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Ancient Israel in Sinai: the Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition

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Ancient Israel in Sinai: the Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition JAMES K. HOFFMEIER OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Ancient Israel in Sinai This page intentionally left blank Ancient Israel in Sinai The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition james k. hoffmeier 1 2005 3 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright # 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoffmeier, James Karl, 1951– Ancient Israel in Sinai : the evidence for the authenticity of the wilderness tradition / James K. Hoffmeier. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13 978-0-19-515546-4 ISBN 0-19-515546-7 1. Bible. O.T. Exodus XVI–Numbers XX—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. Exodus XVI–Numbers XX—Evidences, authority, etc. 3. Bible. O.T. Exodus XVI–Numbers XX—History of biblical events. 4. Bible. O.T. Exodus XVI– Numbers XX—Geography. 5. Sinai (Egypt)—Antiquities. I. Title. BS1245.52.H64 2005 222'.12095—dc22 2004021554 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Dedicated to Alan Millard on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Liverpool in appreciation of many years of friendship and encouragement This page intentionally left blank Foreword Here, in the early twenty-first century, we are heirs to two centuries of breathtaking discoveries and to frontiers of knowledge pushed out to vastly broadened horizons. In the pioneering nineteenth cen- tury, the first broad outlines for our knowledge of the real biblical world—the Ancient Near East—began to emerge with the decipher- ment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and of the intricate Mesopotamian cuneiform script. In the meantime, pioneer archaeologists probed the secrets of ‘‘hundred-gated Thebes,’’ resurrected the vast palaces of Nineveh and Babylon, probed deep into fabled Troy and Mycenae, and opened up the geography and mounds of Syria-Palestine, from Palmyra to Petra. In the tumultuous twentieth century, the rate of discovery grew apace: first, with spectacular finds such as the golden treasures of Tutankhamun in Egypt and of the royal tombs in ‘‘Ur of the Chaldees’’; the wonders of Ugarit, Mari, and Ebla in Syria; or the Dead Sea Scrolls in Palestine; and second, with a growing refinement and precision, especially in field archaeology and the introduction of useful techniques from the natural sciences in the last fifty years. And today, both the growth and the refining of knowledge and how we understand it continue to expand. It is in this wider panoramic context that we may set Professor James K. Hoffmeier’s new book on Egypt, Sinai, and earliest Israel. He has already spent most of an active lifetime in the professional study of ancient Egypt and of the Hebrew Bible in its ancient context. Egypt’s East Delta and North Sinai districts have always been zones of continual contact and transit between Egypt and her northeast viii foreword neighbors, from prehistory to the present. But effective, modern-quality ar- chaeological work in these particular districts is of recent date. Professor Hoffmeier’s excavations and discoveries at Tell el-Borg have revealed remains of an important Egyptian military staging post from the delta into northeast Sinai on the route to Canaan, and this work has as a context the parallel work done at ancient Avaris and Pi-Ramesse by Professors Manfred Bietak and Edgar Pusch, and at Tell Hebua by Dr. Abd-el-Maksoud. Such is the back- ground to James K. Hoffmeier’s new book, which sets the narratives of the biblical exodus and wilderness travels of the early Hebrews in a fresh, up-to- date, factual context of the latest knowledge about the geography, routes, and physical conditions in Delta and Sinai alike. The book also brings together the results of wider study of the giving of law and covenant in Sinai, of the results of modern study of the ancient use of portable structures (‘‘tabernacles’’) for worship and cult, and of the occurrence of Egyptianizing proper names among the Hebrews departing from Egypt, and it offers a calm, judicious review of the ‘‘hot potato’’ subject of ancient Israel’s endlessly discussed possible origins. And more besides! Thus, alongside his Israel in Egypt, Pro- fessor Hoffmeier’s informative new volume on Egypt and Sinai in biblical antiquity deserves likewise to serve a very wide readership. —kenneth a. kitchen Preface The exodus from Egypt and the wilderness narratives that follow in the Torah or Pentateuch contain the Bible’s version of how Israel originated as a nation in Egypt, marched to Mt. Sinai where it entered into a covenant relationship with God, and received the law before entering the ‘‘Promised Land.’’ In recent years, the Egypt and Sinai pillars of ancient Israel’s history have been shaken by questions raised by some critical scholars and by outright rejection from others. In 1997 in my book Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (Oxford), I argued—largely on the basis of Egyptian background evidence—that there were good reasons to be- lieve that the reports of the Hebrew sojourn and forced labor were plausible. Considerable time was given to discussing the geographical details of the exodus from Egypt and proposing a route taken by the Hebrews to leave Egypt. Because of the importance of the wilderness tradition to Israel’s origin and the current debate about this matter over the past two decades, a similar study of the episodes in Sinai is necessary. In a sense, this book is a logical sequel. An examination of the wilderness tradition, which includes Exodus 16 through Numbers 20, and a study of how later biblical writers reflect on the wilderness episodes is offered in chapter 1, followed by an examination of how historians of religion view these episodes (chapter 2). In this same chapter it is argued that in view of the impasse between the scientific (modern) hermeneutic and the postmodern approach to the wilderness tradition, a different method is required. The phenomenological approach is offered as a way out. x preface The setting of the wilderness tradition, the Sinai Peninsula, is one of the most intriguing geographical regions in the world. Understanding the terrain and climate enable readers of the wilderness tradition to comprehend better the context of many of the episodes. Hence, an introduction to the geography and ecological zones of Sinai is offered in chapter 3. In the years since 1997, a number of important developments have oc- curred that demand that some of the geographical discussions in Israel in Egypt be reassessed. First, there continues to be a steady stream of studies that question the historical reliability of most portions of the Torah, including the wilderness tradition and geography of the exodus. Some of these include Thomas Thompson’s The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (1999), Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman’s The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts (2001), and an essay by John Van Seters, ‘‘The Geography of the Exodus’’ (2001). The conclusions of these works, and others like them, need to be questioned in the light of new data from our investigations in Sinai. Second, since the mid-1990s, new archaeological data from North Sinai are available. I was inclined to identify Tell Hebua with Egypt’s ancient frontier town of Tjaru/Sile in Israel in Egypt, but thanks to a new inscription discovered in 1999, this identification has been confirmed. This new in- formation means that one can be much more certain about the sequence of Egyptian forts in North Sinai, if more were to be discovered. And this, in turn, will play a significant role in identifying the location of the Egyptian fort Migdol (the second fort east of Hebua), which is believed to be the same as the Migdol of Exodus 14:2. This same verse indicates that Migdol is near the sea crossed by Moses and the Israelites. Consequently, if we are able to locate the approximate area of Migdol, then the location of the Re(e)d Sea can be pro- posed with greater certainty. After several years of archaeological surveying in North Sinai (1994– 1998), the East Frontier Archaeological Project, which I direct, began ex- cavations at Tell el-Borg in 2000. After four seasons, we have discovered a New Kingdom fort, clearly one of those named in Egyptian texts. This dis- covery, along with the paleoenvironmental fieldwork by the project’s geologist, Dr. Stephen O. Moshier, has made it possible to trace the route of the military road from Egypt’s frontier and on toward Canaan. Chapter 4 will introduce the new data and their implications for the geography of the exodus and travels in Sinai. In my earlier book, I suggested several possible locations for the Re(e)d Sea. Thanks to new evidence, and a more critical reading of texts such as Exodus 14:2, a specific body of water can now be posited in chapter 5.
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