Why and how did the Jews sell themselves into slavery to the Egyptians? And why didn't they buy their freedom?

Answer 1

There have been some really revolutionary archeological discoveries that show there weren't as many slaves as once thought.
Let me see if I can find it....

The surprises were just beginning. Faunal analyst Richard Redding, of the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History, identified tremendous quantities of cattle, sheep, and goat bone, "enough to feed several thousand people, even if they ate meat every day," Lehner adds. Redding, who has worked at archaeological sites all over the Middle East, "was astounded by the amount of cattle bone he was finding," says Lehner. He could identify much of it as "young, under two years of age, and it tended to be male." Here was evidence of many people—presumably not slaves or common laborers, but skilled workers—feasting on prime beef, the best meat available.

Answer 2

They didn't sell themselves into slavery. Slavery happened.

Basically it's like this;
1) The brothers of Joseph got jealous, and instead of killing him they sold him to slavery.
2) Joseph (not the husband of Mary, but a lot earlier) got the Pharaoh's favor and ended up ruling the country of Egypt.
3) The brother's and father of Joseph went to Egypt because of a drought, and found Joseph ruling all of Egypt.
4) Everyone decided to stay in Egypt and live in a part of it called the "Land of Goshen".
5) Much later and after Joseph's death, a Pharaoh took over who didn't know about Joseph, and made himself a butt about all those Hebrews.
6) The Hebrews became slaves to that Pharaoh.

EDIT: marbledog may be wrong. There is evidence that the Hebrews were non other than the secularly recognized Hycsos. New discoveries about them are made every year.

Answer 3

The Egyptians did not use slaves. They used the temples and pyramids as make work projects to soak up their excess labor. The Egyptian problem was a shortage of good farm lands and an excess of people. Their farms were already to small to divide among children for inheritance. The only thing to do if there were sons who would divide the parents farm was for them to become a temple builders which was actually considered a skilled trade.

What a great link to an excellent article Soulsearching daughter posted!
This is all in the Egyptians own recorded history in the Hieroglyphs

Answer 4

The egyptians saw that the Jews were growing in number and did not want to be overpowered so they enslaved them. Their freedom was delivered to them by God after the plagues he sent on Egypt.

Answer 5

There is actually no evidence, outside of the account in Exodus, that the Hebrews were ever slaves in Egypt at all.

If it happened, we have no idea how or why.

Answer 6

They became endentured labor during prolonged periods of drought.