The Historicity of the Exodus

Parshat Bo

This week will focus on the historicity of the Biblical Exodus.  There is no doubt that the Exodus is one of the most inspiring stories in all of history.  The idea of a redemption of a distressed people in a foreign land who rise up and defeat their masters has inspired any group under similar situations, whether it be African slaves in America, or, as we'll see, the Jews themselves a millennium later when they were in exile in Babylon.  However, trying to pin the story of the Exodus to any specific time period is futile.  In order to demonstrate this, we're going to spend a lot of time, probably way too much time in fact, going through the history of Egypt and Palestine over roughly a millennium and a half.

The way I'll structure the post is to describe a particular period in time, and then afterwards discuss the various aspects of the Biblical story of the Exodus that seem to fit into this time period.  I'll consider the Exodus in this case, as one chunk of text that begins with Joseph's descent into Egypt and ends with the confrontation at Yam Suf (Reed Sea).

Before we start, I must impress upon you that the material is far vaster than can be covered in a single blog post.  Every paragraph below probably has at least one book discussing the topics contained therein.  It is an impossible task to cover every possible angle.  Nevertheless, I will attempt to be as thorough as I can.  Also, as a completely unrelated side note, Parshat Bo, was my bar-mitzvah parsha.

The Century of Hyksos Rule

The very first event [1] that seems to be related to the Exodus, and perhaps, the primal seed of the whole story, is the rule of the Hyksos kings.  We've already seen the Hyksos in a previous week, but I'll recap the basics of the historical period.  The Hyksos were a Semitic people who invaded Egypt, and ruled from about 1650 to 1550 BCE.  The Hyksos capital was at the city of Avaris, in the Easternmost branch of the Nile river.  In 1550 they were expelled by the Pharaoh Ahmose who claims to have chased them all the way into Canaan, where they settled.  Knowledge of the Hyksos is known from some inscriptions of that period. Also, excavations of Avaris, modern day, Tel-el-Daba, indicate Semitic elements in the Middle Bronze Age, as well as a destruction layer after which the Semitic elements vanish.

The Hyksos invasion and expulsion is the only historical event in which a large number of Semitic people exited Egypt and settled in Canaan, and for that reason alone it is very tempting to relate it to the Exodus story of the Bible.  However, there are even more reasons to draw connections.  The Jewish people in the Exodus are said to have settled in the land of Goshen, which is traditionally in the Eastern Nile region, the same area that the Hyksos ruled from.  The Hyksos invasion came from the Middle East, and the Joseph accuses his brothers of being spies from the east planning a conquest.  Also, astonishingly, the name of one of the Hyksos kings is Yakob'Har, which is essentially the same as the Biblical patriarch, Yaakov (Jacob).

However, the actual Hyksos event also differs significantly from the Exodus, to the extent that in many ways they are opposite stories.  The Hyksos are invaders; the Jewish people settle in peace with Pharaoh's blessing.  The Hyksos rule over Egypt, perhaps even cruelly.  In the Exodus story, the Jews are oppressed by the Egyptians.  The Hyksos are expelled by the military might of the Egyptians.  In the Exodus story, the Egyptian army is destroyed completely at Yam Suf.  The Hyksos raided Egyptian valuables and brought them to their capital at Avaris.  In the Exodus, the Egyptians voluntarily give their gold and silver to the Jews.  If the Exodus is a description of the Hyksos event, then it must be interpreted as a later account with a pro-Hyksos spin, meant to counter the Egyptian stories about the cruel Hyksos rule.

The New Kingdom - 18th and 19th Dynasties

The first two dynasties of the new kingdom, extend from the end of the Hyksos rule at about 1550 BCE to the beginning of the 12th century BCE.  These two dynasties represent the high point of Egyptian strength and might.  It contains the reigns of the most well known Pharaohs, Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Ramses II, and even the Pharaoh known only from his well hidden tomb, Tutenkhamen.  After the expulsion of the Hyksos, the Egyptians took control over the entire Levant region, including the land contained in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  The land was populated by small vassal states.  The other great power at this time was the Hittites.  Egypt and the Hittites often vied for control, but at other times had an uneasy peace.  The Hittite sphere of influence went south from modern day Turkey and into modern day Syria.  The area between the Egyptian control and the Hittite control, in Southern Syria and away from the coast were a bit of a no-man's-land.

Towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, we have the so called Amarna period, called for the location of the capital in modern day Amarna.  Excavations at Amarna have yielded a rich supply of correspondences between the Egyptian Pharaohs, and the vassals in the Levant [2].  Often these requests are for military aid from Egypt, or other boilerplate statements to accompany tribute [3].

The first Pharaoh with the name Ramses, or Ramesses, is in the 19th dynasty, and ruled for only 2 years.  Ramses II, had a much longer reign from roughly 1290 BCE to 1220 BCE.  The city of Pi-Ramses, located near the old Hyksos capital of Avaris, is mentioned in the Torah as one of the two store cities built by the Israelites (Exod. 1:11).  Pi-Ramses, was not a store city, but rather it was the royal capital of the empire [4].

Another amazing artifact from the 19th dynasty is a stele erected by the Pharaoh Merneptah, who ruled at the tail end of the 13th century BCE.  This stele describes an armed march through the Levant, and among the nations, it describes a people known as Israel, who the Pharaoh claims to have utterly destroyed.  This is the earliest extra-biblical mention of Israelites.  The exact location of the people is not known, but the hieroglyphics are clearly referring to an ethnic group, not a land or kingdom [5].

There's one other interesting aspect of this period that bears directly on the Exodus narrative.  Throughout the Amarna letters, and in other Egyptian documents, there are tons of references to people referred to as Apiru.  These Apiru are everywhere, in Egypt, in Canaan, and in Syria.  They are mentioned by the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Babylonians.  They aren't referred to as a distinct ethnic group, rather, they appear to be something of an underclass, robbers, brigands, and people living on the outskirts of society [6].  Because of the similarity of sound, a hypothesis that Apiru is the source for the Biblical word Ivri needs to be considered.  It can't be a direct translation, the use of Apiru is clearly not an ethnic group.  However, it is certainly conceivable, that a proto-Israelite group, negatively referred to by outsiders as just another Apiru band, could have taken the pejorative term and owned it.  Sort of like how other negative terms, like Eskimo or Yankee, have been adapted by the people they were meant to once insult.  Ivri is not a common word in the Torah, there are only 34 mentions.  However, relevant to this topic, a full 20 of them appear in the Exodus narrative [7].

How does this period relate to the Exodus?  If you calculated naively using the biblical narrative, using 1 Kings 6:1 which states that Shlomo's (Solomon's) temple was built 480 years after the Exodus, you get a date of roughly 1450 BCE for the time of the Exodus. This would place it shortly after the reign of Hatshepsut, and during the reign of Thutmose III.  However, this is problematic for many reasons.  As noted above, the Torah mentions the city of Pi-Ramses which was not built until the 13th century BCE.  Furthermore, the corpus of the Amarna letters makes no mention of an Israelite group at all in the region.  Finally, the storyline of the Jews escaping Egypt and then moving to Canaan cannot be realized in this era because Canaan was entirely under the control of Egypt.  Other biblical nations mentioned in this time period don't exist yet.  This includes the Philistines, which are instrumental in discussing the next era.

