The Exodus: yes or no?

Ridley Scott,Exodus: Gods and Kings, ThinkProgress

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Ridley Scott is hands-down my favorite director. He has produced films as diverse as Alien, Gladiator, Robin Hood, The Martian, and Exodus. The one thing all of the films have in common is his talent for presenting gritty, hands-on characters in detailed, well-visualized worlds.

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That Scott produced a film like Exodus: Gods and Kings is surprising, considering that he is an atheist. It was not a particularly successful movie at the box office, but does have some interesting features. An excellent review of the movie from the standpoint of belief is one by Jack Jenkins at ThinkProgress. Another interesting review in the same vein is available at Time Magazine. In an interview with Jonathan Merritt at Religion News Service Scott described himself and his approach to the elements of Exodus thus

I’m an absolutely very, very practical person. So I was immediately thinking that all science-based elements placed come from natural order or disorder–or could come from the hand of God, however you want to play that.

When trying to pin down when exactly it all happened and who the major players were from an historical viewpoint, one can't. We are, after all, talking about events that may have happened between the 15th and 5th centuries before the Christian Era (BCE, or Before Christ).

Rational Wiki in Evidence for the Exodus says about the mainstream historical consensus:

Despite being regarded in Judaism as the primary factual historical narrative of the origin of the religion, culture and ethnicity, Exodus is now accepted by scholars as having been compiled in the 8th–7th centuries BCE from stories dating possibly as far back as the 13th century BCE, with further polishing in the 6th–5th centuries BCE, as a theological and political manifesto to unite the Israelites in the then‐current battle for territory against Egypt.

There are a number of strong points that support the idea of no plagues and no exodus in the article. To me the strongest is that, despite the plagues and the death of all first-born sons, and the loss of the army, there is no evidence that Egypt suffered any noticeable setbacks during the period being recorded.

Ussher's 1491 BCE date corresponds with a time of ambitious Egyptian expansion. The reign of Hatshepsut was stable, peaceful and saw extensive construction projects and trading missions; this is known from actual material remains as well as Egyptian records. Her successor, Thutmose III, took Egypt to its greatest imperial extent, forging an empire from the Euphrates to the 4th and possibly the 5th cataract. These are not the signs of a nation that, just a few years before, had lost its entire harvest, its drinkable water, its army and its sons. There is no archaeological evidence at all of mass death and impoverishment in the early New Kingdom period (Rational Wiki).

On the other hand, The Telegraph reports: Biblical plagues really happened say scientists.

Archaeologists now widely believe the plagues occurred at an ancient city of Pi-Rameses on the Nile Delta, which was the capital of Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses the Second, who ruled between 1279BC and 1213BC.

The city appears to have been abandoned around 3,000 years ago and scientists claim the plagues could offer an explanation.

Wikipedia's article on Pi-Ramesses describes the city as flourishing and outlasting Rameses II by 100 years. Although the city was eventually moved south because its branch of the Nile silted up and the city was left without water.

Pi-Ramesses was built on the banks of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. With a population of over 300,000, it was one of the largest cities of ancient Egypt. Pi-Ramesses flourished for more than a century after Ramesses' death, and poems were written about its splendour (Wikipedia).

So, who to believe?

-- Marge