132-484: The Junius manuscript is one of the four major codices of Old English literature . Written in the 10th century, it contains poetry dealing with Biblical subjects in Old English , the vernacular language of Anglo-Saxon England. Modern editors have determined that the manuscript is made of four poems, to which they have given the titles Genesis , Exodus , Daniel , and Christ and Satan . The identity of their author
264-567: A miracle , and Aaron throws down Moses' staff , which turns into a tannin (sea monster or snake) (Exodus 7:8-13); however, Pharaoh's magicians are also able to do this, though Moses' serpent devours the others. Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go. After this, Yahweh inflicts a series of Plagues on the Egyptians each time Moses repeats his demand and Pharaoh refuses to release the Israelites. Pharaoh's magicians are able to match
396-454: A 'Beast of Battle' motif very common in the poetry. The main story is suspended at one point to tell the stories of Noah and Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Some scholars consider this change of subject a feature of the "epic style" comparable with the similar digressions in Beowulf , while others have proposed it is a later interpolation. Edward B. Irving edited the poem twice, 1955 and 1981:
528-485: A background to the Exodus myth include the documented movements of small groups of Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples into and out of Egypt during the 18th and 19th dynasties, some elements of Egyptian folklore and culture mentioned in the Exodus narrative, and the names Moses, Aaron and Phinehas, which seem to have an Egyptian origin. Scholarly estimates for how many could have been involved in such an exodus range from
660-510: A base verse scheme; any one of the five types can be used in any verse. The system was inherited from and exists in one form or another in all of the older Germanic languages . Alternative theories have been proposed, such as the theory of John C. Pope (1942), which uses musical notation to track the verse patterns. J. R. R. Tolkien describes and illustrates many of the features of Old English poetry in his 1940 essay " On Translating Beowulf " . Old English poetry alliterates, meaning that
792-676: A difficult figure to identify, but recent research suggests he was an Anglian poet from the early part of the 9th century. Four poems are attributed to him, signed with a runic acrostic at the end of each poem; these are The Fates of the Apostles and Elene (both found in the Vercelli Book), and Christ II and Juliana (both found in the Exeter Book). Although William of Malmesbury claims that Aldhelm , bishop of Sherborne (d. 709), performed secular songs while accompanied by
924-469: A few hundred to a few thousand people. Joel S. Baden noted the presence of Semitic-speaking slaves in Egypt who sometimes escaped in small numbers as potential inspirations for the Exodus. It is also possible that oppressive Egyptian rule of Canaan during the late second millennium BCE, during the 19th and especially the 20th dynasty, may have disposed some native Canaanites to adopt into their own mythology
1056-466: A genuine Exodus tradition from the Northern Kingdom, but in a Judahite recension. Russell and Frank Moore Cross argue that the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom may have believed that the calves at Bethel and Dan were made by Aaron. Russell suggests that the connection to Jeroboam may have been later, possibly coming from a Judahite redactor. Pauline Viviano, however, concludes that neither
1188-483: A group of foreigners from Egypt comprised early Israel. Despite the absence of any archaeological evidence, most scholars nonetheless hold that the Exodus probably has some sort of historical basis, with Kenton Sparks referring to it as "mythologized history". Scholars posit that a small group of Egyptian origin may have joined the early Israelites, and contributed their own Egyptian Exodus story to all of Israel. William G. Dever cautiously identifies this group with
1320-573: A harp, none of these Old English poems survives. Paul G. Remely has recently proposed that the Old English Exodus may have been the work of Aldhelm, or someone closely associated with him. Alfred is said to be the author of some of the metrical prefaces to the Old English translations of Gregory's Pastoral Care and Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy . Alfred is also thought to be the author of 50 metrical psalms, but whether
1452-460: A high official in the court of the Egyptian pharaoh . Exodus begins with the death of Joseph and the ascension of a new pharaoh "who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). The pharaoh becomes concerned by the number and strength of the Israelites in Egypt and enslaves them, commanding them to build at two "supply" or "store cities" called Pithom and Rameses (Exodus 1:11). The pharaoh also orders
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#17327799255301584-610: A historical Egyptian as a prototype for Moses has found wide acceptance, and no period in Egyptian history matches the biblical accounts of the Exodus. Some elements of the story are miraculous and defy rational explanation, such as the Plagues of Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea . The Bible does not mention the names of any of the pharaohs involved, further obscuring comparison of archaeologically recovered Egyptian history with
1716-615: A later date. An example of the dominance of the West Saxon dialect is a pair of charters , from the Stowe and British Museum collections, which outline grants of land in Kent and Mercia, but are nonetheless written in the West Saxon dialect of the period. There are four major poetic manuscripts: The most distinguishing feature of Old English poetry is its alliterative verse style. The Anglo-Latin verse tradition in early medieval England
1848-682: A new covenant (Mark 14:24) in the same way that Moses' sacrifice of bulls had created a covenant (Exodus 24:5). In the Gospel of Matthew , Jesus reverses the direction of the Exodus by escaping from the Massacre of the Innocents committed by Herod the Great before himself returning from Egypt (Matt 2:13-15). Other parallels in Matthew include that he is baptized by water (Matt 3:13-17), and tested in
1980-603: A new exodus. American "founding fathers" Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin recommended for the Great Seal of the United States to depict Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. African Americans suffering under slavery and racial oppression interpreted their situation in terms of the Exodus, making it a catalyst for social change. South American Liberation theology also takes much inspiration from
2112-647: A new one ascends the throne. According to Ezekiel 20:8-9, the enslaved Israelites also practised "abominations" and worshiped the gods of Egypt. This provoked Yahweh to destroy them but he relented to avoid his name being "profaned". Meanwhile, Moses goes to Mount Horeb , where Yahweh appears in a burning bush and commands him to go to Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves and bring them to the Promised Land in Canaan. Yahweh also speaks to Moses's brother Aaron , and
2244-604: A period often termed Anglo-Saxon England . The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede 's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People . Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English
2376-518: A physical reminder of the obligation to observe the laws given at the climax of Exodus: "Look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord" (Numbers). The festivals associated with the Exodus began as agricultural and seasonal feasts but became completely subsumed into the Exodus narrative of Israel's deliverance from oppression at the hands of God. For Jews, the Passover celebrates the freedom of
2508-561: A pivotal role in its promulgation. Many theories have been advanced to explain the composition of the first five books of the Bible, but two have been especially influential. The first of these, Persian Imperial authorisation, advanced by Peter Frei in 1985, is that the Persian authorities required the Jews of Jerusalem to present a single body of law as the price of local autonomy. Frei's theory
2640-525: A polemical Egyptian response to the Exodus narrative. Egyptologist Jan Assmann proposed that the story comes from oral sources that "must [...] predate the first possible acquaintance of an Egyptian writer with the Hebrew Bible ." Assmann suggested that the story has no single origin but rather combines numerous historical experiences, notably the Amarna and Hyksos periods, into a folk memory. There
2772-425: A potential historical parallel or origin for the story. Many other scholars reject this view, and instead see the biblical exodus traditions as the invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish community, with little to no historical basis. Lester Grabbe , for instance, argues that "[t]here is no compelling reason that the exodus has to be rooted in history", and that the details of the story more closely fit
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#17327799255302904-568: A readable translation. Litotes is a form of dramatic understatement employed by the author for ironic effect. Even though all extant Old English poetry is written and literate, many scholars propose that Old English poetry was an oral craft that was performed by a scop and accompanied by a harp . The hypotheses of Milman Parry and Albert Lord on the Homeric Question came to be applied (by Parry and Lord, but also by Francis Magoun ) to verse written in Old English . That is,
3036-514: A reason for this: the poetry was composed of formulae and themes from a stock common to the poetic profession, as well as literary passages composed by individual artists in a more modern sense. Larry Benson introduced the concept of "written-formulaic" to describe the status of some Anglo-Saxon poetry which, while demonstrably written, contains evidence of oral influences, including heavy reliance on formulas and themes. Frequent oral-formulaic themes in Old English poetry include "Beasts of Battle" and
3168-642: A sound is repeated throughout a line, generally taken from the first syllable of the first stressed word in a line. Alliteration is based on sound rather than letter. For instance, in the first line of The Wanderer , "Oft him anhaga are gebideð", "Often the loner finds grace for himself", the 'o' of 'oft', and 'a' in 'anhaga' and 'are' all alliterate. Prefixes, such as 'ge-' are always unstressed and therefore are not part of alliterative patterns, while consonant clusters, for example 'st' or 'sp' may only alliterate with themselves, not any word beginning with 's'. Old English poetry, like other Old Germanic alliterative verse,
3300-483: A story of the enslavement of the Israelites, the Plagues of Egypt , the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, the revelations at Mount Sinai , and the Israelite wanderings in the wilderness up to the borders of Canaan . Its message is that the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh their god, and therefore belong to him by covenant . The story of the Exodus is told in the first half of Exodus, with
3432-426: Is Franciscus Junius , who published the first edition of its contents in 1655. It has been established on palaeographical grounds that compilation of the manuscript began c. AD 1000. Recent work has suggested an earlier, narrow window for the likely compilation date to 960–1000 for Liber I and shortly thereafter for Liber II, based on an integrated dating of the text, paleography, and illustrations. The compilation
3564-709: Is 1,722 lines long and is the closest of the surviving Old English poems to Beowulf in style and tone. It is the story of Saint Andrew and his journey to rescue Saint Matthew from the Mermedonians . Elene is the story of Saint Helena (mother of Constantine ) and her discovery of the True Cross . The cult of the True Cross was popular in Anglo-Saxon England and this poem was instrumental in promoting it. Guthlac consists of two poems about
3696-627: Is a 10th-century translation of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy contained in the Cotton manuscript Otho A.vi. Another is The Phoenix in the Exeter Book, an allegorisation of the De ave phoenice by Lactantius . Other short poems derive from the Latin bestiary tradition. These include The Panther , The Whale and The Partridge . The most famous Old English riddles are found in
3828-494: Is a paraphrase of the first part of the biblical book of Genesis , from the Creation through to the test of Abraham's faith with the sacrifice of Isaac ( Gen. 22 ). The work is now recognised as a composite work formed of two originally distinct parts, conventionally referred to as Genesis A and Genesis B ; the latter, lines 235–851 of the poem as we have it, appears to have been interpolated from an older poem to produce
3960-401: Is a reference to battle as a "storm of spears". Old English poetry is marked by the comparative rarity of similes . Beowulf contains at best five similes, and these are of the short variety. The Old English poet was particularly fond of describing the same person or object with varied phrases (often appositives) that indicated different qualities of that person or object. For instance,
4092-527: Is also commonly marked by the caesura or pause. In addition to setting pace for the line, the caesura also grouped each line into two hemistichs . Kennings are a key feature of Old English poetry. A kenning is an often formulaic metaphorical phrase that describes one thing in terms of another: for instance, in Beowulf , the sea is called the whale road . Another example of a kenning in The Wanderer
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4224-409: Is associated with the Israelites living in booths after they left their previous homes in Egypt. It celebrates how God provided for the Israelites while they wandered in the desert without food or shelter. It is celebrated by building a sukkah , a temporary shelter also called a booth or tabernacle, in which the rituals of Sukkot are performed, recalling the impermanence of the Israelites' homes during
4356-516: Is believed to be very old in parts, dating back to events in the 4th century concerning Eormanric and the Goths , and contains a catalogue of names and places associated with valiant deeds. Deor is a lyric, in the style of Consolation of Philosophy , applying examples of famous heroes, including Weland and Eormanric, to the narrator's own case. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle contains various heroic poems inserted throughout. The earliest from 937
