A team of archaeologists has discovered evidence which they believe backs up the biblical account of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery and into the promised land of Canaan.
Despite a long-running debate over the historical accuracy of the story, found in the book of Exodus, archaeologists Ralph K. Hawkins and David Ben-Shlomo have said that there is clear evidence of ruins belonging to a nomadic people group who were traveling from Egypt.
“We have not proved that these camps are from the period of the early Israelites, but it is possible,” Ben-Shlomo told The Express. “If they are, this might fit the biblical story of the Israelites coming from east of the Jordan River, then crossing the Jordan and entering into the hill country of Israel later.”
The archaeologists further noted that they were planning to excavate nearby Uja el-Foqa to figure out whether it may have also be linked to an Israelite settlement in the region.
The story of Moses and the exodus of the Israelites is one of the most well-known in the Bible, particularly as it features the parting of the Red Sea.
Exodus 14: 21-22 reads:
“Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.”
Several other stunning discoveries have been made in the region over recent years. In 2013, at Khirbet el-Mastarah in the Jordan Valley, Hawkins and Ben-Shlomo unearthed stone ruins and pottery fragments thought to be from the Late Bronze Age (1400–1200 B.C.) or the Iron Age (1200–1000).
“By the end of our 2017 season, we were struck by the fascinating picture that had begun to emerge in the Jordan Valley, a region that up until recently has been virtually unknown archaeologically,” the pair told the Biblical Archaeology Society. “Within a range of just a couple of miles, we may be able to see the evolution of early Israel from a domestic-scale culture [at Khirbet el-Mastarah] to a political-scale culture [at Khirbet ‘Auja el-Foqa].”
(H/T: The Express)