Peter,
While I accept your statement that Iron-Age biblical dates are dependent on
Mesopotamian dates and not Egyptian ones, and that Kitchen used "biblical"
dates for Seshonq and some other TIP kings, the New Kingdom kings are
actually dated independently of anything biblical.
Dating the Exodus to Ramses II is not because "it would be appropriate for God to humble such a great and proud ruler". It starts with the city of Ramses at which the Israelites labored, which obviously cannot pre-date the 19th dynasty. ...
... And then, the Merneptah Stele, which mentions "Israel" ALREADY IN THE LAND around 1207. ...
... And the archaeological evidence of massive hill-country settlement, much like the Bible attributes to the Israelites, begins about 1200. And the end of Egyptian control of Canaan, around 1150. All these mean that the initial Israelite settlement (in whatever fashion!) occurred just before 1200, which means that the Exodus would have occurred about 1250 - right in the middle of Ramses II's reign.This evidence and its interpretation are disputed, and anyway this is evidence not from Egyptian chronology but from archaeology of Canaan.
Of course, all this only if you assume that there WAS something like what the Bible calls the Exodus, at any "real" time.Indeed.
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