Biblical Archaeology Review

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 15.415.

Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 15.400.

Fergusson noted that the southwest corner of the Haram al-Sharif is a right angle, the only one out of the four corners of the enclosure to measure 90 degrees. The western wall of the Triple Gate passage runs approximately parallel to the western wall of the Haram and the southern boundary of the platform of the Dome of the Rock is parallel to the southern wall of the Haram.

How long thereafter the southern coastal territory may be called “Philistia” is also a question. Furthermore, though the song connects the Exodus directly with the Conquest, such a direct connection may not have been close to the events in question.

As my friend Gary Knoppers reminds me.

There is, of course, a question whether the Song of the Sea documents an Exodus at all. Clearly, it connects an Egyptian defeat to the secure settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. The idea of an Exodus is never divorced from that of the Conquest in any Israelite literature. After all, the Exodus without the promise of the land would be pointless. A connection between Egyptian defeat and the Conquest, coupled with an identification of YHWH as the God who led Israel into Canaan, is prima facie evidence for an Exodus tradition.

Halpern, The Emergence of Israel in Canaan (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), pp. 32–43.

See Shmuel Ahituv, Canaanite Toponyms in Ancient Egyptian Texts (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1984), pp. 121–122.

See Numbers 10:36, and also compare Psalms 68:2 and Numbers 10:35.