Abstract
Some 30 ancient Egyptian texts with Exodus “parallels” or Exodus-like content have been identified by 56 Egyptologists, archaeologists, and Semiticists from 1844 to date in the professional literature. Additional texts are identified in the present study for a total of more than 90 Egyptian texts containing Exodus parallels. The Egyptian texts are mainly of politico-literary and religious genres, most ranging in date from the New Kingdom to the Greco-Roman era and appearing in hieroglyphic-hieratic-Demotic forms (a few in Greek and Coptic and one trilingual in hieroglyphic-Demotic-Greek, the Rosetta Stone). The Egyptological publications and Egyptian texts were recently found in the course of research on the history of the long-standing Exodus problem, in effect answering the call of Julius Wellhausen for a much-needed investigation of Egyptian traditions underlying the Exodus.
Based on the new work presented at the UCSD Exodus conference (see this volume) Jan Assmann has ventured beyond his pioneering concept of cultural “mnemohistories” to comment that consensus views of the Exodus are “now highly contested” because there has been “Perhaps too much unanimity as to the non-historicity of the Exodus”; the “old certainties” of Exodus as pure myth are “gone.” Thomas Schneider (this volume) finds a potentially significant parallel to the Exodus 12 Plague on the Firstborn in several late Egyptian texts. Gary Rendsburg (this volume) finds several Egyptian texts with parallels to the Exodus including the drowned men (soldiers) in the Amduat and Book of Gates paintings in royal tombs ca. 1500/1400 BC. The present author independently has found similarly dramatic Egyptian imagery of the Walls of Water in a Parted Sea (the Flaming Red Sea, Eg. Yam Nesret) in the same wall-painted Amduat and Gates hieroglyphic books.
Early versions of this chapter were read at the Egyptology session of American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) annual meeting, on November 17, 2007, and as updated for the UCSD Exodus Conference, June 1, 2013. My special thanks to Thomas Schneider, John Bloom, Scott Noegel, and David Frankfurter for helpful editorial comments, discussions, and critiques of various drafts of this chapter as well as to J. Assmann, S. Hollis, W. Dever, L. Geraty, B. Brandstater, B. Waltke, E. Merrill, R. Younker, P. Machinist, W. Hallo, W. Schniedewind, H. Goedicke, and W. Wendrich, and for very early drafts my thanks to the late David Noel Freedman, A. Maeir, the late Anson Rainey, E. Hornung, A. Loprieno, J. Hoffmeier, J. Currid, and the late David Lorton, but the present author is, of course, responsible for the contents and any errors herein.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
In a 1991 addendum printed without change in the 1997 edition, Hornung defends his and Fecht’s “ich bin, der ich bin” translation but offers an intriguing but speculative redactional prehistory of the text, which however has no textual-variant support or other manuscript evidence. Hornung suggests the possibility (“möglich”) that the original text read jw.j-jm and thus could be read as “I am there (in the sky [implied]),” and later the particle .j was added, rendering the final form “I am (that) I am.” Hornung had noticed a text (Book of the Dead, Spell 1) where in manuscript variants the addition of .j converted the m of locality (“there”) into an m of identity (“I am”). But this hypothetical redaction sequence in the Destruction does not avoid the Exodus, since the proposed textual alteration resulting in the only actual known manuscript would likely have been motivated in the first place by wordplay to imitate the Hebrew meaning of “I am that I am,” thus subversively implying the divinity of Pharaoh as one and the same as the Hebrew God named the “I am that I am.” Moreover, the implication of “I am there” in the suggested ur-text as the sun god being “there in the sky” can also be interpreted as implying “I am there in the (celestial) ocean” (=primordial sea where Ra was born)—or once again, an allusion to the terminal pharaonic death scenario in the Combat at the (Red) Sea or Yam Suph, Sea of Annihilation (Batto, this volume; Batto 1984, 1992, 2013a, 2013b), and thus once again the Exodus.
- 3.
Assmann (2002: 406).
- 4.
Redford (1992: 420).
- 5.
Goedicke (2004: 102).
- 6.
Enmarch (2009: 28).
- 7.
Hollis (2008: 12).
- 8.
Allen (2010: 285).
- 9.
Shupak (2006: 126, 138).
- 10.
No technical definition of genre is used here in view of Di Biase-Dyson’s comments (2013: 50): “Defining genre has long been a problem in Egyptian literary studies, as in other scholarly fields.”
- 11.
