When exactly was the Exodus?
Egyptian silence
Egyptian royal records do
not acknowledge any such group exodus of enslaved foreigners (nor the 10
plagues), the ensuing destruction of the entire Egyptian chariot army at the
Sea of Reeds and death by drowning of the pharaoh.
Such silence has persuaded
many archaeologists and historians that there was no Exodus (nor 10 plagues) at
all and that the lengthy Bible account is fictional.[i]
But Egyptian records lie and cover up many
things.
·
The propaganda
of the young Pharaoh Ramses II – etched into the walls of seven (7) of his
temples -- proclaim his great victory at
the battle of Kadesh against the Hittites and for years archaeologists and
Egyptologists have taken him at his recorded word.
But it was not true.
The lands of Canaan and
upper east coast of the Mediterranean that he had tried to seize from their
Hittite overlord remained under Hittite control – as made clear in the peace
treaty signed by the two sides 15 years after the battle of 1274[ii].
Some pharaohs had their
names, statutes and monuments obliterated by successors.
·
The female pharaoh
Hatshepsut, wife of Tutmoses II and his successor as regent for her infant son,
actually ruled Egypt as pharaoh for 10 years until her death.[iii]
Her son Tutmoses III, obliterated any evidence of her rule.[iv]
Her
rule was unknown to history until an inscription was deciphered in 1822 and her
tomb and body found in 2007.[v]
·
Five (5) other pharaohs were similarly ‘omitted’
from Egyptian history: Akhenaton, Neferneferuaten,[vi]
Smenkhkara[vii],
Tutankhamen
and his successor the royal advisor Aye. When Horemhed, the commander of the
army, replaced Aye as pharaoh after a mere 4 years, he systematically erased
all evidence of the reigns of these five (5) predecessors: including tearing
down Akhenaton’s temple and reusing the crumbed stone and replacing the name of
Tutankhamen with his own on monuments and stela.[viii] He also desecrated Aye tomb by removing Aye’s
name from the tomb wall illustrations/prayers, breaking up his sarcophagus and
renaming Aye’s mortuary temple in his own name.[ix]
Horemhed
also had their names ’omitted’ from the official list of pharaohs, and their periods as pharaoh
merged into his own reign.[x]
Only
modern archaeological finds have restored their names and achievements.
·
The Hyksos,
the successful invaders who conquered the Nile delta and Middle Egypt and ruled
from over 100 years to possibly 180 years never appear in the official royal
kings lists and records though they ruled from c.1650 BCE onward.
Until the
excavation of their capital at Avaris in 1966, little was known other than the
negative view presented by the 3rd century BCE Egyptian
priest/historian Manetho whose works have not survived except as excerpts cited
by Josephus and later Roman historians.[xi] And a listing of some Hyksos pharaoh names on
the back of a papyrus tax record that has survived in fragments, called the
Tirun Royal List.[xii]
So ‘silence’ from the
Egyptian record is no proof that the Exodus did not take place.
And archaeological ‘discoveries’ are hit-and-miss
and very much due to ‘luck’.
Anti-Bible bias
Finally, most archaeologists
-- especially Egyptologists -- and modern historians share the mindset carried
over by Bible Criticism’s Documentary Hypothesis from the 19th nineteen century: namely, that the
descendants of Jacob until 586 BCE and the exile to cosmopolitan Babylon
were simply illiterate (i.e., had no writing system at all) sheep and
goat herding “Judean hillbillies”. In
this negative mindset, all ‘historical’ information given in the Chumash and
the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel I and II and Kings I and II is deemed fictions
and products concocted in much later times.
However, this denial
mindset: especially NO King David, NO King Solomon and NO FIRST TEMPLE, is
rapidly becoming ‘obsolete’ and ‘proven false’ by archaeological excavations in
Israel.
King David’s existence and
his royal descendants has now been independently attested and the antiquity of
the First Temple as well.[xiii]
Lastly, while for those
north of the Euphrates used Cuneiform script down to the time of Jesus and
beyond,[xiv]
and Egypt Hieroglyphics and its 600+ letter descendant sketch figure shapes
continued to be used well into late Roman Empire times, most notably in the
Rosetta Stone,[xv] the 22 to 26 letter
system we call the Alphabet is now known to have existed and used for writing
by some group in Canaan as early as the 18th century BCE based on a
recent ivory comb inscription[xvi]
and also later on in Sinai Egypt (called proto-Sinaitic)[xvii]
That the Israelites had
mastered alphabet writing long before the Babylonian Exile of 586 BCE is also
attested by the Samaritan Bible which was copied (with alterations) from an
Israelite Torah scroll soon after they were relocated into the lands of the
former kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE (2 Kings 17:24-28). It is in the earlier
angular script that was used in Canaan for centuries before the Babylonian
exile[xviii].
The script that became the
standard for Torah scrolls after 586 BCE to the present, called ketav ashuri (i.e. thick square shapes
used by the Babylonians), was just a change
in font and not the start of Hebrew alphabet writing.
Put simply, the bias against
the Chumash and Jewish history records pre-586 BCE no longer holds up – except
in the minds and writings of so-called academic ‘scholars’.
Dating the Exodus
While
Egyptologists: both archaeologists and historians, rely on dating Egyptian
‘events’ based on the reigns of its pharaohs, determining exactly when a new
pharaoh gained the throne and when he died is, in fact, extremely difficult for
the period of Hyksos rule over 2/3 of Egypt, and at best ‘murky’ for the
ensuing rule of the 18th dynasty established by the Hyksos defeating
Ahmose(s) I.[xix]
When Ahmose(s)
I ended the reign of the foreign Hyksos, he ensured their 15th
dynasty rule was expunged from Egyptian history.
Any monuments
they created were demolished and destroyed and so too their capital city of
Avaris which was home to some 25,000 people.[xx]
And any royal
records and libraries as well.
As noted above,
only the much later, fragmented papyrus tax roll called the Turin King List preserves
the names of some Hyksos pharaohs.[xxi]
And Manetho’s 3rd century BCE history of Egypt survives only from excerpts in
Josephus’ Against Apion and later
Roman historians.[xxii]
Consequently, Hyksos
rule is variously seen as lasting just over 100 years and all the way to 180
years.[xxiii]
As for dating
native Egyptian pharaohs, historians try to reconstruct pharaoh reigns based on
the order of the official royal wall list of Ramses II, (which purposely omits
the reign of female Hatshepsut , and then Akhenaten, Neferneferuaten,
Smenkhkara
Tutankhamen and
Aye),[xxiv]
rare inscriptions which state such and such an important official died in year
X of a pharaoh’s reign,[xxv]
or when a special celestial event took place[xxvi]
or when a major religious festival took place in year X of a pharaoh’s reign.[xxvii]
While Wikipedia
generally gives dates for18th dynasty pharaohs as if set in stone, it at times
acknowledges there are two main chronologies endorsed by Egyptologists: called
the Higher and the Lower Chronology, with substantial differences in dating.[xxviii]
The website Pharaoh.se
is more up front: listing different start and end dates for each pharaoh as reconstructed
by eight (8) different archeologists.
For example,
Atmose(s) I’s dating by the AE Chronology is a full 30 years earlier
than by Redford.[xxix] And
similarly the dating for Tutmose(s) III for these two chronologies differs by
25 years.[xxx]
In brief, then,
reconstructing the timeline for Hyksos rule and even the native ensuing 18th
dynasty is very difficult and subject to major scholarly debate.
So, in
reconstructing the timelines of Joseph, Moses and especially the Exodus, it
may be best to rely on Bible anchor dates.
The Bible gives various
‘markers’ for dating the Exodus,
1 Kings 6:1 states King
Solomon began to build the Temple in Jerusalem in his 4th year, and
this was 480 years after the Exodus.
In Gen. 15:13 God tells
Abraham in a dream state that his descendants will live in a foreign land and
become enslaved -- for 400 years.
More specifically, Exod.
12:40 and 41 state the Exodus took place 430 years after the arrival of
Jacob and his full clan into Egypt.
|
מ וּמוֹשַׁב בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל,
אֲשֶׁר יָשְׁבוּ בְּמִצְרָיִם--שְׁלֹשִׁים
שָׁנָה, וְאַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה.
|
40 Now the time that the children of Israel
dwelt in Egypt was four
hundred and thirty years.
|
|
מא וַיְהִי, מִקֵּץ שְׁלֹשִׁים שָׁנָה, וְאַרְבַּע
מֵאוֹת, שָׁנָה; וַיְהִי, בְּעֶצֶם הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה, יָצְאוּ כָּל-צִבְאוֹת יְהוָה,
מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
|
41 And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty
years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the host of the
LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
|
Rabbinic tradition adds what
seems a complication, as it concludes the stay in Egyptian was just 210 years.
In doing so it stresses -- as
Rashi details in his commentary to Exod.12:40 -- that Moses’ grandfather, Kehat
– just 2 generations beforehand -- came
to Egypt with Jacob: thereby making the stay in Egypt at 430 years highly
improbable.
As well, Rashi cites Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 12:40
and Talmud Bavli Megillah 9a which correctly note the ancient Greek Septuagint Bible translation for
Exod.12:40 is:
2:40 ¶
And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land
of Mizraim {gr.Egypt} and the land of Canaan [was] four hundred and thirty years[xxxi].
I.e, the Greek translation
clarified this very lengthy time duration included the years Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob spent in Canaan.
This is also how Josephus in
his Antquities of the Jews, Book II
ch:15:2 describes the 430 year
duration. And so too the ancient Samaritan Bible.[xxxii]
So, this ‘understanding’
left just 210 years according to the rabbinic count (Josephus says 215 years[xxxiii])
for the time spent in Egypt.
And as noted by Rashi at the
start of his commentary to Exod. 12:40, this rabbinic understanding also
resolves the 400 years mentioned in Abraham’s dream state which talks of
Abraham’s “descendants”. Counting from
the birth of Abraham’s descendant, Isaac, to Jacob’s arrival in Egypt totals
190 years and this leaves 210 years for their enslavement.
Bible’s dating of the Exodus
According to 1 Kings
6:1, Solomon began to build the Temple
in Jerusalem in his fourth year as king, and exactly 480 years after the
Exodus.[xxxiv]
|
א וַיְהִי בִשְׁמוֹנִים שָׁנָה וְאַרְבַּע
מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה לְצֵאת בְּנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל מֵאֶרֶץ-מִצְרַיִם בַּשָּׁנָה הָרְבִיעִית
בְּחֹדֶשׁ זִו, הוּא הַחֹדֶשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי, לִמְלֹךְ שְׁלֹמֹה, עַל-יִשְׂרָאֵל; וַיִּבֶן
הַבַּיִת, לַיהוָה.
|
1 And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth
year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt,
in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is
the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.
|
King Solomon’s reign is
normally dated to c. 970 BCE[xxxv]
so the 4th year when the temple construction began would be c. 966
BCE.
Going back 480 years would
place the Exodus at c.1446 BCE.
This
would be during the reign of pharaoh Tutmoses III.
As there are two different
Egyptian chronology systems that date Tutmoses III’s reign to 1479 to 1425 BCE
or to 1504 to 1450BCE,[xxxvi]
he would be the pharaoh of the Exodus in either case. And the latter chronology places his death at
1450 BCE is very close to the projected Exodus date using Solomon’s Temple
numbers.
Also, using King Solomon’s
chronology, the start of the Israelite stay in Egypt at 210 years, would have
begun c.1656 BCE.
