[egypt/_private/disc1_ahdr.htm]

Re: Israelites in Egypt

From: tad1cinpa@aol.com
Date: 11 Aug 1998
Time: 14:00:24
Remote Name: 152.163.195.78

Comments

Alan: The answer to your question is yes. There are records of the Hebrew enslavement and Exodus from Egypt. The Jewish historian Josephus lists extracts from various Egyptian historians who wrote in Greek. The two most prominent are Manetho and Cheremon. Manetho's chronology of kings and approximate dates is still regarded as highly accurate by most Egyptologists. According to Manetho, the Israelites left Egypt during the reign of Thutmoses III. This ruler reigned in the year 1445, the year the Bible gives for the Exodus (1 Kings 6:1). Interestingly enough, Thutmoses III's tomb shows reliefs of laborers with Semitic looking features mixing mud and straw to form bricks, confirming another biblical detail.

What is also interesting is that these Egyptian historians seems to present a distorted view of the Exodus, while confirming many basic details such as who Moses was as well as Passover rituals. The difference in the Egyptian account is that the Israelites were let go because they were leprous! This would appear to be ancient spin-control, since the Egyptians could not discredit the Exodus as a myth. Otherwise, it seems very odd that they would admit to losing a slave population at all. Other extrabiblcial acounts of the Exodus can be found in other pagan historians who were hostile towards the Jews and were certainly not in the business of validating their stories of faith. They are Herodotus, Strabo and Tacitus, to name a few.

Incidentally, both Manetho and Cheremon claim to have drawn their histories from actual Egyptian temple records. Hope this helps. Andrew Roth.

[egypt/_private/disc1_aftr.htm]