CHAPTER VII

THE ISRAELITES IN SINAI I.

THE passage of the Israelites through Sinai forms the most thrilling episode in the history of the peninsula. The how and when and where of this journey periodically engage attention. A hundred years ago it was a matter of common belief that Moses wrote the five books that are associated with his name. On the contrary, Biblical criticism now holds that, “regarded as a history of ancient migrations of the Israelites and their establishment as a religious and political community in Canaan, the Hexateuch contains little more than a general outline on which to depend.”[92] But the study of the episode reviewed in the light of modern research, reveals an unexpected accuracy, and once more shows that tradition is of value in proportion to our power of reading it aright.

Different views were put forward regarding the date of the Exodus and of the Pharaohs who were in contact with Moses.

According to the Book of Kings it was “in the 480th (LXX 440th) year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign,” that Solomon began to build the Temple at Jerusalem (1 Kings vi. 1).

Solomon ruled from _c._ B.C. 974 to B.C. 935. His fourth year would be 970, and the Exodus, on this basis, happened either in B.C. 1450, or in B.C. 1410 according to the Septuagint.

Prof. Brugsch looked upon Ramessu II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Prof. Petrie endorsed the view, accepting the date of Ramessu II as B.C. 1300-1234, and of the Exodus as _c._ B.C. 1220. One of his reasons for doing so was that the Israelites, as stated in the Bible, worked at the “city Raamses” (Exod. i. 11), which, as excavations have shown, was a creation of the Ramessides. But the expression the “land of Rameses,” was used in connection with the story of Joseph (Gen.