The short version: the Exodus as described in the Bible, two million people leaving Egypt after ten plagues and wandering forty years in Sinai, has no support in the archaeological or Egyptian record, and most historians do not think it happened in that form. Very few think the story came from nothing. The live questions are what memory lies behind it, how many people it involved, and when the story took the shape it has now.[1][2]
The Exodus is the central story of the Hebrew Bible and the foundation of Jewish memory, retold every year at Passover. That gives the question a weight that most questions of ancient history do not have, and it is worth separating the historical question, which evidence can address, from the religious one, which it cannot (§0).
What is missing
Egyptian records. Egypt left extensive royal and administrative records, and none mentions Israelites in Egypt, Moses, the plagues or the loss of an army in the sea. Royal inscriptions rarely record defeats, so this silence alone proves little.[2][3] Consensus
The numbers. The Bible gives “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children” (Exodus 12:37).[4] That implies a total of two million or more, many times the population of all the early Israelite villages combined.[5] Some traditional interpreters read the Hebrew ʾelep, “thousand”, as a clan or military unit, which would reduce the numbers greatly.[6] Majority
The wilderness. Forty years of a large population in Sinai would leave camps, pottery and burials. Surveys have found nomadic remains of other periods but nothing of this kind from the Late Bronze Age. At Kadesh Barnea, where the book of Numbers places the Israelites for many years, excavations in 1976–82 found Iron Age fortresses and nothing from the Late Bronze Age.[1] Majority
The arrival. The first Israelite villages, which appear in the central highlands around 1200 BCE, built houses and made pottery in local Canaanite traditions, and the little writing found among them, such as the ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah ostracon, uses the Canaanite alphabet. Their material culture is local, not Egyptian or desert-born (§1).[5][7][8] Majority
What fits
Semites in the Delta. People from the Levant lived in the eastern Nile Delta throughout the second millennium BCE as herders, workers, soldiers and slaves. The Hyksos, rulers of Levantine origin, governed from Avaris there until their expulsion around 1550 BCE.[9] A tomb painting at Beni Hasan, c. 1890 BCE, shows 37 ʿAamu, “Asiatics”, arriving in Egypt with their donkeys and goods.[10] Consensus
Herders at the border. Papyrus Anastasi VI, a model letter from the reign of Merneptah, reports that officials let “the tribes of the Shasu of Edom” pass a border fortress to water their herds at the pools of Pithom.[11] Movement between Canaan and Egypt was routine and recorded. Consensus
Raamses. Exodus 1:11 says the Hebrews built “Pithom and Raamses”. Pi-Ramesses, at modern Qantir, was the capital of Ramesses II in the thirteenth century BCE and was abandoned in the eleventh. A writer who knew its name and importance is likely to be drawing on old tradition.[12][2] Contested
Egyptian names. Moses, Phinehas, Hophni and Merari are Egyptian or plausibly Egyptian names, and all belong to the priestly tribe of Levi.[2][13] Majority
What looks later
Pithom has usually been identified with Tell el-Maskhuta, which excavations in the 1980s found was unoccupied between the Middle Bronze Age and the reign of Necho II, around 610 BCE.[14] James Hoffmeier identifies Pithom with nearby Tell er-Retaba instead, which was occupied in Ramesside times.[2] Israel Finkelstein, Thomas Römer and others argue that the story’s geography best matches the Egypt of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, when Judah lived in Egypt’s shadow and the story was probably taking written form.[1][15] Contested
The theories scholars hold
| View | The claim | Main proponents |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional, early date | The Exodus happened as described, c. 1446 BCE, counting 480 years back from Solomon’s fourth year (1 Kings 6:1)[16] | Bryant Wood, Scott Stripling; many conservative scholars |
| Historical core, 13th century | A real departure under Ramesses II; the Egyptian details are too accurate to invent; a semi-nomadic group would leave little trace; the large numbers are a misreading | Hoffmeier, Kitchen[2][17] |
| A small group | A few thousand people, perhaps the Levites, left Egypt and joined Israel, which adopted their story as everyone’s | Friedman, Dever[13][7] |
| Memory of Egyptian rule | Three centuries of Egyptian rule over Canaan, and its end, were remembered as slavery in Egypt and liberation | Naʾaman[18] |
| The Hyksos mirrored | Egyptian tradition remembered the expulsion of the Hyksos; the Bible tells the same memory from the other side | Redford, Assmann[3][19][20] |
| A late national story | The story took shape in the 7th–6th centuries BCE, when Judah was caught between Egypt and Assyria | Finkelstein, Römer[1][15] |
These are not all exclusive, and many scholars combine the small-group and cultural-memory views. Together they represent the majority of critical scholarship. Contested
The small Levite group. Richard Elliott Friedman’s version is the most developed. The Egyptian names cluster in the tribe of Levi; the Levites have no territory of their own; and the old Song of Deborah, which names ten tribes, those who fought and those who stayed away, does not mention Levi (Judah and Simeon are also missing).[21] A group of Levites, he argues, came out of Egypt, brought the worship of Yahweh with them, and their story became all Israel’s.[13] Contested
The traditional and conservative case. Defenders of a historical Exodus argue that no people invents a story of its own slavery, that the Egyptian background of the narrative is accurate in small details, and that an event involving a mobile, tent-dwelling group in the marshy Delta and the desert would leave almost no archaeological trace.[2] Jewish tradition, following the rabbinic chronology Seder Olam, dates the Exodus to the year 2448 from Creation, conventionally 1313 BCE.[22] Many Jewish thinkers, medieval and modern, have also held that the religious truth of the Exodus does not depend on archaeology. Consensus that this is the traditional view.
When would it have happened?
If there was an Exodus, the Bible’s own figures give two answers. 1 Kings 6:1 puts it 480 years before Solomon’s Temple, about 1446 BCE.[16] Exodus 1:11 names the city of Raamses, which points to the thirteenth century and Ramesses II. The Merneptah Stele shows that a people called Israel was in Canaan by about 1208 BCE, so any Exodus involving them must be earlier.[23] Most scholars who accept a historical core prefer the thirteenth century.[2][17] Majority among those scholars.
Common misconceptions
- “Ramesses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus.” The Bible never names the pharaoh. Ramesses II is a modern inference from the city name in Exodus 1:11, popularised by films.
- “The Israelites built the pyramids.” The pyramids of Giza were built around 2500 BCE, more than a thousand years before any date proposed for the Exodus, by Egyptian workers.
- “No evidence means it was invented.” Absence of evidence for a large event is significant; absence of evidence for a small group is expected. Most scholars stop short of saying there is nothing behind the story.
Why it matters
The Exodus defines the God of the Bible as the one “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”, the opening words of the Ten Commandments. The historical question changes how the story came to be, but not what it became: the founding narrative of Jewish identity, the basis of Passover, and a model of liberation taken up far beyond Judaism.
For the full evidence on Israel’s origins, see Chapter 1: Out of Canaan. For where Yahweh himself came from, see Chapter 2: Yahweh Among the Gods.
References
- ^ a b c d Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman The Bible Unearthed. Free Press, 2001. The low chronology and a sceptical reading of early Israel, for general readers.
- ^ a b c d e f g h James K. Hoffmeier Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. Oxford University Press, 1997. The strongest case for a historical core to the Exodus from Egyptian evidence.
- ^ a b Donald B. Redford Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton University Press, 1992. Reads the Exodus against Egyptian memories of the Hyksos.
- ^ Exodus 12:37–38 — Exodus (Hebrew Bible). c. 7th–5th c. BCE. Hebrew. About 600,000 men on foot besides children leave Egypt, with a 'mixed multitude': numbers far beyond what the archaeology can support, and a people not of one descent. read the text
- ^ a b Israel Finkelstein The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. Israel Exploration Society, 1988. The survey data behind the local-origin view: about 250 Iron I hill-country sites where there had been some 25.
- ^ George E. Mendenhall The Census Lists of Numbers 1 and 26. Journal of Biblical Literature 77, pp. 52–66, 1958. doi The proposal that ʾelep in the census lists meant a tribal unit, not a thousand, which shrinks the numbers drastically.
- ^ a b William G. Dever Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Eerdmans, 2003. The 'proto-Israelites' as Canaanite farmers resettling the hills.
- ^ ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah ostracon — Ostracon from ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah (Israel Museum). 12th or early 11th c. BCE. Proto-Canaanite / early alphabetic. Five lines of letters scratched on a sherd in a hill-country village, one of them an abecedary: the Canaanite alphabet in use among the early highland settlers. about
- ^ Manfred Bietak Avaris, the Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell el-Dabʿa. British Museum Press, 1996. The Levantine population of the eastern Delta in the Middle Bronze Age.
- ^ Tomb of Khnumhotep II, Beni Hasan (BH 3): procession of the ʿAamu — Tomb painting. c. 1890 BCE (year 6 of Senusret II). Egyptian. Thirty-seven ʿAamu, 'Asiatics', led by Abisha, arrive with donkeys, weapons and goods; the caption records their number. about
- ^ Papyrus Anastasi VI, lines 54–56 — Papyrus Anastasi VI (British Museum, EA 10245). c. 1213–1203 BCE. Egyptian (hieratic). A model letter reporting that the tribes of the Shasu of Edom were let past the fortress of Merneptah in Tjeku to the pools of Pithom to keep their herds alive: Levantine herders crossing into the eastern Delta. about
- ^ Exodus 1:11 — Exodus (Hebrew Bible). c. 7th–5th c. BCE. Hebrew. The Hebrews build the store-cities Pithom and Raamses for Pharaoh: real Delta place names, one pointing to the 13th century, the other perhaps to the 7th. read the text
- ^ a b c Richard Elliott Friedman The Exodus. HarperOne, 2017. The Levites as the group that came out of Egypt.
- ^ Tell el-Maskhuta (Pithom?) — Excavations of John S. Holladay (1978–85), Wadi Tumilat. Middle Bronze; then from c. 610 BCE. Occupied in the Middle Bronze Age and then not again until Necho II built there c. 610 BCE, with no Ramesside remains: if this is Pithom, Exodus 1:11 reflects the Egypt of the 7th–6th centuries. about
- ^ a b Thomas Römer The Invention of God. Harvard University Press (trans. Raymond Geuss), 2015. Readable account from Yahweh's southern origins to biblical monotheism.
- ^ a b 1 Kings 6:1 — Hebrew Bible, Kings. c. 6th c. BCE. Hebrew. Solomon begins the Temple in the 480th year after the Israelites left Egypt: the basis of the traditional 15th-century BCE Exodus date. read the text
- ^ a b K. A. Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Eerdmans, 2003. A maximalist Egyptologist's defence of the biblical narratives.
- ^ Nadav Naʾaman The Exodus Story: Between Historical Memory and Historiographical Composition. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 11, 2011. Egyptian rule over Canaan as a source of the Exodus memory.
- ^ Jan Assmann Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Harvard University Press, 1997. The Exodus as cultural memory, mirrored in Egyptian traditions.
- ^ Josephus, Against Apion 1.90 (quoting Manetho) — Against Apion. c. 95 CE (Manetho c. 280 BCE). Greek. Manetho's expelled 'shepherds', the Hyksos, go to Judea and found Jerusalem: Egyptian and Jewish traditions about an exodus had met by the Hellenistic period. read the text
- ^ Judges 5:14–18 — Judges (Hebrew Bible). 12th–10th c. BCE (debated). Hebrew. The Song of Deborah praises and rebukes ten tribal groups (Ephraim, Benjamin, Machir, Zebulun, Issachar, Reuben, Gilead, Dan, Asher, Naphtali); Judah, Simeon and Levi are not named. read the text
- ^ Seder Olam Rabbah — Seder Olam Rabbah (Hebrew). c. 2nd c. CE (attributed to Yose ben Halafta). Hebrew. The rabbinic chronology from creation to Alexander, on which the traditional Jewish dating of the Exodus to the year 2448 from creation rests. read the text
- ^ Merneptah Stele — Egyptian Museum, Cairo. c. 1208 BCE. Egyptian (hieroglyphic). A victory hymn of Pharaoh Merneptah naming "Israel" as a people: the earliest mention of Israel outside the Bible. about