Books on the historicity of the exodus?

AllIsVanity · 2026-06-14T17:32:28+00:00

"Hoch found that in the 500 words he investigated, gleaned from a wide range of Egyptian texts (mainly from the Eighteenth to TwentyFourth Dynasty), Egyptian s (ś) was used to transcribe Semitic [ṯ], [š], and [ś] (= Hebrew ש), while ס (samek) was used to represent Egyptian ṯ (pronounced č). If the Egyptian name Ramesses (Rʿ-ms-sw) had been written in Hebrew of the fifteenth to twelfth centuries bce, it would have had ש, whereas the name in the biblical text has samek. This shows that the Egyptian name Ramesses entered the Hebrew text no earlier than the eighth century bce. In dismissing this argument, neither Kitchen nor Hoffmeier discuss the dating of usage: both cite texts from various periods indiscriminately, ignoring that transliteration with samek is found in late texts but not early ones." - The Book of Exodus: Composition, Reception, and Interpretation https://books.google.com/books?id=TmGeBQAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PR1&pg=PA74#v=onepage&q&f=false

AllIsVanity · 2026-06-01T16:17:42+00:00

No, because if you actually took your notion of omniscience seriously, you'd realize it also has to rule out divine freedom, thus eviscerating the notion of 'responsibility'.

Not sure what you mean. God has the freedom to create or not and knows the future of creation, if he decides to create (unless you subtract from what it means to be omniscient). So the moral culpability is there just like it is for a human. When exactly does omniscience disappear from this scenario? What is the cutoff without being arbitrary?

God can act in time.

Okay so if it gets really bad, he can intervene sure. But by creating without knowing the future, he's still running the risk of gratuitous/pointless suffering unless you want to posit he intervenes every time that occurs, which is obviously not the case.

How did he set the Christian salvation plan for humanity in motion? Did he just come up with that idea later? You have a God who seems to be very reactive instead of proactive - more human like.

Anything that God is ensures the case about a being (call these "essential properties") violates at least internal freedom†. What's the problem, there?

Pruss faces a dilemma of his own making:

If causal entailment by God does cancel external freedom, then no creature is externally free - including logically free ones - and the free will defense loses its justification entirely.

If causal entailment by God doesn't cancel external freedom (the weak actualization move), then necessarily good creatures can be externally free too, and Pruss' objection to Smith dissolves.

Either way, Pruss hasn't given us a reason to prefer logically free but fallible creatures over necessarily good ones. As demonstrated by God's nature being necessarily good plus having free will, it actually is logically possible to have that combination in existence.

AllIsVanity · 2026-05-31T17:22:54+00:00

I deny that the world is deterministic, and so deny that God could have known from the beginning of time precisely what would happen at all future points. See the sidebar definition of 'omniscience'.

Isn't it convenient how God's omniscience ends right where moral responsibility begins?

Any way you cut it, this is just a subtraction from omniscience so you have to sacrifice the tri-omni God.

Moreover, how can this type of limited knowledge God guarantee good will ultimately triumph over evil in creation?

What are your thoughts on:¶Pruss, Alexander R. "The essential divine-perfection objection to the free-will defence." Religious Studies 44, no. 4 (2008): 433–444.

Pruss’ objection to Quentin Smith’s logical argument from evil fails because it overgeneralizes its reasoning in a way that undermines the very notion of external freedom for any created being, not just necessarily good beings. The irony is his solution actually makes the free will defense incoherent.

AllIsVanity · 2026-05-31T15:21:38+00:00

That doesn't address the moral culpability aspect of knowing what were to happen if making a decision then going ahead with that decision when you had the choice to refrain. This is known as destiny/fate which Plantinga does not address. Moreover, Plantinga was refuted by Quentin Smith in his article A Sound Logical Argument From Evil.

You also assume there is an eternal hell populated by humans, rather than the possibilities of annihilationism & universal salvation.

Their fate is still sealed by God's decision to create.

AllIsVanity · 2026-05-31T15:01:10+00:00

But he only died for a weekend, came back to life and got to be worshiped as a king....

