Will the real date of the Exodus please stand out.

[hansgeorg]

For example, the cities Pi-Atum and Pi-Rameses, mentioned in Exodus 1:11, didn't exist in the 15th Century BCE.

Source: http://drbo.org/chapter/02001.htm

[11] Therefore he set over them masters of the works, to afflict them with burdens, and they built for Pharao cities of tabernacles, Phithom and Ramesses.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id379.html

Ver. 11. [...] Phithom, perhaps the same as the town of Heroum, where the Septuagint say Joseph first met his father, Genesis xlvi. 28. Ramesses was the capital, and situate in the Arabic nome. (Calmet)

© Copyright Original Source

You are presupposing two things : that locations have been identified, and that locations have had their earliest existence dated.

For Pi-Atum, which Hebrew would hardly give directly, since direct rendering includes an idol name, there may have been some confusion about what locality it is, another one can have born it earlier than the one you refer to, or it can have changed name.

As for Ramesses, as well as for possibly correctly indetified Pi-Atum, Ramesses seems to be well identified.

I'd like to know on what grounds Ramesses is said to have not existed in 1510 (alias 1700's) BC. Some have said Rome didn't exist in 752 BC, I think they are looking for the wrong thing when saying so.

This would also place the Exodus during the reign of Thutmose III, a wildly successful pharaoh who enjoyed a long and prosperous kingship-- he doesn't seem to be an ideal candidate for the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

Only if Thuthmose III is correctly dated.

EDIT: The 1540 BCE date is interesting, as that would coincide with Ahmose I's victory over the Hyksos to restore ethnic Egyptian rule. Given the philological relationship between Ahmose and Moses, I wonder if there's a case to be made that the Exodus was a highly mythologized version of this ejection of Semitic peoples from Egypt.

The case for Pharao at beginning of Exodus, the baby killer and proto-abortionist, basically, being Amenemhet III includes a case for Exodus paving way for the Hyksos invasion.

I have myself written a theory that the myth of Bacchus starts out as a slander on Moses and Exodus from Egyptian perspective and is then demoted.

Source: http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2015/07/mythus-de-baccho.html

Quarta indicatio, et Moyses et Bacchus postulabant quid de quodam tyranno, qui noluit et qui punitus est.

Quinta indicatio, et Moysen et Bacchum filia tyranni quodammodo adamaverunt - sed in casu Moyses hic tyrannus fuit alius quam ille de quo Moyses postulavit, et amor filiae Pharaonis perfecte honesta fuit.

Sexta indicatio, et Pentheus et Pharao puniti sunt in masculo poisteritate, in filio sive nepote, per proximi mortem.

Septima indicatio, et Moyses et Bacchus conduxerunt quodammodo exodum e potestate tyranni.

...

Octava indicatio : si Bacchus minus honestus est quam Moyses, et multo, Aegyptii et forsitan Hyksos (praesertim si Amalecitae fuerunt) habuerunt animum Moysis calumniandi.

Nona indicatio : si Bacchus nihilominus ut deus colebatur et non ut cacodaemon exsecrabatur a paganis, est forsitan quod, adminus si Hyksos venerunt post Exodum, eorum expulsatio fiebat per Pharaones qui honorabant memoriam Moysis, quia Ahmoses et Thutmoses uterque per nomen regale eum honorabat. Et liberati sunt de Hyksos.

Decima indicatio : si Bacchus in mytho Graeco non tantum per Aegyptum ambulans operabat miracula vini quam potius alias, et si Pentheus videtur non esse Pharao sed alias quam in Aegypto tyrannidem egisse, est quod oblivisci voluerunt Aegyptii, et partim obliti sunt.

© Copyright Original Source

[hansgeorg]

Do you mean the disaster of losing an army in the Red Sea weakened the Hyksos to the point of eventually losing Egypt?

Well...
some pharoah and army got drowned .
And I think Hyksos who dominated the same Eastern Nile Delta that was 'land of Rameses' (or land of Goshen? )
make ideal candidates

At present there is no evidence this happened as described in the Bible.

Possible.

....Are you aware of any evidence that any pharaoh led an army, on chariot and foot, into the Sea of Reeds (Masoretic) or the Red Sea (LXX) or any sea bordering Egypt, only to see them all drowned?

I am aware of evidence of the ten plagues in the Ipuwer Papyrus.

This makes rather the Egyptians previous to Hyksos ideal candidates, as losing the army would have facilitated Hyksos invasion (and this means that Hyksos were not so superior by normal standards, only on occasion, and that later expulsion of Hyksos was non-miraculous).

I read somewhere that an Amalekite had an Egyptian slave in the times described in Book of Samuel and if Amalekites were Hyksos, then Hyksos occupation was likely still ongoing in that time.

