Peter,Well, you may be partly right. There was doubtless a lot of Egyptian history happening, but the author was concerned with the (theological) history of Israel and God's dealings with them. And on that front nothing much happened for centuries (as far as we know) and so the period could be passed over in near silence.
I believe Ex 1 was writen principally to make a *Theological* point. The
literary effort merely serves the theology. There was obviously a great deal
of history between Joseph and Moses. At best only a miniscule fraction is
reported in Ex 1. The author only reported enough history to make the
theological point. I beileve a general rule for the MT is that literature
and history are merely theology's handmaindens.
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