Exodus - Lesson 2

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-02 
Historicity of Exodus 
Lesson Transcript 

So we've already talked about some of the Egyptianisms that are in the Book of Exodus that lend credence to the fact that it's historical. In this session, we're going to talk about whether this actually matters. Does it matter if there really was an Exodus? Couldn't the Book of Exodus just be kind of a parable about God's work to save his people and maybe function like a New Testament parable? Does it really need to have happened? Well, there are stories in the Bible that function like parables, and we don't need to press those and force them to be historical in order for us to receive some benefit from them. But I'm convinced that the Exodus is not one of these things. That if the Exodus didn't happen, we lose too much. Similarly to if we were going to argue that the resurrection of Jesus was just a parable, but that his body was still in the grave somewhere. We would lose too much if the resurrection didn't really happen. And I believe the Exodus is one of those events. Throughout the Old Testament, whenever the biblical writers are thinking about or talking about what does it mean to be Israel, they go back to the Exodus. The Exodus is part of the story of what makes Israel who they are. So I want to look at a few examples with you. The first is from Deuteronomy chapter 26. The first nine verses. And this is set in a time, this is looking ahead to the time when the Israelites will be in the land of Canaan. And they'll be bringing their first fruits to the place where the tabernacle is pitched, so that they can offer a thank offering to God. And when they bring that thank offering to God, they're supposed to declare, beginning in verse five, you shall declare before Yahweh your God, my father was a wandering Aramean. This is speaking of Abraham, of course. And he went down to Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, and Yahweh heard our voice and saw our misery, toil, and oppression. So Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, Yahweh, have given to me. And then they're supposed to place their basket before the Lord, bow down before him, and then they rejoice in all of the good things that God has done for them. Did you notice how much of this testimony that they're supposed to give when they bring their offering relates to their time in Egypt? It's huge. Having been enslaved in Egypt and brought out is a defining feature of what it means to be the people of God. And we see this in other passages as well. Joshua 24, which is the covenant renewal ceremony inside the land. Isaiah 43, as the prophet Isaiah is reflecting with the people on where they came from. Psalm 105, which is a historical recital of Israel's history and showing how God has met them and how God has brought them through. Each of these passages, and you can take time to look each of them up and read them to see what I mean, each of them centers the exodus from Egypt as a constitutive event. It's the event that makes them who they are. So I don't think it works to say, oh this is just a parable. Someone is just making up a story that gives them a sense of their origin. It doesn't work to do that when this is the very basis for who they are. So Terence Fredheim says in his exodus commentary, which is a wonderful commentary, he says, as a constitutive event, the exodus is recognized as an event of such import that the community would not be what it is without its having occurred. If we are willing to go along with scripture and its claim that the exodus did happen, that raises another question. When did it happen? And there are two main dates that scholars have put forward as the two prime candidates for when the exodus might have happened. And here I'm summarizing the arguments from Nahum Sarna's commentary on exodus. You can find these arguments in virtually any exodus commentary. They'll talk about the two dates, the 15th century date and the 13th century date, and I'm going to lay out the evidence on both sides and let you make your decision on that. So in favor of the 15th century date is in 1 Kings chapter 6 verse 1. Let me actually turn there first. Most people who argue in favor of a 15th century date point first to 1 Kings chapter 6 verse 1, which reads, in the 480th year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the Lord. We can be fairly certain of when Solomon lived and when he built the temple. By that time in history, it's pretty easy to put things on the timeline. So we have the inauguration of the temple around 960 BC. And if you count back 480 years, that puts us at 1440 BC, which is in the 15th century of course. And that's how we get that date. So many people say the Bible itself says how long it is. There are some challenges with this view. One of them is that Pharaoh did not live in or near the land of Goshen in lower Egypt at this time. Pharaoh lived at Thebes, which is 400 miles away. And during that time, he controlled Canaan. So if you're going to argue for a 15th century date, then you have to somehow figure out how are Moses and Aaron presenting themselves before Pharaoh over and over again during the wonders. Are they traveling 400 miles every time? Is Pharaoh in town visiting? How does this work? And then you have the problem of if they left during the 15th century, they left Egypt, went through the wilderness, and came up