Easter Questions

[Thorne]

Do you mean the moral code of the 10 commandments?

No, the moral Code of Hammurabi, from which the 10 commandments derive. Or maybe just the basic moral code of people: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It doesn't take a god to know what's right.

Maybe one problem is that in the absense of religious codes or any other commonly accepted codes many people go astray and do weird stuff, like killing other people, or wrecking the planet.

Do you really think religious codes change that? Look at the Inquisition, the mess of the Middle East, Ireland, 9/11, or pedophile priests/rabbis/preachers. I'm not saying religions CAUSE all of these things, but they don't seem to do anything to prevent them, either. If you think it's okay to kill someone because God told you to, you belong in an asylum, not a church.

[Thorne]

The answer could be that gods are not something we can really understand, so we create an image from ourselves - what we understand - and give them human weaknesses.

On the contrary, gods are very easy to understand. We create them to serve our own purposes.

[Thorne]

its actually more specifically a re-defining of the Jewish Passover by the early Christians who were Jewish

Yes, Passover, the celebration of another fictional event. Don't get me started!

[thir]

Knowledge is not evil in itself. It is only in our applications of that knowledge that we find evil. But willful ignorance is far more evil. Ignorance is the birthplace of the gods. It allows people to accept supernatural explanations for perfectly natural occurrences which they do not understand. The search for knowledge allows us to throw off the supernatural and understand how the world around us works. If you accept lightning as a punishment from a god, you are always going to find yourself at the mercy of the thunderstorms. But if you study it and learn its nature, you can protect yourself with a piece of metal and some wire! It's a pretty woeful god whose wrath can be deflected by a simple lightning rod!

It is true that knowledge can set us free from some fears, but they can start others - like when will the vulcano in Yellowstone pop? When will worldwar 3 start? When will the virus come that will kill us all? And other sunny ideas...

The other argument was that our technology is incredible and can create many things, but without any wisdom on what to do with it. So though knowledge is not evil in itself it can be turned to evil, and so often is. Maybe we are not ready so have so much knowledge.

Sadly, I have to go along with the idea that we are born brutes. I'm having the pleasure of watching my two granddaughters grow up, having the time to really observe them that I didn't really have with my own children. And I'm finding that children are greedy, selfish and cruel on their own. We have to teach them to share and not to hit others and that they can't have everything they want. We have the capacity to be good, but it is not innate within us. It's a learning process, lifelong.

I do not see why we should be like that by nature. I have worked with children many years, and while many are like you say, they are normally not only like that, but can also be helpfull and kind to others, depending on situations and their own mood at the moment.

But aren't siblings often quite hard on each other?

[IAN 2411]

Do you mean the moral code of the 10 commandments?

1. You shall have no other Gods but me.
2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
5. Respect your father and mother.
6. You must not kill.
7. You must not commit adultery.
8. You must not steal.
9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Let’s be fair thir, that apart from first four that are only relevant to the religion of Moses, the other six are basic laws that even in those days most people adhered to. How big do you think those tablets of stone would have to be, to have written on them all it states in the bible? Moses had to walk off the mountain with these. I think that if the truth was known he went up the mountain with his papyrus and wrote them himself. Remember, Moses was brought up and educated by the Pharaohs and all the people he was leading were uneducated slaves. This leaves us with only hear say and the word of Moses that it had ever taken place.

Are we really born with evil and good? But what is that exactly? And how does that get into our genes?

I believe we have these senses not inside of us at birth, but when we are young and innocent the teachings we are given indoctrinates us with both.

Example: - teacher to a class full of infants, you must not kill it is evil, love thy neighbour...ok that’s all well and good saying that, but up until that point they were loving their neighbour, but the teacher has now has implanted in their mind, evil.

That is a little harsh and things are probably indoctrinated into the infant mind in more subtle ways, but you have to learn evil to know evil.

Maybe one problem is that in the absence of religious codes or any other commonly accepted codes many people go astray and do weird stuff, like killing other people, or wrecking the planet.

In most cases greed causes the going astray, take killing, it is for money, or because a person loves another and needs freedom. Killing in anger could be put down to the need of a better and quieter life, but it is still greed for something the killer has not got of some type. Very few crimes throughout the world are not related to greed, even wars.

