The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary–Volume 10, 2024

Published annually by Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Cordova, Tennessee, Michael R. Spradlin, President.

Journal Committee

Michael R. Spradlin, PhD

Terrence Neal Brown, MLS, Editor, Book Review Editor

Van McLain, PhD

Candi Finch, PhD

Elisabeth Gehman, Collin McAdams, Editorial Assistants

Cayman Blount, Joshua Weaver, Technical Assistants

The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary is published each spring under the guidance of the Journal Committee of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

Correspondence concerning articles, editorial policy and book reviews should be addressed to the editor, Terrence Brown (tbrown@mabts. edu). Manuscripts for consideration should be sent to the Editor. Writers are expected not to question or contradict the doctrinal statement of the Seminary.

The publication of comments, opinions, or advertising herein does not necessarily suggest agreement or endorsement by Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, Journal Committee, or the Trustees of the Seminary.

The subscription rate for the print edition of The Journal is $10.00 per year. The rate is for mailing to domestic addresses. The Seminary does not mail The Journal internationally, but makes it available worldwide through its online edition. The online edition is available free of cost at www. midamericajournal.com. Address all subscription correspondence to: Journal Committee, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 2350, Cordova, TN 38088.

© 2023 Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

ISSN: 2334-5748

“Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary is a school whose primary purpose is to provide undergraduate and graduate theological training for effective service in church-related and missions vocations through its main campus and designated branch campuses. Other levels of training are also offered.”

Dedication

Dr. James Powell

Reflections: Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

Michael Spradlin

Symposium Program

The Egyptian Background of the Exodus

Edwin Yamauchi

The Departure from Egypt and Egyptian Toponyms

James Hoffmeier

Raamses, Succoth and Pithom

Ken Kitchen

The Expulsion and Pursuit of the Hyksos

Gleason Archer

Exodus: The Ancient Egyptian Evidence

Hans Goedicke

The Amarna Letters and the "Habiru"

Ron Youngblood

1935-1991

Dr. James Edwin Powell

Dr. James Edwin Powell--Gathered unto the Fathers by

Mr. Terry Brown, Director of Library Services

Suddenly, on the morning of December 30, 1991, when most of the family of Mid-America Seminary was still enjoying the afterglow of Christmas and looking forward to the New Year, Dr. James Edwin Powell, Associate Professor in New Testament and Biblical Introduction at Mid-America, collapsed at his home and died of a heart attack.

Dr. Powell has taught at MABTS since 1978. In his years at the Seminary he earned his doctorate, served as Director of Library Services--overseeing, in a crucial period, the planning for the current Allison Library--and taught Greek and Biblical Introduction in the New Testament Department. He was a deacon, a Brotherhood Director, and taught adult men's Sunday School at the First Baptist Church, Collierville, TN, where he was a member. He served as president of the local chapter of the Near East Archaeological Society and as treasurer of the National Near East Archaeological Society. [in the office of Director of Library Services he had been a member of the Tennessee Theological Library Association and completed a two year term as President.]

The above are facts concerning the life of Dr. James E. Powell. They are, like flesh, part of the public view, the outside man. But James Powell was far more varied and complicated than a mere list of duties, memberships, accomplishments, and positions. Like everyone, he reflected more than what could be observed on the outside. The important aspect of James Powell came from within, that which came from his heart and his faith in the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dr. T. V. Farris said at the funeral of Dr. Powell, "James Powell has written his own eulogy with his character." Dr. Farris noted that, above all else, James Powell was a man "dedicated to his Lord, to his family, to the Seminary where he served, and to his church." In this dedication to those causes which he held to be precious, dear, and paramount, James Powell demonstrated a "kind, gracious and gentle spirit" to all people and in all things.

When we read the obituaries and hear eulogies and praises, we look about us in this life and consider what James Powell left behind. We pray for Mrs. Powell and the beloved children, Alva and Jameson, and for his brothers and sisters. We remember what James Powell accomplished in his career: students educated; his planning and superintending of the splendid Exodus Symposium that delighted him and so many other scholars; chapel addresses filled with insight, holiness, and practicality;

pop tests; a gift of laughter in friendship and Christian love; the rapid and tender appraisal of new library books; an encouraging word for faltering students and tired colleagues; preaching and witnessing to the lost; dry humor that was never base or cruel; and the list goes on and on.

Dr. Farris observed that James Powell was "compassionate, gracious, generous almost to the point of flaw. He was a noble man. And in every sense of the term a genuine Christian gentleman." In his funeral sermon, Dr. Gray complimented James Powell with the highest praise that can be attributed to any christian: "He was not ashamed of Jesus. I've never known him to be ashamed of Jesus nor to act as if he were.”

In conclusion, for this earth, perhaps the sweetest words that can be written of Dr. James Edwin Powell, a sinner saved by grace, are words that Dr. Powell himself wrote for the Mid-America Theological Journal on the great Southern Baptist teacher, A. T. Robertson, in studies in honor of Dr. Roy Beaman. "He is one in whom genuine love for knowledge is evident without ostentation and who saw the real worth of his own life in the success of his students. . . My own life will count for much or little in proportion to how well these men and women do the work which God has placed in their hands. I love them with my whole heart." To paraphrase James Powell on A. T. Robertson, therein lies the key to the esteem with which Dr. Powell was regarded by his students. The servant has departed this realm; praise and all glory to God in the highest

Reprinted from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary Messenger January 1992.

Reflections Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

Michael R. Spradlin, PhD

Michael R. Spradlin, PhD, President of Mid-America Baptist

Theological Seminary, received a BA from Ouachita Baptist University, and an MDIV and PhD from Mid-America Baptist

Theological Seminary. He has a versatile ministry background that includes preaching, teaching, church planting, military chaplaincy, and many international and North American mission trips. In addition to serving as the president, Dr. Spradlin is also professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, church history, practical theology, and missions and chairman of the evangelism department. He is the author of many scholarly articles and books, including The Sons of the 43rd: The Story of Delmar Dotson, Gray Allison, and The Men of the 43rd Bombardment Group in the Southwest Pacific. Dr. Spradlin served as editor of Studies in Genesis 1-11: A Creation Commentary, Beaman’s Commentary on the Gospel of John, Personal Evangelism and That One Face: The Doctrine of Christ in the First Six Centuries of Christianity. Dr. Spradlin and his wife Lee Ann live in Memphis and have three children (David, Thomas, and Laura) and two daughters-in-law (Laurel and Madelyn) and a son-in-law (Cody).

Before, they were just names on the front of books to me. I hardly thought of them as people but only as the purveyors of information that I must learn to get through the next hurdle of seminary. I did not see my time in seminary as an academic endeavor but as a time to learn the Bible. Leaving the Master of Divinity degree and headed into the Doctor of Philosophy degree, I had chosen Old Testament and Hebrew as my focus. This study encapsulated my passion for the Scriptures, love for languages, fascination with history, and curiosity of the obscure all in one package. Then came the conference. I first heard of the conference, “Who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?“, from my Old Testament professors. Larry Walker was an expert in Semitic languages and a member of the translation committee of the New International Version of the Bible. T. V. Farris had a unique gift

for creative communication and made preaching from the Hebrew Old Testament an exegetical party (in a good way). David Skinner explained the nuances of Hebrew grammar on the one hand and instilled confidence in the inerrancy of the Scriptures on the other. Steve Miller was the first person I ever heard delineate liberal, neo-orthodox, and conservative theology in an understandable way and convince you that the conservative view was the only truthful way to read the Bible. Although he was not a part of the Old Testament department, James Powell explained the contributions of archaeology and how these insights could bolster the case for biblical inerrancy.

I never chose to go to the conference; I and my fellow students were told that we were required to attend. Motivation and leadership all in one. I was enrolled in several classes that led up to the conference, and one of the key discussion points was something called “bichrome ware pottery.” It had not occurred to me to think about what this phrase even meant until someone put up a color picture of pottery with two colored bands around the rim. So much for archaeological acumen on my part.

Among the many luminaries that spoke, several made a deep impression on me. The first was Hershel Shanks, the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), who spoke at the kickoff dinner. The second was Cyrus Gordon who spoke “off the cuff” in one session and detailed things about the Bible that I had never realized. Finally, Kenneth Kitchen made the biggest impression. I ended up in a small group walking with him at the Ramses the Great exhibit (the conference was planned to coincide with the Memphis Wonders Exhibit, Ramses the Great, showing of the Ramesside artifacts). As we walked, he read the hieroglyphs and explained the meanings of each and told humorous anecdotes as well.

The conference ended and, as students, we moved on with our studies. Unknown to us, several challenges derailed the project to publish the papers presented during this event. It was a dream of MABTS professor James Powell, tremendous admirer of William F. Albright, to see the project to its completion, but he passed away before he could complete the work.

The papers languished in files for years until the intrepid work of Terrence Brown, Director of the Ora Byram Allison Memorial Library, brought them to my attention, and we decided to finish the dream of James Powell.

Because of the length of time involved, we have made several editorial decisions. We attempt to present papers exactly as presented, with little or no editing. I know that the format for transcribing ancient words has changed in the intervening decades, but we have striven to maintain the form used at the time of the conference. Also, further archaeological evidence has been published which may shed additional

light on the matters at hand. We have chosen to avoid updating the materials and to leave them as they were presented at the time of the conference.

We hope that this project will fulfill the original intent of those MABTS professors who labored to bring the conference together. We further hope that these papers will continue to spark an interest into the field of Near Eastern Archaeology, especially as it pertains to the Bible and its rich history.

The Symposium WHO WAS THE PHARAOH OF THE EXODUS?

PROGRAM

THURSDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 23

1:30 Registration

2:30 Introductions

3:00 The Egyptian Background of the Exodus

Edwin Yamauchi

3:45 The Departure from Egypt and Egyptian Toponyms

James Hoffmeier

THE EGYPTIAN EVIDENCE

4:30 Raamses, Succoth and Pithom

5:15 Break

THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 23

Ken Kitchen

5:15 – 6:30 BANQUET Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Dining Room

7:00 The Expulsion and Pursuit of the Hyksos

7:45 Exodus: The Ancient Egyptian Evidence

8:30 Tour of Ramesses Exhibit

FRIDAY MORNING, APRIL 24

8:00 The Amarna Letters and the “Habiru”

Gleason Archer

Hans Goedicke

Ron Youngblood

THE WILDERNESS EVIDENCE

8:45 Tracks in Sinai

9:30 Break

10:00 Another Look at Transjordan

10:45 Egypt to Canaan

11:30 Critique

12:00 Adjourn

Itzhaq Beit-Arieh

Gerald Mattingly

William Shea

THE CONQUEST EVIDENCE

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 24

1:30 A Survey of Theories

2:15 The Witness of Ai

Bruce Waltke

Maxwell Miller

3:00 Break

3:30 The Identity of Bethel and Ai

4:15 Critique

5:00 Adjourn

FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 24

David Livingston

7:00 Jericho Revisited: The Archaeology and History of Jericho in the Late Bronze Age

7:45 Israelite Occupation of Canaan

Bryant Wood

Rivka Gonen

8:30 Hyksos Influence in Transjordan and Palestine-Canaan Adnan Hadidi

9:15 Adjourn

SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 25

8:00 The Southern Campaign of Joshua 10

8:45 Canaan’s Middle Bronze Age Strongholds

Gordon Franz

John Bimson

9:30 Break

10:00 The Destruction of Canaanite Lachish and Hazor:The Archaeological Evidence

David Ussishkin

10:45 The Palestinian Evidence for a Thirteenth Century Conquest: An Archaeologist Appraisal

Bryant Wood

11:30 Critique

12:15 Adjourn

SATURDAY AFTERNOON, APRIL 25

1:30 Egypt, Israel and the Mediterranean World

Cyrus H. Gordon

SUMMARY

2:15 Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?

3:15 Critique

4:15 Conclusion

5:00 Adjourn

Hans Goedicke

J. Maxwell Miller

John Bimson

Edwin Yamauchi

Editors note-

Each of the following presentations—essays—from the Exodus Symposium carry biographical sketches for the presenters from 1987, the time of the Symposium. While we understand some of the speakers from 1987 have died, others retired, and a few remain teaching and writing, in keeping with the spirit of The Journal’s effort in reproduction of the 1987 gathering, we have retained the brief biographical identifications from that time.

Edwin Yamauchi

Professor of History, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. Ph.D., Brandeis University, Research in Gnosticism; Ancient Magic: Old and New Testaments. Editor-at-large of Christianity Today Publications include: The Stones and the Scriptures and PreChristian Gnosticism.

The Egyptian Background of the Exodus

Edwin Yamauchi History Department

Miami University Oxford, OH 45056

A. Introduction

It is my privilege to seek to establish the broad context in which our panel of distinguished scholars will address particular problems relating to Egypt, the Old Testament, and archaeology. As we are approaching rather complex issues with fragmentary evidences which may be interpreted in different ways, we shall probably not be able to reach any kind of consensus. But we should be able to clarify the problems, and to present the current status of research.

1. Geography

The significance of Palestine in the ancient world was in large measure its function as a land bridge between the two major areas of Egypt and Mesopotamia. I am reminded of the status of New Jersey, which functions as the highway between Philadelphia and New York. The Via Maris, or international highway, went east across the northern Sinai, along the Palestinian coast, then inland through the Megiddo Pass, and then east to Damascus.

Egypt itself was accurately described by Herodotus, the Father of History, who visited it in the 5th century B.C. He called it “The Gift of the Nile.” Then and even now over 90% of the population have been restricted to the fertile ribbon of green on either side of the Nile. The Nile, which is 4,000 miles long, is the only major river which flows from south to north. This explains why Egyptians considered the area upstream to the south Upper Egypt, and the region to the north by the delta Lower Egypt. The predictable annual floods helped replenish the

land. The height of the flood determined whether there would be plenty or famine in the land. Usually the Egyptians had an abundance of food, both in terms of grain and meat.

The Egyptians also were blessed with minerals and building materials. The pyramids were constructed from limestone blocks quarried from across the river. Obelisks were carved from granite monoliths quarried at Aswan. Supplies of gold from Nubia gave the impression to rulers abroad that gold was as plentiful in Egypt as sand on the ground.

On either side of the Nile are vast stretches of desert. On the west we have the extension of the Sahara Desert and on the east the Arabian Desert.1 These deserts together with the cataracts in the south protected Egypt on all sides except the north.

2. Writing

The Egyptians were the first after the Mesopotamians to develop writing about 3,000 B.C. There were several systems of writing which were employed. The most famous are the hieroglyphics, which are pictograms and ideograms, that is, signs of various objects. These signs represent consonants, syllables, and concepts. An early cursive or script form was hieratic. The later script, developed from about the 7th cent. B.C. was demotic. Some of the latter signs were incorporated into the largely Greek script of post-Christian Egyptian known as Coptic.

The hieroglyphs were deciphered by a young Frenchman, Champollion, in 1822 with the aid of the famous Rosetta Stone. This stone was discovered by one of Napoleon’s soldiers in 1799 at the Rosetta or western branch of the delta. As Napoleon was defeated by the British, the stone became the prized possession of the British Museum. It dates from the Ptolemaic era, and contains three panels: in hieroglyphic, in demotic and in Greek. Champollion guessed that the hieroglyphic signs in the oval cartouches were the royal names, Ptolemy and Cleopatra. Though we know the value of the consonantal signs, we are still not sure of the vowels. Hence, we often have a variety of English spellings, e.g. for the god of Thebes as Amen, Amon, Amun.

3. Language

The Egyptian language is known as a Hamito-Semitic dialect, with relations to such Semitic languages as Hebrew on the one hand, and to African languages as Hausa in Nigeria. A number of Egyptian words were borrowed by Hebrew. Some of these are objects such as puk for “eye paint” from the Egyptian word for turquoise or malachite, which was ground to form an eye shadow powder, and shesh for “linen.” The word Ye’or, which originally meant the Nile came into Hebrew as a general word for “river.” The word “pharaoh” comes into the English language through a Hebrew transliteration of the Egyptian parcoh, which literally meant “Great House,” and then the king. The proper name Susan

comes through Hebrew from an Egyptian word for “lily.” 2

The Egyptians called their own land either kmt [or Kemet] “Black Land,” TAWY “The Two Lands” (i.e., Upper and Lower Egypt), or NFR TA “The Beloved Land.” The Hebrew name of Egypt was misrayim. The English name Egypt comes from the Greek, Aigyptos, which is a transliteration of the Egyptian Hust-ka-Ptah, “Mansion of the Ka of Ptah.” Ptah was the creator god of the city of Memphis; his Ka was his double. The Egyptian name of the city of Memphis was Mn-nfr “Established and Good,” which was later preserved in Coptic as Mempi, which gives us the name “Memphis.” The name of the city was transcribed as moph in Hebrew as in Hosea 9:6 or as noph in Isaiah 19:13.

4. Sources

The Egyptians kept very good records, which are the basis of ancient near eastern chronology. When a discrepancy was discovered between the Egyptian dates and radio-carbon dates, it was the latter which needed to be corrected.3 Most of our documentation comes from royal texts, which are, of course, propagandistic. They boast of victories and never mention defeats. Other texts are self-laudatory tomb inscriptions of officials. We have a number of literary texts such as the famous story of Sinuhe, wisdom sayings like the biblical Proverbs,4 and love songs like the Song of Solomon.5 More mundane documents have occasionally survived on papyri and ostraca, i.e. broken shards of pottery. Egyptian archaeology has concentrated its efforts on tombs and temples in Upper Egypt.5a With the exception of the short-lived site of Amarna, we have little evidence of dwellings.6 Most of the papyri and other perishable materials have been preserved in the dry climate of Upper Egypt; they perished in Lower Egypt. The Greeks obtained their papyri from Egypt through the Phoenician port of Byblos. They then called their scrolls or books “biblos,” which has given us the word “Bible.” Unfortunately no papyri have been recovered at Byblos. In another work I wrote:

Every temple in Egypt had papyri records describing its personnel and their tasks month by month. From a small temple at Abusir we know that it would have taken ten meters of papyri per month or 120 meters per year to list such records. If we were to estimate that there were only one hundred temples in Egypt, and were to multiply this times the 2,000 year period from 2500-500 B.C., we could calculate (120 x 100 x 2,000) that the Egyptians must have used a total of 24 million meters of papyri for their temple records. Of this grand total the only temple records that have been recovered are thirteen meters from Abusir and a similar length from Ilahun.7

In view of the fragmentary survival of the evidence and the accidental nature of its discovery, we must be extremely cautious about coming to negative conclusions from arguments from silence.

B. AN OUTLINE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY

It has been customary to divide Egyptian history into epochs according to the dynasties recorded by an Egyptian priest, Manetho, who lived in the third century B.C. It is not always easy to match his Greek names with the Egyptian names.8 Herodotus, who is important for the later dynasties, did learn the correct names of the builders of the three pyramids at Giza: Cheops for Khufu, Chephren for Khafre, and Mycerinus for Menkaure. Complicating the process of identification was the fact that each pharaoh had at least two and often five royal names. Let me briefly sketch the course of Egyptian history, using approximate rather than precise dates, and then seek to relate the biblical events to their possible Egyptian contexts.

1. Archaic Period (Dynasties I-II, 3200-2700)

Egyptian history began with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by a king named Menes. He has been identified by some as the king whose hieroglyphic symbol is the cuttlefish--Narmer, by others as Horus or the Scorpion.9 The main monuments of this era are mastaba or “bench-like” tombs. Incised hieroglyphs of Narmer have been found in Palestine.10 Scholars do not agree as to whether the Egyptian objects in Palestine are evidences of political control or merely of trade. The latter seems to be the more correct inference.11

2. Old Kingdom (Dynasties III-VI, 2700-2200)

The capital of this period was the Lower Egyptian city of Memphis. The Old Kingdom is sometimes known as the “Pyramid Age,” as this is when the famous pyramids were built.12 The first pyramid which was built was the Step Pyramid of Djoser of the IIIrd Dynasty built at Saqqarah, near Giza. The first true pyramids were built by Sneferu of the IVth Dynasty, who was obviously experimenting as he built three pyramids.13 The most famous pyramids are the three at Giza, with the nearby Sphinx. The great pyramid of Cheops is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World which has survived. Contrary to the views of the popular writer, E. von Daniken, the pyramids as marvelous as they are, were not built by ancient astronauts.14 And despite the public pronouncements of a certain Israeli prime minister, the pyramids were not built by his Hebrew ancestors.

3. The First Intermediate Period (Dynasties VII-X, 2200-2040)

The size and grandeur of the Old Kingdom pyramids were never duplicated. It has often been supposed that the vast expenditures of wealth and manpower necessary for their construction led to the succeeding era of chaos and decline, though an examination of the texts does not lend support to this thesis.15 The weakening of the pharaoh’s power is shown in the fact that there were four ephemeral dynasties within a century and a half. This era, however, and the next are regarded as the Golden Age of Egyptian literature.

4. The Middle Kingdom (Dynasties XI-XII, 2040-1790)

The center of power shifted south to the Upper Egyptian city of Thebes (called Luxor today) during the Middle and the New Kingdom eras.16 Although this was a time of prosperity, few of the monuments of this era have survived as the later pharaohs of the New Kingdom demolished the buildings and reused their materials. During the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians established their southern frontier at the second cataract. Excavations there at the fortress of Buhen uncovered a skeleton of a horse, demonstrating that horses were not introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos. Execration texts, which are magical curses upon Egypt’s enemies, give us invaluable information about Palestine during this period.17 Again whether Egyptian involvement in Palestine during this period implied political hegemony or trade is disputed.18

5. The Second Intermediate Period (Dynasties XIII-XVII, 17901570)

The security of Egypt was shattered in the 17th century by the successful invasion of the Hyksos, Semitic invaders from the east who were equipped with chariots.19 The unity of Egypt was also lost as several contemporary dynasties ruled over different parts of Egypt. The Hyksos gained control of Lower Egypt. Though they adopted Egyptian customs, they were resented and eventually expelled through the leadership of the Thebans (XVIIth Dynasty). The papers by Gleason Archer and Adnan Hadidi will focus on the Hyksos.

6. The New Kingdom (Dynasties XVIII-XX, 1560-1085 B.C.E.)

Rebounding from the humiliation of the Hyksos occupation, the Egyptians decided that their best defense would be an aggressive imperialism. The New Kingdom, also known as the Empire period, was the acme of Egyptian power and influence.20 Egyptian armies tramped across Palestine and reached the Euphrates River.21 This was the era of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, including from the XVIIIth Dynasty: Hatshepsut (1479-1457), Tuthmosis III (1457-1425), Amenophis IV or Akhenaten (1356-1340) and Tutankhamun (1340-1331). From the XIXth Dynasty, the most famous pharaoh was Ramesses II (1279-1213), followed by his son Merenptah (1213-1204).22

Hatshepsut was a queen, who ruled as a regent for her stepson when her husband died. But she enjoyed power so much that she continued to rule on, even when Tuthmosis III came of age. She even arrogated to herself many of the titles of a pharaoh and was depicted with a beard. Hans Goedicke has recently proposed the novel view that the Exodus took place under her reign.23

Once he was free to exercise power, Tuthmosis III, who is sometimes called the “Napoleon” of Egypt, unleashed his energies in a series of campaigns in Palestine and Syria, including a memorable battle at the Megiddo pass.24

One of the most extraordinary figures in Egyptian history was Amenhotep IV, or as he was to call himself Akhenaten.25 His wife was the beautiful Nefertiti. Akhenaten’s promotion of the monotheistic worship of the sun disc, the Aton, has been compared with Mosaic monotheism.26 He built a new capital at Amarna, where exactly a century ago a peasant woman found a collection of tablets now known as the Amarna Letters.27 Though they were at first thought to be forgeries, they turned out to be an invaluable archive of correspondence between Amenhotep III and IV, and kings of Mitanni, Assyria, Babylonia, and Palestine. Cyrus Gordon will speak about this international era. 28

Of special interest are the pleas from the kings of such cities as Jerusalem, begging for Egyptian military aid against the marauding Habiru (cited as Apiru in Egyptian texts). The aid was not forthcoming evidently because of Akhenaten’s preoccupation with his religious reforms, and the Egyptian Empire came into danger of disintegration.29 Though earlier scholars sought to identify the Habiru with the biblical Hebrews (‘ibrim), the Habiru are attested over a larger area than the Hebrews and a simple equation is not possible.30 Ron Youngblood will be speaking on this subject.

The fabulous treasures discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 in the unlooted tomb of Tutankhamen, has made King “Tut” universally famous.31 As he was but a minor king who died in his teens, one wonders what the treasures of a truly great pharaoh might have been!

The new Ramesside XIXth Dynasty had its roots in the delta region, and so built its capital of Per-Ramesses there under the great Ramesses II. Ramesses II was an outstanding builder, who worked on a monumental scale, such as his colossal fourfold statues which were rescued from the waters of Lake Nasser at Abu Simbel near the border with Sudan, and his enormous hypostyle temple at Karnak (Thebes).32 He was also active in other ways, as he sired over 100 sons and daughters! In his fifth year Ramesses II fought a major battle at Qadesh in Syria against the Hittites and their allies. Both sides claimed victory. Eventually they realized the futility of further fighting and signed the world’s first international peace treaty.

In the reigns of two of the next kings, Merenptah (1213-1204) and Ramesses III (1185-54) Egypt was assaulted by waves of the so-called Sea Peoples from the Aegean, who included the Philistines. These years marked the decline of Egyptian imperial power.

C. EGYPT AND THE HEBREWS

1. The Patriarchs

Abraham and Jacob turned to Egypt in times of famine. This may have been during the Middle Kingdom. The succoring of eastern Semites by the Egyptians is confirmed by an illustration from the Vth Dynasty (2500 B.C.E.), which shows a group of starving bedouin.33 At the

end of the XVIIIth Dynasty Semites came to the border of Egypt and begged to be given food “after the manner of your father’s father since the beginning.” At Beni Hasan there is a colorful depiction of Asiatics (i.e. Semites) bearing gifts and products into Egypt.34

2. The Joseph Story

It is especially the story of Joseph (Gen. 37-50), which is filled with Egyptological data, such as the “embalming,” i.e. the mummification of Jacob (Gen. 50:1-3).35 Though many scholars would place Joseph in the Hyksos period, the biblical data suggests a Middle Kingdom date. Kitchen favors a date c. 1700 in the XIIIth Dynasty, just before the arrival of the Hyksos.

Joseph’s sale as a slave into Egypt can be illustrated by the Wilbour Papyrus of the Brooklyn Museum (1740 B.C.), which lists about a hundred slaves, half of whom were “Asiatics.”36 His interpretation of dreams may be understood from an Egyptian manual of dream interpretation (Chester Beatty Papyrus I), which cites as an example: “if a man sees himself in a dream turning his face to the ground, bad (cf. Gen.40:9).”37 His exaltation by the grateful pharaoh can be paralleled from the numerous tomb inscriptions of high officials.38

Inasmuch as some of the Egyptian data, such as the proper names in the Joseph story, are not attested until relatively late, their value for authenticating the narratives has been disputed. On the one hand, D. Redford in his detailed study has opted for the latest possible dates (7th century and later).39

Much of Redford’s case, as he himself recognizes, is based on arguments from silence. Other Egyptologists, such as J. Vergote40 and K. Kitchen41 believe that the Egyptological data in the story can be reconciled with a Ramesside date.

3. The Sojourn In Egypt

The Hebrew Bible (Gen 15:13; Exod 12:40) indicates that Jacob and his descendants sojourned in Egypt for about four centuries. The Septuagint tradition (Exod 12:40) seems to suggest that they were in Canaan for two centuries, and only in Egypt for two. One would calculate backwards from the date of the Exodus to determine the descent of Jacob into Egypt.42 On the “long” chronology, this would have been in the 19th cent. according to the Early Date and the 17th cent. according to the Late Date of the Exodus. As our other speakers will explain, there are two possible dates for the Exodus:

a. The Early Date, c. 1450 either in the reign of Tuthmosis III or Amenophis II.

b. The late Date, c. 1270-60 in the reign of Ramses II. The only reference to Israel in Egyptian text comes from the 5th year of the reign of Merenptah.43

Notes

1. Kees (1961).

2. Gardiner (1936); Lambdin (1953); Williams (1969); Yahuda (1933).

3. Yamauchi (1975).

4. Bryce (1979); Fontaine (1981); Kitchen (1977); Ruffle (1977); Williams (1961) & (1981).

5. Carr (1982); Fox (1980) & (1983); Foster (1974); White (1978).

5a. Bietak (1979).

6. On the Amarna Palace see Yamauchi (1984).

7. Yamauchi (1981), p.157.

8. See Gardner’s Appendix (1961).

9. Emery (1961).

10. Amiran (1974) & (1976); Yeivin (1963).

11. Gophna (1976); Wright (1985).

12. Aldred (1965).

13. Edwards (1961).

14. Yamauchi (1974).

15. Kanawati (1980).

16. Riefstahl (1964); Kamil (1976).

17. Sethe (1926); Posener (1939) & (1966).

18. Weinstein (1975).

19. Van Seters (1966).

20. Steindorff and Seele (1957).

21. Weinstein (1981).

22. Kitchen (1982), pp. 238-39. Kitchen has ruled out the high chronology of (1304-1238) on the basis of new Babylonian dates, though he concedes that the lower chronology of 1290-1224 is still a possibility.

23. Oren (1981); Shanks (1981) & (1982).

24. Nelson (1913).

25. Aldred (1968); Redford (1984).

26. On the alleged influence of Akhenaten’s influence on Moses, see my paper, “Akhenaten, Moses, and Monotheism,” delivered at the Midwest AOS Arnarna Centennial.

27. Pfeiffer (1963).

28. Gordon (1965).

29. Several (1972).

30. See my article on the “Habiru,” in Blaiklock and Harrison (1983), pp. 223-24.

31. Hoving (1978).

32. MacQuitty (1978).

33. For general works relating the Bible to Egypt see: Aling (1981); Kitchen (1959-60); Montet (1968).

34. Shea (1981).

35. Davis (1986); Yamauchi (1986), p. 160, n. 125.

36. Hayes (1955).

37. Israelit-Groll (1985); Janssen (1955-56).

38. Ward (1960).

39. Redford (1970).

40. Vergote (1959), (1972) & (1985).

41. Kitchen (1961) & (1973).

42. Hoehner (1969); Ray (1986).

43. Engel (1979); Kitchen (1968).

Bibliography

Aldred, C.

1965 Egypt to the end of the Old Kingdom. New York: McGrawHill.

Aldred, C.

1968 Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Aling, C.

1981 Egypt and Bible History. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Amiran, R.

1974 “An Egyptian Jar Fragment with the Name of Narmer from Arad.” IEJ 24:4-12.

Amiran, R.

1976 “The Narmer Jar Fragment from Arad: An Addendum.” IEJ 26:45-46.

Bietak, M.

1979 “The Present State of Egyptian Archaeology.” JEA 65:15660.

Blaiklock, E. M. and Harrison, R. K., ed.

1983 New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Bryce, G. E.

1979. A Legacy of Wisdom: The Egyptian Contribution to Wisdom of Israel. Lewisburg: Bucknell University. Carr, L. G.

1982 “The Love Poetry Genre in the Old Testament and the

Ancient Near East.” JETS 25:489-98.

Davis, J.

1986 The Mummies of Egypt. Winona Lake: BMH Books.

Edwards, I. E. S.

1961 The Pyramids of Egypt. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Emery, W. B.

1961 Archaic Egypt. Baltimore: Penguin Books.

Engel, H.

1979 “Die Siegstele de Merenptah.” Biblica 60:373-99.

Fontaine, C. E.

1981 “A Modern Look at Ancient Wisdom.” BA 44:155-60.

Foster, J.

1974 Love Songs of the New Kingdom. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Fox, M. V.

1980 “The Cairo Love Songs.” JAOS 100:101-10.

Fox, M. V.

1983 “Love, Passion, and Perception in Israelite and Egyptian Love Poetry.” JBL 102:219-28.

Gardiner, A.

1936 “The Egyptian Origin of Some English Personal Names.” JAOS 56:189-97.

Gardiner, A.

1961 Egypt of the Pharaohs. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gophna, R.

1976 “Egyptian Immigration into Canaan during the First Dynasty?” TA 3:33-37.

Gordon, C. H.

1965 The Ancient Near East. New York: W. W. Norton.

Hayes, W. C.

1955 A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum. New York: Brooklyn Museum.

Hoehner, H.

1969 “The Duration of the Egyptian Bondage.” BS 126:306-16.

Hoving, T.

1978 Tutankhamun: The Untold Story. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Israelit-Groll, S.

1985 “A Ramesside Grammar Book of a Technical Language of Dream Interpretation.” pp. 71-116 in S. Israelit-Groll, ed., Pharaonic Egypt: The Bible and Christianity. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.

Janssen, J.

1955-56 “Egyptological Remarks on The Story of Joseph in Genesis.” Ex Oriente Lux 14:63-72.

Kamil, J.

Luxor: A Guide to Ancient Thebes. New York: Longman.

Kanawati, N.

1980 Governmental Reforms in Old Kingdom Egypt. London: Aris & Phillips.

Kees, H.

1961 Ancient Egypt. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Kitchen, K. A.

1959-60 “Egypt and the Bible: Some Recent Advances.” Faith and Thought 91:177-97.

Kitchen, K. A.

1961 Review of J. Vergote, Joseph en Egypte in JEA 47:158-64

Kitchen, K. A.

1968 Ramesside Inscriptions IV.1. Liverpool: University of Liverpool.

Kitchen, K. A.

1973 Review of D. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph in Oriens Antiquus 12:233-42.

Kitchen, K. A.

1977 “Proverbs and Wisdom Books of the Ancient Near East.” TB

28:69-114.

Kitchen, K. A.

1982 Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramses II. Mississauga: Benben Publications.

Lambdin, T. O.

1953 “Egyptian Loan Words in the Old Testament.” JAOS 73:14555.

MacQuitty, W

1978 Ramesses the Great. New York: Crown.

Montet, P.

1968 Egypt and the Bible. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Nelson, H. H.

1913 The Battle of Megiddo. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Oren, E. D.

1981 “How Not to Create a History of the Exodus--A Critique of Professor Goedicke’s Theories.” BAR 7.6:46-53.

Pfeiffer, C. F.

1963 Tell el Amarna and the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Posener, G. 1939 “Nouvelles listes de proscription… datant du moyen empire.” CE 14:39-46.

Posener, G.

1966 “Les textes d’envoutement…” Syria 43:277-87.

Ray, P. J.

1986 "The Duration of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt.” AUSS 24:231-48.

Redford, D.

1970 A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Redford, D.

1984 Akhenaten: The Heretic King. Princeton: Princeton University.

Riefstahl, E.

1964 Thebes in the Time of Amunhotep III. Norman: University of Oklahoma.

Ruffle, J

1977 “The Teaching of Amenemope and Its Connection with the Book of Proverbs.” TB 28:29-68.

Sethe, K.

1926 Die Achtung feindlicher Fursten, Volker, und Dinge auf altagyptischen Tongefasscherben des mittleren Reiches. Berlin: W. de Gruyter.

Several, M. W.

1972 “Reconsidering the Egyptian Empire in Palestine during the Amarna Period.” BASOR 104:123-33.

Shanks, H.

1981 “The Exodus and the Crossing of the Sea according to Hans Goedicke.” BAR 7.5: 42-50.

Shanks, H.

1982 “In Defense of Hans Goedicke.” BAR 8.3:48-3.

Shea, W. H.

1981 “Artistic Balance among the Beni Hasan Asiatics.” BA 44:219-28.

Steindorff, G. and Seele, K.

1957. When Egypt Ruled the East. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Van Seters, J.

1966 The Hyksos. New Haven: Yale University.

Vergote, J.

1959 Joseph en Egypte. Louvain: Publications Universitaires.

Vergote, J.

1972 Rev. of D. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph in BO 29:327-30.

Vergote, J. 1985 “‘Joseph en Egypte’ 25 ans apres.” pp. 289-306 in Israelit-

Groll.

Ward, W. A.

1960 “The Egyptian Office of Joseph.” JSS 5:144-50.

Weinstein, J.M.

1975 “Egyptian Relations with Palestine in the Middle Kingdom.” BASOR 217:1-16.

Weinstein, J.M.

1981 “The Egyptian Empire in Palestine: A Reassessment.” BASOR 241:1-28.

White, J.B.

1978 A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Poetry. Missoula: Scholars Press.

Williams, R.J.

1961 “The Alleged Semitic Original of the Wisdom of Amenemope.” JEA 47:100-06.

Williams, R.J.

1969 “Some Egyptianisms in the Old Testament.” pp. 93-98 in G. E. Kadish, ed., Studies in Honor of John A. Wilson. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Williams, R.J.

1981 “The Sages of Ancient Egypt in the Light of Recent Scholarship.” JAOS 101:1-20.

Wright, M.

1985 “Contacts Between Egypt and Syro-Palestine During the Protodynastic Period.” BA 48:240-53.

Yahuda, A. S.

1933 The Language of the Pentateuch in Its Relation to Egyptian London: Oxford University.

Yamauchi, E.

1974 “’Chariots’ Is Just So Much Humbug.” Eternity 25.1:34-35.

Yamauchi, E.

1975 “Problems of Radiocarbon Dating and of Cultural Diffusion in Pre-History.” JASA 27:25-31.

Yamauchi, E.

1981 The Stones and the Scriptures. Reprint ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Yamauchi, E.

1984 “Palaces in the Biblical World.” NEASB 23:35-67.

Yamauchi, E.

1986 “Magic or Miracle?” pp. 89-183 in D. Wenham and C. Blomberg, ed., The Miracles of Jesus. Sheffield: JSOT Press.

Yeivin, S.

1963 “Further Evidence of Narmer at ‘Gat’.” Oriens Antiquus 2: 205-13.

James K. Hoffmeier

Associate Professor, Wheaton College, Ph.D., In Egyptian Religion, University of Toronto. Articles include: "The Evolving Chariot Wheel in the 18th Dynasty," Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, "Tents in Egypt and the Ancient Near East,"

S.S.E.A. Newsletter, Book Review of The Bible in its World, "Moses." Mediterranean, in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

Toponyms of the Exodus; With Special Reference to the Yam Suf/ Red Sea Problem

By James K. Hoffmeier Associate Professor

Of Archaeology & Old Testament

Wheaton College

The Hebrew tradition of the sojourn and exodus from Egypt are considered historical events by most archaeologists, biblical scholars and historians. John Bright (1961, 120) in A History of Israel sums up this view when he says;

There can really be little doubt that ancestors of Israel had been slaves in Egypt and had escaped in some marvelous way. Almost no one today would question it.

Although there is little consensus concerning when the sojourn began and ended, the events described in the book of Exodus appear to fit within the New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1200 B.C). The purpose of this study is not to enter the dating debate directly, rather, we propose to make brief examination of the Egyptian toponyms that relate to the exodus event, beginning with Raamses, the starting point (Exodus 12:37 & Numbers 33:5) and concluding with the incident at the Re(e)d Sea (Ex. 14 & 15).

Considerable discussion will be given to the yam suf/Red Sea problem, especially in light of the recent suggestion by B. Batto (1983) in the

Journal of Biblical Literature that we abandon the notion that the sea of passage was “the sea of reeds.”

The biblical sources that trace the march from Egypt to freedom in Sinai are found in Ex. 12:37, 13:17-20, 14:2 and the itinerary in Numbers 33. The latter is a lengthy list which traces the movements of the Hebrews from their departure from Raamses to the arrival in Canaan at the end of the “wilderness period.” The relationship between the toponyms in the Exodus passages and the list in Num. 33 have been the subject of considerable discussion. Ex. 12:37 is usually assigned to the Jahwist (J) by source critics (Noth 1962, 96-99), while 13:20 and 14:2ff. are thought to derive from the Priestly (P) source (Noth 1962, 109-110; Childs 1974, 220), and Ex. 13:17-19 is attributed to the Elohist (E) (Childs 1974, 220; Noth 1962, 106-107). The toponym list in Num 33 is thought to be a late compilation, the product of P, that may have utilized earlier material (Noth 1966, 242; Sturdy 1976, 227-226; Budd 1984, 352).

Recent form critical study of Num. 33 has concluded that this chapter is an itinerary (Coats 1972, 135-152; Walsh 1977, 20-33 Davies 1974, 46-81 & 1979). The itinerary of Num. 33 cannot be regarded as simply a compilation of the toponyms from other biblical sources, for it contains nearly twenty entries not attested elsewhere in the Pentateuch. Source critics consider lists written in a laconic manner to be the trademark of the Priestly School. By default, then, Num. 33 is attributed to P. But it should be noted that itineraries from the ancient Near East, be they Egyptian, Assyrian or Roman, exhibit a rather terse, formulaic style (Davies 1974, 52-78; Redford 1982, 58-60). Therefore, the nature of itineraries as a literary genre not the style “the Priestly School” seems to be the reason Num. 33 is written as it is.

In a recent study of the toponym list of Thutmose Ill at Karnak, D.B. Redford (1982, 59-60) has concluded that this list is a “group of itineraries for Western Asia as far north as the Euphrates.” An itinerary would help Egyptian couriers as well as military expeditions. Redford (1982, 59-60) further observes that itineraries were not just a list of cities, but included such geographical features as mountains, valleys, streams, and springs that would assist the traveler in finding his way to a desired location. It is worth noting that the Pentateuchal records include such geographical features. Ex. 14:2-3 “the sea” (hayam) and “the wilderness” (hammidbar), while Num. 33:9 mentions the same features and later in the journey it mentions that “at Elim there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees.” And subsequently various mountains are cited. Therefore, the material in the Pentateuch has many of the marks of a New Kingdom Egyptian itinerary.

Some caution is needed, however. Since the Hebrews were not intending to repeat the journey or return to Egypt, it does not appear that the purpose of the lists in the Pentateuch was the same

as Egyptian itineraries. The itinerary of Num 33 is introduced by stating that Moses recorded the trek by stages or encampments from the departure in Egypt through the arrival in Moab. But no reason is given for why. G.I Davies (1974, 47) argues that the purpose of this itinerary was “to bind into a single unit the whole complex of narratives from the Exodus to the Conquest.” G. Wenham (1981; 216-217) notes that this itinerary omits names found elsewhere in Numbers while adding others. If the beginning (Raamses) and the concluding points be illuminated, 40 names are recorded which might correspond to the 40 years in the wilderness (Num. 14:34). This may be a nice literary device or an interesting coincidence and nothing more. Wenham (1981, 217- 218) further observes that the list of 42 toponyms can be divided into six groups of seven and that “similar events recur at the same point in the cycle,” and the names might be arranged in numerically significant patterns which correspond to special occurrences. There is merit to these considerations and if they are correct, it might be conceivable that the itinerary served as a mnemonic for later writing of the narrative material in Exodus and Numbers.

This is not dissimilar to the Egyptian scribal practice of recording an expedition in the “day book of the king’s house”, which contained rather terse entries on a daily basis, but later was used to create more detailed narratives, hymns and annals, like those of Thutmose III.1

Having discussed the nature of the toponymic materials related to the departure from Egypt, we can now tum to the geographical questions. Since Professor Kitchen will be dealing with “The of Location Pithom and Raamses” in his study, my task of dealing with the starting point of the exodus is lessened and I defer to his conclusions on the matter.

There is little doubt that either the city of Pi-Ramesses or its environs, i.e. the Qantir-Avaris (Tell e-Debac), was the starting point of the exodus (cf. Ex. 12:37 & Num 33:3). Both Ex. 12:37 and the Numbers itinerary (33:5-6) agree that the first stop was Succoth. Hebrew Succoth has been equated with Egyptian tkw (cf. Bleiberg 1983, 21-27 for the history of the discussion; Helck 1965, 35ff.). The Pithom Stela of the Roman period suggests that tkw and pr-itm (Pithom) were located near each other (Bleiberg 1983, 21). The sites are clearly located within the Wadi Tumilat and Tell el Maskhuta (west of modern lsmailia) is thought to be Succoth (Redford 1963, 405-406; Davies 1979, 79). About 18 kilometers west of Maskhuta is Tell er-Retabeh, which is tentatively identified with Pithom (Redford 1963, 404-405; Davies 1979, 79).

Both of these Tells have been explored in recent years. Tell elMaskhuta, which has been more thoroughly excavated, has revealed Syro-Palestinian material of the Middle Bronze age (Holladay 1982). The picture from Tell er-Retaba is not as clear, and we anxiously

await a preliminary report. However, in verbal communications with the excavators2 there appears to be Late Bronze and Middle Bronze materials. This information squares with material from recent excavations at Tell e-Debac (Bietak 1975 & 1984) and Tell Basta, as well as what had been known for decades at Tell el-Vehudiah (Petrie 1906). It is increasingly evident that there was a sizeable population of Semites in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, and before. By traversing the Wadi Tumilat, the Israelites were taking one of the main routes to leave Egypt. Another reason for taking this route is that there may have been fellow Hebrews in the area of Pithom from the building projects there (cf. Ex. 1:11). Up until this point in the journey there is little debate about the route. But the next portion of the journey continues to provoke discussion and disagreement among scholars. Num. 33:6 reports that the stop after Succoth was Etham “which is on the edge of the wilderness,” which agrees with Ex. 13:20. The meaning of the word is obscure, which makes the location problematic. The Hebrew etam has been associated with the Egyptian htm (Cazelles 1955, 356), but this poses a linguistic problem. A shift from Egyptian h to Hebrew aleph is improbable (Davies 1979,79-80). If Etham could be positively identified it would greatly assist with the next cluster of toponyms, Pi-hahiroth, Migdal and Baal-zephon.

Scholars have been divided as to which direction the Israelites turned once they reached the eastern limit of the Wadi Tumilat. The biblical record agrees that they encamped next “in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdal and the sea in front of Baal-zephon (Ex. 14:2). Num 33:7 states, “And they set out from Etham, and they turned back to Pi-hahiroth, which is east of Baal-zephon; and they encamped before Migdol.” Differences in interpreting these names has resulted in scholars positing a “northern” and “southern” route for the departure from Egypt. Eissfeldt’s (1932) influential work on the subject has convinced some that Baalzephon is to be identified with the shrine of Zeus Kasios, located on Ras Qasrun on the Mediterranean coast (cf. Herrmann 1973, 60- 62 & Simons 1959 235ff. for a review of Eissfeldt). Simons (249 n. 217) finds Ras Qasrun an unattractive identification for Baalzephon. Many years ago, Sir Alan Gardiner (1920, 106-107; 1947, 202) pointed out that the Egyptian border fortress, htm n t3rw, Sile of the Antonian Itinerary, was equated in Hebrew by Migdol which means defense “tower” (BDB 153). The suggested location for this fort is Tell el-Ahmar, near modern El-Kantarah (Gardiner 1947, 202). Tell el-Her, about 10 k. north east of El-Kantarah is another proposed location for Migdol (Cazelles 1955, 344; Davies 1979, 82). The identification of Pi-hahiroth is problematic for the northern route scheme. In any event, the northern location for these toponyms makes Lake Sirbonis the obvious choice for the sea mentioned in Ex. 14:2, and probably the same body of water through which the Israelites passed.

In support of Lake Sirbonis, Strabo and Diodorus report problems various travelers had with changing water levels and becoming mired in the swampy soil (cf. Herrmann 1973, 60-62). While there are certain merits to this position, there are a number of problems. The first problem is that the distance between the sites identified with Migdol and Ras-Kasrun is about 50 kilometers, but the biblical statements seem to place these in closer proximity. Davies (1979, 82) observes that from the end of the Wadi Tumilat to Lake Sirbonis is about 144 kilomoeters, and yet only Etham is mentioned in the itinerary between Succoth and this location. For such a long distance to have only one entry in the Numbers itinerary seems inconsistent with the distance between stages recorded in the itinerary. Then too, the location of the sea in the biblical records appears much closer to the Succoth than Lake Sirbonis.

In view of Ex. 13: 17, which states “God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near...”, seems to preclude a northern route. “The way of the land of the Philistines,” has been associated with the military road, “the ways of Horus” which would have passed by Sile which led to Palestine (Gardiner 1920, 99ff.). Egyptian troops would undoubtedly have been stationed at Sile. The Egyptian Story of Sinuhe, which dates to the 20th Century B.C., indicates that when Sinuhe fled Egypt, he had to hide out from the “walls of the ruler” because sentries were posted (cf. Blackman 1932, 11-12 ANET 19). Quite naturally, the Israelites did not want to come to near Egyptian troops and the reason given for not taking the route was that the Israelites might see fighting and turn back (Ex. 13:17b). (De Vaux 1978, 376) believes that the Israelites would have avoided Sile because of the Egyptian military presence.

Another point against this northern route is that the Israelite destination was not Canaan, but Mt. Sinai (cf. Ex. 3:12), which is most likely situated in southern Sinai.3 But there may have been some maneuvering to avoid contact with other Egyptian outposts which might have taken them in a northernly direction for a brief time. The arrival at Pi-hahiroth, Baal-zephon, Migdol and the sea was reached after the Israelites “turned back” after leaving Etham (Num. 33:7; Ex. 14:2). Unfortunately, the word rendered “turn back”, sub does not mean turn left or right, or north or south (since they had been travelling east through the Wadi Tumilat). Simons (1959, 418 & 422) believes that a northern direction was taken after leaving the Wadi Tumilat which was subsequently reversed, which would have taken them southward.

The three toponyms of 14:2 have also been located in the region of the Bitter Lakes. Migdol could well be associated with another fort, not just Sile. According to Pap. Anastasi VI, 51-61 (Gardiner 1937, 76.13-15; Caminos 1954, 293; ANET 259) from the end of the 19th Dynasty (ca. 1200

B.C.) a fort is located near Tjeku (i.e. Succoth). Thus Migdal could be this fort.

The etymology and the location of Pi-hahiroth remains problematic. The element pi is suggestive of the pronunciation of Egyptian pr in the New Kingdom,4 as seen in the name Pithom and PiRamesses. Consequently, several Egyptian etymologies have been proposed. Pi-h(w)t-hr, “House of (the goddess) Hathor” (cf. Lambdin IDB 3, 810-811) and pi-hrrt, “House of (the goddess) Herret” are possibilities. While there is a goddess named hrrt (Wb III, 150), it is doubtful that she had a cult center in the eastern Delta.

Another possibility is to identify this name with a body of water, p(3) hrw, located near Tjeku, which is mentioned in the Pithom Stela (Cazelles 1955, 353).

Alternatively, if the root hrr/hrt is Semitic and not Egyptian, an intriguing possibility presents itself. In Akkadian from Old Babylonian onwards, hararu means “to dig (with a hoe),” “to groove” and when nominalized is written as harurtu (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary 6, 91). Hrt occurs only once in Hebrew (Ex. 32:16) and means “engrave” (BDB 362). In Ugaritic hrt means “to pIow” (Aisleitner 1974, 108) and “to scrape, to chisel” in Phoenician and Punic (Tomback 1976, 113). Words derived from the same root in Arabic are rendered “to bore or drill a hole” (H. Wehr, Arabic-English Dictionary, 231). These meanings suggest that a feature which had been dug, like a trench or canal, might be what is in mind. Cazelles (1955, 351) had entertained the possibility that a canal was the feature in question, but did not offer much support for the idea.

The element ha would be the definite article in Hebrew, while pi would be construct form of Hebrew peh, “mouth” (BDB 804-805). There is some support for this latter identification. The Septuagint (LXX) of Num. 33:7 renders Pi-hahiroth as “the mouth of lroth.” Furthermore, the Palestinian Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel (Ethridge 1968, 485) renders the toponym in question “the mouths of Hirathata,” but wrongly equated it with Tanis. It is simply called Ha-hiroth in Num. 33:8.

In English we use the term mouth to describe the opening of a river or stream, especially where it pours into a larger body of water. The Hebrew pi is used in the same manner (BDB 805), cf. Isa. 19:7 where it is used for the mouth of the Nile.

