The following is adapted from the author’s new book, Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth and the Thirteen Principles of Faith (Maggid, 2020).
Thanks in no small part to the Internet and the ubiquity of social media, popular exposure to the findings of biblical criticism has increased exponentially. And much of it focused on one issue: the historicity, or especially the non-historicity, of the biblical exodus. Here I’d like to offer an academic defense for the plausibility of the exodus event.
The case against the historicity of the exodus is straightforward, and its essence can be stated in five words: a sustained lack of evidence. Nowhere in the written record of ancient Egypt is there any explicit mention of Hebrew or Israelite slaves, let alone a figure named Moses. There is no mention of the Nile waters turning into blood, or of any series of plagues matching those in the Bible, or of the defeat of any pharaoh on the scale suggested by the Torah’s narrative of the mass drowning of Egyptian forces at the sea.
No competent scholar or archaeologist will deny these facts. Case closed, then? For those who would defend the plausibility of a historical exodus, what possible response can there be?
Let’s begin with the missing evidence of the Hebrews’ existence in Egyptian records. It is true enough that these records do not contain clear and unambiguous reference to “Hebrews” or “Israelites.” But that is hardly surprising. The Egyptians referred to all of their West-Semitic slaves simply as “Asiatics,” with no distinction among groups – just as slave-holders in the New World never identified their black slaves by their specific provenance in Africa.
More generally, there is a limit to what we can expect from the written record of ancient Egypt. Ninety-nine percent of the papyri produced there during the period in question have been lost, and none whatsoever has survived from the eastern Nile delta, the region where the Torah claims the Children of Israel resided. Instead, we have to rely on monumental inscriptions, which, being mainly reports to the gods about royal achievements, are far from complete or reliable as historical records. They are more akin to modern-day résumés, and just as conspicuous for their failure to note setbacks of any kind.
We’ll have reason to revisit such inscriptions later on. But now let’s consider the absence of specifically archaeological evidence of the exodus. In fact, many major events reported in various ancient writings are archaeologically invisible. The migrations of Celts in Asia Minor, Slavs into Greece, Arameans across the Levant – all described in written sources – have left no archeological trace. And this, too, is hardly surprising: archaeology focuses upon habitation and building; migrants are by definition nomadic.
There is similar silence in the archaeological record with regard to many conquests whose historicity is generally accepted, and even of many large and significant battles, including those of relatively recent vintage. The Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain in the 5th century, the Arab conquest of Palestine in the 7th century, even the Norman invasion of England in 1066: all have left scant if any archaeological remains. Is this because conquest is usually accompanied by destruction? Not really: the biblical books of Joshua and Judges, for instance, tell of a gradual infiltration into the land of Israel, with only a small handful of cities said to have been destroyed. And what is true of antiquity holds true for many periods in military history in which conquest has in no sense entailed automatic destruction.
Actually, there is more to be said than that. Many details of the exodus story do strikingly appear to reflect the realities of late-second-millennium Egypt, the period when the exodus would most likely have taken place – and they are the sorts of details that a scribe living centuries later and inventing the story afresh would have been unlikely to know:
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There is rich evidence that West-Semitic populations lived in the eastern Nile delta – what the Torah calls Goshen – for most of the second millennium. Some were slaves, some were raised in Pharaoh’s court, and some, like Moses, bore Egyptian names.
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We know today that the great pharaoh Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE, built a huge administrative center out of mudbrick in an area where large Semitic populations had lived for centuries. It was called Pi-Ramesses. Exodus (1:11) specifies that the Hebrew slaves built the cities of Pithom and Ramesses, a possible reference to Pi-Ramesses. The site was abandoned by the pharaohs two centuries later.
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In the exodus account, pharaohs are simply called “Pharaoh,” whereas in later biblical passages, Egyptian monarchs are referred to by their proper name, as in “Pharaoh Necho” (2 Kings 23:29). This, too, echoes usage in Egypt itself, where, from the middle of the second millennium until the tenth century BCE, the title “Pharaoh” was used alone.
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The names of various national entities mentioned in the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18) – Philistines, Moabites, Edomites, et al. – are all found in Egyptian sources shortly before 1200 BCE; about this, the book of Exodus is again correct for the period.
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The stories of the exodus and the Israelites’ subsequent wanderings in the wilderness reflect sound acquaintance with the geography and natural conditions of the eastern Nile delta, the Sinai peninsula, the Negev, and Transjordan.
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The book of Exodus (13:17) notes that the Israelites chose not to traverse the Sinai peninsula along the northern, coastal route toward modern-day Gaza because that would have entailed military engagement. The discovery of extensive Egyptian fortifications all along that route from the period in question confirms the accuracy of this observation.
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Archaeologists have documented hundreds of new settlements in the land of Israel from the late-13th and 12th centuries BCE, congruent with the biblically attested arrival there of the liberated slaves; strikingly, these settlements feature an absence of the pig bones normally found in such places. Major destruction is found at Bethel, Yokne’am, and Hatzor – cities taken by Israel according to the book of Joshua. At Hatzor, archaeologists found mutilated cultic statues, suggesting that they were repugnant to the invaders.
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The earliest written mention of an entity called “Israel” is found in the victory inscription of the pharaoh Merneptah from 1206 BCE. In it the pharaoh lists the nations defeated by him in the course of a campaign to the southern Levant; among them, “Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more.” “Israel” is written in such a way as to connote a group of people, not an established city or region, the implication being that it was not yet a fully settled entity with contiguous control over an entire region. This jibes with the Bible’s description in Joshua and Judges of a gradual conquest of the land.
To sum up thus far: there is no explicit evidence that confirms the exodus. At best, we have a text – the Tanakh – that exhibits a good grasp of a wide range of fairly standard aspects of ancient Egyptian realities. This is definitely something, and hardly to be sneezed at; but can we say still more? I believe that we can.
One of the pillars of modern critical study of the Bible is the so-called comparative method. Scholars elucidate a biblical text by noting similarities between it and texts found among the cultures adjacent to ancient Israel. If the similarities are high in number and truly distinctive to the two sources, it becomes plausible to maintain that the biblical text may have been written under the direct influence of, or in response to, the extra-biblical text. Why the one-way direction, from extra-biblical to biblical? The answer is that Israel was largely a weak player, surrounded politically as well as culturally by much larger forces, and no Hebrew texts from the era prior to the Babylonian exile (586 BCE) have ever been found in translation into other languages. Hence, similarities between texts in Akkadian or Egyptian and the Tanakh are usually understood to reflect the influence of the former on the latter.
Comparative method can yield dazzling results, adding dimensions of understanding to passages that once seemed either unclear or self-evident and unexceptional. As an example, consider how at the Seder table we recall how God delivered Israel from Egypt “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Most would be surprised to learn that this biblical phrase is actually Egyptian in origin: Egyptian inscriptions routinely describe the Pharaoh as “the mighty hand” and his acts as those of “the outstretched arm.”
Why would the book of Exodus describe God in the same terms used by the Egyptians to exalt their pharaoh? We see here the dynamics of appropriation. During much of its history, ancient Israel was in Egypt’s shadow. For weak and oppressed peoples, one form of cultural and spiritual resistance is to appropriate the symbols of the oppressor and put them to competitive ideological purposes.
In contemporary times a good example of this was seen in Israel during Operation Protective Edge, the last round of conflict with Hamas in 2014. Hamas leaders in Gaza produced a Hebrew language propaganda video aimed for the Israeli home front. Featuring a jingle “Arise! Attack!,” it displayed Hamas terrorists launching missiles at Israeli civilian targets. But the video backfired. Israelis immediately began producing spoofs of “Arise, Attack,” in soulful piano, and a capella. “Arise!, Attack!” was a must-play track at weddings. Israelis were demonstrating the dynamics of appropriation: taking the symbols and propaganda of those who threaten them, and re-employing them as tools of cultural resistance.
But in its telling of the exodus, the Torah appropriates far more than individual phrases and symbols. In fact, it adopts and adapts one of the best-known accounts of one of the greatest of all Egyptian pharaohs. The paramount achievement of Ramesses II (reigned 1279-1213 BCE) – known also as Ramesses the Great--occurred early in his reign, in his victory over Egypt’s arch-rival, the Hittite empire, at the battle of Kadesh: a town located on the Orontes River on the modern-day border between Lebanon and Syria. It is believed to have been the largest chariot battle in history. Upon his return to Egypt, Ramesses inscribed accounts of this battle on monuments all across the empire. Ten copies of the work, known as the Kadesh Poem, exist to this day. These multiple copies make the battle of Kadesh the most publicized event in the ancient world. Many Egyptologists believe that the Kadesh Poem was a widely disseminated “little red book,” aimed at stirring public adoration of the valor and of Ramesses the Great.
Some 80 years ago, scholars noted an unexpected affinity between the biblical descriptions of the Tabernacle and the illustrations of Ramesses’ camp at Kadesh in several bas reliefs that accompany the Kadesh Poem. In the image below of the Kadesh battle, the walled military camp occupies the large rectangular space in the relief’s lower half:
The throne tent of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. W. Wreszinski, Atlas zur altägyptischen Kulturgeschichte Vol. II (1935), pl. 169.
The camp is twice as long as it is wide. The entrance to it is in the middle of the eastern wall, on the left. (In Egyptian illustrations, east is left, west is right.) At the center of the camp, down a long corridor, lies the entrance to a 3:1 rectangular tent. This tent contains two sections: a 2:1 reception tent, with figures kneeling in adoration, and, leading westward (right) from it, a domed square space that is the throne tent of the pharaoh. All of these proportions are reflected in the prescriptions for the Tabernacle and its surrounding camp in Exodus 25-27, as the two diagrams below make clear:
To complete the parallel, Egypt’s four army divisions at Kadesh would have camped on the four sides of Ramesses’ battle compound; the book of Numbers (ch. 2) states that the tribes of Israel camped on the four sides of the Tabernacle compound.
Some scholars suggest that the Bible reworked the throne tent ideologically, with God displacing Ramesses the Great as the most powerful force of the time.
With my interest piqued by the visual similarities between the Tabernacle and the Ramesses throne tent, I decided to have a closer look at the textual components of the Kadesh inscriptions, to learn what they had to say about Ramesses, the Egyptians, and the battle of Kadesh. What I realized is that the similarities extend to the entire plot line of the Kadesh poem and that of the splitting of the sea in Exodus 14-15. It is reasonable to claim that the narrative account of the splitting of the sea (Exodus 14) and the Song at the Sea (Exodus 15) reflects a deliberate act of cultural appropriation. If the Kadesh inscriptions bear witness to the greatest achievement of the greatest pharaoh of the greatest period in Egyptian history, then the book of Exodus claims that the God of Israel overmastered Ramesses the Great by several orders of magnitude, effectively trouncing him at his own game.
The two accounts follow a similar sequence of motifs and images seen nowhere else in the battle accounts of the ancient Near East. Here are the main parallel elements: Ramesses’ troops break ranks at the sight of the Hittite chariot force, just as Israel cowers at the sight of the oncoming Egyptian chariots. Ramesses pleas for divine help, just as Moses does and is encouraged to move forward with victory assured, just as Moses is assured by God. Bas reliefs depict the Hittite corpses floating in the Orontes River:
Most strikingly, Ramesses’ troops return to survey the enemy corpses. Amazed at the king's accomplishment, the troops offer a victory hymn that includes praise of his name, references to his strong arm, and tribute to him as the source of their strength and their salvation. Likewise, The Israelites survey the Egyptian corpses and offer a hymn of praise to God – the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 – that contains many of the same motifs found in the hymn of praise by Ramesses’ troops. Ramesses consumes his enemy “like chaff” (cf. Exodus 15:7). Both the Kadesh Poem and the Exodus Sea account conclude with the “king” (Ramesses and God respectively) leading his troops peacefully home, intimidating foreign lands along the way, arriving at the palace, and being granted eternal rule.
The latest copies of the Kadesh Poem in our possession are from the reign of Ramesses himself, and there are no references to it, or clear attempts to imitate it, in later Egyptian literature. There is no evidence that any historical inscriptions from ancient Egypt ever reached Israel. This suggests that it is unlikely that an Israelite scribe living centuries later would have known about the Kadesh Poem, let alone borrow from it to inspire his own people.
Proofs exist in geometry, and sometimes in law, but rarely within the fields of biblical studies and archaeology. As is so often the case, the record at our disposal is highly incomplete, and speculation about cultural transmission must remain contingent. We do the most we can with the little we have, invoking plausibility more than proof. The parallels I have drawn here do not “prove” the historical accuracy of the Exodus account, certainly not in its entirety. But the evidence adduced here can be reasonably taken as indicating that the poem was transmitted during the period of its greatest diffusion, which is the only period when anyone in Egypt seems to have paid much attention to it: namely, during the reign of Ramesses II himself. In appropriating and “transvaluing” the well-known composition of the Kadesh Poem of Ramesses II, the Torah puts forward the claim that the God of Israel had far outdone the greatest achievement of the greatest earthly potentate.
While all this may be compelling as an argument for the historicity of an Exodus event – is it kosher? Can we actually say that God borrows pagan texts – even if only to polemicize against them – and incorporates them into his Holy Torah? Maimonides, for one, believed so. Maimonides writes that he searched high and low to learn as much as he could about the ancient Near East, and in his Guide to the Perplexed bemoans the fact that he didn’t know more about the subject. For Maimonides many of the mitzvot pertaining to sacrificial worship in the Temple, were, in fact, adaptations of pagan practices. Maimonides believed that the Torah took forms of worship that were familiar to the Israelites in Egypt and tweaked them in a way that bring them closer in line with monotheistic belief. The medieval exegete R. Levi b. Gershom (Ralbag) states that the Torah God wrote was written utilizing the literary conventions of the times (commentary to the Torah, very end of Sefer Shemot). And Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, was fully comfortable with the idea that there may have been inspiring stories and just laws that pre-existed the Torah, that were then chosen by God for inclusion in his holy Torah.
When we gather on the night of Passover to celebrate the exodus and liberation from Egyptian oppression, we can speak the words of the Haggadah with honesty and integrity: “We were slaves to a pharaoh in Egypt.”
Click here to order your copy of Ani Maamin: Biblical Criticism, Historical Truth and the Thirteen Principles of Faith (Maggid, 2020)
Material in this essay first appeared in Mosaic Magazine (https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/history-ideas/2015/03/was-there-an-exodus/).
(20) Andrew Azariah, February 6, 2021 5:21 AM
Thanks you for your very important apologetic.
This is much needed in a world where skeptics need to be presented with facts.
(19) Patrick Philip, December 1, 2020 12:53 PM
If one is ask, Trace the basic theories behind the historicity or otherwise of the Exodus, what will be the answer?
Nice write-up
(18) Ryota Miyata, September 10, 2020 3:40 PM
The Bible clearly says that the Exodus happened around 1446 BC
The Bible clearly says that the Exodus happened around 1446 BC, the moment that you discard the Biblical dates for late liberal darwinist dates you immediately discard the entire ancient history as there is no time left for Joshua and the Judges. Also it is silly that you use liberal formulas for dating instead of BC, and it is ironic that darwinists place late date for an event they do not want to believe that happened while at the same time they believe in hundreds of darwinian naturalistic nonsense.
Archaeology is one of the most miserable professions out there, especially there current archaeology as it ended up, where liberal people are only finding tiny fragments of something and out of their own depravity they try to invent imaginary stories as long as they do not agree with the truth of the Bible, so that they can feel more comfortable with their nonsense, but this always leads them to misery and hatred because they know that they are wrong and that the Bible is always true. The issue is that no matter how much someone tries to escape from the truth, in the end it is futile, noone can escape judgement.
The Exodus is a clear historical event that happened on 1446 BC, how can anyone expect to find evidence for an escape on the sea when there is almost zero evidence for virtually any non-biblical historical battle and entire kingdoms disappeared from the map within a century, yet they choose to believe those? It shows the extreme bias and double standards stemming from the false religion of naturalism (darwinism). If there is anything left from the egyptian army (although it shouldn't by now) it should be in the bottom of the antarctic ocean. The Bible is always true, the Word of God never changes, and noone will the escape divine judgement.
(17) Joseph R Clarke, July 22, 2020 12:29 PM
Disappearing History
Its not hard for the powers that be to disappear history. It can happen at lightning speed as in Commuist China' s and Communist Russia's post red revolution academics. In the US this year American history is seen by many institutions as an ultimate evil - ready to be destroyed and forgotten. What Pharoah would not be ashaned to record his encounters with the Hebrews? Good article.
Daniel Ceballos, August 16, 2020 5:38 AM
Very good for information on biblical facts.
I liked it very much.
(16) Rina Benson, June 4, 2020 8:35 PM
What about the formation of these chariot wheels archeologists have found at this certain peninsula?
(15) Chris, April 7, 2020 5:24 PM
“The Exodus Decoded” 2005
Very compelling investigative archaeological documentary by Simcha Jacobovici.
(14) Deborah, April 7, 2020 3:47 PM
I LOVE defending the Torah!
The Bible itself repeatedly makes mention of pagan practices and rituals for the express point of subverting, contradicting, and disproving them.
Indeed, it would be unusual if the Bible had no knowledge of other practices and sayings in the immediate vicinity.
This is an excellent defence of Biblical authenticity, which I will be keeping for future reference.
(13) ALEXANDER SEINFELD, April 6, 2020 1:58 PM
"But the evidence adduced here can be reasonably taken as indicating that the poem was transmitted during the period of its greatest diffusion, which is the only period when anyone in Egypt seems to have paid much attention to it: namely, during the reign of Ramesses II himself. In appropriating and “transvaluing” the well-known composition of the Kadesh Poem of Ramesses II, the Torah puts forward the claim that the God of Israel had far outdone the greatest achievement of the greatest earthly potentate."
If Ramses reigned 1279-1213 BCE as you state, then the Kadesh poem post-dates the Torah, and would be an example of Ramses appropriating the Torah and not vice-versa, as you suggest.
(12) Gilbert Franzen, April 6, 2020 10:13 AM
Alternative interpretation
Thank You for this very interesting and well researched article. I am no specialist, but for myself I had the view the other way around. I have difficulty in believing that the nations would establish such wonderful patterns out of heathen faiths, and that the Living God would simply use them in order to be more acceptable or because they resembled something created by humans. Therefore I favor the interpretation that the Exodus happened before Ramesses's time, and that it had brought great destruction to Egypt. Thereafter Egypt needed much time to get on her feet again, and at the time of the battle of Kadesh, which was provoked by Ramesses in a quest trying to get over the painful defeat a few hundred years before, visited the region where Israel had become more and more established, and in a sense wanted to rewrite history for his own people. So coming through Israel and being more or less stopped by the Hittites (sources say that the outcome of the battle of Kadesh was rather even, so that both sides claimed victory afterwards) he came into contact with what was being built up at that time in Israel, along with the service to the God of Israel and the whole glory of the establishment of a nation arising from slavery and pointing back at the painful defeat of a whole nation as the beginning of her own coming into existence, with so much hope in the future, and a "religion" that seemed to have overcome all hardships. So, on coming back to Egypt, Ramesses used all the information (of the Torah) he had gathered on his quest, and turned it around by copying the defeat suffered at least two hundred years before, and switching himself primarily and second, his people, into the role of the victors, adapting the institution of the tabernacle for his own transformation into a divinity, and through the appropriation of the holy texts inspired by the God of Israel, inventing a glory for his country and people for future generations to be proud of and to wash away the shame.
(11) Harold Taback, April 5, 2020 9:09 PM
Egyptian history
Why is there no Egyptian text on the 7 years of famine and 7 good years and of Joseph?
(10) Anonymous, April 5, 2020 9:02 PM
That Kadesh Poem was "hijacked" for Shira has been previously suggested by Rabbi Biberfeld
The idea of the Jews using the Kadesh Poem in formulating the Shira was suggested and elaborated upon by Rabbi Biberfeld in his multi-volume History of The Jews, pubished by Feldheim. This scholarly book is long out-of-print. Should the author find it difficult to procure a copy of this section of his work (I think it's found in volume II), I would be happy to email the relevant pages. In closing, I enjoyed this article very much.
Joshua Berman, April 5, 2020 10:37 PM
Rabbi Biberfeld
That is absolutely fascinating. I would love to see that! can you contact me? My email maybe found here: https://bible.biu.ac.il/en/node/559.
(9) Gary J. Hammond, April 4, 2020 5:21 AM
On the Merneptah stele
What are the words written on the Stele before the word "Israel"?
Obviously Israel was not laid waste and his seed is no more.
Israel was there at the time and there was an exodus as much other
archeology evidence like the "Red Sea Crossing" has shown in the last 20 years or so. Regards
Joshua Berman, April 4, 2020 5:22 PM
"Israel" on the Mernepte Stele
Prior to the name "Israel" appears a determinitive that connotes an unsettled people. This accords well with the notion that Israel had not yet fully conquered Canaan, precisely as laid out in the Book of Joshua.
(8) Zev bar-Lev, April 3, 2020 1:04 AM
very interesting.i’ll be sharing it widely.
i almost want to be able to read the hieroglyphic text. this example of such tight borrowing with shift in meaning is like many more familiar examples of biblical sources, but does much to support historicity, imho.
(7) Sheldon Braffman, April 2, 2020 9:57 PM
Enjoyed reading these reflectuons
Great reflection. Inspiring. Intellectual.
(6) Carl Dworman -Mexico# 55-322-309-4731, April 2, 2020 7:38 PM
Interesting
Probably true. But what about the matza?
(5) Dave, April 2, 2020 5:49 PM
Still no evidence
The review of Professor Berman's "Ani Ma'Amim" is interesting. In general, the absence of proof doesn't invalidate a theory (or, in this case, the belief in the Exodus.) However, it also doesn't validate a theory. In the case of the historicity of the Exodus, there are several problems: 1. According to modern scholarship, the Egyptians didn't take slaves (to Egypt), they controlled them via satraps, or governors wherever they lived. 2. At the time of the Exodus, the Hebrews (Ibiru?) were nomadic wanders, whose range was less than the distance from Canaan to the Nile. 3. The numbers given in the Chumash are,at best, improbable. That a million or more could cross the Sea of Reeds on foot in any reasonable amount of time is impossible. ( Maybe a few hundred, or a thousand). 4. No matter the number, the biggest challenge to establishing the historicity of the Exodus is the absolute and complete lack of any evidence of a 40 year sojourn: no shards, no garbage, no bones, no discards of any kind. 5. The Egyptians were quite precise about the lands they governed, and their control of them. No glyphs or steles except for the one or two that Professor Berman cited have ever been found with regard to the Hebrews.
Better that the Exodus, like the idea of manna, exist as an article of Faith and the origin of the framework of our religion. Personally, I like the theory of Professor (and Rabbi) David Sperling in his book "The Original Torah..."
Anonymous, April 2, 2020 8:16 PM
Numbers
I discuss these issues at length in my new book. Numbers are used in sophisticated ways in ancient Near Eastern writings and in the Tanakh as well. See there further.
Dvirah, April 4, 2020 6:45 PM
Looking in the Wrong Place
If you follow the Torah readings, most of the 40 years were spent in what is now Jordan, even going up north to lower Syria (the Bashan, for example). Re leavings, these are more characteristic of permanent, or at least long-term settlements.
(4) Simcha Goldman, April 2, 2020 4:06 PM
See writings of Emanuel Velikovsky
He didn't have a religious motivation for justifying Torah description of Exodus. After extensive review of ancient literature describing catastrophic events and archaeological findings, he offered an original explanation of similarities he found. On the basis he offered a novel view of some aspects of the evolution of the solar system. He made predictions that there would be future findings consistent with his theory. None has ever been disproved at time of publication of The Velikovsky Affair (different author) but several were proven. e.g. He predicted that Venus' surface would have temp of at least 500 degrees. The Venus flyby satellite measured surface temp of 750. He predicted that mammoths would be found in the Alaskan Tundra. They were. both of these predictions were objected to and ridiculed by the scientific community. If you're interested in the subject, you will find his 2 books fascinating and informative regardless if you agree with his conclusion. For information on how some scientists reacted with extreme prejudice in responding to radical original ideas contrary to the established consensus.
(3) Anonymous, April 2, 2020 2:28 PM
Ipuwer Papyrus
Why doesn't Prof. Berman mention the Ipuwer Papyrus? It was written in Egypt, roughly 3500 years ago. It mentions a series of national disasters happening in a short period of time. Among them: 1) the Nile river turned red; 2) most of the foreign slaves escaped.
No direct archaeological evidence? That's good enough for me!
Joshua Berman, April 2, 2020 8:14 PM
Ipuwer papyrus
Because it is too early. There is extensive archaeological evidence that Egypt ruled Canaan until the 12th c. bce.
(2) Roger M. Pearlman, March 31, 2020 4:11 PM
Torah Discovery Chronology aligns Torah testimony and ancient civ.
Per the YeC Moshe Emes series for Torah and science alignment Ramses II is a contemporary of King Solomon (2924-2964) 500 years AFTER the 2448 Exodus. so 450 rounded after the 40 year span from Matan Torah and Moshe writing the 5 books ending in 2488 anno-mundi. So no way Ramses II writing a basis for Chumash, but Chumash could be a basis for Ramses II writing, as his son in -law Solomon could have taught him direct or indirect.. The Exodus being by/before the end of the 6th dynasty. reference 'Torah Discovery Chronology' volume III for the alignment of Torah testimony and ancient civ. www.amazon.com/dp/B074Q6MJYF
(1) Jeff White, March 31, 2020 1:47 PM
After Exodus, Genesis?
Berman really thinks religion can be reconciled with science? If so, his next project after justifying the Book of Exodus should be justifying the Book of Genesis. He could start his research at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, which offers dioramas of people and dinosaurs co-existing!
Dvirah, April 2, 2020 4:08 PM
Not Good Enough
Dioramas are not proof, they are contemporary artificially constructed images. It is not impossible that people and dinosaurs coexisted, but the actual biological & geological evidence argues against this. Re the Tanach, there is mention of "great reptiles" in Genesis.
Re the Exodus, I recently read an archaeological article about chariot remains found underwater near Egypt.