The Sea People and the Bronze Age Collapse

Starting possibly as early as 1300 BCE, new settlements start appearing in the Levant, first in the north, and a hundred years later in the south.  They are attested in accounts both by the Egyptians and the Hittites.  At first they were mere annoyances, but soon that was all to change.  In the eighth year of Ramses III, corresponding roughly to 1180 BCE Egyptian records report a massive invasion of these new people.  Colloquially, they are termed as the "Sea Peoples" as an origin from the Aegean seems most probable based on the new pottery and city designs recovered from archaeology [8].

The conquest of the Sea Peoples was stunning.  The Hittite empire, previously embroiled with the Assyrians were crushed.  The Sea Peoples burnt the Hittite capital of Hattusa to the ground.  The ancient city of Ugarit suffered the same fate.  The latest archaeological remains from that city are clay tablets talking of the invasion.  Tarsus and cities on Cyprus were also destroyed.  Egypt was able to repel the invasion, but they lost all their ancient holdings in Canaan.  Cities in Canaan such as Ashdod and Ashkelon [9] see destruction layers followed by new settlements around this time.  However, the most important point for this topic is that the Egyptian records of Ramses III mention one nation among the Sea Peoples that is important to us.  They mention Paleset, in Hebrew Paleshet, and in English, the Philistines.

The resulting aftermath of the invasion created something akin to a Dark Age in Canaan.  Without a strong Egyptian presence, there were no more correspondences between Canaanite vassals and their Egyptian ruler.  In the biblical timeline this would fall into the period of the Judges, and the type of loose confederacy of pastoral nations seems historically appropriate for this time period.  But what about the Exodus, could it have occurred in this time period?

Exodus 13:17 describes the Israelites as not wanting to go the short route through the land of the Philistines.  The implication is that at the time of the Exodus, the Philistines were there.  Unless the Philistines are an anachronism here too, as they are in the patriarchal narratives, the Exodus must have occurred after this time.  Furthermore, the weakened Egypt, and the Dark Age situation with the lack of written evidence, leaves room for unrecorded events.  However, the time line is too tight for a strict historical reconstruction.  The Mernepteh stele has the Israelites already in the land prior to the Philistines settlement.  Also, in contrast to the Philistine cities which display marked destruction layers, cities supposedly involved in the conquest, like Jericho and Ai, show no destruction layers in the late Bronze.  The conquest is not the Exodus per se, but it is part of the biblical historical account.  Also problematic is that other nations peripheral to the Exodus don't show up until later.  These include the kingdoms of Edom, Moab, and Ammon, all of which seem to have arisen as kingdoms squarely in the first millennium BCE and as ethnic groups late in the second millennium BCE [10].

The time period is probably the best candidate for a limited exodus (little e) in which some number of people, possibly enslaved Semites, left Egypt and traveled to Canaan. However, it's important to note that we have no positive evidence of this.  There are no markers for sudden migration or settlement patterns in the archaeology of the time period.  Instead, we just have a vacuum in which the possibility for events that have escaped written accounts is higher.

In the Shadow of Mesopotamia

During the reign of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, they were often threatened between the two great powers.  Egypt in the south, which gradually regained its influence after the Bronze Age Collapse, and the Neo-Assyrian empire, and later, the Babylonian empire, in the east.  These powers sometimes waxed and waned, and with it their extent of control over the Israelites.  Certainly at times, Israel probably felt like an oppressed people, and a story about the divine deliverance would be resonant with them.

The story of the early kingdoms of Israel and Judah are not well known except from the biblical story.  The northern kingdom of Israel peaked around the time of the Omride dynasty, started by Omri and then his son Ahab.  During this period they led a coalition that was able to repel the Assyrian army.  The northern kingdom would not last forever though.  In roughly 720 BCE, the Assyrian empire destroyed the Israelite capital at Samaria and exiled the nobles of the nation.  From there, the Assyrian army went south, they destroyed the Judean city of Lachish and captured most of the land of the kingdom and gave it to their Philistine vassals on the coast.  They sieged Jerusalem, but were not able to conquer it, returning with a hefty tribute.  The Assyrian empire collapsed shortly after, and the brief respite allowed the kingdom of Judah some autonomy.  However, it wasn't much longer until the Babylonian empire arose following it.  The Babylonians captured the kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE, destroying the Temple in Jerusalem, and again exiling the nobles.  Some of the descendents of these nobles would return to Jerusalem later after the Babylonian empire was conquered itself.  But for another period, the Jews, or at least some significant number of them, were subjects in a foreign land [11].

It turns out that there are some aspects of the Exodus story that fit more into a Mesopotamian background rather than an Egyptian one.  For example, in the Exodus story, the Hebrew slaves are forced to make bricks.  If they were in Egypt, you might expect references to stone quarries.  Similarly, the idea of store cities fit better in Mesopotamia than they do in Egypt [12].  The Egyptian army in the Exodus story uses three-horse chariots, something that is known in Assyria, but not in Egypt.  The big Egyptian military unit, the Egyptian archers, are entirely missing from the Exodus account.

Some other facets of the story do seem Egyptian, but fit in this late time period rather than one in the 2nd millennium BCE.  When we look at the geographical names in the Exodus, places like Migdol and Pi-Hahiroth seem to fit more in the time period of the Judean kingdom rather than an earlier time.  As Redford writes:

Whoever supplied the geographical information that now adorns the story had no information earlier than the Saite period (~685 BCE) [13]. 

Also, not related directly to the Exodus, but to the previous story, it is possible to guess when the Joseph story was written based on the Egyptian names present.  Just like English names, Egyptian names became more and less popular in different eras.  The Joseph story includes the names Asnat, Potiphar, and Zaphnat-Paneach.  Again quoting Redford.

Saphnath pane'ah is unanimously agreed to be the transliteration of an Egyptian name-type that means "God N speaks (or spoke) and he lives."  The type begins in the 21st dynasty [1069-945 BCE], becomes very popular in the ninth through seventh centuries BC, and thereafter peters out [14].

Redford lists numerous other facets of the Joseph story that fit in the first millennium, like the celebration of the king's birthday, the 20 percent tax on the population [15], and representing years by cows [16].

Egyptian Influences in Post-Exilic Times

Much later in our chronology, roughly in the 3rd century BCE, the Egyptian Priest Manetho recorded several stories relating to the Hyksos expulsion.  These stories were lost in later years, but preserved through the account of Josephus.  One of these, relating to the Hyksos as Shepherd Kings was discussed previously.  However, there is another story which discusses the expulsion of polluted leprous individuals.  This story also has parallels to the biblical account.  Moshe was given a divine sign where his hand becomes leprous.  Miriam contracted leprosy.  And biblical laws deal with leprosy at length [17].