To be sure survival is in our genes, but we simply no longer know how to live off the land. It does take skill and knowledge. Without electricity, heating, tools, very few people would know what to do. How many can farm? How many can hunt with weapons made off the land directly? How many people know what you can or cannot eat of what you may find?

I have no choice but disagree on this point thir, remember the aircraft that crashed on the mountain. The survivors were a mixed bunch of ordinary people of any street in the world. However after all the food on board the aircraft had been eaten, they turned to cannibalism and started to eat the flesh of the dead. A revolting thought? Yes it is, but that is survival being shown at its best. As I stated earlier, we all want to see the next sunrise.

I would like to point out that all the above is only my opinion, and in no way am I rubbishing anyones religious belief's.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

It is true that knowledge can set us free from some fears, but they can start others - like when will the vulcano in Yellowstone pop? When will worldwar 3 start? When will the virus come that will kill us all? And other sunny ideas...

Would being ignorant of these possibilities make them any less likely? Knowing the dangers of Yellowstone, we can at least try to get some idea of when it will pop, and perhaps do something to prepare. If nothing else, perhaps we could save some lives by starting evacuations sooner. Knowing the potential for WW3, perhaps we can find ways to prevent it from starting. By learning all we can about viruses, perhaps we can find a cure, before that supervirus kills us all. Ignorance of the Black Plague did not help the people of Europe. Indeed, their ignorance made things worse.

The other argument was that our technology is incredible and can create many things, but without any wisdom on what to do with it. So though knowledge is not evil in itself it can be turned to evil, and so often is. Maybe we are not ready so have so much knowledge.

This is, and will always be, the flip side of the knowledge coin. When the first spear was invented, it's purpose was to aid men in hunting, making for safer, surer kills, and a steadier food supply. But that spear was just as effective at killing men. Should we have remained ignorant beasts grubbing our way across the plains, feeding on the scraps left behind by the lions and jackals? I think that the positives of knowledge and advancement almost always outweigh the negatives. If our neighbor insists on making swords, perhaps we can learn to make shields.

I do not see why we should be like that by nature. I have worked with children many years, and while many are like you say, they are normally not only like that, but can also be helpfull and kind to others, depending on situations and their own mood at the moment.

Yes, they can be kind, but the selfishness is always just below the surface. I watch one of the girls playing with a toy, and inevitably the other wants it, and will try to take it. We can teach them to share, that it's wrong to take things from others. And they will learn. It takes time and patience, but they do learn.

But aren't siblings often quite hard on each other?

In this case they're cousins, but yes, siblings do tend to be hard on one another. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say.

[Thorne]

This leaves us with only hear say and the word of Moses that it had ever taken place.

Not even that. Evidence seems to indicate that Moses and the Exodus are complete fictions. They are the tales of priests used to teach their god's laws to the uneducated.

[denuseri]

It may help if you didn't only look for information on such things from pro-aethiest /anti-religion sites Thorne and instead stuck to academic sources....your so far off base claiming the Exodus is completely fictitious and couldn't have happened it isn't even funny.

Is it contested? Yes.

Why is it still contested?

There is a long standing schism between the narrow minded fuddy duddies in the field who simply can't stomach anything in the Bible as being construed as right and a much more open minded group who has often found a root of truth in most myths and legends of the ancient world.

I would put more faith in the open minded group if I were you...afterall...they discovered whats now commonly believed to be Troy, the Hittites, Babylon, perhaps even Atlantis and the most likely site for the Garden of Eden itself etc etc.

And all with fully supported cross disciplinary peer reviewed science!

Early mistakes in interpretations of the dates in the Torah lead to a narrow focus within the field to search for evidence in one very narrow window of time.

Collaborating data from other periods however (proved the earlier assumptions about the dates were indeed wrong) and corresponding periods have shown that a group of non-eygptian people did in fact live in lower Egypt and left during a time of well documented great calamity (most likely brought on by the eruption of Thera in combination with a terrible series of droughts and other terrible things some of which match the "10 plages" in great detail ) who subsequently migrated into Cannan (becoming a huge well documented pain in their assess instead).

[ksst]

Original sin- was eating the apple after God said leave it alone. Or sex. You know, apples and sex sometimes get confused. There was temptation, and the snake, being very phallic and all, tempted Eve. Before the apple, they were naked and happy in the garden. After the apple, which Eve shared with Adam, thus tempting him as well, they were naked and ashamed, and were kicked out of the garden. Of course, there were no apples in biblical times in those lands, so really it was some other fruit...