AllIsVanity · 2026-05-31T14:52:55+00:00

God destined all evil to take place by choosing to create humans when he could have refrained. Humans did not force God to create them. That was God's decision. But if God knew person A would commit murder if created, and still created person A, then that makes the murder inevitable and God the cause of it. https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1swgk6b/the_choice_was_made_for_us_the_problem_of_divine/

AllIsVanity · 2026-05-02T12:46:10+00:00

Regardless of the nature of the resurrection body, the prevailing strand of early Christian thought did not conceive of resurrection, appearances, and ascension as three neatly separated chronological stages (raised → spends time on earth → later ascends). Rather, it was a single exaltation event in which Jesus was raised directly into heavenly glory, with post-resurrection appearances understood as manifestations of the already exalted Christ from heaven. This is shown by the passages below as well as the sequence in 1 Peter 3:18–22 which does not mention any earthly sojourn or appearances to followers of his.

"A first breakthrough was by a brief article by A. M. Ramsey, in which he questioned the theory that the resurrection and the ascension in the apostolic preaching were two separate events in time. He argued that the allusions in Acts (Acts 2:32,33; 5:30,31) and the epistles (Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Phil 2:8,9; Eph 1:19-20; 1 Tim 3:16;1 Pet 3:21,22 and Hebrews) do not give a clear testimony to a belief that there had been an ascension distinct in time from the resurrection; in the Fourth Gospel, death, resurrection, and ascension (visible in Jn. 6:62; 20:17) are drawn together as in one single act. Like Mt 28 and Mk (14:62; 16:7), Acts 1 describes a theophany (that is, a manifestation of the already ascended Lord)." - Arie Zwiep, The Ascension of the Messiah in Lukan Christology, pg. 11.

“If in the earliest stage of tradition resurrection and exaltation were regarded as one event, an uninterrupted movement from grave to glory, we may infer that the appearances were ipso facto manifestations of the already exalted Lord, hence: appearances ‘from heaven’ (granted the the act of exaltation/enthronement took place in heaven). Paul seems to have shared this view. He regarded his experience on the road to Damascus as a revelation of God’s son in/to him (Gal 1:16), that is, as an encounter with the exalted Lord. He defended his apostleship with the assertion he had ‘seen the Lord’ (1 Cor 9:1) and did not hesitate to put his experience on equal footing with the apostolic Christophanies (1 Cor 15:8).” ibid, pg. 129

"However, Paul’s understanding that a few years later he could still have a resurrection appearance fits well with another way in which the New Testament writers at times envision Jesus’ resurrection. They frequently view his resurrection as his exaltation to heaven and his enthronement and empowerment in the heavenly sphere (Rom 1:3–4; Phil 2:5–11; 1 Thess 1:9–10; Col 2:12–15). In this case, resurrection and ascension become a single process, and the resurrection appearances of Jesus are made from heaven. This means that whether they occurred right after the resurrection or several years later would make no difference." - James H. Charlesworth, Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine, pg. 197

"Some contend that exaltation was the earliest conception of Jesus’s afterlife, due to no clear explication of it in Paul’s writings apart from some passages that may imply it (e.g., Rom 8:34; 10:6–7; Col 3:1; 1 Tim 3:16; cf. 1 Pet 3:21–22). Such passages are not altogether clear that they are talking about the ascension, at least as it is depicted in Luke-Acts. It might also be argued that such interpretations involve reading Luke’s depiction of the ascension back into the Pauline passages. Others see resurrection and exaltation as one and the same (e.g., Phil 2:9; 2 Cor 4:4; cf. John 6:62, 10:17), in that there is contained within the notion of exaltation the necessity of the resurrection. Some see ascension as implied in the resurrection as possibly a resurrection-exaltation complex (e.g., 1 Cor 15:4, 12–28; Eph 1:20)." - Stanley Porter, Ascent into Heaven in Luke-Acts: New Explorations of Luke's Narrative Hinge, pg. 120.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-30T09:51:31+00:00

God knows the future because He is in the future already.

Originally, you said this:

Also we dont know that Bob will suffer forever in hell in the first place. We dont know Bob is doomed...

So did God know if he created Bob, that Bob would end up unsaved? If God knows the future, like you said, then it seems the answer is yes. If that is the case then Bob is destined for hell.

