His essay can be found here
ISRAELITES IN EGYPT - Is there evidence that the Israelites once lived in Egypt as the Bible says? And has Joseph's original tomb been found? - ChristianAnswers.Net
I will put Wood’s words in italics and mine in normal type.
The Bible tells us that when Jacob and his family migrated from Asia to Egypt, they were settled in "the land of Rameses" and that they became property owners there (Genesis 47:11, 27). Eventually, the Israelites were used as slave laborers to build the city of Rameses (Exodus 1:11), and when they left after 430 years (Exodus 12:40), they departed from Rameses (Exodus 12:37). From these references, we can conclude that the Israelites spent the years of the Egyptian Sojourn in and around Rameses.
Although this is the biblical account, it is pure folklore as it does not reflect what we know from the archaeological record.
Notice that Wood has jumped from ‘Jacob and his family’ settling in the ‘Land of Rameses’ to ‘eventually the Israelites’, this is significant because although Canaanites are attested to in the eastern Delta in the 19th c BCE, there is nothing at all in Egypt at that time, or indeed for a thousand years after that time, that can be identified with the ‘Israelites’. In fact, if we even look at the known Israelite settlements in the hill country of Palestine at the Late Bronze/early Iron Age, there is nothing at all to suggest that the inhabitants had any contact with Egypt. If it wasn’t for the Hebrew Bible no one would even suspect that the Israelites had ever been in Egypt.
Also here, woods has failed to support the use of slave labour to build the city of Rameses, and another howler is the reference to the 430 years in Egypt, even the Bible cannot agree on that one. Of course Wood is only intent on supporting the Bible, the actual archaeological data is not allowed to get in the way of that. Why does he say they were in Egypt for 430 years, because the Bible says so, is there external evidence to support this, of course not.
The 430 years is a bit of a headache for the Bible believer because of conflicting information from the Bible itself.
To begin with, there’s the problem of which Bible account to use, The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint actually say that the enslavement in Egypt was 215 years, (Jeremy Hughes, Secrets of the Times, JSOT, Sheffield, 1990, p 35) so which account should we take as being the accurate one?
As well as the problem of which version to use we also have the internal inconsistencies to deal with. Let’s say that the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years, is this consistent with the other information in the text?
Exodus 12:40
Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.
There’s obviously an inconsistency between the 430 years in Egypt, and the genealogy in Exodus 6.14-25, which claims only four generations from Levi to Moses. Although the number of generations is consistent with Genesis 15:16 ‘In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.’ There is the added problem of Genesis 15:13 ‘Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years . These two verses support a generation lasting for 100 years; surely this is incorrect, a generation is nowhere near 100 years.
It really doesn’t seem credible at all. Look at the headaches here; we have four generations (Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses, and even with the suspiciously high lifespans given to Levi (137 years), Kohath (Masoretic Text & Samaritan Pentateuch: 133 years; LXX (Septuagint): 130 years), and Amram (MT: 137 years; SP, LXX Alexandricus: 136 years; LXX Vatanicus: 132 years) this genealogy is in no way compatible with a 430-year stay in Egypt.
It gets worse, according to Exodus 7.7 Moses was 80 years old when he first confronted Pharaoh, and since this is supposed to have happened during the final year of Israel's stay in Egypt there are 350 (430 - 80) years remaining to be accounted for over three generations. If we assume that Joseph was 39 or 40 when Jacob entered Egypt. Levi must evidently have been over 40 on that occasion, which means that 40 + years of Levi's age of begetting elapsed before the entry into Egypt. The genealogy in Exodus 6 cannot therefore be reconciled with P's chronology unless one is prepared to assume that Levi, Kohath, and Amram fathered their respective children at an average age of 130 years (3 x 130-40 = 350). The discrepancy between years and generations is made even worse if one takes account of the fact that Genesis 46.11 includes Kohath among the children of Israel who originally entered Egypt; ‘this leaves us with only two generations spanning 350 years, which is impossible on any set of calculations’ ( Hughes note 20, page 35 ).
Therefore, the opening passage of Wood’s essay is little more that an unsupported folk tale. He then goes on:
The name Rameses actually comes from a later period than the Israelite Sojourn. It was the name given to a city built by Rameses the Great (Rameses II) in the eastern Nile Delta in the 13th century BC. This more familiar name was then used retrospectively by later scribes when copying the Biblical texts. Although the location of Rameses was in dispute for some years, that dispute has now been settled. We not only know where Rameses was located, but we know much about the history of the ancient site.
