How Not to Create a History of the Exodus—A Critique of Professor Goedicke’s Theories

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In the September/October BAR, we presented an extensive account of Professor Hans Goedicke’s new views on the Exodus and the Israelites’ flight from Egypt (“The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” BAR 07:05), as well as a critique of these views by Professor Charles R. Krahmalkov (“A Critique of Professor Goedicke’s Exodus Theories,” BAR 07:05), a well-known expert in ancient and Biblical languages at the University of Michigan. Professor Goedicke, a distinguished Egyptologist and chairman of the department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, placed the drowning of the Egyptians in the eastern Nile Delta. Professor Krahmalkov placed it in the large body of water south of the Sinai known today as the Red Sea. In this issue of BAR, Professor Eliezer D. Oren, a prominent Israeli archaeologist and chairman of the Department of Archaeology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, presents his views. Professor Oren places the drowning of the Egyptians in the Lake Bardawil area of the northern Sinai.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg of disagreement among these distinguished scholars. It is an exciting intellectual adventure to follow, compare and weigh their competing views. We hope to continue the debate with contributions from readers in future issues.—Ed.

Dr. Goedicke’s controversial theory of the Exodus and the Israelite flight from Egypt understandably received front page publicity in the daily press. It is indeed a novel approach to this much-debated subject. Moreover, Dr. Goedicke discusses not only the “miracle of the Sea”—his central topic—but also nearly the entire spectrum of issues relating to Israel’s beginnings, including questions of theology, historiography, sociology and chronology. These issues are of monumental importance and scholars are deeply divided in their views. As to each, there are many schools of thought. Accordingly, it is quite impossible in a single article to address every point on which Dr. Goedicke expresses himself. I will comment, however, on major aspects of his theories.

Dr. Goedicke’s reconstruction of the “prime facts” or “factual experiences” related in the Exodus narrative, which he interprets against the background of Egyptian history, is briefly as follows:

In response to a formal invitation from a Hyksos king ruling Egypt, the nuclear group of Israelites—from the house of Joseph—left its permanent settlement in Hebron and Mamre in Canaan and settled in the eastern Nile Delta. There they were employed as guards of Egypt’s frontier. In return for their services, they received certain privileges, in particular the right of “free support.” After the rise of the New Kingdom (16th–12th century B.C.), and more specifically during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut (1490–1468 B.C.), these privileges, especially of “free support,” were withdrawn, and the group was forced to move into two large garrisons—Pithom and Ramezez (sic!) where they were provisioned by the Pharaohs instead of by themselves. Because of the drastic change in their social and economic status and the deprivation of their freedom, the Israelites requested release from their employment and permission to return to their ancestral home in Hebron. After permission was finally granted, the departing group was pursued by Egyptian chariotry.

The fleeing Israelites were themselves people of some military experience, so they naturally decided to maneuver themselves into a defensible position. Dr. Goedicke locates quite precisely the high ground to which the Israelites repaired: Tell Hazzob in the eastern Nile Delta. The pursuing Egyptians followed the Israelites to Tell Hazzob. Just when the two sides were about to engage in a decisive battle, the volcano of Thera/Santorini erupted, sending tidal-like waves across the southeastern Mediterranean. The entire plain of the eastern Nile Delta was flooded and the Egyptian pursuers, arrayed in the low-lying areas at the foot of Tell Hazzob, were drowned. The group of hard-pressed former mercenaries continued their journey across the southern Sinai, miraculously unharmed.

The pillar of cloud and fire which guided the Israelites in the Biblical account is related, says Dr. Goedicke, to the volcano. By purportedly dating the volcano and 047further aided by an Egyptian inscription which he says is an Egyptian version of the same event, Dr. Goedicke places the miraculous destruction of Pharaoh’s army in the early hours of a spring day in 1477 B.C.

Arbitrary Selection of Biblical Accounts

Let us consider first how Dr. Goedicke deals with the Bible as a source of “the facts.” Dr. Goedicke recognizes that the Biblical account is “not matched by objective historical information.” The Exodus account, he says, is “to be considered principally as a literary source” (my italics throughout); we must assume, he says, “that the account available to us [in the Bible] was not intended as descriptive historiography.”

