Scores of people have seen the grand movie epic by Cecil B. DeMille called “The Ten Commandments.”
It shows Israelites enslaved by the Pharaoh Seti building his cities in ancient Egypt.
Charlton Heston plays Moses (who’s beard keeps getting longer and longer and longer) majestically ordering Seti’s successor, King Ramses to “Let my people go.”
After it rains frogs and lit BBQ charcoals from the sky, Ramses lets the Israelites march out of Egypt to freedom.
God then erects a pillar of fire in front of Ramses’ pursuing army, Moses parts a sea, and the Israelites are fed manna (sort of like Mrs. Baird’s bread) which falls from the sky.
Then Moses ascends to the top of a mountain where God etches commandments on stone tablets with a flame thrower.
Meanwhile, waiting for Moses to power lunch with God, the Israelites, who have just seen miracle after miracle, are undecided about God’s existence, so they decide to start worshiping a cow.
When Moses comes down, all hell breaks loose, etc… and the Israelites are forced to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.
This of course made for an academy award winning blockbuster (as well as a record for the longest beard by a main character to appear in a full length motion picture), but did this all really happen?
First, what should raise an eyebrow or two is the figure in the Bible about the number of Israelites in the story. The Bible says that 600,000 men left Egypt. Figuring in women and children this would be at least somewhere around 1.5 million Israelites.
This is more people than currently exist in many major US cities. The idea that the Egyptians kept such a huge population fed and enslaved is very unlikely.
A moot point in any case since the business records in Egypt from the time do not indicate that Israelites existed in significant numbers or were ever enslaved.
It’s well established that the Egyptians built all the cities and monuments themselves during the farming off season, not with slave labor.
There’s also no record of 1.5 million people suddenly leaving one day.
Unlike the Cecil B. Demille movie, the Bible curiously doesn’t even give the name of the Pharoah in the story.
After the Exodus, the Bible says that at least hundreds of thousands of Israelites wandered in a desert region for 40 years.
This is a problem because archaeologists can’t find their camps. Huge groups of people would have left behind large amounts of campfire remains, broken pottery, etc…
The Exodus story was likely fabricated as part of a grand explanation of Israelite origins. The story starts with the Israelites arising from the sophisticated Egyptian culture, escaping slavery, and triumphantly conquering the land of Canaan.
In reality, archaeology shows that the Israelites simply arose out of the lowly Canaanite culture over a long period of time which would have made for an awfully boring movie.
“This is a problem because archaeologists can’t find their camps. Huge groups of people would have left behind large amounts of campfire remains, broken pottery, etc…”
I just want to add that vast as a desert may be, 600,000 to 1.5 million people wandering around in it would have been a virtual floating nation–an anomaly in ANY era. It is highly unlikely that during 40 years of wandering they would not have been discovered by nomads, merchants, caravans, military expeditions, etc. and eventually would have been reported in the surrounding societies.
Outside of scripture, no such information exists.
Excellent point.
Hi there,
I know, I know. There can be lots of Christianity bashing and pointing out Bible errors. I do believe that of course there would be some errors in Bible as it of course is not a science text book. You have to accept (sadly most Christians dont) that there is a lot of imagery in the Bible and not to forget metaphors.
Christians clearly point out that Book of Isaiah’s streching of heavens is a clear definition of our expanding Universe. Also, Bible’s story of creation is completely focused on Earth and earthlings (using heaps imagery) not Mars or Venus.
We, human beings get bored with rules too soon and we wish to find new meanings here and there. I find it very interesting that in all Western country whenever Atheists and Agnostics want to do God bashing they always pick on Christianity. Maybe in the hearts of their hearts they themselves are fascinated with Eastern Mysticism or Budha stuff or Tantra sex. Tell me WHY NOT CRITICISMS of other gods?
In the end, to every Atheist and Agnostic God must appear as a disgusting, frowning entity that creates unnecessary hurdles in their merry making, fun, sexual frolicking etc. So, psychologically it becomes imperative for every such individual to intellectually kill any notion of God and morality so they can be ”free”( its such a sad word when you take into account sexual promiscuity, teenage pregnancies, lives ravaged with alcohol, drugs of all sorts and STDs including AIDS)
In the end, in Bible’s defense. I would mention that Bible’s genius lies with the excellent moral system it purports. No lying, no cheating, honesty and integrity in every sphere of life (including business dealings, remember instructions against using false and dodgy weighing scales)This great system of morality and ethics has laid the foundation of modern civilization.
So, dont take away the credit due to your enemies when you bash them o0utrightly. Be fair. Having said that, thanks for the website and raising all the issues. All open minded Christians like me love challenges. Bring it on.