4488-627: Is called The Battle of Brunanburh , which celebrates the victory of King Athelstan over the Scots and Norse. There are five shorter poems: capture of the Five Boroughs (942); coronation of King Edgar (973); death of King Edgar (975); death of Alfred the son of King Æthelred (1036); and death of King Edward the Confessor (1065). The 325 line poem The Battle of Maldon celebrates Earl Byrhtnoth and his men who fell in battle against
4620-566: Is contained in the second part of the Junius manuscript, does not paraphrase any particular biblical book, but retells a number of episodes from both the Old and New Testament. The Exodus The Exodus ( Hebrew : יציאת מצרים, Yəṣīʾat Mīṣrayīm : lit. ' Departure from Egypt ' ) is the founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of
4752-452: Is distinctive: it tells the story of the falls of Satan and Man in an epic style, and has been suggested as an influence for Beowulf , and even, perhaps, for Milton 's Paradise Lost . Exodus is not a paraphrase of the biblical book, but rather a retelling of the story of the Israelites' Flight from Egypt and the Crossing of the Red Sea in the manner of a "heroic epic", much like Old English poems Andreas , Judith , or even
4884-413: Is general agreement that the stories originally had nothing to do with the Jews. Erich S. Gruen suggested that it may have been the Jews themselves that inserted themselves into Manetho's narrative, in which various negative actions from the point of view of the Egyptians, such as desecrating temples, are interpreted positively. Commemoration of the Exodus is central to Judaism, and Jewish culture . In
5016-524: Is generally dated to the 7th century BCE. The contents of the books of Leviticus and Numbers are late additions to the narrative by priestly sources. Scholars broadly agree that the publication of the Torah (or of a proto-Pentateuch) took place in the mid-Persian period (the 5th century BCE), echoing a traditional Jewish view which gives Ezra , the leader of the Jewish community on its return from Babylon,
5148-544: Is kept in the Bodleian Library under shelfmark MS Junius 11 . The codex now referred to as the "Junius manuscript" was formerly called the "Cædmon manuscript" after an early theory that the poems it contains were the work of Cædmon ; the theory is no longer considered credible, therefore the manuscript it is commonly referred to either by its Bodleian Library shelf mark "MS Junius 11", or more casually as "the Junius manuscript" or "Codex Junius". 'Junius' in these
5280-584: Is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature . In descending order of quantity, Old English literature consists of: sermons and saints' lives; biblical translations; translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers ; chronicles and narrative history works; laws, wills and other legal works; practical works on grammar, medicine, and geography; and poetry. In all, there are over 400 surviving manuscripts from
5412-456: Is little of historical fact in it. The other position, often associated with the school of Biblical minimalism , is that the biblical exodus traditions are the invention of the exilic and post-exilic Jewish community, with little to no historical basis. The biblical Exodus narrative is best understood as a founding myth of the Jewish people, providing an ideological foundation for their culture and institutions, not an accurate depiction of
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5544-519: Is of Genesis (originally presented as one work in the Junius manuscript but now thought to consist of two separate poems, A and B ), the second is of Exodus and the third is Daniel . Contained in Daniel are two lyrics, Song of the Three Children and Song of Azarias , the latter also appearing in the Exeter Book after Guthlac . The fourth and last poem, Christ and Satan , which
5676-512: Is unknown. For a long time, scholars believed them to be the work of Cædmon , accordingly calling the book the Cædmon manuscript . This theory has been discarded due to the significant differences between the poems. The manuscript owes its current designation to the Anglo-Dutch scholar Franciscus Junius , who was the first to edit its contents and who bequeathed it to Oxford University . It
5808-459: Is unparalleled in other manuscripts of Anglo-Saxon poetry, implies that the manuscript was conceived of as being considerably more important than most vernacular texts; it may have been intended for devotional or didactic use. The names of the poems themselves are modern inventions; they are not given titles in the manuscript. As with the majority of Anglo-Saxon writing, the poems are anonymous and their provenance and dating are uncertain. Genesis
5940-440: The Beowulf . It is one of the densest, most allusive and complex poems in Old English, and is the focus of much critical debate. Exodus brings a traditional "heroic style" to its biblical subject-matter. Moses is treated as a general, and military imagery pervades the battle scenes. The destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea is narrated in much the same way as a formulaic battle scene from other Old English poems, including
6072-522: The Beowulf poet refers in three and a half lines to a Danish king as "lord of the Danes" (referring to the people in general), "king of the Scyldings" (the name of the specific Danish tribe), "giver of rings" (one of the king's functions is to distribute treasure), and "famous chief". Such variation, which the modern reader (who likes verbal precision) is not used to, is frequently a difficulty in producing
6204-480: The Exeter Book . They are part of a wider Anglo-Saxon literary tradition of riddling, which includes riddles written in Latin. Riddles are both comical and obscene. The riddles of the Exeter Book are unnumbered and without titles in the manuscript. For this reason, scholars propose different interpretations of how many riddles there are, with some agreeing 94 riddles, and others proposing closer to 100 riddles in
6336-522: The Pentateuch (specifically, Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers , and Deuteronomy ). The narrative of the Exodus describes a history of Egyptian bondage of the Israelites followed by their exodus from Egypt through a passage in the Red Sea , in pursuit of the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses . The consensus of modern scholars is that the Pentateuch does not give an accurate account of
6468-525: The Qur'an , in which Moses is one of the most prominent prophets and messengers . He is the mentioned 136 times, the most of any individual in the Qur'an , with and his life being narrated and recounted more than that of any other prophet . A number of historical events and situations have been compared to the Exodus. Many early American settlers interpreted their flight from Europe to a new life in America as
6600-580: The Second Intermediate Period ("Hyksos period") and most are extremely anti-Jewish . The earliest non-biblical account is that of Hecataeus of Abdera ( c. 320 BCE ) as preserved in the first century CE Jewish historian Josephus in Against Apion and in a variant version by the first-century BCE Greek historian Diodorus . Hecataeus tells how the Egyptians blamed a plague on foreigners and expelled them from
6732-458: The Tribe of Joseph , while Richard Elliott Friedman identifies it with the Tribe of Levi . Most scholars who accept a historical core of the exodus date this possible exodus group to the thirteenth century BCE at the time of Ramses II ( 19th dynasty ), with some instead dating it to the twelfth century BCE under Ramses III ( 20th dynasty ). Evidence in favor of historical traditions forming
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#17327799255306864-545: The Tribe of Manasseh there. Moses then addresses the Israelites for a final time on the banks of the Jordan River , reviewing their travels and giving them further laws. Yahweh tells Moses to summon Joshua to lead the conquest of Canaan . Yahweh tells Moses to ascend Mount Nebo , from where he sees the Promised Land, and dies. The climax of the Exodus is the covenant (binding legal agreement) between God and
6996-466: The Vikings in 991. It is considered one of the finest, but both the beginning and end are missing and the only manuscript was destroyed in a fire in 1731. A well-known speech is near the end of the poem: Related to the heroic tales are a number of short poems from the Exeter Book which have come to be described as "elegies" or "wisdom poetry". They are lyrical and Boethian in their description of
7128-572: The vernacular remain. It is believed that Irish missionaries are responsible for the scripts used in early Anglo-Saxon texts, which include the Insular half-uncial (important Latin texts) and Insular minuscule (both Latin and the vernacular). In the 10th century, the Caroline minuscule was adopted for Latin, however the Insular minuscule continued to be used for Old English texts. Thereafter, it
7260-528: The "Cliff of Death". The former, for example, is characterised by the mention of ravens, eagles, and wolves preceding particularly violent depictions of battle. Among the most thoroughly documented themes is "The Hero on the Beach". D. K. Crowne first proposed this theme, defined by four characteristics: One example Crowne cites in his article is that which concludes Beowulf's fight with the monsters during his swimming match with Breca: Crowne drew on examples of
7392-419: The 13th century and later. Seven major scriptoria produced a good deal of Old English manuscripts: Winchester ; Exeter ; Worcester ; Abingdon ; Durham ; and two Canterbury houses, Christ Church and St. Augustine 's Abbey . Regional dialects include Northumbrian , Mercian , Kentish , and West Saxon , leading to the speculation that much of the poetry may have been translated into West Saxon at
7524-400: The 2666th year after creation (Exodus 12:40-41), the construction of the tabernacle to year 2667 (Exodus 40:1-2, 17), stating that the Israelites dwelled in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40-41), and specifying place names such as Goshen (Gen. 46:28), Pithom , and Ramesses (Exod. 1:11), as well as the count of 600,000 Israelite men (Exodus 12:37). The Book of Numbers further states that
7656-446: The 8th to the 11th centuries. It has achieved much acclaim as well as sustained academic and artistic interest. Other heroic poems besides Beowulf exist. Two have survived in fragments: The Fight at Finnsburh , controversially interpreted by many to be a retelling of one of the battle scenes in Beowulf , and Waldere , a version of the events of the life of Walter of Aquitaine . Two other poems mention heroic figures: Widsith
7788-475: The Bible, the Exodus is frequently mentioned as the event that created the Israelite people and forged their bond with God, being described as such by the prophets Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel . The Exodus is invoked daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated each year during the Jewish holidays of Passover , Shavuot , and Sukkot . The fringes worn at the corners of traditional Jewish prayer shawls are described as
7920-492: The English 7th century Saint Guthlac . Juliana describes the life of Saint Juliana, including a discussion with the devil during her imprisonment. There are a number of partial Old English Bible translations and paraphrases surviving. The Junius manuscript contains three paraphrases of Old Testament texts. These were re-wordings of Biblical passages in Old English, not exact translations, but paraphrasing, sometimes into beautiful poetry in its own right. The first and longest
8052-641: The English People. According to Bede, Cædmon was first an illiterate herdsman. Following a vision of a messenger from God, Cædmon received the gift of poetry, and then lived as a monk under Abbess Hild at the abbey of Whitby in Northumbria in the 7th century. Bede's History claims to reproduce Cædmon's first poem, comprising nine lines. Referred to as Cædmon's Hymn , the poem is extant in Northumbrian, West-Saxon and Latin versions that appear in 19 surviving manuscripts: Cynewulf has proven to be
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#17327799255308184-580: The Exodus as a typological prefiguration of resurrection and salvation by Jesus . The Exodus is also recounted in the Qur'an as part of the extensive referencing of the life of Moses , a major prophet in Islam. The narrative has also resonated with various groups in more recent centuries, such as among the early American settlers fleeing religious persecution in Europe, and among African Americans striving for freedom and civil rights . The Exodus tells
8316-451: The Exodus events from comprehensive histories of Israel. Most mainstream scholars do not accept the biblical Exodus account as history for a number of reasons. Most agree that the Exodus stories were written centuries after the apparent setting of the stories. Scholars argue that the Book of Exodus itself attempts to ground the event firmly in history, reconstructing a date for the exodus as
8448-526: The Exodus story served as an "identity card" defining who belonged to this community (i.e., to Israel), thus reinforcing Israel's unity through its new institutions. Writers in Greek and Latin during the Ptolemaic Kingdom (late 4th century BCE–late 1st century BCE) record several Egyptian tales of the expulsion of a group of foreigners connected to the Exodus. These tales often include elements of
8580-596: The Exodus. The story may, therefore, have originated a few centuries earlier, perhaps in the 10th or 9th century BCE, and there are signs that it took different forms in Israel, in the Transjordan region , and in the southern Kingdom of Judah before being unified in the Persian era. The Exodus narrative was most likely further altered and expanded under the influence of the return from the Babylonian captivity in
8712-451: The Israelites can enter the promised land. The Israelites will have to remain in the wilderness for forty years, and Yahweh kills the spies through a plague except for the righteous Joshua and Caleb , who will be allowed to enter the promised land (Numbers 13:36-38). A group of Israelites led by Korah , son of Izhar, rebels against Moses, but Yahweh opens the earth and sends them living to Sheol (Numbers 16:1-33). The Israelites come to
8844-578: The Israelites complain about lack of bread and water, so Yahweh sends a plague of poisonous snakes to afflict them (Numbers 21:4-7). After Moses prays for deliverance, Yahweh has him create a brazen serpent , and the Israelites who look at it are cured (Numbers 21:8-9). The Israelites are soon in conflict with various other kingdoms, and king Balak of Moab asks the seer Balaam to curse the Israelites, but Balaam blesses them instead. Some Israelites begin having sexual relations with Moabite women and worshipping Moabite gods , so Yahweh orders Moses to impale
8976-515: The Israelites from captivity in Egypt, the settling of Canaan by the Israelites, and the "passing over" of the angel of death during the death of the first-born . Passover involves a ritual meal called a Seder during which parts of the exodus narrative are retold. In the Hagaddah of the Seder it is written that every generation is obliged to remind and identify itself in terms of the Exodus. Thus
9108-512: The Israelites mediated by Moses at Sinai: Yahweh will protect the Israelites as his chosen people for all time, and the Israelites will keep Yahweh's laws and worship only him. The covenant is described in stages: at Exodus 24:3–8 the Israelites agree to abide by the "book of the covenant" that Moses has just read to them; shortly afterwards God writes the "words of the covenant" – the Ten Commandments – on stone tablets; and finally, as
9240-457: The Israelites sin against Yahweh by creating the idol of a golden calf . As punishment Yahweh has the Levites kill three thousand of the Israelites (Exodus 32:28), and Yahweh sends a plague on them. The Israelites now accept the covenant, which is reestablished; they build a tabernacle for Yahweh, and receive their laws. Yahweh commands Moses to take a census of the Israelites and establishes
9372-399: The Israelites to commemorate this event in "a perpetual ordinance" (Exodus 12:14). Pharaoh finally casts the Israelites out of Egypt after his firstborn son is killed. Yahweh leads the Israelites in the form of a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night. However, once the Israelites have left, Yahweh "hardens" Pharaoh's heart to change his mind and pursue the Israelites to
9504-412: The Israelites to take a lamb on the 10th day, and on the 14th day to slaughter it and daub its blood on their doorposts and lintels , and to observe the Passover meal that night, the night of the full moon . In the final plague , Yahweh sends an angel to each house to kill the firstborn son and firstborn cattle, but the houses of the Israelites are spared by the blood on their doorposts. Yahweh commands
9636-588: The appearance of the theme in Ancient Greek poetry, a tradition without known connection to the Germanic, invalidated the notion of "an autonomous theme in the baggage of an oral poet." Foley's response was that Dane misunderstood the nature of oral tradition, and that in fact the appearance of the theme in other cultures showed that it was a traditional form. Most Old English poems are recorded without authors, and very few names are known with any certainty;
9768-713: The biblical narrative. While ancient Egyptian texts from the New Kingdom mention "Asiatics" living in Egypt as slaves and workers, these people cannot be securely connected to the Israelites, and no contemporary Egyptian text mentions a large-scale exodus of slaves like that described in the Bible. The earliest surviving historical mention of the Israelites, the Egyptian Merneptah Stele ( c. 1207 BCE ), appears to place them in or around Canaan and gives no indication of any exodus. Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein argues from his analysis of
9900-673: The book. Most scholars believe that the Exeter Book was compiled by a single scribe; however, the works were almost certainly originally composed by poets. A riddle in Old English, written using runic script, features on the Franks Casket . One possible solution for the riddle is 'whale', evoking the whale-bone from which the casket made. The Vercelli Book and Exeter Book contain four long narrative poems of saints' lives, or hagiographies . In Vercelli are Andreas and Elene and in Exeter are Guthlac and Juliana . Andreas
10032-522: The borders of Syria , where Osarseph gives the lepers a law code and changes his name to Moses. The identification of Osarseph with Moses in Manetho's account may be an interpolation or may come from Manetho. Other versions of the story are recorded by the first-century BCE Egyptian grammarian Lysimachus of Alexandria , who set the story in the time of Pharaoh Bakenranef (Bocchoris), the first-century CE Egyptian historian Chaeremon of Alexandria , and
10164-671: The brazen serpent had been made by Moses and was worshiped in the temple in Jerusalem until the time of king Hezekiah of Judah, who destroyed it as part of a religious reform, possibly c. 727 BCE . In the Pentateuch, Moses creates the brazen serpent in Numbers 21:4-9. Meindert Dijkstra writes that while the historicity of the Mosaic origin of the Nehushtan is unlikely, its association with Moses appears genuine rather than
10296-479: The building of the temple at Jerusalem. Pamela Barmash argues that the psalm is a polemic against the Northern Kingdom; as it fails to mention that kingdom's destruction in 722 BCE, she concludes that it must have been written before then. The psalm's version of the Exodus contains some important differences from what is found in the Pentateuch: there is no mention of Moses, and the manna is described as "food of
10428-583: The country, whereupon Moses, their leader, took them to Canaan. In this version, Moses is portrayed extremely positively. Manetho , also preserved in Josephus's Against Apion , tells how 80,000 lepers and other "impure people", led by a priest named Osarseph , join forces with the former Hyksos, now living in Jerusalem , to take over Egypt. They wreak havoc until the Pharaoh and his son chase them out to
10560-496: The current text. It is Genesis B which has attracted the most critical attention. Its origin is notable in that it appears to be a translation from a ninth-century Old Saxon original; this theory was originally made on metrical grounds, in 1875 by the German scholar Sievers, and then confirmed by the discovery of a fragment of Old Saxon verse that appears to correspond to part of the work in 1894. Thematically and stylistically, it
10692-452: The dedication of two golden calves in Bethel and Dan by the Israelite king Jeroboam I , who uses the words "Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (1 Kings 12:28). Scholars relate Jeroboam's calves to the golden calf made by Aaron of Exodus 32. Both include a nearly identical dedication formula ("These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of
10824-475: The density of metrical formulas in Ancient Greek , and observed the same feature in the Old English alliterative line: Hroþgar maþelode helm Scildinga ("Hrothgar spoke, protector of the Scildings") Beoƿulf maþelode bearn Ecgþeoƿes ("Beowulf spoke, son of Ecgtheow") In addition to verbal formulas, many themes have been shown to appear among the various works of Anglo-Saxon literature. The theory suggests
10956-417: The desert "[t]he two most significant NT passages touching on the exodus". John also refers to Jesus as manna (John 6:31-5), water flowing from a rock in the desert (John 7:37-9), and as a pillar of fire (John 8:12). Early Christians frequently interpreted actions taken in the Exodus, and sometimes the Exodus as a whole, typologically to prefigure Jesus or actions of Jesus. In Romans 9:17, Paul interprets
11088-494: The desert wanderings. The Christian ritual of the eucharist and the holiday of Easter draw directly on the imagery of the Passover and the Exodus. In the New Testament , Jesus is frequently associated with motifs of the Exodus. The Gospel of Mark has been suggested to be a midrash on the Exodus, though the scholar Larry J. Perkins thinks this unlikely. Mark suggests that the outpouring of Jesus' blood creates
11220-489: The desert. Digital facsimiles are available online and offline: A complete digital facsimile with copious annotations, transcriptions and translations was released on CD format in 2004: Old English literature Old English literature refers to poetry ( alliterative verse ) and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066,
11352-459: The desert; unlike the Israelites, he is able to resist temptation (Matt. 4.1-3). The Gospel of John repeatedly calls Jesus the Passover lamb (John 1:29, 13:1, 19:36), something also found in 1 Peter (1 Pet 1:18-20), and 1 Corinthians (1 Cor 5:7-8). Michael Graves calls Paul 's discussion of the exodus in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 and his comparison of the early church in Corinth to the Israelites in
11484-569: The duties of the Levites. Then the Israelites depart from Mount Sinai. Yahweh commands Moses to send twelve spies ahead to Canaan to scout the land. The spies discover that the Canaanites are formidable, and to dissuade the Israelites from invading, the spies falsely report that Canaan is full of giants (Numbers 13:30-33). The Israelites refuse to go to Canaan, and Yahweh declares that the generation that left Egypt will have to pass away before
11616-451: The exodus story of a small group of Egyptian refugees. Nadav Na'aman argues that oppressive Egyptian rule of Canaan may have inspired the Exodus narrative, forming a " collective memory " of Egyptian oppression that was transferred from Canaan to Egypt itself in the popular consciousness. The 17th dynasty expulsion of the Hyksos , a group of Semitic invaders, is also frequently discussed as
11748-538: The first edition excerpted the Noah and Abraham portion as a separate poem; on later reflection, Irving recanted, admitting it was an integrated part of the Exodus poem. There appears to be justification in patristic sermons for connecting the crossing of the Red Sea with these topics. In recent decades, attention has shifted away from the "heroic" aspects of Exodus to consider its densely allusive structure and possible typology . Peter J. Lucas , for instance, has argued that
11880-504: The first plagues, in which Yahweh turns the Nile to blood and produces a plague of frogs, but they cannot match any plagues starting with the third, the plague of gnats . After each plague, Pharaoh asks the Israelites to worship Yahweh to remove the plague, then still refuses to free them. Moses is commanded to fix the first month of Aviv at the head of the Hebrew calendar . He instructs
12012-526: The first-century BCE Gallo-Roman historian Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus . The first-century CE Roman historian Tacitus included a version of the story that claims that the Hebrews worshipped a donkey as their god to ridicule Egyptian religion, whereas the Roman biographer Plutarch claimed that the Egyptian god Seth was expelled from Egypt and had two sons named Juda and Hierosolyma. The stories may represent
12144-458: The following words from the Pesaḥim (10:5) are recited: "In every generation a person is duty-bound to regard himself as if he personally has gone forth from Egypt." Because the Israelites fled Egypt in haste without time for bread to rise, the unleavened bread matzoh is eaten on Passover, and homes must be cleansed of any items containing leavening agents, known as Chametz . Shavuot celebrates
12276-642: The granting of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai; Jews are called to rededicate themselves to the covenant on this day. Some denominations follow Shavuot with The Three Weeks , during which the "two most heinous sins committed by the Jews in their relationship to God" are mourned: the Golden Calf and the doubting of God's promise by the Twelve Spies . A third Jewish festival, Sukkot , the Festival of Booths,
12408-638: The hardened heart of Pharaoh during the Plagues of Egypt as referring to the hardened hearts of the Jews who rejected Christ. Early Christian authors such as Justin Martyr , Irenaeus , and Augustine all emphasized the supersession of the Old Covenant of Moses by the New Covenant of Christ, which was open to all people rather than limited to the Jews. The story of the Exodus is also recounted in
12540-433: The history of the Israelites. The view that the biblical narrative is essentially correct unless it can explicitly be proved wrong ( Biblical maximalism ) is today held by "few, if any [...] in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes." There is no direct evidence for any of the people or events of Exodus in non-biblical ancient texts or in archaeological remains, and this has led most scholars to omit
12672-512: The idolators and sends another plague. The full extent of Yahweh's wrath is averted when Phinehas impales an Israelite and a Midianite woman having intercourse (Numbers 25:7-9). Yahweh commands the Israelites to destroy the Midianites, and Moses and Phinehas take another census. Then they conquer the lands of Og and Sihon in Transjordan , settling the Gadites , Reubenites , and half
12804-419: The itinerary lists in the books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy that the biblical account represents a long-term cultural memory, spanning the 16th to 10th centuries BCE, rather than a specific event: "The beginning is vague and now untraceable." Instead, modern archaeology suggests continuity between Canaanite and Israelite settlement, indicating a primarily Canaanite origin for Israel, with no suggestion that
12936-516: The land of Egypt", Exodus 32:8). This episode in Exodus is "widely regarded as a tendentious narrative against the Bethel calves". Egyptologist Jan Assmann suggests that event, which would have taken place c. 931 BCE , may be partially historical due to its association with the historical pharaoh Sheshonq I (the biblical Shishak ). Stephen Russell dates this tradition to "the eighth century BCE or earlier", and argued that it preserves
13068-859: The largest volume of literature from the Early Middle Ages in England. Over 400 manuscripts remain from the Anglo-Saxon period, with most written during the 9th to 11th centuries. There were considerable losses of manuscripts as a result of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century. Old English manuscripts have been highly prized by collectors since the 16th century, both for their historic value and for their aesthetic beauty with their uniformly spaced letters and decorative elements. Manuscripts written in both Latin and