CMI articles that have been helpful to me:

Source: http://creation.com/the-story-of-jericho

From 1930 to 1936, an expedition of a much more capable team was conducted by Professor John Garstang of the Liverpool University. He wrote a very readable book called The Story of Jericho.2 Garstang had an obvious respect for the Bible but was not convinced of its infallibility. ... By the revised chronology adopted in the magazine Archaeological Diggings (of which I am the editor), the Israelites left Egypt early in the 13th dynasty, and Egypt was overcome by the Hyksos who invaded the country. Significantly Garstang reported that ‘no less than 165 scarabs of the Hyksos period were recovered’.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j15_3/j15_3_46-49.pdf

This brings me to the pharaoh of the Exodus. Moses was born during the oppression. After 40 years minimum of oppression, Moses killed an Egyptian in a fight. He fled to Midian and remained there for 40 years until God informed him that those who wanted his death had died. This suggests that the pharaoh who reigned during Moses exile ruled 40 years after Moses departure. I would propose that this is Amemenhet III. After Amemenhet III there were no long reigning pharaohs—9 years at the most. It was his death that allowed Moses to return to Egypt. This scenario would negate the suggestion of Neferhotep I as the pharaoh of the Exodus. A second point that would also cast doubt on this choice is the fact that Amu or Hyksos were among the early rulers of the 13th Dynasty. Hetepibre I and Amenemhet V both claimed to be pharaohs. The Egyptians would have regarded any such boasting by the Amu as the height of impertinence. They would have put an end to such a claim immediately if it were possible. Apparently, it was not. We must conclude that the 13th Dynasty was either Hyksos or Egyptians who paid tribute to the Hyksos.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j11_1/j11_1_111-123.pdf

Investigating ancient Arabian sources, Velikovsky found numerous references to the invasion of Egypt by the Amalekites, many of which appeared to be culled from Scripture or the Haggada. However, there were a number of authors writing between the ninth and fourteenth century referring to ancient traditions and ancient authors, sometimes even naming the ancient author. These Islamic authors described the Amalekites as one of the most ancient Arab tribes who dominated Arabia from their central position in Mecca. Like the Egyptians, they too experienced a series of natural disasters, including drought and famine, plagues of insects, earthquakes and tidal floods. Fleeing this devastation, the Amalekites moved north and west, one group turning toward southern Palestine, another arriving at the shores of the Red Sea about the time of the Hebrew crossing.

© Copyright Original Source

Especially:

Source: http://creation.com/searching-for-moses

Amenemhet III may have had one son, known as Amenemhet IV, who was an enigmatic character who may have followed his father or may have been a co-regent with him. If the latter, Amenemhet IV could well have been Moses. Amenemhet IV mysteriously disappeared off the scene before the death of Amenemhet III.

Amenemhet III had a daughter whose name was Sobekneferu. It is known that she had no children.6 If she was the daughter of Pharaoh who came down to the river to bathe, it is easy to understand why she was there. It was not because she had no bathroom in her palace. She would have been down there taking a ceremonial ablution and praying to the river god Hapi, who was also the god of fertility. Having no children she would have needed such a god, and when she found the beautiful baby Moses there she would have considered it an answer to her prayers (Exodus 2:5–6).

But when Moses came of age he identified himself with the people of Israel and was obliged to flee from Egypt. This left a vacuum on the throne, and when Amenemhet III died there was no male successor. Sobekneferu ascended the throne and ruled for 8 years as a Pharaoh, but when she died the dynasty died and was succeeded by the 13th dynasty.

© Copyright Original Source

[psstein]

The Ipuwer Papyrus is pretty useless in terms of verifying the ten plagues. Velikovsky's work is complete junk.

If the Exodus happened, it happened in either the 13th or 12th century.

[psstein]

Two problems here: (1) The Egyptian hieroglyphics and Babylonian tablets are original records at the time the events are claimed to take place. Exodus and the rest of the Pentateuch is a compilation that has been edited, redacted, added to from earlier older non-Hebrew sources. nothing in the Pentateuch can be dated before ~700 BCE. (2) Concerning the evidence of ancient history, nothing is proven nor disproven. In fact it is illogical and irrational to attempt to disprove anything in this context. I can claim that Moses was an alien, and some reference in the OT describe alien spacecraft and you could not prove me wrong. The question is are individual sources corroborated with other sources and archealogical evidence. The fact is most of Exodus cannot be corroborated with outside sources and archealogical evidence.

There is definitely material in the Pentateuch that predates 700 BC. You're way out of the scholarly consensus if you're going to argue that.

[hansgeorg]

The Ipuwer Papyrus is pretty useless in terms of verifying the ten plagues. Velikovsky's work is complete junk.

I do not have it all ready for reference, I do think there were clear parallels.

Velikovski may have started it, he didn't remain alone.

If the Exodus happened, it happened in either the 13th or 12th century.