So basically Wood is saying that the Israelites did not build the city of Rameses, he says that we know for certain where Rameses is but it wasn’t called Rameses, this is an anachronism. So the Israelites then must have built another great city, one which hasn’t been identified yet, and what do the scribes do according to Wood? They change the name of the real city that the Israelites built, they alter God’s word, amazing the lengths that some people go to, in order to maintain a fairytale.
Since 1966, extensive excavations have been undertaken there under the direction of Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Archaeological Institute, Cairo (for previous reports, see Shea 1990: 100-103; Wood 1991: 104-106; Aling 1996: 20-21). It is possible that Prof. Bietak may have, for the first time, found physical evidence for the presence of the Israelites in Egypt.
It is possible, but totally unsupported by any credible evidence by Wood, and certainly not claimed by Bietak. As I said, I am familiar with Bietak’s work and have a few of his books here, two if which are mentioned by Wood, and both are mutilated by him.
Ancient Rameses is located at Tell el-Dab‘a in the eastern Delta, approximately 100 km northeast of Cairo. In antiquity, the Pelusiac branch of the Nile flowed past the site, giving access to the Mediterranean. In addition, the town lay on the land route to Canaan, the famous Horus Road. Thus, it was an important commercial and military center.
Pretty basic stuff and about the only piece of the article that is accurate.
Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
We can divide the history of the site into three periods: pre-Hyksos, Hyksos and post-Hyksos. The Hyksos were a Semitic people from Syria-Palestine, who took up residence in the eastern Nile Delta and eventually ruled northern Egypt for some 108 years, ca. 1663-1555 BC (15th Dynasty).[1] Jacob and his family arrived in Egypt around 1880 BC, based on an Exodus date of ca. 1450 BC. That was in the pre-Hyksos period when the name of the town was Rowaty, "the door of the two roads" (Bietak 1996: 9,19).
Again, this is full of pure speculation, Wood is simply taking his dating from the Bible text when he claims that Jacob arrived in Egypt, and he is about the only scholar who maintains this date, being a fundamentalist of course means that he has to.
The earliest evidence for Asiatics at Rowaty (the city that later named Rameses) occurs in the late 12th Dynasty (mid 19th century BC). [3] At that time a rural settlement was founded. It was unfortified, although there were many enclosure walls, most likely for keeping animals. The living quarters consisted of rectangular huts built of sand bricks (Bietak 1986: 237; 1991b: 32). It is highly possible that this is the first material evidence of Israelites in Egypt. It is the right culture in the right place at the right time.
This is highly amusing, is Wood saying that rectangular buildings built of sand bricks is material evidence of Israelites in Egypt? The right culture at the right time, this is unbelievable, he has given no indication of how to separate Israelite culture from any other culture of the time and he expects his audience to swallow that?
Actually, to appreciate the quality of Wood’s scholarship we really need to look at the sources he uses and we can also see how he blatantly ignores the evidence and deliberately misleads his readers. He references Bietak 1991b as support for living quarters which he boldly announces as evidence of Israelite inhabitancy and believes it is ‘the right culture in the right place’. Let’s have a look at the actual article by Bietak, here is page 32 in its entirety:
‘Area F/I rectangular houses of sandy mudbrick were built within enclosed areas. Among the buildings, a Syrian "Mittelsaal" house (cf. Heinrich 1972 1975: 206-7; Eigner 1985) and a "Breitraum" house (Eigner 1985) give an indication of the origin of the inhabitants. South of the "Mittelsaal" house is a small cemetery, and still further south is a larger cemetery. Nearly all the tombs, with their brick chambers and vaulting techniques, are Egyptian types known from the time of the Middle Kingdom. Within that stratum, and contrary to the later custom of amphora burial, small children were buried in small chambers of sandy mudbrick, generally in amphorae. Burial customs such as the contracted position of bodies, donkey sacrifices, and the bronzes (especially weaponry) found in the tombs again betray the Asiatic origin of the inhabitants. The eastern part of this fast-growing settlement consisted largely of open compounds enclosed within walls of light yellow, sandy bricks. It is very likely that the compounds were used for keeping animals. Some more substantial foundations have also been found. However, no tombs were dug in this marginal zone of the settlement.
