Q&A: The Exodus from Egypt in Archaeology
The Exodus from Egypt in Archaeology
Question
Hello Rabbi. Is the Rabbi not troubled by the fact that no archaeological-historical basis at all has been found for the Exodus from Egypt, whereas given the scale of the event one would expect to find many traces of it in various fields of scholarship, as has been found for other events from that period?
Answer
It doesn’t trouble me very much, since I’m not sure to what extent there really ought to be archaeological evidence for it (perhaps historical evidence more so). One should remember that it is not certain that the biblical description is factual. It is Definitely possible that the events were less dramatic than described in the text.
But it’s better to ask people who are knowledgeable in archaeology or history (those aren’t my fields). I know there are claims about evidence (such as the Ipuwer Papyrus and the like), but as I said, I’m not well versed in this.
Discussion on Answer
I’m not the Rabbi, of course. But I know Egyptian history well (as a hobby), so I’ll answer briefly. The problem is not the finds or the evidence, but the interpretation given to them.
First, regarding extra-biblical evidence—
There are quite substantial periods in Egyptian history (such as the Hyksos) from which almost no material remains survived, and the Egyptians tried to conceal them, yet we assume their existence with fairly high probability for a simple reason: later history books document their existence on the basis of earlier material that was lost. The Israelite story of the Exodus from Egypt is in a similar situation: all the later history books of Egypt (such as Manetho’s Egyptology) document its existence, though in a different version. So why aren’t they relied upon? More on that below.
As for the dry archaeological finds—
True, “we haven’t seen it” is not proof, and one could make do with what I mentioned above. But the claim that there are no finds at all for the biblical story is inaccurate. There are various finds, but they are not unequivocal. For example, there is documentation of Asiatic slaves in Egypt during the days of the New Kingdom who had previously been close to the government; there are finds indicating the entry of eastern groups and conquest in the land at the beginning of the Iron Age; evidence about the building of Pi-Atum and Pi-Ramesses; evidence of Egyptian anger toward the Israelites in the days of the 19th dynasty (under the son of Ramesses II), about slaves in the eastern Delta region; and more and more.
If everything is so fine, then why is the story not agreed upon? Simple: researchers interpret the finds and the evidence in different ways. The field of Land of Israel archaeology is full of politics and interpretations tailored in advance to the finds. Thus the Apiru/Habiru become a tribe wandering throughout the Middle East rather than the Israelites; thus the evidence for Joshua’s conquests becomes an event of tribal movement throughout the land; and the Egyptian documentation becomes unreliable (even though in other fields its basic principles are accepted); Zertal’s altar becomes a Canaanite altar, and so on. The short list I brought here, in my opinion, makes it quite clear that the problem is not the finds but only the interpretation. It should be said: indeed, there is no agreed-upon documentation of natural disasters in Egypt during this period (as far as I know), nor of the splitting of the Reed Sea, or a massive flight of slaves (there is documentation of tiny groups), but it is not clear what archaeological finds we would even want to find from such events (chariots in the sea and a drop in the amount of construction?), or what Egyptian interest there would be in documenting them, unlike many events they chose to sweep under the rug (the Hyksos and others).
Because of arguments like these, along with other claims such as evidence showing that the author of the Torah had a deep familiarity with the unique reality of Egypt in the days of the New Kingdom, and the strength of the ethos among the Jewish people (appearing in both kingdoms and in all the “documents” that, according to scholars, make up the Torah), many researchers accept that there is some historical basis to the ethos of the enslavement, but they disagree about its size (600,000) and its fit with the Torah’s account. Among these researchers one can find professors such as Mazar, Zertal, Konohel, Dr. Meitlis, and others, each at his own level of acceptance.
See also the book Until This Day by Rabbi Bazak, Wikipedia on finds that have been discussed and the interpretations given to them, and here:
http://mida.org.il/2015/04/02/Who Is Afraid of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh): Did the Exodus from Egypt Really Happen?/
(I deliberately chose to ignore various finds brought by kiruv organizations, such as the Ipuwer Papyrus and Velikovsky’s studies, since their definite attribution to the relevant period is considered by most scholars to be pseudoscience or insufficiently grounded, and I do not know how to show otherwise. Otherwise, they too would have had to be discussed in order to strengthen the case.)
There is an identical question with more content on the same issue. See the link:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%99%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%99%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%94-2/
Take a look at a good summary lecture on the subject here:
There is an interesting article about the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt on the Mida website: