I believe 40 just means "a lot" in ancient cultures in that area. Hence wandering the desert for 40 years, or sitting on Mt. Sinai for 40 days. The "great flood" has 40 days of rain. I think Gilgamesh has a 40 day journey someplace? Anyways, if there are any historical echoes in that tale, perhaps they just wandered the desert for a long time. Now I'm off to eat 40 Doritos...
Why go with "a lot" of YEARS for a trek that would have taken a week or two, though? Doesn't make sense except to monks tripping balls..
You know, this always got me. Ain’t no way they went 40yrs without finding something.
The Egyptian and Greek versions of the story are much more interesting.
For example, Hecataeus of Abdera's had multiple groups of people (no ethnocentrism) including Greek ancestors, claiming the Biblical records involved manipulation under Persian and Macedonian rule.
Manetho's - even though himself an Egyptian - embarrassingly had Moses coming back to conquer all of Egypt with outside help.
Also, ever notice how in the Argonautica their prophet Mopsus dies in the desert walking by foot back from battle in North Africa shortly before a shepherd kills an elite sea-traveling pre-Greek warrior with the cast of a stone?
"Wandering in the desert for 40 years" would be a convenient way of rewriting a long stretch of history, such as between the 55th year of Ramses II's reign when Merneptah becomes crown prince the same year several of his brothers die (1224 BCE) and the end of the 19th dynasty and the beginning of the 20th (1189 BCE) when the previous period was allegedly marked by conquest of Egypt by outsiders who "made the gods like men" and had city governors ruling - both traits that can be linked to alleged details regarding the Phoenicians around this time.
It's almost like Judah kings such as Josiah, who allegedly (but anachronistically given Elephantine letters) instituted the Passover story as a component of his broad religious reforms might have had an agenda in claiming the events involved a monotheistic ethnocentric grouping including the tribe of Judah who was destined to rule because of a family blessing...
The whole Exodus story is due for a more nuanced reconsideration, particularly in light of the early Iron Age pottery made with local clay - but in an Aegean style - in the Southern Levant.
Do you have sources I could read for more information about this?
There's quite a lot of different sources behind that summary.
If you highlight a specific part I can source it, or I can link you to past Reddit comments/threads on /r/AcademicBiblical or /r/history that discussed it with sources, such as this one.
Wtf Moses