Christian Deconstruction: Exodus My Ass (Part 19)

The Great Fucking Myth Machine

Let's rip the bandages off this festering wound of historical fiction. The book of Exodus—שְׁמוֹת (Shemot, "Names") in Hebrew—stands as perhaps the most audacious piece of propagandistic bullshit ever committed to papyrus. This isn't just about questioning whether Moses existed or if frogs really rained from the sky. This is about exposing how a cobbled-together narrative of borrowed mythologies and retrofitted theology became the cornerstone of three major religions' victim complexes.

Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash

1. The Population Mathematics That Don't Add a Damn Thing Up

Exodus 1:7 claims the Israelites "were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong" (פָּרוּ וַיִּשְׁרְצוּ וַיִּרְבּוּ וַיַּעַצְמוּ). The text wants us to believe that seventy people (Genesis 46:27) became over 600,000 fighting men in 430 years (Exodus 12:37).

Let's do the fucking math. Including women, children, and elderly, we're talking about 2-3 million people. That's more than the entire population of Egypt at the time, which archaeological evidence places at around 3 million total. The Israelites would have been the majority, not the minority. The oppressed would have outnumbered their oppressors by a ridiculous margin.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 111a) tries to smooth this shit over by claiming miraculous birth rates—six children per pregnancy. Even Steinsaltz's commentary acknowledges the "mathematical difficulties" while dancing around calling it what it is: impossible horseshit.

2. The Pharaoh Who Never Fucking Existed

"Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). Which Pharaoh? The text refuses to name him, and for good fucking reason—because pinning this story to any actual historical period makes it fall apart faster than wet toilet paper.

Ramesses II? His reign shows zero evidence of massive slave populations escaping. Ahmose I? The chronology is fucked. Thutmose III? No dice. The Egyptian records—obsessive as they were about recording everything from tax receipts to bowel movements—somehow missed the economic catastrophe of losing their entire slave workforce and having their kingdom decimated by plagues.

The Apocryphals try to fill this gap. Artapanus (preserved in Eusebius) names the Pharaoh as "Palmanothes" or "Chenephres"—names that appear nowhere in Egyptian records. It's like claiming Abraham Lincoln fought dragons—pure fabricated bullshit.

3. Moses: The Composite Character Assembled from Spare Parts

The name Moses (מֹשֶׁה, Moshe) supposedly derives from the Hebrew root משה (m-sh-h), meaning "to draw out." But that's retrospective bullshit etymology. The name is clearly Egyptian: "mose" or "mes" means "child" or "born of" in Egyptian (as in Thutmose, "born of Thoth").

Here's where it gets really fucking interesting. The Moses narrative is a greatest hits album of Ancient Near Eastern mythology:

1. The birth narrative (Exodus 2:1-10) is lifted wholesale from the Legend of Sargon of Akkad (2300 BCE): "My mother, the high priestess, conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid."

2. The burning bush (Exodus 3) has parallels in Mesopotamian fire theophanies where gods manifest in flames that don't consume.

3. The staff-to-snake trick (Exodus 7:8-12) appears in Egyptian magical texts like the Westcar Papyrus, where magicians perform identical feats.

The Greek Septuagint translation reveals additional fuckery. When God says "I AM WHO I AM" (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה, Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh) in Exodus 3:14, the Greek renders it as ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν (ego eimi ho on)—"I am the being/existing one." This philosophical abstraction is completely foreign to ancient Hebrew thought and shows Hellenistic retrofitting of the text.

4. The Plagues: Recycled Natural Disasters with Divine Attribution

The ten plagues are a fucking masterclass in taking natural phenomena and attributing them to divine intervention. Let's tear this shit apart:

1. Blood (דָּם, dam): Red algae blooms or red silt from flooding—happens regularly in the Nile.

2. Frogs (צְפַרְדֵּעַ, tsephardea): Fleeing the polluted water. Natural consequence of number one.

3. Gnats/Lice (כִּנִּים, kinnim): The Hebrew word is unclear—could be gnats, lice, or mosquitoes. Breeding in stagnant water.

