According to Manetho, Moses was an Egyptian and not a Hebrew, who lived at the time of Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten (1405-1367 BC). Manetho, the 3 rd century BC Egyptian priest and historian who recorded the history of Egypt into Greek to be placed in the Library of Alexandria, included the story of Moses in his Aegyptiaca. Under the Macedonian Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Egyptian historians made sure to include the story of Moses and his exodus in their historical accounts. While contemporary pharaonic authorities seem to have deliberately suppressed the mention of Moses and his followers in their records, popular traditions retained the story of the man whom Egyptians regarded as a divine being, for more than 10 centuries, before it was recorded by Egyptian priests. This complete silence of official Egyptian records was later broken by Egyptian historians, who appear to have known many details about Moses and his Exodus. Merneptah Stele known as the Israel stele (JE 31408) from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. However, although the Merenptah stele locates the Israelites in Canaan around 1219 BC, it makes no mention of them previously living in Egypt or departing from it in an Exodus under Moses. In spite of this silence, the name of Israel has been found inscribed on one of the pharaonic stele, although with no connection either to Moses or the Exodus. But we do not find even one contemporary inscription from the relevant period that records any of these events.Įgyptian scribes were tasked with recording important events, yet there are no records of the biblical story of the Israelites’ Descent and Exodus. The biblical story of the Israelites’ Descent and Exodus speaks about important events that took place in Egypt, so we should expect to find records of these events in Egyptian sources – the seven years of famine predicted by Joseph, the arrival of his father Jacob with his Hebrew family from Canaan, the great plagues of Moses, the death of Egypt’s first born, including the Pharaoh’s first son, and the drowning of the Pharaoh himself in the Red Sea all these events should have been recorded by the scribes who kept detailed records of daily life.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |