The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions

by Karen Armstrong

As the Israelites fled Egypt, Yahweh miraculously parted the waters of the Sea of Reeds, so that they crossed to safety dry-shod, but he then drowned Pharaoh and the Egyptian army, who had followed them into the sea in hot pursuit. In the desert region to the south of Canaan, Yahweh made a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai, and gave them the Law that would make them a holy people. But the Israelites had to wander in the wilderness for forty years before Yahweh finally led them to the borders of Canaan. Moses died before entering the Promised Land, but in about 1200 Joshua led the armies of Israel to victory. Under Joshua, the Israelites destroyed all the Canaanite towns and cities, killed their inhabitants, and made the land their own. The excavations of Israeli archaeologists since 1967, however, do not confirm this story. They have found no trace of the mass destruction described in the book of Joshua, no signs of foreign invasion, no Egyptian artifacts, and no indication of a change in population.