Both the discussion of shepherd kings and the divine signs of leprosy seem more like a reaction against Egyptian anti-Semitic propaganda, rather than the opposite.  However, it seems unlikely to me to attribute modifications to Exodus story post-Manetho.  Rather, some of the sources that Manetho used to formulate his histories were possibly also known to the authors of the Exodus, and they manufactured pieces of the story to counter the Egyptian propaganda.

So... What is the Exodus Story Actually Referring To

As we've seen above, there are lots of possibilities.  The Exodus story could be relating to the historical expulsion of the Hyksos who then settled in Israel, but detailed from the Hyksos side and not the biased Egyptian side.  It could be discussing the escape of a small group of slaves, possibly Levites, sometime around the Bronze Age Collapse.  It could include some Philistine accounts of battles with Egypt that took place on the sea or on the coast, in which the proto-Israelites participated.  It could be referring not to an actual Exodus, but a freedom from the rule of Egypt, when Canaan fell out of Egyptian influence during the bronze age collapse.  It could be a story of hope used to console exiled Jews living in Babylonia. 

In my opinion, there's a good chance it is all of these things.  The Exodus isn't one story recounting an individual event.  It's a general story of redemption and freedom from oppression that gradually gathered additional information from each era.  That's why when we look back at it today, we see such a hodgepodge of different time periods.  What is clear is that the literal event discussed in the Torah today is fictional.  The Exodus (big E) never happened.  However, that doesn't mean that there wasn't an exodus (little e) or multiple exoduses that helped seed the story in future years.

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1. There are the occasional attempt by people to relate the Exodus plague events to the eruption of Thera sometime in the 17th and 16th centuries. But in my opinion the connections are exceedingly weak. ^

2. You can read some of the Amarna letters here.^

3. For more, see Redford, "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" Princeton Univ. Press, 1992, p. 192-213^

4. The other city Pithom, possibly Per-Atum,but possibly not, could have been a store city, but is less well known^

5. Kugel, "How to Read the Bible," Free Press, 2006 p. 381^

6. Kugel p. 207^

7. Kugel p. 207^

8. Redford pp. 241-256^

9. Finkelstein and Silberman, "The Bible Unearthed" Simon and Schuster, 2001 p. 340^

10. Finkelstein, p. 116.^

11. For more, see Finkelstein, ch 15-16]^

12. Redford, p. 416]^

13. Redford, p. 409. This is disputed by others, for example, Hoffmeier^

14. Redford, p. 424.^

15. This is recorded in Papyrus Rylands.^

16. Redford, p. 426.^

17. See Gmirkin, "Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and the Exodus" for more.^

The Baby in the Basket

Parshat Shmot

Before we get started, some self-congratulations are due.  This blog has successfully made it through one book of the Torah (and the longest one too). We are beginning the second book Shmot (Exodus) this week.  If you've been following along since then, you deserve some congratulations too. Especially if you come from a religious background!

How to Save a Child

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, today we will look at one of the more famous stories in this week's parsha.  That is the story of the birth of Moshe (Moses).  The basic storyline is probably familiar to you, but I'll repeat it anyway.  The Egyptian Pharaoh orders that all male children born to the Israelites should be thrown into the river or killed by midwives.  In order to save her baby, Moshe, Yocheved puts him in a basket and places him in a river, presumably a branch of the Nile.  The baby is found by an Egyptian princess, who recognizes that it's an Israelite, but decides to raise it herself.

Looking at this story in the actual text (Exod 2:1-5):

1 And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. 2 And the woman conceived, and bore a son; and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3 And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river's brink. 4 And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. 5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river; and her maidens walked along by the river-side; and she saw the ark among the flags, and sent her handmaid to fetch it.

Chances are you are familiar with this story even if you only have a passing familiarity with the Torah.  It's one of those stories that spawned countless depictions and is deeply embedded in Western culture.  The motif, of a child of consequence who is supposed to be killed but survives, somewhat miraculously, is fairly common.  One of the more famous stories is that of Oedipus.  It was prophesied that Oedipus would kill the king, so he is left on a mountainside to die.  However, he is rescued by a shepherd and raised.  Sophocles recorded the myth in Oedipus Rex, but it's likely that the myth goes back further.

However, there is another less well known myth, that is much closer in the actual details to the story of Moshe.  It is the myth of the Babylonian King Sargon of Akkad, who ruled all the way back in the 3rd millennim BCE.  The birth legend of Sargon is known from tablets from the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal dating to the 7th century BCE.  A translation is repeated here:

Sargon the Mighty King, the King of Agade (Akkad) am I. My mother was lowly, my father I knew not, and the brother of my father dwelleth in the mountains. My city is Azupiranu, which lieth on the bank of the Euphrates. My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she closed my door. She cast me into the river, which rose not over me. The river bore me up, unto Akki, the irrigator, it carried me. Akki the irrigator with [missing] lifted me out. Akki, the irrigator, as his own son [missing] reared me [footnote]... [1]

The similarities to the story of Moshe are undeniable.  The only question is which one cribbed off the other.

The Problems of Chronology

Moshe is claimed to have lived during the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE.  Sargon of Akkad, in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, so Sargon is older by about 1000 years.  However, that's not proof that this story of Sargon dates back that far.  We know the story of Sargon existed by about the 8th century BCE, but that's the latest possible date.  From my knowledge, we cannot limit the formulation of the story any more than it was between ~2300 BCE and ~800 BCE.

It is similarly difficult to date the story of Moshe.  The earliest date for Moshe's life, by the biblical account, is about 1500 BCE [2].  For the latest date of composition, the conventional biblical analysis has this story as pre-Exilic, and appearing probably sometime around 800 and 700 BCE.  Minimalists would place it much later.  But this is only when it was written, the story could have survived in oral form for a long time previously.

So there's no smoking gun from timelines that can allow us to chronologically reconstruct which one came first.  Instead, we need to look at what was more likely.  The Babylonians borrowed from the Israelites, or the Israelites borrowed from the Babylonians.

There is a long list of things that we know went from Assyria and Babylon to Israel.  These include the block alphabet that we are all familiar with (k'tav ashuri), which replaced the older Israelite alphabet (k'tav ivri).  It also includes the Babylonian law codes, which we'll look at in a couple week's time.  The law code in Exodus appears to be based off of other similar law codes.  Here the Babylonian code, made by Hammurabi, is clearly earlier than any attested date of the Israelite one.  There also is, famously, the story of Utnapishtim, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is remarkably similar to the story of Noach (Noah) down to the fact that both sent out birds to determine if it was safe to exit their boats.  The Epic of Gilgamesh dates back to the 18th century BCE, at least, and definitely predates the composition of the Noach story. 

On the flipside, we know of no wholly Israelite, or even Canaanite, practices that were adopted by the Babylonians.  (If you know of any, I'd love to know.)  Therefore, it seems to me that it's much more likely that the Israelites copied the story from the Babylonians than the opposite.  There is a third option, that there was a third story about a third figure, now lost to time, that was the source for both, but I don't see a good reason to hypothesize a third story without any evidence.