It does get kind of kooky, apologies to devout Christians, but really....

[IAN 2411]

Original sin- was eating the apple after God said leave it alone. Or sex. You know, apples and sex sometimes get confused. There was temptation, and the snake, being very phallic and all, tempted Eve. Before the apple, they were naked and happy in the garden. After the apple, which Eve shared with Adam, thus tempting him as well, they were naked and ashamed, and were kicked out of the garden. Of course, there were no apples in biblical times in those lands, so really it was some other fruit...

It does get kind of kooky, apologies to devout Christians, but really....

If this is to be believed please tell me who remembered the beginning of man that is referred to as Adam and Eve, Cain and Able etc. Once again this is all hear say and those that know the beginning are dead and most probably couldn’t write. This has to be just a very good story written by a person unknown. I find it very hard to believe that people in the 21st century still don’t believe in evolution. Or do they only believe in evolution when circumstances need them to, just as they only believe in the bible when there is a real need to call on GOD.

Ksst...I have never been confused between apples and sex, I’m just not that kinky.

Be well IAN 2411

[Thorne]

There is a long standing schism between the narrow minded fuddy duddies in the field who simply can't stomach anything in the Bible as being construed as right and a much more open minded group who has often found a root of truth in most myths and legends of the ancient world.

There is usually a root of truth in all myths and legends. Story tellers take a normal but unusual occurrence and start adding bells and whistles until you have the makings of a rollicking tale of wonder. The problems start when people start accepting the story as true rather than just a story.

Yes, there were several groups of people who left Egypt at times, for various reasons. They weren't slaves, and they weren't Hebrews, although they may have been the group which eventually became the Hebrews. Most assuredly there weren't millions of them and they didn't spend 40 years in one of the most desolate wastelands on the planet. Kernels of truth, inflated like popcorn to fuel the myth. But people aren't worshiping the truth, they worship the myth!

It's the same with the Ark stories. There are similar stories all over the world, because people tended to build their cities near water, which sometimes flooded, sometimes catastrophically. That doesn't mean there was a world-wide flood that wiped out all but a handful of people. And it doesn't make all those fools spending their money searching Mount Ararat "open minded". They are far more concerned with proving the myth than with finding the truth behind the myth.

Certainly there are historical people and places in the Bible. Most good authors will include such things in their fictions. They add a certain degree of believability to the tales. But just because someone has located a place that, with a lot of imagination, just might resemble the Biblical description of Eden, doesn't mean that the human race was started there by two people who suddenly realized they had no clothes. Just because a Roman governor named Pontius Pilate actually ruled in Judea in the first century doesn't mean that he condemned an itinerant rabbi to crucifixion and that rabbi was miraculously raised from the dead according to prophecy. Especially when those telling the tale have to distort the truth so immensely to try to fit those prophecies, even though the prophecies weren't intended as prophecy!

So yes, use the Bible as a starting point to find the bits of truth behind the myths. Don't use it as proof that the myth is truth.

[Thorne]

Original sin- was eating the apple after God said leave it alone. Or sex.

No, the sin was in fashioning coverings from fig leaves to hide their genitalia. Because God just LOVES him some good genitalia!

[thir]

No, the moral Code of Hammurabi, from which the 10 commandments derive. Or maybe just the basic moral code of people: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It doesn't take a god to know what's right.

It isn't simple, is it? People do different things all over the world, and they all think they are doing the right thing!

Do you really think religious codes change that?

No. I just think that, since we live the way we do, we need some sort of codes. We do not have the natural behaviour of small tight communities any more, so we need something. I am not talking religious codes, just codes. Rather than greed and violence and total lack of respect for others.

Look at the Inquisition, the mess of the Middle East, Ireland, 9/11, or pedophile priests/rabbis/preachers. I'm not saying religions CAUSE all of these things, but they don't seem to do anything to prevent them, either. If you think it's okay to kill someone because God told you to, you belong in an asylum, not a church.

