| Four items seem to be commonplace knowledge - | | | | Secondly, this site for Mt. Sinai forces a probable |
| which the elite of society feel convinced are truisms | | | | crossing of biblical "Yam Suf" onto neighboring shallow |
| (the majority of the populous disagreeing). Most | | | | waters, hardly reasonable for the ostensible drowning |
| significant are the areas of religious faith, where | | | | of Pharaoh and his chariot army. (These discrepant |
| leaders and secular academia, solidly atheistic, smugly | | | | comparisons to the Bible resulted in everyone, including |
| ridicule as childish. The four conventional wisdoms | | | | learned Jews, accepting the translation of "Yam Suf" |
| (easily refuted by today's Internet fact-checking search | | | | to be "Sea of Reeds", and the entire Exodus story as |
| engines): | | | | fanciful). |
| 1) Science has proven that our universe is billions of | | | | Thirdly, the uncertainties of the complex of Egyptian |
| years old - ergo, belief in six days of creation is | | | | historical records, with literally hundreds of confusing |
| nonsense; | | | | Pharaohs and the sequences of their reigns. |
| 2) Darwin-Evolutionism is proven scientific fact - life | | | | Fourthly, the erroneous proclamation, a century ago, |
| came about by lightning sparking a pool of inorganic | | | | that Shishak of the Bible was probably Shoshenk of |
| chemical "soup", then simple mutations, copying errors | | | | Egyptian history - which theoretically placed biblical |
| from splitting of the double helix DNA over eons of | | | | Kings David and Solomon in Iron Age 2A, a period |
| time, eventually evolved into all the creatures on Earth; | | | | lacking in the sophistication required for the biblical |
| 3) The biblical Exodus story is myth: the Jewish people | | | | grandeur of palaces and the Temple - conclusion, |
| once being slaves in Egypt; a Moses leading them to | | | | fictionalized stories. |
| Canaan; centuries before there was Joseph who | | | | However, just during the past two decades, there |
| interpreted Pharaoh's dreams of seven years of | | | | have been momentous discoveries of artifacts and |
| plenty, then famine, saving Egypt and the Mid-East; and | | | | many books written, positively proving that much of |
| 4) Global Warming - that humankind's carbon dioxide | | | | the Passover story is in fact, essentially, a |
| emissions are causing climate change - and unless the | | | | provably-true history of ancient events. This current |
| US and others - (at tremendous cost) drastically | | | | data base includes: a book by D. Rohl, "A Test of |
| change their fossil-fuel-llfe-style, planet Earth is | | | | Time", which straightens out the histories of 300 |
| doomed. | | | | Pharaohs (using celestial dating) etc.; "History of the |
| Part 3: The Passover Saga, Myth Or History? | | | | Jews" by P. Johnson; "Digging Up Jerusalem" by K. |
| The biblical tale of the Exodus is a Passover saga: of | | | | Kenyan; etc. Especially dispositive, however, were |
| ancient Israelite slaves fleeing from Egypt; led by | | | | recent discoveries by adventurers and diving |
| Moses (who supposedly spoke to God); centuries | | | | expeditions exploring the Gulf of Aqaba and Saudi |
| earlier, the Israelites coming to Egypt through a man | | | | Arabia: the myth-shattering (and coral-covered) |
| named Joseph who saved Egypt and all neighboring | | | | artifacts found strewn along an undersea path leading |
| peoples from seven years of famine (after seven | | | | from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, across the Gulf of Aqaba |
| years of rich harvests). It is a story told and retold | | | | to Saudi Arabia - where a mountain (Jabal Al Lawz) |
| each Passover seder. Interestingly, for two thousand | | | | was found, conforming to all the topographical |
| years the story has been considered as fanciful fiction | | | | descriptions of biblical Mt. Sinai. Along with these are |
| by practically everyone - until only the recent several | | | | museum artifacts: an Egyption scroll which clearly |
| decades. The reasons for this long-held dismissal of | | | | describes many of the Passover plagues, then an |
| the "Passover Saga" as history are several-fold: | | | | Amarna letter written by the widow of Pharaoh - |
| Firstly, for sixteen centuries the world has accepted | | | | which support both the death of Pharaoh's first-born |
| the location of Mount Sinai to be in lower Sinai | | | | son and the death of Pharaoh himself (corroborated |
| Peninsula (where the mother of Emperor Constantin of | | | | also by the regal splendor found in the tomb |
| Rome claimed to have seen a vision). | | | | (otherwise unexplainable) of boy-Prince Tut). |