egypt, and that modern findings are either agnostic towards or support this fact. The campaigns of pre-900 BC are quite plausible, and the books of the Bible themselves are an important part of the historical record, not something outside of it. These scholars see the current mainstream theory of how the books of the Bible were composed to be contrary to reason in many ways and a reflection of a tradition of scholarship with anti-Semitic roots.
Please share who those scholars are and where I can read their work. I've studied this era significantly, and I haven't came across them.
(I just want to point out that you mixed together two separate (but related) discussions. One of biblical scholarship, and the other of Israelite history and/or archaeology. While one can have a position about both, they are not the same thing and your formulation seems confused.)
You probably have come across them. Mostly Jewish scholars, not necessarily who accept the Torah as Divine or as accurate in its details. Cassuto, Yehoshua Grintz, Avraham Melamed are some of those who accepted the Exodus origin of Israel and also made the point that many of the conclusions of Biblical Criticism are unreasonable and that the field has roots in anti-Semitism. There are also many Christian scholars who accept the Exodus origin in the late bronze age such as Kitchen, Hoffmeir, Gertoux, Rohl, and many more.
I specifically qualified in light of recent findings, which has largely surfaced in the last 30+ years, which renders cassuto and grintz outdated.
Hoffmeyer I believe agrees to the domestic model, and just argues for an additional exodus story with a small group which developed into the biblical story, much like RE Friedman's model.
Rohl might be popular in the media, but most scholars reject most of his work.
I'm not familiar with the other names you mentioned, but I'd be happy to look into it.
I forgot to mention kitchen, but im not really sure how ambitious his claims are and how he addresses the evidence from the highlands, and his rejection of the Egyptian records is unconvincing
Hoffmeir argues against the indigenous model in his book "Israel in Egypt : The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition". I don't find the recent archaeological evidence very convincing either way, but I think the literary evidence of the Torah is as ironclad as you can get, in addition to the oral tradition of the Jews.
I wrote this before I took a look at the book itself, and I just wanted to add two quotes from the book I just saw.
Here's from the introduction:
"As formulated, the proposals do not necessarily contradict longheld and cherished views, like scholarly consensus (such as it is)on the fundamentals of the Documentary Hypothesis or accepted theory and methods concerning ancient Hebrew diachrony and BH periodisation. They do, however, challenge certain extreme and simplistic notions associated with the relevant dominant paradigms. It is left to others to utilise the arguments and conclusions presented here for the further support, refinement, construction, and/or demolition of hypotheses and approaches."
Here's from the conclusion:
"The late dating of P has been challenged repeatedly by a minority of both language and literary scholars (see Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008, II:13, for a partial list of such scholars), and the findings here largely support the challengers, as material classified as P patterns, like the rest of the Torah, as CBH. Whether the evidence here raises more fundamental questions about the traditional critical division into sources is left for others to evaluate."
Anyone who attempts to say otherwise is simply distorting Hornkohl's own words.
Why would you expect to see references to Jewish characters outside of Jewish sources? That's not expected of any culture. How many references do you see to Pythagoras outside of Greek sources within a few centuries of his lifetime?
First of all, the Torah and Neviim are full of references to other cultures, Gods and countries so why should other cultures be different. Secondly, there was supposedly lots of interaction with other countries that was highly miraculous. We should expect at least a mention of a country/God/culture that was impossible to ignore.
Yes, and we don't expect the Torah and Neviim to have have references to every character in other cultures. We just see a few references to a few key people that are involved in wars with us. And sometimes not even that. And that's only because we have a history book from the time. No other culture has that.
Where would you expect to see a mention of the miracles that happened to the Jews? You expect a mention of Krias Yam Suf in the famous Egyptian history book from 1400 (or whenever) BC? You expect a mention of hailstones in the famous Canaanite history book?
You might've missed my point. The issue isn’t ONLY about miraculous events like the ten plagues or Krias Yam Suf but about the geopolitical claims made in the Torah and Neviim. The Israelites are depicted as being heavily involved in wars, alliances, and interactions with neighboring cultures—exactly the kinds of events that ancient Near Eastern (ANE) societies documented extensively.
