Perfect timing, professor; as we gather with children and grandchildren to recount the Miracle and sing Pesach shiurim.

We know Egypt had slavesthat built the Pyramids and other structures and it's hard to believe there were not many Hebrew Slaves . Certain wealthy may have however bribed there way out as worked in the Eygptian Empire . Idol worship and child sacrife as in the Aztec occurred . There were Likely natural disasters and plagues . It's not cut and dried .

VERY suspicious. What's in a name? :-) Yes, they are probably right, but now is not the best of times to deprave us, the Israelites of our narrative. Not when facing a murderous, false, brazen Arabs/"Palestinians" trying to usurp our history. So STFU: "History/facts" can wait a bit longer. They're not going anywhere....we may though, if we stumble & start stammering!

What about Noah and his ark, Jonah being swallowed by a whale, David killing Goliath with a slingshot, Jesus resurrection and Mohammed flying to heaven on horseback. Every religion and belief on earth is full of such stories or rather dreams.

Some people come, some people leave but most people stay. New kingdoms are build by people who stay. New legends are written by people who build new kingdoms. New religions are build on those legends. Jewish history and religion is one on off the most valuable jewels in the history of mankind. But remember that Palestinians are part of that Jewish history. They are as much descendants of those ancient Jews as diaspora Jews. They just walked a different path of history on that land.

archeology can only prove the existence of something, not its lack of existence.

Proof of a negative is not possible e.g. it cannot be proved that the universe is not ruled by the flying spaghetti monster. More seriously, the realms of science (including archaeology) and religion are distinct. As Stephen J Gould remarked, science is 'an enquiry about the factual state of the natural world, religion (is) a search for spiritual neaning and ethical values'. When the two are conflated all kinds of trouble ensue. The Passover story has rightly had - and will continue to have - supreme significance for the Jewish people for millenia. But history it is not.

your last sentence contradicts your entire post. there is no proof that the exodus did not happen. it simply cannot be proven with certainty based on the archeological record or written historical documentation.

Finkelstein is certainly welcome to his own opinion, that is the essence of academic discourse. But why does Finkelstein, time after time, have to add to his argument that his hypothesis is "prevalent in the university research mainstream." Yea team! Because of this aggressiveness, "minimalism" has in fact become the mainstream, but there is still much debate which Finkelstein doesn't deign to mention. His hypothesis that Egypt monolithically controlled Canaan from 1500 to 1200 BCE is ludicrous. Egypt episodically suffered internal dynastic crises during that period (18th and 19th dynasties) such that rule over Canaan repeatedly collapsed and was subsequently reestablished -- and Egypt never ruled the Judean hill country where Israel emerged. But for 25-years Finkelstein has been hawking his wares while academically doing the equivelent of crushing the competition by standing on its throat with a boot.

with 600000 witnesses .

Absence is self evident and explained by the item(s) in question not being found or observed. Check your pocket for a small elephant. If you find none it is because none is there. Is presence not proof of presence? You should examine and improve your logic C, conduct a reality check.

notwithstanding that, the Shoa existed

many ears ago my American archeologists and scientist. They travel to Egypt at the lowest point of the red sea and studied the weather patterns of that day. They spoke with many Arab villages and who said the story of the Exodus is true. Above all the words of GOD as written in the Bible are true. While the Egyptians did at one time have power throughout many lands in the middle east. Egyptians eventually lost their power when Greek/Roman Empire arrived and changed the whole landscape of the middle east. The Exodus story is so very true. As true as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and even, Moses through David, through Solomon and Jesus who himself is a Jew. The Exodus story is a true, as the story of David and as the Holocaust. And that is GOD created Israel for His people.

and documented that there were two original peoples, African and those from the Middle East. His book I believe is called "The Origins of Man." A must read. Denying a past is like denying todays prophesied Israel. This author is the King of denial....

as well as her future were all foreseen and documented in the Holy Bible. Even Ishmael= Islam "A wild man with his hand against every man and every mans hand against him and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren." You need to wake up herr nada.

proven the story. The problem with scientists is they believe their own understanding and limited intelligence. GOD is a much higher than any human being. The Egyptian did rule the land, but they lost all their land after the Exodus. Christians who are scientists have proven the Exodus happened by studying the climate conditions in that century including making the trek themselves, speaking with local Egyptians who also believe and have written documents passed down in history. Science cannot prove all things.

