Since I have a couple light weeks coming up (looking at you Acharei Mot-Kedushim and Emor), I decided that I'd respond to an article I was sent regarding the historicity of the biblical narrative with regard to Egypt. The article, by a creationist pseudonym author Daniel Anderson, can be read here. Before I begin, I'll note first that I wrote quite a bit on my take of the historicity of the Exodus narrative, which can be found here. I'll also say that this article is an example of "bad" apologetics and really demonstrates a horrendous lack of scholarship. If you are partial to the biblical narrative and want someone who actually knows what they're talking about, I recommend reading James Hoffmeier or Kenneth Kitchen, both Egyptologists who write about the accuracy of the Biblical narratives. I have issues with both of them, but at least they demonstrate an in depth knowledge of the topic at hand. However, this article is mainly meant to appeal to people who really don't know anything about the topic and are unlikely to question some blatantly wrong statements.
This will be quite long, but it will also be off the cuff. Where I have readied references, I'll quote them, but otherwise, I'm just going to respond with what I already know.
I'll now respond to the article in full, quoting heavily. We begin with:
For years, the popular media has mocked the biblical accounts of Joseph,
Moses, the Passover, and the Exodus as being completely
incompatible with standard Egyptian chronology. Year after year, we
have been told by numerous scholars that events recorded in the
books of Genesis and Exodus are nice legends devoid of any historical
or archaeological merit.
Popular media does not mock the biblical account. If anything it accepts it at face value. It's only among students of history and academics that the stories are viewed as ahistorical. And there is good reason for that as we'll see. This paragraph does set up a nice myth of persecution. You'll find similar things stated in fringe views all over the place.
However, a new wind is blowing. An emerging pool of scholars,
representing diverse backgrounds, has been openly calling for a
drastic reduction in Egyptian chronology. Such a reduction would serve to line up the historical and
archaeological records of Egypt and the Old Testament.
Surprisingly, there is a substantial amount of evidence to warrant a
significant reduction of Egyptian history. And by doing so, the
reliability of Genesis, Exodus, and the entire Old Testament will
have to be reconsidered as a viable source of historical truth.
Who are these scholars? No footnote is given. Why are they calling for a drastic reduction of Egyptian chronology? Anderson claims that there's a lot of evidence but scant evidence is presented here, and no footnote is given for where the other evidence might lie. The editor sort of answers it in an additional editor's remark where the answer is that the chronology is reduced solely because then it fits better with the biblical story. This isn't scholarship, it's apologetics, and bad apologetics at that.
But enough for the intro, let's get to the meat, the little of it that is there.
Those who advocate a revision of orthodox Egyptian chronology are
admittedly in the minority, but their credentials and scholarship
are highly esteemed. David Rohl, author of Test of Time, suggests ‘Ramses II should be dated to the tenth century BC—some three hundred and fifty years later than the date which had been assigned him in the orthodox chronology.’
Here's the first name he trots out. Rohl does indeed argue for a alternate chronology that adjusts the 19th through 25th dynasties, with the explicit purpose of causing certain Biblical figures to align with Egyptian figures. However, his chronology is not accepted by nearly any Egyptologist. The reason is that there's no external evidence except for the Torah, and a lot of good evidence for the more conventional chronologies. The same can be said about the next few authors.
Peter James and four other scholars published the book Centuries of Darkness.
They claim that the dates of Egyptian dynasties need to be reduced
by hundreds of years, specifically Dynasties 21–24. Dr Colin
Renfrew, professor of archaeology at Cambridge University, wrote a
foreword to this book:
"This
disquieting book draws attention … to a crucial period in world history,
and to the very shaky nature of the dating, the whole
chronological framework, upon which our current interpretations
rest…the existing chronologies for that crucial phase in human
history are in error by several centuries, and that, in consequence,
history will have to be rewritten."
Actually going through and checking these sources is a fair bit beyond what I care to do for this. I'll just note that carbon dating results are accurate to about 100 years. I don't know if these results were available in 1992 when these authors were writing, but they are now. These provide an entirely independent check. We'll look at that in more detail, in a bit. Next the author quotes Alan Gardiner, and he must be desperate indeed if he needs to go back 50 years ago to find support for his view.
Lastly Anderson mentions Down and Ashton, which provide the vast majority of the references for the rest of the article.
Reasons for questioning the traditional Egyptian timeline
Astronomical assumptions
Supposedly, lunar and solar eclipses have been discovered to
perfectly match the established dates of Egyptian chronology. This
is simply untrue. The concept of astronomical fixation is not based
on celestial eclipses but on the ‘Sothic Cycle’. However, the
Sothic Cycle is mentioned nowhere in Egyptian texts.
There are references to ‘the rising of Sothis’ which has been
assumed to have been the sighting of the bright star Sirius. The
real issue is that many modern scholars theorize that the ancient
Egyptians were slightly off in their calendar keeping, and when
corrected in light of modern science, the dates line up accordingly. Yet
the Egyptians were able to orient their pyramids to within a
fraction of a degree to the north, south, east, and west. It is
more likely that the Egyptians were meticulous timekeepers. Thus,
in Centuries of Darkness, James and his four fellow scholars
write, ‘…There are good reasons for rejecting the whole concept of
Sothic dating as it was applied by the earlier Egyptologists.’
The argument is curious, the Egyptians were meticulous in record keeping so we shouldn't expect small errors in their astronomical calculations, but we can expect errors in the order of centuries from their kings lists?
Manetho’s maze
Another reason for questioning
the traditional timeline is Manetho, an Egyptian priest who wrote a
history of Egypt in the third century BC. Many
consider Manetho’s writings to be indisputable fact. He was skilled at
deciphering the hieroglyphs and had access to inscriptions,
documents, and other valuable artifacts. However, two problems
emerge. First, Manetho was writing hundreds, even thousands of
years after many of the actual events. Second, none of Manetho’s
writings exist.
The only source we have for Manetho’s writings are some of his
statements that have been quoted by much later historians such as
Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus.
First of all, Manetho is not considered "indisputable fact." Such a characterization is a strawman. Rather Manetho, as quoted by Josephus and others, is used as another source to reconstruct Egyptian history. Just like you shouldn't rely on it fully, you are also not allowed simply to throw it away because it contradicts your ideas.
As far as I can tell, these two arguments are the only ones that Anderson mentions to support a revision. The first argument is that the Egyptians were too accurate astronomers to make small errors, and the second is that one of the sources is untrustworthy. Neither of these actually support a revision of the date, they are just questioning the reliability of the conventional chronology.
However, there are also numerous other supports for the chronology. There is the carbon dating mentioned above that results from excavations of important Egyptian sites like Tanis and Avaris. There is the records of the Apis Bulls that help us gain confidence in the chronologies of certain eras. There are records of international relationships with other kingdoms, most relevantly for this period, the Hittites, the various rulers of the Levant recorded in the Amarna Letters, and the Sea Peoples. More on the Amarna letters later, as these singlehandedly dismantle the entirety of the argument. In other words, there needs to be a very good reason to overthrow all of this, and "it fits the Bible better" is not a very good reason.
Historical sources for Egyptian chronology
The
Egyptian evidence consists of numerous inscriptions, texts, papyrus
documents, and artifacts. Although it is very helpful, this
evidence provides an incomplete picture of Egyptian history.
...
Because of the discordant nature of Egyptian chronology, it is
impossible to present a comprehensive list of dates, pharaohs, and
dynasties. Sir Alan Gardiner wrote, ‘Our materials for the
reconstruction of a coherent picture are hopelessly inadequate.’ As
a result, we must cross reference the Egyptian accounts with other
accurate historical sources. Biblical and Assyrian chronology offer
highly consistent dates that can be utilized to rectify many of the
ambiguities of Egyptian history. In other words, if Old Testament
and Assyrian historical records significantly overlap, then a
revision of Egyptian chronology would be perfectly logical in order
to harmonize with two independent reliable sources.
I should note that absolutely no Assyrian records are discussed, nor are they terribly relevant for the vast majority of the time in question. Of far more relevance are Hittite and Sumerian records. Regardless cross-referencing Egypt against other sources is a good idea. This article does not do that.
As far as the Tanach is concerned, it certainly can be used as a historical document but it is only reliable in certain areas. In others it is horrendously unreliable. Over most of the region that this article covers the Tanach is not a reliable historical witness. I've explained why many times in this blog, but I'll do it again for each topic as they arise.
Note again the reference to Gardiner who wrote in the 60s before carbon-dating was a known method for analyzing sites. We have a lot more confidence in dates than we did fifty years ago.
