There are myths and stories that leave a lasting impression on a culture or religious ideology. These stories are meaningful to us as a species for a variety of reasons. We can relate to them and in so doing we can use them as guideposts for our own personal actions. They are stories that we all know, told to us by teachers, priests, grandparents or even popular culture. We are so use to hearing these stories, religious ones included, that we at times forget to ask a simple question: does this story have any aspect of real history in its plot? Or even more profound: did this actually happen? We take these things for granted, especially stories contained in religious scripture. We are told that these events literally happened in history and that they need to be viewed in that way. This is most true with the story of the Exodus. Due to the story being placed in recorded history we feel obliged to accept it as historical fact. What if we begin to doubt the way the story is presented to us in the Bible and the Quran and ask ourselves for much needed proof? When we decide to use resources outside of scripture to attempt to answer these questions, we find shocking discoveries that shake the very heart of religious foundation and views on belief. The question of is the Exodus a historically documented event is an important one, who's implications intertwine the three Abrahamic Faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. How we view stories, literally or symbolically is another aspect of the question that needs to be considered based on the evidence provided. To begin pondering these major questions and implications we need to begin with the facts.
What we know about the story of the Exodus and the personhood of Moses can be found in the pages of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book of Exodus chronicles the story of Moses' infancy, his youth and growing to manhood, and his final confrontation with evil and liberation of the Hebrews. The story has been dramatized many times, the two most noteworthy Disney's "The Prince of Egypt" and hollywood film "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston. These two films have helped solidify this story into the minds of popular culture that lines from it appear in rock songs and have been used in comedic parodies. It would be good to begin with the story of the Exodus as it appears in the Bible to get a sense of what we know based on the scripture, and what has been assumed or added later by various scholars. We are told in chapter one of Exodus that the Hebrews had been living in Egypt but since Joseph, from the book of Genesis, had died, a new Pharaoh had risen to power who did not respect the Hebrews and forced them into slave labor. He feared that the Hebrews would overpopulate the area, causing a new majority, so he decreed the killing of the first born: "Pharaoh commanded his entire people, saying, 'Every son that will be born-into the River shall you throw him! And every daughter shall you keep alive!"(Exodus 1:22). Moses' mother set him as a baby in a reed basket and sent him down the Nile where he was saved by the daughter of Pharaoh. He was raised in that royal house and in his youth, killed an Egyptian who was abusing a Hebrew. The shock of this murder and fear of retribution caused Moses to flee to the land of Midian(Exodus 2-3). There with the people of Midian Moses met with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Burning Bush. It was revealed to him that he was a Hebrew a Prophet of God and that he would be sent to Pharaoh to demand the freedom of the Children of Israel. With the aid of Aaron, his brother, Moses performed miracles that caused terror in the hearts of Egyptians. Plagues of various kinds, a staff turned into a snake and the river Nile turned to blood would not cause Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. It was not until the last miracle, the death that came to the firstborn of Egypt, that Pharaoh allowed Moses to lead his people out of Egypt.(Exodus chapter 11). At the last moment, as Moses and the Children of Israel neared the Red Sea, Pharaoh pursued them with his army, having changed his mind to let the Hebrew slaves free. "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and Hashem moved the sea with a strong east wind all the night, and He turned the sea to damp land and the water split."(Exodus 14:21). Moses and the Hebrews crossed the dry land, but the sea swallowed up Pharaoh and his armies, causing the Children of Israel to be free from bondage at last.
The Bible is not the only holy scripture that contains the story of the Exodus. The Holy Quran, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the 6th century C.E. contains the story of Moses. It is the most repeated and discussed story in the entire text of the Quran, showing its prominence and importance. Muhammad and Moses are closer to each other in figure and life, and so it is also necessary to see how the Exodus is treated in the Quranic text and what unique passages make its rendition of the story different from the Biblical version. The majority of the story in the Quran is the same as the Biblical account, however there are a few unique verses and passages that need to be considered. In the Quran chapter 28:38 depicts the following conversation between Pharaoh and his court members: "Pharaoh said:'O Chiefs! no god do I know for you but myself..." In another place Pharaoh is again depicted of being God incarnate, "I am your Lord, Most High"(Quran 79:24). Two other verses in the Quran call Pharaoh "Lord of Stakes"(Quran 38:10-13/ 89:6-13). These two titles, being a god and being a lord of stakes, are unique to the Quran and they shall be examined later. Another unique passage from the Quranic version is that Allah destroyed the great monuments of Pharaoh: "We leveled to the ground the great works and fine buildings which Pharaoh and his people erected(with such pride),"(Quran 7:137). One of the greatest passages in the Quran with regards to the miracle of the Exodus can be found in chapter 10:90-92: "This day shall We save thee in the body, that thou mayest be a sign to those who come after thee!" This passage is referring to the remains of Pharaoh after he and his armies were drowned, claiming that his body would be preserved so that future generations would know the truth of the miracles of the Exodus and take heed.
