Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 8/17/2004 11:39:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
formoria AT carolina.rr.com writes:


> I don't think anyone here doubts that the Ark of the Covenant 
> exemplified Egyptian influences in its design and form.
> 
> I think that, although it is fun to speculate regarding which Dynasty 
> influenced the Hebrews the most artistically, it's not very fruitful. 
> Personally, I don't think it will be so until we have a conclusive time 
> window for a mass Hebrew presence/exodus from Egypt. Until then, we can 
> suggest connections from the Early Bronze Age until the Persian period, 
> but what is the point?

It's useless--because all extra-Biblical evidence points to more than one 
exodus.  And this is a view rapidly gaining acceptance.  Why should there 
have 
been only one in all of dynastic Egypt?  Reasons for leaving or being 
expelled 
kept presenting themselves until the 20th Century of our own era--when the 
last 
exodus occurred.  This is the problem, then--which of those exodoi before the 
Common Era was connected to the man, Moses?  But just because there was only 
one Moses doesn't mean only one exodus.  Even the ancient historians couldn't 
agree just when Moses had lived.  But they were unanymous on one point--that 
he lived within the 18th Dynasty, which began with Ahmose I (who fought the 
Hyksos) and ended when the first Ramesside king took the throne--that being 
Ramesses I.  And, hearken Rohlites---the chronology of ancient Egypt is 
scarcely 
off by more than a few years --because Manetho, considered by the ancients to 
be 
a great authority, said so.  He believed an exodus took place under a king 
named Thutmose and that the counting of years until "Sethos" was 393 years.  
Why 
did Manetho choose "Sethos" for his reckoning?
Because "Sethos" was considered to be the last king of Egypt until the Third 
Intermediate Period, during which Egypt was not united again for centuries.  
But, Josephus couldn't comprehend this.  He just assumed Manetho had meant 
Menmaare Seti I--and then tinkered with Manetho's 18th Dynasty, making it 
into a 
hopeless mess in order to account for 393 years.  However, Manetho intended 
Menmaare Ramesses XI ("Sethos also called Ramesses") who reigned almost 
exacty 
393 years after the early Thutmosids, which includes TI, TII and the very 
great 
TIII.  Herodotus also calls Ramesses XI "Sethos" (because he shared a 
prenomen 
with a greater king, Seti I) and wrote that "341 human generations" had 
passed between the first king of Egypt and the last true pharaoh of 
Egypt--Sethos.  
As far as I am aware, I am the first person to have ever figured this 
out--and when I did I laughed--because it was so simple.  Josephus had misled 
close 
to 341 human generations, himself.