Scope: The Book of Exodus is the section of the Old Testament most closely tied to Egypt and is fundamental to the history of the Jewish people, yet there is no direct archaeological evidence for its events. Here we examine the Egyptological record to see if such events could have occurred. We will discuss the difference between internal and external evidence and will even suggest who could have been the unnamed pharaoh of the Exodus—might it have been Ramses?
Outline
I. There is virtually no archaeological evidence for the Exodus. Nonetheless, the Exodus is the foundation of the Jewish faith in three parts and is mentioned more than any other event in the Old Testament. It presents the following stages of Israel’s story: bondage, exodus, and coming to the Promised Land.
A. The children of Israel arc shown in bondage in the Bible.
1. There was “a new pharaoh who knew not Joseph.”
2. The Bible says the Israelites worked in brick, not in stone. (Remember that these Israelites didn’t build the pyramids, which date from much earlier.)
3. Pharaoh tells the midwives to “watch the two stones” so they will kill the male Israelite children. We will see what that means shortly.
4. Moses was born and named by the Egyptian princess because “I drew him out of the water.” Nurtured by his mother, he matured, married, and encountered God in the form of the burning bush.
God told Moses that the sons of Israel would be freed to find the Promised Land of milk and honey. Moses was given divine powers—his staff changed to a serpent.
5. Moses had his audience with pharaoh (“the one who lives in the Great House”). No more straw for bricks will be given the Hebrews, pharaoh told him—they will have to gather it themselves.
6. The ten plagues descended: darkness (sandstorm), river of blood (topsoil), mosquitoes, and others. The first nine plagues, all possibly explained by natural phenomena, didn’t move the pharaoh. But the tenth, the death of the first-born child, forced pharaoh to relent.
7. Moses was told that Yahweh would harden the pharaoh’s heart, but that in the end the Hebrews would plunder Egypt of silver and gold.
B. The Israelites left Egypt.
1. As foreseen, they were given silver and gold.
2. “600,000—all men—not counting families” were said to have left.
3. They had been in Egypt for 430 years.
4. They left not by the Philistine Road, but by the Sea of Reeds. (The “Red Sea” is a mistranslation.) The pharaoh pursued them.
5. The Sea of Reeds parted, and the Israelites escaped. We are told of the Egyptians that “[Moses] clogged their chariot wheels.” Were they actually stuck in the mud?
A. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness and eventually reached the Land of Canaan.
II. There are reasons why there is no external evidence for the Exodus.
A. The ancient Egyptians didn’t record defeats; they had a different conception of history than we do.
B. Exodus was not an important event to the rest of the world (like the Middle East’s reaction to the American Revolution). Maybe only a small number of the Israelites escaped—and their numbers were greatly exaggerated in the first place.
III. Internal evidence—consistency, accuracy of the depiction of Egypt—is how we have to make a judgment.
A. The cities of Pithom and Ramses are indeed real.
1. They existed in the Delta, where the Israelites were.
2. Bricks, not stone, were used for storehouses.
3. Bricks with straw were not made in Canaan.
4. Pharaoh’s city was not called “Tanis” as it was in later times, when the Exodus was written.
B. Midwives told to watch “two stones,” is probably a reference to Egyptian birthing stools, where women sat when giving birth.
C. “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened,” as the Bible puts it, was indeed an Egyptian concept.
D. The serpent “act” is also plausible—I found a snake charmer who could hold a cobra that stiffened like a walking stick.
E. Finally, the name “Moses” is pure Egyptian, meaning “birth.”
IV. The external evidence is intriguing.
A. Ramses was probably the pharaoh of the Exodus.
1. Ramses built in the Delta, including a capital, Pi-Ramses.
2. Papyrus Leiden says, “distribute grain rations to the soldier and to the Apiru who transport stones to the great Pylon of Ramses.” “Apiru” sounds like “Hebrew.”
B. The Merneptah Stela (year 5—1207 BC), named for the thirteenth son of Ramses, helps place the Exodus in time.
1. “Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe; Ashkelon has been overcome; Gezer has been captured. Yano’am was made nonexistent; Israel is laid waste, its seed is not.” This is the earliest non-Biblical reference to Israel.
2. A determinative hieroglyph suggests that Israel is a people, not a place; they were still wandering when the stela was carved.
3. Counting backward, Exodus must have taken place during the reign of Ramses the Great (around year 20).
C. The death of Ramses’s first-born child could have happened during Exodus.
V. So what did happen?
A. A handful of the children of Israel could have grown in the telling to 600,000 people.
B. A national history was written by Hebrew scholars for Hebrews, but there are kernels of truth the archaeologists still debate.
Essential Reading:
The Bible, Exodus 1-14.
Supplementary Reading:
Ernest S. Frerichs and Leonard H. Lesko, Exodus, the Egyptian Evidence.
Questions to Consider:
1. Is there any archaeological evidence for the Exodus?
2. Is there any internal evidence for the Exodus?