When and where was the Book of Exodus written?

Answer 1

A:The Book of Exodus is traditionally ascribed to Moses as having written it during the Exodus from Egypt. The Bible confidently states that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt 480 years before the fourth year of Solomon's reign, which would therefore be approximately 1444 BCE. Because archaeological evidence has made the traditional date of the Exodus untenable, some liberal Christians have suggested that the Exodus really took place shortly before 1200 BCE, when Israelites are known to have begun to arrive in the Palestinian hinterland. Modern Jews generally believe an intermediate date of round 1313 BCE.

However, the view of biblical scholars now is that Moses did not write, and could not have written, Exodus. Exodus was compiled over a period of centuries before it reached a more or less identifiable form, and was then redacted into substantially the form we know today*. So, the answer to this question depends on the level of the book's evolution at which you would finally consider it to be 'Exodus'. Arguably, that would be somewhere around 500 to 600 BCE. The final redaction probably took place in Jerusalem after the Return from the Babylonian Exile.

*The Book of Exodus, and the Pentateuch as a whole, is based on input from several sources. Because we do not know the actual names of those sources, we generally call the major contributors: J, E, D and P. Based on the archaic Hebrew and other evidence, J and E appear to be from around 800 to 1000 BCE. D (the Deuteronomist) lived a little before 600 BCE. P (the Priestly source) lived during the Babylonian exile.