into Canaan, they would have been coming in the time of the conquest. They would have been fighting Egyptian soldiers in the land because Egypt controlled Canaan. So some have suggested, because of those problems with the 15th century date, that this number might be somewhat symbolic, that it represents 12 generations of 40 years each. That is, the 480 years in 1 Kings 6 verse 1 could be a symbolic number rounding each generation as 40 years, and we have 12 generations of it, and that's how they arrived at that number. So some have suggested that the 13th century is a better date. During the 13th century, which would be the 1200s, Pharaoh lived near Pithom and Ramses, which were built by the Hebrews. So these are the places we're told they lived and worked. Egypt had lost control of Canaan by that time, so once the Israelites left Egypt, they would have been entering a Canaan without any Egyptian influence. We have some historical evidence for the existence of the people of Israel on what's called the Merneptah stela, which is a stone monument put up by Pharaoh Merneptah that mentions other nations. That stela was what dates to about 1224. Let's see, that must be when he reigned. Merneptah was Pharaoh between 1224 and 1211, and so already by that point we need Israel to be recognized as a national entity. So some have suggested that they need to have been out of Egypt longer, or at least early in the 13th century, in order for them to be recognized by then. But if you take the 13th century date, then you need to explain the 480 years in 1 Kings 6 verse 1. I've already suggested maybe that number is symbolic. And then there's the additional challenge of the geography and archaeology of the conquest don't match exactly. So we'll talk about this a little bit down the road when we get to the actual leaving of Egypt, but archaeologists tell us that Canaan was not densely populated during this time period, that Jericho was a tiny outpost, military outpost, rather than a bustling metropolis. So this presents some challenges for the 13th century view. Those are the two main views. You can explore more again in any commentary if that is of interest to you. Part of the question of when the Exodus happened revolves around which pharaoh was it that we are meeting. Now there are two pharaohs in the book of Exodus. There's the pharaoh of Moses' childhood, the one that's killing Hebrew baby boys, and trying to keep the Hebrews tamped down and so they're not multiplying. And then there's the pharaoh of Moses' confrontation when he returns to Egypt as an adult. And those are not the same pharaoh because the first pharaoh, of course, was seeking to kill Moses and Moses waits to go back until that pharaoh's dead. So we have two pharaohs in a row, neither of whom are named in the book of Exodus. And this is where the debate goes. Scholars will look at all these different pharaohs and see what are the features of their reign to try to figure out which ones are the best candidates. And in this list of pharaohs that I'm providing here on the slide, the two time periods are reflected by the orange text. So Thutmose III would be the 15th century pharaoh most likely to have been the one that Moses confronted, whereas either Seti I or Ramses II could be the pharaoh of the 13th century that Moses confronted. And some have argued that because the text actually mentions Ramses as a city where Israel was building, that that solves the issue. We know we're in the time of Ramses II, but it's not necessarily a slam dunk since a scribe could have updated the city names later, maybe by the time he's writing it's known as the city of Ramses. And there are some spelling differences between the name of the city and the name of the pharaoh. But what I find most fascinating as we look at and consider which pharaoh was it, and I don't have a super strong opinion on it myself, I'm not totally settled on it, but what fascinates me is the fact that pharaoh's not named. And yet we have the names of some minor characters like the midwives who helped to defy pharaoh. And I think this is actually deliberate on the part of the narrator. It's not as though the person writing this story is writing so many hundreds of years later they don't know who pharaoh was, and so they're just being vague because they don't know. I don't think that's the right solution. We have a lot of specific names in Exodus. It seems clear to me that the narrator could have been specific if he wanted to. In this case the reticence to name pharaoh I think is a way of demoting him, of not giving pharaoh the honor of being called by his name, but instead he kind of stands in the background as this almost inhuman figure who's become so evil and so oppressive that the narrator wants us to think of him as the embodiment of evil without dignifying him with a particular name. So we'll see this again when we come to chapter two, kind of how that plays out. So we've considered some historical dimensions of the book of Exodus and when it took place. Now I want to talk a bit about the literary design of the book of Exodus. It is a fascinating book and the longer I spend with it the more I can see how intentionally crafted it is. And when I say intentionally crafted, I hope you're hearing me, I've already made the case that I think this is historical, that this reflects historical events. So to say that it's crafted literarily does not mean it's fictional, but that's whoever told this story did so in a very deliberate and beautiful way that unfolds for us the purposes of God working in human history. One of my favorite things about the literary design of Exodus is that we have two deliverance stories side by side. So we have the saga of Moses and the saga of the Hebrews and there are so many connections between these two stories. The first few chapters of the book, the first four chapters, are the story of Moses' infancy and his deliverance from Pharaoh and his commissioning by Yahweh. And if you think about the story, Moses is born, he's under threat by Pharaoh, he's placed by his mother in the reeds of the Nile, he is delivered by the daughter of Pharaoh, he's drawn out of the water and saved from death. When he grows up, he's under threat from Pharaoh again and escapes to the wilderness, crosses the wilderness, ends up at Mount Sinai where he encounters Yahweh and is commissioned for Yahweh's service. So that's the Moses story in a nutshell and that's exactly what we see happen with the nation as a whole. Here are people who are under threat by Pharaoh, he's oppressing them to the point of death. God raises up Moses to rescue them, Moses takes them through the sea of reeds, they cross the wilderness, they end up at Mount Sinai where they experience God's theophany, a divine disclosure of divine presence, and God commissions them into his service. So you have two stories side by side, Moses' own story is a nutshell of what will happen, what will become the story of the entire Hebrew nation. Such a beautiful symmetry between these two stories and so many things that we'll get to unpack when we slow down and read chapters one and two together. Throughout this story we are going to be hearing over and over again this phrase, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, to describe what Yahweh does for the Hebrews. He shows up in Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm and throughout the rest of scripture that phrase is consistently used to describe and remember what God did in Egypt. So fascinating, you don't hear the biblical authors ever talking about God's strong hand and outstretched arm with regard to Assyria or with regard to the Hittites or with regard to anybody else. It's always in context of remembering the exodus that God is described in this way. And we have an example here on the screen from Deuteronomy 26 verse 8. So Yahweh brought us out Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. As I mentioned in the first session, this phrase, mighty hand and outstretched arm, is an Egyptianism. This is Pharaoh's favorite way of being depicted in art. So on stone reliefs, like the one pictured here, Pharaoh is often pictured as having a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And his mighty hand is always grasping a mace. He's getting ready to clobber somebody in the head with it. And his other hand, his outstretched arm, is grasping somebody by their hair, some kind of slave or servant. And this pose, this is called the mace pose, this was Pharaoh's favorite way of depicting their dominance, their military dominance over other peoples, over subjugated peoples, for 3,000 years. This was the standard way of demonstrating Pharaoh's military might. And so if you can just imagine yourself in an Egyptian context where Pharaoh likes to make sure everybody knows at all times he's the one with the mighty hand and the outstretched arm. And then Yahweh comes and says, I'm going to show Pharaoh who's boss, and I'm going to show my mighty hand and outstretched arm. So this is an example that we'll see over and over again of Yahweh beating Pharaoh at his own game, using, co-opting some of the symbols of royal authority in Egypt and showing that he's superior to Pharaoh. So there's passages on the screen that you can look up if you want to see more examples of that. It's a very prominent image throughout these texts. It's also important for us to recognize from the outset why the people of Israel are being rescued from Egypt. Sometimes people talk about the Exodus story as if it's all about freedom, for freedom's sake, that God takes the side of oppressed people and he wants them to be free. That's only part of the story. God does take the side of oppressed people, but it's always freedom for the sake of serving him. So in this book, in the book of Exodus, whenever Moses confronts Pharaoh with Yahweh's demands, the demand is send my people away that they may celebrate a festival in my honor in the wilderness, or send my people away that they may serve me. And so in chapter 5 verse 1, this is the first time that Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands this, and it's the first time in the Bible that we get thus says Yahweh, a prophetic announcement, and Moses says send away my people. There's two ways that this gets said in the plague narratives or the signs and wonders. One is using the Hebrew word shalach, which means send away, and the other is halach, which means to let go. So we usually think of this story as Moses saying to Pharaoh, let my people go, but let my people go is actually not the usual way he says it. He usually says send my people away, which to me is a bit more active. You can let go just by opening your hand, like fine, leave, but to send away implies a sense of authorizing it. Send us away with your blessing, be part of this actively, and the thing that they're being sent away to do is to serve Yahweh. So in the early chapters of Exodus, the people of Israel serve Pharaoh. They work for him, they do his bidding, they're always at his beck and call, and it's not just about letting them free to do whatever they want. The Bible does not ever present God's deliverance as freedom so that you can do whatever you want. It's always go from serving this master to serving Yahweh as your master. So I want us to have that in mind as we go into the Exodus story, that the purpose of the release of the Hebrews is so that they may worship and serve Yahweh. We also see this very clearly in the confrontation with Pharaoh. We see the purpose of the confrontation is so that Pharaoh would know Yahweh. God could have just taken the Israelites away in the middle of the night. He could have blinded the Egyptians and in one fell swoop gotten those people out of Egypt, but instead he confronts Pharaoh over and over. This confrontation unfolds over many months and the purpose of it is expressed in chapter 5 verse 2. Pharaoh said, who is Yahweh that I should listen to his voice by sending Israel away? I don't know Yahweh and furthermore I won't send Israel away. So that there's a showdown that happens right away in this first encounter when Moses is first saying, send away my people on behalf of Yahweh. Pharaoh's like, who is Yahweh? So his claim not to know Yahweh sets us up for a bunch of signs and wonders that will demonstrate who Yahweh is. Again Yahweh could have snapped his fingers and the exodus could have happened overnight, but instead we have a series of what many have called the 10 plagues. I'm going to insist that there are actually 12, not 10, and that the Bible doesn't call them plagues. So I'm going to call them the 12 signs and wonders and in the 12 signs and wonders the consistent declaration is, by this you will know that I am Yahweh. By this you will know that I am Yahweh. It happens with the sign of blood when the Nile turns to blood. It happens with the frogs. It happens with the swarm of insects. We hear it twice with the plague of hail. So you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth and so you may know that the earth is Yahweh's. And then with the locusts and with the death of the firstborn. So knowledge of Yahweh is a key theme of these narratives. It's not just about getting the people out, it's about showing who Yahweh is and then bringing the people out so that they can serve Yahweh for years to come. So in conclusion exodus is not advocating absolute freedom, but rather knowing Yahweh and his superior might and serving Yahweh rather than Pharaoh. I would summarize the entire book of exodus as a creation story. It's the creation story of a new nation under God's rule. We think of Genesis as the book that's about creation, but there are so many creation echoes in the book of exodus and I think the narrator wants us to see that God is creating something new in exodus. He's bringing his people out so that they can become a new nation under his rule working for him rather than working for Pharaoh. It's a brilliant story, a brilliantly crafted narrative and I'm so excited to dive in. Are there any questions before we do that? So in the whole literary structure you mentioned how the deliverance of Moses parallels the deliverance of people of Israel and you know the different literary devices they use to do that and you mentioned the narrator. Is there any clue to who the author of exodus actually is? Sure, there is not as much of a clue as I would like. Many people assume that Moses is the author of the book of exodus. That's the traditional answer to the question and that is based in part on how the New Testament refers back to these stories. They'll refer to it as Moses says. Moses is the main character of the book of exodus aside from Yahweh and he is a significant character throughout the Torah. Of course, he's not born in Genesis, but we see him in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as the primary voice and so it's no wonder that these books have come to be associated with Moses. I am a little more conservative though in that I don't want to ascribe authorship to someone that the scriptures don't say explicitly that they're the author and I think that there are other ways to understand when the New Testament refers back to Moses says. I think that can be a broader way of referring to the body of texts that are associated with Moses says this. I'm conservative in that I would say Moses knew how to read and write. He was an actual historical figure who actually brought the people out of Egypt, so that makes me a conservative, but I just want to stop short of insisting on any particular authorship because the book of exodus doesn't claim authorship. So there are parts that said where God tells Moses, write this down. So I believe that he did. Who compiled the final form of this narrative? I'm just calling it the narrator so that viewers who are persuaded one way or the other can follow along without being tripped up by that. Whoever it is was carried along by the Spirit of God as the New Testament tells us clearly all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So I believe that about the book of exodus. I believe that whoever gave us the book in the form that we have was carried along by the Spirit and that Moses was obviously a key player in the narrative and a historical figure.