Following the Joseph-like events in the papyrus narrative, a number of additional episodes are mentioned that are interesting and Exodus-like (Purdy 1977: 122 notices that “two stories are involved,” only one like that of Joseph): The Egyptian-named figure Anubis is apparently the “acting king” (Schneider 2008: 321b), is armed, and chases the possibly Semitic figure Bata (or Semitic Bet representing a household servant: Schneider 2008: 321b–322a), intending to kill him. Divine intervention causes a “great body of water” to separate the two (Pap. d’Orb. 6:7–9; Lichtheim 1976/2006: 2:206). The body of water has “sides,” using the same Egyptian word ru-’i for “sides” used elsewhere in the papyrus to refer to the palace doorway or gate wall (cp. d’Orb. 6:7, 9; 16:10; cf. Hollis 2008: 50). The Semitic figure then departs to the east to dwell in the Semitic Levant (d’Orb. 7:1–8:1; cf. ‘š-trees of Retenu or Syria-Palestine: Hollis 2008: 128–129) after phallic self-mutilation (extreme “circumcision” ?: Hollis 2008: 126; d’Orb. 7:10). The pharaoh puts drops of sacrificial blood “beside the two door posts” of the great palace gate (though blood is not directly on the gate), which grow into strong, protective persea trees (d’Orb. 16:10, emphasis added).
- 12.
The Destruction of Mankind is often regarded as a myth of a “golden age” ruined by human rebellion against the gods, an etiological myth explaining how the present world emerged, or as a solar cycle myth. But these ideas have been heavily criticized if not refuted and have even been declared to be modern-day “Egyptological myth” (Baines 1991: 92) and yet continue to circulate (cf. Baines ibid., 1996: 364; Zivie-Coche 2004: 38, 53; Spalinger 2000: 276; Guilhou 1989: 144 n.62; Naville 1875: 16.). It is also widely recognized that in the Destruction as in other texts generally, Ra is “identical to Pharaoh” (Spalinger 2000: 261, emphasis added, cf. 258, 269; cf. Yoyotte 1972: 163, 2013: 347). In the Destruction (verses 75 and 83), Ra is named in cartouches and titled as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt.”
- 13.
Though usually regarded as a mythological text, the Destruction of Mankind is structured as a pharaoh’s historical annal (Redford 1986: 94) conforming precisely to the standard nine-element structure for military annals of the Dominion Record type with rebels resisting not attacking pharaoh (see Lundh 2002: 24–27, 238, for the standard annalistic structure, and Sparks, forthcoming, for full analysis). Spalinger has identified the Destruction as a transitional literary form derived from the stock “literary device of the speech in a war setting where king addresses his army,” the Königsnovelle, comparable to the historical war speeches of pharaohs of the New Kingdom (Spalinger 2000: 280–281). The Destruction of Mankind is a “legend … which also has political resonances” with history (Grimal 1994: 172). Richard Parkinson allows “specific historical events” in the Destruction of Mankind narrative (Parkinson 1997: 233 n.46). The most extensive commentator, French Egyptologist Nadine Guilhou suggests that the Destruction is perhaps a “mythical reflection of the historical reality” of the turbulent First Intermediate Period (Guilhou 1989: 138, transl.).
- 14.
Related Egyptian hieroglyphic “books” or documents in this genre of royal underworld books, though having structure and order that may differ, have “similar” content (Hornung 1999: 27). These books, which include the Amduat and Book of Gates, contain color pictures of what appear to be dramatic scenes of an Exodus-like event at a body of water (see Rendsburg, this volume, Chap. 18; Sparks, Nov 17, 2007, ASOR paper; see Figs. 19.4 and 19.5, below). This large body of potentially Exodus-related material (e.g., El Arish text cited by Hornung) provides new details not previously known, particularly as to apparent episodes in Egypt after the Israelites left, which though unreported in the Biblical narrative make natural logical sense within the narrative (e.g., the queen leading the search for the missing pharaoh at Pi-Khiroth, the Egyptians dividing up the land left behind by the departed slaves, an attempted palace coup, and the subsequent foreign invasion of a militarily defenseless and plague-devastated Egypt).
- 15.
Naville’s title “Destruction of Mankind” may have been inspired by another paper before the same London society on a seemingly analogous text (a similarity not borne out by later study) that had recently described it as reciting a “destruction … of the race of man in the city of Heliopolis” and likened to the Greek Deucalion legend of the destruction of mankind (Goodwin 1873: 104, 107).
- 16.
Egyptologists have long recognized the Egyptian verb particle jw to be phonetically and semantically identical to the Hebrew verb forming the Divine Name Yahweh, the only argument being at a step further to decide whether they are also etymologically derived one from the other (Depuydt 1998: 29; Gardiner Egyptian Grammar 1957: 384, 551b; Erman-Grapow Wörterbuch 1926: 1:42; Lacau Recueil Philologie Égyptiennes et Assyriennes 1913: 35:63; Hornung/Fecht 1997: 125 n.aa, 130–131, in the context of the Destruction of Mankind text).
- 17.