Is there any evidence for a canal in the region of the Bitter Lakes before the canal excavated by Neco and Darius in the Third Intermediate Period (cf. Herodotus II, 158). W. Ward (1971, 30-35) has argued, based on a statement in the “Wisdom for Merikare” (ca. 2200 B.C.), that a canal was begun by Merikare’s predecessor. The king was instructed to “dig a canal...flood its half as far as Lake Timsah (km wr)” to serve as a defense against Asiatics. John Wilson (ANET 417) has similarly understood 1.99 of “Merikare”, rendering it “Dig a dyke flood it as far as the Bitter

Lakes.” Other translators of this text have come to a different conclusion. Lichtheim (1975, 104) renders this critical line as “Medenyt has been restored to its nome, Its one side is irrigated as far as Kem-Wer (i.e. Bitter Lakes).”5 Helck (1977, 63) has interpreted this passage in like manner. The problem lies in whether the text should be read sd mdnit, or sd m(y) dnit. The former understands mdnit to be the Aphroditopolis or Atif, in the 22nd nome (Helck 1977, 63; Baines & Malek 1980, 14-15) just south of Memphis. Of the three manuscript witnesses of “Merikare” in Helck’s critical edition, only Papyrus Petersburg has all of this line completely preserved. The writing of the city determinative [?] after m dnit, suggests that the scribe who made this copy thought the city of Atif was meant. The exact reading of the text might be clarified if this line was extant in the other two manuscript witnesses.

Ward (1971, 30 n. 125) considers the m following sd to be the particle m(y) which is occasionally written after imperatives (cf. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar § 250). Dnit would mean canal, dyke or ditch (Wb V, 465). Since “Merikare” continues by indicating that this structure was meant for defensive purposes (cf. ll. 100-101) and included walls (inbw), Helck’s and Lichtheim’s interpretation does not fit the context as well.

An ancient canal was discovered in the eastern part of the Delta by the Geological Survey of Israel in the early 1970s (Sneh, et. al.). With the aid of aerial photography and ground surveying, the canal was determined to be man made because of the embankment dump and it measures a constant width of 70 meters at the top and 20 meters at the bottom and probably was 2-3 meters deep (Sneh, et. al. 1975, 543). The canal runs in a line south from Tell el-Farama, passing Tell Abu Sefeh (Sile) to the marshy El-Ballah region where it disappears. Sneh’s team concluded that this could well have served as a shipping canal connecting the Mediterranean, through the Wadi Tumilat, to the southern part of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile and may have run north from the Gulf of Suez where it would have joined the norther branch at the Wadi Tumilat. However, due to its size (the Suez canal cut by de Lessep is only 54 meters wide at the top), the Israeli team believes that its primary purpose was defensive, although irrigation would have been a secondary benefit. Sneh and his associates, for geological and historical reasons believe that this was not the Neco-Darius canal, although these later kings may have reused portions of the earlier one (1975, 544-546).

Long before the discovery of this canal, Gardiner (1920, 104 & plate XI) had interpreted a scene of Seti I’s as evidence for a canal connected with the border fortress of Sile. The victorious monarch is shown returning with prisoners from Palestine about to cross a narrow, crocodile infested body of water where he is greeted by loyal troops stationed there. The body of water is called t3 dnit, and dnit is what

Merikare is told to dig.

Sneh’s team believe that the canal they discovered is body of water on Seti’s relief from Karnak. They further argue that this body of water might be what is referred to in the Sinuhe story as the “Ways of Horus” which is mentioned in connection with the Sinuhe’s boat trip back to Egypt (cf. Sinuhe 11. 245-247; Blackman 1932, 35-36).

W. Shea (1977, 35-37) has reviewed the textual evidence and concurs with the Israeli geologists that the canal they discovered is the one depicted in Seti’s relief. Further, Shea (1977, 37-38) thinks that it was a part of the “Walls of the Ruler” which the “Prophecy of Neferty” announced would be built by Ameny (i.e. Amenemhet I, c.a. 1991-1961 B.C.) and encountered by Sinuhe on his flight from Egypt (Blackman 1932, 11). The Sinuhe Story calls the structure “the Walls of the Ruler which were made to repulse Asiatics and to trample the bedouin.” Sinuhe further reports that this structure, complete with sentries, was in the Bitter Lakes region which seems to rule out the Sile region. The walls could have been constructed from the embankment with guard houses placed on it at regular intervals.

Shea (1977, 35-37) argues that the canal Ward thought Merikare was instructed to dig to protect the Delta from further Asiatic incursion, was begun by Khety III, but doubts that Merikare continued the project. The reference to the “Walls of the Ruler” in the Sinuhe story from ca. 1960 B.C. suggests to Shea that the canal was extended and perhaps completed by Amenemhet I and was still functioning at the beginning of the 19th Dynasty.

T3 dnit, “the canal” might be equated with Hebrew Ha-hirot. The mouth of the canal, apparently would have been where the canal led into one of the lakes in the region. Lake Timsah was the terminus of the canal Merikare was instructed to make (1.99; Helck 1977, 61). Although Sneh’s team (1975, 546) believe that the section of canal between Timsah and El-Ballah, usually thought to be the Neco-Darius canal, could be traced back to an earlier date because its dimensions match the newly discovered northern canal. Apparently the Neco-Darius canal did not extend north of the Wadi Tumilat.

If indeed Pi-Hahiroth was this canal, dug to keep Asiatics out, it would have been an imposing barrier for the Israelites when leaving Egypt. This may explain why Pharaoh in Ex. 14:3 says of the escaping Hebrews “They are entangled in the land.”

The identification of Baal-Zephon remains problematic. Since the expression literally means “lord of the north” and is a deity in the Ugaritic pantheon and associated with Mount Casius just north of Ugarit (Albright 1968, 125; IDB I, 332-333), the origin of the expression is clearly Canaanite. Mention has been made above to Eissfeldt’s (1932) theory that Baal-Zephon be identified with Mount Casius, modern Ras Kasrun,

or Herodotus II, 6, 156 & III, 5. But Baal-Zephon need not exclusively be associated with mountains, since cult centers for this deity were located in Memphis and Tell Defneh (ISBE I, 381). Baal-Zephon is included in a list of gods in the “house of Ptah” in Memphis in the late Ramesside era (P. Sallier IV, verso 1,6; Gardiner 1937, 89:6-7). There is nothing in the biblical records to suggest that a mountain was associated with Baal-Zephon. But since Baal-Zephon is near “the sea” (Ex. 14:2 & 9; Num. 33:7-8) and this deity is associated with the sea and mariners (Albright 1968, 125), a shrine devoted to this god may be behind the toponym and not a mountain. The targums understand Baal-Zephon to be an idol (Etheridge 1968, 465). Therefore, a shrine of Baal-Zephon could have been located in the southern part of the isthmus of Suez, near the lakes and sea, just as one could have been in the Lake Sirbonis - Mediterranean region in the north.

The foregoing toponyms make up the route taken by the Israelites as they fled from Raamses to the sea of passage. Now let us look at the thorny problem of the identification of the sea.

In many of the passages the body of water through which the Israelites passed is simply called “the sea” (e.g. Ex. 14:2, 9, 16, 21, 23 etc.; 15:1 & 4; Num. 33:8). Elsewhere it is called yam suf in Hebrew (Ex. 13:18; 15:4 & 22). Varn suf, in recent decades, has been widely accepted as meaning “reed sea” and referring to one of the lakes between the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Suez, i.e. Red Sea (Bright 1961, 121; Herrmann 1973, 56-64; de Vaux 1978, 377).

Hebrew suf means reeds, rushes or some type of water plant (BDB 693; cf. Ex. 2:3 & 5; Isa. 19:6). In some cases the Septuagint (LXX) translates yam suf as “red sea” (Liddell-Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, 693). In classical sources this name applied to the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean (Liddell-Scott 693). Therefore, the association with the Red Sea, the northern segment of which is presently called the Gulf of Suez, is also thought to be a possible location for the crossing. Source critics contend that the problem lies in the conflation of multiple traditions present in the Pentateuch. Batto (1963, 35) maintains that P (the preiestly source, JEDP) in the 5th century B.C. was attempting to historicize and localize the rather ambiguous toponym “the sea” from earlier sources. For Batto, the body of water unquestionably is the Red Sea. He further observes that the Numbers itinerary makes it impossible for “the sea” and yam suf to be one and the same body of water. Num. 33:8 indicates that the Israelites passed through the sea near Migdol, Pihahiroth and Baal-Zephon, and then two stops later, after several days of travel, they reached yam suf (Num. 33:10). The problem posed by the Numbers itinerary has long been recognized. Jerome wrestled with this over 1500 years ago. We shall return to his solution to the problem later. Batto’s treatment of the source critical questions is fraught with

problems. If indeed yam suf is the Red Sea and P’s attempt to localize the event, how is it that Ex. 13:18, assigned usually to E (Noth 1974, 106107; Childs 1974, 220) mentions yam suf while 14:2ff thought to be P’s account (Noth 109-111; Childs 1974, 220) does not site this name. If P was responsible for localizing the event and giving us the name yam suf, then surely we would expect to find this name in Ex. 14.

In the “Song of the Sea” (Ex. 15:4) yam and yam suf occur in parallelism, and the “Song” is overwhelmingly thought to be one of the earliest pieces of Hebrew poetry, dating to the 13th Century.6 Batto (1983, 30 n. 13) accepts the early date of the “Song” but believes that at the latest stage of the tradition, P’s influence came to bear on the hymn. Why would Priestly redactors insert yam suf in Ex. 15, but not in Ex. 14 which is supposed to be P’s version of the exodus?

In Joshua 24:6 yam and yam suf are employed in parallelism and the judge Jepthah mentions yam suf (Ju. 11:16) and these occur in the so called “Deuteronomic History” which pre-dates P (Gray 1967, 7-8; Butler 1983, xxvii-xxix). Boling (1982, 533) considers Josh. 24:1-25 to be “pre-Deuteronomic.” Clearly source critical analysis has not aided our understanding of the events or route of the exodus. Some years ago, L.S. Hay (1964, 399), writing in JBL concerning the literary criticism of the exodus story said,

The literary critics, despite the air of assurance with which they individually proceed, have been unable to convince one another of the precise, or even approximate limits of the major constituent strata of the narrative.

Batto (1983, 27), while recognizing that the Hebrew word suf in Ex. 2:3 and Isa. 19:6 means reeds or rushes, declares that “The principal stay to this theory is the contention that yam sup should be translated as “Sea of Papyrus.” or “Sea of Reeds” because etymologically sup is a loanword from Egyptian twf(y) papyrus (reeds).”7 This statement is misleading at best and reflects ignorance of the exegetical history of the expression yam suf.

It was in this century that the association between the Egyptian and Hebrew words were made (cf. Gardiner 1947, 11 202*). The translation “Sea of Reeds” is not the result of Egyptological influence. Some of the Targums, which did not rely on the LXX, render yam suf as “sea of suph” in Ex. 15:4 and Num. 33:10 (cf. Targum of Onkelos & Targum of Jonathan, Etheridge 1968, 379, 331, 461).8 When Rashi wrote his commentary on Exodus at the end of the 11th Century A.D., he consulted the Targums and concluded that yam suf signified “a marshy tract in which reeds grow” (Rashi Exodus. 67). Writing over a century ago, Keil and Delitzsch (1869-70, 497) explained the reason for the name suf was “on account of the quantity of seaweed which floats upon the water and lies upon the shore.”

Another translation of yam suf which was completely ignored by Batto (1983) is the Coptic (Bohairic) translation of the Old Testament. While the Sahidic version follows the LXX and reads Red Sea, the Bohairic reads pyom n sa(i)ri. It has been suggested (Tower 1959, 152-153; Copisarow 1962, 4-5) that this means “sea of reeds or rushes,” deriving from Old Egyptian s i3r(w). Indeed Egyptian s means lake (Wb IV, 397) and i3rw means “reeds” or “rushes” (Wb I, 32). S i3r(w), “lake of reeds”, is well known from the Pyramid Texts (§§ 519 & 1421), along with sht i3r(w) “field of reeds” (PT §§ 275, 525-530, 981-989, 1132-1137, 1408-1415) as the place where the deceased king was purified in the celestial sea (cf. Hoffmeier 1981).

Other etymologies have been suggested for Coptic pyom n sa(i)ri because the expression “lake of reeds” apparently is not attested later than the Pyramid Texts. Cerny in his Coptic Etymological Dictionary (251) suggests that sa(i)ri derives from Egyptian h3rw, “Syrian.” But this meaning makes little sense at all in the Exodus passages for Syrian Sea, as in the Tale of Wen Amun (Gardiner 1937, 66.5), refers to the Mediterranean. Hcr is the root proffered by Westendorf in Koptisches Handworterbuch (324), which would mean “the sea of the storm.”9 This possibility is intriguing in light of the account in 14:21 which reports that a strong east wind caused the parting of the waters.

The Coptic (B) may support the “reed sea” hypothesis, it certainly does not support the name “Red” which is found in the LXX.

These sources, spanning from the beginning of the Christian era to Medieval times and down to the last century, all associate suf with some sort of swamp plant and none of these translators and commentators knew the meaning of Egyptian twf(y), except possibly the Coptic (B) translators. If anything, the association with the Egyptian word supports a Hebrew exegetical tradition.

The problem appears not to lie with the Hebrew suf but the LXX’s understanding of this term. Clearly the LXX has not translated the Hebrew word (Davies 1979, 70), if indeed it means reeds or rushes.

G.R.H. Wright (1979, 57) observes,

In short the Septuagint translators could have used eruthra because they knew (or thought they knew) that the Jews passed across these waters (whatever yam suf might stand for) or because they knew (or thought they knew) that yam suf in Hebrew designated the Red Sea (whatever waters the Jews passed through).

Put simply, the LXX translators may have thought that the body of water in question was the northern limits of the Red Sea. The LXX translators engaged in considerable speculation about Hebrew words that were obscure to them. Tradition has it that it was during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus the LXX was translated. Ptolemy II is well

remembered for his interest in geography and undoubtedly some of the geographical understanding of the age made its way into the LXX. It is true that yam suf refers not only to the miraculous sea of the exodus from Egypt, but also to the Gulf of Aqaba. The LXX of I Ki. 9:26 renders yam suf as “the extremity of the sea in the land of Edom.” In 1938, J.A. Montgomery (1938, 131-132) thought the LXX of I Ki. 9:26 might be the clue to understanding the meaning of sof. He suggested that the Greek (“the end”) was a translation of Hebrew sof which meant “end”. The Latin for the Indian Ocean is Ultimum Mare. Since the Red Sea is an extension of the Indian Ocean, the connection is obvious. A full reading of the LXX of I Ki. 9:12 reveals that Solomon’s fleet was located at Eloth “on the shore of the extremity of the sea in the land of Edom.”10 The Greek word for “red” is not used. Why in this case does the LXX scribes depart from the usual translation of suf?

Montgomery (1928, 131-132) and Snaith (1965, 395-398) suggested that they were translating the meaning of sof. But why they did it in this case while ignoring other references to the Gulf of Aqaba, is not explained. Interestingly enough, had they translated Hebrew Edom into Greek, it would have been purrhos, for red is what Edom means (cf. Gen. 25: 30; BDB 10). There still is no convincing explanation for the origins of the name “Red Sea” although a number of proposals have been made (Wright 1979, 55-57). But since through much of Israel’s history the area around the Gulf of Aqaba was controlled by the Edomites, it might locally have been called “the Edomite Sea.” Given the long rivalry between Israel and Edom, the Hebrews may have had a difficult time calling the Gulf of Aqaba by the name of their hated relatives. To remedy the problem, perhaps the Hebrews attached the name of the body of water on the other side of the Sinai peninsula to the Gulf of Aqaba.

Following Montgomery’s theory a step further, Snaith (1965, 395-398) suggested that the Greek term was a vague word for distant, remote locations. Snaith (1965, 397-398) then posited the presence of Canaanite mythic language in the “Song of the Sea.” These points greatly contributed to Batto’s conclusion.

It should be noted, that while the Greeks may have understood that the Red Sea connected to the Indian Ocean, the ultimate sea, there is nothing to suggested from the word used, which clearly means “red”, that it had anything to do with “the end” (Liddell Scott, Greek-English Lexicon 693). Therefore, it seems to be imprudent to rely on the LXX to provide the meaning of the name of the sea of passage or its location. Yam suf is used in Hebrew for the sea through which the Israelites passed (Ex. 13:18; 15:4; Josh. 24:6), the Gulf of Suez (Num. 33:10 & 11) and the Gulf of Aqaba (Ex. 23:31; Deut. 1:40, 2:1; I Ki. 9:26).

The LXX is not consistent in translating all occurrences of yam suf by

Erythra Thalassa. This has already been observed for 1 Ki. 9:26. Another interesting case is Ju. 11:16. Jephtah’s retrospective on the exodus, wilderness period to the conquest of the Trans-Jordan is very brief and one cannot be positive if he is referring to the sea of passage or the Gulf of Aqaba. Apparently due to this ambiguity, the LXX simply transliterated the name of the sea as Thalassa Sif (Towers 1959,150).

The LXX handling of I Ki. 9:26 and Ju. 11:16 ought to caution us in our use of the LXX to settle the geographical location of the sea of passage. Having said this, we still have not resolved the problem raised by Num. 33:8-10 which refers to the sea of passage as “the sea” and a location several days south as yam suf.

As mentioned above, Jerome (ca. late 4th Century A.D.) recognized the geographical problem this posed. Jerome speculated that suf, while meaning red might also mean reed (Cf. Davies 1979, 70). Thus yam suf was a lake where reeds grew as well as the Red Sea. It is well known that Jerome worked closely with Jewish Rabbis at his time and studied earlier Jewish writings, for he believed that in order to truly interpret the Hebrew Scriptures, one should work with the Hebrew text (Hailperin 1963, 5-7). In short, Jerome thought that yam suf could apply both to the Red Sea and the Reed Sea through which the Israelites passed.

In recent years there has been some speculation that the Gulf of Aqaba had been connected to the chain of lakes north of Suez. Simons (1959, 248) cautiously makes this suggestion, recognizing that concrete evidence was lacking. N. Glueck (1970, 107) has reported that the Gulf of Aqaba may have retreated from its ancient shoreline by 500 meters since Solomon’s time (970-931 B.C.). Thus the water level in the 2nd Millennium was somewhat higher than at the present time, thus making the connection between the Gulf and the Bitter Lakes closer than today.

A remark by Herodotus concerning the Gulf of Suez indicates that the ebb and flow of the tide was considerable (Herodotus II, 9.11). In recent history it has been reported that when the tide comes in, the land between the Gulf and the southern most of the Bitter Lakes becomes saturated and water oozes to the surface (Cassuto 1967, 167). Napoleon, when campaigning in this area, experienced the sudden appearance of this water which had not been there when he had passed by earlier. Others have been forced to use boats to traverse this area during high tide (Cassuto 1967, 167).

Whether or not this phenomenon is behind the deliverance of the Hebrews from the Egyptian army is impossible to say. But it illustrates how there may have been at least a periodic connection between the Gulf of Suez and the Bitter Lakes and why the biblical writers could have used yam suf for both bodies of water.

A logical question presents itself if this scenario is correct.

Could a salt water lake support reeds or rushes? The answer is yes. Salt tolerating reeds and rushes, called halophytes thrive in salt marsh areas. Along the coast of Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia there are swamps connected to the Atlantic Ocean that abound with halophytes and the concentration of salt in these swamps is actually higher than the sea water.11 Conceivably then, the Gulf of Suez could have had reeds growing on its banks!

In view of these observations, we believe that the body of water through which the Israelites passed and the Red Sea could both be called yam suf. It would appear that the importance of the event for the Israelites gave rise to the name of the sea. If the term suf is related to Egyptian twf(y), it probably was not a proper name but a descriptive term for the body of water. The toponym would have resulted from the descriptive name. The crossing of the sea signaled the end of the sojourn in Egypt and it certainly was the end of the Egyptian army that pursued the fleeing Hebrews (Ex. 14:23-29, 15:4-5). After this event at yam suf, perhaps the verb suf originated (cf. Amos 3:15; Jer. 8:13; Isa. 66:17; Psa. 73:19), meaning “come to an end” (BDB 692). Another possible development on this root is the word sufah, for “storm wind” (that makes an end?) (cf. BDB 693; Amos 1:14; Hos. 8:7; Jer. 4:13; Isa. 5:28 & 17:13).

Recall that Ex. 14:21 speaks of a strong east wind that drove back the waters that made the escape possible. The meanings “end” and “storm wind” would have constituted nice puns on the event that took place at the yam suf.

After crossing yam suf, and ending the sojourn in Egypt, the Numbers itinerary traces the trek of the Hebrews through Sinai, concluding in Moab. At a place called suf Moses is said to have renewed the covenant with Israel (Deut. 1:1). The name of this site might serve to signal the “end” of the wandering period, thus producing a symmetrical pattern in the narrative for the beginning of the exodus (passing through yam suf) to the conclusion of the wandering period (arriving at suf in Moab).

One final literary observation should be made. The 8th plague in the cycle is swarms of locusts that devoured vegetation in Egypt (Ex. 10:3-20). The plague ended with the Lord sending a strong west wind to drive the locusts into yam suf (Ex. 10:19).12 Elsewhere in the Old Testament, locusts are symbolic of ravaging armies (cf. Joel 1:4 & 2:25). The conclusion of the 8th plague foreshadows the termination of the Egyptian army in yam suf.

In the foregoing pages we have sought to show that the exodus traditions present a coherent picture of the route taken by the Israelites to freedom in Sinai. The problems of comprehension lies with our inadequate knowledge of the geography and the toponyms rather than confusion resulting from various literary traditions. The sea that the

Israelites crossed most likely was one of the lakes between Lake Timsah in the north and the smaller Bitter Lake in the South and it could be called either “the sea” or yam suf.

In the final analysis, our inability to pinpoint the precise route of the exodus and the location of the sea does not diminish the historicity of the event or as importance for Israel’s salvation history. The scope of this paper does not permit us to delve into the phenomenon of the miracle at the sea. But we would concur with Bright (1981, 122) when he observed, “If Israel saw in this the hand of God, the historian certainly has no evidence to contradict it!”

1 The Annals specifically mention that they were recorded from a leather scroll. Redford (1982, 58) and (1986,65-126) deals with Egyptian annals and “day-books.” Additional work on Egyptian military documents and record keeping, see A.J, Spalinger, Aspects of the Military Documents of the Ancient Egyptians (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1982). and “Critical Analysis of the “Annals” of Thutmose 111 (Stucke V-VI),” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt XIV (1977) 41-54.

2 Prof. Hans Goedicke was the director of the work in 1978. My colleague, Prof. Alfred Hoerth who was a part of this expedition has communicated this information with me.

3 Mountains in north central Sinai have been identified with Mt. Sinai. Lately, E. Anati has suggested that Jebel Harkom is to be identified with Mt. Sinai. However, the range of dates for which there is archaeological material there is either far too early or late to be seriously considered. For the thorough critique of Anati’s book, The Mountain of God. see I. Finkelstein, BAR (forthcoming). A southern location for Mt. Sinai is supported by Deut. 1:2 that states that “It is eleven days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.” A northern Mt. Sinai would hardly require 11 days to reach Kadesh, and likely would not have gone by way of Edomite territory, i.e. Mt. Seir (cf. Num. 33:35-37).

4 In Middle Egyptian, and perhaps as early as the Old Kingdom, final rs in Egyptian becomes quiescent. See. A.H. Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar, 432.

5 Km wr, the Bitter Lakes includes the area from Lake Timsah in the north to the Little Bitter lake in the south, cf. H. Gauthier, Dictionnaire des noms geographiques contenus dan les textes hieoglyphiques V, 202.

6 cf. J Muilenberg, “A Liturgy on the Triumphs of Yahweh,” Studia Biblical et Semitica (Wageningen 1966) 233-252; F.M. Cross & D.N. Freedman, “The Song of Miriam,” JNES 14 (1955) 237-250; F.M. Cross, ‘The Song of the Sea and Canaanite Myth,” JTC 5 (1968) 1-25; D.N. Freedman, “Strophe and Meter in Exodus 15,” in A Light Unto My Path (ed. H.N. Bream, et. al.) (Philadelphia 1975) 163-204; D.N. Freedman, “Early Israelite Poetry

and Historical Reconstruction,” Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900-1975). (ed. F.M. Cross) (Cambridge, Mass. 1979) 85-96.

7 On the etymology see authoritative article by W. Ward 1974, 339-49.

8 Jonathan and Onkelos come from the end of the 1st and into the 2nd century A.D., but apparently relied on earlier Targumic works.

9 I would like to thank Professor K.A. Kitchen for bringing these other etymologies to my attention.

10 One wonders if the LXX translators were not influenced by Herodotus’ description of the Gulf of Suez. (Herodotus 11, 9.11).

11 I owe this information on halophytes to my colleague Dr. Dorothy Chappell, Associate Professor of Botany, and chair of the Biology Department at Wheaton College.

12 Ex. 10:1-20 is thought to be blend of J and P according to Noth (1962, 82) but J. L. Mihelic and G.E. Wright (IDB 111, 823) argue that it is a compilation of J and E. While Noth thought the pericope containing yam suf is P, Mihelic and Wright assigned it to J()S.

ABBREVIATIONS

ANET Ancient Neer Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament

BDB Brown, Driver & Briggs, Hebrew, Aramaic, English Lexicon

IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

ISBE International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (revised) Wb Worterbuch der Agyptischen Sprache (Erman & Grapow)

REFERENCES

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1968. Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan. Reprint Eisenbraun: Winona Lake.

Baines, J & J. Malek. 1980. Atlas of Ancient Egypt. New York: Facts on File Publication.

Batto, B. 1983. “The Reed Sea: Requiscat In Pace.” JBL 102:27-35.

Bietak, M. 1975. Tell el-Dabca 2. [Untersuchungen der Zweigstelle Kairo des Osterreighischen Archalolgischen Institute, 1, Vienna].

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Bright, J. 1981, A History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster. Budd, P.J. 1984. Numbers [Word Bible Commentary] Waco: Word.

Butler, T.C. 1983. Joshua [World Bible Commentary]. Waco: Word.

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Cassuto. U. 1967. A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Trans. I. Abrahams) Jerusalem: Mages.

Cazelles, H. 1955. “Les Localisations de l’exode et la Critique Litteraire,” Revue Biblique 62: 321-364.

Childs, B. 1974. The Book of Exodus (The Old Testament Library) Philadelphia: Westminster.

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Craigie, P.C. 1983. Ugarit and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

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1979. The Way of the Wilderness. Cambridge: The University Press.

Eissfeldt, O. 1932. Baal-zaphon, Zeus Casios und der Durchzug der lsraeliten durchs Meer. Halle.

