Red Sea Miracle Film Critique and Response – Part 1

SUMMARY: Archaeologist Pieter van der Veen gives his critique of Part 1 of the film Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle. Geographer Glen Fritz gives his response from an opposing point of view.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD…” – Isaiah 1:18 (ESV)

Peter van der Veen Comments on the Patterns of Evidence Film The Red Sea Miracle – Part 1 by Tim Mahoney (2020)¹

Part I of The Red Sea Miracle (released in the United States in February 2020) discusses the question where the Israelites went after the Exodus and where the Yam Suph/Reed Sea (also called Red Sea) is to be located. Two main positions are presented, which the film makers distinguish as the “Egyptian-” and “Hebrew approach.” While the “Egyptian approach” locates the event somewhere near the northeastern border of Egypt’s Nile Delta (where only shallower lakes and canals are to be found), the “Hebrew approach” situates the event on the eastern side of the Sinai Peninsula, at the deep Gulf of Aqaba near Nuweibeh. This theory was originally introduced by the late amateur archaeologist Ron Wyatt, who is highlighted in Part II.²

Egyptian Place Names

Although the filmmakers have tried to give proponents of both approaches adequate time to present their views, the overall thrust of the film is straightforward throughout: i.e. only the “Hebrew approach” is true to the biblical narratives of Exodus. I have explained in Appendix 2 of our new edition of “Keine Posaunen vor Jericho?” (2019) why I believe that the eastern crossing of the Red Sea at Nuweibeh and the equation of Jebel al-Lawz in Arabia with biblical Mount Horeb/Sinai does not suit the evidence well.³ As set out in this appendix, the biblical toponyms of Exodus can be properly identified with like-named and similarly named toponyms found in Egyptian inscriptions, a situation which does not apply to the “Hebrew approach” for which no such extrabiblical evidence exists, and whose equations are often based on flimsy, even erroneous identifications by modern amateur historians. 

As a matter of fact, the Exodus toponyms Sukkoth, Etham, Baal-Zaphon, Migdol, Pi-hahiroth and Yam Suph can all be found in inscriptions from the New Kingdom period in Egypt. All these sites are located on the eastern frontier of the Delta, both in the Wadi Tumilat and between Tjaru (Sile) and the Bitter Lakes. The filmmakers, however, try to make us believe that these equations are not well founded and therefore are more apparent than real.

Although Canadian Egyptologist Donald Redford argues that Baal-Zaphon (which he equates with Tell Defenneh, the biblical Tahpanhes of the time of the prophet Jeremiah) would not have existed at the time of the Exodus, Manfred Bietak (the excavator of Tell ed-Daba/Avaris) has shown that the earlier Baal-Zaphon (a temple site of Seth/Baal constructed by Pharaoh Nehesi of the 14th dynasty, c. 1650 BC), was located at Ra-Ahu, possibly at Tell Ahmar, northeast of Avaris.⁴ This place is also referred to in Ramesside inscriptions, where it is simply called “Baal”. 

The film’s claim that different sites called Migdol (literally “fortress”) could qualify and that the name could also relate to locations on the eastern side of the Sinai desert, is misleading. Moreover, no evidence exists that the Egyptian pharaohs ever possessed fortifications so far to the east, let alone near the shore of the Gulf of Aqabah. The site of Migdol (called Magdalu in Amarna Letter 234) no doubt is one and the same as the well attested site of Migdol near the northeastern Delta border (either E. Oren’s T-78 or T-116 (Tell Ebeda) or even at Tjara/ Tell el-Hebua I and II).⁵

This site is also attested during the later pharaonic periods, when Jews settled again in the region during the time of the Babylonian exile, as is reported in the book of Jeremiah and in the famous Elephantine papyri. There can be little doubt that the biblical toponyms of the Exodus route all are to be found near the northeastern Delta border and that it is in this region, where also the Egyptian inscriptions locate these sites. As a matter of fact, three of them occur together in Papyrus Anastasi III 2.8–12 as p3-tjwfi (lit. district of papyrus marshes undoubtedly the same as “the Sea of Papyrus-Reeds” in the Old Testament), Ba‘al (biblical Ba‘al Zaphon: certainly a shrine dedicated to Ba‘al-Zaphon), and p3-ḥr (district of the canals, cf. biblical Pihahiroth: “mouth of the canals”).

