Yes, the Exodus happened, but not that way: 9-14-17

Whether from the Bible or from such classics as The Exodus by Leon Uris, most of us know the story of the enslaved Jews in Egypt escaping captivity there several thousand years ago, wandering in the desert for 40 years while Moses led them and finally entering the Holy Land (though under Joshua, not Moses).

But, it turns out, a lot of what we think we know is wrong, contends Bible scholar Richard Elliott Friedman in his compelling, revealing and fascinating new book, The Exodus: How It Happened and Why It Matters.

Unlike some scholars, Friedman does not contend that the story of the Exodus is entirely fictional. But he does assert that it did not involve millions of Jews, as the traditional story tells it. Rather, he says, just the Levites, a much smaller group, left Egypt in that way. And, he says, there are two religious developments that can be traced pretty directly to the Exodus: the widespread acceptance of monotheism and the ethical ideas of welcoming the stranger and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Those two great developments, Friedman contends, "went hand in hand from the beginning."

Friedman, a professor of Jewish studies at the University of Georgia, uses recent archaeological findings as well as careful study of the biblical texts themselves to draw his conclusions. And in what he calls a time with "an anti-historical wind blowing," it matters now what really happened. We can figure out at least the broad sweep of the story, he writes, even if some details are lost forever.

The evidence -- both archaeological and textual -- does not support the story that about two million Jews escaped all at once from Egypt. There were, rather, numerous smaller exits by various groups of people from Egypt, and one of them was the Levites, who eventually joined the people of Israel in what today we think of as the Holy Land.

One way we can be confident about this conclusion, he writes, is by looking at the sources the biblical writers used to tell the story of the Exodus. There are four major sources, often labeled J, E, P and D. (Friedman describes in detail what those letters mean.) Three of those sources, E, P and D, "were written by Levites." And those sources tie the Levites (whose role in life was to assist with priestly duties among Jews) in several crucial ways to life in Egypt. In fact, Friedman contends, "the narrative that encompasses Exodus 1-15 evokes the Egyptian setting at every turn."

The J source -- so-called "because Yahweh's name in it (spelled Jahwe in early German studies) is known by humans from the very beginning of the story at creation" -- is focused on the "period of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. . .The J text. . .is so non-priestly that I raised the possibility that it could have been written by a woman. . ." J has essentially nothing to say about the people of Israel being slaves in Egypt.

When Friedman goes through the evidence for a Levites-only Exodus, he finds that eight out of eight Israelites with Egyptian names are Levites. Beyond that, all "texts treating slavery during and after the Egyptian stay are Levite sources." And there are eight other important clues that it was the Levites who were in Egypt and who later joined the Israelites in the Holy Land. They were welcomed into the life of the Jews there and eventually the Levites' story of the Exodus became the story of the whole people of Israel.

The biblical writers, he concludes, did not make up the Exodus, but they did make up the number of Jews in the Exodus -- about 2 million. Archaeologists, he writes, "have been combing in vain to find" evidence of so large an Exodus. But they have -- and, Friedman asserts, always will -- come up empty because that massive number of people leaving Egypt all at once never happened. Nor, he says, was there a bloody conquest of the land of Canaan by the people who left Egypt. Rather, it was just the Levites joining Jews already in the land and becoming their priests. "And thank heavens for that," Friedman writes. "It is a story of violent destruction, and the Jews have been denigrated for it; but it never happened."

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah, he writes, "were there for hundreds of years. Still, the mystery is from where they came -- and we just do not know."

What is clear to Friedman is that the idea of monotheism found its permanent home among the Jews once the Exodus had occurred. As did the idea of loving neighbor as self, and acknowledging that neighbors include aliens.

Particularly intriguing in Friedman's account is how humanity got to monotheism. It required, he says, the death of various "gods," and there is biblical textual evidence that exactly that happened to explain what happened to those gods and why there is only one God left.

"Monotheism prevailed," he writes, "but if the exodus had not happened, monotheism would have developed either (1) later, or (2) completely differently, or (3) it might never have happened at all." And much the same is true, he writes, of being kind to neighbor and aliens in our midst.

Biblical scholars, of course, argue about a lot of this. And Friedman acknowledges some of those disputes. But he presents his arguments in language accessible to everyone and he argues his case with many supporting details and with conviction.

(In 2011, I reviewed a previous book from Friedman -- of which he was co-author. You can read that here.)

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IS THIS WHAT PROTESTANTS BELIEVE 500 YEARS AFTER THE REFORMATION?

A group of Protestant church leaders, commemorating the start of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago next month, has released this new statement of faith, called "A Reforming Catholic Confession," described in a subtitle as "What We Protestants of Diverse Churches and Theological Traditions Say Together." This Christianity Today story about it says "the confession has garnered more than 250 signatories," and hopes to add more, especially women and people from nations beyond the U.S. You can read the statement for yourself and judge whether it's something, if you're Protestant, you could sign in good faith. I find a little of the language to be dog whistles for positions within or close to fundamentalism, including the use of the word "infallible" to describe the Bible. There are ways in which I think it's possible to use that word when talking about scripture, but I think the use of it in this creed is too broad. In any case, it's always helpful for people of faith to try to put their faith in words in each new generation, and I'm glad to see this effort, even if I personally would have said it differently.