Noah’s link to Egypt
The Hebrew name for one of Noah’s grandsons is Mizraim (Genesis 10:6). It is no coincidence that modern Egyptians call themselves Misr, which is a derivative of Mizraim. According to the Book of Genesis, Noah’s grandson, Mizraim,
is the father of the Egyptians. In a revised chronology, Egypt
comes into existence soon after the dispersion from Babel, around
2100 BC.
Where to begin? First the author describes a Babel dispersion and a historical flood, neither of which are historical. Both of these would have clear markers in many societies in the region (or perhaps the world). Those markers are missing. I've discussed in a previous
post why the "Table of Nations" that Anderson references appears to be a 7th century (or later) reconstruction of a mythical past, since it references other nations (e.g. Lydians) that did not exist before this time. Second, it places a date for Egypt at 2100 BCE which is hopelessly off. The revised chronologies offered above do not change many of the "old dates" instead focusing on changes to the New Kingdom.
Just using
wikipedia because I'm lazy, early Neolithic settlements in Egypt began in the 6th millenium BCE, about 3000+ years before the supposed flood. The Old kingdom started in the middle of the 3rd millenium BCE. Anderson suggests that this date is off, and everything should be moved about 1000 years later or so, mainly because of the unreliability of Egyptian historical records. But it's not historical records that allow us to date neolithic and old kingdom monuments. It's carbon dating and archaeological stratographic techniques. Carbon dating is generally accurate to about 100 years. There's no way it's off by 1000. To support his statement Anderson quotes Eusebius who is clearly basing his comments on the Tanach. After that, Anderson states:
In the traditional chronology, a pre-dynastic period of
approximately 2,000 years precedes the first Egyptian dynasty.
Genesis establishes a much shorter period of time. In addition, the
1988–1989 annual report of the Oriental Institute of Chicago
published a summary of extensive archaeological research by Bruce
Williams. Williams re-examined discoveries related to the
pre-dynastic period and concluded:
Both articles are part of an expanding body of evidence that links the
period once known as ‘predynastic’ so firmly to the ages of the
pyramids and later, that the term should be abandoned.
Williams has published several articles in archaeology journals,
and his modern research appears to confirm the Genesis account.
It's not clear to me where Anderson gets the 2000 year dating from, because to me it looks more like 500 years before the old kingdom for the "predynastic" period, and another 500 years until Anderson's date of the flood.
As far as the William's quote, I dug it up, and we have another example of a Creationist blogger taking something horrifically out of context to make a false point. Let's look at the full quote, that I found
here.
The first article dealt with objects that were late (Dynasty 0, c 3200 B.C) and monumental, the second with images that were early (Naqada I, c. 4000-3800 B.C.), small, crude, and magical; both articles are part of an expanding body of evidence that links the period once known as "Predynastic" so firmly to the ages of the pyramids and later, that the term should be abandoned. A generation ago such a proposal would have seemed inconceivable, but pioneer work...has gradually taken up a cause proposed by Helene J. Kantor in 1944 to find Egypt's origins its [sic] own earlier periods. It can now be foreseen that the comparison of images, objects, and even contexts from this early Naqada period will produce a network of evidence dense enough to extend our knowledge of Egypt's historical culture backward several centuries.
Williams is saying that the Egyptian culture that produced the pyramids was already present 1500 years earlier in archaeological realia. He wants to abandon the "predynastic" term because to him it's exactly the same as dynastic Egypt. Williams makes no comment about altering the chronology, nor did I see anything in the small sampling of readings I did that "appears to confirm the Genesis account." If anything he's proposing a far earlier date for the emergence of Egypt! Anderson provides no examples of additional confirming points, and if this was the best example he could come up with, it is quite telling.
I'd also note that I've seen this same tactic used by creationists all the time. It's a very specific and egregious use of quote mining. What they do is take a work from some eminent biologist who is critiquing a specific technique or finding and excise the quote removing all context. Then, often by implication, but sometimes brazenly, they take that quote and apply it to the entire scientific field altogether. Here Williams is critiquing the artificial cultural distinction between the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom and the predynastic period, and Anderson takes it to criticize all of Egyptology in general! Even if you are partial to Anderson's ideas, these tactics should piss you off.
Continuing on to the next section:
Abraham visits Egypt
The biblical date for the Exodus is approximately 1445 BC. and tell us that the Lord made a covenant with Abraham 430 years earlier, around 1875 BC. Not long after this date, Abraham traveled to Egypt to escape a severe famine in the land of Canaan.
