Next week, Jewish families all over the world will sit at their sater tables to recount the biblical story of the Exodus,

and to celebrate ancient Israel's journey from slavery to freedom. But is there any proof for the Bible's account?

Did the Exodus

really happen? Regular listeners to the Tikva podcast will remember our recent conversation

with leading American conservative Rabbi David Wolpe. Rabbi Wolpe is famous for a controversial

sermon in which he told his congregants that the Exodus, the founding narrative of the nation of Israel,

did not really happen. He said this from the Bima in his own Sinai Temple in Los Angeles,

the very name of which Sinai is, of course, a reference to the law-giving consummation

of the very exodus that Rabbi Wolpe believes is a myth. Of course, in his pronouncement,

Rabbi Wolpe was in very good company.

In truth, the consensus of academic Bible scholars

is that the Exodus did not happen,

pointing to the lack of corroborating written records

and the absence of archaeological evidence

for such a mass movement of Israelites

across the wilderness.

The view that there is simply no proof for the

scriptural account would seem to be pretty well grounded. Well, today's guest thinks that Rabbi Wolpey

and the academic consensus is wrong. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

My guest today is Rabbi Dr. Joshua Berman of the Bible Department at Bariland University.

Our text is his 2015 Mosaic essay, Was There in Exodus?

In his essay, Joshua Berman explores both Egyptological and scriptural sources that indicate that

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