## Link https://youtu.be/H-YlzpUhnxQ?si=h6WJqIJS27aJq01k ## Clips ### It's been a long day I'm just gonna tell jokes start = 0:36 end = 0:43 ### The written sources that gave us the story of the Exodus in the first place didn't used to seem they provided us with the best information on this subject, but suddenly they do in light of some surprising archaeology start = 1:50 end = 3:27 ### Let's grant all the points anyone wants to make about details, but these have nothing to do on whether the story is based on something that happened start = 2:50 end = 3:27 ### Oldest sources, Song of the Sea and J don't give any numbers, the inflated numbers come from P start = 3:27 end = 4:52 ### All the arguments about little details don't matter, let's grant them all, don't get distracted from what recent archaeology is shouting start = 5:18 end = 8:11 ### The earliest prose sources are J and E, and people who know better keep referring to this as a problem of "the names of God," the issue is that the name becomes known to different groups at different times because two groups merged start = 9:13 end = 10:06 ### The Narrator in the J source never once refers to the deity as Elohim start = 10:06 end = 10:45 ### Source identification is an overconstrained problem and the constraints are all consistent, which shouldn't be possible unless they're separate sources start = 10:45 end = 12:24 ### The name YHWH is used in Genesis 1, so why did two of the main authors of the Torah come to the same odd conclusion that the name YHWH was not revealed until Moses, later in the book start = 12:23 end = 13:24 ### We attribute these sources E and P to Levite sources, the priestly folks, which means not all the Israelites were part of the Egypt experience and the Exodus, only the Levites start = 13:24 end = 13:55 ### Song of Deborah, from 12th or 11th century BCE, lists the names of the tribes of Israel, and doesn't include Levi. Why? Well either because the Levites were not there yet, they were in Egypt or on the road start = 13:55 end = 14:53 ### Also it is the three sources from the Levites, E, P and D, that tell the stories of the plagues and the Exodus from Egypt start = 14:53 end = 15:06 ### These accounts in Exodus are from E and P, while J jumps over most of the Moses story, J spends more space on the era of the patriarchs, that is the pre-Egypt period start = 15:06 end = 15:47 ### Everything changes in P when that source gets to Egypt, it's the Levites who had the Egypt connection both in their names, their architecture, and in the history and holidays they taught their people start = 15:47 end = 16:28 ### The non Levite source J knows nothing about Egypt start = 16:28 end = 17:01 ### Meanwhile in the other oldest thing in the bible, Song of the Sea, the god associated with that song is named 9 times and all 9 times that name is YHWH, moreover the Song of the Sea never mentions the whole nation of Israel or the word Israel at all start = 17:01 end = 17:53 ### So Deborah which is set in Israel doesn't mention the Levites, and Song of the Sea which is set in Egypt doesn't mention all of Israel start = 17:44 end = 17:53 ### Not all of Israel took the Exodus, only the Levites did start = 18:53 end = 19:15 ### The Levites were in Egypt, they left around 1200-1100 BC (exactly when the so called Bronze age collapse occurred), they came to worship a god named YHWH, possibly under the influence of a Midianite religious connection, which J and E reported and P did everything possible to undermine, leaving out Moses's stay in Midian, instead reporting that Moses ordered the execution of the Midianites despite having a Midianite wife start = 19:15 end = 19:51 ### They arrived in the land where they found Israelite tribes with whom they felt kinship, or with whom they felt kinship, or with whom they chose to connect because of their political and military status, but these Levites are not people to whom one says no start = 19:54 end = 20:27 ### The Levites are not people you say no to, the stories about them in 4 different sources are stories about violence, and Levi start = 20:09 end = 20:46 ### You don't mess with the Levites start = 20:43 end = 20:47 ### So a compact is reached, the Levites have no tribal territory but they get a few cities and 10% of the Israelite tribes produce in their role as the priests and teachers of Israel. But priests of what God? El is their chief God. So is it to be El or YHWH? start = 20:53 end = 21:16 ### El is their chief God. So is it to be El or YHWH? They could have chosen to worship both, they could have chosen one or the other, they could have said that El is YHWH's father, or son, but they chose to say El is YHWH, he was always YHWH, but the Israelites in the land (typo: he meant to say Levites) had not known his name until they went from Egypt to Israel. He revealed it to their leader Moses. The sources E and P say the revelation of this name to their leader Moses was a major point in their history, but the author of the J source who was living in the same period the 10th to 8th century, couldn't care less and so just included the story without including that transition start = 21:08 end = 22:22 ### Reasons the war people in our story may reasonably get convinced to join the war god start = 22:35 end = 24:35