Exodus

The earliest mention of Israel

An Egyptian victory monument from around 1208 BCE lists the peoples of Canaan that Pharaoh claims to have crushed. One of them is Israel. It is the oldest surviving occurrence of the name — and it is used to prove…

Leviticus

Leviticus read as a working priestly manual rather than a story: how it is put together, why its dating is argued from vocabulary rather than events, and what the surrounding ancient ritual literature does and does not tell us about…

Deuteronomy

Speeches, not narrative, shaped like an ancient treaty — a parallel used to argue for both an early and a late date, which is exactly what makes it interesting.

Numbers

Two censuses, forty years and a seer called Balaam whose name turns up on a wall in Jordan — attesting the figure, not the episode. The population figures are a genuine unresolved problem.

Exodus

The founding story of the Hebrew Bible and the one no Egyptian text names. The date debate, the silence of the record, and what “no evidence” does and does not mean.