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1977. Die Lehre Fur Konig Merikare. [Kleine Agyptische Texte]. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz. Herrmann, S. 1973. Israel in Egypt. [Studies in Biblical Theology, 2nd series, #27]. Naperville: A.R. Allenson. Hoffmeier, J.K. 1981. “The Possible Origins of the Tent of Purification in the Egyptian Funerary Cult,” Studien zur Altagyptischen Kultur 9:168-177. Herodotus. (trans.) A. D. Godley; Loeb Classical Library.

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Noth, M. 1962. Exodus [Old Testament Library] Philadelphia: Westminster. 1968. Numbers [Old Testament Library] Philadelphia: Westminster.

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Snaith, N. 1965. “Yam suf: The Sea of Reeds: The Red Sea,” VT 15:395-399. Sturdy, J. 1976. Numbers [Cambridge Bible Commentary] Cambridge: The University Press.

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Towers, J.B. 1959. “The Red Sea,” JNES 18: 150-153.

Vaux, R. de. 1978. The Early History of Israel (trans. D. Smith). Philadelphia: Westminster.

Walsh, J.T. 1977. “From Egypt to Moab: A Source Critical Analysis of the Wilderness Itinerary,” CBQ 39:20-33.

Ward, W. 1971. Egypt and the East Mediterranean World 2200-1900 B.C.: Studies in Egyptian Foreign Relations in the First Intermediate Period. Beirut: American University Press.

1974. “The Semitic Biconsonantal Root SP and the Common Origin of Egyptian CWF and Hebrew SUP ‘March(-Plant),” VT 24: 339-349.

Wenham, G. 1981. Numbers [Tyndale Old Testament Commentary]. Downers Grove: IVP.

Wifall, W. 1980. “The Sea of Reeds as Sheol,” ZAW 92:325-332.

Wright, G.R.H. 1979. “The Passage of the Sea,” Gottinger Miszellen 33:5563.

K. A. Kitchen

Professor of Egyptian and Coptic at University of Liverpool. Ph.D., University of Liverpool. Author of Third Intermediate Period in Egypt and Pharaoh Triumphant. Served as visiting fellow, Rundle Foundation for Egyptian Archaeology (Sidney), Australia, 1984.

RAAMSES, SUCCOTH and PITHOM

K. A. Kitchen

University of Liverpool

Introductory

These names are part of the familiar furniture of the Exodus narrative; this modest paper is concerned only to operate a brief and factually-based stocktaking of what we know, or probably know - here, mere ‘clever’ theory is at a low discount, only facts can command a premium.

1. The Old Testament Data

A. Pithom occurs just once in the entire Old Testament: Ex. 1:11, along with Raamses as being are-miskenot, ‘cities of storeplaces’.

B. Succoth in Egypt occurs in just one context, in Ex. 12:37, 13:20 and Nu. 33:5,6: as first stopover for the Hebrews departing from Raamses generally eastward.

C. Raamses occurs in essentially three contexts:

(i) In the phrase ‘Land of Ramses’ (eres-Ramses), Gen. 47:11, which - in context - is in the same area as the land of Goshen (Gen. 47:6), in the east Delta region. The term Ramses is not here further defined, whether as name of an area, or as the name of a settlement applied to the area. It should be noted, once and for all, that its occurrence in Gen. 47:11 is not placed in the mouth of any of the characters in that narrative, but is a term used by the narrator, the (later) writer of this section of Genesis. It is, thus, merely an identifying tag, and not an anachronism as is too often carelessly alleged.

(ii) In Ex. 1:11 with Pithom as one of the are-miskenot, ‘cities of storeplaces’, on which the Hebrews did slave-labour as brickmakers, on the eve of the Exodus.

(iii) In Ex. 12:37, as geographical starting-point of the Exodus from Egypt, via Succoth, to the edge of the wilderness en route for Sinai; the same role recurs in the itinerary of Numbers (33:3, 5).

The only function mentioned for Pithom and Raamses in the biblical text (other than as simply a geographical point-of-reference for Raamses) is that of are-miskenot. In this day and age, it hardly needs

discussion: a town or settlement of any size (large or small), often fortified (in Palestine) but not necessarily.

The term miskenot (from skn, be of use, service) is not commonly attested, but its implications are sufficiently clear. In I Kings 9:19 (with parallel, 2 Chron. 8:6, cf. 4) under Solomon, cities of miskenot occur alongside military establishments - “cities of chariotry and cities of horse (men)”. In 2 Chron. 17:12, Jehoshaphat built forts or citadels (biraniyot) as well as cities of miskenot. Finally1, in 2 Chron. 32:28, we find explicitly that Hezekiah provided miskenot “for the increase in grain, new wine and oil” for the service of the Jerusalem temple. Here, such miskenot are transparently buildings for the storage of food-products, in terms of revenues and supplies for institutions of religion and the state. This clear context in turn agrees with the implications of the references under Solomon and Jehoshaphat: these kings established supply-depots alongside their military strongpoints for chariotry, etc., and strategic citadels.

So, in turn, Pithom and Raamses may readily be understoodas has long since been widely accepted - as ‘store-cities’: settlements which served as entrepots for state supplies for military and/or religious purposes, whatever other function(s) they may have had. In Egypt, such stores and magazines were important subsidiaries attached to temples, palaces, etc., and usually of brick construction2 - hence, it is no surprise that the brickmaking by the Israelites was directed to work on centers of this kind.

2. Identifications of Names and Locations

A. Raamses

(i) The Hebrew R-’-m-s-s is universally admitted to be the transcription of an Egyptian word. In the New Kingdom and onwards3 resh, ayin and mem regularly transcribe Egyptian r, ^ and m4. Furthermore and beyond rational doubt, samekh is the regular Hebrew transcription for Egyptian s (s’ and s), as in Pinehas for P3-nhsi, Pi-beset for P(r)-B(3)st, Patros for P(3) t(3) rsi, Tahpanhes for T(3)-h(wt)-p(3)-nhsi, Tahpenes for T(3)-h(mt)-ns(w), qeset ‘scribal kit’ from gst5, ssh ‘to plunder’ from s(3)s6. Thus, Hebrew R’mss stands for Egyptian R’mss, and not for any other known grouping. As is almost universally conceded, this R’mss is a direct and accurate transcription of the Egyptian royal name R’-ms-s(w), Ramesses, name of eleven kings of Egypt in normal computation7. As Ramesses I reigned only into his second year, perhaps for only 16 months all told8, Ramesses II is the earliest Ramesses who was available in practice to give his name enduringly to a town or district, and more so than any of his successors (even Rameses III).

(ii) In Egypt, we have knowledge of a series of places all called ‘Ramesses’, nearly all after Ramesses II. By far the best collection and

evaluation of most of these is still that given by Gardiner some 70 years ago9, and very little need be added to his basic corpus. One may now note in Upper Nubia the far-distant settlement and temple of Ramesses II at Amarah West, the latter being termed “Pi-Ramesses the Settlement” (Pr-R’mssw Mry-Imn, p3 dmi)10. There are also a few additional mentions of the Delta residence11, Pi-Ramesses, on which see below.

(iii) The ultimate result is that, of all the known temples and settlements bearing the name of Ramesses II, only two settlements can so far be located in (or close to) the East Delta. One is the well-known East-Delta residence of Ramesses II, the other is a smaller place, “the Dwelling of Ramesses II”. Of the two locations, the latter is a relatively insignificant way-station (fort and pool), first stop after Sile (Qantara), near the West end of the North-Sinai coast road to Canaan, and was never of any great importance.12 Its “Ramesses” name is secondary13, as under Sethos I it was called “the Dwelling of the Lion”.14 As regards the EastDelta residence of Ramesses II, the abundant documentation (written and archaeological) has been amply set forth and correlated by Bietak in his major report on Tell Dab’a,15 showing the close geographical, archaeological and textual correspondence between the grouped sites of Khata’ana-Qantir-Tell-el-Dab’a and the city of Avaris as nucleus, with Pi-Ramesse growing up on the North of Avaris over a considerable area. The Delta capital was marked not only by palaces and temples but also had offices of administration, the presence of many high officials, and military establishments, needing stores, depots, etc.16 So we have here in Pi-Ramesse a very suitable candidate in name and function for Raamses.17

B. Pithom and Succoth

(i) Pithom, Hebrew Pitom (Ptm), again, is widely admitted to be a direct transcription of Egyptian P(r)-(l)tm, ‘P(er)-(A)tum’. Here, the weak initial ‘aleph of Atum - very rarely written in Egyptian spellings of the name - is absorbed into the long vowel of Pi, the pronunciation of P(r) resulting from the elision of final r in this word from at least the New Kingdom onwards. For the equation Pi = Pr, we have excellent evidence from both Hebrew and Egyptian. On the Hebrew side, none can rationally deny that Pi-Beset = P(r)-B3st(t), Bubastis, to which may be added such later Assyrian spellings as Pi-Sapt, etc.18 On the Egyptian side, phonetic spellings have long been known, showing clearly that epigraphic pr was pronounced pi(py); and conversely pr (phonetic pi) was sometimes wrongly written down to express the definite article pa, pi 19 In (A)tum, the equivalences of t and m present no problems; thus the overall identification of the names, Pithom, P(r)-(I)tm, can be accepted as clear. (ii) There our certainties end and the practical problems begin. The location Pr’Itm is perfectly well-known in Egyptian texts of the New Kingdom and later periods - but location is quite another matter. What

is worse, is that this problem cannot be separated from the question of the identity of Succoth. In Ex. 1:11 the Hebrews are said to have worked on the store-cities of Raamses and Pithom, but (as noted) Pithom never recurs in Hebrew tradition, and the Exodus went from Raamses to Succoth, not Pithom, before going eastwards towards Sinai, ultimately for Canaan.

(iii) Hebrew Succoth (Sukkot) corresponds very closely in name to the place-name Tkw (sometimes written Tkt) in Egyptian texts. As has often previously been remarked, the Hebrew form is simply a slight adaptation of the Egyptian term (giving ‘booths’).20 The Egyptian term Tkw is associated with at least two sites in the Wadi Tumilat: Tell el-Maskhuta, and Tell er-Retaba further West.

Chronologically, we may first cite a fresh reference, not utilized for the present question previously: ODM 1076, the fragment of a letter.21 Given its relative novelty, it is apposite to quote it in fuII:22

(1) [...Writer PN to addressee PN]: ‘In life, prosperity & health, in the favour of all the gods of Tjeku!23 [….] (2) […] to/for you, here, forever, you being in favour daily.

Another matter. […] (3) [PN came] at the time of evening, saying: “Thus one speaks in the Great House24 , life, prosperity, health, […] (4) […] the great [meadow (?)]25 of Pi-Ramesse Great-of-Victories, […]; (5) and one sent to the horse-drovers (‘keepers’) who are in the [..x..], (6) there, at the three Waters of Pharaoh (or: Great House), life, prosperity, health, who drives the droves (‘herds’) [of horses (?)…] (7) [a]mong them, who shall fetch the grooms26 [….] (8) … the droves of horses […] (9) saying ‘The charioteers' […] (10) […].”

Several points emerge from this fragment, dating in the original (if not also in this copy) to Ramesses II.27 The writer evidently wrote from Tjeku (whose gods he invokes), perhaps to Pi-Ramesse, acknowledging a message from that residence. First, Tjeku here could be an area, contextually, but the city-determinative would suggest a particular spotlocation, whatever its precise nature. Second, Tjeku and Pi-Ramesse are within quite ready reach of one another; cf. below on Papyrus Anastasi VI. Third, the Tjeku area is evidently suited to the keeping of droves of horses for chariotry, doubtless for the benefit of squadrons stationed at Pi-Ramesse, these animals apparently being kept on meadows (sht) belonging to Pi-Ramesse. Fourth, we have a mention of “three Waters of Pharaoh” - this is reminiscent of the pools (brkt) of Pithom-of-Merenptah that are/is in Tjeku in Pap. Anastasi VI, 56-57, cf. below.

Our second main document is Papyrus Anastasi VI, 54-61, of Year 8 of Merenptah.28 Here an officer records that Shasu tribesfolk from ‘Idm (probably Edom) who needed sustenance for themselves and their flocks were allowed past “the fort (htm) of Merenptah which is (in) Tjeku”, to reach “the pools (brkt) of Pithom (Pr-’Itm) of Merenptah which is/are

(in) Tjeku”. Here, clearly, the immigrants moved from East to West, hence the fort in Tjeku was East of the pools of Pithom of Merenptah. (These pools might conceivably be the “three Waters of Pharaoh” of ODM 1076 in a Tjeku context, as seen above.) Presumably there was some tangible distance between the pools westwards and the fort eastwards, both entities being in the area Tjeku.

Third item is in a text datable to Sethos II;29 here, Kakemwer, troop-commander of Tjeku, reports on his pursuit of two runaway servants, from “the Broad Halls of the Palace” - surely that of Pi-Ramesse in this context - to the keep/citadel/enclosure (sgr)30 of Tjeku. Here he was told that the fugitives had gone on; on arrival at the fort (htm), they had passed on North of the migdol of Sethos I. The sgr and htm appear to be two separate entities within the area Tjeku.

Fourth item, in the same papyrus,31 Maya, a Deputy or Lieutenant of Tjeku, writes to a chief of Medjayu-militia. With this should be compared a fifth passage,32 wherein the writer requests concerning such militia, “Bring them to me at Tjeku” - in which context, Tjeku has here to be a particular place on the ground, cf. ODM 1076 above.

(iv) The result of this inquest is that Tjeku has twofold reference under the Nineteenth Dynasty. (a) To a particular location, having a ‘keep’/’enclosure’ (sgr) and a fort (htm) of Merenptah to which people can be specifically sent (the term being occasionally given a ‘city’ determinative). (b) To an area within which a fort, pools etc., may all be found.33

(v) Also in the reign of Ramesses II, the facade-blocks of a temple honoring Atum and Seth are known from Tell er-Retaba, West of Tell el-Maskhuta. Here, the king appears before “Atum in Tjeu”34 - which last word ought (despite Montet35) to be emended to Tje<k> u, as the proper spelling is preserved on another fragment.36 From the same precinct, we have the jamb of an official: the Troop-commander and Superintendent of desert lands (var. of God’s Land - anything eastern), Superintendent of a mansion(?)/estate(?), Usimarenakht, (native) of Tjeku.37

Thus, Tell er-Retaba came under the aegis of Atum, god of Tjeku, from the Nineteenth Dynasty onwards, just as did Tell el-Maskhuta some 8 1/2 miles (14 km.) to the East. At this latter site, Naville noted a quartzite monolithic naos of Ramesses II, from which one fragment bore his cartouches plus the toponym Tjeku.38 One would be tempted to regard this monument as a ‘stray’ from Pi-Ramesse (like those found at Tanis), but for the mention of Tjeku. Thereafter, we have a large gap in local documentation until the epoch extending from the Saite period to the Thirtieth Dynasty. From that era (7th and 4th centuries BC), we have a series of fragments that name Tjeku (often with ‘city’ determinative), including those of priests of Atum of Tjeku and his temple.39 Finally, the so-called “Pithom Stela” of Ptolemy II40 repeatedly names Tjeku, and

Atum as “the great living god of Tjeku”, over and over again, but Pithom only once (line 13) with a mention only in general of “the gods of Pithom and Tjeku”.

(vi) On the preceding evidence, both Tell er-Retaba and Tell el-Maskhuta would belong to the area of Tjeku, both coming under Atum, god of Tjeku; in each, there was a temple of Atum- hence, a “Per-Atum” (Pithom). So, we have in principle two Pithoms, - ‘embarras de richesse!’41 One of the statues from Tell el-Maskhuta addresses “every priest (w’b) who shall enter into the temple (hwt-ntr) of Atum residing in Tjeku”42 which would strongly suggest that a local settlement called Tjeku (as opposed to just a general area) with its temple of Atum was in fact to be located at Tell el-Maskhuta.43 And, in fact, we have no scrap of hieroglyphic evidence to prove that Pithom was ever the proper name of Tell el-Maskhuta. The sole apparent evidence is the statue of Ankhrenpnefer (or Ankhshernefer) under Osorkon II.44 The dorsal pillar (A) contributes nothing. The cross-line (B) gives us Ankhrenpnefer’s origin: “The chief inspector of (= from) the Palace, Ankhrenpnefer, justified, of Bubastis”. Formulae D and C mutually complete each other. D is for “the good recorder(?) of Atum Lord of ‘An, Ankhrenpnefer, justified, of the House/Estate (pr) of Atum Lord of [Tjeku or ‘An].” C is for “the chief inspector of (= from) the Palace, the good recorder(?) of45 Atum Lord of ‘An, [Ankhrenpnefer, of the House/Estate of Atum Lord of Tjeku/’An]”. So here, we have not a city ‘Pithom’ but a title relating to the domain or temple of Atum as a whole - a very commonly-attested usage of the word pr in relation to deities. Thus, all reference to a specific town Pithom at Tell el-Maskhuta disappears, leaving it as the probable site of Tjeku.

However, the stela of Ptolemy II does pay special attention to emoluments for the Temple, Pi-qerehet, among the revenues for all Egypt (lines 26-27). This and other Graeco-Roman data might suggest that Pi-qerehet was the proper name of the main temple in Tjeku, at least in late times. Finally, here, if Tjeku is the same name and place as Hebrew Succoth, then we have locations for the first two points on the Exodus itinerary: Raamses (Pi-Ramesse) and Succoth (Tjeku). (vii) So, where does this leave Pithom? Tell er-Retaba still remains a possibility, with its temple of Atum, as it cannot be either Succoth or Raamses. In favour of this suggestion can be quoted the Latin inscription from Tell el-Maskhuta which so bothered Naville and Mommsen: Gardiner’s explanation as “9 [Roman] miles on the road from Ero [Pithom] to Clysma [Suez]” would fit remarkably well the distance from Tell er-Retaba (if it were Pithom) to Tell el-Maskhuta.46 Hence, we have a possible result: Pr-‘Itm = (a) ‘the Estate of Atum’, relating to landed property of the god Atum anywhere; (b) a specific location, Pi-Atum (‘Pithom’) at Tell er Retaba.

3. Archaeology and History

The occupation-history of Pi-Ramesse/Raamses can be summarized as follows:

1. In the Middle Kingdom (Twelfth Dynasty), there was near here the important route-junction Ro-waty, “Two-road-ville”, and a summer palace of kings of the 12th and 13th Dynasties, in the 19th to 17th centuries BC.47

2. During the Middle Kingdom, in the 12th-16th Dynasties, adjoining Rowaty(?), the settlement Hwt-w’rt - Avaris48 -served the Hyksos kings as an East-Delta base and residence (c.1650-1540 BC).

3. At the expulsion of the Hyksos, c.1540 BC, the area was not developed by the Eighteenth-Dynasty kings. Instead, a great wall was run through the site.49

4. The next phase is attested only from the reign of Haremhab, last king of the 18th dynasty (his reign, c.1325-1295 BC), who did do some building at the temple of Seth, Lord of Avaris.50 One recalls in this context, his close relations with the military family from this very region who became his heirs as the Nineteenth Dynasty.

5. Under Sethos I, a native of this region, came fresh developments: a summer palace and perhaps other features,51 as well as contributions to the temple of Seth of Avaris.52

6. Thereafter, Ramesses II built his vast new Delta capital, Pi-Ramesse, impinging on the North of older Avaris.53

7. This residence was still used by Merenptah and Sethos II, and was in part renewed by Ramesses III54 who used it, as did his successors down to Ramesses VI (at c.1140 BC). Then this center fell into decay; in any case, the main administrative capital of Egypt was Memphis almost throughout, a fact still not fully appreciated. So, the heyday of Pi-Ramesse was c.1280-1140 BC and not later, with beginnings (as Avaris) c.1320 BC, so far as the New Kingdom is concerned.

8. During the 21st and 22nd Dynasties in particular, there was massive reuse of Ramesside stonework from Pi-Ramesse as scrap material to build and adorn Tanis some 25 km. (17 miles) to the North. There was no further role for Pi-Ramesse- except as a quarry - until about the 3rd century BC, a point which needs to be stressed; Tanis had replaced it in every particular.55 And in the 3rd century BC the moribund cult of Amun of Ramesses of Pi-Ramesse was simply an archaism practiced in Tanis or Bubastis, and not in the ruins of old Pi-Ramesse itself.56

9. During the period 1100-600 BC, Tanis was the great Delta capital of the 21st, 22nd and 25th Dynasties alongside Memphis the main capital. Appropriately, Tanis (as Zo’an) features in contemporary Old Testament references (Isaiah, etc.). Significantly, the psalmists also set in their time (Ps. 78:12) the Exodus events in “the field of Zo’an”, a reflex of Egyptian sht-D’(nt), “Field of Tanis”. As Pi-Ramesse was in part of the hinterland of Tanis, the psalmist’s phrase was an appropriate 1st-millennium ‘modern’

equivalent of the old, obsolete term Raamses.

As for Pithom, the oldest datable remains of fixed structures at Tell er-Retaba are of the 19th-20th Dynasties. Petrie’s “18th Dynasty house” was dated only by a stray scarab of Amenophis III - which is no sufficient basis on which to base a dating.57 And at Tell el-Maskhuta (Succoth), the recent Toronto excavations are of great interest for the Saite to Roman periods,58 but have so far found no trace of the forts, etc., of Ramesses II or Merenptah mentioned in 13th-century texts to set alongside Naville’s naos-fragment.

But historically, the results – so far as they go - are consistent: late 18th and 19th/20th Dynasties are the common horizon for the Exodus and the point of origin of that tradition.

4. Geography

Here, just a few closing speculations. A first day’s travel from Raamses to Succoth (Ex. 12:37; Nu. 33:3,5) is directly comparable with the day’s flight from Pi-Ramesse to Tjeku and beyond by two fugitives, followed even more swiftly by a military officer. These people could obviously move two or three times as fast as a larger body of people like the Hebrews (however they might be computed).

Again, we find the same basic route, (Pi-)Ramesse to Tjeku/ Succoth, by-passing Pithom. Beyond this point, we are lost in speculation for which no adequate supply of guiding facts can yet be found. It seems wrong to identify Etham with Egyptian htm, common word for fort, as aleph is not an acceptable transcript of h. Again, the migdol of Sethos I is not necessarily the Migdol located at Tell el-Her - there must once have been quite a series of such migdols or watchtowers. However, the Hebrews can realistically be conceived as having gone eastward past the North of Succoth, then turned North near the Bitter Lakes region, towards later Daphnai, before going through the “Sea of Reeds” and on southeastwards into Sinai - and certainly not by the way of the Philistines as we are explicitly told; there can be no rational place here for the obsolete theories involving Lake Sirbonis on the Mediterranean coast.

5. Conclusions

We may now sum up in staccato fashion the results and consequences that flow from the foregoing survey.

I. Raamses is, with the highest probability, to be identified with PiRamesse.

2. Succoth is very likely to have been located at Tell el-Maskhuta, but was also the name of a district (as Tjeku).

3. Pithom is uncertain; it was not at Tell el-Maskhuta, but could very well have been at Tell er-Retaba.

4. Geographically, the first stage of the Exodus can thus be traced from the environs of Pi-Ramesse south-east (by-passing Pithom) then eastward to Tjeku, then further East – perhaps North, then through the

Sea, then south-east into Sinai.59

5. The archaeological/textual/historical data and results favour the 13th century B.C. for the date of the Exodus in such circumstances, unless very remarkable and cogent new evidence can be found otherwise.60

1. The reference to cities of miskenot in Naphtali (2 Chron. 16:4) adds nothing to the foregoing mentions.

2. Cf. (e.g.) the brick store-magazines at the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu in Western Thebes, to cite only the most familiar examples.

3. No earlier period concerns us in this paper.

4. See M. Burchardt, Die altkanaanaischen Fremdworte und Eigennamen im Aegyptischen, l, Leipzig, 1909, pp.26-32, SS 76-87, p.52, S 157 (for Eg. r = W. Semitic r, 1); pp.10-11, SS 25-30, p.52, S 157 (Eg. and W. Sem. ‘); pp.1822, SS 55-65, p.52, S 157 (Eg. m = W. Sem. m, and only b in ‘Lebanon’).

Later studies in this field only serve to confirm fully Burchardt’s findings on the consonantal correspondences, and so need not be cited here.

5. Ezekiel 9:2,11; cf. T.O. Lambdin, JAOS 73(1953), p.154 (his late dating is mistaken); M. Ellenbogen, Foreign Words in the Old Testament, their Origin and Etymology, London, 1962, p.150 (citing also Eisler for this identification); W Helck, VT 15(1965), p.46. Qeset is neither just palette nor inkhorn, but a palette with room (and niches) for pens, waterpot and ink-blocs.

6. W.F. Albright, BASOR No.89(1943), p.32, n.27; Lambdin, JAOS 73(1953), p.155; Helck, loc. cit. (n.5 above). A further word, Hebrew for ‘ship’, sekiyot, has a possibly less certain sibilant (from s or ‘s); cf. Lambdin, p.154f., Ellenbogen, p.154, and Helck, p.45. With words that go from W. Semitic into Egyptian, a different equation applies and is securely attested: W. Semitic s appears as t in Egyptian - for example, soper, ‘scribe’, reproduced as tpr in Egyptian.

7. Excluding Ramesses-Siptah and Ramesses-Psusennes, not permanent names of these kings. Recently, in Biblical Archaeology Review 7(1981), p.44, H. Goedicke gave the transliteration R(3)-mzz for Hebrew R’mss. This cannot be correct: 3 is not ‘ and zayin is not to be confused with samekh at any time, still less z and n. The supposed Egyptian toponym *R3-mtn does not exist; the real reading is R3-w3ty, “Startingpoint (‘mouth’) of the Two Roads/Ways”, as is clear from the original publications and studies long ago by H. Kees (MDIK 18(1962), pp.3-4) following on from S. Adam (ASAE 56(1959), p.216 & pl. IX); cf. also M. Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a II, Vienna, 1975, p.36. Egyptian t not zayin; also, the t in mtn soon became t – only t in Hebrew; for mtn (from mtn) as early as the Xlth Dynasty, cf. Hammamat No.114, in R.O. Faulkner, Concise Dictionary, p.l22. The plain fact that Egyptian s regularly appears as samekh in Hebrew was wrongly denied by D.B. Redford, VT 13 (1963),

p.411, who gratuitously muddled-up W. Semitic loanwords in Egyptian with Semitic transcripts from Egyptian - which could only lead to chaos - a matter already well dealt-with by Helck, VT 15 (1965), pp.43-46, especially p.46, along with much else in Redford’s study.

