Roxana Cooper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> [...] I am quite comfortable with
> the concept of Exodus *NOT* being a
> completely accurate historical account,
> but it doesn't have to be to have
> had some historical basis.

A view (naturally enough!) that you're not alone in sharing ...


From "Five Recent Books on the Emergence of Ancient Israel: Review Article" by Anthony J. Frendo (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, July-December 1992: 144-151):

"[...] According to Finkelstein [in his 1988 book, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement] the Israelites of the Early Iron Age who were in the process of settling down in the hill country of Canaan were basically the descendants of those Canaanites who had dropped out of society towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age and led a nomadic way of life on the fringes of the land, though other ethnic groups (like the Hivites and the Kenizzites) were also included. Indeed, Finkelstein uses the word Israelite as a technical term to signify the 'hill country people in a process of settling down' in this period (1988, 28). Thus, the Israelites are largely indigenous to Canaan, but 'there must be a kernel of historical veracity in the deeply-rooted biblical tradition concerning the origin of Israel in Egypt' and 'certain elements among the settlers may well have come from outside the country ...' (Finkelstein 1988, 348). Since Finkelstein's very interesting and important work concentrates on the archaeological data (virtually to the exclusion of the literary evidence) he does not elaborate these points about the elements in Israel that were extraneous to the land of Canaan. In this sense, his contribution to the problem of the emergence of ancient Israel is fundamental but not comprehensive [...]" (p. 147).



From "The Central East Jordan Valley in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages" by Eveline J. van der Steen (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 1996, 302: 51-74):

"[...] Both Finkelstein and Zertal suggest a wave of new settlements [in the central hill country of Palestine] starting in the east and moving west. The 'morphotypology' of the pottery seems to confirm this: some of the new settlements, like Mount Ebal and possibly the Bull Site, may have had their origins in migration of peoples from east of the Jordan [...]" (pp. 60-61).



From "Survival and Adaptation: Life East of the Jordan in the Transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age" by Eveline J. van der Steen (Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1999, 131: 176-192):

"[...] It has been pointed out several times in recent years that the origins of proto-Israel were more complicated than people like to think [...]. Hess, in a recent article (1993, 132; see also Dever 1995, 210) has re-evaluated the existing hypotheses concerning the origins of Israel in the Early Iron Age. His conclusion is that none of the existing hypotheses can be ruled out on the basis of either literature or archaeological record, and that 'to accept all the models to at least some degree is not simply to opt for a "middle of the road" position but to affirm the diversity of human motivations and social action involved in the process of becoming a people'. It therefore seems likely that at least some of the 'earliest Israelites' came from across the Jordan. From the moment they crossed the river their footsteps have been closely followed by archaeologists, theologians and historians alike. I would like to go one step back and have a look at who these people were, and why the crossed the Jordan in the first place [...]" (p. 176).



From What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel by William G. Dever (2001. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company):

"[...] The whole 'Exodus-Conquest' cycle of stories must now be set aside as largely mythical, but in the proper sense of the term 'myth': perhaps 'historical fiction', but tales told primarily to validate religious beliefs [...]. I have even argued that there may be some actual historical truth here, since among the southern groups whom we know to have written much of the Hebrew Bible there is known a 'House (tribe) of Joseph', many of whom may indeed have stemmed originally from Egypt. When they told the story of Israel's origins, they assumed naturally that they spoke for 'all Israel' (as the Bible uses the term), even though most of the latter's ancestors had been local Canaanites. In struggling to explain what it means to be an 'American', we do the same thing. At the great national holiday of Thanksgiving, we all patriotically identify with those Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower [...]" (p. 121).



From The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith (2002. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company):

"[...] The evidence of the similarities between Canaanite and Israelite societies has led to a major change in the general understanding of the relationship between these two societies. Rather than viewing them as two separate cultures, some scholars define Israelite culture as a subset of Canaanite culture. There are, however, some Israelite features that are unattested in Canaanite sources. These include the old tradition of Yahweh's southern sanctuary, variously called Sinai (Deut. 33:2; cf. Judg. 5:5; Ps. 68:9), Paran (Deut. 33:2; Hab. 3:3), Edom (Judg. 5:4), and Teiman (Hab. 3:3 and in the Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions; cf. Amos 1:12; Ezek. 25:13), and Israel's early tradition of the Exodus from Egypt (Exod. 15:4). Neither of these features appears to be Canaanite [...]" (p. 25).



From The Book of Joshua: Its Theme and Role in Archaeological Discussions by David Merling (1997. Michigan, Andrews University Press):

"[...] whether the ['Israelites'] were new settlers, as the Book of Joshua states, or whether they were indigenous to the region, as many recent authors speculate, is unimportant to this study. It does seem, however, that those who suggest that the Israelites were indigenous to the region, contrary to the Book of Judges, are under the obligation to provide evidence of other indigenous peoples who have developed literary traditions in later times inventing conquest and arrival stories. To this time, such evidence has not been presented.

