I have to wonder at the idea that all of Egyptian chronology in pinned to a connection to a biblical date. While the biblical date is accurate as far as I know for the story told about Rehoboam and Sheshonk, there are numerous other recorded interactions with Egypt by other ancient entities which help chronologists along.
Of course if the date of Moses is 1400 BC, then he would have left Egypt proper and simply relocated to NW Egypt (Canaan) since that territory was part of Egypt at its greatest extent.
What was the state of the Egyptian Empire at the time of Moses using alternative chronologies?
I’m studying some specifics about what Rohl brings up:
Dating of the Conquest of Jericho
Saul and David appearing in the Amarna Letters instead of approximately the 9th and 10th century BCE.
= = =
About the point you bring up, FocusMyView, are you under-estimating the influence of the Hebrew Bible on early Egyptology?
Without taking time for a thorough analysis, I have some anecdotal evidence that early on Egyptologists had to wade through the waters of Bible implications in order to announce their results. I remember hearing that some artifacts seem to repudiate the Flood and tower of Babel stories. At the same time, there is the anecdote that the concept of Hittites was scoffed at until they were discovered by archeologists.
ITs a mixed bag, so I am unsure.
What I am asking first is this, is there ONE chronology that works for “Israel” having been in Egypt and the Exodus happening?
The OT authors aren’t trying to con anybody, and they have some good information, but they also have a lot of bad information. Because everybody did. Egyptians in that era were quite certainly hazy on what was happening there generations before. Most Americans are hazy about what happened last year, but at least we’ve got Google.
The present is always a great deal more–present. You know?
The consensus seems to be that the events of Exodus may have some basis on history, but were transplanted to Egypt.
Notice how Exodus says not one thing about Pyramids? It’s a pretty important background detail to miss. Hollywood sure never missed it.
FocusMyView said
Without taking time for a thorough analysis, I have some anecdotal evidence that early on Egyptologists had to wade through the waters of Bible implications in order to announce their results. I remember hearing that some artifacts seem to repudiate the Flood and tower of Babel stories. At the same time, there is the anecdote that the concept of Hittites was scoffed at until they were discovered by archeologists.
ITs a mixed bag, so I am unsure.
What I am asking first is this, is there ONE chronology that works for “Israel” having been in Egypt and the Exodus happening?
FocusMyView
Is there ONE chronology that works for “Israel” having been in Egypt and the Exodus happening?
Steefen
Certainly, there is. I have David Rohl’s book and I watched the documentary for which his book was an outgrowth.
When you say Israel was in Egypt, that has to mean Jacob who became Israel and his 12 sons including Joseph. Definitely, yes, there is archaeological evidence of this. There is evidence of Hebrews abandoning their sector of a city. There is also evidence of the conquest of Jericho. These are definitely on a timeline that makes sense.
First things first. What kind of chronology is given where Egypt does not extend up through all of Canaan? We can not have Moses escaping Egypt to go to NW Egypt.
Those cities were under Egyptian jurisdiction and protection. Yet there is not one mention in the Bible of any of the cities seeking help from Pharoah, or of the Pharaoh dispatching any troops to deal with Israel.
No doubt there is evidence of “semitic tribes” living in Egypt. We have Palestinian wine bottles in Egypt that date from before written history is evidenced. We have Jeremiah dashing to Egypt for safety. We have Onias and many Judeans dashing to Egypt for safety. We even have Arafat born in Egypt and proclaiming himself a Palestinian.
But again, what Egyptian chronology leaves Canaan an open territory full of independent city states like we see in the Bible?
FocusMyView said
First things first. What kind of chronology is given where Egypt does not extend up through all of Canaan? We can not have Moses escaping Egypt to go to NW Egypt.
Those cities were under Egyptian jurisdiction and protection. Yet there is not one mention in the Bible of any of the cities seeking help from Pharoah, or of the Pharaoh dispatching any troops to deal with Israel.
No doubt there is evidence of “semitic tribes” living in Egypt. We have Palestinian wine bottles in Egypt that date from before written history is evidenced. We have Jeremiah dashing to Egypt for safety. We have Onias and many Judeans dashing to Egypt for safety. We even have Arafat born in Egypt and proclaiming himself a Palestinian.
But again, what Egyptian chronology leaves Canaan an open territory full of independent city states like we see in the Bible?
FocusMyView
What chronology is given when Egypt does not extend up through all of Canaan?
Steefen
Get a copy of
The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt (Hist Atlas) Later Printing Edition
by Bill Manley (Author)
FocusMyView
We cannot have Moses escaping Egypt to Northeast [not northwest] Egypt.
Steefen
There was a time when the nomes were not united under a Lower Kingdom Pharaoh or an Upper Kingdom Pharaoh but were ruled by governors. Second, there was a time when there was the Lower Kingdom and the Upper Kingdom. Finally, there was a time of a United Kingdom of Egypt where one Pharoah and main wife Queen wore double emblem crowns indicating rule over both Lower and Upper Kingdoms.
Ancient Egyptians were a different people from Asiatics from Canaan. Regardless of the political reach of a superpower, the people were different. Moses was not a native Egyptian, he was an Asiatic adopted by Delta pharaoh. His adoptive mother was given in marriage to an Upper Kingdom pharaoh in the south of Egypt. Moses was a Hebrew from the family tree of Jacob/Israel who descended from the Canaan area into the Delta. This ethnic group grew over generations. Some of this ethnic group lived in an Asiatic sector of the city Avaris. After Moses came from exile, he did not go to the Upper Kingdom area of Egypt, he went to Avaris in the Delta Region.
Archaelogical evidence shows that Asiatic sector of the city was abandoned when a plague hit the city causing people to be buried quickly and unceremoniously.
The Asiatics who left Avaris knew from where Jacob/Israel originated; and, they had a place to which to return, whether or not Egypt had political and military influence and reach across the Negev and into Canaan.
Steefen said
When you say Israel was in Egypt, that has to mean Jacob who became Israel and his 12 sons including Joseph. Definitely, yes, there is archaeological evidence of this. There is evidence of Hebrews abandoning their sector of a city. There is also evidence of the conquest of Jericho. These are definitely on a timeline that makes sense.
So, let me try to get this straight. You’re inclined to believe in the historicity of Moses and Exodus, but believe Jesus and the books of the New Testament were works of myths created by the Flavian dynasty to fool people?
Do I have that right?
vergari
So, let me try to get this straight. You’re inclined to believe in the historicity of Moses and Exodus, but believe Jesus and the books of the New Testament were works of myths created by the Flavian dynasty to fool people?
Do I have that right?
Steefen
Pick up David Rohl’s book, or his lectures. This is not about inclinations to believe. Join the conversation AFTER you have either studied David Rohl’s book mentioned above or seen his lectures.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Steefen said
Other than that, people are here to stay on the topic supported by the original post. Violate that and get ignored, your choice.
I appreciate your best attempt at being the hall monitor.
I actually am quite open to Kohl’s ideas — mainly because he is not attempting to construct some sort of grand conspiracy from the past (based on virtually no evidence), but is merely questioning certain conclusions made by modern scholars.
Ok, so you are not specifying that Exodus really happened in the way the Bible book says it did, correct?
What is happening here, imho, is that people get surprised to learn just how often Semitic peoples settled in and left cities or towns in Egypt, and they want to compare it somehow with the Exodus story. I was struck by the prophet Jeremiah’s focus on the crossing of waters by Moses leaving Egypt, considering that Jeremiah himself made the same journey. Yet Jeremiah clearly is not referring to an Exodus narrative since he goes on to say that the “people had no law in those days” and the giving of the Law was a fairly important part of that book. So it seems the Exodus narrative of Moses was not yet made, or at least not respected by Jeremiah as true. If you are simply looking for common elements such as a Semitic group setting up life temporarily in an Egyptian town, look no further than Jeremiah himself!
I would say it is as meaningless to say that an Exodus of Semitics left Egypt for Jerusalem as it would be to say that some New Yorkers traveled to New Jersey and came back. imho.
But I still remain insanely curious if Rohl uses the Bible’s timeline for Moses, and if his Egyptian timeline would place Moses traveling into NW Egypt. I am really quite full of reading materials on my list, and I was wondering if you could do me the favor of simply writing the timeline of Pharaohs and the timetable of Moses leading people out of Egypt. Was Egypt at the apex of its power at that time? Was Moses leading an invasion of Egypt protested Canaan?
We assume there is greater and greater drift from the facts of the original story, the more time passes between the event and it being written down. The gospels were written within a the span of a single human lifetime from the crucifixion. Exodus was written centuries after the events that inspired it. While it was believed Moses had written it and all the rest of the Torah, that obviously can’t be true (and never made any sense from context, not least because Numbers depicts Moses’ own death).
There is considerable drift from the original facts in the gospels (which disagree considerably over what happened). There would be so much drift in the case of Exodus that it should be viewed as entirely mythical, with perhaps a core of fact, as is the case with the Iliad.
Entirely possible. Could have happened a dozen times.
Now I have seen a big deal made of the number twelve being prevalent in a site considered to have been occupied by a Semitic tribe, with no evidence that they were YHWH worshippers are anything like that. I gotta come out and say, given that these were agricultural areas that had planting and harvesting festivals, they probably had calendars, and the number twelve comes up big in calendar systems, right? Israel did not invent the number twelve and were not the only folks who thought it useful.
FocusMyView said
Entirely possible. Could have happened a dozen times.
Now I have seen a big deal made of the number twelve being prevalent in a site considered to have been occupied by a Semitic tribe, with no evidence that they were YHWH worshippers are anything like that. I gotta come out and say, given that these were agricultural areas that had planting and harvesting festivals, they probably had calendars, and the number twelve comes up big in calendar systems, right? Israel did not invent the number twelve and were not the only folks who thought it useful.
Rewording the question to negate responses such as the one above:
Based on the archaeological evidence of the palace of the vizier Ankh-u in the city of Avaris where there were 11 places of burial and a 12th place of burial which was a pyramid with a statue of a man wearing a multi-colored cloak [the Biblical Joseph], everyone is conceding the claim that 12 men from the location of the Biblical Jacob a/k/a Israel descended into the Egyptian Delta and years later, after their ethnic group grew, some of their descendants became slaves in the Egyptian Delta?
No, there’s no concession regarding something that can’t possibly be proven or disproven. Nor is there any evidence of a large Jewish population in Egypt from this era. Though if there was, that still wouldn’t prove Exodus is history. Might as well say the discovery of Troy proves the existence of a huge wooden horse.
The New Testament is mythologized history.
Exodus is historicized mythology. It did not happen. Period.
BDEhrman
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