The Exodus

"Departure of the Israelites", by David Roberts, 1829

The Exodus (Greek word έξοδος, Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Modern Yetsi'at Mitzrayim Tiberian [jəsʕijaθ misʕɾajim] ; "the exit from Egypt") is the story of the departure of the Israelites from ancient Egypt described in the Hebrew Bible. Narrowly defined, the term refers only to the departure from Egypt described in the Book of Exodus; more widely, it takes in the subsequent law-givings and wanderings in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan described in the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Most modern scholars agree that the Exodus account is a composite literary construct, composed and edited from smaller units transmitted over centuries to achieve theological and historical coherence, the primary exception being those conservative scholars who believe in Mosaic authorship of the Torah.[1] Recent research has identified more and more of the Exodus material as coming from the Israelite monarchy and the Exile, times long after the 2nd millennium epoch in which the narrative is set, and the original base of the story becomes correspondingly more and more difficult to identify.[2] While the form of the story is historical, it is best seen as theology set in a narrative framework, illustrating how the God of Israel acted to save and strengthen his chosen people, the Israelites; from this point of view, it is inappropriate to approach miraculous events such as the burning bush and the plagues of Egypt as history.[3]

Contents

Narrative

The Book of Exodus tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh reveals himself and offers them a Covenant: they are to keep his torah (i.e. law, instruction), and in return he will be their God and give them the land of Canaan. The Book of Leviticus records the laws of God. The Book of Numbers tells how the Israelites, led now by God, journey onwards from Sinai towards Canaan, but when their spies report that the land is filled with giants they refuse to go on. Yahweh then condemns them to remain in the desert until the generation that left Egypt passes away. After thirty-eight years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea the next generation travel on to the borders of Canaan. The Book of Deuteronomy tells how, within sight of the Promised Land, Moses recalls their journeys and gives them new laws. His death (the last reported event of the Torah) concludes the 40 years of the exodus from Egypt.

Cultural significance

Main article: Passover

The exodus from Egypt is the theme of the Jewish holiday of Passover ("pesach"; the term continues to be used in the Passover Hagadah.[4] At the beginning of the Exodus narrative the Israelites are instructed to prepare unleavened bread as they will be leaving in haste, and to mark their doors with blood so that the "Angel of Yahweh" will "pass over" them while killing the first-born of Egypt. The Hebrew name for the festival, "Pesach," refers to the offering made at the Temple during the festival. Despite the biblical story, the passover festival originated in a magic ritual to turn away demons from the household by painting the doorframe with the blood of a slaughtered sheep.[5]

Critical evaluation

Authorship and date

While some scholars believe that the biblical books which describe the Exodus were written by Moses as an eyewitness to the events,[6] the majority argue that their general characteristics make more sense if seen as primarily a work of the late-Exilic/early post-Exilic period (late 6th/early 5th centuries BC), except for Deuteronomy, which belongs to the late monarchy (late 7th century).[7]

Numbers and logistics

According to Exodus 12:37-38 NIV, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock.[8] Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550. [9] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some two million people,[10] compared with an entire estimated Egyptian population of around 3 million.[11] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long.[12] No evidence exists that Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe, nor is there evidence that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds,[13] nor of a massive population increase in Canaan, which is estimated to have had a population of only 50,000 to 100,000 at the time.[14] Some scholars have interpreted these numbers as a mistranslation - reading the Hebrew word eleph as "600 families" rather than 600,000 men, reduces the Hebrew population involved to roughly 20,000 individuals,[15][16] - but the view of mainstream modern biblical scholarship is that the Exodus story was written not as history, but to demonstrate God's purpose and deeds with his Chosen People, Israel; the essentially theological motivation of the story explains the improbability of the scenario described above. [17] It has also been suggested that the 603,550 people delivered from Egypt (according to Numbers 1:46) is not simply a number, but contains a secret message, a gematria for bene yisra'el kol ros, "the children of Israel, every individual;"[18] while the number 600,000 symbolises of the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt, none of whom lived to see the Promised Land.[19]

Archaeology

While some archaeologists leave open the possibility of a Semitic tribe coming from Egyptian servitude among the early hilltop settlers and that Moses or a Moses-like figure may have existed in Transjordan ca 1250-1200, they dismiss the possibility that the Exodus could have happened as described in the bible.[20] A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus narrative of an Egyptian captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,[17] and it has become increasingly clear that Iron Age Israel - the kingdoms of Judah and Israel - has its origins in Canaan, not Egypt:[21] the culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether this can be taken as an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[22]

