Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 9/18/05, Read, James C wrote:
> Dear Yitzhak,
> 
> Raamses II is accredited to being of the 13th century. His name means
> begotten of Ra (the son god) i.e. Ra's son. It was believed that he was 
> the pharoah of the exodus based on inscriptions claiming that he built 
> the city of the same name by use of slavery. However, this assumption 
> is weak because the city he built (per-ramses) was described as the 
> capital city of his time and as such should not be connected with the 
> mere storage place of the biblical ramses. Furthermore, the exodus 
> (circa 1513) happened 200 -300 years before his reign and so the 
> exodus could not have started from a city which had not even been built
> yet.

I am not interested in discussing the historicity of the Exodus, and don't
think it would contribute much to the list.  I don't think there is a suitable
historical background which can be applied to the Exodus.  Nevertheless,
I'm glad you looked up the date of Ramesses now, and also that you
quote Redford.

The following link describes the viewpoint that the Exodus occurred in the
13th century.  Generally, I had been aware of reasons 3 - 7 as those 
given for such a dating:

http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=1&t=272&m=1

Again, don't discuss this with me.  If you want, I suggest you contact
the author of that post yourself.  I see he's posted recently to that 
board.

> D.B Redford comments 'Biblical Raamses and the capital Pr 
> R'-ms-sw, apart from the personal name, seem to have nothing in 
> common. In the lack of corroborative evidence it is absolutely essential
> to exercise caution in equating the two' (Vetus Testamentum, Leiden,
> page 410, 1963

This is just great that you quote Redford.  Redford also apparently deals
with the subject in his "Egypt, Canaan and Israel in Ancient Times" 
(1992), and in an article in "Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence" (1997).
I haven't read either, but here is a review that you might find useful of the
second: http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles1998/0100/0113.php

As for your chronology, usually Solomon is dated to the mid 10th century
based on synchronism with Shoshenq's attack 5 years after his reign. It
is also possible to count the reigns of the kings from Solomon onwards.
But this is not the place to get into chronological issues.

Yitzhak Sapir