No archaeological evidence to support Ramses II as Pharaoh of Exodus: Ron Beeri

Rare sarcophagus, Egyptian scarab found in Israel

By DANIEL ESTRIN April 9, 2014 2:29 PM

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a rare sarcophagus featuring a slender face and a scarab ring inscribed with the name of an Egyptian pharaoh, Israel’s Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

The mystery man whose skeleton was found inside the sarcophagus was most likely a local Canaanite official in the service of ancient Egypt, Israeli archaeologists believe, shining a light on a period when pharaohs governed the region.

“This is a really beautiful face, very serene,” said Edwin van den Brink, an Egyptologist and archaeologist with Israel’s government antiquities authority. “It’s very appealing.”

Van den Brink said archaeologists dug at Tel Shadud, an archaeological mound in the Jezreel Valley, from December until last month. The archaeologists first uncovered the foot of the sarcophagus and took about three weeks to work their way up the coffin. Only on one of the excavation’s last days did they brush away the dirt to uncover the carved face.

The lid of the clay sarcophagus is shattered, but the sculpted face remains nearly intact. It features graceful eyebrows, almond-shaped eyes, a long nose and plump lips. Ears are separated from the face, and long-fingered hands are depicted as if the dead man’s arms were crossed atop his chest, in a typical Egyptian burial pose.

Experts last found such a sarcophagus about a half a century ago in Deir al Balah in the Gaza Strip, where some 50 similar coffins were dug up, mostly by grave robbers, van den Brink said. Some of them greet visitors today at the entrance to the archaeology wing at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Dozens were previously found in Beit Shean in Israel’s north.

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This undated photo released by Israel’s Antiquities Authority shows a scarab seal ring  …

Found alongside the new sarcophagus was a scarab seal ring encased in gold, carved with the name of Pharaoh Seti I, who ruled ancient Egypt in the 13th century BC. Seti I conquered the area of today’s Israel in the first year of his reign, in order to secure Egyptian trade routes and collect taxes for Egypt, said archaeologist Ron Beeri, who participated in the dig. The man buried in the sarcophagus might have been a tax collector for the pharaoh, Beeri said.

Seti I was the father of Ramses II, often identified as the pharaoh in the biblical story of the Israelite exodus, though Beeri said there is no historical evidence to support that.

DNA tests may be conducted to determine if the man in the sarcophagus was Canaanite or Egyptian, Beeri said.

The recent archaeological discovery, like most in Israel, came by happenstance. Israel’s natural gas company called in archaeologists to survey the territory before laying down a pipeline. Van den Brink said the Antiquities Authority excavated only a small, 5-by-5 meter (16-by-16 foot) area, but that was enough to find the sarcophagus, the scarab and four other human remains.

Van den Brink said the site likely was a large cemetery, with other sarcophagi likely waiting to be found in future digs.

“It’s just a small window that we opened,” he said.

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Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/rare-sarcophagus-egyptian-scarab-found-israel-143008407.html

Mithrandir Writes: "Where I differ from Velikovsky".



I agree with the basic pillars of Immanuel Velikovsky’s Egyptian  chronology (Middle Kingdom Exodus with the Hyksos invading some time  after the Red Sea incident, Thuthmosis III as Shishak, El Amarna era  during the divided Kingdom, Ramses II as Necho, Ramses III as Nectenbos  of Diodorus with the Prstt being the Persian Empire and Sea Peoples as  Ionian Greeks).  I don’t agree with his weird theories about the planets though.

