Pete, you are misinterpreting what I wrote. I did not say that "faith means believing what you know is not true." Faith means believing in something for which you have no verifiable evidence. Those are two different things. If you say that you have faith in something for which there IS verifiable evidence, that is not really "faith," that's knowledge.

Those who wrote the scrolls and parchment or papyrus manuscripts that were later assembled into what we now call "the Bible" were often writing of events that they, themselves, did not experience or witness, but had been told. In essence, folklore.

As to the ancient Egyptians keeping slaves, here are two web sites with some most fascination information about them. Including their use of the word "slave," which included servants who were free to come and go on their own time, and the same word was applied to what later civilizations called "serfs" or "peasants."

CLICKY #1.

CLICKY #2

They did keep slaves, but not in the large numbers previous assumed. They were usually prisoners of war.

An interesting note in another web site about a large number of Hebrew slaves says, "Here the historical record is based on the Old Testament and not on Egyptian records."

Don Firth

P. S. I might mention that the pastor of the church I attend once held up a copy of the Bible and said, "This is NOT 'The Boy Scout Manual!' It is not a book of answers. It is a book of questions!"