Exodus and Memory

Abstract

The biblical story of the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt is the narrative account of an ‘event’ in whose ‘aftermath’ we are still living, because it refers to an act of revelation on which the three ‘Abrahamic’ religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are founded. It has always provoked questions about what really happened. The ancient Egyptian evidence was searched again and again for any traces that could confirm the biblical record; any new excavation, especially that of the tomb of Tutankhamen, was hailed with great expectations of a final proof; theories have been formed about the causes of the ten plagues: collision with a meteorite? Climate catastrophe as a consequence of the eruption of the volcano Thera? What could have caused the parting of the sea? A storm? The archaeology of Palestine has focused on the discovery of traces of the conquest that followed the emigration, levels of destruction and a dramatic change of material culture. Jericho in particular has been investigated, but only to reveal that the site was deserted in biblical times and the destruction by far antedates the events told in the Book of Joshua.