The Size of the Israelite Population

The filmmakers also argue that this area could not have allowed so many people to leave Egypt and that a much bigger body of water would be needed to allow them their passage to freedom. However, they do not seem to have sufficiently understood the problem of the Hebrew term ’eleph. This noun is mostly translated with “one thousand,” as if a population of some 2-3 million Israelites (plus a mixed multitude of foreigners) had left Egypt at the time of the Exodus. This is not surprising. Both the British scientist Colin Humphreys and the American archaeologist Bryant Wood do not explain the issue well in the film. For none of them has researched the topic in as much depth as have my colleagues Uwe Zerbst and Michael Künzler (Zerbst 2018⁶; Künzler in prep.). So far, this work is only available in German, although an English translation of Zerbst’s long article is in preparation. Both studies show sufficiently that ’eleph can also mean “military unit” and that its use in the census lists of Exodus and of the desert wanderings makes perfect sense. If so, the Israelite population would have hardly been larger than 50–100,000 people.

This alternative reading is conclusive as it has been estimated that during the Middle Kingdom Period only some 2–3 million people lived in the Upper and Lower Egypt.⁷ Even if these estimates are not precise, Egypt would have been either empty after the Exodus or only very few people would have stayed behind. This is not the picture we find in the Book of Exodus. For despite the ten plagues and the death of the first-borns, enough people remained in the land to give the Israelites their gold and silver (Exodus 12:30). Also, Pharaoh was able to mobilize a considerable army to hunt the Israelites down to Yam Suph (Exodus 14:6–9).

What else can be said? The problem at stake with the eastern location (the so-called “Hebrew approach”) is not whether or not God could have made Israel so numerous, nor if He were powerful enough to have allowed Israel to travel faster so as to make it through the desert to reach the spectacular crossing at Nuweibeh. Rather the issue at stake is if this is the place where according to Exodus the miracle took place. I consider it to be fallacious to look at the Hebrew text only without also looking at Biblical Archaeology and Egyptology.

To incorporate archaeological evidence is not the same as distrusting the Holy Scriptures, even if the filmmakers give us this impression (despite the approach in the earlier Patterns of Evidence films on the Exodus and the authorship of Moses, where indeed much archaeological evidence was presented). Nor does it have anything to do with believing or disbelieving miracles. Why would a crossing at or near the shallower Bitter Lakes with a smaller Israelite population and Israel’s escape on dry ground be less of a miracle, if the water was held back by a natural phenomenon like a strong tidal east wind (as the biblical narrative actually says) when it happened at the right time for the Israelites to escape? The question is not whether one believes that God can do greater things, but rather when he did it in this particular instance.

Let me close my comments on Part I with these considerations. Based on modern estimations, some three million people lived in Upper and Lower Egypt towards the end of the Middle Kingdom (the time when we think the Israelites sojourned in Egypt⁸). If Israel counted the same number of people when it left Egypt, Egypt would have been largely depopulated. How many Egyptians would have been left? Were the Egyptians only a small group in comparison with an Israelite majority? If so, it is difficult to appreciate why God sent the 10 Plagues and why he saved Israel so miraculously. The Egyptians would have been in no position to stop the Israelites from simply leaving.

² https://wyattmuseum.com/.
³ Van der Veen in Zerbst & van der Veen 20183, Keine Posaunen vor Jericho? Beiträge zur Archäologie der Landnahme, Hänssler Verlag, Holzgerlingen, 174–188.
⁴ Van der Veen, ibid., 181–182.
⁵ Van der Veen, ibid., 180–181. 
⁶ Zerbst in Zerbst & van der Veen 20183, 101–145.
⁷ S. Snape, The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt, 2014, E-Book Position 272, 696–697. 
⁸ P. van der Veen & U. Zerbst, Volk ohne Ahnen? Auf den Spuren der Erzväter und des frühen Israel, Holzgerlingen, 2013.

Glen Fritz Comments on Pieter Gert van der Veen’s Part I Movie Critique

Perceiving that the “Egyptian approach” to the Exodus was shortchanged in The The Red Sea Miracle Part I, Pieter focused on its defense, citing some classical rationale for an Exodus sea crossing near Egypt. The main argument was that certain Egyptian toponyms reflect the Hebrew Exodus place names. Secondarily, the case was made for a numerical reduction of the Hebrew population in order to better fit the sea crossing event into a constricted marsh lake setting. Lastly, he argued that the Red Sea miracle was a matter of the timing of natural wind and tide phenomena, not of the scale of depths and walls of water described in the Bible.

The critique cited two objections to the “Hebrew” approach involving the Gulf of Aqaba. First, the lack of extra-biblical evidence for Hebrew toponyms in that region. Secondly, the fallacious ad hominem argument that the Gulf of Aqaba idea is “often based on flimsy, even erroneous identifications by modern amateur historians.”

The critique considered “it to be fallacious to look at the Hebrew text only without also looking at Biblical Archaeology and Egyptology.” In reality, the converse of this statement describes the weakness of the Egyptian approach, which seems to rely mainly on archaeology and linguistics, while only consulting the Scriptures as an adjunct. The film’s Hebrew vs. Egyptian motif reflects this dichotomy, implying that the methodology of the former is largely Bible-based, while that of the latter tends to be extra-biblical. I might also add that the deciphering of the Exodus route is primarily a geographical problem, not one of archaeology.

The Reed Sea Theory

Although glossed over by the critique, the Egyptology approach is wholly dependent on the idea of a “Reed Sea” being some shallow marsh lake near the Nile delta. This premise rests on contested linguistic interpretations and a degree of disregard for certain biblical and historical data.

The Hebrew name for the sea of the Exodus, Yam Suph, is mentioned 24 times in Scripture. Yam means “sea” and suph means “end” or “ending,” based on analysis of its root Hebrew verb and word family (Fritz 2016, 100 and 164). Seven geographical verses unmistakably link it with the Gulf of Aqaba. The most pivotal, Exodus 23:31, names it as the southern landmark of the Promised Land, a place far-removed from Egypt. Yam Suph was also named in the travels beyond Mount Sinai, to and from Kadesh (at the foot of Canaan), and relative to Mount Seir, Edom, and the Aravah Valley. Even in the 40th year of the Exodus, Yam Suph was cited as a landmark.

These circumstances in no way suggest that Yam Suph was a body of water left behind at Egypt. Furthermore, there are no Bible verses that mandate a Yam Suph location near Egypt. Yet, one investigator observed that scholars have been unable “to explain why the Gulf of Aqaba should be called yam sup” (Hoffmeier 2005, 81). Considering that the Bible in seven places over a 700-year period linked Yam Suph with the Gulf of Aqaba, such a statement is slightly bewildering.

Historically, the circa 250 BC Greek Septuagint Bible interpreted Yam Suph as Erythra Thalassa, the Red Sea, which was always known in antiquity as a true sea, not a marsh lake. The Jewish Septuagint scholars had the vocabulary and opportunity to give this suph a botanical meaning such as “reed,” but they never did. Egyptologist James Hoffmeier observed that:

There is no convincing explanation for why the Greek translators did not literally translate sûp, although it might have been their aim to locate the sea at the place they thought the text was indicating, that is, the Red Sea, the present-day Gulf of Suez (2005, 81).

Two thousand years ago, the Jewish historian Josephus placed the Exodus sea crossing at the present day Gulf of Suez (Ant. II.xv.3). The acceptance of this location is demonstrated in the earliest commentaries: Eusebius and Jerome ca. 3rd-4th century AD, Antonin de Plaisance [martyred ca AD 303] (De Wit 1960,13), Etheria [Egeria] ca. 4th/5th-century AD (McClure and Feltoe 1919, 13), and Pierre Diacre ca. 12th century AD (De Wit 1960, 13). Nineteenth century explorers that preceded the rise of Egyptology also accepted this premise. Yet, the Egyptology approach ignores this geographical history.

The “Sea of Reeds” term emerged as a synonym for the Red Sea sometime after AD 1000. The idea developed from the traditional interpretation that Moses’ basket was placed in the suph (reeds) of the Nile and the Classical references to the Red Sea’s vegetation (i.e., coral). The term was greatly popularized by Luther’s German Bible (ca. 1534), which substituted “Schilfmeer” (reed sea) for Red Sea.

In the late 1800s, a major paradigm shift emerged, beginning with Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch (1874; 1880; 1881), who used linguistic conjectures to sever the “Sea of Reeds” from the Red Sea and redefine it as an inland Egyptian marsh lake. Yet, it seemed to never occur to these “reed sea” theorists that the delta geography was markedly different 3400 years ago and that the locations supposed for their Exodus sea may not have existed.

In the 20th century, this Yam Suph geographical and linguistic redefinition was bolstered by the theory that suph was a loanword from the Egyptian word twfy, potentially referring to a “papyrus region” (Gardiner 1922, 212). One investigator aptly noted that suph’s “presumed affinity with the Egyptian twf…practically elbowed out all the other etymological explanations” (Vervenne 1995, 418). This theory, along with the idea that Egyptian toponyms were the basis for biblical place names, became the core justification for placing Yam Suph near the Nile Delta.

Egyptian Place Names

Regarding the Egyptian toponyms, the New Kingdom records of these terms likely appeared long after the 1446 BC biblical Exodus date (derived from I Kings 6:1). The critique’s mention of the Babylonian-era Migdol (Jer. 44:1; 46:14), some 800 years after the Exodus, seems especially superfluous. The aforementioned Papyrus Anastasi has been dated ca. 1300 BC and the Amarna Letter ca. 1340 BC. But these are Standard Egyptian Chronology dates that may actually be much younger according to the Revised Chronology proposed by the documentary, Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus. However, it should be noted that many scholars favoring the Egyptian approach to the Exodus also advocate a late Exodus date, e.g., 1270 BC. 

The toponyms in the Egyptian approach are depicted as circumscribed, manmade landmarks: e.g., forts, towers, monuments. Conversely, the landmarks associated with the Hebrew approach at the Gulf of Aqaba are large, natural landmarks. Furthermore, the Migdol, Pihahiroth, and Baal-Zephon toponyms are plainly Hebrew words and spellings that need not be Egyptian legacies.

The most obvious flaw in the Egyptian toponym theory is that it uses circular reasoning. As discussed above, there is no biblical geography reason to define Yam Suph as an Egyptian marsh lake. That idea merely stems from linguistic-based assumptions that the sea crossing event occurred there. It is like saying that the biblical wilderness of Shur had to be next to Egypt because it was located on the far side of the sea crossing. Move the sea, and the wilderness must also move.

The Size of the Israelite Population

The critique also focused on the Exodus census numbers, which have been extensively debated in the literature. The intent was to scale down the size of the Hebrew multitude to better coincide with the crossing of a small, isolated body of water.

In the Exodus, Moses numbered the men from 20 years old upward who were able to go to war at around 600,000 on three occasions: upon leaving Egypt (Exo. 12:37-38), at Mount Sinai (Num. 1:45-46), and before crossing the Jordan in the 40th year (Num. 26:51). For a comparison, King David’s census ca. 1,000 BC counted 1,300,000 fighting men in Israel and Judah (2 Sam. 24:9). This census was later reported in 1 Chr. 21:5 as 1,500,000 fighting men.

Those who object to the biblical Hebrew census often propose that eleph, the Hebrew word meaning “thousand,” can potentially mean “family or tent group” (e.g., Petrie 1906; 1911). Using this scheme, the total census can theoretically be reduced to several tens of thousands.

