The Logical Atheist

The Jewish holiday of Passover is coming up. (It begins at sundown on April 5.) The first two nights are spent at family or community gatherings called seders ( seder is Hebrew for order ), the ritual meals where the story of the exodus from Egypt is recounted. The book containing the story and the steps in the ritual is called the Haggadah, which is believed to have been first assembled in 1000 CE. I don't wish here to explore the reasons we can be confident that this story is a mere fable. Suffice it to say that archaeologists have yet to find evidence that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt or that 2-3 million Israelites spent 40 years crossing the Sinai wilderness before invading Canaan and slaughtering its inhabitants because Yahweh had promised the land of "milk and honey" to the chosen tribe. Here I want only to draw attention to one important aspect of the seder, namely, the description of four sons, or types of children. The "wise" child wants to kn...

Passover begins tonight, that joyous time of year when Jews the world over remind themselves of how great Yahweh is. At least that's what Yahweh wants them and the adherents of the offshoot religions, Christianity and Islam, to do. In the relevant text, Yahweh repeatedly reminds readers that he is the one who led them out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. The warning is clear: do not forget what Yahweh did for you -- not only your distant ancestors but you  -- or you're a bad person and will suffer severe consequences. But is that the whole story? In this post I am taking the book of Exodus, which is excerpted in the Haggadah, which Jews read at their two seders (I've been there), at face value. Needless to say (?), there is little or nothing of historical accuracy in that book. Archeologists have failed to find evidence of any kind to support the claim that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt or that a mass exodus from Egypt to Canaan ever occurred. But let's w...