Hi Rajiv,
I appreciate the nice words. About the Bible’s “no lying, no cheating, honesty, and integrity,” if you are refering to the 10 commandments, are you aware that the same God then told the Israelites soon afterwards to exterminate a whole country and take their land (Canaanites)?
If you are talking about Jesus saying “love your neighbor as yourself,” I would agree that is an excellent saying (although the saying arose from Buddism much earlier than when it was attributed to Jesus).
Jesus however did at least have some questionable words ascribed to him such as the referring of a woman begging for her daughter as a “dog”, not allowing a follower to bury his dead father, telling people to “hate”(leave) their family for him, etc…
In any case you bring up a valid point about concentration on Christianity instead of far east religions.
The reason I do so is twofold. I came from Christianity myself. Having been a Christian for several years I know a lot about Christianity, specifically fundamentalist Christianity so I can speak to it with more knowledge than I could other religions. The other reason is that other than Islam (which I know very little about) other religions don’t seem to cause as much trouble in the world (hope I don’t get death threats for having said that, I swear I didn’t draw any cartoons ;^) ).
To be fair, probably the vast majority of people who practice Christianity, Judaism, and Islam do so in a non-intrusive way to society and I salute them for doing so. It’s the few that are control freaks, terrorists, and warmongers that are damaging IMHO.
take care,
Capella
I have to add that morality is not a Bible atribute. Moses is himself a killer (remember the egiptian he hides in the sand), a rapist, a genocide. David kills his better man only because he wants to “know” his wife. Solomon “owns” more than 900 women. And so, and so… Please, don´t talk about Bible morality!
Please, forgive any language mistake, I am not English and, being Atheist, can’t speak in tongues…
Read Exodus carefully. Six hundred ‘harnessed’ armed men of military age. In Deuteronomy, they are instructed to use paddles on their ‘weapons’ to dig holes to poop in because God walks their camp at night. Arms may mean spears, but use ‘sword’ as a search term on an online Bible and marvel at the number of swords mentioned many centuries before iron swords were in common use. Anyhow, six hundred ‘thousand’ armed slaves are pursued by Pharaoh’s six ‘hundred’ chariots. Read carefully and the Bible says roughly three million walking five abreast left Egypt ‘the selfsame day’.
“If you are talking about Jesus saying “love your neighbor as yourself,” I would agree that is an excellent saying (although the saying arose from Buddism much earlier than when it was attributed to Jesus).”
Siddhartha was born in India in 563 BC. Jesus was quoting Dueteronomy likely to have been scribed 100 or more years before that time, and perhaps copied from older material.
Why is it that the strongest and most vocal atheists come from Christianity and usually the Catholic Church? What do they do to people in there? And why are so many atheists abnormally hostile against the Bible, Christianity or Christians?
Like the other author said, even the most hostile atheists seem to have a respect for Matrixy Eastern religions and practices. Maybe because our current pop culture makes them out to be “cool”.
Christianity vs Eastern and/or Pagan religions.
It’s amazing how many Christians, Muslims, and Jews either don’t know, or simply ignore, or deny the FACT and the TRUTH that the Abramic religions or whatever you want to call them were STOLEN from Pagan and Eastern religions. Brian Flemming makes a decent point that the general explanation of those who subscribe to the Abramic faith’s still-current explanation of of there being much older religions than theirs is that “The devil knew that the ‘true religion and true god’ was coming and therefore mimicked the coming truth.”
It kind of raises a question. Who do the religions that believe in “Satan” give more attention to… Their god, or their devil. It’s quite obvious that those two imaginary deities are quite dependant on each other, without one, the other could not exist. Despite Isaiah 14 “O Lucifer, How art thou fallen from heaven,” which actually mocks a king (Nebachudnezzar?), god and the devil are in fact best friends. They are 2 sides of the SAME coin! How blind people are who accuse non-believers of being blind.
Morals in the bible? Don’t even get me started.
One passage that is often overlooked and/or blatantly ignored, or “Oh, Well Jesus spoke in parables, blah blah blah” is…
Luke 19:27, Jesus saying: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.”
People accuse people of using “scripture” out of context. Well, even if you do read passage to passage, line to line, verse to verse, the Judeo-Christian bible we have before us is a garbled bunch of nonsense aimed at controlling people.
Any good morals in the bible? Sure, but do they cancel out the contrary? That’s up for the individual to decide.
As far as the “excellent biblical morals that have laid the foundation of modern civilization,” Well, look at how “marvelous” modern civilization really is. Oh yeah, it’s not “god’s fault, it’s the devil’s and the whole free will thing.”