Contrary to Christmas Chronology.

a Moyse et egressu populi Israel de Aegypto, anno millesimo quingentesimo decimo

"in the year thousandth five hundredth tenth"

[psstein]

I do not have it all ready for reference, I do think there were clear parallels.

Velikovski may have started it, he didn't remain alone.

Ipuwer is potentially as late as the 15th century BC, but many of the parallels are overstated and the differences ignored.

Contrary to Christmas Chronology.

a Moyse et egressu populi Israel de Aegypto, anno millesimo quingentesimo decimo

"in the year thousandth five hundredth tenth"

The tradition isn't relevant here, plus it works off of the assumption that there were 12 generations (480 years) between the Exodus and the building of Solomon's Temple. I would submit that 480 is a symbolic number, not a literal one. The evidence of the text itself suggests a date in the 13th or 12th centuries.

[shunyadragon]

There is definitely material in the Pentateuch that predates 700 BC. You're way out of the scholarly consensus if you're going to argue that.

Other than the Babylonian, Ugarite, and Canaanite cuneiform tablets that are considered the earliest known texts versions which are similar or the same as found in the Old Testament. I do not know of any known texts in Hebrew for the Old Testament before ~700 BCE. If you know of any please post references.

[shunyadragon]

There is definitely material in the Pentateuch that predates 700 BC. You're way out of the scholarly consensus if you're going to argue that.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-22/en-gedi-scrolls-'virtually-unwrapped'-old-testament-scripture/7866948

En-Gedi: Ancient scrolls 'virtually' deciphered to reveal earliest Old Testament scripture
Updated 22 Sep 2016, 4:05am

An extremely fragile, ancient Hebrew scroll has been digitally unwrapped for the first time, revealing the earliest copy ever found of an Old Testament Bible scripture.

Fire burned the En-Gedi scroll, rendering it into a small charred lump
Micro-CT scan picked up traces of metal in ink from charred scrolls, revealing original text
Researchers describe it as "a significant discovery in biblical archaeology"
Known as the En-Gedi scroll, it contains text from the Book of Leviticus, and dates at least to the third or fourth century, possibly earlier, according to a report in the journal Science Advances.

The scroll was discovered by archaeologists in 1970 at En-Gedi, the site of a large, ancient Jewish community dating from the late eighth century BC.

But contents of the En-Gedi scroll were long thought to be lost forever, because it was destroyed in a fire in 600AD and was impossible to touch without dissolving into chunks of ash.

"Each fragment's main structure, completely burned and crushed, had turned into chunks of charcoal that continued to disintegrate every time they were touched," the study said.

Now digital technology has enabled researchers to "virtually unwrap" the scroll to decipher its contents.

A micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scan was able to pick up traces of metal in the ink revealing the original text.

"We were amazed at the quality of the images," Dr Michael Segal, head of the School of Philosophy and Religions at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said.

"Much of the text is as readable, or close to as readable as actual unharmed Dead Sea Scrolls [the oldest scrolls ever found] or high resolution photographs of them."

Researchers hope techniques can be used on Dead Sea Scrolls

The scroll shows 18 lines of text in each column, which were originally 35 lines long.

Like other ancient Hebrew scrolls, it contains only consonants and no vowels, as symbols for vowels were not introduced in Hebrew until the 9th century.

"We were immediately struck by the fact that in these passages, the En-Gedi Leviticus scroll is identical in all of its details both regarding its letter and section division to what we call the Masoretic text, the authoritative Jewish text until today," Dr Segal said.

"The En-Gedi Leviticus scroll is the most extensive and significant biblical text from antiquity that has come to light since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls."
Researchers hope the techniques developed to read it will be used on other scrolls, including some from the Dead Sea Scroll collection, which have remained undecipherable until now.

Before the scroll was virtually unwrapped, experts believed the artefact may have been a Torah scroll.

But a look at the images showed it was the Book of Leviticus, from the third book of the Book of Moses.

This makes it the earliest Pentateuchal book — relating to the first five books of the Jewish or Christian scriptures — ever found.

© Copyright Original Source

[hansgeorg]

Ipuwer is potentially as late as the 15th century BC, but many of the parallels are overstated and the differences ignored.

15th C carbon dated? That would be a little later than actual 15th C.

Actual 16th C (1510 BC) would arguably carbon date to around 1760, supposing that Amenemhet IV traces before he went off to the desert as an outlaw, were carbon dated.

You are welcome to expose the differences.

The tradition isn't relevant here, plus it works off of the assumption that there were 12 generations (480 years) between the Exodus and the building of Solomon's Temple. I would submit that 480 is a symbolic number, not a literal one. The evidence of the text itself suggests a date in the 13th or 12th centuries.

Your take on history is false.

Tradition is always relevant some way, and usually as accurate unless there is proof it be wrong.

You also miss that the generations between Exodus and Temple were not just counted as generations, but also remembered as to how many years each man lived.

