Five Views on the Exodus (pt 1) - Ron Hendel

Episode: This begins the first of a series on five views on the exodus based on a book by that named that Biblical World host Mark Janzen just edited. Our first guest in this series is Ron Hendel, who presents the cultural memory view. 

Hosts: Mark Janzen (Louisiana College) and Chris McKinny (Gesher Media)

Guest: Ron Hendel is Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of Berkeley. Professor Hendel has been a member of the Berkeley faculty since 1999 and has served as chair of Jewish Studies, the Department of Near Eastern Studies, and the Graduate Program in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology. Hendel approaches the Hebrew Bible from a variety of angles – history of religions, textual criticism, linguistics, comparative mythology, literature, and cultural memory. He is the editor-in-chief of The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition, a new critical edition of the Hebrew text, whose first volume (Proverbs, by Michael V. Fox) was published in 2015. He is also writing a new commentary on Genesis for the Yale Anchor Bible. In 1999, he received the Frank Moore Cross Publications Award from the American Schools of Oriental Research. His books include The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (Oxford, 1998), Remembering Abraham: Culture, History, and Memory in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2005), Reading Genesis: Ten Methods (editor and contributor; Cambridge, 2010), The Book of Genesis: A Biography (Princeton, 2013), Steps to a New Edition of the Hebrew Bible (SBL Press, 2016), and How Old is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study (Yale, 2018). (from the University of Berkeley website)

Summary: In this episode, Mark and Chris interview Ron Hendel about the following:
The Egyptian evidence for the Israelite Exodus
“Egyptianisms” in the Pentateuch
The historicity of the Exodus events and its importance to the Old Testament as a whole
The importance of the Exodus to Jewish and Christian believers and its connection to Passover and Easter

Additional Resources: 2021 Janzen, Mark (ed.). Five Views of the Exodus. Zondervan; Ron Hendel’s Academia page.

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