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Reviews
Patterns of Evidence: Exodus (2014)
Wondering why I hadn't heard most of this before
The question of whether or not there is a God beyond the world who has sufficient interest in our world to occasionally intervene into human history is quite possibly the most profound question that we wrestle with. Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus is a documentary about one man's attempt to wrestle with this. Tim Mahoney is the name of that man. He comes across as a rather ordinary person. He's not an Indiana Jones with a pistol, a bull-whip, and a PhD in archeology. He's not a professor of history who needs to compete with his peers. He's not one of the sensationalist pundits of alternative history who talks about lost civilizations led by extraterrestrial beings. He comes across as a normal fellow. For me this is a plus to the documentary. He's ratable. He reminds me of me and hundreds of others I have met. Maybe the film is a bit slow at first--but this serves to build up rapport. It's easy to empathize and sympathize with his plight. The film starts of making it clear that Tim grew up believing that the amazing stories in the book titled Exodus were true. There is a God and that God isn't averse to embarrassing the mythological gods to make it clear that He is there, he's serious, and he has purposes for the people he created. This worldview of course created a lot of meaning in life for Tim. And all that gets shaken by the fact that there seems to be no evidence for these stories. Tim isn't just a fideist who can just believe something blindly just because he grew up with it. He really cares about what the leading voices in the scholarly disciplines of Egyptology and ancient near-eastern history have to say. The film starts with Tim's faith in a God-who-cares-and-acts being shaken. And this is not just for dramatic effect. The sincerity shines through in various ways. The very fact that he interviews scholars who have views that are hostile to his faith is one such way. Tim's quest begins not for evidence to prop up his wobbly faith but for truth. That shines through too and seems admirable. Also impressive to me is how Tim doesn't just collecting books by experts. He travels to those experts, interviews them in person, and tapes them! This film is very rich in interviews with some very fascinating people. He collects opinions from a variety of knowledgeable people and attempts to find out if there really is (or isn't) any persuasive evidence of Jews flourishing in Egypt, of Jews becoming slaves in Egypt, of Egypt suffering calamities, of Jews leaving Egypt en masse suddenly, and of city-states in Canaan being conquered and destroyed. Early into the film I was depressed as I began to hear so many respectable scholars say that there is no evidence whatsoever. But as the story unfolds it begins to become clear why so many scholars do not see evidence for these things. I was repeatedly impressed by how Tim's team interviewed the scholars who say the Exodus didn't happen as Moses wrote it, how they interviewed at least four Christian historians who agree that Exodus is true history but who don't agree with one another on all the details and dating, and how the main scholar they interviewed and paid the most attention to (David Rohl) was surprisingly an agnostic (unsure if there is a God) who happens to see that the Exodus account has a tremendous amount of evidence going for it--evidence that most of us have never heard of. As the plot thickens and the details and dates began to become too cumbersome for my mind to juggle, some color-coded, computer-animated timelines come to the rescue. They attempt to show different patterns of evidence that they found and attempt to see if the different patterns can possibly be lined up in a way the corroborative rather than conflicting way. The computer animation was extremely helpful for making the complex sensible and for helping to visualize what the archaeological digs prove. The quality of the CGI was very good. Thumbs up there. This film doesn't pretend to solve the problems of evidence patterns and problems in the standard system of dating. But it provides a very tantalizing and persuasive case that there really are a few different patterns of evidence that are very significant, overlooked, and likely able to be harmonized in the future. It serves as an encouragement and challenge to the scholars to look at the patterns again, rethink things, and not rest on their assumptions. It may also serve as an encouragement and challenge to the rest of us non-scholars to not be afraid to learn from the scholars (keeping in mind there is wisdom in having a multitude of counselors) and take part in the process of the seeking of the truth. I love how an ordinary guy with questions, cameras, and film editing software can care about a question enough to invest a decade of his life and savings into pursuing it. And I appreciate how he shared his tantalizing findings!