al
facts, which find confirmation even in the documents of
ancient Egypt (which we have just shown). But the traditional
narratives of these events (were) _elaborated by the Hebrew
people_."[54:3]

Count de Volney also observes that:

"What Exodus says of their (the Israelites) servitude under
the king of Heliopolis, and of the oppression of their hosts,
the Egyptians, is extremely probable. _It is here their
history begins. All that precedes . . . is nothing but
mythology and cosmogony._"[54:4]

In speaking of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, Dr. Knappert
says:

"According to the tradition preserved in Genesis, it was the
promotion of Jacob's son, Joseph, to be viceroy of Egypt, that
brought about the migration of the sons of Israel from Canaan
to Goshen. The story goes that this Joseph was sold as a slave
by his brothers, and after many changes of fortune received
the vice-regal office at Pharaoh's hands through his skill in
interpreting dreams. Famine drives his brothers--and
afterwards his father--to him, and the Egyptian prince gives
them the land of Goshen to live in. _It is by imagining all
this that the legend tries to account for the fact that
Israel passed some time in Egypt._ But we must look for the
real explanation in a migration of certain tribes which could
not establish or maintain themselves in Canaan, and were
forced to move further on.

"We find a passage in Flavius Josephus, from which it appears
that in Egypt, too, a recollection survived of the sojourn of
some foreign tribes in the north-eastern district of the
country. For this writer gives us two fragments out of a lost
work by Manetho, a priest, who lived about 250 B. C. In one of
these we have a statement that pretty nearly agrees with the
Israelitish tradition about a sojourn in Goshen. _But the
Israelites were looked down on by the Egyptians as foreigners,
and they are represented as lepers and unclean._ Moses himself
is mentioned by name, and we are told that he was a priest and
joined himself to these _lepers_ and gave them laws."[55:1]

To return now to the story of the Red Sea being divided to let Moses and
his followers pass through--of which we have already seen one
counterpart in the legend related of Bacchus and his army passing
through the same sea d