When was the Exodus?

Question

Accepted Answer

The date is disputed. Two answers are defended: about 1446 BC, in the fifteenth century, which follows the Bible's own arithmetic and is the year the map uses, and the thirteenth century BC, in the reign of Ramesses II, which follows the name of the store city Rameses and the archaeology of Egypt and Canaan. Some scholars hold that the event cannot be dated at all. The early date rests on 1 Kings: Solomon began the Temple “in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign”. His fourth year is usually put at 966 BC, which gives 1446 BC; Jephthah's three hundred years of Israel in Transjordan, and the sojourn of “four hundred and thirty years” in Egypt, are read the same way. The late date starts from Exodus 1:11: the Israelites “built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses”, and Pi-Ramesses, the Delta capital at Qantir, was built by Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BC. On this reading the 480 years are twelve generations of forty, a round figure. The oldest mention of Israel outside the Bible is the stele of Merneptah, son of Ramesses II, which lists Israel among the peoples defeated in Canaan in about 1208 BC; so Israel was in the land by then on either date. The destruction layers of Canaanite cities, the absence of Egyptian records of the event and the late date of many wilderness sites are argued on both sides. The map keeps 1446 BC as a conventional point and marks it as approximate.