Passover In Egypt: Did the Exodus Really Happen?

This question has puzzled biblical scholars, archeologists and all those interested in solving one of the Old Testament's most intriguing mysteries. Was the story of the Israelites fleeing Egypt after years of slavery history or myth? Were there really 10 plagues that became so progressively terrible that they forced the Pharaoh to finally release all the Israelite slaves? Was there really a leader named Moses, and did he guide this "mixed multitude" for 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai desert?

Passover is the Jewish festival that celebrates the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt. During this Passover season it is particularly pertinent to wonder, did the Exodus really happen?

Clues and speculations abound regarding alleged items of evidence discovered for the Exodus, and nearly all have their champions and detractors. It seems that every time a theory is proposed and the Exodus mystery appears to be solved, it is quickly shot down for one reason or another.

Nevertheless, ongoing archeological and etymological investigations into the Exodus have produced some tantalizing items and scholarship. Presented for your consideration are Exhibits 1-4. Read and wonder...

Exhibit 1: The Ipuwer Papyrus

How could plagues described in an Egyptian papyrus be so similar to those found in the Bible?

In the early 1800s, a papyrus was found in Egypt called The Admonitions of an Egyptian. It is now in the Leiden Museum in Holland. An Egyptian named Ipuwer wrote it at the end of the Middle Kingdom, around 1650 B.C.E.; scribes copied it in the 19th Dynasty, in the 1200s B.C.E. Below are some of the amazingly similar plagues described in both the Ipuwer papyrus and the Bible. (The biblical plagues befell the Egyptians at the time of Moses and the Exodus, which has been dated sometime between 1570 to 1290 B.C.E.)

The disparity of the dates between the Ipuwer and Exodus documents is enough to convince many scholars that no relation exists between the two. In addition, prevalent theory now claims the papyrus is simply ahistorical. Be that as it may, the similarities are striking, and why they are remains a mystery. Could it be that the scribes who copied the document at the time of the Exodus were experiencing similar calamities to the earlier ones and were using Ipuwer's words to warn the present-day Pharaoh?

Exhibit 2: The Israelites' Travel Itinerary and the Egyptian Maps

Did the cities the Israelites camped in on their way to Canaan really exist?

One of the most contentious problems regarding the Exodus investigation is the fact that there is no archeological evidence for various places mentioned in the biblical travel itinerary of the Israelites as they fled Egypt for the Promised Land, Canaan. In an article in the September/October 1994 issue of Biblical Archaeological Review, Charles R. Krahmalkov, then Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages at the University of Michigan, points out that various scholars have used this explanation to "reject the entire story" of Israel's origins, and therefore the Exodus.

However, Krahmalkov discusses a number of biblical sites that appear to be corroborated by Egyptian sources. Among them are Dibon (Numbers 13:45), a city where the Israelites' camped on their way to invade Canaan, and Hebron (Numbers 13:22), another city targeted for invasion.

Krahmalkov concedes the lack of archaeological evidence, but he points out that the Egyptians thoroughly mapped these sites, as well as a number of other regions mentioned in the Bible. The mapping was done in the Late Bronze age, in Dynasties XVIII and XIX (according to his dating, 1560-1200 B.C.E. He dates the Exodus in the range of 1400-1200 B.C.E.). Also included are the cities of Iyyn and Abel (biblical Abel Shittim) both in Numbers 13: 45-50; Yom haMelach (Numbers 34:3); and Athar (Hebrew Atharim) (Numbers 21:1). The maps survive in list form, and they are found on the temple walls of ancient Egyptian kings. Since they are documented in the most important extra-biblical source -- Egypt -- the evidence is strong that these cities indeed existed at the time of the Exodus.

Exhibit 3: Aper-el's Tomb

Was there a Hebrew advisor to Egyptian kings at the time of the Exodus?

In 1987, searchers rediscovered a tomb in the Saqqara region of Egypt belonging to a man they call Aper-el. They say his name is an Egyptian version of a Hebrew name. Aper-el was vizier to the famous Amenhotep III (1370-1293 B.C.E., 18th Dynasty) and later to his son, the monotheistic king Akhenaten. They dated the tomb around 1353-1335 B.C.E., but there is something of mystery here.

The tomb was originally discovered by the legendary archeologist Sir Flinders Petrie in the 1880s. He copied an inscription that spells the vizier's name Aperia. I don't know if the 1987 team found other inscriptions with the -el ending, but -el would be the equivalent of Elohim, one of the terms for God in the Bible. The ending -ia would indicate Ya, short for YHWH or Yaweh, the other biblical name for God, generally translated "Lord." (Think the familiar Halleluya, Hebrew for "praise the Lord.")

It is tantalizing to wonder if Aper-el/Aperia was indeed a Hebrew advisor to the young king Akhenaten. If so, did Aper-el/Aperia influence Akhenaten's thinking toward monotheism? In any case, it would place a Hebrew advisor to the kings within the range of years claimed for the Exodus just as Joseph was to an Egyptian king hundreds of years earlier. In the book of Genesis, Joseph rose from captive to be second only to the Pharaoh, and he was empowered to save Egypt from starvation during a seven-year drought. It isn't known how Aperel/Aperia got there!

Exhibit 4: The Shiphra Papyrus

Is the name of the Hebrew midwife in Exodus the same as that of a slave mentioned in an ancient Egyptian papyrus?

The Brooklyn Museum has a papyrus, possibly from Thebes, with a list of slaves from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, about 1740 B.C.E. It includes a slave named Shiphra and others with Semitic names. In the Bible, a Hebrew woman with the same name, Shiphra, was one of two midwives the Pharaoh commissioned to kill all the male Hebrew children at the time Moses was born (Exod. 1:15). She didn't. Since by that time all Hebrews had been put into servitude by the Pharaoh, the midwife Shiphra would also have been a slave. The fact that the name Shiphra is found in both the Bible and the papyrus indicates that the name and the woman's condition of slavery were familiar to both Israelites and Egyptians.

The Mystery Continues

Although the comparisons between the Ipuwer Papyrus and the Bible are tantalizing, Ipuwer alone does not provide absolute evidence for the Exodus and the Passover. For that matter it can't even account for the existence of the Israelites.

As long as there is little tangible archeological evidence and until the mystery is finally solved, we are left to rely on the venerable Passover service to connect us to our past at this holiday season. We must be content to repeat the most pertinent of the famous "Four Questions," which the youngest at the table asks on the first night:

"Why is this night different from all other nights?"

Facts about what really happened to the Israelites can be found in the new book 'Talking with God: The Radioactive Ark Of The Testimony. Communication Through It. Protection From It.' by Roger D. Isaacs. Available at Amazon. Join our ongoing investigation of Old Testament mysteries at TalkingWithGod.net.

 

 

 

Follow Roger Isaacs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TalkingWithGod

Comments

[lbsaltzman]

03:56 PM on 05/05/2011

I suggest reading The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finklestein. It makes an extremely strong case that exodus never happened and that David and Solomon were at best tribal chiefs and certainly never ruled the Canaanite state of Israel. Finklestein is an eminent archeologist. His followup book David and Solomon is also an eye opener.

[Ben Arye]

06:23 PM on 04/14/2011

Commentors who can conclude that the biblical account is true or not based on their subjective determinations are being intellectually dishonest with themselves. There are literally thousands of other sources to be considered and studied if one wants to search honestly for the objective truth. One thing is not disputable, the Passover story told at the Passover (meal) Seder has been told over by parents to their children for over 2,000 years and its exactly the same story in one language from Cairo to Chattanooga to China and everywhere else in between. When exactly do you all suppose this big national lie/myth/fiction/fable start? And why have tens of millions of people bought into the same lie for over 2,000 years and decided that it was so important to share it with their children? Just some Kosher for Passover food for thought.

[PlayTOE]

06:14 PM on 04/13/2011

The real story of Exodus is far more interestin­g (but less religious) than the contortion­s believers go to trying to shoehorn the biblical narrative into some sort of agreement with what we know of history.

The Ipuwer Papyrus records events at about the time of the eruption of Sanatori (1628 BCE), and is consistent with conditions such an eruption might provide. The shipping trade of the Minoans was interrupte­d. Shortly after this a variety of Hyksos (foreigner­s) showed up in Egypt. The Hyksos were a diverse group with a wide variety of technologi­es and soon took over northern Egypt. They worshiped Egyptian gods, but promoted the hippopotam­us god Seth. One of these may have been a trader named Abraham (Abra-Amen­).

Egyptians from Thebes began fighting back during the late 17th Dynasty and it's last king Kamose may have died from battle wounds.
The first king of the 18th Dynasty Ahmose (1549-1524­BCE) was a very good strategist and general. The Hyksos were defeated and expelled from Egypt to the Levant. This was the largest group to leave Egypt.

