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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