"Until something more than unsubstantiated, hypothetical theories can be offered as a replacement, it seems more prudent to accept cautiously the biblical writers' explanations of Israel's origins. This conclusion has become even more acceptable, since a growing number of scholars have begun to recognize the limitations of archaeology by suggesting the 'invisible' MBIIC populations, as noted [previously]. Allowing the biblical writers a fair hearing may run counter to common biblical criticism, but given the limitations of archaeology at the present time, and the inherent weakneses of settlement theories, it seems more viable than other options [...]" (p. 230).



From The Memoirs of God: History, Memory, and the Experience of the Divine in Ancient Israel by Mark S. Smith (2004, Minneapolis: Fortress Press):

"[...] As noted above, it is not professionally responsible for historians to give more credence to the historical value of the Bible simply because it is the Bible. However, this is not the end of the matter. While it has remained problematic to grant any historical substance to the patriarchal stories as such, this is not quite the case with the exodus. It is true that the exodus story shows signs of monarchic (and later) construction. The language of the Hebrew in Exodus is hardly premonarchic, and occasionally allusions in the book betray its monarchic context [...]. However, beyond the matter of assembling and assessing information, historians may consider circumstantial evidence as well, and in the account of the exodus there are some circumstantial considerations. These have been debated, and many scholars would reject their value for historical purposes; other scholars accept one or more of them as having historical value indicating that there was some sort of departure from Egypt by some antecedents of the Israelites. It is true that several unpersuasive and grandiose claims continue to be made with little warrant, but there are lesser claims that may be viewed as having some plausibility [...].

"At the same time, it is true that the exodus may not have taken place in all the exalted ways recalled in the later strands of the prose narrative of Exodus 1-14, but that hardly precludes the possibility that some elements of historicity may lie behind the text of Exodus. Many scholars are utterly dismissive, of attempts to search for a historical kernel of the exodus. Affirmations of the historical veracity of the exodus are sometimes regarded as intellectually feeble efforts inspired by misplaced religious sensibilities. The points that I have mentioned in favour of seeing some sort of exodus are disputed, yet they cannot be dismissed out of hand.

"More to the point, neither skeptics nor the religiously devoted can 'prove' their view, largely because of the gaps in the textual and archaeological record. Like old shards of ancient memory preserved in Genesis, the narrative of Exodus through Numbers may contain older traditions that were shaped to later Israelite concerns. That some of these do not conform to the ideas of monarchic Israel and later would suggest some historical basis for them; how much older these are and how precisely they conform to some sort of ancient historical reality are questions that lie beyond our reach. However, the evidence as it stands permits the historical possibility that the groups known to have moved by land routes between Egypt and the Levant may have included some ancestors of the Israelites (though hardly the large numbers reported in the Bible) [...]" (pp. 19-21).

**********

"[...] The archaeological and textual evidence [...] supports the view favored since the 1980s that Israelite culture was largely based on the local ‘Canaanite’ (or West Semitic) culture. Contrary to the biblical presentation, the Israelites did not entirely come into the land from outside. On the basis of shared traits such as pottery and burial types, language, and other cultural features, scholars have come to the conclusion that the ‘Israel’ of the highlands in the premonarchic period largely developed out of the local culture. (For this view, see Smith 1990, 2002a; and for a highly sophisticated study from an anthropological and archaeological perspective, see the groundbreaking article by Bloch-Smith 2003.) This view, however, does not preclude the plausibility of the biblical memory of Israelites as outsiders to the land. Indeed, the very complexity of the biblical traditions of Israel as outsiders to the land may suggest some ancient memories of foreign origins. While it would be impossible to prove the historical veracity of the traditions, they show variety as well as apparent contradiction and harmonization. The biblical traditions preserve the memory of both the exodus traditions of Israel from Egypt and the tradition of Israel coming from Aram (Deuteronomy 26:5: ‘my father was a wandering [or better, ‘refugee’] Aramean’). This variation may itself be a witness to some ancient memory that some elements of early Israel derived from outside the land [...]" (p. 21-22).




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My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the knottiest of all.

- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

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'I am beginning to believe that nothing is quite so uncertain as facts.

- Edward S. Curtis

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'We are coming now rather into the region of guesswork', said Dr Mortimer.
'Say, rather, into the region where we balance probabilities and choose the most likely. It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation', [replied Holmes].

- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

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'It never does to be too sure, you know, in these matters. Coincidence killed the professor.'

- "Novel of the Black Seal" by Arthur Machen