The history has scant evidence, but we can discount the whole exile story. Slaves tend to be maltreated and are the last ones to be fed during famine, and that leaves physical evidence on their skeletons. We don’t have evidence of that in Egypt; for the most part, their monuments were built by farmers who didn’t have anything else to do when the Nile flooded. Also, a large nomadic group–which Israel would have been under Moses according to the Biblical account–should leave behind a lot of trash for archeologists to find today.
Fundie Christians like to say “Egypt wouldn’t have told stories about a time they lost”, but that doesn’t matter. First, you better bring some good evidence to say the Red Sea parted and people could walk on dry land. Second, as shown above, there should be physical evidence that we can find. It’s not there, and it’s hardly for a lack of trying. This is one of the most picked over parts of the planet by archeologists.
What seems to have happened is that they just came from there in the first place. Yahwah started as a war god among a larger pantheon. The people who later became the Hebrews worshiped that god as their primary; they didn’t discount the existence of other gods, but they worshiped this one as their primary one (still polytheism at this point). This later evolved into discounting the importance of other gods (henotheism), and much later disregarding the existence of other gods altogether (monotheism). That especially came into play with Persian Zoroastrian influence after the Babylonian Exile.
In short, it was a religion that evolved out of the beliefs of the people already living there, and they mostly stayed right there. The Egyptian slavery bits were probably from oral stories at a time when Israel had a conflict with Egypt.
There could have even been a smaller group of former Egyptian slaves that fled and settled in Israel with the people who already lived there and over time their religion/culture was adopted by more and more people until it became the dominant one.
Like a large group of people wandering a desert for 40 years doesn’t make sense, even if 40 years is just a metaphor for a long time and was just one full year. But a small group could have wandered and visited other settlements that might have helped them out but didn’t want them to settle down there, even for a long time.
Kinda like how most Christians today aren’t descendents of anyone who would have had anything to do with Jesus or even descendent from Jewish people who believed in the Christian predecessor religion. They were just people who at one point were told they had to convert by words, swords, or guns.
Just speculation based on thinking about the scenario and what cases might put the story somewhere between fiction and truth rather than just being entirely made up (which is also certainly possible).
The history has scant evidence, but we can discount the whole exile story. Slaves tend to be maltreated and are the last ones to be fed during famine, and that leaves physical evidence on their skeletons. We don’t have evidence of that in Egypt; for the most part, their monuments were built by farmers who didn’t have anything else to do when the Nile flooded. Also, a large nomadic group–which Israel would have been under Moses according to the Biblical account–should leave behind a lot of trash for archeologists to find today.
Fundie Christians like to say “Egypt wouldn’t have told stories about a time they lost”, but that doesn’t matter. First, you better bring some good evidence to say the Red Sea parted and people could walk on dry land. Second, as shown above, there should be physical evidence that we can find. It’s not there, and it’s hardly for a lack of trying. This is one of the most picked over parts of the planet by archeologists.
What seems to have happened is that they just came from there in the first place. Yahwah started as a war god among a larger pantheon. The people who later became the Hebrews worshiped that god as their primary; they didn’t discount the existence of other gods, but they worshiped this one as their primary one (still polytheism at this point). This later evolved into discounting the importance of other gods (henotheism), and much later disregarding the existence of other gods altogether (monotheism). That especially came into play with Persian Zoroastrian influence after the Babylonian Exile.
In short, it was a religion that evolved out of the beliefs of the people already living there, and they mostly stayed right there. The Egyptian slavery bits were probably from oral stories at a time when Israel had a conflict with Egypt.
There could have even been a smaller group of former Egyptian slaves that fled and settled in Israel with the people who already lived there and over time their religion/culture was adopted by more and more people until it became the dominant one.
Like a large group of people wandering a desert for 40 years doesn’t make sense, even if 40 years is just a metaphor for a long time and was just one full year. But a small group could have wandered and visited other settlements that might have helped them out but didn’t want them to settle down there, even for a long time.
Kinda like how most Christians today aren’t descendents of anyone who would have had anything to do with Jesus or even descendent from Jewish people who believed in the Christian predecessor religion. They were just people who at one point were told they had to convert by words, swords, or guns.
Just speculation based on thinking about the scenario and what cases might put the story somewhere between fiction and truth rather than just being entirely made up (which is also certainly possible).
Do you have any sources to start learning about/researching this? This is very fascinating and haven’t heard much, if any, of this before.
Religion For Breakfast is a pretty good YouTube channel for this. Would also recommend Bart Ehrman’s podcast.
This is great to know! Thank you