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Exodus and Liberation

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John Coffey discusses how the Bible’s liberationist texts were deployed and contested in a series of political crises in British and American history.

Image courtesy of interviewee. April 24, 2024

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This video video is a detailed discourse by a historian focused on religious history, specifically the role of the Exodus story in Protestantism and its political implications throughout history. The narrator outlines their academic journey, beginning with studies in Scotland and England, moving to North America, and more recently the British Caribbean, while emphasizing their interest in the interaction between religion, politics, and ideas.

The foundation for their current work stemmed from insights gained from Michael Waltz's observations on the use of the Exodus narrative in various political movements, including the English Revolution and the American Civil Rights Movement. The speaker characterizes their work as an examination of the "reception history" of biblical texts, particularly how the Exodus story has been interpreted and utilized in political contexts over time.

The author discusses two primary ways the Exodus narrative has been read in Christianity: spiritualizing it as a metaphor for redemption and politicizing it as a framework for advocating liberation. The transformational use of the Exodus story can be traced from the Reformation era to the abolitionist movement and finally to the Civil Rights Movement. Key figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. effectively utilized the imagery from Exodus to inspire hope and activism against oppression.

Additionally, the speaker explores how various sources—such as sermons, pamphlets, visual art, and songs—were used to convey the story's significance, noting that the Exodus narrative resonates broadly across different groups, especially among African Americans, who drew upon its themes for their liberation struggles.

Throughout the narrative, the themes of providence and deliverance politics surface, positing that faith in divine intervention plays a crucial role in sustaining hope for justice. The discussion culminates in recognizing the ongoing power and relevance of the Exodus story in shaping political rhetoric and social movements in history.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Yeah, well, I, I'm an historian of,

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religious history, particularly of history

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of Protestantism in the British Atlantic world.

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So I started off working on Scotland,

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then worked on England.

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This book did quite a bit of work on North America.

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More recently, been working on the British Caribbean.

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Um, and I suppose what,

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what I've been particularly interested is a relationship

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between religion, politics, and ideas.

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And probably the seed for this book came from reading,

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a short book, almost an essay

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by the Harvard political theorist, Michael Waltz.

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Uh, when I, when I was embarking my PhD a very long time

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ago, on Exodus and Revolution,

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and Waltz had observed the use

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of the Exodus story in the Civil Rights Movement.

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Uh, but he'd also seen it, it being used

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by English revolutionaries in

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the middle of the 17th century.

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So I think that planted the seed in my mind.

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And then some years later,

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when I was working on the English Revolution,

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and I was also reading into British abolitionist writings,

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I was very struck by the way in which the Exodus story was

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used alongside of the biblical text to argue for,

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liberation or, or deliverance.

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Um, so in some ways, this project was an exercise in,

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reception history.

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You know, the, so reception history has really

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taken off in recent years.

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Um, and the reception history of the Bible has been subject

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of a great deal of research,

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over the past generation or so.

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But it's a huge subject

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because biblical texts are arguably

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the most extensively read

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and the most intensively studied texts,

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in, in human history.

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So it's, this, this book is just one small contribution,

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I suppose, to understanding how one particular part,

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by particularly the Exodus story, has been used politically.

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Um, Exodus politics is,

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a big field.

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So if we think of, there's a lot going on

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in the Book of Exodus.

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So the Book of Exodus starts with the Hebrews,

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in bondage in Egypt.

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Uh, they're making bricks without straw under

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Egyptian taskmaster.

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There's a program against, male children.

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Moses survives because he's hidden in the bull rushes.

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He's rescued by Pharaoh's daughter.

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He's brought up in Pharaoh's court.

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He then has this encounter with God in the burning bush.

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Uh, after that, he confronts Pharaoh about the,

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oppression of the, of the Hebrews.

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Um, and Pharaoh hardens his heart,

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you know, he, he won't budge.

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Uh, but God then, of course, sends 10 plagues on Egypt.

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Um, and finally,

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Pharaoh relent the Hebrews hold their Passover

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as they're about to lead Egypt,

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and they march to the Red Sea, only to

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Find that the Egyptian army is, is, pursuing them.

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Uh, and it's at that point

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that God opens up the Red Sea in a miracle that,

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that the Hebrews process through,

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the seas fold over the, the Egyptian army.

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Uh, the Hebrews celebrates on, on the other side

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with Timbral, led by Miriam, who's Moses sister.

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And then they, then they wonder for 40 years in the

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wilderness, you know, there's the,

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they worship the golden calve.

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They received the 10 Commandments, Moses dies.

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They finally crossed the Jordan

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River into the Promised Land.

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So it's one of the epic stories, I suppose,

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of world literature.

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Um, and it's been central to Jewish identity,

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obviously the Passover being the central ritual in and

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and festival in Judaism.

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But it's also been very important in Christianity.

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And I guess there are two main ways

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of reading the Exodus story, Christianity.

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One is to spiritualize it,

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and that is to weed it as a picture of redemption

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or salvation, you know?

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So on that picture, you know, Pharaoh's almost like Satan.

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Uh, Moses is a type of Christ, the Passover

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and the, the Red Sea, a picture of Christ's,

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sacrifice shedding his blood and so on,

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and salvation, the wilderness wanderings to the,

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you know, pilgrimage of the Christian in this life.

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The Jordan is a picture of death.

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Then you cross overly

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to heaven in the end and the afterlife.

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Um, but there was another way of reading the Exodus story,

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and that is to politicize it.

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Uh, and the first major figure we know who does this is,

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is you Zaius, who's the,

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the fourth century Christian historian.

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And he celebrates constant time.

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The emperor who's converted to Christianity as,

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a deliverer, as a Moses figure,

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because is rescued the Christians from persecution.

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Uh, and from that point on, there is this tradition

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of using the Exodus story politically.

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Um, and those who do so tend to see it's paradigm.

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So they tend to think that it reveals the way God works in

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human history, that he sees the oppressed,

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he hears the cries of the oppressed, and he can come down

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and sort of deliver through,

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through human agents, and so on.

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So, the phrase I use for this in the title of the book,

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deliverance Politics,

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and it's often combined with other biblical texts like the,

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the Jubilee story, the idea of a year

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of Jubilee in which slaves are released,

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or, just the metaphor

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of redemption gets applied politically.

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It's, it's turned into a kind of literal, idea

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of redemption from, from slavery.

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Uh, and it's been quite prominent in Protestant

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history in particular.

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I used a whole variety of sources really, in,

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in writing this book.

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So, one very important source is orry

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or, you know, speeches and sermons and so on.

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And I think one of the reasons why,

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the Exodus story had such purchase is

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because biblical stories were kind of common currency,

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you know, particularly in Protestant societies

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with its enormous emphasis on, biblical literacy.

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Uh, most people have got some inkling of what the,

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what these stories are.

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So they're better known than sacred myths

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or better known than Shakespeare plays.

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So orators and speakers could transport people immediately,

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if you like, into this sort of biblical history

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and into sacred time.

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So, yeah, quite a, quite a number

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of the sources I use are sermons, their, their speeches.

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Uh, but I also use a variety of the print sources.

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So, you know, I was looking at, pamphlets,

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biblical commentaries, also newspapers, as well.

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So, you know, some of the research

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for this was quite conventional, you know, reading,

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six volumes of William Lloyd Garrison's correspondence,

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the American abolitionist.

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Uh, but also databases have made

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this kind of research easier.

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You know, searching, say African American newspapers

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in the 19th century became a lot easier

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because of databases.

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You, so you could see how,

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the Exodus story was really being used in those sources.

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The third kind of source was, visual.

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So I was struck by the way in which, the Exodus

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and other texts are used in iconography.

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Um, so it's interesting that at the time

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of the American Revolution in 1776, Benjamin Franklin,

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proposes a design for the seal of the United States,

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which is Moses at the Red Sea,

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because the American revolutionaries are sort of, you know,

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seeing, seeing their, resistance to Britain is,

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is almost another Exodus moment, a sort of moment

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of deliverance from civil bondage.

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Um, and,

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and other texts are used in various other,

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other places.

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So, you know, Garrison, the Liberator, which is one

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of the main abolitionist magazines, he,

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on the masthead of the, the Liberator, he has an image

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of Christ with the words,

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I'll break the bonds of the oppressor.

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So Christ has been presented in the way as the deliverer,

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as, as the, as the liberator

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and biblical texts appear in all sorts of places,

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and abolitionist iconography, especially, you know,

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on banners, on met medallions, even on tableware.

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So, you know, British abolitionists

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by the 1820s are using some of these biblical texts on

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plates, on cups, on jugs that are, are used at the table.

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Um, so visual sources were, were

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one significant source I used.

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And, and the final source would be songs. So, you know,

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The book looks at, Puritan Psalms, evangelical hymns,

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black spirituals, civil Rights protest songs.

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The most famous of these is Go Down Moses, the,

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the Black Spiritual, which is used, during the Civil War

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by the Contrabands, who fighting for the Union Armies,

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the Black Troops Fighting Union Armies.

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Um, and it's first reported in newspapers around 18 60, 63.

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Um, and of course, they're telling Pharaoh to let people go.

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So, it, it retells the story of the Exodus,

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but applies it to liberation from slavery during the,

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during the American Civil War.

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Yeah. So the book spans, quite,

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quite a large arc historically.

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So it, it works from the Reformation really through to the,

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civil rights Movement.

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Um, and it's interested, I suppose, in how the, the use

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of Exodus shifts over time, you know, from the era

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of the Reformation age of revolutions, through

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to the anti-slavery movement.

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And then finally to the, the era

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of the Civil Rights Movement.

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Um, it's embedded there right from the very beginning,

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I suppose, in, in Protestantism, in

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that the Reformation was often depicted as a sort

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of deliverance from hopish bondage.

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So this sort of image of slavery

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and liberty is, is there in Protestant rhetoric

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and propaganda from the 1520s.

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Uh, and Luther himself talks about the, the captivity

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of the church, and he is depicted as Moses in some,

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contemporary, images.

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So it's there in a confessional context in the 16th century.

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What's interesting, I think in the 17th century,

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is it gets shifted into a revolutionary context, in

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what John Pocock called the three Protestant Revolutions,

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you know, so the revolution of,

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the Puritans in the middle of the 17th century in England,

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the English Civil War, the area of Cromwell, in the,

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16 88 89 revolution in England associated

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with William of Orange.

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Uh, and then finally in,

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the American Revolution, George Washington.

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And it's interesting that all three of those figures,

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Cromwell and William of Orange

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and Washington, they're all compared

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quite extensively to Moses.

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Um, and these, these revolutions are seen

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as deliverances from political slavery.

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So the metaphor of slavery as, as, political,

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political thing is being used in the each of these three,

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revolutions.

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Um, and then around the time of the American Revolution,

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you see another shift, which is the way in which this

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deliverance politics starts to be applied, really to,

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the issue of slavery, of chattel slavery.

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So

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Comeback from British loyalists,

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but also from, some Americans as well, is to say, well,

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what about slave holding in America?

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Uh, what about actual chattel slavery in the United States?

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And so we see, we see this rhetoric being picked up by,

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by abolitionists from the 1770s, 1780s onwards.

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And that will run right through the Civil War.

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I think the other final significant shift is the way in

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which black Americans pick up this, this language

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and these stories,

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and they do so run about the time

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of the American Revolution,

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but particularly in the 19th century there

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really mobilizing it.

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But that carries through in a way to the, through

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to the, through to the Civil War,

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and sorry, through to the Civil Rights Movement.

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Uh, and I guess the most famous example of it, the one

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that's familiar to most people is,

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is Martin Luther King's final speech.

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You know, the night before he's assassinated, when he's,

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you know, he says, I've been to the mountaintop.

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I've, I've seen the Promised Land.

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Uh, I may not get there with you,

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but we as people will get to the Promised Land.

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And I suppose if you're not biblically literate,

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that might just seem like a nice sort of poetic phrasing.

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But for those who are biblically literate,

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what King does is kind of transport you into a particular

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moment in the biblical story.

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You know, Moses dying on Mount Nebo,

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looking over at Promised Land,

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and realizing he won't get there himself,

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but, but his people will.

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So it's a, it's a very good example, I think, of

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how the rhetoric of,

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Exodus gets used in political speech.

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Because what King does is sort of transport you there.

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He transports you into sacred times so

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that you almost inhabit the narrative.

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You lift it into this particular moment in the biblical

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narrative, but it also infuses the present with the kind

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of spiritual, significance as well.

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And African Americans are the people who did

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that most intensely, obviously.

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Um, for the Jews, Exodus is, is

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absolutely central to their identity.

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But for, for Black Americans of

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among non-Jewish people, they, they were the people

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who people, appropriated it and used it

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and mobilized it, most intensively, I think,

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through the course of the 19th and 20th century.

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So yeah, in, in the 16th century, the,

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great humanist scholar,

14:37.385 --> 14:41.365
and biblical scholar Erasmus complained that the Bible

14:42.105 --> 14:46.005
had become a, a, a nose of wax, which was kind

14:46.005 --> 14:48.645
of twisted in every direction to suit the interests

14:48.645 --> 14:50.685
of the reader, whether they were Catholic or

14:50.685 --> 14:51.685
Protestant or whatever.

14:52.505 --> 14:55.565
So in, in a sense, the book's about power of readers

14:55.625 --> 14:56.885
to manipulate the text

14:57.065 --> 14:59.565
and to use it for political purposes in all kinds

14:59.565 --> 15:02.485
of situations, but it's also about the power of the text,

15:02.545 --> 15:04.285
you know, both to capture the imagination

15:04.585 --> 15:08.245
and to, to mobilize people,

15:08.755 --> 15:11.685
because readers wouldn't really bother manipulating the text

15:11.745 --> 15:12.765
if it wasn't powerful.

15:13.545 --> 15:15.725
So the, the prestige of the Bible,

15:15.725 --> 15:18.085
particularly in Protestant cultures, is so great

15:18.515 --> 15:20.405
that in a way you can't afford

15:20.405 --> 15:22.845
to let your enemy, get hold of it.

15:22.945 --> 15:26.285
So Protestant history can be seen as a whole set battles

15:26.285 --> 15:28.525
for the Bible, if you like, where,

15:28.525 --> 15:31.285
where various actors have tried to rest the text

15:31.385 --> 15:33.525
for their own, for their own purposes.

15:33.945 --> 15:37.645
So you find it being used in quite different, sides

15:37.645 --> 15:38.725
of the political argument.

15:39.065 --> 15:40.605
So it's used by revolutionaries,

15:41.185 --> 15:44.845
but it's also used by royalists in the, 17th

15:44.845 --> 15:48.125
and 18th centuries, in the 1860s.

15:48.275 --> 15:51.405
It's being used by abolitionists,

15:51.545 --> 15:53.885
but it's also being used by Confederates.

15:54.975 --> 15:57.795
So some of the confederates, I mean, Lincoln is seen as both

15:58.365 --> 16:00.435
Moses by, by many of his admirers,

16:00.435 --> 16:02.355
but also by the Confederates as a kind

16:02.355 --> 16:05.395
of Pharaoh figure who's sort of holding them, holding the,

16:05.415 --> 16:07.515
the trying to hold the states in bondage.

16:07.515 --> 16:09.355
So they, they see the confederacy as a sort

16:09.355 --> 16:11.195
of exodus, outta this.

16:11.775 --> 16:13.635
Um, so it's been used by all sides,

16:13.895 --> 16:16.355
and it's been used by, it's been used

16:16.355 --> 16:18.995
by the powerful in really interesting ways.

16:18.995 --> 16:21.755
So already mentioned Constantine and Luther,

16:21.935 --> 16:25.035
but also, you know, Cromwell, William of Orange,

16:25.255 --> 16:28.115
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, you know,

16:28.115 --> 16:31.035
these major political figures have been depicted as Moses,

16:32.655 --> 16:34.515
but I think it's also interesting that it's been used

16:34.515 --> 16:35.835
as a sort of weapon of the week.

16:36.575 --> 16:38.475
Um, and, and that's,

16:38.575 --> 16:41.435
that's the way in which African Americans are using it in

16:41.455 --> 16:44.955
the, the 19th and 20th centuries.

16:45.175 --> 16:47.235
And in a sense, there's something appropriate about that

16:47.235 --> 16:50.515
because the original biblical narratives were written

16:51.455 --> 16:54.155
in the shadow of the great empires of the ancient world.

16:54.545 --> 16:56.875
They come, if you like, from the underside of,

16:57.255 --> 16:58.315
of history.

16:58.315 --> 17:02.235
And they've always had that sort of appeal, to, to those

17:02.375 --> 17:06.235
who are, have a sense of being, being oppressed.

17:06.255 --> 17:09.235
So African Americans with black Americans use the,

17:09.235 --> 17:11.395
these stories in particularly powerful ways

17:12.135 --> 17:13.315
in the 19th century,

17:13.695 --> 17:15.755
but they have been mobilized by an extraordinary,

17:16.055 --> 17:18.275
extraordinarily wide range of actors.

17:19.655 --> 17:23.375
I guess most of my protagonists, had implicit faith,

17:23.395 --> 17:27.065
if you like, in the ex to this narrative as a story

17:27.065 --> 17:28.345
of an event really happened

17:28.345 --> 17:29.985
and happened just the way in which, you know,

17:30.505 --> 17:32.345
biblical text describes it.

17:32.805 --> 17:36.425
Um, and so some of their, confidence in, in,

17:36.645 --> 17:40.785
in the story to rise that implicit, maybe naive faith in,

17:40.845 --> 17:42.785
in, in the, the historicity of the story.

17:43.335 --> 17:44.385
It's an interesting question,

17:44.385 --> 17:47.825
whether it works in the same way for those who think

17:47.825 --> 17:50.165
of the story not so much as history,

17:50.165 --> 17:53.325
but as myth, which was the case with,

17:53.395 --> 17:56.405
with liberal Protestants in, in the, the 20th century.

17:56.745 --> 17:58.885
And to some extent, even with someone like Martin Luther

17:58.955 --> 18:03.485
King, who, who had been exposed to biblical scholarship,

18:03.485 --> 18:06.565
and figures like the Latin American liberation theologians

18:06.625 --> 18:07.845
who also used Exodus.

18:08.205 --> 18:10.165
I think it's interesting that even in their case,

18:10.195 --> 18:12.405
even though they don't have the same faith in Exodus

18:12.425 --> 18:16.365
as history, they still think that it's a, a true myth,

18:16.385 --> 18:20.005
if you like, about, about political oppression,

18:20.005 --> 18:21.765
and about the hope of deliverance.

18:22.225 --> 18:23.565
But it, there's no question that most

18:23.625 --> 18:28.045
of my subjects did see, did see the story in,

18:28.065 --> 18:31.085
in literal, literal terms, if you'll,

18:31.705 --> 18:33.965
the other big theme in the book is providential.

18:35.045 --> 18:38.625
Um, one thing I point out is that modern politics tends

18:38.685 --> 18:40.545
to use the language of liberation,

18:42.285 --> 18:46.265
but liberation was very rare words in early modern English.

18:46.805 --> 18:48.865
So the equivalent that's used really is,

18:48.885 --> 18:50.105
is the word deliverance.

18:50.965 --> 18:54.265
But deliverance has these powerful biblical connotations,

18:54.405 --> 18:56.425
and it also has these sort of providential,

18:57.205 --> 18:58.505
connotations.

18:59.205 --> 19:00.625
And so the figures

19:00.625 --> 19:04.065
who use this narrative often have this very strong sense

19:04.065 --> 19:07.625
of providence acting within history, which injects a lot

19:07.625 --> 19:10.825
of hope, if you like, into their political movements.

19:11.825 --> 19:14.185
I guess one of Martin Luther King's most famous statements

19:14.205 --> 19:16.865
is, is the statement that the, the moral arc

19:16.865 --> 19:20.545
of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

19:21.925 --> 19:23.585
And I suppose that's an easier thing

19:23.585 --> 19:25.865
to believe if you believe there's some controlling kind

19:25.865 --> 19:28.265
of divine control or providence in, in history.

19:28.725 --> 19:31.385
Uh, in the absence of that belief is it's harder to be,

19:31.525 --> 19:33.025
to be sure that the moral arc

19:33.025 --> 19:35.105
of the universe is bending in the right direction

19:35.105 --> 19:36.185
or bending towards justice.

19:36.645 --> 19:39.665
So providential is a kind of key theme in the story,

19:39.665 --> 19:41.745
really from the reformation era, right?

19:41.745 --> 19:43.785
Through reform, the anti-slavery movement

19:43.785 --> 19:45.385
to the civil rights movement.

19:46.405 --> 19:50.585
And deliverance politics in a sense works better in,

19:50.605 --> 19:53.945
in a religious context than in a secular setting.

19:54.255 --> 19:57.105
It's as much about divine agencies,

19:57.295 --> 19:58.985
it's about human agencies.

19:59.085 --> 20:02.385
So providential kind a major theme in the, in the book.

