TJ
15(1):53—57, 2001
By the traditional chronology
of Egyptian history the 18th
dynasty ruled from about 1550 to 1320 BC. According to Bible chronology the
Exodus occurred about 1446 BC. But there is no evidence from 18th
dynasty Egyptian records of a major disaster such as would have resulted from
the 10 devastating plagues that fell on Egypt, or of the destruction of the
Egyptian army during this period. Nor is there archaeological evidence for an
invasion of Palestine under Joshua during this period.
The solution to this problem
is a recognition that the chronology of Egypt needs to be reduced by centuries,
bringing the 12th
dynasty down to the time of Moses and the Exodus. When this is done there is
found abundant evidence for the presence of large numbers of Semitic slaves at
the time of Moses, the devastation of Egypt and the sudden departure of these
slaves.
A reduction of the chronology
of Egypt would also be reflected in the interpretation of the archaeological
ages in Israel. There is little evidence for an invasion of Palestine at the end
of the Late Bronze Period. But at the end of the Early Bronze Period there is
evidence of Jericho’s fallen walls and the arrival of a new people with a new
culture who should be identified as the invading Israelites under Joshua.
The 18 December 1995 edition
of Time magazine had on the front cover a picture of Moses holding a slab
of stone, on which are the Ten Commandments, with the question splashed across
the centre of the page asking, ‘IS THE BIBLE FACT OR FICTION’.
The article claims that there
are
‘parts of the Old Testament where the evidence is contradictory or still absent,
including slavery in Egypt, the existence of Moses, the Exodus and Joshua’s
military conquest of the Holy Land … . Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated at Jericho
for six years, found no evidence of destruction at that time’ (p. 54).
In fact, she claims that
Jericho was uninhabited in 1400 BC, the Biblical date for the Exodus.
‘When the material is analysed in the light of our present knowledge, it becomes
clear that there is a complete gap both on the tell and in the tombs between
c.1580 BC and c.1400 BC.’1
The expression ‘at that time’
is extremely significant. The fact is that there is plenty of evidence for
slavery in Egypt, the existence of Moses, the Exodus and Joshua’s military
conquest of the Holy Land. At Jericho, Professor Garstang uncovered toppled
walls and a thick layer of ash all over the tell which denoted a fire that had
been deliberately lit.
‘The outer wall suffered most, its remains falling down the slope … . Traces of
intense fire are plain to see, including reddened masses of brick, cracked
stones, charred timbers and ashes. Houses alongside the wall were found burnt to
the ground, their roofs fallen upon the domestic pottery within.’2
But it was not at the time
archaeologists had allocated to the event.
‘It
had been believed in the earlier excavations that the defensive walls of the
Late Bronze Age town had been discovered, and that they had been destroyed by
earthquake and fire. It became clear in the course of the recent excavations
that these walls had been mistakenly identified. They actually belonged to the
Early Bronze Age.’3
From the information revealed
in
1 Kings 6:1, the date of the Exodus can be calculated. It says, ‘And
it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of
Israel had 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’.
Most historians agree that
Solomon ascended the throne about 970 BC.4
His 4th
year would be 966 BC, and 480 years before that would be about 1446 BC.
According to the traditional dates accepted by most archaeologists, that would
be during the rule of the 18th
dynasty of Egypt.
It is true that there is no
evidence for Moses, the ten plagues that fell upon Egypt or the exodus ‘at that
time’. But there are a number of scholars who claim that a gross error in
chronology has been made in calculating the dates of Egyptian history and that
they should be reduced by centuries.5
Such a re-dating could bring the 12th
dynasty down to the time of Moses, and there is plenty of circumstantial
evidence in that dynasty to support the Biblical records.
One of the last kings of the
12th
dynasty was Sesostris III. His statues
depict him as a cruel tyrant quite capable of inflicting harsh slavery on his
subjects. His son was Amenemhet III, who seems to have been an equally
disagreeable character. He probably ruled for 46 years, and Moses would have
been born near the beginning of his reign.
Amenemhet III may have had
one son, known as Amenemhet IV, who was an enigmatic character who may have
followed his father or may have been a co-regent with him. If the latter,
Amenemhet IV could well have been Moses. Amenemhet IV mysteriously disappeared
off the scene before the death of Amenemhet III.
Amenemhet III had a daughter
whose name was Sobekneferu. It is known that she had no children.6
If she was the daughter of Pharaoh who came down to the river to bathe, it is
easy to understand why she was there. It was not because she had no bathroom in
her palace. She would have been down there taking a ceremonial ablution and
praying to the river god Hapi, who was also the god of fertility. Having no
children she would have needed such a god, and when she found the beautiful baby
Moses there she would have considered it an answer to her prayers (Exodus
2:5—6).
But when Moses came of age he
identified himself with the people of Israel and was obliged to flee from Egypt.
This left a vacuum on the throne, and when Amenemhet III died there was no male
successor. Sobekneferu ascended the throne and ruled for 8 years as a Pharaoh,
but when she died the dynasty died and was succeeded by the 13th
dynasty.
