The Exodus from
Egypt: Part II – A Historic Appraisal
“Thus do We relate to thee some stories of
what happened before: for We have sent thee a Message from Our own Presence.”
-
The Holy Quran, Surah
Taha, 20:99
This
article is a continuation of our “The Exodus from Egypt” series. In Part
I, we compared the Biblical and Quranic versions of the Israelite escape
from the oppression of the Pharaoh and identified several problems with the
former. In our continuation of the
series, we will now attempt to determine whether the story of the Exodus has
any historical basis. What follows will
be an analysis of the evidence, which it is hoped will show that the Exodus
story is not only historically plausible but also has strong historical
support.
The Exodus: History
or Myth?
Did the Israelites
escape enslavement in Egypt, led by a man named Moses? Or is it just a pious myth? These questions have invited much debate and
controversy in modern times, with proponents on both sides of the argument
passionately defending their views.
To
be sure, there is no evidence from Egyptian records to verify the Exodus, and
this is used by some people as “evidence” that the Exodus never happened. However, the absence of evidence in the
Egyptian records is not really that surprising, as it would be unreasonable to
expect the proud Egyptians to painstakingly record the humiliation and defeat
they allegedly suffered during that tumultuous time.[1]
Hence, the Egyptian records will not
really help us, though as we will see, they do provide indirect evidence that will support the theory that the Exodus
really could have happened.
In
order to determine whether the Exodus really happened, we would have to
establish whether the key components which make up the story really could have
occurred (i.e. they are historically plausible). These key components are:
1.
Originally immigrants
from Canaan, the Israelites had settled in Egypt at some point and were
subsequently enslaved by the Egyptians,
2.
They eventually
escaped slavery and migrated back to Canaan, and
3.
They took control of
the Holy Land.[2]
In this article, we
will attempt to historically verify these events. With the presentation of the evidence, it
will be shown that the Exodus is historical fact, insha’Allah.
1.
The Israelites migrated to and were subsequently enslaved in Egypt
–
Is it historically plausible that
Israelites migrated from Canaan and settled in Egypt? The answer to this is complex. To be frank, there is no direct
“archaeological” evidence of a group of people known as the “Israelites” who
migrated to Egypt under the leadership of the patriarch Jacob (Yaqub in Arabic). However, there is evidence that migrations
from Canaan into Egypt were a common occurrence in antiquity, and this evidence
provides indirect confirmation of the Israelite migration under Jacob
(peace be upon him). As Professor James
K. Hoffmeier of Trinity International University has noted:
“…Egypt was frequented by the peoples of the
Levant, especially as a result of climatic problems that resulted in drought
(as ‘Merikare’ reports) from the end of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2190 B.C.) through
the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1786 – 1550 B.C.). Even during the Empire Period, there are
records of hunger and thirst driving people from Canaan and Sinai to Egypt for
relief.”[3]
So, the migration of
Jacob and his family at a time of severe drought in Canaan, as told in the
Bible and the Quran, is historically verifiable even though there is no direct
evidence that a man named Jacob (peace be upon him) and his family were among
the migrants.[4]
Further proof that the Israelites
were in Egypt at one time can be deduced from the presence of Egyptian names in
Israel, which indicates contact between the two groups. As John Bright observed:
“Egyptian names prevalent in early Israel,
especially in the tribe of Levi, certainly argue for a connection with
Egypt. Among these are those of Moses
himself, Hophni, Phinehas, Merari, and possibly Aaron and others.”[5]
But it was not as if
only Canaanites were influenced by Egyptian culture and not vice-versa. As a matter of fact, Egypt was also
influenced by Canaanite culture, as attested by the historical evidence. According to Bright:
“…hundreds of Semitic words entered the
Egyptian language, while Canaanite gods were Egyptianized and worshiped in
identification with their Egyptian counterparts.”[6]
Clearly, there is
ample evidence to establish that Israelites were in Egypt early in their
history. To deny this would be
completely unjustified.
But what about the claim of
enslavement in Egypt? Is there evidence
to show that the Israelites could have been enslaved by the Pharaohs? We have already established that Israelites
were present in Egypt, so the claim of enslavement would be a secondary issue,
not requiring direct evidence to verify it.[7] Even so, we do have indirect
evidence from Egyptian sources to support the contention that Canaanites, which
would of course include the Israelites, were used as slaves by the
Egyptians. There is no doubt that the
Egyptians used slaves. Prominent among
these was a group of people known as “῾Apiru”. Noting the similarity between the words ῾Apiru
and “Hebrews”, some Biblical scholars had surmised
that they were one and the same.
However, this view has largely been abandoned by modern scholars.[8] However, many scholars are of the view that among the ῾Apiru would have been
the Israelites. According to Bright:
“…numerous texts from the fifteenth century
onward give evidence of the presence of ῾Apiru in Egypt. ῾Apiru had been brought
there as captives as early as Amenophis II (ca. 1438-1412), if not before,
while in documents of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties they appear
repeatedly as state slaves. We can
scarcely doubt that among them were components of the later Israel.”[9]
In addition, scholars like Abraham
Malamat point to Egyptian documents, such as Papyrus Leiden 348, as providing “probable evidence of the Israelite servitude in Egypt”.[10] The text of the papyrus mentions the “…῾Apiru
who are dragging stone to the great pylon of Ramesse-miamum…”[11]
Based on the above evidence, we can
see that it is quite plausible that the Israelites were not only present in
Egypt, but also endured slavery for a considerable amount of time, as
maintained by Biblical and Quranic tradition.
That would be the only reasonable conclusion. Indeed, even skeptics have acknowledged as
much. As Hoffmeier observes:
“This scenario has long been considered to
have a ring of truth even for more skeptical scholars.”[12]
2.
The Israelites escaped slavery and migrated back to Canaan –
That the Israelites
were in Egypt and endured slavery is clearly plausible. As a result, that would imply that since they
eventually settled in Canaan (as the Bible and the Quran state), then they must
have left Egypt at some point in order to escape the oppression of the
Pharaohs. This would have inevitably led
them through the region of the Sinai Peninsula.
Taking
the route through Sinai would have been the logical choice for runaway slaves
seeking freedom from their Egyptian masters, and indeed, Egyptian records
provide tantalizing evidence to confirm this.
In the Papyrus Anastasi V, an Egyptian official described how he was
dispatched to recapture two slaves who had fled from Pi-Ramesses.[13] As Fatoohi and Al-Dargazelli note
(summarizing the position of Professor Abraham Malamat), the account given in
the papyrus has some parallels with the Exodus account, since it describes:
“…(i) the escape of slaves from Pi-Ramesses in
search of freedom; (ii) the pursuit of Egyptian military officials of the
escapees to return them to Egypt; (iii) the route into Sinai taken by the
escaping slaves is roughly identical to that followed by the Israelites; and
(iv) the occurrence of the escape under the cover of darkness.”[14]
Nevertheless,
some scholars have questioned whether a journey through the Sinai Peninsula
really happened.[15] The argument from the skeptics is that a
large group of people moving through the peninsula would undoubtedly have left
some sign of their presence.[16]
Yet, as the skeptics do rightfully point out, no such evidence has been
found. As Finkelstein and Silberman
state:
“Repeated archaeological surveys in all
regions of the peninsula, including the mountainous area around the traditional
site of Mount Sinai, near Saint Catherine’s Monastery…, have yielded only
negative evidence: not even a single sherd, no structure, not a single house,
no trace of an ancient encampment.”[17]
Moreover, as even
Hoffmeier notes, there is ample evidence of people living in the Sinai
Peninsula as far back as the 6th millennium BCE, but none for the Israelite
presence.[18] On the surface, these revelations would seem
to pose a serious challenge to the historicity of the Exodus. After all, if the Israelites did indeed escape
slavery by taking the route through the Sinai Peninsula, and wandered in the
wilderness for 40 years, they must have left some sign of their presence!
But
is it really that clear-cut? For
scholars like Finkelstein and Silberman, it is expected that some
archaeological evidence of the Israelite presence should have been discovered
by now. However, other scholars question
this line of reasoning. For example,
Hoffmeier observes that the Israelites would not have lived in “stone structures”, which obviously would have
left a “permanent archaeological record of their
habitats”, echoing the view of the archaeologist Itzhaq Beit-Arieh, who
observed that:
“…presumably the Israelite dwellings and
artifacts consisted only of perishable materials.”[19]
Hoffmeier elaborates
on this point by pointing out that, according to the Biblical account, the
Israelites lived in tents during this time.[20]
It also needs to be remembered that
the Israelites were nomads during their wandering in the desert. Hence, one would expect a lack of evidence of
such people occupying a particular region.
In fact, Hoffmeier is quick to observe that scholars who readily point
to the lack of evidence for the Israelite presence in Sinai (such as
Finkelstein) also admit that it is often difficult to identify the presence of
nomadic dwellings, even with regard to relatively recent human occupation, like
19th-century Bedouin nomads![21] Indeed, in a 1990 article in the journal
“Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research”, Israel Finkelstein and
Avi Perevolotsky stated with regard to human occupation of the Negev and Sinai:
“The archaeological finds from the Negev and
Sinai are not continuous: for some periods there are substantial remains but
there are also long periods with no material evidence. Nonetheless the natural resources of the
regions under discussion are such that there is no possibility of periods of
human ‘void’. Nomadic groups penetrated
some other arid zones in the Middle East only after the domestication of the
camel; the Negev and Sinai, in contrast, are convenient for small cattle
herding and were inhabited by sheep/goat pastoral nomads. But since desert groups only rarely built
permanent structures that survived to the present, human activity of most
periods escapes the attention of archaeological research.”[22]
Clearly, the absence
of evidence for the Israelite presence in the Sinai Peninsula cannot be so
easily construed as evidence of their absence.
3.
The Israelites took control of the Holy Land -
Having shown that the
migration of the Israelites back to Canaan is a near certainty, and that a lack
of archaeological evidence does not necessarily negate this possibility, we can
move on to the issue of Israel’s eventual settlement and control of the Holy
Land. It has been previously stated that
the Biblical account of the “conquest” is contradictory,[23]
whereas the Islamic account is almost non-existent. All the latter says is that the Israelites “inherited”
the Holy Land:
“And We made a people, considered weak (and of
no account), inheritors of lands in both east and west, - lands whereon We sent
down Our blessings. The fair promise of thy Lord was fulfilled for the Children
of Israel, because they had patience and constancy, and We levelled to the
ground the great works and fine buildings which Pharaoh and his people erected
(with such pride).”[24]
But
what does archaeology tell us? Findings
from intensive studies show that a rapid and bloody conquest is certainly out
of the question. Even defenders of the
Biblical narrative acknowledge this. The
exact nature of the Israelites’ appropriation of the Holy Land is an open issue
(at least from the perspective of the Islamic sources and, to a certain extent,
that of the Bible), but the evidence suggests that if there was at least some
military activity, it was certainly not at the level of intensity that the book
of Joshua suggests. Rather, for scholars
like Hoffmeier:
“…the idea of a group of tribes coming to
Canaan, using some military force, partially taking a number of cities and
areas over a period of some years, destroying (burning) just three cities, and
coexisting alongside the Canaanites and other ethnic groups for a period of
time before the beginnings of the monarchy, does not require blind faith.”[25]
So, we can conclude
that if the Israelites migrated to Canaan, they eventually took control of some
parts of it, but exactly how it happened is somewhat of a mystery. It was probably a combination of intermittent military
activity and periods of peace. What is
clear, however, is that they were there.[26] We know this from the fact that during the
Iron Age, there is a curious absence in some parts of Canaan of the remains of
one particular animal: the pig.
Archaeological studies have shown that pig bones can be found in some
areas, but not in others. According to
Hoffmeier:
“Given the presence of pig bones in Bronze Age
Canaan and especially in the Philistine territory in the twelfth century, their
absence in areas thought to be occupied by Israelites is significant.”[27]
For scholars who have
questioned the historicity of the Exodus account, including the eventual
settlement of the runaway slaves in Canaan, and who instead maintain that the
Israelites were actually always in Canaan,[28]
the absence of pig bones is quite difficult to explain. For example, Finkelstein and Silberman offer
a rather weak explanation for why the Israelites chose not to eat pork when all
of their supposed Canaanite brothers did.
They allege that:
“Perhaps the proto-Israelites stopped eating
pork merely because the surrounding peoples – their adversaries – did eat it,
and they had begun to see themselves as different.”[29]
It is difficult to
accept this explanation, since if the Israelites had wanted to be “different”
from their fellow Canaanites, why did they specifically choose not to eat
pigs? Why not goats or sheep? Or why not choose to be “different” in
another way, such as in religion or culture?
The fact is that there was simply no good reason for the
“proto-Israelites” to not eat pork, if they had always been inhabitants of
Canaan, as Hoffmeier explains:
“…there was no social or religious rationale
to reject pork if they had simply emerged from Canaanite culture. On the other hand if, as the Bible reports,
Israel migrated from Egypt – where pork consumption was considerable despite
the pig’s theological unpopularity – and spent several decades in the
wilderness of Sinai and Transjordan, this provides a reasonable background for explaining the
absence of pig bones at Israeli sites and the dietary prohibitions of the
Torah.”[30]
In light of this, it
seems clear that the Israelites had not always been in Canaan. Indeed, with all the evidence taken together,
it seems obvious that they migrated to Egypt, settled in Egypt for quite some
time and adopting Egyptians loanwords and names, migrated back to Canaan and
then settled in the land on a permanent basis.
Odds and Ends - The
Merneptah Stele
The discovery of the so-called
“Merneptah Stele” in 1896 by Flinders Petrie was a monumental event and
generated great excitement in archaeological circles.[31]
The reason was that it was the earliest non-Biblical source to
mention “Israel”. The ending of the
inscription states:
“Not one raises his head among the Nine Bows.
Desolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified; Plundered is the Canaan with every
evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made as that
which does not exist; Israel is laid waste, his seed is not; Hurru is become a
widow for Egypt! All lands together, they are pacified; Everyone who was
restless, he has been bound.”[32]
So here was the only
known Egyptian source to actually mention “Israel”, a major archaeological
breakthrough indeed!
However,
the discovery of the stele, rather than providing answers to old questions, has
only generated controversy and debate, and indeed, has raised many more
questions. The main issue raised by the
stele is the fact that it seems to show that “Israel” was a Canaanite entity,
since it is mentioned along with the known Canaanite cities of Ashkelon, Gezer
and Yanoam. Therefore, it is apparent
that “Israel” was in Canaan at the time of Merneptah’s campaign. However, scholars have also noted that while
Ashkelon, Gezer and Yanoam are clearly designated as “cities”, Israel is
not. As Fatoohi and Al-Dargazelli
explain:
“…the determinative used with Ashkelon, Gezer
and Yanoam indicates that they are cities, but the determinative attached to
Israel is that for a people not a place.
Researchers have also noted that while the names of foreign countries
and cities were considered as syntactically feminine in Egyptian, the writer’s
use of a masculine pronoun with Israel indicates his awareness of the fact that
Israel was a name of an eponymous ancestor.”[33]
Hence, it would seem
that the Israelites were in Canaan by 1207 BCE but were not yet settled in the
land.
Debate has also raged among scholars
as to meaning of the phrase “his seed is not”. Scholars have interpreted it as either a
boast by Merneptah indicating that the Israelite population was completely
decimated, or that he literally seized Israel’s “grain”.[34] However, the phrase is found in another
Egyptian text, and the context seems to indicate the former meaning (the
annihilation of the enemy). Finkelstein
and Silberman refer to inscriptions at the temple of Medinet Habu which
describe Ramesses III’s battles with the “Sea
People”, and his ultimate victory against those invaders:
“Those who reached my frontier, their seed is
not, their heart and soul are finished forever and ever.”[35]
Since it seems
unlikely that Ramesses III was able to seize the “grain” of the invaders, the
likely meaning is that he was boasting that he had annihilated the enemy, even
though that could have merely been an exaggeration. Thus, the same could apply to the phrase used
in Merneptah’s stele.
But the question still remains. Was “Israel” already present in Canaan? If so, when did the Exodus actually
occur? The latter question will be
addressed in Part III. For now, let us
deal with the former. It seems pretty
obvious that if we identify the “Israel” in Merneptah’s stele with the
Israelites who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses (peace be upon him),
and indeed there is no reason not to, then the answer to the question is a
definitive “yes”.
Conclusion
In this article, we have analyzed
the historical and archaeological evidence in order to determine the veracity
of the Exodus story. Based on the
evidence, the Exodus is not only plausible, but can indeed be considered to be
historical fact. The Israelites had
sojourned in Egypt, migrated back to the homeland of their ancestors and
eventually settled there on a permanent basis, all by the grace of Allah
(Glorified and Exalted be He).
In
the next and final article of this series, we will attempt to determine the
identity of the infamous Pharaoh who struggled with the Prophet Moses (peace be
upon him), and was eventually destroyed by the power of the one true God.
And Allah knows best!
[1] As
John Bright succinctly put it:
“Not only
were Pharaohs not accustomed to celebrate reverses, but an affair involving
only a party of runaway slaves would have been to them of altogether minor
significance”
(A History of Israel, Third Edition, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1981), p. 122).
[2] As
briefly noted in Part I, the Bible offers conflicting narratives on the
“conquest” of Canaan, whereas the Quran simply states that the Israelites
“inherited” the Holy Land, without providing a detailed summary (see below for
more on this). Indeed, in the Islamic
sources, very little is said about the period immediately following the Exodus
and the 40 years of wandering in the desert.
For example, in his “Stories of the Prophets”, Ibn Kathir provided a detailed
narrative of the prophethood of Moses, including the Exodus, but had nothing to
say about the period after it. In fact,
after wrapping up his discussion on Moses’ prophethood, he moved on to
describing the prophethood of Ezekiel (peace be upon them both).
But
as we also noted in Part I, there are authentic narrations describing the
military conquest of a Canaanite city (usually identified as Jerusalem by
Islamic scholars) by an unnamed Israelite prophet, whom Islamic scholars usually
identify as Joshua (Sahih Bukhari, Book 53, Number 353). In fact, the narration describes how the sun
was made to stand still by the command of Allah (Gloried and Exalted be He),
which of course closely resembles the account in the Bible of the sun standing
still during the battle at Gibeon (see Joshua 10). However, this is all that is to be found in
the Islamic sources. The fact is that we
cannot ascertain much from the Islamic sources about the post-Exodus events,
except that there was at least one battle involving an Israelite prophet, who
was most probably Joshua (peace be upon him).
Even the name of the city is not mentioned, so whether it was Jerusalem or
some other city cannot be stated with full certainty. As we will see, this actually leaves the
Bible at a disadvantage, rather than the Quran, for modern archaeological
studies have raised serious questions about the authenticity of the Biblical
narratives of the “conquest” of Canaan.
Therefore, in the absence of any clear account by the Quran and
authentic ahadith, the archaeological evidence, whatever it shows about the
time period in question, raises no serious objections with regard to the
Islamic sources.
[3] James K. Hoffmeier, Israel
in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (New
York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1996), p. 68.
[4] Incidentally, the name
“Jacob” is found in Egyptian documents from the Hyksos Period. It is also found as a "Palestinian place
name in a fifteenth-century list of Thutmosis III" (Bright, op. cit.,
p. 77).
For a more detailed examination of Egyptian names in use
among the Israelites, see James K. Hoffmeier, Ancient Israel in Sinai: The
Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition (New York: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 2005), pp. 223-228.
In addition, Hoffmeier also discusses examples of Egyptian
influence in the post-Exodus wilderness tradition, such as Hebrew words which were
clear Egyptian loanwords (e.g. the Hebrew word used for the acacia tree, which
is commonly found in the Sinai Peninsula).
For this and other examples, see pp. 209-222.
[6] Bright, op. cit.,
p. 121.
[7] Hypothetically
speaking, if we were to try to prove that Africans had been enslaved in America
for more than 300 years (assuming that there was no direct evidence for it), we
could easily point to the fact that documents from the supposed period of
enslavement show that Africans had American names (just like the early
Israelites had Egyptian names). Even if
we could not establish that Africans were in America as slaves, their mere
presence in America would serve as indirect evidence to support the claim that
they were slaves.
“The term
‘῾Apiru/Ḫapiru,’ however, whatever its derivation (and that is a moot
question), seems to have referred originally not to an ethnic unit but to a
stratum in society. This may be argued
not only from their wide geographical distribution, but also from the fact that
their names, where these are known, do not belong to any one linguistic unit
and vary in this regard from region to region.
Men of various races and languages might be ῾Apiru. The term apparently denoted a class of people
without citizenship, who lived on the fringes of the existing social structure,
without roots or fixed place in it” (Bright, op.
cit., p. 95).
[10] Louay Fatoohi and
Shetha Al-Dargazelli, The Mystery of Israel in Ancient Egypt: The Exodus in
the Qur’an, the Old Testament, Archaeological Finds, and Historical Sources
(Birmingham: Luna Plena Publishing, 2008), p. 178.
[12] Hoffmeier, Israel in
Egypt, op. cit., p. 112.
[13] Fatoohi and
Al-Dargazelli, op. cit., p. 90.
[15] See for example: Israel
Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New
Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York: The
Free Press, 2001), pp. 61-64.