Conclusion

This is the first instance we've seen of a biblical story having, if not an origin, at least a cognate in another nearby culture.  In the past we've talked about the possible cognates of the creation stories and the Exodus story of the Hyksos, but neither have the level of similarity as the stories of Sargon and Moshe.  There are many other similar things, including other stories, laws and traditions, that have versions in the other, larger cultures, nearby.  I often wonder, how many of the biblical stories are retellings and rehashings of other stories, that are now lost to time, and how many are entirely Israelite.  

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1. Source from W. L. King: Chronicles Concerning Early Babylonian Kings. ^

2. This assumes that there were 400 years between the building of Solomon's temple and the Exodus. You get this number from 1 Kings 6:1 where it states 480 years passed between the completion of the temple and the Exodus. Taking that number literally, you arrive at a date around 1450 BCE for the Exodus. Moses was 80 at the time of the Exodus, so that sets this story around 1530 BCE.^

The Hyksos and the Jews

So far in this blog, I've limited myself to discussion about topics that, to the best of my knowledge, are in the academic mainstream. However, this week, I'll move a little further afield and look at a hypothesis that is a bit further outside. Or at least, we'll look at one of the pieces of supporting evidence for that theory and try to determine how it could have arisen.

Some Necessary Background
 
Before we get started, some history is necessary.  Specifically history of Egypt in the middle of the second millennium BCE. The fourteenth dynasty of Egypt ended with the invasion of the Hyksos in the 17th century. The Hyksos were a Semitic people and the fifteenth dynasty consists of Hyksos Pharaohs. They placed their capital in Avaris, on the eastern edge of Egypt, and ruled from that location for a hundred years or so. The 16th and 17th dynasties ruled smaller regions of Egypt in the south and west, also during this hundred year stretch. The Hyksos were expelled by the early Pharaohs of the 18th dynasty at about 1550 BCE. According to Egyptian sources, which we'll get to in a bit, the Hyksos then settled in the region of Canaan and Syria.

No records from the Hyksos themselves survive, and everything we know comes from the Egyptian side. Temple inscriptions, pharaoh lists, and other archaeological realia, including the destruction of the Hyksos capital Avaris (now Tel-el-Daba) confirm the basic story. However, there were several written accounts appearing much later. The one we'll focus on today is the account of Manetho, an Egyptian priest who lived over 1000 years after the events described in the preceding paragraph, in the 3rd century BCE.

Manetho's actual writings have been lost, but they were recorded by Josephus in his work "Against Apion." The expulsion of the Hyksos in Manetho's account bears some resemblance to the Exodus account of the Torah. Indeed, the story of a group of people that left Egypt under unfriendly terms, and then settling in the Canaan region, has led lots of people to associate the Hyksos expulsion with the Exodus story [1]. Around the time of Josephus the connection was explicit, with the Hyksos founding the city of Jerusalem after the expulsion. Although, it should be noted, that Manetho himself, never seems to equate the Hyksos with the Jews.  We'll discuss more about the relation between the Exodus narrative and the actual Hyksos expulsion in a future week when we discuss the historicity of the Exodus.  For now, we'll focus on a specific detail in Manetho's account.

The Problem of False Cognates
 
Now that we've got the basic history out of the way.  Let's turn to the Torah.  This week's parsha includes the following verse (Gen 46:34) 

That ye shall say: Thy servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and our fathers; that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.'

The idea that shepherds are abominable to Egyptians is strange, because Egyptians certainly had shepherds and practiced animal husbandry throughout their entire history [2].  Even the Torah itself acknowledges that the Egyptians kept cattle, as we see in Gen 47:6:

[Pharaoh says to Joseph] 'the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and thy brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell. And if thou knowest any able men among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.' 

It is true that Egyptians did not practice animal sacrifice, like the Semitic nations did, but that's not what the verse seems to imply. Where could this have come from?

The answer lies in Manetho's account. Manetho derives an etymology for the Hyksos from a combination of the words hyk and sos. Hyk he relates to the Egyptian word for kings, and sos he relates to the Egyptian word for shepherd. This is the same root that shows up in shasu, which was commonly used to define desert dwelling shepherds.
 
However, today, we know more about the Egyptian language of the 17th century BCE than the Egyptians of the 3rd century BCE did, and we find that Manetho's etymology was in error. Looking at inscriptions from the 17th century, we can determine that the correct meanig for sos is foreigners, not shepherds. Hyksos actually means foreign rulers. However, Manetho's etymological meaning, or wherever he learned it, became the standard in Egypt and everyone, including Josephus would translate the Hyksos as the shepherd kings.
 
The Torah Includes Manetho's Error
 
The explanation for Gen. 46:34 offered by Russell Gmirkin, in "Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and the Exodus [3]" is that the authors of these verses in the Torah were basing their writing off of Manetho's account.  Gmirkin sees the version of the Exodus in the Torah, as a reaction to the Egyptian accounts, in which the Hyksos, or proto-Israelites, were invaders and cruel tyrants, who were expulsed through valiant Egyptian military action. In the Exodus account the Jews are the ones who were treated cruelly, and they escape through valiant divine intervention. In both stories the foreign people are despised by the Egyptians.  In the Egyptian account it's because they are foreign occupiers.  The Torah, however, states that the Egyptians despised them simply because they were shepherds.

The inclusion of this false etymology, is to Gmirkin, a sure sign, that the Torah authors must have based it off of Egyptian accounts. If they had their own historical documents, completely independent from the Egyptian accounts, they would not have produced this error.  Remember that the error only exists because of a false cognate in the Egyptian language!  Gmirkin actually goes further and claims that the Torah must have been written after Manetho's account, but I don't think that's necessary or as well supported. What is more likely is that whatever source Manetho used also had this error. We don't know when people started thinking of the Hyksos as shepherd kings, and it very well could predate Manetho. However, if Jews were using Egyptian sources to frame the Exodus, then it makes sense to ascribe this bizarre statement about the Egyptians hating shepherds to a reaction to the Egyptian account.
 

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1. See for example, Finkelstein and Silberman, "The Bible Unearthed" Simon and Schuster, 2001 p. 54-56.^

2. The Papyrus Anastasi 6.4.16 describes Egypt giving refuges to bedouins and their herds at Per Atum. Gmirkin, "Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and the Exodus" T & T Clark, 2006, p. 179, footnote 57.^

3. For more see Gmirkin p. 178-180.^

Etiology

Parshat Vayetze

Why the book of Bereishit (Genesis) was written, is a question that scholars and rabbis both ask. Prolific medieval commentator Rashi poses it in Bereishit 1:1, offering the option that the Torah should begin partway through Exodus when the first mitzvot are written.  Traditionally, Jewish commentators have attempted to extract moral, and sometimes disastrously, scientific and historical lessons from the various stories.  We will provide one alternative reason for various stories in Bereishit.  We'll note that one reason cannot suffice for all the stories, many of which may have been written at different times for different purposes.  This week we will look at etiological reasons, and next week we will look at another reason, which I'll leave for a surprise.

