Does This Rock Explain Why Egyptians Are Biblical Villains? – The Daily Beast
“… Perhaps the biblical description of dominance by Egyptians actually has very little to do with enslavement and more to do with the cultural memory of the more distant Amarna period in Canaan. The Israelites were never subject to national enslavement in Egypt; but, as this new discovery reminds us, the land of Canaan was under the foot of Pharaonic authority. The long shadows of that experience might help explain why—in the absence of a historical Exodus—the biblical authors made the Egyptians the villains of their national epic.”
Source: Does This Rock Explain Why Egyptians Are Biblical Villains? – The Daily Beast
My Mazamet 
Oh, I like that theory. At least it fits with actual history.
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“in the absence of a historical Exodus”
I wish I could repeat that forever to all Christians everywhere
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I doubt the Israelites were slaves and Egyptians did the raw labor. Architects and builders needed very sophisticated skills and the Jews were probably greatly valued in in upper level of Egyptian society. The pharaoh tried to prevent them from leaving as his construction projects would come to a halt without these valuable Jewish architects and directors.
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Carl,
If you have ever actually visited a construction site, you would notice the huge need for grunt labor.
Imagine the devastating amount of skill needed to hump a 2 1/2 ton cut stone from the quarry to its spot on the actual pyramid.
And why would an Egyptian value a Jew?
That is as odd a possibility now as it was back then.
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Sure grunt labor to haul and build scaffolding and possible pulley cranes and rolling logs. Perhaps over 10,000 workers for a project. You probably know a great deal more than me. I think Egyptian/Jew might have been more cooperative with mutual appreciation as Egyptian society was multi race and Islam had not yet appeared for many centuries. Also even in early Islam Jews were valued as doctors, teachers and other sophisticated societal needs. Perhaps you may comment about one thing particularly puzzling to me as Egyptians still in Copper Age(prior to Hittites) while seems it would need iron in construction tools to cut stone and I can’t imagine the precision cuts without modern machines and tech. As a Mason we are taught great respect for the ancient builders esp Solomon’s Temple and for the tools employed.
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The problem is that where is evidence for these supposedly skilled Jews? It certainly isn’t in the lands that the kingdoms of the Israelites were.
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My understanding is the biblical authors made Egyptians the villains in Exodus because they had a deep dislike of Yul Brynner.
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Hahahahaha
Esme.u.t.C
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The ancients, especially the Egyptian pharaohs, had the habit of winking villains and defeats completely out of their historical records.
It’s kind of how atheists do the same thing with Jesus, God, Christianity and the American Founding.
But so what?
Even the one considers the Bible like Homer’s Iliad, a work of fiction, the wisdom imbedded in its books is still unbelievably priceless.
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Modern archaeologists have found the Old Testament a valuable source of historical chronology, particular historical figures and geography of regions and cities as well as social anthropology of the cultures.
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really? Then how does the bible story about Tyre work?
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That isn’t true. The Egyptians do mention their enemies and do mention disasters in their kingdoms (funny how they missed the flood and the whole 10 plagues thing though) It seems that as usual SOM speaks without having a scrap of evidence for his nonsense. However, he inadvertently make a great point of why no one should believe his bible and the nonsense within it. It takes ignorance and fear to keep such a ridiculous reigion.
Hmmm, now SOM, where is the evidence that the US is based on Christianity? Where does it say in the Constitution “see bible” and why does the US Constitution repeatedly make laws in direct contradiction to the bible?
And wisdom? Sure, SOM. It’s wonderfully “wise” to say that one should make a woman marry her rapist, to enslave people, to ignore your family and follow someone who says leave them, to trust this god that does nothing. Again, please do show that worshpping your god is any better than worshipping any other god or none at all.
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see US News & World Report Jan 12, 2010: “Egypt: New Find Shows Slaves Didn’t Build Pyramids”.
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Of course not. The pyramids were built by illegal aliens. Illegal SPACE aliens that is!
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I’ve even heard that it started off as a wall to make good neighbours, but then someone thought they’d like to ‘do’ something with it to make it really say something different than Chinese version.
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I’ve heard the same thing. I sure wish we Americans had a leader who’d help us build a great wall. Walls and friends go together like chocolate on donuts.
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Robert Frost anyone?
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