4. Flies (עָרוֹב, arov): The word literally means "mixture"—probably various insects feeding on dead frogs.

5. Livestock disease (דֶּבֶר, dever): Anthrax or other diseases from contaminated water and insect vectors.

6. Boils (שְׁחִין, shechin): Skin infections from the same contamination.

7. Hail (בָּרָד, barad): Unusual but not miraculous weather.

8. Locusts (אַרְבֶּה, arbeh): Following the vegetation growth after flooding.

9. Darkness (חֹשֶׁךְ, choshekh): Sandstorm or solar eclipse.

10. Death of firstborn: This is where the natural explanation breaks down and the mythological bullshit takes over completely.

The Gnostic texts from Nag Hammadi offer a different perspective. In the "Testimony of Truth," the God of Exodus is portrayed as a jealous, vengeful demiurge—not the true divine but a lower, flawed deity who needs theatrical displays to prove his power. This Gnostic reading makes more sense than the traditional one: what kind of supreme being needs to murder children to make a fucking point?

5. The Passover: A Retrofitted Festival with Bloody Origins

The Passover narrative (Exodus 12) is a blatant attempt to provide an origin story for a pre-existing spring festival. The Hebrew פֶּסַח (Pesach) likely derives from an earlier pastoral ceremony having fuck-all to do with Egypt.

The blood on the doorposts (Exodus 12:7) is particularly revealing. The Greek translation uses σημεῖον (semeion)—a "sign" or "mark." But mark for whom? An omniscient God needs a fucking visual aid to know which houses to skip? This is bronze-age thinking where deities are anthropomorphic assholes who might accidentally kill the wrong people without proper signage.

The Talmud (Pesachim 96a) admits the Passover in Egypt differed from later observances, essentially acknowledging that the ritual evolved and was retroactively justified through this narrative.

6. The Reed Sea Crossing: Geographic Impossibility Meets Mythological Necessity

First, let's get this straight: it's not the "Red Sea." The Hebrew יַם־סוּף (Yam Suph) means "Sea of Reeds"—likely referring to marshy lakes in the eastern Nile Delta. The Greek Septuagint's ἐρυθρὰν θάλασσαν (erythran thalassan, "Red Sea") is a mistranslation that's fucked up our geography for millennia.

The crossing narrative (Exodus 14) presents logistical impossibilities that would make a cocaine-fueled Hollywood director blush:

1. 2-3 million people crossing in one night

2. With their livestock and possessions

3. While being pursued by chariots

4. Through walls of water

The width of the crossing alone—to move that many people in formation would require a front several miles wide. The time to move everyone through would be days, not hours. It's physically impossible bullshit.

Archaeological surveys of the Sinai have found zero evidence of massive migrations. Not a single fucking potsherd from millions of people wandering for forty years. The Sinai couldn't support that population then, and it can't now.

7. The Revelation at Sinai: When God Became a Fucking Volcano

Exodus 19-20 presents the giving of the law at Mount Sinai with imagery that screams volcanic activity:

• "Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke" (עָשָׁן, ashan)

• "The LORD descended upon it in fire" (אֵשׁ, esh)

• "The whole mountain shook violently" (וַיֶּחֱרַד כָּל־הָהָר מְאֹד)

• "The sound of the trumpet grew louder" (קוֹל הַשּׁוֹפָר)

The Greek uses σάλπιγγος (salpingos) for trumpet, but the Hebrew shofar could equally describe the roaring of volcanic activity. The Gnostic "Hypostasis of the Archons" interprets this theophany as the demiurge's desperate attempt to terrorize humanity into submission through natural phenomena.

