exodus fact or fiction

exodus fact or fiction Latest

Stela from El-Amarna, Egyptian King Akhenaten is seen with his wife Nefertiti and their daughters bearing offerings to the sun-disk Aten.

Feb 24 Blog

Akhenaten and Moses

Pharaoh Akhenaten, who abolished the Egyptian pantheon and instituted worship of a single deity, the sun-disk Aten, in the mid-14th century B.C., may have established the world’s first monotheism. Did this influence the birth of Israelite monotheism?

Moses, pictured here in a painting by 17th-century Baroque artist Guido Reni. Alinari/Art Resource, NY.

Feb 14 Blog

Love Your Neighbor: Only Israelites or Everyone?

By: Richard Elliott Friedman

The Book of Leviticus tells us to love our neighbors, but who are our neighbors? Does the command mean to just love fellow Israelites—or everyone?

Oct 21 Blog

The Exodus: Fact or Fiction?

By: BAS Staff

Does archaeological evidence connect with Israel’s Exodus from Egypt—a central event in the Bible? Egyptian artifacts and sites show that the Biblical text does indeed recount accurate memories from the period to which the Exodus is generally assigned.

Photo of Torah Scroll. Photo: “Open Torah and Pointer” by Lawrie Cate is licensed under CC-by-SA-2.0

Oct 9 Blog

What Does the Bible Say About Tattoos?

By: Megan Sauter

Although Leviticus 19:28 clearly prohibits tattoos, it does not give an explicit reason why. This begs the question: Why does the Bible prohibit tattoos?

Jul 6 Blog

The Expulsion of the Hyksos

By: Noah Wiener

In the 16th century B.C.E., Ahmose I overthrew the Hyksos and initiated the 18th Dynasty and the New Kingdom of Egypt. Recent archaeological discoveries at Tel Habuwa shed new light on Ahmose’s campaign.

Painting 'He turned their waters into blood,' by the 19th-century American folk painter Erastus Salisbury Field (1805–1900). Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington/Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch

Apr 1 Blog

Exodus in the Bible and the Egyptian Plagues

By: BAS Staff

The Book of Exodus describes ten Egyptian plagues that bring suffering to the land of pharaoh. Are these Biblical plagues plausible on any level?

Mar 11 Blog

Searching for Biblical Mt. Sinai

By: Robin Ngo

Where is Mt. Sinai? At a 2013 colloquium in Israel, an international group of scholars debated the question. At the center of the debate was Har Karkom, a mountain ridge in the Negev Desert that archaeologist Emmanuel Anati believes to be the Biblical Mt. Sinai.

Feb 6 Blog

Who Was Moses? Was He More than an Exodus Hero?

By: BAS Staff

Who was Moses? Was he more than an Exodus hero? Discover the Biblical Moses with Peter Machinist in his article “The Man Moses.”

Dec 19 Blog

Understanding Israel’s 10 Commandments

By: Shawna Dolansky

Are the 10 Commandments really a moral code, or did the ancients understand them rather as the constitutional basis of a political theocracy?

Jul 20 Blog

5,000-Year-Old Egyptian Billboard Discovered

By: Nicola McCutcheon

Egyptologists recently discovered the oldest known monumental hieroglyphs.

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