“The closest parallel to the Book of Exodus in the ancient West is Homer’s Odyssey. Both are stories of migration—of identity suspended until the protagonist—Odysseus or Israel—reaches a home. Neither account records events of the sort that are likely to have left marks in the archaeological record, or even in contemporaneous monuments… But the Exodus is not the story of an individual; it is the story of a nation. It is the historical myth of an entire people, a focal point for national identity.”
–Baruch Halpern, “The Exodus from Egypt: Myth or Reality?” The Rise of Ancient Israel, 1991.
The Exodus sits at the heart of Israelite religion, literature and identity, and aspects of the narrative helped shape independent Islamic and Christian traditions. Yet challenging textual and archaeological evidence has led some scholars to question whether the Biblical narrative reflects a single historical event or if it should be read, as
Ronald Hendel wrote in Bible Review, as “conflation of history and memory—a mixture of historical truth and fiction, composed of ‘authentic’ historical details, folklore motifs, ethnic self-fashioning, ideological claims and narrative imagination.”
A recent international conference hosted by
Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego addressed some of the most challenging issues in Exodus scholarship. According to the
Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination website, the conference “brought together more than 40 of the world’s leading archaeologists, Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, historians and geo-scientists. In tandem, the Qualcomm Institute staged an exhibition,
EX3: Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future … as an experiment in trans-disciplinary research, team science, and scholarly communication using technologies developed for the museum of the future.”
Watch the conference’s full-length lectures
online for free on Bible History Daily, courtesy of conference host Thomas E. Levy, distinguished professor and Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at UCSD.
For more on research at UCSD, visit the Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Lab.
Lectures
Watch the opening remarks at the bottom of this page, and click on lecture titles in the list below to watch. Over the next few weeks, we’ll release additional Out of Egypt lecture videos. Want to see a lecture before then? They are all available on the conference website.
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Keynote Lecture*
On the Historicity of the Exodus: What Egyptology Can Contribute Today in Assessing the Sojourn in Egypt. Manfred Bietak, director emeritus, Institute of Egyptology, University of Vienna. Keynote introduction: Thomas Schneider.
Out of Egypt: Did Israel’s Exodus Include Tales? Susan Hollis, State University of New York.
The Ark of the Covenant and Egyptian Sacred Barks: A Comparative Study. Scott Noegel, University of Washington (video unavailable).
Traditions Regarding a Great Going Forth from North-East Africa: Date and Reliability. Antoine Hirsch, Canadian Institute in Egypt on behalf of Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University.
The ‘Image’ of the Pharaoh in Judahite and Israelite Society According to the Glyptic Evidence, Stefan Münger, University of Bern.
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Keynote Lecture*
The Wilderness Itineraries: Who, How and When Did Biblical Authors Know About the Southern Deserts? Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv University.
Dates for the Exodus I Have Known, Lawrence T. Geraty, La Sierra University.
Egyptian Text Parallels to the Exodus: The Egyptology Literature, Brad C. Sparks, Archaeological Research Group.
Can Archaeological Correlates for the Mnemo-Narratives of Exodus Be Found? Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University.
The Emergence of Israel in Retrospect, Robert Mullins, Azusa Pacific University.
The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: The Question of “Origins,” Avraham Faust, Bar-Ilan University and Harvard University.
Har Karkom: Archaeological Discoveries on a Holy Mountain in the Desert of Exodus, Emmanuel Anati, University of Lecce.
Which Way Out of Egypt? Physical Geography Constraints on the Exodus Itinerary, Stephen Moshier, Wheaton College.
Egyptology, Egyptologists and the Exodus, James Hoffmeier, Trinity International University.
In the FREE eBook
Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, top scholars discuss the historical Israelites in Egypt and archaeological evidence for and against the historicity of the Exodus.
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Keynote Lecture*
Exodus and Memory: Remembering the Origin of Israel and Monotheism, Jan Assmann, University of Konstanz.
The Exodus and the Bible: What Was Known, What Was Remembered, What Was Forgotten, William Dever, University of Arizona and Lycoming College.
The Exodus Based on the Sources Themselves, Richard Friedman, University of Georgia.
The Omerta on the Exodus, Baruch Halpern, University of Georgia.
The Exodus Account in Recent Pentateuchal Interpretation, Konrad Schmid, University of Zurich.
Sources of Judicial Power in the Moses Story, Stephen Russell, Princeton Theological Seminary.
Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
Hero and Villain: Outline of the Exodus Pharaoh in Artapanus, Caterina Moro, University of Rome Sapienza.
Leaving Home: Jewish-Hellenistic Authors on the Exodus, Rene Bloch, University of Bern.
Exodus in the Quran, Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego.
From Liberation to Expulsion: The Exodus in the Earliest Jewish-Pagan Polemic, Pieter van der Horst, University of Utrecht (delivered in his absence by Kathleen Bennallack).
The Despoliation of Egypt: From Stealing Treasures to Saving Texts, Joel Allen, Dakota Wesleyan University.
In Search of Israel’s Insider Status: A Re-Evaluation of Israel’s Origins, Brendon Benz, William Jewell College.
What Was the Exodus? William Propp, University of California, San Diego.
Interested in the latest archaeological technology? Researchers at the
University of California, San Diego’s Calit2 laboratory recently released the FREE Biblical Archaeology Society eBook “
Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past,” featuring the latest research on GPS, Light Detection and Ranging Laser Scanning, unmanned aerial drones, 3D artifact scans, CAVE visualization environments and much more.
Myth & History
Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
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Keynote Lecture*
The Exodus as Cultural Memory: Poetics, Politics, and the Past, Ronald Hendel, UC Berkeley.
Outside of Egypt: Joseph, Moses, and the Idea of Pastoralism Across Distance, Daniel Fleming, New York University.
Moses the Magician, Gary Rendsburg, Rutgers University.
The Revelation of the Divine Name to Moses, Thomas Römer, University of Lausanne.
The Exodus Narrative Between History and Literary Fiction, Christoph Berner, Universität Göttingen.
Mythic Dimensions of the Exodus Tradition, Bernard Batto, DePauw University.
Exodus and Exodus Traditions After the Linguistic Turn in History, Garrett Galvin, Fransciscan School of Theology and Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and University of San Diego.
Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
“The First Memory of Things”: Isaac Newton on Exodus and the Chronology of the Egyptian Empire, Mordechai Feingold, California Institute of Technology.
How Calculations Invaded the Deep Past, Jed Buchwald, California Institute of Technology.
Times of Darkness: Extreme Events, Long-Term Environmental Change, Mythology and History, John Grattan, Aberystwyth University.
Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Egypt Over the Periods Relevant to the Exodus Tradition, Michael Dee, University of Oxford (co-authors C. Bronk Ramsey, T. Higham).
The Thera Theories: Science and the Modern Reception History of the Exodus, Mark Harris, University of Edinburgh.
Exodus: A Geophysical Perspective, Steven Ward, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Inspired by a Tsunami? Computer Simulations of Potential (Tsunamigenic) Scenarios Related to the Exodus Narrative, Amos Salamon, Geological Survey of Israel (with co-authors S. Ward, F. McCoy, T. Levy).
Exhibition
EX3: Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future. Thomas E. Levy, UCSD.
Opening Remarks Video
Exodus Welcome and Introductions, Thomas Levy, Conference Chair; Jeff Elman, Dean, Division of Social Sciences, UCSD; Ramesh Rao, Director, Qualcomm Institute; Pradeep K. Khosla, Chancellor, UC San Diego
Welcome, Seth Lerer, Dean, Division of Arts + Humanities, UCSD
Closing Remarks
Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
Out of Egypt Conference: Summation, Thomas Schneider, University of British Columbia.
Closing, Thomas Levy, University of California, San Diego.
Lecture videos courtesy of conference host Thomas E. Levy, distinguished professor and Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at UCSD. All videos originally published on the Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination website, which features additional Exodus research and more information on the UCSD conference. For more on research at UCSD, visit the Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Lab.
However, ancient Egyptian records assert that nothing resembling the Exodus story took place during the time of Ramses II. This fact has led some to question the existence of the Exodus story. Yet, Immanuel Velikovsky, writing in 1952, has asserted that the apparent conflict between archeology and the Tanakh related to the Exodus story is based on the fact that the Exodus story has been misdated and that if the Exodus story is dated correctly, all such contradictions disappear. Furthermore, the archeologist Emmanuel Anati asserted, “The name of Ramses, in the book of Exodus and in that of Genesis, emerges as a geographical indication: it indicates the site where, according to tradition, the Hebrews were in Egypt. It is not necessarily the same name that the site must have had at the epoch of the Patriarchs or at the time of Moses.”
Indeed, according to the Midrash, the Pharoah of the Exodus story was named Adikam, not Ramses II, and he had a short reign of four years before drowning in the Red Sea. The Pharaoh who preceded Adikam, according to the Midrash, was named Malul, who reigned from age six to 100. Interestingly, the Egyptian historian priest, Manetho, writing in the 3rd century BCE, as well as an ancient Egyptian papyrus known as the Turin Royal Cannon mentioned a pharaoh who ruled from age six to 100 known as Pepi II (2284 BCE-2184 BCE).
Furthermore, the Ipuwer Ammunitions, dated between 2345 BCE to 2181 BCE, describes many events very similar to the Ten Plagues. One papyrus notes “the river is blood,” which corresponds with Exodus 7:20, stating “all of the waters that were in the river turned to blood. Another papyrus claimed “the land is not light,” which is similar to Exodus 10:22, “and there was a thick darkness in all of the land of Egypt.” Yet still another papyrus spoke of “forsooth, gates, columns, and walls” being “consumed by fire,” while Exodus 9:23-24 asserted, “The fire ran along the ground….there was hail and fire mingled with hail, very grievous.”
Much of it was written by eyewitnesses. They were there an wrote about others who were there. Parts of the Bible were revealed by God and kept true to real history by God’s guidance. It is not as Peter said “a cunninly devised fable” as the “experts” seem to say.
How do they know? Were they there? Do they have knowledge of events that they did not witness from some source better than God? Do they know all things. To imagine that they know better than the eye witnesses and God is extremely arrogant. Such arrogace is irrational and cannot even be considered to have any validity.
Trust God and His word The Bible.
On commissioning Moses, Jehovah emphasized the importance of the divine name. Respect for that name and the One whom it represents was vital. When asked about his name, Jehovah told Moses: “I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be.” Further, Moses was to tell the sons of Israel: “Jehovah the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” Jehovah added: “This is my name to time indefinite, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation.” (Exodus 3:13-15) Jehovah is still the name by which God is known to his servants around the earth.—Isaiah 12:4, 5; 43:10-12.
Appearing before Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron delivered their message in the name of Jehovah. But Pharaoh arrogantly said: “Who is Jehovah, so that I should obey his voice to send Israel away? I do not know Jehovah at all and, what is more, I am not going to send Israel away.” (Exodus 5:1, 2) Pharaoh proved to be both hardhearted and deceitful, yet Jehovah urged Moses to deliver messages to him again and again. (Exodus 7:14-16, 20-23; 8:1, 2, 20) Moses could see that Pharaoh was irritated. Would any good come from confronting him again? Israel was eager for deliverance. Pharaoh was adamant in his refusal. What would you have done?
Moses delivered yet another message, saying: “This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said: ‘Send my people away that they may serve me.’” God also said: “By now I could have thrust my hand out that I might strike you and your people with pestilence and that you might be effaced from the earth. But, in fact, for this cause I have kept you in existence, for the sake of showing you my power and in order to have my name declared in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:13-16) Because of what would be done with hardhearted Pharaoh, Jehovah purposed to demonstrate his power in a way that would serve notice on all who defy him. This would include Satan the Devil, the one whom Jesus Christ later called “the ruler of the world.” (John 14:30; Romans 9:17-24) As foretold, Jehovah’s name was declared around the earth. His long-suffering led to preservation for the Israelites and a vast mixed multitude that joined them in worshiping him. (Exodus 9:20, 21; 12:37, 38) Since then, the declaration of Jehovah’s name has benefited millions more who have taken up true worship.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2005366#h=8:0-11:1072
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200272060