Talk:Moses/Archive 4

The Moses article is strangely ignorant of modern genetic research on Moses. I therefore suggest the following section be added somewhere (excerpts from the Y-chromosomal Aaron article). The statistical "health warning" in the last sentence is my own:

Genetic Dating of Moses The fates of the two descendents of Moses are unrecorded either in the scriptures or in non-scriptural sources, but there are many thousand living humans belonging to the Jewish priestly Kohanim caste who claim patrilineal descent from Moses' brother Aaron, according to the Torah and the Old Testament. Since biological brothers share the same Y chromosome, it follows that Aaron's Y-type is also Moses' Y-type and Moses' father's Y-type. Genetic analysis has supported the oral and biblical traditions by revealing that indeed about half of contemporary Jewish Kohanim are closely related within Y-chromosomal haplogroup J1c3 (also called J-P58). The original research dates from 1997,^[1] and the most recent molecular phylogenetic update places Aaron's Y-chromosome within subhaplogroup Z18271 (age estimate 2638-3280 years before present using the molecular clock).^[2][3] It follows that Aaron (and hence his brother Moses) lived at some point in the time span 638 BC to 1280 BC (95% confidence interval). Technically, one generation (approximately 30 years) should be added to these dates, as adults rather than newborns were sampled and furthermore the time estimate does not include uncertainty in the DNA mutation rate and may therefore be revised in future research.

You mean genetics can establish the chromosomal type of a figure of legend? (The modern consensus is that Moses isa a figure of legend. See the 'Historicity' section). It's like someone arguing from present day Cretans for the haplogroup of Minos or even Cadmus.Nishidani (talk) 11:46, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The "Moses legend" hypothesis is not supported by the 1997 paper in Nature or by the subsequent genetic research on the Cohanim. These genetic results have been around for 20 years now, and it is time to mention them in Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 12:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Moses isn't mentioned in the 1997 Nature paper. So how can it be cited in support of Moses not being a legend? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:23, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Moses and Aaron are mentioned, albeit implicitly, in the very first sentence. The Nature letter starts "According to the biblical accounts, the Jewish priesthood was established about 3,300 years ago with the appointment [by Moses] of the first Israelite high priest [Aaron]." Satisfied? If not, please present your own wording and we can discuss that. I can help you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 19:29, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

No, your interpretation is very loose. The Nature article assumes that the Jewish priesthood has existed for quite some time. Not many scholars would dispute this. The Nature study of priestly Y-chromosomes identifies a distinct paternal Jewish genealogy, finds differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic populations, and suggests that the apparent stability of priestly Y-chromosomes might be useful in defining rates and mechanisms of Y-chromosome evolution. None of this means that Moses was an actual historical person. Thank you. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

It is not "my interpretation" but a natural reading of the Nature paper, and also the opinion of the senior author, Professor Mike Hammer:

The New York Times "Week in Review" (May 24, 1998). Excerpts:

   "Last year, for example, Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona, showed that a genetic analysis of the Y chromosomes of Jewish men who ritualistically identified themselves as descendants of the Biblical High Priest Aaron and are known as Cohanim showed a high transmission of markers that were less prevalent among Jews who did not identify as Cohanim. This was evidence, Hammer said, of the accuracy of the oral tradition."   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 20:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I'm not following this. Are we now talking about ritualistic identification? An oral tradition? Or the biblical figure of Moses? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

We are talking about a relevant and growing body of genetic research since the seminal 1997 paper, which is currently not mentioned at all in the Moses article. Wikipedia deserves better. If you do not like my version, please propose another. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 20:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

You might contribute edits to this article: Y-chromosomal Aaron. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Can you please recommend an impartial mediator who can investigate your arguments/puzzlement, the Moses article as is, and my request to mention the genetic research? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 21:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that fundamentalist chronology has Aaron dying around 1537 BCE., some 300 years before the putative Aaronic Y-chromosome's upper limit 'using the molecular clock', yielding a zero confidence interval (speaking of which reminds one of the Lucretian intervalla insaniae) Nishidani (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The traditional chronology has the Exodus around 1450 BCE so Aaron would die around 1410 BCE, but of course the Exodus could have been later and most historians put it during the 13th century BCE. Benjil (talk) 20:04, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I think most historians consider the entire story of the Exodus as made up fiction, possibly written during the Babylonian exile. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 20:07, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