Etiology, in the context I'm using it, basically means explanations for why things are the way they are, usually with mythical or historical reasons. These are sometimes used to explain why things are named the way they are. For example, Homer describes the naming of the Greek city of Delphi as arising because of the transport of people to the city on dolphins (the actual origin likely has to do with a similar sounding word meaning womb.) Sometimes, these stories are used to explain why certain religious activities are performed. An example here could be the Aztec belief that the sun was a deity that required continual human sacrifice to be sustained or he would fail like the four previous suns did.  The story of the four previous suns gives an etiological reason justifying the current human sacrifice ritual.  Sometimes these explain physical phenomena, an example from the Torah would be the explanation of why rainbows exist at the end of the flood story.

The Torah furnishes lots of examples of etiological stories. These stories are present in pretty much every culture that has provided us with a record of beliefs.  It's not surprising that the ancient Israelites would provide us with their stories also.

The naming of places

In this week parsha, we have etiological examples of place naming. After Yaakov (Jacob) has his famous dream with the ladder to the heavens, he wakes up and says: (Gen 28:17-19),

17 And he was afraid, and said: 'How full of awe is this place! this is none other than the house of God (beth elokim), and this is the gate of heaven.' 18 And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Beth-el, but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

The Torah tells us how the city of Luz got the name of Beth-el. It's because Yaakov associated it with the house of God, beth elokim.  Beth-el actually gets named a second time, also by Yaakov (Gen 35:7), for a different reason.  And furthermore, it seems to have already had this name by the time Avraham came through (Gen 12:8).

This parsha also informs us of how all the tribes got their names, providing etiological explanations for all of them. Just one example will suffice (Gen 29:32)

And Leah conceived, and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said: 'Because the LORD hath looked (ra'ah) upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.'

The name Reuben is explained to derive from the root ra'ah, to look. The other tribes are named similarly.  These etiological origins for names are all over the Torah, sometimes in cases that make no sense.  For example, Moshe (Moses) is a well known Egyptian name, but in the Torah etymology, she is named by an Egyptian princess with a pun that only makes sense in Hebrew.

At the end of the parsha we are given one more example of an etiological naming, the area of Gilead, is explained as to have arisen from the words Gal Ed, literally, monument-witness. This is because Lavan (Laban) set up a monument as a witness for a non-aggression treaty with Yaakov.

Ritual explanations

Unfortunately, this parsha doesn't furnish us with an example of an etiological reason for a ritual, however, next week's does, so we'll look ahead a little.

The story of Yaakov's wrestling with a mysterious man provides us with lots of etiological reasons for things. It gives an explanation of why Yaakov is also known as Yisrael, because he "strove" (saritah) with God (or gods) (elohim). It tells us why the river is called Yavok, because a man "wrestled" (vayeavek) with him. It explains why the place gets the name Penuel, because Yaakov saw God face (panim) to face. And lastly, and relevant to this topic, it explains the religious restriction on not eating a particular part of an animal (32:33).

Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh, even in the sinew of the thigh-vein.

The beginning phrase of this sentence, here translated "therefore" is in Hebrew al cain, and is often written in the Torah prior to an etiological reason for a specific practice. Similarly the phrase "until this day" is used in a lot of etiological contexts. The simple way to interpret these phrases is something like, "this is the way these things are at the time of writing, and here is why."

Natural Phenomena

Most of the Torah's examples of etiological explanation for natural phenomena occur in the first two parshiot. We learn why it rains from the sky (there's water above that's kept there by a rakiah, a firm boundary). We learn why women have pain during childbirth, and why agriculture is so darn hard. We learn why there are rainbows, and why it's impossible to understand the weird speaking neighbors to the east.  At least we learn the mythological stories that the ancient Israelites invented over the course of many years to explain these things. We actually know the real reasons for these phenomena nowadays, and many religious Jews interpret these stories allegorically, because the etiological explanation have since been proven false. 

There is one example from a recent parsha of a natural phenomenon with an allegorical explanation.  Normally regions surrounding bodies of water are lush areas, full of plant an animal life.  However, the region near the dead sea is the exact opposite, it is completely devoid of life, a barren wasteland.  The sea itself has a salt concentration far higher than what life can thrive in.  How did this region become so?

The Torah's answer was that it once was fertile, just like every other body of water.  But it was wicked and was turned into what it is today as punishment from God, and all the population were killed.  Just like the stories earlier in Genesis, we know today that there was no catastrophic geological behavior in this region in the last 10,000 years.  This is another example of the ancient Israelites inventing explanations for the world around them etiologically.

Understanding the World

Etiology is a manner in which many ancient people used to understand the world.  This is a great human desire from the dawn of time, and it's no surprise that every culture has these kinds of stories.  One question to ask, for people who hold the Torah to have some special divine value, is whether the Israelite stories differ in style or verifiability from the many other stories that have been passed to us from other cultures.  Having read a lot of these stories, it is my opinion that there is no noticeable difference.  However, perhaps you have a different view.  I'd love to hear. 

Next week we'll talk about another, sometimes overlapping reason, for why the book of Bereishit was written.

The Wanderings of the Patriarchs

Parshat Chayei Sarah

This will be a two part post, split into two weeks. In the first week, we'll look at the various wanderings of the patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak, (Isaac) and Yaakov (Jacob), throughout the book of Genesis. We'll focus on the places that they went to, and we'll notice that even though the patriarchs are supposed to represent all Jews, both in the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah, the patriarchs tend to be leave their mark exclusively in sites near the north (Yaakov) or the south (Avraham, Yitzchak), and only travel to the other region for story continuity reasons.  This is a topic we'll pick up next week where we will get more support from this hypothesis from the prophets.

Additionally, we'll discuss some of the reasons that academic scholars think that multiple traditions, or indeed multiple authors, are represented in these stories.  There are multiple stories in which the same patriarch, or a different one, travels to the same place and does the exact same thing, with some slight alterations, and no indication that there ever was someone that did this previously.  We'll also briefly touch on some of the historical anachronisms in the stories, which are indications that they were written much later than traditional thoughts, and represented a world closer to the 1st millenium BCE rather than the 2nd millenium BCE.

When I started researching this topic, I wasn't exactly sure what I would find.  This type of approach, where you are unsure of the answers, and you accept whatever answer the data give, is more in line with a scientific type of thinking.  This is completely different from the theological type of thinking in which the answer is already determined, and the verses are interpreted to support it.  Personally, I find the scientific approach much more satisfying.

All verses, unless otherwise noted, are from Bereishit (Genesis)

Abraham, wanderer of the South

On the fairly poorly made graphic below, I've attempted to plot out the paths of the patriarchs, starting with Avraham in red and continuing with Yitzchak in green, and finally Yaakov in blue. Avraham begins his journey well off the map in Ur Cashdim far in eastern Mesopotamia. He winds up in Haran in the northeast of Israel where God tells him to go into Canaan (12:4). This is the red dashed line on the plot. Avraham passes briefly through Shechem (12:6), and his first encampment is between Beth-el and Ai (12:8).

 Poorly made graphic of the wanderings of the Patriarchs.  Red represents Avraham, Green is Yitzchak, Blue is Yaakov. 

