Dating the Exodus

I want to keep this focussed on one point at a time, participants should not jump ahead until it is generally agreed that the point under discussion has been well enough dealt with, even if that means there’s a stalemate on that particular point. I realise, that to support a point, it is sometimes necessary to mention something that happened before or after that event under discussion, but I would like that kept to a minimum.Also, I would really like participants to support any claim with references for their claims. Something like The Hebrews were in Egypt because there are texts that say the Habiru were in Egypt, and Habiru is another name for Hebrew , will not be accepted as an argument for or against anything. The equation of Habiru/’apiru with ‘Hebrew’ would need to be supported from decent academic sources, a website constructed by your mate Bob without any academic references on it doesn’t count.Although, to support my hypothesis of a mid 13th century BCE date, requires me to present quite a lot of evidence, I will, at this stage, only mention one or two points to support each part of my hypothesis. This will keep the OP fairly narrow and focussed and then we can introduce as much evidence that is necessary to support, or falsify, each of the parts of my hypothesis. I do not see any point in posting reams and reams of information for each part of the hypothesis at this stage. It is also in line with forum guideline number 9 When introducing a new topic, please keep the post narrowly focused. Do not include more than a few points.Now, for a group to come out of any country there needs to be a point where we can say that they were actually in that country. I am the first to admit that there is not a single direct mention of an ‘Israel’ as a people in any Egyptian archaeological evidence until c.1207 BCE (which is not without its uncertainties), therefore, I cannot present any direct source to prove that there were Israelites in Egypt during the 13th century BCE, that date I propose for the Exodus.However, I can provide substantial evidence that it is historically plausible that there were indeed Israelites in Egypt at that time. I do agree that the evidence is circumstantial, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that they were there.The Exodus group that came out of Egypt were said to be the descendants of a small group of 70 people who went into Egypt 430 years earlier. A couple of basic point to support the historicity on the entry into Egypt are:A) The area where Jacob and his people settled in Egypt is an area that tribes were allowed access to during times of famine. A report from a frontier official in Papyrus Anastasi VI (British Museum 10245) talks of Egyptians allowing ‘the Bedouin tribes of Edom (to) pass the Fortress of Mer-ne-ptah.. which is in Tjeku..to the pools of Per-Atumwhere are (in) Tjeku, to keep them alive and to keep their cattle alive.Tjeku is the Egyptian name for the ‘Land of Goshen’ and Per-Atum is the name for the biblical Pithom. Therefore, we know, albeit from a later source, that the Egyptians did allow people during times of famine to live in the very areas mentioned in the Bible.B) Joseph lived during the Hyksos period and as an Asiatic he could have been welcomed by the Asiatic King of Egypt. There are ample records of various non-Syrian and Canaanite individuals who gained positions of high authority in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom.I would say that, given the other sources as well, the general background to the entry of Israel into Egypt is historically plausible, and if they went in, they can certainly come out again.So, when did they come out? Well, there have been many different dates given for the Exodus from Egypt, up until the early 20th century the standard date for the Exodus was taken to be in the mid 15th century BCE. This was based on the chronology of the First Book of Kings 6:1 ‘In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD’.Solomon’s reign is calculated via synchronisms with astronomically fixed Assyrian and Babylonian king lists, and this places the Exodus in 1446 BCE, this is the date argued for by the extreme fundamentalist.However, the chronology of 1 Kings 6:1 is not a literal 480 years, it is a schematic chronology based on 12 generations of 40 years. Therefore, it is fully justifiable to offer 25 years as a period of time more suitable to a generation, then we can reinterpret 1 Kings 6:1 to mean a period of 12 times 25 years, 300 years. This would fit in well with my suggestion of a mid 13th century Exodus.The mid 15th century actually HAS to be abandoned, because there is simply no support for it. As I will argue, everything that is available today, points strongly to the mid 13th century BCE for the date of the Exodus.A fatal piece of evidence that negates an Exodus from Egypt before the mid 14th century is the archive of letters from Tell el-Amarna dating from c.1400-1350. The Amarna Letters contain letters from rulers of the small Canaanite city-states, some mentioned in the conquest narratives, who are completely unaware that they are all supposed to be ‘utterly destroyed’ by Joshua and his armies. There is no mention at all of ‘Israel’ in the Amarna Letters, in fact there is no mention of any invasion from outside of Palestine at all. The mid 13th century date for the Exodus is long after the Amarna period, so the Amarna Letters show that this date is perfectly plausible, and, at the same time, they negate any invasion of Palestine by the Israelites before 1350 BCE.The next piece of evidence to consider is found in Exodus 1:11 so, they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labour, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. There are very few references in the Hebrew Bible that give specific details of the Israelites sojourn in Egypt, but this verse contains two important pieces of historical information. These are the two references to the two cities Pithom and Rameses. The city of Rameses almost certainly to be found at Qantir/Tel el-Dab’a, and Pithom has been identified as possibly being located at Tell el-Maskhuta or the nearby Tel-el Retabe.Edouard Naville carried out extensive excavations at Tell el-Maskhuta and demonstrated that the city had been built by Rameses II. So. ‘unless we deny the historical character of Exodus 1:11, the date of the Exodus is definitely fixed’ (Sayce A.H, quoted in J Bimson’s ‘Redating the Exodus and Conquest’ JSOT, Sheffield 1978, page 37). Alan McNeile saw Naville’s discovery as ‘important, for if the statement in Exodus 1:11 is accurate, and there’s no evidence to lead us to doubt, the Pharaoh of the Oppression is proved to be Rameses II (‘the book of Exodus with introduction and notes’, quoted in ibid p.37).By this identification with Rameses II we have to place the Exodus somewhere between 1304-1237 BCE. This essentially nullifies any date earlier than the first half of the 13th century BCE.At the other end of the scale, we have evidence that forces us to put the settlement in Palestine by the Israelites to the end of the 13th century BCE. After Rameses II died, his son Merneptah succeeded him. Merneptah was already quite old and his short reign was characterised by a time of confusion that eventually resulted in the end of the 19th Dynasty around the beginning of the 12th century BCE.(Bright, John, ‘History of Israel’, SCM Press, London, 1972, page 112).The first mention of Israel as a people (there are mentions of individuals named ‘Israel’ before this) outside of the Bible can be found in Merneptah’s victory hymn on a Stele dated to around 1207 BCE. This ‘Israel’ on this stele is mentioned alongside three lands in the hill country of Palestine. If we follow a geographic curve through the three lands we arrive at the mention of an ‘Israel’ in an area where we expect to find the biblical Israelites. If this Israel is the same as our Bible ‘Israel’ then it gives us an important chronological reference. But, the ‘Israel’ of the Stele is preceded by the Egyptian determinative that designates a people and not a land. The other three names that are mentioned alongside ‘Israel’ are given the determinative for a land, suggesting that, although these three lands were already established, ‘Israel’ was still an unsettled people who may have been just entering their conquest of Canaan stage.We therefore have a time frame for the Exodus from Egypt of roughly 1247-1207 BCE, a time frame that fits beautifully with the archaeological evidence and the 40 year desert wanderings before the Conquest found in biblical text.The next factor has to do with the entry of Israel into Palestine, and as we know the Israelites enter Palestine after wandering in the wilderness for forty years. If my date for the Exodus of around 1247 BCE is correct, then we should see evidence of destruction at Canaanite city sites around the end of the 13th century, and this is exactly what we do find.According to the Bible, we should actually find all the Canaanite cities destroyed within a very short time span of five years, we do not find this, but there are quite a few destruction levels that can be harmonised. For example:Lachish, a destruction dated to the end of the 13th century, possibly 1220 BCE (Albright, Tufnell and Vincent).Bethel, destruction level in the 13th century BCE, although Albright is quite vague about a precise dating.Debir, dated by Albright to roughly the same time as the destruction of Lachish.Hazor, dated by Yadin to the second half of the 13th century BCE, c.1220.Eglon, violent destruction towards the end of the 13th century BCE.To further support a 13th century BCE date for the conquest, we can add the new settlements at Ai (old site reoccupied), Gibeah, and Mizpeh who make an appearance at the beginning of the Iron Age (1200 BCE).I know that these are only a very few of the sites that the Book of Joshua claims that the Israelites conquered, but the account in Joshua 1-12 seems to be an exaggeration of the military achievements of the Israelites. For example, some of the cities that Joshua ‘utterly destroyed’ are mysteriously re-occupied in the Book of Judges by their previous inhabitants. This suggests that the campaign of Joshua 1-12 is an exaggeration, or may even reflect the fact that the Book of Joshua was written at a much later time after all the cities had been captured, then the redactor allocated them to Joshua.Another strong argument for a 13th century BCE Exodus is the mention of the Israelites having dealings with the Kings of Moab, and Edom.In Numbers 20 we are told that Moses sent messengers to ask the King of Edom asking for permission to ‘Please let us pass through your country.’In Numbers 22 we are told that King Balak of Moab was concerned about having the Israelites in his land and he sent for Balaam to put a curse on the Israelites.Nelson Glueck excavated in the Transjordan for many years and his surface explorations showed a total lack of any sedentary occupation from 1900-1300 BCE, therefore the Israeites could not have encountered the Kings of Moab and Edom before the beginning of the 13th century BCE. They could have encountered them if the Exodus was in the mid 13th century, as this period shows sedentary peoples in the transjordan. Glueck provides some very strong evidence for the plausibility of my date for the Exodus, and another terminal piece of evidence against any earlier Exodus.The final point I want to make is another good argument for the mid 13th century BCE Exodus, namely that if the Israelites were in Canaan before the end of the 13th century BCE, then surely we would find some references to the Palestine campaigns of Seti I and Rameses II, if Israel occupied most of Palestine we would surely expect some contact with Egypt to be mentioned, but there isn’t any and this suggests that Israel was not in Palestine until after the reign of Rameses II.Please be aware that the arguments for each point I have made are extremely brief, as we are going to discuss each part of the hypothesis then there was no point in posting tons of info that would only confuse each issue. I would like the evidence for and against each point to be dealt with in depth so I would like others, as well as myself, to provide their sources to either support or condemn my hypothesis.In summary, the ten arguments for a 13th century date for the Exodus are:1. The background of the entry into Egypt is generally historically sound.
2. Joseph could have reached a position of high authority.
3. The schematic chronology of 1 Kings 6:1 can be rejected in favour of a more reasonable 300 years.
4. The Amarna Letters negate any Exodus and Conquest before 1350 BCE.
5. There is no good reason to think of the mention of Rameses and Pithom in Exodus 1:11 as anything other than historically accurate.
6. The Merneptah Stele dictates that we have Israel beginning to settle in Palestine at the end of the 13th century BCE.
7. There are many cities in Palestine that show either destruction levels or signs of a new settlement at the end of the 13th century BCE.
8. The biblical account of the Conquest of Canaan in the Book of Joshua is highly exaggerated.
9. There was no King of Edom or King of Moab for the Israelites to encounter before 1300 BCE.
10. There is silence in the Bible about Egyptian military campaigns that happened in the 13th century BCE.I would suggest that the first point to discuss would be whether or not we can establish if there were Israelites in Egypt in the first half of the second millenium BCE. This is just a suggestion, if anyone else can think of a better one then please let me know.Can I also say that it is extremely difficult to construct a case for something that you could argue very strongly against , but it is a good exercise in understanding both sides of the enquiry.Remember, this is just my own most likely date for the Exodus, feel free to argue for what ever date you personally think is the most likely if you want to.Brian.edited to fixed dating typo (cheers J)This message has been edited by Brian, 08-10-2004 11:55 AM

