The bible is made up of sources, and many authors composed the bible. The bible will sometimes recognize its sources, but usually doesn't make it clear who was the author. The best way to view the bible authors is as editors. Exodus is the second chapter in the Old Testament after Genesis, there also seems to be at least four hundred year time frame between these two chapters. Since Egyptians didn't keep good records, this makes piecing together the reasons for the time gap difficult and is left mainly up to assumptions, based on other parts of the bible and other historical records. Exodus tries to tell us who Yahweh is. This is important enough to be placed as the second section of the bible. I will be selecting only a few sections of Exodus to focus on answering three important questions when trying to understand the bible. But I will also cover how we can read Exodus and gather an understanding of the meaning based on when it was written. I'm also viewing Exodus as not having one author just telling a story or giving historical events, but more than one. This comes from the writing having a variety of styles along with the temple, believed to have been built centuries after Moses died. The lack of the Pharaohs name makes this seem unreliable, along with no archeological or evidence to support the Hebrews being in Egypt at this time or a large number of people leaving Egypt. .
Exodus is a continuation of Genesis, being part of a Torah, which is the law of the Bible. Exodus is best to be read as a theological narrative, with historical parts of the Torah or Pentateuch as a whole. Exodus consists of many stories throughout the verses, describing how the descendants of Jacob were forced into slavery in Egypt by a new king. Yahweh proves his power to Moses and convinces him to return to Egypt to free the slaved Israelites to Canaan. Moses battles the pharaoh and with Yahweh's power proves to the pharaoh, especially after the parting of the Red Sea and the death of the firstborn children, that he should let the Israelites go, all while the pharaoh fights against letting the Israelites go.
