# Egyptian Archaeology and Biblical History **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 21, 2014, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662 "2014-07-21T13:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/1 "2014-07-21T13:32:09Z")
The Bible tells us a Hebrew slave from the land of Canaan named Joseph gained favor in the eyes of Pharoah and grew in power as an administrator, pretty much running all of Egypt. Later, all the hebrews were enslaved, until an adopted prince named Moses was revealed to be a hebrew and demanded release of his brethren, lest all manner of calamity befall Egypt. When said prophecies came to pass, the hebrews (by now a sizable population) were let go. Pharoah changed his mind and sent an army to recapture the fleeing slaves, and were swallowed up by the sea. Has ANY egyptian heiroglyphics been found confirming any of these biblical accounts? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/2 "2014-07-21T13:43:11Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/3 "2014-07-21T13:58:18Z")
No, and [no other non-Biblical evidence of any kind for the Exodus story has been found either](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/4 "2014-07-21T14:00:58Z")
There may be a kernel of truth to it but mostly there is no evidence it happened. > [@](#): > > \*\*You and other scholars point out that there isn’t evidence outside the Bible, in historic documents and the archeological record, for a mass migration from Egypt involving hundreds of thousands of people. But it may be plausible that there was a much smaller exodus, an exodus of people originally from the land of Canaan who were returning to it. Is that right? > \*\* > Yes. Despite all the ways in which the exodus narratives in the Bible seem to be non-historic, something about the overall pattern can, in fact, be related to what we know from historical sources was going on at the end of the Late Bronze Age [circa 1200 B.C.E.], around when the Bible’s chronology places the story of departure from Egypt. > > Now, what is the evidence? First of all, during this period there likely were a lot of people from the land of Canaan, from regions of the eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt. Sometimes they were taken there as slaves. The local kings of the city-states in Canaan would offer slaves as tribute to the pharaohs in order to remain in their good graces. This is documented in the Amarna letters discovered in Egypt. So we know that there were people taken to Egypt as slaves. > > \ > > Now, there is no direct evidence that such people were connected with the exodus narrative in the Bible. But in our western historical imagination, as we try to recreate the past, it’s certainly worth considering that some of them, somehow, for some reason that we can never understand, maybe because life was so difficult for them in Egypt, thought that life would be greener than in the pastures that they had left. > > And it’s possible that a charismatic leader, a Moses, rallied a few of those people and urged them to make the difficult and traumatic and dangerous journey across the forbidding terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, back to what their collective memory maintained was a promised land. > > SOURCE: [Moses and the Exodus | NOVA | PBS](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/moses-exodus.html) ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/5 "2014-07-21T14:10:34Z")
The religious accounts are based on faith and I for one do have that faith. But, as for history, from what we have been able to tell, i) Egypt did rule Canaan at that time period and did have workers from that (and other regions) ii) They did hold sons of foreign rulers and nobles as guests/hostages to be educated in Egypt and at least some of them achieved high rank within Egypt itself iii) Egyptian rule in Canaan was not liked and they faced many rebellions, which were crushed. iv) Egyptian rule ended sometime before the formation of Israel in Canaan. So the story told in Exodus certainly stripped down to bare bones was possible. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/6 "2014-07-21T16:02:48Z")
Traditionally, the Exodus story has been attributed to a mythologizing of the anti-Hyksos reaction against “asiatics”: > **[Hyksos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos#Later_times)** > > The Hyksos (/ˈhɪksɒs/; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w)-ḫꜣswt, Egyptological pronunciation: heqau khasut, "ruler(s) of foreign lands"), in modern Egyptology, are the kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC).\[a\] Their seat of power was the city of Avaris in the Nile Delta, from where they ruled over Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt up to Cusae. > In the Aegyptiaca, a history of Egypt written by the Greco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho in the 3rd century BC, the term Hyksos is used ethnica... > [@](#): > > The Hyksos continued to play a role in Egyptian literature as a synonym for “Asiatic” down to Hellenistic times. The term was frequently evoked[citation needed] against such groups as the Semites settled in Aswan or the Delta, and this may have led the Egyptian priest and historian Manetho to identify the coming of the Hyksos with the sojourn in Egypt of Joseph and his brothers, and led to some authors identifying the expulsion of the Hyksos with the Exodus. With the chaos at the end of the 19th Dynasty, the first pharaohs of the 20th Dynasty in the Elephantine Stele and the Harris Papyrus re-invigorated an anti-Hyksos stance to strengthen their nativist reaction towards the Asiatic settlers of the north, who may[citation needed] again have been expelled from the country. And > **[The Expulsion of the Hyksos](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/the-expulsion-of-the-hyksos/)** > > Expulsion of the Hyksos: Near end of the Middle Bronze Age, Ahmose I overthrew the Hyksos and initiated the New Kingdom of Egypt. The theory: that the Bible simply overlooks the fact that the Hyksos had been rulers in Egypt, in the interests of painting a one-sided account; that the “anti-Asiatic” sentiment (and subsequent harsh treatment by Egyptians of “Asiatics”) is the historical event that the Exodus mythologizes. Problems: the Hyksos expulsion was centuries earlier than the alleged events in Exodus. The attribution was made by historians much later, such as Josephus and the “Egyptian priest and historian” Manetho, and may simply have been a conflation of the actual history with mythology. There is no evidence that defeated Hyksos were enslaved (though in the ancient world, that would be a reasonable fate). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/7 "2014-07-21T16:16:10Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Problems: the Hyksos expulsion was centuries earlier than the alleged events in Exodus. Where would the [Philistines](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=17567080) fit into that, I wonder? Were they expelled Hyksos who ended up in Canaan, or cousins of the Hyksos brought to Canaan by the same “Sea Peoples” migration that brought the Hyksos to Egypt, or what? I guess we’ll never know – nobody even knows what language the Philistines spoke. We only know (if we know even that) that they didn’t get along with the Hebrews. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/8 "2014-07-21T16:50:23Z")
