In February 2025, join our new online course with Rutger’s Gary A. Rendsburg as he discusses the topic of Egypt and the Bible. With lectures such as Egypt: A Trip Up the Nile, The Exodus in History and Archaeology and The First Diaspora: Jews in Egypt, from the Delta to Elephantine. Each class runs 1.5 hours. The first hour is a lecture, and the last 30 minutes will be a Question and Answer period. You’ll attend every Monday and Thursday of February from 7:30 to 9:30 pm Eastern.

Lectures

1. Egypt: A Trip Up the Nile

We begin with a tour of Egypt – from pylons to pyramids, from tombs to temples – as we gain a sense of the grandeur of this remarkable society, with stops at Giza, Luxor, Edfu, Aswan, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, and more. In the process, we will learn why there are more ancient Egyptian obelisks in Europe (eight in Rome alone!) than there are in Egypt today!

2. The Joseph Story

The biblical narrator infuses the Joseph Story with all manner of motifs known from Egyptian texts, including the central role of dream interpretation, the parading of a high ranking official through town on a chariot, the ideal lifespan of 110 years, and of course mummification (for both Jacob and Joseph in Genesis, ch. 50).

3. The Exodus Narrative

The biblical storyteller uses the same technique when writing the extended story of Exodus, chs. 1‒15, with once again numerous Egyptian literary and artistic motifs incorporated into the narrative. Such elements include holding a snake by the tail, the river turning to blood, three days of darkness, the death of the first-born, and then most importantly the separation of the waters.

4. The Exodus in History and Archaeology

Everyone wants to know: did the Exodus happen? The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’, which is to say, we certainly have sufficient historical and archaeological evidence to posit the settlement of the Israelites in Egypt and their leaving the country, as long as we recognize that the biblical account is told in epic proportions, with literary embellishments augmenting the historical core.

5. The Decipherment of Hieroglyphic Egyptian

But how can we know anything about ancient Egypt and what its texts reveal? The answer is: we have been able to read the hieroglyphic texts ever since the great decipherment by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, based on earlier steps by his predecessors and with subsequent advances by his successors. This lecture presents the thrilling account of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and why and how it provided the key to the decipherment.

6. Hebrew and Egyptian Cultural Contact

(with Special Attention to Loanwords in Both Directions)

Now that we know how to read hieroglyphics, we are primed to learn how Egyptian words reached Hebrew and are to be found in the Bible (especially words for the Nile, reeds, papyrus, linen, etc.) and also how various Hebrew (or better: Canaanite) words reached ancient Egyptian. These loanwords in both directions speak to the cultural exchange between the two countries.

7. The First Diaspora: Jews in Egypt, from the Delta to Elephantine

With the arrival of the Babylonians in the land of Canaan c. 600 B.C.E., many residents of Judah fled in the opposite direction to Egypt. In fact, even while living in the Delta, Jeremiah was able to receive the word of God (see Jeremiah 43:7‒8). From a century later we learn of the remarkable Jewish community at Elephantine in the far south of Egypt, in service to the Persian emperor, protecting the southwestern border of the vast realm, and with their own temple replete with animal sacrifices, even as the Second Temple was operative in Jerusalem.

8. Septuagint, Synagogue, and Symbiosis: The Jews of Hellenistic Egypt

The conquests of Alexander the Great brought Hellenism to the entire Near East in the late 4th century B.C.E. No Jewish community reflects the symbiosis of Hellenism and Judaism better than the large and thriving community of Egypt – especially in Alexandria, though in other locales as well. They translated the Bible into Greek, they built synagogues dedicated to the Ptolemy kings and queens, they wrote Jewish literature in Greek, they were fully integrated into the society and the economy, and in one case they even constructed a temple in Egypt (to rival the one in Jerusalem).

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