DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4996#0030
THEORIES ON THE PASSAGE.
21
these difficulties on the spot, the Exodus of the Israelites must ap-
pear, from beginning to end, to require a succession of continual mira-
cles, although mention is made of only a few. This merely partial
allusion to supernatural interposition made in the sacred history, is
a difficulty, doubtless, more frequently felt than expressed by those
travellers who uphold its divine inspiration ; while to an opposite
class, this apparent contradiction, or more properly omission, may,
perhaps, tend to give it, apart from other difficulties, the character
of a merely legendary narrative, founded on some slender basis
of fact now difficult to trace. But if the confiding Christian will
admit any hypothesis rather than this, and will recoil from the idea
of rejecting that which is given because more is not given, the
mere student of history will admit that all the information whicb
has been of late years so abundantly derived from Egyptian monu-
ments,* proves that the author of the Pentateuch was learned in all
the wisdom of that nation, and that no more plausible theory has
ever, as yet, been suggested, to explain the admitted forcible seizure
and possession of Palestine, by the children of Israel, than such
an Exodus as is there detailed.
Before proceeding further it may be well to notice, briefly, the
different theories respecting the passage of the Red Sea. There are
two spots Avhich have been fixed upon, in modern times, as the most
probable points at which the passage commenced ; the first at the
mouth of Wady Tawarik, the second somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of Suez. (See Map.) The latter derives its main supjport
from the supposed position of the land of Goshen, which there
is strong reason to believe to be identical with the modern province
of Es-Shurkiyeh, on the Pelusiac, or eastern branch of the Nile,
extending to the verge of the Desert, while it is supposed that
Zoan (Tanis) was at that time the seat of the Pharaohs. The
distance from the borders of this tract to the Red Sea, near Suez, is
famine and privation of every kind ; and, at the best, obtain only a meagre
and precarious subsistence."—Rev. E. Robinson's Biblical Researches.
* See in particular, Hengstenberg's Rook of Moses Illustrated from the
Monuments of Egypt, edited by Dr. \V. C. Taylor.
21
these difficulties on the spot, the Exodus of the Israelites must ap-
pear, from beginning to end, to require a succession of continual mira-
cles, although mention is made of only a few. This merely partial
allusion to supernatural interposition made in the sacred history, is
a difficulty, doubtless, more frequently felt than expressed by those
travellers who uphold its divine inspiration ; while to an opposite
class, this apparent contradiction, or more properly omission, may,
perhaps, tend to give it, apart from other difficulties, the character
of a merely legendary narrative, founded on some slender basis
of fact now difficult to trace. But if the confiding Christian will
admit any hypothesis rather than this, and will recoil from the idea
of rejecting that which is given because more is not given, the
mere student of history will admit that all the information whicb
has been of late years so abundantly derived from Egyptian monu-
ments,* proves that the author of the Pentateuch was learned in all
the wisdom of that nation, and that no more plausible theory has
ever, as yet, been suggested, to explain the admitted forcible seizure
and possession of Palestine, by the children of Israel, than such
an Exodus as is there detailed.
Before proceeding further it may be well to notice, briefly, the
different theories respecting the passage of the Red Sea. There are
two spots Avhich have been fixed upon, in modern times, as the most
probable points at which the passage commenced ; the first at the
mouth of Wady Tawarik, the second somewhere in the neighbour-
hood of Suez. (See Map.) The latter derives its main supjport
from the supposed position of the land of Goshen, which there
is strong reason to believe to be identical with the modern province
of Es-Shurkiyeh, on the Pelusiac, or eastern branch of the Nile,
extending to the verge of the Desert, while it is supposed that
Zoan (Tanis) was at that time the seat of the Pharaohs. The
distance from the borders of this tract to the Red Sea, near Suez, is
famine and privation of every kind ; and, at the best, obtain only a meagre
and precarious subsistence."—Rev. E. Robinson's Biblical Researches.
* See in particular, Hengstenberg's Rook of Moses Illustrated from the
Monuments of Egypt, edited by Dr. \V. C. Taylor.