No. This is a minority view. I am not speaking about when the Bible was written, the mainstream consensus is around the 7th century BCE. But about the reality of an Exodus, even if it was different from the tale of the Bible. The general view is that there had to be some kind of exit from Egypt by at least some group that was later part of the Israelites. You can't explain it otherwise. The idea that the Israelites are a Canaanite group that suddenly emerged during the late Bronze Age is fashionable in some circles. In my own opinion, it makes no sense at all and does not have even the smallest shred of evidence to go for it, on the contrary. Benjil (talk) 20:46, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The paper can't be used to support anything about Moses. This is cleary WP:SYNTHESIS to reach an unwarranted conclusion, and a violation of Wikipedia policy. Sundayclose (talk) 15:50, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Sundayclose is correct. Can we please stop this off-topic argument about the reality of Exodus or Moses? We need sources, and since this is about genetics we need peer reviewed sources, that discuss the genetics in relationship to Moses. That's a policy requirement. Please either present them or just stop. Doug Weller talk 21:20, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Doug, thanks for coming in. Nature is a peer-reviewed journal, so part one of your requirement is fulfilled. Do you agree? Do you also agree that Aaron is implied in the first sentence (we could cite the NYT interview of the author to dispel any doubt of the senior author's intentions)? Thirdly, do you agree that the research on Moses' brother Aaron is of interest to the Moses article? And while you are pondering, here, as you requested, is a paper by the same research group from 2009 (so slightly out of date now, but freely available) which focusses on improving the time estimate of Aaron (which is the point of my suggested new section above - I was not expecting to get embroiled in a discussion with Moses/Aaron/Exodus/etc. deniers): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771134. And here is the Thomas et al. 1998 follow-up paper, by a British research group, to convince you this is the majority view of geneticists over the last 20 years: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6689/full/394138a0.html. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.154.28 (talk) 21:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Happy Easter, everyone. For your convenience, here is the explicitly "Moses/Aaron-mentioning" Thomas et al. 1998 Nature summary, which we can cite in addition to the original 1997 paper:

"Origins of Old Testament priests Mark G. Thomas, Karl Skoreckiad Haim Ben-Amid, Tudor Parfitt, Neil Bradman & David B. Goldstein Abstract According to Jewish tradition, following the Exodus from Egypt, males of the tribe of Levi, of which Moses was a member, were assigned special religious responsibilities, and male descendants of Aaron, his brother, were selected to serve as Priests (Cohanim). To the extent that patrilineal inheritance has been followed since sometime around the Temple period (roughly 3,000-2,000 years before present), Y chromosomes of present-day Cohanim and Levites should not only be distinguishable from those of other Jews, but — given the dispersion of the priesthood following the Temple's destruction — they should derive from a common ancestral type no more recently than the Temple period. Here we show that although Levite Y chromosomes are diverse, Cohen chromosomes are homogeneous. We trace the origin of Cohen chromosomes to about 3,000 years before present, early during the Temple period." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.102.143 (talk) 16:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

IP86.154.102.143, you seem to think that I don't support this material appearing in Wiki. I can, and, indeed, much of it is already in the article Y-chromosomal Aaron, where the analysis is related to a hypothetical most recent common ancestor. A similar analysis was done for "Eve": Mitochondrial Eve. But let's be clear that these are extrapolations and they don't relate to a specific historical person that we can actually identify through genetics. If this can be explained, then maybe there is something here to discuss for this article. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 17:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like I am starting to get through to you, good. You are however mistaken (or at least choosing the wrong wording) that a most recent common ancestor among a living group of individuals (be they human or non-human) for a genetic locus (mtDNA in the case of the human mitochondrial "Eve", and Y in case of a patrilineal ancestor) is "hypothetical". No - the ancestor was real, alive and kicking. It is a mathematical necessity in a non-recombining genetic system that it leads back to a single historic or prehistoric individual. The question then is, whether that MRCA was Aaron, Australopithecus afarensis, or a protozoan in a slime pool one billion years ago. The answer is unknown UNTIL you attempt a genetic time estimate which can tell you at which time depth that ancestor lived. And precisely that has been done for the group of people claiming descent from Aaron. And the genetic dating comes out about right (with all the caveats regarding the DNA mutation rate that I cautiously mentioned above). Got it? Next, you say a similar analysis was done for "Eve" (I presume you are referring to the Cann et al. 1987 paper and subsequent work). Not really, the most obvious comparison is the similar Y analysis performed for the self-declared patrilineal descendents of Genghis Khan living today in a Pakistan valley. In that case again, the answer was (a) they indeed share the same (Mongolian!) ancestral type and (b) the ancestor genetically was determined to have lived some 900 years ago. Bingo. That is what DNA can do nowadays, and Wikipedia should know about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.102.143 ([[User

talk:86.154.102.143|talk]]) 17:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

So Isambard and Doug, taking all your moans and groans into account, here is a new version which refers primarily to the 1998 paper (where Moses and Aaron are explicitly mentioned), and I am now omitting my health warning. I would be grateful if you could agree to this version and insert it into the protected Moses article:

Genetic Dating of Moses The fates of the two descendants of Moses are unrecorded either in the scriptures or in non-scriptural sources, but there are many thousand living humans belonging to the Jewish priestly Kohanim caste who claim patrilineal descent from Moses' brother Aaron, according to the Torah and the Old Testament. Since biological brothers share the same Y chromosome, it follows that Aaron's Y-type is also Moses' Y-type and Moses' father's Y-type. Genetic analysis has supported the oral and biblical traditions by revealing that indeed about half of contemporary Jewish Kohanim are closely related within a Y-chromosomal type now known as haplogroup J1c3 (also called J-P58), with a common ancestor genetically dated to approximately 3000 years ago.^[1] The original research dates from 1997,^[2] and updates have been published since, for example by Hammer et al. (2009).^[3]

The sources don't say that they have discovered anything about Aaron's genetics, let alone Moses. I can't read the 2nd source but the 3rd mentions Aaron only once and Moses not st all. But your text suggests that they did. Our main article doesn't make that suggestion either. Doug Weller talk 20:09, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Doug, with regards to your perception that "The sources don't say that they have discovered anything about Aaron's genetics, let alone Moses", I am genuinely puzzled why you do not read reference 1 (Thomas 1998) as a straight hypothesis test as is usual in the sciences. So let me paraphrase Mark Thomas's 1998 abstract for you: IF the biblical account on Moses and Aaron regarding priesthood succession since about 1200BC is correct and IF the oral tradition by the Cohanim is correct, THEN the Y data should show that (a) the Levites' Y chromosomes are diverse and (b) the Cohanim Y's are monomorphic (or nearly so - a woman sometimes has a child with the postman and does not tell her husband, and pretend it is his...) and (c) the time depth of the Cohanim Y-chronosomes should have accumulated mutational diversity which corresponds to a time depth predating AD 70, but postdating the biblical Aaron date of perhaps 1200 BC. And the amazing result is: all three criteria are fulfilled by the data, giving support to the hypothesis. Clear now?

Point c is perhaps slightly complicated to appreciate if you are not an evolutionary geneticist. Skip to the last sentence if this is over your head: say for the sake of argument the biblical account is true and Aaron's patrilineal descendants inherited priesthood since 1200BC, then, over the generations, Aarons' male-line descendants gradually accumulate mutations, giving rise to new Y-subtypes. It is these mutated subtypes which are connected in an evolutionary mutational Y "family tree" which we see in the descendants today and which are used for the genetic dating, and should in a perfect world yield a date of 1200BC. However the world is not perfect and in reality some descendant types die out (because occasionally a certain Cohen may fail to produce sons). Sooner or later such a natural dying out will affect the deepest branch of descendants in the tree - and then the genetic dating produces a date YOUNGER than 1200BC. This extinction phenomenon, called genetic drift, incidentally addresses a misunderstanding by Nishidani above. That is why Thomas 1998 requires the Cohanim Y ancestor to be 1200BC OR YOUNGER in order to prove the hypothesis. Are you with me so far? OK, so next we have the remark in the Thomas 1998 paper that the proof of the hypothesis requires the Cohanim Y date to be OLDER than AD 70. Why this constraint? Because in AD70 the temple was destroyed and the Jews and their Cohanim dispersed across the Roman empire, yielding ultimately the major Sephardic (Iberian) and Ashkenazi (central European) populations. And NOW we have a new effect: the genetic drift effectively comes to a standstill with regards to the common Sephardic/Ashkenazi ancestor (whether that common ancestor is Aaron himself, or a younger branch in the Y tree due to extinction of older branches, say at 500BC). This standstill has come about due to the mating separation of the dispersed gene pool: it becomes highly unlikely that the SAME oldest branch independently dies out in BOTH the Sephardic Cohanim AND in the Ashkenazi Cohanim. I have simplified here somewhat, but hope this makes sense? If this not make sense to you, may I suggest you recruit an evolutionary geneticist, or a conservation geneticist or a population geneticist, amongst your Wikipedian administrators who can reassure you I am telling the truth? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.102.143 (talk) 21:27, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

IP86.154.102.143, If Moses and Aaron existed and a group of modern Jews is descended from them, then this could show up as common genes in those modern Jews. But common genes in modern Jews does not necessarily mean that Moses and Aaron existed. Do you agree with this? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that common genes in modern Jews does not necessarily mean that Moses and Aaron existed. And the fact that all your posts here are signed by IsambardKingdom does not necessarily mean that such a person exists - you could in theory be a group of people pretending to be one person. In science we work with probabilities, not with certainties. Certainty exists only for mathematicians and for ideologists. Hence we scientists tend to use mealy-mouthed weasel words such as "supporting a hypothesis". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.154.102.143 (talk) 22:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