Anachronisms

The late origins of the Exodus story are evident also in the many anachronisms which characterise it: to take just a few examples, Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders makes little concern in the context of the 2nd millennium, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria,[23]

Other anachronisms point to a period in the mid-1st millennium: Ezion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BC with possible further occupation into the 4th century BC,[24] while the place-names on the Exodus route which can be identified - Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea - point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.[25]

Chronology

The chronology of the Exodus story likewise underlines its essentially religious rather than historical nature. The number seven, for example, was sacred to God in Judaism, and so the Israelites arrive at Sinai, where they will meet God, at the beginning of the seventh week after their departure from Egypt,[26] while the erection of the Tabernacle, God's dwelling-place among his people, occurs in the year 2666 after God creates the world, two-thirds of the way through a four thousand year era which culminates in or around 164 BC, the year of the rededication of the Second Temple.[27]

Route and date

There are many well-known incidents in the story of the Exodus, including the crossing of the Red Sea (possibly more accurately, the Sea of Reeds), the revelation at Sinai, the giving of the Tablets of Law, the incident of the golden calf, the gift of manna in the desert, the miracle of the rock of Meribah, the treachery of the Amalekites, Balaam and his talking donkey, and the story of the scouting of Canaan. Modern scholars point out that the Exodus was intended as the history of the relationship of God and his chosen people, the Israelites, and that it is therefore inappropriate to approach its story in terms of secular history: "We do the Exodus narrative a profound disservice by uncritically seeking natural interpretations for the clearly miraculous, and it is misguided to supply scientific explanations for such non-historical events as the ten plagues of Egypt, the burning bush that spoke to Moses, or the pillars of cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness."[3] Nevertheless, such discussion continues to attract interest, and the following section discusses some of the more popular aspects of the Exodus story.

Route

Possible Exodus Routes. In black is the traditional Exodus route; other possible routes are in blue and green.

The Torah lists the places where the Israelites rested. A few of the names at the start of the itinerary, including Ra'amses, Pithom and Succoth, are reasonably well identified with archaeological sites on the eastern edge of the Nile delta,[28] as is Kadesh-Barnea,[29] where the Israelites spend 38 years after turning back from Canaan, but other than that very little is certain. The crossing of the Red Sea has been variously placed at the Pelusic branch of the Nile, anywhere along the network of Bitter Lakes and smaller canals that formed a barrier toward eastward escape, the Gulf of Suez (SSE of Succoth) and the Gulf of Aqaba (S of Ezion-Geber), or even on a lagoon on the Mediterranean coast. The biblical Mt. Sinai is identified in Christian tradition with Jebel Musa in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, but this association dates only from the 3rd century AD and no evidence of the Exodus has been found there.[30]

The most obvious routes for travellers through the region were the royal roads, the "king's highways" that had been in use for centuries and would continue in use for centuries to come. The Bible specifically denies that the Israelites went by the Way of the Philistines (purple line on the map to the right), the northerly route along the Mediterranean coast. This leaves the Way of Shur (green) and the Way of Seir (black) as probable routes, the former having the advantage of heading toward Kadesh-Barnea.

Date

In the first half of the 20th century the Exodus was dated on the basis of 1 Kings 6:1, which states that the Exodus occurred 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple. Equating the biblical chronology with dates in history is notoriously difficult, but Edwin Thiele's widely accepted reconciliation of the reigns of the Israelite and Judahite kings would imply an Exodus around 1450 BC, during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC).[31] By the mid-20th century it had become apparent that the archaeological record made this date impossible. The mummy of Thutmoses III had already been discovered in 1881,[32] and Egyptian records of that period do not mention the expulsion of any group that could be identified with over 2 million Hebrew slaves, nor any events which could be identified with the Biblical plagues. In addition, digs in the 1930s had failed to find traces of the simultaneous destruction of Canaanite cities c.1400 BC - in fact many of them, including Jericho, the first Canaanite city to fall to the Israelites according to the Book of Joshua, were uninhabited at the time. The mounting lack of evidence led William F. Albright, the leading biblical archaeologist of the period, to propose an alternative, "late" Exodus around 1200-1250 BC. His argument was based on the many strands of evidence, including the destruction at Beitel (Bethel) and some other cities at around that period, and the occurrence from the same period of distinctive house-types and a distinctive round-collared jar which, in his opinion, was to be identified with in-coming Israelites.

