Forbidden History - The Exodus: Legends and Legacy

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we explore the ancient biblical story of the Exodus, tracing the Israelites' journey from Egyptian slavery to the Promised Land. Join us as we uncover the historical, cultural, and spiritual significance of this legendary migration that has inspired countless generations. Cast List: Tony McMahon: Former BBC news producer, author, print journalist and historian  Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. For thousands of years, one story has stood at the center of Jewish identity. A journey from slavery to freedom. A promise sealed with divine fire. A miracle whispered through the generations.

But what really happened? And why does this tale still echo across faith and history? You know, it's very difficult to date the Exodus because its historical veracity is something that's questioned. To convince Pharaoh that he might want to let the Jewish people go, God sends ten plagues upon Egypt, and we know about the flies and the frogs and the rivers turn into blood, but ultimately the most devastating of the plagues sent by God against Egypt is the death of the firstborn.

Trying to identify who was the actual Pharaoh ruling Egypt at the time of the Exodus is not easy. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we follow the trail of the Exodus, through the desert sands and into the heart of a mystery that has haunted his story. historians, archaeologists, and believers for generations. For thousands of years, it stood at the heart of a people's identity, a tale of a nation's birth, of plagues and parted seas. It's the story of a prophet who dares to defy an empire, and a God who demands loyalty at any cost.

But what if the Exodus is more than just scripture? A tale of political upheaval, ancient ancient propaganda or a forgotten truth the rulers tried to bury. Today we're joined by investigative historian, journalist and author Tony McMahon. To understand why this story matters, we begin with a simple question. Why does the Exodus still hold such power? The Exodus is massively important for the Jewish people because this is the, it's the origin story really of Judaism as a religion.

And at its center is essentially a kind of transaction between the Jewish people and God, Yahweh. A divine transaction, a chosen people. But chosen for what? And by whom? They become the chosen people. But it is an agreement. It is a transaction.

They in turn have to obey his commandments. and if they don't, they are no longer the chosen people, they will not be favoured. So there is this idea of a kind of transaction between the Jewish people and God. And then he operates, as it were, through a leader, through Moses. And he gives Moses, if you want, the terms and conditions that will apply to this transaction, the Ten Commandments. This is the covenant, this is the agreement that the chosen people must address. adhere to and then they are tested by the Exodus.

They must journey through the desert to the land that God then promises them. So this is the final part of the transaction. You obey the terms and conditions, I will give you the promised land. So that's really why the Exodus is so important, so central to the Jewish people. What offers a deal? Obey my commandments and I will give you a land, a future, break the terms and you're abandoned. A celestial contract with real world consequences. But what actually happened next?

What follows is a story of plagues and flight, a struggle between a prophet and a king. So what exactly happens in the Jewish Exodus? I mean, let's be clear. This is a story of the Israelites being liberated from slavery in ancient Egypt. Now, whether or not this slavery actually happened, whether or not the Jewish people where slaves in ancient Egypt is something that historians and archaeologists argue about. The consensus view these days is that they were not, that this is a literary construct. But in the Bible, it is stated very clearly that the children of Israel, that the Jewish people, were held as slaves in Egypt. There is no archaeological consensus that this ever occurred.

No Egyptian records mourn the loss of slaves. No hieroglyphs weep over plagues. But the story continues. Moses then goes to the pharaoh. Moses has grown up among the Egyptian people. He's effectively, if you want an Egyptian prince, but he aligns himself to his own people. He, as it were, has an awakening where he realizes and God makes it clear to him,

he must lead his people to the promised land. And he demands from Pharaoh their freedom. Pharaoh, not surprisingly, refuses. He rather likes having all these slaves doing the horrible work. And then comes one of the most infamous stories, a biblical horror show. When people look at the story of the Exodus, let's be honest, they tend to be quite interested in the ten plagues. And because it's so unusual, they're really the stuff of horror movies. Were they nature's wrath or divine vengeance?

So to give you the full list of the ten plagues, as I know you're all of a gory disposition out there, The first one is basically water turning to blood. So the River Nile and its waters turn to blood. Then, as a result, the land becomes infested with frogs. The frogs don't particularly like living in bloody water, and they enter houses, bedrooms, and horrible and slimy and disgusting. But not particularly fatal. It's just nobody wants to be covered in frogs.

Then we have this infestation of lice. of gnats of these insects flying through the air, followed by swarms of flies which plague the land. And these aren't just, you know, a few flies. It's literally huge swarms of them. And then we have the pestilence which hits the livestock. So the cows are literally wasting and dying in the fields. So far it's all been quite inconvenient for people,

but now human beings, as it were, are hit the human beings, themselves with boils and sores. So people find themselves covered in pusculus lumps and this is really quite unpleasant as well. The poor animals get covered in boils too. And then hail, not just moderate hail but a severe hail storm which destroys everything. It literally pounds the land of Egypt. Now you think things can't get worse. Well God now sends a huge swarm of locusts to eat all the remaining crops that have not been flattened by the hail and the famine. And then the whole land of Egypt, this is plague number nine, if you're keeping up.

The whole land of Egypt is plunged into darkness. And this is a gloopy darkness. You literally can't see your hand in front of your face. And this goes on for three days and is a kind of a maddening experience for everybody in Pharaoh's kingdom. But what came next was truly the most distressing curse of all. Ultimately, the most devastating of the plagues sent by God against Egypt is the death of the firstborn. Death of the firstborn throughout the kingdom

and absolutely devastating, emotionally horrific thing to do to an entire people. But God does this because Pharaoh has incurred his wrath. He has refused to release the Israelites. Now, the course, the firstborn of the Israelites don't die, and this is something that is celebrated in the Passover. And as they depart illegally, the Israelites are pursued by the Egyptian army, who are determined to keep them in Egypt.

So having been hit by all these things, you might think, well, the Egyptians would have second thoughts, but no, Pharaoh continues to pursue the Jewish people, possibly even angrier than ever, to try to stop. them leaving his kingdom. They miraculously cross the Red Sea, which is parted by Moses, and they wander in the desert for an astonishing 40 years until eventually they reach Mount Sinai, where Moses then receives the Ten Commandments. After that, they enter the promised land.

And it is this journey, this odyssey, the Exodus, which cementes the relationship between God and the chosen people as they arrive in what will become the land of Israel. Blood, frogs, darkness, death. A supernatural assault orchestrated by a god angry enough to kill children. But even this, some scholars believe, may mask something more human. In the Bible, we're told that the Israelites, had essentially migrated to Egypt, which was the most powerful kingdom in the region looking for work and they had thrived, they'd done very well, setting up businesses and, you know, rearing their

families and doing jolly nicely in the kingdom of Egypt. The pharaoh, one of the pharaohs, then decided that he didn't like this very much. He resented their power, he resented their influence and so he enslaves the Jewish people. They are forced into hard labor, into building cities, the city of Ramsey's, and they are subjected to very, very harsh treatment. They are subjected to the whip and the lash. And it's even said that they were instrumental in the building of the pyramids. Modern archaeology challenges this story,

as there's no hard evidence for the mass enslavement of Jewish people in Egypt. The pyramids built centuries earlier, the cities of Ramsey's named later. This is something that people, by the way, believed right up until the 20th century that the Jewish slaves in Egypt had been responsible for building the pyramids. That's a theory that's definitely now been shot to pieces. It was actually voluntary labor and it wasn't necessarily Jewish. In fact, it was people from Egypt. But in the Bible, that's what we're led to believe happened.

and it needs Moses, as it were, to intervene to lead the Israelites out of bondage, out of slavery. Now, is there any evidence to support this assertion outside of the Bible that the Jews lived in this miserable condition? No, there isn't. But the Bible is very explicit, the Old Testament very explicit, that the Jews for a period were enslaved in Egypt and needed to be liberated. Still, the tale remains vital. Why? Because it offered something rare, a moral reckoning, a myth of justice. But even justice can be violent.

We return to the moment Moses demands freedom, and Pharaoh responds with blood. After the break. The demand has been made. Freedom for an entire people, torn from the foundations of Egyptian power. A divine ultimatum echoed in the halls of the Pharaoh's court. But this is no peaceful negotiation. So how does Pharaoh respond when Moses dares to confront the throne of Egypt? Investigative historian, author and journalist Tony McMahon explains more.

After Moses has gone to the Pharaoh and demanded that the Jewish people be freed and that he'd be allowed to take them out of bondage in Egypt, According to the Torah, to the Jewish scripture, we're told that Pharaoh immediately orders the death of every boy born to Jewish parents, a huge act of infanticide. And to a degree, this kind of justifies the later decision by the Jewish god to kill the first born in Egypt. But in what ancient world does this morality stand? What was really being justified? Now, did this actually happen?

Some people who actually tried to prove that this mass infanticide happened. There was a discovery of a cemetery full of children's bodies in Egypt a few years ago when archaeologists said that this chilling find basically proved that Pharaoh did indeed kill a lot of children. However, most archaeologists do not believe that there was this act of mass infanticide and that the evidence is, pretty thin. But nevertheless there seems to be almost a kind of a tip-for-tat here where Pharaoh kills a huge number of Jewish children and so God says, okay, well I can do better than that, I can kill every firstborn. So we have a kind of tip-for-tat infanticides going on in the Exodus story.

And what of the Pharaoh himself? Can we name the ruler who defied Moses? to identify who was the actual pharaoh ruling Egypt at the time of the exodus is not easy and there's often been a kind of lazy assumption that it must have been rameses the second who's you know undoubtedly one of the most prolific pharaohs in ancient Egypt plus the fact that he builds the cities of python and ramses and so there's a kind of reference to the israelite slaves being involved in building these cities, so it must have been Ramsey's the Second. And he rules during a period that aligns with what could be called the traditional dates for the Exodus.

