# The story of the Jews escaping slavery in Egypt and wandering the desert is fiction, right? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 18, 2026, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800 "2026-01-18T16:14:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/121 "2026-01-20T15:47:10Z")
Well, it also depends on what the sources were saying. If all that someone’s saying is “there once was a king in that country named such-and-such”, well, there’s not much agenda behind that. If instead the source is saying “this country defeated that country in a great war”, the possibility of agenda influencing that is much greater. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/122 "2026-01-20T15:52:22Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Everybody who reads the Bible knows that the Kirby Moses is the only true Moses. Just be glad they didn’t have to work the [Dudley Moore film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wholly_Moses!) into the Moses canon. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/123 "2026-01-20T15:55:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, it also depends on what the sources were saying. If all that someone’s saying is “there once was a king in that country named such-and-such”, well, there’s not much agenda behind that. If instead the source is saying “this country defeated that country in a great war”, the possibility of agenda influencing that is much greater. That’s why historians carefully consider the intentions or agendas their sources have been written with. Was it a sacred text, a piece of history writing, an administrative text (like a list)? And of course all these categories often are intermingled in ancient sources. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/124 "2026-01-20T15:57:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If all that someone’s saying is “there once was a king in that country named such-and-such”, well, there’s not much agenda behind that. If instead the source is saying “this country defeated that country in a great war”, the possibility of agenda influencing that is much greater. I don’t think that’s the case at all. Both those sources will have an agenda and reasons for describing those events the way they did. If the country of Such And Such is now an oppressed region absorbed by its powerful neighbor, and the source is written by a Such and Such nationalist. Then they would absolutely have an agenda that is being served by claiming “there once was a king in that country named such-and-such”. That wouldn’t make either source completely false and made up, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/125 "2026-01-20T16:15:34Z")
Consider, for example, King Arthur. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/126 "2026-01-20T16:19:40Z")
There’s some idea that the Exodus, however it happened, was contemporaneous with the Thera eruption. This hypothesis ascribes the plague of fiery hail to volcanic ash and cinders, and the eruption providing the pillar of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/127 "2026-01-20T16:19:57Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Consider, for example, King Arthur Who is claimed as an ancestor by many medieval monarchs, especially Welsh ones. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/128 "2026-01-20T16:34:34Z")
Santorini is \>700 km from just the delta. No-one there was seeing pillars of smoke or fire. Cool sunsets, sure. And Egypt was likely not a unified polity at the time (2nd Intermediate). You think the stories might have mentioned that… ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/129 "2026-01-20T16:36:28Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Moreover, what evidence we do have that is _relevant_ to the truth or falsity of the narrative indicates the Exodus narrative is false, yet suspiciously well-tailored as a national myth for an occupied people. Which they were _when the story was codified_. What you seem to keep missing, though, is that by the time Exodus was codified into its written form, over a century after the Captivity, the Jews no longer considered themselves an occupied people, even though they were technically part of the Babylonian Empire. They were free to practice their religion, which was what they cared about. Ancient Israel was almost _always_ a client state of some larger empire; “good times” meant having practical autonomy, not inviolable sovereignty. Your argument would make more sense if you posited, reasonably, that the Jews being given permission to return home and rebuild the Temple was used by the priests as a proof of the truth of their religion. Then retrofitting a legend of an earlier and more impressive escape from captivity would make sense. But it would have been about celebrating a recent liberation, rather than looking forward to a future one. If one has a suspicious mind, one could also speculate that the priestly class was just as happy not to have native Jewish political institutions which might have become alternative power centers within their society… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/130 "2026-01-20T16:47:32Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Consider, for example, King Arthur. And the mere fact of the existence of a local ruler named “Arturus”, or something similar, is fairly uncontroversial. Most of the great deeds that are ascribed to him are fiction, but there was a guy by that name. > [@MrDibble](#): > > And Egypt was likely not a unified polity at the time (2nd Intermediate). You think the stories might have mentioned that… By “not a unified polity”, do you mean that it was in the process of a civil war? Or just that what we now call the nation of Egypt was then within the boundaries of multiple stable nations? Because all that is needed for the Exodus stories is that there was a powerful nation in more or less that location, and the existence of some other nation next to it is basically irrelevant, even if we would call both of those nations today “part of Egypt”. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/131 "2026-01-20T16:57:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > By “not a unified polity”, do you mean that it was in the process of a civil war? More like an invasion and rump state. This is the time of the Hyksos. > [@Chronos](#): > > Or just that what we now call the nation of Egypt was then within the boundaries of multiple stable nations? No, they weren’t stable. Upper and Lower Egypt did … not get along. > [@Chronos](#): > > the existence of some other nation next to it is basically irrelevant, You’d think a supposed ‘historical narrative’ would at least have _mentioned_ the change in Egypt, rather than act as if there was any continuity between Joseph’s Pharaoh and Moses’s. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/132 "2026-01-20T17:06:03Z")
Exodus 1:8 “A new king arose over Egypt, who knew not Joseph”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/133 "2026-01-20T17:08:13Z")
Which could imply not merely a successor but a dynastic change; the latter would especially be hard on a group that had previously enjoyed favored status. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/134 "2026-01-20T17:25:21Z")
That part would be expected after 430 years… > [@Lumpy](#): > > Which could imply not merely a successor but a dynastic change How does it imply that? Nothing in there about a complete change in the entire ruling class. Also it still treats Egypt as a single continuous polity… ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/135 "2026-01-20T17:31:30Z")
I’m going to guess that just like the Beverly hillbillies are “real”, there were members of the Israelites who traced their descent from Egypt, and that was important enough to include in the story. And maybe they traced their lineage to a guy named Moses. Or Aaron. Or a woman named Miriam. That triad is kinda odd Maybe they left because of the civil war. Minorites often fare poorly during civil wars. Maybe they even fled quickly. Maybe the people who wrote the story didn’t know a lot about Egypt beyond, “it’s big and powerful and old today, and our ancestors had to flee because a new king arose who treated us badly”. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/136 "2026-01-20T17:31:37Z")
I did say “could”; it would just make sense. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/137 "2026-01-20T17:36:40Z")
It does not ‘make sense’, like I said about the LBAC > [@MrDibble](#): > > there’s zero _demonstrability_ there ---
**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 20, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/138 "2026-01-20T17:38:37Z")
I wonder if a version of “The Kennedy Effect” is taking place here. If a person or place is deemed to be “Great”, then it only stands to reason, to a lot of the public, that their (its) beginning and/or ending was _at least_ equally great in scope. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/139 "2026-01-20T18:01:37Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > But it’s not. That’s a really complicated explanation. The Occam’s razor interpretation is we have a detailed historical account of an event, its probably at least partially inspired by a real historical event. The simplest explanation is that those early stories are, to use the word in the title, fiction. Fiction does not imply that no detail in the story can be true; obviously, many books of modern fiction use current and historic events and people to provide verisimilitude. Fiction does not even need to necessarily include characters. Propaganda can be considered a form of fiction. Mythology is unquestionably fiction, one that has been adopted and perpetrated by interest groups so that it acquires an official or at least quasi-official status. By that definition the overlap between myth and propaganda is high; look at every post on Truth Social to see propaganda that is trying to turn itself into a mythology. > [@Chronos](#): > > Biblical literalism is a fairly new school of interpretation of scripture. Yes and no. Going deep into this statement requires a thread of its own by people more expert than I am. But very shortly, periods of biblical inerrancy - that every word is true - and biblical infallibility - that all articles of faith are true, if not necessary individual details - occur over most of the last 2000 years. Underneath these learned discussions, parishioners were taught to be believers and not question or doubt the Word of God, often under penalty of death. The modern evangelistic literalism is newer, meaning that it goes back in the U.S. about 200 years to the Second Great Awakening, a period of religious turmoil that saw new religions arise and more liberal beliefs attacked. Post-WWII evangelism is sometimes referred to part of the Fourth Great Awakening. Whether that still exists or has been supplanted by a Fifth Great Awakening is probably going to be the subject of a fat book. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2026, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800/140 "2026-01-20T18:18:19Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Underneath these learned discussions, parishioners were taught to be believers and not question or doubt the Word of God, often under penalty of death. Note that the Bible itself identifies the “Word of God” as Jesus (see [John 1:1-18](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201%3A1-18&version=NET)). Literalism has never been applied to all verses without further interpretation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-story-of-the-jews-escaping-slavery-in-egypt-and-wandering-the-desert-is-fiction-right/1026800.md?page=8)