The next question that needs to be asked is whether the story of the Exodus is recorded or contained in none-scriptural books. We first turn to the Egyptian historical records to see if there is any mention of the story of the Exodus, Moses and the Children of Israel. Historians have hypothesized that the Exodus took place at two potential times in history. The first time period proposed is during the reign of Ramses the 2nd between 1293-1185 BCE. This is mainly due to the following verse from the book of Exodus: "Those bosses forced them(the Hebrews) to build the cities of Pithom and Ramses..."(Exodus 1:11). Historians have assumed that due to the name of the historical city of Ramses mentioned in this verse that naturally means the Exodus took place during the reign of the Pharaoh bearing the same name. If this is the case, and the Exodus did occur during Ramses' reign then we are in luck. With archeological and historical records we have a detailed account of the events that shaped his reign. We find no historical evidence in the Egyptian records that Ramses kept Hebrew slaves, forced them build any monuments, or as Josephus states, "built the pyramids"(Antiquities of the Jews 9:1), since pyramids were not being built during his reign or the New Kingdom period in general. No account of these absent slaves being lead by one leader on a mass Exodus out of Egypt and most importantly that Ramses died by drowning in the Red Sea. According to The Chronicle of the Pharaohs Ramses died at the age of 92 in the year 1212 BCE,(Clayton pg. 155). The author concludes, "Needless to say, none of these events(of the Exodus) are corroborated by ancient Egyptian records..."(Clayton pg.151). The Bible itself does not corroborate this time period, but in fact proposes a second one. "According to 1 Kings 6.1, the exodus occurred 480 years before the fourth year of King Solomon's reign. Solomon ruled from about 970 to 931 B.C. That would mean that the exodus occurred around 1446 B.C."( Learning pg.128). If the Bible is true, then that would place the story of the Exodus during the reign of Amenhotep the 2nd. Yet there is no evidence of the Exodus occurring during his reign as well,(Clayton pg. 112-113). Due to the usage of the title Pharaoh, a New Kingdom title for the King of Egypt, in the Bible and the Quran, this has lead scholars to assume that the Exodus must have taken place during the New Kingdom period.
Sigmund Freud was one such person who attempted to prove that the Exodus story took place during the New Kingdom period. In his book Moses and Monotheism he noted that Moses' name is Egyptian in origin and not Hebrew. He also notes that during the New Kingdom period the Pharaoh Akhenaten first introduced the concept of monotheism into Egyptian culture. He abolished the old established polytheistic pantheon of gods and introduced the worship of the one god Aten, who's symbol was the sun. Freud proposed that Moses was a priest of the cult of Aten, and upon the Pharaoh's death, when the religion was usurped by the polytheistic gods of old, he turned to the Hebrews, who's religion was similar to his own. The problem with Freud's theory and the idea that the Exodus happened during Akenaten's reign is simply that it is based on a hypothesis, with no historical evidence at all,(Clayton pg. 120-127). Akenaten's reign was well documented considering that the Egyptian people destroyed all public symbols associated with him and his pro-to-monotheistic cult. Still, historical records pertaining to his reign survived and yet nothing about the Exodus is contained in their annals. An interesting point is that according to the book of Exodus the city that was supposedly built by the Hebrews was Pithom which is Egyptian for "House of (the sun god) Atum,"(The Learning Bible Commentary pg.130). In his book History of Religious Ideas vol.1, Mircea Eliade discusses the religion of the Egyptians in detail, including the cult of Atum under Akenaten. There was never a time in Egyptian religion, even during extreme changes in theology, that the Pharaoh ever proclaimed to be the only god that his people should worship. Nor is the title of "Lord of the Stakes" ever used as well. These two facts cause a major historical problem for the Quran's version of the Exodus story. Since the two time periods hypothoized by the Bible and the scholars who have studied it have not yield any historical results, we now turn to other historical sources to find any evidence for the Exodus.
Starting with Philo, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher and historian, who wrote a two part retelling of the story of Moses, he attempts to base the Exodus in recorded history. He admits at the very end part two: "Such was the life, and such was the death of the king, and lawgiver, and high priest, and prophet, Moses, as it is recorded in the sacred scriptures,"(On the Life of Moses,2). Here Philo admits that his retelling is spawned from the Torah with no real additional historical information. The same can be found in the histories of Josephus, in his book The Antiquities of the Jews. Josephus' major source was the Hebrew Bible and he does not shy away from admitting that is his major source. However he does cite other historians that came before him, one of which was the Hellenistic Egyptian historian Manetho,(Josephus pg. 891). Manetho chronicled the history of Egypt, but most of his original histories have been lost. It was quoted by Josephus in an attempt to place the text of the Exodus and the Hebrew scripture at large in recorded history. "Josephus is citing the records of neighboring nations in proof of the antiquity of the Jews,"(Waddell pg.77). According to Waddell and other scholars it was not unusual for historians to take the chronicles of past historians and twist in them in an attempt to make their groups history that more based in fact and reality. Josephus writes: "...in Manteho...many Hyksos brought with them from Asia their tribal god, which was assimilated by the Egyptians to Seth..."(Waddell pg.77). Josephus is relying on the history of the Hyksos to draw a parallel to claim that this asian group is none other then the Children of Israel. Margaret S. King in her book The Exodus in the Quran also points out these parallels but instead of naming this group as the Hyksos she titles them the Asiatics. Who were the Hyksos? According to Menetho they were a mercenary tribe from Asia who settled in the northeastern region of Egypt. After much hostility between the two groups, the Hyksos were forced out of Egypt and into Canaan after a long siege conducted by Thummosis,(Josephus pg.778-779). According to Waddell's commentary on Menetho's histories, the Hyksos were finally once again expelled from Egyptian society,(Waddell pg.95). The issue with Josephus and other historians using the history of the Hyksos to parallel the Exodus story is that the events do not match up one hundred percent of the time. There are parts of Hyksos history which do not match the Exodus at all, and thus would force a reader to cherry pick and ignore vast amounts of history to force this parallel.
This sort of forced parallelism can be seen in the context of the Ipuwer scroll. This document is an ancient Egyptian papyrus is also known as "The Admonitions of Ipuwer." They contain a chronicle of disasters, natural and supernatural that cause much terror and death in ancient Egypt. Margaret S. King also cites this scroll as proof that the Exodus actually took place, saying that the writer of this document was recording literal events. Again the problem is that there are many events in the Ipuwer scroll that do not occur in Exodus, so once again we forced to cherry pick key events and discard the rest because they do not match up with Exodus story. Also the scroll is many years before the two hypothesized time frames mentioned above:"the 'Adminitions of Ipuwer' has not only no bearing whatever on the long past First Intermediate Period, it also does not derive from any other historical situation. It is the last, fullest, most exaggerated and hence least successful, composition on the theme of 'order verses chaos.'"(reshafim). The majority of those who have studies the scroll know that this is not referring to the Exodus either due to content, theme or the historical time period in which it was written. "Fringe historians often compare the content of this papyrus with Exodus...Similarity between Egyptian texts and the Bible are easily found, and it is reasonable to assume Egyptian influence on the Hebrews....But to conclude from such parallelism that the Ipuwer Papyrus describes Egypt at the time of the Exodus, requires a leap of faith not everybody is willing to make,"reshafim). Once again we find historians, modern and ancient taking historical documents and cherry-picking aspects that fit their sacred texts' stories in an attempt to fit them into the historical record. In so doing they run into this sort of fallacy and do no service in aiding in the discovery of the truth of these events.
Researching the historicity of the Exodus has been one of the most eye opening experiences in my life. I entered this comparative religion class with the thought that I would "own it". My reasons for thinking this way is that I have been studying comparative religion since I was a Sophomore in high school and I am now 21 years old. Once I realized that through studying the ancient Mesopotamian religion and its obvious influence on future theological thought I knew I had to research this topic. Starting with Otto Rank's work on the birth of the hero, I realized that the infancy of Moses was not unique, but a common mythological motif. My research into the life of Moses lead me to realize that there was no concrete historical evidence for the literal reading of the stories found in the Bible and the Quran. I was faced, as a Muslim convert from Christianity, with a major dilemma. I had used history to criticize aspects of the Bible which had lead me to doubt its claim of divine inspired word of God and Christianity's teachings. I found that if I used such arguments against one faith, I must be consistent and do so with any religion that I came across. To not do so would prove me a hypocrite. I learned in this class, along with my readings of Carl Jung that I need not totally abandon my faith and love of religion, Islam in particular. With much thought and research I realized a symbolic reading of the text, coupled with Jungian psychology was the best way for me to appreciate not only the story of the Exodus, but sacred scripture in general. The debate about who owns the truth or if we have to take these stories literally soon fell into the shadows and I was able to marvel at the commonalities that exist in all symbols and tales that permeate from all cultures, religions and traditions. I feel that this journey of researching the Exodus, on a literal and symbolic level has taught me many valuable lessons. I do feel that Moses has indeed lead me to the Promise Land, the land filled with milk and honey.
Bibliography
1.American Bible Society. The Learning Bible Contemporary English Version. New York, American Bible Society, 1995,2000.
2. Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism. New York, Vintage Books, 1939.
3.Al-Hilali, Dr. Muhammad Taqi-ud Din, and Khan, Dr. Muhammad Muhsin. The Noble Qur'an. Madinah, K.S.A, Darrualislam, 1996.
4. Scherman, Rabbi Nosson. Stone Edition-The Chumash. New York, The Artscroll Series, 1998, 2000.
5. Whiston, William. The Works of Josephus. Peabody, MA, Hendricksons Publishers Inc., 1987.
6. Younge, C.D. The Works of Philo. Peabody, MA, Hendricksons Publishers Inc., 1993.
7. King, Margaret. The Exodus in the Quran. Susiana Press, 2007.
8. An introduction to the history and culture of Pharaonic Egypt. 2011. 4 April 2011. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/ipuwer.htm
9. Waddell, W.G. Manetho-an English Translation. London, W. Heinemann, 1940.
www.archive.org 10 March 2001, 11 April 2011,
1 comments:
Your quotes from Margaret S. King are incorrect. She never said what you claim she said.
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