Cultures like the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Canaanites meticulously recorded their military campaigns, political alliances, and significant events in their correspondence and inscriptions. Yet, we find no mention of the Israelites or their supposed military campaigns, such as those described in Bamidbar, where the Israelites are said to have fought against the Amorites, Moabites, and Midianites.
The Bible portrays the Israelites as engaging in numerous wars with neighboring peoples, like the campaigns against Sihon and Og. These are significant events, but there’s no record of them in the archives of regional powers like Egypt or among Canaanite city-states that documented political turmoil in the region. For example, the Amarna Letters, a collection of diplomatic correspondences from Canaanite kings to Egypt, mention many minor conflicts but are silent on such major campaigns.
The Philistines, often depicted as a major adversary of the Israelites, left behind material culture and inscriptions. Yet, there’s no reference to the numerous battles described in the Bible, like those involving Samson, Shaul, or David. Similarly, Egypt, which would have been aware of major population movements or military campaigns in the region, does not mention such events in its records.
Even if written records were lost, large-scale campaigns or city destructions, such as those described in Bamidbar, should leave archaeological evidence like destruction layers or shifts in settlement patterns. However, there’s no such evidence supporting these accounts.
Interestingly, smaller and less influential groups like the Moabites and Edomites do appear in external records. For example, the Mesha Stele records a Moabite king’s conflict with Israel. However, the numerous wars and alliances described in Bamidbar and other parts of the Bible remain absent from contemporary records.
You keep on moving the goalposts. First you want mention of specific people like Moshe, then miracles, now you want meticulous records of every single Israelite war and alliances (Which alliances? There were very few, as you can see from Tanach.) Well, only a tiny fraction of this type of documentation was preserved archeologically, so we wouldn't expect much at all. From the Philistines we have hardly any writing at all, forget about documentation. Nevertheless, Amarna letters are actually good evidence of the Exodus, and the Mesha Stele is a good evidence of the Israelite nation at that time period. The Christian archaeologists claim to have found plenty of evidence of destruction layers from the time of the conquest. And even if they didn’t, destruction layers only happen when a city is abandoned and then rebuilt on top of the destruction.
While it's true that not all ancient records have survived, and we wouldn't expect documentation of every Israelite war or alliance, the point isn't about every small detail. The issue is that the Bible describes the Israelites as being involved in significant geopolitical events with major neighboring powers: Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, etc. These should have left some trace in the abundant external records of the time. The Amarna Letters and Mesha Stele are certainly important, but they don't provide evidence for many key biblical events, especially those involving larger, more detailed interactions that the Bible describes, such as the united monarchy or the many wars described in Bamidbar. The lack of references to these events in contemporary records, especially for a supposedly powerful nation like Israel, makes it more likely that they never occured.
This is pure speculation. In any case, even if the language of the Torah reflected a very early period in Biblical history, this would not be as early as the 14th-12th centuries, the period when Moses would have lived. Besides, there are factual errors in the Torah such as Abraham making covenant a with Avimelech the Phillistine. The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries. What! does not the Creator of the Universe know how to write? Such a mistake calls into question any notion of the Torah being Divinely revealed in any literal sense. One error alone is sufficient to call in question the authenticity of any book that is said to be the word of God. The Torah is a human document, and probably not from Sinai.
"The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries. "
Pure speculation. And false. We know is that there was a large influx of Philistines in the 12th century. That doesn't mean they didn't have a smaller settlement before. In fact, the Torah itself makes it clear the Philistines in the time of Abraham weren't as developed as those in later periods. In Abraham's time they only had one city, Gerar, and it wasn't one of the cities in the Pentapolis.
This is an argument from silence. You have no proof outside of the Bible that the Philistines arrived in the land prior to the 12th century. This is pure speculation without proof. It is an anachronism that Abraham and Isaac made a covenant with Avimelech the Philistine. There were no Philistines in the land at the time when the patriarchs would have lived. Period. Saying so, you might as well add there were unicorns in the land as well!.
Just to summarize the categories of evidence, we have 1. Comprehensive Egyptian records from the late bronze age, 2. Many archaeological excavations which demonstrate the appearance of pastoral groups in the highlands which align with the Israelites in early Iron I, 3. Broad knowledge of the great decline in the levant and beyond which led to the emergence of of many new groups known as the bronze age collapse, 4. The discoveries of the fortifications by the eastern delta (although this is not evidence against a miraculous exodus,) etc.
