September 12, 2025

#197 – updating the Exodus and Christian faith

58 minutes

A new understanding of the ancient story of Israel’s exodus out of Egypt leads to a whole new understanding of the Passover … and of the crucifixion!

In this episode, Scott and Luke look back on the two recent re-releases — both challenging the traditional “Sunday school version” of the Exodus story — to address a few loose ends:

why did we choose those two episodes in particular to re-release?

why is the account of the Exodus from Egypt only available in ancient Hebrew literature …. why wouldn’t the countries around Egypt have said anything about this empire-shattering event?

if scholars have learned so much about what didn’t happen, and what actually happened, in the Exodus from Egypt, why does that updated version never find its way to the people in the pews and the kids in Sunday School?

the many genetic studies which have been done which only find evidence of a continuous gradual mixing of Israelite genes with the surrounding Canaanite genes, rather than a sudden and dramatic replacement of the latter by the former

what does a thinking Christian now do with this new understanding of a core element in our theology?

in particular, if the Passover comes directly out of the Exodus story, but the latter may have never happened in the way it’s described in the Bible, and if the Passover has nothing to do with atonement for sins, why does Christianity interweave the crucifixion of Jesus so tightly into the Passover story?

As always, tell us what you think …

If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:

Episode #80, with Dr. Aren Maeir, another world-leading Jewish archaeologist, about the origin of the nation of Israel and her new religion;

Episode #57, with Dr. Peter Enns, about who wrote the Hebrew Bible;

Episode #98, with Dr. Eric Seibert, about a perfect example of humans putting words into God’s mouth (like telling them to kill their enemies);

Episode #19, in which we focus on the various ideas about atonement theory.

We also highly recommend you read Dr. Richard Friedman’s book Who Wrote the Bible?

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By Luke Jeffrey Janssen

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