In this excellent addition to Princeton's Lives of Great Religious Books series, Joel S. Baden assesses the many lives of the Exodus—as a book, as a ritual, and more. As Baden states, “The book of Exodus is the second book of the Hebrew Bible, but it may rank first in lasting cultural importance” (xi). The Exodus includes many of the central events, characters, and themes of the scriptures—liberation from slavery in Egypt, giving of the law at Sinai, and the leadership of Moses in the wilderness, just to name a few. Baden does not limit his examination to the biblical book of Exodus; instead, he examines the “grand narrative—the movement from Egypt to Canaan, from oppression to freedom,” which “extends beyond the borders of the biblical book to which it lent its name” (xii).

The book follows a thematic approach, with chapters that cover a wide chronological range, from the formation of the book of Exodus to the Civil Rights Movement and the uses of Exodus in liberation theologies. He focuses much attention on views of Exodus in early modern English and American history. Exodus was compared to Henry VIII's “exodus” from the Catholic Church, English Puritans’ “exodus” to New England during the rule of Charles I, and more. During the American Revolution, Exodus was one of the most cited biblical books as patriots identified themselves with enslaved Israelites suffering under the oppressive taxes of a new British “Egypt.” Although patriots complained about their “enslavement” to George III, they excused their own enslavement of African Americans. The Exodus then became a key analogy for the new nation. Washington was the “American Moses,” not a monarch but a reluctant leader who could be trusted to shape a just government for his people (136–153).

Baden does a masterful job of incorporating a variety of themes and events, synthesizing them into a readable and engaging narrative. As he points out, movements and leaders who identified with the Exodus often “are like nested dolls, one emerging from the other.” Often “the oppressed” would “become the oppressor”—the fleeing Israelites, once in power, built a new Egypt, compelling new Israelites to revolt. “The rhetoric that once defined a revolution is turned against it; Moses becomes a new Pharaoh, Canaan becomes a new Egypt, and the Exodus story becomes relevant once again” (154–155).

That cycle continued as slavery reached new heights in a new nation pledged to liberty. Baden engages the various ways the Exodus was used in debates over slavery from the Revolution through the Civil War then moves to uses of the Exodus from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement. Although this is a massive amount of material, Baden does an admirable job of covering the main themes, figures, and issues. As historians have shown, the Exodus was central to African American Christianity from its beginnings. Baden shows how the Exodus figured prominently in the religious and political critiques asserted by figures such as African Methodist Episcopal bishop Richard Allen, Maria Stewart, David Walker, and others. African Americans turned the tables on the American Exodus story—although white America saw the nation as God's new Israel, it was really an Egypt that enslaved African Americans. During the antebellum period and the Civil War, the Exodus became central to abolitionist attacks on slavery, but it was also employed by southern slaveholders who saw themselves as Israelites suffering under an oppressive federal government. The succession of southern states after Lincoln's election in 1860 was their way of telling pharaoh to let its southern people go—even though the freedom they sought was the freedom to enslave other human beings. Baden notes that Abraham Lincoln assumed the title of “America's Moses” for many opponents of slavery after the Emancipation Proclamation (although he does not discuss Harriet Tubman, who was often called America's Moses for her leadership on the Underground Railroad) (157–179).

There was probably no greater conflicting view of Exodus than that of abolitionists versus slaveholders, but other contrasting uses of the Exodus story permeated American history. To cite one example, Baden compares the different approaches to Exodus by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. “King focused on the patience required of Israel in the wilderness, hoping that the black community would find its Canaan within the existing structures of American society. Meanwhile, Malcolm X was branding America as Egypt and demanding that African Americans be given land of their own to build a new Canaan for themselves” (182).

In a closing chapter, “Liberation Theology,” Baden begins by examining interpretations of the Exodus by Gustavo Gutiérrez, who tied Exodus to creation, thereby incorporating all of humanity into the story and defining the central meaning of God's creation and salvation as liberation from oppression (187–191). From there, Baden turns to several other expressions of the Exodus in liberation theologies, especially James Cone's use of Exodus in his A Black Theology of Liberation and God of the Oppressed. “Cone,” Baden writes, “captures the essence of liberation theology: the notion that the Bible is not only on the side of the oppressed but it must be reclaimed and read by—and in light of—the oppressed.” Accordingly: “For Cone, the very definition of God is grounded in the Exodus”—that is, in the liberating act of God on behalf of the oppressed (200–201).

This is an outstanding book that excels in analyzing the “extraordinary flexibility of the Exodus story,” which “can be appropriated by virtually all peoples in all times and places who are suffering from oppression, defined in any number of ways” (214). As Baden demonstrates in this wide-ranging narrative, there is no end to the Exodus and its uses. “The story's power cannot be denied. It has been a central part of our tradition for three thousand years, and we would not be who we are—whoever we are—without it” (215).