Passover is, for a number of reasons, my favorite holiday, because it’s a reminder that adherence to the Jewish faith is inseparable from a commitment to social justice. We remind ourselves that we were once slaves in Egypt, that we might never be slaves again, and that we might rescue others from a similar fate. In retelling the story of the Exodus we are forced into an accounting of whether or not we are living up to that commitment–being the “chosen people,” so to speak, cannot be a matter of exclusive access to the divine.
At Seder this year, my cousin explained that the point of Passover is that “G-d hates slavery.” I think that’s exactly right. But he also pointed out to me something I hadn’t previously known, that there is very little archeological evidence that the Exodus ever took place:
In Egypt today, visitors to Mount Sinai are sometimes shown a bush by tour guides and told it is the actual bush that burned before Moses.
But archaeologists who have worked here have never turned up evidence to support the account in the Bible, and there is only one archaeological find that even suggests the Jews were ever in Egypt. Books have been written on the topic, but the discussion has, for the most part, remained low-key as the empirically minded have tried not to incite the spiritually minded.
“Sometimes as archaeologists we have to say that never happened because there is no historical evidence,” Dr. Hawass said, as he led the journalists across a rutted field of stiff and rocky sand.
I found this kind of shocking, because I always assumed that the Exodus was a historical event even if it hadn’t taken place along the exact lines described in the Torah.
The whole thing reminded me of this Amanda Marcotte post about religion and theology, arguing that “What I do know is that religious beliefs are chosen for convenience and socio-political pragmatism, and not because someone has considered the evidence for various claims and made a conclusion based on those who have the strongest evidence.”
I’ll concede that theological debates aren’t really about evidence, but I don’t think that makes them useless. Setting aside the question of the existence of G-d, which can’t be proven or disproven, when people are arguing about theology what they’re really trying to do is answer universal questions of right and wrong through whatever kernels of wisdom humanity has managed to accumulate through the years. That’s why they’re interesting, because whether you’re a believer, an atheist, or an agnostic, most people fumble through life trying to do the right thing. No one figures that out on their own.