Yet Dr. Goedicke makes no attempt to provide a systematic literary or textual analysis of the Biblical sources and traditions—which present formidable complexities relating to their composition, the variety of often conflicting sources, the differences between early and late tradition, glosses, anachronisms, literary forms, etc. Thus unencumbered by any of the problems which must be faced by the numerous schools of Biblical criticism, Dr. Goedicke completely ignores widely accepted theories about the “factual” nature of the materials in the Bible.

Despite Dr. Goedicke’s statement that the Bible “is the only record available on the Exodus” and his statement that “no primary sources such as documents, public inscriptions, or representations which can be linked with the Exodus account are readily available,” he nevertheless accepts as axiomatic that a real historical experience lies beneath the story of the Exodus. This conviction is based, he says, on a “surprising amount of secondary information, through whose cumulative weight the question of the historical Exodus can be placed on a firm basis.”

Unfortunately Dr. Goedicke, who is undoubtedly a renowned Egyptologist, does not subject either the Biblical narrative or the “secondary information” to a rigorous analysis of the kind so familiar to us in the study of Egyptian history and literature. Nor does he bring any new extra-Biblical documentation to substantiate his theory, except for one long-known text (first published by Heinrich Brugsch over a century ago) which is connected, at most, tangentially to the Israelites in Egypt. Instead, Dr. Goedicke arbitrarily selects those segments of the Biblical account—even if they are literary rather than historical sources—that square with his theory. He then attempts to buttress his selectively chosen “facts” with archaeological evidence selectively picked almost at random. He thus fails to offer any objective insight into Israel’s early history, either by a careful treatment of the Biblical narrative, or through well documented and firmly dated 048historical sources from Egypt, or based on a sound overall analysis of the archaeological evidence.

Dr. Goedicke uses the story of Joseph—a literary rather than an historiographical composition—as a prime source for reconstructing the history of the Exodus. Based on the Joseph story, Dr. Goedicke argues that (a) the group of Israelites who came out of Egypt in the Exodus was the nuclear group of Israelites and that “outside the group participating in the Exodus no Israel existed;” (b) this nuclear group came from its permanent settlement at Hebron where they owned land and followed a sedentary way of life; (c) the ancestors of the Exodus group came to Egypt by an “official invitation;” and (d) their migration to Egypt, settlement in the Delta and active involvement in the political, economic and military affairs of Egypt must be viewed within the context of the “Hyksos” period when Semites occupied the highest positions in lower (northern) Egypt.

Goedicke admits that the Joseph story includes elements that are quite late—the tenth-ninth century B.C. or even as late as the seventh-sixth century B.C. Yet his only objective argument for the historical reliability of this narrative is that it “seems inconceivable that a freely composed (sic!) story was secondarily introduced into the Torah (sic!) in order to explain the presence of the Exodus nuclear group.” In other words, he argues that this literary account could not have been introduced into Scripture for etiological purposes, to explain the presence of Israelites in Egypt! Most scholars would conclude that this may well have been the purpose of the introduction of the Joseph story into the Biblical account. Biblical scholars and Egyptologists generally agree, however, that it is impossible to draw any historical inferences from the story of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt. Their conclusion is based not only on a textual analysis of the Joseph story but also, and perhaps even more important, on objective Egyptian onomastic^a and historical considerations. The nature of the story, its frequent use of anachronistic terminology^b and its context make it almost certain that the traditions preserved in it relate to a much later period. Moreover, these traditions were most likely molded and formulated by the tribes of central Palestine, more specifically in the territory of Ephraim. In short, the tradition of the Joseph story is manifestly not Egyptian. It originated, in all likelihood, on Asian soil. It grew up and was nurtured in an Asian environment, during the period of Israel’s monarchy. And it owes very little, if anything, to Egypt.

Moreover, the various Biblical traditions regarding the patriarchal migrations to Egypt—Abraham in Genesis 12:10, Isaac in Genesis 26:1–6, and Jacob in Genesis 42:1ff—imply that the Hebrew tribes came to Egypt at different periods and that their migrations to Egypt must be understood as a continuous process stretching over a long period of time.

The Egyptian chapter of Israel’s early history was much more complex than the telescoped Biblical account suggests. Any competent analysis of the various and often conflicting traditions concerning the wandering in the Sinai desert, as well as the entry into Canaan, makes this clear. All of which is only to say that the history of the Exodus must not be oversimplified or its reconstruction reduced to an episode of a single group, especially when the reconstruction is based on Biblical materials (the Joseph story) of a very late date and very probably not of Egyptian background.

