Robert K. Pavlick
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Theories of Revisionist History
April 1, 2007
Format: DVDVerified Purchase

Jacobovici presents interesting theories of possible natural causes for the 10 plagues, but like the Midas Muffler man, he “makes it all fit” by juggling dates and numbers. He pushes the date of the Exodus back to 1500 BC and moves the date of the Santorini eruption up 100 years from 1600 to 1500 BC to make the theory work. He claims that Jacob migrated to Egypt in 1700 BC and that they remained there for 200 years. This is a direct contradiction of Exodus 12:40 which distinctly says that they were there for 430 years which would bring the Exodus to around 1270 BC, not 1500 BC and long after the Hyksos expulsion. Also it is highly irregular to equate the Israelites, a farming and herding people who only migrated into Egypt due to famine, with the Hyksos who were a trading and warlike people who took Lower Egypt by conquest and held it for 108 years; they were not slaves in need of deliverance. The Hyksos were not freed due to the 10 plagues; they had to be driven out by the armed forces of Middle Kingdom Pharoah Ahmose who had evidence that they were forming an alliance with the Nubians to take over Egypt entirely.

Jacobovici’s claim that the 10th plague was caused by carbon dioxide bubbling up from the water due to seismic activity as in the case of Lake Nyos in the Camaroon in 1986 seems plausible enough, but that was a lake of standing water. Iron deposits and gasses would not normally bubble up in a fast river current as in the case of the Nile. Plus he claims that the reason that only the first-born of Egypt died was because the first-born were highly honored and slept on the first floor as opposed to servants and poor who would have slept on the roofs and thereby not have been exposed to the gas. But would not Pharoah and the royal household also have had the same honors ? and yet none of them died. And would the fact that the Israelites were standing up celebrating the first Passover have been adequate to have kept them from succumbing? Don’t gasses rise?

Jacobovivi uses the wall paintings in a tomb at Beni Hasan showing a seeming migration of distinctly non Egyptian peoples with non Egyptian dress and hairstyles to prove that this is evidence of Jacob and his family coming to Egypt in 1700 BC. But the inscriptions date the event to the 6th year of Sesostris II, ca. 1890 BC and are merely a caravan of Semitic traders bringing goods to Egypt for trade. He then uses mass graves of men only, near Avaris to prove the 10th plague of the first-born sons, but again, archeologists findings show that the skeletons range from 18-25 years of age and none younger and many have arrow tips imbedded in them suggesting that these were casualties of war, perhaps even Hyksos soldiers killed by the armies of Ahmose when he drove them out of Lower Egypt. Then Jacobovici goes on to postulate that along with the “mixed company” that left with Moses were Minoans from Avaris who may have crafted the golden Ark of the Covenant and then later sailed back to their homeland and created golden amulets accurately depicting the ark. But the Bible does not mention Minoans as being the goldsmiths who crafted the ark and the Minoans in Avaris were traders who were free to come and go at any time. There is no reason why they would have followed Moses into the Sinai for 40 years incurring the wrath of Pharoah and then return to their homeland later. Plus the amulets are not accurate depictions of the ark which had two cherubim on the lid, not two birds.

And then too, one does wonder why an all creative and omnipotent God would have found it necessary to use the volcano at Santorini to destroy the entire Minoan civilization and other coastal cultures (which had no responsibility whatsoever for Israelite slavery)in order to punish Pharoah with carbon dioxide gas and tsunami’s in Egypt. It seems a bit clumsy and inconsiderate to me.

Stephen said
What can you dig up to prove the Exodus? What would you have to find?

Well some archeological evidence of a mass migration of populations as described in the Hebrew Bible would help.  We do have evidence of smaller movements of people in this area during the late Bronze age and early Iron age.  Nothing like the scenario presented in the Bible.  Also this is one of the best attested periods in Egyptian history.  We have no records of such goings on in their records.  From the evidence we do have it appears that the Hebrews were indigenous Canaanites who diverged culturally from their neighbors.  The stories of an Israelite invasion of Canaan from the outside seem largely mythical.  Once again we have no archeological evidence of the conquest as described in the text. 

Many scholars have abandoned the historicity of the Exodus as they have the existence of a Davidic world empire.  Surely their immediate neighbors would have noticed such a thing if it existed!  

If the Hebrews were the Hyksos, there is plenty of evidence. Case closed. Simcha’s argument is that the Hebrews were the Hyksos and the Hyksos Expulsion along with the eruption of Thera is the basis of the biblical Exodus.

My position is that the Minoan eruption was not the only cause of plagues. One can find at least another plague at another time in Ancient Egypt.

Stephen
The account in the Bible cannot be historical.

Steefen
Because?

Stephen
It is a mistake to try to find historical analogues for these Biblical stories. It is all myth.

Steefen
There are comparisons between Biblical stories and history. It is a mistake to take in all the history that contrasts with the Bible. It is not a mistake to take in all the history that is comparable with the Biblical stories thus finding to what extent the Bible is historical in order that the facts under faith or the lack of facts under faith are visible for making an informed/adult choice about religious affiliation. Second, being educated is better than being uneducated.

Without education, so many mistakes in life can occur.

Back to the documentary, and I look forward to people posting to this thread who have actually viewed the documentary and know its truths and faults.

= = =

Simcha Jacobovici
Discovering here in Avaris the seal of pharaoh worn by Joseph would prove the timeline that the Israelites and the story of Joseph dates to 1500.

Exhibit D: The “Yakov” (Jacob) Royal Ring; 9 seals were found at Avaris

Well, that is not biblical.

