The Exodus

The Exodus

        According to the events of The Exodus, 2 million enslaved Hebrews fled Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II led by Moses. They roamed the desert for forty years until they reached what is now present day Israel. The controversy of whether or not The Exodus actually took place in history is of extremely prominent dispute. Many are led to believe that it never happened, due to the lack of Egyptian historical writings and archeological evidence. However more individuals and historians are beginning to support the claims of the enslavement of the Hebrew people in Egypt, although this evidence is generally taken from the evidence of The Old Testament. Due to the greater amount of religious ties for the argument to be true, rather than hard, physical evidence, it appears that the Exodus did not actually occur.

        Carol J. Dempsy, a scholar at University of Portland argues that, “The power of the story remains, however, as fresh and alive in people's religious imagination and experience as when the story was first told and recorded” (Dempsy 86). There are so many different religions and perspectives, that it is hard to believe that all of the proof can come from solely focusing on the words of religious beliefs. The Exodus might be written about in The Old Testament as well as in the Hebrew Bible, but that does not allow all conclusions to be drawn from there. Following the same notion Nahum Sarna in his book Exploring Exodus states, “The biblical narratives are essentially documents of faith, not records of the past” (Sarna 7). The Hebrews would no doubt want this information to be published in their history, as it shows resilience in overcoming the oppression of the reign of the unjust Pharaoh.

        Although on the other hand, it could be argued that the Egyptians did not want the events of the Exodus to be recorded, since these happenings would admit a great defeat for the Pharaoh. This being because according to The Exodus, the Pharaoh released the Hebrews after the ten plagues were killing off all of the Egyptians as his punishment for not releasing the Hebrews in the first place. However, the Egyptians have predominantly good record keeping and to leave out such a large aspect of their history is unrealistic.

        Another important argument against the myth of The Exodus is the fact that after being released from Egypt, the Hebrews and Moses spent forty years wandering the desert in search of “The Promise Land.” It is impossible that 2 million people could be around for this long searching for an area that is only about 380 miles apart and proceed to not leave any physical or archeological evidence of their being there.

        An additional complication in the myth is that the scanty chronological dates that are available are not consistent with each other. For example, in Exodus 12:40-41, it states that the time that the Hebrews were in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years, while Genesis 15:13 says that it was a predetermined time period of four hundred years for both the slavery and the oppression. While around four hundred years has been cited in the texts, it appears that no more than one hundred and fifty years seemed to have passed between the migration of Jacob to Egypt, and the Exodus, which is not compatible with the text. This aids in leaving us to believe that if it did indeed happen, the dates would have been closely recorded, just like every other event (Sarna).

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