Friedman on the Exodus and the Levites

THE ASOR BLOG: The Exodus in Archaeology and Text. Professor Richard Elliott Friedman gives us a preview of his arguments in his new book, The Exodus. Excerpt:

The starting-point, widely recognized, is that there were Western Asiatic people in Egypt. Call them: Asiatics, Semites, Canaanites, Levantine peoples. These aliens were there, for centuries, and they were coming and going all along, just not in millions at a time.

The second step was to identify a group among these as the Levites. They are the ones in Israel with Egyptian names, the ones who foster circumcision, a known practice in Egypt, the ones with connections to Egyptian material culture: a Tabernacle that has parallels with the battle tent of Rameses II, an ark that has parallels with Egyptian barks.

Background here.

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