Semantics of the phrase in Hebrew go back through centuries of disputes over whether it should be rendered “I am that I am,” “I am the existing one,” “I will be who I will be,” “I-will-be,” “The Existent One,” etc., arguments over etymology, phonology, relationship between ehyeh and yahweh, etc. There is a vast literature on the subject which cannot be cited here (briefly, see Houtman 1993: 1:92–100, 368; Propp 1999: 1:203–226; Schniedewind 2009; Childs 1974: 60–89).
- 18.
Gilula (1977) claimed that the Death of the Firstborn derived from an early Egyptian tradition, but this seems untenable as the tradition is the well-known “Cannibal Hymn” in the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, which concerns slaughtering of elder or (ambiguously) firstborn gods and humans for cooking in a cannibal pot (Pyr.Text §405b) with the eaten body parts enumerated in detail—heart, lungs, legs, bones, etc. (Eyre 2002: 8–10, passim). This is very unlike the Plague on the Firstborn which involves no cannibalism or cooking in pots. The “night” of the slaughter is linked to the “day” as well, forming a complete 24-hour period, not the Biblical “midnight” firstborn death (Exod 11:4, 12:29). “Eldest” (smsw) here merely means the older half of the family of 9 gods, the eldest 4 or 5, since the cannibal slaughter is of “gods” (plural nṯrw) of a single divine family not just the one firstborn (Pyr.Texts §§400a, 409c, 413b). Also excluded is treatment of the Egyptian Leper Expulsion tradition whose Exodus connection hinges on the isolated assertion of the Osarsiph = Moses equation in a single passage at the end of long narrative, appearing to be a scribal gloss, with otherwise very little narrative or thematic resemblance to the Exodus (literature too extensive to cite, but see Gruen 1998: 57–72). Even Wellhausen rejected the Leper Expulsion = Exodus as a “malicious invention” (1885: 440).
References
Allen, James P. 2010. Middle Egyptian, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Alon, David. 1999. New Light on the Exodus. Jerusalem: Ariel [Hebrew].
Anati, Emmanuel. 1986. The Mountain of God. New York, NY: Rizzoli (Eng. transl.) [=Montagna di Dio. Milan, Italy: Editoriale Jaca Book, 1986].
———. 1997. Esodo tra mito e storia. Valcamonica: Edizioni del Centro.
———. 2001. The Riddle of Mount Sinai: Archaeological Discoveries at Har Karkom [Studi Camuno, vol. 21]. Valcamonica, Italy: Edizioni del Centro.
Assmann, Jan. 1977. Das ägyptische Zweibrüdermachen (Papyrus d’Orbiney): eine Textanalise auf drei Ebenen am Leirfanen der Einheits frage. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 104: 1–25.
———. 1983. Königsdogma und Heilserwartung: Politische und kultische Chaosbeschreibungen in ägyptischen Texten. In Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. David Hellholm, 345–377. Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, 12–17 Aug 1979.
———. 1997. Moses the Egyptian (transl. Andrew Jenkins). Cambridge, MA/London: Cambridge Univ. Press.
———. 2002. The Mind of Egypt (transl. Andrew Jenkins). New York, NY: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Co. (Eng. transl.) [=Ägypten: Eine Sinngeschichte. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1996].
Backes, Burkhard. 2010. Das Massaker von Herakleopolis. In Honi soit qui mal y pense. Studien zum pharaonischen, griechisch-römischen und spätantiken Ägypten zu Ehren von Heinz Josef Thissen, ed. Hermann Knuf, Christian Leitz, and Daniel von Recklinghausen, 15–23 [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta vol. 194]. Leuven: Peeters.
Baines, John R. 1991. Egyptian Myth and Discourse: Myth, Gods, and the Early Written and Iconographic Record. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 50(April 1991): 81–105.
———. 1996. Contextualizing Egyptian Representations of Society and Ethnicity. In The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century: The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference, ed. Jerrold S. Cooper and Glenn M. Schwartz, 339–384. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Batto, Bernard F. 1984. Red Sea or Reed Sea? Biblical Archaeology Review 10(4): 56–63.
———. 1992. Slaying the dragon: Mythmaking in the Biblical tradition. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox.
———. 2013a. In the beginning: Essays on creation motifs in the Bible and the Ancient Near East. Louisville, KY: Eisenbrauns.
———. 2013b. The Combat Myth in Israelite tradition revisited. In Creation and chaos: A reconsideration of Hermann Gunkel’s Chaoskampf hypothesis, ed. JoAnn Scurlock, and Richard Henry Beal. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Biase-Dyson (see Di Biase-Dyson).
Browne, Henry. 1844. Ordo saeclorum. London: John W. Parker.
Brugsch, Heinrich. 1864. Ueber die Gruppe für “Schwimmen” in den hieroglyphischen Texten. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 2: 65–67.
Brugsch, Heinrich. 1881. Die neue Weltordnung nach Vernichtung des sündigen Menschengeschlechtes. Berlin: Verlag S. Calvary.
Chen, Yi Samuel. 2010. Comparative Studies of the Mesopotamian and Biblical Flood Stories and the Comparative Method. abstract of paper delivered at the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), Atlanta, Georgia, 20 Nov 2010. http://www.sbl-site.org/meetings
Childs, Brevard S. 1974. The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary [The Old Testament Library]. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster.
Clagett, Marshall. 1989. Ancient Egyptian Science: A Source Book, vol. 1 (tomes 1 and 2) [APS Memoirs, vol. 214]. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society.
Coats, George W. 1992. Joseph, Son of Jacob. In: David Noel Freedman (ed.) Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York, NY: Doubleday. Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, vol. 3, 976b–981b. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press (2007 reprint).
Cohen, Rudolph (Rudolf). July/Aug 1983. The Mysterious MB I people: Does the Exodus Tradition in the Bible Preserve the Memory of their Entry into Canaan? Biblical Archaeology Review 9(4): 16–29.
Depuydt, Leo. 1998. The Meaning of Old and Middle Egyptian
Jw in light of the Distinction between Narration and Discussion. In Jerusalem Studies in Egyptology. Egyptology, Ägypten und Altes Testament 40, ed. Irene Shirun-Grumach, 19–36. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.De Vries, Carl E. 1975. Plague. In Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 2, ed. Charles F. Pfeiffer et al., 1349–1352. Chicago, IL: Moody Press.
Di Biase-Dyson, Camilla. 2013. Foreigners and Egyptians in the Late Egyptian Stories. Leiden: Brill [Probleme Der Ägyptologie, vol. 32].
El-Shamy, Hasan M. 1995. Folk Traditions of the Arab World: A Guide to Motif Classification. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press. 2 vols.
Enmarch, Roland. July 2004. The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All, 2 vols. Doctoral dissertation. Oxford, England: Oxford Univ., Worcester College.
———. May 2009. A world upturned: Commentary on and Analysis of The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All [British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monographs]. Oxford/NY: British Academy/Oxford University Press. [Revised edition of 2004 doctoral dissertation].
Erman, Adolf, and Hermann Grapow. 1926, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1950, 1963. Wörterbuch der Aegyptischen Sprache, 7 vols. Leipzig: Hinrich’s.
Eyre, Christopher J. 2002. The Cannibal Hymn: A Cultural and Literary Study. Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Press.
Fantalkin, Alexander. 2008. The Appearance of Rock-Cut Bench Tombs in Iron Age Judah as a Reflection of State Formation. In Bene Israel: Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and the Levant during the Bronze and Iron Ages in Honour of Israel Finkelstein, ed. Alexander Fantalkin and Assaf Yasur-Landau, 17–44. Leiden/Boston: Brill [Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, 31].
Fecht, Gerhard. 1982/1991/1997. Metrische Umschreibung mit Anmerkungen zum Verständnis von Metrik und Aussage. In Der Ägyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh: Eine Ätiologie des Unvollkommenen [OBO vol. 46], ed. Erik Hornung, 109–127. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (1982 orig. ed.; 2nd ed. rev. 1991; 1997 reprint).
Finkelstein, Israel. 1995. Living on the Fringe. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic.
Finkelstein, Israel, and Avi Perevolotsky. 1990. Processes of Sedentarization and Nomadization in the History of Sinai and the Negev. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 279: 67–88.
Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. 2001. The Bible Unearthed. New York, NY: Free Press.
Frankfurter, David. 1993. Elijah in Upper Egypt: The Apocalypse of Elijah and Early Egyptian Christianity. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress.
Freund, Richard A. 2009. Digging Through the Bible: Understanding Biblical People, Places, and Controversies through Archaeology. Lanham, MD/New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.
Gardiner, Alan H. 1957. Egyptian Grammar, rev. 3rd ed. London: Griffith Institute/Oxford Univ. Press.
Gilula, Mordechai. 1977. The Smiting of the first-born: An Egyptian Myth? Tel Aviv 4: 94–95.
Goedicke, Hans. 1984. The Canaanite Illness. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 11: 91–105.
———. 1987. Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence. Johns Hopkins University, 23 April 1987, 21 pp. Paper presented to “Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?” Near Eastern Archaeology Society (NEAS) Symposium, Memphis, TN, 23–25 April 1987.
———. 1988. The Northeastern Delta and the Mediterranean. In The Archaeology of the Nile Delta, Egypt: Problems and Priorities, ed. Edwin C.M. van den Brink, 165–175. Amsterdam: Netherlands Foundation for Archaeological Research in Egypt [Proceedings of Cairo seminar, 19–22 Oct 1986, for 15th anniversary of Neth. Inst. of Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo].
———. 2004. The Speos Artemidos Inscription of Hatshepsut and Related Discussions. Oakville, CT: HALGO, Inc.
Goodwin, Charles W. Sep–Oct 1873. On chap. 115 of the Book of the Dead. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, vol. 11, 104–107.
Gordon, Cyrus H., and Gary A. Rendsburg. 1997. The Bible and the Ancient Near East. Norton, New York, NY: W. W. June 1997 rev.
Görg, Manfred. 1992. Jochebed und Isis. Biblische Notizen 61: 10–14.
Gray, John. 1965. Archaeology and the Old Testament World. New York, NY: Harper Torchbook. Reprint [Thomas Nelson, London, 1962].
Greenberg, Moshe. 1969. Understanding Exodus [Heritage of Biblical Israel, vol. 2], Part 1. New York, NY: Behrman House.
Griffiths, John Gwyn. 1988. Review of Der a¨gyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh. Eine Ätiologie des Unvollkommenen by Erik Hornung et al. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 74: 275–277.
Grimal, Nicolas. 1994. A History of Ancient Egypt. London: Blackwell. Eng. transl. [Barnes & Noble, New York, 1997 reprint]) = [Histoire de l’Egypte ancienne (Librarie Arthème Fayard, 1988)]
Groll, Sarah, see Israelit-Groll, Sarah.
Gruen, Erich S. 1998. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: Univ. of California Press.
Guilhou, Nadine. 1989. La Vieillesse de Dieux. France: Univ. of Montpellier.
Hallo, William W. 1990. Compare and Contrast: The Contextual Approach to Biblical Literature. In The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature [Scripture in Context III] [Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies, vol. 8], ed. William W. Hallo, Bruce William Jones, and Gerald L. Mattingly, 1–30. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen [reprinted in Hallo 2010: 677-697].
———. 2010. The World’s Oldest Literature: Studies in Sumerian Belles-Lettres. Leiden: Brill.
Hamilton, Victor P. 2012. Genesis. In Baker Illustrated Bible Commentary, ed. Gary M. Burge and Andrew E. Hill. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker.
Har-El (Har’el), Menashe. 1983. The Sinai Journeys: The Route of the Exodus. San Diego, CA: Ridgefield Co. (rev. Eng. transl.). [Mase Sinai (Tel Aviv: Am-Oved Publ. Ltd. 1968)].
Helck, Wolfgang. Jan 1965. T kw und die Ramses-stadt. Vetus Testamentum 15(1): 35–48.
Hollis, Susan Tower. 1982. The New Egyptian ‘Tale of Two Brothers’: A Mythological, Religious, Literary, and Historico-Political Study of the Papyrus d’Orbiney. Ph.D. dissertation. Univ. Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI.
———. 1990. The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers” [Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 12]. Oklahoma City, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
———. 2008. The Ancient Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers”: A Mythological, Religious, Literary, and Historico-Political Study, rev. 2nd ed. Oakville, CT: Bannerstone Press/David Brown Book.
Hornung, Erik. 1982. Der Ägyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh: Eine Ätiologie des Unvollkommenen [OBO vol. 46]. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Orig. ed.
———. 1990. (transl. David Warburton). The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity. NY: Timken. (Engl. rev. transl.) [= Tal der Königer, Zurich, Munich: Artemis Verlag, 1982 Ger. orig.]).
———. 1997. Der Ägyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh: Eine Ätiologie des Unvollkommenen [OBO vol. 46]. Freiburg/Göttingen: Universitätsverlag/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 2nd ed. rev. 1991; 1997 reprint.
———. 1999. (transl. David Lorton). The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell Univ. Press.
———. 2002. The secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (Transl. David Lorton).
Houtman, Cornelis. 1993. (transls. Johan Rebel and Sierd Woudstra), Exodus [Historical Commentary on the Old Testament] vol. 1. Kampen, Neth: Kok.
Hornung-Fecht (Hornung and Fecht). 1982/1997. (=Hornung 1982/1997)
Israelit-Groll, Sarah. 1999. Historical Background to the Exodus: Papyrus Anastasi VIII. In Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente [Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 58], ed. Emily Teeter and John A. Larson, 159–162. Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.
Jeremias, Alfred. 1913. Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs.
———. 1916. Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, 3rd ed. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs [2nd ed. 1913].
King, Leonard W. 1918. Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition [Schweich Lectures 1916]. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press/British Academy.
Knauf, Ernst Axel. 2013. (with Konrad Schmid, Hermann Michael Niemann, and Silvia Schroer, eds.). Data and Debates: Essays in the History and Culture of Israel and its Neighbors in Antiquity [Alter Orient und Altes Testament (AOAT) vol. 407.] Munster: Ugarit-Verlag.
Lacau, Pierre. 1913. Notes de Grammaire: A propos de la grammaire égyptienne de M. Erman. Recueil de Travaux Relatifs à la Philologie et à l'Archéologie Égyptiennes et Assyriennes, vol. 35, 59–82. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion.
Lang, Bernhard. 2009. Joseph in Egypt. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
Lange, Johann. 1874. (John Peter) (transl. C. M. Mead; ed. Philip Schaff). Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Exodus. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan (1876, 1949 reprint). [English translation of 1874 German original].
Leeming, David. 2004. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Leith, Mary Joan Winn. 2012. Shock and Awe: The Exodus Narrative. Biblical Archaeology Society Lecture Series, DVD Item 9HLP7. Washington, DC: BAS, April.
Lenormant, François. 1882. (transl. Francis Brown). The Beginnings of History (Engl. transl. of French 2nd ed.). New York: Scribner’s Sons.
Lesko, Leonard H. 1991. Ancient Egyptian Cosmogonies and Cosmology. In Religion in Ancient Egypt, ed. Byron E. Shafer, 88–122. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell Univ. Press.
Levy, Thomas E. 2003. Foreword. In Miroslav Bárta (transl. Renata Landgráfová). Sinuhe, the Bible, and the Patriarchs, 5–7. Prague: Set Out.
Lichtheim, Miriam. 1973/1973/1980/2006. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: Univ. of Calif. Press. (1973/1976/1980, 2nd ed. 2006) vol. 1 (1973), vol. 2 (1976), vol. 3 (1980).
Lundh, Patrik. 2002. Actor and Event: Military Activity in Ancient Egyptian Narrative Texts from Tuthmosis II to Merenptah [Uppsala Studies in Egyptology, vol. 2]. Sweden: Uppsala University.
Machinist, Peter. 2009. The Road Not Taken: Wellhausen and Assyriology. In Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded, ed. Gershon Galil, Mark Geller, and Alan Millard, 469–531. Leiden/Boston: Brill [Vetus Testamentum Supplements, vol. 130].
Martin, Mario A.S., and Israel Finkelstein. 2013. Iron IIA Pottery from the Negev Highlands: Petrographic Investigation and Historical Implications. Tel Aviv 40: 6–45.
Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin. 2006. Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 3rd rev. ed. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist.
McCown, Chester C. 1925. Hebrew and Egyptian Apocalyptic Literature. Harvard Theological Review 18: 357–411.
Meltzer, Edmund S. 2004. Sinuhe, Jonah and Joseph: Ancient ‘Far Travellers’ and the Power of God. In God’s Word for our World: Volume II—Theological and Cultural Studies in Honor of Simon John De Vries, ed. J. Harold Ellens et al., 77–81. London/NY: T & T Clark/Continuum [JSOT Supp. 389].
———. 2007. In search of Sinuhe: ‘What’s in a Name?’ Paper presented at American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) annual meeting, Toledo, Ohio, 20 April 2007. http://www.ceae.unlugar.com/meltzer.htm
Meyer, Eduard, and Bernhard Luther. 1906. Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme. Germany: Max Niemeyer Halle.
Mojsov, Bojana. 2005. Osiris: Death and Afterlife of a God. Malden, MA/Oxford: Blackwell.
Moldenke, Charles E. 1895. The Oldest Fairy Tale. Transactions of the Meriden (Conn.) Scientific Association 7: 32–81.
Moro, Caterina. 2005. L’identificazione tra Ebrei e Hyksos nelle fonti alessandrine. In Definirsi e definire: percezione, rappresentazione e ricostruzione dell’identità, ed. Massimo Gargiulo, Chiara Peri, and Giuseppe Regalzi, 71–88. Rome: Associazione Orientalisti. [Proceedings of the 3rd Conference of Orientalists, Rome, 23–25 Feb 2004]. http://www.orientalisti.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/atti2004.pdf
———. Dec 2008. Lo storico Artapano e il passato multietnico. In Traduzione di tradizioni e tradizioni di traduzione. ed. Benedetta Bellucci, Elio Jucci, Alfredo Rizza, and Bianca Maria Tomassini Pieri, 295–315. Milan: Qu.A.S.A.R. [Pavia, Italy, 19–21 April 2007] http://www.orientalisti.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/atti2007.pdf
———. Feb 2010. L’historien Artapan et le passé multiethnique. In Interprétations de Moïse: Égypte, Judée, Grèce et Rome, ed. Philippe Borgeaud, Thomas Rômer, and Youri Volokhine with Daniel Barbu, 43–82. Leiden/Boston: Brill. [Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture, vol. 10].
Muhlestein, Kerry. June 2011. Levantine Thinking in Egypt. In Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature, ed. Shay Bar, Dan’el Kahn, and J.J. Shirley, 190–235. Leiden/New York, NY: Brill. [Proceedings of Conference at Univ. of Haifa, 3–7 May 2009] [Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 52].
Na’aman, Nadav. 2011. The Exodus Story: Between Historical Memory and Historiographical Composition. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 11: 39–69.
Naville, Edouard. June 1875. La Destruction des Hommes par les Dieux. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 4 (SBA, London): 1–19.
———. 1876. The Legend of the Destruction of Mankind. Records of the Past, vol. 6. London: SBA 103–112
———. 1885. L’inscription de la destruction des hommes dans le tombeau de Ramses III. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 8 (SBA, London): 412–420.
———. 1909. (transl. Colin Campbell). The Old Egyptian Faith. [=Engl. transl. of Naville, La Religion des Anciens Égyptiens, 1907]. London + Putnam, NY: Williams & Norgate.
Noegel, Scott B. 1996. Moses and Magic: Notes on the Book of Exodus. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 24: 45–59.
Oldfather, Charles H. (transl.). 1933/1935. Diodorus of Sicily, vols. 1 and 2. [Loeb Classical Library]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
Parkinson, Richard B. 1997. The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940–1640 BC. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
———. Dec 2010. Poetry and Culture in Middle Kingdom Egypt [Studies in Egyptology and the Ancient Near East]. London/Oakville, CT: Continuum/Equinox (ed. with addenda).
Posener, George. 1960. De la Divinite du pharaon. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
———. 1971. Literature. In The Legacy of Egypt, rev. ed, ed. J.R. Harris. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Propp, William H.C. Sept 1999. Exodus 1-18 [Anchor Bible Commentary series]. New York, NY/London: Doubleday.
Purdy, Strother. 1977. Sinuhe and the Question of Literary types. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 104: 112–127.
Redford, Donald B. 1970. A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph. Leiden: Brill. 290 pp.
———. 1986. Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals, and Day-Books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History. Mississauga, Ontario: Benben [SSEA Publication 4].
———. (Redford ABD 1992). Pi-Hahiroth. In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols, vol. 5, 371a, ed. David Noel Freedman. New York, NY: Doubleday [Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2007 reprint].
———. 1992. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
———. 2006. Video interview in Associated Producers. The Exodus Decoded documentary, broadcast 23 April 2006. “The Exodus Decoded Transcript.” 18 Aug 2006. http://theexodusdecoded.com/simcha.jsp. accessed 2 Sept 2006
Rendsburg, Gary A. 2006. Moses as Equal to Pharaoh. In Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. Gary M. Beckman and Theodore J. Lewis, 201–219. Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies.
Romer, John. 1988. Testament: The Bible and History. New York: Holt.
Rothöhler, Benedikt. 2003. Hermes und Plotin: Mögliche Berührungen zwischen dem Hermetischen Asklepiustraktat und Plotins Schrift ‘Gegen die Gnostiker’ (Enneaden II, 9). In Egypt, Temple of the Whole World: Studies in Honour of Jan Assmann, ed. Sibylle Meyer, 389–407. Leiden: Brill [Studies in the History of Religions vol. 97].
Sarna, Nahum M. 1986. Exploring Exodus. New York, NY: Schocken Books.
———. 1992. (Sarna ABD 1992) Exodus, Book of. In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols., 2:689b–700a, ed. David Noel Freedman. New York, NY: Doubleday. [Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 2007 reprint].
Sauneron, Serge. 1962. Le Temple d’Esna [Esna V]. Cairo: IFAO.
Schipper, Bernd U. 2002. Apokalyptik und Ägypten?—Erkenntnisse und Perspektiven: 2) Die Texte und die ägyptische Tradition. In Apokalyptik und Agypten: Eine Kritische Analyse der Relevanten Texte aus dem Griechisch-Römischen Ägypten, ed. Andreas Blasius and Bernd U. Schipper, 282–294. Leuven/Paris/Sterling, VA: Peeters [Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 107].
Schneider, Thomas. Sept 2000. Reviews of Manfred Görg, Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Alten Israel und Ägypten. Von den Anfängen bis zum Exil, Darmstadt 1997, and John D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament, Grand Rapids 1997, Theologische Literaturzeitung, vol. 125, 882–885.
———. 2008. Innovation in Literature on Behalf of Politics: The Tale of the Two Brothers, Ugarit, and 19th Dynasty History. Ägypten und Levante 18: 315–326.
Schniedewind, William M. 2009. Calling God names: an inner-biblical approach to the Tetragrammaton. In Scriptural Exegesis: The Shapes of Culture and the Religious Imagination. Essays in Honour of Michael Fishbane, ed. Deborah A. Green and Laura S. Lieber, 74–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Shupak, Nili. 2003. (Shupak COS 2003) The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage: The Admonitions of Ipuwer (1.42). In The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions, Monumental Inscriptions, and Archival Documents from the Biblical World, 1:93a–98b, ed. William W. Hallo. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
———. 2006. A Fresh Look at the Dreams of the Officials and of Pharaoh in the Story of Joseph (Genesis 40–41) in the Light of Egyptian Dreams. Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 30: 103–138.
Simpson, William Kelly (ed.). 2003. The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 3rd rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
Spalinger, Anthony John. 2000. The Destruction of Mankind: A transitional literary text. Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 28: 257–282.
Sparks, Brad C. 2003/2004. Red Algae Theories of the Ten Plagues [Part 1]. Bible and Spade, vol. 16, no. 3(Summer), 66–77; [Part 2] vol. 17, no. 1(Winter), 17–27; [Part 3] vol. 17, no. 3(Summer), 71–82.
Thompson, Stith. 1955–58. Motif-Index of Folk Literature. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press. 6 vols.
Trigger, Bruce G. 1995. Egyptology, Ancient Egypt, and the American Imagination. In The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt, ed. Nancy Thomas, 21–35. New York, NY: Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Harry NAbrams.
Uther, Hans-Jörg. 2004. The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. 3 vols.
van der Horst, Pieter W. 2006. Jews and Christians in their Graeco-Roman context: Selected Essays on Early Judaism, Samaritanism, Hellenism, and Christianity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck [Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, vol. 196].
Vergote, Jozef (Joseph). 1959. Joseph en Égypte: Genèse chap. 37-50 à la lumière des ètudes égyptologiques. Louvain, Belgium: Publications Universitaires [Orientalia et Biblica Lovaniensia, vol. 3].
———. 1985. ‘Joseph En Egypte’: 25 Ans Apres. In Pharaonic Egypt: The Bible and Christianity, ed. Sarah Israelit-Groll, 289–306. Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Hebrew University.
Weeks, Kent R. (ed.). 2001. Valley of the Kings. Vercelli, Italy/New York, NY: White Star/Michael Friedman.
Wellhausen, Julius. 1885. (transls. J. Sutherland Black and Allan Menzies). Prolegomena to the History of Israel: With a Reprint of the Article Israel in “Encyclopædia Britannica”. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. [=Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (G. Reimer, Berlin, 1883, 2nd ed. German) + Britannica article, “Israel,” 1881].
Wente, Edward F. 2003. (Wente-Simpson 2003) Destruction of Mankind. In The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 3rd rev, 289–298, 560, ed. William Kelly Simpson. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
Williams, Ronald J. 1992. Egyptian Wisdom Literature. In The Anchor Bible dictionary, 6 vols., 2:395b-399b, ed. David Noel Freedman. New York, NY: Doubleday. [=Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. New Haven, Ct: Yale Univ. Press, 2007 reprint].
Wilson, John A. 1969. (Wilson ANET 1969) Egyptian Oracles and Prophecies: The Admonitions of Ipu-wer. In Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd rev., 441–449c, ed. James B. Pritchard. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Wolf, Walther. 1962. Kulturgeschichte des alten Ägypten. Stuttgart: Kroner.
Yahuda, Abraham S. 1934. The Accuracy of the Bible. London: Heinemann [New York, NY: E. P. Dutton, 1935].
Yoyotte, Jean. 1972. Religion de l’Égypte ancienne: Annuaire 1971–1972, 162–167. Paris: Paris: École Pratique des Hautes Études, 5th Section—Sciences Religieuses.
Yoyotte, Jean. 2013. Histoire, géographie et religion de l’Égypte ancienne: Opera selecta par Jean Yoyotte. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 224, ed. Ivan Guermeur. Leuven: Peeters
Zivie-Coche, Christiane. 2004. Book I. Pharaonic Egypt. In Gods and Men in Egypt: 3000 BCE to 395 BCE, 1–191, ed. Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche. (transl. David Lorton). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
Zorn, Jeffrey R. 1994 Estimating the Population Size of Ancient Settlements: Methods, Problems, Solutions, and a Case Study. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 295: 31–48.
Jw in light of the Distinction between Narration and Discussion. In Jerusalem Studies in Egyptology. Egyptology, Ägypten und Altes Testament 40, ed. Irene Shirun-Grumach, 19–36. Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden.Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sparks, B.C. (2015). Egyptian Texts relating to the Exodus: Discussions of Exodus Parallels in the Egyptology Literature. In: Levy, T., Schneider, T., Propp, W. (eds) Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective. Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04768-3_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04768-3_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-04767-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-04768-3
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)