The first Religion to worship one god (monotheis­m) was invented near the end of the 18th dynasty by Akhenaten (1360-1343­BCE). He promoted the Egyptian sun god Aten above the rest. When Akhenaten died, his son Tutankhate­n was forced to recant Aten and become Tutankhamu­n, restoring the full polytheist religion. Priests of Aten who had followed Akhenaten were forced to leave Egypt.

[Macready]

09:46 AM on 04/13/2011

read THe Bible Unearthed . . it will answer questions about Moses and the Exodus . . . Moses didn't exist and the exodus didn't happen . . . my guess is that when the rabbi's were writing in the mid 7th century BC .. they used lots of stuff from lots of different sources in an attempt to give validity to their claims but mainly they were writing propaganda about their own times and giving it a very long history . . . I have never heard of Ipuwer being used to confirm the passover . . . . or the exodus . . . . seems like fishing to me

[straight32]

05:20 PM on 04/11/2011

I can barely find my birth certificate and you guys want to find thousands years old living proof?

Religion is faith not proof.

600,000 living Jewish witnesses at that time did not lie to their posterity.

[straight32]

05:13 PM on 04/11/2011

If it is true then you have exactly one week to prepare your Seder table.

[gabriel72]

11:37 AM on 04/11/2011

I can use your reasoning to make the case that any Steven King book is true.

[sevumar]

05:18 PM on 04/10/2011

It's always possible that an event occurred which formed the basis for the narrative of the Exodus in the Torah (and Bible). However, it is my understanding that most mainstream scholars do not believe there is enough evidence to say with any certainty that a migration of the size depicted in the Torah ever happened.

Instead, it seems more likely there was a slow, measured movement of small groups of Semitic peoples out of Egypt and into the coastal plain of Canaan, if there was any exodus in the first place. What seems most likely is that the Hebrews were a Canaanite civilization with a shared mythology that used the Exodus story as a way of creating and reinforcing a shared identity. Many of their sacred stories have parallels in traditions from all over the Middle East, not just Egypt.

[Allan Richter]

02:33 PM on 04/10/2011

How did the Hebrew nation come into being? The answer provided in Torah from Abraham forward is framed within actual history. In modern times scholars seek scientific corroboration. Yet even the least historically authentic biblical traditions clearly represent real events, social process, and flesh and blood figures more emphatically it is precisely these traditions which convey the archaic culture of the people and contain the seeds of its future civilization.

The stories of the patriarchs’’ migrations are true in the sense of containing certain accepted historical facts: the migrations, ethnic basis and social structure of the tribes about to merge into a new nation – the people of Israel. The same can be said for Exodus narrative.

One hypothesis is that the Israelites left Egypt in two waves, and by the time the second wave departed – the middle of the thirteenth century – the first group had already settled in the land of Canaan. (Atlas edited by Eli Barnavi). We will never know – this debate will go on for ever. It doesn’t really matter.

The “literal narrative” however, is not emphasized in Judaism. Torah is concerned with the relationship between God, Israel and mankind. Moses is not mentioned in the Seder. The fourth level of interpretation, hidden/mystical, is totally non literal. Israel’s theosophy is referred to as Kabbalah. Kabbalah acts as a “switching station” between the Biblical, Near Eastern mystical and philosophic traditions.

[Mitch Johnesee]

03:02 PM on 04/10/2011

So what real event does Noah's ark represent? Or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Hypothesize all you want, it won't make anything that happened in the Bible any more real.

[incognito-ergo-sum]

03:47 PM on 04/10/2011

If we use the written word we have dueling documents. But if we look for some sign that Egypt had thousands or even hundreds of Hewbrw slaves, we must find their living quarters, their graves and mention in the records of their needs of food and housing. These basic requirements exist whenever a people try to prove they were living somewhere in the past.

Physical evidence seems to be missing. Also there are no graves or bodies mummified in the wilderness.

No matter what tragadies Egypt suffered, none of the nations around them mentioned a large group of Hebrew slaves living there or leaving.

This makes Passover unlikely unless there was only a small hanfull of Jewish slaves in Egypt. Certainly a large mass of people can not pass with all their bodies and housing, completely out of recorded or physical record.

That then makes Jesus celebrating Passover suspect, as He is celebrating an event that probably did not happen and this has morphed into The Last Supper.

Finding a large number of Jewish graves, grave goods and bodies in Egypt would seal the deal for all time.

[sallysees]

10:49 AM on 04/10/2011

I was intrigued by Professor Issac's presenting these 4 exhibiits from various Egyptian digs and other evidence, such the Egyptian Maps, and The Ipuwer Papyrus, as proof that the Israelites "might" have been slaves, about 600,000 of them, in Egypt, and that Israel's greatest leader, Moses, actually existed.