“Why not criticism on other gods?” For one thing, yes, there have also been many atrocities throughout time and history, but the “true god” of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam hasn’t changed a damn thing. Many people that leave those faiths have every right to make any criticisms they want, and can be told “You’re going to hell” to the ignorant heart’s content, but it doesn’t change the fact/truth that no loving deity/creator would send their own creation to hell for fucking up on an already allegedly fucked-up earth.
One last thing is Why the criticism of other gods in favor of the “true god” within mainstream religious circles? Will ignorance always be bliss?
Believe in god, believe in Jesus, Moses, or whatever you feel is true, but keep it to yourselves. If you feel that atheits and non-believers of your particular faith don’t keep it to themselves and always bitch about Christianity, you’re doing the exact same thing. Keep that in mind.
Peace in your path(s).
Rajiv said,
I wouldn’t call all Atheists immoral. I personally consider myself quite free, and yet I do none of the things you mentioned. Granted, I’ve only been Atheists for about 3 months, but I do enjoy living a moral life because it makes me feel good about myself. I don’t need a religion to make me live a moral life. I live morally for the sake of being moral.
I simply ask that you do not discriminate against Atheists. That’s simliar to me saying all Christians are immoral even though they claim otherwise. Regardless of what the Bible says, Atheists have only one thing in common – and that is their disbelief in gods/godesses. Morality is a whole different subject altogether.
That\’s because Christianity is the most prevalent, in the US. If some other religion was most prevalent, we would be picking on them, instead.
Not me. I think all religion is nonsense, not just Christianity.
Because there are no Muslims knocking on my door on Saturday morning, asking me to accept Allah. Because, when I go to the library, I don\’t find dozens of copies of the Hindu Vedas and dozens more commentaries on it, yet have trouble finding a Bible. Because, when I turn on my TV, I don\’t see a Buddhist monk pounding his fist on a podium, talking about how we have gone astray from the eightfold path, and how there are so many people being reincarnated as lower forms because of it, adding a demand that anyone who won\’t follow the eightfold path should leave the country.
Instead, I find Christians knocking on my door, asking me to accept Jehovah; at the library, I find tons of Bibles and commentaries on it, but can\’t find certain other religious texts; and, when I turn on the TV, it is a Christian that is pounding a podium, talking about how Americans have left his god\’s teachings and everyone is going to hell because of it, adding the demand that non-Christians leave the country.
This shows an obvious misunderstanding of exactly what atheism is and why people become atheists. Atheists don\’t see your god as any kind of entity at all… we don\’t believe he exists. People don\’t become atheists for the sex, they become atheists when they realize the lack of evidence for any deities.
I am sick and tired of being accused of becoming an atheist so that I could be immoral. The evidence indicates the contrary. Did you know that the number of Christians per capita in jails and prisons is at least as high as that of the general population, yet there are about 40 times more atheists per capita in the general population than there are in jails and prisons? I wonder why that might be.
Another Moral Athiest. ALL TOO TRUE!!
There have also been studies about countries where the majority of people are not religious. A large number of countries in europe are like this and they are doing GREAT! Also the study finds that in the states where religion is the strongest, those are the states with the most hate crimes, rapes, teenage mothers, and the most illiterate people (south carolinia is a good example). I also noticed the people who are the strongest christians tend to be the most likly to critisize you and clissify everyone into stereotypes. But when it comes to islam, Christians pale in comparision to their bigotry.
In number 8 here, you bring up a very good question. The Catholic churches around here where I live, if you ever watch the folks that visit these churches, you will see that no one carries a bible into the building. The priest reads to the congregation.
Heaven forbid anyone would pick up and read scripture on their own. They might actually get it! That is what satan is still afraid of. Oh yeah, even satan knows that Jesus exsisted and has power over him.
I know I wasn’t sitting in a church when The hand of God came and rescued me from certain death. I was all alone at my home. And why not? Scripture tells that we don’t need any man to tell us what scripture says that we can have our own teacher. John 14:26
In the book of Hebrews we read in chapter 8 verses 10-12, that the new covenant God makes with the house of Israel is made in our hearts, written on the tablets of our hearts , that God Himself will teach His people.
Who is the house of Israel? Duh! If we pray to the God of Abraham, the God of Issac and the God of Jacob, we pray to the God of Israel and that must mean that even us, can have a relationship not a religion with the God of Israel. We are Israel. Anyone who has been born again into The Kingdom of God and seek His Kingdom and His righteneousnes, obeying His commandments and keeping His law in our hearts.
All the law, not part of it or what ever suits us. But we have to read scripture to find this out. We can’t just walk into church and expect that just because someone is holding scripture that they are reading it and we can not just accept that what a minister say’s is true. That is religion.
It is a relationship that we can have but it is salvation that we need. We can’t find that in a catholic church because they keep us behind a curtain, confessing sin. They neglect to tell us that the curtain was torn when Jesus died on the cross and we have acess through Jesus to God Almighty. They neglect to tell us that we don’t need to bow down to anyone when we first walk into a church. Didn’t we hear the news? God said we should have no idols before Him. We are to bow to Him only.
This is mostly in response to Eudora…
I was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school till fifth grade, then went to Episcopal schools for middle and most of high school. The sheer amount of brainwashing is astounding. The problem I had was that when I actually sat down and read the Bible, I found all these weird bits that they never read to us at the weekly service, things that clashed with the Ten Commandments and everything else I’d ever been taught.
The Great Schism occurred because Martin Luther disagreed with the Catholic church’s position on things, namely the fact that the Bible wasn’t accessible for interpretation by average people. Sadly, now they can be found everywhere and no one seems to read them or spend much time contemplating what they say they believe. It’s sad to me because I believe people should constantly re-examine their beliefs, regardless of what they are, and I see so many of the kids I grew up with as adults who have never questioned what they were told as children. It’s frightening because it showed me just how easy it is to indoctrinate a child into a set of beliefs.
By the way, has anyone here every seen “The Wave”? It’s a movie about a high school history teacher and how quickly he was able to indoctrinate his class into a different way of thinking, simply because he was an authority figure.
I joined Christianity about 5 years ago to rebel against my parents who never discussed religion at all. I put up with the Bible’s less likeable passages and assumed an apologist viewpoint until websites like this one cleared the smoke out of my eyes and saved me from the religious machine. Since becoming an atheist (I get so nervous each time I call myself that!) I read the Bible more obsessively than ever before to get a clear, empiric view of how inane and silly it is. Look at the following website, which has been very inspirational to me. http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/pillows.html
The author says it better than I ever could.
Rajiv, I have been around some jewish and muslim people and have been just as critical of their beliefs. I do not have as much knowledge of their holy books as I do of the Christian bible. I was raised and live in a predominately Christian society and feel as though Christians are always trying to force their beliefs on me. If I were exposed to muslim or jewish culture in the same way as I have been exposed to Christianity I would have a greater knowledge of their holy books. I don’t find any religion any less or more absurd than any other. I am not trying to seem conceited but these are my true feelings.
I was raised as a Christian. My parents, extended family and my roommate who is my second cousin are Christians. But over the years, I have realized how inconsistent the Bible is with the world. If Christians were running around resurrecting dead people, healing severely disabled people, blinding skeptics, and accurately prophesying about future events, we would have to take them more seriously.
The nature of reality is uncertain at this point. But from my observations, it appears to be more natural than supernatural. So I accept evolution and other sciences now. I didn’t maybe seven years ago but I do now. I don’t know if my family will ever accept the scientific explanation. But if they do, they will be able to see clearly.
I do believe that there is a salvation message no matter what the nature of reality is. And the salvation message is simply for everyone to embrace love. If every person fled from hate and sought out ways to help out his or her fellow man or woman, we would be a lot closer to paradise. Until the world embraces love, we will continue to have wars, racism, and the like. So love is the way to go.
Has anyone seen a miracle?(by that I mean something that contradicts known laws of science)I haven’t.I have a Christian friend who said that even if God showed me a miracle,I wouldn’t believe it,but would think it was a trick…Is he right?
When I used to be a Christian, things that were portrayed as miracles were simply things that were coincidences or statisitically rare events. Stastics tells us that statistically rare events are events that seldom happen over the short term but given enough time and enough situations are inevitable.
The only interesting miracles we ever heard of always happened in far off places where they couldn’t be verified, by deceptive faith healers, by people who either misunderstood what they saw or were prone to exagerration and again were unverifiable, and of course in the Bible thousands of years ago.
I remember one time our youth pastor grabbed the hand of someone that I went to high school with that was definitely and permanently wheelchair bound and pulled her out of her wheelchair. I think he genuinely expected her to walk, but she sadly just fell to the floor.
Rajiv said,
If by merrymaking, fun, and sexual frolicking you mean faithfully married with small children, I stand guilty as charged. People don’t become atheist or agnostic because they think they can escape God’s judgement by pretending he doesn’t exist. They become nontheistic because they don’t believe God exists. They think he isn’t there, not that they can somehow “hide” from him.
As “Another moral atheist” says, we criticize Christianity the most because it’s the dominant religion in our society–it’s the religion that affects us personally the most. It’s also the religion we know the most about, because many of us came from it. Secondarily, since many atheists converted away from Christianity, a lot of them harbor resentment against it because of their experience with that religion. So that’s really a factor of circumstance.
Now it’s true that some nontheists (or at least non- or ex-Christians) find Eastern religions interesting. Part of that is that they’re just plain exotic from our point of view. Part of it is also that it’s not Hindus or Buddhists or whatever trying to get their religious views taught in our public schools or displayed in our public buildings. I think another part is that a lot of Eastern religions are inclusive: you can be a Buddhist and a Shintoist at the same time, for instance, and both Buddhism and Shinto are ok with that. I think all religions are nonsense though, as do a lot of atheists.
I’m a latecomer to this whole discussion. But in talks with my sister about her faith (I am agnostic, but was brought up with the same Pentecostal Christian upbringing as she), I am often at a loss to give current solid reference to the claims we all make. Like archaeological evidence (or lack thereof) for this or that thing in the Bible, historical evidence that Christianity borrows from earlier pagan and mystery religions, etc. I’m really searching for truth here and I feel bad when I can’t back up a point with any current relevant source. Does anyone have any direction for me here?
Getting back to the Exodus, is there is no evidence that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt. Christians can not even agree on a date for the Exodus.Bible Archeologists are like “can you make up your mind so we can focus on that period”. Was it 1240-1280 BC or 1450 to 1490BC? There is not a shred of evidence anywhere to support the idea of over 1 1/2 million people roaming the desert for 40 years.
I think one the biggest give aways that the Exodus story is fiction is that it doesn’t mention the name of the Pharaoh. I think that smacks of tales around the campfire rather than recorded history.
A million or more people travelling 40 yrs in the desert?
What desert? The Sinai desert? The Arabian Desert?
I think that in a period of 40 yrs, we can know all the deserts in the world.
And: six hundred thousand armed people have been menaced by six hundreds of carriages?
This history makes me laugh.
Excuse me for my bad English language. I’m Brazilian…
As Capella says, miracles are claimed to have occured constantly. It’s not just the statistical rarities that are siezed by Christians as proof of ‘the hand of God’, but also medical recoveries, even if they are scientifically explained and, shockingly, even if they are the work of Doctors. Of course, when such things do not happen, and when people who have been prayed for relentlessly die, or fail to recover, it is put down as ‘God’s timing’, or some other feeble excuse.
Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you……….
First of all Egyptologists the people who study all the Egypt hieroglyphics and stuff can attest that all the Pyramids and ancient buildings were not built by slaves. Slaves did all the unskilled servant work, the construction was done by skilled labor. If the hebrews were slaves, then they were doing all the dirty support work.
There is one story from the bible that archaeology can back up
I think contents of the Bible are not to be taken literally. Well, most of it at least. As Rajiv has pointed out. There are several metaphors in it.
Davi
There are obvious things such as parables and poetry that aren’t meant to be literal accounts but I don’t see any indications that most of the stories and accounts (even the most ridiculous ones in Genesis) weren’t meant to be a record of things that were supposed to have actually happened.
The people who created the Bible were very primitive and catering to a very primitive readership at the time, although it is very ironic that so many millions of people today still actually believe a God literally spoke the universe into existence, that the first man was made from dust and the first woman from a rib, etc…
I am writing this piece from Nigeria. To me all the stories in the Bible only happened in the figment of imagination of the writers. Millions of people wandering for 40 years in a desert can only happen in comic books or in cartoons.It never happened and it will never happen
I believed in Exodus. Why? This is mainly because I do believe that everything written in the Bible are true and are according to God’s will.
I was always facinated by the fact that the greatest architectual monuments of the ancient world,the pyramids, are never mentioned in Exodus or the rest of the bible for that matter.
to timewalker
I don’t know why you are fascinated.
1. Giza, where the great pyramids are located is a long ways into the interior of Egypt where it was unlikely that many Hebrews ever got to. They were mostly restricted to the delta area as shown by the names used in the bible,
2. When you are extolling your religion and your country, it is not a profitable practice to be mentioning the greatness of other civilizations.
To John Charlse
I think timewalker meant because of the idea promoted by so many that the Bible is supernaturally inspired as the poster previous to him was apparently suggesting.
If the Bible was really divinely inspired and all it’s stories true, one would expect things such as for example, name of the Pharaoh in Exodus to be mentioned.
Thinking of the Bible as it really is, a book of myths, erroneous and distorted history, etc… written by dozens of different ancient primitive mortal people, I agree with your points.