When scientists examine an hypothesis, they need to consider whether or not their tests of the hypothesis are really providing any useful insight. Are there other, more reasonable hypotheses that should also be considered? And, do their tests permit any discrimination between those hypotheses? In this case, few dispute that Jews have been a rather tightly defined ethnic group for a long time. The genetic tests support this unsurprising hypothesis. It is, however, a stretch to say that the genetic tests support the hypothesis that Moses or Aaron actually existed. Anyway, this discussion is far from this particular article on Moses. I suggest, again, that you could be usefully take your proposals to the article Y-chromosomal Aaron. I will now move on. Thank you. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 23:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

"Are there other, more reasonable hypotheses that should also be considered?" Well, one can easily construct millions of hypotheses (e.g. "Aaron's single male heir failed to produce a son, hence he kidnapped his neighbour's baby son and pretended it is his."), but you ask whether a hypothesis is "reasonable", and that is largely in the eye of the beholder. With Pontius Pilate I ask you "What is truth?" In the real world, I think we humans tend to take something as reasonable if apparently independent lines of evidence seem to confirm it. With the Aaron story it is not quite clear how many independent lines of evidence we have: at the one extreme, I could say there is only one line of evidence, and that it is dubious: the bible account. Taking a middle position, I could say there are two independent lines of evidence: the Bible and the Cohanim oral tradition. At the other extreme I could say we seem to have thousands of independent lines of evidence if each Cohen family today has independently maintained its oral tradition. Most geneticists, I have the impression, take the middle ground and implicitly or explicitly base their hypothesis-building on the middle ground position.

Moving on to your statement "In this case, few dispute that Jews have been a rather tightly defined ethnic group for a long time. The genetic tests support this unsurprising hypothesis. It is, however, a stretch to say that the genetic tests support the hypothesis that Moses or Aaron actually existed." You have missed the point of the Thomas 1998 paper (and by extension all the other research): genetically neither the Jews NOR THEIR PRIESTLY LEVITE CASTE are particularly tightly knit. It IS therefore SIGNIFICANT that specifically the Cohanim with their patrilineal claim are extremely tightly-knit IN THEIR Y CHROMOSOMES. And the crunch is the GENETIC DATE of 1000BC or thereabouts.

As for your last sentence, it seems clear to me that you have invested considerable energy and prestige into a particular hypothesis ("Moses/Aaron did not exist"), a position which seems contestable on the basis of the post-1997 genetics. Perhaps you are too young to have witnessed the media hoo-ha at the time (1997/1998). Please do not succumb to the temptation of suppressing the information from the Moses article to continue living within your comfort zone. Did you know that when we meet other humans for the first time, we decide within 7 seconds whether we like them or not, and then spend the rest of our lives unconsciously seeking confirmatory evidence for our already existing opinion? Scary. Please do not become like that, but continuously challenge yourself intellectually.

Looking back at similar cases in history: in their mythology, the ancient Greeks wrote about the city of Troy in the Iliad, and about a tribe of short people called the Pygmies. By the 19th century, hardly anybody believed in either of these, taking them to be myths like everything else in the Iliad. And then in 1868 the pioneering archaeologists Calvert/Schliemann excavated Troy, and in 1890 the explorer Stanley rediscovered the Pygmies in the African jungle. Would anyone today wish to be a pygmy-denier or a Troy-denier? Genetics is undergoing a technology revolution as we speak (next-generation-sequencing), and who knows what will happen next. What we need to do at Wikipedia is to keep readers informed of the current state of affairs, resist the human urge for comfort zones, and deal with the future when it comes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.172.210 (talk) 07:47, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

And again. "Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests" doesn't mention Aaron (or Moses). Although "Origins of Old Testament priests" mentions Aaron it in no way suggests it is identifying his genetics but talks about a "common ancestral type". . "Origins and history of Haplogroup j1" fails WP:RS - not reliably published and author's an enthusiast, not a scientist. "Y-DNA Haplogroup J1 phylogenetic tree" doesn't claim to have identified Aaron's genetics, right? The existence of Moses or Aaron is irrelevant. We don't use logic or interpretation when writing articles, we simply report what the sources have said. Please take this to WP:RSN. Doug Weller talk 12:00, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Doug - you are still referring to the old version. In my new version I have already responded to your points by citing primarily the Thomas et al. 1998 paper which explicitly mentions and investigates the Moses/Aaron descent hypothesis. Please rephrase your criticism accordingly, if you feel your points are still not addressed:

Genetic Dating of Moses The fates of the two descendants of Moses are unrecorded either in the scriptures or in non-scriptural sources, but there are many thousand living humans belonging to the Jewish priestly Kohanim caste who claim patrilineal descent from Moses' brother Aaron, according to the Torah and the Old Testament. Since biological brothers share the same Y chromosome, it follows that Aaron's Y-type is also Moses' Y-type and Moses' father's Y-type. Genetic analysis has supported the oral and biblical traditions by revealing that indeed about half of contemporary Jewish Kohanim are closely related within a Y-chromosomal type now known as haplogroup J1c3 (also called J-P58), with a common ancestor genetically dated to approximately 3000 years ago.^[1] The original research dates from 1997,^[2] and updates have been published since, for example by Hammer et al. (2009).^[3]

I would be grateful if you could agree to this version and insert it into the protected Moses article. Doug, if you are still uncertain about the genetics - ask an evolutionary geneticist on your Wikpedia panel.