But, he is just "preaching to the choir" as far as us believers are concerned, because, arguably, the greatest minds in the world, the Rabbinical scholars and Sages went over every word of the Hebrew scriptures, and pronounced Moses as an authentic, actual and real historical personage centuries before there was a university in Europe, not to mention that we certainly believe the testimony of Jesus, and Paul, who spoke of Moses-they sure believed Moses was real.

However, in presenting this kind of naturalist "Evidence", like those in his book Talking with God, Professor Issacs certainly impresses me as Anti-Supernaturalist. But the Literal, the supernatural, and the future, are the necessary elements which make the apocalyptical/Prophetical statements in the Bible coherent; if they be taken as literal, they foretell miracles!.

Professor Issac claims that Key words were mistranslated because modern translators didn’t fully understand what the ancient Hebrew words originally meant and so they applied their own definitions and interpretations to words such as "Glory", but maybe he's never experienced God's glory himself, or he wouldn't be attempting to re-conceptualize the "Glory of God" as a kind of "contamination of Radiation".

[flanardiente]

06:26 AM on 04/10/2011

The plagues of Egypt may have been a memory of the eruption of the volcano on Thira, one of the most catastrophic explosions in history, which devastated the eastern Mediterranean sometime in the 17th to 15th centuries BC. That there's no specific mention of it in Egyptian history indicates the earlier date may be preferred, possibly in the Second Intermediate Period or the Hyksos period, when Lower Egypt was dominated by Semitic tribes. And, as Sigmund Freud pointed out, Moses is an Egyptian name or part of a name, as in RaMESES or AahMOSE. Freud also believed that the Hebrews got the idea of monotheism from Akhenaten rather than the other way around, which makes sense, given the shaky nature of early Hebrew monotheism, in which God is sometimes plural and occasionally has a wife. The probability is that if there's any historical truth to the Exodus, it involves a small band of Semitic pastorals who were never enslaved but who might have been chased out of Egypt in the same manner that Minutemen in Arizona confront illegals. If this was in the 1200s--where legend firmly places the Exodus--the (possibly underground) memory of Aten-worship could have influenced them, and they might have conflated memories of the Thira eruption into later accounts of their wanderings. I'm not saying this is historical fact; I don't think anyone will ever nail it down. But it fits the story with historical fact better and more reasonably than any other.

[CarlGustavJung]

10:43 AM on 04/10/2011

Wow. Very few people are aware of the book you speak of. Good job. The book is called ''Moses and Monotheism''.

Moses And Monotheism (1939) Author: Freud,Sigmund
http://www.archive.org/details/mosesandmonothei032233mbp

[proudtohaveserved]

11:18 AM on 04/10/2011

flanar you are so rigt, exept that you forgot to mentionthat moses was ramse'sson. and the river chanmging to red can be explained away by the rins in ethiopa tha broght the red sand to egypt. and there were only about 2,000 israelies. the misstranlation of the red sea, from the sea of reefs.When moses came down from the mountain he saw depravation going on at the base,sisters and brothers having sex, etc,detc that he threw the tablets and they broke. went asck up, got new tablets and they got punish by god and spent 40 years lostin the desert

[gevan]

04:53 AM on 04/10/2011

Pillar of fire? Moses alone with a burning bush?

[lyndainfrance]

03:24 AM on 04/10/2011

The Egyptians wrote everything down.That is why we know so much about their ancient history.They accounted for everything:how many workers,how much it cost to feed them,crops,commerce,astronomy and astrology,battles horses foot-soldiers and their equipment,the price of cloth and kohl to protect their eyes,the size of homes and palaces etc.No where in all of this is there any mention of Hebrews or the existence of thes people as slaves(workers in Egypt were paid(;in the long run slavery is counter-productive)The Bible is not a History book.It teaches through allegories much like stained glass windows taught the then illiterate.One can believe the Bible is the Word of God the same for the Koran.This is the difference between belief,faith and fact.Saying the Bible is not fact does not take away from it's power to inspire and enrich our lives.

[sallysees]

07:51 AM on 04/10/2011

If you're implying that the Egyptians were clueless in the least in the art of propaganda, writing a good story, bigging-up their own victories and achievements, and didn't know how to put a good face on their various and sundry contacts with other nations and tribes, leave out their defeats, losses and humiliations, then perhaps you know a lot less about this great people than you imagine!

I am quite all the way convinced almost a certainty that nobody's gonna find it plastered on the palace walls in living color, "well, those pesky Israelites sure tore us a new one, didn't they!!!???