After this Avraham, makes a trip to Egypt because of famine, and we encounter the first story of a patriarch journeying to a different land and telling the ruler that his wife is his sister.  This causes trouble for the ruler who then takes the matriarch as a consort and is punished for it (12:10-19). After Egypt, Avraham returns to the camp between Beth-el and Ai briefly (13:3) where he splits up with Lot. Then Avraham travels to Elonei Mamre which later verses indicate is in Hebron (13:18). This is the home base of Avraham from here on out, and he remains here all the way until Chapter 20.

In 20:1 Avraham travels to the Philistine city of Gerar (an anachronism) and repeats the wife-swapping misadventure with a new king. Avraham dwells somewhere in that land when Yitzchak is born, the place is not indicated. However, 21:33 places him in the vicinity of Be'er-Shebah and a story is given for how that place got its name.

The last adventures of Avraham begin with Akedat Yitzchak, the sacrifice of Isaac, which is not placed explicitly in the Torah, but traditionally occurred in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem). As such I've put his path there. Afterwards, Avraham returns to Hevron where he is buried (25:9).

The most important points to note in the travelings of Avraham is that the vast majority of the places he visits are southern locations. He very briefly passes near Shechem, and camps near Beth-el for a short time, but there are no real events that occur there.  Beth-el was a very important city on the border of the two kingdoms, but in the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel. Most of the events of his life occur in the south, in Hevron, Be'er-Shebah, Egypt, and even possibly Yerushalayim. Peripheral events, like the adventures of Lot in S'dom and Amorah (Sodom and Gemorrah) are also southern locations.

The wanderings of Yitzchak

Yitzchak gets the least attention out of the three Patriarchs, and he never leaves the southern areas. He starts at Be'er Lahai Roi (25:11) a place that is somewhere in the Negev, but otherwise not well known. He repeats his father's adventure in Gerar, where he tells the same Philistine king, with the same captain of the guard, that his wife is his sister, and similar bad things occur (26:1-17). Afterwards, Yitzchak digs a bunch of wells in the desert, culminating at Be'er-Shebah (26:33) where Yitzchak seemingly has forgotten that his father named the place in the past, renames it with the same name, but for a different reason! Presumably, Yitzchak settles here, because at this point the focus of the story switches to his son Yaakov.

The wanderings of Yaakov

Yaakov begins his adventures proper when he leaves his childhood home of Be'er Shebah (28:10), traveling to the north, to Aram. He makes a pit stop in Beth-el where he has the famous dream with the ladder (28:11-22) and at this point he names the place Beth-el (28:19). That verse also mentions that the previous name of the place was Luz, which is somewhat confusing, because when his grandfather Avraham passed through, the place was called Beth-el and not Luz.

Nevertheless, Yaakov, reaches Aram, and lives there for 20 years, siring 12 of his 13 children. Yaakov leaves in chapter 31, and has an encounter with Laban somewhere in Gilead, and the Torah gives an explanation for why that area got its name. On his return home, Yaakov has adventures in multiple places mostly on the east side of the Jordan river (transJordan). The first adventure is in Mahanaim where he encounters a bunch of angels and names the place accordingly (32:3). He then has the famous encounter with the angel at Penuel, near Nahal Yabbok. (32:22-32), providing names for both of those places, as well as giving the reason why Yaakov is also known as Yisrael (Israel). Yaakov then travels to Sukkot (33:17) and explains the naming of that place, finally winding up back across the Jordan in Shechem (33:18) where he remains for a while.  He never makes it back to Be'er Sheba.

In 35:1 God tells Yaakov to go to Beth-el. The Torah informs us again that the place was once called Luz (35:6) and Yaakov names it Beth-el a second time, again for a different reason (35:7). Afterwards, (35:9-10) God changes his name to Yisrael, even though it was already changed in the past. The final travels of Yaakov has him going to Beth-lehem, where Rachel is buried (35:19) and then he buries his father in Hevron (35:27-29). Chapter 37 opens with the Torah giving no more specific location of Yaakov than that he was in Canaan. At this point the story shifts to focus on his children, mainly Yosef (Joseph).

If Avraham is the hero of the south, then Yaakov is the hero of the north. He is strongly associated with the city of Beth-el, an extremely important city of the northern kingdom of Israel. Not to mention that he shares his adopted name Yisrael, with that of the northern Israelite kingdom. Other cities like Shechem, and the various locations east of the Jordan river, are in the territories of Israel.

Geographical Associations

Looking at where the patriarchs spent their time, we have Avraham, who starts far in the north, but spends all of his adult years in the south, with his northernmost location near Beth-el. Yitzchak who never leaves the south at all. And Yaakov, who begins far in the south, but spends all of his adult life in the north, before returning to the south in order for the story to connect with that of Yosef which occurs in Egypt. Each one is associated with specific places, Avraham with Hevron, and Be'er Shebah, Yitzchak with Be'er Shebah, and Yaakov with trans-Jordan locations, Shechem, and most importantly, Beth-el. 

From here we have the basic framework of our first hypothesis.  Avraham and Yitzchak, were the patriarchs of the south.  Yaakov was the patriarch of the north.  They were essentially separate stories, but at some point, the two stories merged into one.  A good guess for when this happened was after the northern kingdom was destroyed in 722 BCE, and residents of it fled to the south.  With the merging of the stories, the patriarchs became a single hereditary line: Avraham - Yitzchak - Yaakov. For continuity's sake, they then had to live in the other's territory at the beginning and ends of their lives.  

Based on the data, this is the hypothesis I've come up with.  But in order for it to be believable, it needs support from writings outside the Torah. We'll test the hypothesis next week when we'll look at some supporting information from this from the prophets.  We'll see that the prophets strongly associate Avraham and Yitzchak with the south, and Yaakov with the north. 

Repeated Events (Doublets)

Also, we see that the Torah repeats events. There are three stories of a patriarch trying to pass a wife off as a sister, and bad things happening to the king who is taken by the ruse. It also gives multiple explanations for place names, each one seemingly unfamiliar with previous explanations.  There are two separate explanations for the naming of Be'er Shebah, and similarly, two separate instances for the naming of Beth-el. It is these features that have led academic scholars to hypothesize that these various stories represent different traditions that were later compiled together. A hypothesis called the Documentary Hypothesis which we've already hinted at, but will deal with in more detail throughout the year, goes a step further.  It states that there were actual separate documents that were redacted together and relates these documents to specific historical time periods in different locations. Scholars who aren't comfortable with multiple documents, hypothesize that these stories arose from multiple conflicting oral traditions that existed at the time that the author was writing the Torah, and that author wished to incorporate as many of the conflicting oral traditions as possible. Either way, the presence of these duplicated events create huge problems for traditional readings, and traditional explanations require tortured readings of the text.

