Abstract
On the basis of the features of the Exodus narrative, I suggest that we are dealing in parts of Exodus with a subversive parody of Egyptian mythology. It is not that the Egyptian gods are (so to speak) brought recognizably on stage, but that some of their characteristic actions— significantly, actions of fundamental symbolic importance for the stability of the Egyptian dynasty—are mimed by other characters: not only by Israel’s god, the LORD, but by the anti-characters—ostensibly polar opposites to the glorious, powerful figures of Egyptian myth—through whom the Lord’s purposes are accomplished. One powerful and, I suggest, an intended effect of the Exodus account operates at the level of mythology, specifically, the myths involved in the distinctly Egyptian ideology of kingship. We are not dealing in Exodus with an “ancient” or “primitive” attempt to explain, in mythic terms, otherwise bewildering natural events (earthquakes, atmospheric effects, naturally occurring environmental imbalances, etc.). To the extent something else is going on, modem attempts to develop scientific explanations for reconstructing “what really happened" as natural phenomena rather miss the point.