Abraham’s visit did not go unnoticed, as Pharaoh’s officials
reported to their king that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was extremely
beautiful. Out of fear, Abraham told Pharaoh that Sarah was his sister.
As a result, Pharaoh temporarily inducted Sarah into his harem and
paid Abraham many expensive gifts. However, the Lord struck
Pharaoh’s house with plagues causing him to release her upon
discovering that she was actually Abraham’s wife.
We'll get to the Exodus later, but I should note that most modern day scholars who support a historical basis for the Exodus, think it happened in the middle of the 13th century, not 1445. There are reasons for this and we'll get to them later, along with the problems of this date, but first let's talk about this specific story.
There are in fact 3 stories in
Bereishit which discuss a patriarch visiting a foreign land and pretending his wife was his sister.
Avraham and
Yitzchak (Isaac) visit Egypt, and in another story
Avraham visits the Philistine king
Avimelech in
Gerar. Anderson doesn't mention this other story about the Philistines, and it's obvious why. The story is hopelessly anachronistic. There were no Philistines until at least the 13th century BCE, and
Gerar wasn't the capital until much later. If the story of
Avraham visiting the Philistines is obviously ahistorical, why should one believe that the same exact story with the site changed to Egypt is historical? We shouldn't.
Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees. From 1922 to 1934, Sir Leonard Woolley discovered it to be the first civilization
with a superior knowledge of astronomy and arithmetic. In
addition, the Sumerian civilization invented writing, composed
dictionaries, and calculated square and cube roots.
Woolley’s discoveries appear to corroborate the writings of
Josephus concerning Abraham’s visit to Egypt Josephus writes about
Abraham:
He communicated to them
arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for
before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of
learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt.
Note the date of the quotation, 1922 to 1934. This is hardly current knowledge. But also notice how Anderson completely avoids the chronological disaster he just proposed. I'm not sure whether he's completely oblivious to it, or just expects you not to know enough to question it. The Chaldeans (Hebrew:
cashdim) don't exist until the 6th century BCE. This is about 1000 years after the proposed timeline. And while they were known to be astronomers, they were hardly the first. Anderson sneaks in a comment in the footnote, which says that they were the first civilization with a superior knowledge "after the flood." But that makes no sense either in this conquest since he's implying that
Avraham got info from them in 1800 BCE and transmitted it to Egypt, which is still over 1000 years before they existed.
Other historical travesties exist here also. The Sumerian civilization, while certainly one of the oldest, did not invent writing. Many civilizations invented writing independently. Nor were they the first. Both the Indus valley civilization and the Egyptian civilization have writing that predates it. Also the original Sumerian writing was not an alphabet as we would later recognize as cuneiform, it was pictographic symbols on clay tablets.
However, the Sumerian civilization is not synonymous with the Chaldeans.
In a revised chronology, Abraham would have visited Egypt when
Khufu (aka Cheops) was Pharaoh. Before Khufu, the early Egyptian
pyramids were fantastic architectural structures, but they were not
perfectly square or exactly oriented to all four points on a
compass. However, when Khufu built his masterful pyramid, there appears
to have been an explosion of astronomical and mathematical
expertise. Khufu’s pyramid was perfectly square, level, and
orientated to the four points of the compass.
When placed
in the proper dynasty, Abraham’s visit to Egypt may have been the
catalyst that sparked an architectural revolution in Egyptian history.
This is nonsense.
Here you can find estimates of the dates of various Egyptian structures. Anderson is proposing a 700 year error in the date of the Giza Pyramids with absolutely nothing to support such a drastic shift. Also note how fluid his chronology is. Here he's 700 years off, earlier it was 1000, later he'll be 300 years off. Basically, he's just randomly picking dates to align with a biblical narrative. This isn't confirming the Bible with Egyptology, it's mangling Egyptology to conform with the Bible.
Continuing to the next section:
Joseph rises to power in Egypt
Dynasty 12 was one of the high points in Egyptian history. By a revised
chronology, Joseph would have risen to power under Sesostris I
during this dynasty. According to Genesis, Joseph was one of Jacob’s twelve sons. Out
of jealousy, Joseph’s brothers sold him to Midianite traders and
these traders sold Joseph to an Egyptian officer named Potiphar.
Eventually, through a period of trials and tribulations, the Lord
enabled Joseph to rule over Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.
Sesostris I or Senusret ruled from 1971 to 1926 in the standard chronology. Note how here Anderson shifts it so that he's ruling 300 years later, since
Yosef should be in Egypt around 1650 BCE. Remember just a paragraph ago he was proposing a 700 year shift.
