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The Experts and the Exodus
One of the most surprising developments of modern archaeological
research in the Near Hast is the steady accumulation of scientific evidence
that many of the events recorded in the Bible did happen. Such findings
have dealt a strong blow at the scoffers, particularly among some Jewish
thinkers, who once delighted in “proving" that the historical record of the
Children of Israel in Jewish sacred literature ivas mostly myth. Particular
ly popular among such "modern" skeptics was the argument that the entire
story of the Exodus from Egypt was entirely fictitious. In this report, Dr.
Theodore Caster, noted authority on Jewish Antiquities, offers an expert
opinion to the contrary. This article was adapted from Dr. Caster’s “Pass-
over; Its History and Traditions." Abelard-Schuman, Inc.
by DR. THEODORE H. GASTER
Viewed in the light of what is now
known as Ancient Near Eastern history,
the Biblical account of the Exodus from
Egypt takes us back to the troubled days
of the early seventeenth century, B.C.E..
when hordes of Indo-Aryan invaders
were sweeping across Asia Minor and Sy
ria, carrying all before them.
Many of the inhabitants of these areas,
especially such as had been but resident
aliens, took up their belongings and fled;
until presently a vast conglomerate army
of displaced persons and refugees were to
be found making their way southward
through Canaan to the land of the Nile.
Egypt had fallen, at the time, into weak
hands. The administration was feeble and
ineffective, and the incoming masses plan
ned to take advantage of this situation.
It was not long before their dream was
fulfilled. In short order, they succeeded
in gaining control of the country, and soon
a new dynasty of kings — known to the
Egyptians as the Hyskos, or Foreign Chiefs
—were reigning in a new capital estab
lished at Avaris in the Nile Delta.
This political constellation proved espec
ially propitious to a class of persons known
as the Hebrews.
The goal of the Hebrew immigrants,
however, was not Egypt proper, but the
Land of Goshen — a shallow valley, now
known as Wadi Tumilat, which lies on
the eastern border of that country and
stretches, for some thirty to forty miles,
from the Nile Delta to the region of Lake
Timsha, in the Suez Canal Zone. Goshen
had been a traditional pastureland for
neighboring Asiatic bedouins, and here, in
12
congenial surrounds, the Hebrews estab
lished their colony.
For several generations all went well.
Then the wheel of fortune turned. Led by
two spirited princes, the Egyptians arose
against their Hyskos overlords, and sent
them fleeing into Canaan and Syria.
The Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I decided
that his eastern frontier was dangerously
exposed and moved the seat of government
back to the Delta. His son and successor.
Rameses II. pursued the campaign against
the “Asiatics" with relentless fury.
These developments naturally brought
the nearby Hebrew colony strongly into
the limelight. Rameses came to regard it
as a potential "fifth column” made up of
men who were in fact kinsmen of the very
foes whom he and his father had been
fighting and who might any day ally them
selves with them into a return attack
upon Egypt.
The Hebrews were therefore reduced
to the status of bondsmen, placed under
the surveillance of commissars and recruit
ed for forced labor on the new construc
tion projects. It was at this critical point,
according to the Israelite saga, that the
deliverer Moses arose.
Is the whole story of Passover, as
it is told in Jewish tradition, a mere fig
ment of fancy — a pious invention? or —
if we ignore the legendary trimmings —
is there independent evidence, outside of
the Bible, for the sojourn of Israel in
Egypt, its servitude under the Pharaohs,
and its exodus from Egypt?
The answer is that, while there is as
yet no direct confirmation of details, and
while neither sojourn nor exodus is in fact
recorded in any known contemporary doc
ument, the story as a whole — apart, of
course, from its purely miraculous ele
ments — is thoroughly consistent with all
that we now know of the history of the
Ancient Near East.
That the presence of the Israelites in
Egypt and their dramatic departure should
not be mentioned in any extant Egyptian
record is by no means so surprising as it
seems. For the plain fact is that the Bib
lical account represents, after all, what is
essentially no more than a family tradit
ion.
At the time when these events were
supposed to have happened, the Israelites
were not yet a nation, nor even a signifi
cant group. Therefore, while their fortunes
and adventures might have been of the
highest moment to their descendants, and
have served as a fitting subject for subse
quent legend, they were not at the time
of any particular interest to anyone else.
Nor should it be objected that the
drowning of the Pharaoh would have been
event of sufficient importance to be re
corded, and that the absence of such a
record and the discovery of the revelant
monarch’s mummy, therefore discredit the
Biblical account.
For it is to be observed that, contrary
to a prevailing impression, the Bible no
where says that Pharaoh was drowned. It
speaks only of his "host" and "chariots '
or of “the Egyptians" in general as hav
ing suffered this fate but not of the mon
arch himself, who may have directed op
erations from the rear and subsequently
retreated.
The Southern Israelite