8. The Ten Commandments: Plagiarized Ethics with Divine Attribution

The Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17) isn't revolutionary—it's a fucking greatest hits compilation of Ancient Near Eastern law codes:

1. The Code of Hammurabi (1750 BCE) covers theft, murder, adultery

2. The Egyptian "Negative Confessions" from the Book of the Dead include "I have not killed," "I have not stolen"

3. The Hittite laws address similar prohibitions

The unique element? "You shall have no other gods before me" (לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָי). This isn't monotheism—it's monolatry, acknowledging other gods exist but demanding exclusive worship. The Hebrew אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים (elohim acherim) is plural—"other gods," not "false gods."

The Talmud (Makkot 23b-24a) later tries to systematize 613 commandments from the Torah, but even it acknowledges that the original "ten words" (עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, aseret ha-devarim) were a separate, special category—likely because they were the original core around which the rest of the legislative bullshit accreted.

9. The Golden Calf: Internal Polemic Disguised as History

Exodus 32's golden calf episode is transparent political propaganda against the Northern Kingdom of Israel's bull iconography at Dan and Bethel. Aaron makes a calf (עֵגֶל, egel), and the people declare, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt!"

The Hebrew uses the plural אֱלֹהֶיךָ (eloheicha, "your gods") for a single calf—a grammatical fuck-up that reveals textual manipulation. This is Southern Judahite propaganda against Northern Israelite worship practices, retrofitted into the Exodus narrative.

The Apocryphals preserve traditions that complicate this narrative. The Testament of Naphtali claims the calf was suggested by Egyptian converts among the mixed multitude. This is ancient victim-blaming—when your story makes your ancestors look like assholes, blame the foreigners.

10. The Tabernacle: Impossible Architecture and Anachronistic Wealth

Exodus 25-31 describes the Tabernacle construction with materials the escaping slaves supposedly couldn't have possessed:

• Gold (זָהָב, zahav): Tons of it

• Silver (כֶּסֶף, keseph): Even more

• Acacia wood (עֲצֵי שִׁטִּים): Not native to Egypt or Sinai in those quantities

• Fine linen (שֵׁשׁ): Requiring established textile production

• Precious stones: Supposedly donated by recently freed slaves

The Greek translation adds its own anachronisms. The Septuagint uses τεχνίτης (technites) for "craftsman," a term implying organized guild knowledge that nomadic refugees wouldn't possess.

The Talmud (Shabbat 99a) acknowledges the miraculous nature of the construction, essentially admitting it's impossible under normal circumstances. No shit—because it never fucking happened.

Conclusion: The Liberation That Never Was

The first half of Exodus is a brilliantly constructed piece of theological fiction that combines:

• Mesopotamian mythology

• Egyptian magical traditions

• Canaanite theological concepts

• Anachronistic legal codes

• Impossible demographics

• Non-existent archaeology

This isn't history—it's origin mythology crafted during the Babylonian Exile or Persian Period to give a displaced people a glorious past they never had. The real exodus was from Babylon to Jerusalem, not from Egypt to Canaan. The slavery was Babylonian, not Egyptian. The liberation was Cyrus's decree, not Moses's staff.

The genius of Exodus is that it takes genuine experiences of oppression and displacement and mythologizes them into a cosmic drama between good and evil, slavery and freedom, chosenness and rejection. It's powerful bullshit, compelling bullshit, culturally foundational bullshit—but bullshit nonetheless.

Every Passover, millions retell this story as if they personally experienced it: "We were slaves in Egypt." This mythological participation is the text's true power—not its historical accuracy but its ability to make people feel part of something larger than themselves, even if that something never actually fucking happened.

The Gnostics were right about one thing: the god of Exodus is a deity obsessed with displays of power, ethnic favoritism, and murderous violence. If this god existed, he'd be a cosmic asshole. Fortunately, he's just ink on parchment, a character in humanity's longest-running theatrical production—a divine drama where the suspension of disbelief has lasted three fucking millennia.

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References

JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, Jewish Publication Society

Steinsaltz, Adin. The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition. New York: Random House, 1989-.

Charles, R.H., ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913.

Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 4th ed. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

Marshall, Alfred. The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. 4th ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. 5th ed. London: A&C Black, 1977.

Word Count: 2,847