You are preaching to the converted ;-))

[denuseri]

Original sin- was eating the apple after God said leave it alone. Or sex. You know, apples and sex sometimes get confused. There was temptation, and the snake, being very phallic and all, tempted Eve. Before the apple, they were naked and happy in the garden. After the apple, which Eve shared with Adam, thus tempting him as well, they were naked and ashamed, and were kicked out of the garden. Of course, there were no apples in biblical times in those lands, so really it was some other fruit...

It does get kind of kooky, apologies to devout Christians, but really....

You can thank the western medieval artists for the apple bit ... all the early Bibles reference is a "fruit". Some theologians theorize that because fig leafs are mentioned it may have been a fig, others believe it was perhaps grapes.

All in all as far as mythological stories go I personally don't see it as any more or less "kooky" than any other cultures creation stories.

[thir]

5. Respect your father and mother.
6. You must not kill.
7. You must not commit adultery.
8. You must not steal.
9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
10. You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Let’s be fair thir, that apart from first four that are only relevant to the religion of Moses, the other six are basic laws that even in those days most people adhered to.

I don't think so, different people different rules. As far as I know, with many tribes it is a sport to steal from each other, including women. Honor killings are an old system, as well as revenge killings. So are wars.

How big do you think those tablets of stone would have to be, to have written on them all it states in the bible? Moses had to walk off the mountain with these. I think that if the truth was known he went up the mountain with his papyrus and wrote them himself. Remember, Moses was brought up and educated by the Pharaohs and all the people he was leading were uneducated slaves. This leaves us with only hear say and the word of Moses that it had ever taken place.

Interesting thought. Where did Moses get his ideas from? Apparently these things were not self-evident, or there would have been no need to present them like that. He must have needed to unite the tribes as one people in much the same way as Mohammed did in his time. But from where did he get his ideas?? He did come from a polytheistic culture like the Egyptian one was at that time, and the Hebrews themselves were not mono-theistic.

As a matter of fact, the whole story about Moses is so interesting! Why did he do what he did? What about the 7 plagues? What happened with the Red Sea? And where on earth did he think he was going with all these people??

In most cases greed causes the going astray, take killing, it is for money, or because a person loves another and needs freedom. Killing in anger could be put down to the need of a better and quieter life, but it is still greed for something the killer has not got of some type. Very few crimes throughout the world are not related to greed, even wars.

So what can we do about it? Maybe stop having greed as a celbrated life-style, for one thing. Maybe start to value other things.

[thir]

They may not have been perfect, but the Romans were pretty damned good at killing people. That was the purpose of the spear in the side, to make sure the person was dead.

Then maybe they did in fact make sure that he died quickly - maybe to get it over with and avoid any more riots than neccesary.

Josephus' text was written some 60 years or more after the death of Jesus, and would have relied heavily upon Christian documents.

Why? he was a historian, simply, not a religious person.

[quote]
Some of the writings of Josephus regarding Jesus have been questioned, since they don't seem to be of the same quality of writing that he used.
[/quite]

I am not sure what you mean by 'quality'? But it seems to be just a short notice, anyway.

[thir]

It is true that knowledge can set us free from some fears, but they can start others - like when will the vulcano in Yellowstone pop? When will worldwar 3 start? When will the virus come that will kill us all? And other sunny ideas...

Would being ignorant of these possibilities make them any less likely?

Of course not - well, maybe ww3..but you said knowledge freed us from fear, and I just said there are always threaths, we cannot be freed from fear, it is part of any life, religious or not.

The other argument was that our technology is incredible and can create many things, but without any wisdom on what to do with it. So though knowledge is not evil in itself it can be turned to evil, and so often is. Maybe we are not ready so have so much knowledge.

This is, and will always be, the flip side of the knowledge coin. When the first spear was invented, it's purpose was to aid men in hunting, making for safer, surer kills, and a steadier food supply. But that spear was just as effective at killing men. Should we have remained ignorant beasts grubbing our way across the plains, feeding on the scraps left behind by the lions and jackals? I think that the positives of knowledge and advancement almost always outweigh the negatives. If our neighbor insists on making swords, perhaps we can learn to make shields.

I do not think they always do, but let's agree do disagree here, I cannot ad anything new.

[thir]

On the contrary, gods are very easy to understand. We create them to serve our own purposes.

You think that makes them easy to understand??

[thir]

Yes, Passover, the celebration of another fictional event. Don't get me started!

Well, they are not still in Egypt. So they got out, somehow, right?