This is not about needing a geneticist. Doug has pointed out that the sources don't support the point you are trying to make. Indeed, the sources seem to only mention the biblical characters of Moses and Aaron as a sort of interesting aspect of the relative genetic stability of the Jewish people -- this is the hypothesis they are actually exploiting, not the assumed historical accuracy of the Bible. Furthermore, there are more relevant wikiarticles for this content. Y-chromosomal Aaron. Why don't you take it there, and see how genetics-literate editors regard all this? For now, this has become tedious. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Isambard. I am afraid you are still misunderstanding the Thomas 1998 paper - it is not about "the relative genetic stability of the Jewish people". The paper is about the Levite and the Cohanim Y variation in the light of the biblical Moses/Aaron tradition. I do suggest you recruit an evolutionary/population/conservation geneticist to advise you on this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.172.210 (talk) 13:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

No, I am going to make a different suggestion, because you two (Isambard and Doug) are obviously unwilling to consult another geneticist: Please summarise, in your own words, in three or four sentences what the Thomas et al. 1998 paper says. That way, you are forced to read the paper properly, and I can then see precisely where you are going wrong in your thinking, and can correct you. Then we can all agree on exactly what to add (and what not to add) in the Moses article. Howzat? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.172.210 (talk) 13:57, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Read WP:NOTFORUM.Nishidani (talk) 14:02, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree there should be some statement in the article about genetics showing support of a common ancestor from the timeframe of Moses, supporting the biblical account. Then point to the Aaron page. I'm a casual reader, not a scholar, as most of us readers are. I find it interesting. I'm sure you can put some disclaimers in there if needed. Rkcannon (talk) 14:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

We can't put in disclaimers, that's not the way we work. Doug Weller talk 14:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I can see no reason why we should use a tertiary source, let alone one that might have different dates next week, as a source for Moses's dates (and "flourished during c. 1400 BCE-C.1201 BCE"? What does that even mean? Oxfordonline has the relevant definition " Be working or at the height of one’s career during a specified period:" - perhaps it should say "at some time between...."? There must be academic sources for this. Doug Weller talk 18:28, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:55, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Maybe this question should be brought up at the RS page, since it may affect many old articles. FWIW, for a subject related to the Bible, it may even lead some to conclude that most secondary sources are effectively tertiary, and that one of the few neutral sources, such as Britannica, may be better than most secondary sources. There are few secondary sources that can claim to be truly neutral. Just the act of some archaeology group engaging in some dig somewhere, looking for evidence for some detail, implies a non-neutral agenda. In any case, which source can be considered more neutral and more comprehensive for consolidating the best secondary sources than EB? --Light show (talk) 17:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

It's been discussed before. And currently. Encyclopedia articles in the past have generally been written by one person and often give only one pov. That doesn't make them neutral. Nor do sources need to be neutral, in fact there are topics where neutrality is probably impossible as there is more than one valid point of view. And now that it's online its articles are subject to more frequent change as readers make suggestions and editors add them. And then of course there are the studies showing we can be more accurate than the EB. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Can you clarify where it was discussed? I'm sure it has been a lot, but I'm not sure where to search it. As for an EB article being written by one person, and thereby automatically POV, that would imply that an any article written by any scholar (which is what EB writers are,) is POV. That regardless of the fact that EB writers may be experts, have relied on hundreds of other good sources, with their stated goal being to give a non-pov overview. I realize that WP can be more accurate and often more comprehensive than EB. I don't think their article on penis, for instance, is as scholarly and comprehensive as WPs, at 9,000 words and 140 references.--Light show (talk) 20:17, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

At WP:RSN = and you can search for other mentions. Most articles written by scholars have a pov. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We can use pov sources, in fact we often have no choice, depending on the subject. It's t our articles that need to be written from an NPOV perspective. My point is that if you rely on the Britannica as the source you won't get a good article. There's more than that of course, encyclopedia articles are by their nature short and can't provide the nuanced discussion an academic book or even a journal article can. Encyclopedias don't have a non-pov goal so far as I know. We do because we give different perspectives, which isn't that common in encyclopedias. Doug Weller talk 20:32, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Unfinished business summarised from above (why is Wikipedia so slow in implementing new research?):