Albright's theory enjoyed popularity around the middle of the 20th century, but has now been generally abandoned except by some conservative Christians.[33] The evidence which led to the abandonment of Albricht's theory include: the collar-rimmed jars have been recognised as an indigenous form originating in lowland Canaanite cities centuries earlier;[34] while some "Joshua" cities, including Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo and others, have destruction and transition layers around 1250-1145 BC, others, including Jericho, have no destruction layers or were uninhabited during this period;[14][35] and the Merneptah Stele indicates that a people called "Israel" were already known in Canaan by the reign of Merneptah (1213-1203 BC).[36]

Modern theories on the date - all of them popular rather than scholarly - tend to concentrate on an "early" Exodus, prior to c.1440 BC. The major candidates are:

Extra-Biblical accounts

The earliest non-biblical account of the Exodus is by Hecataeus of Abdera (late 4th century BCE): the Egyptians blame a plague on foreigners and expel them from the country, whereupon Moses, their leader, takes them to Canaan, where he founds the city of Jerusalem.[42] More than a dozen later stories repeat the same basic theme, most of them with a marked anti-Jewish tendency.[42] The best-known is that by the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BCE), known from two quotations by the 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus. In the first Manetho describes the Hyksos, their lowly origins in Asia, their dominion over and expulsion from Egypt, and their subsequent foundation of the city of Jerusalem and its temple. Josephus (not Manetho) identifies the Hyksos with the Jews.[43] In the second story Manetho tells how 80,000 lepers and other "impure people," led by a priest named Osarseph, join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem, to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until eventually the pharaoh and his son chase them out to the borders of Syria, where Osarseph gives the lepers a law-code and changes his name to Moses.[44] Manetho differs from the other writers in describing his renegades as Egyptians rather than Jews, and in using a name other than Moses for their leader[42] - many scholars regard the identification of Osarseph with Moses as a later addition to the text,[45] although the question remains open.[46]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Carol A. Redmount, Bitter Lives: Israel In And Out of Egypt, in "The Oxford History of the Biblical World" (ed. Michael D. Coogan, OUP, 1998), p.62
  2. ↑ Carol A. Redmount, Bitter Lives: Israel In And Out of Egypt, in "The Oxford History of the Biblical World" (ed. Michael D. Coogan, OUP, 1998), p.63
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Carol A. Redmount, Bitter Lives: Israel In And Out of Egypt, in "The Oxford History of the Biblical World" (ed. Michael D. Coogan, OUP, 1998), p.64 (see full argument on pp. 63-64)
  4. ↑ אָמַר לָהֶם רִבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן עֲזַרְיָה, הֲרֵי אֲנִי כְּבֶן שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה, וְלֹא זָכִיתִי שֶׁתֵּאָמֵר יְצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם Passover Hagadah according to Mishneh Torah (Hebrew original), (mechon-mamre.org)
  5. ↑ Bernard Malcolm Levinson, "Deuteronomy and the hermeneutics of legal innovation" (OUP, 1997), p.58
  6. ↑ see, e.g., Hoffmeier and Kitchen
  7. ↑ John McDermott, "Reading the Pentateuch" (Paulist Press, 2002) p.22
  8. ↑ Exodus 12
  9. ↑ Numbers 1
  10. ↑ Mattis Kantor ("The Jewish Time Line Encyclopedia" Jason Aronson Inc., 1989, 1992) places the estimate at 2 million "[i]n normal demographic extensions...."
  11. ↑ Kathryn A. Bard, Steven Blake Shubert (eds), "Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Routledge, 1999)p.251
  12. ↑ Cline, Eric H. (2007), From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible, National Geographic Society, ISBN 978-1426200847 p.74
  13. ↑ William Dever, "Who Were The Early Israelites And Where Did They Come From?", p.19
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Finkelstein, Israel and Neil Asher Silberman (2002). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Free Press. ISBN 978-0684869131. 
  15. ↑ Abraham Malamat, "Aspects of Tribal Societies in Mari and Israel", in XVe Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale: La Civilisation de Mari, Les Congrès et Colloques de l’Université de Liège, 1967, p.135 - referenced at Associates for Biblical Research
  16. ↑ Colin J. Humphreys, "The Number of People in the Exodus from Egypt: Decoding Mathematically the Very Large Numbers in Numbers I and XXVI," Vetus Testamentum 48 (1998), pp. 196-213.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Carol L. Meyers, "Exodus", New Cambridge Bible Commentary series (Cambridge University Press, 2005) p.5
