Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Bryant:

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 7:30 AM, Bryant J. Williams III <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net
> wrote:

> Dear Jack,
>
> Thank you for the correction on MBA.
>

I just looked at various sources and found that Jack gave the scholarly
mainstream dates. But are they accurate?

For example, Pharaoh Djoser, who was early bronze age, founded the office of
grand vizier with the appointment of an Asiatic to the post, who saved Egypt
during a multi-year famine, brought all of Egypt under direct rule of the
pharaoh, and lived to an age of 110 years. Does that sound like anyone in
the Bible? Are the dates for the various ages too old?

The following assumes traditional dates, so for those on this list who
disagree with those dates, you can ignore the whole section.

>
> Regarding the prophecy, I am quite aware that Genesis was not written until
> Moses (15th Century BCE; edited later), but Joseph would have known of the
> prophecy because of what his father Jacob would have told him. Prior to
> Moses
> writing the Pentateuch this prophecy would have been in oral form.
>

Are you sure that this was in an oral form?

The oldest alphabetic Semitic writing attested so far is dated to pre-Hyksos
Egypt, one of which appears to me to say RBWN<name>MN<name> (typical
graffito). If their original writing was on skins and other perishable
materials, how much earlier did they have writing? How would we know? And
how much of Moses’ “authorship” of Genesis in reality just a compilation and
editing of earlier written materials?

I used to think that the “pharaoh who knew not Joseph” was the first of the
Hyksos pharaohs, but now I realize that the 12th dynasty pharaohs also fit
that description. They were from a new royal family, not the one Joseph
worked for. The more I think of it, the more it appears that a 13th dynasty
Exodus is accurate.



Karl W. Randolph.