From: mam18@jaguar.uofs.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Origins of Pesah (was Re: Fomenko).
Date: 14 Dec 92 17:29:06 GMT
Organization: University of Scranton

In article <Bz1yu8.Co7@cs.columbia.edu>, igor@cs.columbia.edu (Igor Pankevich) writes:
> In article <11317@prijat.cs.uofs.edu>, mam18@starling.cs.uofs.edu 
  (Michael A Martinov) writes:
>> The same situation happened with Pasover in Israel, when the holiday of Exodus
>> was pulled together with the Spring holiday of early peasants.
>> 
> 
> Now, this is wrong! In  the Torah it says that Jews left Egipt on the first of
> Nisan, and this is exactly when the Pesah is selebrated.

I'm sorry, but Idon't agree with you that we should follow Torah word by word 
(unless you are an Orthodox jew or a Baptist -- the only two conservative
branches in the modern Jewish-Christian tradition).  Otherwise, how would you
combine two different accounts of human creation or of Noah's Ark?

The Torah was written a little bit later than the events of Exodus happened.
Specially the part which you reffered to, known as a part of Priestly account,
one of the latest among all the others (actually, in chronological order: 
Jahwist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomy-writer).  This part of Torah was
written by priests (what a surprise that it's called Priestly account!!!), and
consists mostly of ritual descriptions.  As one can guess, the prescription for
Passover (Pesah) was written by them according to the tradition of its 
celebration in ancient Israel, not vice versa.  Definitely they wrote that Jews
left Egypt on the first of Nisan, because this was the day of celebration of
Exodus!!!

In fact, as archaeologists and historians beleive (according to Lawrence Boadt,
"Reading the Old Testament"), the events of Exodus were not as drastic as they
are described in Torah (as it, in fact, happened with ALL events, described in
Torah, for there was no "scientific" history at that time).  There was a number
of mini-Exoduses (how in the world they spell the plural form of Exodus?),
which took place in different parts of Egypt.  Later the Jewish tribes (Semitic
would be more appropriate) met together in the desert and created a new 
nation.  Most likely, the description of their desert wondering is more or less
correct, but it consists of a huge amount of theological ideas, which make it
difficult to believe or to identify the actual events of the actual event.

So, as one may conclude, there is not much sence to celebrate Exodus on the
first of Nisan (or, it makes as much sence to celebrate it on any other day).
The reason for this date was mentioned in my previous article, and if someone
disagrees with my opinion, please give me more sufficient evidence for your
position than the citation of Torah.

Respectfully,

Michael Martynov.

Univercity of Scranton (which is a Jesuit university, by the way...)

>> 
>> |> ______________________________________________________________________________
>> |>  Eugene  N.  Tyurin  <+>                          gene@max.physics.sunysb.edu
>> |>  Physics Department  <+>  Two wrongs do not make it right, but three lefts do.
>> |>  SUNY @ Stony Brook  <+>                              W. Siegel (unpublished)
>> 
>> 
>> Michael Martynov.
> 
> --Igor P.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet