The Exodus is the most important story in the Jewish Bible, 80% of the Torah is dedicated to it in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The time period covered is a mere 40 years and a single generation. The Exodus is traditionally dated to the fifteenth or thirteenth centuries BCE depending on the scholar, but the story dates from many centuries later than that.
In the biblical account of the Exodus, we are told that six hundred thousand Hebrew men departed from Egypt. We are also told that their women and children accompanied them (Exodus 12.37) which would have made the total number of Israelites somewhere around two million. It has been estimated that the Egyptian population at the time was only 2.5 to 3 million. Of all the thousands of documents that survive from ancient Egypt, none mention this event. Suffice to say if over half of the entire population had actually upped and left, it would have been big news, and would have been recorded.
The Bible makes the claim that ‘the Israelites were fruitful and prolific. They multiplied greatly, became very powerful and the land [Egypt] became filled with them.’ (Exodus 1.7). The archaeological evidence tells a very different story. There’s actually only one mention of Israel known from New Kingdom Egypt, a solitary line of text dating to the reign of Merneptah (ruled 1213 – 1203 BCE). The Israelites were an obscure Asiatic nomadic group barely known to the ancient Egyptians at the supposed time of the Exodus, not a powerful and prolific people who had overrun the country.
The biblical account of the Exodus is also filled with with fantastical elements, showing it belongs to the realm of mythology and not history. Aaron has a staff that turns into a snake and supposedly turns the whole Nile river to blood killing all the fish in it (Exodus 7.10). This staff is reminiscent of the Greek caduceus, and looks like a symbol of the world axis. We also have the many plagues of Egypt, Aaron and Moses also cause swarms of frogs, flies and locusts to plague Egypt, and for the dust to turn to maggots that cover people and animals (Exodus 8 & 10).
Moses also manages to prevent day from happening and keeps Egypt dark for three whole days. In reality such a feat is clearly impossible, but not in the minds of the Bible’s authors. They believed the sun travelled through the sky over a flat earth, entering and leaving via gates in the sky dome, and could be prevented from doing so. Moses, Aaron and Yahweh also supposedly covered every Egyptian and all their animals in festering boils and also caused every farm animal then finally every first born Egyptian to die (Exodus 9 & 12). Suffice to say there’s no mention of any of these wondrous events from ancient Egypt or any other historical source.
During their travels in the wilderness, we have the stories of a pillar of cloud guiding the Israelites by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13.21), as well as the famous myth of the parting of the sea that Yahweh then reverses to kill the whole Egyptian army (Exodus 14.21-28). We’re also told how bread miraculously falls from the sky to feed the mass of Israelites fleeing Egypt (Exodus 16.4), and how Moses strikes a rock with his staff which causes it to produce a cavalcade of water capable of slaking the thirst of hundreds of thousands of Israelites (Numbers 20.11). There’s also the barmy story of Balaam who has a conversation with his talking donkey! (Numbers 22.28-30). The whole story is chock-a-block full of unbelievable mythical elements.
The conquest of Canaan as told in the Book of Joshua also uses highly mythological language. The fall of Jericho is a good example of this. In the biblical account, Yahweh informs Joshua how to make the walls of the city collapse,
‘March around the city once with all your armed men for six days. Have seven priests carry seven trumpets made from rams’ horns in front of the Ark. On the seventh day, circle the city seven times with the priests blowing their trumpets. At the blast of the rams’ horns, when you hear the trumpet sound, have the whole army give a loud shout; the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’ (Joshua 6.3-5)
This description could hardly be more mythological, it’s riddled with the holy number seven. Seven priests carrying seven trumpets march around the city for seven days, and on the seventh day they march around it seven times!
The period historically ascribed to the Exodus and conquest of Canaan is that between the end of the Bronze Age and beginning of the Iron Age (1550-1000 BCE). In her excavations at Jericho, Kathleen Kenyon found that during the Early Iron Age (1200 – 1000 BCE), the city had been largely deserted and in a state of ruin for some 300 years. More importantly, no city walls had been present at this time. The fall of the walls of Jericho is one of the most famous parts of the biblical story of the conquest of Canaan. The same is true of Ai, which the Israelites also conquered in the biblical account. This settlement wasn’t occupied during the Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 BCE), and had been deserted for more than 1000 years at the time of the supposed conquest of Canaan.
Anachronisms in the narrative suggest that the story of the exodus was written some time in the first millennium BCE, without historical basis. The Exodus and conquest of Canaan would have occurred during the 18th or 19th Dynasties of ancient Egypt, when the nation was at the height of its power. The Egyptians controlled Canaan during this period, but the biblical writers make no mention of this and were clearly unaware of the fact. According to the Bible, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, wandered around in Egyptian territory for 40 years, to eventually settle in what was essentially another part of Egypt.
Archaeology has also shown that there was no military conquest of Canaan in any period of its history that would match up to the narrative in the book of Joshua. We are told that the Israelites didn’t take the quickest route to Canaan because it was Philistine country (Exodus 13.17). The Philistines were originally from the Aegean / Eastern Mediterranean, first settling in Canaan sometime after 1200 BCE.
Deserts are well known as good places for the survival of archaeological material, due to the hot, dry conditions. However, not a scrap of evidence for the forty year wanderings of 600,000 people has ever come to light, despite the fact that traces of the tiniest Bedouin encampments survive from the same era due to the conditions. We also have to consider the simple logistics of how up to three million people could have survived in the desert for forty years.
All the major places mentioned in the Exodus story were inhabited in the 7th to 6th centuries BCE. The Egyptian names mentioned in the Joseph story, Zaphenath-paneah, Potiphar, Potiphera and Asenath all achieved their greatest popularity in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE.
The biblical tale of the conquest of Canaan is a bloodthirsty affair and mirrors the hardline stance of the later priests who composed the story. Yahweh, Moses and Joshua tell the Israelites to clear the land of idolatry and kill non-believers. The central story of the Old Testament is one of divinely ordained genocide and religious persecution. In the Book of Numbers, Yahweh instructs Moses to tell the Israelites,
‘You will soon be crossing the Jordan to enter Canaan. You must drive out all its inhabitants as you advance, destroy all their carved images and their idols, and demolish all their hill shrines.’ (Numbers 33.51-52)
In Deuteronomy, the same grisly order is repeated,
‘You will destroy all the sanctuaries where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods…You shall pull down their altars and break their sacred pillars, burn their Asherah poles and hack down the idols of their gods and thus wipe out their names from those places.’ (Deuteronomy 12.2-3)
The Book Of Joshua recounts this mythical genocide. In Jericho, we’re told that the Israelites ‘put everyone to the sword, men and women, young and old, and also cattle, sheep, and donkeys’ (Joshua 6.21). In Ai we’re told that, ‘twelve thousand men and women were killed that day – the whole population of Ai’ (Joshua 8.25). The same thing happens in Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir and Hazor (Joshua 10.28 – 11.12). At Makkedah we’re told that, ‘Joshua captured Makkedah and put both king and people to the sword, destroying every living thing in the city. He left no survivors’ (Joshua 10.28). The Bible summarizes this story of genocide with, ‘So Joshua massacred the population of the whole region…He left no survivors, destroying everything that drew breath, as Yahweh the god of Israel had commanded’ (Joshua 10.40).
This brutality fits with what we know of warfare in the Levant from this period. There was the practice of the herem or ban, every living thing in a captured city was killed and sacrificed to the victor’s god. This bloody practice is mentioned on the Mesha Stele, where the Moabite king Mesha states of the city of Ataroth, ‘I fought with the city and I took it, and I killed all the people of the city as a sacrifice for Chemosh and for Moab.’ It’s also referred to in the book of Deuteronomy, ‘In the cities of the nations Yahweh your god is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes’ (Deuteronomy 20.16).
Yahweh himself gets involved in the conquest of Canaan. This shows the authors saw their god as one who could get directly involved in human affairs like a Greek, Egyptian or Babylonian deity, rather than the more abstract concept of god modern Jews or Christians have. Yahweh hurls huge hailstones against the Amorites in a manner that we might expect from Zeus, we’re told that ‘Yahweh hurled large hailstones down on them and more died from the hailstones than were killed by the Israelites’ swords’ (Joshua 10.11). The conquest of Canaan is a holy war, a common practice in the ancient Near East, where kings claimed divine sanction to justify warfare.
The whole story of exile and return is also reminiscent of the Babylonian exile of the Judahites (597 – 539 BCE) and their return under the auspices of the Persians. This historical exile may have been the inspiration for the mythical one. The book of Isaiah connects the two,
‘Leave Babylon, flee from the Babylonians.
Announce this with shouts of joy,
proclaim it to the ends of the earth.
Say, “Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts.
He made water flow from the rock for them,
he split the rock and water gushed out.’ (Isaiah 48.20-21)
In Greek and Roman times, Egypt was rightly considered the oldest civilization, and a source of ancient arcane knowledge. That may be the reason why Egypt was chosen for the mythical setting of the Exodus. The Jews could claim a link to the most ancient of civilizations, and also declare their god and lawgiver had triumphed over it. It’s probably also the reason why Plato claimed his Atlantis myth originally derived from an Egyptian priest.
The myth may have been used as a justification for the promotion of the sole worship of Yahweh at Jerusalem and the subjugation of other native gods. This ideology was promoted by the likes of Zerubabbel, Ezra and Nehemiah in the late sixth century. Interestingly the first high priest of Yahweh at the newly constructed temple at Jerusalem at this time also happened to be called Joshua. This monolatry was then projected back into a mythical past of Moses and the Exodus.
The Israelites are depicted as being disobedient to Yahweh and worshipping other gods in exactly the same way as the kingdoms of Israel and Judah are in the books of Kings and Chronicles. They are also similarly punished, Moses kills 3000 of them for creating and worshipping the statue of the golden bull. The book of Exodus has him state, ‘This is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says: “Every man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbour”’ (Exodus 32.27).
The central themes of battle, conquest and return home are also reminiscent of the most famous and sacred works of ancient Greece, the Iliad and Odyssey, which date to a similar time as the Old Testament narrative.
The Bible and Mythology 