The theory of time (revisited)

Preface

This is based on a talk which I recently gave at my Church. I have slightly modified it for this medium, and reinserted some material I had to cut for time.

Introduction and purpose

Today I discuss the exodus. It’s a crucial part of our Bible. It prepares the way for Jesus. It provides the background which the New Testament assumes and builds on. But is the exodus account reliable? Can we trust it?

Many people argue that the Old Testament is unreliable. They claim large parts of it are fictional. Myths written much later. You will find these views parroted by online atheists and some scholars. They question the exodus and the conquest more than anything else. What should we do when encountering this objection? Should we have doubts ourselves? Or should we study the actual evidence for ourselves? I’m presenting this to help you engage with these critical views and understand their mistakes.

Does this matter? Would the Exodus account being fiction undermine our faith? Jesus accepted the Old Testament’s reliability.

And Jesus said to him, "See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them." (Matthew 8:4)

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." (Matthew 5:17)

He believed the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, was written by Moses. An unreliable Torah means an unreliable Jesus. That’s fatal to Christianity.

I’ll start with a brief introduction, then present the ideas which challenge the Bible. Then I’ll challenge those challenges.

Archaeology is the study of human artefacts from the past. It helps understand the culture and history of the people who made those artefacts.

People kept building cities in the same place. Why? Maybe it had a good water source. Good defences. Near trade routes or good agricultural lands. They could reuse the stones of the old city. So they flattened the previous city, and built on top of it. This creates a Tell, a mound created by remains stacked on top of another. They are found throughout the Middle East. Archaeologists find a tell, and excavate it. They dig down from the most recent layers at the top to earlier time periods.

What’s found? What people discarded or didn’t clean up, and has survived to this day. Most organic material rots away. Most broken pottery or ornaments were cleared out of the house. Very little of what they made and possessed survives for us to recover today.

But archaeologists find pottery, metal, stone walls, ash, bones, seeds, and so on. Best of all writing. Writing isn’t common in Israel. The main writing medium was Papyrus, made from dry reeds. This rots away in all but the driest environments. Some Papyrus fragments from Old Testament times survived in the Egyptian desert. Nothing from Israel or the Egyptian delta. But people didn’t just write on Papyrus. Scrolls were sealed by a stamped clay identifiers, called bullae. These remain after the document rots away. We also have some of the seals themselves. People wrote on pottery, with some surviving examples from Israel. The ancient Mesopotamians, what’s now Iraq, Syria, and Iran, used small clay tablets. Lots of these have survived. They teach us a lot. But there aren’t as many examples from Israel or Egypt. People painted on the walls of their tombs. They carved inscriptions on stone reliefs, often in temples or palaces or commemorative tablets. Most of our knowledge of ancient Egypt comes from these. But they are biased. They were written to praise the god, king or noble the tomb or temple honoured. They didn’t report bad news. They exaggerated good news.

So some writing has survived. Enough to give us a decent understanding of the broad outline of ancient history. Not as much as we would like to fill in all the details. And much of it is biased.

But there’s lots of pottery. Pottery gradually changed over time. It still happens. Compare your grandmother’s dinner plates with your own. An expert can immediately know when a pottery shard was made. They date the pottery, and everything found around it. We can also date archaeological layers by carbon dating surviving organic remains such as bones and seeds. Bones teach us about diets. The Israelites, in theory, and mostly in practice, didn’t eat pork. This distinguishes Israelite settlements from their Canaanite neighbours.

We should always beware of conclusions drawn from limited evidence. That's good advice in general, but especially so when evidence is sparse in fields such as ancient Near Eastern Archaeology (especially in certain time periods and locations).

Archaeologists only dig up what was discarded. That’s a very small proportion of what once existed. And very little of that survives. It can be destroyed by Human activity or erosion. And we’ve only excavated a tiny proportion of what’s there. So there is very little available evidence. People draw conclusions based on that evidence. But limited evidence means provisional conclusions. They will be changed as more data emerges. That’s not to say we know nothing. But we can’t argue from “There’s no evidence it happened” to “It never happened.” There might be no evidence because it didn’t happen. Or because we haven’t yet found it. Or it wasn’t left behind for us to find.

I’ll give a brief overview of Egyptian history. Here is a timeline to give context. The Egypt of the pharaohs began about 3000BC. The top left. It lasted until it was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Roughly 30BC. The Pharaohs are traditionally divided into 26 dynasties, with some Greek rulers at the end. Egypt oscillated between “Kingdom” periods, shaded green, when it was unified and strong, and intermediate periods, shaded orange, when it was divided and weak. The Old Kingdom pharaohs come first. They built the pyramids of Giza. The Old Kingdom collapsed into the first Intermediate period. Egypt was reunited into the Middle Kingdom. Then Northern Egypt was invaded by various Canaanite foreigners, the hated Hyksos. That’s the second intermediate period. The native Egyptians in the South rallied, drove out the invaders, and founded the New Kingdom. The New Kingdom consisted of the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, and I’ll be focusing on this period. Egypt was militarily strong, and created a little Empire in Canaan and the nearby parts of Africa. Tutankhamun ruled midway through the New Kingdom in the 18th dynasty. Egypt then divided again. The third intermediate period. Finally, it was conquered by the Persians, then liberated and revived by the Greeks. Cleopatra ruled at the end of that Greek period.

At the bottom, I’ve listed the archaeological periods. The Early Bronze Age, the Middle Bronze Age, the Late Bronze Age, and the Iron Age. These names come from the early days when archaeologists were ignorant. The periods have nothing to do with when metals were used. Today they refer to certain pottery types.

I’ve also listed key points in Biblical history. But people don’t agree on Biblical chronology before Saul and David. Some say the Exodus happened in the 13th century, under pharaoh Ramesses II of the 19th dynasty. Ramesses’ eldest child died in his 25th year, implying an Exodus around 1250BC (assuming the widely accepted ascension date of Ramesses II of 1279BC, although some would move it roughly a decade earlier).

They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:11.)

Pi-Ramesses was built under Seti I, Ramesses II’s father.

Alternatively, some say the Exodus occurred in the 15th century BC. In the middle of the 18th dynasty. This is based on a few passages, most importantly Solomon’s dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 6.

In the four hundred and eightieth* year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. (1 Kings 6:1)

Solomon ruled from about 970BC. 966BC+480 years = 1446BC. There is a textual variation suggesting 440 years, and this is likely to be a rounded number, so at best taking this text literally only reduces to a range from around 1400-1450BC. This would coincide with the reigns of either pharaoh Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, or Thutmose IV. Amenhotep II is usually preferred for historical reasons.

Why two views? There isn’t sufficient evidence to definitively rule either of them out. Both positions have advantages and disadvantages. Will we get that evidence? Maybe. The current Shiloh and Jericho excavations look interesting. But for this talk, I’ll remain neutral.

To expand on the text of the talk, I should probably explain why I think the Shiloh and Jericho excavations look interesting. Jericho has traditionally been a problem for the conquest account.

Biblically, the walls of Jericho fell down at Joshua's approach (there's more relevant data in the story than this, but to keep this simple I'll just focus on the walls). It's not a question of whether these walls fell down. The major excavations have all found the remains of collapsed mudbrick walls at the bottom of the tell. The problem is when the walls fell down. Kenyon in the 1950s dated the collapsed walls to the end of the Middle Bronze city 4. Around 1550BC. She also is generally believed to have stated, apart from a LB2 "Middle Building" that sits uncomfortably between the two proposed Exodus dates, Jericho was abandoned in the Late Bronze Age. However, in her full report she did notice some Late Bronze occupation and a destruction layer. The more recent excavations under Nigro have expanded on this. He believes that the city was only briefly abandoned after the Middle Bronze Age destruction, but then repopulated and rebuilt during the LB1 period. There was a Late Bronze Age city V. The collapsed mudbrick walls were added on top of the old Middle Bronze Age walls during the Late Bronze 1 period, and collapsed during the Late Bronze Age. I read in one of his papers that he dated this due to Late Bronze 1 pottery found mixed in with the collapsed walls, although it was just a brief note and didn't go into details. This obviously potentially has huge consequences in undermining the sceptical consensus that the walls fell down over a century and a half before Joshua (or longer for the 19th dynasty Exodus theory). It puts a destruction of Jericho back into the right chronological window. Unfortunately, he hasn't yet fully published his excavations (as far as I know). His most relevant paper on Late Bronze Age isn't available online, and so I haven't (yet) been able to access it. Another work which references the Late Bronze Age is only published in Italian. The 18th dynasty Exodus theory requires that the walls collapse and burn layer at the end of LB1 or start of LB2. The mid-LB2 "middle building" is then associated with Eglon of Moab. The 19th dynasty requires that the walls collapse at the end of LB2, with Eglon of Moab's occupation pushed into the early Iron Age (where there is little sign of occupation at Jericho). I've seen reports from supporters of the 18th dynasty and 19th dynasty Exodus theories who have read this key paper, and they each claim it supports their position. So this is potentially decisive, but I'm not sure which way the evidence stands. However, I do note that in some of his more recent papers, he suggests that the city was abandoned during the last century of the Late Bronze Age, which would rule out the 19th dynasty exodus (although he has also stated that most evidence for LB2 Jericho was destroyed by erosion and subsequent human activity). I'll just have to await further accesible publications going into more detail.

Shiloh was where the Israelites set up the tabernacle after the conquest. The current excavations have uncovered clear evidence of cultic activity, and a deposit of sacred materials: bones from sacrificial animals, pottery used in the rituals, and some gold and silver items. The general remains are consistent with Israelite practices outlined in the Old Testament. The bones exclude pig bones, and the priests seperated the left and right sided parts of the animal (there is a statistically significant discrepancy betwee left and right sided bones), consistent with the requirements of Israelite ritual (Leviticus 7:32). There is little doubt that this was an Israelite site. But when did they start using it? The excavators claim to have found early LB2 pottery in the deposit, which would rule out a 19th dynasty conquest at the end of the LB2 period. They have also recently published their first carbon dates, which also suggest that at least some of the bones clearly pre-date the conquest date in the 19th dynasty model of around 1215BC, while they are consistent with the earlier conquest date. However, we are again still awaiting the full excavation report (as far as I know), and the excavators are vigorous advocates of 18th dynasty exodus model and sometimes are a bit sloppy. So this again needs to be confirmed when their full data is debated.

This evidence at Shiloh favours the 18th dynasty model. (Which I favoured anyway due to the finds at Hazor, especially with respect to the absence of Iron Age Canaanite remains in view of Judges 4, Jericho's absence of Iron Age remains compared against Judges 3, and the date of the destruction of the temple at Shechem corresponding to Judges 9, among other reasons.) But the 19th dynasty model still has its strong defenders, and I won't be so bold as to rule it out (and further evidence might change my mind).

Back to the text of the talk.

So, Moses dates from the Late Bronze Age -- Egypt’s New Kingdom. The monarchy is Iron Age II. And before Moses, Egypt was occupied by some Canaanites called the Hyksos. Joseph and Abraham date to either the Middle Kingdom or Second Intermediate period. That’s what you need to remember.

18th dynasty Pharaohs	19th Dynasty Pharaohs
Ahmose (1549-1524)	Ramesses I (1292-1290)
Amenhotep I (1524-1503)	Seti I (1290-1279)
Thutmose I (1503-1493)	Ramesses II (1279-1213)
Thutmose II (1494-1479)	Merneptah (1213-1203)
Hatshepsut (1479-1458)	Seti II (1203-1197)
Thutmose III (1479-1425)	Amenmesse (1201-1198)
Amenhotep II (1427-1397)	Siptah (1197-1191)
Thutmose IV (1397-1388)	Tausret (1191-1188)
Amenhotep III (1388-1351)
Akhenaten (1351-1334)
Tutankhamun (1332-1323)
Ay (1323-1319)
Horemheb (1319-1292)

How are ancient texts dated?

1. The text must have been written before it was cited or copied into a surviving manuscripts.
2. Author’s epigraph/colophon. Ancient texts often had a note at the beginning or the end of the document, saying who copied or wrote it, where and often when. This doesn’t prove authorship, but its an indication.
3. Synchronisms are chronological markers in the text. They refer to events or customs tied to a particular date. For example, 2 Kings 23:29 refers to the battle of Carchemish. The Babylonians defeated the Assyrians and Egyptians in 605BC to become the major Middle Eastern power. So 2 Kings was written after this. Ezra 2:69 mentions a Daric, a Persian coin. Coins were invented around 600BC, and adopted by the Persians in the 6th century. Ezra was written after this. These examples aren’t in any way controversial, but they illustrate how small details in the text can provide chronological clues.

Suppose I asked you to write a story set in 16th century France. It must fool an expert into thinking it was written by a 16th century Englishman who had lived in France. You must get the language right. The culture right. The political geography right. But you can’t use the internet for research. You can’t use history textbooks. The Torah’s author didn’t have those. All you have is knowledge of today’s France and folklores passed down from your ancestors.

How do you think you would get on? I would guess pretty badly. An expert on the 16th century will easily spot your linguistic and cultural mistakes. But a story written by a 16th century Englishman who lived in France would probably pass the test. Comparing the text with other records from when it was set and might have been written can determine its date. And this is how we use synchronisms to date a text, not just after an event, but before the langauge or culture changed.

The manuscript evidence for the Torah is late. The earliest complete Hebrew is the Masoretic Text, with surviving manuscripts dating from 900AD. The dead sea scrolls, containing most of the Old Testament, date from around 150BC to 70AD. The Torah was translated into Greek around 250BC. The Samaritans have their own version of the Torah. It’s written using a refined version of the old pre-exile alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet used today was adopted by the Jews around 400BC. So the Samaritan and Jewish textual traditions split before then. We know the Torah’s text hasn’t significantly changed since 400BC. Our earliest fragment is on some scraps of silver from around 600BC. The priestly blessing of Numbers 6:4.

This is a long time after Moses. So it leaves plenty of room for people to invent elaborate theories about when it was written, without hard evidence to test those theories.

Traditionally, Moses wrote the Torah apart from the framing narrative in Deuteronomy. Is our Bible exactly what he wrote? Was it edited as it was copied? Consider Genesis 36:31.

These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the Israelites. (Genesis 36:31)

It references the Israelite Kings. It must have been added after Samuel’s time. There are also other examples.

When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. (Genesis 14:14)

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan. (Deuteronomy 34:1)

And they named the city Dan, after the name of Dan their ancestor, who was born to Israel; but the name of the city was Laish at the first. (Judges 18:29. This happened some time after Moses)

So even if the first edition was written by Moses, there might well have been some edits, inserts and updates over the centuries. Aside from these and other anachronisms, you can’t prove it either way. And that means there’s lots of scope to doubt the text.

The documentary hypothesis

But critics don’t think Moses wrote it at all. Their views are developed from the documentary hypothesis, formulated between the 17h to the 19th centuries. This proposes our text was compiled from four different sources, J, E, D, and P, which were then put together by a redactor R.

• J (Jehovah) 900BC (Judah)
• E (Elohim) 800BC (Israel)
• D (Deuteronomist) 640BC (Jerusalem)

  • And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” 2 Kings 22:8 (under King Josiah, as part of his reforms)

    They assume (without much evidence) that

  • This refers to Deuteronomy.
  • It was written rather than discovered by Hilkiah.
• P (Priestly) 500BC
• Redactor 400BC

The supporters of this model disagree on how precisely to divide the text, but they all support the basic picture. They suggest that

• The individual sources can be identified by picking apart the final text.
• And they can identify dates when each source was written.

These are intertwined. Historical and geographical clues help identify the sources. Construct a picture of Israelite society. Assume a source was written to address the problems of that society. Those clues distinguish the source and tell you when it was written.

Is this convincing? It certainly convinced a lot of people. But

• It’s reconstruction of society is speculative.
• It underutilises the actual data, such as the Prophets.
• People don’t only write about contemporary concerns.
• People in other times had the same concerns.
• There isn’t really any hard evidence to support it, beyond the claim that the model is self-consistent.

Why deny Moses’ authorship? Critics raised various objections:

• Initially, they said writing post-dates Moses.
• Initially, they claimed religion gradually developed. The Torah’s sophisticated religion is far too late for Moses.
• The Torah contains miracles. Believing in miracles is unscientific.
• It’s claimed that comparisons between archaeology and the Biblical text suggest it’s Iron Age.
• Stylistic concerns:
  • The Torah switches between fast paced narrative and detailed ritualistic lists. No single author would write in both styles.
  • The language and vocabulary varies. The best known example are the two names of God. Some passages use Yahweh/Jehovah. Other passages use Elohim. There are several other similar examples. A single writer is always perfectly consistent.
  • Doublets or repetitions. The same story is repeated with minor differences. Writers never repeat themselves. For example, there are three versions of a story where a Patriach pretends that their wife is their sister.