Eleph occurs 505 times in 391 verses in the Old Testament and is uniformly translated as “thousand” in the KJV. Alternate eleph definitions run into problems when applied to circumstances such as the head tax numbers (Exo. 30:12-16; 38:25-26) or the hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle taken from the Midianites (Num. 31:32-3). However, the mathematical gymnastics needed to reduce the census numbers are not required if the sea crossing occurred in a large body of water such as the Gulf of Aqaba.

The Scale of the Exodus Sea Crossing

The critique was careful not to deny a Red Sea miracle, citing the miraculous timing of natural wind and tide phenomena. However, the Bible also depicts a miracle of scale, using terms like walls of water (Exo. 14:22), strength, deep, mighty, great depths, and roaring (Fritz 2016, 99). According to Josephus, the destroyed Egyptian army consisted of 50,000 horsemen and 200,000 footmen (Ant. II.xv.3), an extremely large horde for a small body of water to digest. The Bible lists the presence of 600 chariots (Exo. 14:7). Archaeological evidence of this massive debacle has yet to be discovered in the “reed sea” sites near the Nile delta.

As a side note, investigators often focus on the role of wind in the sea parting based on a superficial reading of Exo. 14:21. Various naturalistic explanations tend to require wind speeds that would be incompatible with movement of the multitude. However, the Hebrew grammar in this verse actually indicates that the wind accompanied the event but did not cause it (Fritz 2016, Appendix 8). In reality, the rapid displacement of several cubic kilometers of water would produce a massive inrush of air and secondary atmospheric disturbances. Josephus described horrid atmospheric events (Ant. II.xvi.3); the Bible noted meteorological and geological phenomena (Psa. 77:16-19; 114:3-5).

In conclusion, a straightforward reading of the biblical Yam Suph geography and the sea crossing event does not support the idea that the sea of the Exodus was a shallow inland body of water near the Nile delta. It also does not require Egyptian toponyms, alteration of the Hebrew census, or diminishing the scale of the crossing miracle.

References:

Brugsch, Henry. 1874. The Exodus and the Egyptian Monuments. In History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs Derived Entirely From the Monuments, Vol. II, 357-432. London: Murray.
Brugsch, Henry. 1880. The True Story of the Exodus of Israel, ed. Francis Underwood. Boston: Lee and Shepard Pub.
Brugsch, Henry. 1881. History of Egypt under the Pharaohs Derived Entirely from to which is added a Discourse of the Exodus of the Israelites, 2nd ed. London: John Murray.
De Wit, Constant. 1960. The Date and Route of the Exodus. The Tyndale Biblical Archaeology Lecture, Cambridge. Tyndale Press. http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_exodus_de-wit.html.
Fritz, Glen A. 2016a. The Lost Sea of the Exodus: A Modern Geographical Analysis, 2nd ed. San Antonio: GeoTech.
Gardiner, Alan H. 1922. The Geography of the Exodus. In Recueil D’Etudes Egyptologiques, 203-245. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honore Champion.
Hoffmeier, James, K. 2005. Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press.
McClure, M. L. and C. L. Feltoe, ed. and trans. 1919. The Pilgrimage of Etheria. New York: MacMillan Co.
Petrie, Sir W. M. 1906. Researches in Sinai. New York: Dutton & Co.
Petrie, Sir W. M. 1911. Egypt and Israel. London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
Vervenne, M. 1995. The Lexeme ֹ סוף(suph) and the Phrase סוף ים (yam suph). In Immigration and Emigration Within the Ancient Near East, Festschrift E. Lipinski, eds. K. Van Lerberghe and A. Schoors, 403-429. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Department Orientalistiek.

TOP PHOTO: Filmmaker Timothy Mahoney searching for the route of the Exodus journey as seen in the film Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle.  (© 2018 Patterns of Evidence, LLC)

NOTE: Look for the debate to continue with a critique and response from these two scholars on Part 2 of The Red Sea Miracle in next week’s Thinker Update. Until then KEEP THINKING!

NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing Thinker articles necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on biblical matters so that readers can become familiar with the different arguments involved. – Keep Thinking!