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  • From: MarianneLuban AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Akhenaten and the Hebrew Religion
  • Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:06:48 EDT

The mention of the toponyms "Pithom" and "Raamses" in the Book of Exodus are
useless as historical markers for any exodus. While it is true that the city
in the eastern Delta, Per Ramesses Meryamun, was built by Ramesses II, it is
already mentioned in the Book of Genesis as the Land of Raamses which was
given
to the family of Joseph in which to reside. However, since 215 years are
supposed to separate Joseph's arrival in Egypt and the exodus, (as written by
Josephus, who believed in only one exodus, having taken place at the time of
the
routing of the Hyksos by king Ahmose I, ca. 1570 ) there was no king called
Ramesses then. Therefore, if the toponym "Raamses" is an anachronism in
Genesis, it can just as well be in Exodus.

I have written a book called "The Exodus Chronicles: Beliefs, Legends &
Rumors from Antiquity Regarding the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt", the title
of
which clearly spells out what the book is all about. Was there any
indication
from antiquity that there may have been an exodus at the time of Akhenaten?
The answer must be "yes". The salient point is this: Although most of the
ancient authors were quite adamant that the exodus had taken place in the
18th
Dynasty (and most of these were Christians and Jews who took the Book of
Exodus
literally), there was no universal agreement on which pharaoh presided over
the event. And yet the strong belief in the exodus having occurred in this
particular era led to Manetho's 18th Dynasty (and he was an Egyptian pagan
who
labored under no Biblical constraints) being hopelessly distorted by the
subsequent historians who strove mightily to adjust the successions and
regnal lengths
within the dynasty to fit the numbers suggested in the Bible to their own
theories--even drafting pharaohs from Manetho's 19th Dynasty (which included
Ramesses II) into the 18th to make up the deficit.




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