Sesostris I is known to
have had a vizier, or prime minister, named Mentuhotep who
possessed extraordinary power. Egyptologist, Emille Brugsch, writes in
his book Egypt Under the Pharaohs, ‘In a word, our
Mentuhotep…appears as the alter ego of the king. When he arrived,
the great personages bowed down before him at the outer door of the
royal palace.’ Brugsch’s description appears to corroborate Joseph’s status in,
‘He (Pharaoh) had him ride in the second chariot which he had; and
they cried out before him, ‘Bow the knee’: and he made him ruler
over all the land of Egypt.’
The idea of bowing down to an important vizier appears all over the Biblical corpus, from Daniel to Esther. But that's not so important. The shakiness of the comparison should be obvious. A pharaoh had an important vizier, it must be Joseph! Forget that the names are different, that's unimportant.
Joseph’s ultimate claim to fame was his ability to interpret
dreams. The Egyptians attached significant importance to dreams.
Joseph was able to interpret Pharaoh’s perplexing dreams to mean
that seven years of plenty would be followed by seven years of the
most severe famine. Convinced by Joseph’s interpretation, Pharaoh
appointed Joseph to supervise the gathering of grain during the seven
years of plenty.
Two clues from Egyptian inscriptions
appear to confirm the Genesis account. First, a large relief on
‘Hungry Rock’ states, ‘…Because Hapy [the river god] had failed to
come in time in a period of seven years. Grain was scant, kernels
were dried up, scarce was every kind of food…'
Again Anderson assumes you are ignorant or too lazy to check his results. Because if you weren't, you might know that the
Famine Stela was written over 1000 years after the reign of Senusret and specifies a time period of Djoser III, which is 700 years earlier. Now he's off by 700 years again!
Second, a tomb belonging to Ameni, a provincial governor under Sesostris I, says: No one was unhappy in my days, not even in the years of famine,
for I had tilled all the fields of the Nome of Mah…thus I prolonged
the life of its inhabitants and preserved the food which it
produced.
The tomb specifically says that there was famine all over Egypt except in one district. It also does not specify a length of time. Besides that nothing resembles the Joseph narrative. There were likely many famines in the 2000 year history of Pharaonic Egypt, the fact that we have some records of some of the famines should not be viewed as extraordinary.
Now, there are plenty of things that do resemble the Joseph narrative in Saite period Egypt, as I've noted in the Exodus post linked above (and sourced from Redford). The names of the characters (
potiphar, zaphnat-paneach, asenat) reach their peaks of popularity during that period. Also there is the Papyrus Rylands which records the concentration of land underneath the Egyptian cleargy, similar to how Pharaoh buys all the land in the Egyptian narrative. It also even describes the 20% tax! These details are far more impressive than the list that Anderson provides. He doesn't mention them, because they imply that the Joseph story was written 1000 years after it supposedly occurred.
In the next section, which I won't quote, Anderson talks about the presence of Semitic slaves in Egypt during the 12th dynasty. This corresponds to a 200-400 year shift in chronology, assuming the Israelites were slaves between about 1800 and 1445 BCE. The vast majority of the "evidence" arises from the city of Kahun, the capital during that time period. He even points to the discovery of coffins of children and claims it must be a part of the Pharaoh's decision to kill the Hebrew babies. In doing all this, Anderson ignores one of the very specific pieces of information that the Torah tells us about the biblical time in Egypt, namely that they settled in the land of Goshen. While not specifically known where exactly Goshen is, the Torah tells us it's in the east. Kahun is west of the Nile. The Torah is notoriously vague about most of the details regarding the Exodus, but that means when it does supply some, like the location of the Israelites, you should probably use that information. However, if you did, it would make all the discussion of Kahun irrelevant. The Torah also mentions the cities that the Israelites built, namely
Pithom and
Ramses. Anderson doesn't mention these cities because they don't fit in at all with his chronology. The city of
Ramses or
Pi-Ramesses didn't exist until the Pharaoh of that name. How could Israelites living in Kahun have built a city named for a Pharoah who wouldn't live for another 600 years?
I'll also note, that it's likely that there were Semitic slaves in Egypt during all periods of Egyptian history. But there was never a point where the Semitic slaves represented a significant part of the population, as the Torah claims.
Moses is born
According to the Book of Exodus,
the baby Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter while she was
bathing at the river. His parents defied Pharaoh’s order and left
his destiny in the Lord’s hands, placing him in a basket to be
discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter. Many consider this to be a nice story,
but completely unrealistic. After all, what Egyptian princess would
adopt a Hebrew slave child and offer to make him the next Pharaoh?
I've written about the probably origins for the Moses story
here. Note how the details line up much better than the circumstantial details that Anderson says.
However, if you place Moses in the 12th dynasty, the family history of the Pharaonic court appears to line up.
Amenemhet III had two daughters, but no sons have been positively
identified. Amenemhet IV has been proposed as the son of Amenemhet
III, but he could just as easily have been the son of Sobekneferu,
one of the daughters of Amenemhet III. Amenemhet IV is a very
mysterious figure in Egyptian history and may have been a co-regent of
Amenemhet or Sobekneferu...
This chronology is at least somewhat consistent. The distance from Senusret I to Anumnehet III is about
100 years. Which, if you have
Yosef in Egypt in about 1650 BCE, and an Exodus date of 1445 BCE, you have
Moshe born at 1525 BCE.
The rest of the story isn't really worth commenting on. It's basically just inventing an Egyptian succession story so that the Biblical story could be grafted onto it. There is absolutely no evidence of any of the things Anderson is saying.
Exodus from Egypt
In a revised chronology, Neferhotep I was likely the Pharaoh of the Exodus in the 13th dynasty. Exodus 7:10
tells us that Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoh ‘… and Aaron cast down
his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a
serpent.’ Pharaoh was not impressed ‘… so the magicians of Egypt,
they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For every man
threw down his rod, and they became serpents.’ In the Liverpool Museum there is a magician’s rod that hails from this same period in Egyptian history.
The rod is in the form of a long cobra Perhaps the magicians
practiced some form of hypnotic power that transformed the cobra
rods into the appearance of real snakes, or applied sleight of hand
to substitute a real cobra for the rod.
The first thing to point out is that this is the only, even somewhat related event that is placed in the period that the author thinks is the time of the Exodus. The second thing to note is that the snake was an important symbol in Egypt and it appears in many places. It was also an important symbol in Judaism, but that's a topic for another time. The third thing is more humorous than anything else. The author assumes that the Egyptian magicians couldn't make a rod into a snake, but all the other miraculous things said in the bible definitely happened. Why doesn't he take the bible at its word? The Egyptian magicians made their rods into snakes just like
Aharon did. Presumably he invents "optical illusions" for the Egyptians because anything else would conflict with the modern theology he's attaching to the Torah.
The ten plagues are probably one of the most famous aspects of
the Exodus story. If the plagues were historical events as recorded
by Moses, then there should be some fragment of evidence
describing their catastrophic consequences. In fact, there is a
papyrus in the Leiden Museum in Holland which provides a graphic
portrayal eerily reminiscent of the biblical account. There is no
consensus among archaeologists as to when it was originally penned
An excerpt reads:
… 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 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…Everyone says ‘there is no
more.’
When I opened the article, the first think I searched for was Ipuwer. Having read enough of these types of posts, I know that finding out whether the authors mention the Admonitions of Ipuwer or the Ipuwer Papyrus or not is a good metric to finding out whether they are worth paying attention to. The good scholars (like Hoffmeier above) don't mention Ipuwer, for the reasons I'll explain in a little bit. The ones that do, do so because they don't expect their audience to know what it's about. At first I was relieved that Ipuwer didn't appear in the search bar. However when I got to this paragraph I realized it was far worse than I thought. Not only does Anderson mention Ipuwer, but he doesn't even tell you what it is so you can find it easily yourself. And he mangles the quotation so much that you don't realized that these are essentially random strings taken completely out of context over many pages, most of which has clearly nothing to do with the Exodus narrative. That last one is standard fare for anyone who brings up the Ipuwer Papyrus as evidence.
The Admonitions of Ipuwer can be read in full
here. Most Egyptologists that I've read think it has no real historical worth, and that it is more of a moral message. Let's take a closer look at the "river = blood" part quoted in Anderson.
Indeed, [hearts] are violent, pestilence is throughout the land,
blood is everywhere, death is not lacking, and the mummy-cloth speaks
even before one comes near it.
Indeed, many dead are buried in the river; the stream is a sepulcher and the place of embalmment has become a stream.
