Egypt’s Role in the Hebrew Bible

When dealing with Egyptian backgrounds and allusions to Egyptian documents and practices in the Hebrew Bible, scholars have tended to draw on Egyptian records dating to the second millennium BCE. Yet, in the field of ancient Near Eastern studies, most of these biblical texts are considered to be compositions dating to the subsequent millennium.

Volume 18 of the Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections presents the proceedings of a workshop held at the University of Lausanne on April 22-23, 2015, to explore the Egypt-Bible interface within this chronological constraint, and methodological ones as well. Focusing on sources of first millennium BCE rather those of the periods in which the authors of the biblical texts set the events has generated new lines of interrogation revolving around questions of transmission and reception rather than on the historical background of the events themselves. How Egyptian traditions might find their way into the written tradition of ancient Israel and Judah is, here, the center of the discussion. 20 illustrations, diagrams and maps, some colour.