Part 621

"Of course, in the abstract, it is possible that such persons as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have existed. One can imagine that such and such incidents in the accounts regarding them really took place, and were handed down by tradition. … But our present investigation does not concern the question whether there existed men of those names, but whether the progenitors of Israel and of the neighbouring nations who are represented in Genesis are historical personages. It is this question which we answer in the negative. Must we then deny all historical value to the narratives of the patriarchs? By no means. What we have to do is to make proper use of them. They teach us what the Israelites thought as to their affinities with the tribes around them, and as to the manner of their own settlement in the land of their abode. If we strip them of their genealogical form, and at the same time take into consideration the influence which Israel's self-love must have exercised over the representation of relationships and facts, we have an historical kernel left. … The narratives in Genesis, viewed and used in this way, lead us to the following conception of Israel's early history. Canaan was originally inhabited by a number of tribes—of Semitic origin, as we shall perceive presently—who applied themselves to the rearing of cattle, to agriculture, or to commerce, according to the nature of the districts in which they were established. The countries which were subsequently named after Edom, Ammon, and Moab, also had their aboriginal inhabitants, the Horites, the Zamzummites, and the Emites. Whilst all these tribes retained possession of their dwelling-places, and the inhabitants of Canaan especially had reached a tolerably high stage of civilization and development, there occurred a Semitic migration, which issued from Arrapachitis (Arphacsad, Ur Casdim), and moved on in a south-westerly direction. The countries to the east and the south of Canaan were gradually occupied by these intruders, the former inhabitants being either expelled or subjugated; Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, and Edom became the ruling nations in those districts. In Canaan the situation was different. The tribes which—at first closely connected with the Edomites, but afterwards separated from them—had turned their steps towards Canaan, did not find themselves strong enough either to drive out, or to exact tribute from, the original inhabitants; they continued their wandering life among them, and lived upon the whole at peace with them. But a real settlement was still their aim. When, therefore, they had become more numerous and powerful, through the arrival of a number of kindred settlers from Mesopotamia—represented in tradition by the army with which Jacob returns to Canaan—they resumed their march in the same south-westerly direction, until at length they took possession of fixed habitations in the land of Goshen, on the borders of Egypt."

_A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

"In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Genesis xiv., … we see him acting as a powerful domestic prince, among many similar princes, who like him held Canaan in possession; not calling himself King, like Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, because he was the father and protector of his house, living with his family and bondmen in the open country, yet equal in power to the petty Canaanite kings. … {1896} Detached as this account may be, it is at least evident from it that the Canaanites were at that time highly civilised, since they had a priest-king like Melchizedek, whom Abraham held in honour, but that they were even then so weakened by endless divisions and by the emasculating influence of that culture itself, as either to pay tribute to the warlike nations of the northeast (as the five kings of the cities of the Dead Sea had done for twelve years before they rebelled, ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descendants of the northern lands living in their midst, who in return for certain concessions and services promised them protection and defence. … This idea furnishes the only tenable historical view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms, like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing themselves upon them. Thus they took up their abode and obtained possessions among them, but were always wishing to migrate farther, even into Egypt. … Little as we are able to prove all the details of that migration from the north towards Egypt, which probably continued for centuries, it may with great certainty be conceived as on the whole similar to the gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of the Germans towards Rome, and of the Turks in these same regions in the Middle Ages. … We now understand that Abraham's name can designate only one of the most important and oldest of the Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early attained a name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards the south, and since he was everything especially to the nation of Israel which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and rallying-point of all the memory of those times."

_H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 1, section 1, C, part 3._

JEWS: The Children of Israel in Egypt.

"It has been very generally supposed that Abraham's visit to Egypt took place under the reign of one of the kings of the twelfth dynasty [placed by Brugsch B. C. 2466-2266], but which king has not yet been satisfactorily made out. … Some Biblical critics have considered that Amenemha III. was king of Egypt when Abraham came there, and others that Usertsen I. was king, and that Amenemha was the Pharaoh of the time of Joseph. … It is generally accepted now that Joseph was sold into Egypt at the time when the Hyksos were in power [and about 1750 B. C.]; and it is also generally accepted that the Exodus took place after the death of Rameses II. and under the reign of Merenptah, or Meneptah. Now the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt for 400 or 430 years; and as they went out of Egypt after the death of Rameses II., it was probably some time about the year 1350 B. C. There is little doubt that the Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites so shamefully was Rameses II."

_E. A. W. Budge, The Dwellers on the Nile, chapter 4._

"It is stated by George the Syncellus, a writer whose extensive learning and entire honesty are unquestionable, that the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last king of the only known Hyksos dynasty, was 'acknowledged by all.' The best modern authorities accept this view, if not as clearly established, at any rate as in the highest degree probable, and believe that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew his prime minister, who invited his father and his brethren to settle in Egypt with their households, and assigned to them the land of Goshen for their residence."

_G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 19 (volume 2)._

"The new Pharaoh, 'who knew not Joseph,' who adorned the city of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic nome, and the city of Pithom, the capital of what was afterwards the Sethroitic nome, with temple-cities, is no other, can be no other, than Ramessu II. or Rameses—the Sesostris of the Greeks, B. C. 1350, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and the papyrus-rolls speak in complete agreement. … Ramessu is the Pharaoh of the oppression, and the father of that unnamed princess, who found the child Moses exposed in the bulrushes on the bank of the river. … If Ramses-Sesostris … must be regarded beyond all doubt as the Pharaoh under whom the Jewish legislator Moses first saw the light, so the chronological relations—having regard to the great age of the two contemporaries, Ramses II. and Moses—demand that Mineptah [his son] should in all probability be acknowledged as the Pharaoh of the Exodus."

_H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, chapter 14._

The quotations given above represent the orthodox view of early Jewish history, in the light of modern monumental studies,—the view, that is, which accepts the Biblical account of Abraham and his seed as a literal family record, authentically widening into the annals of a nation. The more rationalizing views are indicated by the following: "There can be no doubt … as to the Semitic character of these Hyksos, or 'Pastors,' who, more than 2,000 years B. C., interrupted in a measure the current of Egyptian civilisation, and founded at Zoan (Tanis), near the Isthmus, the centre of a powerful Semitic state. These Hyksos were to all appearances Canaanites, near relations of the Hittites of Hebron. Hebron was in close community with Zoan, and there is a tradition, probably based upon historical data, that the two cities were built nearly at the same time. As invariably happens when barbarians enter into an ancient and powerful civilisation, the Hyksos soon became Egyptianised. … The Hyksos of Zoan could not fail to exercise a great influence upon the Hebrews who were encamped around Hebron, the Dead Sea, and in the southern districts of Palestine. The antipathy which afterwards existed between the Hebrews and the Canaanites was not as yet very perceptible. … There are the best of reasons for believing that the immigration of the Beni-Israel took place at two separate times. A first batch of Israelites seems to have been attracted by the Hittites of Egypt, while the bulk of the tribe was living upon the best of terms with the Hittites of Hebron. These first immigrants found favour with the Egyptianised Hittites of Memphis and Zoan; they secured very good positions, had children, and constituted a distinct family in Israel. This was what was afterwards called the 'clan of the Josephel,' or the Beni-Joseph. Finding themselves well off in Lower Egypt, they sent for their brethren, who, impelled perhaps by famine, joined them there, and were received also favourably by the Hittite dynasties. These new-comers never went to Memphis. They remained in the vicinity of Zoan, where there is a land of Goshen, which was allotted to them. … {1897} The whole of these ancient days, concerning which Israel possesses only legends and contradictory traditions, is enveloped in doubt; one thing, however, is certain, viz., that Israel entered Egypt under a dynasty favourable to the Semites, and left it under one which was hostile. The presence of a nomad tribe upon the extreme confines of Egypt must have been a matter of very small importance for this latter country. There is no certain trace of it in the Egyptian texts. The kingdom of Zoan, upon the contrary, left a deep impression upon the Israelites. Zoan became for them synonymous with Egypt. The relations between Zoan and Hebron were kept up, and … Hebron was proud of the synchronism, which made it out seven years older than Zoan. The first-comers, the Josephites, always assumed an air of superiority over their brethren, whose position they had been instrumental in establishing. … Their children, born in Egypt, possibly of Egyptian mothers, were scarcely Israelites. An agreement was come to, however; it was agreed that the Josephites should rank as Israelites with the rest. They formed two distinct tribes, those of Ephraim and Manasseh. … It is not impossible that the origin of the name of Joseph (addition, adjunction, annexation) may have arisen from the circumstance that the first emigrants and their families, having become strangers to their brethren, needed some sort of adjunction to become again part and parcel of the family of Israel."

_E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 1, chapter 10 (volume 1)._

See, also, EGYPT: THE HYKSOS, and ABOUT B. C. 1400-1200.

JEWS: The Route of the Exodus.

It is said of the oppressed Israelites in Egypt that "they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." (Exodus i. 11.) One of those "treasure cities," or "store-cities," has been discovered, in a heap of ruins, at a place which the Arabs call "Tell el Maskhutah," and it was supposed at first to be the Raamses of the Biblical record. But explorations made in 1883 by M. Naville seem to have proved that it is the store-city of Pithom which lies buried in the mounds at Tell el Maskhutah and that Raamses is still to be found. As Raamses or Ramses was the starting point of the Exodus, something of a controversy concerning the route of the latter turns upon the question. It is the opinion of M. Naville that Succoth, where the Children of Israel made their first halt, was the district in which Pithom is situated, and that the Land of Goshen, their dwelling-place in Egypt, was a region embracing that district. The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is "on the south side of the sweet water canal which runs from Cairo to Suez through the Wadi Tumilât, about 12 miles from Ismailiah." The excavations made have brought to light a great number of chambers, with massive walls of brick, which are conjectured to have been granaries and storehouses, for the provisioning of caravans and armies to cross the desert to Syria, as well as for the collecting of tribute and for the warehousing of trade. Hence the name of store-city, or treasure-city. Under the Greeks Pithom changed its name to Heroopolis, and a new city called Arsinoë was built near it.

_E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom._

"I submit that Goshen, properly speaking, was the land which afterwards became the Arabian nome, viz., the country round Saft el Henneh east of the canal Abu-I-Munagge, a district comprising Belbeis and Abbaseh, and probably extending further north than the Wadi Tumilat. The capital of the nome was Pa Sopt, called by the Greeks Phacusa, now Saft el Henneh. At the time when the Israelites occupied the land, the term 'Goshen' belonged to a region which as yet had no definite boundaries, and which extended with the increase of the people over the territory they inhabited. The term 'land of Ramses' applies to a larger area, and covers that part of the Delta which lies to the eastward of the Tanitic branch. … As for the city of Ramses, it was situate in the Arabian nome. Probably it was Phacusa."

_E. Naville, Shrine of Saft el Henneh and the Land of Goshen._

The Israelites leaving Succoth, a region which we now know well, the neighbourhood of Tell-el-Maskhutah, push forward towards the desert, skirting the northern shore of the gulf, and thus reach the wilderness of Etham; but there, because of the pursuit of Pharaoh, they have to change their course, they are told to retrace their steps, so as to put the sea between them and the desert. … 'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon; before it shall ye encamp by the sea.' … The question is now, Where are we to look for Migdol and Pi-Hahiroth? As for Migdol, the ancient authors, and particularly the Itinerary, mention a Migdol, or Magdolon, which was twelve Roman miles distant from Pelusium. It is not possible to admit that this is the same Migdol which is spoken of in Exodus, for then it would not be the Red Sea, but the Mediterranean, which the Israelites would have before them, and we should thus have to fall in with MM. Schleiden and Brugsch's theory, that they followed the narrow track which lies between the Mediterranean and the Serbonian Bog. However ingenious are the arguments on which this system is based, I believe it must now be dismissed altogether, because we know the site of the station of Succoth. Is it possible to admit that, from the shore of the Arabian Gulf, the Israelites turned to the north, and marched forty miles through the desert in order to reach the Mediterranean? The journey would have lasted several days; they would have been obliged to pass in front of the fortresses of the north; they would have fallen into the way of the land of the Philistines, which they were told not to take; and, lastly, the Egyptians, issuing from Tanis and the northern cities, would have easily intercepted them. … All these reasons induce me to give up definitively the idea of the passage by the north, and to return to the old theory of a passage of the Red Sea, but of the Red Sea as it was at that time, extending a great deal farther northward, and not the Red Sea of to-day, which occupies a very different position. The word Migdol, in Egyptian, … is a common name. It means a fort, a tower. It is very likely that in a fortified region there have been several places so called, distinguished from each other, either by the name of the king who built them, or by some local circumstance; just as there are in Italy a considerable number of Torre. I should therefore, with M. Ebers, place Migdol at the present station of the Serapeum. There the sea was not wide, and the water probably very shallow; there also the phenomenon which took place on such a large scale when the Israelites went through must have been well known, as it is often seen now in other parts of Egypt. {1898} As at this point the sea was liable to be driven back under the influence of the east wind, and to leave a dry way, the Pharaohs were obliged to have there a fort, a Migdol, so as to guard that part of the sea, and to prevent the Asiatics of the desert from using this temporary gate to enter Egypt, to steal cattle, and to plunder the fertile land which was round Pithom."

_E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus (Egypt Expl. Fund, 1885)._

"Modern critics prefer an intelligent interpretation, according to known natural laws, of the words of Exodus xiv. 21, 22, which lay stress upon the 'east wind' as the direct natural agent by which the sea bottom was for the time made dry land. … The theory, which dates from an early period, that the passage was in some sense tidal, miraculously aided by the agency of wind, has thus come to be very generally adopted."

_H. S. Palmer, Sinai (Ancient History from the Monuments), chapter 6._

JEWS: The conquest of Canaan.

"The first essay [west of Jordan] was made by Judah in conjunction with Simeon and Levi, but was far from prosperous. Simeon and Levi were annihilated; Judah also, though successful in mastering the mountain land to the west of the Dead Sea, was so only at the cost of severe losses which were not again made up until the accession of the Kenite families of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of the secession of these tribes, a new division of the nation into Israel and Judah took the place of that which had previously subsisted between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel were included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah, which three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all the others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a second, which was stronger and attended with much better results. It was led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the others attached themselves, Reuben and Gad only remaining behind in the old settlements. The district to the north of Judah, inhabited afterwards by Benjamin, was the first to be attacked. It was not until after several towns of this district had one by one fallen into the hands of the conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united resistance. They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua in the neighbourhood of Gibeon [or Beth-horon]; and by this victory the Israelites became masters of the whole central plateau of Palestine. The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan, which had been maintained until then, was now removed, and the ark of Jehovah brought further inland (perhaps by way of Bethel) to Shiloh, where henceforwards the headquarters were fixed, in a position which seemed as if it had been expressly made to favour attacks upon the fertile tract lying beneath it on the north. The Bne Rachel now occupied the new territory which up to that time had been acquired—Benjamin, in immediate contiguity with the frontier of Judah, then Ephraim, stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly Manasseh, furthest to the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel. The centre of gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim, to which belonged Joshua and the ark, It is mentioned as the last achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee, thereby opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. … Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been broken, each individual community had still enough to do before it could take firm hold of the spot which it had searched out for itself or to which it had been assigned. The business of effecting permanent settlement was just a continuation of the former struggle, only on a diminished scale; every tribe and every family now fought for its own hand after the preliminary work had been accomplished by a united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All that was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the mountainous land, particularly the southern hill-country of 'Mount Ephraim'; yet even here the Canaanites retained possession of not a few cities, such as Jebus, Shechem, Thebez. It was only after the lapse of centuries that all the lacunæ were filled up, and the Canaanite enclaves made tributary. The Israelites had the extraordinarily disintegrated state of the enemy to thank for the ease with which they had achieved success."

_J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 2._