Incorrectly Identifies Patriarchs with “Hyksos”

According to Dr. Goedicke, the patriarchs in Canaan were farmers and landowners living in permanent settlements, particularly in Hebron. The Biblical record contained in Genesis contrasts diametrically with this view. In Genesis the patriarchs are portrayed as semi-nomads living in tents, sometimes engaging in trade, but usually roaming the central and southern mountain ranges and the Negev in search of seasonal pasture for their flocks, as well as good hunting grounds (the latter being a trademark of wandering nomads, like the Israelites). The patriarchs evidently maintained this way of life for generations, long after other peoples of their kind had settled down. The Bible makes it clear that the patriarchs, whether from necessity or choice, refrained from settling in towns or pursuing a sedentary way of life. They made their seasonal camp near a town, under the protection of the local ruler, but they were always regarded as foreigners without legal rights. When, occasionally, one of them attempted to farm the land, as for example, Isaac at Gerar (Genesis 26), this occurred only for a brief period on the edge of the settled country, and the episode was traumatic. In the few instances when the patriarchs purchased land, it was for burial purposes (at Hebron, Genesis 23:16) or for ritual purposes (at Shechem, Genesis 33:19–20).

Finally, the Biblical reference to Hebron—in Goedicke’s view the ancestral home of the Exodus group049—is contained in what is most likely a late tradition that is connected not with the patriarchal period but rather with the early history of the Israelite monarchy, when David was acclaimed king over Israel. Indeed, the historical event referred to in Numbers 13:12, “and Hebron was built seven years before Zoan of Egypt,” reflects the late date of this tradition because Zoan of Egypt (San el-Hazar) was established during the 21st Dynasty, at the earliest—that is, in the 11th century B.C., long after the patriarchal period.

Dr. Goedicke claims that the Exodus group migrated to the Egyptian Delta as a result of an official invitation from a pharaoh during the “Hyksos” period. He identifies the patriarchs with the “Hyksos” population of lower Egypt. All of this is completely unfounded, considering either Biblical or Egyptian sources. Moreover, this theory altogether ignores the motives explicitly stated in the Bible for the move to Egypt. The Patriarchs, as well as Joseph’s brothers, went to Egypt, according to Genesis, to “preserve their life” in time of famine (Genesis 12:10, 26:1–6, 42:1ff. etc.); ultimately, they became state slaves.

Many Semitic-speaking people had access to Egypt and in fact settled in the Nile Delta throughout the second millennium B.C. The Egyptians obviously knew these foreigners who settled in ever growing numbers on Egyptian soil. They are called Amu and Shasu in Egyptian documents. The well-known Papyrus Anastasi VI in the Cairo Museum tells us of the hospitality the Egyptians accorded to one such group in time of famine: “[We] finished letting the Bedouin (Shasu) tribes of Edom pass the fortress of Merneptah which is in Tjecku (Succot) to the pools of Per-Atum (Pithom) … to keep them alive and to keep their cattle alive.”

Because Asian migrations to Egypt were evidently a continuous and oft-repeated phenomenon, it is impossible to single out a date for the migration to Egypt of a specific group, let alone that of Joseph, the historicity of which is highly questionable. Moreover, textual, chronological and historical considerations make it impossible to date the Joseph episode, as proposed by Dr. Goedicke, in the framework of the Hyksos period.^c

For this association, Dr. Goedicke relies in part on the Great Speos Artemidos inscription, which does indeed use the term Amu to refer to Semitic people from Palestine. But this reference is from the Middle Kingdom (20th-18th century B.C.) period. It is methodologically fallacious to equate automatically, as Dr. Goedicke does, the Hebrews with the Amu referred to in Egyptian inscriptions.

Similarly, the discovery of Palestinian Middle Bronze Age pottery in Egyptian Delta sites has nothing to do with the settlement of the Hebrews in the Delta, contra Dr. Goedicke, unless, of course, he has convincing evidence identifying this pottery as “Hebrew” pottery or, even better, as “Josephite” pottery. Palestinian pottery is widely distributed throughout the Delta (and not just at Avaris and Pithom as suggested by Dr. Goedicke). It is also found in northern Sinai. This testifies to the close commercial and cultural ties between the “Hyksos” centers in Egypt on the one hand and Canaan on the other. It also reflects the influx of Semites into Egypt during the Second Intermediate period (17th-16th century B.C.), but it is impossible to identify any one of these groups as the Hebrews.

Lacks Evidence That Hatshepsut Used Hebrew Builders

It hardly seems necessary to refute Dr. Goedicke’s imaginative thesis that the Hebrews settled in the Nile Delta as militarily experienced mercenaries pursuant to a “contractual agreement” with pharaohs who engaged the Hebrews as frontier guards.

Dr. Goedicke interprets the Hebrew oppression in Egypt as the loss of privileges and a change in the group’s social and legal status which involved forced labor and physical hardship in connection with certain building projects. For this interpretation, Dr. Goedicke relies on a new reading of lines 36–38 of the famous Speos Artemidos inscription. According to Dr. Goedicke’s reading, the Pharaoh states in this inscription: “I annulled the former privileges [that existed] since [the time] the Asians (Anu) were in the region of Avaris of lower Egypt. The immigrants (Shemau) among them disregarded the tasks which were assigned to them.”

An examination of the entire inscription (and not just a small part of it) makes it abundantly clear that its sole concern is with the restoration of a number of temples in Middle Egypt which had been damaged or destroyed during the Hyksos period. The supposed reference in lines 36–38 does not contain any reference to the abolition of privileges or exemption from the corvee (forced labor). These references exist only in Dr. Goedicke’s imagination. The terms Amu and Shemau do indeed refer to Asian and nomadic groups, but in no way may they be applied to the Hebrews in Egypt. The term Amu, as noted above, is known already in the Execration Texts of the Middle Kingdom period (20th–18th century B.C.). The term was widely used by the Egyptians to denote Semitic-speaking 050peoples. Dr. Goedicke’s theory thus has very little to do with the actual text of the inscription. Sir Alan H. Gardiner’s brilliant translation of the Speos Artemidos inscription is as valid today as it was 35 years ago when he first presented it (Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 32, p. 43). Gardiner translates lines 36–38 of the inscription as follows: “I have raised up what has dismembered (even) from the first time (or, in that earlier time) when the Asiatics were in Avaris of the North Land, (with) roving hordes (or wandering outlanders) in the midst of them overthrowing what had been made.” These lines very clearly convey the message of the entire inscription, namely, that the restored old temples in Middle Egypt had not yet recovered from the neglect they had suffered during the Hyksos rule.

Fanciful theories aside, the only source we have for the Hebrew oppression in Egypt is the Biblical text. That text, however, is very explicit: the Hebrews were subjected to shameful servitude and compulsory labor in connection with public building projects. The Biblical account is consistent with Egyptian documents from the Empire period (16th–12th century B.C.) in which we learn that similar foreign groups were subjected to compulsory labor in a condition of slavery and were compelled to do all kinds of work—at state quarries, in gold mines and in building sacred temples.¹

A few words about the identification of Biblical Pithom and Rameses. Dr. Goedicke agrees with Donald B. Redford and other Egyptologists that the identification of Per-Atum with Pi-Rameses, the Nile Delta residence of the Ramessides, is questionable. I think in this he is correct. At the same time, Dr. Goedicke’s identification of Biblical Rameses (according to him Ramezez, sic!) with the hieroglyphic name R’mt_ny, at or near Avaris, is very problematic on philological grounds. Moreover, if we are to follow Dr. Goedicke’s argument about Queen Hatshepsut’s employing Hebrews as builders and mercenaries in these “border garrisons,” one would expect to find, as in the case of the Ramessides, inscriptional evidence that testifies to the extensive building activities—garrisons and public works—under Hatshepsut’s direction in the Delta, particularly at Pithom and Rameses/Ramezez. Such evidence is, of course, altogether lacking. Even the Great Speos Artemidos inscription, on which Dr. Goedicke relies, contains no such evidence. Similarly, the sequence of events proposed by Dr. Goedicke—the settlement of the Hebrews in the Delta during the Hyksos or Second Intermediate period, followed by garrisoning and building operations during the reign of Hatshepsut in the early 18th Dynasty—would be expected to leave some archaeological evidence in the Delta sites. However, the key sites for Dr. Goedicke’s hypothesis were, in fact, not occupied during Hatshepsut’s reign or the reigns of other Pharaohs of the early 18th Dynasty. The major building period after the time of the Hyksos was during the 19th Dynasty; that is, during the reign of Seti I, Rameses II and Merneptah (1307–1196 B.C.). This is true both at Tel el-Rataba (identified with Pithom) and at the sites of Qantin-khatana (Avaris, R’mt_ny), which Goedicke identifies with Biblical Rameses.