8. His Year 2, highest date, Buhen stela, Louvre C.57, Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, I, Oxford, 1975, pp.2-3; the 16 months is from Manetho.

9. A.H. Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), pp.127-138, 179-200, 242-271.

10. Stela, Brooklyn 39.423; H.W. Fairman, JEA 25 (1939), pl.16:2; Kitchen, Ramesside inscriptions, II, p.322:13.

11. See below, on ODM 1076, plus the Beth-Shan Stela of Ramesses II, cf. J. Cerny, Eretz-Israel 5 (1958), pp.75*-82*; Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, II, pp.150-151.

12. As was pointed out by Gardiner long ago (JEA 5 (1918), p.261).

13. Papyrus Anastasi I, 27:3; Gardiner, Egyptian Hieratic Texts, I, Leipzig, 1911, pp.29*, 38; J.A. Wilson in J.B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the OT, p.478; new transcript, H.-W. Fischer-Elfert, Die satirische Streitschrift des Papyrus Anastasi I, Wiesbaden, 1983, p.151 (translation in press).

14. See Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), p.132, H; JEA 6 (1920), pp.106-107; cf. Papyrus Anastasi V, 24:8, R.A. Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, Oxford, 1954, p.269.

15. M. Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a II, Vienna, 1975, pp.189-198 (Avaris), 199-212 (Pi Ramesse), and 213-220 (discussion).

16. Outline survey and schematic plan, K.A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, Life & Times of Ramesses II, Warminster, 1983, pp.119-123, fig. 42.

17. The omission of Pi- before Raamses in the Hebrew mentions is of no real consequence. Here may be cited examples of both Ramesses and Usimare Setepenre as place-names having no initial Pi-, but followed by p3 dmi, ‘the town/settlement’ in apposition, as did Gardiner (JEA 5 (1918), pp.179-180, No.2, cf. his pp.137-138); the Hebrews simply reproduced R’mss as a place-name without the unnecessary epithets. Cf. also Helck, VT 15 (1965), pp.41-42, on the example of Play, “the sculptor of Ramesses… “, abbreviated for “…of Pi-Ramesse…”; and other royal names before which Pi- is omitted (Helck, Materialien zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Neuen Reiches, II, 1962, p.208).

18. Cf. already, Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), p.138.

19. See ibidem; his evidence sufficiently refutes the later errors by Redford, VT 13 (1963), p.403 on this matter.

20. E.g., H. Brugsch, ZAS 13 (1875), p.8; E. Naville, Pithom, p.7; Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), p.266, n.1; Redford, VT 13 (1963), pp.404-405, etc.

21. G. Posener, Ostraca hieratiques- non-litte’raires de Deir el-Medineh, 1/3, Cairo, 1938, p.20, pl.43/43a; Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, II, p.463, c.

22. I know of no previous translation in print.

23. Posener gives the city-sign as determinative; the traces in his facsimile would agree with this.

24. Egyptian pr-’3

25. Probably read [sh]t.

26. Msiw, ‘groom’, in Pap. Anastasi V, 20:1; Gardiner, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, Brussels, 1937, p.67:3-4 (text), and Caminos, Late-Egyptian Miscellanies, Oxford, 1954, p.255 (translation).

27. The epithet ‘Great-of-Victories (‘3-nhtw) was in use up to about Year 21 or so, of Ramesses II; then it was largely dropped, and a new epithet, “Great Spirit of Pre-Harakhti” came into use in the 40s/50s of his reign.

28. Gardiner, Late-Eg. Miscellanies, pp.76-77; Caminos, Late-Eg. Misc., pp.293, 294/5.

29. Pap. Anastasi V, 19:8ff.; Gardiner, op. cit., pp.66-67; Caminos, op. cit., pp. 255, 256.

30. A West-Semitic word, root sgr; cf. Hebrew msgr, msgrt, Brown, Briggs & Driver, Hebrew and English Lexicon, p.689b.

31. Gardiner, op. cit., pp.70, 71; Caminos, op. cit., pp.269, 270.

32. Pap. Anastasi V, 18:6 -19:2, cf. Gardiner, p.66, Caminos, p.253.

33. Hence both Redford (VT 13 (1963), pp.404-408: area) and Helck (VT 15 (1965), pp.37-40: particular location) are each partly-correct.

34. Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, London, 1906, pl.30.

35. Ge’ographie de l’Egypte ancienne, I, Paris, 1957, p.216.

36. Petrie, Hyksos and Israelite Cities, pl.31 left.

37. On this text (Petrie, pl.31 bottom; Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, V, p.393, S 170), cf. Heick, VT 15 (1965), p.37(b).

38. Naville, Pithom, pp.7, 15, pl.3A; photo of main naos, Petrie, Tanis I, pl. 16:[5].

39. Naville, Pithom, p.16, pl.5; p.17 with pl.7A, cf. p.40 (all Saite); p.14 & n.4, pl.3C (Nakhthorheb, 30th Dyn.).

40. Naville, Pithom, pp.18-22, pls.8-10; K. Sethe, Urkunden II, pp.81-105, S 20; other references, Porter & Moss, Topographical Bibliography..., IV, p.54.

41. As was already foreseen by Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), p.268 middle.

42. Text, Naville, Pithom, pl.5A.

43. A result well set out by Gardiner, op. cit. (n.41 above), p.268.

44. Naville, Pithom, pl.4; Porter & Moss, op. cit., IV, p.53; British Museum 1007.

45. Read here n (Lower-Eg. crown sign), not [p]r, house-sign.

46. See Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), pp.268-269, dealing also with late evidence for ‘Pithom’ = (H)ero(on)polis, and the late data of the Roman Itinerary.

47. Shehata Adam, ASAE 56 (1959), pp.207-226; H. Kees, MDIK 18 (1962), pp.1-6; cf. L. Habachi, ASAE 52 (1954), pp.443-479; Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a II, pp.36, 193.

48. Cf. Bietak, op. cit., pp.193-197.

49. Cf. ibid., pp.197-198.

50. See M. Bietak, Avaris and Piramesse, Oxford, 1981, p. 270, pl. 38a.

51. E.g., tiles from a doorway, in the Louvre (Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a II, p.40 & n.106); already, Ramesses II returned there in his very first year, from Thebes and Abydos (Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, II, p.325:11).

52. Altar of Sethos I, now in Vienna: L. Habachi, ZAS 100 (1974), pp.95-102; Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, I, p.232f.

53. Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a II, pp.169ff., and antecedent references.

54. Whose re-establishment of the Delta Residence was named PiRamesse (III) Mighty in Provisions for Egypt (wr df3w n Kmt); reference, Gardiner, JEA 5 (1918), p.192, (24); Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions, II, p.269:15.

55. See Bietak, Tell el-Dab’a ll, pp.212, 216-217, on the evidence.

56. Cf. Bietak, op. cit., pp.219-220; the opposite view of Redford (VT 13 (1963), p.409) was also refuted by Helck, VT 15 (1965), p.47. Again, Redford’s phonetic arguments (VT 13, pp.410-411) were disposed-of by Helck (VT 15, pp.42-43).

57. Petrie, Hyksos & Israelite Cities, pp.29, 32, pl.33:11; his scarab was seemingly mixed with others of Ramesside date.

58. Cf. preliminary reports, B. MacDonald, Biblical Archaeologist 43 (1980), pp.49-58; J.S. Holladay Jr., Cities of the Delta, III, Tell el-Maskhuta, 1982; and brief notices by J. Leclant, Orientalia NS 51(1982), p.422, and p.60; ibid. 53(1984), p.358; ibid. 55 (1986), p.249.

59. On the Exodus-route, cf. Kitchen, in M.G. Tenney et al. (eds.), Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, II, Grand Rapids, 1975, pp.428-432.

60. Defenders of a 15th-century date too often clutch at straws that simply cannot bear the weight of their theory. Thus, there is not one scrap of evidence for any use of the name (P)ramesses before the time of Horemhab and Ramesses I; the name ‘Imn-ms-sw, Amenmessew, occurs once in the 18th Dynasty (Ranke, Agyptische Personennamen, I, p.29:9), and the name Dhwty-ms-sw, Thutmessew, once in the New Kingdom (ibid., II, 334:5). Furthermore, the name R’-ms-sw, ‘Ramesses’, must NOT be confused with the wholly different name R’-ms, ‘Ramose’. The latter is DN + qualitative verb, while the former is DN + participle + pronoun object. ‘Re is born’ is wholly distinct from ‘(It is) Re who has fashioned him’. There is no Hyksos king called Ramesses; the 15th Dynasty had Bnon, Apakhnas, Khyan, Apopi, and Khamudy, perhaps Sheshy - no Ramesses. A supposed Ramessusertawy is a graphic error for the prenomen Sekhemre-Sewosertawy, as collation and original texts show (J. von Beckerath, Untersuchungen zur politischen Geschichte der zweiten Zwischenzeit in Agypten, Gluckstadt/New York, 1965, pp.66, 259-260: XIII K). Pi-Ramesse was a new development directly on the

north of Avaris; it is not identical with Avaris. And there is no conceivable reason why a Hebrew writer during the Judges’ period should suddenly emend the text of Exodus from Avaris to Raamses, long after a 15thcentury exodus. Also, 480 years in 1 Kings 6:1 is only one biblical datum and must be understood (as also Ex. 1:11) in terms of the Biblical world, not our modern concepts; closer attention should be given to Kitchen, Ancient Orient & Old Testament, 1966, pp.72-75. Out of the welter of unsatisfactory miasma in Biblical Archaeology Review 7-8 (1981-82), only K. Boughan, BAR 8 (1982), pp. 50/52, makes much sense.

Gleason Archer

President of the Evangelical Theological Society, Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinty School. Ph.D., from Harvard, completed a B.D. program at Princeton Seminary, B.A. degree in Greek and Latin Classics from Harvard College, completed LL.B. Suffolk Law School and was admitted to the Massachusetts State Bar.

THE EXPULSION AND PURSUIT OF THE HYKSOS

GLEASON L. ARCHER

(Prepared for The Pharaoh of the Exodus Symposium - April 23, 1987 - Memphis)

I. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

Ever since ancient times the role of the Hyksos kings in Egypt has furnished intriguing questions as to the relationship of the Hebrews to these Asiatic rulers during their sojourn in Egypt. According to Flavius Josephus the Egyptian historian Manetho (whose now-perished writings were composed in the reign of Ptolemy I) recorded their career as follows: “A people of ignoble origin from the East … had the audacity to invade the country, which they mastered by main force without difficulty or even a battle. Having overpowered the chiefs, they then savagely burned the cities, razed the temples of the gods to the ground and treated the whole native population with the utmost cruelty Finally they made one of their number, named Salatis, king.” (Manetho, T. Waddell, pp. 79-81; Josephus: Contra Apionem, I, 14.) Manetho goes on to state that these kings were called “Hyksos” or “Shepherd Kings”. He interpreted “Hyk” as “king,” and “sos” as “shepherd”. This interpretation has been proven incorrect, however, in the light of modern Egyptology. The actual title of Hyksos is derived from hega; (“chieftain, ruler”) and Khaswet (“foreign lands” --Erman-Grapow WB iii, 171). The earlier pronunciation Khaswet had shifted to Shoswet by Manetho’ s time, thus leading to confusion with s-;-s-w, a word for “bedouin” or “shepherds” by his time.

As for Josephus himself, he went so far as to identify the Hyksos with the Hebrews themselves (Contra Apionem, I, 14,16), in the sense, at least, that they were grouped with them as fellow immigrants from Asia.

This has furnished the basis for the commonly repeated conclusion that Joseph ben Jacob was received with such favor and kindness by the Asiatic pharaoh who appointed him as vizier (Gen. 41:39). Up until the early decades of this century it was generally believed that Manetho’s statement that the Hyksos ruled for 500 years presented no difficulty with reconciling this correlation with the Pentateuchal record, which indicated that Jacob’s migration into Egypt took place around 1875 B. C. But after modern scholarship determined that the Hyksos period was less than 120 years (possibly 1675-1567, W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, xiv) the Biblical statements would have to be discounted altogether. That is to say, an 1875 date could not possibly be reconciled with a 1675 inception for the Hyksos rule. Therefore, it was determined by those who held to the accuracy of Josephus in this matter that the Bible record was indeed in error, and that the so-called “Late Date” theory of the Exodus (which must have occurred early in the reign of Rameses II, 1300-125, who was to be identified as the “Pharaoh of the Oppression”. There could not have been a span of 480 years between the Exodus and the founding of Solomon’s temple in 966 (I Kings 6:1), nor could the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt have occupied 430 years, as stated in Exodus 12:40. Thus we are confronted with a clear challenge to the inerrancy of the Received Text, insofar as it accurately represents the original autographs at least, of Holy Scripture. But as we shall see later in this discussion, the context of the Joseph Cycle in Genesis and portions of Exodus One as well, preclude the advent of Joseph in the time of the Hyksos kings.

II. THE ETHNIC BACKGROUND OF THE HYKSOS

As we have already seen, in Josephus’s quotation of Manetho, the Hyksos came from “an obscure race” from the regions of the East. Africanus and Eusebius suggest that they may have been of Phoenician stock. It is certainly true that some of their rulers bore Northwest Semitic names, such as Yaqub-har and ‘Anat-har. The name Khyan

may be from the same region (derived from the word to live”), for it is given as the father of Shamshi-Adad at Ugarit (Van Seters: The Hyksos: New Investigation, Yale U. P., 1966, p. 181), as well as in Samaal and Nabatea (G. E. Wright, ed., The Bible and the Ancient Near East, Garden City, Doubleday, 1961, p. 354n.; B. Landsberger in Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 8 - 1954 - p. 33). The evidence of some of the scarabs of the Hyksos period includes some human figures dressed in characteristically Syrian or Phoenician costumes (D. B. Redford: History and Chronology of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, U. of Toronto, 1967, p. 65). Certainly the title Salatis given to the founder of the 15th

Dynasty (possibly Ma’-ib-Re’ Sheshi) was the NW Semitic shallit, “Ruler, Commander”. But apart from alleged Hurrian names like Abina (which H. W. Helck compares with Abianna at Nuzu), the mother of Ahmose of El-Kab, and H-r-t; (cf. Haluti at Nuzu) the daughter of King Apophis, and Tany his sister (cf. Taena of Nuzu), the Hyksos names sound pretty Egyptian (Van Seters, 181-182). Of the Dynasty XV names, apart from Khyan and Ya’qub-her above mentioned, there remains only Khamudy, the nomen of ‘A-seh-Re’, that may represent the passive participle. Of the suggested rulers of the questionable Dyn. XVI, only Semqen (of dubious etymology) and ‘Amu are non-Egyptian. On the basis of such evidence as this, it is warrantable to conclude that the Hyksos came from no single race or tribes but consisted largely of migrants from the Northwest Semitic area of Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine.

It seems quite obvious on the basis of analogous situations in later history that cultural assimilation is apt to take place rather early in the career of a master race surrounded by a more advanced culture than their own. We have only to think of how early the Ostrogoths under Theoderic began to surrender their Gothic language for the Late Latin speech of Italy in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. Similarly, the Danish invaders of Anglia quite soon succumbed to Anglo-Saxon, and the Viking invaders of Normandy adopted Norman French a good while before William the Conqueror, and the Rhine-Franconians of Charlemagne’s race had shifted to Old French by the end of the 9th century. So it was with the Hyksos as well, so far as their written records are concerned. Whatever they may have retained in the way of their ancestral Semitic speech on a conversational level, they never recorded anything in writing except in the Egyptian language.

III.

THE MANNER OF THE HYKSOS CONQUEST: GRADUAL OR SUDDEN?

As we have seen above, Manetho was quoted as portraying the Hyksos takeover as the result of a sudden and unexpected attack upon a land which was utterly unprepared to resist them. Was this account any more reliable than his estimate of 500 years for their era of power? This has been seriously questioned by most of the recent authorities, and the dominant view is that it actually resulted as the culmination of a long process of gradual immigration and more or less permanent settlement of resident aliens. There seems to be no inscriptional or archeological confirmation of such a sudden and devastating conquest as Manetho depicts, but there is abundant evidence for a stage-by-stage migration of Semites from the northeast, even as early as the Twelfth Dynasty.

As early as the time of Senwosret I in the 20th century B. C. a bead inscribed with his name found its way to Ugarit, dedicated to the goddess Hathor (Van Seters, p. 73). The statuette of an Egyptian

queen and a vizier of that same dynasty have been found there as well. In Qatna, Syria, a sphinx has been found portraying Amenemhat II and Senwosret II. In Megiddo there was a statue of an Egyptian official, Djchuwty-hotep from the period of Senwosret III. At Neirah near Aleppo there was a sphinx of Amenemhat III. (Ibid.)

The biography of the exiled Egyptian adventurer Sanchat (Sinuhe) makes it clear that Egypt did not enjoy political control of Palestine during the early Twelfth Dynasty (else he would not have been safe there as a fugitive from the Egyptian court). But Sinuhe does mention that Egyptian agents and envoys had free access to the whole Canaanite area. Even the Mari archives, for that matter, witness to the activity of Egyptian diplomatic missions even to Mesopotamia. It is therefore no surprise that a statue of the vizier Senuset-ankh and another of Djehuti-nakht have been found at Ugarit, the northernmost center of Canaanite culture (Van Seters, 75-77). By the time of Senwosret III there seem to have been strong city-states in Palestine, for the presence of Djehuti-nakht at the court of Megiddo attests this quite clearly. Under that same pharaoh we have a record that his general, Khusebek, conducted a military operation against the city of Shechem (cf. Pritchard, ANET p. 230). Van Seters goes on to say (p. 81) that on the stela of Neferhotep in Byblos the prince of that city, Yantin, is represented as doing homage to Pharaoh.

During the Thirteenth Dynasty there was a period of brief renewal of Egyptian power in Palestine-Phoenicia, enforced by Neferhotep and his brother, Sebek-hotep. In fact the archaeological evidence suggests that ca. 1740-1725 some of the city-states on the coastal plain suffered a severe defeat. “Thus would suggest,” says Van Seters, “that the Egyptians made punitive raids into coastal Palestine (but not inland) and did considerable damage in order to restore their authority. As a result, Yantin of Byblos pledged allegiance to Pharaoh as a loyal vassal” (Van Seters, p. 89).

This increasing involvement, military and commercial, brought with it the inevitable result that the well-guarded border of Egypt was converted into a gateway for Semitic trade missions and settlers. The records suggest that during Dynasty XIII there was a significant increase in the number of Asiatic slaves as well as of freeborn settlers.

The Sinai inscriptions refer to a certain Khebed, a prince of Retjenu (i.e., Palestine) serving as head of a body of retainers who conducted policing operations against robber bands of Sinai natives. Van Seters suggests (p. 89) that even the well-known group of Semitic tribesmen bringing in a cargo of stibium and well equipped with spears, bows and throw-sticks, may have belonged to such a police patrol (Cf. Views of the Biblical World, Jerusalem - Ramat Gan, 1958, vol. 1, 114-115.).

It is interesting to observe that both the Brooklyn Papyrus from

Upper Egypt published by H. C. Hayes (A Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, 1955) and the Ilahun Papyrus published by F. L. Griffith (Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob, 2 vol., London, 1898) furnish extensive information about Asiatic slaves in Egypt. Posener comments that there are many more references to Asiatic slaves in Dyn. XIII than in Dyn. XII. Some serve in temples, others are in the service of high Egyptian officials. In some cases they even attain a position of honor and marry Egyptian women, even though they retain the status of “aamu” (Les Asiatiques en Egypte les XIIc et XIIIe Dynasties, in Syria, 34 - 1957 - 145-163). Under Neferhotep in Dynasty XIII the serious hostilities in Canaan seem to have resulted in a large influx of these slaves, and yet others may have entered peaceably into voluntary servitude, as Posener suggests (Van Seters, 91).

A clear reflection of the increasing threat to Egyptian security during the Second Intermediate Period is furnished by The Admonitions of Ipuwer. In addition to the threat of the Libyan tribes from the northwest and the Nubians from the southern boundaries (a condition almost unique to the Second Intermediate), the safety of the realm is undermined by the breakdown of class relations in Egyptian society. “Why really,” laments Ipuwer, “the entire Delta marshland will no (longer) be hidden; the confidence of the Northland is (now) a beaten path Behold, it is in the hands of those who did not know it, as well as those who knew it… Why really, (public) offices are open and their reports are read. Serfs have become the owners of serfs… Why really, the children of nobles are abandoned in the streets. He who knows says, ‘Yes, (it is so)!’ (“Admonitions,” v 10 to vi 10 ANET 442). Such a deterioration in respect for law and order reflects a dangerous loss of morale and the ability to resist the enemies of the nation.

H. W. Helck points out that during Dynasty XIII there appears to have been a notable change in the way Egyptian kings assumed office. Instead of succeeding one another by primogeniture, or possibly seizing power through a sudden coup d’etat, the pharaohs of this period were elected by the leading classes on the basis of their perceived ability. There may even have been some Semitic kings chosen in this way during Dynasty XIII. But Helck feels that the founders of the 15th Dynasty had no close connection with the Asiatic immigrants already residing; in Egypt on a relatively peaceful basis. But the vivid description of Manetho concerning the fierce and cruel brutality of the swiftly moving invaders suggests a new wave of intruders freshly arrived from S.W. Asia. Thus the vivid description of Manetho concerning the rapidity and ruthlessness suggests an irruption by tribes and freebooters from Syria-Palestine that was not really expected or even desired by the Semitic population already living, in the Delta. Yet they would hardly have been expected to take up arms against fellow-Semites, and so even their passivity tended

to facilitate the progress and final success of the Hyksos conquest of Egypt.

Yet it must be recognized that the testimony of Manetho, so far as we can reconstruct it from those who quote him, is not altogether consistent in regard to the manner in which the Hyksos took over the Egyptian realm. From Africanus, Eusebius and the Scholia of Plato we read the following from Manetho: “The 15th (or 17th) Dynasty were shepherds and brothers. They were foreign kings from Phoenicia who seized Memphis. The first of these kings, Saites, ruled for 19 years. These kings founded in the Sethroite nome a town from which as a base they subdued Egypt.” (W. G. Waddell: Manetho, Loeb Series, Harvard U. P., 1940, 91-99) This account, which emphasizes the capture of Memphis at the base of the Delta and the establishment of a capital at Avaris in the eastern Delta, does not sound like the same type of operation as the sudden invasion which caught the whole land of Egypt unawares and unprepared. It seems more likely that they may have built up Avaris as their principal capital, and then operated from Memphis as a later basis for the conquest of the rest of Egypt, all the way to the southern border near Nubia itself. Redford points out that there are inscribed blocks which have discovered as far south as Gebelein in Upper Egypt which bear the cartouches of both Khyan and Awosserre Apophis. This implications of this and of the Second Kamose Stela and of the autobiographical stela of Admiral Ahmose-si-Abina will be spelled out in the next section.

IV. THE KINGS OF THE HYKSOS DYNASTIES

In Eusebius’s report of Manetho’s work shifted the Hyksos from Dynasty XV to Dynasty XVII, to which he assigned the four kings Salatis, Bnon, Archles and Apophis. He made no mention of Egyptian kings in Dyn. XVII (Redford p. 29) Waddell op. cit., p. 94). To these four he assigned a total reign of 103. The Turin Papyrus (X, 21) assigns the Hyksos dynasty 108 years. According to W. C. Hayes, Apophis I, who ruled at least 40 years, was preceded by Khyan, who in turn was preceded by Ya’qub-her. As for Dyn. XVI, this included ‘Anat-her, Kha’-woser-re’, ‘A- hetep-re’, ‘Amu, Neb-khepesh-re’ Apopy III. (Scepter of Egypt, xiv). As for the Turin Canon, it is full of lacunae and gives only the name of Khamudy as the final king, for a total of 108 years, and the total number of kings as six. There is also a list of Memphite high priests drawn up around 700 B. C. which also gives the name for the contemporary pharaoh. In this list appear three who were Hyksos: ‘;qn, s;rk and ipp (the last of which is of course Apopy or Apophis). A combination of all four reporters of Manetho (Josephus, Eusebius, Africanus and the Scholia of Plato) yields the following: Salatis or Saites, Bnon, Apachnan, Iannas or Staan, Archles or Aseth,

Apophis. Note that Josephus and Africanus assign all six to the 15th Dynasty in approximate agreement with the Turin Canon, even though Manetho himself made some of these reigns impossibly long, Eusebius and Scholia allow only 103 years to this dynasty. Africanus ascribes some Hyksos rulers to the 16th and even the 17th Dynasties, although he unfortunately fails to give the names of any of them. It is possible, says Van Seters, to secondary rulers who officiated as contemporary vassals only (p, 153), But in any event, whichever of the four quotes from Manetho, his information can hardly be regarded as entirely trustworthy since he so badly garbles the spelling of the royal names themselves even in regard to the kings of Dynasty XVIII.

The only other source of written information is to be found in the scarabs. These small artifacts, often buried with the dead, occasionally escaped the malignity of the 18th Dynasty government, which systematically tried to obliterate every record or cartouche of the hated Asian oppressors. From such scarabs as have been published and are now available in Hayes’ Scepter of Egypt, pp. 7-8, as well as in Van Seters, pp. 63-65. Of those which are inscribed with Hyksos royal names we find: (1) ‘anat-her (2) Semqen (3) Wadjed (4) Seket and (5) ‘Amu. (These are spelled as follows:

as represented by the British Museum scarab series.) Those published by Van Seters on the pages cited bear only one which looks like a royal name (possibly wbn-htp-h’-nfr-hmwymn-b;st-r’) which does not appear in Budge’s kinglist for any dynasty whatever. There seem to be three possible categories for these scarab names: (a) otherwise unknown nsw-bity prenomina for kings whose nomina are known; (b) vassal rulers who were under the authority of the king; (c) kings of a minor dynasty of uncertain data.

We now follow with a pair of dynastic tables as set forth by W. C. Hayes, supplemented by the appropriate cartouches where known.

DYNASTY XV (HYKSOS) (1675-1567 B.C.)

Ma’-ib-Re’ Sheshi (possibly “Salatis”) (3 years)

Mer-woser-Re’ Y’aqub-her (8 years)

Sowoser-en-Re’ Khyan

‘A-woser-Re’ Apopy I (40+ years)

‘A-qen-en-Re’ Apopy II or

‘A-she-Re’ Khamudy (Khamudy perhaps from Desired One)

DYNASTY XVI (HYKSOS) (1670? -1567)

‘Anat-her Semqen

Kha’-woser-Re’

‘A-hetep-Re’

Sekha’-en-Re’

‘A-mu

Neb-Khopesh-Re’ Apopy (III?)

Such was an apparently satisfactory reconciliation of all the relevant data, until the discovery and publication of the Kamose Stela in 1954 by Labib Habachi at Karnak, and subsequently published by him in 1956. This writer was fortunate enough to have access to a preliminary copy of this document at the Oriental Institute in the summer of 1955, where he worked through it under the tutelage of Keith Seele. This inscription is missing its introductory section, but it is apparently quite complete from there to its conclusion. Kamosa, as the last king, of the Egyptian Dynasty XVII, records his campaigns against ‘Aa-uwer-re’ Apophis, resulting in the capture of his fleet of cargo ships, the destruction of his navy and the demolition of the mighty capital of Avaris itself (ANET 554-555). The synchronism between this Apophis and Kamose upset all the previous assumptions of an earlier, very powerful ruler under whom the Hyksos power was at its height. It seemed natural to conclude that the Egyptian war of independence just prior to the 18th Dynasty would have been marked by a gradual process of enfeeblement under lesser kings. But the Kamose Stela makes it clear that the same Apophis whose cartouche was found on building blocks as far south as Gebelein (along, with that of his predecessor Khyan) is the one whom Kamose so roundly trounced. The supposition that ‘Aa-kenen-re’ Apophis was his son, a king who ruled for forty years or more has become highly questionable. Redford comments (p. 44): “Seldom has such an elaborate theory been so completely demolished by a single

piece of new evidence as has this reconstruction of the Hyksos period by the discovery of the second Kamose stela.”

In the light of these data, it appears that the time frame of 103 or 108 years total for the Hyksos power scarcely permits the succession of two kings named Apophis (or Apopy) near the end of this dynasty. The probability is that during his forty-plus years of sovereignty the same King Apophis changed from one praenomen to the other. In other words, he used the praenomen ‘Aa-woser-Re’ during the first thirty-three years of his reign, and then, for reasons not quite clear, he shifted to a new praenomen: ‘Aa-qen-en-Re’. This is Van Seter’s conclusion, at least (p. 147), in agreement with H. F. Winlock (Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom, 145f.) and W. Helck, Bczichungen, 166n.). This procedure was apparently in vogue at this period, incidentally, since Kamose himself is known to have modified his titulary from s;-r’ Wadj-beper-Re’

to P;-bq;-qn (cf. Budge ED ii, p.932.)

V. LOCATION OF THE HYKSOS CAPITAL, AVARIS (PI-RAMESSU)

The site of the ancient city of Tanis is located at the mouth of the Tannaitic branch of the Nile where it empties into Lake Manzaleh at the northeast corner of the Delta. When excavated it yielded monuments dating all the way back to Rameses II of Dynasty XVIII, even though the principal buildings seem to date from the time of Sheshonq in Dynasty XXII. It was only natural for P. Montet to conclude that this was the location of the capital of Rameses II referred to in Exodus 1:11 as Raamses (Per-Ramessu). But more careful examination showed that none of the 19th Dynasty buildings, statues, columns or stelae were actually in situ, but seem rather to have been transported there from some other location. Tanis contains no pottery, scarabs or small stelae from the Ramesside period, and it seems clear that the town was not founded until Dyn. XXI. Van Seters says: “All the Granite building blocks must have been brought to Tanis by the rulers of the Twenty-First Dynasty in order to construct and adorn their new capital” (p.131, citing Hayes, Scepter of Egypt, 2, 329).

About 35 miles to the southwest of Tanis by the Pelusiac Branch of the Nile lie the sites of Khta’na and Qantir, the latter of which is now identified with Pi-Ramessu. L. Hibachi, the principal excavator of Qantir, uncovered the foundations of a large palace of Ramesses II, containing twenty-four complete doorways. Numerous glazed tiles characteristic of a throne room were discovered there. Not far away was the base of what appears to have been a lofty colossus of Rameses, with only part of the

feet still in situ. A nearby well contained blocks bearing his cartouches. But it is highly significant that the earliest remains of this city go back to Dynasty XII. To the north of Khata’na was a doorway with an inscription of Senwosret III which states that he renewed there a structure first erected by Amenemhet I (Habachi, Ann. Serv., 52 - 1954 - 448ff.). Several statues of Queen Sobeknofru, the last ruler of that dynasty, were found in this region, along with one of a Semite ruler of Dyn. XIII, AamuSahornedjheriotef (idem, p. 458ff.). Two pyramidions of King Ay of the same dynasty have come to light, which suggests that some of the kings of that period were actually buried there. These data make it clear that Israelite slaves from Goshen (located directly to the southeast) could easily have been employed there at any time from the 13th to the 19th Dynasties. The firm proof of the Late Date theory stemming from a supposed 19th Dynasty date for Tanis has completely crumbled away. Further confirmation of the Khata’na-Qantir identification of Pi-Ramessu is found in the nature of its terrain. Josephus states that Manetho described Avaris as well situated and capable of strategic military defense. The Kamose Stela adds that it abounded in orchards and had a good harbor for sea-going ships. All of these characteristics are evident in the Qantir sector, except that the Pelusiac branch has in later times altered its channel. (Ale Shafei has by dint of following the ridges and depressions of this region successfully traced out its ancient course -- cf. Bull. de la Société de Geogr. 21 - 1943-46 - 233ff.) The very size and extensive construction of the Khata’na-Qantir area could only be accounted for by easy access to such a sea route by which also it would have been easy for a Dynasty XXI king to transport the buildings he wanted from Qantir to Tanis by river barge. As for Tanis itself, not only is it quite remote from the Goshen region (i. e., Gsmt to the east of Tell el-Naskhuta), but it is now more or less of a desolate wasteland, often flooded and covered with salt-flats which inhibit all vegetation. Its chief asset was its suitability for large naval docks and closer access to the Mediterranean. Apparently the name “Avaris” was derived from w’rt, , or “administrative district”, coming from , “leg, shank”. In point of fact Qantir would have served as an ideal location for the administration of the Department of the North, which apparently began from the border of the Memphis nome (Van Seters, 147-148).

VI. THE RELIGION OF THE HYKSOS

It is universally agreed that the Hyksos rulers regarded Seth as their patron deity and that they identified him with the Semitic god, Baal. An offering table has been discovered which was probably first erected

in Avaris and which bore the inscription: “He made it as a monument for his father, Seth, Lord of Avaris” (Labib: Die Herrschaft der Hyksos, p. 29f., pl. 5). This is confirmed by the statement in papyrus Sallier: “The King Apophis- may he live, prosper and be healthy - made him Seth as his lord, and he would not serve any other god who was in the land except Seth, and he built a temple of good and eternal workmanship” (ANET 231). In her Speos Artemidos inscription Queen Hatshepsut of Dynasty XVIII went so far as to claim that those despicable Asiatics “ruled without Re’” (ibid.). This reproach, however, goes beyond what was truly the case, so far as the Hyksos were concerned. The very fact that all of the rulers of Dyn. 13 adopted prenomina ending with -Re’ is proof positive that these Asiatics respected and honored the Egyptian sun-god, even though they regarded Seth as their special patron and protector. Probably we should not interpret Hatshepsut’s statement to mean that they refused to recognize or honor Re’; it was simply that they acted as rulers over Egypt without Re’s permission or blessing. Certainly by the 19th Dynasty, if not before, Re’ seems to have been identified syncretistically with Baal, for he is referred to as the “Bull residing in Heliopolis”. (Cf. Van Seters, p. 178) Even more significant is the mythological work, “The Deliverance of Mankind from Destruction” in which Re’ is portrayed as an old, slightly doddering old fellow who is losing some of his control over gods and men. Such a depiction is completely in harmony with the Ugaritic concept of El, but it is completely at variance with the commanding power of Re’ in the Egyptian pantheon. (Cf. ANET 10-11)

Other deities cultivated by the Hyksos were Anath and Astarte Theophorous names of slaves in the 13th Dynasty Brooklyn Papyrus display compounds with Anat. One of the Hyksos kings was named Anathar. She even appears on Hyksos scarabs as a nude goddess with bovine cars and horns, or even with Hathor curls. In the 19th Dynasty (which carried over traditions and associations from the Hyksos era) Anat was said to have been the mother of Rameses the Great. (Van Seters, 179 n. 35). The goddess Astarte (Ashtoreth) appears as a protagonist in the mythological text, “Astarte and the Sea”, dating from New Kingdom times (ANET 17). The recognition of these Semitic goddesses in Ramesside literature raises as a distinct possibility that these deities were earlier introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos. The same is true of the god Iloron, who in the NK monuments sometimes appears as a winged falcon. As such he was easily associated with Horus. Theophorous names appear already in the Dynasty XIII Execration texts which bear the element Iloron. The worship of Reshef is attested in Egypt as early as Amenhotep II, and there are indications that he was known there at an even earlier date (Helck, Beziehungen. 489f.; cf. also H. K. Simpson, “Reshep in Egypt” in Orientalia, 29 - 1960 - 63-74). He does not seem to have been equated

with any corresponding Egyptian deity, however.

VII. HYKSOS CONNECTIONS WITH WESTERN ASIA

A few decades ago it was believed that a special type of fortification, consist of a large rectangular camp surrounded by massive sloping ramparts of terre pisco (hard-packed earth), was an indication of the Hyksos power wherever such were discovered in Palestine (cf. J. Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past, Princeton U. P., 1946, p. 125). Similar fortification was found around large cities as well. This furnished a basis for the theory that there was an Asiatic empire connected with the Hyksos power in Egypt. That they possessed a large and powerful center in southwestern Palestine called Sharuhen is proven by the long and determined resistance they put up at Sharuhen after their expulsion from Egypt by Ahmose. But the cogency of the special fortification technique as a demonstration of Hyksos construction and control has been brought into question by the discovery of similar defenses even in areas of Syria which no one suspects of being under Hyksos domination. That there were important commercial and diplomatic contacts with centers outside of Egypt is beyond dispute. Khyan’s name appears on artifacts discovered in various sites in North Syria and even in Crete, in the palace of Knossos. Also on an obsidian vase fragment in Borhazkoy (Labib, Die Herrschaft der Hyksos, 3ff.; Stock, MDOG, 94, - 1963 - 73-80). Three other kings are represented by scarabs discovered in Palestine in the north, and even in Kerma, Nubia, in the south; they are M;’-ib-r’, ssy, and Ya’qub-har. (Save-Soderbergh, JEA, 37 - 1951 - 65, fig. 3). All of these inscribed objects could be explained as the result of commerce and the exchange of goods between Egypt and her trading partners, or else they might have been personal possessions of Egyptian merchants residing in those foreign cities. In the absence of more specific written records we cannot go beyond a mere conjecture that Hyksos Egypt may have maintained some kind of control of the main highways and coastal cities during, their century of power. But so thoroughly were all their records destroyed by the vengeful zeal of the 18th Dynasty founders, that we cannot tell for sure to what extent their political power was maintained in Palestine or beyond. All we can say is that the supposition of a Hyksos empire rests upon very slender foundations. There is, however, one positive evidence along this line and it should not be overlooked. In the Second Kamose Stela the Pharaoh boasted that with the capture of Avaris he has also taken possession of all the foreign ships moored at the Hyksos docks. He says: “I have not left a plank under the hundreds of ships of new cedar, filled with gold, lapis lazuli, silver, turquoise and countless battle-axes of metal, apart from moringa-oil, incense, fat, honey all their valuable timber and all the good produce of Retenu.”

The crucial word here is inw (which Wilson translates as “produce”) in this last line. The text reads , which might well be rendered “all the good tribute of Retenu”. Faulkner, CDNE, 22 indicates that means produce in the Tale of the Eloquent Peasant, but it means tribute of subject countries in Urkunden, IV, 523, In Urkunden IV 668,6; 700,6; 701, 11 it means diplomatic gifts from foreign powers. If it really means “tribute” here, this would indicate that the Phoenician seaports were in a state of vassalage to Apophis. But this falls short of really firm proof.

VIII. CONTEMPORARY EGYPTIAN DYNASTIES

The Second Intermediate Period was a time of great instability and confusion. We have little in the way of historical records pertaining to this age, and there remain only the cartouches of the kings to give us a clue as to what was going on after the decline of the Middle Kingdom. Budge’s King Lists includes no less than 49 different names, of whom the best known are Sebekhotep, Neferhotep and Nellsy. There would appear to have been a proliferation of local dynasties or regional governors who assumed royal status of pharaoh, even though they were not enthroned in Thebes. The 14th Dynasty may have been shorter in duration, for Budge lists only twenty-five. But given the shortness of the time-frame it would appear that some of the provincial governors usurped the throne and laid claim to the status of royalty. Presumably it was during this era that the Hyksos gathered enough strength to set up their own rule as a foreign dynasty, centered in Avaris.

Since the 15th and 16th Dynasties were Hyksos, this leaves only the 14th and 17th Dynasties to be considered. The coexistence of Hyksos and Egyptian governments was one of the by-products of this general breakdown of central authority by the end of Dynasty XIII. The increasing aggression of the Asiatic immigrants compelled the various segments of central and southern Egypt particularly to form their own local militias for the purposes of defense, and the commanders of such armed bodies could easily move into the status of supreme executive officers who could assume the title of king and pass on their authority to their children. Even those areas under direct Hyksos control may well have been permitted by their overlords to maintain feudal fiefdoms that could easily have developed into separate local kingdoms. In this connection it is interesting to observe that in the eyes of the Hyksos king, Apophis, who bore the title of beqa “chieftain, ruler, prince”, galled the pride of Kamose by referring to him merely as wer or

“magnate, noble” (ANET 554). This may reflect a claim on the part of the Hyksos pharaoh that even the native Egyptian king, was a mere vassal under his suzerainty.

At any rate, whatever may have been the bounds of their authority, the kings of Dynasty XIV were twenty-five in number, beginning with Scheb-re’ and ending with Menkhaure’ Sesh-ib. Budge (ED ii 928) suggests that there may have been three other kings that belonged to this dynasty as well.

As for the 17th Dynasty, the Theban line that finally succeeded in ousting the Hyksos from Egypt and destroying their fortress city in southwestern Palestine (Sharuhen), they came to seventeen in number, according to the Turin Papyrus -- which unfortunately only three of them in complete cartouches (Neb-iry-aw-re’ I and II, and Smen-tawy-re’). But Budge, ED ii, 930-931 furnishes no less than twenty-one other names, six of which could be the full spelling of the fragmentary Turin list. (That is to say, for the four Turin names beginning with Shm ... R’ , there are seven in the Budge supplemental group that might correspond; #269, Pnn-st … might represent the fragmentary sa-Re’ name of #270, and #260, swsr Re’, might conceivably match up with #282, Ra-messweser-tawy, although the intervening sign read tentatively as renders this doubtful.) Some of the supplemental names may, of course, represent a changed sa-re’ name for the one and same monarch, identifiable by his nsw-bity name.

At any rate, W. C. Hayes (op. cit., xiv) proposes two groups of kings for Dynasty XVII, the first of which ruled from 1660-1610, and consisted of eleven names, and the second group, consisting of five names, ruled from 1660-1567 B.C.

Regrettably enough, even though there are so many kings’ names preserved, the records of their adventures and achievements has almost completely disappeared. No historiographer has survived from that period. About the only literary work throwing light upon political and social conditions during the pre-Hyksos phase of the Second Intermediate period is the fragmentary “Admonitions of Ipuwer” (ANET 441-444), which gives a vivid and moving description of a great culture going into a process of erosion and collapse. For a long time the bearing of this document upon the situation confronting the late 13th Dynasty was not appreciated, due to the supposition that it stemmed from the First Intermediate period in the Third Millennium. But John Van Seters has produced a very convincing demonstration on the basis of ethnic designations appearing in Ipuwer that were unknown until Dynasty XII and thereafter, that the true setting must be the period of growing demoralization and decentralization that marked the prelude to the Hyksos conquest. The royal residence is quite clearly Ity-tawy, the

headquarters of the Egyptian pharaohs until the Hyksos conquest and the establishment of Avaris as the seat of power (Van Seters, p. 114). He remarks: “One date seems to fit all the requirements: the late Thirteenth Dynasty. The orthography and the linguistic evidence have always pointed towards this later date, and our present knowledge of the social and political history of this period confirms this opinion” (Op. cit, p. 115).

Admonitions refers to the Asiatics who have settled the Delta area in great numbers and pretty largely taken over control, saying: “The foreigners (h;styw) are now skilled in the work of the Delta”. And again, “Foreigners have become people (rmt- a term used to refer to Egyptians only) everywhere.” (I:9) Adm. 6:7 refers to the fact that the census lists of slaves have been destroyed, leading not only to virtual manumission but also to opportunities for leadership in the community structure. The Nubians (nhsyw), the “bowmen” (pdtyw), the Libyans (Tmhw) are now becoming menacing and aggressive towards the Egyptian state, and only the Madjayu are still loyal to the government. It is highly significant that this particular Nubian tribe, the Madjayu, continued to serve as mercenaries in Upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate period and were even used by Kamose in the wars of liberation against the Hyksos (Van Seters, p. 118). The general demoralization is reflected in Adm, 10:3-4; 3:10-13: “Lower Egypt weeps. The storehouse of the king is the common property of everyone and the entire palace is without its revenues … Why really, Elephantine and the Thinite Nome, the shrine (?) of Upper Egypt does not pay taxes, owing to the civil strife … What is a treasury without its revenues?” In 7:2-4 Ipuwer laments: “A few lawless men have ventured to despoil the land of Kingship. Men have ventured to rebel against the Uraeus … The secret of the land, whose limits were unknown, is divulged. The Residence (hnw) will be overthrown in a minute.”

IX. THE WAR OF LIBERATION

The successful resurgence of native Egyptian power led to the proud achievement of the last two or three kings in the 17th Dynasty. Who exactly these kings were and how many they were is still a matter of uncertainty. Earlier scholars assumed from the diversity of sa-Re’ names that there must have been more than one Seqenenre’ and more than one Kamose. Gauthier (Livre ii 169 n.7; Griffith Studies, London 1923, 3f.) concluded that there were two different Kamose’s, one with the ntr

nfr title W;d-hpr-R’ and the other with the s;-r’ title

P;-bq;qn . But Redford (op. cit., 35-37) points out that that there were three different Horus names employed with the cartouche of

Kamose, and he reasons that if there were but two Kamose’s, does this not show that one of them must have changed his Horus name once? If he did so once, may he not have done so twice? In the light of the Second Kamose Stela it seems incredible that there could have been more than one Kamose. Redford concludes that must have succeeded Ta’o II and was himself an immediate predecessor of Ahmose (p. 38). He adds that we cannot be certain how long the 17th Dynasty held sway. We can be sure that it embraced at least two normal generations. That is to say, Senakhtenre Ta’o I, married to Tetyshery, was the father of Seqenenre Ta’o II, married to Ahhotpe, and they in turn produced Nebpehtetre Ahmose (p. 35). As for Ahmose I, the destroyer of Avaris who expelled the Hyksos from the Delta, he seems to have been a younger brother of Kamose (p. 39). Articles bearing Ahmose’s name have been found in Kamose’s coffin (R. Weill, JA - 1910 - 565f.). This is only an inference, however, since no direct inscriptional evidence has been found that states Ahmose’s parentage. This matter must be left as still moot, however, in view of the fact that Ahmose was listed as the founder of the 18th Dynasty, and it is certainly unusual for the scion of a previous dynasty to be regarded as the founder of a new dynasty.

At any rate, however many kings there may have been in Dynasty XVII, the actual war of liberation against the Hyksos seems to have been started by King Seqenenre. Papyrus Sallier I, the 19th Dynasty popular account which tells of his exploits, does not specify which Seqenenre this was (Budge ED 931 lists three of them, although the first two may be the same man, since the sa-re names differ but slightly). At all events, this fragmentary account tells of a demand by King Apophis in Avaris, conveyed by his envoys to Seqenenre down in Thebes, requiring him to empty a sacred crocodile pool (which may have been under Seqenenre’s control, even though it was close enough to be a disturbing nuisance near the border of the Avaris region -- according to Hans Goedicke’s plausible interpretation, at least (ANET 673, cf. p. 232). Seqenenre apparently sent back a conciliatory answer to this request, yet the whole idea of draining that sacred pool and disturbing those crocodiles did not sit well with his own nobles, who probably did not want to get in trouble with Sobek, the Crocodile-god. At this point, unfortunately, the tale breaks off, and says nothing up to that point about the Theban king’s taking the field against Apophis. But since Seqenenre’s mummy has been found and unwrapped, it has proved that he in all probability died in battle of a severe head-wound. From this we may infer that he did take the field against some opponent, and that may well have been the Hyksos.

In the case of Kamose, however, we are on firmer ground, for we have two documents relating to his attacks against Apophis and his capital, Avaris. The first is Carnarvon Tablet I, published by Lord

Carnarvon and H. Carter in “Five Years’ Exploration at Thebes” London, 1912, 36-37, It states that in the third year of Wadj-kheper-Re’ Kamose the king announced his intention to unite Egypt under a single ruler once more. “(One) prince is in Avaris, another is in Ethiopia, and here I sit associated with an Asiatic and a Negro! Each man has his slice of Egypt, dividing up the land with me. I cannot pass by him as far as Memphis, Egypt; behold, he has Hermopolis. No man can settle down, being despoiled by the imposts of the Asiatics. I will grapple with him, that I may cut open his belly! My wish is to save Egypt and to smite the Asiatics!” (ANET 232) His councilors feel distinct misgivings about this bold proposal and argue that they now have a satisfactory modus vivendi with the Hyksos right now: “Behold, it is Asiatic water as far as Cusae ((which lay 25 miles south of Hermopolis)) . . . we are at our ease in our Egypt. Elephantine is strong ((i. e., the border facing Nubia)), and the middle of the land is with us as far as Cusae, The sleekest of their fields are plowed for us ((meaning that they enjoy the grain crop of the Hyksos dominated Delta)), and our cattle are pastured in the Delta.” This clearly implies that there were satisfactory mutual relationships between central Egypt and the Hyksos by this time. The nobles go on to say: “Emmer is sent for our pigs. Our cattle have not been taken away … He holds the land of the Asiatics; we hold Egypt. If someone should come and act against us, then we would act against him!” In other words, they are opposed to a war of aggression and prefer to remain on peaceful relations with the northern power of the Asiatics.

But Kamose has no interest in maintaining the peace. “I went north because I was strong enough to attack the Asiatics, through the command of Amon, just of counsels. . . . My valiant army was in front of me like a blast of fire. The troops of the Madjoi were on the upper part of our cabins, to seek out the Asiatics and to push back their positions,” He then relates how he captured and sacked Nefrusi north of Hermopolis, and then the Tablet breaks off. Fortunately, however, another stela was discovered by Labib Habachi at Karnak in 1954, the Second Kamose Stela. This is not a continuation of the previous one, but rather it furnishes a credible causa belli in the put-down administered to Kamose in a communication from Apophis. That is to say, Apophis referred to

Kamose as a mere wr or “prince”, in contrast to himself as a bqa or “Ruler, overlord”. Doubtless this had been the traditional terminology from the first days of the Hyksos conquest, but Kamose was not about to accept a subordinate position any longer; for the honor and glory of Egypt he meant to crush and expel the Asiatics and unite both North and South under one native ruler once more. His reply to Apophis is extremely truculent and full of menace, and he immediately

launched a large navy of fierce marines and headed them up to Perdjedqen (loc. incert.) and from there headed northeast to Avaris itself, which lay beside the Pelusiac shore. Then he utters this proud boast: “So your wish has failed, miserable Asiatic! See, I shall drink of the wine of your vineyard, which the Asiatics of my own capturing will press out for me. I shall destroy your dwelling-place and cut down your trees, after I have confined your women to the holds of the ships. I shall take over the chariotry.” He then goes on to relate how he captured all the foreign merchant ships moored by the Hyksos docks, confiscating the cedar planks, the gold, lapis lazuli, consignments of battle-axes, incense, honey, and various types of choice timber, largely derived from Retenu (Palestine). “I seized them all,” he says, “I did not leave anything of Avaris, because it is empty, with the Asiatic vanished. Kamose even speaks of intercepting envoys from Apophis headed for Nubia to the far south and bearing a letter from Apophis to the “ruler of Cush”. In it he was urging the Nubians to launch an invasion from the south against the territory of Kamose, while he himself would punish the Egyptians for invading the Delta. Then the Hyksos and the Cushites could divide Egypt between themselves.

Obviously nothing could come of this proposed alliance against Kamose because of his brilliant timing, by which he caught Apophis completely unprepared; and with his swift-moving navy could control the entire Nile valley. Kamose ends with the exultant self-praise, purportedly coming from his patron god, Amon: “Receive good things … son of Amon … the enduring king, Wadj-kheper-Re, the son of Re: Kamose the strong, given life, stability and satisfaction.” As it turned out, however, Kamose did not endure many years after his triumph in expelling the Hyksos from Egypt. The highest recorded regnal year was three (Carnarvon Tablet I, Karnak Stela I) and Petrie allotted him no more than six years in all, in the light of all the evidences (History, ii, 15). His burial was apparently hurried and make-shift, which suggests that his death was quite sudden and unexpected (H. E. Winlock, JEA 10 -1924 - 262). This perhaps accounts for the otherwise strange omission of his name in the autobiographical stela of Admiral Ahmose sa-Abina of ElKab. Although his military service extended from the reign of Seqenenre to that of Ahmose, the founder of Dynasty XVIII, this account passes over Kamose in complete silence -- conceivably because he did not wish to detract at all from the glory of King Ahmose, who achieved the final destruction of all Hyksos power by the storming of their last bastion in Sharuhen, Palestine.

Before leaving this summary of the War of Independence, a little more should be said about Admiral Ahmose’s autobiography. For some reason he is called the son of his mother, Abina or Eben (as her name is variously vocalized), even though he also gives his father’s name as Bebe

(ANET, 233). His father served under Seqenenre (which of the two it was he does not specify), and then as a young man he entered naval service and specifically names the various battleships on which he served, and the campaigns in which he was involved. He mentions his participation in various river-battles until finally the Egyptian fleet arrived at the port of Avaris itself. (Strangely enough, he does not even allude to Kamose in this epoch-making, campaign.) He then speaks of his involvement in the three-year siege of Sharuhen, and then subsequent to that seems to imply that he sailed south with Pharaoh to attack the Nubians in Cush. It is unclear whether this Nubian campaign was conducted under Kamose or Ahmose -- a detail for which we would have been most grateful. He even participated in a major expedition with an unnamed Pharaoh (who must have been Thutmose I of Dynasty XVIII) all the way to Naharina (Naharayim) on the Euphrates. But the admiral was so concerned to mention the booty and the medals he won in the service of the government that he neglects to mention any of his pharaohs by name except Ahmose (to whom he refers only by his nesu-bity name, Nebpekhty-Re, (ANET 233-234)

V. CORRELATION OF THE HYKSOS WITH THE PENTATEUCH

The data examined up to this point points quite decisively to the conclusion that the expulsion of the Hyksos by Kamose and Ahmose occurred between 1570 and 1550 B.C. If the evidence for the inception of the inception of a Hyksos take-over of the Egyptian government indicates a domination of approximately a century and a half, the result proposed by R. M. Engberg (The Hyksos Reconsidered, U. of Chicago, 1939), the 15th Dynasty would have begun around 1700; or, if we accede to the newer estimates of 103 or 108 years only, then they would have taken over no earlier than 1680. This raises a very serious objection to the long-cherished theory, first proposed by Josephus, that Joseph ben Jacob served under a Hyksos ruler. This can be maintained only by dint of a complete rejection of the very precise chronological statements found in the Pentateuch and in the Book of Judges and in I Kings 6:1.

Let us review these statements in order to see what we have to deal with in this connection. I Kings 6:1 states that Solomon in the fourth year of his reign began the erection of the great temple in Jerusalem. If Solomon commenced his reign in 970, this comes out to 966 B. C. The verse goes on to specify that this occurred 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt under Moses, If this figure is accurate, as Judges 11:26 clearly confirms, then the Exodus must have occurred around 1446 B. C. The figure of 480 can no more be taken as merely symbolic than the statement that a week consists of seven days, or that there were twelve tribes of Israel. Both seven and twelve may have a symbolic value, to be

sure, but that does not prevent them from being factually exact when applied to the measurement of time-intervals. That kind of gematria flies in the face of facts, and no chronological statement occurring in the Received Text of either the Hebrew Scriptures or the New Testament has ever been proved to be inaccurate or merely symbolic -- except of course in cases where the term “day” is used in a special sense, as in Genesis 1, or as in statement made by our Lord in Luke 13:32-33 which speaks of His performing cures “today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal,” as He replied to the warning that Herod was planning His arrest. None of these usages purports to be specifying exact time, that is, time as khronos rather than kairos

We next come to the statement in Exodus 12:40 that the interval between the Exodus and Jacob’s migration into Egypt as 430 years. (Some have advocated reading into the NT a Septuagintal variant, which would include Abraham’s first visit to Egypt in Gen. 12:10. But apart from the fact that the LXX systematically alters the agelength figures from the Hebrew text by 100 years or more, the telescoping of the sojourn in Egypt to a mere 215 years would make the multiplication of 70 or 75 persons to two million or more by the 215th year fantastic beyond belief. The supporting argument that the three or four link genealogies contained in Exodus 6 overlooks the well-known Semitic practice pointed out by Kenneth Kitchen (AOOT 54-56) of identifying leaders by giving just the name of the founder of the tribe, followed by the founder of the sub-tribe, and then by the founder of the clan from which that leader has descended. But in I Chron. 7:25 there are nine or ten generations specified between Ephraim and Joshua. Cf. also the genealogy of Bezalel in I Chron. 2, and of Elishama in Num. 1:10, and of Nahshon in I Chron, 2.

If then we take the 430 year figure as firm, this brings the migration of Jacob back to 1876, in the midst of the 12th Dynasty -- possibly in the reign of Senwosret III. This was the pharaoh who apparently undertook a major reorganization of Egypt into three major administrative districts rather than the agglomeration of 42 nomes. This would fit in with what Gen. 47:13-26 tells us about the purchase of all the arable land of Egypt by the crown as a result of Joseph’s handling of the crisis of the seven years of famine in Egypt. If Pharaoh ended up as owner of all the real estate in Egypt, he would have a free hand in such major reorganization. (Cf, Van Seters 95-96)

A careful examination of the evidence in the Pentateuch shows that Josephus’s theory is completely untenable. The government which welcomed Joseph and promoted him to the office of vizier must have been a native Egyptian government that looked down with a certain disdain upon Asiatics. This is clearly seen in Gen. 43:32, where in connection with the banquet that Joseph gave to his eleven brothers

he was forbidden by custom to allow them to sit at head-table with him: “The Egyptians might not eat bread with the Hebrews, for that is an abomination to the Egyptians.” This could hardly have been the case if in point of fact the Egyptian government at that time consisted of Asiatic Hyksos. We need to observe as well the Egyptian prejudice against shepherding implied by Joseph’s advice to his father Jacob to mention to Pharaoh only his involvement in cattle-rearing, “For every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians” (Gen. 46·:34). Even though Manetho’s etymology of the term “Hysos” may have been mistaken, the Asiatic interlopers surely could not have been identified with sheep-herding in the later Egyptian tradition if in point of fact that had considered sheepherding an abomination, as Gen. 46:34 indicates.

Furthermore, the identification of the “pharaoh who knew not Joseph” as a Hyksos ruler makes sense only if he headed up a race than was much inferior in numbers to the Egyptians themselves. Especially back in the time of Moses’ birth around 1526 it would have been utterly absurd for him to have said in Exodus 1:9: “Behold, the people of Israel are more and mightier than we.” By that time the Israelites in Goshen must have numbered far less than the two million or so who left Egypt with Moses eighty years later. Surely the native Egyptians in 1530 must have amounted to a population of at least ten million, and no Egyptian king in his right mind would have regarded a million and a half as more numerous than ten million! But if the master race of the Hyksos amounted to about that same figure of a million and a half, as well they might, the apprehension of the king expressed in Exodus 1:9 would have been well founded, and his strategy of discouraging growth by slavery would have made sense. It would also have accounted for his fear that sometime soon that large number of Hebrews in Goshen might have made common cause with the “enemies” of the Hyksos, who in this case might very plausibly have been the restive natives of Egypt itself. It is hard to conceive of who else these “enemies” might have been during the Hyksos regime, since the Hyksos enjoyed harmonious relations with the Asiatics from whom they had migrated, and likewise the Nubians down in Cush. There is no evidence of hostility on the part of the Libyan tribes during the 15th Dynasty, either, and so that would leave a Hyksos king completely free of menace from any other race except the Egyptian natives themselves.

So far as the Hebrews of Goshen were concerned, there was every likelihood that they would have cordially supported the Egyptian populace if they had started a revolt against their Hyksos rulers. The tradition of Joseph and his descendants was strongly pro-government so far as the Middle Kingdom was concerned. From this standpoint it would make sense to a Hyksos government to reduce the rapidly multiplying Hebrews to a state of abject slavery, so as to make them less capable of

warfare. The very fact that the Hebrew population was not expelled or exterminated along with the Hyksos during the War of Liberation is proof positive that the rulers of the Late 17th Dynasty and Ahmose himself did not classify the Hebrews at all with the Hyksos -- Josephus to the contrary notwithstanding. (It should be observed that Josephus was even more badly confused when in Antiquities, ii, 9:1 he stated that during the Egyptian oppression the government compelled them to build the Pyramids. If he referred to the great pyramids of Gizeh, as he probably did, he was assigning to Hebrews of the mid-second-millennium involvement in an engineering operation completed several centuries before the birth of Abraham! If Josephus could have made a mistake of 1200 years in this instance, it is hardly responsible scholarship to insist that he must have been right about Joseph’s contemporaneity with the Hyksos of the 17th century; He simply was ill-informed about Egyptian history of the Second and Third Millennia.)

At this point the question very naturally arises: why, then, do we find the 18th Dynasty Egyptian king pursuing the same repressive policy as the Hyksos kings before him? Why did he also attempt to keep down the population growth of the Hebrews? Why did he resort to the extreme measure of having all the baby boys killed at the time of delivery? The answer is fairly obvious. The repressive measure of the Hyksos oppressor, who subjected the Israelites to hard labor as slaves had not been at all successful in retarding their astonishing growth in numbers, and so the 18th Dynasty king, presumably Thutmose I (15391514 or thereabouts), would have sterner measures to ensure that they would not become more numerous than they were already. After all, they may have remained loyal to Egypt all during the Hyksos era, but they still were Asiatics, and they did not assimilate very well with the Egyptian culture around them. Instead of worshiping the many gods of Egypt, they pretty largely restricted themselves to the worship of some invisible god whom they never represented by a graven image of any kind. They even took a dim view of many features of the regular Egyptian lifestyle and did not join in with the numerous festivals that were so important to the native populace. It was only natural therefore to resort to the same antiIsraelite policy as their Hyksos predecessors had followed.

If this interpretation of the oppression narrative is correct, we should see a distinct time-gap between Exod. 1:8-14 and vv. 15-22. They appear to have been combined so closely by reason of the similarity of attitude and policy followed by both dynasties, the 15th and the 18th. The ground for apprehension would have been the same, that is, the astonishing growth of the Hebrews in their favored region of Egypt. It is difficult to imagine how any other government or established native population would not be similarly alarmed if they saw an immigrant colony increase at such an incredible rate as that indicated by Exod. 1:7.

It remains only to be said that the time-frame for events following a 1526 birth date for Moses would agree perfectly with an adoption by a very independent, strong-willed princess like Hatshepsut. At the age of forty the date would be about 1486, just about the time that Thutmose III engineered the assassination of Hatshepsut (at least this is the most probable explanation for her death at this time), and the readiness of the government under that king to prosecute Moses for his killing of the Egyptian taskmaster would very plausibly lead to his flight to the land of Midian. If the higher chronology accepted up until recent times still holds good, and Thutmose III would have passed away by the time the Lord called Moses forty years later, then a suitable background would be found for the statement in Exod. 4:19: “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.” This would also fit very well into the later situation inferable from the Dream Inscription of Thutmose IV, to whom as a young prince Reharakhti is asserted to have promised succession to the throne of Egypt as a reward for clearing away all the encumbrance of the sand from the shrine located between the paws of the great Sphinx. Surely this promise would have been superfluous to Thutmose if he had already been recognized as crown prince under his father, Amenhotep II. Only if the firstborn of Amenhotep would have been cut off before his father’s death would this promise have been capable of fulfilment. It looks as if whoever was the oldest son of Amenhotep II must have died in the Tenth Plague, as recorded in Exod. 12:29. No such correspondences with known Egyptian history can possibly be made out for Rameses the Great. It therefore follows that the Early Date Theory of the 1445 B. C. Exodus is the one best sustained by all of the evidence of the Scripture itself and by the data of Egyptian history themselves.

The End.

Hans Goedicke

Professor, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Review Editor of the Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt; Editor-in-Chief, Records of the Ancient Near East, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden; Editor-in-Chief, Near Eastern Studies, The Johns Hopkins University Press. Ph.D., University of Vienna. Excavations include Giza, Egypt, Aswan, Gharb Aswan, Gebel Tingar, and Wadi Tumilat. Author and editor of numerous publications: Queen Nefertari, The Documentation of Her Tomb, Perspectives on the Battle of Kadesh.

EXODUS: THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN EVIDENCE

by Hans Goedicke Professor

Johns Hopkins University

This symposium has as its announced aim “to provide a context in which all sides of the question leading to Israel’s departure from Egypt and the entry into Canaan can be represented.”

This implies that there is a historical substance to the Biblical Exodus account. As obvious as this might seem for many, such an attitude is not universally held. To state the opinion of one Biblical scholar: “Personally, I strongly believe that the Miracle of the Sea a masterpiece of literary Composition -- has very little to do with history … Any attempt, in my opinion, to apply significance to this story is futile and points to a very little understanding of the Biblical narrative and its composition.” The notion that the Exodus account, and connected with it the “Miracle of the Sea,” is a product of literary imagination that led another scholar to propose that the place of the latter, in the Bible given as yom suf, “Sea of Reeds,” is actually to be read yom saf, denoting a mythical “Sea of the End.” Without going into a detailed critique of this attitude, let me just summarize the upshot. According to some Biblicists, the “Miracle of the Sea,” which as the aboriginal religious experience is commemorated annually in the Passover celebration, was not an historical event, but a “literary composition.” This would mean that the Jewish faith is rooted in a figment of literary imagination. Needless to say, I cannot accept such a view.

Another cause for questioning the historicity of the Biblical account stems from some of the geographical terminology used in it

in particular the mention of Pithom. Since Pithom is not attested as a place name prior to the Ptolemaic Period, this does not seem to justify dating the Biblical text as late as the Sixth Century B.C. and to question the historicity of the event itself. The possibility of an updating of geographical details cannot and is not denied, but why should anybody in the Sixth Century B.C. come up with the Exodus narrative without any earlier traditions it could be based on?

If the Exodus constitutes an historical event, it should be approached in accordance with those principles which have been developed to meet the past. In other words, the first task in a rational effort is to define the appropriate method for doing it. The dominating source of information about the event is, indeed, the Biblical account. This is, however, not an historical document, not even an historiographical one, because its prime aim was not and is not to relay an event, or a series of them, but is rather a didactic one. The Torah, in which it is contained, is the “guidance” for its adherents. The account, as it is available to us in the Masoretic Text, is unquestionably not an eyewitness report, but a literary tradition which received its present form over a long period of time. It is generally accepted by now that not only have various editorial efforts gone into the text as we have it now, but also that different strands are interwoven into it. When they were combined into one text is a question of academic dispute. In the last analysis it has no real bearing on the question concerning us here, namely that of the Biblical account as an historical source. Whatever date is assigned to the prime redaction, it is undisputed that it happened a considerable time after the events forming the Exodus tradition.

The result of these reflections has to be the realization that the biblical account, as it is available, is not a prime historical source. This is in no way a denial of the historicity of the events mentioned in it, but these are reflections rather than descriptions. For the investigation of the historical events underlying the Exodus tradition, the Biblical account cannot and should not be considered a primary historical source, but as a basically literary document, it should receive only relative value. As a matter of methodology for a rational investigation of the history mirrored in the Exodus, the Bible text cannot be used to evaluate whatever physical facts can be demonstrated as pertaining to the chain of events summarized as “Exodus.” On the contrary, the Biblical tradition, in recognition of its basically literary character, has to be submitted to whatever facts can be established by historical research. Some of the problems besetting the entire complex of questions concerning us here are due to the lopsided method commonly used, by which prime evidence is subjugated to the Biblical account. As a result, most efforts in this vein are historical exegesis of a literary tradition, as Liverani has succinctly pointed out. It is as if one would use Beowulf or the

Niabelungen as a prime historical source.

If, however, the Biblical account holds only limited value in the quest for establishing a- or the - historical event/s mirrored in it, what would be superior to it? In historical investigations, information is considered in the following order: first, an official document contemporary with the event investigated, i.e., a prime source: second, private documents contemporary with the event, i.e., a secondary source: third, material evidence as established by archaeology, i.e., tertiary evidence: fourth, physical data, such as geology, climatological indications, etc.: fifth, historiographical information closely related to the events studied: sixth, literary accounts. It is proper to apply this sequence of evaluation in searching for the historical events contained in the Exodus tradition.

As the literary, i.e., biblical, account is the impetus of our endeavor, the first task is to establish those features, which bring it into a larger context, thus opening possibilities of historical texture. After all, life does not occur in isolation -- neither for the individual nor for a social unit. In the account of the events leading up to the Exodus of the Children of Israel, as well as during their departure, a number of events are mentioned which are not ordinary, especially not for the region, i.e., Egypt. There is first of all the repeated reference to “darkness.”

Further, the falling of ash in Ex.9-10 “each of you take handfuls of ash from the kiln, and let Moses throw it towards the sky in the sight of Pharaoh. It shall become a fine dust all over the land of Egypt, and cause an inflammation...” In addition is “the column of smoke by day” and “the column of fire by night” before the people on their move. The culmination is, of course, in the “Miracle of the Sea” when a wave of water drowns Pharaoh’s troops. These features have long since been recognized as being volcanic in nature; biblical scholars have assumed a volcano in the Sinai, where there is none known to volcanologists, or in the Arabian Peninsula, where there is one, dormant, however, for at least 20,000 years.

Volcanic phenomena are not common in Egypt, which is alluvial, nor in Palestine where there is no unsettled fault leading to volcanic events. It has been suggested that the possibly volcanic features in the Biblical account were not actually experiences of the Israelites, but were taken over from some extraneous source. For the task concerning us the argument is not only spurious, but actually counterproductive. It accepts the historicity of the phenomena but eliminates the basis of the event which became pivotal in the identification of Israel.

As neither Egypt nor Palestine has volcanos, this makes it necessary to expand the perimeter of investigation and to include the entire eastern Mediterranean basin. This region was struck by a natural catastrophe around 1500 B.C., which stretched over half a century and

culminated in the explosion of the island of Thera/Santorin, bringing havoc to a vast area. It has been estimated that at Thera’s explosion ca. 12 cubic miles blew up, after the volcano had been dormant for over 15,000 years. In addition, vast amounts of ash were released by the volcano, producing deposits on the island of up to 70 meters.

The late Spiridon Marinates introduced in 1939 the thesis that Thera had a decisive impact on the Helladic culture, bringing about the end of Minoan society. It took 30 years before his thesis was tested by field work on Thera. Within days, the thesis of decisive volcanic impact was proven by the excavations at Akrotiri on Thera. The excavations not only established the devastating impact of the Thera explosion, but they also showed that this final event was preceded by an earlier devastation, which was predominantly seismic in nature. The two devastations were separated by a period of relative calm, estimated to have lasted approximately 50 years. On the basis of archaeological dating, Marinates assigned 1550 B.C. to the first and 1500 B.C. to the second destruction. The dates are in agreement with C-14 as far as the volcanic phase is concerned; its figures are + 1500 with a margin of + 100 years.

Before proceeding further, a word has to be said here about the dating of natural disasters, especially of the magnitude the Thera explosion appears to have been. They are not isolated, clearly definable happenings, but should rather be envisaged as a series of events stretching over an extended period of time, with major and minor phases of activity following each other.

More than 20 years before the archaeological corroboration of Marinates’ thesis, there began the geological investigation of the Eastern Mediterranean for any impact of the Thera disaster. They demonstrated that the Thera explosion affected the entire Eastern Mediterranean; volcanic ash from it was found on the sea-floor in a gradually diminishing thickness from Thera/Santorin in a basically southeastern direction towards the region of Pelus, or in modern terms Port Said. It follows the predominant direction of the winds, which explains that little ash was found north of Thera. Eastern Crete was greatly affected as far as the deposits on the sea floor were concerned, but in only a few cases could the volcanic ash be demonstrated on Crete proper.

The studies of the sedimentary geologists established three important facts: first, a great volcanic catastrophe affected the entire Eastern Mediterranean; second, this event occurred approximately 3500 years ago; third, no other event of comparable or even smaller size occurred between 1750 and 1200 B.C.

If there was a cataclysmic event affecting the entire Eastern Mediterranean basin, the next question concerns any possible reflections of it in other parts of the region. Of particular importance would be a link with Egypt because it has the best-established chronology. The volcanic

ash from the Thera explosion has been traced to the Nile core. In 1985, Dr. Daniel Stanley, sedimentary geologist of the Smithsonian Institution, conducted an extensive drilling program in the Northeastern Delta to study the interaction between sea and land in this area. Although the evaluation of the material is still in a preliminary state, the fact is already established that the Thera explosion had a direct impact on the Northeastern Delta. Volcanic ash from this specific eruption was found in the drilling cores. This is physical proof that the ash flow from Santorin covered this region. An additional result also has to be mentioned: from the size of the ash-flakes, 20-40 microns, it can be estimated that the eruption cloud reached a height of over 50 miles; in order to be visible from the Delta over the curvature of the earth, the cloud had to be at least 30 miles high: thus, a possible visibility of the Thera event from Egypt has been ascertained.

In view of the clear physical evidence, the question of references to the disaster in Egyptian written documents is to be pursued next. There are altogether four hieroglyphic inscriptions mentioning a natural catastrophe affecting Egypt and datable within the time-frame provided by the geological, volcanological and Helladic archaeological evidence. Two of them date to ± 1530 B.C. and concern a major flooding; one of them makes it clear that this flooding was caused by an intrusion of the sea inland, apparently up to the vicinity of the town of Avaris. The other two texts apparently concern only one event also, but one which took place approximately 50 years later. The two records differ in importance inasmuch as one is approximately contemporary with the event, the other a much later historiography, based however, on a much earlier composition. The earlier one was inscribed by Hatshepsut on a rock-cut shrine in Middle Egypt, called “Speos Artamidos.” It was dedicated to a goddess Pakhet as an expression of gratitude that “she had opened the ways for the water-torrent without drenching me, in order to catch the water.” The goddess is identified as “the Great one who roams the wadis and who resides in the East.” This reference to a potentially dangerous “water-torrent” which barely missed Hatshepsut’s realm cannot refer to a cloudburst in the desert, because this would not have posed any problems for Egypt. The same text also speaks of the need to provide artificial light in religious establishments, as well as of the evacuation and temporary reassignment of cults. The Egyptian text says: “The Lord [of the glow] over the coast-line-- (although) his flames were outside the two Mountain range”-- braziers (i.e. lamps) were distributed, which enlarged the shrines into favorite places. Every god, who had been isolated from the dwelling which he had loved -- his ka was satisfied with the places which were established for the deity according to the ‘ritual’.”

Let me recount these words in more familiar terms to make

them better understandable. “The Lord [of the glow] over the coast-line” refers to a divine power who is recognized in a fiery reflection observed in the north, the only coast-line Egypt has. Although only his “glow” could be observed from Egypt, this is identified as the reflection of “flames which remained outside the two Mountain ranges” lining the Nile Valley, a common term for Egypt, especially south of modern Cairo. While this glow was visible over the shore-line, “braziers,” i.e. lamps, had to be set up. As earlier human life followed closely the pattern of day and night set by nature, the need to provide artificial illumination can only mean that darkness prevailed at a time when it was normally light, i.e., during daytime. With the help of the artificial lighting the dwellings of the gods (like those of human beings as well) became habitable and were not shrouded in darkness (fit only for sleeping). Some gods, however, had to be taken to other places due to the impact of the catastrophe.

The same text also reports that Middle Egypt was plagued with refugees the Egyptian says “their towns had been settled with ‘unwelcomed ones’ (a succinct description of refugees) from… [They went to] the storerooms while begging ‘Give!’” clearly a reference to destitute people depending on public support. Hatshepsut claims to have resolved the emergency so that “all the people there were satisfied after I gave provisions.” In short, the royal administration undertook the support of the refugees.

In the closing section of the long text, Hatshepsut emphasizes the divine approval she enjoys against anyone who might venture to oppose the rightfulness of her rule. As a warning against any discontent, she points to the fate of a group “which disregarded the tasks which were assigned to them.” She claims “When I came as Horus (i.e. as constitutionally crowned king), my uraeus (i.e., the Pharaoh’s symbol of power) threw fire against my opponents and I expelled the abomination(s) of the gods (i.e. people who were deserving of the death penalty for treason). ‘The earth shall remove their footprints!’ -- this was the directive of the father-of-fathers, who came at his time.” Granted, the text might not be as explicit as modern readers are accustomed to or might desire, but it nevertheless provides crucial information. The term “father-of-fathers” is attested in reference to that primeval water from which, for the Egyptians, all creation took form, just like Genesis 1’s “watery abyss.” The Egyptians called it Nun, a divine force or deity manifest in any water, especially in the Sea. Once this usage is taken into account, the “coming at his time” and the “directive” that “the earth shall remove their footprints” becomes transparent. The first is a way to express the unexpectedness of the arrival, because who or whatever comes “at its time” arrives not necessarily when wanted. Second, the “removal of the footprints” as attributed to Nun, i.e., the water of the Sea, this means that a sea-wave penetrated inland and washed out the traces

left by people moving on a path.

It is time to draw up a preliminary summary before going any further. We could demonstrate that the Eastern Mediterranean basin as an integrated area experienced two natural catastrophes, one ca. 1530 B.C., the other cataclysmic one approximately 50 years later. The physical evidence of the latter is found in the Aegaeis, especially on Crete and Cyprus, but also in the Mediterranean sea-bed in the direction of Port Said. There is also consistent volcanological proof that Egypt’s Northeastern Delta was extensively affected. There are references in an inscription of Hatshepsut, who steered the affairs of Egypt, first as regent from 1490-1484/3 B.C., and afterwards as “king” from 1483-1468 B.C., to a major natural disaster affecting Egypt. Two features are of particular relevance: first, the prevalence of darkness during daytime the other the impact of a “water-torrent” which barely missed the Pharaonic realm, its main thrust running off into the area east of Egypt’s border. In other words, a flood penetrated primarily in the region which is now traversed by the Suez Canal. It has to be stated here that according to the calculations of the oceanographer Dr. Owen Phillips, the flood-wave or tsunamis of the Thera explosion, rolling in from straight north, hit the area of Pelusium its center. The inscription of Hatshepsut also mentions a group of people who had been in Egypt as “resident aliens” (sm3w) and who were of Semitic background (‘3mw). They were expelled from the Pharaonic real (shri), because they had disobeyed the tasks assigned to them. Although deserving of the death penalty (i.e., being “abomination of the gods”), they were let go, but “their footprints were removed” by an incursion of the Sea. There is a high degree of congruency with the Biblical narrative about the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

Before discussing the second hieroglyphic text mentioning a natural disaster, let us turn next to the traditional historical exegesis of the narrative by Biblical scholars. The cornerstone of practically all is Ex 1:11, “They (i.e. the Egyptians) set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor; and they built garrison cities (or store cities) for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamezez.” Richard Lepsius, the first Egyptological giant after Champollion’s decipherment of the hieroglyphs, laid the groundwork in his 1849 published “Chronologie der Agypter.” He was the first to equate Raamezez with Ramesses, specifically with Ramesses II. According to him, this Pharaoh claimed the Wadi Tumilat with the help of building a canal through it and setting up two places, namely Pithom, which he identified with Tell el Kebir at the western end of the Wadi Tumilat and Raamezez, identified with Tell Abu Keiseib at its eastern end. For him the “Pharaoh of oppression” was Ramesses II, while he assigns the Exodus itself to his successor Marneptah. His thesis was the premise for the archaeological work undertaken by Edouard Naville at

Tell el Mashkhuta in the Eastern Wadi Tumilat in 1883 on behalf of the British “Egypt Exploration Fund.” He pronounced that he had found the Biblical “store city” of Pithom, a thesis which has found wide acceptance in Biblical circles. For Naville, too, the Pharaoh of the Oppression and the Exodus following it was Ramesses II. After a first survey in 1886/7 W. Flinders Petrie (later Sir) excavated Tell el Rataba in the Wadi Tumilat in 1905 and identified it with Raamezez in the basis of evidence of Ramesses II at the site. His historical interpretation assumes a sojourn in Egypt of 430 years, beginning 1650 B.C., and an Exodus ca. 1220 B.C. Petrie also contributed the other central document concerning a date for the Exodus. During his excavations at Thebes in 1896, he found a stela of King Merneptah dating to his 5th regnal year, which mentions a group of people with the name Israel as being in Palestine. Since then, numerous variations have been promulgated, but their essentials are an Exodus date around 1250 B.C., after an oppression under Ramesses II, for whom they were drafted to construction work.

