Enslavement of Jews in Egypt

Trevor McKersie
History 134
September 8th, 2014

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The enslavement of people through time has gone on until recent history, recent even
being 150 years ago, because for thousands of years there were always a class of people who
were servants who were only paid with housing and food. They wouldnt have freedom or any
other form of expression; basically they were less than man even though they were human
beings. Many people believe in the Exodus and how Moses had released the Hebrews from
enslavement of the evil Pharaoh Ramses II, but did this really take place? Were there ever slaves
who worked on these pyramids? Or were they actually paid laborers? There is some skepticism
of whether they were there or not mainly due to the fact that most of the written
acknowledgement comes from the Torah. Jews were in fact not enslaved by the Egyptians and
the only written acknowledgement comes from the Old Testament or the Torah. From a
historical scholarly standpoint there is no other written record besides the bible to say that this is
true. Many people also speculate that the torah was written not only by Moses but by a collection
of people through different time periods.
One source through scholarly websites specified that Jews were in fact in Egypt but this
was a lone voice among the multiple sources of actual facts that scholars had generated. An
article1 that begins with the exodus begins the story of enslavement in Egypt1. Is a biased
account using the words of the bible as factual statement the only issue is where the logical proof
is? Throughout the article the author even puts emphasis on the nameless workers of the Tower
of Babel and the nameless Pharaoh. Who is most presumably Ramses II2 and in the article there
1

Outsmarting God: Egyptian Slavery and the Tower of Babel, an article written by Sheila Tuller

Keiter
2

The Torah is described in the Websters dictionary as, The five books of moses constituting the

pentateuch. Pentateuch - Which is the first five scriptures of jewish and christian scriptures.

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is no clear explanation as to why this occurs and to who the true Pharaoh is. The essay is critical
about these generalizations, but does not prove whether or not that Egyptians had enslaved
Hebrews by any other account except for the Jewish bible. The Torah is Simply put, this theory
states that the whole of the Torah is comprised of four main sources: J (Yahwist), E (Elohist), D
(Deuteronomistic), and P (Priestly).(Ancient Encyclopedia). The ancient encyclopedia
speculates that all of these were written throughout 800 years from the time of Moses J
Yahwist, to P Priestly account written in two different styles. One is stated to be written by the
accounts of how Moses lived and the other is more focused on worship, seemingly written by
two different groups at two different times to complete the book of Torah. If there were
questions to be asked then there would be more solid proof that these events happened.
There has been no real evidence ever presented by Egypt shown through archaeological
excavations that support the biblical history. In the book by James Hoffmeier33, he describes the
accounts in the bible to be inaccurate based on the accounts of Moses and Jacob from Genesis 37
to Exodus 14. The events describe how Jacob from Israel immigrated to Egypt and settled
peacefully until Moses lead the Jews on a 40 year journey through the desert to return to Canaan.
But none of this can be proven, what can be proven is that the Jews are indigenous to the region
they came from and started to prosper in Canaan. What is mostly put into question is whether or
not that the Canaanites actually migrated to Egypt during times of drought Moved to Egypt to
escape the grips of drought (Gen. 41:50 - 46:7), and were settled in the northeast Delta (Gen
47:11) (Hoffmeier, James). Through his referencing of the bible and the accounts of whether
3

Israel in Egypt the Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition, was written by James

Hoffmeier and describes the events that lead to believe the reality of the Exodus to be false
mainly in chapter 3 Semites in Egypt

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migration patterns could be tracked remain the same. With every other event that happened
through history we can find evidence hidden in the ground. Even millions of years ago, but we
cannot find any evidence to support that the enslavement of Hebrews or an Exodus from Egypt
into the Kingdom of Israel. If there isnt a trace of Canaanites migrating south then Jews may
have been taken from their home into a slave trade but it wasnt an abundant amount in Egypt.
In ancient Egypt the life of a slave was harsh and the days were long and hard but until
recently most people believed slaves built the pyramids. They were wrong; people who built the
pyramids were actual workers who have been paid well by the Pharaoh to complete his tomb4.
Said in her article4 that multiple workers have been found buried into the mud brick tomb
shafts were placed for multiple bodies in nine foot deep shafts. In fact they not only didnt but
the workers were paid handsomely and fed well with sheep and cattle5. The pyramids were also
built for hundreds of years dating to circa 2500 B.C. until the end of the Egyptian empire. Jewish
slavery wouldnt have happened until 1000 B.C,.
For if there was no Israelite slavery in Egypt at all . . . why does the Bible have so much
trouble explaining it? quoted from Michael Carasiks article5 he explained why so many times
that the bible doesnt give a good enough explanation as to how or why the Jews were enslaved

Katrina Kratovacs article was printed in the Christian Science Monitor and was recognizable

for her work on proving that Jewish people werent enslaved to work on these pyramids but they
werent slaves at all; actually they were paid workers.
5

Carasik, Michael. "Jewish Ideas Daily Daily Features Were the Israelites Enslaved in

Egypt?" Jewish Ideas Daily Daily Features Were the Israelites Enslaved in Egypt? 6
Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Sept. 2014.

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in Egypt. This point shows that not only we cant find evidence of this happening but the bible
doesnt even provide any evidence either. The dispute between whether they were there or not is
cause for concern, it wasnt a huge revolution or the Egyptians would have documented it. It
mustve been a small group of indigenous people from Egypt who felt that they werent being
treated right and wanted a better life for themselves so they left their lives behind and created a
story that may have partially been true to tell their descendants. Whenever a story is told it is
always a little bit more stretched than it really was and if it was told many times before it was
actually handwritten down. This could easily mean that the Jews werent enslaved but were
actually people who lived in Egypt and decided to come together and leave their woes behind
into a new land.

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Annotated Bibliography
Keiter, Sheila Tuller. "Outsmarting God: Egyptian slavery and the tower of Babel.
" Jewish Bible Quarterly 41.3 (2013): 200+. Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Sept. 2014.
She briefly describes in her article the skepticism of how people only believe in what had
been in a book that people have worshipped, yet everyone has only a first name and
people like workers and slaves are pronounced with pronouns. It makes this seem more
of a story being told that is fictional than it is actual recorded proof.
Hoffmeier, James Karl. "Semites In Egypt." Israel in Egypt the Evidence for the Authenticity of
the Exodus Tradition. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
James clearly states in his writings there is no historical, archaeological, or any evidence
to support the biblical accounts.
King, Justin. "Torah." Ancient History Encyclopedia. 9 Apr. 2012. Web. 9 Sept. 2014.
"Torah." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 9 Sept. 2014.
Carasik, Michael. "Jewish Ideas Daily Daily Features Were the Israelites Enslaved in
Egypt?" Jewish Ideas Daily Daily Features Were the Israelites Enslaved in Egypt? 6
Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Sept. 2014.
Although this may not be a scholarly article it has great evidence as to why the Israelites
werent enslaved in Egypt but actually a revolt from the slaves who actually lived there.
Kratovac, Katarina. "Egypt says Jewish slaves didn't build pyramids; Egyptian archeologists
presented new evidence Monday that the people who worked on the Great Pyramids of
Giza were not Jewish slaves, but paid laborers. Newly discovered tombs show
construction workers were honored by being buried near the pyramids."Christian

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Science Monitor 11 Jan. 2010. General OneFile. Web. 10 Sept. 2014.

This insightful piece of information clearly states even by the title that Jewish Slaves
did not build the pyramids in Egypt.