[there exists] the
incontrovertible fact that every certain referent of the term yam sûp
is to the Red Sea or its northern extension into the gulfs of Suez and Aqabah
(see especially 1 Kgs 9:26; Num 21:4; 33:10-11; Jer 49:21). . . . Geographically,
the main objection to equating the sea of the exodus miracle with the Red Sea
is that those places named in the exodus itinerary prior to the arrival at yam
sûp would appear to be located in the eastern delta region of Egypt It
is claimed, therefore, that yam sûp should be located in that region.
But this argument fails to reckon seriously with the literary character of the
biblical sources involved. The geographical framework of the received text of
Exod 13:17-15:22 stems only from the latest (P) redaction of the narrative.
Source-critical studies of the earlier traditions suggest at least two
independent versions of the wilderness itinerary, a northern and southern route.
Only the southern route implied passing by yam sûp—evidently understood
as the Red Sea. This suggests that the wilderness itinerary was only
secondarily joined with the deliverance at the sea tradition and cannot be
utilized to determine the location and meaning of yam sûp.
Numbers 33 is especially
instructive in this regard. It consists of a list of forty-two camping stations
during the Israelites’ journey from Egypt to the plains of Moab. The function of
the list remains obscure. Frank Moore Cross rightly concludes that it was a
tangible priestly document used by P to frame the redaction of the wilderness
traditions now found in Exodus-Leviticus-Numbers, rather than, as Noth
supposed, a late redactional construction dependent in part on JEP. The
independent witness of Numbers 33 cannot be lightly dismissed, therefore, when
it makes a sharp distinction between the sea of the miraculous passage through
the water (v. 8) and yam sûp (vv. 10-11), at which the Israelites
arrive after an interval of several camping stations. Cross violates his own
conclusion concerning the independence of this text when he dismisses as “secondary”
the notice of the second distinct station at yam sûp (Cross, Canaanite
Myth and Hebrew Epic, 309). Given the careful manner in which P redacted
the wilderness traditions on the basis of the list of stations in Numbers 33,
as Cross himself has shown, one must conclude that in the exodus narrative P
has deliberately suppressed the second station at yam sûp and
telescoped the sea of the miracle and yam sûp into one (compare
Exod 14:2 and 15:22 with Num 33:8-11). . . . Quite obviously, Numbers 33
deals a mortal blow to the Reed Sea hypothesis. (Bernard F. Batto, “The
Reed Sea: Requiescat in Pace,” in Batto, In the Beginning: Essays on
Creation Motifs in the Ancient Near East and the Bible [Siphrut Literature
and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 9; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013],
158-60)
It is also alleged that an
Egyptian text actually speaks of a “Papyrus Marsh” or “Papyrus Lake” not far
from the city of Ramesis (= Tanis?), the very place from where the biblical
narrative says the Israelites began their journey out of Egypt (Exod 12:37).
The text in question is Papyrus Anastasi III ii.11-12, an encomium on the
residence of Ramesis II, which reads, “The papyrus-marshes [p3-twfy]
come to it with papyrus reeds, and the Waters-of-Horus [p3-š-ḥr] with rushes.” Is “beyond dispute,” has his own evidence
indicates that the identification is far from certain. The use of p3-twfy
in this and other Egyptian texts shows that the term referred to more than one
locality in the eastern delta region where papyrus flourished, rather than to a
specific body of water as desiderated by the biblical exodus narrative.
Furthermore, as H. Cazelles has pointed out, p3-twfy does not
designate an expanse of water but rather as a district or area where not only
papyrus grows but also where pasturage for animals was found and agricultural
enterprises undertaken. P3-twfy [p3 = definite article, twf(y)
= “papyrus”] is always written with the determinative for plant and occasionally
with the determinative for town, but is never written with the determinative
for lake or water. Despite this problem Cazelles concluded nevertheless that
biblical yam sûp referred to a body of water located at the
border of the district of twf(y), just as the Mediterranean could
on occasion be called the sea of the Philistines (Exod 23:31) or the sea of
Jaffa (Ezra 3:7) (Cazalles, “Les localizations,” 342). It must be emphasised,
however, that Cazelles’ conclusion owes more to the desire to find confirmation
for the hypothetical Reed Sea of the Bible than to the internal evidence of the
Egyptian texts. While it is true that papyrus grows in marshy areas,
Egyptian p3-twfy would scarcely ever have been understood as
referring to a body of water apart from the biblical term yam sûp.
(Ibid., 160-61; cf. the postscript [pp. 166-74] for an interaction with Hoffmeier
et al.)