[16] Of course, by “large
group”, we don’t mean the 2-3 million Israelites that the Bible says left
Egypt. As shown in Part I, the number of
Israelites leaving Egypt would have been much lower.
[17] Finkelstein and
Silberman, op. cit., pp. 62-63.
[18] Hoffmeier, Ancient
Israel in Sinai, op. cit., p. 149.
[20] Ibid. He points to such Biblical passages as Exodus
16:16 and Numbers 1:52, among others.
It is interesting, then, that in their more recent
publication, Finkelstein and Silberman make the following argument against the
Israelite presence in Sinai:
“One may argue that a relatively small band of wandering
Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are
quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and
pastoral nomads all over the world.
Indeed, the archaeological record from the Sinai peninsula discloses the
evidence for pastoral activity in such eras as the third millennium BCE and the
Hellenistic and Byzantine periods. There
is simply no such evidence at the supposed time of the Exodus in the thirteenth
century BCE” (Finkelstein and Silberman, op. cit., p. 63).
Noting Finkelstein’s seemingly inconsistent approach to the
archaeological evidence, Hoffmeier rightfully observes:
“Apparently Finkelstein applies a different set of criteria when
the question of nomadism applies to the early Israelites” (Hoffmeier,
Ancient Israel in Sinai, op. cit.,
p. 151).
[23] Some
scholars, such as Hoffmeier, are of the view that the differences between the
books of Joshua and Judges are due more to hyperbole in the former rather than
a direct contradiction with the latter.
Drawing on Egyptian records referring to the capture and subjugation of
“every foreign land” by Thutmose III as well as his son and successor Amenhotep
II, Hoffmeier states:
“Comparing the statements of Amenhotep with those of his father
Thutmose, we must ask that if Thutmose’s campaigns were so thorough, why did
his son have to conquer the Levant too?
A similar situation exists between Joshua 6-11 and Judges I” (Hoffmeier,
Israel in Egypt, op. cit., p.
41).
In fact, Hoffmeier concludes that it is more likely and
logical that the Israelite “conquest” would not have followed a “scorched-earth
policy” (as suggested in the book of Joshua), but rather:
“…that the arrival of the Israelites did not significantly
affect the cultural continuity of the Late Bronze Age and may explain why there
is no evidence of an intrusion into the land from outsiders, for they became
heirs of the material culture of the Canaanites” (Ibid., p. 44).
This
would fit the outline provided in Judges.
Hence, for scholars like Hoffmeier, it is not really a contradiction
between Joshua and Judges, but an exaggeration by the former, much like the
hyperbolic boasts of the Pharaohs of Egypt.
[24] Surah
Al-Araf, 7:137 (Yusuf Ali Translation).
It should be noted that the reference to the Pharaoh’s
“great works and fine buildings” most certainly shows that the Israelites’
“inheritance” of the Holy Land came about at the expense of Egypt, which as we
stated in Part I, maintained a strong presence in Canaan for centuries. As Fatoohi and Al-Dargazelli explain:
“Parts of
the holy land were originally under the control of Egyptian vassals hence the
fall of that land into the hands of the Israelites is described as an
inheritance by the Israelites of their Egyptian enemies. The ending of verse 7.137 refers to Pharaoh
and his people’s buildings in the holy land not Egypt. Obviously, Israel’s takeover of the holy land
resulted in the destruction of the buildings of Pharaoh and his people there,
not in Egypt. This destruction might
refer to militant conquests of parts of the holy land” (Fatoohi and
Al-Dargazelli, op. cit., p. 156).
[25] Finkelstein and
Silberman, op. cit., p. 43.
[26] For
scholars like Finkelstein and Silberman, however, the Israelites were always
there. There was no migration from Egypt
and no conquest of Canaan. Rather, they
claim that:
“Most of
the people who formed early Israel were local people – the same people whom we
see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were – irony of ironies
– themselves originally Canaanites!” (Finkelstein and Silberman, op. cit., p. 118).
[27] Hoffmeier, Ancient
Israel in Sinai, op. cit., p. 233.
[29] Finkelstein and
Silberman, op. cit., pp. 119-120.
[30] Hoffmeier, Ancient
Israel in Sinai, op. cit., p. 233.
[33] Fatoohi and
Al-Dargazelli, op. cit., p. 163.
[34] Hoffmeier, Israel in
Egypt, op. cit., p. 42.
[35] Finkelstein and
Silberman, op. cit., p. 88.
