Tanakh & the Ancient Near East Index – Parashat Shemot
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Overview
Knowledge of the history, law, cultic practices and realia of the Ancient Near East can often shed much light on Tanakh. This index contains a list of links to articles which touch on the connections between Tanakh and ancient cultures.
Historicity and Dating of the Enslavement
See Tanakh and Archaeology (5), by R. Amnon Bazak, for a review of arguments that attempt to deny the historicity of the servitude in Egypt and the Exodus, and discussion of the weaknesses of these claims. R. Bazak then provides counter-arguments which support the truth of the events. For example, he notes how the Biblical narrator possesses extensive knowledge about the details of the period and close familiarity with ancient Egyptian culture and its characteristics1 which a later writer fabricating the events would not have known.
See Sefer Shemot: Archaeology, by Nachliel Selevan, for discussion of scholarly approaches to the question of when the slavery and Exodus took place in Egyptian history.
See Ramesses and the Question of Dating the Exodus, by Prof. Yoel Elitzur, which discusses claims that Ramses II must be the Paroh of the Exodus due, among other things, to mention of the storage city of the same name. As this identification does not fit with the chronology presented by Tanakh, Prof. Elitzur lays out several arguments against the claim, noting weaknesses in the evidence supplied for the proposed dating.
See Was There an Exodus?, or watch יציאת מצרים בראי הארכאולוגיה ומשמעות שירת הים, both by Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman, for analysis of evidence of the Exodus and the meaning of Biblical phrases associated with the Exodus in light of ancient Near Eastern sources. He notes how many details of the exodus story reflect the realities of late-second-millennium Egypt . Among these he includes Torah's "familiarity with Egyptian names, its awareness of settlement patterns in the eastern delta and of the correct way of naming the pharaoh, its cognizance of royal fortifications outside of Egypt and the geography of the Sinai peninsula, the Negev, and Transjordan".
The Midwives
See Potters’ Wheels and Pregnancies: A Note on Exodus 1:16, by Scott Morschauser, for an intriguing reinterpretation of Pharaoh’s command to the midwives, based on the symbolism of a potters’ wheel in ancient Egyptian religion. He suggests that the midwives were being commanded to check if the fetus, while still in utero (on "the potter's wheel", symbol of the baby's formation) was male, and if so to cause a miscarriage.
See Midwives in the Bible and its World, by Tarja Philip, for an analysis of the craft and practice of midwifery in its Ancient Near East context.
Egyptian Slavery and Brick Making
See Dr. Nahum Sarna’s Exploring Exodus (New York, 1996): 21-25 by Dr. Nahum Sarna for analysis of the nature of Egyptian slavery. He points to several Egyptian texts which might shed light on the hardships experienced by agricultural workers and brick builders in ancient Egypt. He characterizes Egyptian servitude as “state slavery, the organized imposition of forced labor upon the male population for long and indefinite terms of service under degrading and brutal conditions” without compensation or civil rights, whose lot might have often been worse than that of household salves. [See also the Nature of the Bondage for differing views of the nature of the Egyptian oppression among Biblical commentators.2]
See Brick by Brick, by David A. Falk, for a brief analysis of the purpose and type of building that the Israelites likely performed in Egypt and the behavior of the taskmasters.
See The Global Egyptian Museum’s entry on Mud Bricks for a brief description of the type of bricks the Israelites are described as producing in Shemot 5.
See Bricks Without Straw? By Charles F. Nims, for a description of ancient brick-making techniques and an exploration (and rejection) of claims of having identified archaeological evidence of bricks made without straw that attest to the narrative in Shemot 5. He notes that Paroh's command that straw will not be given to the nation does not mean that they made bricks without this component, but that now they had to collect straw on their own.
Names and Terms
See Egyptian Background and the Exodus Narrative for explanation of the possible Egyptian etymology of the names Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam. See there also for discussion of the significance of the term "יד חזקה" in light of the fact that Parohs often bragged about their "strong arm" and the term "כבד לב" in light of the Egyptian belied that hearts were weighed to see if they were too heavy to pass into the afterlife.
See The Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses, by J. Gwyn Grifiths, for analysis of suggestions about the Egyptian root of the name Moshe and the weaknesses of various theories.
Moshe's Birth and the Legend of Sargon
See Moshe’s Birth and the Legend of Sargon for a comparison of the story of Moshe’s infancy to the Mesopotamian legend of Sargon. The article notes how Tanakh inverts one of the main motifs of the Mesopotamian legend in which it is a commoner who adopts a baby of originally noble lineage. In Shemot it is a princess who adopts the baby of an enslaved nation, who decides in the end not to remain in the palace, but to rejoin his "lowly" nation.
See also Dr. Nahum Sarna’s Exploring Exodus, pp. 30-31, who emphasizes the wide divergences between the stories of Moshe and of Sargon, which lead him to conclude: “The supposed close affinities between this folkloristic composition and our Exodus narrative are fanciful. In fact, the story of Moses’ birth departs from “The Legend of Sargon” and from the genre in general in so many significant respects that one almost gets the impression of a conscious attempt on the part of the Biblical narrator to dissociate this narrative from the features otherwise characteristic of the foundling hero motif.”
For other comparisons to the story of Sargon's birth and other "abandoned hero legends" from the ancient near east, see: D. B. Redford, "The Literary Motif of the Exposed Child," Numen 14 (1967): 209-228, Brian Lewis, The Sargon Legend: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero who was Exposed at Birth (Massachusetts, 1980) and The Birth of Moses, by Brevard S. Childs. See also this lecture, Sargon and Moshe, by R. Jonathan Ziring.
See Circumcision in the Ancient Near East, by Jack M. Sasson, for comparison and contrast of the ritual of circumcision in Israel and the Ancient Near East, with a focus on how ancient Egyptian practices of circumcision differed from those in Israel.3