13200-581: The mighty" rather than as bread in the wilderness. Nadav Na'aman argues for other signs that the Exodus was a tradition in Judah before the destruction of the northern kingdom, including the Song of the Sea and Psalm 114 , as well as the great political importance that the narrative came to assume there. A Judahite cultic object associated with the exodus was the brazen serpent or nehushtan : according to 2 Kings 18:4,
13332-680: The narrative of Exodus merge into typological allusion, this is not sustained throughout the poem. A short paraphrase of the book of Daniel , dwelling particularly on the story of the Fiery Furnace , deals with the first five chapters of the Book of Daniel. A three-part poem detailing the Fall of Satan, Christ's harrowing of Hell (from the Apocryphal New Testament Gospel of Nicodemus ), and Christ's temptation in
13464-532: The narrative of Israel's rescue from Egypt there is little hint that they will be brought anywhere other than Canaan – yet they find themselves heading first, unexpectedly, and in no obvious geographical order, to an obscure mountain." In addition, there is widespread agreement that the revelation of the law in Deuteronomy was originally separate from the Exodus: the original version of Deuteronomy
13596-416: The northern prophets Amos and Hosea , both active in the 8th century BCE in northern Israel , but their southern contemporary Isaiah shows no knowledge of an exodus. Micah , who was active in the south around the same time, references the exodus once ( Micah 6:4–5 ), but it is debated whether the passage is an addition by a later editor. Jeremiah , active in the 7th century, mentions both Moses and
13728-462: The number of Israelite males aged 20 years and older in the desert during the wandering was 603,550, which works out to a total population of 2.5-3 million including women and children—far more than could be supported by the Sinai Desert . The geography is vague with regions such as Goshen unidentified, and there are internal problems with dating in the Pentateuch. No modern attempt to identify
13860-509: The oasis of Kadesh Barnea , where Miriam dies and the Israelites remain for nineteen years. To provide water, Yahweh commands Moses to get water from a rock by speaking to it, but Moses instead strikes the rock with his staff, for which Yahweh forbids him from entering the Promised Land . Moses sends a messenger to the king of Edom requesting passage through his land to Canaan, but the king refuses. The Israelites then go to Mount Hor , where Aaron dies. The Israelites try to go around Edom, but
13992-465: The origins of the Israelites, who appear instead to have formed as an entity in the central highlands of Canaan in the late second millennium BCE (around the time of the Late Bronze Age collapse ) from the indigenous Canaanite culture. Most modern scholars believe that some elements in the story of the Exodus might have some historical basis, but that any such basis has little resemblance to
14124-459: The people gather in Moab to cross into the promised land of Canaan, Moses reveals Yahweh's new covenant "beside the covenant he made with them at Horeb" (Deuteronomy 29:1). The laws are set out in a number of codes: There are two main positions on the historicity of the Exodus in modern scholarship. The majority position is that the biblical Exodus narrative has some historical basis, although there
14256-479: The period, of which about 189 are considered major. In addition, some Old English text survives on stone structures and ornate objects. The poem Beowulf , which often begins the traditional canon of English literature , is the most famous work of Old English literature. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has also proven significant for historical study, preserving a chronology of early English history. In addition to Old English literature, Anglo-Latin works comprise
14388-531: The poem is an allegorical treatment of the Christian's fight with the devil. The Crossing of the Red Sea has been seen as echoing the Baptismal liturgy and prefiguring the entrance into Heaven. The Pharaoh may be associated with Satan through some subtle verbal echoes. However, these readings are still controversial and much-debated. A more balanced view would accept that though certain intermittent parts of
14520-401: The poems were written by him, under his direction or patronage, or as a general part in his reform efforts is unknown. The Old English poetry which has received the most attention deals with what has been termed the Germanic heroic past. Scholars suggest that Old English heroic poetry was handed down orally from generation to generation. As Christianity began to appear, re-tellers often recast
14652-478: The primary three are Cædmon , Aldhelm , and Cynewulf . Bede is often thought to be the poet of a five-line poem entitled Bede's Death Song , on account of its appearance in a letter on his death by Cuthbert . This poem exists in a Northumbrian and later version. Cædmon is considered the first Old English poet whose work still survives. He is a legendary figure, as described in Bede 's Ecclesiastical History of
14784-557: The references to Jeroboam's calves in Hosea (Hosea 8:6 and 10:5) nor the frequent prohibitions of idol worship in the seventh-century southern prophet Jeremiah show any knowledge of a tradition of a golden calf having been created in Sinai. Some of the earliest evidence for Judahite traditions of the exodus is found in Psalm 78 , which portrays the Exodus as beginning a history culminating in
14916-500: The remainder recounting the 1st year in the wilderness, and followed by a narrative of 39 more years in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the last four of the first five books of the Bible (also called the Torah or Pentateuch). In the first book of the Pentateuch, the Book of Genesis , the Israelites had come to live in Egypt in the Land of Goshen during a famine, under the protection of an Israelite, Joseph , who had become
15048-479: The sea, from which the only hope of redemption is the joy of heaven. Other wisdom poems include Wulf and Eadwacer , The Wife's Lament , and The Husband's Message . Alfred the Great wrote a wisdom poem over the course of his reign based loosely on the neoplatonic philosophy of Boethius called the Lays of Boethius . Several Old English poems are adaptations of late classical philosophical texts. The longest
15180-463: The seventh through the fifth centuries BCE than the traditional dating to the second millennium BCE. Philip R. Davies suggests that the story may have been inspired by the return to Israel of Israelites and Judaeans who were placed in Egypt as garrison troops by the Assyrians in the fifth and sixth centuries BCE, during the exile. The earliest traces of the traditions behind the exodus appear in
15312-504: The shore of the Red Sea . Moses uses his staff to part the Red Sea , and the Israelites cross on dry ground, but the sea closes on the pursuing Egyptians, drowning them all. The Israelites begin to complain, and Yahweh miraculously provides them with water and food, eventually raining manna down for them to eat. The Amalekites attack at Rephidim , but are defeated. Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, convinces him to appoint judges for