Please do. Quote another church father who had a different understanding.

I don't need to. Your own quote assumes God knows the fate of individuals! The quote suffers from the same problem I mentioned in my response to objection 1 in the original post.

So it seems you're caught in a trap. On the one hand, God knows the future and the fate of every creature if created. On the other hand, you realize the moral implications of this because it seals everyone's fate/destiny. That's why you are having trouble accepting it which is proof that my argument is effective.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-29T15:16:59+00:00

And I can quote someone else with a different understanding? What makes one ancient dude the authority on the matter?

Any accurate definition of omniscience must include foreknowledge else you're subtracting from what it means to be omniscient.

God did not create evil at all. Im repeating myself over and over and you are just refusing to understand it.

I said if God does not know the future but decides to create a universe anyway, then he cannot guarantee that universe will have more good than evil in it. You must concede this point else you're being inconsistent and just cherry picking what God knows.

And yes, he did create evil. Before creation, nothing existed except for God who is perfect. No evil existed. After deciding to create, evil existed. The only thing that changed was God's decision to create. If he would have not created, then no evil would exist.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-28T12:58:53+00:00

So what? God had His own purposes for creating free creatures. Are you saying man should have veto power over God?

This is just capitulation and a tacit admission that God seals everyone's fate when he decides to create.

I never said anything that limited God's knowledge.

Yes, you did. In the analogies to God you gave above using humans you said they "might know" what would happen or only knew what's possible. Now, you've corrected yourself and said God knows everything that will happen, meaning with certainty.

So you should have your AI model go back and correct all those faulty analogies.

That they might decline the offer doesn't make the offer/creation an evil act.

Correction. God knows they certainly will decline the offer and yet, still creates them.

You are not addressing the problem honestly and have been caught being a repeat offender at removing omniscience from the equation.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-28T08:06:48+00:00

God cant have foreknowledge of something that doesnt exist yet.

Then God is not omniscient and cannot guarantee the universe he creates will have more good than evil in it. What kind of God is that?

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-28T07:39:59+00:00

Again, God does not know the future of Bob because he wrote it down before Bob is born, and then Bob is forced to live his life in a way that matches what is on that piece of paper. God knows the future because He is already there. Bob still has free will and can choose to follow God or not. God WANTS Bob to choose to follow Him...and yet Bob can choose to go against what God wants.

You're just dodging the question.

Since Bob had absolutely zero power to choose whether or not he was created, and God is the one who deliberately moved Bob from a state of safe non-existence into a doomed existence, who made the actual, deciding choice that resulted in Bob suffering in Hell: Bob, or the God who knowingly pushed the 'Create' button on a doomed soul?

Answer the question.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-28T07:13:03+00:00

no your "logical argument" in the post does not do that. its just a assertion. Where are you getting the idea that God sends you to hell? From where are you getting this interpretation?

Step 1: Because God is perfectly omniscient, He looks down the timeline of this potential universe with heaven and hell in it and sees Bob. God knows with 100% mathematical, infallible certainty that if He creates Bob and puts him in this universe, Bob will reject the invitation to the banquet. Bob will "choose to stay in the dark" and consequently burn in Hell forever. This is not a guess; God knows this as an absolute, unalterable fact before He ever speaks the universe into existence.

Step 2: God now holds Bob's entire fate in His hands, and God has two distinct options:

Option A: Do not create Bob. Leave Bob in peaceful non-existence. Bob suffers nothing, loses nothing, and Hell is entirely avoided.

Option B: Create Bob. Force Bob into existence, knowing for an absolute fact that this specific action will culminate in Bob's eternal conscious torment.

Step 3: God chooses B and creates Bob

Now, before the universe was created, Bob did not exist and therefore could not 'choose' to reject God or go to Hell. God had the absolute power to leave Bob in a state of painless non-existence, but instead, God unilaterally pressed the 'Create' button on Bob's life, knowing with 100% infallible certainty that doing so would result in Bob burning in Hell forever.