[thir]

You can thank the western medieval artists for the apple bit ... all the early Bibles reference is a "fruit". Some theologians theorize that because fig leafs are mentioned it may have been a fig, others believe it was perhaps grapes.

Apples seem to have magical or mythical meanings, so maybe natural that it was chosen. I personally do not think the details are important.

All in all as far as mythological stories go I personally don't see it as any more or less "kooky" than any other cultures creation stories.

Is it a creation story? Many cultures have creation stories, naturally enough, but this one is an original sin story, not the same things IMO.

[thir]

I hope you Christians (and others) out there have not lost heart at this point - there is one more thing I would very much like to ask:

I have wondered for many years why Christmas is a much bigger Christian celebration than Easter?

I would have thought that Easter - with the resurrection - would be the crown of the events, the big victory over death! Also the cross was taken as a symbol for Christianity (by whom?) so again you'd think that Easter would be the really most important celebration, and a cause for great joy.

So, can anyone tell me why it isn't? Maybe it was, originally?

[Thorne]

Where did Moses get his ideas from? Apparently these things were not self-evident, or there would have been no need to present them like that. He must have needed to unite the tribes as one people in much the same way as Mohammed did in his time. But from where did he get his ideas?? He did come from a polytheistic culture like the Egyptian one was at that time, and the Hebrews themselves were not mono-theistic.

As a matter of fact, the whole story about Moses is so interesting! Why did he do what he did? What about the 7 plagues? What happened with the Red Sea? And where on earth did he think he was going with all these people??

As a matter of fact, the whole story about Moses seems to be fiction! There's no independent evidence that he ever existed, no evidence that there were ever Jews enslaved in Egypt, at least not in the vast numbers portrayed in the Bible, no evidence of a Hebrew Exodus, no evidence of millions of people spending 40 years in Sinai. Last I heard, even some Jewish scholars now doubt that Moses, even if he existed, ever wrote the first five books of the Bible, as has been traditionally believed. It's all myths and story telling, teaching tools for uneducated people. Aside from some of the more arcane dietary and clothing laws of the Bible, there is nothing in there that wasn't common in most of the earlier cultures around the world at the time. The Hebrews/Jews just adopted those that worked for them, changed those that needed to be changed to agree with their own beliefs, then wrote it up as if they invented it.

[Thorne]

Then maybe they did in fact make sure that he died quickly - maybe to get it over with and avoid any more riots than neccesary.

What riots? This was a man selected by the Jewish people to be executed. Why would they riot about it? And killing him quickly negates the whole purpose of crucifixion, which was to humiliate and torture the victim for as long as possible, as an example. No, from an historical perspective, the whole story makes little sense.

Why? he was a historian, simply, not a religious person.

Yes, but he was also Jewish. He would have relied on any documents, especially those coming from Jewish sources, and as near as we can tell, the only documents which referenced Jesus came from those Jews who were his followers, the first Christians.

I am not sure what you mean by 'quality'? But it seems to be just a short notice, anyway.

Quality is probably not the right word. Experts can usually tell if something was written by a person, especially one as prolific as Josephus. They have many examples of his works, but those short bits which reference Jesus don't seem to fit his style. And they are only one or two short comments, something similar to an historian referencing someone like King Arthur, or Paul Bunyan.

[Thorne]

we cannot be freed from fear, it is part of any life, religious or not.

True, we should be fearful of being struck by lightning. Scientific knowledge lets us deal with that fear by finding ways to prevent it from striking us. It eliminates the fear that some supernatural bogeyman will strike us down if we eat meat on Fridays, or have bacon for breakfast, or some equally inane religious prohibition gets broken.

I do not think they always do

I did say almost always.

[ksst]

I personally love a good story, and bible stories are certainly some of the best. I mean, take the story of Solomon and the two women claiming the same baby. Jim, in Huckleberry Finn, tells an excellent version of that story. Thanks to Samuel Clemons/Mark Twain, another of the world's great story tellers.

And the story of the birth of the baby Jesus. Belief or no, I find it a powerful and moving story. I told it to my kids, the little heathens.