What does Wikipedia say about Yaqub-Har? ** you do not have permission to see this link **

The dynasty to which Yaqub-Har belongs is debated, with Yaqub-Har being seen variously as a 14th dynasty king, an early Hyksos ruler of the 15th dynasty or a vassal of the Hyksos kings. Yaqub-Har is attested by no less than 27 scarab seals. Three are from Canaan, four from Egypt, one from Nubia and the remaining 19 are of unknown provenance.[2] The wide geographic repartition of these scarabs indicate the existence of trade relations among the Nile Delta, Canaan and Nubia during the Second Intermediate Period.[2]

Fourteenth Dynasty

The 14th Dynasty of Egypt was a Canaanite dynasty, which ruled the eastern Delta region just prior to the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt. The Danish specialist Kim Ryholt has suggested that Yaqub-Har was a king of the late 14th Dynasty and the last one of this dynasty to be known from contemporary attestations.[3]

First, Ryholt points to a scarab seal of Yaqub-Har which was discovered during excavations in Tel Shikmona in modern-day Israel. The archaeological context of the seal was dated the MB IIB period (Middle Bronze Age 1750 BC – 1650 BC), which means that Yaqub-Har predated the 15th dynasty.[4][5] Since the name “Yaqub-Har” may have a West Semitic origin, meaning “Protected by Har”, Yaqub-Har would then be a 14th dynasty ruler.[6]

Second, Ryholt’s argument is based on the observation that while early Hyksos kings of the 15th dynasty, such as Sakir-Har, used the title Heka-Khawaset, later Hyksos rulers adopted the traditional Egyptian royal titulary. This change happened under Khyan who ruled as the Heka-Khawaset early in his reign but later adopted the Egyptian prenomen Seuserenre. Later Hyksos kings, such as Apophis, abandoned the Heka-Khawaset title and retained instead the customary Egyptian prenomen, just like the kings of the 14th dynasty. Ryholt then notes that Yaqub-Har himself always used a prenomen, Meruserre, which suggests that he either ruled at the end of the 15th dynasty or was a member of the Asiatic 14th dynasty. Since the end of the 15th dynasty is known not to have included a ruler by the name of Meruserre, Ryholt concludes that Yaqub-Har was a 14th dynasty ruler.[5]

Fifteenth Dynasty

On the other hand, Daphna Ben Tor and Suzanne Allen note that Yaqub-Har’s scarab seals are stylistically almost identical with those of the well-attested Hyksos king Khyan.[7] This suggests that Yaqub-Har was either Khyan’s immediate 15th dynasty successor or a vassal of the Hyksos king who ruled a part of the Egyptian Delta under Khyan’s authority. As Ben-Tor writes, “Supporting evidence for the Fifteenth Dynasty affiliation of King Yaqubhar is provided by the close stylistic similarity between his scarabs and the scarabs of King Khayan”.[8] Additionally, the form of the wsr-sign used in these kings’ royal prenomina “argue for a chronological proximity [between Yaqub-Har and Khyan] and against Ryholt’s assigning of Yaqub-Har to the Fourteenth Dynasty and Khayan to the Fifteenth Dynasty.”[8]

Popular speculation

In Exodus Decoded filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici suggested that Yaqub-Har was the Patriarch Jacob, on the basis of a signet ring found in the Hyksos capital Avaris that read “Yakov/Yakub” (from Yaqub-her), similar to the Hebrew name of the Biblical patriarch Jacob (Ya’aqov). Jacobovici ignores the fact that Yaqub-Har is a well-attested pharaoh of the Second Intermediate Period; and Yakov and variants are common Semitic (not just Hebrew) names from the period. Furthermore, Jacobovici provides absolutely no explanation as to why Joseph would have a signet ring with the name of his father Jacob, and not his own, which is a modern-day equivalent of signing legal contracts with a signature of one’s father.

Simcha’s line of reasoning gets very faulty (as the Wikipedia entry describes)

but, pick up at 28: 15 The Minoan Eruption at Thera

Jesus celebrated a limnic eruption / deadly gas opportunistically used theologically; that is what Passover is scientifically, that is what the last supper is.

If eating his body and drinking is blood as a sacrament of defeat and atheism were not enough, he celebrates the gassed killing of his ancestors’ opponents while his ancestors were somehow on higher ground.

The limnic eruption was the Angel of Death in the Exodus.

As the history goes, the Egyptians surrounded the Hyksos who had built up a fortress from the Thebans. The pharaoh’s 12-year old son must have been on the expedition. The deadly gas got him and some of the soldiers but not the pharaoh and other soldiers who let the Hyksos leave Avaris.

= = =

Yam Suf is not Red Sea but Reed Sea.
Reeds do not grow in salt water. They grow near lakes, not oceans.

= = =

Ismailia Regional Museum
Exhibit K: Granite Monument – El Arish Inscription
El Arish is the largest settlement of the Sinai Peninsula in the northeastern section (Mediterranean Coast).

** you do not have permission to see this link **

pick up at 55:20

Stephen said
Back to the documentary, and I look forward to people posting to this thread who have actually viewed the documentary and know its truths and faults.

Which includes Your Humble Correspondent.  (You know, me.)  I watch all your videos Steefen.  I hate to tell you this but I may be the only one who does.   

I have started a thread about the Documentary: The Exodus Decoded by Simcha Jacobovici. Many people have watched that documentary. You are not the only one.

** you do not have permission to see this link **