RJ Magazine - Latest Comments in Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

Re: Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

Michael Anatole — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 10:33:38 -0000

Well done, Professor Sperling. I appreciate your thinking and analysis, so much so that I intend to buy and read your book ASAP.

Re: Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

gsmullennix — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:33:29 -0000

rbrenner...what is in the culture or language of Egypt from the 430 years when they kept a tribal race as slaves? What, within Jewish Passover, would not also fit the far more simple notion held by David Sperling of an invading force within the Israel of that day who stayed a long time and enslaved the local populace? For most people engaged in deciphering the past, the more simple the explanation, the more likely it is to have happened.

Re: Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

TuviaDovid — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 20:38:55 -0000

This seems to me one of those situations in which it is impossible to prove a negative. For some there is no convincing proof that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt, For others there's no convincing proof that they were. For the rest of us, likely the bulk of those who consider ourselves Jewish, the archaeological evidence for neither is particularly persuasive -- and the debate may be beside the point. Whether taken as history, parable, metaphor, invention or myth, the story of Exodus remains one of the most powerful narratives in human history and its lessons are unchanged. I'm reminded of what happened when I was in Hebrew school as a kid and we were asked to ask whether our forebears -- all from eastern and central Europe -- had been Chasidim or Misnagdim. My parents, and plenty of others, said neither, we were "just Jews."

Re: Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

rbrenner — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:43:20 -0000

Nonsense! Such claims are spurious. My own research/book (available by Passover 2013), "While the Skies were Falling: The Exodus and the Cosmos" easily and convincingly refutes, in over 500 pages and as many footnotes, the totally erroneous contention David Sperling and other nihilists make of the bogus or imagined absence of Egyptian texts – as well as the science - confirming the sojourn, the catastrophic plagues, and the escape/exodus of the Hebrews.
To deny the sojourn and Exodus is to deny widespread catastrophes, simultaneous mass migrations, the numerous papyri of the plagues and expulsion, multiple Egyptian and biblical reports of a drowning pharaoh at Pi-Hiroti (the biblical Pi-hahirot) and the reports of the global reach of the disaster. The extra-biblical and scientific evidence supporting the biblical report is huge and convincing. To some extent the problem is in not taking the pshat seriously.
It seems to me that the revisionists’ willful ignorance and obfuscation have proven impenetrable to counter arguments no matter how well grounded in convincing data.
I challenge any revisionist to debate the reality of the Exodus report.

Re: Reform Judaism Magazine - Were the Jews Slaves in Egypt?

rbrenner — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:41:27 -0000