As far as literally believing the bible, this was not what I was taught even in Sunday school. I went to a fairly liberal Methodist church for a while, as a kid, and they have a more loose than strict interpretation. Some of the sects that are very literal just confuse me as there are so many contradictions in the bible how do you even know which one to take seriously? Not to mention that is has been retranslated and handed down over the intervening years, and must be something like the old game of telephone in some spots.

[Thorne]

I personally love a good story, and bible stories are certainly some of the best.

I agree, there are some good stories. Just like Mother Goose, or the Brothers Grimm. They're sometimes interesting moral tales. But they're not gospel!

there are so many contradictions in the bible how do you even know which one to take seriously? Not to mention that is has been retranslated and handed down over the intervening years, and must be something like the old game of telephone in some spots.

This is one of the major bones of contention in the atheist community. How are you supposed to know which parts of the Bible are literally true, which parts have to be interpreted properly and which parts are basic garbage? With thousands of different sects having their own ideas of this, how can anyone claim they know exactly what God wants from us? We have to rely on men and women who claim that they are "instruments of the Lord". Yeah, right! As far as I'm concerned, the only difference between Pat Robertson claiming that God tells him what to say and some bum on the street saying the same thing, is that the bum on the street winds up in an asylum. Ol' Pat winds up with a couple of million of other peoples' hard-earned dollars.

[ksst]

Yeah really. There is this big thing going on now about hunting cranes in Wisconsin and it clearly states in the bible that we should not eat cranes. They don't make great head mounts either. What gives?

[thir]

True, we should be fearful of being struck by lightning. Scientific knowledge lets us deal with that fear by finding ways to prevent it from striking us. It eliminates the fear that some supernatural bogeyman will strike us down if we eat meat on Fridays, or have bacon for breakfast, or some equally inane religious prohibition gets broken.

What I mean here is that fear is part of our defense system, and we need it.

[thir]

As a matter of fact, the whole story about Moses seems to be fiction! There's no independent evidence that he ever existed, no evidence that there were ever Jews enslaved in Egypt, at least not in the vast numbers portrayed in the Bible, no evidence of a Hebrew Exodus, no evidence of millions of people spending 40 years in Sinai. Last I heard, even some Jewish scholars now doubt that Moses, even if he existed, ever wrote the first five books of the Bible, as has been traditionally believed. It's all myths and story telling, teaching tools for uneducated people. Aside from some of the more arcane dietary and clothing laws of the Bible, there is nothing in there that wasn't common in most of the earlier cultures around the world at the time. The Hebrews/Jews just adopted those that worked for them, changed those that needed to be changed to agree with their own beliefs, then wrote it up as if they invented it.

What I have a real problem with is the way in which science so often seems to be the victim of fads of one kind and another. Decades back, there were all these findings that this or that from the bible was now proven, or partly proven, or explained - by both Christian and non-Christian archelogists. This decade the fad seems to be that it is all just smoke and mirrors. I am extremely sceptical about these all-or-nothing waves.

Hold on to your hat Thorne - I believe in the bible! What I mean is, I do not believe that things written down there were taken completely out of the thin air. The archeologists now want us to believe that nothing happened, Moses did not excist, the jews were never in Egypt, nobody emigrated, it is all just a methaphor or allergory about freedom. I note that when archeologists are at loose ends, the word allegory thends to pop up a lot, because they know darn well that things are written down for a reason and they feel they have to come up with some sort of explanation.

Now, I believe that when something is written down, it is because something happened. It may be embellished, exaggerated, given a specific meaning, get garbled over the years, be partiallly inspired by myth (themselves distant account of who knows what) but they did not just get pulled out of thin air.

The latest is that no traces can be found of people wandering about in the dessert for 40 years - well, maybe that would be extremely difficult with tribes that had few things that would survive, and in a big dessert too. Maybe be they did not take 40 years to cross - why should they have? They say millions cannot survive in these areas with sheep and what not - well, maybe it wasn't millions - maybe it was thousands.

Some say thousands of jews were taken to Egypt as POWs in wars - there are always wars going on in these areas. Some say thousands more emigrated from Canaan to Egypt because there was a famine and Egypt was fertile. Maybe thousands left centuries later because of whatever natural disasters or plagues wreacked havoc in the country, and maybe Moses lead number of them out by way of a new, mono theistic religion and various promises of a better place.

Or maybe something different happened. But obviously (to me) something did.

[thir]

I did say almost always.

Sorry about that, my mistake.