When did the Hebrew people escape slavery?

Answer 1

Biblical tradition says that the Israelites escaped from Egypt about 1440 BCE.

However, the respected Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein says that over 90 per cent of scholars do not believe that the Exodus really occurred as described in The Bible. As there was no Exodus from Egypt, we can give no historical answer as to when the Israelites escaped from Egypt.

Answer 2

They didn't flee. They left Egypt in an organized fashion, under the leadership of Moses, after having been given permission to do so by Pharaoh (Exodus ch.12). The traditional date of the Exodus is 1312 BCE.

Answer 3

A:

1 Kings 6:1 gives us a biblical timeline for the Exodus from Egypt: "And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD." We can place the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, based on later references in the Bible, so a literal reading means that the escape from slavery took place in about 1440 BCE.

There is a number of things wrong with this date. One is that the Amarna letters show that the Canaanite kings were still in complete control of their land a hundred years later, under the suzerainity of their Egyptian overlords, with no mention of a massive invading force - or even incursions by smaller forces. Another is that archaeological evidence shows that a new people - presumably the Israelites - began to settle the hitherto sparsely populated Canaanite hinterland around 1250 BCE, long after any reasonable date for the Exodus.

It is the strong consensus of scholars that there never was an Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible, so there is no historical date for this tradition.

Answer 4

when they were enslaved