For the past 15 years I have
been promoting a revised chronology for Egypt.7
This results in identifying the Semitic slaves, who were employed in building
the pyramids of the 12th dynasty at Kahun in the Faiyyum, as the Israelite
slaves referred to in the book of Exodus. Fifteen years ago I was regarded as
being out of touch with archaeological reality, but time has changed all that.
Of course, Dr Immanuel
Velikovsky proposed the same revision before I did,8
and so did Dr Donoville Courville,9
but they were written off as irrelevant because they were not archaeologists.
Since then, recognized archaeological scholars have joined the chorus of
revision.
In 1991, Peter James
published his book Centuries of Darkness, claiming that the chronology of
Egypt should be reduced by 250 years.10
James was a reputable scholar, and his book carried a preface by Professor Colin
Renfrew of Cambridge University recognizing that ‘a chronological revolution is
on its way’ (p. XVI), claiming that ‘history will have to be rewritten’ (p.
XIV). In 1995, David Rohl published A Test of Time, in which he claimed
that the chronology of Egypt should be reduced by 350 years.11
All this meant that the end of the 12th
dynasty of Egypt would be dated to the 15th
century BC, which would be about the time of the Biblical Exodus, and the slaves
known to have lived at Kahun and laboured on the building of the 12th
dynasty pyramids were the Israelite slaves.
Professor Bryant Wood, from
the Associates for Biblical Research, has also concluded that the Semitic slaves
who lived at Kahun were indeed the Israelites.12
He reaches his conclusion from a different perspective but the end result is the
same. He concludes that the period of 430 years13,14
mentioned in
Exodus 12:40 was not the total period of time from Abraham to the Exodus, as
seemingly implied in
Galatians 3:17, but was the actual period of the Israelite presence in
Egypt. This assumption would likewise place the Israelite slaves in the 12th
dynasty
The evidence very well fits
the Biblical record which says,
‘There
arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people,
"Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come,
let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it happen in the event of
war, that they join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the
land." Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their
burdens’ (Exodus
1:8—11).
Sir Flinders Petrie excavated
the city of Kahun in the Faiyyum and Dr Rosalie David wrote a book about his
excavations in which she said,
‘It
is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this
may have reflected the situation elsewhere in Egypt … . Their exact homeland in
Syria or Palestine cannot be determined … . The reason for their presence in
Egypt remains unclear.’15
Neither Rosalie David nor
Flinders Petrie could identify these Semitic slaves with the Israelites because
they held to the traditional chronology which placed the Biblical event
centuries later than the 12th
dynasty.
There was another interesting
discovery Petrie made. ‘Larger wooden boxes, probably used originally to store
clothing and other possessions, were discovered underneath the floors of many
houses at Kahun. They contained babies, sometimes buried two or three to a box,
and aged only a few months at death.’16
There is a Biblical
explanation for this. Pharaoh had ordered the Hebrew midwives, ‘When
you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth
stools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him’
(Exodus1:16).
The midwives ignored this command so ‘Pharaoh
commanded all his people saying, "Every son who is born you shall cast into the
river … " ’ (verse
22). Many grieving mothers must have had their babies snatched from their
arms and killed. They apparently buried them in boxes beneath the floors of
their houses.17
Another striking feature of
Petrie’s discoveries was the fact that these slaves suddenly disappeared off the
scene. Rosalie David wrote:
‘It
is apparent that the completion of the king’s pyramid was not the reason why
Kahun’s inhabitants eventually deserted the town, abandoning their tools and
other possessions in the shops and houses.’18
‘There are different opinions of how this first period of occupation at Kahun
drew to a close ... . The quantity, range and type of articles of everyday use
which were left behind in the houses may indeed suggest that the departure was
sudden and unpremeditated.’19
The departure was sudden and
unpremeditated! Nothing could better fit the Biblical record. ‘And
it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years–on that very
same day–it came to pass that all the armies of the LORD went out from the land
of Egypt’ (Exodus
12:41).
Pharaoh had yielded to Moses’
demands to allow his slaves to leave because of the ten devastating plagues that
fell on Egypt (Exodus 7—12). The waters of the sacred River Nile were turned to
blood, herds and flocks were smitten with pestilence, lightning set combustible
material on fire, hail flattened the crops and struck the fruit trees, and
locusts blanketed the country and consumed what might have been left of plant
life. The economy of Egypt would have been so shattered that there should be
some record of such a national catastrophe–and there is.
In the Leiden Museum in
Holland is a papyrus written in a later period, but most scholars recognize it
as being a copy of a papyrus from an earlier dynasty. It could have been from
the 13th
dynasty describing the conditions that prevailed after the plagues had struck.
It reads,
‘Nay, but the heart is violent. Plague stalks through the land and blood is
everywhere … . Nay, but the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human
he rejects it. He thirsts for water … . Nay, but gates, columns and walls are
consumed with fire … . Nay but men are few. He that lays his brother in the
ground is everywhere … . Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be
recognized … . The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt … . Nay, but
corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume and oil.
