exodus never happened?

Great Debates
1

I’ve heard a school of thought that claims that there is no evidence that the Israelites were ever slaves in Egypt, and they did not help build the pyramids, never had to flee to freedom, and that there are no historical records of any of this OR any of the 10 commandments outside of the bible. One would think all the water in a city turning to blood, or the mass exodous of millions of former slaves would attract some attention in ancient histories.

Now I have to clarify that this doesn’t come from anti-semetic sources, but rather from the late Isaac Asimov.

Asimov claims (and he also says this is not his original theory, rather he compiled a large amount of research for his books on the bible) that the Israelites were nomads, and as they travelled they picked up local stories and incorporated the stories into their own culture. For example, the story of Moses was an ancient Egyptian tale that was modified to fit their needs. Another example is that no Eqyptian princess would take a slave baby out of the water and give it a name in the slave’s language (Moses means to “draw out” in Hebrew). Rather, it was Eqyptian for “son of mo” as Ramses was “Son of Ra” – Ra and Mo being Egyptian deities.

So is there any non-biblical evidence that this enslavement and subsequent exodus actually ocurred?

2

Out side of the Bible, none whatsoever.

3

The bible does not claim that the Hebrews built pyramids, which were ancient at the period of the Exodus.

Reeder is technically correct, but the story is not that simple. The May/June Biblical Archeology Review touches on that point in the editor’s response to the recent Harper’s Magazine article that declared nearly all the bible was invented. Steven Feldman quotes Baruch Halpern of Penn State from a U.S. News interview

Feldman then notes

Add to this the Egyptian habit of not recording public humiliations and the fact that most of the plagues are natural to the Nile valley and you have a suggestion that some event may have occurred that could have grown in legend to the biblical account of the Exodus. To date, we do not have archaeological confirmation that Moses led over 100,000 people across the Reed Sea and into the Sinai.

(While the name Moses may have a meaning in Hebrew, the Egyptians certainly did have a personal name Moses that also appears as a part of other names such at Tutmoses.)

4

On re-reading the OP, I think I misunderstood the comment regarding the name of Moses. But, I think I still don’t understand. The Egyptian princess gives the baby an Egyptian name; that seems logical. The name is similar to (or can be construed as) a name in the subjected people’s language, so that is how it is passed down in their accounts. I don’t see the issue. It would be analogous to a French girl naming a British foundling Jacques and having his name come down in British legend as Jack.

5

To clarify the Moses name question, the bible claims he was named Moses BECAUSE it meant “to draw out” – not just as a coincidence. The Hebrew bible does this frequently. That is, associates names and numbers with specific qualities. Kind of like Michael Chrichton calling the computer geek in Jurassic Park Nedry (Nerdy with two letters reversed).

And damn it, the bible should not be calling Moses Nerdy!

Oh wait… mixing my metaphoricals again.

6

There are also some scholars who think that a grievous error in chronology has been made in calculating the dates of Egyptian history. (James, P. et a, Centuries of Darkness: A challenge to the Conventional Chronology of the Old World Archaeology, Rutgers University Press). Redating these events could bring the 12th Egyptian dynasty down to the time of Moses, which would be more harmonious with the Exodus record.

7

The Egyptians not only didn’t record failures, they often didn’t record successes. One Pharoah would have the tablets that describe the military successes of his predecessor wiped clean. So the absence of evidence is NOT necessarily indiciative.

While the Egyptian records are fairly complete in many ways, they are grotesquely incomplete in other ways. And most of the records we have focus on the upper classes and royalty. We have very little record left by the slave classes… although we do have a fair amount of “middle class” record (if I can use an anachronistic term) since everyone who was anyone wanted to be mummified.

At present, there are generally three schools of thought (with lots of positions in-between):

(a) The entire story was made up, there was never enslavement or escape.
One of the strongest arguments against this, IMHO, is that people do not make up a mythology that has them start as slaves. Almost all mythologies of the origin of a people has them start as descended from a great god or hero.

**(b) There were Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt and escaped, probably small numbers. ** The plagues may or may not have been natural phenomena that helped them escape – for instance, if volcanic ash polluted the river, discoloring it, causing fish to die, causing disease, and there were a cloud of ash causing darkness … the slaves could have escaped during the confusion and illnesses. (And, of course, there is then room for debate on whether these “natural” plagues were simply convenient or were the working out of divine will.)

© The whole Biblical account is word-for-word true. This is rarely the opinion of scholars in archaeology and related fields, but is an opinion held by many biblical scholars. Depends how you feel about sticks turning into snakes, or about 600,000 males (and so presumbly around 1.5 to 2 million total population) wandering around the Sinai desert.

And, as I say, there are about a zillion positions in between.

8

There are indeed zero evidences outside the bible that Moses ever existed or that an exodus took place at any time.
My take would be that the epic tale of a little group of people fleeing egyptia for some reason has been widly embellished over time, many elements being added or borrowed from other traditions, the bible fixing later the ultimate version of this legend.
By the way, according to Jean Yoyotte, an egyptologist : “I can admit that a group of people who called themselves Hebrew could have fled in a rather organized way - but a little group like some families, certainly not 600 000 people! This would represent roughly the whole population of the Nile delta”

9

“not 600 000 people” in my previous post should actually be read “not 600 000 men and their families”

10

The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstsein and Silberman, covers these issues and a great deal more. Unless someone can cite a point by point refutation, and there are a lot of points, they make a very solid case. There are far too many to even summarize, but it makes a terrific book, best I’ve read since Guns, Germs and Steel.

Billy Bob elucidator sez: Check it out!

11

There goes a major holiday.
Damn.
I guess we can use the plate for deviled eggs, but what about this funny looking cup?

12

—(a) The entire story was made up, there was never enslavement or escape. One of the strongest arguments against this, IMHO, is that people do not make up a mythology that has them start as slaves. Almost all mythologies of the origin of a people has them start as descended from a great god or hero.—

Actually, this is not a strong argument at all. First of all, the Israelites already had an origin story that made them special created in the eyes of god (in fact, they seemingly had TWO different versions of this story, later conflated), first in creation, then in salvation from flood, then in special covenant. Only later does the story take them through (via a single family originally!) slavery.

Further a very strong plausible explaination for the Exodus story is that it first appeared during the Babylonian captivity as a mythical (perhaps based on a real story, perhaps not) tale of revolution. The Israelites, currently in bondage, did what they often did in times of trouble: created a past precedent, a story of their people overcoming similar difficulties in the past, with instructive lessons for the present. There is fairly good circumstantial evidence of the Exodus story at least being heavily modified during or after the Babylonian captivity. The most interesting example is the discussion in Exodus of the Israelites being forced to make bricks. As far as we know, the Egyptians didn’t use brick for construction: they used carved stone. It was the Babylonians that forced their slaves to make bricks.

13

I guess I should sell the pillows, too.

14

Don’t forget, also, that a good number of scholars place the actual writing down of the Book of Exodus at some point between the 9th Century and the 6th Century B.C.E… – which means it was written several centuries after the events it describes.