Don't people realize most of the Exodus book is simply not true?
Look it up anywhere you want, even the Catholic Bibles introduction to Exodus clearly spell out that there's no historical basis to believe the historicity of the book.
No evidence of Hebrew presence in Egypt, nor of mass/sudden exit of population (nor the economic cataclysm such a loss of slave labour would have caused), nor the loss of the Egyptian army (would have left Egypt vulnerable to be conquered and depleted of male population).
Plus a couple inconvenient facts:
- The Moses/arc/Sinai story only became mainstream AFTER the Babylonian captivity. In the northern kingdom of Israel, Moses and the Egypt captivity were nonexistent. That story only existed on the southern kingdom of Judah.
- Historical records show that the god of Abraham was indeed El, and only became Yahweh after the Babylonian Exile (Yahweh even had a wife, Ashera, and the Jerusalem temple and many households had her statues).
- The closest people that could possibly be the Hebrews in Egypt were the Hyksos, whom were conquerors, rulers and had to be kicked out. Not exactly the noble image Jews have of themselves.
So long story short:
- Hebrews were for the most part Natives to Canaan, were Canaanite themselves (El was a Canaanite god)
- A few of them may have descended on to Egypt
- Moses, if he even existed, was most likely a Madia priest whom introduced the cult of Yahweh into the people whom settled in the kingdom of Judah.
- Israel was quite polytheist.
- the 10 plagues are clearly based off natural disasters that occurred here and there over time (why nobody can place them all within any time period to match the alleged exodus).
- Whatever massacres/genocides/exterminations the Hebrews are said to have done were the rule of the land, and most likely embellishments (Jericho for example has been shown not to have been the huge fortification described in the OT).
And that's that. I don't know nor care about whether Jews actually believe tit to be literally factual (most seem to have no problem realizing the Flintstones are not a documentary unlike many evangelical Protestants), Christians sure don't need to take it literally either.