posted
No offense to any Jews or Egyptians, but this is the zaniest law suit I've ever heard of. It is an attempt to get recompense for stuff Jews allegedly took when fleeing Egypt 5,000+ years ago. This is my favorite part, estimating the modern value:
quote: Question: "What do you think is the value of the gold, silver, and clothing that was stolen, and how do you calculate their value today?"
Hilmi: "If we assume that the weight of what was stolen was one ton, [its worth] doubled every 20 years, even if the annual interest is only 5%. In one ton of gold is 700 kg of pure gold – and we must remember that what was stolen was jewelry, that is, alloyed with copper. Hence, after 1,000 years, it would be worth 1,125,898,240 million tons, which equals 1,125,898 billion tons for 1,000 years. In other words, 1,125 trillion tons of gold, that is, a million multiplied by a million tons of gold. This is for one stolen ton. The stolen gold is estimated at 300 tons, and it was not stolen for 1,000 years, but for 5,758 years, by the Jewish reckoning. Therefore, the debt is very large…
Dr. Nabil Hilmi, from the link. So he wants a 1,125 trillion tons of gold for every ton stolen. Times 300 tons times 5.758 (for the 5,758 year vs the 1,000 years in the earlier calculations) I get 1,943,325 trillion tons of gold. But he's a reasonable man: he offers to give them 1,000 years to cough it up.
posted
The obvious flaw in this whole argument, leaving aside the fact that the Exodus did not in fact happen, is the statute of limitations on theft. Ironically, the claimant has this to say on the issue:
"We set up a legal team to prepare the necessary legal confrontation aimed at restoring what the Jews stole a long time ago, to which the statute of limitations cannot possibly apply."
Can anyone come up with any logical reason why the statute of limitations "cannot possibly apply" in this case? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
That is so funny! But according to the hebrew recordings of the story, the gold was given to them, the egyptians were afraid of the hebrew god, and did not want to make him any more angry. So they gave lots of gold and told the jews to leave right away. It was only after the jews were gone that pharoh had second thoughts, and I say, a little too late.
Posts: 879 | Registered: Aug 2000
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The amount of gold doesn't double in 20 years, only its value. So that "ton" of gold taken was simply worth a quadrillion times less a thousand years ago. The 5% could be considered, I guess.
However, the traditional story is that the Egyptians gave the gold to the Israelites, isn't it?
Posts: 6213 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
The archaeological arguments against a massive one-time "exodus" from Egypt are pretty overwhelming.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Minimum Wage: 1 Shekel Y- Wage Earners: (Jewish Slaves) X-Generations: How many generations between Joseph and Moses: 20 Years per generation. 350 Day's per Year. (slaves don't get any vacation time. Still some time off may have occured for holidays.) 16 hours per day.
posted
Yeah, I thought of that Dan. Hilmi skirts that by never saying "slave." My second favorite part:
quote: A police investigation revealed that Moses and Aaron, peace be upon them, understood that it was impossible to live in Egypt, despite its pleasures and even though the Egyptians included them in every activity, due to the Jews' perverse nature, to which the Egyptians had reconciled themselves, though with obvious unwillingness.
Note the logical hoops he jumps through to avoid saying "slave revolt," and to not insult Moses and Aaron. Aren't they considered prophets by Muslims? I know Abraham is a prophet in the Muslim tradition.
quote:The archaeological arguments against a massive one-time "exodus" from Egypt are pretty overwhelming
Tom, I didn't know that. Interesting.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Yet, This is the first time I have ever heard that there are "archaeological arguments against a massive one-time "exodus" from Egypt". What are some of the arguments that you agree with?
Posts: 879 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Pop, I was just going to say the same thing! The most obvious flaw is the fact that a ton of gold "stolen" back then would be worth a ton of gold today! I need a printout of this . . . if it weren't so controversial, it'd be a great example for math class of bad math!
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Ridiculous. If the Egyptians want money from the Isrealis they should sue about the Six Day War. And there is good evidence for an Exodus during the reign of Ramses the Great.
Posts: 650 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Sounds like he was educated in the American legal system. But its fun to sue. I’m thinking about suing France, England, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands for developing the Feudal System which robbed my Viking ancestors of valuable pillaging real estate. Imagine the value of all the things today we could have plundered but didn’t! hundreds of billions of dollars!
Posts: 251 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
When this was posted last week, I knew this was a terribly unoriginal case -- it's been done before. I still can't find a citation for the time it was done in the middle ages . . . but I did find one for an older instance, likely the first.
quote: "Once the Egyptians came to present their case against Israel to Alexander the Great. They said to him: ‘Behold, their Scripture states: G-d gave the people favor in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they lent them [their silver and gold] (Exodus 12:35). Return to us the gold and silver you took from us!' Said Gaviha ben Passia to the Sages: ‘Permit me to go and argue with them...' [He went and] said to them: ‘From where do you bring proof?' ‘From the Pentateuch.' ‘I too shall confine my proof to the Pentateuch. The verse states: Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years (Exodus 12:40). Return to me the wages of the six hundred thousand you enslaved in Egypt.'" Talmud, Sanhedrin 91
I think I'd like to sue the United States government for the land thy took from my Native American ancestors, and then sue the Cheyenne tribe I come from for emotional damage resulting from a raid they conducted on an early settlement of my white ancestors.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Oh, it's worse than that, Annie. The current inhabitants of Egypt are descendants of the people who invaded a number of centuries back -- who had, in their turn, invaded a thousand or so years previously.
So it's more like me (with no American Indian ancestors of whom I am aware) suing on behalf of those same Cheyenne you mention.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: The archaeological arguments against a massive one-time "exodus" from Egypt are pretty overwhelming.
Can anyone tell me where this would be? Has someone posted these arguments before? I looked all around the forum and I can't find anything.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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While I have no particular reason to doubt an exodus from Egypt, that site gives me no particular reason to believe in it. At absolute best it provides evidence that Exodus was written by people who knew some basic Egyptian history.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Fugu- it gives you no reason to believe it, but it gives a reason why the Exodus is plausible. The arguments against the Exodus do the exact same thing- they argue that the Exodus isn't plausible from what we Know of Egyptian history. Not only is such a stance a logical fallacy (arguing from ignorance) but it is also apparently not even truthful.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
It is perfectly okay to use Egyptian history to show evidence against a large exodus. It is not a logical fallacy. It does not show there wasn't one, it merely shows there isn't evidence to suggest there was.
The site you gave gives absolutely no evidence that there was a large exodus. It shows that there is no great historical reason the timelines in Exodus and in history do not line up, but that at best shows the writers of Exodus were familiar with Egyptian history. It does not give any evidence, by any form of logic, that suggests exodus was plausible. I can write a story right now with every fact in Exodus, but instead of having an exodus of jews have a giant festival for jews (with little food). And if I can do it now, someone else could have done it back when exodus was written. The facts as presented on that site would still line up exactly, and there would be just as little evidence for the festival as there is for an exodus on that site; that is, none.
That site gives absolutely zero evidence there was an exodus. It does give evidence that several facts in the book of evidence may line up with historical events in Egypt, but this is a hallmark of both educated fiction and true historical accounts, and would be particularly expected in a fictional religious account. This is not saying that the exodus is fictional, but that other facts in the book of exodus lining up is not logically persuasive at all for there having been an exodus.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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My own view is that this is commentary surrounding the establishment of an Israeli state and the encroachment on the palestinian lands.
If one discounts a lawsuit like this one, then how does anyone have a prop to stand on (besides "we're bigger, so we get what we want") that the israelis are entitled to any of the land they occupy?
I'm just curious. (and i haven't really read the claims the lawsuit is making, it just seems funny to say something like the statute of limitations has expired, if the israelis are claiming rights to land in the middle east)
Posts: 4482 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I have a lot of problems with any site that claims to have possibly found the ark and where mount siniai is and solving the exodus question.
This guy doesn't quite appear to be the crackpot that some of the other websites are, but at the same time, he references almost no one but himself.
It makes me wary. At the same time I like the idea of writing a computer program to figure out which mountains today have similar topography to the ones described in the Bible.
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Ironically, the claimant has this to say on the issue:![[Cool]](cool.gif)
