The Exodus: How it Happened and Why It Matters

I never write Amazon reviews, but since this is a subject that strongly interests me and pretty much always has, I wanted to write a review for this book the moment I finished it. As I am sure is true of many other readers, I first learned of Richard Friedman through his 1987 work, “Who Wrote The Bible?,” which was a great book that I first read back during my college days. I studied Judaic and Biblical Studies in college, and although I didn’t end up working in the field, Biblical Studies is still a big passion of mine and I try my best to keep up to date with findings and developments in it. What Friedman relays in this book about seeing The Ten Commandments in 1956 parallels an experience I had when I first saw The Prince of Egypt when I was 9 years old. Until recently, I had no idea Friedman served as a consultant on that film. That same year (1998), I saw a Discovery Channel/BBC documentary about the archaeology of the exodus called “Who Was Moses?” I loved that documentary so much that I bought a VHS copy of it later that same year — I still have that VHS today.For many years, the dominant opinion in scholarship and archaeology was that the exodus was non-historical. That never seemed right to me, and apparently it never seemed right to Friedman either since he pretty much says the exact same thing in this book. Reading the exodus narratives over the course of my life, the claim that the exodus itself was complete fiction never struck me as correct, even though the text obviously possesses mythologized and exaggerated elements. From the idea that Israel had originated from slaves, to the historically accurate Egyptian elements in the text, to the ethical implications the entire Hebrew Bible directly derives from such an experience, the idea that a nation would invent such a history and go through such lengths to include so many Egyptian elements in it just never seemed right. Granted, staffs turning into snakes and two million people leaving never seemed right either, but the unlike modern history, in the ancient world the religious interpretation of historical events often was inseparable from the events themselves. This coalescence of ancient belief systems and historical events is an aspect of nearly every ancient civilization that existed — Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc. — and yet no respectable historian argues that those civilizations' attempts at documenting their histories are mostly non-historical because they used this same approach in their own historical records. So to do so only in the case of the Israelites does not stand up to scrutiny, regardless of when or how their texts were written and compiled. As time has progressed, however, it seems attitudes have begun to shift — an increasing number of scholars and archaeologists today believe that the exodus does have a true historical core, but agree that the exodus as it is portrayed in the Torah is “mythologized history,” meaning that it blends its true historical elements with fictional and exaggerated elements. These archaeologists and scholars believe that the early Israelites were partly composed of a small group of former slaves, probably numbering in the thousands, who fled Egypt and migrated to Canaan during the Late Bronze Age and brought Yahweh worship with them. At several points in this book, Friedman cites archaeologist Avraham Faust’s 2015 paper “The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus” (https://www.academia.edu/11906343 — see pages 476–477 for information about the ‘exodus group’) which does a great job summarizing the current views on the ‘exodus group’ and the formation of ancient Israel. Circa 20 years ago, some archaeologists, among them William Dever, suggested that only the Josephite tribes had been in Egypt. They identified those tribes as constituting the exodus group, but Yahweh worship and the fact that only the Levites have Egyptian names in the biblical narrative are key elements that one needs to account for when determining the identity of the exodus group, and, as Professor Friedman points out, the text itself and various other forms of evidence — architectural, archaeological, ritual, linguistic, and genetic — all point to the Levites as being the exodus group. The rest of the Israelites originated within Canaan, but as time went on they adopted the Levites’ history and religion as their own, applying them to all of Israel.In my opinion, “The Exodus: How It Happened And Why It Matters” is currently the single best resource on the exodus group and what the historical core of the exodus probably looked like. My only real criticism is that he could have (and should have) gone even further with some of the evidence, but, as he notes at a few points in the book, he probably didn’t have enough time to come across every single work of research out there (see below), some of which I only recall encountering after mid-2015, which is when he finished his writing it. I want to talk about some of this additional evidence, all of which are the products of established and well-respected professionals who work in the fields of Biblical Studies and Egyptology:One key piece of evidence that he didn’t bring up/discuss is the fact that the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:1-18) directly draws verbiage and motifs from the Kadesh poem, which Egyptian troops composed and sang to Ramses II on their journey home to Egypt after the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE) and was later inscribed on a number of monuments erected by Ramses II to celebrate and