[hansgeorg]

Other than the Babylonian, Ugarite, and Canaanite cuneiform tablets that are considered the earliest known texts versions which are similar or the same as found in the Old Testament. I do not know of any known texts in Hebrew for the Old Testament before ~700 BCE. If you know of any please post references.

Tradition of authorship supplements lack of preserved manuscripts.

[shunyadragon]

Tradition of authorship supplements lack of preserved manuscripts.

Supplements?!?!?!? There is nothing to supplement!!!!

There are volumes of Egyptian written records describing in detail the Egyptian belief in Gods and the journeys in the afterlife. Is this evidence of their 'Traditions of Egyptian religion and authorship supplements WITH preserved manuscripts?

[hansgeorg]

There are volumes of Egyptian written records describing in detail the Egyptian belief in Gods and the journeys in the afterlife. Is this evidence of their 'Traditions of Egyptian religion and authorship supplements WITH preserved manuscripts?

How many of these volumes have author names assigned?

Rather few, right?

This means that we have very little tradition from Egypt from back those days on how prevalent that idea was.

[shunyadragon]

How many of these volumes have author names assigned?

Rather few, right?

This means that we have very little tradition from Egypt from back those days on how prevalent that idea was.

There are over two thousand years of writing, and there is no Hebrew writing dated to that time, and of course absolutely nothing that has an author.

Actually there are authors on many of the Books of the Dead in Hieroglyphics.

Absolutely nothing here to supplement? tradition.

[hansgeorg]

There are over two thousand years of writing, and there is no Hebrew writing dated to that time, and of course absolutely nothing that has an author.

I know there was an Egyptian tradition, it is probable that it was long, but we do not have it alive, we do not know how prevalent it was for a particular time around Moses or Joseph.

When Greeks from outside that - now dead - tradition asked questions, much later, it referred to itself as having prevailed always in Egypt, without rival - but that is a simplification traditions can do.

And which the Catholic tradition, notably, doesn't do.

Actually there are authors on many of the Books of the Dead in Hieroglyphics.

Sure they are authors rather than scribes or names of the dead themselves?

If a scribe had copied nearly all the stuff from another scribe, but omitted the mention of, say adultery, in the case of a dead adulterer (hoping Osiris wouldn't notice) - would we be justified in calling the scribe an original author?

Absolutely nothing here to supplement? tradition.

An excavated one, which gives us very little clues about what happened in this life, to most Egyptians, even most Pharaos, however many copies we might have of their vision of the afterlife.

In the Hebrew case, we do have a tradition Exodus was written by the human hero himself. And it deals with an event which is unlikely to have been made up long afterward or even unlikelier to have been made up shortly afterward.

"You remember when your parents were walking through the desert?"

"What do you mean, our parents were born two miles from here!"

Or:

"You remember that five centuries ago our parents walked through the desert, and we have been commemorating it ever since?"

"What do you mean, I can't remember commemorating it last year, or any year before that!"

It is a bit difficult to make up the tradition which your listeners are supposed to have always remembered - at least in its most salient traits.

Minor detail might have been humanly possible to make up, but hardly the basic story line.

[shunyadragon]

I know there was an Egyptian tradition, it is probable that it was long, but we do not have it alive, we do not know how prevalent it was for a particular time around Moses or Joseph.

When Greeks from outside that - now dead - tradition asked questions, much later, it referred to itself as having prevailed always in Egypt, without rival - but that is a simplification traditions can do.

And which the Catholic tradition, notably, doesn't do.



Sure they are authors rather than scribes or names of the dead themselves?

If a scribe had copied nearly all the stuff from another scribe, but omitted the mention of, say adultery, in the case of a dead adulterer (hoping Osiris wouldn't notice) - would we be justified in calling the scribe an original author?



An excavated one, which gives us very little clues about what happened in this life, to most Egyptians, even most Pharaos, however many copies we might have of their vision of the afterlife.

In the Hebrew case, we do have a tradition Exodus was written by the human hero himself. And it deals with an event which is unlikely to have been made up long afterward or even unlikelier to have been made up shortly afterward.

"You remember when your parents were walking through the desert?"

"What do you mean, our parents were born two miles from here!"

Or:

"You remember that five centuries ago our parents walked through the desert, and we have been commemorating it ever since?"

"What do you mean, I can't remember commemorating it last year, or any year before that!"

It is a bit difficult to make up the tradition which your listeners are supposed to have always remembered - at least in its most salient traits.

Minor detail might have been humanly possible to make up, but hardly the basic story line.

There is absolutely zero, nil, nada, nothing, negatory found of the text of Exodus, the Pentateuch, nor any of the OT before ~400-200 BC. Nothing remotely written in Hebrew related to the Old Testament before ~800-700 BCE. This is a fact you cannot ignore.