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When I took world history at university, one of the biggest points taken from the bronze age section was that there hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to

When I took world history at university, one of the biggest points taken from the bronze age section was that there hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to support an exodus of Israelites from Egypt to Palestine (Canaan), and that instead the evidence leaned more toward the "Sea Peoples" being the original progenitors of Israel. Can anyone comment on whether this is still the most common accepted theory?

lr4444lr 9y ago
I think you may be confounding two related theories, from what I learned. There is little to no evidence for the Israelites ever being in Egypt, though there was a brief dynastic period (known to ancient historians as Hyksos, IIRC) of Canaanite rulers in Egypt, ostensibly as a brief post-war outcome, and it is possible but without evudence that some Israelites migrated during that time. The "Sea Peoples", a term itself controversial because they don't seem to have any strict delineation in language, art, or leadership, subsumed a much larger presence in the Mediterranean, and it is during their height that we have the earliest solid evidence of Israelites, but also of other Bronze age tribes elsewhere in Greece, Anatolia, etc.
- nautikos 9y ago
  This is fascinating to me. From the Wikipedia page, the story of the Hyksos and how they were driven out of Egypt sounds very similar to the book of Exodus. Even the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar.
  - stan_rogers 9y ago
    Even the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar. That comes under the heading "Wacky Coincidences in Liguistics". One means "rulers of foreign lands" in a an older Afro-Asiatic language (a precursor to Coptic); the other is an English retention of a Latin adaptation of a Greek word meaning "the road/path out" (exodos) from the book titles in the Septuagint, all Indo-European. It's related to exit (literally, "he goes out").
aaron-lebo 9y ago
It seems modern evidence might be leaning towards the Philistines being a subset of the Sea Peoples and having an Aegean origin (making them Greek?). One of these findings is really recent: These findings may represent the most conclusive evidence that Philistines were not indigenous to Canaan which is indicated by ceramics, architecture, burial customs, and pottery remains with writing – in non-Semitic languages. Lawrence Stager of Harvard University believes that Philistines came to Canaan by ships before the Battle of the Delta circa 1175 BCE. DNA was extracted from the skeletons for archaeogenetic population analysis.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#Burial_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#Burial_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples#Philistine_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples#Philistine_hypothe... That doesn't answer your question, but the Hebrew origin stories always place them further east from Canaan in Mesopotamia. If the Philistines were the Sea People, it makes the clash of those two different cultures (Aegean vs Near East) make sense.
lliamander 9y ago
> here hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to support an exodus of Israelites from Egypt to Palestine (Canaan), Indeed not. This is a subject that I am beginning to investigate myself, but a couple of things to note: 1. The region the Israelites stayed, Goshen, was in the Nile delta and hence a much wetter climate than the southern parts of Egypt where, as I understand it, we tend to get better preserved artifacts. The wet climate facilitates decomposition and so we have to calibrate our expectations as to what we can find. 2. The Exodus story was written several hundred years after the event. Something notable is that the story refers to the construction of the city of Pi-Ramesses, a city which did exist but had long been dismantled before the Exodus story had been written (the stones were used to build the city of Tanis). It seems strange that the writers would have gotten the detail right if the Israelites had not been there (though not impossible).
newup 9y ago
> here hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to support an exodus of Israelites from Egypt to Palestine (Canaan).. Why do you equate Canaan with Palestine? The Exodus is said to have occurred around 1446 BCE. The first clear usage of "Palestine" to refer to that area was much later (5BC) when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê".
- kijin 9y ago
  Clear usage, yes, but similar names were known since much earlier. Egyptians in the 12th century BCE refered to a neighboring people (and/or their territory) as "Peleset". The Assyrians called the region "Palashtu" in the 8th century BCE. The Old Testament talks a lot about a close neighbor called "Philistines", with whom the Israelites are said to have fought many wars. So it seems safe to assume that Palestine has been a thing since a long time ago, and that its boundaries fluctuated depending on the political and economic fortunes of various ethnic groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palest...
  - newup 9y ago
    Those dates are still well after the Exodus. And Philistines, Palashtu, Peleset are not the same as Palestine which was the name used in R_haterade's comment. The Israelite exodus was from from Egypt to Canaan, not to "Palestine".
    - kijin 9y ago
      Sure, and no Indians ever lived in America before white people arrived because the land wasn't called "America" and its inhabitants weren't called "Indians" back then. Does it really matter whether the Israelites migrated to Canaan or Palestine or Judea or 31°47′N 35°13′E or whatever as long as we all know roughly which part of the world we're talking about?
      - newup 9y ago
        Yes. Yes historical accuracy matters! (Wars have literally been fought over the correct name and owner of this land, and launched with the false belief that what we call, "Palestine" today existed before Israel existed. This simply is not true.)

lr4444lr 9y ago

I think you may be confounding two related theories, from what I learned. There is little to no evidence for the Israelites ever being in Egypt, though there was a brief dynastic period (known to ancient historians as Hyksos, IIRC) of Canaanite rulers in Egypt, ostensibly as a brief post-war outcome, and it is possible but without evudence that some Israelites migrated during that time. The "Sea Peoples", a term itself controversial because they don't seem to have any strict delineation in language, art, or leadership, subsumed a much larger presence in the Mediterranean, and it is during their height that we have the earliest solid evidence of Israelites, but also of other Bronze age tribes elsewhere in Greece, Anatolia, etc.

nautikos 9y ago
This is fascinating to me. From the Wikipedia page, the story of the Hyksos and how they were driven out of Egypt sounds very similar to the book of Exodus. Even the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar.
- stan_rogers 9y ago
  Even the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar. That comes under the heading "Wacky Coincidences in Liguistics". One means "rulers of foreign lands" in a an older Afro-Asiatic language (a precursor to Coptic); the other is an English retention of a Latin adaptation of a Greek word meaning "the road/path out" (exodos) from the book titles in the Septuagint, all Indo-European. It's related to exit (literally, "he goes out").

aaron-lebo 9y ago

It seems modern evidence might be leaning towards the Philistines being a subset of the Sea Peoples and having an Aegean origin (making them Greek?). One of these findings is really recent: These findings may represent the most conclusive evidence that Philistines were not indigenous to Canaan which is indicated by ceramics, architecture, burial customs, and pottery remains with writing – in non-Semitic languages. Lawrence Stager of Harvard University believes that Philistines came to Canaan by ships before the Battle of the Delta circa 1175 BCE. DNA was extracted from the skeletons for archaeogenetic population analysis.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#Burial_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philistines#Burial_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples#Philistine_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples#Philistine_hypothe... That doesn't answer your question, but the Hebrew origin stories always place them further east from Canaan in Mesopotamia. If the Philistines were the Sea People, it makes the clash of those two different cultures (Aegean vs Near East) make sense.

lliamander 9y ago

> here hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to support an exodus of Israelites from Egypt to Palestine (Canaan), Indeed not. This is a subject that I am beginning to investigate myself, but a couple of things to note: 1. The region the Israelites stayed, Goshen, was in the Nile delta and hence a much wetter climate than the southern parts of Egypt where, as I understand it, we tend to get better preserved artifacts. The wet climate facilitates decomposition and so we have to calibrate our expectations as to what we can find. 2. The Exodus story was written several hundred years after the event. Something notable is that the story refers to the construction of the city of Pi-Ramesses, a city which did exist but had long been dismantled before the Exodus story had been written (the stones were used to build the city of Tanis). It seems strange that the writers would have gotten the detail right if the Israelites had not been there (though not impossible).

newup 9y ago

> here hadn't been any hard evidence discovered to support an exodus of Israelites from Egypt to Palestine (Canaan).. Why do you equate Canaan with Palestine? The Exodus is said to have occurred around 1446 BCE. The first clear usage of "Palestine" to refer to that area was much later (5BC) when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê".

kijin 9y ago
Clear usage, yes, but similar names were known since much earlier. Egyptians in the 12th century BCE refered to a neighboring people (and/or their territory) as "Peleset". The Assyrians called the region "Palashtu" in the 8th century BCE. The Old Testament talks a lot about a close neighbor called "Philistines", with whom the Israelites are said to have fought many wars. So it seems safe to assume that Palestine has been a thing since a long time ago, and that its boundaries fluctuated depending on the political and economic fortunes of various ethnic groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palest...
- newup 9y ago
  Those dates are still well after the Exodus. And Philistines, Palashtu, Peleset are not the same as Palestine which was the name used in R_haterade's comment. The Israelite exodus was from from Egypt to Canaan, not to "Palestine".
  - kijin 9y ago
    Sure, and no Indians ever lived in America before white people arrived because the land wasn't called "America" and its inhabitants weren't called "Indians" back then. Does it really matter whether the Israelites migrated to Canaan or Palestine or Judea or 31°47′N 35°13′E or whatever as long as we all know roughly which part of the world we're talking about?
    - newup 9y ago
      Yes. Yes historical accuracy matters! (Wars have literally been fought over the correct name and owner of this land, and launched with the false belief that what we call, "Palestine" today existed before Israel existed. This simply is not true.)