    When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” (Genesis 12:11)

    And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. (Genesis 20:2)

    So Isaac settled in Gerar. When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he feared to say, “My wife,” thinking, “lest the men of the place should kill me because of Rebekah,” because she was attractive in appearance. (Genesis 26:6)

  • Geographical considerations. Some stories praise the Northern tribes. Others favour the Southern tribes of Judah, Simeon, Levi and Reuben. Here’s one example of that claim.

    The group of stories that invoke Elohim are the stories of Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulon, Ephraim, Manasseh, Benjamin. In short, the Elohim group includes the names of all the tribes of Israel. The group of stories that invoke the name of Yahweh are the stories of: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah. The first three of the four names on this list are tribes who lost their territory and merged into the other tribes. The only name of a tribe with existing territory in the Yahweh narrative is Judah. (Richard Friedman, Who wrote the Bible)

    Actually, Reuben belonged to the Kingdom of Israel, and Benjamin to the Kingdom of Judah. But you can’t let facts spoil a good hypothesis.
  • And, the linguistic markers for each source frequently occur together.

I’m just introducing the idea now. I’ll critique these points in a little while.

Genesis to Numbers are split between the J, E and P sources. One verse is assigned to one source. The next verse to another source. To illustrate how the text is split up, I’ve listed Genesis 7, part of the flood narrative. Red is J. Blue is P. You can see how they pick out single verses and suppose that the final document was created by splicing together each source’s version of the story.

Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” And Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood. Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground, two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah. And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark, they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature. They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.

The critics claim after splitting the text like this based on the language, both sources provide a coherent narrative. This is the J narrative starting in Genesis 6.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord. Then the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.”

Wait a minute. What’s this ark mentioned at the end of this extract? How did it appear? Who built it? How is it connected to the Lord’s regret? We know, because we know the full story. All these details are assigned to the P source, supposedly written long after J. J isn’t a coherent narrative.

The redactor took his four sources, splicing each version of the narrative together to create the finished book. But modern scholars are clever enough to identify these stylistic clues and reconstruct the original sources.

The documentary hypothesis today

The documentary hypothesis dominated 20th century scholarship. Almost all scholars accepted the basic idea, despite disputing the finer details. Many people today still accept it. But many don’t.

• The four source deconstruction doesn’t always work. It has problems. The linguistic identifiers for different sources appear in sections assigned to a different source. Early on, people thought that they would eventually figure those problems out. Now they are giving up. So today’s critics split the text further to resolve these problems.
• Others reject it entirely, believing the evidence shows that the Torah was written by a single author in the Late Bronze Age, with at most a few minor edits as it was copied.

Why is it important when the account was written? If it was an Iron age account, then there is a big gap between when it was written and the events it describes. Easy for the author to make mistakes. But if it was written in the Late Bronze Age, it would need to be accepted by people who had first hand knowledge of whether it was accurate. Far more likely to be true.

Objections

The 4 source hypothesis was completed in the mid 19th century. Before archaeological excavations. Before ancient Egyptian was deciphered. Before the Mesopotamian texts were found. They couldn’t read Hittite. They didn’t even know the Hittite empire existed. All they knew were classical historians and the Bible. They assumed ancient texts followed the rules of 19th century literary criticism. That’s problematic.

Let’s look at their arguments.

• Writing was invented later than Moses. In the ancient Near East, writing was invented around 3000BC in Southern Iraq. A simple picture language evolved into cuneiform in Mesopotamia and hieroglyphics in Egypt, using symbols for each word or syllable. Our alphabet, using symbols for each sound, evolved from the proto-sinaitic alphabet, first witnessed around 1800BC. This took about 22 symbols from Egyptian hieroglyphics. But it’s not Egyptian. It’s language is Semitic. That’s the language family including Moabite, Canaanite, the Aramaic and Phoenician languages, and Hebrew. Which don’t know precisely which language, as there aren’t many surviving examples of this script, and they contain word-roots which are common to all these languages. This alphabet was invented by Semites living in Middle Kingdom Egypt. It gradually evolved into proto-Canaanite, then Aramaic, early Hebrew, Phoenician, Greek, and finally our Latin alphabet. So Moses certainly would have been able to write.
• Was Hebrew religion too sophisticated for Moses’ time? This is based on an incorrect theory of religious development. Hebrew religious practice matches a Late Bronze Age context.

• Stylistic concerns. Single authors aren’t perfectly consistent in style. Ancient documents frequently contained doublets, repetitions and so on. Gods had multiple names, which could all appear on a single inscription. This is one example of many.

  When Anu and Enlil had called Lipit-Ishtar-LipitIshtar the wise shepherd whose name had been pronounced by Nunamnir.
  (Law code of Lipit-Ishtar 1924BC; Enlil and Nunamnir are two names for the same deity)

  Don’t the same stylistic features all appear in their own source? What do you expect? You cut the text down, verse by verse, based on style and vocabulary. Obviously the resulting documents will be stylistically consistent. Sometimes these cuts produce a coherent story. Often they don’t.

  Dividing the document destroys original stylistic features. The flood story is a chiasm. An ABCBA structure beloved in ancient literature. Various statements lead up to the world’s destruction. Parallel statements in reverse describe its recreation. You can look at it yourself to see; it pivots around God remembering Noah in Genesis 8:1. It’s too elaborate to be a coincidence. The purported sources destroy the structure. Sometimes the text refers to earlier passages.

  During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. (Exodus 2:23, P)

  And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings. (Exodus 3:6-7, J/E).

  The passage in Exodus 3 refers to many of the same words and concepts contained in the passage in Exodus 2. Too many to be a coincidence. It’s a reference to the author to something he wrote a little before. Problematic if those earlier passages are assigned to a later source.

• Philosophical and historical method arguments suggesting the God who sustains everything in the universe can’t perform miracles are easily refuted (as I have done elsewhere).
• There are no examples of redactors splicing texts together like this. Kenneth Kitchen, a leading Egyptologist, has vigorously made this point.

  Now, nowhere in the Ancient Orient is there anything which is definitely known to parallel the elaborate history of fragmentary composition and conflation of Hebrew literature (or marked by just such criteria) as the documentary hypotheses would postulate. And conversely, any attempt to apply the criteria of the documentary theorists to Ancient Oriental compositions that have known histories but exhibit the same literary phenomena results in manifest absurdities. (Kenneth Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament.)

• Has archaeology disproved the Exodus? Ancient Near Eastern archaeology has taught us a lot. But there’s still far more waiting to be discovered. They claim the exodus or presence of Israelites in Egypt isn’t mentioned in Egyptian sources. I’ll discuss that claim in a moment. But it’s based on evidence being absent. When there’s very little surviving evidence, its unsurprising some events aren’t recorded.

  Does an absence of evidence mean it was never there? Or that it was destroyed by erosion or human activity? Or that we simply haven’t dug in the right place to find it? It’s often claimed there’s no evidence of the Israelites in Sinai. Nomadic populations don’t leave much behind. They don’t leave it behind in tells. The harsh desert environment wears down pottery and bones. There have been few major excavations in the Sinai. We don’t expect to find anything.

  Does archaeology undermine the Biblical text? Back in the late 80s or early 90s, that was the mainstream view. It’s still held by many people today. But we have new data. Old data has been reevaluated. The findings increasingly match what’s expected from the Bible. It’s not yet a perfect match. That’s not unexpected. The archaeological picture still contains gaps and uncertainties. It will be revised as new data comes in. Comparing an incomplete picture against the Bible is bound to produce some anomalies. These will be resolved as new evidence comes in.

Testimony

Does the Torah claim to have been written by Moses? Consider these verses here.

These are the statutes and rules and laws that the Lord made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. (Leviticus 26:46)

These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. (Leviticus 27:34)

These are the commandments and the rules that the Lord commanded through Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho. (Numbers 36:13)

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. (Deuteronomy 1:1)

These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb. (Deuteronomy 29:1)

Several books have a small note at their end of indicating the author and where it was written. For example, the last verse in Leviticus, 27:34, reads These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai. This indicates who wrote it, where they wrote it, and who it was written for. It’s a classic form of a colophon, used to indicate authorship in the ancient world.

Several places also describe Moses writing down the law. So the text of Exodus through Numbers are attributed to Moses. Genesis obviously predates Exodus. Deuteronomy was mostly edited together from various works by Moses.

This doesn’t prove that Moses was the author. But you need good evidence to override this claim. A later forger would have to convince Yahweh worshippers of its authenticity. Even though nobody had heard of it before. That’s not easy.

Linguistic evidence

The Torah was written in Hebrew. But Biblical Hebrew also contains words loaned from other languages.

In English, the word algebra was introduced from Arabic, in the middle ages. That’s when Arabic texts were first imported into Europe. The word curry arose from Tamil and was imported into English in the 18th century. That’s when trading relationships began with the Indian subcontinent. The appearance of loan words correlates with the history of international relations.

Biblical Hebrew borrowed words from Egyptian, the Mesopotamian languages and Persian, informing us about cultural links between the Biblical authors and surrounding cultures. The books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther contain many Persian loan words. Which isn’t unexpected.

Persian words appear frequently in those later books. Egyptian words appear just as frequently between Genesis 37 -- Joseph’s story -- and Joshua, the sections whose authors traditionally were raised in Egypt. Later parts of the Bible have far fewer Egyptian words, and where they do they are often in references back to the Torah. Egyptian loan words are virtually absent from Hebrew’s sister languages. We have lots of texts in Phoenician, Aramaic, and from Byblos on the Syrian coast. A few texts from the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites. No Egyptian words. Only Persian era Aramaic had comparable frequency of Egyptian loan words. But most of those texts were found in Egypt, so you expect an Egyptian influence. If the Torah was written in the Iron Age, you’d expect the Egyptian loan words to appear with a similar frequency in the Iron Age writings of Samuel and the prophets. You don’t see that. But Egypt dominated Canaan in the Late Bronze Age. This is when you would expect the Egyptian linguistic influence.

When she could hide him no longer, she took for him a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and placed it among the reeds by the river bank. (Exodus 2:3)

I’ve highlighted six Egyptian loanwords in a single verse in Exodus 2:3.

Languages change over time. Including ancient Egyptian. A loan word mirrors the word as Egyptian was spoken when it was borrowed. Take the feminine ending in Egyptian. Early in Egyptian history, this was -at. During the 18th and 19th dynasties, the final -t was dropped, leaving just -a. After the New Kingdom, it changed again to -i.