commemorate his “victory” (draw) over the Hittite empire. Of note is that the phrasing and themes in these two works appear in the same order as each other, and the connections they share do not have any other parallels in other ancient Near Eastern poems, historical narratives, and myths. As far as I know, Professor Joshua Berman of Bar Ilan University was the first person to notice that there are direct parallels between the verbiage and motifs in the Song of the Sea with those in the Kadesh poem. This is *very* noteworthy: it reinforces the identification of Ramses II as having been the pharaoh of the exodus (https://aish.com/evidence-for-the-exodus/).In this book and others he has authored, Friedman frequently points out that the Song of the Sea is the oldest composition in the Bible, dating back to the 12th century BCE. This dating decision specifically has to do with the age of the Hebrew it uses (it is much older than the rest of the Hebrew in the Bible, except for the Song of Deborah, which also uses this same form of archaic Hebrew) and its content: the presence of “Philistia” in one of the song’s verses, alongside other national entities it mentions, narrows its date of composition down to the 12th century BCE, which is the only point in time when all of the ethnic elements mentioned in "Song of the Sea" coexisted (currently, the earliest archaeological evidence of the Philistines dates to the beginning of the 12th century BCE). But the majority of the Song of the Sea may have been composed before the 12th century given the direct verbiage and motifs that these two songs (and *only* these two songs) share.Given this fact, the Song of the Sea is important evidence not just because of its age, but also because it ties the song’s elements to a specific time period — the 13th century BCE, one century prior.  Friedman correctly notes and discusses how the Mishkan (the Tabernacle) and the Tabernacle compound were architecturally based on Ramses II’s portable battle compound from the Battle of Kadesh. He attributes this discovery to a colleague who was a former student of his, but in actuality this is not a new discovery at all because it has been known for over 80 years now (see the link at the end of this paragraph)! Nevertheless, I am very glad he mentioned and discussed this because it too temporally ties the exodus to the 13th century BCE and the reign of Ramses II. For those who doubt that the exodus group could have built such a thing in the desert, the description of the Mishkan and its surrounding perimeter fence (the two of which together architecturally comprised the compound) are in fact entirely consistent with it having been built in the desert — the Mishkan was essentially a giant tent made out of acacia wood (which grew in the Sinai desert and still does to this day), goat-hair curtains, rams skins, cloth, and its perimeter fence merely consisted of fabric, poles, and staked cords. And it stands to reason that the Tabernacle compound would be based on Egyptian architecture because human beings naturally tend to gravitate towards styles and means of doing things that are already familiar to them. I wonder if perhaps one or more individuals in the exodus group had at some point previously worked on building and/or designing Ramses II’s war camp/portable battle compound? This would make sense if the exodus group indeed consisted of people who had been slaves in Egypt before joining the Israelites in Israel and becoming the Levites/the Israelite priestly clan (https://aish.com/evidence-for-the-exodus/ — scroll down the page a little bit to see the architectural layout of the Ramses II’s Battle Compound and the Tabernacle Compound. The fact about scholars having known about this for over 80 years now is noted in the paragraph above the Abu Simbel relief drawing).Friedman also discusses how the Egyptians’ religious use of arks perfectly mirrors the Israelites' use of the Ark of the Covenant. Aside from the Israelites, the only Ancient Near Eastern society who made use of arks in the context of religion was the ancient Egyptians. These Egyptian arks (i.e., sacred chests) were sometimes be brought out of temples by Egyptian priests at festivals, on top of which statues of gods were placed or made (sculpted). They also used them to store/carry items of sacred and/or pharaonic importance. This fact is not new to Biblical Studies, but what is new is recent research by Egyptologist David Falk, who specializes in the study of ancient Egyptian ceremonial furniture (a highly specific and specialized subfield). He researched the Ark of the Covenant in relation to Egyptian ceremonial arks, all of which possessed styles and iconographies that naturally changed over the course of ancient Egyptian history. According to Falk, the Ark of the Covenant’s iconography and style perfectly matches Egyptian ceremonial furniture from the Late Bronze Age, and more specifically its style and iconography strongly suggests that it was built “no earlier than the reign of Amenhotep III (circa 1389–1351 BCE) and no later than the end of 20th Dynasty (circa 1194–1073 BCE),” which is in line with the traditional historical date assigned to the exodus (13th century BCE) (https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-and-the-bible/ark-of-the-covenant-in-egyptian-context/).I wish that this book included information on this, but I think Falk only published his research/findings after Friedman had already completed his writing process. If there is ever a second edition of this book, I hope Professor Friedman considers including some of this newer information. These three pieces of information are key: they are all specifically tied to a very limited temporal scope, and the latter two elements — the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant — are both explicitly tied to the core elements of Yahweh worship and have Egyptian origins. In my opinion, the Ark of the Covenant is the most significant piece of evidence for the Levites/exodus group as having originated from Egypt-proper because the Egyptians only used arks in these ways in religious contexts, and there were only ever three Egyptian/Egyptian-style temples in Canaan during the Late Bronze Age — one in Lachish, one in Beit Shean, and one in Timna — and local Canaanites only made use of/had access to one of those three temples (the Lachish temple). No Egyptian people lived in Canaan outside of government officials and military personnel, and because of this, Egyptian religious influence on Canaanite beliefs and practices during the Late Bronze Age was very limited. There was some influence, to be sure, but use of arks was not one of them (https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/4/258/htm#).And if the Levites/exodus group originated from inside Israel, then why bother to build a very specific and mobile structure like the Tabernacle compound and not an actual stone Temple like the temples in the article I linked to above? It would make no sense not to build a stone temple in such a situation. To put it simply, these three pieces of evidence go a long way in grounding the exodus both temporally and geographically as a historical event. People talk about lack of evidence for the exodus, but that is not true — there is loads of evidence if you know where to look. The Egyptians did not chronicle their defeats — they only chronicled victories or events that they could spin as victories (like Ramses II’s “victory” at the Battle of Kadesh), and either way they almost certainly would not have written about the escape of a few thousand slaves at most.There are some other pieces of evidence and cultural references to Egypt that Friedman didn’t bring up or discuss either: Torah’s use of phrases and idioms that were *unique to the New Kingdom period* (“outstretched arm” and a “mighty hand”), and the ‘hardening of the heart’ sequence in Exodus being a reference to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs about weighing one’s heart to gain to determine whether or not an individual would gain entry into the afterlife (the Hebrew verb “Ka’ved” (כָּבֵד) means “hardened” but it also meant “to make heavy”); anyone who watched the show Moon Knight on Disney Plus should be familiar this belief in ancient Egyptian culture and religion. My old professor, Stuart Miller of the University of Connecticut, used to refer to the ‘hardening of the heart’ sequence in Exodus as “Pharaoh’s cardiac problem” because even though God said to Moses that He would make Pharaoh’s heart heavy after each plague, God did not actually harden Pharaoh’s heart until the sixth plague (Exodus 9:12). Up until that point, Pharaoh was actually hardening (“making heavy”) his own heart, purposefully implying that this pharaoh was thoroughly wicked.He does touch on most other aspects of note: the Levites all having Egyptian names (and, as he also points out, the fact that the Biblical authors clearly didn’t know the names in question were Egyptian in origin enhances the chances that they were historical individuals and not literary inventions), the knowledge of mudbrick making practices of New Kingdom-period Egypt reflected in the text (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287786412_With_without_straw_How_Israelite_slaves_made_bricks), the use of distinctly Egyptian literary motifs in the exodus narratives, the mentions of Yahweh in ancient Egyptian texts along with His geographical association with Midian. He even pointed out and discussed something I didn't know about, which is that ritual male circumcision in Biblical Israelite religion probably (but not 100% definitely) originated from the Egyptians too. Prior to the rise of Hellenism in the ancient Near East, the ancient Egyptians practiced male circumcision, and starting in the Late Bronze Age the ancient Egyptians began circumcising male infants (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291332614_Ancient_Egyptian_royal_circumcision_from_the_pyramid_complex_of_Djedkare pp. 156).  And with the recent discovery of the Mount Ebal curse amulet, we now have an object mentioned in the Deuteronomistic historian's work — one that appears to date to the Late Bronze Age and has Yahweh’s name inscribed on it. As of right now, none of the findings pertaining to the amulet’s inscription have been academically peer-reviewed, but if the preliminary findings hold up, then the amulet is the first object capable of being linked to the exodus group and their time in the Canaanite-Israelite highlands after entering Canaan. We will have to wait see what effect, if any, it may or may not have on the subject of the exodus and the merger of Yahweh and El in early Israelite history. In line with other archaeological findings and the overall premise Professor Friedman examines in this book, I imagine that the exodus group/Levites were the only ones who would have partaken in any blessing-curse ceremony on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, and the other Israelites tribes were added in to the account later.Overall though, this book is by far the best resource about the exodus group at the moment. If you are curious about what the core historical elements of the exodus were, check this book out.