Indeed, noblemen are in distress, while the poor man is full of joy. Every town says: "Let us suppress the powerful among us."
Indeed, men are like ibises. Squalor is throughout the land, and there are none indeed whose clothes are white in these times.
Indeed, the land turns around as does a potter's wheel; the robber is a
possessor of riches and [the rich man is become] a plunderer.
Indeed, trusty servants are [. . .]; the poor man [complains]: "How terrible! What am I to do?"
Indeed, the river is blood, yet men drink of it. Men shrink from human beings and thirst after water.
Indeed, gates, columns and walls are burnt up, while the hall of the palace stands firm and endures.
First of all, it should be somewhat more clear what the Admonitions are talking about. A general upheaval of society which is portrayed in a very negative light. As far as the river being blood, the reason is clearly stated a couple verses previous, a section that is conveniently left out by every apologist who quotes from it. The river is blood because they buried the dead in it!
The only way you get something that looks like the Biblical Exodus from Ipuwer is to grab quotes completely out of context and then make an assertion (without evidence) that it dates to the period of the Exodus. As we've seen before this date can be moved around anyway to suit whatever piece of Egyptology Anderson wants to hold up. Let's continue,
The final plague cut Pharaoh to the heart. The Lord struck down all the
firstborn in each Egyptian family at midnight. The Hebrews were
warned of this horrific disaster and Moses ordered them to kill a
lamb and splash its blood on their doorposts. The Destroyer would
pass over every home with the blood of the lamb. It is quite significant
that Neferhotep’s son, Wahneferhotep, did not succeed his father
on the throne. Instead, Neferhotep I was succeeded by his brother
Sobkhotpe IV ‘who occupied the throne which his brother had
recently vacated.’
To this day, historians are unable to pinpoint the reason why the
son of Neferhotep I did not succeed him. Perhaps a closer look at
the biblical account is necessary.
There were a great many Pharaohs who were not succeeded by children. One of the obvious reasons for this (in retrospect) was likely the fact that inbreeding was extremely common among the Egyptian royalty. It should also be noted that monumental inscriptions and the like are not very high for the 13th dynasty. Wikipedia doesn't supply dates for the Pharaohs. It's probably that Anderson went down the list of 13th dynasty Pharaohs until he found one without a son, and then placed the Exodus there. I should also note that poking around on
wikipedia indicates that Wahneferhotep was probably the son of Neferhotep anyway. Anderson says a closer looks at the biblical account is necessary, but of course he doesn't do that. He jumps to another topic right away.
Another piece of very interesting circumstantial evidence is
the sudden departure of Kahun’s inhabitants. Dr Rosalie David
writes:
It is evident 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 …The quantity, range, and
type of articles of everyday use which were left behind in the
houses may suggest that the departure was sudden and
unpremeditated.
The evidence appears to confirm Exodus 12:33 which states, ‘And the Egyptians urged the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste…’
Except as noted above, Kahun was nowhere near the region where the Jews were supposed to live. I can't speak any more about the abandonment of the city or what might have caused it without some digging (pun not intended, but noticed on proofreading).
But what happened to the mighty Egyptian army? According to the Bible,
Pharaoh pursued the fleeing Israelites with his army as they
miraculously crossed the Red Sea. However, the Egyptian army ended
up at the bottom of the Red Sea. It is no coincidence that the mummy of Neferhotep I has never been found.
Wait, from the fact that we haven't found one Pharaoh's tomb, Anderson concludes that he must have died in the Red Sea. This is despite the Bible not saying that the Pharaoh himself went to the sea, and the fact that we haven't found tombs of many Pharaohs, especially in the 13th and 14th dynasties. Presumably the fact that we have never found any remnants from a drowned Egyptian army doesn't faze Anderson.
The Hyksos mystery solved
Also, archaeologists
and other scholars have long puzzled over the rapid occupation of
Egypt by the mysterious Hyksos without a military confrontation. Those
scholars advocating a revised chronology have identified the Hyksos
with the Amalekites, who attacked the Israelites fleeing from
Egypt. It is plausible that the Amalekites flowed into Egypt
without resistance because of God’s decimation of the Egyptian army
under the Red Sea.
Except this makes no sense in the Biblical account in which Amalek is known to live in the South and to spar with Israel during the period of the Judges and the early monarchial period. But whatever, this is just a minor point of silliness in a whole sea of misinformation.