The Moses article is strangely ignorant of modern genetic research on Moses. I therefore suggest the following section be added somewhere:

"Genetic Dating of Moses There are many thousand living humans belonging to the Jewish priestly Kohanim caste who claim patrilineal descent from Moses' brother Aaron, according to the Torah and the Old Testament. Since biological brothers share the same Y chromosome, it follows that Aaron's Y-type is also Moses' Y-type and Moses' father's Y-type. Genetic analysis has supported the oral and biblical traditions by revealing that indeed about half of contemporary Jewish Kohanim are closely related within a Y-chromosomal type now known as haplogroup J1c3, with a common ancestor genetically dated to approximately 3000 years ago.^[1]"

I agree there should be some statement in the article about genetics showing support of a common ancestor from the timeframe of Moses, supporting the biblical account. Then point to the Aaron page. I'm a casual reader, not a scholar, as most of us readers are. I find it interesting. I'm sure you can put some disclaimers in there if needed. Rkcannon (talk) 14:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

We went around in circles on this with an IP editor. He/She said that "The "Moses legend" hypothesis is not supported by the 1997 paper in Nature". Other editors weren't convinced that that was proper reading of that and the other sources. There is already an article on Y-chromosomal Aaron. I can imagine adding a link to that article in the "See also" section of this article, but we can't say what isn't said in reliable sources. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:23, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

(ec) Note that the 1998 paper is way out of date. It was the very first paper to be published in the whole field of genetic genealogy. Things have moved on a lot since then (and are still moving ahead at a breakneck pace), especially including now results from archaeological DNA that are now starting to come through. Across the field as a whole, we're still even now only just starting to get a detailed picture of what current DNA patterns may be related to earlier migrational groups and over what timescales. Consequently, in a similar way to WP:MEDRS, material more than say 5 years old should be treated with extreme caution, as should popular glosses, and amateur research. (Older popular material can be even worse).

I disagree. The archaeological papers since about 2005 have not necessitated major changes of view since the landmark out-of-Africa papers published by Allan Wilson in 1987 and 1991.86.154.102.1 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Some of the more recent published academic material on these particular lines of Jewish ancestry can be found at Y-chromosomal Aaron, our principal article on this topic. But be warned that that article itself is not in particularly good shape.

The most recent data shows that just under 50% of Jewish people with male Cohen ancestry appear to share a rare pattern of Y-chromosomal genetic values, including a distinctive mutation currently dated as having come into existence circa 2650-3250 years ago. (These estimates should not be considered set in stone -- the best way to calculate such dates is still quite controversial, and the best choices and assumptions made to base such calculations on are still topics of debate, and will be until there is a lot more archaeological data to establish really firm calibrations). There is also a second group of about 15% of people with Cohen ancestry who appear to have a different (but also very longstanding) pattern of Y-DNA values. Many of the Cohanim appear to be in fact very very closely related, apparently indicating the ascendency of a few lines from the early medieval period that then grew particularly abundantly during the explosion of the Ashkenazi population between 1400 and 1900. But the underlying shared patterns are older and a bit broader than this (both of them), and found both in Ashkenazi and Sephardi families with Cohen traditions.

Note for the layman: "patterns" here is genetic jargon for ancestral "men".86.154.102.1 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

It does seem most likely therefore that these patterns do go back to patterns that were present in some of the hereditary priests of temple-period Judaism.

Precisely. This means the scholarly theories assigning a Babylonian Exile time depth (6th century BC) to the Moses story are genetically implausible. And yet this genetically implausibly shallow time depth is what the current Wikipedia article uncritically presents as scholarly consensus.86.154.102.1 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Of course the Torah identifies that priesthood as descending from Aaron, the brother of Moses. But that's a somewhat more difficult proposition, because there's really nothing to corroborate it beyond the Torah (as indeed there's really nothing -- despite the most intensive searching -- to corroborate any of the story of the book of Exodus and its subsequent continuation; on the contrary, the archaeological evidence appears to firmly point to the people that became Israel having been indigenous to those places, rather than there having been anything like the mass immigration / conquest described in the Bible.) Another thing to note is that present-day Levites -- also traditionally considered to be the kin of Aaron -- show rather different sets of genetic values to the Cohens.

