The Oxford History of the Biblical World

by Coogan, Michael D.

  Within the Egyptian bureaucracy, some Asiatics attained positions of prominence as priests and officials. Some achieved the lowest grade of the priesthood; a few rose to higher ranks. A Canaanite named Pas-Baal became chief draftsman in the temple of Amun; six generations later his descendants held the same office. Syrian scribes were numerous, especially in the treasury; Canaanite butlers were commonplace among palace officials, especially in Ramesside times. One Asiatic became superintendent of all the king’s construction work; another, named Ben-Anath, became a chief physician. A Canaanite from Bashan, Ben-Ozen, took the Egyptian name Ramses-em-Per-Re and served as chief royal herald, fan bearer on the right of the king, and first royal butler under Rameses II. Successful Asiatics in Egypt assimilated totally. They adopted Egyptian names and portrayed themselves in Egyptian style and dress. Often the only hint of their foreign origin was their Semitic name.

  Most powerful of all were two Asiatics who rose to unprecedented heights in Egyptian society. One, named Bay, has been known for many years. At the end of Dynasty 19, a period of dynastic struggle ended in the brief rule of a queen, Tewosret (ca. 1188–1186). During this time of strife, Bay, a high official probably of Syrian extraction, apparently held the reins of power in Egypt. Bay seems to have been not only Egypt’s chancellor, but also the power behind the throne. A second high-ranking Asiatic has only recently come to light. At Saqqarah, a major burial ground associated with the Egyptian capital and administrative center of Memphis, a French mission has excavated the family tomb of an otherwise unknown man named Aper-El. From the inscriptions found in his tomb, our only source of information about this individual, it appears that Aper-El was a vizier, the most powerful secular official in the bureaucracy, under both Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten of Dynasty 18 (ca. 1390–1336 BCE).

  On occasion, captured foreigners might be settled as a group in Egypt because they originated from the same place or because of some shared skill or ability. A military unit might be kept together, for example. Thutmose IV relocated captives from Gezer as a group; enclaves of foreigners were settled in both the delta and Middle Egypt in Ramesside times. The Egyptians especially welcomed individuals or groups of foreigners with specialized skills useful to the Egyptian crown and temples, particularly in crafts. Asiatic goldsmiths, coppersmiths, and shipwrights all appear in Egyptian records.

  We can thus cite numerous parallels for Asiatics dwelling in Egypt and assimilating into Egyptian society. We know the names of a number of them, and we know that a few rose to positions of power. Only occasional analogues exist, however, for the settling of Asiatics as groups in particular locations in Egypt.

  Counterparts, general or specific, to the Israelite “Exodus from Egypt” are more difficult to establish. Rarely do we hear of Asiatics fleeing from Egypt. The Tale of Sinuhe, sometimes cited in this context, is inappropriate because the fleeing protagonist is Egyptian, not Asiatic, although the first person Sinuhe encounters in Asia is a local sheikh who had been in Egypt. A papyrus from late Dynasty 19 describes a Tjeku troop commander’s pursuit of two escaped slaves. The commander, sent by the palace, failed to recapture the slaves, who may have escaped into Asia. The closest historical parallel to the Israelite departure from Egypt, and the only known comparatively large-scale exodus of Asiatics from Egypt, is the expulsion of the Hyksos that marked the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom. In fact, the Hyksos provide the only historical parallel that incorporates all three major elements of the biblical Exodus narrative—descent, sojourn, and departure—a parallel to which we will turn shortly.

  In general, surprisingly numerous analogues exist for the Hebrew descent into and sojourn in Egypt. In the latter case we even have examples of individual Asiatics rising to Joseph-like positions of power. What is most striking about these parallels is the ease with which they can be established over a comparatively long time range. Asiatics were common in Egypt, and wide-ranging contacts between Egypt and Syria-Palestine were the norm, throughout the second millennium BCE, especially during the New Kingdom, when a cosmopolitan Egypt ruled its Asiatic empire.

