This book is a sequel to an edited volume published with Springer in 2015, Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Since 2015, the theme has remained of unabated relevance to global research, as is evident by the amount of recent Exodus scholarship addressing questions of historicity, identity formation, reception, and a growing consensus on the importance of desert traditions in the formation of earliest Israel. At the same time, the rapid development of scientific methods has transformed archaeology and scientific approaches to the Exodus question. This book reflects these paramount advancements and presents innovative examples of scholarship by leading experts in the field. This book addresses key questions in six methodologically and thematically coherent parts:
(1) The Geophysics of the Exodus: An examination of geological and geophysical phenomena that may have influenced the geographical setting, historical context, and development of the Exodus tradition, with particular attention to the relationship between natural processes and biblical narratives.
(2) The Topography of the Exodus: Integrating new archaeological fieldwork, topographical analysis, and paleoenvironmental data to reconstruct potential routes of the Exodus, identify the geographical settings of key biblical locations (e.g., Mount Sinai), and critically evaluate the relationship between ancient landscapes and the Exodus tradition.
(3) The Nomadic Context of the Exodus: Archaeological, historical, and anthropological investigations of pastoral-nomadic societies, particularly the Shasu, and their potential contributions to the formation of early Israel and the development of the Exodus traditions.
(4) The Historiography of the Exodus: New historical and historiographical perspectives on the possible historical foundations of the Exodus, examining alternative scenarios for its emergence and the origins, transmission, and transformation of motifs in biblical and extra-biblical Exodus traditions.
(5) The Literature and Cultural Memory of the Exodus: New literary, historical, and memory-historical approaches to the formation, transmission, and reinterpretation of the Exodus traditions, examining their biblical and extra-biblical expressions and their significance within the cultural and religious contexts of the ancient Near East.
(6) Cyber-Archaeology and Data Science for Exodus Research: The application of advanced digital technologies, artificial intelligence, geospatial analysis, and data science to integrate, analyze, interpret, and visualize archaeological, environmental, and historical evidence relevant to the study of the Exodus traditions and their ancient Near Eastern contexts.
