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Scott Mathias or Patricia Swindle
Wheaton College News Service
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For Immediate Release November 12, 1998
Good News DreamWorks!
Moses & the Exodus Were Real
It usually matters not whether the hero of an animated movie existed in real life. It is another story, especially to faithful Jews and Christians in the audience, when that hero is Moses, the Hebrew leader who freed the Israelites from captivity in Egypt, guided them through the desert for 40 years and wrote the first five books, the Torah, of the Old Testament. DreamWorks' new film about Moses, The Prince of Egypt , will be released in theaters nationwide on December 18.
The historicity of this biblical figure has been the subject of frequent debate. In support of the biblical record concerning Israel in Egypt and Moses, James K. Hoffmeier, professor of archaeology and Old Testament at Wheaton College, has recently published a monograph titled Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition.
Israel in Egypt confronts the views of biblical minimalists, scholars who say the patriarchs and accounts of the early Hebrew nation are nothing more than fables, with empirical facts from current archaeological excavations. The following excerpt from the book's dust jacket describes Hoffmeier's fieldwork.
He then considers the evidence from recent excavations in the Nile Delta which reveal the presence of a large Semitic population during the period 1650-1525 B.C. and argues that the Hebrews could have been one distinct ethnic group among these expatriates. Drawing on extra-biblical texts, inscriptions, artifacts, and recent infrared satellite photographs, Hoffmeier pro- vides a convincing reconstruction of the Israelite sojourn. He defends the plausibility of the Joseph story and discusses the role of Moses in history. Finally, he traces the probable route of the Exodus itself.
An article in Christianity Today (September 7, 1998) titled "Did the Exodus Ever Happen?" featured the scholarship of Hoffmeier and Kenneth Kitchen, a veteran ancient-languages expert at the University of Liverpool in England. In the October 26 issue of Christianity Today a reader responding to the article wrote: "When I was in graduate school I would have given all I owned to read an article like this, or a book like Hoffmeier's Israel in Egypt."
Besides his current book, Hoffmeier has written numerous articles and books on biblical history, many with a special emphasis on Egypt. He was one of the editors of Faith, Tradition, and History and contributed a chapter on Egyptians to Peoples of the Old Testament World.
Hoffmeier, who was born in Cairo, Egypt, knows his subject well. He received a bachelors degree from Wheaton College and a masters in Egyptian archaeology and a doctorate in Egyptian religion and the religion of Israel from the University of Toronto. He also studied Hebrew and Old Testament at Wycliffe College in Canada.
Hoffmeier currently serves as chair of the Bible, Theology and Archaeology Department at Wheaton College. He can be reached at 630/752-5276.
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