Absolute, and, Total Denial

 

I just has this discussion about the historicity of the Moses and Exodus account in the Tanakh. The acclaimed Biblical scholar Dick Hertfeld simply and correctly pointed out that the vast majority of scholarly consensus agrees that it is a national foundation myth and that there is no empirical evidence (after exhaustive research) that it actually occurred. This is undeniably accurate. There is no direct empirical evidence. Period. There are valid arguments for and against, but it is undeniable there is zero empirical evidence to support the events as retold in Exodus.

Many Christian, Jewish and secular scholars acknowledge this fact. Many still believe in the story nevertheless, but the claim has nothing to do with belief or faith, and only with evidence and consensus. 

It is unreasonable to expect that there would be direct empirical evidence for a specific sui generis event that is supposed to have happened many millennia.  Furthermore, empirical evidence for something can always be fabricated.....

It is unreasonable to expect that there would be direct empirical evidence for a specific sui generis event that is supposed to have happened many millennia. 

What orifice did you pull that argument out of? I think that's a classic argumentum ad ignorantium.

The investigation into human history, civilization, religion, art, and culture crosses over into literally dozens of bona fide sciences from evolutionary psychology, archaeology, mythology, religious studies, ad infinitum. I would hardly call that unreasonable. 

The search for empirical evidence of the biblical events of Moses and the Exodus Story is one of the greatest archaeological quests of the modern era. 

When the Israeli nation was reestablished there was a governmental mandate by the newly appointed heads of state ( David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir) for the top Israeli Biblical authorities, scholars, and scientists to go forth and find the Biblical “keys to the kingdom”, i.e. the divine title to the ancient lands of Israel, with special focus on The Exodus story.

After exhaustive research, they came up empty-handed. Zero, zip, bupkes! Nobody fabricated anything. There could not have been a more motivated group in the history of the world, but, disappointedly, and perhaps, frustratingly, they had to admit there was no there there.

The events of the Exodus myth are hardly sui generis, Maybe to someone who has no idea what they're talking about they seem unique, but the reality is:

In "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero" Dr. Otto Rank analyzed and compared over seventy-odd variants of the Moses story drawn from Mesopotamia and transferred to Egypt, India, China, Japan and Polynesia, Greece and Rome, Iran, Celtic, and Germanic, Turkish, Esthonian, Finnish, and early Christian European lore. (See Otto Rank, Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (leipzig and Vienna: Franz Deuticke Verlag 1922)

Furthermore, empirical evidence for something can always be fabricated...

Now, that's just stupid in so many ways. Again, the argument from ignorance. 

Fabricated empirical evidence is not history, it's a forgery. You may not know the difference, but historians, scholars, and scientists devote their lives to knowing the difference. 

Furthermore, empirical evidence for something can always be fabricated... 

This is a form of the appeal to possibility . Evidence can be fabricated, scientists can be wrong, research can be fraudulent... so therefore it probably is. This, however, is much more insidious than a mere fallacy; it is a conspiratorial mindset that leads to an alternate reality where fact is fiction and fiction becomes fact.

[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

 
This is a form of the appeal to possibility . Evidence can be fabricated, scientists can be wrong, research can be fraudulent... so therefore it probably is. This, however, is much more insidious than a mere fallacy; it is a conspiratorial mindset that leads to an alternate reality where fact is fiction and fiction becomes fact.

That wasn't my argument at all.  My argument was that when the motivation to find evidence is very strong but the likelihood of finding evidence is very small, if you are presented with 'actual evidence' it is highly likely that evidence is forged.  I am not arguing that forgery is merely possible, I am arguing it is likely. 

If you demand direct evidence to prove things that are near-impossible to find direct evidence for or against, then you are setting yourself up to be fooled by forgeries.  Your refusal to accept anything but direct evidence creates a strong motivation for such evidence to be found and if it cannot be found it will be forged. 

If you ask for the impossible, people are going to cheat. 

[To Mchasewalker]

 
What orifice did you pull that argument out of? I think that's a classic argumentum ad ignorantium.

The investigation into human history, civilization, religion, art, and culture crosses over into literally dozens of bona fide sciences from evolutionary psychology, archaeology, mythology, religious studies, ad infinitum. I would hardly call that unreasonable. 

The search for empirical evidence of the biblical events of Moses and the Exodus Story is one of the greatest archaeological quests of the modern era. 

When the Israeli nation was reestablished there was a governmental mandate by the newly appointed heads of state ( David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir) for the top Israeli Biblical authorities, scholars, and scientists to go forth and find the Biblical “keys to the kingdom”, i.e. the divine title to the ancient lands of Israel, with special focus on The Exodus story.

After exhaustive research, they came up empty-handed. Zero, zip, bupkes! Nobody fabricated anything. There could not have been a more motivated group in the history of the world, but, disappointedly, and perhaps, frustratingly, they had to admit there was no there there.

The events of the Exodus myth are hardly sui generis, Maybe to someone who has no idea what they're talking about they seem unique, but the reality is:

In "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero" Dr. Otto Rank analyzed and compared over seventy-odd variants of the Moses story drawn from Mesopotamia and transferred to Egypt, India, China, Japan and Polynesia, Greece and Rome, Iran, Celtic, and Germanic, Turkish, Esthonian, Finnish, and early Christian European lore. (See Otto Rank, Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden (leipzig and Vienna: Franz Deuticke Verlag 1922)

What?  I was arguing that the whole project to find empirical evidence for a tiny number of events out of all the events that happened an extremely long time ago was an entirely unreasonable project to begin with. 

It is both an unreasonable project to embark upon and thus an unreasonable thing to demand as proof.  As there is no reason why there would be any evidence left after such a long time-frame, it is thus unreasonable to use the lack of such evidence as an argument for the falsity of historical records. 

 
Now, that's just stupid in so many ways. Again, the argument from ignorance. 

Fabricated empirical evidence is not history, it's a forgery. You may not know the difference, but historians, scholars, and scientists devote their lives to knowing the difference. 

I am a historian, forgery is history.  As historians we take it as axiomatic that a good number of our sources are actually lying about events.  Their lies and lying is very much historically interesting.

Yet that being so, you still have to prove there is a lie by pointing to contradictory sources. 

Wow, that is good!