Writing the Exodus in Egypt: The Role of Place in Shaping Jewish Narratives

This article examines how Judean authors writing in Egypt were shaped by their physical surroundings. Specifically, it asks how writing about Egypt while living in Egypt shaped the development of the exodus narrative. The study consists of a comparative study of four versions of the exodus story (Exod. 1–15) written in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. In these texts we see several characteristics that connect them to the land of Egypt: a focus on time spent in Egypt as opposed to the journey to the promised land, the characterization of Moses as a leader instead of a lawgiver, and the increase in descriptions of the physical environment of Egypt. The appearance of these shared characteristics demonstrates the important role that Egypt played in their reformulations of a foundational Judean text. Further, this study provides a new way of thinking about biblical interpretation, a practice not only textual but also deeply connected to the physical environment.