lpetrich

It's clear to me that the Exodus, like Genesis, is as fictional as the Iliad and the Odyssey. But there are some interesting questions:

Why would the Tanakh's writers include in their legendary history a time of being enslaved by Egyptians, and not Assyrians or Babylonians? Given the time when the historical books were put together, those would be more obvious enemies.

Could it be some garbled memory of some wandering out of Egyptian territory by some nomadic tribe? This might be the Hyksos themselves, as Spin suggests, or some other tribe.

One line of evidence is some of the names, which look Egyptian. Moses ~ -mose in a lot of Egyptian monarchs' names, but I don't see the connection with Hophni or Phineas, two other purported examples.

Another clue is the Ten Plagues of Egypt, which have been associated with the caldera eruption of Thera in 1628 BCE. That eruption's date has been somewhat controversial; it is over a century older than the earlier favorite date of ~1500 BCE. But it is based on dendrochronological and similar very strong evidence.

The description suggests that those places took place in either Egypt or some other place close to a big river -- and big rivers are absent from Israel/Palestine.

Egypt is a logical place; the Thera eruption may have been remembered in the Ipuwer Papyrus, which contains a section that laments a lot of destruction, a section that reads much like nine of the Ten Plagues.

URL: <a href="http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/thera/plagues.html" target="_blank">http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/thera/plagues.html</a>

So there may be some core of history remembered in the Exodus account, just as there is in the Iliad and the Odyssey, but that does not demonstate the complete truth of that account, anymore than the discovery of Troy and other such sites is held to prove the existence of the deities of Mt. Olympus.

spin

If we were to imagine for a moment that the Jews had been in Egypt for four hundred years prior to going to Palestine and there writing their tradition stories, one would expect that some of the language of the higher cultural achievements of the Egyptians would have rubbed off, some linguistic traces in the ordinary language, but for this hypothetical 400 years not a single trace has survived. Old English having been exposed to Old Danish for much less time gained quite a lot (for example, we now have doublets in English such as ship and skiff, shirt and skirt). German speaking communities in America have been greatly influenced by English, French in Canada also. Yet nothing from Egyptian in Hebrew (names of course excluded -- we still can't be sure of the origins of "Moses", the Hebrew supplying its own etymology).

This lack of Egyptian influence in Hebrew is not strange. One needs to contemplate when Hebrew first distinguished itself from its neighbours as a separate language and not just being Canaanite along with those people on the other side of the Jordan. The Canaanite family seems to be a very late group, of which the first to leave the fold was Phoenician. Given the very close similarities of Ammonite, Moabite and Hebrew, it's very hard to imagine that Hebrew was a separate language at the hypothesized time of the exodus. Yet the biblical texts are written in a clearly identified language we now call "Biblical Hebrew". So, in what language was this exodus account supposed to have been written?

The language itself recommends that the account was written several centuries later. This is in accord with the fact that the Jews knew nothing about the arrival of the Philistines, an arrival that had an enormous effect in the whole area, bringing about the end of Egyptian influence in Palestine. As the Jewish accounts show no knowledge of the arrival of the Philistines, one must conclude that they were written well after their arrival, as not even a memory of it is recorded.

-------------------------------------

Looking for historical traces of the biblical story is fine and worth doing. I have my doubts on the results.

However, trying to enlist Ipu-wer as connected with the Egyptian First Intermediate Period seems to rely more on Velikovsky than on Egyptological analyses. The major current thinking on the Ipu-wer lamentations was that it was a late 12th or early 13th dynasty political critique. The reason why some have argued that it was connected with the Second Intermediate Period was because the text we have survives only in an 18th dynasty copy. This allows one to ignore the genre known from the time I have mentioned and ascribe the original writing to the 2nd Intermediate Period a la Velikovsky.

-------------------------------------

I have related the accounts of the Hyksos and other exoduses from Egypt (mentioned by Josephus in his Contra Apion) as being propaganda written by Egyptians against the Jews in that country during the Persian and early Greek period. It was these Egyptians who made a connection between the Hyksos and the Jews. The most likely scenario in my view is that it was this late period in which the Moses/exodus tradition was developed as an answer to the ignominious attacks of the Egyptians. The Jews simply accepted the story from the Egyptians with their enormous cultural heritage as being basically correct, but re-elaborated it through necessity.

That the Moses tradition was written so late seems to find some agreement in the widespread silence in the prophets.

Marduk

"Could our Egyptologist friends tell us if there are records of similar disasters or failures which were not covered up?"
Sure, the collapse of the Old Kingdom circa 2000 BCE, accounts of mass starvation, canabalism, lakes drying up the Nile gone bad, all due to a dramatic climatic shift, well documented and evidense found in ice flows, stalagtites, and trees from that period around the world.
There was also an attempt to remove old King Achenaten from history which failed.
Speaking of Achenaten, more and more I buy into the theory put forth in the book "Out of Egypt"
that Moses & co. were followers of the radical Egyptian Monotheist King Achenaten.

Jeremy Pallant

Some time ago there was a brief discussion on the practicality of the Exodus. It's in the archives. Anyone interested can find it <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=24&t=000071" target="_blank">here</a>. It is far from complete, indeed were I to write it today it would be far longer, but I think it raises some interesting points.

Answerer

Also guys, remember that Moses spilt the red sea into two using his staff, so how come there is no mention of such incredible power as I certain that everyone who saw it will be greatly impressed(if it happens).

Radcliffe Emerson

The same show I saw on Discovery International that said ancient Egyptians never recorded defeats, also says they have found hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt that specifically mention them defeating Israel, I think during one of the Ramses' periods.

For the record, I don't believe the Exodus ever occurred either. I don't believe 90% of the bible. I was just pointing out ancient Egyptian records not mentioning it didn't really support the notion it didn't occur.

[ March 26, 2002: Message edited by: askeptic ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

Well, I guess if Discovery International says so ...

On the other hand, 'records' are not limited to jingoistic propaganda. Most are administrative or clerical in nature. With all due respect to Discovery International, you don't go through the events proclaimed in Exodus without leaving a trace.

Radcliffe Emerson

Well like I said, I don't believe the exodus ever happened.

davidH

Actually it's hardly surprising that the Exodus was never recorded by the Egyptians.

If you think about it - it was the biggest of embarassements for the whole nation.

Egypt was a mighty military nation - yet they were forced to let their slaves go - their land was in a mess by the end of it - and they lost a big proportion of their army.

Now imagine yourself to be the pharaoh -would you want your enemies to find out about this situation that had occurred? Would you even want it to be recorded in the literature at that time - making you out to be a sucker?

If you consider what the Bible says then it's of no surprise that the Egyptian people and rulers made no record of this event, after all what benefit would it have on Egypt's image! Getting beat by their own slaves - without there ever been a war.

It just seems logical to me.

Jayhawker Soule

You just don't get it, do you? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />