Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 8:40 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> Hi Karl,
>
> Firstly, in an 18th dynasty temple we get the earliest extra biblical
> mention of the Hebrew god. Yhw of the land of the Shashu. How could we
> interpret this data in favour of a 13th dynasty Pharaoh?
>

Was this the first? Or was the Mesha stone earlier? Would they have named
the God of the despised slaves? And we know they had a practice of not
listing their defeats.

>
> Secondly, we have have letters from Canaan written in Akkadian to 18th
> dynasty Pharaohs complaining about his lack of reaction to skirmishes from
> Habiru in Canaan. No mention or hint of an Israelite nation. How could we
> reconcile these observations with a 13th dynasty Pharaoh? Surely, Canaan
> would have been sufficiently conquered by now and even if there were still
> some Canaanite towns left the tone of the letters surely we would expect to
> be different. They would be complaining about their entire territory having
> already been conquered and not skirmishes to a few fringe towns.
>

The picture we get from the Bible is that the whole land, with few
exceptions, was conquered very quickly. It does not follow the picture given
in the Amarna letters.

However, with a 13th dynasty Exodus followed immediately by a Hyksos take
over of Egypt, the Egyptian histories would ignore what was happening in
Canaan. They had enough troubles at home.

But if the Amarna letters are from the ninth to eighth centuries BC, that
gives far fewer problems.

>
> Secondly, in a late 19th dynasty Stele, the Merneptah stele, we get the
> first mention of Israel (ysrir) referred to as a nomad people occupying
> Canaan along with 3 city states one of which we know well to be the
> Phillistine city state of Ashkelon, another we believe we can identify with
> Tel Gezer not too far away from Jerusalem, the location of the third is
> contentious but the  proximity of Ashkelon and Gezer suggest to me that the
> rough location of the Shashu was in and around the Jerusalem/Jericho areas
> and so I would expect the third city state to also not be too far away. How
> could we reconcile the still relatively small and nomadic status of Israel
> in Canaan with a 13th dynasty Pharaoh?
>

I don’t think that is an accurate depiction of the Merneptah stele record.
At least, it is quite a bit at variance with what I have been told as to
what it said.

>
> I fully appreciate the limitations of Manetho as a source. And I am willing
> to accept that there may have been some exaggerations of length of reigns
> along the way. But here we are dealing with physical archaeological evidence
> in the form of written on stone testimonies. While we could argue that each
> Pharaoh ruled for much less time than claimed by Manetho between the 13th
> and 18th dynasties as far I know each of these Pharaohs is archaeologically
> confirmed to have existed and so we seem to have a 5 dynasty bridge to gap
> to explain the lack of existence of Israel in Canaan if we are to support a
> 13th dynasty Pharaoh hypothesis.
>

Here is a question of identification: what did the Egyptians call the
countries to the east? Did they always call them by the same names?

>
> Finally, beyond all else the most identifying hall mark of an Exodus
> Pharaoh must undoubtedly be that of a firstborn son who died before he got
> chance to be fully fledged Pharaoh. Is there any suggestion of this being
> the case for any of the 13th dynasty Pharaohs?
>

The records that I read indicate that the Exodus marked the end of the 13th
dynasty, therefore no son followed his father to the throne.

>
> James Christian
>
>
> Because of the paucity of records and the poor state of preservation of
those that remain, any interpretation of history that we make will have
problems. Just which interpretation has fewer problems?

Karl W. Randolph.