(this is just the evidence for the domestic emergence as opposed to migratory model, although even the migratory model was forced to concede that both the Exodus and the conquest are definitely greatly exaggerated, but either way that's outdated in light of the newer discoveries in archaeology and Egyptology and broader semitic studies.)
1. Not comprehensive and definitely not evidence against the Exodus. 2,3,4. I read the Bible Unearthed, this is not evidence against the Exodus or Conquest in any sense, we already know from Joshua and Judges that the Conquest took centuries and had many setbacks.
Nobody is "forced" to concede anything. Many who accept the historicity of the Exodus don't hold of the Torah as particularly important (such as Christians who don't follow it anyways), and therefore feel no reason for them to take the details so seriously, just like other ancient historical accounts often include exaggeration and myth. Even some nominally Orthodox Jewish scholars claim to be able to reconcile themselves with such a notion, that the Torah can contain exaggerations, just like it contains other features of ancient texts. If it makes them feel better, great. I'm not sure how high on the "kefira scale" it goes 😛
The Torah itself is a historical document and constitutes historical evidence. And according to the Bible critics, there no less than 4 independent sources in the Torah attesting to it! Josephus quotes Egyptian historical texts which are now lost to us (probably due to the burning of the library in Alexandria) attesting to their own interpretation of the Exodus. This is the direct historical evidence. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence of the presence of Hebrew slaves in Egypt and of the the wars in Canaan.
There's no evidence of Jews being enslaved by Egypt. There's just no evidence of it. There is no evidence at all outside the Bible of a mass slave escape as described in Exodus. This is shocking because so many documents have been uncovered by archeology and there is no mention whatsoever of Moses or a mass slave escape. This is particularly shocking as according to Exodus, Moses was raised in the court of Pharaoh. How is it then that in all of the documents uncovered from ancient Egypt, there is no mention of such a figure who was part of the court of Pharaoh and who led a mass slave escape!?
Furthermore, the Torah is not a historical document as there are factual errors in the Torah such as Abraham making covenant a with Avimelech the Phillistine. The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries.
I explained already what the evidence is. You just don't want to deal with it, so as they say in Egypt you are in de Nile. Your question about "in all the documents uncovered..." just sounds silly when we only have a miniscule percentage of the documents from Ancient Egypt. I already made this point to the other commenters.
If there were mass slave escape from Egypt someone somewhere would have found some evidence. On the contrary, you just don't want to deal with the fact that there's no evidence of Jews being enslaved by Egypt. None.
FrumBooks is right (subjectively speaking) not to touch this. Joshua Bermann is good at allowing people to believe he is defending orthodox Judaism when he is actually defending frum Conservative Judaism.
As someone who has emailed him many times, I disagree. He certainly accepts all the Ani Maamins. (Contrast that with a guy like Sam Lebens, who is indeed promoting frum Conservative Judaism.)
Let's make an analogy. Say someone believes the universe is 5785 years old. Now, obviously, all the evidence that the universe is something like 14 billion years old is a big problem. The only real solution is to say the universe looks that way, but actually is isn't. Now let's say that Boshua Jerman writes a bunch of books showing that the latest scientific research actually shows the universe is a million years old. This is a remarkable vindication of your religious faith! Except actually it isn't at all. Whereas before you believed the universe looks 14 billion years old but is actually 5785 years old, now you believe the world looks a million years old, but is actually 5785 years old.
This is what Joshua Berman does with biblical criticism and the orthodox doctrine of תורה מן השמים. And המבין יבין. But I am not criticizing, except maybe aesthetically. I am not in any way impugning his religiosity and I would personally be more than happy to use him as an עד etc.
I'm very maskim to you actually, but the field of Biblical Archeology does compare it with actual findings and stuff, and dates the Torah externally. Perhaps you'd appreciate that field more than biblical criticism.