You are misreading the 1998 paper. No-one says the Levites are descendants of Aaron. Aaron is allegedly a member of the Levites, who claim pre-Moses ancestry. Hence the identified higher genetic diversity in the Levites represents supporting evidence in the 1998 paper.86.154.102.1 (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The broad academic consensus sees Moses as a legendary figure. I would be very wary of imputing concrete real-world medical data, like a genetic signature, to basically a figure of legend. What I think we can say is that it does seem very likely that the present-day Cohen genetic patterns do very likely reflect patterns that were present in at least some of the priests in the temple period. But that would be matter for the Cohen article, not for this one. I would be very cautious about making claims any further back. Jheald (talk) 22:29, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

"the archaeological evidence appears to firmly point to the people that became Israel having been indigenous to those places" - absolutely untrue. There is not a shred of evidence for this theory other than "we did not find direct proof of the Exodus so they must have been there all the time", which is basically saying that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. On the contrary there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that support the Exodus story (in its broad lines) like the fact of a sudden population explosion in the hills of Canaan from the East in the 13th century BCE. Anyway there is absolutely no consensus in this question and different schools of archeologists have opposite views. Benjil (talk) 04:57, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Why do people think absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence? If evidence can be found of tiny nomad camps in the desert pre dating any Exodus, lack of similar evidence for a much larger group is indeed evidence of absence. Not proof, but evidence. Doug Weller talk 04:51, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Evidence can be found of tiny nomad camps pre dating the Exodus ? That's interesting since even modern nomad groups leave no trace after one year, and for example we have no traces of the camps of the thousands of Egyptians workers who went on their way to the mines in Sinai every year during hundreds of years. So, yes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Benjil (talk) 05:00, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The Egyptians used, not Egyptians, but Near Eastern slave labourers in the Sinai mines, and they left evidence of their (often Canaanite) presence. Nishidani (talk) 19:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

They left evidences in the mines and around, not on the way to the mines, we have no traces of any of their camps, a few days walk every season. Benjil (talk) 18:44, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I can't find where I read that. However, Finkelstein and Silberman: “Modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world.” Furdicnnorc, “repeated archaeological surveys in all regions of the [Sinai] peninsula ... have yielded only negative evidence, not even a single shred, no structure, not a single house, no trace of an ancient encampment. . . . There is simply no such evidence at the supposed time of the Exodus.” Negative evidence is evidence of absence. You are confusing evidence with absolute proof. Doug Weller talk 18:53, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Once again, we can't find any traces of modern nomads one year after they left. Nomads do not leave traces because they do not build "houses and structures", they live in tents and do not use pottery, so no, we will not find anything later. Why do they expect the Israelites fleeing Egypt to build houses and structures in the desert is beyond me. And Finkelstein and Silberman, who are not exactly the most neutral people here, do support the idea that negative evidence is evidence of absence. This is an ideological position more than a scientific one. Benjil (talk) 13:28, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Moses is a little White washed in this wikipedia article. This is a photo of what the Jewish community in the Middle-East think of Moses, http://imgur.com/9Qufl7k

As I recall, Moses was Middle-Eastern, he wasn't European, or was I wrong? Perhaps I was wrong, it seems he was an Indo-European man of European lineage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zuormak (talk • contribs) 15:22, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

"No Egyptian sources mention Moses or the events of Exodus-Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the Sinai wilderness to support the story in which he is the central figure." Actually, there are no Biblical sources for Moses either until the 8th century, and then only in the northern kingdom (he's not mentioned in sources from Judah till a century later). The article needs more discussion of the Biblical texts regarding him.PiCo (talk) 08:48, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Actually you are confusing speculation with facts. This separation between the sources and datation is not based on hard evidence but some interpretation of the texts.Benjil (talk) 13:10, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

It's a fact that the earliest mention of the name of Moses is in the prophet Hosea, who came from the northern kingdom of Israel, and that the Pentateuch is a product of the Persian period (though there's an increasing tendancy to date much of it to the Hellenistic period. Naturally I have reliable sources for this. PiCo (talk) 00:41, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I got that wrong - Hosea doesn't name Moses, just talks about "a prophet". So the first mentions of Moses all belong to the post-Exilic period. (The mentions of Moses by name in Samuel are additions to the late-Monarchic text).PiCo (talk) 00:45, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

It's ok, I found the other places where the bible mentions Moses - put it in the article already. PiCo (talk) 09:38, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I think he was mentioned in a simple creed that was recited at Shiloh or another shrine, and that creed is preserved somewhere in the Tanakh, but I can't find it. Can we add that detail to the page? First recorded mention of Moses? Jonathan Tweet (talk) 02:15, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

In addition to the Pentateuch, Moses is mentioned in: 1 Samuel 12:6 and 8; 1 Kings 8:9, 53, and 56; 2 Kings 18:4; and psalms 77:21 [20], 99:6, 105:26, and 106:16, 23, and 32. There are also the numerous references to the "Laws of Moses". Discovering which of these is the earliest wouldn't be easy - the Petateuch is Persian-era, Samuel and Kings were first drafted in the late monarchy and substantially edited later, and the psalms are very difficult to date. The very oldest reference to an exodus-event is i Hosea in the 8th century, but it doesn't mention Modses by name, just "a prophet" who is said to have brought Israel out of Egypt. (I've put this in the article, the source is a contribution by Van Seters in an edited volume).PiCo (talk) 06:29, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