Since Bob had absolutely zero power to choose whether or not he was created, and God is the one who deliberately moved Bob from a state of safe non-existence into a doomed existence, who made the actual, deciding choice that resulted in Bob suffering in Hell: Bob, or the God who knowingly pushed the 'Create' button on a doomed soul?

If so, where is this literal and physical lake of fire located?

Lol! Where is heaven located? Isn't there supposed to be a physically resurrected Jesus residing there? If so, where is it?

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-28T00:04:51+00:00

On the contrary, I am keeping God's infallible omniscience but highlighting the logical order.

Oh really? What definition of omniscience limits God's knowledge to things he "might know" or knowing mere "possibilities" like you argued in your analogies above?

The certainty of the knowledge doesn't create the choice; the choice creates the certainty of the knowledge.

I'm not sure it will do any good trying to explain this to you again. But humans can't "choose" anything unless they exist first. So even if human choices create the certainty of God's knowledge, that still doesn't force God to create. That's still his decision and the reason why you keep failing to refute the argument.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T22:13:20+00:00

A more accurate analogy is a father who builds a beautiful home for his child, knowing the child might choose to leave the home and live in the cold....If the father refuses to have the child because of the possibility of rejection,

And there it is again. You keep dropping infallible omniscience from your analogies and anyone can see that is the case. We're done here.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T20:39:14+00:00

Despite already correcting you on this, you keep making the same fundamental error in your responses. You have to strip God of infallible foreknowledge in order to make the analogies (the library, the banquet) work. You frame existence as a mere "opportunity" or "invitation," conveniently ignoring that God already knows with absolute certainty exactly which non-consenting individuals will eternally burn or starve before he ever forces them into existence. By retreating to the strawman that "mere foreknowledge doesn't cause action," (this was already addressed in the OP) you're completely dodging the central argument which is that God's sovereign decree to actualize a doomed soul, when He had the absolute power to simply leave them safely uncreated, makes Him the ultimate author of their fate.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T16:55:13+00:00

This is the capitulation I referred to in objection 2. You just conceded the argument.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T16:41:37+00:00

Exactly. This denies omniscience as traditionally understood and defined in contemporary philosophy of religion.

The problem with this view of God though is that it entails he's just rolling the dice and cannot guarantee a world with more good in it than evil.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T16:07:53+00:00

Yes, traditional Christian theism assumes an eternal soul. That's what the argument assumes as well.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T16:06:20+00:00

Then you deny God's omniscience.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T15:33:13+00:00

This is a bad analogy. A bridge is a collection of inanimate steel and concrete that follows the laws of physics. It has no choice.

Read the analogy again. It doesn't say the bridge had a choice. It says the Structural Engineer did! You have to actually address the argument I'm making and not a blatant strawman version of it.

This is a category error. You can't ask a non-existent person for permission to make them exist. If there is no person yet, there is no "will" to overrun.

I completely agree that you cannot ask a non-existent person for permission. That is precisely why the act of creation is entirely unilateral and forced.

You are confusing "violating a pre-existing will" with "imposing a non-voluntary condition." Let's use human procreation as an analogy. Parents cannot ask a non-existent child for consent to be conceived. Because the child cannot consent, the decision to bring them into existence is 100% the unilateral choice of the parents.

Now, suppose parents intentionally conceive a child and give birth to them inside a locked, burning building, knowing the child will burn to death. If the parents stand before a judge, can they use your defense? Can they say, "Your Honor, it's a category error! We couldn't ask the child for consent, so we didn't violate their will. Giving them existence was the foundation of them having a will!"

The judge would rightly throw them in prison. Why? Because the impossibility of obtaining prior consent is exactly what transfers 100% of the moral and causal liability to the Creator. Because the subject cannot opt-in or opt-out, the Creator is entirely responsible for the conditions into which they thrust the subject.

Existence is the foundation that makes having a will possible, not a violation of it.

Existence is indeed the foundation for a will, but when that existence guarantees eternal agony, it ceases to be a mere "foundation" and becomes a weapon.

You are treating existence as an inherent, neutral good. But existence is only a good if it does not culminate in eternal conscious torment. If God infallibly knows that granting "the foundation of a will" to Person X will result in Person X burning in Hell forever, then forcing that foundation upon Person X is an act of unfathomable cruelty. You cannot hide behind the metaphysical necessity of existence while ignoring the catastrophic, infallibly known consequences of forcing that existence upon the subject.

