# Was the Exodus Real? <cite>by u/Antiquarianism (flaired user)</cite> ## Metadata - Author: [[Antiquarianism]] - Full Title: Was the Exodus Real? - Link: https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/gxdy62/was_the_exodus_real ## Highlights ### q1 Exodus > The Exodus as a narrative was written down by scribes who used earlier oral and/or written sources sometime first in the 6th century BCE but its composition became "closed" by the end of the 5th century BCE (1). It is presumably based on earlier stories because it is thought to be a type of creation-migration myth held by some of the southern Judaean people. In this understanding (2), the narrative came from a group of pastoralists in Sinai who had their own supreme being (YHWH, pronounced Yahu), and he helped them successfully migrate and "pitch their tents" in Canaan. These pastoralists who worshipped Yahu (along with his wife Asherah and other beings) would eventually settle and marry into the pre-existing population and form Judaea. In 720 BCE the Assyrians destroyed the northern Hebrew-speaking kingdom of Israel (a kingdom whose main deity was El) and those northerners flooded south, after a few generations the two deities were merged albeit with Yahu on top (as he didn't get defeated). By the end of the 600's, various Judaean kings had enforced Yahu-centrism by forcing all temples to Yahu to close except his *one and only temple* in Jerusalem along with purging the worship of Asherah and other beings from the main temple. > As the Judaean kingdom entered the 500's BCE some older texts and oral histories were written down *but then* in the mid 500's BCE the Babylonians conquer Judaea and everything is thrown into chaos. How could this happen, El had been weak but Yahu was the strongest? This required a reinterpretation, and now Yahu was so powerful that *he controlled other peoples too* (not just the Hebrew speaking ones). This post-exile international Yahu is the character we see in Exodus, where he directly intervenes in the free will of other nations (Egyptians) so as to help the chosen people's history unfold. I - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy356vegebrfm581wrzm6m5) ### > certainly not written down by a single individual named Moses who lived hundreds of years before the 6th century BCE. The Pentateuch was likely not written by a single individual, but is a compilation of the work of many scribes and many sources, again, this is not good news for a historical figure named Moses. His name is most likely based on the Semitic root seen in Egyptian "ms" (mis, meaning son) and "msy" (misiy, meaning son-of) but usually these names are son-of-deity but Moses' has been shortened at some point. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy36bd4crkb89v74qxng08w) ### > he is remarkably similar to Mesopotamian heroes, most famously in that Moses' birth narrative (adopted when found abandoned in a basket in a river) is the same as the birth narrative of King Sargon of Akkad, the famous founder of the Akkadian empire ca. 2300 BCE (3). And besides this detail, Moses' actions likely borrow greatly from the story of Gilgamesh. Both were wise men whose fates are ordained, both wander in the wilderness while journeying with a brother, both petition stronger figures on behalf of a suffering people are are rebuked by supernatural disasters, both travel to a good Other world (Garden of the Gods, the Promised Land), both cross impassable seas, the number 12 is significant in both stories, both include plants that give eternal life, both create fresh water on a mountain, both climb a sacred mountain and find the high god who is with animal sacrifice and offerings, both struggle for 40 days (the Mesopotamian version is between Gilgamesh and Enkidu for 40 days and 40 nights), both kill a "heavenly bull," both brothers die, both write down their stories and both narratives include the death of the author...to name just a few (4). And interestingly enough, another early great figure Abraham is said to have been born in Ur in Sumer. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy36qran7s01j475y47701k) ### > Moses was a composite character who may have existed as an early pastoralist culture hero. But his actions and narratives as seen in texts have been fully modified by the events and changing theologies of the mid 1st millennium BCE. And yet he is thought to be at least semi-real. Scholars think he might have existed in the period of the late bronze age and early iron age, this was the Late Bronze Age Collapse ca. 1200 BCE which was precisely the time when powerful kingdoms were collapsing and pastoralists were moving and resettling themselves all around the Near East. That seems to match the pastoralist details in Moses' story, and this is an interesting point: If there is an oral history of a pastoralist culture hero in Moses then the late bronze age collapse is a good place to situate him. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy37b7h03z5da6q12xvhmx2) ### > was this pastoralist culture hero leading his enslaved people out of Egypt? Well if they were in the southern Sinai perhaps they had actually been enslaved by Egyptians to work the gold mines there, just an interesting connection. But considering there's no Egyptian records of whole culture-groups being enslaved nor of peoples fleeing from them en-mass...most people have interpreted these events metaphorically. With the bronze age collapse and the final retreat of the Egyptian garrisons from Canaan, perhaps freedom from Egyptian slavery meant political independence from their vassalage (Egypt had been attempting to conquer its neighbors of southern Canaan and Nubia since soon after its formation ca. 3100 BCE). Or we could half-literally interpret these narratives such as Israel Knohl does in his recent theory (6). - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy37thm7hd76rkwn831aag0) ### > In Genesis, Proto-Hebrew speaking pastoralists were actually refugees staying in Egyptian territory during the famines and uncertainty of the late bronze age collapse, then they were abused as cheap labor by Egyptians (Genesis 41-47). But the Exodus narrative itself came from another group during this period: Egyptian records in the 1180's BCE mention a pastoralist warlord named Haru who briefly conquered Egypt with his people and mercenaries (whose beliefs/rituals clashed with Egyptian ones). Soon after, the warband was militarily defeated and expelled. Knohl thinks this expulsion of Haru and his warband, along with stories of people sheltering under Egyptian rule during a world-wide famine, were eventually combined together and became parts of the story in these early books. While this is one of many theories about how to adequately "de-mythologize" these characters and these books, figures such as Haru are good examples of actual biographies of pastoralist leaders of this period. While I appreciate the positivist interpretations of Biblical "history" by Amihai Mazar, personally I lean more towards the skeptical view of Israel Finkelstein. - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy38n6v97q611gk3hag1psx) ### > Finkelstein in the linked lecture *Patriarchs, Exodus, Conquest*, mentions that he along with many other scholars have shown that both the material objects and ideological focus in the patriarchs' stories reflect the period of 800-600 BCE. Such as the reliance on camels, which are seen in the region only as early as ca. 1000 BCE but are more commonly used later in the 600's BCE. So if these leaders and their stories are a core of mythologized pastoralist culture heroes, what time period are these pastoralists from? Is it from the late bronze age or much later in the 700's or even 600's BCE? It's possible these pastoralists added themselves to the Judaean/Israelite historical narrative during this period, then mythologizing their heroes as all being related to the other heroes in a "deep past." This ideological unification period I already mentioned, 720-600 BCE, when all Hebrew speakers were physically unified under the Judaeans, and their rulers actively attempted to unify all Hebrew dei - [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01fgy3arvzh6z3vbp5m64kwvge)