-at (to 1400BC)	-a (1400-1100 BC)	-i (1100BC and later)
hand-span	Jasper
seal, ring	ephah
	acacia
	box

The table shows the Egyptian feminine endings preserved in the Torah. The Torah borrows 6 words in this family. Two preserve the older -at ending, four the middle -a ending. This matches the time of transition between early and middle Egyptian, so the New Kingdom. An Iron age author would have used the then contemporary -i ending.

Personal names go in and out of fashion. They can be used for dating. The names in the Exodus account are also found in extra-Biblical writing. Most of them are Semitic. Some are Egyptian. This table lists the Egyptian personal names for Exodus-era Israelites.

Merari (Genesis 46:11)	Phinehas	Ahira (Numbers 1:15)
Miriam	Putiel (Exodus 6:25)	Hur (Exodus 17:10)
Moses?	Assir (Exodus 6:24)	Hori (Numbers 13:5)
Aaron	Ahimoth (1 Chronicles 6:10)	Harnephah (1 Chronicles 7:36)

Egyptian names are far rarer later in Israelite history, and many of those are inspired by names from the Torah. When were the names in the Torah popular? Most aren’t useful for dating. They were used in both the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age. But three names are only otherwise attested in the Late Bronze Age.

Ithamar (Exodus 6:23)

Puah (Exodus 1:15)

Hebron (Exodus 6:18)

Others, such as Phinehas, were common in the New Kingdom, but very rare in the Iron Age. No Exodus-era name was only popular in the Iron Age and not Late Bronze Age. No Exodus-era name contains the -iah ending, derived from Yahweh, common later in Israelite history. You would expect an Iron Age author to use Iron Age names or invented names. They would have had no way of knowing which names were commonly used 500 years earlier.

Cultural evidence

Can we compare against extra-Biblical culture? Consider the stones on the ephod.

Then mount four rows of precious stones on it. The first row shall be carnelian, chrysolite and beryl; the second row shall be turquoise, lapis lazuli and emerald; the third row shall be jacinth, agate and amethyst; the fourth row shall be topaz, onyx and jasper. (Exodus 28:17)

The stones in the ephod were common in New Kingdom Egypt. In particular turquoise, a loan word from Egyptian, was mined in Egypt. Those mines were exhausted around 1200BC. After that, it was very rare and hardly mentioned in Egyptian or Semitic sources. The Ark of the Covenant and tabernacle furnishings were manufactured using methods practised in New Kingdom Egypt, but not other places or times. The Ark of the Covenant resembles New Kingdom reliquaries, both in its design and how it was plated with gold. The priest’s garments and ritual objects mirror those used by New Kingdom Egyptians. New Kingdom tomb paintings show bricks being made as described in Exodus.

Joseph’s awards and titles match how Egyptian officials were honoured in the Middle and New Kingdom, but not later. This is seen in various New and Middle Kingdom tomb paintings.

Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck. (Genesis 41:42)

Inflation happened in the ancient world as well as today.

• Joseph was sold for 20 shekels (Genesis 37:22), as in the Hammurabi law code (1750BC).
• During the Exodus, the price was 30 shekels (Exodus 31:2). The Nuzi documents (14th century) have the same price.
• During the monarchy period, slaves were 50 shekels (2 Kings 15:20), as in Assyrian records.

The overall structure of Deuteronomy and Exodus-Numbers matches diplomatic treaties of the Late Bronze Age, but not earlier or later periods.

Geographical evidence

What about geography?

The Exodus account mentions several towns and villages. When were these populated?

They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. (Exodus 1:11)

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.” But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle. … And they moved on from Succoth and encamped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. … Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. (Exodus 13:17)

There were two roads leaving ancient Egypt. The Northern route followed a branch of the Nile, and then along the Mediterranean coast. This was heavily fortified by the New Kingdom Egyptians. Alternatively, you go through the Wadi Tumulat valley. This can be seen on modern maps connecting the Southern Egyptian delta and the center of the Suez Isthmus, between the modern towns of Abu Hammad and Ismailia. Pithom, or Pi-Atum, a city built by Israelites, is at the valley’s centre.

There were several marshy lakes along the Suez isthmus, now absorbed into the Suez canal. The Hebrew term Yam Suf, sea of reeds, often mistranslated Red Sea, is derived from the Egyptian name for these lakes. The Wadi Tumulat emerges nearby. The Middle and New Kingdom Egyptians also built canals in the area. One through the Wadi Tumulat connected the lakes with the Nile. The other was along the Suez isthmus, possibly for defensive purposes. These silted up after the New Kingdom collapsed. They were re-established under the Persians, then silted up again. The modern Suez canal was built nearby. The Israelites escaping Egypt would be need to either cross this canal or the Yam Suf. In the New Kingdom, they couldn’t just go around. An Iron Age author wouldn’t have known that.

What about the places mentioned in the Exodus account?

• Pithom refers to Pi-Atum (house of Atum), a city in the Wadi Tumulat, now Tell el-Retaba. This city was founded by the Hyksos, abandoned midway through the 18th dynasty, then re-established and rebuilt in the 19th dynasty. Other towns and cities in the Wadi Tumulat were also abandoned in the mid 18th dynasty, at roughly the same time as Tell el-Retaba.
• Ramesses refers to Pi-Ramesses (house of Ramesses), near the modern village of Quantir. This was pharaoh Ramesses II’s capital. It was established in the 19th dynasty, and abandoned late in the 20th dynasty. It expanded into the site of the former Hyksos capital, Avaris, at Tell el-Daba. Avaris outlasted the Hyksos, and was fully abandoned in the mid 18th dynasty.
• Succoth is the Egyptian name for the Wadi Tumulat.
• Etham might be an alternate spelling of Pi-Atum.
• Pi-hahiroth was a village near the Sinai end of the Wadi Tumilat. It’s mentioned in the 19th dynasty Papyrus Anastasi.
• Midgol means fortress. Egyptian texts mention a notable Midgol of Seti I (Ramesses II’s father) in this area. There were also various 18th dynasty fortresses in the area.
• Baal Zephon means Baal of the North. A Canaanite deity, identified with the Egyptian God Seth. The Hyksos were predominately Baal worshippers. Baal Zephon is mentioned in the 19th dynasty Papyrus Sallier IV. Exodus refers to a place associated with that god.
• And, as mentioned, the Yam Suph was the Egyptian name for the lakes in the area.

