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The Passage of the Red Sea refers to the Biblical account of the passage of the Red Sea by Moses, leading the Hebrews (Israelites) on their journey out of Egypt and across the Red Sea as described in the Book of Exodus, chapters 13:17 to 15:21, in order to enter the Promised Land (Canaan) following the stations of the Exodus. God used his miraculous powers and parts the sea for the safe passage of Moses.

Information on the site of the crossing is provided by the Priestly source, at Exodus 14:2, where God says to Moses: "Speak to the Children of Israel, and have them turn back and encamp before Pi-Hahiroth,(an Egyptian phrase) between Migdol (a semitic word meaning a height) and the sea, before Baal-zephon;('Lord of the North') you shall encamp opposite it, by the sea."

The stations of the Exodus after the crossing are in and around Elat at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba near Mt. Horab the place where Moses tended the flocks of his father in law in ancient Midian (i.e. on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba).

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Cause

The Bible puts forward four differing views on the mechanics of the Israelites's Exodus. The stations of the Exodus refer to real places and the order in which they are listed provides a route. The first seven stations are located in the eastern Delta region of Egypt. The seventh involves the crossing of the Reed Sea. The ninth through 13th stations are located on the Sinai peninsula near Mt. Horeb where Moses tended the flocks of Jethro in Midian. Midian is described as having a border which runs up the border of Edom from Elat through Petra to Moab.

There have been considerable and varied modern attempts to find a non-supernatural origin for the story. Some of the more popular include a tsunami produced by the explosion of a volcano on the island of Thera around 1550-1500 BCE or 1650-1600 BCE (the date is contentious), with the retreating waters before the large tsunami allowing the Israelites to pass and then returning to drown the Egyptians, or a wind drying out a shallow lake somewhere near the head of the Red Sea, around the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross on foot but the Egyptian chariots could not follow them.

Pillar of Fire

The account describes an extraordinary pillar of fire that served as a landmark during the approach toward the Red Sea crossing, which appeared as a pillar of smoke by day. This has been interpreted by some as the result of a volcanic eruption. The path of the Exodus may have tended in the direction of the lava fields of Midian, a volcanically active region in northern Saudi Arabia, and it is not impossible that an eruption could be seen from such distance. For comparison, an eruption near Medina on June 30, 1256 was reportedly visible from Bosra in Syria over 500 miles away. Lava fields and volcanic features mark many areas near the western edge of the Arabian plate, in Syria and along much of the western portion of Saudi Arabia. Though several passages are consistent with a distant landmark, Exodus 14:19-20 states, "The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long." No specific site has been identified for a volcanic Mount Sinai.

Historical arguments

Many archaeologists, including Israel Finkelstein and William G. Dever, regard the Exodus as non-historical, at best containing a small germ of truth. Others such as Trudy Dothans and Kenneth Kitchen attempt to show historical correlations. In his book, The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein points to the appearance of settlements in the central hill country around 1200, recognized by most archaeologists as the earliest settlements of the Israelites.. Others point to the settlements at Timna near Elat at the head of Aqaba which combine Egyptian artifacts with semitic settlements dating to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt While Finkelstein Uses evidence from earlier periods, to show a cyclical pattern to these highland settlements, corresponding to the state of the surrounding cultures, The Dothans and Ken Kitchen have used textual artifacts such as the form of contracts, the price of slaves and the historical references to people and places to date the Exodus. Finkelstein suggests that the local Canaanites would adapt their way of living from an agricultural lifestyle to a nomadic one and vice versa. Kenneth Kitchen begins with Abraham and Edom and follows through the form of the several different contracts with the gods of Genesis, El Shaddai, Yahwah, El Roi and Moloch to show how the order of the blessings and curses correspond to the artifacts of historical cultures.

Biblical minimalists, such as Philip Davies, Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas L. Thompson, regard the Exodus as ahistorical.

The Documentary Hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis, which, in its various permutations, represents the consensus of modern biblical scholarship on the authorship of the Torah, is a hypothesis that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament are composed from documents from different sources, and that the various narratives it contains were composed many centuries after the events they describe.

According to the influential version of the hypothesis formulated by Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), there were four main sources, and these sources and the approximate dates of their composition were:

• the J, or Jahwist, source; written c. 950 BCE in the southern kingdom of Judah. (The name Yahweh begins with a J in Wellhausen's native German.)
• the E, or Elohist, source; written c. 850 BCE in the northern kingdom of Israel.
• the D, or Deuteronomist, source; written c. 621 BCE in Jerusalem during a period of religious reform.
• the P, or Priestly, source; written c. 450 BCE by Aaronid priests.

