MOSES NEVER EXISTED, EXODUS NEVER OCCURRED--SCHOLARS AGREE

MOSES NEVER EXISTED, EXODUS NEVER HAPPENED--SCHOLARS AGREE.

The main book of Judaism, called the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament, "OT", also known as the Pentateuch) is filled with stories of persecution of a people called “Hebrews” (who are sometimes referred to as Israelites or “children of Israel”) by an unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh who allegedly enslaved them and their leader Moses (aka Moshe, in Hebrew) who led them out of Egypt in a mass Exodus to the "Promised Land" called Israel. The Judaists (who often refer to themselves as “Jews”) believe the Torah and read it in their synagogues and treat it with the utmost reverence as their most holy book, revealed by God himself to Moses on Mount Sinai. They observe practices such as kosher and keep holidays such as Sabbath and Pesach (Passover) prescribed in the Torah and consider themselves to be descendants of the Torah patriarch Abraham. They revere Moshe (Moses) as their main prophet and take the Torah literally, and as their ancestral history.

However, upon reading the Torah objectively, it becomes clear that it is fiction, given the supernatural myths and fantastic fables, and the inconsistencies and contradictions therein. This is obvious from Book 1, Page 1. The Earth is not 6000 years old. Cultures (unknown to the scribes) flourished much before. Written records and archeological evidence using carbon dating show man's presence tens of thousands of years ago, probably over a 100,000 years ago. A million people cannot live in a vast desert (without water or food) in a hostile nation for 40 years--and leave no trace.

Biblical scholars who studied the Old Testament arrived at the Documentary Hypothesis, which showed that the Torah was weaved together out of four source documents by 4 or more authors over many centuries and produced much later than claimed. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

See "The Forgery of the Old Testament" by Joseph McCabe:

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_07.html

The Torah is replete with supernatural fairly tales, self-serving grandiosities and contradictions. For example, there are 2 versions of the creation account in Genesis and they contradict each other in key details. Snakes and donkeys cannot talk. A stick cannot turn into a snake, nor can a woman (Lot’s wife) turn into a pillar of salt. Starving slaves lost in the Sinai desert for 40 years cannot build a golden calf to worship while crying for food and water.

In his book, "The Age of Reason", America's founding father Thomas Paine labels the Old Testament as "spurious." Writer H.L. Mencken called such Old Testament fables “transparent imbecilities.”

There are at least 3 major versions of the Torah (the Greek version, called the Septuagint, a Hebrew version called the Masoretic text and a Samaritan version, the Samaritan text) and countless minor ones, which differ in key details.

The various versions differ in key details. For example, according to an article entitled: “A Comparison Between The Modern Text Of Genesis And The Septuagint” by the Israeli organization called Daat Emet:

“According to the text of the Septuagint, the number of years that passed from the creation of the world until the birth of Isaac was 3314, while according to the Mesorah (our version) it was only 2048 years, a difference of 1266 years. ”

See: http://daatemet.org.il/en/torah-talmud/torah-text/a-comparison-between-the-modern-text-of-genesis-and-the-septuagint/

The Samaritan Torah differs from the Masoretic text in 6000 places as reported in Tablet Magazine on May 14, 2013:

“There are some 6,000 instances where this [Samaritan] version of the Torah differs from the Masoretic text..”

See: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/132004/the-other-torah

For a list of about 100 contradictions in the Old Testament, see: http://www.skeptically.org/bible/id8.html

Furthermore, textual analysis, archeological and historical evidence (biblical criticism) have each proven Moses, Exodus, Abraham, Joshua, King David, Solomon etc. to be basically myths with parallels in Egyptian, Mesopotamian/Sumerian and other ancient near east (ANE) cultures.

"There is no historical evidence outside of the Bible, no mention of Moses outside the Bible, and no independent confirmation that Moses ever existed." —Dr. Michael D. Coogan, lecturer on the Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School.

Prof. Ze'ev Herzog who teaches in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote an article entitled “Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho” in the Israeli Magazine Haaretz, in which he states as follows:

“This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. ..... Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically different from what that story tells.”

This article appears online on various websites, such as:

http://www.umich.edu/~proflame/neh/arch.htm

For further evidence, see:

http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/prevoff.htm

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/chosen-people.html

http://jesusneverexisted.com/egypt.htm

According to an article by Daniel Lazare in Harper’s Magazine, March, 2002, entitled “False Testament--Archaeology Refutes the Bible's Claim to History”:

“Not only is there no evidence that any such figure as Abraham ever lived but archaeologists believe that there is no way such a figure could have lived given what we now know about ancient Israelite origins.” Also: “Thus there was no migration from Mesopotamia, no sojourn in Egypt, and no exodus.”

Also see the New York Times article of Tuesday, April 3, 2007, by Michael Slackman, entitled: “In Sinai desert, no trace of Moses” at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/africa/03iht-moses.4.5130043.html?_r=0

See “Moses and Other Historical Fabrications” at: http://www.biblicalnonsense.com/chapter12.html

Also see the new book: “Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver”.

Ancient Egyptians, who kept one of the most detailed ancient historic details, make no mention of any Jews there or other historic events of any "Moses” or any "Jew" slaves escaping, though they make mention of one Egyptian slave who once escaped and was caught.

According to Dr. Inman: "…the stories of the creation, of the flood, of Abraham, of Jacob, of the descent into and the exodus from Egypt, of the career of Moses and the Jews in the desert, of Joshua and his soldiers, of the judges and their clients, are all apocryphal, and were fabricated at a late period of Jewish history."

—Dr. Thomas Inman, M.D., Ancient Faiths and Modern.

According to Israel Finkelstein, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and his colleague Neal Silberman, state (in their book The Bible Unearthed): "We have no clue, not even a single word, about early Israelites in Egypt: Neither in monumental inscriptions on walls of temples, nor in tomb inscriptions, nor in papyri." William Denver, professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona, states in his book: Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?: "no Egyptian text ever found contains a single reference to 'Hebrews' or 'Israelites' in Egypt, much less to an 'Exodus.'"

The Moses myth was probably borrowed from the myth of Mises of Sargon.

The fact is there was no Abraham, nor Moses, nor any King David. There was no enslavement in Egypt, and no Exodus. Most of the Old Testament stories and fables were borrowed from older Zoroastrian, Egyptian (i.e. African) and other pagan myths (such as Sargon & Mises myths, the Code of Hammurabi, etc.) prevalent around that time in the Near East and the scribes altered them and inserted their own tribal heroes and projected them back in time for ulterior purposes (such as for the Yahweh priests to gain more money and power by promoting their cult over the mainstream pagan (Baal) cults to divert followers and thereby donors towards themselves and/or to fabricate a false history to unite disparate elements under one tribe).

Noah's flood story was copied from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

See the book “Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions” by Doane.

See: “101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History” by Gary Greenberg (Author).

Moses could not have parted the Red Sea, not only because it violates the laws of physics, and there was no Moses, but because there was no Red Sea to cross, since Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula shared a common land border in the north-east (at least prior to the construction of the Suez canal, which was done in modern times), and from where the Patriarchs entered Egypt initially without any mention in the Torah of their having to cross any Red Sea. Furthermore, Sinai was a part of Egypt then (like it is now), so there was no exodus from Egypt (the prefix ex~ means out) as Moses (even if the story were otherwise true) simply lead them from one part of Egypt to another!

Since Moses and Abraham never existed, and the Exodus never happened, and the Torah is basically myth, fable and fiction, Judaism and the notions of "Jew" and “covenant” and their mythical claim to a “promised land” of Israel all collapse like a house of cards.