> Doug Weller Wrote:
> -------------------------------------------------------
>> Kitchen thinks the Old Testament is very reliable
>> as history and believes in the Exodus. Modern
>> archaeology is moving towards the view that
>> Judaism developed in Canaan in the first milennium
>> bce.
> Just to nitpick a little bit, the history of the development of
> Judaism isn't synonymous with the history of the emergence of Israel
> and/or the Hebrews and/or the Israelites. Not least because the term
> Jew is first attested as an ethnic label for the inhabitants of Judah,
> rather than Israel. The concept of Judaism, of course, is an even later development.
Yes, I really didn't want to get into that level of detail, but you are right of course.
>> Sorry Hermione, but I wouldn't take Kitchen's
>> paper at all seriously.
> That's a bit harsh, isn't it?
> Kitchen's paper cited by Hermione is titled, innocuously
> enough,"Non-Egyptians recorded on Middle-Kingdom stelae in Rio de
> Janeiro" (my emphasis). Kitchen's a respected Egyptologist. His
> article appeared in an volume (edited by another respected
> Egyptologist) titled Middle Kingdom Studies. What's not to take seriously?
His interpretation of the evidence?
> Admittedly, I haven't read this particular article by Kitchen, but to
> casually dismiss his work as not to be taken "at all seriously"
> because "he believes in the Exodus" seems completely misguided.
> As for his 'belief' in the Exodus, it's interesting to note what
> Kitchen himself writes at the end of his chapter on the Exodus in his
> book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (2003): "In the light of
> all the foregoing considerations, the exodus and Sinai events are not
> hereby proven to have happened, or the tabernacle and covenant, etc.,
> to have been made then. But their correspondence not just with
> attested realities (not Sargon-style fantasy) but with known usage of
> the late second millennium BC and earlier does favor acceptance of
> their having had a definite historical basis" (p. 312).
He uses the right words but from my albeit limited understanding he believes that the Exodus did take place, etc. even if he admits he can't prove it.
Doug Weller
Director The Hall of Ma'at
Doug's Skeptical Archaeology site::
[
www.ramtops.co.uk]