Richard Friedman's The Exodus is a textual critic's analysis of the current state of textual criticism of the exodus as recorded in the Bible. However, he departs from modern scholarship and instead says that it was a real thing, just not how it was recorded in the Bible.* * * * QUICK SUMMARY * * * *In case you're unaware, modern critical scholarship of the Bible (mostly) doesn't view the Hebrew exodus as an historical event. To summarize and massively oversimplify:- The Israelites were based in the region of Canaan and their religion was similar to their neighbors. This was either polytheism (worshipping many gods), henotheism (worshipping one god while not denying the existence of others), or monolatry (worshipping one god and forbidding worship of the others)- At some point in their history, the Israelites moved into monotheism (worshipping one god and denying the existence of any other), and that this was either during the Babylonian exile, or perhaps even later when refugees arrived back from Persia in the mid fifth century (around 450 BCE). Possibly there were some elements of monotheism before the Babylonian exile but this was a minority view- These later periods (exiles in Babylon and Persia) also brought with them a more rigorous set of laws and customs- But originally, the Israelites took most of their religious beliefs from their neighbors in Canaan, and they were definitely not monotheistic- The Torah, and a few other books of the Bible (e.g., parts of Samuel, parts of 1 and 2 Kings, etc.) were written by several sources, which is explained in the Documentary Hypothesis which consists of four main authors plus a redactor who combined them all. The four main sources are called J (based in the southern kingdom of Judah), E (based in the northern kingdom of Israel), P (possibly written around the time of Hezekiah in the 700's), and D (written around the time of King Josiah in the 600's). There was then a redactor R who combined them all into one document, possibly shortly after the return of the Persian exiles. Almost nobody in modern critical scholarship holds to the original Documentary Hypothesis, but usually some variant of it (i.e., there were more than four sources, the dates of composition are moved forward or backward, different texts are assigned to different sources, etc.).There aren't that many modern critical scholars that believe the exodus - a departure from Egypt consisting of 2 million people around ~1200 BCE (or maybe ~1500 BCE) - was a real, historical event. For whatever reason, the Israelites constructed that as part of their backstory around 1000 BCE as part of the J and E sources (per the Documentary Hypothesis).* * * * WHAT FRIEDMAN SAYS * * * *By contrast, Friedman's The Exodus asserts that it *was* an actual, historical event but didn't happen quite the way it is recorded in the Bible, and that the Biblical accounts are embellished:- The exodus occurred, but it was not the entire nation of Israel that left but instead was *only* the Levites. They then joined up with the Israelites in Canaan and merged religious beliefs. Thus, rather than 2 million people leaving Egypt, it would have been a few hundred to (at most) several thousand- Friedman justifies this by showing a deep connection between the works composed by the writers of the Documentary Hypothesis to Egypt. For example, "Moses" is an Egyptian name (look it up). The tribes of the Levites contains several Egyptian names, whereas none of the other tribes of the Israelites do. Furthermore, while many textual critics assert that there are errors and contradictions in the biblical accounts, Friedman says that if you split out the E, J, and P sources who retell the story, they are much more cohesive within themselves than when compared to each other.- Friedman also notes the connection between the land of Midian (where Moses was residing) and all the other references to it in the Bible- All in all, either the Levites were originally in Canaan and departed to Egypt and returned; or, they left Egypt, spent some time in Midian, and joined up with the Israelites in Canaan where they didn't inherit land but instead became priestsAltogether, I think there's a pretty good basis to believe that the exodus occurred in a manner that Friedman says it did, rather than claiming it is entirely constructed out of no where and then, for whatever reason, wove its way into Israel's history.