The birth of the Jewish People is recorded in the Bible. For the Jews, “History became more important than for any other ancient people.” 1 The history of the Jewish People is intertwined with their religion and receiving the Torah from G-d. “Through the processes of history, the ancient Hebrews forged a distinctive relationship with their G-d, Hashem.” 2 In fact, the very first commandment given to the Jews as a people was to sanctify time and set up the basis of the Jewish Calendar. In Exodus 12:1-2, “Hashem [G-d] said to Moses and Aaron in the Land of Egypt, saying, “This month shall be for you the beginning of the months, it shall be for you’re the first of the months of the year.” 3 It is the sanctification of time that keeps the Jewish People alive today.
Skeptics may say, “The Bible is superstition. There is no historical evidence for any of that.” They are wrong in that. Proof of the Exodus of the Jewish People from Egypt is recorded in ancient Egyptian sources. One just has to look for them. In his book The Riddle of The Exodus, James Long writes about how Egyptologists are using a flawed historical dating system that prevents using the archeological records of the Old Kingdom to match the Exodus. This coupled with flawed dating of Ancient Israel makes compounds the problem. The flawed source “for Egyptian chronology is a list of the rulers complied about 280 B.C.E. by Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who wrote in Greek. He grouped the kings into thirty dynasties (later chroniclers added a thirty-first). Modern scholars accept Manetho’s divisions and have established these approximate dates.” 4 This list places the Old Kingdom (Third through Sixth Dynasties) from around 2700-2200 B.C.E. Some historians claim that the Exodus occurred about 1240-1230 B.C.E. 5 This is way off with even the traditional historical view of the Exodus as having taken place in 1280 B.C.E. and the Jewish traditional dating of 1313 B.C.E. Weighing in mystical factors beyond the scope of this essay in determining the traditional dating system, the Exodus probably occurred around 1400 B.C.E. since over 400 years passed until the construction of the First Temple in the 10th Century B.C.E. James Long writes that “It is apparent that Manetho, driven by national pride, attempted to create a false impression of high antiquity for his country by stacking the reigns of the pharaohs so as to push back the foundation of Egypt.” 6 Pharaohs serving in different part of Egypt at the same time are counted separately in the year count, thus artificially inflating the chronology. Another problem is the Sothic Dating system. This flawed system “attempts to fix a firm date for the beginning of the 18th Dynasty based on observing the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, called Sothis by the Greeks. Somehow, using this system is supposed to allow us to align the ancient Egyptian civic calendar with the astronomical calendar 7 thus locking the whole of Egypt’s history into an exact year-by-year chronicle”. 8
The roots of the Exodus were the famine in the Land of Canaan that forced Jacob’s family to leave and settle with in Goshen, Egypt. Joseph was already made viceroy of Egypt after foretelling the dreams of Pharaoh. The Passover Haggadah, which is read by Jews every Passover at the Seder meal says of Jacob “And he went down to Egypt – compelled by the Divine decree.” 9 It was G-d’s plan to have the Jews as slaves in Egypt in order to build them up as a nation. But where is the archeological proof of Joseph being viceroy? The answer is that Imhotep is in reality the Egyptian name for Joseph. The misconception that Joseph ruled under the Hyksos invaders prevents people from realizing this. Even old Jewish Bibles repeat that it was the Hyksos. The Hertz Pentateuch and Haftorahs says “The story of Joseph took place during the reign of the Hyksos kings, the Bedouin conquerors of Egypt exceptionally, ‘an Egyptian’ was entrusted with a high government post.” 10 This actually took place during “the Third Dynasty, during the reign of Pharaoh Djoser.” 11 During this period, Imhotep served as Prime Minister. He designed the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.
There is an undeniable likeness between Joseph and Imhotep. A stele was found saying that Pharaoh Djoser “was deeply distressed because of a seven-year famine.” 12 The distressed Pharaoh “sought the counsel of the wise Imhotep.” 13 Imhotep’s burial site has yet to be found. This could prove that he is Joseph since Joseph’s remains were reentered in the Land of Israel.
James Long argues that it was the Exodus that brought about the fall of the Sixth Dynasty and subsequently the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Let us examine the evidence. “After the death of Nefer-ka-ra, Egyptian history is involved in darkness and confusion. All the sources point to a time of upheaval that marked the collapse of the Old Kingdom.” 14 The Ipuwer Papyrus records remarkable similarities to the Ten Plagues that brought about the downfall of Egypt. For example, Papyrus 2:10 says, “Forsooth, the river is blood.” 15 This is exactly what happened in the First Plague. Papyrus 6:1 says “O that the earth would cease from noise, and tumult be no more!” 16 This was the “incessant noise caused by the frogs” of 17 the Second Plague. Papyrus 4:14 recounts the trees being destroyed by the Plague of Hail. Papyrus 9:8-10 states “Destruction…the land is in darkness.” 18 This of course is recalling the Plague of Darkness.
When the left Egypt, the Red Sea split for them. This was at Lake Timsah, the current site of the Suez Canal. This too is recorded in ancient Egyptian records. A granite noas at Ismailia says that “the king and his men fight, ‘the evil ones at the Place of the Whirlpool. There at Pi-Kharoti the Pharaoh is thrown by a whirlwind high into the air and seen no more.’” 19 Pi-Kharoti is remarkably similar to the Biblical Pi-HaKhirot. This is without a doubt referring to the Splitting of the Sea.
All these things prove beyond a doubt that the Exodus did indeed happen. The Jewish Biblical account mirrors the Egyptian archeological account. The existence of the Jewish People today proves as living testimony to this as well. There has been an unbroken line of transmission of the tradition that attests to it in addition to the written word of the Bible. Through the sanctity of time and the festival cycle, the Jewish people is kept alive by transmitting from generation to generation, the tradition received from their ancestors dating back to Biblical days.
1 Mark T. Gildehus, History and Historians, sixth edition (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 2002), p. 15.
2 Ibid. Edited in order not to write the Ineffable Name of G-d in vain.
3 Rabbi Nosson Scherman, Tanach, (Brooklyn, New York, Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1996, 1998), p. 160.
4 Mortimer Chambers, The Western Experience, eighth edition (New York, McGraw Hill, 2003), p. 14.
5 Ibid, p. 25.
6 James D. Long, Riddle of The Exodus, (Springdale, Arkansas, Lightcatcher Books, 2006), pp. 8-9.
7 They only line up every 1,450 years.
8 Ibid, p. 11.
9 Binyamin Ze’ev Kahane, The Haggadah of the Jewish Idea (Ariel, Israel, HaMeir L’David, 2003), p. 83.
10 Dr. J. H. Hertz, C.H., Late Chief Rabbi of The British Empire, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (London, Soncino Press, 1958), p. 147.
11 Long, p. 151.
12 Ibid, p. 153.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid, p. 106.
15 Ibid, p. 96.
16 Ibid, p. 97.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid, p. 99.
19 Ibid, p. 133.
Topic: I wrote this about The Exodus for my History final paper. (Read 2699 times)