The Exodus (Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, Yeẓi´at Miẓrayim: lit. ´Departure from Egypt'[a]) is the founding myth[b] of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four books of the Torah (or Pentateuch, corresponding to the first five books of the Bible), namely Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
The consensus of modern scholars is that the Pentateuch does not give an accurate account of the origins of the Israelites, who appear instead to have formed as an entity in the central highlands of Canaan in the late second millennium BCE from the indigenous Canaanite culture. Most modern scholars believe that some elements in the story of the Exodus might have some historical basis, but that any such basis has little resemblance to the story told in the Pentateuch. While the majority of modern scholars date the composition of the Torah to the Middle Persian Period (5th century BCE), some of the traditions contributing to this narrative are older, since allusions to the story are made by 8th-century BCE prophets such as Amos and Hosea.
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