The material culture of the settlement was largely Egyptian. Only 18 to 20 percent of the pottery belongs to MB IIA types. The Egyptian ceramic materials evince late 12th Dynasty types. Very characteristic are the round-bottomed drinking cups which, with an average index of 150, vary only slightly from those of the later Stratum d/l (see fig. 14; compare Arnold 1988: figs. 65, 75, table 8; Bietak 1984a: 480-82, ill. 2; 1985a; I989a: fig. 3). The shapes, however, are still open and their size is often larger. Typical for the period is the high’
Bietak clearly gives the origin of the inhabitants (the Mittelsaal and Breitraum are N. Syrian) of these living quarters, and they are not linked in anyway to what later became Israelites, Wood makes no attempt to prove that there is a link, why did Wood do this? Another problem here is the fact that Bietak never attributes anything to the Israelites, he accounts for everything he finds, it is a very detailed article, and not a single fragment is ever credited to Israelites, yet Wood just barges along mutilating and ignoring Bietak’s work, it is criminal. If Wood, or anyone else wants to claim that these are early Israelites then they need to start providing evidence that the Canaanite element of Tell el Dab’a were related in some way to the later Israelites. Until then, they really need to stop making these unjustified claims.
Not all residents of the first Asiatic settlement at Tell el-Dab‘a lived in huts. One of them, evidently an important official, lived in a small villa. The Bible tells us that Joseph became a high official after he correctly interpreted pharaoh's dreams (Genesis 41:39-45). We are not told where Joseph lived while serving in the Egyptian bureaucracy. It seems logical to assume, however, that after discharging his duties associated with the famine, he would have moved to Rameses to be near his father and brothers.
Look at Wood’s logic here, it is astounding! There was a residence for an important official, the Bible says Joseph was an important official, therefore the villa is Joseph! This isn’t archaeology, this is The Brothers Grimm. The villa could belong to absolutely anyone, Wood presents no evidence that it was Joseph, he is clutching at desperate straws.
Could this villa have been Joseph's house?
The villa was 10 x 12 meters in size, situated on one side of an enclosure measuring 12 x 19 meters. It consisted of six rooms laid out in horseshoe fashion around an open courtyard. The most striking aspect of the house is that the floor plan is identical to the Israelite "four-room house" of the later Iron Age in Palestine (Holladay 1992a). In this type of house two side rooms and a back room were arranged around a central space, or courtyard.
This is scholarly research at its poorest, the ‘four-roomed house’ as an identification of Israelite culture has been rejected for about ten years, it is no longer accepted by Syro-Palestinian archaeologists as purely exclusive to the Israelites, many example have been found in sites totally unrelated to the Israelites.
In fact, it was a lot longer than ten years ago that people had their doubts about identifying the four-roomed house as exclusively Israelite.
In Biblical Archaeology by Shalom M Paul and William Dever Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem 1973, wrote that:
‘The ‘Israelite House’ appears first as a homogenous structure in the Early Iron Age (12th c BCE). In general it is a house which has an inner open courtyard with a porch and two rectangular rooms. Such houses were discovered in tell Qasila and tell Jamma. In the 10th century the so-called ‘Israelite House’ became crystallised.
The Origin of the ‘Israelite House’ is uncertain. It is still unclear if it is of Phoenician origin, of later Canaanite tradition brought by the Sea Peoples, or an independent Israelite invasion.’
So we can see that even 30 years ago people had their doubts and coming a bit forward in time we see Israel Finkelstien’s treatment of the term in The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement Israel Exploration Society 1988)
‘Groups with similar social conditions - even if differing in geography and date - were likely to have arrived at similar architectural solutions, while groups in dissimilar social situations - even if adjacent and contemporary - were likely to have developed dissimilar building sites’ (page 238)
The four-roomed house is no longer designated as an Israelite ‘type’, similar structures have been found all over the near east, and in areas that were certainly not Israelite. Let’s have a look at what BARev’s guru Hershel Shanks has to say on the subject of four-roomed houses and the Israelites:
Shanks gives a description of what a four roomed house is and then goes on to say that Larry Stager ‘prefers to call then pillared houses. That’s probably more accurate, but the four room moniker has stuck. And that’s the common name for them. AT one time, the four roomed house was considered a peculiarly Israelite style of architecture, bet we will soon see that this is not necessarily true () (Shanks, The Rise of Ancient Israel, p. 10, Biblical Archaeology Society, Washington 1991).
From page 12: For example, some of these four-roomed houses have been found outside the areas supposedly settled by the Israelites, including sites east of the Jordan. Moreover, antecedents of this architecture can be found
among the earlier Canaanites (emphasis mine).
Why anyone is still using the four-roomed house to specifically identify Israelite occupancy is beyond me, it is simply very poor academic work to keep claiming this, and I don’t believe for a minute that Wood is unaware of the situation, but it does weaken his myth so he sweeps it under the carpet.
What else has he got?
Nearby, arranged in a semi-circle around the villa, were poorer two-roomed homes, approximately 6 x 8 meters in size. If the villa was the home of Joseph, then the surrounding huts might have been those of Joseph's father and brothers. Approximately 20% of the pottery found in the settlement debris was of Palestinian Middle Bronze Age type (Bietak 1996: 10).
There should be a new paragraph after ‘brothers’ here, as well as being a different point that Wood is making, he also gives the impression that the whole paragraph is taken from Bietak when in fact only the
‘Approximately 20% of the pottery found in the settlement debris was of Palestinian Middle Bronze Age type’ is Bietak’s.
This is also misquoted, it should read: ‘Only 20% of the pottery from the settlement debris was of Syro-Palestinian Middle Bronze Age type.’
It is interesting that Wood mutilates Bietak again here, by deliberately leaving out the word ‘Syro’ from Bietak’s quote he gives the impression that the 20% pottery is all from Palestine, which is incorrect, and again is sloppy scholarship.
In the open spaces southwest of the villa was the cemetery of the settlement. Here, some of the most startling evidence was found. You just know that this is going to be nonsense don’t you?
Anyway:
The tombs were constructed of mud bricks in Egyptian fashion, but the contents were strictly Asiatic. Although they had been thoroughly plundered, 50% of the male burials still had weapons of Palestinian type in them.
Again Wood deliberately misquotes Bietak, he again leaves out the ‘Syro’ and goes with a straightforward single word ‘Palestinian’, Bietak uses Syro-Palestinian in his book where Wood quotes him.
Typically, the deceased males were equipped with two javelins, battle-axes and daggers. Tomb 8 contained a fine example of a duckbill-ax and an embossed belt of bronze (Bietak 1996: 14).
This is reading more and more like a von Daniken novel, Wood has obviously read the material written by Bietak, but he simply ignores the evidence that Bietak gives to explain to the reader what he found. Again, I am going to quote Bietak and give his explanation for the weapons:
From the top of page 14:
‘thoroughly plundered, 50 per cent of the male burials yielded weapons of Syro-Palestinian (emph mine) Middle Bronze Age type (Figs 10-11; Plates 1, B and 2, A-D). It is very likely that most of the male population at this time worked as soldiers for the Egyptian crown.
The use of foreigners as soldiers was an old tradition in ancient Egypt, going back at least to the time of the Old Kingdom. Soldiers of Asiatic and Nubian origin were also in service during the First Intermediate Period assisting in the unification attempts by various monarchs and by the kings of the 10th and 11th Dynasties. Tomb-scenes at Beni Hasan indicate that, by the early 12th Dynasty, people from Canaan, most likely nomads who had entered Egypt via the Nile Delta, were being similarly employed (Fig. 12, A-C). These representations show that they carried their own native weaponry. The same is true for the warriors at Tell el-Dab’a. As a rule they were equipped with two javelins, battle-axes and daggers. Most of the tombs were plundered and few bronze implements escaped the attention of the thieves. However, because of the restricted size of the burial chambers, the javelin heads were often hidden by the bricks blocking the chamber and remained in situ, while the other tomb equipment was taken away. One tomb, however, already cited above, yielded a wonderful example of a duckbill-axe and an embossed belt of bronze (Fig. 11; Plate 2, A-B).
