This study offers a paradigmatic shift in understanding the development of the biblical traditions about Egypt. It challenges the dominant scholarly view that the traditions about Egypt and the exodus are monolithic. It instead emphasizes the differing regional portrayals of Egypt, and especially highlights the contribution of the Transjordanian tribes to the Bible's portrait of Israel's history.

The shift is afforded by an examination of the representation of Egypt in biblical texts that date from the eighth century B.C.E. or earlier. The most important texts analyzed are the golden calf stories in 1 Kings 12:25-33 and Exod 32, the oracles of Balaam in Numbers 22-24, and the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:1b-18. The provenance of these and other biblical texts are established so that a picture emerges of the differing traditions about Egypt in Cisjordan Israel, Transjordan Israel, and Judah.

In the north, an exodus from Egypt was celebrated in the Bethel calf cult as a journey of Israelites from Egypt to Cisjordan, probably without a detour eastward to Sinai and the wilderness. The exodus was envisioned in military terms as suggested by the nature of the polemic against the cult in Exodus 32, and the attribution of the exodus to the warrior Yahweh, Israel’s own deity. In the east, it was a tradition of deliverance from Egypt that was celebrated, rather than the idea of a journey up from Egypt. This deliverance was associated with the head of the regional pantheon El. In the south, Egypt was also recognized as a major enemy of Israel, but the traditions there were not formulated in terms of an exodus event. Rather, the destruction of an Egyptian military force was commemorated.

The dissertation seeks to relate the regional portrayals of Egypt to the broader picture of Syro-Palestinian history. It challenges the view that the biblical traditions about Egypt were invented in the exilic or post-exilic periods. It instead anchors them in the pre-exilic history of Israel, the Transjordan, and Judah, while acknowledging the transformative effect that the experience of exile had on the biblical memory of Egypt.