Thus, there is an inherent tension between an ancient and a modern understanding of the historicity of the Exodus. Mythical and historical categories of thought were not mutually exclusive in antiquity; on the contrary, the very miracles that make modern readers uncomfortable intensified the drama and significance of the historical base for the ancient. 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 nonhistorical 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.
In the end, the Exodus saga is neither pure history nor pure literature, but an inseparable amalgam of both, closest in form to what we would call a docudrama. For the Israelites, the Exodus events were anchored in history, but at the same time rose above it. The Exodus saga incorporated and reflected an original historical reality, and this reflection was all that was necessary to make the account historical in ancient eyes. The Egyptian captivity and deliverance were seen through a lens of communal faith, in which history provided the skeletal framework for structuring the actions of God. This skeleton was fleshed out by a variety of predominantly literary and religious forms.
Israel in Egypt
Attempts to anchor the Exodus events in broader historical currents typically begin with the biblical account, taking the text of the Bible at least initially as a primary source document. Superficially, the Bible does appear to provide historical data that might locate the Exodus account in history. As we have seen, however, serious problems arise when the biblical text is used for modern historical interpretations, and critical historiography casts doubt on the usefulness of the biblical narrative as a historical source for the Exodus. Potential factual information contained in the account falls into three categories: events within the borders of Egypt; the geography of the Exodus; and biblical reckonings—the figures given for establishing the date of the Exodus and for the number of participants in the flight from Egypt and the wilderness wanderings.
What is immediately striking about the earlier portions of the Exodus saga is the lack of distinctively Egyptian content and flavor, despite the Egyptian setting. The only description that contributes a slight Egyptian cast to the locale is that of Exodus 7.19 (echoed in 8.5), which refers to “the waters of Egypt… its rivers, its canals, and its ponds, and all its pools of water.” None of the Egyptian pharaohs in the entire narrative—not those who presumably dealt with Joseph, Jacob, or the “sons of Israel,” nor the pharaoh who did not know Joseph, and certainly not the pharaoh of the ten plagues and the Exodus who sent his army after Moses—are identified by name. Nor is there a hint of individual or historical idiosyncracy by which to distinguish one pharaoh from another. There is, moreover, no characteristically Egyptian phraseology, no allusion, brief or otherwise, to distinctively Egyptian literary or historical material, and no invocation of local color (apart from the description cited above) that would help authenticate an Egyptian location or suggest an Egyptian origin for any part of the account. Instead, except for a few references and an occasional name (for example, Pharaoh, Nile, Moses, Rameses, Pithom), the purportedly Egyptian setting is so generic that the action could have taken place almost anywhere.
Given this curious absence of Egypt from the Exodus narrative, scholars have focused on the few clearly Egyptian terms that do occur, but with disappointing results. The supply cities of Pithom and Rameses bear indisputably Egyptian names, but neither can be situated with certainty. Pithom is derived from Egyptian Pr-’Itm (Per Atum), the temple domain or estate of the god Atum, a relatively common designation beginning with the mid-second millennium BCE. In Egyptian usage, Pr-’Itm would not stand alone but would be followed by a specific location designator, identifying the Per Atum of a specific place. In effect, the biblical rendering of Pithom strips the reference of its specificity and thus identifiability, and transforms it into a collective allusion equivalent to the generic references to “Pharaoh.” Biblical Pithom’s most plausible association to date is with Tell Retabah in the Wadi Tumilat, although it has also been identified with Heliopolis. The supply city of Rameses is most often equated with Per-Rameses, the delta capital founded by Rameses II (ca. 1279–1213; Dynasty 19) and occupied throughout the Ramesside period (Dynasties 19 and 20, ca. 1295–1069). This city is now identified with Qantir, an eastern delta site currently under excavation by a German archaeological team. At least one prominent Egyptologist, however, challenges the equation of Rameses and Per-Rameses. Moreover, in typically Egyptian fashion, the memory and name of Rameses II continued to live on and function in Egypt long after the king’s death, and the name Rameses was used in a variety of place-names down to Greco-Roman times. Thus the name Rameses functions only as a terminus post quern; that is, any appearance of the name must date no earlier than the time the name first occurs. The place-name Rameses may even have been inserted into the biblical narrative at a later date, and some scholars have suggested that the reference to Rameses (and also to Pithom) is an anachronism reflecting the geography of a much later period, from somewhere within the sixth to the fourth centuries BCE.
The land of Goshen, identified as the area inhabited by the Israelites in Egypt (Exod. 8.22; 9.26), has never been localized with certainty. Most scholars assume that Goshen lay in the eastern Nile Delta, but the word Goshen does not occur in any Egyptian texts, and efforts to derive it from the Egyptian language are unconvincing.
The name Moses is most likely Egyptian, although other etymologies have been proposed. If so, the name comes from the Egyptian verbal root msy, meaning “born.” In Egyptian usage this is generally linked with the name of a god. Thus Ramose means “the god Re is born,” Ptahmose means “the god Ptah is born,” and so forth. Such compounds are particularly common in the New Kingdom and later. In the biblical narrative, however, the divine element is missing, producing the abbreviated name Moses, a shortened form not common in Egyptian. The lack of the divine element in the biblical name is not surprising, however; if it existed, it could have been removed to avoid an affiliation between a central figure in the development of Israelite religion and a foreign god. Moreover, Aaron and his son Phinehas also have names of Egyptian origin.
And what of the harsh tasks inflicted on the Israelites during their servitude? Numerous Egyptian texts dating throughout the second millennium BCE tell us that “Asiatics” (’amw, the most common appellation employed by Egyptians for people coming from the general region of ancient Syria-Palestine), like all prisoners of war or foreigners in service to the Egyptian crown or temples, were forced to perform a variety of tasks, including agricultural labor and heavy construction work. But the oppressive task that the biblical narrative complains about most (Exod. 5.7–19) is brickmaking, not the most common of the responsibilities assigned to Asiatics in Egypt. Clearly, Asiatics were in no position to choose their work assignments, and brickmaking was an ever-present need in Egypt, particularly in the alluvial delta, where stone was at a premium. On the other hand, sun-dried bricks made without straw are found at sites in the delta from a variety of periods, and it is difficult to see how the making of such bricks imposed a significant hardship on the Israelites.
Do any of the Egyptian references in the Exodus narrative provide possibly useful historical clues? The name Rameses, as noted above, provides a terminus post quern for the Exodus events of Rameses I, the first ruler to bear the name. A similar beginning point is implied by the outfitting of Pharaoh’s army with chariots and horses: both horse and chariot are unknown or rare in Egypt prior to Dynasty 18. The Egyptian term Pharaoh (pr’3, meaning “great house”) originally referred to the palace, and not until the reign of Thutmose III (ca. 1479–1425 BCE) in Dynasty 18 was it also used for the person of the king. In general, the limited linguistic evidence found in the narrative seems to date to the New Kingdom or later. Finally, the prominence in Pharaoh’s entour
age of magicians, who initially match Moses miracle for miracle, may reflect a first-millennium BCE setting.
The Route of the Exodus
The geography of the Exodus offers another potentially promising area for the Bible to function as a primary historical source. The biblical text provides detailed itineraries for the Exodus trek, most completely in Numbers 33.1–49, fragments in Numbers 21.10–20 and Deuteronomy 10.6–7, and further parallels elsewhere. These itineraries list, by name, all of the stopping points or stages on the Exodus journey. Theoretically, it should be possible to reconstruct the route the Israelites took out of Egypt. Unfortunately, it is not.
The wilderness itineraries form a distinct genre within the Pentateuch and belong to a literary form widely attested in the ancient world. The primary function of this genre, which survives mostly in official documents, is to describe routes. Nonbiblical examples confirm that these ancient itineraries customarily provided a complete and reasonably reliable record of the routes described. The geographical itineraries associated with the Exodus saga thus probably preserve details of one or more ancient routes.
As a structured literary genre, however, the itineraries most likely were incorporated into the biblical narrative during the process of literary composition and redaction that resulted in the final biblical text. We cannot date precisely this secondary merging of wilderness itineraries with the Exodus account, except to say that it occurred long after the original events. Moreover, the literary itineraries preserved within the Exodus saga derive from more than one source. As a consequence, some scholars have challenged the integrity of these geographical lists. On the other hand, the itineraries might reflect geographical sources much earlier than the time of their redaction into the biblical narrative. Recent efforts to relate the Exodus itineraries to Egyptian prototypes found in Ramesside geographical lists are intriguing, although far from decisive, and the large number of Asiatic sites in the Egyptian lists that cannot be identified convincingly is instructive.
Already in ancient times the locations of many of the places in the Exodus itineraries appear to have been lost. Of the approximately three dozen or more localities mentioned, few can be pinpointed on the ground, and none of the places listed in Egypt or the Sinai Peninsula can be situated with confidence. Thus, as we have seen, Rameses, the starting point of the Exodus, is customarily identified with the Ramesside delta capital of Per-Rameses. Succoth is taken by some as a Hebraization of Egyptian Tjeku, a district designation employed for the Wadi Tumilat that first occurs in the New Kingdom. Kadesh-barnea is now generally placed at Ain el-Qudeirat, the most fertile oasis in northern Sinai, located at the junction of two major routes across the peninsula. Tell el-Qudeirat, the ancient mound associated with the oasis, has recently been renamed Tel Kadesh-barnea by its excavators, despite a tenth-century BCE date for the earliest finds from the tell. But beyond these and a very few other tentative identifications, most sites in Egypt and Sinai listed in the Exodus itineraries remain unknown.
The sacred “mountain of God” also cannot be placed on a map. The biblical narrative refers to the mountain, when it is given a name, by two different appellations, Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai. Scholars do not agree whether the traditions refer to one or two mountains (although the weight of current opinion favors one mountain), let alone where one or the other mountain might be located. Suggestions for locating the mountain of God range from the southern Sinai Peninsula, to the Negeb, and even to the Arabian peninsula.
The crossing of the Red Sea has also touched off much discussion. Hebrew yam suf has been translated both as Red Sea and as Reed Sea; cogent grounds exist in support of both translations. There are biblical passages where yam suf is clearly unrelated to the Exodus and unquestionably refers to the Red Sea (such as 1 Kings 9.26). Moreover, both the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate versions of the Bible render yam suf as “Red Sea,” reflecting traditions current at the time these two translations were made (third century BCE and fourth century CE, respectively). But there are also philological grounds for translating yam suf as “Reed Sea,” and in light of this interpretation scholars have sought to localize the destruction of Pharaoh’s army in reed beds located in the northeastern Nile Delta. Such reed beds have in fact existed at various points along the northeastern Egyptian border in locations ranging from the Bitter Lakes in the south to Sabkhat el-Bardawil (classical Lake Sirbonis) adjacent to the Mediterranean coast in the north. A plausible case, for which there is no real support other than its plausibility, can be made for Bardawil as the location of the crossing of the Red Sea. The lake is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by only a thin strip of land, and violent storms have been known to lash the sea and cause sudden and intense flooding of the region. There are even historical parallels where ancient troops were trapped and partially destroyed by just such a storm.
Traditionally, two routes have been proposed for the Exodus: a southern route through southern Sinai and a northern one along the Mediterranean coast (although Exod. 13.17–18 expressly states that the latter, anachronistically called “the way of the land of the Philistines,” was not taken by the Israelites). Recent studies emphasizing both the modern and the past ecology and ethnography of the Sinai Peninsula suggest, however, that four major east-west routes ran through Sinai in antiquity. The northernmost hugs the Mediterranean coast; the other three follow desert wadis, the main channels for water and communication through the huge, barren peninsula. Apart from the north coastal strip, the remainder of the approximately 36,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) that make up the Sinai Peninsula has few economic resources and little water, and its population has always been minimal. The largest concentration of ancient settlements occurs in mountainous and geographically isolated south-central Sinai. Here are found both an adequate water supply and a comfortable climate. The difficult terrain, the physical isolation, and the relatively hospitable living conditions all combine to make this area a prime candidate for the location of the Israelite sojourn in the wilderness. Equally important, the region was apparently never of any interest to Egypt: none of the ancient settlements in the area appear to be Egyptian, and there are no indications of ancient Egyptian suzerainty. At the same time, however, none of the ancient settlements in the area date to a period that might relate to an Israelite Exodus from Egypt: they are too early (Early Bronze Age) or too late (Iron Age). The localization of the wilderness sojourn in south-central Sinai therefore is an attractive but unproven hypothesis.
The Sinai Peninsula
Research into the monastic settlements in south-central Sinai suggests that it was the establishment of the monastic population in this area during the Byzantine period (fourth to seventh centuries CE) that resulted in the identification of southern Sinai sites with various biblical locations. Most likely, the monks themselves generated the traditions of the southern Exodus route; the traditions arose along with the monasteries. At the same time as the monastic movement established itself in southern Sinai, Christian pilgrimages also were becoming popular. These pilgrimages further stimulated the development of monastic traditions both by encouraging the local placement of Exodus sites and, once made, by reinforcing those localizations. Pilgrimage practice thus helped preserve and perpetuate the very geographical identifications that it had helped create. As time passed the site correlations moved into popular lore and became sanctified tradition. Such a process is not unparalleled. Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, traveled throughout the Near East dreaming of the locations of various events in the life of Jesus. Over the years her identifications, some no doubt based on prior popular belief, became accepted as indigenous local traditions. This mechanism for creating and reinforcing popular tradition is not confined to antiquity: the renaming of Tell el-Qudeirat as Tel Kadeshbarnea is a modern example.
Thus, despite decades of research, we cannot reconstruct a reliable Exodus route based on information in the biblical account. Nor, despite intensive survey and exploration by a
rchaeologists, are there remains on the Sinai Peninsula or in Egypt that can be linked specifically to the Israelite Exodus. Barring some future momentous discovery, we shall never be able to establish exactly the route of the Exodus.
Biblical Dates and Numbers
The biblical narrative also informs us about the length of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt and the date of the Exodus. The data are not, however, consistent. Thus, 1 Kings 6.1 dates the Exodus to “the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel.” Although we do not know the exact year of Solomon’s accession to the throne, we know its approximate date, the mid-tenth century BCE. This would date the Israelite departure from Egypt in the mid-fifteenth century. Exodus 12.40 tells us that the Israelites lived in Egypt for 430 years prior to the Exodus; this gives the early nineteenth century for the coming of Jacob and his sons into Egypt. In Genesis 15.13, however, the length of the sojourn in Egypt is given as four hundred years; and in Genesis 15.16, the time shrinks to three generations. Moreover, the figure of 480 years is suspiciously schematic: the Bible assigns twelve (a favorite and symbolic biblical number) generations between the Exodus and Solomon, and the standard biblical length of a generation is forty years.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World Page 12