# The History of Israel Informed By the Exodus Narative **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 12, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936 "2016-01-12T16:12:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/1 "2016-01-12T16:12:08Z")
[**Richard Elliott Friedman**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Elliott_Friedman) is perhaps best known as the author of [**Who Wrote the Bible**](http://www.amazon.com/Wrote-Bible-Richard-Elliott-Friedman/dp/0060630353), an exceptional book that served to explicate and popularize the [Documentary Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis). I believe that his views warrant attention, so I was intrigued when I came across the following interview published in the Spring of 2014 … [**The Exodus is Not Fiction**](http://www.reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fiction) … and, no, no one is talking about 2 million or so nascent Israelites marching cautiously through the Sea of Reeds. Let me know what you think. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/2 "2016-01-12T16:31:32Z")
Can you give us a brief rundown, and maybe an opinion? ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/3 "2016-01-12T16:51:25Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Can you give us a brief rundown, … I could, but it’s a very short article. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > …, and maybe an opinion? I believe it likely that the ‘Hebrews’ and ‘Yahwists’ constituted a southern element of what later became the Israelite confederation coalescing in the highlands and that the Exodus narrative reflects this. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/4 "2016-01-12T17:12:39Z")
So the idea is that one of the twelve tribes, the Levites, did indeed migrate out of Egypt. That doesn’t prove that the Exodus as told in the bible isn’t largely fiction. As you say, that doesn’t show a couple million Jews crossed a sea God open up for them. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/5 "2016-01-12T17:20:22Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So the idea is that one of the twelve tribes, the Levites, did indeed migrate out of Egypt. That doesn’t prove that the Exodus as told in the bible isn’t largely fiction. As you say, that doesn’t show a couple million Jews crossed a sea God open up for them. That’s what I got out of it. He says there is some evidence of people living in the Sinai, and they were Egyptian. He is countering the argument that there is no evidence of people leaving Egypt and living in the Sinai. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/6 "2016-01-12T17:22:22Z")
I’ve heard the idea before. It essentially argues that Israel was formed over a period of time as different groups migrated in. But after these groups had formed a single nation, they essentially adopted a group history which combined elements from their pasts - and one element in the common Israeli history was Moses leading people out of Egypt. All the Israelites adopted this story as part of their national origin even though many of them were not actually descended from individuals who had traveled with Moses. We do the same thing. We talk about the pilgrims being part of “our” history even though the majority of us are not descended from anyone who had traveled on the Mayflower. And we adopt events like the American Revolution and the Civil War as part of our history even if our ancestors arrived in America after those events. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/7 "2016-01-12T17:24:31Z")
From what I gather, he’s saying the actual number that participated in the Exodus is much smaller than traditionally believed. He brings up the possibility that maybe no evidence has been found of their migration because it’s all been buried in the sand. How do you find evidence of a migration anyway? It’s not like there’s any permanent structures involved. Footprints are bound to have been wiped away by winds, unless they walked through mud that later solidified. He bases his theory on the presence of Egyptian culture in Jewish way of life, such as the practice of circumcision. He said the Levites were Egyptian expatriates and bullied those customs into Jewish dogma. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levite)doesn’t say they came from Egypt. DNA testing indicates Central-East Europe-Indian subcontinent. Furthermore, Wiki’s page for [Joshua](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua) doesn’t say he specifically led Levites out of Egypt. I don’t know where he gets the idea that Levites were Egyptian. The Levites are more of a religious order than an actual race, but Jews keep everything in the family. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/8 "2016-01-12T17:28:08Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So the idea is that one of the twelve tribes, the Levites, did indeed migrate out of Egypt. That doesn’t prove that the Exodus as told in the bible isn’t largely fiction. As you say, that doesn’t show a couple million Jews crossed a sea God open up for them. No it doesn’t, nor do I believe in an “Exodus as told in the bible.” ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/9 "2016-01-12T17:30:28Z")
@Knowed Out: He also states that Levite names in the Old Testament are Egyptian names. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/10 "2016-01-12T17:33:40Z")
How large a group it was and how long they supposedly wandered in the desert would determine how much and what kind of evidence would be left behind. How many people is this author proposing left for this mini-“exodus”, and how long did the trip take? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/11 "2016-01-12T17:40:29Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How large a group it was and how long they supposedly wandered in the desert would determine how much and what kind of evidence would be left behind. How many people is this author proposing left for this mini-“exodus”, and how long did the trip take? The article isn’t specific. He’s saying the group that left Egypt were the Levites. Much of his evidence is interpretation of the Torah, he points out the conflicting information, and accepts some as evidence of the Exodus. In sum, he’s saying it might have happened in some way. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/12 "2016-01-12T17:43:13Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Wikipedia doesn’t say they came from Egypt. DNA testing indicates Central-East Europe-Indian subcontinent. The Wikipedia entry on Levites ends its section on Y-chromosome studies by stating: > [@](#): > > A 2013 paper by Siiri Rootsi et al. confirmed a Near or Middle Eastern origin for all Ashkenazi Levites, including the R1a Y-chromosome carriers, and refuted the Khazar origin: > > [INDENT]Previous Y-chromosome studies have demonstrated that Ashkenazi Levites, members of a paternally inherited Jewish priestly caste, display a distinctive founder event within R1a, the most prevalent Y-chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europe. Here we report the analysis of 16 whole R1 sequences and show that a set of 19 unique nucleotide substitutions defines the Ashkenazi R1a lineage. While our survey of one of these, M582, in 2,834 R1a samples reveals its absence in 922 Eastern Europeans, we show it is present in all sampled R1a Ashkenazi Levites, as well as in 33.8% of other R1a Ashkenazi Jewish males and 5.9% of 303 R1a Near Eastern males, where it shows considerably higher diversity. Moreover, the M582 lineage also occurs at low frequencies in non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations. **In contrast to the previously suggested Eastern European origin for Ashkenazi Levites, the current data are indicative of a geographic source of the Levite founder lineage in the Near East and its likely presence among pre-Diaspora Hebrews.** > > [emphasis added - JS] [/indent] ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/13 "2016-01-12T17:45:50Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > How many people is this author proposing left for this mini-“exodus”, and how long did the trip take? I suspect that he would admit to not knowing. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/14 "2016-01-12T17:53:47Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The article isn’t specific. He’s saying the group that left Egypt were the Levites. A better formulation might be that the Levites were a notable component of the the group that left Egypt. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/15 "2016-01-12T18:00:11Z")
Forgive me but what difference would it make if there was a kernal of truth in the Exodus story? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/16 "2016-01-12T18:01:37Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > I suspect that he would admit to not knowing. Which means we don’t even know what evidence to look for-how convenient. Well, discounting supernatural accounts of gods screwing up things and keeping people lost on purpose, we know that Cambyses II took an army across the Sinai Desert in about a year or less in 525 BC to conquer Eqypt. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/17 "2016-01-12T18:19:57Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Which means we don’t even know what evidence to look for-how convenient. We look for signs of a Southern influence in the Israelite narrative and archaeology. ---
**Author:** ![Jayhawker\_Soule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@Jayhawker\_Soule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jayhawker_Soule)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/18 "2016-01-12T18:26:24Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Forgive me but what difference would it make if there was a kernal of truth in the Exodus story? I’m not sure how best to answer this. I appreciate history (and archaeology) for its own sake. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/19 "2016-01-12T18:30:09Z")
> [@Jayhawker\_Soule](#): > > We look for signs of a Southern influence in the Israelite narrative and archaeology. But is that the only way such an influence could have happened…or even the most likely way? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936/20 "2016-01-12T18:41:45Z")
In other news, I’ve discovered that Santa Claus really exists. Of course the popular mythology built up around him is exaggerated, but there’s a kernel of truth. Santa Claus’s real name is Chet, he doesn’t have a beard or wear a red suit, he lives in Florida and works as an assistant manager at a car dealership, hates children and never gives presents. So Santa Claus is now confirmed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-history-of-israel-informed-by-the-exodus-narative/742936.md?page=2)