Also see https://rationalbelief.org.il/%D7%99%D7%93-%D7%96%D7%9E%D7%9F-%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%91%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%94-2-%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7%94-2/
I think you're overgenaralizing the term "Biblical Criticism" and loosely equating it with the Documentary Hypothesis. I'm sure you know the various strand of thought in Biblical research and the sub-disciplines like "Higher Criticism" and "Lower Criticism" and perhaps you think the whole complex is bunk but you conflated a lot in this. I suggest you be more careful, although I notice the main purpose of the article was hawking the book.
But a valid critique. Thank you
I generally accept lower criticism. I also accept many aspects of higher criticism. It's the late dating and the doc hypothesis I disagree with.
Before commenting on the actual discussion, your presentation of this debate as a discussion outside mainstream biblical scholarship which threatens the entire edifice is inaccurate. Linguistic dating of the bible is a well developed field beginning in the 70's with scholars such as Hurvitz and Young who developed various models of the evolution of biblical Hebrew. It is one of the central kinds of evidence taken into account when attempting to date the bible or develop theories of authorship.
Regarding the content, while I don't buy into the DH wholesale, I think it is wise to clarify what we are dealing with. J and E are widely considered to from the oldest sources in the entire bible, dating the 10th/9th centuries BCE. (For reference, the earliest prophets weren't written until the mid 8th century.) D is widely considered to be from the 7th century, which still predates most biblical books including Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and definitely the post exilic books. (Only several books such as Hosea, Amos, some source material of Judges (or other deuteronomistic books), and several psalms predate this.)
The central discussion relevant here is when P was written. (The core of the biblical narrative are attributed to JE, and Deut. is D, so we're left with some collected narrative material, and many law codes.)
Everyone concedes that P contains many law codes which date to the preexilic era. There is a fierce debate of P itself is preexilic (which is likely even before D) or post exilic. The arguments this author is presenting could at most argue for an earlier relative dating of P, which would then influence the absolute dating to go back until the 7th century.
Many scholars (such as Hurvitz) use this to argue on Wellhausen's model of a late P. Other scholars (such as Young) dispute the linear model of CBH vs. LBH and argue that P could reflect an earlier form of Hebrew although some books from the same period were written in a demonstrably later Hebrew.
Now I'm not taking the liberty here of discussing the methods which are used for dating, but there are dozens of forms of evidence which are used, some better than others, and together they give us some strong conclusions, some weak conclusions, and room for speculation or even wild guessing. A serious scholar should refrain from making claims he cannot strongly support (which unfortunately not all scholars reach that standard, but I don't feel the consensus has seriously deviated from that).
I did just want to mention about the historical evidence as opposed to the textual evidence which came up in the comments, it is almost indisputable in light of modern findings that Israel is an iron age civilization which arose domestically out of the bronze age collapse (along with Edom, Ammon, Moab, the Philistines, etc.). This dates to approx. 1200 BCE (or the beginning of Iron I). There was little in way of sophisticated societies in the broader region until Iron II, or 1000 BCE, and more prominently in Iron IIb c. 900 BCE, which is when the monarchies of Israel and Judah appear on the scene. (The exact dating is disputed.) After this point, we begin to see Israel appear in the historical and archaeological records, with evidence of smaller groups going back to Iron I.
The campaigns mentioned in the bible prior to 900 BCE are often implausible given the historical record, and seem to reflect a more developed Israel forming traditions about it's early period which don't necessarily align with the historical record. As we enter the 8th century we begin to see more accurate and precise and recording of events in the bible, suggesting the rise of the more developed scribal schools recording these events about that time.
Obviously everything I'm saying is just an extremely short overview of broad fields in academia, and do not constitute a strong argument on its own, but I just wanted to set the record straight.
Far from being indisputable, many serious scholars who have studied the issues do not agree that the Israel is an iron age civilization which arose domestically. Rather, they maintain that Israel is a late bronze age civilization that came from Egypt, and that modern findings are either agnostic towards or support this fact. The campaigns of pre-900 BC are quite plausible, and the books of the Bible themselves are an important part of the historical record, not something outside of it. These scholars see the current mainstream theory of how the books of the Bible were composed to be contrary to reason in many ways and a reflection of a tradition of scholarship with anti-Semitic roots.
Please share who those scholars are and where I can read their work. I've studied this era significantly, and I haven't came across them.
