Instructor: Doctor Thomson

Student: Mugeeth Mousawi

Date: Thursday, May 15, 2016
Assignment: Survival of The Fittest
Skepticisms of the Israelites
Today we live in a world that is essentially the age of information. At a click of
the button your computer can extract information virtually at your fingertips. The Internet
has been a system of social and political order; the brewing of concepts, recalling history,
and social ideas is creating a new conceptual understanding of life. In a recent New York
Times newspaper ad it showed a statistic for an average monthly engine search of Who
created God? was about twenty five thousand times1. One ancient marker of the past has
been a recent controversy and a doubt between historians, biblical scholars, and
archeologists questioning the truth of Jewish slavery, which I recently stumbled upon in
Ancient World History. In foresight I believe that this can fan hysteria amongst the
majority of the world, considering all three monotheistic faiths - Islam, Judaism, and
Christianity possess religious scripts that connote the enslavement of the Israelites. As a
matter of fact it has already been questing the identity of the Jewish culture.
The Jewish people were very surprised when renowned Rabbi David Wolpe from
Los Angeles stated that all archeologists have, time and time again, proven that Exodus is
not aligned with history2. His statements narrated in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los
Angeles added a little more emphasis to the scenario. In response to Wolpe's statements,
Michael Carasik, a University professor who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania,

has written an ad in Jewish Ideas Daily. He stated that there are four reasons why the
Israelites were indeed enslaved3:
1) Political. Because the Israelites were so fertile, they outgrew the number of Egyptians
greatly, so the Egyptians became afraid of what the Israelites might do to the Egyptians
(if they ever realized how much more numerous they were than the Egyptians. He quotes
from the book of Exodus:
"'Look, this people of the sons of Israel is bigger and more numerous than we are. We
must have a plan to deal with them, lest they grow even more numerous. If there should
be a war, they might join our enemies and fight against us and go up from the land.' So
they set taskmasters over them, to afflict them with burdensome labor." (Exod 1:8-11)
2) Theological. Because God made a covenant with Abraham called "the covenant
between the pieces," which is found in Genesis 15. This covenant stated that God would
give the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants, so they had to go to Egypt,
become enslaved, and then God would show His mercy by delivering them and in turn,
giving them the land that he had promised their ancestor (Abram, later known as
Abraham):
"[The LORD] said to Abram, 'You must know that your offspring will be strangers in a
land that is not theirs; [the inhabitants of that land] will enslave them and oppress them
for 400 years.'" (Gen 15:13)
3) Social Justice. Because Joseph (an Israelite) was in power in Egypt, over the grain
supply, he would sell the grain to the Egyptians and the surrounding people. When the

Egyptians ran out of money and animals to sell to Joseph in exchange for food, Joseph
enslaved the Egyptians, so according to the article, Carasik stated that they would have in
turn enslaved the Israelites as payback for enslaving them:
"Joseph said to the people, 'I hereby acquire you and your land this day for Pharaoh.
Here is seed; sow your land. When the crop is produced, give one-fifth to Pharaoh and
keep four-fifths for yourselves, to sow your fields and to feed yourselves, your wives, and
your children.' They replied, 'You have given us life! We hope to continue to find favor in
your eyesfor we are Pharaoh's slaves.'" (Gen 47:23-25).
4) Novelistic. He brings out how Genesis is about families deceiving each other and it
snowballs downhill until the aforementioned Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers,
but because he trusted in God, God caused him to find favor in Pharaoh's eyes and
Pharaoh set him over the land of Egypt so that only Pharaoh was above him. Then Joseph
brings his family (brothers who sold him into slavery and his father) down to Egypt and
tells them:
"God sent me ahead of you to make you a remnant on earth, to keep you alive with a
'great escape' [from the famine]. Now, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He
turned me into a father to Pharaoh, lord over all his house, and governor of the whole
land of Egypt." (Gen 45:7-8)
Unfortunately, this led to the Israelite's slavery, but it was much later after Joseph's rule,
as the Bible says that a Pharaoh arose that didn't know of Joseph and he enslaved the
Israelites.

So, Michael is trying to set the stage and prove that through Genesis into Exodus that the
story flows from the creation all the way through family struggles and betrayals and then
into the account of the Israelites being enslaved by the Egyptians and finally them being
set free by their "deliverer," Moses, and God's promise to Abraham finally being fulfilled
and the Israelites inheriting the land that God had promised them.
As seen in these articles, the Biblical account of the Israelite's slavery cannot be proven
or disproven, but with so much history, ancient artifacts, and even Egyptian hieroglyphics
showing slaves during that time era, it is undoubtedly a matter of debate that leans more
to it being factual. Most take it as factual on a matter of faith, but delving more into
history can turn that faith into proof of the famed Exodus account. The fascinating quote I
would like to leave you the readers with is from the Quran which dictates the similarities
the three monotheistic faiths have in the verse 7:137 states, And We made a people,
considered weak (and of no account), inheritors of lands in both east and west, - lands
whereon We sent down Our blessings. The fair promise of thy Lord was fulfilled for the
Children of Israel, because they had patience and constancy, and We levelled to the
ground the great works and fine buildings which Pharaoh and his people erected (with
such pride)4.