Tel Aviv scholar unties Exodus secrets

By Toshio Suzuki

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What really happened with the Exodus? Did it involve an entire nation or a small group of villagers? Rather than using these questions to discredit the faiths of so many, a recent lecture and discussion at Congregation Neveh Shalom delved into the realistic interpretations of history and how they can be told, and thus manipulated.
On loan from Tel Aviv University to the University of Oregon for Spring term is Professor Yair Hoffman, whose speech was titled, "The Gordian Knot—History, Historiography and Typology: The Case of the Exodus."
If history is what really happened in the past, then Hoffman says historiography "is the story of the past as told by specific stories" and typology is "the tendency to consider history repetitive, even prophetical."
Hoffman is the author of several books written in Hebrew and has been teaching courses such as biblical eschatology, biblical historiography, biblical wisdom literature and biblical storytelling since 1967. His knowledge on the Exodus was on full display as he strolled through its account—quoting scripture in two languages and sharing how many times certain prophets spoke of the event as if it were second-hand information.
After King Solomon died, Hoffman said the story of the Exodus began to embody a new kind of precedence: political weight. According to Hoffman, at different times in history the magnitude of the Exodus has a clear discrepancy between what was being told in the Northern and the Judean Kingdoms.

"The continuous political use of the tradition cannot disprove nor refute the historicity of the action," said Hoffman, rebuking himself for the sake of argument.
Hoffman's Exodus theory seems to hold merit as a general outline for researching major historical events. The further back in time an event occurred, the more opportunity there is for it to be skewed or misinterpreted, he said. This is what can create the Gordian Knot, even with an event as sacred as the Exodus. If the strength of the Gordian Knot represents the shading of the truth, Hoffman said he is not so sure that one should be so rash as Alexander the Great once was and slice it open.
"Because it is this (Gordian Knot) ? which creates continuity between the past and present or the future," said Hoffman. "This is an irreplaceable component of human culture."
"The Exodus is still a very important living motif, not just in Israel but many Western nations," he said.
Hoffman spoke for about 35 listeners as part of the seventh season of the Writers and Scholars Lecture Series presented by the Institute for Judaic Studies. Anita Norich is the final speaker of the series with a May 17 lecture, "How Tevye Learned to Fiddle: Sholom Aleichem's Tevye in Yiddish, Hebrew, English and Russian Film," at Portland State University.
Tickets are $15 per lecture, students free with valid ID. For more information, call Sylvia Frankel at 503-244-4473 or visit the IJS Web site, www.judaicstudies.net.