It's very difficult to date the Exodus because its historical veracity is something that's questioned. But Ramsey's the second isn't the only suspect in this ancient story. Some believe the plagues themselves left a deadly clue, etched in the remains of a long, dead king. Others have pointed intriguingly to Amman Hotep II, and they justify this choice because his mummified body shows examples of what are called tubercles. Kind of boils, basically, all over his body. And so when his mummified body was examined in 1907, of course, some people got very excited

saying here is proof of one of the plagues of Egypt that he was afflicted by the plague of boils. A pharaoh covered in boils, a mummified body that might hold a clue to the ancient plagues. But if Aminhotep II was the ruler who faced Moses, he wasn't the only candidate in this tangled web of ancient civilizations. Some people have believed that the Exodus happened later, much later on, into the late dynastic period, and so pharaohs such as Doudemose II, not exactly one of the more famous pharaohs, has been mentioned. But this really is a subject of heated discussion between biblical scholars, archaeologists, historians. Ramsey's the second? Amunhotep the second? Didimus the second? Or was it someone history tried to erase. One name emerges from the dust of conspiracy and heresy.

Akanaten. Now there is a theory about the Exodus that's intriguing and it is that Moses was a priest at the court of the Pharaoh Akanaten. Now Akanaten was the father of Tutankhamun. And Akanatin has gone down in history as a notorious Pharaoh who overthrew the polytheistic religion, the multi-god religion of ancient Egypt, and he brought in a monotheistic religion, a kind of worship of the sun god, of the Arton. But he's the heretic pharaoh, he's often termed. He overthrows the religion of Egypt, he overthrows the power of the traditional priests and brings in this monotheistic religion. the heretic Pharaoh, the sun worshiper, the monotheist before monotheism. Was Moses his priest?

Or was Moses Akhenaten himself? Now the theory runs that maybe this was a kind of proto-Judaism, that he was the founder of the Jewish religion or something very like it, that Moses was a priest at his court. Some people have even suggested that Moses, Moses was the Pharaoh Akanatan. Now we know that Akanaten was overthrown in a military coup and that his religious reforms were then completely reversed, wiped out.

The theory suggests a religious coup, crushed by tradition, exiled by priests. Could it be that the Exodus is really the flight of Akanaten's followers through the desert into a new land to continue the religion that they had promoted within Egypt. Perhaps a theological rebellion disguised as a migration. A spiritual purge rewritten as holy destiny. We don't know. It's an intriguing theory that Moses was, if you want, an Egyptian heretic, whether or not he was a priest at the court of Akanatin or he was indeed Akanaten himself. But if the story of the Exodus is true, why don't the Egyptians speak of it. The story of the Exodus is intriguing only because we find it in Jewish scripture in our

Bible, but it doesn't seem to come anywhere else. The only thing that comes remotely close is Egyptian accounts of having been invaded by what they term the sea peoples and by Semitic peoples, and for example the Hixos who invade Egypt. I mean, the Kingdom of Egypt does come under attack from different groups. And one has to go wonder, is this a kind of twisted account of an invasion of Egypt, possibly by the Israelites or by another people that somehow got turned into their enslavement and Exodus? Only fragments hint at the truth.

While Egyptian records mention the Hixus, the sea peoples, these are foreign invaders, not slaves. Could the Exodus be the retelling of an invasion, flipped into a tale of escape? I mean, it's stretching a point, but this idea of an alien people within the kingdom of Egypt who present a threat, well, the only equivalent that we really get from the ancient Egyptians themselves is this reference to what they termed the sea peoples and the Hixos, these peoples from outside, who attempted, and who did in fact,

invade parts of the kingdom of Egypt. So aside from that, that's really the only non-biblical reference that we can cling on to, to as it were, legitimize the exodus. In the end, the truth may not be historical at all. The exodus of the Jewish people is something that's believed fervently by the Jewish people and by Israel today. It really is at the very roots, the foundation of Jewish identity, this story of a liberation from oppression. And it's something that given what's happened to the Jewish people throughout history,

it's a reference that they constantly, as it were hearted back to, you know, in all the trials, tribulations that they've faced through history, they see it as a kind of an echo of the original exodus. plus the fact we have this idea of the covenant with God. You know, the Exodus is when the Jewish people and God are bound together. So it's critical importance. It has influenced the Christian faith in some ways. I mean, the idea of the crucifixion and resurrection being a new exodus, as it were, a new Jesus is a new Moses, as it were.

But for the Jewish people, of course, they don't accept that. What they see the Exodus as is proof of the fact that they enjoy this special relationship with God, that they have this transaction with God, and it is something that they must honour for all time. This story, with its burning bush, its parted sea, its Ten Commandments, is less about what happened and more about what it means. A people bound by suffering, a faith forged in exile, A God demanding loyalty. Even if the sands of Egypt hold no record,

the Exodus lives on in memory and in legend. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more. We post new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget to leave a comment below, and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. And for more from the Like a Shot Network, check out where did everyone go,

histories of the abandoned, a deep dive into the incredible stories behind forgotten places, available now on your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening.