That there are people who do not believe the biblical accounts of the ancient history of the Israelites is not new.  What is new in “Doubting the Story of the Exodus” (LA Times, April 13, 2001) is that doubt seems to have been turned into historical fact.  Readers were told that there is a consensus of biblical historians and archaeologists that the Exodus did not happen.  In reality, though, no such consensus actually exists.

Many archaeologists, Bible scholars and historians continue to conclude from the evidence that the Exodus did indeed occur, among them the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, Hershel Shanks (Ha’aretz Magazine, Nov. 5, 1999).

Evidence for ancient events is very difficult to come by.  Sometimes, to be sure, indications of an event’s historicity is uncovered but more often all that can be done is to see whether the event can plausibly fit into what is presently known about the historical period.  Lack of direct evidence does not disprove an ancient event.   Nor can the existence of evidence only in later literary texts be taken as an argument against their reliability; the discovery of ancient Troy came about on the evidence of the much later writings of Homer.

The Exodus is dated by most of those who accept its veracity to about 1250 BCE.  We know that for the previous few centuries, the period during which the Israelites are reported to have come down to Canaan from Egypt and to have become influential, there was indeed a rise in Semitic influence in Egypt, led by a group of western Semites known as the Hyksos, who were closely related to the Hebrews.  At some point, ca. 1580 BCE, the native Egyptians rebelled against these foreigners, and this development can be taken to be reflected in the Bible’s description of the Pharaoh “who did not know Joseph.”  As a result of this change, the Semites, including the Israelites, found themselves in the difficult position the Bible records, one which must have lasted for centuries.  From this point of view, the story of the slavery and Exodus is perfectly plausible within the framework of Egyptian and Near Eastern history.  Further, we have letters which describe the life of work gangs from Pharaonic Egypt and these seem to paint a picture very close to that of the biblical report.

The Bible describes the period immediately after the Exodus as one of extended wandering in the desert. This wandering was said to result from the fear of the Israelites that a direct route to Canaan, along the Mediterranean coast toward what is now the Gaza Strip, would be dangerous because of the Egyptian armies stationed there. This circumstance has been confirmed as historical by the discovery of the remains of extensive Egyptian influence, habitation and fortification in the Gaza region in this period, especially at Deir al-Balakh.  Again, the biblical record is confirmed.

Further support for the historicity of the Exodus comes from a stele of the Egyptian ruler Merneptah (1224-1214 BCE).  In reviewing his victories against the peoples of Canaan, he claimed, “Israel is laid waste; his seed is not.”  Here  the text designated the people of Israel, not the land, as can be shown from the Egyptian linguistic usage.  Many scholars believe that this text refers to the people of Israel before they entered Canaan–that is, in the period of desert wandering.  More likely, it is a reference to Israel after they have entered Canaan, but before they established themselves as a sedentary population in the hill country in today’s West Bank (Judea and Samaria).  Since this view accords with the dating of the Exodus we suggested above, it seems that in this text, the only Egyptian document to mention Israel, we have a direct reference to the Israelites in the period of the Exodus and the conquest of Canaan.

Assuming the biblical account to be unreliable, some scholars have substituted a Marxist theory of class revolution to explain the formation of ancient Israel.  According to this approach, the masses revolted against their Canaanite overlords and, after taking control, forged for themselves the new collective identity and mythology of the Israelites.  Other scholars have suggested a process of differentiation in which some Canaanites began to see themselves as a separate people, and created an identity and a sacred history from whole cloth, thus inventing the Exodus and conquest narratives.  But who would invent a history of slavery and disgrace?

Further, this theory must explain away the historical and archaeological evidence.  Numerous cities from this period show a cultural change at precisely the point when the Israelites are said by the Bible to have appeared.  Indeed, the newcomers, since they came from the desert, show a lower level of material culture than the Canaanites whom they displaced.  This situation fits well the notion of Israelite conquest and infiltration.  Second, the Israelites, throughout their history in the land, were concentrated in those areas easiest to defend against the superior arms of the Canaanites, a fact that supports the notion that they were invaders.  Third, the doubters have claimed that few cities from this period show evidence of armed destruction.  But careful consideration of the biblical narrative, with due attention to the account in Judges and the evidence that the Canaanites were never entirely displaced, eliminates this inconsistency fully.  Indeed, the archaeological record supports a reconstruction of the historical events of the conquest when both Joshua and Judges are studied together.  Finally, these scholars often claim that the Bible is the only source supporting the Exodus.  But they forget that several different accounts of the Exodus exist in the Bible, in books written at different periods, thus providing corroborative evidence for the basic scheme of events.

We may not possess, at least at present, conclusive proof that the Israelites left Egypt en masse as the Bible describes.  What we do have, though, are several indications of the Exodus’ historicity, and ample evidence that the biblical account is entirely plausible.

It is a simple matter to claim that lack of clear, decisive external confirmation of the biblical account is itself a disproof, but no rational person believes that what has not been proven is false.  What can be stated with certainly, however, is that there is no consensus that the Exodus is a myth.

From: “Has the Exodus Really Been Disproven?” By Lawrence H. Schiffman.

An excerpt from an obituary written after Joseph Baumgarten’s death at the end of 2008:

Those who encountered Joseph Baumgarten in the academic world knew that he was a great scholar and a person of utmost integrity. Those who encountered him in the context of the Jewish community knew him as a person of deep religious commitment and utmost traditional Talmudic scholarship. Those who encountered him in both contexts had the opportunity to experience a seamless combination of the two forms of scholarship that in his person were unified as one. He was universally loved and respected throughout his career, and this has been reflected in the outpouring of sorrow at his passing by so many friends.

The full article is: Lawrence H Schiffman, ” Joseph M. Baumgarten, 1928-2008,” SBL Forum , n.p. [cited Dec 2008].

The Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls
International Meeting of the SBL, Rome, June 30th-July 4th 2009
Organized by Armin Lange (University of Vienna) and Kristin De Troyer (University of St. Andrews)

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Textual History of the Hebrew Bible

Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Interpretation conference. Details at Zionism and the State of Israel blog.

Where did Jews pray before the rise of synagogue buildings? We cannot be sure. Many scholars theorize that the synagogue had its origins in the Babylonian exile when the Jews first had to adapt to the lack of a Temple and animal sacrifice. Yet there is absolutely no evidence, literary or archaeological, for this theory. On the other hand, the history of postbiblical prayer begins early in the Hellenistic period, and perhaps even before. There must have been places for prayer, maybe in the town squares, but this is simply speculation.

Clearly, however, the concomitant development of the synagogue as an institution, along with the gradual ascendancy of prayer over sacrifice as a means of worship, prepared Judaism for the new situation brought about by the destruction of the Temple. By the time the Temple was taken away, its replacement had already been created. From that time on the daily prayers would serve in place of sacrifice, and the synagogue, the “Temple in miniature,” would replace the central sanctuary in Jerusalem. Jews would look forward to the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of its system of worship. But the Jewish people was equipped with a portable system of worship which it could carry throughout its wanderings, and which would preserve the closeness to God that had once been symbolized and embodied in the Jerusalem Temple.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.

By 152 B.C.E. Jonathan the Hasmonean had firmly established himself as ruler over Judea. From then until the Roman conquest of Judea in 63 B.C.E., the descendants of Judah the Maccabee ruled over the Land of Israel. Jonathan took advantage of the instability in the Seleucid Empire to expand his territory beyond Judea proper to include southern Samaria and the southern coastal cities of Ekron and the environs, originally centers of Hellenistic culture. In 143 B.C.E. he was murdered by Tryphon, a pretender to the Seleucid throne.

Jonathan was succeeded by his brother Simon. In 142 B.C.E. Simon gained recognition from the Seleucid king Demetrius II Nicator (145–138 and again in 129–125 B.C.E.). Demetrius’s grant of tax exemption to the Hasmonean state, by which he intended to secure its support, was the final step in the process whereby Judea gained total independence. Like his brother Jonathan before him, Simon served as both temporal ruler and high priest. A public assembly in 140 B.C.E. gave formal legal standing to this arrangement and to the hereditary succession of his sons to the same offices. He continued the expansionist policy begun by Jonathan, taking the harbor at Jaffa in order to ensure Judea’s access to the sea. He also continued the extirpation of paganism from the land. His crowning achievement was the dislodging of the Seleucid garrison which had continued to occupy the Akra in Jerusalem. When Antiochus VII Sidetes (138–129 B.C.E.), the Seleucid king, attempted to force Simon to give up the territories he had conquered, Simon defeated him squarely. Simon’s reign came to an end in 134 B.C.E., when his son-in-law, apparently with the help of the Seleucids, murdered him and two of his sons.

Simon’s surviving son, John Hyrcanus (Yohanan in Hebrew), succeeded him. In the first two years of his reign, John was involved in a war with the Seleucids. Because they needed his help in their campaign against the Parthians, they offered to negotiate and the two sides came to terms, the Seleucids recognizing John’s rule and the Hasmoneans indemnifying them for territory they had conquered. After the death of Antiochus VII in 129 B.C.E. the ensuing collapse of the Seleucid Empire allowed John to regain complete independence and assert his authority over the entire Land of Israel. Expanding to the south, he conquered Idumea and forced its people to convert to Judaism. He also captured territory in Transjordan, defeated the Hellenistic cities, and conquered the Samaritans. He died in 104 B.C.E.

Simon’s son Aristobulus I succeeded him, but reigned only for one year, from 104 to 103 B.C.E. He continued his father’s conquests, subduing the Itureans in the north and converting them to Judaism, and gaining control over the Galilee. After treating his mother with the utmost cruelty, imprisoning three of his brothers, and having another brother, Antigonus, killed, he died of remorse and a painful disease. He was the first of the Hasmoneans to style himself “king.”

Alexander Janneus (Yannai), the brother of Aristobulus, came to power in 103 B.C.E. when he married Aristobulus’ widow, Salome Alexandra (Shelomzion). During his reign, which ended with his death in 76 B.C.E., the remaining non-Jewish cities in Palestine were conquered. He and John Hyrcanus, the rulers whose conquests truly exemplified the Hasmonean achievement, together expanded the borders of Judea to encompass the entire Land of Israel.

There was another side to the story, however. The Maccabees had not fought only to free the Jews from foreign domination, or for power and wealth. They had risen initially against elements in the Jewish population who sought to Hellenize themselves and their countrymen. Their struggle was transformed into a war of independence against the Seleucid Empire only when it sought to aid the Hellenizers by persecuting Jews and Judaism. Yet gradually, the Hasmonean descendants of the Maccabees themselves acquired the trappings of Hellenism. They began to conduct their courts in Hellenistic fashion and were estranged from Jewish observance. This transition went way beyond the need of any monarch at that time to make use of Hellenistic-style coinage, diplomacy, and bureaucracy. The Hasmoneans employed foreign mercenaries to protect them from their own people.

Opposition to the Hasmonean house came from a variety of corners. First, they had never made peace with remnants of the old-line Hellenizers among the landed aristocracy. Second, the Pharisees (about whom more will be said later in this chapter) opposed the concentration in Hasmonean hands of both temporal and religious power, demanding that the Hasmoneans relinquish the high priesthood, since they were not of the proper high priestly lineage. Third, other groups, whose point of view is represented in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, accepted the legitimacy of the Hasmoneans as high priests but condemned them for also holding political power.

All these factors had already led Alexander Janneus to prepare his wife, Salome Alexandra, for the succession and to recommend to her that she compromise with the dynasty’s opponents. This she did effectively for some nine years until her death in 67 B.C.E. Yet she failed effectively to designate her successor, and her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, fought one another for the crown. Both eventually appealed to the Romans. By this time Rome was already in Syria and positioned to swallow up Judea. Aristobulus was remembered by later sources as a great hero, a man possessed of the spirit of the Maccabees, seeking nothing less than freedom from foreign rule. Hyrcanus was pictured as a weakling, desiring power for power’s sake, at any cost to himself and his nation. In 63 B.C.E., as the two fought with one another, each turned to the Roman general Pompey, in Syria. After a series of negotiations, Pompey decided to capitalize on the situation by satisfying the longstanding Roman desire to dominate Palestine, the strategic land bridge between Africa and Asia. He played the brothers off against each other for a time, then marched on Jerusalem and took it by storm.

Thus ended the Hasmonean dynasty. The Romans were now the country’s real rulers. They awarded the high priesthood to Hyrcanus II and imprisoned Aristobulus II. He and his sons would for years show themselves to be true Maccabean descendants, repeatedly escaping Roman imprisonment to seek against all odds to wrest Judea back from the Romans. But the Hasmonean star had set.

Lawrence Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.

From the obituary of Joseph Baumgarten by Lawrence Schiffman (published on the SBL Forum):

This past Thursday, December 4, 2008, the community of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars and, more widely, the world of biblical and early Judaic Studies scholars, suffered the loss of a great colleague and a close friend. Professor Joseph M. Baumgarten left this world for the academy on high after succumbing to a long and difficult bout with cancer. He was buried on the following Sunday in his beloved city of Jerusalem where he and his late wife had maintained an apartment. Professor Baumgarten was a major scholar whose contributions to the study of Jewish law (halakhah) in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as other aspects of scrolls research were pioneering and central to the development of Qumran Studies as we know it today.

Read the rest.

A book review of Lawrence Schiffman’s Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls can be found at the Amor Vincit Omnia blog. It summarizes the main points of the book and quotes from the conclusion.

What follows is but a brief summary of the life and dynasty of the most famous and infamous of Judean kings, known to history as Herod the Great. From the beginning of his reign, popular discontent, which he had already faced as governor of the Galilee, reached high proportions, led by certain Pharisees and some of the nobility. Only with harsh and brutal measures did Herod succeed in bringing it under control. In 35 B.C.E., to shore up his hold on the throne, he installed the Hasmonean Aristobulus III as high priest and married Mariamme, his sister. However, realizing that Aristobulus, as a descendant of the Maccabees, was very popular, Herod soon had him drowned. This was only the first of a chain of killings he perpetrated, often against members of his own family regarding whom he harbored the darkest and most irrational of fears.

Having set to rest the internal challenges to his control, Herod soon faced other problems from abroad. Called before Antony in 34 B.C.E. to defend himself for the death of Aristobulus, Herod was acquitted. Yet Cleopatra VII, the queen of Egypt, persuaded Antony soon afterwards to give her possession of certain territories in the region of Jericho that were among the best agricultural lands in Herod’s kingdom. Rather than resist and alienate this powerful woman, Herod cleverly arranged to lease back his own land. In this way, paying what amounted to a small tribute, he retained his territory intact. Although Herod’s war with the Nabatean Arabs ended in victory in 31 B.C.E., his army suffered great casualties. That same year an earthquake killed some thirty thousand people and Herod had to undertake massive relief works in its aftermath. When Antony was defeated at the battle of Actium, Herod quickly changed sides in the Roman civil war and allied himself with Octavian, now known as Augustus Caesar. In gratitude, Augustus confirmed Herod in office in 30 and returned to him the territories taken by Cleopatra.

Domestic, internecine jealousies led Herod to put his wife Mariamme to death in 29 B.C.E. The resulting psychological depression and recriminations led in turn to the execution of other family members and courtiers. Among them were other Maccabean descendants, killed for fear that they might reassert the claims of the Hasmonean house.

The consolidation of Herod’s power made possible a variety of massive building projects that befitted his status as a Roman client king. Theaters and amphitheaters were constructed. He built a palace in the upper city of Jerusalem, as well as the Antonia fortress north of the Temple. In non-Jewish areas, both within his kingdom and outside, he built temples to pagan gods and in honor of Caesar and funded athletic games. Although quite Hellenized, and born of a non-Jewish mother, hence not Jewish according to the predominant view, he often sought to avoid offending his Jewish subjects. At other times, however, he completely violated Jewish laws and sensibilities. From 22 to 9 B.C.E. he built the port of Caesarea on the Mediterranean coast, intended as a shipping point to foster his role in the international grain trade. Many fortresses were rebuilt, including Masada, where he had hidden his family when he fled to the Roman Senate in 40 B.C.E.

Herod’s largest and most beautiful project was the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. He began in 20/19 B.C.E., yet work on the details was still proceeding long after his death when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. Although Herod adhered to Pharisaic demands regarding many aspects of the Temple’s construction, he ignored them in other respects. In consequence, the Pharisees continued to be hostile to him, and it is even doubtful that the Sanhedrin functioned in his time. Herod appointed and removed high priests at will. The Sadducean elements, therefore, were also opposed to him, as were the heavily taxed common people. He was able to maintain control only because of his extremely close relations with Augustus and the Roman authorities and because of the repressive tactics he used to subjugate the populace.

The last years of his reign were dominated by family intrigues. (He had had a total of ten wives.) Herod’s son from his first marriage, Antipater, schemed successfully against the sons of Mariamme, Alexander and Aristobulus. Eventually, Herod accused them of treason before Augustus, then had them tried and executed, probably in 7 B.C.E. When Antipater sought to gain control of the kingdom, he was accused of plotting to kill Herod and was imprisoned. As Herod’s domestic situation deteriorated, so did his health. In 4 B.C.E. he executed Antipater and gave instructions that a large group of leaders of the country were to be put to death after he died, a plan that never took effect. Five days after his son’s execution, he died. The entire country breathed a sigh of relief as the reign of this despot and murderer came to an end.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.

While there is no complete description of the Temple built by Zerubbabel, considerable detail can be gleaned from various sources. It had two courtyards. One report suggests dimensions of 500 by 100 cubits (about 750 by 150 feet) for the inner courtyard. There were at least four gates inthe wall of the outer courtyard, and at least one of them faced a street. There were at least two gates to the inner courtyard. Various chambers surrounded the Temple in both courtyards. Most of these were in the outer courtyard, and were used for the storage of tithes, equipment, and vessels. Certain high officials apparently merited private chambers within the Temple precincts.

The returnees constructed their altar on the site of the altar of the First Temple. The Temple building was of hewn stone, with wooden beams reinforcing the walls from within. The Temple itself was 60 cubits (approximately 90 feet) high. The Holy of Holies was empty, as there was no ark and no cherubim.

The construction was completed in 515 B.C.E., and the rededication was celebrated amidst great pomp and ceremony. After twenty years of effort, sacrificial worship could now take place in accordance with the rules laid down by the codes of the Torah. The Temple would stand as rebuilt by Zerubbabel until the Hasmonean period. While substantial refurbishing was undertaken by Simon ben Yohanan (Simon the Just) ca. 200 B.C.E., he did not modify the basic structure. (Herod the Great would substantially refurbish the Temple starting in 20/19 B.C.E.) The returnees to Zion had fulfilled their dream; God’s house had been rebuilt and He would continue to dwell in their midst.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition, Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ, 1991.