Not being able to find something is poor evidence! If a man said to his wife, “Honey I know the car keys don’t exist because I can’t find them!” Would she buy that? Would she not likely say, “Dear, I think you need to look a little more!” And yet this is the best “evidence” that skeptics have against the Exodus of Israel. “I couldn’t find it!” Would you expect scholars who do not believe the Bible to find any evidence for the Exodus? How hard would they look for it? How much time and money would you spend looking for something you did not believe existed? They do not like their source of information coming from the Bible that teaches about God, creation, and miracles. Yet, they will readily cherish any papyrus they find in the sand of Egypt, whose author would have believed in Egyptian mythology and worshiped a multitude of Egyptian gods, half of which were animals! “Seek, and ye shall find” If they you want something that was dug up from the sand of Egypt, then the Pithom Stele coupled with the inscription of Ptolemy Philadelphus at Mount Gharib takes it out of the area of theory, plausibility, and circumstantial, and puts it in the arena of evidence. See http://www.sinai-horeb.com/

The ancient Jews come from what is today North Yemen. Plenty of proof of that. The Exodus never happened from Egypt. The word Pharaoh did not exist in Ancient Egypt - it is a Semitic word.

David and Solomon's kingdoms were in Yemen. The Jews were Arabs - like the other inhabitants of Yemen. The Babylonians punished all the Arabs of Yemen (including the Jewish tribes) - for raiding the lucrative trade route to Petra - by exiling them. The Persians liberated them.

The Levant was desert at the time of the Exodus. Yemen had rivers and many dams. If you really want to do some serious archaeology, stop the bombing of Yemen and send your archaeologists there.

The 2015 documentary film, "Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus", by a Minneapolis, Minnesota film maker named Tim Mahoney presents a very convincing defense of the Exodus, based on physical evidence, historical writings of the time, and archeological evidence to support it all. The bottom line is that ONE British, female archeologist misinterpreted the physical evidence present, failed to put everything into the correct relationship, made her "best guess" time estimate, and determined...in HER mind... that the Exodus story wasn't true. Mr. Mahoney provides a very strong, and convincing defense showing that if the errant timeline, based on a misinterpretation by the woman, was actually adjusted correctly, ALL the actual physical, and historical evidence falls correctly into it's proper, historical place, showing that the Exodus story IS true. I strongly recommend you watch this very interesting movie!

What people don't realize , including many Archaeologists , is how the
Chronology of the ancient Near East is determined .
.
The real culprit who made a terrible blunder was Champollion - the French man who deciphered the Hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone .

In 1828 he went to Egypt to read the Hieroglyphs on the temple walls .
In Upper Egypt in the Great Temple of Amon at Karnak he read on a side
wall a Campaign of an Egyptian Pharaoh to Canaan .
On the wall there's a City Names List of over 150 locations in Canaan.
Among them Gaza , Ajalon , Gibeon , Taanach , Megiddo .

Among the name rings he read one as ""Yuda Ha Malkuth"" - Kingdom of
Judah - which he thought meant Jerusalem .
That name ring actually reads ""Yad Ha Melek"" - Champolion was wrong !
Further , this ""Monument of the King"" is between Megiddo and Wadi Ara Pass mentioned as ""Aruna"" . Nowhere near Jerusalem !!!
The King's name is Shoshenq .....
He thought to himself Shoshenq == Shishaq the Egyptian King who
plundered the Temple Treasures of Jerusalem in Year 5 of Rehoboam .

Shishaq was allied with Jeroboam who rebelled against Solomon and his son
he also gave him his wife's sister for wife .
Shishaq attacks Judah .
Shoshenq goes all around Judah , but does not go into Judah and does
not attack Jerusalem .
.........
In Egypt you can read the monuments , you go to a gate the Pharaoh who
built it - his name is all over it . Not so in Canaan where the monuments
are mute and silent .

The whole dating of archaeological excavations in Israel , and other parts
of the near east such as Greece , Syria , Sudan , is based on finding
some Egyptian artifact like a scarab with a king's name in one of the
strata of excavation and pinning that strata to that particular Egyptian King .
.
On the other hand , in Egypt the only fixed date in the chronology is
the sacking of Thebes by the Assyrians in 664 BCE - based on chronological
calculations of Assyria and Babylon which are very detailed and precise .

Anything before that is a guess .

Champolion Synchronized the plunder of Jerusalem to year 21 of Shoshenq.
The Biblical Date is 925 BCE - this is a date calculated by adding
the various Judean and Israelite Kings ....

So the scholars use the Bible to fix the Egyptian Chronology based on a mistaken identification of Shishaq with Shoshenq who does not mention Jerusalem and actually campaigns in the North and trans-Jordan stirring
clear of Judah .

They then use the wrong and overstretched Egyptian Chronology and
they can't find proof for the Sojourn Exodus and Conquest -- because they
are looking in the wrong time !!!