NOTE: Another thoughtful peace on understanding our place in the world.
In 419 BCE, the Persian king Darius issued a decree concerning the Jewish garrison at Elephantine on the Nile Delta (near the cataracts of what is now called Aswan). It was directed towards the governor, Arsames, and instructed him to make sure that the Egyptian priests of Khnum did not attack the Jews or try to stop the Passover celebrations at the Jewish temple there. You may well wonder at the prospect both of a Jewish military garrison in Egypt two-and-a-half thousand years ago, and at a Jewish temple where sacrifices were made outside of Jerusalem. But that’s for another time.
Tension between the Egyptian priests and Jews was exacerbated by the Jewish tradition of slaughtering sheep, something the Egyptian religion forbade; this Egyptian antipathy is explicitly stated in the Torah (Genesis 46 and Exodus 8:22). Sadly, nine years later, with Arsames no longer there, the priests of Elephantine destroyed the Jewish temple and its population.
Alternative versions of the Exodus have existed for a long time. Just as alternative narratives about the Middle East proliferate nowadays. Each has its own agenda, some constructive and some destructive. Hecataeus, an Egyptian historian who lived around 320 BCE, talks about bands of exiles coming to Egypt, being driven out, and then taking over an uninhabited Judea. They were led by a man called Moses who founded a new religion that Hecataeus described as unsocial and intolerant! CLICK TO KEEP READING
