UCSD EXODUS CONFERENCE "Out of Egypt: Israel's Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination" May 31 -- June 1, 2013 Qualcomm Institute @ Calit2 Auditorium, University of California, San Diego.
This presentation does NOT address the archaeological evidence behind the Exodus account found in the Bible, it just discusses how memory works and its various stages. So, what is the archaeological evidence for the Exodus? In the Bible Joshua is portrayed as ordering the burning of Jericho after its defensive walls collapse. He later orders the burning of another city, Hazor. Both sites have been excavated and evidence was found of a severe burning at both sites in the form of large quantities of ash residue. And here is the problem: The burning at Jericho was associated with the Hyksos Expulsion from Egypt by Dame Kathleen Kenyon of England, Jeriho's excavator in the 1950s. This event is often dated circa 1540 BC, but other dates are 1550 BC, and 1530 BC. The ash rdeposits found at Hazor were dated to the mid 13th century BC by the Israeli excavators, Yigael Yadin and later, Ammon Ben Tor. However, the Israeli archaeologist, Moshe Dothan, found two Philistine pottery sherds at Hazor before Yadin began excavations there. The Philistines' arrived in Canaan circa 1175 BC, being mentioned by Pharaoh Rameses 3rd, who defeated their attempt to invade and conquer Egypt. ERGO, based on Dothan's finding of two Philistine sherds, I understand that Hazor did not fall in the mid 13th century BC, it fell sometime after 1175 BC in the 12th century BC. So, what's the problem? It is impossible for Joshua to burn Jericho circa 1540 BC and Hazor circa sometime after 1175 BC. These two events are separated in time by almost 300 years. This anomaly suggests that the Exodus is fiction as presented in the Bible, which assigns an Exodus date to 1446 BC and Conquest circa 1406 BC (1 Kings 6:1). Quite simply the narrator of the Exodus account did not know the dates for the burning of Jericho and Hazor. Not until Sir Flinders Petrie and his successors developed pottery chronologies would anyone know when an ancient site came into being and when it was abandoned. The Exilic writer (560 BC) of the Exodus account wanted to preserve the deeds of his ancestors and their burning of Jericho and Hazor. I am in agreement with Egyptologists like Donald B. Redford (Canada) and Jan Assmann (Germany), that the Bible's Exodus is a recasting of the Hyksos Expulsion of circa 1540 BC. Why did the narrator think the Hyksos were his ancestors? The answer is suggested in Judges 3:6-7, Israel marries the Canaanites and worships their gods after the conquest by Joshua. So, in Iron Age I (1200 BC to 1100 BC), Israel is marrying the Late Bronze Age Canaanite descendants of the Hyksos. By Iron Age II (1100 BC to 587 BC) because of the Iron I marriages, the Israelites are now the bloodline descendants of the Hyksos, and the Hyksos Expulsion, with its burning of Jericho, becomes the Exodus of the Bible. So, where did the Iron Age I Israelites come from? I suspect they came from Syria, (biblical Aram) they are Arameans, or Syrians, migrating to Canaan by circa 1203 BC (mentioned by Pharaoh Merneptah) and the Philistines (PLST of Rameses 3rd) are migrating to Canaan by circa 1175 BC. Canaan is being hit by two migrating waves, Aramaeans and Philistines (Sea Peoples). The proof? As migrants need to eat, their earthenware cooking pots need to be spectrographically inspected to identify their clay source. If the Iron Age IA cooking pot clays are from Syria, we have the archaeological proof of the origins of the Iron Age I settlers in Moab and the west bank of the Jordan. I understand that the Exodus account was probably written in the Babylonian Exile, circa 560 BC (2 Kings 25:27) to explain why Israel and Judah wound up in Exile, for offending their God. The Exilic narrator did not know that the Philistines were not in Canaan until circa 1175 BC. Hence, the reason he has Israel, fearing war with Philistines, turn to the southern Sinai to make a roundabout trek to Canaan. Ergo, in contradiction to the Bible, the Exodus would have taken the Way to the Land of the Philistines, the fastest and most direct route to Canaan via Gaza because there were no Philistines to oppose Israel's Exodus! This explains why archaeologists have found no evidence of Israel's Exodus in the southern Sinai. Their Exodus was via the Way to the Land of the Philistines in 1540 BC (the Hyksos Expulsion being recast as Israel's Exodus).
According to one theory the only ones that went to Egypt and returned were the House of Joseph, the rest of the tribes emerged in Canaan en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Joseph This makes a lot of sense to me and is in accordance with what you said.
@@heraclito3114 another theory, by Richard Friedman, has the Tribe of Levi being the only group in Egypt that was engaged in an Exodus to Canaan. Why Levi? The clam is made that ONLY this tribe has Egyptian names!
@@darrelgustafson2507 I have proposed Syria as the origin of the Iron Age I settlers based on the Bible's claim that Abraham is of Harran, which is in Syria. In the Bible Abraham contends with Philistines over a well at Beersheba. That well was excavated by Israeli archaeologists and in its depths were found fragments of Philistine pottery. This find would seem to buttress the biblical account. The problem? These Philistine pottery sherds are dated circa 1140 BC! This means Abraham is NOT circa 2000 BC as claimed in the Bible, he is circa 1140 BC, the Iron Age I World! Ergo, the Iron Age I settlers would seem to be coming from Syria, not Egypt! That is to say the biblical narrator had the wrong chronology for Abraham, he is of Iron Age I, circa 1140 BC, NOT the Early Bronze Age and not 2000 BC.
It's good to see some objectivity here in regards to the historicity of the ancient Jewish charter myth. It would be nice to see as much objectivity, and some of the same arguments used, regarding historicity of their more recent charter myth..
If Moses didn't exist, I think Judaism as a religion doesn't have any meaning. I don't know how anyone can be religious while thinking that the foundations of their religion are possibly mythic. Also the Zionist bit made my eyes roll.
