Israelites 40 Years Wandering In The Sinai?

The source of the following information is an article from the News Toronto Bureau by Barry Brown, dated February 27, 1988,  by way of Farrell Till on the Yahoo group errancyn, "The Size of the Hebrew Camps," 5-20-00:

On February 26, 1988, the Israeli archaeologist Eliezer Oren spoke at the Royal Ontario Museum about his excavations at 80 different sites in the Sinai peninsula from 1972 through 1982. He reported that he had found no evidence for a 40-year nomadic residence in this region by two to three million people. He reported finding at the ruins of an Egyptian outpost a record of two runaway slaves who had been spotted, but in all of his diggings, he found nothing about the sightings of a vast horde of people going through the desert. "They [the two slaves] were spotted and the biblical account of 2.5 million people with 600 thousand of military age weren't?" Oren questioned. "This can't be explained unless you invoke miracles here, and I am a member of the department of archaeology and not of miracles."

Oren reported that other archaeological expeditions beside his have been working in the Sinai region for just as long as he has, but they had found no traces of human activity at all from the time of the exodus except for small mining operations that were under the control of the Egyptians. He reported that archaeologists have found none of the cities that the Israelites allegedly conquered on their way out of the region except for the town of Kadesh, but he said, "To our great surprise, there is nothing there earlier than the 10th century." The exodus, however, allegedly happened in the 15th century B. C. The Bible reports that the 2.5 to 3 million Israelites camped at over 40 different sites, taking with them large herds of livestock, but Oren reported that no evidence of such encampments have been found.

The Communicator's Responsibility

by Kenneth W. Hawthorne

"It is always the writer's duty to communicate. It isn't the readers' responsibility to try to figure out what the writer meant."  Farrell Till (college English teacher for over 30 years).

I had a Church of Christ preacher tell me one time that the apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans using the language of a lawyer. The preacher seemed to look with pride upon Paul who was so educated that he was able to write like this. But why would Paul (allegedly guided by the Holy Spirit) do such a poor job of communicating to the average person who doesn't understand such difficult language? Especially considering whether one winds up in heaven or hell depends on understanding such writing.

With heaven and hell in the balance, one would think that the alleged omni-God Yahweh would have incontrovertibly proven his existence to each person individually. Then, after that was done, at the very least, communicated his will in writing with no errors and so plain and clear that there would be no need to try to figure out what he meant. An omni-God should have wanted to and been able to do this.

But, alas, such is not the case, adding more proof that Yahweh can not be God and  that the Bible is purely a work of man.

Jesus And George Washington

Excellent post by Farrell Till from the 1998 Errancy Discussion list. Christians on the list claimed that the evidence for Jesus's existence is just as good as for the existence of George Washington. Till obliterates that idea:

British records that referred to George Washington would be impartial, unbiased, and disinterested contemporary records in the sense that I have been using these terms in reference to Jesus and early Christianity. First of all, they would not be records that were written by people who were in any way trying to promote George Washington as a heroic figure. Secondly, they would be records left by people who were on the opposing side of the cause that George Washington was involved in. As such, they would provide a compelling reason to assume that this person was an actual historical figure.

You Christians (and don't say that you aren't one, because you are at least dedicated to defending the Christian cause) constantly ask, "Why didn't the enemies of Jesus produce the body when the apostles began to preach the resurrection," or, "Why didn't the enemies of Jesus oppose what Peter preached on Pentecost," etc., etc., etc. Such statements beg the question of NT accuracy and assume that what it says in these matters is completely accurate without even recognizing the possibility that these are stories that were made up years after that time in order to put Christianity into a specific time frame. If you could produce references to Jesus or the activities of the apostles that were clearly left by people who at this time were "enemies" of Jesus and Christianity, you would wet your pants with joy and excitement, because you would see it as compelling evidence that Jesus was an actual historical person and that Christianity did indeed begin at the time alleged in the NT. As it is, however, you can produce no such evidence, but that doesn't keep you from begging the question of NT accuracy in these matters.

If, for example, no one could produce any references that the British made to George Washington in the time that he allegedly led the colonial forces to a victory that brought about American independence, and if no references to Washington or the Revolutionary War could be found in French records of the time when French forces under the leadership of Lafayette allegedly assisted the colonial army against the British, and if no references to Washington or the Revolutionary War could be found in German records of the time when Hessian mercenaries allegedly fought on the British side against a colonial army led by Washington, and if no references at all could be found to Washington, period, except in the writings of those obviously determined to promote him as a great heroic figure, these facts would give people reason to suspect that he may have been just a legendary figure like King Arthur, who developed in the folklore of the past. I don't know about Terry, but I think that Conklin is intelligent enough to get the point. He just will never admit it.