These all match New Kingdom Egypt. Pi-Ramesses, and the area around Midgol and Pi-hahiroth were abandoned at the end of the New Kingdom. Pi-Atum was only re-established at nearby Tell el-Maskhuta during the late period. Would a Iron Age 2 author know of these places?

Yet of those that chew the cud or have the hoof cloven you shall not eat these: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger, because they chew the cud but do not part the hoof, are unclean for you. And the pig, because it parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. … The eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, the kite, the falcon of any kind; every raven of any kind; the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; the little owl and the short-eared owl, the barn owl and the tawny owl, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, the stork, the heron of any kind; the hoopoe and the bat. (Deuteronomy 14:7-18)

Here’s the list of unclean animals in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. All these animals are native to Egypt or Sinai. Some aren’t found in Israel. The list was compiled for people more familiar with the animal life of Egypt and Sinai than Israel.

Archaeological evidence

What about archaeology? Critics say there’s no evidence of Israel’s presence in or departure from Egypt. The first undisputed mention of Israel in Egyptian records is on the 19th dynasty Merneptah stele, when Israel was in Canaan. (The Berlin Pedestal is claimed by some to be an earlier reference, but both its date and reading are disputed.) It’s true no surviving Egyptian records from Moses’ time mention the Israelites or Moses. Some Greek era Egyptian historians mention Moses in confused accounts of the Exodus. These historians could access Egyptian records we lack. But they wrote a thousand years after the event, so a dubious source.

The Egyptian court records were written on Papyrus. Long since rotted away. Hardly any writing has survived from the Egyptian delta. Surviving Egyptian writing in the desert is mostly temple or tomb inscriptions. Their purpose was to praise the god, pharaoh, or nobles of Egypt. The exodus was a disaster for Egypt and its gods. It’s not something you mention when praising those gods. So we shouldn’t expect it to be mentioned in the surviving records.

But surely the Egyptian records would mention Israelite slaves? That’s another common criticism. The Egyptians viewed everyone else as Barbarians. Everyone from Canaan was labelled Asiatics, including Israelites. In Genesis and Exodus, no Egyptian names Israel until the last few plagues. They say Hebrews.

A young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. (Genesis 41:12)

"When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women ..." (Exodus 1:12)

When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the baby was crying. She took pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.” (Exodus 2:6)

So we should be looking for mentions of Asiatic or Hebrew slaves, not the word Israel or Israelite. Now, there was a people group mentioned in ancient texts from the 21st century BC to the end of the Late Bronze Age. These Habiru were barbarians. They didn’t respect the rules of civilised society. The Akkadian word Habiru is equivalent to the Hebrew word Hebrew. Were there Habiru in New Kingdom Egypt? Yes. A few surviving references exist. The tomb of Puymre (1470BC) shows Habiru working in the fields straining wine. Papyrus Leiden (13th century BC) mentions Habiru working on stone work for Ramesses II's building work.

A late 13th dynasty Papyrus fragment names slaves in an Egyptian household. This includes feminine forms of the Biblical names Shiphrah, Menahem, and the tribal names of Asher and Issachar. We can’t prove these were Israelites. But it’s suggestive. Several 14th dynasty pharaohs, that’s early second intermediate period before the Hyksos Pharaohs, had Semitic names (such as a late 13th dynasty reference to Jacob-Har on a scarab seal), suggesting a strong Semitic influence at this time.

Were there Asiatics in Egypt from Joseph’s time until the Exodus? I’ll focus on remains near Tell el Daba and Quantir. Why? Because this is Pi-Ramesses. The centre of Israelite presence in Egypt.

This map covers two ancient cities. Avaris, at Tell el Daba, was the capital city of the Hyksos 15th dynasty. It’s South of the main river channel. The palace was between the main city and the river. An important temple to Seth or Baal was in the main settlement. Avaris was mainly occupied by Semites originally from Canaan. Maybe Israelites. Maybe others with a similar culture, similar artefacts and from the same region. We can easily distinguish Canaanite and Egyptian culture, but not different Semitic groups. This was before the Israelites stopped eating pork. The second city is Pi-Ramesses, the capital of the 19th and 20th dynasties. Established about 300 years after the Hyksos. The palace area was located in the North, but the city suburbs spread across where Avaris once stood. There’s also an ancient Egyptian village to the North West.

When did the Semites arrive? When did they leave? This chart comes from the excavation report for Tell el Daba. I’ve annotated and coloured it in to make key features more visible. I’ve coloured in when the city was occupied. It’s blank when it was abandoned, or the site’s stratigraphy was disturbed by water or modern farming. The timeline runs from the 11th dynasty at the bottom to the 19th dynasty at the top. We don’t know the dates precisely. They are accurate to a few decades. The left-most column, coloured green and yellow, shows the Egyptian dynasties starting from the 11th and going up to the 19th. That’s just showing who was in charge at the time, not when the site was occupied. The next column on the left shows the occupation of the Egyptian village I mentioned. This part of the site was damaged by water and farming. Its unclear what happened here after the Hyksos. The remaining columns show Avaris itself. The palace district is on the right. The chart doesn’t show the temple of Baal, which continued to be used into the 19th dynasty, with a remnant Semitic population serving it. Egyptian records mention this temple but again there is damage here so it wasn’t on this chart. But we know most of the city was abandoned with the expulsion of the Hyksos. But a Semitic population remained near the old Hyksos palace, until the reign of Amenhotep II.