Hi Paul, thanks for the reply. Although I would prefer not to admit that it is an anachronism, as that then leaves everything else open to being anachronistic, I do not think it is problematic for my hypothesis. The reason being is that there is information in the Bible that tells us the Israelites knew about the inhabitants of the area before the Philistine entry.
Although Exodus 13:17 does mention the ‘land of the Philistines’ when talking about the southern coast of Palestine, Numbers 13:29 shows that the Israelites had an understanding of the land before the arrival of the Philistines. The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.So, although I agree that the mention of the Philistines is anachronistic in certain verses, I do believe that there is enough information in the Bible to show that the Israelites knew that when the Exodus happened in 1247 BCE, the area in question was occupied by Canaanites.This would mean that the mention of ‘Philistines’ has to be the name of the land when a particular version of the text was written down. Here we would need to go into source and textual criticism.One answer to this anachronism is presented by John Durham who claims that Exodsu 15:14-16 was not an original part of the song,it was added at a much later date. If you remove these verses then the song reads fine (Durham,J. 1987, Exodus Word Books, Waco, Texas)This is a part of the song as we have it:13"In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.
14 The nations will hear and tremble;
anguish will grip the people of Philistia.
15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,
the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,
the people of Canaan will melt away;
16 terror and dread will fall upon them.
By the power of your arm
they will be as still as a stone-
until your people pass by, O LORD ,
until the people you bought pass by.
17 You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance-
the place, O LORD , you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.
18 The LORD will reign
for ever and ever."With the late verse removed:13"In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.
17 You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance-
the place, O LORD , you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.
18 The LORD will reign
for ever and ever."It reads just fine with the questionable verses removed.The Book of Exodus was written over a long period of time by up to 4 different people, or schools, so we should expect to find many anachronisms given this composite nature, and, even if we just look at the books of Genesis and Exodus they are rife with anachronisms.There is also a good example in Genesis 36:31 ‘These were the kings who reigned in Edom before any Israelite king reigned’, if this was written by Moses then it was 400 years before the first King of Israel, Saul came to the throne in 1 Samuel 10:1.But an ‘anachronism’ cannot be used with any certainty to date a text, especially one that is clearly a composite one. As an example, the mention of ‘Philistia’ in Exodus 15:14 appears in one of the oldest songs in the Bible, the ‘Song of the Sea’. The mention of ‘Phiistia here doesn’t mean that the entire song has to be dated to post 1185 BCE, there are elements of the song that are paralleled in poetry from Ugarit and have subsequently been dated back to the 13th century BCE (Cross and Freedman, Song of Miriam, Journal of near eastern studies 14, pp237-250), or your can access some of the comparisons at this page Ugarit and Miriam .If we wanted to use anachronisms as proof that the events must have happened after the mention of a said factor, then we would need to have a 7th century BCE Exodus as the use of ‘Pithom’ is a more severe anachronism that the Philistines: Pithom was only used as the name of a city in the Saite period, i.e. the 7th century BCE onwards. Pithom means ‘the house of Atum (the god)’ and although this was known prior to the Saite period as the name of temples and temple estates belonging to this god, the name was never connected with cities (Lemche, Niels Peter, 1999 Is It Still Possible to Write a History of Ancient Israel? in V Phillips Long, Israel’s Past in Present Research, Eisenbrauns, Indiana, , p.398). To identify anachronisms are extremely useful, see how Lorenzo Valla used them to disprove the authenticity of ‘The Donation of Constantine’. But, I believe that the texts have to be taken as a whole, and we have to remember that the Bible isn’t a straightforward history book written down as events happened, it is a composite account from which we need to try and separate the threads that have been interwoven by its final editor(s) only then can we TRY and identify the earliest sources and perhaps reveal some true history as opposed to fictional.So, I would argue that the mention of Philistines is anachronistic, however, not all references to this area in the Bible claims that it belonged to the Philistines.Brian.

