Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Andrew E. Steinmann on later editors changing/updating the text of Exodus 1:11

 

There are several problems with using this passage, however. One is that it proves too much, since Joseph was said to have settled his father and brothers in “the land of Ramesses” (Gen 47:11) some 430 years before the Exodus (Exod 12:40-41). This had to have been long before the beginning of the Rameside era in the early thirteenth century. Elsewhere Israel is said to have settled in the land of Gideon (Gen 45:10; 46:28, 29, 34; 47:1, 4, 6, 27; 50:8; Exod 8:22; 9:26). This region is called Ramesses only three times in the OT.

 

Another problem is that Exod 1:11 characterizes Ramesses and Pithom as supply cities (‎מִסְכְּנוֹת), whereas Ramesses II built Pi-Ramesses as his capital city. Elsewhere in the OT supply cities are outlying cities built to store supplies and never capital cities (1 Kgs 9:19; 2 Chr 8:4,6; 16:4; 17:12; 32:28).

 

This evidence appears to suggest that the name Ramesses is a later scribal updating for what may have originally been Avaris in the text of Exod 1:11 and Goshen in the text of Gen 47:11. A later scribe may have updated the text to make it intelligible to the readers in his day, sometime during or after the reign of Ramesses II. If this is the case, Exod 1:11 cannot be an indication of a thirteenth century date for the Exodus.

 

This type of later scribal updating is evidence elsewhere in the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges. The most obvious of these scribal updatings is the city of Dan (Gen 14:14; Deut 34:1 which until the time of the Judges was named Laish (Judg 18:29). It would not have been possible for Moses to call it Dan. Likewise, the city of Hamah is always called by that name in the Pentateuch (Num 14:45; 21:3; Deut 1:44) although it was called Zephath until the early days of the Judges (Judg 1:17). Other candidates for each post- Mosaic updating in the Pentateuch are Bethel, whose earlier name was Luz (Gen 12:8 [twice]; 13:22 [twice]) and Hebron (Gen 13:18; 23:19; 37:14; Num 13:22 [twice]), whose earlier name was Kiriath Arba (Gen 23:2; 35:27), (Andrew E. Steinmann, From Abraham to Paul: A Biblical Chronology [Saint Louis, Miss: Concordia Publishing House, 2011], 56-58)

 

Further Reading:


Biblical Prophets Changing their Words and the Words of Previous Prophets 

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