How does this compare with Biblical history? The 18th dynasty Exodus theory is derived from the Bible’s Chronology and the known dates of Solomon. Joseph is dated around 1850 BC, and Moses somewhere around 1400-1450BC. The Semitic population of the Wadi Tumulat also disappeared around the time of Thutmose III or Amenhotep II. The 19th dynasty Exodus theory, which is based on Pi-Ramesses being named as the departure point of the exodus, has Joseph’s family joining an existing Semitic community around 1650BC, with Moses around the time of Ramesses II. In either case, Semites lived in Ramesses and Succoth from the time of Joseph to the time of Moses. And they left at the right time.

So there’s

• Evidence of a Semitic population at Avaris/Ramesses and Pi-Atum from the time of Joseph to Moses.
• Evidence that at least some of these Semites were slaves.
• Evidence that the population of Avaris, Succoth and Pi-Atum, suddenly decreased, at whichever Exodus date you prefer.

This doesn’t prove the Exodus occurred. But it’s all the evidence we can reasonably expect to find if it did happen.

So saying the archaeological evidence is inconsistent with the Exodus account is wrong.

Conclusion

There is lots more I could say concerning the Exodus. And I haven’t started discussing Abraham Isaac and Jacob, Joshua, the Judges period, or the monarchy period.

But even this little I’ve shared answers claims that the Torah wasn’t written by Moses. I’ve discussed:

• The arguments for a late and multiple source writing of the Torah aren’t very strong.
• Whoever wrote the Torah knew Middle Egyptian.
• They were very familiar with New Kingdom Egyptian culture and geography.
• They were familiar with Egyptian and Sinai fauna.
• It’s consistent with the archaeological record from Egypt.

As expected if Moses wrote the Torah. As not expected if it was written 600 years later in a different country. Neither the old documentary hypothesis, no the supplementary hypotheses popular today are possible.

This doesn’t prove the Torah was written by Moses, or is an accurate account. You can’t do that using archaeology. But it does prove that, aside possibly from a few later edits, it was written by someone who lived at the time of Moses, the place of Moses, educated like Moses in both Egyptian and Hebrew tradition, and who claimed to be Moses. Which is much more than the evidence used to suggest it’s a work of Iron Age fiction.

Sources

The standard layman's guide to the documentary hypothesis when I started investigating this was Richard Friedman's Who Wrote The Bible?. Baden's The Composition of the Pentateuch is an alternative.

I haven't really found a single comprehensive book listing the internal literary problems with the documentary hypothesis (if you know of any, let me know) which I can recommend. Instead you find some objections in one place, and others elsewhere. Umberto Cassuto's The documentary hypothesis is a good start, but a little outdated now and doesn't list all the arguments. Otherwise there are various snippets found in different works such as the conservative Old Testament commentaries, and the works mentioned below.

Kenneth Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament and Ancient Orient and the Old Testament are a bit older now, and lack the latest research, but are still worth reading.

James Hoffmeier is probably the best contempoary source today, either in his monographs or anthologies. Israel in Egypt, Ancient Israel in Sinai, and the anthology he edited Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt were all helpful (much of the data presented in this talk was taken from the first four chapters of Did I Not Bring Israel Out of Egypt, and I fully recommend reading those chapters to get the full context). I see that he has also recently written Israel In and Out of Egypt (which I wasn't aware of when I named this talk), which I haven't yet read (at the time of writing), but I am sure given the author's previous works will be top quality.

David Falk has also written a number of useful articles in various scattered places which I found helpful. And also a book which I haven't yet read, but ought to. He tends to be a bit too polemical and disrespectful against his opponents for my taste, but certainly knows his material.

Finally, I also drew some information from the anthology Five views on the Exodus. The first contribution is by Stripling, who offers as good defence of the 18th dynasty Exodus theory as I've seen in a short essay. Every other source I have cited here is by authors who favour the 19th dynasty Exodus theory. Hoffmeier's contribution to the five views anthology is also top quality. The other essays I have less regard for, but still worth reading to engage with different views. I haven't yet found a comprehensive defence of the 18th dynasty Exodus theory in a full book. Titus Kennedy's book is probably the best I've found (albeit that there are quite a few alternatives on my to-read in the future list), but I'm not fully satisfied with it (it lacks the scholarship of, say, Hoffmeier or Kitchen). Which is unfortunate, since I have some sympathies for this view and would like to see a good and comprehensive presentation of it in book form (rather than having to piece it together from numerous shorter arguments or briefer summaries).

The map and stratigraphy of Tell el Daba were adapted from Manfred Beitek's Harbour towns of the Bronze Age (2023) and Avaris/Tell el Daba (2022).

Reader Comments:

1. Arnav

Posted at 04:04:13 Wednesday September 9 2026

good post. please collaborate with Noah from JesusAndWhatnot Youtube Channel. He is a Catholic and a Thomist, very young still learning. he does debates with atheists, one was with a Phd physicist. Maybe you can help him with synthesizing physics with Thomism, or appear on his youtube channel for a discussion. He has a big audience so this could reach a lot of people.

His email is jandwhatnot@gmail.com

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