Schiffman on the Exodus

Another blog, admittedly insignificant and of limited interest, recently quoted an article from the LA Times (April 12, 2001) in which Dr. Lawrence Schiffman is quoted as saying that it is impossible to believe that 600,000 men left Egypt in the Exodus:

Virtually no scholar, for instance, accepts the biblical figure of 600,000 men fleeing Egypt, which would have meant there were a few million people, including women and children... Even Orthodox Jewish scholar Lawrence Schiffman said "you'd have to be a bit crazy" to accept that figure. He believes that the account in Joshua of a swift military campaign is less accurate than the Judges account of a gradual takeover of Canaan. But Schiffman, chairman of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, still maintains that a significant number of Israelite slaves fled Egypt for Canaan.

I know that's not true. Even if Dr. Schiffman believed that, he would certainly not say it that way. He is very much a part of the Orthodox world and would not be foolish enough to denigrate its sacred beliefs in such a coarse way. So I e-mailed him about it and he sent back a long explanation.

Basically, he was discussing a number of possible positions and said that even someone who believed that you would have to be crazy to think that so many Jews left Egypt could still not use that as proof that the Exodus was a later fabrication. One could still believe that a smaller but significant number of Israelite slaves left Egypt and that the number was exaggerated through a common literary tool.

He added:

Regarding the Exodus, I view the texts that Josephus quotes from Manetho, who says that he quoted them from ancient Egyptian texts, as the closest we will come to Egyptian versions of the Exodus story. Since these accounts were created before the Bible was translated into Greek, they are not, contrary to what many think, simply anti-Semitic versions of the biblical story. Rather, they are independent evidence of traditions that circulated among the Egyptians. Interestingly, Josephus quotes one tradition that supports an early day for the Exodus, one that supports a later date, and then either he or his source in Monetho, conflates both.

Regarding the accounts of conquest in Joshua and Jugges, he wrote:

I do indeed believe that Joshua and Judges are to a great extent parallel accounts of the conquest and that the description in Judges is more to accord with the archaeological evidence. Indeed, I think that the evidence collected by Israel Finkelstein and used to support his claim that there never was a conquest can actually be correctly explained as resulting from our gradual infiltration and conquest such as that described in Judges. I realize that this is counter to the view of many who see Judges as having occurred after Joshua.

See also this article by Dr. Schiffman.

Because there are some who think that I am hiding important information from Dr. Schiffman's e-mail, here it is in its entirety (except for some personal information): Read more

Dear Gil,

The LA Times article was one of only two times in my career and I felt I wasn't correctly represented by someone from the press. What happened here was that we discussed the whole variety of possible positions, as I was trying to give them a survey of views held by various people. Let me now try to address what I tried to explain to them:

I explained to them that the Bible's numbers could conceivably be larger than the actual historical events, and in such a case if someone believed that you have to be crazy..., then they could still believe that the event had occurred with smaller numbers. What I meant to say was that one cannot judge the Exodus to be a later invention simply because one thinks that the numbers are exaggerated. It is common in all ancient historical texts for actual events to be portrayed as larger than they were in actuality.

I do indeed believe that Joshua and Judges are to a great extent parallel accounts of the conquest and that the description in Judges is more to accord with the archaeological evidence. Indeed, I think that the evidence collected by Israel Finkelstein and used to support his claim that there never was a conquest can actually be correctly explained as resulting from our gradual infiltration and conquest such as that described in Judges. I realize that this is counter to the view of many who see Judges as having occurred after Joshua.

Regarding the Exodus, I view the texts that Josephus quotes from Manetho, who says that he quoted them from ancient Egyptian texts, as the closest we will come to Egyptian versions of the Exodus story. Since these accounts were created before the Bible was translated into Greek, they are not, contrary to what many think, simply anti-Semitic versions of the biblical story. Rather, they are independent evidence of traditions that circulated among the Egyptians. Interestingly, Josephus quotes one tradition that supports an early day for the Exodus, one that supports a later date, and then either he or his source in Monetho, conflates both.

Let me take this opportunity to wish you a chag kasher vesameach... [Pesach plans deleted] Feel free to quote any of this that you wish. With best regards,

L. Schiffman


Lawrence H. Schiffman
Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
New York University
51 Washington Square South
New York, N.Y. 10012
tel. 212 998 8980
res. 516 773 4264
fax 516 773 3684