Dr. Goedicke adduces still another piece of evidence for the presence of Hebrews during the reign of Hatshepsut, this time in Sinai. Here he relies on the long-known inscription from the mining expeditions to the copper and turquoise mines around the temple site of Serabit el-Khadem. This temple was dedicated to Hathor—the “Lady of turquoise” who is also identified and referred to as Ba’alat. (Incidentally, Dr. Goedicke suggests that it was Hatshepsut, and not Hathor, who was named Ba’alat, sic!) These inscriptions bear names and titles of Semites or Canaanites who participated in the expeditions as slaves or free craftsmen. Some of the monuments assigned to Hatshepsut’s reign are also inscribed with the famous Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions which, according to Dr. Goedicke, bear witness to a Hebrew presence in the copper and turquoise mines of Sinai. This proposal must likewise be rejected because the occurrence of Semitic names in the mining areas of Sinai is in no way confined to Hatshepsut’s reign. We find such names from early in the Middle Kingdom (20th–18th century B.C.) and throughout the New Kingdom (16th–12th century B.C.). The connection between the Hebrews and the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions has long been rejected both on chronological and on historical grounds.

Precise Dating of Thera Eruption Impossible

In his attempt to reconstruct the daily and even hourly itinerary of the Exodus, Dr. Goedicke becomes entangled in a fanciful scenario totally divorced from Biblical, Egyptian or archaeological sources; the scenario is not even anchored in the topography and historical geography of the Nile Delta region. Thus, he maintains, for instance, that“two Exodus groups” left Egypt—the Khatana and the Tell el-Rataba groups (sic!), using “two Exodus roads”—summer and winter ones (sic!) that led to Sinai. The miracle of the sea is likewise pinpointed by him precisely at Tell Hazzob—evidently a site of very little significance in the Delta where, incidentally, two competent Egyptologists, F. L. Griffith and Jean Cledat, found only Roman and Islamic remains. He equates two different localities in the Biblical itinerary of the Exodus—051Etham and Migdol—with the site of Sile, or Thel. He identifies the cult place Baal Zephon with Daphnae (Biblical Tahpanhes), but the foundations of this site go back only to the Saite period (seventh century B.C.); the site has nothing to do with the Exodus period.

Tectonic activity, periodic sea flooding, considerable silting and the excavation of the Suez Canal have all altered the ancient topography of the Delta region so drastically that any attempt at reconstructing the topography of the Exodus is bound to remain hypothetical. In the Roman period, Pelusium, for instance, was situated on the coast where the Pelusian branch of the Nile debouched into the Mediterranean. The ancient remains of Pelusium (Tell Farama) are now, however, about three miles inland. Moreover, the site of Hellenistic and Persian Pelusium sank by at least two meters during the last two millennia, so that the Hellenistic and Persian cities are now submerged completely. It is absolutely essential, therefore, to exercise the greatest caution in dealing with the topography of the Exodus, particularly in light of the rather vague terms used in the Bible and the sometimes conflicting information given. The lack of corroborative evidence in the Egyptian record further complicates the matter. Dr. Goedicke’s reconstruction of the Exodus itinerary is, unfortunately, totally confused and has very little to do with the Biblical record.

Let us now turn to Dr. Goedicke’s major contribution to the history of the Exodus: the miracle of the sea. The “miracle of the sea” has often been “explained” by a “volcano theory” in both popular and scholarly literature. The discovery of the Thera volcano and the remains at Akrotiri naturally brought a new spate of speculations relating to the Exodus. Although Dr. Goedicke explains the 052miracle of the sea as the result of the Thera volcano, for some reason he considers other miracles, such as the Ten Plagues, as mere “poetical reflections.”

On the basis of the Thera volcano, Dr. Goedicke dates not only the Israelite departure from Egypt but also the destruction of the Minoan civilization on Crete precisely to the spring of 1477 B.C. If the dating of the destruction of the Minoan civilization proved to be correct, it would doubtless be one of the most significant contributions to Aegean history.