Sea Peoples are about half a millenium after the Hykos expulsion. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/9 "2014-07-22T01:11:49Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > No. This is my understanding as well. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/10 "2014-07-22T01:34:34Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Where would the [Philistines](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=17567080) fit into that, I wonder? Were they expelled Hyksos who ended up in Canaan, or cousins of the Hyksos brought to Canaan by the same “Sea Peoples” migration that brought the Hyksos to Egypt, or what? > > I guess we’ll never know – nobody even knows what language the Philistines spoke. We only know (if we know even that) that they didn’t get along with the Hebrews. You need to read Velikovsky to make sense of it all. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/11 "2014-07-22T03:41:55Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > You need to read Velikovsky to make sense of it all. You forgot the smiley at the end of that statement. (At least, I certainly hope you were making an ironic statement.) ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/12 "2014-07-25T11:44:46Z")
I watched a show on TV that showed the Israelites were never slaves in Egypt, they uncovered an entire area where people had houses and also found many writings on stone tablets and pieces of stone that spoke of high wages and daily work on the pyramids.even men came from other countries to work there. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/13 "2014-07-25T11:56:38Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > I watched a show on TV that showed the Israelites were never slaves in Egypt, they uncovered an entire area where people had houses and also found many writings on stone tablets and pieces of stone that spoke of high wages and daily work on the pyramids.even men came from other countries to work there. Does the Bible ever _say_ that the Israelites were enslaved _to work on the Pyramids_? As opposed to the Kohl Mines or the Loincloth Weaving sweatshops? It just says something like “work in brick and mortar, and in the fields” and the Pyramids are cold-lain stone. Not that I don’t think the Exodus story isn’t complete bunk, you understand, I just think there’s a tendency to conflate media representations, like movies showing the Hebrews slaving on pyramids, with what the Bible actually says. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/14 "2014-07-25T12:08:05Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Does the Bible ever _say_ that the Israelites were enslaved _to work on the Pyramids_? As opposed to the Kohl Mines or the Loincloth Weaving sweatshops? It just says something like “work in brick and mortar, and in the fields” and the Pyramids are cold-lain stone. > > Not that I don’t think the Exodus story isn’t complete bunk, you understand, I just think there’s a tendency to conflate media representations, like movies showing the Hebrews slaving on pyramids, with what the Bible actually says. I have no quarrel with you, because I also realize that not all things written in History are exactly what happened, it is the writings of other human’s with their spin on it, but why people would be enslaved would make one wonder, since Moses was said to be adopted into the Pharoah’s family, nor is there any evidence that Moses ever existed. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/15 "2014-07-25T13:59:24Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Does the Bible ever _say_ that the Israelites were enslaved _to work on the Pyramids_? As opposed to the Kohl Mines or the Loincloth Weaving sweatshops? It just says something like “work in brick and mortar, and in the fields” and the Pyramids are cold-lain stone. > > Not that I don’t think the Exodus story isn’t complete bunk, you understand, I just think there’s a tendency to conflate media representations, like movies showing the Hebrews slaving on pyramids, with what the Bible actually says. The great pyramids were built thousands of years before the events in Exodus were supposed to have occurred, of such folks as the Hebrews even existed. So Hebrews doing slave-duty on the pyramids is right out. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/16 "2014-07-25T14:22:20Z")
Let’s get serious here. According to the Wiki on the Exodus(which quotes the Bible) > [@](#): > > According to Exodus 12:37–38, the Israelites numbered “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children,” plus many non-Israelites and livestock. Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550 men aged 20 and up. The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people, compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3.5 million. Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long. In what reality would that not be recorded in Egyptian history? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/17 "2014-07-25T14:32:07Z")
I don’t believe that the Exodus happened in anything like what is described in the Bible (although there was probably some kind of migration that provided the germ of the story), but I do marvel at the specificity of claiming 603,550 men. I wonder how that number got into the story. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/18 "2014-07-25T14:40:42Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I don’t believe that the Exodus happened in anything like what is described in the Bible (although there was probably some kind of migration that provided the germ of the story), but I do marvel at the specificity of claiming 603,550 men. I wonder how that number got into the story. Probably something like “a great multitude, plus X, Y and Z”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/19 "2014-07-25T14:43:45Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I don’t believe that the Exodus happened in anything like what is described in the Bible (although there was probably some kind of migration that provided the germ of the story), but I do marvel at the specificity of claiming 603,550 men. I wonder how that number got into the story. From the same Wiki: > [@](#): > > Some have suggested that the 603,550 people delivered from Egypt (according to Numbers 1:46) is not a number, but a gematria (a code in which numbers represent letters or words) for bnei yisra’el kol rosh, “the children of Israel, every individual;” while the number 600,000 symbolises the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt, none of whom lived to see the Promised Land. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662/20 "2014-07-25T16:15:13Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Probably something like “a great multitude, plus X, Y and Z”. [Bob was there too.](http://www.galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=517) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/egyptian-archaeology-and-biblical-history/693662.md?page=2)