There really is nothing exceptional about this find at all. Wood would like us to believe that the references to Palestinian culture supports Joseph and his father’s clans in Egypt. He conveniently leaves out the Syrian culture from his evidence as it undermines it and leaves out the fact that it wasn’t at all unusual for foreigners to be used as soldiers in ancient Egypt; they even used their native weaponry. This betrays the peaceful nomadic shepherd type that Jacob is portrayed as in the Bible, so good old Woody just leaves it out!
One of the tombs, however, was totally unique and unlike anything ever found in Egypt...
At the southwest end of the burial area, some 83 meters from the villa compound, was a monumental tomb, Tomb 1. It was composed of a nearly square superstructure containing the main burial chamber, and a chapel annex. In a robbers' pit sunk into the chapel, excavators found fragments of a colossal statue depicting an Asiatic dignitary. The likeness was of a seated official 1 times life size. It was made of limestone and exhibited excellent workmanship. The skin was yellow, the traditional color of Asiatics in Egyptian art. It had a mushroom-shaped hairstyle, painted red, typical of that shown in Egyptian artwork for Asiatics. A throwstick, the Egyptian hieroglyph for a foreigner, was held against the right shoulder. The statue had been intentionally smashed and defaced (Bietak 1996: 20-21).
This is so unique of course that there is a similar figure in existence that was referenced on that very same page by Bietak I quote
A similar figure is known however, from, the palace of Ebla, dating approximately to the same period (eighteenth century BC) It was made in a much cruder fashion, but once again it is a seated statue of a dignitary with a throwstick held against his shoulder. (Bietak 1996 page 20.)
WOW maybe this is Joseph too, he got around didn’t he!
I refuse to comment on David Rohl, when anyone has to rely on Rohl then you just know they haven’t a clue. I will, however, have to comment on this little gem from him:
We must assume that Tomb 1 was that of the occupant of the villa, and thus possibly of Joseph himself. The Bible is very specific as to what became of Joseph's body.
This is a big assumption and one that Bietak doesn’t support. How wood can use Bietak as a source then ignore almost everything he says is astounding. Bietak says that ‘it is unclear whether the tomb belonged to the Mittelsaahaus, which could be considered a predecessor of the palace of the early 13th Dynasty in the stratum above, or whether it belonged to this palace (page 21).
So there is no way to ascertain if the tomb belonged to the ‘villa’ occupier, but that doesn’t stop these guys claiming it as if it was proven. It pains me that a subject I love so much is abused in this way.
In the next phase of occupation, [8] the humble dwellings of were covered over and a huge palace complex constructed. It is obvious that the newcomers, although Asiatic, were different from those in the previous period. [9]
Without identifying inscriptions, we will never know for sure if the earlier people were Israelites.
Yes, and not a single thing has been found, but let’s keep the myth going meantime by presenting severely flawed essays, let us mislead people by leaving out important data and let us simply present anything we want without support, Bible believers will be happy to blindly accept Wood’s work without question, it keeps their little fantasy world safe.
Finally:
This much we can say about the discoveries in Rameses. The finds represent exactly what we would expect to find from Israelite occupation in Egypt.
Amazing, he has presented absolutely nothing at all to support this then claims he has. What represents exactly what we would expect to find from Israelite occupation in Egypt:
Let’s look over what he claims:
The sand brick buildings, which are purely Syrian in origin:
A villa for an official, wow at a settlement they had a villa for an important dignitary, what do you expect to find?
No distinctly ‘Israelite’ culture at all
The four roomed house, which is found all over the Near east and not peculiar to the Israelites.
Not a single shred of evidence from contemporary literature.
A ‘unique’ statue, which happens to have a similar contemporary likeness in Ebla.
A missing body from a tomb!
Palestinian weapons, which of course should be Syrian and Palestinian weapons that are routinely found anyway, they are not unusual as these foreign soldiers fighting for Egypt always used their native weaponry.
Wood then even betrays his own poor scholarship when he lapses accidentally into a piece of honesty:
Without identifying inscriptions, we will never know for sure if the earlier people were Israelites. [11] Contemporary references to Jacob's 12 sons have not been found.
Exactly, but let us give people false hopes in the meantime, let us present ‘evidence’ in a way that it looks like these things have been verified.
I hope this benefits you in some way Chris. You should take from this the fact that just because it is published in a book or on a website doesn’t mean that it is true. You cannot take anything for granted and should investigate things as thoroughly as possible, look at as many different angels as you possibly can.
Brian.
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