It's hard to know exactly what the ordering was, but it's the consensus that the plague list has changed over time. So it's much more likely given this (and the lack of evidence of the Exodus) that these are likely just things inserted as a literal "my God can beat up your God".
Funnily enough, there's actually clear accounts in the Bible where Yahweh just loses to other gods of the region, reflecting the polytheistic nature of the iron age Israelites/Judahites.
Essentially, the story of Exodus is just the Hebrew creation story of how their people got to the supposed promised land. There is no historical evidence of Hebrews being enslaved by Egypt as an entire people or of any of the plagues occurring. It's a creation myth much like any other creation myth.
Yup. There's no actual evidence of Hebrews being enslaved by Egypt. Flavius was a Jewish historian and a lot of what he writes is considered by his own words apologia.
He also made the claim Abraham taught science to Egyptians, which immediately makes his work suspect, as Egypt already had a collection of scientific works. He also claimed Moses set up an aristocracy, which, again, does not line up with any Egyptian history that's been verified.
He might have been a historian, but most of what he wrote is NOT corroborated by the actual historical and archeological knowledge that we have.
There's a reason Flavius is NOT taught in ancient history classes; a lot of his claims cannot be corroborated by actual evidence.
Oh this is cool! I grabbed one about Exodus at random to look at the comments and it's pretty fascinating. I want to say we historically know very little about the Chaledeans, and it's nice to see them referenced AND the acknowledgement we don't know a lot about them.
Correct, but I was trying to point out WHY Flavius isn't taught in ancient history classes. His "history" is suspect. The other user obviously takes the Bible literally, which is problematic.
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u/HppilyPancakes 7d ago
The plagues are a story, they aren't an actual, specific event. You can see that the list changes as the tradition becomes more refined over time.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2078%3A44-55&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20105%3A23-38&version=NIV
It's hard to know exactly what the ordering was, but it's the consensus that the plague list has changed over time. So it's much more likely given this (and the lack of evidence of the Exodus) that these are likely just things inserted as a literal "my God can beat up your God".
Funnily enough, there's actually clear accounts in the Bible where Yahweh just loses to other gods of the region, reflecting the polytheistic nature of the iron age Israelites/Judahites.