  18. ↑ Barry Beitzel, "Exodus 3:14 and the divine Name: A Case of Biblical Paronomasia, "Trinity Journal 1 NS (1980), pp.6-7
  19. ↑ Philippe Guillaume, "Tracing the Origin of the Sabbatical Calendar in the Priestly Narrative, Genesis 1 to Joshua 5", Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, vol.5 art.13, pp.8, 15
  20. ↑ Dever, William G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 0-8028-2126-X. 
  21. ↑ Finkelstein, Israel and Nadav Naaman, eds. (1994). From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel. Israel Exploration Society. ISBN 1880317206. 
  22. ↑ Anne E. Killebrew, "Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity" (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005) p.176
  23. ↑ Alberto Soggin, "An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah", (SCM Press, 1999, trans from Italian 3rd edition 1998), pp. 128-9
  24. ↑ Gary D. Pratico, "Nelson Glueck's 1938-1940 Excavations at Tell el-Kheleifeh: A Reappraisal" Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 259 (Summer, 1985), pp.1-32
  25. ↑ John Van Seters, "The Geography of the Exodus", in John Andrew Dearman, Matt Patrick Graham, (eds), "The land that I will show you: essays on the history and archaeology of the Ancient Near East in honour of J. Maxwell Miller" (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), pp.255ff
  26. ↑ Carol L. Meyers, "Exodus", New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2005) p.143
  27. ↑ James Maxwell Miller and John Haralson Hayes, "A History of Ancient Israel and Judah" (Westminster John Knox, 1986) p.59
  28. ↑ John Van Seters, "The Geography of the Exodus," in Silberman, Neil Ash (editor), The Land That I Will Show You: Essays in History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honor of J. Maxwell Miller (Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) p.255ff., ISBN-978-1850756507
  29. ↑ Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, entry for Kadesh Barnea (Mercer University Press, 1991) p.485
  30. ↑ James Hoffmeier, "Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition" (Oxford University Press, 2005) p.115ff
  31. ↑ Howard, David M. Jr. and Michael A. Grisanti (editors) (2003). "The Date of the Exodus (by William H. Shea)". Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using the Old Testament Historical Texts. Kregel Publications. ISBN 9781844740161. 
  32. ↑ "Tuthmosis", Egyptology Online
  33. ↑ Kitchen, Kenneth A (2003). On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Eerdmans. pp. 309–10. ISBN 978-0802849601. 
  34. ↑ Mary Joan Winn Leith, "How a People Forms", review of "Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel" (2001), Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2006, pp.22-23
  35. ↑ Dever, William G (2003). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Eerdmans. pp. 44–46. ISBN 0802844162. 
  36. ↑ Currie, Robert and Hyslop, Stephen G. The Letter and the Scroll: What Archaeology Tells Us About the Bible. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2009.
  37. ↑ "Debunking "The Exodus Decoded"". September 20, 2006. http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2006/09/Debunking-The-Exodus-Decoded.aspx. Retrieved 8 August 2009. 
  38. ↑ "The Exodus Decoded: An Extended Review". Tuesday 19 Dec 2006. http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=459. Retrieved 8 August 2009. 
  39. ↑ Rohl, David (1995). "Chapter 13". A Test of Time. Arrow. pp. 341–8. ISBN 0099416565. 
  40. ↑ Bennett, Chris. "Temporal Fugues", Journal of Ancient and Medieval Studies XIII (1996). Available at [1]
  41. ↑ Sivertsen, Barbara J (2009). The Parting of the Sea: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Plagues Shaped the Story of the Exodus. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691137704. 
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 42.2 K.L. Noll, "Canaan and Israel in Antiquity: An Introduction" (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) p.34
  43. ↑ Arthur J. Droge, Josephus Between Greeks and Barbarians, in L.H. Feldman and J.R. Levison (ed), "Josephus' Contra Apion" (Brill, 1996), pp.121-2
  44. ↑ Arthur J. Droge, Josephus Between Greeks and Barbarians, in L.H. Feldman and J.R. Levison (eds), "Josephus' Contra Apion" (Brill, 1996), pp.134-5
  45. ↑ Arthur J. Droge, Josephus Between Greeks and Barbarians, in Louis H. Feldman and John R. Levison (eds), "Josephus' Contra Apionem: studies in its character and context" (Brill, 1996) p.135
  46. ↑ Louis H. Feldman, "Josephus's interpretation of the Bible", (University of California Press, 1998) p.342

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