5 Exodus in Historical Perspective (Jewish History Lab)

hello and welcome to jewish history lab  let's continue our discussion of the bible   in historical perspective trying to understand  the the roots of the jewish people and i have   to share with you at the very beginning a couple  of personal moments you know the the whole exodus   narrative is so powerful and so central to jewish  identity that uh you know i can recall my own   first meaningful encounters with this biblical  narrative and i'm sure that's something that   most jewish people can retain as well i'll  tell you two very quick episodes the first is   when i was at a passover seder and i remember  this is perhaps the greatest kind of generational   pedagogic tool to have this celebration once a  year where the elders of the family are commanded   to relay even in whatever imperfect way they  can uh at the teaching of how the jews were born   as a people in egypt and then in sinai and the  children even if they're not interested they're   forced to ask at least four questions and uh the  whole meal is structure around it it's a kinetic   experience it is an essential experience with  all the various tastes the very special foods   associated with things and in that context i  remember once when i was probably maybe six   five i'm not sure how young i was but i was at my  aunt enid's for uh passover seder that's where we   usually went and my father of blessed memory he  handed me a spoonful of traditional horseradish   it was mixed with beets it was not the really  strong stuff but i looked at it and he didn't   tell me what it was and i thought it was something  like candy you know it had that deep red color and   so i put it straight in my mouth and like wow i  don't know what my father was thinking whether he   knew i would do that or whatever he thought maybe  i would taste a little bit of it but you know my   eyes started watering i looked up at him and he  said to me henry that's what slavery feels like   very very powerful impact on a young child the  other thing that i want to share with you is uh   when i was maybe about eight years old uh cecil  b demille's the ten commandments a 1956 film   not exactly kosher but nevertheless very powerful  like three-hour epic i came to the one theater in   my hometown in northern ontario canada and this  was a unique experience for me because i was the   only jewish child in that small rural town and  you know i just went to the movies as often as   i could because i found it so fascinating it  was just up the street from uh where we lived   on top of my father and mother's store and uh  i was so totally amazed sitting in this matinee   showing of this commandments because this was  story i realized was all about me and my family   and where i came from and i'm sitting in this  room filled with you know anglophone protestants   and quebecois francophones who are uh catholics  and i'm looking around saying i'm the only jewish   guy in here in fact i was probably the only jewish  guy except for my parents within about a 100 mile   radius and i was so overwhelmed that i had such an  amazing backstory so this kind of feeling both the   passover seder and whatever meaningful encounter  a child has with this is it's transformational   and there's no doubt that the sages were thinking  of this when they embedded the passover rituals   so deeply into the jewish cultural fabric and into  the calendar year anyways i've gone on uh further   than i wanted to here the kind of messages  that come out of the the narrative of exodus   as we discussed in genesis if you haven't read  this you've got to go read it right away it's   the very beginning of the book of  exodus just the first few chapters   is like overwhelming uh it describes uh the figure  of moses who uh has an amazing story himself   uh transformed from a near-death experience to  become the uh you know a leader in egypt and   then realizing his own background he is exiled  and then returned and he ends up leading this   nation of slaves out of the other nation of egypt  which is you know again a mind-blowing experience   and there's a strong message throughout the book  of exodus that the the nascent jewish people are   subservient only to the king who was king over  kings meaning only to god directly and no human   being even one as powerful as pharaoh has any  say over their destiny there is a very strong   element here of a collective revelation and the  birth of a people as a whole yehuda levy among   other philosophers have pointed out that one of  the unique aspects of this revelation is that   it's not something that happened in a miraculous  way with one person or a small group of people   but this is something that happened to the entire  jewish people as a whole as described in the book   of exodus and as such it is something that  every jewish person has a personal share in   there's also this is not you know a some kind of  propaganda piece in the sense that there's a lot   of negative history in here as well the jews  demonstrate terrible failings of the incident   of the golden calf where despite the phenomenal  miracles of the ten plagues and the exodus itself   they never less you know within a short  period of time they're worshiping idols again   so it's a story of it's a very human story  a very powerful story and a transformational   story uh i'm sorry i took so long because i know  you want to get to the historical aspects of it   but i really want to emphasize that it's so  important to actually read the text it's amazing   okay let's go to the history so what do  we know unfortunately we don't know a lot   from the historical record and that has led many  of the more minimalist oriented historians to say   it just didn't happen to say that the the  description of the events in the book of exodus   are fictional i think on a logical level there's  a problem with that it's hard to prove anything   from a negative a lack of evidence does not mean  that something did not happen all it means is   that you do not have evidence and moreover a more  sophisticated look especially if you lean towards   the maximalist interpretation of this period of  history as i do i might as well tell you upfront   the there is a lot of evidence but it is not as  direct and concrete as we might like it's rather   indirect and tantalizing and i'll leave it up to  you of course to decide how convinced you want   to be by this obviously this is not a neutral  historical debate if there is such a thing it's   highly connected to theological positions and so  on at any rate why do we have so little evidence   uh the first most important reason is you  know the pharaohs as a um as a matter of habit   were not in the practice of preserving their  defeats in monumental architecture or in tomb   paintings and things like that pharaohs always  win egypt first right there's no uh strong record   of uh pharaohs expressing humiliating defeats  which is by the way another thing that makes   the hebrew bible as a historical text so  amazing because there's lots of negative   information there where jews do the wrong  thing and then they have to repent and so on   uh secondly besides the fact that we don't it's  not a cultural thing for pharaohs and egyptian   leaders to preserve this data there's very little  actual material from the area that the jews were   residing in the land of goshen shown here in this  satellite map the the region was in the nile delta   towards the easternmost range the nile of course  flows from the south to the north that's why by   the way the upper nile refers to the lower area  on our conventional maps and as it approaches the   mediterranean it fans out through the lowlands and  creates this massive very fertile region you can   see from the green in this satellite photograph  but it is not conducive to any kind of sustained   quarrying or even building the this all the  stone that is used in the building in this region   is uh imported from southern areas southern  quarries and it the course of the the low-lying   rivers in the delta were known to have changed  as one would silt up then they would their river   waters would be redirected and after a certain  period of time the human settlements would be   redirected there's some fascinating allusions to  this even in rashi in the 11th century knew about   this phenomenon the major construction in the  region was made out of mud bricks and these are   not very durable materials and in fact much of it  was actually later burned for other purposes that   you know it was actually combustible so this is  not material that can last a long time and finally   papyri or uh you know documents written  on a paper-like organic substance   just simply do not survive there are very very  tiny number of scraps of paper from the region   uh that are basically preserved when they're  carbonized if they're burned like let's say in   a scroll on the outside is like bike tight it's  very difficult to even unroll that and find out   any kind of data from the period such as pompeii  there are similar types of data so you know it's   very difficult to even gather any data whatsoever  from the region about a slave people that uh you   know as the narrative describes uh inflicted  a humiliating defeat on the pharaohs that they   didn't want to admit nevertheless we do have some  fascinating little bits of things like for example   uh here's a bit of papyrus that is from the  13th late 13th century before the common era   which describes the uh the brick making work that  would have taken place in this region and we also   have some fascinating uh tomb paintings such  as this vizier's tomb painting from about the   time when the jews would have been in the land of  goshen and you can actually see them here working   side by side with nubians that is uh africans  and the the the egyptians also did not label   any of their slaves specifically as hebrews they  tend to refer to them as one big group as semites   which have included a lot of different people from  the region but that's not surprising either it's   hard to imagine in even 19th century america  the americans also didn't label their african   slaves by the many different tribal designations  that they had so we have lots of evidence that   corroborates the story of the jews being  enslaved in the land of goshen in the nile   delta and it's entirely consistent with the  description that we have in the biblical text   and fascinatingly these are amazing discoveries in  2016 later published in 2017 at pi ramses which is   the location of one of the two sites described  as one of the major areas of building activity   uh in the time of moses uh they discovered some  mortar pits that give us an example of what it   might have been like to be a slave at that time  where you know you've seen the famous scene in   the 1956 ten commandments where you know moses  is in the dirt with the other slaves and and   he's you know you know working the the mud into  bricks uh this is one of those actual mud pits   and they even found some children's footprints  now there's no way to tell if these were jewish   children uh there's no way to tell if they  were made by slave children but nevertheless it   is you know it really it excites the imagination  to place yourself in these footprints and imagine   what what it must have been like for the children  who made them thousands of years ago but i digress   let's go now to the actual moment of the exodus  once we have the idea that yeah there's a lot   of data that is consistent with the description in  exodus um it's not again direct proof that clearly   confirms everything but it corroborates it so  the the most famous element of course is the um   the ten plagues that are visited upon pharaoh and  the egyptians and i'm not going to go into details   about uh how we could corroborate them with  geographic or geological or weather type advice   there are many different historians who try to  walk through each of the the plagues and say   you know there's a problem with the river and  that caused the the frogs to jump out and so   on i think those are very interesting but i think  they're they're a little further away from where   i'd like to go with this particular history series  let's talk specifically though about the departure   of the jews from egypt and the famous splitting  of the sea of reeds now there are many different   theories as to where exactly was the root that the  jews would have taken on their way out of the land   of goshen i've shown you here in this particular  image the best guess of a very well-known scholar   again towards the maximalist uh interpretation  of biblical texts k.a kitchen and um   perhaps the the most important thing that people  who are new to this should understand is that   we're not talking about the red sea um for some  reason that has kind of entered english parlance   that uh you know the jews crossed the red sea  which was uh to the south of the arrows here   uh you see towards the gulf of suez that's not  where any um medieval authority or any uh you   know modern scholar would place it uh the hebrew  term is yamsuf which means literally the sea of   reeds right like the sea of like sort of bamboo  like shoots that come out of a wetland and the   the image is not necessarily of like a massive  miles long sea but it could have been an otherwise   large wetland or a maybe a river area it's  very difficult to estimate exactly where it   would be today because the suez canal was dug  completely changes the the nature of the river   flow through the water flow through that region so  we don't know precisely but dr kitchen opines that   they went from goshen here on the left and  moving their way to the right through the   wetlands which would have been you know completely  impassable especially when you're pursued by   pharaoh and his chariot so it's still quite a  miraculous event in my humble opinion and then   they made their way down towards the south there  are opinions by the way that suggest that the the   yamsuf was actually in the southernmost part of  the mediterranean and that the jews somehow went   north and then over it um i haven't indicated  that on this particular map especially because   it's very clear that the jews did not take an  overland route along the coast to israel the   bible specifically says that god did not direct  them there because it was filled with armed camps   which in fact we know there the egyptians had  many different stations along the coastline there   um for travel and protection of travelers and  so on uh so i don't understand exactly why   some scholars suggest they went to the north but  uh going to the south the next big question is   where is mount sinai i have indicated  the traditional location which is   so revered by christians and muslims jebel musa  or the mount moses in arabic or mount sinai   in english it's not confirmed that this is in fact  mount sinai there is there are at least two other   very viable contenders one of them in the  sinai one a little bit further to the west   but for the sake of argument i've created the  map based on dr kitchen's best guess which   is much better than my own then they moved up  towards the north to a place called kadesh barnea   and then looped around and this is a process  which the biblical narrative says took 40 years   looped around up to the through jordan and  then crossed into israel proper at jericho   just north of the dead sea that would be the  most reasonable route to describe the exodus   again on a historical level many point to the lack  of significant remains of any kind of settlement   of jews as they traveled throughout this region  the biblical text describes 600 000 adult males   which would generate a population of two to three  million people which is a monstrous number in   ancient terms and it's hard to imagine they didn't  leave any trace behind so there are different ways   to approach this some historians have said  we have to reevaluate what that number means   does the bible really mean to indicate to  us 600 000 on a literal level or perhaps   it is some kind of metaphor we definitely  have a lot of use of metaphoric numbers   in the biblical text so perhaps it's not anywhere  near that large and even if it is a fairly   significant number whatever it might be there's  still it's hard to anticipate that a nomadic   bedouin bedouin-like lifestyle wandering in  the desert is going to leave behind anything   as dr kitchen points out you know you're not  going to find a lot of ceramic pottery to contain   water and wine and things like that  because when you're carrying it around   it's much nicer to carry a wine skin than a wine  jug you know it's just for obvious reasons so   i don't want to get too far into details here  but this is basically the map i want to conclude   however with a couple more corroborating elements  that gives us a sense of how even though we might   not have really strong direct proof there are so  many points of similarity between what we know   about the culture and the region as a whole and  what's contained in the biblical text that suggest   very strongly that the biblical text is authentic  in its historical depiction of the exodus uh   specifically let's have a look at ram says ii now  he this is the pharaoh that is most likely the new   pharaoh who was otherwise unnamed in the book  of exodus he lived at just about the right time   the egyptian propaganda we have on ramsay's is  pretty frightening he was a terrifying warrior uh   fought many battles which are recorded and so we  have a sense of what kind of person he was here's   a a picture of him in battle and you can see he's  stomping on the head of one of his enemies and   and about to drive a spear through the heart  of another enemy here's a couple of interesting   propaganda elements uh this is from the battle  of kadesh a very important battle that was up   in northern syria the pharaoh ranged far and wide  through the whole land of israel as we saw with   shoshank in the last class and we're going to see  again with mernepta next class you can see that   on the left here he is uh mounted in a chariot  very evocative of the biblical text it gives us   a sense of what that might be like and notice  here that in one of his most famous victories   he's driving his enemies into a big river where  they all drown now isn't it fascinating that the   biblical end of exodus has an ironic parallel to  the enemies and their chariots drowning in water   i don't know and what does that mean if there is  an ironic similarity and i'll give you another one   uh just for you to think about it more  uh on one of the uh the commemorative   wall paintings that describes that particular  battle you see pharaoh's encampment and there's   a whole bunch of different people here that are  performing various functions but on the right   is his sanctuary tent and you can see there's uh  his cartouche which has the two winged features   which is ironically reminiscent of the keruvim  the cherubim that decorated the ark and that's   not the only thing that's similar a scholar named  dr michael holman who's done some fascinating work   on this area in particular he points out that it's  not just the cartouche that's similar oh my gosh   it's the exact proportions and orientation  of the camp and the tabernacle you know the   book of exodus has some really exciting parts uh  let's say about through two-thirds of it and then   it kind of like gets into the nitty-gritty of  constructing this portable ark that will later be   transported to israel and then eventually  be translated into the the permanent temple   in jerusalem and the structure of it is very bare  but look how similar it is to the orientation and   proportions this is the second camp now this is  like an astounding kind of series of coincidences   and what exactly does it mean uh it clearly  suggests that the biblical uh text of exodus   is totally aware of how ramesses the camp  was constructed and is it similar in order   to communicate to the the young jewish people that  uh the tabernacle is uh you know and a place of uh   sovereignty like the pharaoh's tent would be at  war is it intended to be an ironic kind of jab   saying do you think you know a war tent is what  protects people rather than this tabernacle of god   you know these are questions that would cross  a rabbi's eyes i'm going to leave that to the   rabbis to discuss but i do think the  similarities are incredibly striking   and i urge you to look at dr homan's work also  dr joshua berman's work in this area absolutely   fascinating i've skipped over a lot of really cool  things just to try and give you the highlights   i hope you enjoy this we're going to continue  with the next lecture as we look at the settlement   of israel moving towards the the golden era of  kings saul david and solomon thanks for watching

Channel: Henry Abramson

Views: 13,881

Rating: 4.8297873 out of 5

Keywords: Jewish, History, Judaism, Torah, Henry, Abramson, Hebrew

Id: e6MBYic_HuQ

Length: 24min 2sec (1442 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 27 2020