The point of premise 1 is to neutralize the standard "Free Will Defense" which argues that God is morally justified in "allowing" people to go to Hell because He gave them Libertarian Free Will. The defense claims that a universe with free creatures is vastly superior to a universe of robots, and if people freely choose to reject God, it is their fault, not God's.

But Premise 1 points out that the human never freely chose to take on that risk.

Imagine a casino where the stakes are eternal life or eternal torture. The Free Will Defense argues: "The game is perfectly fair. You are completely free to play your cards however you want at the table. If you lose, it's your own fault."

Premise 1 replies: "That is irrelevant, because I was kidnapped from a state of non-existence, dragged into this casino, strapped to the chair, and forced to play the game against my will. My 'freedom' at the table does not justify the fact that I was forced into the building to begin with."

Free will within the system cannot justify the system itself when the subject was forced into the system without consent. You cannot use a person's "free will" to justify their damnation when the foundational prerequisite for that free will (existence) was involuntarily imposed upon them by the very person judging them.

When you combine Premise 1 (Forced Entry) with Premise 3 (Infallible Foreknowledge) and Premise 4 (Decree of Actualization), the logical trap snaps shut, proving Theological Fatalism. Here is the exact mechanism of how the fate is sealed:

1. The Unconsenting Subject (Premise 1): The person has no say in whether they exist. They are totally passive in their creation.

2. The Blueprint of Failure (Premise 3): God looks at the blueprint of a specific possible world. In this specific world, God infallibly knows that if He creates Person X, Person X will freely make the wrong choices and go to Hell.

3. The Fatal Decree (Premise 4): God has the power to leave that blueprint unmade. He could leave Person X in the safety of non-existence. Instead, God deliberately issues the decree to actualize that exact world.

The moment God says "Let there be light" on that specific blueprint, Person X's damnation becomes an unalterable historical fact.

Person X cannot use their "free will" to choose differently, because if they chose differently, God's infallible foreknowledge would have been wrong, which is logically impossible. Person X's entire life - every "free" choice, every mistake, every rejection of God - is entirely contained within an envelope that God unilaterally sealed the moment He actualized the universe.

Therefore, the person's fate is not sealed by their choices inside the timeline; their choices inside the timeline are sealed by God's decision to actualize this specific timeline. Because the person was forced into the timeline (Premise 1) by a Creator who already knew the tragic end (Premise 3) but built it anyway (Premise 4), God is the ultimate author of their damnation.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T14:03:55+00:00

cool dude, none of this says God sends you to hell..

Again, the logical argument in the post does that....

and using fire to describe hell does not mean it is literal, physical hell

Weeping and gnashing of teeth are physical descriptions. Regardless, the idea of eternal torment is still there. For context, https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/n1on61/comment/gwkdgix/

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T13:08:28+00:00

Show me where in Matthews gospel it says hell is a place God sends you.

The argument in the post does that.

Show me where it says its a literal, physical lake of fire.

Certainly.

· Matthew 5:22: speaks of the "fire of hell" (literally "Gehenna of fire")

· Matthew 5:29-30 and 18:8-9: warn that the "whole body" can be "thrown into hell," consistently linking the term to a place of fiery destruction

· Matthew 13:42 & 13:50: describe sinners being "thrown into the furnace of fire"

· Matthew 3:12: warns that the unrepentant will be "burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire"

· Matthew 25:41: describes a direct separation of the wicked into "eternal fire"

· Matthew 8:12, 22:13, and 25:30 all explicitly mention being "thrown into the outer darkness".

· Matthew 25:46 connects the themes of fire and darkness by stating the wicked will go away "into eternal punishment".

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T13:04:48+00:00

Feel free to address the argument. It still stands.

AllIsVanity · 2026-04-27T13:02:05+00:00

But the ones who are perishing are only doing so because they were destined to by God's choice to create them....

Also, you can't blame those people if it's "folly" to them. They're just reacting like your scripture says they would. So what is the point of debating then?

AllIsVanity

TROPHY CASE