[DangerousTalk]

09:09 AM on 04/10/2011

I said it before and I will say it again. The Israelites were NEVER slaves in Egypt. - http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

[straight32]

05:17 PM on 04/11/2011

It is a historical fact that the Egyptians never mentioned their loss in battle or any other loss against Egypt. Even in the wars with israel ther reports were always the oppostie of what they reported.

[Macready]

10:31 AM on 04/13/2011

well Ramesses II's battle of Kadesh wasn't totally flattering . . he did admit to being fooled by some spies when he first attacked . . . . but generally you are correct . . however, there were no Jewish slaves in Egypt and there was no historical Moses . . . no Abraham either . . most of this is fiction

[Javalation]

12:53 AM on 04/10/2011

The ancients didn't think or write in historic term but in terms of mythology, or story telling, to impart a meaning beyond what actually occurred. Combine that with the obvious fact that this writer has an interest in the outcome and a prejudice becomes obvious. The evidence appears to be that Egyptians built the pyramids, not Hebrew slaves. Combine that with the fact that there have been no findings of a large group wandering in any north African/middle eastern desert at all, even though biblical scholars have been searching everywhere for more than a hundred years, and the conclusion must be that the Exodus was a story, not to be taken literally.

[sallysees]

08:19 AM on 04/10/2011

Did it ever occur to you, that if the Israelites weren't in the least concerned with "history" why it is that from the very outset of the very threshold of the Bible starting at the 4th chapter of Genesis, everywhere and in every place, and among whatever peoples, tribes and groups, place-names are given, rulers and kings are duly named, with the date of their reigns, as well as rivers and mountains, even their geographical positions in relation to each other..and this reporting, and witnessing, as some would call it, is carried straight through the entire Bible right the way to the last witness of the Bible, John on the isle of Patmos.

The Bible is not a history but a book composed of multiples EYEWITNESS accounts:

"In the year that king Uzziah died, I also saw the Yahweh sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple." (Isaiah 6:1).
According to Old Testament professor, missionary and archaeologist Edwin R. Thiele, King Uzziah of Judah died in either 740 or 739 BCE(BC).

[DangerousTalk]

09:06 AM on 04/10/2011

I guess DeVinci Code must be a book of eyewitness accounts to since it names cities that really exist and stuff. The Bible is fiction!

[KFitzer]

01:58 PM on 04/10/2011

"Rulers and kings are duly named" Really???

In EVERY instance of interactions between Egyptian rulers and the Israelites, the ruler is named simply as "Pharaoh". This is the leading cause of scholarly dispute in establishing the time frame of the Exodus narrative. The Egyptian Dynasties are extensively documented and yet, the biblical narrative names not a single Pharaoh by name. Had even one been accurately named, there would be no debate.

[Macready]

09:50 AM on 04/13/2011

ditto

[DangerousTalk]

12:41 AM on 04/10/2011

This is truly one of my pet peeves. There is no mystery here. The Jews were NEVER slaves in Egypt. It never happened. There is a great article about this: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191. Please don't accuse the Egyptians of having Jewish slaves when they never did. It is insulting to the Egyptian people and a gross distortion of history. The Bible is fiction and yes it does use names of cities which probably existed, but so does the DeVinci Code.

[oferdesade]

12:55 PM on 04/10/2011

the koran, on the other hand, is a work of divinely inspired truth, and it has never been used to justify murder, mayhem and genital mutilation.

[Mitch Johnesee]

03:11 PM on 04/10/2011

Why would you make that leap? No one else had even mentioned the koran, and most definitely had no one made the stupid assumption that it is true, while somehow the Bible is not.
1st - people need to either admit or decipher for themselves that if the Torah is 'factual', likely the Bible is too, and the Koran would follow suit.
2nd - none of them are 'factual,' so what the he.ll are you even talking about?

[UnderTheHedgeWeGo]

06:20 PM on 04/10/2011

I would think one could assume the ancient religious texts of all religions are in large part a compilation of mythology. Neither the Bible or the Koran are unique in this.

[straight32]

02:45 AM on 04/14/2011

If I had to wager a bet then odds would be 50-50. Personally I would wage that the bible is true, I would try and fulfill its commandments knowing that if bible is true than i have heaven to look forward to.
So you see I have nothing to gain (nothing ventured nothing gained) if you are correct but the world and heaven to gain if you are not correct. I wager my bet on the latter.
And let me give you a tip. This world is not one of spilled ink. Meaning it's no accident that you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide and not the other way around.