Rohl I don’t agree with on Egyptian chronology, but I  like his identification of Enmerkar with Nimrod and Eridu with Babel and have written my own study on that subject.
I do want to discus some of the details of Velikovsky and his contemporary supporters’ model I disagree with.
On the Hyksos Amalekites connection which I’ve touched on elsewhere I just want to say I feel it’s not that simple.  The Hyksos were many tribes  of Asiatic peoples.  They included the Amalekites and possibly other  Edomite tribes (I think the king remembered by Greek myth as Belus was  an Edomite King connected in some way to Bela son of Beor of Genesis  36:32&33), I think they had a Midianite aspect too (Hor II of the  13th Dynasty I think was the Midanite king Hur mentioned in The Bible).  Archaeology clearly shows they had an Amorite aspect at all.
The most prominent is Hatshepsut as the Queen of Sheba.  If she was an  Egyptian queen The Bible wouldn’t have obscured that, it dealt with  Solomon’s interactions with Egypt unambiguously both before and after  this.  Also since Tuthmosis I must be the Pharaoh who’s daughter Solomon married, Hatshepsut was her Sister.  If this Queen was Solomon’s sister in law that wouldn’t been overlooked.
Yeshua calls her the “Queen of The South” in Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31.  And then Daniel 11 is cited where the “King of The South” is consistently Egypt.  South in Biblical geography is south of Israel/Jerusalem, in the context of Alexander’s successors  only Ptolemy is south of Israel, and Egypt was the core of his Kingdom  but not all of it.
There are three Shebas on the Table of  Nations, Two in Genesis 10 and another being Abrahamic.  The two in  Genesis 10 are one Hamitic/Cushite and the other Semitic/Joktanite.  But in both I Kings 10 and II Chronicles 11 the Queen of Sheba narrative is linked to Ophir another Joktanite name.  And the other two Shebas are  virtually inseparable from the Dedan who is their brother, but no Dedan  is alluded to here.
Serious Archaeologists all know that Sheba  was the name of a Kingdom in southern Arabia, modern Yemen.  ( Israel  Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman,David and Solomon: In Search of the  Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition p. 167).   The Saba that was a capital of Nubia/Ethiopia didn’t appears till very  late, Meroë was their Capital until after the fall of the 25th Dynasty  (When Nubia ruled Egypt).  The Cushite Sheba of Genesis 10 I believe  settled in Ancient India where he was deified as Shiva and his rather  Ramaah as Rama an avatar of Vishnu.
I do believe the Ark of the  Covenant came to Ethiopia.  But the Menelik legend is propaganda created by the Christian Auxomite kings to give them a Biblical lineage.  I  believe Graham Hancock and Bob Cornuke’s theory for how it got there.   First being at Elephantine island from sometime after King Manasseh’s  reign of terror to the time of Cambyses.
The Arabic traditions of Balqis/Bilqis/Bilquis did exist in Pre-Islamic times (Mohammed didn’t  really come up with much of anything new) and so have good reason to be  viewed as more Ancient and Valid then the purely invented Ethiopian  legend.
I do believe Hatshepsut probably visited Solomon also.   The Bible says many rulers come to visit Solomon and witness his Wisdom.  The Queen of Sheba is singled out NOT because she’s the most important by secular standards, but because she became a Saved individual, so  Yeshua cited her as such.
So I do agree that Punt was an Egyptian name for Canaan/Israel.  And I don’t think the similarity between  Make-Ra (A name of Hatshepsut) and Makeda (The name of the Queen of  Sheba in the Ethiopian traditions) is a coincidence.  I think various  Egytpian Jews, first at Elephantine and then latter in Alexandria and  the Onias colony, drew the same false conclusion and began giving her  that name.  And this may have influenced Josephus who was very familiar  with Alexandrian Jewish traditions.
El Amarna period.
I  agree with Velikovsky’s on Jehoshaphat as Ebed-Tov/Abdi-Heba King of  Jerusalem and Mesha King of Moab with the Mesh of the Amarna letters.   The Amarna letters also lsit 3 of the Captains of Jehoshaphat from II  Chronicles 17:14-19.  Addudani/Addadani=Adna and Ada-danu mentioned by  Shalmaneser in 825 BC, “Son of Zuchru” = “son of Zichri”,  Iahzibada=Iehozabad/Jehozabad.
And I agree about the Habiru being bandits or mercenaries, not an ethnic term.
But his identity for Ahab is very problematic.  Gubla is the Amarna letters name for Byblos not Jezreel.  So Rib-Addi/Rib-Hadda was not Israelite.
Labaya I feel is logically is Ahab, (or whoever the Northern Kingdom ruler was at the time).  The whole Jezebel-Nefertiti connection suggested by  SpecialtyInterests I don’t like however.
Velikovsky’s references to “Sodomites” is really weird, he’s unaware that that is a reference to Sodom only in English.
Velikovsky did NOT believe in the infallibility of Scripture.  Which of course is  an assumption many critics of revised chronology make about all revised  chronologists.  This fact about him is most apparent in the part of Age  sin Chaos about the Death of Ahab.  He basis it on what he saw as a  contradiction between this verse.
II Kings 1:17 “So he died  according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram  reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of  Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son.”
And these two verses.
II Kings 3:1 “Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in  Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned  twelve years.”
II Kings 8:16 “And in the fifth year of Joram the  son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah,  Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign.”
There is no contradiction here however, he’d know this if he’d studied  Ussher’s chronology.  Jehoshaphat made his son a co ruler for the latter years of his reign, this is why the 18th year of Jehoshaphat can also  be the second year of Jehoram.
As for the fact that Ahab did  Repent after Elijah rebuked him over the Naboth business.  That was  negated when Ahab sinned again believing the False Prophets over  Micaiah.
But Velikovsky creates a whole convoluted theory that Ahab survived the battle of Ramoth-Gilead and lived another 9 years.
Mesha of Moab’s rebellion was right after Israel’s defeat at Ramoth-Gilead,  Velikovsky sees the Moabite stone documenting this event as saying it  was in the Middle of Ahab’s reign, not after he died.  First off the  stone sounds like he’s relating a Prophesy made by a Prophet of Chemosh, who’s Prophecy may have came true not not completely accurately.  But  also if it was made immediately at the start of the rebellion he may not have heard of Ahab’s death yet.
Regardless of those arguments,  not all readings of the Mesha Stele even agree with the one Velikovsky  used to support his theory.
The Denyen of the Greek Islands
I said I agreed about the Prstt being the Persian Empire and Sea Peoples  as Ionian Greeks.  But his Identity of the “Peoples of the Islands” the  Denyen as Athens I think is silly.  The Denyen are also in the Amarna  letters where they are in northern Syria, very northern, by the modern  Turkish border.  Associated with Hammath.  Their also identified with  Adana is Cilicia.
“And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion’s whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.” Deuteronomy 33:22
The Tribe of Dan originally settled north of the Philistine Lands, around  the port city of Joppa/Jaffa modern Tel-Aviv.  The books of Joshua and  Judges both record events when Danites left their allotted land traveled north conquered a city and renamed it Dan.
“And the coast of the children of Dan went out too little for them: therefore the children of Dan went up to fight against Leshem, and took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt therein, and called  Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father.” Joshua 19:47
The Judges 18 account, where the City is Laish, is often assumed to be the  same event.  There are however several differences between the two  accounts:
1. In the Book of Joshua the  children of Dan had received an inheritance in the south but it was  insufficient for them and so they went to fight against Leshem. In  Judges though the Danites were in the region of Zorah and Eshtaol (in  the south) they had yet not taken possession of their own.
2. In  Judges, at least at first, only six hundred went forth after receiving  the report of a reconnoitering mission: on the other hand, the Book of   Joshua may be understood to say that all (or nearly all) of Dan went to  fight.
3. In the Book of Joshua the city taken is called Leshem:  In Judges the city is called LAISH. Some Commentators have tried to  state that “Leshem” and “Laish” are different forms of the same word but “leshem” in Hebrew is a type of precious stone (maybe amber) while  “laish” means a young male lion.
The Joshua account refers to the Dan that is frequently used as an idiom of the Northern Border of the  Kingdom, where Jeroboam built one of his Idols, and which on the map of  modern Israel is in the Golan heights on the Syrian border.
The  Judges event is clearly much further north.  They encountered Sidonians, but those Sidonians are also implied to be far from home.  Laish is  also know as Luash and the Danites who migrated there became known as  Dananu.
The king of Sma’al in the valley north of ASI (Orontes  embouchemont) on the edge of LUASH (LIASH) called himself “KING of the  DANIM” i.e. of the Danes of Dan. The Danes (Dananu) also controlled the  neighbouring area of Cilicia and at one stage their capital was Adana by Tarsis of Cilicia and their suzerainity reached as far north as  Karatepe. A bi-lingual inscription of theirs found at Karatepe employs a Phoenician type of Hebrew and a version of Hittite. Branches of the  Hittites in Anatolia neighboured the Dananu of Cilicia. This northern  portion of Dan is referred to variously as Dananu, Danau, Denye, Denyen, Danuna.
Above I’ve borrowed a great deal from Britam’s “Dan and the Serpent Way” study.  I don’t agree with all of Britam’s premise  obviously, or any other form of British Israelism, but Dan does have a  unique history.
Secular scholars agree on connecting the Denyen  to the Tribe of Dan, you can read about it on Wikipedia’s Denyen and Dan pages.  But the sequence is reverses, they believe the Denyen traveled  south.  This supports their attempts to claim that the various Tribes of Israel didn’t even really have a common origin.  Traditional chronology makes that argument easy for them but still doesn’t make the Biblical  picture impossible.  But revised chronology makes it indisputable which  Dan came first.
The connection they have to Greece, and the Danoi of Greek mythology is Biblically alluded to in Ezekiel 27.
 

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Taken from: http://mithrandironchronology.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/where-i-differ-from-velikovsky.html

Damien Mackey (AMAIC) Comments:

Congratulations on your sincere effort to work out a revised chronology. Obviously you have put a lot of thought into it.
Re Hatshepsut, I would like to refer you to my:
 

“Why Hatshepsut can be the ‘Queen of Sheba’.”

http://www.academia.edu/3689991/Why_Hatshepsut_can_be_the_Queen_of_Sheba

 

The problem that I have found with revisionists who discard the Velikovskian connection here is that they are unable to find in their schemes a substitute great woman for her. After all, she is famous enough to have been recalled again in the New Testament.

You will run into some awful archaeological problems, I think, when following Velikovsky in separating the 18th dynasty from the 19th.

 

Regards

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Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s 600 Year Shift Strengthened



From: http://www.conservapedia.com/Jehoahaz_I

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The monarchy period of Israel and Judah can be firmly dated as contemporary with the 18th and 19th dynasties of Egypt, which conventional historians have placed six centuries too early. This historical revision was first suggested by Immanuel Velikovsky, and much ridiculed, but has since been confirmed beyond doubt by revisionist scholars such as Damien Mackey^[10].

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http://specialtyinterests.net/amarna.html

For more up-to-date sites now regarding this study, check out:

http://amaic1.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/a-description-of-amaic-sites_1702.html

Description of our AMAIC sites

Sea people Inscriptions in The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III



[The AMAIC would argue somewhat lower BC dates than below for Era of Ramses III] 

Medinet Habu is a mortuary temple that was constructed for Ramesess III at Thebes in Upper Egypt. The temple decoration consists of a series of reliefs and texts telling of the many exploits of the king, from his campaign against the Libyans to, most importantly, his war against the Sea Peoples.

The texts and reliefs that deal with the Sea Peoples date to year eight of Ramesess III’s reign, approximately 1190 B.C. The significance of these texts is that they provide an account of Egypt’s campaign against the “coalition of the sea” from an Egyptian point of view.
The Medinet Habu inscriptions are also significant for their artistic depictions of the Sea Peoples. These provide valuable information about the appearance and accoutrements of the various groups, and can lend clues towards deciphering their ethnic backgrounds (Redford 1992: 251).

But this was not the first attempted invasion by the Sea Peoples, the first attempt was against king Merneptah (reign:1213 to 1203 B.C.). His victory was recorded on his stele: Click here >>>

 LIBYANS

The Sea People

The Peleset and Tjeker (Minoans) of Crete, they would later be known as the “Philistines” after they had settled in Southern Canaan. Over time, this area became known by a form of their name “Palestine”. The Lukka who may have come from the Lycian region of Anatolia, The Ekwesh and Denen who seem to be identified with the original (Black) Greeks, The Shardana (Sherden) who may be associated with Sardinia, The Teresh (Tursha or Tyrshenoi), the Tyrrhenians - the Greek name for the Etruscans, and The Shekelesh (Sicilians?).
From the textual evidence on the temple walls, it appears that the Peleset and the Tjeker made up the majority of the Sea Peoples involved in the year 8 invasion. In the artistic depictions, both types are depicted wearing a fillet (a ribbon used as a headband), from which protrudes a floppy plume and a protective piece down the nape of the neck.




Their armament included long swords, spears and circular shields, and they are occasionally shown wearing body armor. Other groups, such as the Shekelesh and Teresh, are shown wearing cloth headdresses and a medallion upon their breasts. The weaponry that they carried consisted of two spears and a simple round shield. The Shardana soldiers are most obviously armored in the artistic depictions, due to the thick horned helmets that adorn their heads (Redford 1992: 252).


The land battle and sea battle scenes provide a wealth of information on the military styles of the Sea Peoples. The reliefs depicting the land battle show Egyptian troops, chariots and auxiliaries fighting the enemy, who also used chariots, very similar in design to Egyptian chariots. Although the chariots used by the Sea Peoples are very similar to those used by the Egyptians, both being pulled by two horses and using wheels with six spokes, the Sea Peoples had three soldiers per chariot, whereas the Egyptians only had one, or occasionally two.










The land battle scenes also give the observer some sense of the Sea Peoples’ military organization. According to the artistic representations, the Philistine warriors were each armed with a pair of long spears, and their infantry was divided into small groups consisting of four men each. Three of those men carried long, straight swords and spears, while the fourth man only carried a sword. The relief depicting the land battle is a massive jumble of figures and very chaotic in appearance, but this was probably a stylistic convention employed by the Egyptians to convey a sense of chaos. Other evidence suggests that the Sea Peoples had a high level of organization and military strategy (O’Conner 2000: 95).



A striking feature of the land battle scene is the imagery of ox-pulled carts carrying women and children in the midst of a battle. These carts seem to represent a people on the move (Sandars 1985: 120).

The other famous relief at Medinet Habu regarding the Sea Peoples is of the sea battle. This scene is also shown in a disorganized mass, but as was mentioned earlier, was meant to represent chaos, again contradicting the Egyptians’ descriptions of the military success and organization of the Sea Peoples. The sea battle scene is valuable for its depictions of the Sea Peoples' ships and their armaments.





The Egyptians and the Sea Peoples both used sails as their main means of naval locomotion. However, interestingly, the Sea Peoples' ships appear to have no oars, which could indicate new navigation techniques (Dothan 1982: 7). Another interesting feature of the Sea Peoples' ships is that all the prows are carved in the shape of bird heads, which has caused many scholars to speculate an Aegean origin for these groups. Wachsmann (2000) speculates that the sea battle relief shows the battle in progression, from beginning to end.

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Taken from: http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/Misc/Medinet_Habu/Medinet_Habu.htm

Gods, Heroes and Tyrants: Greek Chronology in Chaos

By Emmet Sweeney

Is it possible that the history of ancient Greece as found in the textbooks is seriously misdated? Emmet Sweeney is not the first to make such a proposal. That honor goes to Immanuel Velikovsky, whose series Ages in Chaos (1952) held that the whole of ancient Near Eastern history before the classical age was a fabrication.

Velikovsky identified Egyptian chronology as the source of the problem; and indeed the chronology of early Greek history, during the so-called Mycenaean period, was constructed along the lines demanded by Egyptian history. And, in a multitude of ways, legend and tradition agreed. For example, Homer's Iliad is full of references to the Phrygians, who were evidently close allies of the Trojans. Indeed, so intimate is the connection that we might suspect the Trojans themselves of being a branch of the Phrygian nation. Yet Phrygia, it is known, did not exist until the eighth century BC, when the Moschians, or Bryges, a Thracian people, migrated across the Bosphorus and settled in Asia Minor. Greek tradition is explicit that Priam, king of Troy during the famous siege, was a contemporary of Gordius, the first Phrygian king and founder of the capital city Gordion.

In this volume Sweeney explores the contradictions and "coincidences" that support a whole new view of ancient history.

Much of Greek myth is about the natural events of 850 BC and natural events which preceded them. This being the case, it seems reasonable to assume that the inhabitants of the region at the time were most probably at least in part ancestral Greeks. The culture of these Early Helladic folk was maritime and warlike. They raised great fortifications around many of their settlements settlements which tended to lie along the coast. They were already familiar with tin-bronze, which speaks of trading relations with Atlantic Europe.

When considering the source of the military threat against which the Early Hellads raised their huge coastal fortifications, we need to think of Atlantic Europe and Atlantic North Africa, where a mighty seafaring culture, contemporary with Early Bronze Age Greece, is also attested. And this of course brings us into altogether deeper water, in more ways than one.

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Taken from: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Heroes-Tyrants-Greek-Chronology/dp/0875866824

Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination



Watch full-length lecture videos as dozens of top scholars discuss new Exodus research at a recent UCSD conference

Noah Wiener• 02/06/2014

“The closest parallel to the Book of Exodus in the ancient West is Homer’s Odyssey. Both are stories of migration—of identity suspended until the protagonist—Odysseus or Israel—reaches a home. Neither account records events of the sort that are likely to have left marks in the archaeological record, or even in contemporaneous monuments… But the Exodus is not the story of an individual; it is the story of a nation. It is the historical myth of an entire people, a focal point for national identity.”
–Baruch Halpern, “The Exodus from Egypt: Myth or Reality?” The Rise of Ancient Israel, 1991.

The Exodus sits at the heart of Israelite religion, literature and identity, and aspects of the narrative helped shape independent Islamic and Christian traditions. Yet challenging textual and archaeological evidence has led some scholars to question whether the Biblical narrative reflects a single historical event or if it should be read, as Ronald Hendel wrote in Bible Review, as “conflation of history and memory—a mixture of historical truth and fiction, composed of ‘authentic’ historical details, folklore motifs, ethnic self-fashioning, ideological claims and narrative imagination.”
A recent international conference hosted by Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego addressed some of the most challenging issues in Exodus scholarship. According to the Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination website, the conference “brought together more than 40 of the world’s leading archaeologists, Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, historians and geo-scientists. In tandem, the Qualcomm Institute staged an exhibition, EX3: Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future … as an experiment in trans-disciplinary research, team science, and scholarly communication using technologies developed for the museum of the future.”
Watch the conference’s full-length lectures online for free on Bible History Daily, courtesy of conference host Thomas E. Levy, distinguished professor and Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at UCSD. For more on research at UCSD, visit the Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Lab.

Lectures

Watch the opening remarks at the bottom of this page, and click on lecture titles in the list below to watch. Over the next few weeks, we’ll release additional Out of Egypt lecture videos. Want to see a lecture before then? They are all available on the conference website.

Egyptology & Exodus

*Keynote Lecture* On the Historicity of the Exodus: What Egyptology Can Contribute Today in Assessing the Sojourn in Egypt. Manfred Bietak, director emeritus, Institute of Egyptology, University of Vienna. Keynote introduction: Thomas Schneider.
Out of Egypt: Did Israel’s Exodus Include Tales? Susan Hollis, State University of New York.
The Ark of the Covenant and Egyptian Sacred Barks: A Comparative Study. Scott Noegel, University of Washington (video unavailable).
Traditions Regarding a Great Going Forth from North-East Africa: Date and Reliability. Antoine Hirsch, Canadian Institute in Egypt on behalf of Donald Redford, Pennsylvania State University.
The ‘Image’ of the Pharaoh in Judahite and Israelite Society According to the Glyptic Evidence, Stefan Münger, University of Bern.

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Archaeology & History

*Keynote Lecture* The Wilderness Itineraries: Who, How and When Did Biblical Authors Know About the Southern Deserts? Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv University.
Dates for the Exodus I Have Known, Lawrence T. Geraty, La Sierra University.
Egyptian Text Parallels to the Exodus: The Egyptology Literature, Brad C. Sparks, Archaeological Research Group.
Can Archaeological Correlates for the Mnemo-Narratives of Exodus Be Found? Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University.
The Emergence of Israel in Retrospect, Robert Mullins, Azusa Pacific University.
The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: The Question of “Origins,” Avraham Faust, Bar-Ilan University and Harvard University.

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Geography & Exodus

Har Karkom: Archaeological Discoveries on a Holy Mountain in the Desert of Exodus, Emmanuel Anati, University of Lecce.
Which Way Out of Egypt? Physical Geography Constraints on the Exodus Itinerary, Stephen Moshier, Wheaton College.
Egyptology, Egyptologists and the Exodus, James Hoffmeier, Trinity International University.

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In the FREE eBook Ancient Israel in Egypt and the Exodus, top scholars discuss the historical Israelites in Egypt and archaeological evidence for and against the historicity of the Exodus.

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Text & Memory

*Keynote Lecture* Exodus and Memory: Remembering the Origin of Israel and Monotheism, Jan Assmann, University of Konstanz.
The Exodus and the Bible: What Was Known, What Was Remembered, What Was Forgotten, William Dever, University of Arizona and Lycoming College.
The Exodus Based on the Sources Themselves, Richard Friedman, University of Georgia.
The Omerta on the Exodus, Baruch Halpern, University of Georgia.
The Exodus Account in Recent Pentateuchal Interpretation, Konrad Schmid, University of Zurich.
Sources of Judicial Power in the Moses Story, Stephen Russell, Princeton Theological Seminary.

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History & Memory

Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
Hero and Villain: Outline of the Exodus Pharaoh in Artapanus, Caterina Moro, University of Rome Sapienza.
Leaving Home: Jewish-Hellenistic Authors on the Exodus, Rene Bloch, University of Bern.
Exodus in the Quran, Babak Rahimi, University of California, San Diego.
From Liberation to Expulsion: The Exodus in the Earliest Jewish-Pagan Polemic, Pieter van der Horst, University of Utrecht (delivered in his absence by Kathleen Bennallack).
The Despoliation of Egypt: From Stealing Treasures to Saving Texts, Joel Allen, Dakota Wesleyan University.
In Search of Israel’s Insider Status: A Re-Evaluation of Israel’s Origins, Brendon Benz, William Jewell College.
What Was the Exodus? William Propp, University of California, San Diego.

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Interested in the latest archaeological technology? Researchers at the University of California, San Diego’s Calit2 laboratory recently released the FREE Biblical Archaeology Society eBook “Cyber-Archaeology in the Holy Land — The Future of the Past,” featuring the latest research on GPS, Light Detection and Ranging Laser Scanning, unmanned aerial drones, 3D artifact scans, CAVE visualization environments and much more.

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Myth & History

Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
*Keynote Lecture* The Exodus as Cultural Memory: Poetics, Politics, and the Past, Ronald Hendel, UC Berkeley.
Outside of Egypt: Joseph, Moses, and the Idea of Pastoralism Across Distance, Daniel Fleming, New York University.
Moses the Magician, Gary Rendsburg, Rutgers University.
The Revelation of the Divine Name to Moses, Thomas Römer, University of Lausanne.
The Exodus Narrative Between History and Literary Fiction, Christoph Berner, Universität Göttingen.
Mythic Dimensions of the Exodus Tradition, Bernard Batto, DePauw University.
Exodus and Exodus Traditions After the Linguistic Turn in History, Garrett Galvin, Fransciscan School of Theology and Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and University of San Diego.

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Science & History

Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
“The First Memory of Things”: Isaac Newton on Exodus and the Chronology of the Egyptian Empire, Mordechai Feingold, California Institute of Technology.
How Calculations Invaded the Deep Past, Jed Buchwald, California Institute of Technology.
Times of Darkness: Extreme Events, Long-Term Environmental Change, Mythology and History, John Grattan, Aberystwyth University.
Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Egypt Over the Periods Relevant to the Exodus Tradition, Michael Dee, University of Oxford (co-authors C. Bronk Ramsey, T. Higham).
The Thera Theories: Science and the Modern Reception History of the Exodus, Mark Harris, University of Edinburgh.
Exodus: A Geophysical Perspective, Steven Ward, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Inspired by a Tsunami? Computer Simulations of Potential (Tsunamigenic) Scenarios Related to the Exodus Narrative, Amos Salamon, Geological Survey of Israel (with co-authors S. Ward, F. McCoy, T. Levy).

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Exhibition

EX3: Exodus, Cyber-Archaeology and the Future. Thomas E. Levy, UCSD.

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Opening Remarks Video

Exodus Welcome and Introductions, Thomas Levy, Conference Chair; Jeff Elman, Dean, Division of Social Sciences, UCSD; Ramesh Rao, Director, Qualcomm Institute; Pradeep K. Khosla, Chancellor, UC San Diego

Welcome, Seth Lerer, Dean, Division of Arts + Humanities, UCSD

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Closing Remarks

Coming soon to BHD. Currently available on the conference website.
Out of Egypt Conference: Summation, Thomas Schneider, University of British Columbia.
Closing, Thomas Levy, University of California, San Diego.

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Lecture videos courtesy of conference host Thomas E. Levy, distinguished professor and Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at UCSD. All videos originally published on the Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination website, which features additional Exodus research and more information on the UCSD conference. For more on research at UCSD, visit the Levantine and Cyber-Archaeology Lab.

Permalink: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/out-of-egypt-israels-exodus-between-text-and-memory-history-and-imagination/

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Posted in Exodus, Video.

Tagged with archaeology, Book of Exodus, Exodus Video, Israel's Exodus, Out of Egypt, Thomas E. Levy, UCSD.

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1. D says

   
   

   It is amazing how blind and confused the “experts” are when it comes to the Bible. They begin with assuming it is only an ordinary history. The Bible was dictated by God the those who wrote and has an amazing unity, harmony and continuity throuhout.
   Much of it was written by eyewitnesses. They were there an wrote about others who were there. Parts of the Bible were revealed by God and kept true to real history by God’s guidance. It is not as Peter said “a cunninly devised fable” as the “experts” seem to say.
   How do they know? Were they there? Do they have knowledge of events that they did not witness from some source better than God? Do they know all things. To imagine that they know better than the eye witnesses and God is extremely arrogant. Such arrogace is irrational and cannot even be considered to have any validity.
   Trust God and His word The Bible.

   
   

   February 10, 2014, 10:52 am

   
   
2. Kurt says

   
   

   An Issue Greater Than Deliverance
   On commissioning Moses, Jehovah emphasized the importance of the divine name. Respect for that name and the One whom it represents was vital. When asked about his name, Jehovah told Moses: “I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be.” Further, Moses was to tell the sons of Israel: “Jehovah the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” Jehovah added: “This is my name to time indefinite, and this is the memorial of me to generation after generation.” (Exodus 3:13-15) Jehovah is still the name by which God is known to his servants around the earth.—Isaiah 12:4, 5; 43:10-12.
   Appearing before Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron delivered their message in the name of Jehovah. But Pharaoh arrogantly said: “Who is Jehovah, so that I should obey his voice to send Israel away? I do not know Jehovah at all and, what is more, I am not going to send Israel away.” (Exodus 5:1, 2) Pharaoh proved to be both hardhearted and deceitful, yet Jehovah urged Moses to deliver messages to him again and again. (Exodus 7:14-16, 20-23; 8:1, 2, 20) Moses could see that Pharaoh was irritated. Would any good come from confronting him again? Israel was eager for deliverance. Pharaoh was adamant in his refusal. What would you have done?
   Moses delivered yet another message, saying: “This is what Jehovah the God of the Hebrews has said: ‘Send my people away that they may serve me.’” God also said: “By now I could have thrust my hand out that I might strike you and your people with pestilence and that you might be effaced from the earth. But, in fact, for this cause I have kept you in existence, for the sake of showing you my power and in order to have my name declared in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:13-16) Because of what would be done with hardhearted Pharaoh, Jehovah purposed to demonstrate his power in a way that would serve notice on all who defy him. This would include Satan the Devil, the one whom Jesus Christ later called “the ruler of the world.” (John 14:30; Romans 9:17-24) As foretold, Jehovah’s name was declared around the earth. His long-suffering led to preservation for the Israelites and a vast mixed multitude that joined them in worshiping him. (Exodus 9:20, 21; 12:37, 38) Since then, the declaration of Jehovah’s name has benefited millions more who have taken up true worship.
   http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2005366#h=8:0-11:1072
   http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200272060

   
   

   February 11, 2014, 10:55 am

   
   

Continuing the Discussion

1. Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imaginationnewsantiques.com | newsantiques.com linked to this poston February 12, 2014
   

   [...] Text Memory [...]

2. Video: Exodus and Memory: Remembering the Origin of Israel and Monotheism | newsantiques.com linked to this poston February 20, 2014
   

   [...] harangue “Exodus and Memory: Remembering a Origin of Israel and Monotheism” during a new Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination discussion hosted by Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute during UC San Diego. Watch a full harangue video [...]

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Taken from: http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/out-of-egypt-israels-exodus-between-text-and-memory-history

Dick Gagel asks “isn’t the XII [Dynasty of Egypt] too early?” for Moses.

Dear Damien,

I must have had your paper on Moses ages ago, made my notes in the margin but never shared my understanding of the man’s early life with you.

Used the following to gainsay those who called him and the Exodus “a myth”.

It would appear we differ on both dynasties and chronology – isn’t the XII too early?

MOSES was a general, as fully described by Josephus in Antiquities, Book II, ch X.

In ch XI, after he had virtually saved Egypt as its victorious general over the Ethiopians/Cushites, he had to flee for his life from an assassination plot. He was heir to a throne in Egypt as the ruler had a daughter but no grandchildren. Josephus: “if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either a kin or adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of Egypt.” Here are our clues – a dynasty in which Moses is General, and one which effectively ended at the point in history that Moses fled and did not regain authority in the land. There is such a dynasty which also exercised jurisdiction in the Northeastern Delta where Israel dwelt and Moses was found – Dynasty XIII.

The total length of this dynasty according to Africanus’ and Eusebius’ epitomes from Manetho was 453 years under 60 rulers. But the version of Barbarus provides a missing detail from Manetho. It reveals that for a time the court was not only at Thebes, but at Bubastis in the Delta for the first 153 years (Alfred Schoene’s edition of Eusebius, p. 214).

In the Turin Canon catalogue of kings of the thirteenth dynasty, listed number 17, is “The General” with the throne name of Semenkhkare (Gardiner’s Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 440; and Weigall’s History of the Pharaohs, pp 136, 151-152). The Egyptian word for “the General” was Mermeshoi – not in all dynastic history does this title appear again as the personal name of a ruler of Egypt.

When Moses was made General or Commander of the Troops, he automatically inherited royal authority, as only kings could have the supreme command of the army, explaining his appearance in the list. Before the rise to power of this famous General, the thirteenth dynasty was of Asiatic blood. Its kings at time bore the epithet “the Asiatic” – hence no basic prejudice in adopting the Hebrew child Moses into the family. (See volume II, ch II of the revised Cambridge Ancient History, ed.1962.)

The sixteenth king listed in the Turin Canon – just before “the General” – is Userkare Khendjer – the latter being an un-Egyptian personal name. He ruled over the Delta as well as Upper Egypt. A pyramid of his has been found at South Saqqara. No descendant of his is known to have succeeded to the throne. Though nothing more is known of this man’s family, every evidence points to him as the Pharaoh whose daughter is mentioned in the book of Exodus. Within a few years the influence of this dynasty in the eastern Delta ceased.

The kings of this obscure period often have their names associated with king Neferkare (Turin Canon) on royal seals who is Phiops of Manetho, and commonly known as Pepi the Great. Here is the final proof that these minor rulers of Dynasty XIII were contemporaneous with the last great Pharaoh of the sixth dynasty of Memphis – the pharaoh of the Oppression. More than one name on a scarab has puzzled many historians, who view Egypt as generally ruled by one king at a time, but literally hundreds of such seals have been found. They are generally treated with discreet silence, for the implication of these seals would revolutionise the history of Egypt. (See The Sceptre of Egypt, by William C Hayes,, Vol.I, p.342)

Moses is finally able to return to Egypt “and it came to pass in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died” (Ex. 2:23) confirms that it was a long wait as Pepi the Great ruled for 94 years and died at age 100, succeeded by his son Menthesuphis (Manetho) or Merenre II-Antyemzaef (Turin Canon) – the Pharaoh of the Exodus who ruled only one year 1487-1486, perishing in the Red Sea.

His widow Nitocris (Manetho) or Nitokerty (Turin Canon) ruled 12 years, followed by their son Neferka “the younger” – his first born elder brother and heir presumptive having died at the time of the Exodus.

Manetho ends his list here as the invading Hyksos having by then taken full control of the country with their Dynasty XV and ruled Egypt for the next 400 years.

I feel we are on safe ground to designate Pepi the Great as the oppressive pharaoh. Userkare Kendjer with an ethnic affinity with the Hebrews does not strictly apply the rules emanating from Memphis by elevating Moses who must later have gained huge popularity following his military success. Those factors may well have raised serious concerns at Memphis HO, prompting Pepi the Great to seek Moses’ death by giving those assassination orders to the Bubastis court, and also maintaining his fatwa against Moses till the end of his life and reign.

Best regards
….

Damien Mackey replies:

Dear Dick

I just remembered that I, a few months ago, wrote a proposed synthesis of the biblical era, from Abraham to the Exodus, with the corresponding Egyptian history (and archaeology). See my:

Connecting the Biblical Patriarchs
to Ancient Egypt

http://moseseditor.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/connecting-biblical-patriarchs-to.html

The article still has to be finished, but it already contains the basis of what my view is. Fundamental to my reconstruction are the following (after that I am tentative):

-The archaeological period from Abram at the time of the four Mesopotamian kings, to the Exodus, is bookended by Abram in Late Chalcolithic and Ghassul IV (Transjordan) and the Exodus Israelites as the Middle Bronze I (MBI) people.

-According to this archaeological evidence, Abram was contemporaneous with pharaoh Narmer, who may even have been the Pharaoh of Abram and Sarai. This latter, the biblical Abimelech pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac, was clearly a very long-reigning ruler, which would suit pharaoh Aha, the first dynastic king (who may have been Narmer, and Menes).

-Joseph is surely Imhotep, and Ptah-hotep.

-I fully accept the expert testimony of Dr R. Cohen (Israelites as MBI) and Professor Emmanuel Anati (Har Karkom is Mount Sinai).

-Anati notes (and I accept this) that the story of the Egyptian Sinuhe shares ‘a common matrix’ with that of Moses fleeing Egypt for Midian. (Obviously there are some vast differences as well between these two tales). That nails Moses to Late Amenemes I and early Sesostris I. Revisionists have found some striking 12^th dynasty correlations with the Exodus account (e.g. those bricks mixed with straw).

-The MBI people do just what the Israelites did in their trek through the Paran desert, Transjordania and into Palestine, where Early Bronze Jericho falls.

The 13^thdynasty may possibly be partly contemporaneous with the life of Moses.

But be careful. The name, “Moses”, did not mean “General”. It was given to Moses with the meaning of being “drawn from the water” (Exodus 2:10): “She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water”.” So that might shake your correspondence between Mermoshis and Userkare K.

(Perhaps Joseph, not Moses, was more likely to have left a dynasty of Asiatics).

You will see that I, too, have the 6^th dynasty contemporaneous with the era of Moses, though I have not yet been able fully to integrate it all. Given my synthesis of dynasties (following Courville’s clue but not his model), then some 13^th dynasty princes (or whatever they were) may well have been contemporaneous with the 6^th dynasty’s Neferkare (Pepi the Great).

But Pepi the Great was not a founder, a “new king” (exodus 1:8), so you perhaps need to allow for two major pharaohs before the Pharaoh of the Oppression: namely, the founder Pharaoh and then, as according to the Artapanus tradition, the “Chenephres”(Neferkare?) who married Moses’ Egyptian ‘mother’, “Merris” (Meresankh, or Meres-ankh).

Artapanus’s“Chenephres” (Neferkare) and “Merris” pattern is fulfilled both with Chephren and Ankhesenmerire (i.e. Meresankh), in the 4^th dynasty, and perhaps with Huni (Neferkare) and Meresankh, as explained in the above article, in relation to Sneferu (as Moses).

Merenre, followed by Nitocris, then the Hyksos, is a pattern that I, too, have previously proposed for the finale – but without properly having been able to blend the entire 6^th dynasty with the biblical picture.

I hope that this is helpful

Damien.