The Exodus and Wilderness Narratives

Identifying the Historicity of the Exodus, 2023

This essay is a review of the biblical account of Exodus and its possible correlation with the history of Egypt. Interpretations of Egyptian texts, ancient documents and the Pentateuch of the Bible shed new light on the stay of the People of Israel in Egypt and their epic departure led by Moses. Was the Exodus a historical event? When did it happen? In this essay, the story of Exodus and its background in the book of Genesis are critically analyzed, as well as the genealogy of Abraham's family, that of James-Israel and his descendants; the history of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (1780-1560 B.C.); and the archaeological findings in the Eastern Delta of Egypt, to propose a tenable (historically feasible) theory about the Israelite stay in Egypt and the Exodus, complemented by a summary of their long dwelling in the desert and the conquest of Canaan. RESUMEN Este ensayo es una revisión del relato bíblico del Éxodo y su posible correlación con la historia de Egipto. Interpretaciones de textos egipcios, antiguos documentos y el Pentateuco de la Biblia arrojan nueva luz sobre la estancia del Pueblo de Israel en Egipto y su épica salida conducida por Moisés. ¿Fue el Éxodo un evento histórico? ¿Cuándo ocurrió? En este ensayo se analiza críticamente el relato del Éxodo y sus antecedentes en el libro de

SBL Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario. Oral Presentation, 2002

It is well accepted that the prophets of ancient Israel provide a window into the culture, religion, theology and history of their respective times and nations. Writing from the mid-eighth to the fourth centuries BCE they speak, in particular, of the exodus from Egypt, its relationship to the nations Israel and Judah and their association with each other. A progressive evolution in these relationships is noted in the texts, leading to a proposed reformulation of the system which defines and describes the sources J and E. Within the eighth century prophets the nations of Israel and Judah are clearly distinguished from each other. Whether Israelite (Hosea) or Judean (Amos, Micah and First Isaiah) they identify the exodus from Egypt as having been experienced by Israel, alone. By the time of the pre-exilic and exilic prophets Judah is understood as part of the greater Israelite family, the ancestors of which had experienced the exodus centuries before. It is only with the later exilic and post-exilic prophets that Judah is equated with Israel. Thus, although the post-exilic prophets do not mention the exodus from Egypt, it is clear from other post-exilic texts (e.g., Chronicles and Nehemiah) that the combined nation Israel (=Judah + Israel) was brought out of Egypt. Thus, the prophetic literature presents a gradual acquisition of the Israelite Exodus tradition by Judean writers. Until the time of the Babylonian Exile, at the very earliest, the exodus from Egypt is not a part of Judean tradition and history. Rather, it is solely an origin tradition of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, recognized as such by both Northern and Southern writers. This also bears strong implications pertaining to the relationship between the sources J and E. The foundational text of the Exodus story is an Israelite text, thus E. If there is any Judean contribution to the Exodus story it must be dated, at the earliest, to the exilic period. J is no earlier than the 6th century. If J is still to be maintained as an early text, it contains nothing referring to the Exodus. A reformulation of the parameters defining E and J is thus required.

The factual background of the Exodus story is the most perplexing issue in biblical historical studies. On the one hand, the Exodus tradition is very old, and its status as the central Israelite foundation story finds remarkable expression in every genre of biblical literature. On the other hand, most scholars doubt the historicity of the story, and generally consider it to be the vague memory of a small group, which was gradually adopted by all other Israelite tribal groups. The contrast between the central place of the Exodus in Israelite memory and its questionable historical status requires explanation. The chapter suggests that the bondage, the suffering, and the miraculous delivery from slavery actually took place in Canaan and that the locus of these memories was later transferred from Canaan to Egypt. The bondage and liberation were experienced by the pastoral groups that later settled in the highlands of the Northern Kingdom. Hence its central place in the cultural memory of Israel's inhabitants. Since the process of settlement in the Judean highlands took place later and on a limited scale, the memory of the Exodus played only a minor role among Judah's inhabitants.

Levy, T.E., Schneider, T. and Propp, W.H.C., eds. 2015. Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience , 2015

This chapter examines the Exodus and wandering tradition from the perspective of the archaeology of several pivotal sites in the desert. It poses the question, " What, how, and when did the biblical authors know about the southern desert? " The answer helps to reconstruct the history of the Exodus-wandering tradition from its vague beginning as salvation-from-Egypt memories in sixteenth to tenth century BCE Canaan, through the involvement of the Northern Kingdom along the desert trade routes in the first half of the eighth century, and the presence of Judahites in the south during the " Assyrian Century, " to the Priestly scribes in post-exilic times.