(I just want to point out that you mixed together two separate (but related) discussions. One of biblical scholarship, and the other of Israelite history and/or archaeology. While one can have a position about both, they are not the same thing and your formulation seems confused.)
You probably have come across them. Mostly Jewish scholars, not necessarily who accept the Torah as Divine or as accurate in its details. Cassuto, Yehoshua Grintz, Avraham Melamed are some of those who accepted the Exodus origin of Israel and also made the point that many of the conclusions of Biblical Criticism are unreasonable and that the field has roots in anti-Semitism. There are also many Christian scholars who accept the Exodus origin in the late bronze age such as Kitchen, Hoffmeir, Gertoux, Rohl, and many more.
I specifically qualified in light of recent findings, which has largely surfaced in the last 30+ years, which renders cassuto and grintz outdated.
Hoffmeyer I believe agrees to the domestic model, and just argues for an additional exodus story with a small group which developed into the biblical story, much like RE Friedman's model.
Rohl might be popular in the media, but most scholars reject most of his work.
I'm not familiar with the other names you mentioned, but I'd be happy to look into it.
I forgot to mention kitchen, but im not really sure how ambitious his claims are and how he addresses the evidence from the highlands, and his rejection of the Egyptian records is unconvincing
Hoffmeir argues against the indigenous model in his book "Israel in Egypt : The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition". I don't find the recent archaeological evidence very convincing either way, but I think the literary evidence of the Torah is as ironclad as you can get, in addition to the oral tradition of the Jews.
David Rohl is not Christian. He has been debunked countless times by mainstream Egyptologists.
I wrote this before I took a look at the book itself, and I just wanted to add two quotes from the book I just saw.
Here's from the introduction:
"As formulated, the proposals do not necessarily contradict longheld and cherished views, like scholarly consensus (such as it is)on the fundamentals of the Documentary Hypothesis or accepted theory and methods concerning ancient Hebrew diachrony and BH periodisation. They do, however, challenge certain extreme and simplistic notions associated with the relevant dominant paradigms. It is left to others to utilise the arguments and conclusions presented here for the further support, refinement, construction, and/or demolition of hypotheses and approaches."
Here's from the conclusion:
"The late dating of P has been challenged repeatedly by a minority of both language and literary scholars (see Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008, II:13, for a partial list of such scholars), and the findings here largely support the challengers, as material classified as P patterns, like the rest of the Torah, as CBH. Whether the evidence here raises more fundamental questions about the traditional critical division into sources is left for others to evaluate."
Anyone who attempts to say otherwise is simply distorting Hornkohl's own words.
The issue is that there are no references to the Bible or any of its characters in contemporary cultures until about 400 BCE. See this:
https://youtu.be/Vuokiiromnc
Why would you expect to see references to Jewish characters outside of Jewish sources? That's not expected of any culture. How many references do you see to Pythagoras outside of Greek sources within a few centuries of his lifetime?
First of all, the Torah and Neviim are full of references to other cultures, Gods and countries so why should other cultures be different. Secondly, there was supposedly lots of interaction with other countries that was highly miraculous. We should expect at least a mention of a country/God/culture that was impossible to ignore.
Yes, and we don't expect the Torah and Neviim to have have references to every character in other cultures. We just see a few references to a few key people that are involved in wars with us. And sometimes not even that. And that's only because we have a history book from the time. No other culture has that.
Where would you expect to see a mention of the miracles that happened to the Jews? You expect a mention of Krias Yam Suf in the famous Egyptian history book from 1400 (or whenever) BC? You expect a mention of hailstones in the famous Canaanite history book?
You might've missed my point. The issue isn’t ONLY about miraculous events like the ten plagues or Krias Yam Suf but about the geopolitical claims made in the Torah and Neviim. The Israelites are depicted as being heavily involved in wars, alliances, and interactions with neighboring cultures—exactly the kinds of events that ancient Near Eastern (ANE) societies documented extensively.
Cultures like the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Canaanites meticulously recorded their military campaigns, political alliances, and significant events in their correspondence and inscriptions. Yet, we find no mention of the Israelites or their supposed military campaigns, such as those described in Bamidbar, where the Israelites are said to have fought against the Amorites, Moabites, and Midianites.
