The Exodus

[Oncedeceived]

Right, just like Tom Clancy novels mention the CIA and Washington DC.

That is just dismissive without reason.

 

[HitchSlap]

That is just dismissive without reason.

I'm certain I have reasons.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Nope.

Surprise, that.

 

[Root of Jesse]

When a story doesn't have any evidential support, and thus doesn't comport with reality, it's generally better explained as myth.

Evidence doesn't mean squat. Just ask OJ...

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Did the Exodus really happen? I've read article both pro and con, and shades in between. Are there any good scholarly articles that support the Biblical account, or at least show its reasonably possible?

This thread is quite old, but I didn't see it since I was largely away when it came up. Also it's a featured thread so... here's my two cents.

 

[Tree of Life]

This thread is quite old, but I didn't see it since I was largely away when it came up. Also it's a featured thread so... here's my two cents.

This isn't really accurate for a few reasons:

1. The modern situation of slavery in America is significantly different that the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. One noteworthy difference is that the people of Israel lived separately from Egypt (Goshen) and so were able to maintain separate traditions and keep a separate community identity. This is not the case with American slavery wherein African slaves were separated from their tribes and families and made to live with white slave owners and assimilate under white culture and education. A second difference is that Israel slowly fell into a situation of slavery. They were an independent people living and thriving in the land of Egypt who, over a period of a generation, drifted into a situation of slavery. African slavery in America is pretty different because these people were stolen from their homeland and placed in an altogether foreign environment.
   
   
2. On what basis does the designer of this chart say that the Israelites were able to maintain their cultural distinctions "without difficulty"? This seems a baseless assertion.
   
   
3. Egypt greatly influenced Israel. There are several Egyptian words that made it into Hebrew vocabulary and the whole of the Pentateuch, Genesis and Exodus especially, are polemical against Egyptian mythology.

Edit: I see that I misunderstood point 3. The chart suggests that Israel did not influence Egypt at all. I don't know enough about Egyptian culture to comment on this.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

This isn't really accurate for a few reasons:

1. The modern situation of slavery in America is significantly different that the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. One noteworthy difference is that the people of Israel lived separately from Egypt (Goshen) and so were able to maintain separate traditions and keep a separate community identity. This is not the case with American slavery wherein African slaves were separated from their tribes and families and made to live with white slave owners and assimilate under white culture and education. A second difference is that Israel slowly fell into a situation of slavery. They were an independent people living and thriving in the land of Egypt who, over a period of a generation, drifted into a situation of slavery. African slavery in America is pretty different because these people were stolen from their homeland and placed in an altogether foreign environment.

The living conditions were quite similar. From what I understand, many African slaves lived outside of the mansion in something like a barracks.

2. On what basis does the designer of this chart say that the Israelites were able to maintain their cultural distinctions "without difficulty"? This seems a baseless assertion.

OK, let's forget the "without difficulty." What does that change?

3. Egypt greatly influenced Israel. There are several Egyptian words that made it into Hebrew vocabulary and the whole of the Pentateuch, Genesis and Exodus especially, are polemical against Egyptian mythology.
Edit: I see that I misunderstood point 3. The chart suggests that Israel did not influence Egypt at all. I don't know enough about Egyptian culture to comment on this.

OK.

 

[Tree of Life]

The living conditions were quite similar. From what I understand, many African slaves lived outside of the mansion in something like a barracks.

Not at all similar. African slaves belonged to households and were often separated from their families and tribes to become (slavish) members of white households. Nothing like this was going on in Egypt with the Israelites.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Not at all similar. African slaves belonged to households and were often separated from their families and tribes to become (slavish) members of white households. Nothing like this was going on in Egypt with the Israelites.

Then I suppose my case is mainly intuitive. I simply find it hard to believe that 430 years in captivity can result in no detectable exchange of culture.

 

[Radrook]

Here is an interesting article:

Is there evidence of the Exodus from Egypt?

The following article is based on the book http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/products/book.phpA New Approach to the Chronology of Biblical History from Abraham to Samuel and http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/products/archives/vol2.phpThe Biblical Chronologist Volume 2, Number 2. Further details and references can be found there.

A Long Reign

Before the account of the Exodus itself, the Bible tells of the enslavement of the Israelites and the first 80 years of the life of Moses. One remarkable feature of this story is apparent from the following sequence of events:

A new king comes to power in Egypt who "did not know Joseph." (Exodus 1:8)

This king orders the death of all newborn Hebrew boys. (Exodus 1:22)

Moses is born into this regime. (Exodus 2:2)

Moses is adopted by the Pharaoh's daughter. (Exodus 2:5)

Moses grows up, murders an Egyptian, and flees the country. (Exodus 2:12,15)

Moses marries Zipporah and they have a son. (Exodus 2:12,15)

Eventually, "in the course of those many days", the king of Egypt dies. (Exodus 2:23)

God meets Moses and sends him to the new Pharaoh. (Exodus 3,4)

Moses is 80 years old when he stands before the new Pharaoh. (Exodus 7:7)

The Bible indicates that the same Pharaoh whose daughter adopted three-month-old Moses died when Moses was nearly 80 years old! This Pharaoh must have reigned for a very long time.

Pepy II

Only one pharaoh in the history of Egypt can meet this Biblical requirement---Pepy II.

Pepy II is traditionally thought to have governed the country for ninety-four years... (Grimal, page 89.)



Pepy II's Successor

From the Biblical account we would expect the reign of Pepy II's successor to be quite short. This pharaoh had to deal with Moses and the plagues, and the Bible indicates that he drowned in the "Red Sea" with the rest of his army. Grimal makes this mention of the pharaoh who followed Pepy II:

The exceptional longevity of Pepy II resulted not only in the gradual fossilization of the administrative system but also in a succession crisis. The Abydos king-list mentions a Merenre II (also called Antiemdjaf), who seems to have been the son of Pepy II and Queen Neith. This very ephemeral ruler, who reigned for only a single year, would have been married to Queen Nitocris, who according to Manetho was the last Sixth Dynasty ruler. (Grimal, page 89)

So there is a good fit between the secular history of Egypt and the Biblical account with these two pharaohs; an extremely long reign is followed by a very short reign, as required.

More Evidence

The Biblical account of the ten plagues is quite detailed. It describes the pollution of the water supply, and devastation of the livestock and vegetation of the land. The Israelites left, depriving the land of its slave labor, and they carried away much of the land's wealth in the form of silver, gold, and clothing (Exodus 12:36). Also, the army and the Pharaoh were drowned in the "Red Sea," leaving the country with weakened defenses. The Exodus must surely have left a bold signature in Egyptian history. What do the historians find following the reign of Pepy II's successor?

Pepy II's successor was the final Pharaoh of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Grimal says: "The Old Kingdom ended with a period of great confusion." (page 89). Summarizing an ancient Egyptian literary/historical work called Admonitions, which comments on Egypt following the reign of Pepy II's successor, Grimal says:

It was the collapse of the whole society, and Egypt itself had become a world in turmoil, exposed to the horrors of chaos which was always waiting for the moment when the personification of the divine being - the Pharaoh - neglected his duties or simply disappeared. (Grimal, page 138)

This time period was characterized by famine, an expected result of the plagues described in the book of Exodus. This famine was limited to the Nile valley (Grimal, page 139)---as the Bible's narrative would lead one to expect. There was anarchy and a struggle for political power. Egypt's foreign trade ceased and Egyptian mining in the Sinai peninsula "also seems to have been abandoned" (Grimal, page 139). The nation of Egypt had obviously suffered a severe blow---as one would expect from what the Bible tells us of the events accompanying the Exodus.

Chronology

The match between the Bible's narrative of the Exodus and the secular history of Egypt at the end of the Old Kingdom might possibly be brushed aside as coincidence were it not for the fact that this match happens at the right date according to modern Biblical chronology.

Dr. Aardsma's chronology places the Exodus 2447+/-12 B.C. The current "standard" chronology of Egypt places the end of the Old Kingdom---when the evidence discussed above says the Exodus happened---around 2200 B.C. The difference of 247 years between these two dates is close enough for such ancient times to regard the dates as the same. Uncertainties of a few hundred years in historical/archaeological chronologies are normal at such early times in the history of civilization. Nicholas Grimal notes that "The chronological span of the First Intermediate Period [which must be known to date events in the Old Kingdom accurately] is also a problem." Haas et al. have suggested, based on an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates (totally independent of Dr. Aardsma's work), that the First Intermediate Period should be lengthened by about 260 years. This would push the secular date for the end of the Old Kingdom back to around 2460 B.C., indistinguishable from Dr. Aardsma's Biblical date of 2447+/-12 B.C. for the Exodus. Pottery analysis in the Sinai Peninsula by E. D. Oren and Y. Yekuteli is also supportive of this adjustment.

Thus the qualitative match between the Bible's narrative of the Exodus and the secular history of Egypt at the end of the Old Kingdom is supported by quantitative chronology.

Conclusion

Evidence for the Exodus from Egypt is plentiful---as long as one has their Biblical chronology right, and thus knows to examine Egypt's history around 2450 B.C., rather than around the traditional 1450 B.C.

References

Grimal, Nicolas A History of Ancient Egypt Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1993.

Photo Credit: Thanks to Mark James Foster for permission to use his photograph of Pepy II's Pyramid.

The foregoing article was based on the book http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/products/book.phpA New Approach to the Chronology of Biblical History from Abraham to Samuel and http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/products/archives/vol2.phpThe Biblical Chronologist Volume 2, Number 2. Further details and references can be found there.

http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answers/exodus_egypt.php

 

[Moral Orel]

Here is an interesting article:

Couple of fuzzy details maybe you could help me out with. The article points out this passage:

Eventually, "in the course of those many days", the king of Egypt dies. (Exodus 2:23)​

Is there any reason to think this means, "at the end of the course of those many days"? It seems like that Pharaoh could have died anywhere between the time that Moses left and the time he returned. Is there some reason I'm missing that he must have died when Moses returned?

Then this part:

Dr. Aardsma's chronology places the Exodus 2447+/-12 B.C.​

Aardsma's theory posits that there was a typo, and that the standard view of the Exodus occurring somewhere around 1200-1400BC is 1000 years too late. That's where this date comes from. This is the only place I've ever heard such a date mentioned. Does anyone else with credentials of any kind agree with this radical (though entirely possible) theory?

Also, the book of Exodus makes mention of the Jews building the city of Ramses which was founded no earlier than 1200 BC. Give a few hundred years of leeway, and it is still a far cry from 2400 BC. Is the mention of this city explained in any way somewhere? I didn't notice it in your links, but I might have missed it.

Lastly, if we use the Biblical genealogy as a mode for dating things, the Flood happened at the same time as the Exodus (following this theory of Aadsma's). Would believing this theory mean that you would also have to ascribe to the idea that the genealogy listed in the Bible is not complete and could be very much longer than the 6000 year calculation of the age of mankind's existence? Or that there was no Biblical worldwide flood? Or... I dunno, a lot of implications for determining the date of things that occurred in the early Bible.

Just some thoughts and questions. I'm certainly no scholar on the subject, so I have no real argument to make. I just wondered about some of the details and the implications of such a theory.

 

[Radrook]

Couple of fuzzy details maybe you could help me out with. The article points out this passage:

Eventually, "in the course of those many days", the king of Egypt dies. (Exodus 2:23)​

Is there any reason to think this means, "at the end of the course of those many days"? It seems like that Pharaoh could have died anywhere between the time that Moses left and the time he returned. Is there some reason I'm missing that he must have died when Moses returned?

Then this part:

Dr. Aardsma's chronology places the Exodus 2447+/-12 B.C.​

Aardsma's theory posits that there was a typo, and that the standard view of the Exodus occurring somewhere around 1200-1400BC is 1000 years too late. That's where this date comes from. This is the only place I've ever heard such a date mentioned. Does anyone else with credentials of any kind agree with this radical (though entirely possible) theory?

Also, the book of Exodus makes mention of the Jews building the city of Ramses which was founded no earlier than 1200 BC. Give a few hundred years of leeway, and it is still a far cry from 2400 BC. Is the mention of this city explained in any way somewhere? I didn't notice it in your links, but I might have missed it.

Lastly, if we use the Biblical genealogy as a mode for dating things, the Flood happened at the same time as the Exodus (following this theory of Aadsma's). Would believing this theory mean that you would also have to ascribe to the idea that the genealogy listed in the Bible is not complete and could be very much longer than the 6000 year calculation of the age of mankind's existence? Or that there was no Biblical worldwide flood? Or... I dunno, a lot of implications for determining the date of things that occurred in the early Bible.

Just some thoughts and questions. I'm certainly no scholar on the subject, so I have no real argument to make. I just wondered about some of the details and the implications of such a theory.

Sorry, but apart from finding this article interesting, I really don't know much about the ideas expressed in it and was unable at the time to research it thoroughly. So I posted it to get your views.

Thanks for pointing out the flawed chronological assumptions and discrepancies which would make the Flood and the Exodus a simultaneous event if the article claims were true. I guess that flaw alone disqualifies the ideas expressed therein as valid.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Aside from my point above on how I find it remarkable (to say the least) that the Jews could be enslaved for 430 years and yet we find little to no cross-contamination of Egyptian and Jewish culture/language/etc, there is another issue: population growth. Exodus 12:37 tells us that there are 600,000 men (not counting women and children) participating in the Exodus, and that figure is quite suspicious to me.

600,000 men would likely have over 600,000 wives, even if we account for the unmarried men. To be favorable to the apologist, we'll assume the low figure of 600,000 wives. I think an average of 1.5 children per man is a reasonable assumption, giving us a total of 600,000+600,000+(1.5)(600,000)=2,100,000 Jews.

We find that the story of the three main patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) ends with Joseph, a member of the fourth generation, ruling over Egypt. At the end of Genesis, he invites his family to come live with him there because of the famine in the land. The household includes Joseph, his 11 brothers, his sister, and his elderly father: 14 persons. With regards to the logistics of breeding, it was common the book of Genesis for a man to have one to two wives with each wife having a woman servant that they might at some point offer to their husband for sex. So let's assume 4 sexual partners for Joseph and his 11 brothers, 1 sexual partner for Dinah (Joseph's sister), and 4 sexual partners for Jacob. This results in (1+11+1)(4)+1=53 members of the first generation in Egypt. It is unlikely that Jacob had more children than what is listed because his 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel, but the Levites did not get their own land and Joseph's tribe was split among his two sons and so it could be said that Jacob's sons are not literally or exactly denoting the tribes. Therefore it could be argued that maybe Jacob had "less important" offspring later.

Note that my lowering of the final population and my raising of the initial population is all done to be favorable to the apologist. Also, the Jews were enslaved for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41). The passage seems to indicate that this is the entire duration of the Jews' stay in Egypt, but let's be generous and assume it is referring only to the duration of the enslavement. Recall that the slavery did not start immediately, but rather when a new pharaoh took over after the one who favored Joseph had died. Let's be generous some more and say that the pharaoh who favored Joseph lived for 70 years after Joseph had already brought his family over to Egypt (making that pharaoh die at the age of at least, say, 90). This gives us 500 years for the Jews in Egypt.

Now, the normal population growth of modern times appears to be between 1% and 3%. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Human_population_growth_rate). We do have abortions and other forms of birth control these days, but because of the near-zero infant mortality rate an infant of today has a better chance to survive (even accounting for the times when we are deliberately killing them) than infants of ancient times had. I have no source for this other than common sense, so feel free to prove me wrong. But I think this is a commonly held notion that no one will object to. My point is that we should probably consider a 3% population growth rate to be the absolute ceiling of ancient times. Now, Exodus 1:7 says that the Jews multiplied greatly, presumably because of a blessing from God, so let's take the absolute ceiling, 3%. I think that is fair to all concerned.

Population growth can be modeled as follows:

P=(I)(e^(rt)), where P is the final population, I is the initial population, r is the rate of population growth, t is the amount of time, and e is Euler's number. From above we have:

P=2,100,000
I=53
r=3%=0.03
t=500

Since I was so generous to apologists in all of my derivations here, we should find that P<(I)(e^(rt)). Let's see what happens:

2,100,000<(53)(e^((0.03)(500)))
2,100,000<173,257,921

So it appears I've been too generous as I have their population reaching 173 million! A small change in r can lead to radically different results, and since we can't know how much God blessed their fertility we must concede that this population growth is possible.

Every time I document calculations I like to perform the calculations at the end of everything to avoid bias (9 times out of 10, the calculations discredit the Bible). After all, who would write up a long report about how the calculations favor their opponent? So in the interest of intellectual honesty I'm publishing these results here, and obviously you can infer that if we relax my generous numbers we can reach the desired conclusion of 2.1 million people. However, I do still have concerns about whether it was possible for that many slaves (in addition to the Egyptians) to exist in one area in ancient times. Carrying capacity is not really an issue for us in modern times, but the environment certainly limited populations in the past. In any case, I see from my own calculations that these results are not entirely out of the question.

 

[Hawkins]

Aside from my point above on how I find it remarkable (to say the least) that the Jews could be enslaved for 430 years and yet we find little to no cross-contamination of Egyptian and Jewish culture/language/etc, there is another issue: population growth. Exodus 12:37 tells us that there are 600,000 men (not counting women and children) participating in the Exodus, and that figure is quite suspicious to me.

600,000 men would likely have over 600,000 wives, even if we account for the unmarried men. To be favorable to the apologist, we'll assume the low figure of 600,000 wives. I think an average of 1.5 children per man is a reasonable assumption, giving us a total of 600,000+600,000+(1.5)(600,000)=2,100,000 Jews.

We find that the story of the three main patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) ends with Joseph, a member of the fourth generation, ruling over Egypt. At the end of Genesis, he invites his family to come live with him there because of the famine in the land. The household includes Joseph, his 11 brothers, his sister, and his elderly father: 14 persons. With regards to the logistics of breeding, it was common the book of Genesis for a man to have one to two wives with each wife having a woman servant that they might at some point offer to their husband for sex. So let's assume 4 sexual partners for Joseph and his 11 brothers, 1 sexual partner for Dinah (Joseph's sister), and 4 sexual partners for Jacob. This results in (1+11+1)(4)+1=53 members of the first generation in Egypt. It is unlikely that Jacob had more children than what is listed because his 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel, but the Levites did not get their own land and Joseph's tribe was split among his two sons and so it could be said that Jacob's sons are not literally or exactly denoting the tribes. Therefore it could be argued that maybe Jacob had "less important" offspring later.

Note that my lowering of the final population and my raising of the initial population is all done to be favorable to the apologist. Also, the Jews were enslaved for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41). The passage seems to indicate that this is the entire duration of the Jews' stay in Egypt, but let's be generous and assume it is referring only to the duration of the enslavement. Recall that the slavery did not start immediately, but rather when a new pharaoh took over after the one who favored Joseph had died. Let's be generous some more and say that the pharaoh who favored Joseph lived for 70 years after Joseph had already brought his family over to Egypt (making that pharaoh die at the age of at least, say, 90). This gives us 500 years for the Jews in Egypt.

Now, the normal population growth of modern times appears to be between 1% and 3%. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth#Human_population_growth_rate). We do have abortions and other forms of birth control these days, but because of the near-zero infant mortality rate an infant of today has a better chance to survive (even accounting for the times when we are deliberately killing them) than infants of ancient times had. I have no source for this other than common sense, so feel free to prove me wrong. But I think this is a commonly held notion that no one will object to. My point is that we should probably consider a 3% population growth rate to be the absolute ceiling of ancient times. Now, Exodus 1:7 says that the Jews multiplied greatly, presumably because of a blessing from God, so let's take the absolute ceiling, 3%. I think that is fair to all concerned.

Population growth can be modeled as follows:

P=(I)(e^(rt)), where P is the final population, I is the initial population, r is the rate of population growth, t is the amount of time, and e is Euler's number. From above we have:

P=2,100,000
I=53
r=3%=0.03
t=500

Since I was so generous to apologists in all of my derivations here, we should find that P<(I)(e^(rt)). Let's see what happens:

2,100,000<(53)(e^((0.03)(500)))
2,100,000<173,257,921

So it appears I've been too generous as I have their population reaching 173 million! A small change in r can lead to radically different results, and since we can't know how much God blessed their fertility we must concede that this population growth is possible.

Every time I document calculations I like to perform the calculations at the end of everything to avoid bias (9 times out of 10, the calculations discredit the Bible). After all, who would write up a long report about how the calculations favor their opponent? So in the interest of intellectual honesty I'm publishing these results here, and obviously you can infer that if we relax my generous numbers we can reach the desired conclusion of 2.1 million people. However, I do still have concerns about whether it was possible for that many slaves (in addition to the Egyptians) to exist in one area in ancient times. Carrying capacity is not really an issue for us in modern times, but the environment certainly limited populations in the past. In any case, I see from my own calculations that these results are not entirely out of the question.

Egyptians killed children of Jews as a measure of population control. Thus it is possible that they killed only the females and keep the males as labors.

 

[Radrook]

I have a textbook on the Bible which claims that the number of non-Israelites who joined the Israelites as they left Egypt during the Exodus amounted to only a few hundred.

The book is entitled:
Great People of the Bible and How They Lived.


It's on page 78 and starts above the Egyptian photo of hieroglyphics.

Yet Exodus tell us differently:
Exodus 12:38

KJ21
And a mixed multitude went up also with them, and flocks and herds, even very much cattle.

ASV
And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.

AMP
A mixed multitude [of non-Israelites from foreign nations] also went with them, along with both flocks and herds, a very large number of livestock.

AMPC
And a mixed multitude went also with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.

When authors take liberties like that one wonders about hidden agendas.