Episode Twenty: The Many Layers in the Exodus Tradition

Conversations in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel with Israel Finkelstein
Episode Twenty: The Many Layers in the Exodus Tradition
Israel Finkelstein is a leading figure in the archaeology and history of Ancient Israel. Over 40 years of work and research, he has helped to change the way archaeology is conducted, the bible is interpreted, and the history of Israel is reconstructed. Matthew J. Adams, Director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, sat down with Israel over several sessions to talk about how a lifetime of work has informed the story of Ancient Israel. These conversations became the series Conversations in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel with Israel Finkelstein.
Written and Produced by Israel Finkelstein and Matthew J. Adams.
Cinematography and Editing by Yuval Pan.
Conversations in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel with Israel Finkelstein is made possible with a grant from the Shmunis Family Foundation.

[@tobby12347]

I’ve been waiting for this topic 😁. The historical analysis of Exodus is fascinating

[@gostavoadolfos2023]

Great video, there is also an exodus tradition in Yemen which can be dated to the 10th century BC but as a religious event (pilgrimage) done by nomadic slaves between mount Senna and Kadish for 40 years to he delivered from the local tribes of Egypt specifically Maeen Egypt which worked at the encence cultivation and trade and used the slaves to take care of the sheep and goats to not ruin their valuable goods.. according to the story twice a year during the harvest time the slaves would follow a specific priest to sacrifice animals and burn encence at the 2 mountains to be delivered... there is also a region called Canaan and a river called by locals Yerdan, the region used to be called Egypt is called now Al Jawf. iraqi biblical scholar Fadel Al Rabeei has a theory that the exodus story traveled through the Arabian trade roots to Judah at the 7th century and was redacted and adopted like they did with the story of the flood which originated from Mesopotamia.

[@andreaskallstrom9031]

Do you have any source like an article you could share that goes into further details?

[@doncamp1150]

I like Finklestein. But the video raises more questions than it answers. One question has to be how so much specific information about the exodus shows up in Hosea and Amos some 200 years before the biblical story of the exodus was finalized in its present form. Finklestein's attempt to construct a history of Israel from archaeology and Egypt's history fails to account for Hosea and Amos and their knowledge of exodus details.

[@Achill101]

If I understood Finkelstein correctly, he assumes that the Exodus is a Northern tradition, probably maintained at a Northern site. The tradition is, of course, much older than its finalization in its biblical form. Hosea liked to refer to that tradition (more than he referred to the Jacob story, Finkelstein said).
If the Exodus was indeed a Northern tradition, it was brought to Jerusalem after the fall of Samaria and incorporated into the traditions that then became Judaism. But that would have happened before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, which was long before the final redaction of the bible, which might have happened as late as under the Hasmoneans.