Hi Jim,
Brian, you misquoted Exodus 14:2 -- you wrote: " "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth..." -- when Exodus 14:2 says NOTHING about turning "back" to Egypt, it says, "that they TURN and encamp before Pihahiroth"!
It just says "turn," which means turning in either direction -- the text does NOT say that they "turned back to Egypt"!
Jim, you can disagree with the translations I use, but in all honesty you cannot accuse me of misquoting. In the majority of Bibles the verse says turn back, whether you agree or not I certainly did not misquote.
Regarding Numbers 33, yes, Etham is mentioned twice. Which means that the Hebrews encountered it first before they crossed the gulf, and then encountered "the wilderness of Etham" (verse 8) AFTER they crossed the Gulf of Aqaba!
Indeed, because they arrived there, then turned back into Egypt, crossed the sea, and then arrived back at Etham again.
-- and on the map that Ron had me draw for him back in 1992, he placed Etham as an area that wrapped around the top of the Gulf of Aqaba, so it was technically on BOTH sides of the Gulf of Aqaba. It was a REGION, not a city.
I would be extremely interested in how Ron arrived at this conclusion, what led him to conclude that Etham was a city at the Gulf of Aqabah?
I know there have been various proposals for the location of Etham, and that its location is still uncertain, but a logical conclusion is that Etham is close to Succoth, more than likely on the eastern extremity of the Wadi Tumilat in the region of Lake Timsah.
One possible meaning of ‘Etham’ is ‘htm’ (‘Egyptian for fort’), and this fits in very well with the host of military sites in the region. The region of Succoth was a well-known military zone, there is testimony in Papyrus Anastasi 5 and 6 to four or possibly five different military outposts in the region. Etham was the stop after Succoth, and it is logical to assume that it had to be fairly close to Succoth for the Israelites to reach it within a day’s travel. The Bible locates Etham on the ‘edge of the wilderness’ and this also fits in very well with the area east of tell el-Maskhuta.
To support the location of the Sea of Reeds in Egypt we can add Migdol to our list of evidence. Exodus 14:2 places Pi-hahiroth between the sea and a site called Migdol with Migdol being a Semitic word for ‘tower’ or ‘watchtower’. The Egyptian equivalent is ‘mktr’ a widely used loanword meaning ‘fort’, fortification’ and ‘stronghold’ during the New Kingdom (Hoffmeier, James K, Israel in Egypt, Oxford Uni Press, New York Oxford. 1996, p.189).
The Bible tells us that the Israelites were in the area of Succoth so it is logical to look for a ‘Migdol’ in or near this area, and there is such Evidence for a fort in the area at the end of the Wadi Tumilat and Lake Timsah region.
In Papyrus Anastasi 5:
I reached the enclosure wall of Tjeku on the third month of the third season, day 10, they told me they were saying to the south that they had passed by on the third month of the third season, day 20. Now when I had reached the fortress, they told me that the scout had come from the desert saying that they had passed the walled place north of the Migdol of Seti mer-ne-ptah, life, prosperity, health, Beloved like Seth. (Text in Pritchard, ANET, page 259)
The fact that Succoth, Etham and Migdol can all be linked through the military connection with Wadi Tamilat/Lake Timsah area, is a strong argument that the Israelites crossed a body of water in that area.
A very big problem with the crossing at Aqabah, and another one that supports an Egyptian crossing site, is found in the Bible itself. Exod 13:18 has the Israelites going ‘by the way of the wilderness’, the ‘wilderness’ is identified in Exod 15:22 as the ‘desert of Shur’. According to the Bible:
The Wilderness of Shur is located on the other side of yam sup. (Exod. I 5:22),
Shur is east of Egypt (1 Sam. 15:7 ‘Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to Shur, to the east of Egypt.),
Most convincing is (1 Sam. 27:8. ‘Now David and his men went up and raided the Geshurites, the Girzites and the Amalekites. (From ancient times these peoples had lived in the land extending to Shur and Egypt’.)
The references from The Book of Samuel are useful because they refer to events taking place in the Negev and moving toward Egypt, undoubtedly placing Shur or the ‘Wilderness of Shur’ south of the coastal highway and north of central Sinai. Shur has simply got to be situated in Sinai, east of El-Ballah Lake in the north and the Bitter Lakes to the south. It is impossible for the wilderness of Shur to be located anywhere near Aqabah, it essentially doesn’t fit with the topographical information that we have.
Reagarding a body of water being northward of the top of Suez, there never was a body of water there that would qualify as being "the heart of the sea" (Ex. 15:8) -- and the term "great deep" is repeatedly used for the crossing site, so there is no way that Pharoah's army was drowned in a 2-foot deep "Sea of Reeds"! That wouldn't be "the great deep"! (Isaiah 51:10, 63:11-13, Nehemiah 9:11, Ex.15:5,8).
I am afraid that you are mistaken here, there are many bodies of water in that area that can accommodate our requirements, for example: The Bitter Lakes, Lake Manzeleh, Lake Sirbonis, Lake El-Ballah, Lake Timsah.
Lake Timsah would be my proposal for the location that the Bible authors had in mind for the sea crossing myth. It fits perfectly with the description given in the Bible and has external textual support.
The Israelites leave Pi-Rameses, and marched to Succoth, then on to Etham, they then turned back to Pi-Hahiroth, and camped near Migdol. Now, Succoth, Etham and Migdol can all be strongly argued to be in the military region of Wadi Tumilat, therefore Lake Timsah is an excellent candidate for the sea. It is unquestionably more suitable than Aqabah.
Also, I wouldn’t be too tied to reading these Bible verses in a literal sense, they are all heavily laden with mythological motifs. But, the fact remains, there are more than enough lakes in Egypt to satisfy the location of the myth..
As we've been saying for 20 years, the only route that makes sense and matches the biblical description is Ron's Exodus route
I have to disagree, the location of the crossing at Aqabah makes no sense at all in light of the topographical evidence in the Egyptian and biblical sources. Not only does it not gel with the textual and geographical evidence, there is no way that the Israelites could have reached Aqabah before the Egyptians caught them. It would have taken them about three weeks to reach Aqabah, Thutmosis III’s armies could average 24 KM a day, four times the distance that nomadic groups can cover.
(especially since your route only takes people to St. Catherine's mountain, a place that has zero evidence for being Mt. Sinai) -- Galatians 4:25 says that Mt. Sinai is "in Arabia" -- the land of Midian -- and that land is currently known as Saudi Arabia!
I haven’t presented a route for the Exodus Jim, I have only argued that the sea crossing was somewhere within Egypt, I haven’t said anything about what route they took after they left Egypt.
A nice picture of the Starship Enterprise is maybe the only reason to visit this site. The evidence for the exodus seems to consitute of pictures of video/book covers (and of course, links to buy those things).
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