Question
Is there any record of where Moses crosses the Red Sea? In looking at the route that he took out of Egypt, as described in Exodus 15 (and following along in my atlas), I see where he heads north to Baalzephon against the sea (which I would assume to be the Mediterranean Sea). Then there appears to be a big gap and there is no mention of a place until after they crosses the Red Sea, which is far to the south. Is there a deliberate gap in the record or am I missing something?
Response
I learned a long time ago that I cannot completely trust Bible atlases; and for three main reasons:
- Archaeology can be faulty, especially with the supposed location of various sites. (Finding question marks after place names is not an uncommon occurrence in many atlases. However, even locations without question marks in one atlas may have question marks after them in another atlas. So what one group of archaeologists and cartographers may be reasonably confident about, others may not.);
- Geography as seen today, may not be exactly the same as it was, for example, back in Abraham’s day, or that of Joseph, or Moses, or Joshua, etc. And this is certainly true for how things were before the flood; and
- The map makers can be influenced by scientific skepticism, especially when it comes to the location of miraculous events like crossing the Red Sea, etc.
To me one, two, or all three of these issues play a part in the mapping out of the “route of the Exodus” in most modern Bible atlases.
As you note, you usually see it being mapped out as taking place far north of the Red Sea. In fact, some even pronounce that the Red Sea of the Bible is really the Reed Sea of the eastern Nile delta, which is the marshy and reedy low-lying eastern portion of the delta. This particular theory can be clearly seen to incorporate all three of these issues, for it is based upon assuming that the places cited in Exodus 14 have all been precisely located without question by modern archaeology; and that no geographical changes have taken place since the exodus; and that the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea is a contrived exaggeration on the part of whoever wrote Exodus, and that it really did not take place. Therefore, this theory has it so that the exodus just had to take place in this Reed Sea, and not the Red Sea. And even though not all the producers of modern Bible atlases would necessarily espouse this theory, or all of its tenets, most of them show the route of the exodus as taking place either within or next to the eastern portion of the delta.
I, of course, disagree. For I not only believe that God did miraculously divide the Red Sea as He says, and that it was the Red Sea; but I also know from other places in the Bible that great physical and geographical occurrences took place in connection with God bringing Israel out of Egypt and also when He brought them to Sinai and dealt with them there. Hence how things are seen to be today, most likely are not exactly how they were back at that time.
Simply put, therefore, my understanding is that present day maps of the geographical layout of Egypt, and the Red Sea, and the Sinai Peninsula, are not perfectly accurate representations of how things were back at the time of the exodus. In particular, my understanding is that the western tongue of the Red Sea probably extended much farther north than it is shown to do on modern maps. In fact, I have seen some Bible maps from 100/150 years back and more that show it be just this way, along with the route of the exodus and the crossing being shown to be much further south than how it is mapped out in modern atlases.
So I don’t go by “the route of the Exodus” as it is mapped out in most modern Bible atlases. It just does not fit with what God says took place.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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