Five Views of the Exodus (Part 2)

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by Sophia Magallanes41 views·Updated Feb 23, 2024
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  1. This is part two of the five views of the Exodus. And I'm going to be going over
  2. the very last view, which is
  3. um
  4. it is the Exodus as cultural memory view. Five Ronald Hendel.
  5. So Ronald Hendel, he focuses on
  6. the not history as we would have it, but history as it is remembered.
  7. He calls that uh Meno history.
  8. And this is, he defines, it's defined as the ongoing process of shaping
  9. an identity by reconstructing the past.
  10. The Meno history of Exodus suggests that
  11. plagues are large,
  12. drawn from the repertoire of divine curses and punishment that we see
  13. in treaties, narratives and prophecies from the ancient or East.
  14. So it's typical that these are so these plagues are
  15. important because they point to how people
  16. thought of divine curses and punishments.
  17. And then he talks about the meal
  18. history
  19. of the Exodus also
  20. that it includes centuries long of experience of Egyptian bondage.
  21. So there is a reality of Egyptian bondage during the Egyptian Empire in
  22. which thousands of Canaanites became slaves in Egypt
  23. and thousands more were Egyptian slaves in Canaan.
  24. So what he's saying is that
  25. we shouldn't disregard
  26. that there wasn't slavery but he says that
  27. we should
  28. expand our view of that.
  29. Given that historically, we know that his Egyptian bondage occurred
  30. during a long period of time
  31. in which Canaanites among them,
  32. the Israelites would have been slaves either in Egypt
  33. or slaves in Canaan under the Egyptian Pharaoh.
  34. Now, the rescue from Egyptian bondage
  35. um
  36. was a transformation was
  37. a transformation of identity.
  38. And so this type of
  39. identity
  40. marker
  41. would be
  42. logical, it would be logical that
  43. rescue from this type of bondage.
  44. Egyptian bondage becomes a transformational marker for identity.
  45. Um And it includes a large
  46. uh a long journey to the promised land,
  47. but
  48. in some instances,
  49. it could have indicated
  50. um just a transition into the Canaanite Islands.
  51. His conclusion is that the approach to the Exodus as a cultural
  52. memory provides a coherent explanation of
  53. the relationship between historical and archaeological data
  54. and the biblical texts
  55. to Hendel. Through the Exodus story.
  56. In a sense,
  57. Israel narra narrated itself into existence and it
  58. continues to do so with each generation,
  59. Hendel contends that the biblical representation of
  60. the Exodus is not wholly historical,
  61. it is in part imagined.
  62. Um And much of the actual history has been forgotten.
  63. Remember when you are
  64. presenting your view,
  65. please look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of each argument.
  66. OK.
  67. Thank you.