The Exodus

This article is about the events related in the Bible. For the second book of the Bible, see Book of Exodus. For other uses, see Exodus.

Departure of the Israelites (David Roberts, 1829)

The Exodus (Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Yəṣīʾat Mīṣrayīm: lit. 'Departure from Egypt'[a]) is the founding myth[b] of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of the Pentateuch (specifically, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The narrative of the Exodus describes a history of Egyptian bondage of the Israelites followed by their exodus from Egypt through a passage in the Red Sea, in pursuit of the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses.

The consensus of modern scholars is that the Pentateuch does not give an accurate account of the origins of the Israelites, who appear instead to have formed as an entity in the central highlands of Canaan in the late second millennium BCE (around the time of the Late Bronze Age collapse) from the indigenous Canaanite culture.[1][2][3] Most modern scholars believe that some elements in the story of the Exodus might have some historical basis, but that any such basis has little resemblance to the story told in the Pentateuch.[4][5][6] While the majority of modern scholars date the composition of the Pentateuch to the period of the Achaemenid Empire (5th century BCE), some of the elements of this narrative are older, since allusions to the story are made by 8th-century BCE prophets such as Amos and Hosea.[6][7]

The story of the Exodus is central in Judaism. It is recounted daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated in festivals such as Passover. Early Christians saw the Exodus as a typological prefiguration of resurrection and salvation by Jesus. The Exodus is also recounted in the Qur'an as part of the extensive referencing of the life of Moses, a major prophet in Islam. The narrative has also resonated with various groups in more recent centuries, such as among the early American settlers fleeing religious persecution in Europe, and among African Americans striving for freedom and civil rights.[8][9]


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  1. ^ Grabbe 2017, p. 36.
  2. ^ Meyers 2005, pp. 6–7.
  3. ^ Moore & Kelle 2011, p. 81.
  4. ^ Sources for 'most scholars' or 'consensus':
    • Grabbe 2017, p. 36: "The impression one has now is that the debate has settled down. Although they do not seem to admit it, the minimalists have triumphed in many ways. That is, most scholars reject the historicity of the 'patriarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and are cautious about the early monarchy. The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account. On the other hand, there is not the widespread rejection of the biblical text as a historical source that one finds among the main minimalists. There are few, if any, maximalists (defined as those who accept the biblical text unless it can be absolutely disproved) in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes."
    • Herzog, Ze'ev (29 October 1999). "Deconstructing the walls of Jericho". lib1.library.cornell.edu. Ha'aretz. Archived from the original on 10 November 2001. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
    • Greenberg, Moshe; Sperling, S. David (2007). "Exodus, Book of.". In Skolnik, Fred; Berenbaum, Michael; Thomson Gale (Firm) (eds.). Encyclopaedia Judaica. Vol. 6 (2nd ed.). pp. 612–623. ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4. OCLC 123527471. Retrieved 29 November 2019. Current scholarly consensus based on archaeology holds the enslavement and exodus traditions to be unhistorical.
    • Pfoh, Emanuel (September–December 2010). "UNA DECONSTRUCCIÓN DEL PASADO DE ISRAEL EN EL ANTIGUO ORIENTE: HACIA UNA NUEVA HISTORIA DE LA ANTIGUA PALESTINA". Estudios de Asia y África (in Spanish). 45 (3 (143)). Ciudad de México: El Colegio De Mexico: 669–697. doi:10.24201/eaa.v45i3.1995. ISSN 0185-0164. JSTOR i25822397. S2CID 161105175. Históricamente, no podemos hablar más de un periodo de los Patriarcas, del Éxodo de los israelitas de Egipto, de la conquista de Canaán, de un periodo de los Jueces en Palestina, ni de una Monarquía Unida dominando desde el Éufrates hasta el Arco de Egipto.31 Incluso la historicidad del Exilio de los israelitas de Palestina hacia Babilonia como un evento único ha sido puesta en seria duda recientemente.32
  5. ^ Faust 2015, p. 476.
  6. ^ a b Redmount 2001, p. 87.
  7. ^ Lemche 1985, p. 327.
  8. ^ Tigay 2004.
  9. ^ Baden 2019, p. xiv.