Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

A Filmaker's Journey. Mahoney's book and film provide powerful evidence that our faith in the biblical record is not misplaced, and demonstrates that the assumptions of naturalism leave academics with a whole pile of insoluble contradictions.

Kevin Moss | February 2016 - Highfields Book of the Month

By Timothy Mahoney - (2015) st Louis Park: Thinking Man Media

This is the first of my 'Christmas Books' completed in full, and it has been a delight to read. One other reviewer describes it as an 'uncomfortable' read, because this is a large, heavy book. My own studies have required quite a few large, heavy books, so this one is just par for the course.

The Christian message is that a supernatural God is active within the real the context of real human history, and the Exodus narrative is a key exemplar of that truth

Tim Mahoney is a film-maker, not an archaeologist. Turns out that he's a rather good film maker - I saw the film (that this book is an offshoot from) in the USA last July, and it was remarkable. I asked for the book for Christmas, as the DVD has apparently not yet made it to UK shores, but I am glad I did. The book is not aimed at academics, and yet somehow manages to deal progressively and constructively with the pivotal challenge presented by the consensus position on Egyptian chronology - a consensus which is now being challenged by able scholars such as David Rohl, John Bimson and Bryant Wood, as well as by its own internal inconsistencies. If there is some over-repetition of key facts, this is (I think) in order to remind the reader of the cumulative case for a revised chronology - a case which this books does make very persuasively indeed.

'Patterns of Evidence' is beautifully illustrated, well-presented, cogently argued, and presents a sufficiently broad range of opinions and interpretations to allow the reader to draw informed conclusions

Debunking the Exodus narrative seems to have been fair game within secular academia ever since the time of Wellhausen, and of course academic reputations, as well as book royalties, as much as (in certain circles) an ideology which seeks to deny the Jewish people access to their own origins, are unlikely to rush to concur with Mahoney's hypothesis. However it isn't just his own, personal ideas, as this book (and the film) make very clear.

'Patterns of Evidence' is beautifully illustrated, well-presented, cogently argued, and presents a sufficiently broad range of opinions and interpretations to allow the reader to draw conclusions which are at least informed. I enjoyed the numerous asides into the film-making process, including the scoring of the music and the CGI reconstructions, all of which helped anchor the text itself into the wider context of this massive project.

The Christian message is that a supernatural God is active within the real the context of real human history, and the Exodus narrative is a key exemplar of that truth. Mahoney's book and film provide powerful evidence that our faith in the biblical record is not misplaced, and demonstrates that the assumptions of naturalism leave academics with a whole pile of insoluble contradictions.

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