Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

This answer to W. Mattfeld from John Bimson will certainly be of interest.
It was mailed to the ANE list. I got the permission from John to mail it
also to this list.

NPL


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Bimson [SMTP:john.bimson AT trinity-bris.ac.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, 02 February, 2000 11:57
> To:   ANE
> Subject:      ane 1540 BCE Exodus etc
> 
> Walter Mattfeld's Exodus synthesis incorporates several scholarly myths.
> Firstly, 'The Peleset arrived ca. 1177 BCE'; Robert Drews has convincingly
> taken this one apart. See most recently his paper 'Canaanites and
> Philistines', JSOT 81, 1989, pp. 39-61. Essentially (to quote from the
> abstract) the Peleset/Palashtin were most likely 'the Northwest Semitic
> speaking majority among whom the [kaptorim] immigrant minority had
> settled.'
> (p. 61)  Which means they were there all the time.
> Secondly, 'Ramses III after defeating the Peleset in 1177 BCE boasted of
> "sealing them in his name" and establishing them in fortresses to the east
> of Egypt and the Gaza area. Evidently vague memories of the Peleset
> settling
> down in Philistia after their defeat... is what is behind the Genesis'
> table
> of nations....' But (as several people have pointed out in response to a
> common misunderstanding) this isn't what Ramesses III says at all. Papyrus
> Harris actually says: '...The Philistines were made ashes. The Sherden and
> the Weshesh of the Sea were made nonexistent, captured all together and
> brought in captivity to Egypt like the sands of the shore. I settled them
> in
> strongholds, bound in my name.' (Wilson's translation) So the Peleset are
> not specifically included among those who were 'settled in strongholds',
> but
> even if they were, the strongholds were clearly *in Egypt*, not 'to the
> east
> of Egypt and the Gaza area'!
> Thirdly and more generally, Walter's comparison between the Exodus story
> and
> the expulsion of the Hyksos suggests that he thinks the latter involved
> large numbers moving from Egypt to Canaan. In fact, as Van Seters pointed
> out over 30 years ago, '...There is no evidence for any great expulsion of
> peoples from Egypt into Asia. The defeat of the foreign dynasty was the
> result of a civil war, and the foreign population... simply continued to
> live in the Eastern Delta.' (The Hyksos: A New Investigation, 1967, p.
> 194)
> The only written source which mentions the eviction of a large defeated
> population is Manetho, as quoted in Josephus, Contra Ap., i, 85-89, where
> (as Redford points out) there is already great confusion between the
> defeat
> of the Hyksos and the siege of Megiddo by Thutmosis III (Thoummosis). This
> reduces the parallels between 'the Hyksos expulsion' and the Exodus story
> to
> nil.
> John Bimson.