  Such counterparts to elements of the Exodus narrative, unfortunately, provide no hard evidence for a biblical movement of Hebrews into Egypt, nor do they prove that a particular group of Hebrews ever resided in or exited from Egypt. No direct connection can be established between the Exodus events and any of the historically attested Asiatics in Egypt. Analogues provide only general evidence of Asiatics moving into and living within Egyptian society; at most, they suggest that movement by biblical Hebrews into and out of Egypt sometime during the second millennium BCE was entirely possible. On its own, analogous evidence can neither confirm nor deny the historicity of the Exodus saga, nor can it definitively place the Exodus in time.

  The Date of the Exodus and Archaeology

  In the end, efforts to place the Exodus events on a time line have had to resort to less-than-ideal inferences based on problematic biblical references and possibly analogous historical data. Archaeological discoveries are often invoked as an accompaniment to these inferences, either to support or to refute particular positions, but by their very nature archaeological finds are generally unsuitable for establishing detailed historical interpretations. A destruction layer, for example, typically provides graphic visual evidence in the form of black ash, charred material, and red-baked soil and brick, but it rarely supplies indisputable evidence of exactly how, why, or by whom the havoc was wreaked.

  The archaeological data relating to the Exodus are subject to differing interpretations. But at no point in the known archaeological sequence for Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine does the extant archaeological record accord with that expected from the Exodus (or, for that matter, conquest) account in the Bible. No archaeological evidence from Egypt can be construed as representing a resident group of Israelites in the delta or elsewhere, unless one accepts a general equation of the Exodus group with the Hyksos. Nor is there any evidence of an early Israelite presence anywhere in Sinai. The Mediterranean littoral was heavily used by the Egyptian army during the New Kingdom, and the remainder of Sinai shows little evidence of occupation for virtually the entire second millennium BCE, from the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age to the beginning of the Iron Age or even later. Even the site currently identified with Kadesh-barnea provides no evidence of habitation prior to the establishment of the Israelite monarchy.

  Compromise and selectivity are thus the keys to all hypotheses that have been advanced to date the Exodus events. Most often these hypotheses correlate aspects of the biblical narrative with particular historical settings and events and selected archaeological evidence. All assume that the “conquest” events, whether defined as actual conquest or the establishment of Israelite settlement or both, immediately followed the Exodus. None is entirely satisfactory from the point of view of critical historiography, archaeological evidence, or biblical testimony.

  Dates proposed for the Exodus range from the third millennium to the eleventh centuries BCE. Dates at the earlier end of this chronological range do violence to our most basic understanding of the historical and cultural sequences and synchronisms for the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds. Dates at the later end of the timescale conflict with our understanding of biblical Israel at the point where it is emerging onto the historical stage as well as with current interpretations of archaeological evidence. Few scholars hold to either extreme, and a broad consensus places the Exodus somewhere in the middle or toward the end of the second millennium, just before or during the Late Bronze Age, the Egyptian New Kingdom. Within this broad consensus, three alternative hypotheses have gained general credence. The earliest places the Exodus in the sixteenth century, the next in the fifteenth century, and the last in the thirteenth century.

  The hypothesis dating the Exodus to the mid-sixteenth century BCE puts paramount importance on historical data and relies the least on biblical narrative. Since the expulsion of the Hykso
s from Egypt is the only recorded historical occurrence of a collective movement of Asiatics out of Egypt prior to the first millennium, it is also the only occurrence that could be equated with the Exodus. A date at the beginning of the New Kingdom is only about a century earlier than that mandated by strict biblical chronology. Moreover, the ousting of the Hyksos follows an equally historical Asiatic descent into and sojourn in Egypt. Accordingly, as Josephus suggested nearly two thousand years ago (Against Apion 1.16), the Exodus should be equated with the Hyksos’ expulsion from Egypt. Destruction levels in Palestinian sites dating to the transition between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, often attributed to Egyptian military campaigns, could, according to this view, have resulted from an Israelite conquest and settlement of Canaan.