Hi Ramoss,Welcome to EvC.Velikovsky's 'flakiness' is irrelevant. What I want on this thread is a decent discussion with opinions supported by documented and referenced sources. WT can use Velikovsky if he wants, but he needs to say what reasons he has for placing Joseph before the Hyksos period, and he also has to give reasons for every thing else in that post.We don’t want empty claims here, we need to know, for instance, WHY did Velikovsky think that Joseph lived before the Hyksos period?Brian.

Hi Jar,Good point, I think that the Chronicler is a great example of that.Brian.

Hi WT,I have a few minutes before I go on a day out with some students, so I apologise for this being so short. What is obvious about equating Hebrew and Habiru/’apiru? Also, remember that what is obvious to you may not be obvious to everyone and perhaps those who do not know the obvious connection between Habiru/’apiru and Hebrew would be grateful for an explanation of the said obvious connection. Feel free to provide academic sources that use God as a mechanism, as long as you support how He did it, then that’s fine. So, use God if you wish, just make sure that the background to the intervention is plausible. The reason I want people to explain their claims is so we can all benefit and understand what the arguments have been throughout the history of the debate over the origins of Ancient Israel. I am happy for you to use Velikovsky, but I would like to know what it is about his 50 year old hypothesis that convinces you he is accurate, what evidence does he cite to support his conclusions?Your claims of unsupported assertions makes it look as if you didn’t read my opening post. I did say that I was giving a general outline and then introduce the evidence to support my hypotheses as we went along, working our way through the ten arguments. I did say there was no point in introducing reams of info in the OP, don’t worry, I can support every part of my hypothesis. Well, what miracles was he talking about and what were the catastrophic events (natural ones?) How does an end of the 13th century destruction of Hazor support a 15th century Exodus, surely it supports a 13th century one?The Bible claims in Joshua 11:10-11 At that time Joshua turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword. (Hazor had been the head of all these kingdoms.) Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anything that breathed, and he burned up Hazor itself.So, Joshua is credited in the Bible with bringing the occupation of Hazor to an end, therefore, to support a 1447 date for the exodus you would have to have a total destruction layer and an end of occupation around 1400 BCE, is there archaeological evidence to support a 1400 BCE total destruction of Hazor?Catch you later.Brian.PS, if I am not on here tomorrow it will be because I drank too much tea and ate too many cakes

Hi Hydarnes,I am very comfortable with disclosing my age, I am 40.Right now I feel about 140! LOLI am never drinking again.Brian.

Hi H, The negative comments are water off a duck's back. I have been teaching 11-18 year olds part time for the last 5 years, so when you are used to having a class of 32 x 13 year olds who are not interested in hearing about Jesus, Muhammad, or Buddha your negative comments are barely noticable.I certainly don't mind you calling my ideology into question, I really don't care at all. I would say though that personal comments, and I am as guilty as you are of it, do not make for a very constructive debate. I would rather focus on information rather than the person behind it, because, when all is said and done, neither you nor I know everything.Look after yourself and that 'gammy-legged' brother of yours.Brian.

Hi WT, good to hear from you. But I still do not know how the equation is made, if it is so easy then you can just tell me. No, not at all, I am saying that there have been great developments in the last 50 years that's all and perhaps some of the developments falsify Velikovsky's theories. I don't know how he arrived at his conclusions, so if you tell me how he did I can analyse them. Yes, according to my sources it did as well.So, if occupation came to an end (Yadin claims about 1220) what city did Joshua bring to an end in 1400 the date required for a 1447 Exodus?Joshua is associated with the 1220 destrcution by Yadin because the Bible says that Joshua's armies destroyed every living thing in it and put the city to the torch. Yadin HAD to associate this 1220 destruction with Joshua because there is no other layer that resembles this utter destruction.If Barak ended the occupation of Hazor, then the biblical account of Joshua's action there is inaccurate.Cheers, catch you later.Brian.

Hi,And your knowledge is based on what?Brian.

Hi,The rebuilding in the links you provided happened long after the 1220 destruction level. Hazor was continually occupied from around 1750 - 1220 BCE, and it is because there is only one total destruction level where occupation came to an end that Yadin attributed this destruction to Joshua. The later building that is referred to in your links are in the solomonic period.Canaanite occupation of Hazor ended in 1220, the Book of Joshua claims Joshua ended Canaanite occupation of Hazor, there is only one level where this has happened. Therefore, either Joshua caused the 1220 destruction, or Joshua 11 is exaggerated, or Joshua had nothing to do with the 1220 destruction.Brian.