As evidence for “seismological indications” in Exodus 13 and 14, Dr. Goedicke singles out “two signs of conspicuous volcanic nature,” namely the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire which guided the Israelites. These symbols of divine presence, however, followed the Israelites throughout their journey in the desert, including the episode at Mt. Sinai: “The Lord went before them, by day a pillar of cloud to guide their way, by night a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel night and day. The pillar of cloud never left its place in front of the people by day, nor the pillar of fire by night.” (Exodus 13:21–22; see also 15:19–20, 24; 19:16–18, 24:15–18, 33:9 and others for symbols of divine presence.) That these symbols had nothing to do with volcanic activity is clearly indicated by the frequent reference to them as protectors of the tabernacle in the long desert journey (Exodus 40:36–38, especially Numbers 9:15–23).

The reference to “fire” in the Great Speos Artemidos inscription (“my Uraeus threw fire against my enemies”)—according to Dr. Goedicke, a sign of volcanic nature—is simply a common figure of speech in Egyptian literature. This figure of speech is not to be interpreted literally as “fire” but as an expression of rage. Indeed, an identical phrase is used to denote rage in this same inscription (lines 2–4) when describing the “flames” of Amun-Re. The Camarvon Tablet, for example, concerning the expulsion of the Hyksos, speaks of the Egyptian army in front of the Pharaoh “like a blast of fire.” The inscriptions of Rameses III likewise describe the enemies of Egypt as coming forward “while the flame was prepared before them,” or while the “full flame was in front of them.”

Literary descriptions and “poetical reflections” aside, it is most difficult to imagine how fire and smoke emanating from an island hundreds of miles away could be observed not only from the eastern Nile Delta but also from different localities (at different times) in the Sinai desert. In the Sinai desert, let it be remembered, the Israelites experienced the pillar of fire and smoke as being among them, in their very presence. Even the eastern Nile Delta is about 621 miles (1000 km) from Thera.

With regard to dating the Thera volcano, archaeological evidence from Greece suggests a series of eruptions between the 16th and 12th centuries B.C. There is simply no way, at the present stage of seismologic research, to date any of these eruptions with Dr. Goedicke’s precision.

More important, however, is the lack of evidence for such a phenomenon in the Biblical text or, for that matter, in the inscriptional evidence from Egypt, either in the Great Speos Artemidos inscription or elsewhere. In order to prove that the Great Speos Artemidos inscription refers to an unexpected tidal wave that suddenly swept across the Nile Delta (and incidentally destroyed the wrong side, that is, the fleeing Israelites instead of Pharaoh’s troops), Dr. Goedicke proposes a new reading of line 41 of the inscription: “This was the directive of the Primeval Father [literally father-of-fathers, that is, Nun, the primeval water] who came over one day unexpectedly.” Both Dr. Goedicke’s reading and his interpretation are far-fetched; they are not reflected in the text. Some of the key terms and grammatical forms he finds in the inscription are not there at all. First, the negative form of “expected” is not found in this line. Therefore, the god did appear “in his (appointed) time” (as in Gardiner’s reading of line 41) and was not “unexpected” (as in Goedicke’s reading of the same line). Second, and more critical, Nun, god of the primeval water, is not mentioned or even alluded to in the inscription. The prefix for “father” in line 41 most probably refers to Amun-Re, who is frequently mentioned in the Speos Artemidos inscription and with whom Hatshepsut is always affiliated. There is no reason, in the context of the inscription, to introduce another god, Nun, as the god to whom the term “father” refers.

Having “dried out” the inscription from the unexpected tidal wave, we are left only with the phrase “the earth swallowed their footsteps” as evidence for the disappearance of the enemy in the disastrous flood. Here again Gardiner’s reading, “the earth has removed their footsteps,” is the correct one. This phrase is simply another example of a figure of speech. This is evident from its occurrence elsewhere in the same inscription: “The earth had swallowed up its noble sanctuary”—a reference to the decaying temples of Egypt.

Finally, if Dr. Goedicke’s hypothesis were correct, we would expect to find archaeological evidence to support it in eastern Nile Delta sites, evidence such as thick silt layers or the destruction of settlements by flash flood. Not a single site, however—neither those mentioned by Dr. Goedicke nor the dozens of sites explored by the author in the vicinity of the Suez Canal—contained such evidence in the Hyksos and New Kingdom period.

A more likely interpretation of the miracle of the sea is that it is connected with a tectonic movement or perhaps 053a periodic sea flood known to occur both in the Nile Delta and in northern Sinai. Modern geological research has shown that this region has been subject to tectonic movements from very early times. Strabo, the great Greek first century A.D. geographer, noted in his discussion of tidal waves and earthquakes that “similar occurrences take place in the neighborhood of Mt. Casius situated near Egypt where the land undergoes a single quick convulsion and makes a sudden change to a higher or lower level, the result being that, whereas the elevated part repels the sea and the sunken part receives it, yet, the land makes a reverse change and the site resumes its old position again, a complete interchange of levels sometimes having taken place and sometimes not.” Elsewhere, Strabo gives us an eyewitness account of changes in the landscape in the region near Pelusium: “When I was residing in Alexandria in Egypt, the sea about Pelusium and Mt. Casius rose and flooded the country and made an island of the mountain so that the road by Mt. Casius into Phoenicia became navigable.”²

Oren Locates “Miracle of the Sea” in Bardawil Area

In the early Islamic period, another upheaval of this nature severely affected this area. The whole region sank by about one meter, turning large cities, like Ostrakire, on the east edge of Lake Bardawil, into a marsh dotted with small islands that mark the sites of large buildings. A team of archaeologists from Ben-Gurion University under my direction had a similar experience in the winter of 1977 when a violent storm caused the sea around Lake Bardawil to flood the region suddenly.

As early as 1934, Major C. S. Jarvis, the British Governor of Sinai, suggested that the miracle of the sea occurred in the area of Lake Bardawil and that the Egyptian army was trapped in a lagoon that was suddenly formed as a result of a violent storm. In 343 B.C. the Persian king Artaxerxes lost almost half his army in precisely this way when he invaded Egypt.

Although we have no first-hand information in Egyptian records either for the Egyptian sojourn of the Hebrews, or for their subsequent migration to Canaan, the Biblical narrative, coupled with archaeological evidence and background materials from Egypt, make it most plausible that the ancestors of Israel, like large numbers of other Asian Semites, had been slaves in Egypt and managed in some way to escape and return to Canaan. Admittedly, we cannot reconstruct the details of this chapter in Israel’s history. The actual events were, no doubt, much more complex than the Biblical narrative indicates. All we can do in the present state of our knowledge is to suggest that the various traditions interwoven in the Biblical narrative imply that the Egyptian episode must be seen as a continuous process of migrations, settlement and movement on various occasions and along different routes by small and large groups between Egypt and Canaan. At the same time, many people of the same ethnic stock remained in Palestine and never went to Egypt.

Both historical and archaeological considerations require us to place the Exodus from Egypt, at least of some groups, in the context of the late 19th Egyptian Dynasty; that is, late 13th and early 12th century B.C. This date is required by the evidence concerning the establishment of kingdoms in Transjordan (for example, Edom and Moab; see Numbers 20–21) and by the “conquest” of Canaan and establishment of new Israelite settlements in the hilly regions not occupied by the Canaanites. These events can be securely dated to this period by the archaeological evidence. Moreover, Egyptian materials concerning Asians in the Nile Delta, Egyptian historical records, such as Rameses II’s wars with the Hittites and his military expeditions to Transjordan, the reference to Israel in the Merneptah stele, migrations and settlement of the Sea Peoples in Palestine—all provide the chronological key to dating a major Exodus to the late 13th or early 12th century and all help to place this Exodus in its proper historical context.

I regret to say that very little of a positive nature can be said about Dr. Goedicke’s hypothesis. It is a good illustration of how a theory is conceived and formulated on the basis of an arbitrary and often misleading culling of selective support from various sources—from the Bible, from Egyptian records and from archaeological materials. Above all, Dr. Goedicke lacks first-hand control over any of his prime source material. Overall, one cannot help but feel that for Dr. Goedicke, Biblical study, as a scholarly discipline based on explicit textual, stylistic and linguistic guidelines, is completely irrelevant.

This critical review of Dr. Goedicke’s work is, of course, based only on his popular presentation, which is all that he has made available. If and when he presents his views more thoroughly, I hope there will be an opportunity for a detailed, and perhaps also more positive, review of his work.

In the September/October BAR, we presented an extensive account of Professor Hans Goedicke’s new views on the Exodus and the Israelites’ flight from Egypt (“The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” BAR 07:05), as well as a critique of these views by Professor Charles R. Krahmalkov (“A Critique of Professor Goedicke’s Exodus Theories,” BAR 07:05), a well-known expert in ancient and Biblical languages at the University of Michigan. Professor Goedicke, a distinguished Egyptologist and chairman of the department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, placed the drowning of the Egyptians in […]