Exploring Exodus in Religious and Political Contexts

00:00:00 - Yeah, well, I, I'm an historian of, religious history, particularly of history of Protestantism in the British Atlantic world. So I started off working on Scotland, then worked on England. This book did quite a bit of work on North America. More recently, been working on the British Caribbean. and I suppose what, what I've been particularly interested is a relationship between religion, politics, and ideas. And probably the seed for this book came from reading, a short book, almost an essay by the Harvard political theorist, Michael Waltz.
00:00:38 - ago, on Exodus and Revolution, and Waltz had observed the use of the Exodus story in the Civil Rights Movement. but he'd also seen it, it being used by English revolutionaries in the middle of the 17th century. So I think that planted the seed in my mind. And then some years later, when I was working on the English Revolution, and I was also reading into British abolitionist writings, I was very struck by the way in which the Exodus story was
00:01:10 - liberation or, or deliverance. so in some ways, this project was an exercise in, reception history. You know, the, so reception history has really taken off in recent years. and the reception history of the Bible has been subject of a great deal of research, over the past generation or so. But it's a huge subject because biblical texts are arguably
00:01:39 - and the most intensively studied texts, in, in human history. So it's, this, this book is just one small contribution, I suppose, to understanding how one particular part, by particularly the Exodus story, has been used politically. Exodus politics is, a big field. So if we think of, there's a lot going on in the Book of Exodus. So the Book of Exodus starts with the Hebrews,
00:02:11 - they're making bricks without straw under Egyptian taskmaster. There's a program against, male children. Moses survives because he's hidden in the bull rushes. He's rescued by Pharaoh's daughter. He's brought up in Pharaoh's court. He then has this encounter with God in the burning bush. after that, he confronts Pharaoh about the, oppression of the, of the Hebrews.
00:02:42 - you know, he, he won't budge. but God then, of course, sends 10 plagues on Egypt. and finally, Pharaoh relent the Hebrews hold their Passover as they're about to lead Egypt, and they march to the Red Sea, only to Find that the Egyptian army is, is, pursuing them. and it's at that point that God opens up the Red Sea in a miracle that, that the Hebrews process through, the seas fold over the, the Egyptian army.

Exodus: A Journey of Faith and Politics

00:03:15 - with Timbral, led by Miriam, who's Moses sister. And then they, then they wonder for 40 years in the wilderness, you know, there's the, they worship the golden calve. They received the 10 Commandments, Moses dies. They finally crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land. So it's one of the epic stories, I suppose, of world literature. and it's been central to Jewish identity, obviously the Passover being the central ritual in and
00:03:46 - But it's also been very important in Christianity. And I guess there are two main ways of reading the Exodus story, Christianity. One is to spiritualize it, and that is to weed it as a picture of redemption or salvation, you know? So on that picture, you know, Pharaoh's almost like Satan. Moses is a type of Christ, the Passover and the, the Red Sea, a picture of Christ's,
00:04:15 - and salvation, the wilderness wanderings to the, you know, pilgrimage of the Christian in this life. The Jordan is a picture of death. Then you cross overly to heaven in the end and the afterlife. but there was another way of reading the Exodus story, and that is to politicize it. and the first major figure we know who does this is, is you Zaius, who's the, the fourth century Christian historian. And he celebrates constant time.
00:04:48 - a deliverer, as a Moses figure, because is rescued the Christians from persecution. and from that point on, there is this tradition of using the Exodus story politically. and those who do so tend to see it's paradigm. So they tend to think that it reveals the way God works in human history, that he sees the oppressed, he hears the cries of the oppressed, and he can come down
00:05:16 - through human agents, and so on. So, the phrase I use for this in the title of the book, deliverance Politics, and it's often combined with other biblical texts like the, the Jubilee story, the idea of a year of Jubilee in which slaves are released, or, just the metaphor of redemption gets applied politically. It's, it's turned into a kind of literal, idea of redemption from, from slavery. and it's been quite prominent in Protestant
00:05:50 - I used a whole variety of sources really, in, in writing this book. So, one very important source is orry or, you know, speeches and sermons and so on. And I think one of the reasons why, the Exodus story had such purchase is because biblical stories were kind of common currency, you know, particularly in Protestant societies with its enormous emphasis on, biblical literacy. most people have got some inkling of what the,

Biblical Narratives in Historical Contexts and Activism

00:06:20 - So they're better known than sacred myths or better known than Shakespeare plays. So orators and speakers could transport people immediately, if you like, into this sort of biblical history and into sacred time. So, yeah, quite a, quite a number of the sources I use are sermons, their, their speeches. but I also use a variety of the print sources. So, you know, I was looking at, pamphlets, biblical commentaries, also newspapers, as well.
00:06:51 - for this was quite conventional, you know, reading, six volumes of William Lloyd Garrison's correspondence, the American abolitionist. but also databases have made this kind of research easier. You know, searching, say African American newspapers in the 19th century became a lot easier because of databases. You, so you could see how, the Exodus story was really being used in those sources. The third kind of source was, visual.
00:07:25 - and other texts are used in iconography. so it's interesting that at the time of the American Revolution in 1776, Benjamin Franklin, proposes a design for the seal of the United States, which is Moses at the Red Sea, because the American revolutionaries are sort of, you know, seeing, seeing their, resistance to Britain is, is almost another Exodus moment, a sort of moment of deliverance from civil bondage.
00:07:56 - and other texts are used in various other, other places. So, you know, Garrison, the Liberator, which is one of the main abolitionist magazines, he, on the masthead of the, the Liberator, he has an image of Christ with the words, I'll break the bonds of the oppressor. So Christ has been presented in the way as the deliverer, as, as the, as the liberator and biblical texts appear in all sorts of places,
00:08:28 - on banners, on met medallions, even on tableware. So, you know, British abolitionists by the 1820s are using some of these biblical texts on plates, on cups, on jugs that are, are used at the table. so visual sources were, were one significant source I used. And, and the final source would be songs. So, you know, The book looks at, Puritan Psalms, evangelical hymns,
00:09:04 - The most famous of these is Go Down Moses, the, the Black Spiritual, which is used, during the Civil War by the Contrabands, who fighting for the Union Armies, the Black Troops Fighting Union Armies. and it's first reported in newspapers around 18 60, 63. and of course, they're telling Pharaoh to let people go. So, it, it retells the story of the Exodus, but applies it to liberation from slavery during the,

Exodus: A Historical Perspective on Deliverance

00:09:35 - Yeah. So the book spans, quite, quite a large arc historically. So it, it works from the Reformation really through to the, civil rights Movement. and it's interested, I suppose, in how the, the use of Exodus shifts over time, you know, from the era of the Reformation age of revolutions, through to the anti-slavery movement. And then finally to the, the era of the Civil Rights Movement. it's embedded there right from the very beginning,
00:10:07 - that the Reformation was often depicted as a sort of deliverance from hopish bondage. So this sort of image of slavery and liberty is, is there in Protestant rhetoric and propaganda from the 1520s. and Luther himself talks about the, the captivity of the church, and he is depicted as Moses in some, contemporary, images. So it's there in a confessional context in the 16th century.
00:10:38 - is it gets shifted into a revolutionary context, in what John Pocock called the three Protestant Revolutions, you know, so the revolution of, the Puritans in the middle of the 17th century in England, the English Civil War, the area of Cromwell, in the, 16 88 89 revolution in England associated with William of Orange. and then finally in, the American Revolution, George Washington. And it's interesting that all three of those figures,
00:11:11 - and Washington, they're all compared quite extensively to Moses. and these, these revolutions are seen as deliverances from political slavery. So the metaphor of slavery as, as, political, political thing is being used in the each of these three, revolutions. and then around the time of the American Revolution, you see another shift, which is the way in which this deliverance politics starts to be applied, really to,
00:11:44 - So Comeback from British loyalists, but also from, some Americans as well, is to say, well, what about slave holding in America? what about actual chattel slavery in the United States? And so we see, we see this rhetoric being picked up by, by abolitionists from the 1770s, 1780s onwards.
00:12:19 - I think the other final significant shift is the way in which black Americans pick up this, this language and these stories, and they do so run about the time of the American Revolution, but particularly in the 19th century there really mobilizing it. But that carries through in a way to the, through to the, through to the Civil War,

Exodus Rhetoric in Martin Luther King's Speech

00:12:50 - and I guess the most famous example of it, the one that's familiar to most people is, is Martin Luther King's final speech. You know, the night before he's assassinated, when he's, you know, he says, I've been to the mountaintop. I've, I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but we as people will get to the Promised Land. And I suppose if you're not biblically literate, that might just seem like a nice sort of poetic phrasing.
00:13:22 - what King does is kind of transport you into a particular moment in the biblical story. You know, Moses dying on Mount Nebo, looking over at Promised Land, and realizing he won't get there himself, but, but his people will. So it's a, it's a very good example, I think, of how the rhetoric of, Exodus gets used in political speech. Because what King does is sort of transport you there.
00:13:52 - that you almost inhabit the narrative. You lift it into this particular moment in the biblical narrative, but it also infuses the present with the kind of spiritual, significance as well. And African Americans are the people who did that most intensely, obviously. for the Jews, Exodus is, is absolutely central to their identity. But for, for Black Americans of among non-Jewish people, they, they were the people
00:14:23 - and mobilized it, most intensively, I think, through the course of the 19th and 20th century. So yeah, in, in the 16th century, the, great humanist scholar, and biblical scholar Erasmus complained that the Bible had become a, a, a nose of wax, which was kind of twisted in every direction to suit the interests of the reader, whether they were Catholic or Protestant or whatever.
00:14:55 - to manipulate the text and to use it for political purposes in all kinds of situations, but it's also about the power of the text, you know, both to capture the imagination and to, to mobilize people, because readers wouldn't really bother manipulating the text if it wasn't powerful. So the, the prestige of the Bible, particularly in Protestant cultures, is so great that in a way you can't afford to let your enemy, get hold of it.
00:15:26 - for the Bible, if you like, where, where various actors have tried to rest the text for their own, for their own purposes. So you find it being used in quite different, sides of the political argument. So it's used by revolutionaries, but it's also used by royalists in the, 17th and 18th centuries, in the 1860s. It's being used by abolitionists, but it's also being used by Confederates.

Exodus Narratives in Political Contexts

00:15:58 - Moses by, by many of his admirers, but also by the Confederates as a kind of Pharaoh figure who's sort of holding them, holding the, the trying to hold the states in bondage. So they, they see the confederacy as a sort of exodus, outta this. so it's been used by all sides, and it's been used by, it's been used by the powerful in really interesting ways. So already mentioned Constantine and Luther, but also, you know, Cromwell, William of Orange,
00:16:28 - these major political figures have been depicted as Moses, but I think it's also interesting that it's been used as a sort of weapon of the week. and, and that's, that's the way in which African Americans are using it in the, the 19th and 20th centuries. And in a sense, there's something appropriate about that because the original biblical narratives were written in the shadow of the great empires of the ancient world. They come, if you like, from the underside of,
00:16:58 - And they've always had that sort of appeal, to, to those who are, have a sense of being, being oppressed. So African Americans with black Americans use the, these stories in particularly powerful ways in the 19th century, but they have been mobilized by an extraordinary, extraordinarily wide range of actors. I guess most of my protagonists, had implicit faith, if you like, in the ex to this narrative as a story of an event really happened
00:17:30 - biblical text describes it. and so some of their, confidence in, in, in the story to rise that implicit, maybe naive faith in, in, in the, the historicity of the story. It's an interesting question, whether it works in the same way for those who think of the story not so much as history, but as myth, which was the case with, with liberal Protestants in, in the, the 20th century. And to some extent, even with someone like Martin Luther
00:18:03 - and figures like the Latin American liberation theologians who also used Exodus. I think it's interesting that even in their case, even though they don't have the same faith in Exodus as history, they still think that it's a, a true myth, if you like, about, about political oppression, and about the hope of deliverance. But it, there's no question that most of my subjects did see, did see the story in, in literal, literal terms, if you'll,
00:18:35 - one thing I point out is that modern politics tends to use the language of liberation, but liberation was very rare words in early modern English. So the equivalent that's used really is, is the word deliverance. But deliverance has these powerful biblical connotations, and it also has these sort of providential, connotations. And so the figures who use this narrative often have this very strong sense

Providence and Deliverance in Political Movements

00:19:07 - of hope, if you like, into their political movements. I guess one of Martin Luther King's most famous statements is, is the statement that the, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. And I suppose that's an easier thing to believe if you believe there's some controlling kind of divine control or providence in, in history. in the absence of that belief is it's harder to be, to be sure that the moral arc of the universe is bending in the right direction
00:19:59 - So providential is a kind of key theme in the story, really from the reformation era, right? Through reform, the anti-slavery movement to the civil rights movement. And deliverance politics in a sense works better in, in a religious context than in a secular setting. It's as much about divine agencies, it's about human agencies. So providential kind a major theme in the, in the book.

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