Why?

From the "Habiru" link I provided before:


Egyptian sources

Several Egyptian sources, both before and after the Amarna letters, mention a people called `PR.W in the consonant-only Egyptian script, where .W is the plural marker. The pronunciation of this word has been reconstructed as apiru. From similarity of context and description, it is believed that the Egyptian `PR.W are equivalent to the Akkadian Habiru/Hapiru.

In his account of the conquest of Joppa, General Toth of pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt (around 1440 BC) asks at some point that his horses be taken inside the city, lest they be stolen by a passing Apir.

On two stelae at Memphis and Karnak, Thutmose III's son Amenhotep II boasts of having made 89,600 prisoners in his campaign in Canaan (around 1420 BC), including "127 princes and 179 nobles(?) of Retenu, 3600 Apiru, 15,200 Shasu, 36,600 Hurrians," etc.

A stela from the reign of Seti I (around 1300 BC) tells that the pharaoh sent an expedition into the Levant, in response to an attack of "the apiru from Mount Yarmuta" upon a local town.

A list of goods bequeathed to several temples by Pharaoh Ramesses III (around 1160 BC) includes many serfs, Egyptian and foreign: 86,486 to Thebes (2607 foreigners), 12,364 to Heliopolis (2093 foreign), and 3079 to Memphis (205 foreign). The foreign serfs are described as "maryanu (soldiers), apiru, and people already settled in the temple estate".

The laborers that Ramesses IV sent to the quarry of Wadi Hammamat in his third year included 5,000 soldiers, 2,000 men attached to the temples of Pharaoh as well as 800 Apiru.[6] This is the last known reference to the Apiru in Egyptian documents.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

But, as Wikipedia also notes, the identification of the Hapiru with the ancient Hebrews is not certain. Several historians dispute it.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Rhetorical question?

If I were one who simply dismissed the Bible's historicity then I'd have accepted her statement without asking for a reference.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Agreed, though the connection seems self evident.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

What matters is the truth of the statement, not who said it when. The fact that you can provide no convincing evidence that the statement is incorrect leads me to believe it stands the greatest chance of being correct. I would be happy to provide a list of historical errors in the Bible for you:

Genesis 11:11 (and elsewhere) claims people lived for 500 years. Where is the historical and/or biological support for this?

Deuteronomy claims there were giants on the earth. Where is the archaeological evidence for this?

1 Samuel claims the Earth is resting on pillars. Do I even need to ask this one?

And it goes on and on. My point is not to slam religion...my point is that if you are going to claim the Bible as historically accurate, I would say the burden of proof is on you. Focusing on such a trivial question does not help your case, IMO.

My "case?"

I don't claim the bible is infallably accurate.

I'm sure we could go tit for tat in regards to items historically accurate or no, but that's not what I'm interested in.

I'd like to see a reference which supports the claim that there is a single egyptian record, the "only", record which refers to the Hebrew people.

Then again, I realize that ancient egyptians weren't known for writing down their failures, such as a massive exodus.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Could you please provide evidence for this assertion?

You seem now to be arguing that:

a) There is evidence of an Exodus of Hebrews from Egypt.

and

b) The reason there is no evidence is that Egyptians didn't note their failures.

Huh?

Apparently, it does not seem self-evident to many historians.

__________________
"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Culled from bibleorigins.net:

"K. A. Kitchen (an Egyptologist) speaking of the "absence" of the Exodus in
Egyptian annals :

"And as the pharaohs _never_ monumentalize _defeats_ on temple walls, no
record of the successful exit of a large bunch of foreign slaves (with loss
of a full chariot squadron) would ever have been memorialized by a king in
the temples in the Delta or anywhere else." (p. 246. K.A. Kitchen. _On the
Reliability of the Old Testament_. Grand Rapids. William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company. 2003)"



Uh, Daffy, if you go back and reread this thread you'll find where I state "absence of evidence for a couple million hebrews in the sinai is rather stark."

Have I said there is evidence for the exodus?
No.
I've simply maintained that egyptian records do in fact speak of pr.w, or habiru, which are likely references to the Hebrews.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

"Likely?" Your own source says otherwise.

No it doesn't.

It acknowledges that hapiru could have been a social designation rather than an ethnic one, but goes on to say the possibility that the Hebrews are descended of one of these social groups can not be excluded.



And you're welcome for the evidence supporting my assertion (the Kitchen quote).

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

A.DIM, it's O.K. to say that you, personally find the Hapiru-Hebrew connection plausible, but it's not O.K. to imply that historians do. That would be a misrepresentation of the science.
It's controversial, there is disagreement.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Which is precisely why I agreed with your remark that the identity is uncertain.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

O.K., so when you say that the connection is "likely" are you just expressing your opinion?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

"I've simply maintained that egyptian records do in fact speak of pr.w, or habiru, which are likely references to the Hebrews."

Yes, an opinion.

__________________
"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Thanks for clarifying that for me.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

No trouble; you're welcome.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

IMHO the Ipuwer Papyrus is evidence of a and b.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

The possibility that I will end up dating Jennifer Aniston can't be excluded...but it is hardly likely.

I don't care about the likelihood of your personal fantasies, Daffy.
Can you show how unlikely it is for the pr.w, habiru, or hapiru to be the peoples from whom the hebrews are descendants, if not one and the same?

What exactly are you arguing for or against here?

It seems my simple request for a reference from Gillianren (which I patiently await) to support her assertion has aroused something in you I can't quite figure...

Do you share her assertion that there is a single egyptian record of the hebrews?

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

a) Yes it has. I have seen this debating tactic many times...grab on one minute, irrelevant, detail from the opposition and cling to it like a tick...as if it says something important about the debate itself. Whether one person actually said those exact words in a book is irrelevant. What matters is, does the evidence support that assertion? Based on the fact that the evidence you supplied seems largely to support it, I consider your debating tactic to be an attempted distraction at best. And, yes, I admit, I do find that rather annoying.

b) From what I have read, any evidence of Hebrews in Egypt seems to be controversial at the very least. I would say the burden of proof is on those who claim otherwise. So far, I have not seen any contrary evidence that is especially compelling. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? Not based on current evidence. The Bible itself is very, very unreliable as a historical document.

And I am not really fantasizing about Jennifer Anniston. Tina Turner, maybe...

Well, after much searching of my personal archives, I have determined that, wherever I read it, it does not seem to be in a book I own. This means, given that I read it sometime within the last five years or so, that it's probably somewhere in the Evergreen State College or Timberland Regional library systems.

Now. This means that I cannot provide a specific reference. But even if I had, that doesn't prove me right any more than that I cannot proves me wrong. It's the evidence that matters, not who said it was true. Now, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I could be wrong. However, I was before.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I hate to interject myself in this so late, and I have read most of the thread, but exactly what idea are you looking to reference? I ask because I'm currently reading Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World and just got past the Exodus.

Ms. Bauer does explicitly state that no mention of the Exodus appears in Egyptian chronicles, but I think you were looking for something a bit different?

I think it is really your responsibility to show that they are references to the Hebrews, and only the Hebrews. You have made that claim, but the only source you seem to have says that the name could apply to any or all of several peoples.

I have to agree with Daffy here. Rather than simply providing one or more references that would disprove the statement, you are arguing against her claim there was such a statement and insisting that she prove the statement exists. That is a debate tactic not really suitable for a scientific discussion.

Can you provide references that would disprove the statement, whether it was ever made or not?

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

I read somewhere, and I cannot now find where, that the only reference to the Israelites in the Egyptian records claimed that they'd been destroyed by the Egyptians. I cannot now find where, as I said; if you can, I'd appreciate it. I've pretty much exhausted my guesses. (Maybe Boorstin somewhere?)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I'll keep an eye out for that as I read her book. Which is a good read, by the way.

I'll get to it. I'm plowing through Vincent Bugliosi's recent 1500 page epic work of nonfiction (plus a CD-ROM of end notes!), and that's going to take a bit. Fascinating but dense, in short.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Jim, Exodus describes the establishment of Isreal as a nation out of many peoples, unified under YHWH with Moses as their leader. It was at this point, it seems, that Hebrew became an ethnic designation. While it seems evident PR.W, or Habiru, are the diverse peoples who left Egypt with Moses, I can't say they refer only to the Hebrews.
Did I really make such a claim? If so, I'll retract it.

As Geonuc pointed out, most references assert no Egyptian records exist of the Hebrews. Only when you deal with PR.W, Hapiru, or even Hyksos, et al does one finds records, but not just one, quite a few. Gillianren asserted "the only egyptian record..." I wanted to what she was referring to.
A debating tactic?
I disagree.
Perhaps I should've asked for clarification instead of an actual reference or the artifact itself?
Maybe then Daffy wouldn't have mistakenly termed it a "debating tactic." Apparently he knows as much as Gillianren and misunderstood why I was asking for a specific reference.

A few excerpts from Evidence of the Exodus from Egypt:

"Amenhotep II was the son of Thutmose III who ruled Egypt from 1453-19 BC There are three known military campaigns into the land of Canaan (Aharoni 1979, 166). The lists of prisoners gives a cross-section of the population at that time. Aharoni states: The first group included 550 maryannu (noble chariot warriors), 240 of their wives, 640 Canaanites, 232 royal sons, 323 royal daughters and 270 concubines. A final summary lists: 127 rulers of Retenu, 179 brothers of the rulers, 3600 'apiru, 15,200 living Shasu, 36,300 Huru, 15,070 living Neges, and 30,652 families thereof.... Among the residents of Palestine the Horites account for 66 per cent, the Shasu 27.5 per cent and the 'apiru 6.5 per cent (1979, 168-9; Lemche 1991, 43-46). The Israelites have been associated with both the 'apiru and the Shasu (Akkadian Shutu). Some scholars think the name "Hebrew" came from "'apiru." This does seem to give clear evidence for the Hebrews being settled in Canaan at this time."

"In 1887 an Egyptian peasant woman discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets at the site of Akh-en-Aton's capital from the 14th century BC, now called Tell El-Amarna. There were a total of 377 tablets found. Later some more tablets were found. About half of them were written in Akkadian by Canaanite scribes in Palestine describing the conditions there. One major problem was the "Hapiru" who were taking over the land. They wanted the king of Egypt to send reinforcements."Hapiru" is probably related to the word "Hebrew" (Greenberg 1955, 91-2). Hapiru (Akkadian) is sometimes spelled "Habiru" or "'apiru" (Egyptian). The Egyptian word is 'pr. In these letters "Hapiru" is spelled with the Sumerian logogram SA.GAZ. Hapiru was a general term for "robber" or "migrant" (Astour 1962, 382). Na'aman states, "Common to all the people designated as 'Habiru' is the fact that they were uprooted from their original political and social framework and forced to adapt to a new environment" (1986, 272; Buccellati 1977, 145-7). He believes the best meaning of Habiru is migrant, but in the Amarna letters it went beyond this to "a derogatory appellation for rebels against Egyptian authority" (Na'aman 1986, 275). Rowton says: The term 'apiru is of West Semitic origin, and it first appears in Mesopotamian urban society at a time when that society was being penetrated by Amorites. This suggests that it was brought in by the Amorites and that it originally denotes some aspect of tribal society....the economically and socially uprooted" (1976, 17). The use of the term "Hebrew" in the Old Testament is found primarily in the pre-monarchical period, and used in unfavorable contexts by foreigners like the Egyptians (Gen 39:14,17, 41:12; Ex. 1:16, 2:6) and the Philistines (ISam 4:6,9; 13:3,19; 14:11; 29:3). The bands of David and Jephthah give some of the clearest pictures of what the Habiru were like (Mazar 1963, 310-20). It seems that later in history the social meaning of Hapiru was changed to an ethnic term for Israel. The social term Hapiru disappeared in ancient texts (12th century BC) mainly due to the rise of national states, but was kept in Israel and developed into an ethnic term (Na'aman 1986, 286)."

"Ahlstrom states, "several letters seems to indicate that most of Palestine is 'apiru territory" (1993, 245). The Hapiru of these Amarna letters seem to clearly be identified with the Hebrews of the Old Testament during the time of the judges before the monarchy.

The Hapiru are not just mentioned in the Amarna letters. In Ugaritic a tablet (2062:A:7; Gordon 1965, Glossary #1899) found in the oven when Ugarit was abandon shows that the Hapiru were active here around 1200 BC Not all Hapiru were Hebrews. Greenberg states, "Since the time of Bohl it has become commonplace that 'all Israelites were Hebrews (Hapiru), but not all Hebrews (Hapiru) were Israelites'" (1955, 92).

"Therefore the best explanation for all of the archaeological evidence seems to be that Israel is a confederation of Hapiru tribes in the hill country of Canaan, that formed the nation of Israel in the Iron Age. Originally, Abraham was part of an Amorite migration south into Canaan from Mesopotamia which continued down to Egypt climaxing in the Hyksos rule. The exodus is to be identified with the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt by Ahmose (1570-50 BC; Frerichs and Lesko, 1997, 82, 96). Then they wandered in the wilderness being included among the Shasu, and caused the fall of MBIIIC cities in Canaan (the conquest). The Conquest was not total but just in the highlands for Egypt controlled the lower lands and coast. They were called Hapiru (from which the name Hebrew originates) in the Amarna period (time of the judges) until their league was consolidated into 12 tribes which became the nation of Israel in the Iron Age."

I don't suggest this is necessarily conclusive but the likelihood is far greater than Daffy dating Jennifer Aniston.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Gillianren, thanks for taking the time.

I want you to know however, I wan't trying to prove you wrong.

I hope you understand now why I was asking for such a reference.

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill