History vs Tanach

 This is super todo, but I wanted to drop a source from the OU website that should get you thinking until I can make a better dive into this topic:

https://www.ou.org/holidays/when_was_the_exodus

At this page you will find the author grappling with the issue that before, during and after the accepted secular timeline of the exodus and the accepted Jewish timeline of the exodus, Egypt ruled Canaan as a vassal state. Yup. 

This is on top of the fact that we have no evidence of the exodus followed by a mass conquering of Canaan by the Jews as presented by the Tanach's timeline, while we do have much evidence of Egypt ruling the small kingdoms at the time (correspondence between Canaan and Egypt is well preserved due to the meticulous record keeping of Egypt and the ideal climate of Egypt for archeological preservation).

So how could the Jews have left Egypt, traveled to an Egyptian territory and conquered it given the archeological evidence?

The author on the OU website seems to suggest that we need to shift the dating of our archeological evidence approximately 900 years forward and then the evidence will fit with the Tanachs account. I have not fully explored his ideas, but at face value the suggestion that we can move the evidence that we have by almost a millennium forward seems untenable. 


Another relevant source is Rabbi Joshua Berman. 

Video

I need to do more research on who he is as an individual and what are his qualifications (I have had Rabbis direct me to him as a source when questioning, so at least some Rabbis think he is legitimate), but he clearly says there is no evidence for the Exodus. He suggests to look at it the history from the angle that the Torah was aware of literary devices of the Egyptians at the time. Is he suggesting that those devices could only be added to the Torah if the events were true? He does seem to suggest that the literary device did not leave Egypt. This seems like a pretty weak approach in light of the strong question. 

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