* * * * NOT SURE ABOUT SOME OTHER CLAIMS * * * *I think that Friedman's assertions get a little more tenuous in the later chapters.First, he thinks that monotheism being a "late" development during the Babylonian exile is incorrect, and it started much earlier - beginning with Moses and the Levites. He lists some potential sources of monotheism (picking it up from one of the Pharaohs in the region of southern Egypt), Moses inventing it himself, sometime in Midian, or Israel picking it up at some other point after the Levites joined with the Israelites in Canaan. Friedman then lists a bunch of verses that reflect a view of monotheismThis is certainly possible. There's no reason why monotheism has to be a later development that originated outside of Israel. After all, it had to originate from somewhere.Friedman, of course, does not deny that Israel's original inhabitants believed in the existence of other gods, and believed in El. There are plenty of biblical verses to suggest this, as well as some mythological elements (e.g., the Nephilim in Genesis 6). However, he suggests that the merger of El with Yahweh happened really early in Israel's history, and they were monotheists from an early time. Or rather, there was an element that believed in monotheism early on, but it took a long time to take permanent hold.I think... this is a little bit of a stretch. After the two kingdoms split, there were 19 kings of Israel in the north, out of which 0 were recorded as following God (Yahweh) - which to me implies they were following another god. In the south, only 8 of 20 were recorded as following God (Yahweh) - which to me again implies they were following another god. So, if Israel were true monotheists from early on, either (a) it didn't stick, or (b) they were one faction of many (apparently only in Judah) who only periodically moved into power.Second, Friedman makes the claim that the Israelites' monotheism led to a universal view of how they were supposed to treat their neighbors - with the same kind of kinship that they show their own tribes.One of the criticisms of the Old Testament is that despite these claims of treatment to extend beyond the tribe, in actuality they were always intended to be within the tribe. Evidence is some of the historical atrocities recorded in the books of Judges, 1 Samuel, etc., where the Israelites wipe out entire groups of people (men, women, children, and animals) but keep the young women for themselves. That doesn't sound like universal treatment of loving your neighbor, say Biblical critics.Friedman doesn't deny these passages exist, but he says they never occurred and instead are exaggerated national myths to explain how the Israelites took possession of the land. And, they live side-by-side next to over 50 (!) examples where the Israelites are commanded to treat foreigners with kindness and respect because "you, too, were strangers in a strange land." He credits this as going all the way back to the Levites being strangers in Egypt, and based upon their experience there of being strangers, that the Israelites too should treat strangers with kindness.Friedman cautions against cherry-picking only the atrocities passages and ignoring the many, many more universal-kindness passages - after all, they live side-by-side. Fair enough. But at the same time, I think Friedman doth protest too much. While there may be more passages of universal treatment of strangers, the fact is that wiping out an entire group of people takes only a single event (i.e., a day or two battle) whereas treating people with kindness requires a life-long action. That is, the impact of one atrocity basically negates a lifetime of treating someone with kindness. You can treat a neighbor with kindness for a year or two, but one wiping them out and taking their land and possessions and young women (who haven't been with a man) more than erases all of that.So... yeah.* * * * MY RATING * * * *I'm giving this book 5 stars because it held my attention, I learned something new, and it inspired to actually write a review on Amazon which is something I never do. While I don't know if I agree with everything in the book, that's okay - I'm not a biblical scholar and just read books like this by people who are, and watch YouTube videos by others who do the same thing and then make YouTube videos to summarize it.So, for those reasons, I give it 5 stars.

I read an interview on line where the Professor Friedman was interviewed and he responded to those who say there was no Exodus. I enjoyed the article so much that I had to read his book on the same topic. I hope to re read this book and I have also read other books by Professor Friedman.

Estudo muito bem elaborado sobre o Êxodo ... muito me ajudou na pesquisa que estou realizando.

Clear, well written, excellent scholarship. A corrective to Exodus denyers and the credulous both.

Readable and thought-provoking.

The book is well-written and contains a lot of interesting informations about the Bible and archaeology. However, the arguments in support of the book's main thesis are, in my opinion, unconvincing and often highly speculative: while I agree with Friedman that the Exodus probably concerned only one of the Tribes of Israel, he fails to bring sufficiently clear evidence that such group was the Tribe of Levi and not another one (William G. Dever, for instance, believes it was the Tribe of Joseph).Friedman also argues that it was the Exodus group that brought the deity Yaweh and the idea of monotheism to the Israelites: while the first claim is, in my view, very probable (and has also been endorsed by Thomas Römer in "The invention of God"), the second is more dubious.In any case, I would recommend this book as an important work in the effort to understand the origins of the Israelite people and of Jewish monotheism.