The Bible portrays the Israelites as engaging in numerous wars with neighboring peoples, like the campaigns against Sihon and Og. These are significant events, but there’s no record of them in the archives of regional powers like Egypt or among Canaanite city-states that documented political turmoil in the region. For example, the Amarna Letters, a collection of diplomatic correspondences from Canaanite kings to Egypt, mention many minor conflicts but are silent on such major campaigns.
The Philistines, often depicted as a major adversary of the Israelites, left behind material culture and inscriptions. Yet, there’s no reference to the numerous battles described in the Bible, like those involving Samson, Shaul, or David. Similarly, Egypt, which would have been aware of major population movements or military campaigns in the region, does not mention such events in its records.
Even if written records were lost, large-scale campaigns or city destructions, such as those described in Bamidbar, should leave archaeological evidence like destruction layers or shifts in settlement patterns. However, there’s no such evidence supporting these accounts.
Interestingly, smaller and less influential groups like the Moabites and Edomites do appear in external records. For example, the Mesha Stele records a Moabite king’s conflict with Israel. However, the numerous wars and alliances described in Bamidbar and other parts of the Bible remain absent from contemporary records.
You keep on moving the goalposts. First you want mention of specific people like Moshe, then miracles, now you want meticulous records of every single Israelite war and alliances (Which alliances? There were very few, as you can see from Tanach.) Well, only a tiny fraction of this type of documentation was preserved archeologically, so we wouldn't expect much at all. From the Philistines we have hardly any writing at all, forget about documentation. Nevertheless, Amarna letters are actually good evidence of the Exodus, and the Mesha Stele is a good evidence of the Israelite nation at that time period. The Christian archaeologists claim to have found plenty of evidence of destruction layers from the time of the conquest. And even if they didn’t, destruction layers only happen when a city is abandoned and then rebuilt on top of the destruction.
While it's true that not all ancient records have survived, and we wouldn't expect documentation of every Israelite war or alliance, the point isn't about every small detail. The issue is that the Bible describes the Israelites as being involved in significant geopolitical events with major neighboring powers: Egyptians, Philistines, Assyrians, etc. These should have left some trace in the abundant external records of the time. The Amarna Letters and Mesha Stele are certainly important, but they don't provide evidence for many key biblical events, especially those involving larger, more detailed interactions that the Bible describes, such as the united monarchy or the many wars described in Bamidbar. The lack of references to these events in contemporary records, especially for a supposedly powerful nation like Israel, makes it more likely that they never occured.
And? What would you expect?
Curious to hear your thoughts about the video. It answers this and other questions.
This is pure speculation. In any case, even if the language of the Torah reflected a very early period in Biblical history, this would not be as early as the 14th-12th centuries, the period when Moses would have lived. Besides, there are factual errors in the Torah such as Abraham making covenant a with Avimelech the Phillistine. The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries. What! does not the Creator of the Universe know how to write? Such a mistake calls into question any notion of the Torah being Divinely revealed in any literal sense. One error alone is sufficient to call in question the authenticity of any book that is said to be the word of God. The Torah is a human document, and probably not from Sinai.
"The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries. "
Pure speculation. And false. We know is that there was a large influx of Philistines in the 12th century. That doesn't mean they didn't have a smaller settlement before. In fact, the Torah itself makes it clear the Philistines in the time of Abraham weren't as developed as those in later periods. In Abraham's time they only had one city, Gerar, and it wasn't one of the cities in the Pentapolis.
This is an argument from silence. You have no proof outside of the Bible that the Philistines arrived in the land prior to the 12th century. This is pure speculation without proof. It is an anachronism that Abraham and Isaac made a covenant with Avimelech the Philistine. There were no Philistines in the land at the time when the patriarchs would have lived. Period. Saying so, you might as well add there were unicorns in the land as well!.
Just to summarize the categories of evidence, we have 1. Comprehensive Egyptian records from the late bronze age, 2. Many archaeological excavations which demonstrate the appearance of pastoral groups in the highlands which align with the Israelites in early Iron I, 3. Broad knowledge of the great decline in the levant and beyond which led to the emergence of of many new groups known as the bronze age collapse, 4. The discoveries of the fortifications by the eastern delta (although this is not evidence against a miraculous exodus,) etc.
