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Maryl Levine

“Israel is laid waste and his seed is not,” the Egyptian pharaoh boasts in hieroglyphic on the so-called Merneptah Stele from the late 13th century B.C.E. This is the earliest mention of Israel outside the Bible. Israel Finkelstein maintains that this proves only that there was a group of people named Israel in the late 13th century B.C.E., not that there was an exodus from Egypt.