BRENNER'S BIBLICAL AND EXTRA-BIBLICAL DAYENU EXODUS EVIDENCE
By Dr. Reeve Robert Brenner, Chaplain, National Institutes of Health; Rabbi Bet Chesed Congregation - Bethesda Md.
Ever increasingly a plague of scholars bears down upon the historicity of the Exodus. Jewish and non-Jewish alike, they are comrades in intellectual arms marching shoulder to shoulder to the refrain: “The Exodus never happened.” They might admit that there were perhaps modest waves of Hebrew nomadic wanderers seeking a better life in the land of milk and honey. But nothing like the biblical report of miraculous signs and wonders, upheaval and disaster, plagues and death - and liberation. Never happened. One of the latest authorities numbering himself among those challenging the biblical testimony of the Exodus and rejecting the “scriptural myths” is Rabbi Burton L. Visotsky. His Passover article of doubt in the Washington Jewish Week of April 14, 2005 entitled “Pondering the Riddle of the Sphinx,” assumes the scriptural account to be a fabulous fabrication; he gratuitously takes for granted and as self evident that it is a myth. But don't feel that all is lost in celebrating our origination. After all, we are post-modern-day sophisticates. We all should know, Rabbi Visotsky suggests, that “some of the most important truths in life we learn from reading great fiction.
“The story of Exodus, the story of Israelite slavery, their redemption and their journey to Mt. Sinai, are extremely important truths whether they happened exactly the way the Bible says they did is beside the point.”
It is one thing - and not surprising or unexpected - to have the view expressed by dilettantes and amateurish non-scholars with superficial learning in the branches of knowledge related to the seminally defining event of the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage that there is no Egyptian evidence for the sojourn in Egypt, no relevant extra-biblical texts of yetziat mitzraim, nor for the Exodus-centered wholesale drowning, nor for the plagues. It is quite another thing when a scholar such as Rabbi Burton L. Visotsky (Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary, in New York), re-affirms and perpetuates that regnant mythology. He writes that “Nowhere in the ubiquitous hieroglyphic records on Egyptian monuments is there any evidence of Israelites even having been captive in Egypt …(or of) the crossing of the Red Sea.” He means Yam Suf - the Reed Sea (or alternatively, the “endpoint of the landmass sea”, as in 'sof,') which suggests further evidence of a baffling carelessness or a bewildering lack of learning; that is disappointing and even embarrassing.
First in the line-up, the biblical and extra-biblical evidence of the Egyptian names of our Hebrew ancestors should be cited. They show that we were there. When the Egyptian pharaoh king names are examined, such as Ah-Mose, Thut-Mose, Ra-Meses (also rendered as Amesis - 18th dynasty, Thutmois, Raamses) it can be seen that the name/title of the leader of the Hebrews, -Mose/-Moshe is not coincidental. He changed gods did he not? Egyptians would say so. The first half of his name has dropped out and been eliminated - with good reason. It should not be therefore assumed that the “min hamayim mishitihu” (“snatched from the waters”) derivation - as in the Sargon story - cannot be augmented by the linguistic analysis suggesting that Moses' name is also Egyptian in origin. And so are many other Jewish ancestral names such as Miriam and Pinchas. And not to be overlooked is, that archeology has excavated the “store-cities” (for grain storage - remember Joseph? Ex:1v8) Pithom (House of the god Thom or Tum) and Rameses.
Moses' name is the second half of an Egyptian royal god-king name - meaning “son of” or “follower of” or “personification/incarnation of” - acquired in Egypt, disclosing its geographical source, regardless of whether Hebrew in derivation as well. (See poem in adjoining box.) My own name derives from Reuven in Hebrew, morphs into (Reb)Reeven in Yiddish and Reeve in English.
Clearly an Egyptian God name preceded - Mose. (That he walked in the ways of Yah/El is certainly the foundation of his greatness but Scripture and subsequent traditions distinctly accentuate that he never saw himself as the embodiment of his god.) The name of Moshe, Moses, constitutes sufficient evidence of the sojourn in Egypt just as Persian names like Esther (Ishtar) and Mordecai (Marduk) show that our ancestors sojourned in, or were subjects of, Persian hegemony no matter how the Book of Esther is to be regarded.
The point is that Egyptian-Biblical names are convincing evidence of the sojourn in Egypt of our ancestors. But there is even more convincing extra-biblical grounds for affirming the sojourn in Egypt as historical fact in addition to the one Visotsky brings up in passing, that a people inventing their past prefers nobility, descent from gods, heroes and heroic, courageous ancestors and not from slaves or bondsmen- the view suggested by the late great HUC-JIR scholar and editor-in- chief of the JPS (and RSV, a Christian-sponsored translation), Professor Harry Orlinsky.
Now for a small sample of the avalanche of the entirely extra-biblical evidence which Visotsky ignores, principally my two favorites, the Ipuwer Papyrus document and the el-Arish inscription - and then perhaps most important and convincing of all, - is the remarkable one-of-a-kind place- name “coincidence” in the biblical text reappearing in the Egyptian text - and nowhere else. For me, the biblical needle in the historical haystack - or bulrushes, sturdy Papyrus reeds which gave its name to “paper to read.” But first, an extraneous remark.
This is not the place to cite all the voluminous, even mountainous, evidence of the plagues which were not a regional but a universal episode of destruction that brought about the displacement of peoples everywhere (see the prophet Amos) resulting from the global catastrophe. A veritable avalanche of data from the four corners of the planet reveals the extent of the catastrophe. But it is of note that contrary to the usual reading of the scriptural narrative, the Targum Yerushalmi on Exodus records that during the plagues the vast majority of the Israelites also perished and that only a minuscule percentage of the Hebrews escaped and fled, as indeed only small populations of humanity elsewhere on earth survived the devastation - likely of extraterrestrial origin. Would fiction writers of marvelous, miraculous escape stories torpedo their own myth-making?
It is also not entirely irrelevant to wonder how, if a fable, the Sojourn and the Exodus journey - its power and imagery - took hold of the people to this day and, through the centuries, of over half the world's population. It's not dayenu to merely take note that it has.
1.The Ipuwer Papyrus
The re-discovery by Immanuel Velikovsky of the Ipuwer Papyrus supporting and augmenting the biblical narrative may not be ignored by any serious scholar even should that scholar care to debunk the finding. Ipuwer was a survivor of the catastrophe and his testimony parallels the biblical report.
Ipuwer records his eyewitness report on Papyrus. His lament testifies to the immensity of the catastrophes sustained in Egypt. And enormous tidal waves also engulfed entire tribes inhabiting the thousand mile coastal regions, bringing to mind the tsunami devastation of our day and age. Ipuwer speaks for people from all the four corners of the Earth who in different degrees experienced the same catastrophe. The words destruction, disaster, catastrophe, all signify extra-terrestrial, “star-related,” originations. One result of the disaster was the displacement of people everywhere. Furthermore, Ipuwer writes, “The river is blood…plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere,” corresponding to Exodus, chapter seven, “there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.” Ipuwer describes further the all-consuming fire, corresponding to the eighth plague barad, “meteorites,” as “very grievous such as there was none like it in all the land” as in Exodus (9:23), “…and the fire ran along the ground,” which, according to Ipuwer, all but “exterminated mankind.”
Even the Midrash discloses details of the disturbances on the Day of Passage. The Midrash Psikta Raboti, echoing Ipuwer, also says “the land is without light” as does the papyrus Anastasi IV reporting that “the sun does not rise”.
2.The el-Arish Shrine
As for Egyptian records, the el-Arish shrine of black granite discovered on the borders between Egypt and modern Israel bearing a lengthy hieroglyphic inscription employing the same description of the plagues as Exodus 10:22 (with negligible differences) reads “…the land was in great affliction. Evil fell on this earth…there was a great upheaval in the residence (of the pharaoh)…nobody could leave the palace during nine days, and during these nine days of upheaval, neither men nor gods (ie., the royal family) could see the faces of those beside them.” The same description of the darkness as Exodus 10:22.
The most significant evidence, as far as I am concerned, derives from the el-Arish shrine referring to the Pharaoh's pursuit of fleeing slaves whom he followed to Pi-Khiroti, the biblical Pi-Ha-Khiroth, whereupon he was plunged in the “whirlpool.” We are informed in Exodus (14:2 and 9) of its location, “between Migdol and the sea, before Baal-Zephon.”
What a piece of evidence is that name! Apparently found nowhere else in historical records. If no other extra-biblical evidence could be found, that reference alone identifying the very place a pharaoh drowned in pursuit of “evil doers” would be convincing to any objective and non-prejudiced researcher of the historicity of the Exodus.
3. BRENNER'S Dayenu LIST OF EXODUS EVIDENCE
Were it only for the Psalms recording that “when Israel 'Exodus-ed' Egypt…the sea fled…the (far off) Jordan reversed direction, the mountains danced like rams….,” it would be dayenu.
Were it only for the Papyrus Ipuwer, Papyri Harris and Anastasi IV and Papyri Leningrad and Leiden, and the Ermitage Papyrus, all relating the same account of the earthquakes, upheaval and plagues - it would have been dayenu.
Were it only for the fact that to this day the calendar date of the Passage is celebrated joyously every year as the birthday of our people and as a day of mourning and bad luck in Egypt, it would have been dayenu.
Were it only for the testimony of all the Egyptian-derived Hebrew names of the biblical participants in the Exodus epic, it would have been dayenu.
Were it only for the global evidence of the plagues or only of the reports of the universality of the blood everywhere in the waters of the world, gathered and collated by Israeli scholars such as Aharon Sharif and especially Immanuel Velikovsky - it would have been dayenu.
Were it only for the fact that nations create noble origins and do not invent stories of their birth pangs out of the debased condition of slavery and that Israel experienced that as divinely determined, it would have been dayenu.
And above all, had the shrine in el-Arish telling of hurricanes, darkness, the pursuit by the Egyptians of the fleeing slaves - whereupon “his majesty leaped into the place of the whirlpool…(and was then) lifted by a great force,” it would have been dayenu.
And had nothing else but that drowning-pool place been identified on the shrine as Pi-Khiroti corresponding to the biblical Pi-Ha-Khirot - it would have been more than enough. Dayenu!
Herbert Spencer said: “There is a principle, which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a person in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” And Karl Giberson adds, “Our imaginations pose curious limitations on our search for truth. Often it seems impossible that something could be the case, not because the evidence is not there, but because the intellectual machinery to get our minds around the problem seems to be missing.”