Anachronisms

One of the most glaring anachronisms in the Patriarchal stories is the presence of the Pelishtim (Philistines).  Both Avraham and Yitzchak visit the lands of the Pelishtim, and live there for several years.  They also feud over territory in the south, in the vicinity of Beer-Shebah.  In later years, Pelishtim were rivals of both kingdoms throughout the monarchial period.  They controlled the coasts, including lucrative trade routes, and fertile lands by the Mediterranean, while the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were relegated more to the inner highlands.  However, the Pelishtim were not always there.

In the beginning of the 12th century BCE, the "sea peoples" arrived and destroyed many lands.  They were responsible for the destruction of Ugarit in the north.  And they also took control of the coastal regions from the Egyptians, who then retreated back to Egypt.  Before the arrival of the Sea Peoples, Egypt controlled all of Canaan.  After this, the "sea peoples" settled in the cities and built new ones.  Their arrival is attested archaeologically by the destruction of various cities, and the presence of new Aegean pottery which was found starting at this time at key cities of the Pelishtim.  Furthermore, Rameses III mentioned the Pelishtim as one of the Sea Peoples [1].  So we are pretty certain that the Sea Peoples included the Pelishtim, and thus, the Pelishtim could not have been in Israel before 1200 BCE.  Therefore, these stories must have been written much later, after all memories of the arrival of the Pelishtim were forgotten.  [2]

The city of Gerar as the capital of the Pelishtim, is even more problematic. 

Quoting Finkelstein/Silberman,"Gerar is today identified with Tel Haror northwest of Beersheba, and excavtions there have shown that in the Iron Age I [~1200 - 900 BCE] - the early phase of Philistine history - it was no more than a small insignificant village.  But by the late eighth and seventh century BCE, it had become a strong, heavily fortified Assyrian administrative stronghold in the south, an obvious landmark. [3]" 

And on the choice of cities that the Patriarchs visited, they say the following:

"The Middle Bronze [~2000-1500 BCE, a traditional dating for the Patriarchs] was a period of advanced urban life.  Canaan was dominated by a group of powerful city-states, ruled from such capitals as Hazor and Megiddo.  These cities were strongly fortified by huge earthen ramparts with massive gates.  They had great palaces and towering temples.  But in the biblical text we do not see this at all.  True, a few cities are mentioned, but not necessarily the most important ones.  Shechem (as a city) is not there, nor are Bethel and Jerusalem - all three were massive Middle Bronze strongholds.  And in the plains we should have heard about Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, not Gerar.  The biblical story of the patriarchs is clearly not the story of Middle Bronze Canaan. [4]"

Now, some caution is in order when dealing with specific dates, as Finkelstein's proposed dating system is not universally agreed on.  However, the disagreement usually run in the order of about 100 years, and we're talking about discrepancies of over 500.  The conclusion is inescapable.  The authors of these stories were living in a time much later than the supposed events, and did not know what the land looked like at the distant past time period in which they chose for the setting.  Rather they placed them a mythical nomadic past, which may have been accurate at some points in the history of Canaan, but not at the time they chose! 

Ok, that's enough for this week.  Next week we'll look at what the Nevi'im have to say about the patriarchs

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1. Redford, "Egypt Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times" Princeton Univ. Press, 1992, p. 246. ^

2. For more on this see Finkelstein and Silberman, "The Bible Unearthed," Simon and Schuster, 2001, p.86-90. ^

3. Ibid. p. 38.^

4. Ibid. p. 323.^

The Table of Nations

Parshat Noach

If you were to take some survey of what Rabbis tend to talk about during Parshat Noach, you'd probably get a breakdown where some 90% of the topics were based on the flood. Some 9% or so, the Rabbis who want to choose something different this year, will talk about Migdal Bavel (The Tower of Babel). If you have a super non-conformist Rabbi, you might here the story about Noach (Noah) getting drunk. However, I've never heard anyone talk about what Academicians call "The Table of Nations," which comprises most of chapter 10, and describes the various descendents of the sons of Noach. This is precisely what I will talk about today.

Specifically, I will point out two major things that we can learn from this chapter. The first is a chronological issue. From the names of the nations presented, we can get some information about the earliest date that this could have been written. We'll see that based on the nations mentioned, it could not have been written before the 7th century BCE. The second is a contradiction issue. From descendents that appear through different tree lines, we see contradictory storylines emerging from where these nations arose from.

I've personally made a map of best guesses for the locations of various nations using my impressive image editing skills (sarcasm). Most of the information for the sons of Yephet and Shem come from Russell Gmirkin [1]. In progressing to a conclusion I don't agree in, he describes the best guesses for these nations. The descendents of Ham come from various other sources, most notably Donald Redford [2]

Before we start, I'll take a moment to describe what we are looking at.  The "Table of Nations" is a description of the various nations of the region, giving their origin.  It follows a traditional Ancient Near East motif, where a nation is named after a founding patriarch, something that almost never occurs historically.  In some places, like with the descendent of Mitzrayim (Egypt), the nation is given as a plural instead.  Also, the table is interrupted in the middle to give a brief story of Nimrod, and describe various cities in the Mesopotamian region.  

Chronology
 
One of the most puzzling nations in the list for Academicians is Lud, which elsewhere in the Tanach[3] is clearly meant to mean the nation of Lydia. It's puzzling, because based on the map, Lydia should be counted among the children of Yephet. This is true both geographically and from what we know about their culture.

Gmirkin writes about Lydia:

"The Lydians were known as Maionians in earliest times when they were ruled by a local dynasty known as the Tylonids. The kingdom of Lydia was established by Gyges, who overthrew the Tylonids and founded the Mermnad dynasty ca. 680 BCE... The name Lydia is first encountered in Assyrian inscriptions shortly after 700 BCE referring to Gyges of Lydia ("Guggu of Luddu"). These facts indicate that the Table of Nations was written no earlier than 700 BCE." [4]

Gmirkin then reads a lot into the placement of Lydia on the map to indicate a very late date of composition (after 300 BCE). Specifically, their inclusion among Shem must indicate close political ties with these nations. Based on that Lydia doesn't appear until the late 8th century BCE, and that prior to that time we have another nation with another name living there, the most basic conclusion that it cannot realistically have been written earlier than 700 BCE.

To make matters even more complicated, Ludim is also listed as a descendent of Ham. It's not clear who Ludim is supposed to represent, if Lud is Lydia, but it's possible that there was some confusion about the origin of Lydia, which is indicated by them appearing in both lists.

This is not the only place where we can glean some Chronological information.  We now turning our attention to the sons of Ham, (Gen 10:6)

And the sons of Ham: Cush, and Mizraim, and Put, and Canaan.

 Cush is Ethiopia, Mizraim is Egypt, and Put is Libya.  Quoting Redford [5]:

"The order here is not geographical but political.  The prcedence of Kush over Egypt is a clear reflection of the political preeminence of the kingdom of Kush (Napata) enjoyed from its conquest of Egypt about 711 B.C. down to its defeat by Psammetichos II (c. 593 B.C.)."

Redford is applying a very common biblical theme. Older children are more prominent than younger ones. When children represent tribes or nations and are listed in order of birth, the eldest is the largest. In situations where there are changes, one tribe or nation grows at the other's expense, the Torah gives a story as to why that occurs. This occurs with Yaakov (Jacob) and Esav (Esau), Ephraim and Manashe and in other places as well. Applying this motif to these passages, we see that for Cush to be listed before Mizrayim it must have been dominant over Mizrayim at this point in time. Otherwise Mizrayim would be listed first. The order is important. Therefore, this could not have been written before 711 BCE, because before then, there would be no reason to ever place Cush before Mizrayim.  Looking now at Mizrayim itself.  The descendents of Mizrayim are actually very difficult to identify securely.  Redford makes some educated guesses and then notes the following about the children of Egypt [6]:

"When we plot on a map the geographical extent of Egypt's "family," we find it reaching into Libya and along the north African coast, to the Aegean [7] and Asia Minor [8]; absent is Kush and the coast of Palestine and Syria.  This is precisely the limits of Egypt's sphere of influence and interest during much of the Saite Period."

The Saite period, also called the 26th dynasty, extended from 685 to 525 BCE.  While this is a more speculative claim than the other ones, the fact that we have another date range beginning near 700 BCE converges well with our previous estimate based on Lydia's history, and the preeminence of Cush.

For one last estimate, we go to the nation of Cush, universally thought to refer to modern day Ethiopia.  Astour writes about Cush [9]

"For the compiler of the Table of Nations, Cush certainly represented Ethiopia, for he made him a brother of Egypt. But when he tried to enumerate the descendents of Cush, he knew so little about the African Ethiopians, that he was compelled to utilize his much better information on the other land of Cush, and to cite names of Arabic tribes."

"There was however a period when the Ethiopians suddenly emerged as a major power in the East Mediterranean. This occured when they conquered Egypt under Picanhi and clashed with Assyria under his succcessors. Sabaka (712-700) actively supported the anti-Assyrian coalition of Palestinian states headed by Hezekiah, king of Judah...Sabak died and was succeeded by his brother Sabataka, who ruled from 689 or 688... Sabataka certainly, and Sabaka quite probably [are found] in the Table of Nations. Their place is not altogether wrong, for they are listed among the descendants of Cush and are the only genuine Ethipian names there, though personal and not ethnic."

Astour goes on to indicate that the spelling of Sabtecha, with a samech indicates an Assyrian source.  Ethiopia is not too geographically distant from the Arabian peninsula. An author with a limited geographical knowledge might think that the Red Sea did not extend so far south, and the lands were joined in that region. Anyway, the point to make here is a chronological one. The name Sabtecha has no other reasonable association besides with the Ethiopian Pharaoh of that name. This gives us roughly the same earliest date of composition that we can get from Lydia, and the arrangement of Ham's children.

The same procedure can be undertaken for other nations, and what we see is that this map indicates geo-ethnic realities between about 700 BCE and 200 BCE. It cannot describe a world earlier than that.

Contradictions

There are some contradictions both within the Table of Nations itself and with other places in Bereishit, which we will now examine. Shva (Sheba) is Yemen, from whence the queen who visited Shlomo (Solomon).  It is listed twice, once among the descendents of Cush and once again in the descendents of Yoktan. Yoktan is the ancestor of the Arabian tribes, as many of the names listed there are attested as Arabian tribes in other sources. Similarly, Havilah, which is not known with any reasonable degree of certainty, is listed twice. Astour attributes this to confusion from the author, or from compilation of this section from two separate lists [10], one which attributes this area to Cush and one to Arabia.

Also among the descendents of Cush, is Ra'amah. Ra'amah gives birth to two children, one of which is Shva mentioned earlier. The other is a fairly well known Arabic tribe, Dedan. Genesis 25 mentions the children of Avraham (Abraham) through his third wife Keturah. One of his children is Yokshan, eerily similar to the Yoktan in the Table of Nations. Even more troubling however are the children of Yokshan, Shva and Dedan! Also attributed to Abraham is Midyan which is biblically equivalent to Madai, listed as a son of Yephet.  So we see a strong contradiction in the Torah for where these nations originate.
 
This isn't the only problem. One of Shem's kids is Aram, a well known kingdom to the northeast of Israel, also known as Aram-Dameshek. Of Aram's kids are Utz and Mash. Utz, is attested elsewhere biblically, and is thought to be equivalent to Edom, a much smaller kingdom, and a reasonable descendent of Aram. Mash is more difficult, but it might be equivalent to Moab due to its similarity to a common king name Mesha, and the patron god of Moab, C'mosh. This is somewhat speculative though.

The problem is that in Bereishit 22, the children of Nachor, the brother of Avraham are listed. Among them is Utz, mentioned earlier. Even more problematic, is that another kid of Nachor is Kemuel, who is referred to as the father of Aram! In Bereishit 10, Aram is the father of Utz, and in Bereishit 22, he is his nephew.

All these problems lead to one inescapable conclusion. These nation lists were compiled from different sources, or by different people who wished to indicate ethnic similarities and possibly political alliances at the time they were living. They may have been originally formulated at different times, or they might just reflect competing traditions present at the time of composition. The only way to retain a divine and flawless text, is to say that none of these names actually indicate the tribes we know about, and that even though the names are identical in different places in the Torah, they must be different people with the same, unique, name. Personally, I don't find this compelling at all. It is just ignoring completely what the Torah is telling you, and forcing your own preconceptions onto it.

Retrospective
 
When I was younger, I was always fascinated by these passages. To me this was a description of the entire world, all the nations were represented by these weird sounding names that I've never heard of before. They'd have to be, because this was God's writing. It was only much later that I realized just how small the "world" of the Israelites was. They seem to know some nations north of the Black Sea, and some as far south as Ethiopia, but they know nothing in Europe, nothing east of Assyria (no Persia, no India, certainly no China). Forget about the Americas. If there was a divine author, something like this Table of Nations would have been a great way to demonstrate knowledge beyond what a human author could have known. This is an idea that we will revisit in the future. For now, we are left with two conclusions. The first is that many verses in this Chapter could not have been written before the 7th Century BCE. Lydia did not exist before then, neither did the name, Sabtecha. Furthermore, Ethiopia listed before Egypt was only a reality at one time in history.
Edit: Some minor typos were fixed.

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1. Gmirkin, Russell "Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus" T&T Clark, 2006 ^

2. Redford, Donald, "Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times" Princeton Univ. Press 1992.^

3. See Isa. 66:19, Eze. 30:5, 27:10, Jer. 46:9^

4. Gmirkin p. 143^

5. Redford, p. 404^

6. Redford, p. 407^

7. Redford identifies the biblical Caphtor with Keftiu a region of the Aegean, likely Crete. p. 406^

8. Redford places Lydia among the Egyptians. As to it's placement among the sons of Shem, he says, "...by what rationalization it was brought into the family of Shem remains a mystery" (p. 405).^

9. Astour, "Sabtah and Sabtecah, Ethiopian Pharaoh names in Genesis 10", Journal of Biblical Literature 84 4, 1965^

10. Friedman, for example, identifies two different authors for this section. (see appropriate verses in R.E. Friedman, "The Bible with Sources Revealed")^