Biblical edits by authors J and P adding a role for God

The narrative in Exodus is the briefest and the least miraculous, although God is present: He leads the Israelites out of Egypt, not by "the way of the land of the Philistines," i.e. the Mediterannean coast, "which was near," but "through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea." The Egyptians pursue the Israelites, who complain to Moses that he has led them to their deaths; but "the angel of God which would go before the camp of Israel moved, and went behind them," and removes the Egyptian chariot wheels (or clogs them), "and drove them on heavily." KJV Exodus 15:22 lets us know that the children of Israel went into the midst (middle) of the sea on dry ground: and the waters were walled (like walls) unto them on their right hand and on their left.

J begins with the Israelites being led out of Egypt by God in a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Pharaoh changes his mind about his decision to allow them to depart, and chases after them with his chariots. Moses tells the people not to be afraid, for God will aid them. The pillar of smoke then stands between the Israelites and the Egyptians all night, separating them, while God sends a wind to blow back the sea. In the morning "the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud," the waters returned, "and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore." The J narrative ends with Moses leading the Israelites in singing the Song of the Sea.

P has the most elaborate account, and the most active role for God. It is P that introduces the itinerary of Pi-hahiroth, Migdol and Baal-zephon, who tells the reader that it is part of God's plan to send Pharaoh after the Israelites in order to demonstrate His power, and who shows God commanding Moses to stretch out his rod and divide the waters, "a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left," so that the Egyptians are destroyed when Israelites cross over and the two walls collapse.

The Song of the Sea

The Song of the Sea, which according to the hypothesis is the version the others are based upon, (together with lost oral traditions), is a song of triumph over the defeated enemy: "With the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together, The floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea." The Song concludes with rejoicing at the effect that God's destruction of the Egyptians will have on the Israelites' future enemies: "Sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Philistia, the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold upon them; all the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away. Fear and dread shall fall upon them."

See also

• The Exodus, Exodus
• Moses, Musa
• Mount Sinai
• Plagues of Egypt

References

1. Nelson Glueck(1959). Rivers in the Desert. HUC. ISBN.Discusses The evidence for the Exodus in the Negev
2. Colin Humphreys (2004). "The Miracles of Exodus".
3. Peter Harrigan (March 2006). "Volcanic Arabia". Saudi Aramco World.
4. Thomas Mann (1971). "The pillar of cloud in the Reed Sea narrative". Society of Biblical Literature.
5. I Finkelstein and N. Na'aman, eds., From Nomadism to Monarchy (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994)
6. William H McNeil and Jean W Sedlar, (1962). The Ancient Near East. OUP. ISBN. Discusses the evidence for Habiru and hapitu in Canaan

Further reading

• William H. Stiebing Jr., Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture (Longman, 2003)
• Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vols. I - III, trans. by Miriam Lichtheim (1973-1980)
• John Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt (Chicago)
• Cyrus Gordon, The Ancient Near East (Norton)
• Henri Frankfort, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Chicago)
• Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, 4 vols., ed. Jack Sasson.
• Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, 5 vols.
• The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, 3 vols., ed. Donald B. Redford.
• Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert.
• Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols.
• Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16 vols. plus yearbooks
• International Standard Bible Encyclopedia , fully rev. ed., 4 vols., ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley.
• Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 4 vols. + Supplement.
• Hallo, William W., ed. The Context of Scripture, 2 vols. thus far of 3 projected.
• Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (first published 1969) or the combination of Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 2nd ed., corr. and enl. (1955) and Pritchard, James B., ed. The Ancient Near East: Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. (1969)
• Macmillan Bible Atlas, 3rd ed.
• Oxford Bible Atlas, 3rd ed.
• Religious and Theological Abstracts (limited free search)

External links

• Bible Places
• ABZU
• ARCHNet Near East Resources List
• Fitzwilliam Museum Egyptology Resources
• Israeli Antiquities Authority
• Theban Mapping Project
• Exodus, with sources highlighted, according to the documentary hypothesis, at wikisource
• A collection of articles on the splitting of the Red Sea from a Jewish perspective. at Chabad.org
• What about the famous image of a great canyon of water? Could this have any basis in reality?
• BBC on the ten Plagues
• BASE Institute, "What and where was the "Red Sea" "Sea of reeds" or Yam Suph of the Exodus?": quotes readings and sources supporting a meaning of suph as "seaweed" and adduces other uses of yam suph in the Tanakh.
• Documentary, 'The Exodus Decoded'. The hieroglyphic El-Arish stone mentions escape of evil doers through parted waters and pinpoints location.

• Ancient Jewish Egyptian history
• Red Sea
• Sinai Peninsula
• Torah events
• Abrahamic mythology