The Exodus
The Exodus was the departure of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. The article Exodus discusses the events related in the book of the Bible by the same name.
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Modern-day historical studies
According to the Biblical account in Exodus 12:37, it appears that 600,000 adult Hebrew men left Egypt and travelled with Moses first to Mount Sinai; some 40 years later their descendants invaded the land of Canaan. According to many Jewish sources, the total number of Israelites (including women and children) numbered some three million. Believers have generally accepted this story as historically accurate; belief in the details of this story did not constitute a religious tenet as such; rather, readers believed this as an historical fact that the Bible faithfully recorded.
Recent archaeological research has cast doubt on this story. Archaeologists have not found evidence that the Sinai ever hosted millions of people, nor of a massive population increase in Canaan during this time period. At this time the land had a population of between 50,000 and 100,000.
Archaeologists and secular historians have worked in the Middle East for many years to determine approximately how many people lived in a given area at a given time. They do this by analyzing the evidence: buildings, trash, human waste product, skeletons, traces of ancient farms and fields, clothing, documents, and, of course, historical records.
For Orthodox Judaism and fundamentalist Christians, these findings present a problem, as they would invalidate a major claim in the Bible. Non-fundamentalist factions of Judaism and Christianity find little problem with this issue.
Many rabbis in the Talmud stated that one should never interpret certain Torah verses literally. Later rabbis, such as Maimonides, taught that when scientific evidence contradicts a current understanding of the Gemara, we must re-interpret that Gemara in accord with science. This did not apply to the Torah. For many traditional rabbis, such a position did not count as heresy. This view exists today within Conservative Judaism, Reform Judaism, and parts of Modern Orthodox Judaism. How can one understand the text of Exodus in light of these findings?
Hebrew University professor Abraham Malamat points out that the Bible often refers to 600 and its multiples, as well as 1,000 and its multiples, typologically in order to convey the idea of a large military unit. "The issue of Exodus 12:37 is an interpretive one. The Hebrew word eleph can be translated 'thousand,' but it is also rendered in the Bible as 'clans' and 'military units.' When I look at the question as an Egyptologist, I know that there are thought to have been 20,000 in the entire Egyptian army at the height of Egypt's empire. And at the battle of Ai in Joshua 7, there was a severe military setback when 36 troops were killed." Therefore if one reads alaphim (plural of eleph) as military units, the number of Hebrew fighting men lay between 5,000 and 6,000. This would give a total Hebrew population of less than 20,000, something within the range of historical possibility.
Some hold that one cannot interpret the counts given for each tribe in Numbers 1-2 in this fashion. They appear in units of "thousands", "hundreds" and "tens" and in addition the total appears. Thus, no interpretation of eleph except "thousand" makes sense in that case. However, the Hebrew Bible does not always use words precisely or consistently, precluding definitive proof either way.
Pharaoh is treated as a name rather than a title, and is not otherwise named. However the two prevailing theories are that he is either Amenhotep II (1450-1425) or Ramesses II (1299-1232).
Volcano theory
Several authors have pointed out similarities between the description of Mount Sinai in Exodus and descriptions of erupting volcanos. Authors who have espoused this theory include:
- Charles Beke (Mount Sinai, a Volcano, 1873)
- Sigmund Freud (Moses and Monotheism, 1939)
- Immanuel Velikovsky
- Colin Humphreys (The Miracles of Exodus 2003)
Humphreys proposes the volcano Hala-'l Badr in Arabia.
See also
References
- W. F. Albright From the Stone Age to Christianity (2nd edition) Doubleday/Anchor
- W. F. Albright Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (5th edition) 1969, Doubleday/Anchor
- Encyclopedia Judaica, Keter Publishing, entry on "Population", volume 13, column 866.
- Y. Shiloh, "The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas and Population Density." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (BASOR), 1980, 239:25-35
- Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel Nahum Sarna, Shocken Books, 1986 (first edition), 1996 (reprint edition), chapter 5, "Six hundred thousand men on foot".
- "Those Amazing Biblical Numbers: Taking Stock of the Armies of Ancient Israel" William Sierichs, Jr.
- "The Rise of Ancient Israel : Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution October 26, 1991" by Hershel Shanks, William G. Dever, Baruch Halpern and P. Kyle McCarter, Biblical Archaeological Society, 1992.
- The Biblical Exodus in the Light of Recent Research: Is There Any Archaeological or Extra-Biblical Evidence?, Hershel Shanks, Editor, Biblical Archaeological Society, 1997
External links
Related article
- Book of Exodus article (Jewish Encyclopedia)