Hi WT Sorry about the delay in reply I had to go off line suddenly last night.Can I say that people involved in the debate over the origins of ancient Israel HAVE to use the Bible as a source because it is the ONLY source we have for the prehistory of Israel. All the epic events surrounding the appearance of Israel onto the world stage are ONLY mentioned in the Bible, and with the Bible being the most influential book of all time, and with the special reverence in which most of the western world has afforded to the Bible, then it is impossible to investigate Israel’s origin without using the Bible.As far as I am concerned I love the Old Testament, it is a fantastic collection of ancient literature, but that is what the Bible is, it is literature. It isn’t a history book in the modern sense of the word, the 'history' in it is an ideological one, and as such anyone using it as a source has to apply the same critical approach as one would apply to any other ancient source.That the Bible has been edited many times and over a long period of time is not in dispute, Moses didn’t run around writing down everything as it happened. The narratives as we have them are a bringing together of different traditions, spliced by a redactor and presented as the one narrative, but the joins are sometimes easy to spot.But I do rely on the bible text, mainly because it is the only source that outlines Israel’s history, but also because my two areas of study are the OT and Syro-Palestinian archaeology, the two are inter-related. So, if the Hebrew Bible tells me that Jericho and Ai were destroyed at essentially the same time then I can look to my other subject for confirmation, when I look at that I see a big problem, they were never occupied at the same time, so how do I reconcile this? Perhaps the best way is to go back to the fact that the biblical accounts are late, the Book of Joshua was written long after 1400 or 1200 so it is possible that the triumphs of Joshua have been greatly exaggerated, this was a common feature of the ancients, even the Merneptah stele claims resounding victories that could not be literal.Source criticism and textual criticism are an integral part of this debate, the biblical text cannot be taken at face value, it has to be filtered to find possible historical evidence.Anyway, I hope you stick around this discussion, as I said before you are one of the few people who admit they either are wrong (I am not saying you are wrong here) or they don’t know enough about the subject to argue strongly enough. I have to admire you for that. And, remember that your opinion is a valid as any one else’s.Brian.

Hi Paul, For the biblical chronology to be correct, at face value, the conquest of canaan HAS to be around 1400. 1 Kings 6:1 demands a date of 1446 for the exodus, the conquest was 40 years later, so not only should Jericho, Ai, Gibeon and all the other sites mentioned in Joshua 1-12 show a destruction level at the same time, they should all show massive destruction levels at around 1400BCE, this is 100% at odds with the archaeological evidence.It is only because there is no way to harmonise the biblical accounts with the archaeological data that archaeologists (and I should add, in some cases, we are talking about the bible maximalists) have had to reinterpret the Bible narratives to fit the archaeological evidence. There is nothing wrong with altering your views of the bible based on external evidence of course, but there are so many people out there who are still under this delusion that the Exodus and Conquest as related in the Bible is completely accurate, and the truth is that scholars involved in the subject haven't taken this stance for about 80 years.Brian.This message has been edited by Brian, 08-14-2004 03:52 AM

HI Hydarnes, I know you said you were going to comment on Jericho on the thread about Jericho and Ai.Can I suggest that if you are thinking of using Bryant Woods material to argue your case that I can save you a lot of typing. Woods' arguments have been soundly deconstructed and shown to be completey untenable. If you are using someone else's material then that's fine, but if you wnt to use Woods then you are wasting your time. Let me take that back in fact, if you want to use Woods then fair enough, but I hope you have reinterpreted his finds. If you havent used Woods at all, then ignore my inane ramblings.Oh, and the other topic is about Jericho AND Ai, so when you prove Jericho was destroyed around 1400 can you also prove that Ai was occupied at that time, which is the topic of the thread.Brian.

Hi, He certainy couldn't have come before a 'pharoah' in 2055 BCE, the word didnt even exist at that time.The entire Joseph story is written as folklore, sharing many common narrative motifs with other cultures. The episode with Potiphar's wife for example, has numerous parralells with the 'Egyptian tale of two brothers'. The seven year famine motif is found in Egyptian (Djoser), Akkadian (tablet IV of Gilgamesh), and Canaanite (Idri-Mi, Alalakh)texts as well.The author of Joseph's adventures has a very poor knowledge of Egyptian life and culture as well. Genesis 41 talks of an 'EAST' wind scorching the crops of Pharaoh, but it is actually south winds that scorched them.Another piece of ignorance on behalf of the author of Joseph is hen he mentions 'pharaoh'. The word didn't exist in the time alloted to Joseph in the Bible. Pharaoh was not used as a title until the reogn of Thutmosis III around 1490 BCE.Gen 47:11,' land of Rameses' is another anachronism, there could be no 'Land of Rameses' before the beginning of the 13th century BCE, there was no Rameses before this time.Genesis 41:45, Joseph's wife Asenath does have an EGyptian name, but the name did't exist before the mid 20th Dynasty, about 1100 BCE.Asenath's father's name, Potiphera, is unattested until the 21 st dynatsy, about 1000 BCE.There are other problems with the Joseph tales, but they certain were written after 1000 BCE, they certainly do not fit with biblcal chronology.Brian.

double postThis message has been edited by Brian, 08-15-2004 06:06 AM