Copy of Exodus Route

The Red Sea or The Reed Sea?

“But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.” Exodus 14:9

Timing

• 15th-century

• Calculating backwards from the building of Solomon's temple about 960 BCE the date for the Exodus would occur about 1440 BCE
• Egyptian pharaohs were in control of Canaan during the 15th-century
• Amarna Letters: letters from Canaanites written in Akkadian to the King of Egypt, Akhenaten/Amenhotep IV. The letters mention the 'hapiru' or 'apiru' which means "fugitive" which scholars believe this to relate to the Hebrews. These letters also note the strong presence of Egypt in Canaan during the 14th century (ca. 1360-1336 B.C.E.)
• A 15th-century tomb depicts Semitic slaves making mudbricks at Thebes

• 13th-century

• "The most widely accepted hypothesis"
• the first appearance of archaeological evidence for “Israel” in Canaan occurs in 1200 BCE
• the Merneptah Stele. Merneptah was the successor of the throne after Ramesses II; his reign was ca. 1213-1203 B.C.E. This stele is an account of Pharaoh Merneptah’s conquests listing Israel as a group of people he conquered, which is interesting because everyone else he conquered was a city-state. It is dated to 1207 BCE.
• Pharaoh Ramesses II in power during Exodus: Israelite settlement named Rameses, Egyptian power declined with his reign.
• chariots were in used during 13th-century
• Hyksos invasion provides a history in the Late Bronze Age of Asiatics wandering in and out of Egypt

“...lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.” Exodus 1:1

"Israel is laid waste, his seed does not exist"

Possible Routes

Northern Alternative Route

"Israel" in the Merneptah Stele

• This route was the shortest and fastest way to Canaan, but it also posed a problem because it was heavily fortified by the Egyptians as it ran along the Mediterranean Sea

Thoughts about the Exodus:

Exodus 13:17 “And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.”

Central Alternative Route

Traditional Southern Route

The Set Up

• The name of the Red Sea was mistranslated in parts of The Bible. It should say Reed Sea, rather than Red Sea. The Hebrew name is “Yam Suf”, yam is the word for water or sea and suf means reeds or rushes.
• The term red sea first appeared in the LXX and was kept for the Vulgate
• J.A. Montgomery suggested that Suf came from Sof the hebrew word for end or extremity.
• The Hebrew word Edom translates to the Greek word Eruthra which means Red.
• The Edomites controled controled the area around the Red sea. It may have been refered to as the "Edomite Sea" which when translated into Greek for the LXX would have become "Red Sea"
• Suggested bodies of water: Lake Bardwil, Lake Menzaleh, Lake Timsah, the Bitter Lakes, and the various gulfs of the region.
• Reeds only grow in fresh water. Scholars have searched for remains of reed beds.
• The Red Sea during the 13th-century may have extended further north connecting with the Bitter Lakes, which would possibly provide a marshy body of water that could have been where the Israelites crossed

• This route likely ran along known water sources and leads to a viable site for Mt. Sinai in Saudi Arabia
• Moses' relation to the Midianites

• This route followed water sources and was mountainous, contained more settlement than in the barren desert surrounding, Egypt wasn’t interested in this area
• Numbers 33 contains a precise itinerary tracing the route of the Exodus
• Inscriptions show historical evidence of cities that are also listed in the biblical itinerary
• The route described within Numbers 33:45-50 is thought to be a heavily trafficked Egyptian road through Transjordan in the Late Bronze Age

• The Hyksos invasion created an atmosphere in which Semitic people were moving in and out of the Delta region
• These people ruled in Egypt during the 15th-16th centuries during the 2nd Intermediate period.
• Asiatics held positions of power, like Joseph in the Biblical narrative.
• One papyrus dating to this period of Hyksos rule lists 40 Semitic names
• The Hyksos were West Semitics or Southern Levantines.

Did it last 40 years??

• 40 is a symbolic number in the Bible

How many people left Egypt?

• The account in Exodus 12:37-38 gives us reason to estimate that there were some 2 million people leaving Exodus. Without the cattle and other animals, the people would have formed a line 150 miles long.
• Historians estimate that the Egyptian population was about 3 million people. If 2 million people left Egypt, that would create a demographic and economic catastrophe.
• Perhaps the author or redactor of the text wrote down a number to show that the Israelites left Egypt.
• We do know that there was an increase of population in the hill country of Canaan during the Iron I period (1200-1025 B.C.E.).

Ramesses II is the most likely historical candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus

• Ramesses II ca. 1279-1213 B.C.E.. Third ruler of the 19th dynasty of Egypt
• The name of Pi-Ramese in the Bible indicates a possibile connection with Rameses as the ruling pharaoh

Mt. Sinai

• The Eastern Delta only started being built up during Ramesses II's rule

Ex. 19:1-2 “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai... [they] departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai.”

• Slaves under Ramesses II's rule were given religious holidays, similar to holidays given to the Israelites in the Bible

• Jebel Musa has been the traditional site for Mt. Sinai.
• It is in south central Sinai.
• The traditional Mt. Sinai was almost entirely uninhabited during the 13th and 12th-centuries
• A site in Saudi Arabia shows habitation during the 13th and 12th-centuries
• The site showing habitation is located in Midian (southern Jordan and northwestern Saudi Arabia)
• The site also supporst the Central Alternative Route - the Bible indicates that the Isrealites enter the Promised Land through Reuben (a territory in Transjordan)
• Emmanuel has proposed that Har Karkom is Mt. Sinai
• Har Karkom is close to Kadesh Barnea where the Israelites camped for 38 years.
• It is also close to Midianite territory where Moses first talked to God while tending Jethro's herds
• Har Karkom has been considered a holy mountian with numerous sanctuaries and altars both at the base and on the mountian

Exodus Route