This is during the early
years of the reign of group labelled in Greek as ‘Hyksos’ which meant
‘foreigners’ or, as Josephus suggested, ‘shepherds’.[xxxvii] There were a Semitic people from the north –
possibly Canaanites -- who conquered and ruled the Nile delta and Middle Egypt
for at least100 years and possibly 180
years.[xxxviii] Their rule is counted as Dynasty 15.
During their reign, native
Egyptians ruled upper Egypt as dynasties 16 and 17 and were regularly at war
with the Hyksos until they defeated and overthrew the Hyksos – restoring a unified Egypt during the
reign of Pharaoh Ahmose I (c.1539–1514
or 1569 - 1545). [xxxix]
If the Exodus was actually
after a full 430 years in Egypt, then the arrival of Jacob and his family would
be c.1876 BCE. This would be during the rule of pharaoh Senwosret II or
Senwosret III as their dates are disputed[xl].
Which date to choose?
To accept the date of c. 1876
would push back Abraham and the early patriarchs to, surprising, the 22nd century BCE.
Jacob on arrival in Egypt
was already 130 years old (Gen.47:9), his father Isaac married at age 40
(Gen.25: 20) and had Esau and Jacob after a long time, probably according to
tradition, at age 60, and Abraham was 100 years old at Isaac’s birth (Gen.
21:5) – after living in Canaan for 25 years (Gen.2:4).
This total would push back
the beginning of the Jewish people and Abraham to the mid-22 century BCE. (This would be during the 30 year reign of
the Egyptian pharaoh Neferirkare [xli]
and
during the last decades of the Akkadian northern empire under King Dudu or his
successor Shu-turul of Mesopotamian.[xlii])
A later arrival date of c.1656 seems more plausible as
the Hyksos were kindred people of northern Semitic descent and animal herders
as well.
It would also explain how a ‘new’ pharaoh did not know of
Joseph and his loyal service to his pharaoh (Exod. 1:8), and why the new
pharaoh feared the Israelites would be a fifth column and danger if a war
broke out (Exod.1:10): i.e., with any of the kingdoms from the Mesopotamian
north. Wars between Egypt and northern
Mesopotamian kingdoms – in the quest for expanded empires -- were
commonplace.
Bible issues re Hyksos era
However, the Bible text does raise some issues for such a
Hyksos setting.
All the royal officials in the Joseph account have
Egyptian names: not Canaanite or Mesopotamian – i.e., Hyksos names, and Joseph
himself was given an Egyptian name by the pharaoh.
Joseph’s master in Egypt was a royal official named
Potiphar. His name in Egyptian means “he who is given by the sun god Ra”[xliii]. The wife given to
Joseph by the pharaoh is named Asenath which means “belonging to the Egyptian
goddess Neth”[xliv],
and she is the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On (Gen. 41:45 and 50) whose
name also means “he who was given by the sun god Ra”.[xlv]
Pharaoh even gives Joseph
the new name of Zaphenath-paneah. While its exact meaning in ancient Egyptian
is debated, no one has ever suggested a non-Egyptian origin.[xlvi]
So, if the rulers of the
Delta region of Egypt during Joseph’s time were the Hyksos, who had Semitic
names such as Sakir-Har, Khyan, Khamudi
and Apepi,[xlvii] why do all the royal
officials have Egyptian native names?
And why give Joseph an Egyptian name?
Another problem would seem
to be the banquet described in Gen. 43:32.
|
לב וַיָּשִׂימוּ לוֹ לְבַדּוֹ,
וְלָהֶם לְבַדָּם; וְלַמִּצְרִים הָאֹכְלִים אִתּוֹ, לְבַדָּם--כִּי לֹא יוּכְלוּן
הַמִּצְרִים לֶאֱכֹל אֶת-הָעִבְרִים לֶחֶם, כִּי-תוֹעֵבָה הִוא לְמִצְרָיִם.
|
32 And they set on for him by himself, and
for them by themselves, and for the Egyptians, that did eat with him, by
themselves; because the
Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews; for that is an abomination
unto the Egyptians.
|
The
eleven Hebrew brother were required to sit ‘separate’ from Joseph’s retinue as
these royal officers found shepherds who eat sheep, goat and cattle meat
offensive to their religious – Egyptian – beliefs.
And
this antipathy is repeated in Gen. 46:34 where it states that all shepherds
were required to live far from ordinary Egyptians.
|
לד וַאֲמַרְתֶּם, אַנְשֵׁי
מִקְנֶה הָיוּ עֲבָדֶיךָ מִנְּעוּרֵינוּ וְעַד-עַתָּה--גַּם-אֲנַחְנוּ,
גַּם-אֲבֹתֵינוּ: בַּעֲבוּר, תֵּשְׁבוּ בְּאֶרֶץ גֹּשֶׁן, כִּי-תוֹעֲבַת מִצְרַיִם,
כָּל-רֹעֵה צֹאן.
|
34 that
ye shall say: Thy servants have been keepers of cattle from our youth even
until now, both we, and our fathers; that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an
abomination unto the Egyptians.
|
So,
if this was during the Hyksos era, would not these royal assistants be Hyksos
--animal herders and meat eater’s -- as well?
And
why would Joseph -- as a Hyksos viceroy --
only have native Egyptian assistants?
Conquered and potentially rebellious natives?
Finally,
Jacob and family with their large herds settle in the eastern Nile delta area
called Goshen (Gen. 46:29,34; 47:1,4,6)
by the city of Ramses (Gen. 47:11).
But
that is exactly where the shepherd Hyksos also settled: around their capital of
Avaris[xlviii]
-- which is close to Ramses.
Would
two large sets of sheep and goat flocks and cattle herds: Hyksos and
Israelites, have fit into such a single area?
Solutions
The
above concerns need to be recognized, but can be readily resolved.
Giving
Joseph an Egyptian new name was wise politically as it would blend him into
Egyptian society and mindset. Joseph’s
wife and her father were clearly Egyptian nobility and they had accepted Hyksos
rule and ‘joined in’. The same with
Potiphar, the royal official who had been Joseph’s master and whom the text
specifically notes was a native Egyptian (Gen. 39:1).
As
the Hyksos were a small group of invaders, they needed native Egyptian support
and experienced royal staff who could
read and write hieroglyphics and its derivatives, and understand the royal
account ledgers and records. Otherwise
the highly developed Egyptian government system and its economic control would
almost instantly have collapsed.
Rulers
can be changed abruptly, but the machinery of a complex government and
oversight of a large society and economy needs continuity of expertise.
So
the inclusion of native Egyptians – especially of the educated and upper class
-- is no surprise.
As
for competing for grazing land and room for flocks and herds, Goshen is at the
very eastern tip of the Delta and only a small section of the vast grasslands
of the eastern delta of the great Nile River.
Moreover,
the Hyksos setting fits the Biblical text very well in other ways.
1. Joseph wanted his father and family to be close
to him and his home in the royal capital (Gen. 45:10). Avaris is the only official capital of the
Hyksos dynasty. All other Egyptian capitals are not in the Delta: Thebes and
Amarna are very far away and so too even Memphis. [xlix]
And Avaris is very close to Ramses, the
key city in Goshen where Jacob and his sons lived.
2. The pharaoh notes that he too has many animal
herds and would consider hiring Joseph’s brothers (Ge. 47: 6). A native
Egyptian pharaoh would not have herds of cattle, sheep, etc. as the Egyptians
considered all shepherds ‘abominations’ on religious grounds (Gen. 46:34).
3. Joseph was viceroy from the age of 30 until his
death at age110. So he was
second-in-command for 80 years (Gen. 41:46 and Gen. 50:26). No pharaoh lived so long. So Joseph had to
serve under a number of pharaohs who were part of a continuous line for close
to – or at least -- a century long. This
fits well with the duration of the Hyksos rule until expelled by Ahmose(s) I.[l]
4. Ahmoses I, as a native Egyptian pharaoh from the
far south, would not have been familiar with Joseph and his role under Hyksos
rulers nor, on religious grounds, have been sympathetic to Joseph’s shepherd
and “evrim” kin. Hence, Ahmose(s) I, who
died c. 1525 BCE, would be the logical ‘new pharaoh’ (Exod. 1:8): and who
enslaved the Israelites (Exod. 1: 11- 14).
5. Ahmose(s) I -- at the very end of his reign --
may also have been the pharaoh who ordered the murdered of Israelite firstborn
males (Exod.1:15 -22) or it would be at the start of his successor’s
reign, Amenhotep I. This
transition took place in 1526 or 1525 BCE.[li]
Moses was
born in c.1526 BCE, 80 years before the Exodus of c. 1446 BCE (Exod. 7:7).
6. The Biblical name ‘Moses’ is closely related to the
names of many of the Egyptian royalty of the 18th dynasty.
From Ahmose(s) I who expelled the Hyksos through
Tutmose(s) III of the Exodus,“mose(s)” was the end-name of 4 pharaohs, 6 queens
and 9 other royal family members.[lii]
The name Ahmose(s) means “child of the Moon god”[liii]
And the name Tutmose(s) similarly means
“child of the Moon god”.[liv]
So, while the
Bible’s etymology for ‘Moses’ in Hebrew is “drawn from the river” as stated in
Exod. 2:10, and according to Josephus it meant the same in Egyptian as “moil”
was their word for water,[lv] when the baby was named by the daughter of
pharaoh who removed him from the Nile, the family’s dynastic preference for
names with ‘moses’ – meaning “child” would also apply,
As such, the
name Moses links the Bible’s account to the 18th dynasty royal
family and the upbringing of young Moses as a royal prince. Finally, with
Tutmoses III as the pharaoh of the Exodus, the sudden and unexplained death of
his son and heir – his firstborn son – Amenemhat[lvi], may well align with the
Biblical 10th Plague: the death of the firstborn male which also touched the
royal family.
Exod. 11:5
|
ה וּמֵת כָּל-בְּכוֹר, בְּאֶרֶץ
מִצְרַיִם--מִבְּכוֹר
פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל-כִּסְאוֹ, עַד בְּכוֹר הַשִּׁפְחָה אֲשֶׁר אַחַר הָרֵחָיִם;
וְכֹל, בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה.
|
5 and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh
that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the
maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of cattle.
|
And Exod. 12: 29-30
|
כט וַיְהִי
בַּחֲצִי הַלַּיְלָה, וַיהוָה הִכָּה כָל-בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, מִבְּכֹר פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב
עַל-כִּסְאוֹ, עַד בְּכוֹר הַשְּׁבִי אֲשֶׁר בְּבֵית הַבּוֹר; וְכֹל,
בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה.
|
29 And
it came to pass at midnight, that the LORD smote all the firstborn in the
land of Egypt, from the
first-born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the first-born of
the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the first-born of cattle.
|
|
ל וַיָּקָם
פַּרְעֹה לַיְלָה, הוּא וְכָל-עֲבָדָיו וְכָל-מִצְרַיִם, וַתְּהִי צְעָקָה גְדֹלָה,
בְּמִצְרָיִם: כִּי-אֵין בַּיִת, אֲשֶׁר אֵין-שָׁם מֵת.
|
30 And
Pharaoh rose up in the
night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great
cry in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead.
|
The
Burial of Jacob and Joseph
One might argue that
Goshen and the Nile Delta area must have been under native Egyptian rule
throughout Joseph’s lifetime based on the funerary procedures done on Jacob’s
body and, 54 years later, to Joseph’s body.
For both were embalmed
and mummified in a complex, 40 day process as per traditional ancient Egyptian
religious practice for nobles and royalty (Gen. 50: 2-3 and 26).
|
ב וַיְצַו יוֹסֵף אֶת-עֲבָדָיו
אֶת-הָרֹפְאִים, לַחֲנֹט
אֶת-אָבִיו; וַיַּחַנְטוּ הָרֹפְאִים, אֶת-יִשְׂרָאֵל.
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2 And
Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. And the physicians
embalmed Israel.
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ג וַיִּמְלְאוּ-לוֹ אַרְבָּעִים יוֹם, כִּי כֵּן יִמְלְאוּ יְמֵי הַחֲנֻטִים;
וַיִּבְכּוּ אֹתוֹ מִצְרַיִם, שִׁבְעִים יוֹם.
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3 And forty days were fulfilled for
him; for so are fulfilled the days of embalming. And the Egyptians
wept for him threescore and ten days.
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כו וַיָּמָת יוֹסֵף, בֶּן-מֵאָה
וָעֶשֶׂר שָׁנִים; וַיַּחַנְטוּ
אֹתוֹ, וַיִּישֶׂם בָּאָרוֹן בְּמִצְרָיִם.
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26 So
Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him, and he was put in a
coffin in Egypt.
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So how could they have
been under the rule of the Hyksos, Semites from the north where such funerary
practices were unknown?
Yes, it is true that the
Hyksos did not follow Egyptian mummification practice for their nobles and
rulers.
Excavations since the
discovery of their capital Avaris in 1966 at Tell el-Dab’a have shown a mixture of
Canaanite/Mediterranean influences as well as native Egyptian.[lvii]
Some
temples on site are of Egyptian design while others are Canaanite.[lviii]
In particular, burial of
nobles and royalty were done in mud-brick vaulted chambers with the deceased
accompanied by grave goods: jars for food, jewelry and swords, and even dead
servants, donkeys and a horse – affirming a concept of an afterlife similar to
the Egyptians.[lix]
But such burials show no
sign of mummification as was the Egyptian custom for the upper class and
royalty.[lx]
And such Hyksos burials
were the norm in Mesopotamian[lxi]
and Canaanite cultures[lxii].
However, on practical
grounds, both Jacob and Joseph’s bodies had to be mummified. It relates
to the fact both Jacob and Joseph enjoined the brothers – by oath -- to bury
them in Canaan.
Jacob specified the
family cave/crypt in Hebron where Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, Rebecca and Leah where
already buried (Gen. 49: 29-32). And
Joseph was eventually buried in Shechem after the Exodus and Joshua’s conquest
(Joshua 24:32).
Now the distance from
Goshen in the Nile delta to Hebron and vicinity is just under 400 km[lxiii] if going in a straight
line and longer if, as stated in the Bible, they circled far eastward to
crossing the Jordon to get to Hebron (Gen. 50 10) – thereby avoiding the lands
of the warlike Philistines (see Exod. 13:17).
And as we know from Gen.
22:4, the distance between Beer Sheba and Jerusalem, where Abraham took Isaac
for his ‘binding’, which is at least 120 km,[lxiv]
took the better part of 2 ½ days walking.
So going from Goshen to
Hebron in a formal, royal procession for Jacob’s burial would have taken at
least 8 to 10 days.
Way too long for a
deceased body to remain ‘intact’ in the hot climate of the Near East.
Even today, for a body to
be ‘preserved’ beyond one day requires either refrigeration or embalming -- and
there was no refrigeration then.
The 5 stages of decay
start immediately and by day 2 or 3 the internal organs have begun to liquefy
and smell. And flies attracted by the
smell of a newly dead body settle in orifices to lay eggs and soon larvae and
maggots develop and eat away at soft tissue.[lxv]
So, for Jacob’s body to
be brought back to Hebron it had to be embalmed properly. And the same for Joseph’s body which remained
for well over 100 years in a sarcophagus in Egypt.
Hot weather and
especially distance left no option in order to honour the dying wishes of Jacob
and Joseph.
Even under Hyksos rule.
Moses and his pharaohs
Where did the Pharaohs
live?
With the expulsion of
the Hyksos by Ahmose(s) I, the official capital of all Egypt was again Thebes,[lxvi] a
capital some 650 km south of Avaris[lxvii].
This raises a number
of concerns re the Bible story of Moses and the Exodus.
As stated in
the Bible, Moses' biological parents and older sister were Hebrews living in
Goshen near the Nile river, and the Egyptian pharaoh’s daughter who found him
floating in the Nile and adopted him also had a royal palace near the Nile in
the same vicinity though somewhat down river. (Exod. 2:2-10).
Young Moses
grew up in this nearby royal palace and was able to walk around the forced
labour imposed on the Israelites in Goshen -- where he killed an Egyptian
taskmaster who was bearing an Israelite almost to death (Exod. 2:11- 12).
From there --
to escape Pharaoh's punishment -- he fled eastward and north into the Sinai
desert and the territory of Midian (Exod. 2: 14-15).
Similarly,
when Moses returns at age 80 and along with Aaron would regularly go to Pharaoh
and confronted him during the 10 plagues, the pharaoh’s palace must have been
near Goshen. (Exod. Ch 5 -12).
Travelling all the way south to Thebes on land or by river would have
been too time consuming!
Way too far for
Moses to easily or quickly travel back and forth as a youth or at age 80.
So
how is this geographic, distance conundrum to be resolved?
The answer is
that while Thebes remained the official capital, it was not the only royal
residence.
Atmose(s) I build
himself a royal palace and residence on top of the rubble of Avaris.[lxviii]
Why? Probably to assert his dominion. And on
security grounds: to prevent a Hyksos army’s return or a revolt by any Hyksos
civilians remaining, a large Egyptian military force would have been essential:
stationed near Avaris from day one of the expulsion of the Hyksos.
Likewise,
a large force and royal direction would have been needed to ensure the
Israelites of Goshen did not revolt when their enslavement began and while it continued
on for decades.
Records also show
that later Pharaoh Seti I used it as his summer residence.[lxix]
As well, the
major port city of Memphis (somewhat to the south) had another royal residence.
Tutmose(s) III -- the Pharaoh of the
Exodus -- had a palace there were one of his 5 wives, Merytre-Hatshepsut,[lxx] lived and raised their son and his
successor, Amenhotep II.
Also noteworthy
is once Amenhotep II was a young man, he was assigned by his father, Tutmose(s)
III, to supervise the wood shipments to Memphis, was appointed the High Priest
for Lower Egypt, and also put in charge of the Delta army of Egypt.[lxxi]
Put simply, young
royals did not live idle lives but took on important official duties.
So too, may
have the young Moses.
Consequently,
there is no difficulty with Thebes being the far off capital and the Bible’s
account re: Moses as a youngster or his confrontations with the pharaoh 80
years after his birth.
The palace and
royal centre at Avaris was within easy travel from Goshen and the Israelites’
homes. Even Memphis, just south of Giza/Cairo, was viable.
Conclusion
re dating Joseph, Moses and the Exodus
As
argued above, an early Hyksos era dating for Joseph and the family’s migration
to Goshen, c. 1656 BCE, holds up well, as does the Exodus at the end of
Tutmose(s) III’s reign, c. 1446 BCE.
And
the “new pharaoh who did not know of Joseph” and who instituted the brutal
enslavement of the Israelites was the native Egyptian Ahmose(s) I, who had expelled
the Hyksos.
Also,
based on Moses’ age on his return, the pharaoh who had ordered the murder of newborn
Israelite boys 80 years beforehand -- c.1526 BCE -- was Ahmose(s) I himself
near his death[lxxii] or his successor, Amenhotep
I.[lxxiii]
[xxxiv]
The Septuagint gives the interval as 440 years and whether it is a
scribal error or not, it and the Hebrew text figures are very close. See https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/septuagint/chapter.asp?book=11&page=6
Surviving copies of Josephus’ Antiquities
of the Jews and Against Apion
offer contradictory (and highly suspect) durations far from the above figures: Antiquities Book 8:2 is 592 years and Against Apion Book 2:2 of 612 years.