  There are, however, a number of problems with this date for the Exodus. If the conquest/settlement occurred at the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century BCE, almost four hundred years must elapse before the Israelite state takes form under the monarchies of Saul and David at the end of the eleventh and beginning of the tenth centuries. Besides being too long a time span for the period of the judges, the putative four hundred years between conquest and kingship would occur during a period of known Egyptian hegemony over Syria-Palestine. Yet not a hint of Egyptian imperial might appears anywhere in the relevant biblical narrative. Moreover, in the last stages of the wilderness wanderings, just prior to the conquest, the Israelites are reported to interact with the kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom. Archaeological evidence, however, indicates little settled occupation in southern Transjordan throughout most of the second millennium, until the thirteenth century at the earliest.

  The second hypothesis dates the Exodus to the fifteenth century BCE and stems from a literal reading of the biblical narrative. This view stresses the primacy of the Bible for historical interpretation and follows the biblical chronology, which dates the Exodus 480 years prior to Solomon’s fourth year (1 Kings 6.1). By this reckoning, the Exodus began in the mid-fifteenth century, with the conquest coming forty years later. This Exodus chronology is generally part of a broader, biblically derived chronological and historical reconstruction that places the descent of Jacob in the mid-nineteenth century and the migration of Abraham in the mid-twenty-first century. In this scenario, historical and archaeological data play a secondary and supportive role and are invoked to bolster the primarily biblically derived chronology. A fifteenth-century Exodus date mandates a late fifteenth- or early fourteenth-century Israelite conquest. But the destruction layers required by a literal reading of the conquest narrative do not occur at the appropriate sites in Palestine. As a result, some scholars have tried to lower the date for the transition between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in order to correlate site destructions of this date with the arrival of rampaging Israelites. Methodologically and historically, this attempt is unacceptable. The criticisms of the sixteenth-century Exodus date also apply here: the period of the judges becomes much too long; the Egyptians had firm control of Palestine; and settled life in southern Transjordan was minimal at best.

  The third and most widely accepted hypothesis places the Exodus in the thirteenth century BCE. In this approach, the biblical narrative is judged and interpreted against the known historical and archaeological framework of the second millennium. Instead of working forward in time from the Exodus, this theory works backward from the Israelite conquest and settlement. Intensive archaeological research in the past twenty-five years has demonstrated a gradual proliferation of small rural settlements concentrated in the hill country of southern Canaan from around 1200, the beginning of Iron Age I. Accompanying these villages, many newly founded, was a material culture simpler than that of the large and cosmopolitan Canaanite cities of the plains. We know from contemporary texts and epigraphic material that by Iron Age II (ca. 1025) the hill country territories and their villages were inhabited by Israelites; it is but a short step to infer that it was the Israelites who established and occupied the settlements at the beginning of the Iron Age.

  If the Israelite conquest and settlement occurred at the beginning of the twelfth century BCE, a time when the Egyptian empire was unraveling, then the Exodus and wilderness wanderings would have occurred slightly earlier, in the thirteenth century. This date accords better with the archaeological evidence for increased settlement east of the Jordan River in the regions of Ammon, Moab, and Edom. A thirteenth-century Exodus also fits well with the evidence of the Merneptah Stela, which would then reflect the situation in southern Palestine shortly after the Israelite settlement but prior to the development of the Israelite state. In addition, a number of sites west of the Jordan River were destroyed at the end of the thirteenth century; at least some of the destructions could be attributed to the Israelites.

  If the Exodus and wilderness sojourn immediately preceded the Israelite settlement of Canaan, and if the most likely date for the settlement is the transitional thirteenth to twelfth centuries BCE, then any historical core to the Exodus events must have taken place toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, most likely during the thirteenth century.

  The Late Bronze Age

  The Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550–1200 BCE) was a brilliant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan era, in which great wealth accumulated and unprecedented international contacts and exchange occurred throughout the eastern Mediterranean. People, goods, and ideas flowed freely, by sea and by land, to an extent unparalleled in earlier times. The Late Bronze Age was also an age of empire, marked by complex political, economic, social, and cultural interactions, superpower politics, and an international way of life. Over the course of its three and a half centuries, the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean saw the rise and fall of six major kingdoms or empires—those of Egypt, Mitanni (northern Syria), Kassite Babylon, Assyria, Hatti (ruled by the Hittites; Anatolia), and Mycenae. Of all these, Egypt’s empire was the greatest, controlling the largest amount of territory, commanding the most prodigious wealth, and lasting the longest.

  The era begins with the accession of Ahmose to the Egyptian throne in the mid-sixteenth century BCE and the final expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt. Its end is generally dated to approximately 1200 BCE, when international trade connections ceased, anarchy spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean basin, empires splintered, and destruction or crisis struck the Canaanite city-states. In Egypt, the Late Bronze Age coincides with Dynasties 18, 19, and the beginning of Dynasty 20—the greatest part, literally and figuratively, of the New Kingdom.

  The New Kingdom period was unsurpassed in Egyptian history for its wealth, power, and cosmopolitanism. An enormously rich, militaristic Egypt dominated much of Syria-Palestine throughout the Late Bronze Age. Palestine in particular remained yoked to Egyptian imperial might for the entire period and was controlled and exploited by Egyptian administrators mostly resident in the region. Since it is in Egypt and Palestine (including Sinai) that the Exodus narrative is set, we will concentrate on these areas, invoking broader international events and trends as appropriate.

  A loosely organized patchwork of local city-states, each ruled by a “prince,” dominated the political landscape of Syria-Palestine in the Late Bronze Age. The heart of the city-state system was a polity centered on one autonomous urban settlement; around this core lay hinterlands of varying sizes and compositions, contributing additional human and natural resources. The heavily fortified main city was usually located along at least one important trade and communication route. The city-states vied continually with each other for political, economic, and military dominance. Rarely were they completely independent: Syria-Palestine’s position as corridor between Africa and Asia and outlet to the Mediterranean Sea attracted larger imperial powers like a magnet, one or more of whom invariably controlled the region. Alliances and allegiances, local and international, constantly shifted, as the military might of empires ebbed and flowed. The independent-minded city-states remained jealous of their lost autonomy, and scheming local rulers never m
issed an opportunity to rebel.

  When Ahmose’s victorious army ended its war of liberation against the Hyksos in the mid-sixteenth century BCE, a new era began in Egypt. Ahmose’s ascension to the throne signaled more than just the beginning of Dynasty 18; it marked a break with past policies and attitudes. The rulers of Middle Kingdom Egypt (Dynasties 11–13; ca. 2106–1633) had intervened in Asia with only occasional military incursions to protect or secure their commercial interests. Middle Kingdom Egypt seems to have had few political and no territorial ambitions in Asia.

  An increasing number of Asiatics nevertheless appeared in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom. Many undoubtedly came as slaves or mercenaries. Others seem to have percolated slowly but freely into the eastern delta, probably beginning sometime early in the second millennium BCE. As the Middle Kingdom gradually weakened and central control deteriorated over the course of Dynasty 13, the Asiatic influx into the delta increased and the power of the delta Asiatics grew proportionately. Eventually, sometime in the mid- to late seventeenth century, they became strong enough to seize control first of the eastern delta, then of the capital Memphis, and finally of the entire country, forming Dynasty 15. The Egyptians called these Asiatics “heqaw khasut,” “rulers of foreign lands,” a term rendered in Greek as “Hyksos.” Archaeological excavation in the eastern delta over the past thirty years, especially at the Hyksos capital of Avaris (Tell ed-Dab’a) and the Hyksos enclave at Tell el-Maskhuta, have confirmed the Canaanite origin of the Hyksos.

  Foreign subjugation, previously unknown, sent shock waves through the Egyptian psyche, which would reverberate throughout the New Kingdom state. After about a century of foreign rule, the native Egyptians from their base at Thebes finally broke Hyksos power. In a series of campaigns, the pharaohs of Dynasty 17 and early Dynasty 18 drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and into southern Palestine. The era inaugurated by Dynasty 18 is notable not only for renewed national unity but also for a militaristic spirit and an approach to foreign affairs fundamentally different from any before. New Kingdom Egypt maintained the country’s first standing army and soon valued horse and chariot for warfare. Imperialism became a foreign policy, and official iconography emphasized the divine king as an indomitable warrior and universal conqueror.