Egyptian History that proves the Exodus hid by Egypt., page 1

Jacobovich is definately a publicity hound, and most of what he has to say is crap, but here he may actually - and accidentally - be on to something. One of the textbooks I used for REL 301 Old Testament notes many of the same locales as Jacobovich mentions, but with the caviat that the dating is out of whack.

The Egyptian chronology is not without problems, as has been noted as far back as Isaac Newton. The Egyptians did not have a single standard for measuring long periods of time. While we have a complete list of the Pharaohs, the Egyptians did not include the names of every Pharaoh when compiling their own history; in keeping with Ancient Near Eastern practices, political or religious disagreements between previous rulers often resulted in deliberate omissions in the historical records, creating gaps in the historical narrative. Pharaohs also had the habit of giving themselves ceremonial names, which confuses the record historians work with today. All of these contribute to a series of inconsistencies between the archeological records and the chronology of Egyptian history based on firsthand Egyptian accounts.

The biggest problems center on the period called the Second Intermediate Period, traditionally dated 1759 BC (the first year of Pharaoh Wegaf) and 1525 BC (the fourteenth year of Pharaoh Ahmose). It is often referred to as the “Egyptian Dark Ages” , and it is during this period that the Hyksos appear on the Egyptian scene.

The Hyksos was the name Egyptians gave to a tribe of Semitic people who settled in Egypt roughly 1700 BC. Around 1675 BC they had come into a leadership role in Egypt, controlling the Lower Nile river valley from the city of Avaris (the city that would later become known as Pi-Ramesses). The Hyksos dynasty proved to be short-lived (about 100 years) and they were expelled from Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Ahmose I (most likely by his regent mother Ahhotep), sometime in the middle of the 16th century BC.

While there are stories of an invasion by the Hyksos, using horse-drawn chariots and composite bows, the more likely scenario according to scholars is a slow migration of people from the Canaan region into Egypt that was either ignored or badly managed by the Pharonic leaders. This fits very nicely with the theme of the Biblical story of Joseph, in that Joseph’s brothers migrate to Egypt from Canaan looking for food, and even has some late corroboration in the Amarna VI letter. If the story of Joseph has a historical core, either by a real Joseph existing or as a legend or myth that grew up around the migration, then this might be a confirmation of that part of Israelite history. However, the chronologies do not match; there is a 250+ year gap between the time the Bible says Joseph lived and the dates attributed to the Hyksos migration. This same 250+ gap/lack of synchronization with Egyptian history is true for other events in the Biblical timeline.

Into the quagmire comes David Rohl, an Egyptologist who was looking into Egyptian Dark Ages for a resolution to the internal Egyptian chronology. He looked at the inconsistencies between the archeological records and the chronology of Egyptian history by comparing the Egyptian historical narrative with the Biblical narrative. Presenting his work at the Glasgow Conference for the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (for whom Rohl was editor of their journal), his work attracted numerous supporters.

Rohl noticed the many similarities noted by Jacobovich (as well as others), and working backwards from a known and established fixed date in Egyptian history (the destruction of the city of Thebes in 664 BC), he was able to complete his new Chronology. Rohl hypothesized that the first Egyptologists accepted uncritically certain parts of the narrative composed by the Egyptian Priest Manetho, causing misinterpretations of the data that later became codified as factual.

IMHO Jacobovich hit upon the Chronology problem.