This: "Moses may have flourished between c. 1400 BCE-C.1201 BCE,[12] and he likely mediated Yahweh, whom he knew of through his father-in-law Hobab the Kenite, to the Israelites.[13] Despite this, according to some scholarly consensus, Moses is a legendary figure and not a historical person" - has problems. It more or less asserts he was real than sort of denies it. I don't know what "some scholarly consensus" could mean. We shouldn't state one theory as likely, and here's the text it comes from:

"The Midianite or Kenite hypothesis is the best known theory for the origins of Yahweh.4 This theory holds that Yahweh originated in the South, a tradition echoed in Deuteronomy 33.2, Judges 5.4 and Habakkuk 3.3.' South, here, denotes south of Judah, i.e. the Sinai, Paran, Edom, Teman, Seir or Midian. Going back to the late nineteen century CE, the theory holds that Yahweh was mediated to Israel via Moses who learned ofYahweh from his father-in-law Hobab the Kenite, a branch of the Midianites and a priest ofYahweh. This much can be extrapolated from the Hebrew Bible." Doug Weller talk 12:37, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree, and add that recently, some edits such as that are slowly pushing the character of Moses from fictional to historical. There is "overwhelming" consensus (as given in citation), not "some", against that point of view. And in my opinion, if we keep the Britannica conjectural dates, these should be subordinates to the historicity consensus, not the reverse like now (I mean, now is "Britannica gives [...] despite that, there is some consensus [...]" while it should be "there is overwhelming consensus [...] despite that, Britannica gives [...] Khruner (talk) 12:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Apologies. I changed the word "likely" in the article, which was clearly POV, without having seen this discussion in talk. If my change is less than optimal, please change to something better. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I would be in favor of removing this sentence entirely, since both parts of it are now hopelessly vague (may have, some believe) and neither half really belongs. Brittanica's "Moses flourished between the 14th and 13th centuries" is unnecessary to have next to our handful of calculated dates and the note about how current consensus is that he's a legendary figure; "some believe mediated Yahweh to the Israelites" is just a supremely unhelpful bit of text, and "actual historical individual Moses learned about Yahwism from his uncle and introduced it to his countrymen" is not exactly up-to-date scholarship anyway. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 19:38, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I did some pruning. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:50, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to do but the article is semi-protected. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 15:19, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

The lede sentence about the scholarly consensus on the historicity of Moses has now been removed for being tendentious, which is a move I don't agree with. -165.234.252.11 (talk) 18:10, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

You guys take the most controversial questions that divide the human race - like 'was Moses a real person or fiction' - thump your favored scholars books in Appeal to Color of Authority in lieue of any actual evidence - and declare the dispute to be a matter of "overwhelming consensus". Any one who dares disagree or goes by the "wrong sources" is blocked and called a sockpuppet. This is the reputation of intolerant pov pushing wikipedia admins making it an intolerant, polemic, anti-christian backwater, and the reputation it deserves. 71.246.157.117 (talk) 13:00, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Please consider your own POV. If Moses existed, he was Jewish. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:25, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

::Yes, that is entirely consistent with my understanding of the matter (or more accurately Levi not Judah) so please dont try to twist me into a needless strawman for my use of the word "Christian", thanks. 71.246.157.117 (talk) 14:08, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, but you might consider whether or not most Jewish scholars believe Moses existed, or, indeed, whether or not it is that important for their beliefs and culture. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:12, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

::::Why would I consider their opinions that differ from mine in practically every respect? Simple 'appeal to authority' where they figured it all out for us but can't show us the actual proof 'cause it would go over our neophyte heads so theproof was conducted behind closed doors by club members so we all just have to accept their conclusion? are you kidding me? Have they actually come up with anything new the world doesn't already know about, or are they merely saying 'our team is right, therefore our team is right and the others don't even count, case closed in full consensus, nothing to see here' i.e. appeal to authority ? 71.246.157.117 (talk) 14:19, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Jewish scholars of traditional Judaism - meaning rabbis - believed and do believe today not only that he existed, but that he lived as depicted in the Bible, and yes it is very important to them. Jewish. Jewish academic scholars may have a wide range of opinions on the matter from believing as the rabbis to denying he ever existed. And this is a pretty important issue for all of them. Benjil (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

The IPs a sock, so I've struck their posts. Doug Weller talk 17:30, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

We have one source stating that the "consensus" is Moses was legendary. Can we please find some more sources to make this statement? -- Hazhk (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2016 (UTC)