Everyone says "there is no more". The storehouse is bare … . It has come to
this. The king has been taken away by poor men.’20
There are records of slavery
during the reigns of the last rulers of the 12th
Dynasty–Sesostris III, Amenemhet III and Sobekneferu (some include an obscure
figure known as Amenemhet IV before Sobekneferu). With the death of Sobekneferu
the 12th
dynasty came to an end as she had no children born to her. Moses, the adopted
heir, had fled to Midian.
A period of instability
followed the demise of the 12th
dynasty. Fourteen kings followed each other in rapid succession, the earlier
ones probably ruling in the Delta before the 12th
dynasty ended. Kings of the 13th
dynasty had already started to rule in the north-east delta and, when the 12th
dynasty came to an end, they filled the vacuum and took over as the 13th
dynasty. (The idea of dynasties was not an Egyptian idea at the time. It was a
later invention of Manetho, the Egyptian priest of the 3rd
century BC who left a record of the history of Egypt and divided the kings into
dynasties.)
The elevation to rulership
over all Egypt by these kings resulted in fierce contention among themselves,
resulting in a rapid succession of rulers and more or less anarchy in the
country. This only settled down when Neferhotep I took the throne and restored
some stability, ruling for 11 years.
I identify
Khasekemre-Neferhotep I as the pharaoh from whom Moses demanded Israel’s
release. I do so because Petrie found scarabs21
of former kings at Kahun. But the latest scarab he found there was of
Neferhotep, who was apparently the pharaoh ruling when the Israelite slaves
suddenly left Kahun and fled from Egypt in the Exodus. According to Manetho, he
was the last king to rule before the Hyksos occupied Egypt ‘without a battle’.
Without a battle? Where was the Egyptian army? It was at the bottom of the Red
Sea (Exodus
14:28). Khasekemre-Neferhotep I was probably the pharaoh of the Exodus. His
mummy has never been found.
In his lecture, Professor
Wood associated the name Rameses mentioned in
Genesis 47:11 and
Exodus 1:11,
12:37 with the Egyptian word ‘RW3TY’, meaning ‘Door of two roads’. He
connects it with Stratum d/222
of the new population centre at Tell el-Daba (Avaris, the Capital of the
Hyksos), a site which is being excavated by the Austrian archaeologist Manfred
Bietak. According to Bietak this stratum has definite evidence for a Canaanite
element. It is Stratum d/2 which Wood connects with the Israelites in Egypt.12
Those who identify Rameses II
as the pharaoh of the Exodus cite these verses which include the name ‘Rameses’
as evidence to support their identification. But if Rameses was the Pharaoh of
the Exodus, his body should be at the bottom of the Red Sea, not in the Cairo
Museum where it is today. Wood’s argument dispels the necessity of linking the
name Rameses with the Biblical references.
There is plenty evidence for
Israelite slavery in Egypt–the sudden disappearance of these slaves, the
devastation of Egypt by the ten plagues, the destruction of the Egyptian army–if
we look for it at the right time, and time is a vital element in the
interpretation of ancient history.
According to the Biblical
records, the Exodus occurred 480 years before Solomon laid the foundations of
his temple at Jerusalem (1
Kings 6:1). This would place the Exodus about 1446 BC. God’s covenant with
Abraham was 430 years earlier (Exodus
12:40,
Galatians 3:16,
17) about 1850 BC. From the ages of his predecessors back to Noah, given in
Genesis 12 and 13, it can be calculated that the great universal flood occurred
427 years earlier, about 2302 BC. But according to most authorities on Egyptian
chronology the pyramids were built about 1550 BC, and the first dynasty of Egypt
ruled about 3100 BC.23
Thus, there is a conflict
between Egyptian chronology as generally interpreted and the Biblical records.
Neither the first dynasty of Egypt nor the pyramids could have existed before
the flood. If the Bible is historically reliable, as I believe it is, then there
must be a mistake in the usual interpretation of Egyptian chronology which needs
to be reduced by centuries.
The issue is clear. An
acceptance of the present chronological interpretation of Egyptian history, and
a rejection of the Biblical chronology, opens the door to skepticism of the rest
of the early Biblical records, including the record of the Creation of the world
in six days. But if Egyptian chronology can be shown to be flawed, a major
obstacle to the acceptance of the Bible records is removed, and the Genesis
history stands justified.
David Down
is a field archaeologist who takes a group of tourists to the Middle East every
year. At the conclusion of the tour most of the tourists stay behind and work as
volunteers on his digs, which are under the auspices of the Israeli Antiquities
Authority. He publishes a monthly archaeology newsletter called Diggings,
and the magazine Archaeological Diggings, which is distributed by
newsagents throughout Australia. He also records a weekly 15 minute archaeology
talk which is broadcast over dozens of radio stations all over the world,
including Moscow Radio, and conducts a monthly archaeology club in the Wesley
Mission in Sydney. He is regularly interviewed about the latest archaeological
discoveries by Dr Gordon Moyes over Sydney radio station 2GB.
1.
Kenyon, K.,
Archaeology on the Holy Land, Praeger, New York, p. 198, 1964.
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