Excellent video. How on earth can anyone watch this and not realise that the Bible is written by people to suit local politics, etc...

I read and reread Finkelstein's book The Bible Unearthed. It was really challenging. What it meant was that Yul Brunner and Charlton Heston were playing fictional characters in the movie The Ten Commandments. What amazed me was that this scholar a Jew was challenging a major story in Jewish culture.Would not he had a vested interest in supporting the stories. It shows he was a true scholar.

Given all of the facts and evidence within archaeology, history, anthropology, and science, I am absolutely dumbfounded at the fact that anyone is still practicing the abrahamic religions. Well, any religion, actually.

Finkelstein delivers a horrendous blow to all those fanatics that take the bible literally. I love this guy. And the great part is that he has scientific evidence for much of what he says.

The truth cannot remain hidden forever. I always knew there was something fishy about the Exodus story, especially when they worked so hard to link themselves directly to the first human created by God. A thousand years of history, all fiction.

Currently reading Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed." Extremely compelling and equally fascinating.

Israel Finkelstein is awesome...An Israeli Jew who has no issue at all speaking the truth about the mythology of his people in the context of modern archaeology. The points he hits in this lecture are absolutely true and for the most part have been known for over 100 years. If you can get past his thick Israeli accent this lecture is a good summation for the average biblical-historicist to mull over.

My research suggests there was no Exodus to a Mt. Sinai, except in the imagination of the storyteller. How so? The Bible claims the quickest and most direct way from Egypt to the Promised Land is via the Way to the Land of the Philistines. But God, realizing that his people "will turn Chicken and return to Egypt" out of fear of engaging in war, the Philistines, decides to lead his people to the Promised land via a more indirect route called "the way to the Red Sea," which will take them to Mt. Sinai. The problem? The biblical narrator was unaware that the Philistines were not yet living in Canaan when the Exodus occurred, be that circa 1446 BC (or circa 1260 BC). The Philistines arrived in Canaan circa 1175 BC according to the Egyptian annals of Pharaoh Rameses III, who mentioned their attempt to conquer Egypt after conquering coastal Canaan (Rameses III called them the Pelest). Ergo, there was no reason for Israel to head south to the Red Sea and to Mt. Sinai! Thus the events at Mt. Sinai are all fictional: the worship of the Golden Calf, and the smashing of the Ten Commandments by Moses. There is no reason for Israel to camp at a Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia either! Why? There were no Philistines to fear and thus no need for "a detour" to Mt. Sinai and the Red Sea. Regards, Walter R. Mattfeld.

Great, Prof. Finkelstein. Now it's time to write the real history of People of Israel, as archaeology shows it.

The Hebrew bible was developed during the Babylonian exile. These scribes and so call prophets decided to write down these oral traditions because they did not want to forget their history and culture.

Brilliant! I really recommend Finkelstien's books. His is not a great speaker but a very clear and reasoned writer who makes a VERY convincing case.

Excelent presentation. Congratulations for this.

This information must receive wide dissemination to identify our true Jewish history and heritage.

The innovative approach of this content is admirable. A book with akin subjects inspired a new direction in my life. "Temporal Echoes: Amelia's Odyssey Through Ancestral Shadows" by Vivian Rosewood

I've always had a theory of the Patriarchs. The way the story is told is incredibly repetitious, with various Patriarchs entering the Promised Land from different directions.

Hopefully, in the future we can get to the part where the waters flowing from the Temple would flow eastward and somehow the waters flowed to the Occident instead. Thank you very much. I am very grateful.

Excellent presentation... thanks for sharing!

3:20

John Bright, in his History of Israel (1981), takes Samuel at face value. Donald B. Redford, however, sees all reconstructions from biblical sources for the United Monarchy period as examples of "academic wishful thinking".

As regards "Patriarchs" scholars have noted an anomaly about patriarch Abraham, he is portrayed entering Canaan at a time when it was occupied by Philistines. At Beershba he encounters them and they contend with each other over of a well there. Excavations at Beersheba have found Philistine pottery shards in its well's depths. Perhaps this fact is what is behind the biblical account? The problem? The Philistines did not arrive in Canaan until circa 1174 BC and the days of Pharaoh Rameses III (1182-1151 BC) who mentions their attempt to conquer Egypt. He defeats them. Archaeology has found some of the Canaanite towns they destroyed and rebuilt. Abraham makes his appearance in the book of Genesis which mentions three names in co-existence, (1) Israel, (2) Philistines, and (3) Rameses in Egypt. In Egyptian records of the 19th and 20th Dynasties we find mention of all three names. So the author of Genesis and Exodus seems to have preserved a real historical memory of the co-existence of these three. The problem is that the biblical date is too early, its not 2000 BC (Abraham) to 1446 BC (Exodus of 1Kings 6:1), its 1170 BC at the earliest (Philistines being the Plest who fought Rameses III). This is to say Abraham's world is not 2000 nor 1800 BC, its after 1170 BC. The Exodus begins at Rameses in Egypt, Egyptian per-Rameses or Pi-Rameses (Tell ed Daba today), which is named after Pharaoh Rameses II (1279-1212 BC). Genesis mentions Edomite Bozrah, which is no earlier than circa 725 BC. This suggests Genesis was written some time after Bozrah's founding. I understand the Primary History (Genesis-2 Kings) was written between 562-560 BC in the Exile at Babylon based on 2 Kings