Finkelstein, I. 2015. The Wilderness Narrative and Itineraries and the Evolution of the Exodus Tradition, In Levy, T.E., Schneider, T. and Propp, W.C.H. (eds.), Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience, New York: 39-54.

I discuss possible archaeological correlates from the second and first millennia BCE Levant and Egypt—spanning the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, the Iron Age I and II, and the Persian and Hellenistic periods—which may have served as background(s) for the formation, preservation, and transformation of the biblical and extra-biblical Exodus traditions. I will attempt to assess the character and relevance of strands of evidence from diverse periods and contexts and discuss the possible interface, and/or lack thereof, between these artifactually-based cultural events and the various Exodus narratives as reflected in the biblical texts and traditions.

In the following it will be shown that in Ramesside times besides descendants of the Canaanites of the Hyksos Period also new groups of Near Easterners arrived in Egypt as prisoners of war or as migrant bedouins. Workmen who had the task to pull down during the 20th Dynasty the temple of Aya and Horemheb in western Thebes seem to have been carriers of the same or similar Iron Age culture as the Proto-Israelites in the southern Levant as they used for their shelters makeshift Four Room-Houses. According to the stratigraphic evidence available the presence of the Iron Age people in western Thebes can be dated to the same time or only slightly later than the settlement of the Proto-Israelites in Canaan. One has to be aware, however, that their ethnogenesis has not yet been finalized at that time. If we may assume a sojourn of early Israelites in Egypt, the most likely period would have been the late Ramesside Period – the 12th century BC. It is also most fascinating to show that Egyptian scribes used Semitic toponyms for places at the eastern border of Egypt, particularly in the Wadi Tumilat. The only sensible explanation is that Semitic speaking people lived there for a time long enough to have with the use of their toponyms an impact on the Egyptian administrative system. Because of geographical and onomastic reasons Wadi Tumilat could serve as a paradigm of the biblical land of Goshen. This article supplies furthermore evidence which makes it very likely that the memory of the town of Raamses/Ramesse in the books Genesis and Exodus has to be tied to the Delta-residence of the Ramessides Pi-Ramesse. At the same time the second biblical store city of Pithom should be identified with the only substantial Ramesside town in the Wadi, Tell el-Retabe, not with Tell el-Maskhuta which according to the archaeological record did not yet exist at that time. Reconstruction of the geography of the eastern Nile Delta in the Ramesside Period shows that at least some ideas of the topographical conditions in the eastern Delta reflected in the books Genesis and Exodus go back to this Period. The quarrying of stone blocks, statues and architectural elements from Pi-Ramesse (Qantir) and their reuse for new big sacred building projects at Tanis and Bubastis in the 21st and 22nd Dynasties brought about the rise of secondary cults of gods “of Ramses” in the 4th century in Bubastis and of the gods “of Ramses of Pi-Ramesse” at Tanis from the 3rd century onwards. Such a development may have fostered ideas among diaspora in exile coming to Egypt that Raamses/Ramesse was situated in Tanis or in the environment of Bubastis. Such considerations may have brought about the theories of the northern and southern Exodus-routes from the time of the 30th Dynasty onwards.

Identifying the Historicity of the Exodus, 2023

This essay is a review of the biblical account of Exodus and its possible correlation with the history of Egypt. Interpretations of Egyptian texts, ancient documents and the Pentateuch of the Bible shed new light on the stay of the People of Israel in Egypt and their epic departure led by Moses. Was the Exodus a historical event? When did it happen? In this essay, the story of Exodus and its background in the book of Genesis are critically analyzed, as well as the genealogy of Abraham's family, that of James-Israel and his descendants; the history of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (1780-1560 B.C.); and the archaeological findings in the Eastern Delta of Egypt, to propose a tenable (historically feasible) theory about the Israelite stay in Egypt and the Exodus, complemented by a summary of their long dwelling in the desert and the conquest of Canaan. RESUMEN Este ensayo es una revisión del relato bíblico del Éxodo y su posible correlación con la historia de Egipto. Interpretaciones de textos egipcios, antiguos documentos y el Pentateuco de la Biblia arrojan nueva luz sobre la estancia del Pueblo de Israel en Egipto y su épica salida conducida por Moisés. ¿Fue el Éxodo un evento histórico? ¿Cuándo ocurrió? En este ensayo se analiza críticamente el relato del Éxodo y sus antecedentes en el libro de

2011

The factual background of the Exodus story is the most perplexing issue in biblical historical studies. On the one hand, the Exodus tradition is very old, and its status as the central Israelite foundation story finds remarkable expression in every genre of biblical literature. On the other hand, most scholars doubt the historicity of the story, and generally consider it to be the vague memory of a small group, which was gradually adopted by all other Israelite tribal groups. The contrast between the central place of the Exodus in Israelite memory and its questionable historical status requires explanation. The chapter suggests that the bondage, the suffering, and the miraculous delivery from slavery actually took place in Canaan and that the locus of these memories was later transferred from Canaan to Egypt. The bondage and liberation were experienced by the pastoral groups that later settled in the highlands of the Northern Kingdom. Hence its central place in the cultural memory of Israel's inhabitants. Since the process of settlement in the Judean highlands took place later and on a limited scale, the memory of the Exodus played only a minor role among Judah's inhabitants.