15444-504: The sixth century BCE. Evidence from the Bible suggests that the Exodus from Egypt formed a "foundational mythology" or "state ideology" for the Northern Kingdom of Israel . The northern psalms 80 and 81 state that God "brought a vine out of Egypt" (Psalm 80:8) and record ritual observances of Israel's deliverance from Egypt as well as a version of part of the Ten Commandments (Psalm 81:10-11). The Books of Kings records
15576-541: The slaughter at birth of all male Hebrew children. One Hebrew child, however, is rescued and abandoned in a floating basket on the Nile . He is found and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter , who names him Moses . Grown to a young man, Moses kills an Egyptian he sees beating a Hebrew slave, and takes refuge in to the land of Midian , where he marries Tzipporah , a daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro . The old pharaoh dies and
15708-419: The slaughter have remained with him all his life. He questions the wisdom of the impetuous decision to engage a possibly superior fighting force: the wise man engages in warfare to preserve civil society, and must not rush into battle but should seek out allies when the odds may be against him. This poet finds little glory in bravery for bravery's sake. The Seafarer is the story of a sombre exile from home on
15840-604: The story told in the Pentateuch. While the majority of modern scholars date the composition of the Pentateuch to the period of the Achaemenid Empire (5th century BCE), some of the elements of this narrative are older, since allusions to the story are made by 8th-century BCE prophets such as Amos and Hosea . The story of the Exodus is central in Judaism . It is recounted daily in Jewish prayers and celebrated in festivals such as Passover . Early Christians saw
15972-500: The tales of Christianity into the older heroic stories. The longest at 3,182 lines, and the most important, is Beowulf , which appears in the damaged Nowell Codex . Beowulf relates the exploits of the hero Beowulf, King of the Weder-Geats or Angles , around the middle of the 5th century. The author is unknown, and no mention of Britain occurs. Scholars are divided over the date of the present text, with hypotheses ranging from
16104-407: The text for other illustrations which were never completed. The manuscript is partly illustrated with a series of line drawings depicting the events in the text. From spaces left by the scribes, it appears that it was intended that the manuscript be fully illustrated; in the event, the work was left unfinished after only about a third of the artwork had been drawn. This scheme of illustrations, which
16236-525: The theme's appearance in twelve Old English texts, including one occurrence in Beowulf . It was also observed in other works of Germanic origin, Middle English poetry, and even an Icelandic prose saga. John Richardson held that the schema was so general as to apply to virtually any character at some point in the narrative, and thought it an instance of the "threshold" feature of Joseph Campbell 's Hero's Journey monomyth . J.A. Dane, in an article (characterised by Foley as "polemics without rigour" ) claimed that
16368-556: The theory proposes that certain features of at least some of the poetry may be explained by positing oral-formulaic composition . While Old English epic poetry may bear some resemblance to Ancient Greek epics such as the Iliad and Odyssey , the question of if and how Anglo-Saxon poetry was passed down through an oral tradition remains a subject of debate, and the question for any particular poem unlikely to be answered with perfect certainty. Parry and Lord had already demonstrated
16500-549: The tribes of Israel. The Israelites reach the Sinai Desert and Yahweh calls Moses to Mount Sinai , where Yahweh reveals himself to his people and establishes the Ten Commandments and Mosaic covenant : the Israelites are to keep his torah (law, instruction), and Yahweh promises them the land of Canaan. Yahweh establishes the Aaronic priesthood and detailed rules for ritual worship, among other laws. However, in Moses's absence
16632-486: The two assemble the Israelites and perform miraculous signs to rouse their belief in Yahweh's promise. Moses and Aaron then go to Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites go into the desert for a religious festival, but he refuses and increases their workload, commanding them to make bricks without straw . Moses and Aaron return to Pharaoh and ask him to free the Israelites and let them depart. Pharaoh demands Moses to perform
16764-549: The up and down fortunes of life. Gloomy in mood is The Ruin , which tells of the decay of a once glorious city of Roman Britain (cities in Britain fell into decline after the Romans departed in the early 5th century, as the early Celtic Britons continued to live their rural life), and The Wanderer , in which an older man talks about an attack that happened in his youth, when his close friends and kin were all killed; memories of
16896-500: The work of a later redactor. Mark Walter Bartusch notes that the nehushtan is not mentioned at any prior point in Kings, and suggests that the brazen serpent was brought to Jerusalem from the Northern Kingdom after its destruction in 722 BCE. The revelation of God on Sinai appears to have originally been a tradition unrelated to the Exodus. Joel S. Baden notes that "[t]he seams [between the Exodus and Wilderness traditions] still show: in
17028-498: Was accompanied by discourses on Latin prosody , which were 'rules' or guidance for writers. The rules of Old English verse are understood only through modern analysis of the extant texts. The first widely accepted theory was constructed by Eduard Sievers (1893), who distinguished five distinct alliterative patterns. His system of alliterative verse is based on accent , alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. It consists of five permutations on
17160-510: Was demolished at an interdisciplinary symposium held in 2000, but the relationship between the Persian authorities and Jerusalem remains a crucial question. The second theory, associated with Joel P. Weinberg and called the "Citizen-Temple Community", is that the Exodus story was composed to serve the needs of a post-exilic Jewish community organized around the Temple, which acted in effect as a bank for those who belonged to it. The books containing
17292-465: Was in two stages: Liber I contains the poems Genesis , Exodus , and Daniel , and was the work of a single scribe. Liber II contains the poem C hrist and Satan . The manuscript contains numerous illustrations that are an example of the Winchester style of drawing, typical of the period and region; it appears that two illustrators worked independently on the manuscript. The first scribe left spaces in
17424-445: Was increasingly influenced by Caroline minuscule, while retaining certain distinctively Insular letter-forms. Early English manuscripts often contain later annotations in the margins of the texts; it is a rarity to find a completely unannotated manuscript. These include corrections, alterations and expansions of the main text, as well as commentary upon it, and even unrelated texts. The majority of these annotations appear to date to
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