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July 05, 2006
New "Documentary" on the Exodus
Jim West addressed this a couple of days ago and I didn't say anything here at the time because . . . well, I can't remember why. I did leave a comment on Jim's post and so did Yakov Ben Josef. Yakov's comment is well worth reading.
The Jerusalem Post has the story. A New Documentary by Israeli-born filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and narrated by James Cameron claims to have found new evidence that both supports the fact of the Exodus and places it "1500 BCE, about 230 years before the date most commonly accepted by contemporary historians." The documentary is called "The Exodus Decoded." The title itself should be a clue. Any time you see the word "decoded" and it isn't related to a "decoder ring" their is reason to be suspicious.
There are other reasons to be suspicious even without looking at the evidence. As the article says,
None of the relics - or arguments - cited in the made-for-TV, state-of-the-art film, which is the result of six years of research, has been accepted by archeologists or any prominent archeological institution as proof for Jacobovici's theory.
And that should raise concern. If neither the evidence nor the arguments are accepted by archeologists then there is every reason to think that there is nothing here to accept. This is one of Yakov's points. Not that archeologists are always right. And they often change their collective minds even as some hold on to outdated ideas. But if a new idea does not gain and hold support among the professional community then there is no reason to believe it until it does.
What really struck me was the anti-professional arrogance shown by Jacobovici,
And Jacobovici, who has produced an array of documentaries over the last two decades on subjects ranging from suicide bombing in Israel to the ebola virus to the global sex trade, readily agrees that he is no archeologist. But he asserts that this makes him no less qualified to investigate historical facts."I bring with me the same skills you bring to any investigation, whether it is sex trafficking, politics, terror or the Biblical archeological story," said the two-time Emmy award-winner, denouncing "minimalists" who say that the Exodus - and the Bible - is a fantastic fairy tale.
"I think it is a mistake when you have a situation in archeology where some academics have set themselves up as some sort of priesthood between us and the Bible," he added. [emphasis added]
I cannot help but wonder how Jacobovici would feel is an archeologist made a bad documentary with inferior special effects and disjointed narrative and then claimed that a priesthood of movie professionals stood between him and an Oscar. Not that the Oscars are always on target either.
Now I don't know when the Exodus took place or even if there was such a thing in a form anything like what is described in the Hebrew Bible, but I'm fairly sure Jacobovice doesn't either. On the other hand, I would like to know what his evidence is, particularly the "hieroglyphic inscription discovered in an Egyptian museum that attests to the Exodus." How old is this inscription and perhaps more importantly, what does it say. The stuff about the ten plagues being caused by "a volcanic eruption on a Greek island that occurred 3,500 years ago," clearly is the result of genre confusion combined with a long discredited attempt to find very direct natural explanations for miracles. Perhaps this makes more sense than Velikovsky's efforts but not much more.
It would be nice to see a well-done documentary on what archeologists and biblical scholars do think about the Exodus rather than one that features what they don't think.
Posted by DuaneSmith at July 5, 2006 07:46 AM | Read more on Hebrew Bible |
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