(this is just the evidence for the domestic emergence as opposed to migratory model, although even the migratory model was forced to concede that both the Exodus and the conquest are definitely greatly exaggerated, but either way that's outdated in light of the newer discoveries in archaeology and Egyptology and broader semitic studies.)
1. Not comprehensive and definitely not evidence against the Exodus. 2,3,4. I read the Bible Unearthed, this is not evidence against the Exodus or Conquest in any sense, we already know from Joshua and Judges that the Conquest took centuries and had many setbacks.
Nobody is "forced" to concede anything. Many who accept the historicity of the Exodus don't hold of the Torah as particularly important (such as Christians who don't follow it anyways), and therefore feel no reason for them to take the details so seriously, just like other ancient historical accounts often include exaggeration and myth. Even some nominally Orthodox Jewish scholars claim to be able to reconcile themselves with such a notion, that the Torah can contain exaggerations, just like it contains other features of ancient texts. If it makes them feel better, great. I'm not sure how high on the "kefira scale" it goes 😛
Happy, there is no evidence that Jews were enslaved in Egypt.
The Torah itself is a historical document and constitutes historical evidence. And according to the Bible critics, there no less than 4 independent sources in the Torah attesting to it! Josephus quotes Egyptian historical texts which are now lost to us (probably due to the burning of the library in Alexandria) attesting to their own interpretation of the Exodus. This is the direct historical evidence. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence of the presence of Hebrew slaves in Egypt and of the the wars in Canaan.
There's no evidence of Jews being enslaved by Egypt. There's just no evidence of it. There is no evidence at all outside the Bible of a mass slave escape as described in Exodus. This is shocking because so many documents have been uncovered by archeology and there is no mention whatsoever of Moses or a mass slave escape. This is particularly shocking as according to Exodus, Moses was raised in the court of Pharaoh. How is it then that in all of the documents uncovered from ancient Egypt, there is no mention of such a figure who was part of the court of Pharaoh and who led a mass slave escape!?
Furthermore, the Torah is not a historical document as there are factual errors in the Torah such as Abraham making covenant a with Avimelech the Phillistine. The Phillistines did not arrive to the land of Israel until about the 12th century and the patriarchs would have lived around the 18th-17th centuries.
I explained already what the evidence is. You just don't want to deal with it, so as they say in Egypt you are in de Nile. Your question about "in all the documents uncovered..." just sounds silly when we only have a miniscule percentage of the documents from Ancient Egypt. I already made this point to the other commenters.
If there were mass slave escape from Egypt someone somewhere would have found some evidence. On the contrary, you just don't want to deal with the fact that there's no evidence of Jews being enslaved by Egypt. None.
What do you have against Nachi Weinstein that you want him not to be put in Cherem?
You don't want him to be successful?
Hilarious post 😂
FrumBooks is right (subjectively speaking) not to touch this. Joshua Bermann is good at allowing people to believe he is defending orthodox Judaism when he is actually defending frum Conservative Judaism.
As someone who has emailed him many times, I disagree. He certainly accepts all the Ani Maamins. (Contrast that with a guy like Sam Lebens, who is indeed promoting frum Conservative Judaism.)
In what way do u feel Lebens is promoting frum Conservative Judaism? Is it his stance on geirus?
Its his understanding of halacha
Let's make an analogy. Say someone believes the universe is 5785 years old. Now, obviously, all the evidence that the universe is something like 14 billion years old is a big problem. The only real solution is to say the universe looks that way, but actually is isn't. Now let's say that Boshua Jerman writes a bunch of books showing that the latest scientific research actually shows the universe is a million years old. This is a remarkable vindication of your religious faith! Except actually it isn't at all. Whereas before you believed the universe looks 14 billion years old but is actually 5785 years old, now you believe the world looks a million years old, but is actually 5785 years old.
This is what Joshua Berman does with biblical criticism and the orthodox doctrine of תורה מן השמים. And המבין יבין. But I am not criticizing, except maybe aesthetically. I am not in any way impugning his religiosity and I would personally be more than happy to use him as an עד etc.