This research examines the possible historical realities contained in the biblical story of the Exodus. It presents evidence that the Exodus has a historical core reflecting the events and experiences of an Egyptian mining community in the Sinai, Timna, in the middle of the twelfth century BCE. The evidence is elicited from archeological evidence recovered from Timna, critical examination of the biblical sources and the research of scholars pertaining to the historicity of the Bible, ancient Near Eastern history, and contemporary anthropology. Examination of the theorized individual sources of the Exodus tradition is pursued via isolating the elements found in the earliest sources of the Exodus tradition and examining them independently without interpreting them in light of later traditions. The anthropology of contemporary peoples with lifestyles similar to those of antiquity is explored to facilitate the understanding of the cultural norms of people known only from ancient texts and archeological artifacts.

WHEN DID THE EXODUS OCCUR?, 2024

Establishing the date of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, a story contained in the Old Testament (OT) of the Bible, has been one of the greatest challenges for biblical studies researchers, historians and archaeologists who consider at least a historical background for this story. And the fact is that the OT does not mention dates or names of kings or pharaohs, and the signs or "clues" that it does provide in its text are often vague, contradictory, or subject to interpretation. For this reason, numerous (tens of thousands) books, articles and essays have been written in which theories are proposed that have generally not been satisfactory or universally accepted. A meticulous analysis of the biblical account of the Exodus, and in particular of the signs or clues that could generate a valid answer to the enigma of when did the exodus occur?, finds that there appear to be fragments in which two versions (traditions) of this event are mixed. Specialists in biblical studies know them as the "Y" version (Yahwist or from Jehovah) and the "P" version (Priestly). If these were two exodus episodes remembered as one, the apparent contradictions in the text could be explained without much problem. The purpose of this essay is to propose the existence and present evidence of two stories in the OT from different times, about the departure, escape or flight from Egypt of Israelites who had been oppressed and enslaved, and their return to the land of Canaan. In this essay, the conventional dates used by most historians for Canaan and Egypt during the so-called Second Intermediate Period (2 nd IP), the New Kingdom, and the corresponding Egyptian dynasties are utilized. AUTHOR'S NOTE. In this essay the terms Israelites, children of Israel, and tribes of Israel are used as they appear in biblical quotations to refer to the descendants of Jacob-Israel in Egypt, in the Exodus and in Canaan, but in reality the correct use of these terms began much later than that epoch, and probably dates back to the times of kings David and Solomon who ruled the Kingdom of Israel.

The Exodus: An Egyptian Story, 2021

Moses led people out of Egypt against the will of Ramses II (1279-1213 BCE) on the seventh hour of New Year’s Eve at the end of Ramses’s seventh year of ruling and he constituted them in the wilderness as the covenant people Israel of Yahweh. It is an Egyptian story. Why that time? Why that day? Why that year? Why against Ramses II? [“Ramses” is the spelling of his name to be used in this study except when quoting people who used a different spelling.] Why the new religion? Why the wilderness? The answers to these questions are found not in the Hebrew Bible but in Egypt. To understand what Moses did it is necessary to place him in the Egyptian context in which he had been raised and against which he acted. The search for this understanding is the search to understand Egypt. Typically that is not the way the search for the Exodus is conducted. With these brief introductory remarks in mind, let us now turn to the beginning of the first concerted effort in Egyptology beginning in the 1880s to find the Exodus. The specific goals were to find archaeological and textual evidence for it and to locate the route from the unknown location of the capital city of Ramses II, the presumed Pharaoh of the Exodus, to the wilderness. This review entails tracing the development of Egyptology, the formation of the Egypt Exploration Fund, its initial archaeological efforts and how leading Egyptologists have addressed the Exodus in their histories of Egypt. This review will set the stage for how this study will proceed.

Early Egyptologists were steeped in interest in biblical history and in particular the Hebrew exodus story. Edouard Naville and W.M.F. Petrie were among the early pioneers. Of interest to early Egyptologists was the geography of the exodus and the route of the Hebrew departure from Egypt. By the mid-twentieth century, Egyptology's love affair with Old Testament matters had soured, but this allowed the discipline to develop as its own science.