Now, until this point I have only briefly mentioned the biggest problem with the entire chronology presented here. And that is we have quite a lot of evidence from the Amarna period of Egypt, which in the standard chronology stretches from the 14th century to the early 13th century. In Anderson's chronology, this would be later, but that's not terribly relevant. What is relevant is that this period occurs, according to Anderson, after the Exodus. After the Israelites have passed through the desert and settle in Canaan.
The Amarna period is important because it furnishes us with a huge array of correspondence between the Egyptian pharaohs and the various vassal kingdoms in the Levant. During this time, Egypt controlled the southern Levant, with the northern half, namely northern Syria, being controlled by the Hittites. There are over 300 letters here, and you can see a list on
wikipedia. A bit of searching can bring up some of the full letters so you can get a taste for what's in them. They're mostly pretty standard stuff with kings sucking up to Pharaoh and asking for assistance.
The takeaway here is that the world described in the Amarna letters has absolutely no overlap with the world described in the Tanach. And certainly no overlap with the Judges or Monarchial periods over which it would fall in Anderson's chronology. None of the kings mentioned in the Amarna letters are found in the Tanach. Many of the nations mentioned in the Tanach don't seem to exist in the Amarna letters either. Just to belabor the point, the Amarna letters aren't a single papyrus with an unknown date, and an unclear interpretation (like the Admonitions of Ipuwer, Anderson's smoking gun), they are official style correspondences with a known time period and clear historical worth. They are the most important primary source for Egyptian-Levant relations during this era. This isn't an "absence of evidence" argument, it's the presence of a significant amount of positive evidence that complete annihilates the possibility for all the speculations and shaky conclusions in Anderson's article. Any article like this that attempts to describe an Exodus prior to the Amarna period must reckon with the fact that the Israelites are absent in the letters. Failure to do so is dishonesty.
The conclusion from the Amarna letters is loud and clear. If there was an Exodus which was the primary foundation for the Israelites, it must have happened in the period
after the letters were written. This is why I said above that the serious scholars who argue for some historical exodus think that it happened in the middle of the 13th century BCE. The Amarna letters are just that strong of a data point.
Conclusion
There is a story of an older, well-respected archaeologist digging next to a young archaeologist at Gezer, Israel.
The young archaeologist was mocking the historical reliability of
the Bible when the older archaeologist quietly responded, ‘Well, if
I were you, I wouldn’t rubbish the Bible.’ When the young
archaeologist asked ‘Why?’ he replied, ‘Well, it just has a habit
of proving to be right after all.’
To close, Anderson quotes Clifford Wilson, a young earth creationist, who he describes as a well-respected archaeologist. He has almost no publications that I can find, but I did find a
biography, in which you can see that he is trained as a religious educator, not as an archaeologist. Wilson may be respected among Creationists, but among the rest of scholarship, not so much it seems. Regardless, Anderson's quotes makes it appear as if modern archaeological discoveries are producing a historical pictures closer to the biblical narrative.
Let me finish by my own quotes, to refute this assertion. I will provide two, the first by the
John Bright, the student of the "father of biblical archaeology"
William Albright. John says in 1950 (quote from Moore and Kelle, Biblical History and Israel's Past, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2011, p. 62):
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were clan chiefs who actually lived in the second millennium B.C.... The Bible's narrative accurately reflects the times to which it refers. But to what it tells of the lives of the patriarchs we can add nothing
So according to Anderson, if we look at the students of that particular school, we should see something that indicates an even stronger trust in the biblical narrative. The later voice I will bring in is
William Dever, who is probably the best representative of the Albright school today. There's no true representative, and we'll see why when we read his quote. If you look above, you'll see Anderson quotes Clifford who
participated in the Gezer excavation. Dever was
director of three separate excavations at Gezer. Anyway he says (What Did the Biblical Writers Know, Wm. B. Eerdman Pub. Co. 2001, p.98):
After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures." Virtually the last archaeological word was written by me more than 20 years ago for a basic handbook of biblical studies, Israelite and Judean History. And as we have seen, archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. Indeed, the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness. A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the mid-late 14th century B.C., where many scholars think the biblical traditions concerning the god Yahweh arose. But archaeology can do nothing to confirm such a figure as a historical personage, much less prove that he was the founder of later Israelite religion.
When Anderson says more archaeologists are looking at the Bible as a credible historical document today, he is lying.
I hope you've enjoyed this. If you have more apologetics that you'd like a response to, send them over, and provided I have time, I'll see what I can do.