It is, of course, impossible to analyze here all the details in the different theses proposed, thus, the arguments will be concentrated on four specific points, namely Pithom, Raamezez, Ramesses II and a Thirteenth Century date for the event underlying the Exodus tradition. As for Pithom, the philological and archaeological evidence rule out any connection between Tell el Mashkhuta and anything that could be linked in any way with the Exodus. The recent excavations at Tell el Mashkhuta under John S. Holladay have definitely proven that the site was founded ca. 600 B.C., due to changing trade-routes which necessitated a shift of the older center in the Wadi Tumilat further to the east. Burials of Palestinian MB II b have been found at the place, but no settlement. This concurs with the fact that Pithom is not used to denote a settlement prior to the Ptolemaic Period (ca. 300 B.C.). It is only at that time that Pithom becomes one of the designations of the place now known as Tell el Mashkhuta. Any connection with one of the Biblical “store-cities” reflected poor imagination by Naville, as Eric Peet pointed out 60 years ago. It results that the mention of Pithom in the Biblical narrative as a place-name has to be seen as geographical updating by later editors of the Biblical text.

The second so-called “store-city” is named Raamezez, which, as Donald B. Redford demonstrated twenty years ago, does not correspond to the Pharaonic name Ramesses. Furthermore, any equations with the name Pi-Ramesses, denoting the royal Delta residence ca. 1300-1080, are philologically unfounded and lack any archaeological corroboration as far as Tell el Rataba is concerned. There is no case to my knowledge that the Ramesside Residence was denoted solely by the royal name Ramesses. The place pi-Ramesses, long but wrongly identified with Tanis, was at modern Qantir, as the ongoing excavations by the Pelizaus-

Museum Hildesheim have fully demonstrated. It was founded by Seti I, and a number of kings built there. Tell el Rataba was not only inhabited during the Ramesside Period but was apparently the most important and also the frontier settlement in the Wadi Tumilat, as our sondages in 1979 have established. The town held a temple for Atum built under Ramesses II, but there is no indication whatsoever that this sanctuary became the name of the place. In sum, neither an equation of Raamezez with Ramesses is justifiable, nor is there any basis for linking it with the Ramesside Residence, which was not even built under Ramesses II. As the mention of Pithom is unquestionably an anachronism. it seems methodologically, at least, unsound to use the unexplained Raamezez mentioned with it as basis for dating the entire Exodus complex.

As for Ramesses II, his reign is remarkably well documented. There is no textual information about any natural disaster affecting Egypt during his reign, nor are there signs of an administrative breakdown, which would have allowed a group of people to leave the Pharaonic realm without permission. On the contrary, there is a document of approximately the same time which tells about the alarming of the entire border control because of one runaway. As there is nothing in the known reign of Ramesses II suggestive of any events relatable to the Biblical Exodus narrative, we can turn finally to the widely assumed 13th Century B.C. date in general. From a historian’s point of view the only firm point of evidence is the stela of Merneptah’s 5th year, which according to a median chronology can be dated to the year 1219 B.C. As said already, it mentions an ethnic entity named Israel among problems the Pharaoh had dealt with. To be significant enough to be mentioned in a Pharaoh’s inscription in this form, this group of people must have had some significance. This requires, among other things, a numerical magnitude for which nature requires more time than the 30 years proposed by those favoring a Thirteenth-Century Exodus date. The dilemma was overcome by Biblical scholars by proposing that some parts of “Israel” had remained in Palestine while others sojourned to Egypt. While this might be theoretically feasible, there is nothing in the Biblical traditions to support it, nor in the historical records of any kind; it is rather a yarn spun in the old seaman tradition to enchant the gullible ones.

History, like life in general, which it is in retrospect, is not a matter of isolated theories, but requires being seen in a holistic fashion. All features, such as specific events, geographical features, natural phenomena, and historical surroundings have to fit together, if the historical projection can claim any veracity. To pursue “Biblical history” with total disregard for the texture in which the experiences of a small group of people occurred might have its hermeneutical vindication, but it is not history in its search for the past. There is no basis in the Biblical tradition to assign the event reflected in it to the Ramessides.

There is nothing in the available historical records which substantiates the attribution. There is, furthermore, no shred of indication that any of the natural events, which appear to be mirrored in the Biblical account, happened during the reign of Ramesses II. In other words, the Thirteenth Century date is a hypothesis which was promulgated in an historical void. However, since its original formulation, the amount of information about the ancient world has dramatically increased.

For the early Fifteenth Century B.C. there is a wealth of indications that a cataclysm occurred which affected the entire Eastern Mediterranean basin and was caused by the explosion of Thera/ Santorin. The event can be traced in Egyptian contemporary records specifically dated to the reign of Hatshepsut, i.e., 1490-1468 B.C. The inscription mentions, as pointed out before, a people of foreign extraction, expelled from Egypt and whose “footprints were removed by the earth.”

As mentioned earlier, there is a second Egyptian text mentioning a natural disaster affecting Egypt. The text is inscribed on a religious shrine, a naos, which was found at el-Arish near Gaza, where it had been abandoned after it had been removed from its original setting in a place named Saft el-Henna, near Egypt’s eastern border. It had been set up there ca. 526 B.C. in connection with frantic efforts to fortify Egypt’s eastern border against an impending attack by the Persians. In order to solicit the god’s help in warding off the enemy, one not only enhanced his temple, but also reminded the god of earlier events in which the eastern frontier had been successfully defended. The original text was apparently written ± 1468 B.C. and recounts events covering approximately 35 years leading up to this date. In order to make the account more familiar for the divine addressee and also for its occurrence in a distant past, the narrative is transported into a mythical setting.

In the mythical disguise it is said about Hatshepsut: “And then he (i.e., the high-god Re’) found her in this place, whose name is P-h-r-t. And then he took hold of her as a (fem.) thief on the feast-day, which the Residence celebrated greatly -- Shu’s (feast) it is, when he left for heaven: there was no stepping out into the open for a period of 9 days. As for those 9 days, there were raging storms and a face could not see its equal by man and gods.” Putting the high-flown words into more sober terms, it results that for 9 days total darkness prevailed and that during this time it was impossible to remain in the open. The reference to “raging storms” points to a connection with the sky, without its being necessarily a meteorological phenomenon. Raging storms in general and in Egypt in particular do not last for 9 days, nor are they accompanied by blinding darkness. These reflections justify seeing here a reference to a natural catastrophe rather than (exceptionally) bad weather. Four points

are of particular significance: first, the duration of the event; second, its date; third, the possibility of pinpointing the event; fourth, the mention of a group of people expelled from Egypt.

The statement that it was impossible to step into the open for 9 days due to raging storms and that blinding darkness prevailed during this time agrees with an eyewitness account of the Krakatau explosion of 1883 A.D., which, despite its magnitude, was certainly smaller than the Thera explosion. As for the date, the text indicates that the disaster happened after Hatshepsut had “appeared in Memphis and she had proceeded to the royal palace of (her deceased husband) Thutmosis II.” This statement only makes sense when interpreted as a reference to Hatshepsut’s assuming the role of king after having acted as regent for her infant stepson for six years. The resulting time specification, namely Hatshepsut’s 7th regnal year, accords fully with the chronological information about a natural disaster in her reign derived from the Speas Artemidos inscription, as discussed earlier. It corroborates the dating of the cataclysm on Thera to the year 1483 B.C. The reference to a specific “feast-day” allows an additional step. It was not only one “celebrated greatly” by “the Residence,” i.e., it was in high esteem, especially with those in disagreement with the prevailing political situation, and the reason for the esteem is also specified. The particular “feast-day” was the one commemorating “when he (namely King Thutmosis Il) left for heaven.” In other words, the calamity, which lasted for 9 days, commenced on the anniversary of Thutmosis II’s death. The day of death of Thutmosis II has been established as April 30th. Putting the various bits of information together, it can be concluded that it was on April 30th, 1483 B.C. that the cataclysm at Thera began.

As for the people, Hatshepsut’s inscription at the Speas Artemidos mentions that the disaster affected especially a group of people “whose footprints the earth removed” as a result of an incursion of the Mediterranean Sea inland. This people had been expelled from Egypt after having “disregarded the tasks which were assigned to them.” For their opposition to the royal orders they are labelled “abominations of the gods,” which is a term for state criminals deserving death, but which in this case was commuted to expulsion. The background of this people is indicated as that of “resident aliens” who were of Semitic extraction. They had been in the employ of the Pharaohs, apparently as professional military. The el-Arish text also speaks of people of foreign extraction who are specified as “banished ones,” i.e., people expelled from their previous habitat. They are reported to have left Egypt to a distance of 75 days journeying, because “they lived as ‘abomination of the gods’.” It is the same qualification encountered before in regard to the people expelled by Hatshepsut. The two allusions concern the same people, because the date of the events is apparently identical. The following features emerge

from combining the two Egyptian sources about events in the reign of Hatshepsut: a group of alien residents of Semitic extraction who had been in Egypt in the Pharaonic service ran afoul of the authority, because they did not carry out orders given to them. Instead of their being prosecuted, those people were expelled from Egypt. They moved to the East for 75 days; it was during their departure that “the earth removed their footprints” with the help of an intrusion of the Sea inland. The latter occurred during a natural catastrophe which had its impact on Egypt in the form of raging storms and blinding darkness lasting for 9 days. It commenced on the anniversary of Thutmosis II’s demise, i.e., April 30th. The year was Hatshepsut’s 7th regnal year, i.e., 1483 B.C.

There are any more details corroborating this thesis. Three have to suffice here. That the catastrophe happened in late spring was demonstrated by archaeology at Thera in as far as the storage jars were practically empty, thus indicating that the next harvest was not far away. It conforms with the passover tradition, specifically the slaughter of a spring lamb. That Semitic people were present in Sinai during the reign of Hatshepsut is demonstrated by a limited number of inscriptions found at Serabit el Khadi, which have been repeatedly assigned to this particular reign. There is no other tie that Semites can be demonstrated in Sinai. Last, but not least, it must be mentioned here that the Biblical tradition places the Exodus 480 years prior to the building of the Temple by Solomon. While there are no exact dates for this king, there is a general consensus to place him at the beginning of the First Millennium, thus pointing to a Fifteenth Century Exodus date. A Ramesside date for this event requires extensive contortions to subjugate the Biblical tradition to it.

To sum up these lengthy deliberations, if the Biblical account about the Exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt is based on an historical event -- and I have no question about this-- all indications available to the historian come together at one point, and this is April 30th 1483 B.C., the date of the Thera explosion and the resulting tsunamis manifest in the Miracle of the Sea.

For the question motivating this meeting “Who was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?” the answer is “Hatshepsut.” She was biologically a woman, but politically through and through a Pharaoh.

Editor's note:

The Journal does not possess written copies of the following, final three articles/presentations of this issue. The articles/presentations derive from recordings only from which we made transcriptions to the best of our abilities. Readers should be aware, therefore, that there are, without doubt, lacunae, misspellings, misinterpretations, and other unavoidable flaws and mistakes.

Ronald Youngblood

Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Bethel Theological Seminary in San Diego, California. Ph.D., Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cagnate Learning. Extensive teaching, preaching, lecturing, interim pastorates, and editorial experience. Served as Professor at Luther Theological Seminary, Wheaton College, Graduate School, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The Amarna Letters and the “Habiru”

By Ron Youngblood

Thank you very much. I am sorry, indeed, that I was not able to be here for the papers yesterday. I’m a teacher, as so many of you are, and I’ve been away already far too much this quarter and so I had a class to teach yesterday morning, then went out to the airport and got on the plane to come out here. I want to express my apologies to the speakers, who, I have been told, gave such stimulating papers yesterday, and I look forward to reading what you presented here in this room. My topic is the Amarna letters and the “Habiru.”

Earlier this year, a three day Tell el-Amarna conference was held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The conference in which I had the privilege of participating was convened to commemorate the Centennial of the discovery of the Amarna Tablets, the only cuneiform documents to emerge thus far from the sands of Egypt. The first cache was found accidentally by an Egyptian peasant woman in 1887 while she was digging in the ruins of Tell el-Amarna and Middle Egypt for a supply of nitrous soil. Not knowing their value, she sold them to a neighbor for a pittance. Eventually her find, after changing hands several times, drew the attention of archaeologists and antiquities experts who were attracted to the Amarna site itself. Subsequent excavations have produced to date a cumulative total of 379 published documents, some of which are very fragmentary. Unfortunately, as many as 200 tablets may have been completely destroyed shortly after the discovery of the original horde, whether deliberately or through rough handling. Thirty of the 379 known Amarna tablets include syllabaries, lexical lists, and practice copies of sections of Akkadian mythological texts for the training of apprentice scribes. The other 349 are epistolary and constitute part of the diplomatic correspondence of the Egyptian

Pharaohs, Amenhotep III, Amenhotep IV, otherwise known as Akhenaten, and perhaps in one case, Tutankhamun. Forty-four of the letters were written to and from the kings of Babylonia, Assyria, Mitani, Hati and Alashiya, biblical Elishah, which is probably Cyprus. And the remaining 305 were written to, and from, and among Egyptian officials and vassals in Syria and Palestine.

One can only speculate as to whether future excavations at Amarna or elsewhere in Egypt will unearth additional portions of this important diplomatic archive. What we already have, however, especially the 349 letters, have helped to make the Amarna Age one of the bestknown periods in ancient history. The number of documents were written in approximately the second quarter of the 14th century B.C., about 1375 to 1350 B.C., roughly.

Most of the letters in the archive reveal a turbulent state of affairs in Syria and Palestine. Belying the facade of unity implied by Egyptian domination of the Levant, the deterioration of the Egyptian Empire in Syro-Palestine, already in process during the reign of Amenhotep III, continued under Akhenaten, who was distracted by domestic matters for much of his reign. The result in lowering of morale among the vassal rulers of the Canaanite city states drove them to inner city bickering and, on occasion, open warfare. Their Amarna correspondence is full of mutual accusations and recriminations, of treason against the Egyptian royal house and of disloyalty toward each other. So unsettled a situation made them vulnerable to attack by rebellious elements within their own domains and by enemies from without. In their letters to the Egyptian court, we often read their desperate pleas for fresh contingents of archers, to reinforce their own depleted troop strength. The Pharaohs met all such requests for help with a stony silence.

Each of the Syro-Palestinian princelings ruled a city state that often held sway over a rather large region. The two most important city states in the north were Hazor and Megiddo, the Hill Country was dominated by Shechem and Jerusalem, and Gezer and Lakish maintained extensive holdings in the Shfela and the south. Mediterranean coastal cities such as Biblos, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Akko, and Ashkelon are also represented in the 305 Syro-Palestinian letters, which constitute the bulk of the Amarna archive and supply us with essential information about the effects of Egyptian decline in that part of the world during the Amarna Age.

One of the most persistent and enduring truisms of human history is the fact that disrupting forces will attempt to undermine or overthrow the dominant sociopolitical order. In the power structures of our current age fear, it is hijackers, terrorists, guerrillas, and other subversives. Ancient ruling houses guarded their own fiefs with equal

nervousness. Of particular concern to political custodians in the Near East during the entire second millennium B.C., was the existence of groups of displaced persons who existed on the fringes of society, either fleeing from the dominant order or praying upon it. Malcontents and or misfits, the most important of these elements are today popularly referred to as Habiru. No major Near Eastern epigraphic find of the second millennium, from order Three Mesopotamia, to New Kingdom Egypt, fails to mention them. Their existence is attested in Akkadian, Hittite, Egyptian and Ugaritic sources.

Who were the Habiru? It is now universally agreed that the terms Habiru, or more precisely Apiru and Sagas, were interchangeable and referred to the same population, group, or groups. Now, to the average modern American, the word sagas, if it means anything at all, is the name of a company in Miami, FL with a branch office in Peabody, MA. When I wrote to the owners asking who they were and what they did, a lady with a pleasant voice called me on the phone to answer my questions. She told me that "Sagas is a company that manufacturers automobile seat covers in standard sizes. Would I like to buy a set for my car?" She wanted to know. "I don’t believe so," I told her. "At least at the present time". "Not to worry," she responded. "In San Diego," she said to me, "where you live, Sagas distributes through Pep Boys and Chief Auto Parts, among others". A further questioning on my part revealed that she did not know the origin of the word Sagas. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that in ancient times at least, the primary meaning of Sagas was robber or thief.

Technically speaking, in lexical lists, Sumerian Sagas was equivalent to Akkadian habatum, which means robber or plunderer. It had long been suspected, however, that Sagas was not a true Sumerian logogram, since variants such as Sa-ga-az and Sag-gas occur as well, indicating that the writing was phonetic. This in turn led to the conclusion that Sagas was a pseudo ideogram for Akkadian Chagashu, which means destroyer or murderer. Add to this the fact that Sagas and its variants are freely interchangeable with Apiru in second millennium texts, and it would seem plausible to assume that Apiru meant robber, plunderer, destroyer, or marauder.

Although some Apiru indeed fits such a description, it was by no means suitable for all of them. The most that can safely be said about the word Apiru in general is that it was a social appellative with an unfavorable meaning. The Apiru were outcasts, outsiders, outlaws, if you will, but not all of them were thieves and killers. During hopelessly desperate times, they might turn to brigandage and murder, but under ordinary circumstances they were for the most part uprooted, propertyless persons, who found a means of subsistence for themselves and their families by entering a state of dependence in various forms. It is

fortunate, then, that milder and less innocuous secondary meanings are attested for the verbal roots that underlie both Habatu and Chagashu. In certain contexts, the first means to wander or to migrate, and the second means to be restive. Such connotations are far more suitable for the bulk of the Apiru, who were usually not nearly so aggressive or belligerent as the primary meanings of Habatu and Chagashu require. Is this perhaps the reason that one group of Amarna letters frequently shortens Sagas, to simply Gaz? As if to say, “They may consider themselves Sagas, restive people, but I call them Gaz, the murderers that they really are".

Several lines of evidence lead to the conclusion that Akkadian "Ha-bi-ru" should be normalized as "A-pi-ru", and that the word is of West Semitic origin. Egyptian texts always spell the word, "inpr" plural "inprw", and Ugaritic texts likewise always spell it "inpr" plural " inprm". If the word were Akkadian in origin, the first syllable would be "ah" or "eh", but not "ha". The "ha" phoneme was the conventional Akkadian way of attempting to represent ion in words of West Semitic provenance. In Egyptian texts, the inprw are always Asiatics, often imported to supplement the native labor force. A total of almost 200 second millennium documents refer to the Sagas Apiru. Among the numerous intersecting lines of evidence that equate the two terms is the appearance of sagas followed by the phonetic complement rule. Which of course then should be read as Apiru, twice in a single Akkadian text from Ugarit. Of the nearly 200 texts mentioned, almost a third, sixty-two in all, are found among the Amarna letters, making them the largest single group of documents relating to the Sagas Apiru. Of the total, fifty-seven use the pseudo ideogram Sagas or a variant, while five, all of them written by Abdi-Heba, Prince of Jerusalem, spell the word Apiru, the West Semitic equivalent. Fully half of the sixty-two letters were produced by the harried scribes of the hardpressed Rib-Hadi, Prince of Biblos.

What kinds of activities did the Amarna Age Sagas Apiru engage in to deserve such frequent mention? Let the texts speak for themselves. It is said of the Sagas twenty-five times, that people and towns and lands, turn themselves over to, go over to, are made into, or become, Naypushuana Apiru. The Sagas are frequently called an army. They are very hostile against authority. Six times this is mentioned of them. They form part of certain auxiliary forces known as Tillatu. They set their faces against, they turn upon, they oppose authority. Madano, Panish, Unuana. They take Leku. They seize Sebatu very often. They fall upon or attack Makatu-Muki. They make war against Apashu-nucorta-animoji. They plunder Shalalu very often. They set on fire Orshuru-Orsharapu-inaishati, again very often. They raid Shehatu. They rise up against Nashu-Ina. They are strong against Don-new-mochi. They put an end to Gunmaru, both people and towns and lands. But they can also, less menacingly, be on the side of Bashu-Itti, bring messages, Shurubu, report to Araibow-

annamahar or Moji. Very often. Send word to Shaparru-Anna. Depart or defect, Namashu. At the same time, princes and or others can muster or gather Puhuru five times, Sagas. They can become like Bashu-chima them. They can drive them away from Shimuru-Ishtu. They can be friendly toward or love Ramu, in the sense of being allied with them and covenant contexts. They can station or place Shakanu them, in a city or land. They can pay them money or a stipend Madanu-Cospray-Akuta. They can dwell among them a Shabu in a Libi. They can stand with them It-Subu-Itti. They can do battle with them A-patio-Tahaza-Inna. Or be at war with them Mukurtu-Inna. They can kill Daku them. They can give up or surrender them Nadanu. They can give to them this occurs very often Nadanu-Anna. They can flee to them Nabu-Tuana or Halaku-Anna. They can deliver over to them Orshuru-Anna. They can restore to X from them Turu-Anna X Ishtu them. They can drive them out Put-Turu. They can march with X toward them. Kadu X Anna-Pani. They can rescue from the hands of them Akamu-ishu-katte. They can associate with them A-Talaku-Itti. They can desert to them Pataru-Inna. They can pledge oneself to them Nadanu-Katashu-Anna. Or they can save from the hands of them Shus-Ubu-Ishu-Kate. Finally, something can be lost to, or alternatively someone can rebel among. Halaku-Inna them.

Now, this dreary and complicated recital was intended to demonstrate the fact that the vocabulary, the verbs used in connection with the Sagas in the Amarna letters, is quite rich and lengthy. It will now be instructive to turn to the five Abdi-Heba letters, because there, as you’ll recall, the word Sagas is not used, Abdi-Heba spells out the word in syllables as Apiru. In the Abdi-Heba letters, it is said of the Apiru that people turn themselves over to or go over to or are made into or become Apiru Naypushuana. They give land or cities to the Apiru Nadanuana. They desert to them Pataruana. They are friendly toward or love them, again in the sense of being allied with them, Ramu. As for the Apiru, they take Laku a city. It will be noted that the Sagas of the fifty-seven letters do everything that the Apiru of the five letters do, and then some. There is only one exception, the Apiru plunder, but the verb is not Shalalu as in the Sagas examples, but Habatu. An obvious Abdi-Heba pun on the word Habatu, plunderer.

The fifty-seven letters use only Sagas, never Apiru, while the five letters use only Apiru, never Sagas, but it is quite evident that what is said of the Apiru in the five is said of the Sagas in the fifty-seven. Prima fascia evidence, if such were needed, that the two groups are identical. Further corroboration of this fact is seen in that, although Abdi-Heba himself never uses the term Sagas, Shuar-Data, another city state ruler does, and in one passage he says, “I and Abdi-Heba are at war with a Sagas man”. Had Abdi-Heba been writing, he would doubtless have stated that they were at war with an Apiru man.

An especially fascinating text now requires our attention. Dagan-Takala, a priest from Southern Palate, a prince from Southern Palestine, asks the Pharaoh to save him from his powerful enemies from the Sa-ga-az, the Habatu and the Sutu-Sa-ga-az. An equivalent of Apiru in these texts, is here separated from Habatu, or at least so it seems to me. In any event, the Sutu or nomads are isolated as a separate group of troublemakers. On several occasions the post determinative element key is added to Sagas and Apiru, perhaps indicating that the Sagas Apiru originate from, are related to, or are quartered in cities. It must immediately be stated, however, that although their origin may be urban, they are not permanently settled in cities or towns.

The Shuar-Data reference above indicates that individuals as well as groups could be designated by the term Sagas Apiru. Labaya, a southern Chieftain, bears the hallmarks of the Amarna Apiru, as does his northern counterpart Abdi-Asurta, or at least they do so in the eyes of loyalists Abdi-Heba and Rib-Hadi respectively. At the same time, as might be expected, Labaya and Abdi-Asurta both affirmed their vassalage to the Pharaoh in their own letters to him. Abdi-Asurta is not loath to declare his subservience to the Pharaoh, by referring to himself as the slave of the king. A dog in his palace. And Rib-Hadi does not shrink from using similar terminology of Abdi-Asurta, by calling him the slave or the dog on five or six different occasions.

The unknown author of a badly damaged letter says that one of his antagonists, perhaps Asiru, son of Abdi-Asurta, is like Saga-za Kalbu-Halku, like the Apiru, a runaway dog. It is to be observed, incidentally, that there is no known case of a Sagas Apiru calling himself a Sagas Apiru, it’s a term of opprobrium always applied to someone else. Everybody wants to tar his enemies with the Sagas Apiru brush.

From information in the Amarna letters and in other second millennium documents that supplement them, we are able to characterize the Sagas Apiru with reasonable confidence. The term Apiru itself, whose etymological origin remains uncertain, is West Semitic in origin. It is not an ethnic kind, despite sporadic attempts to prove otherwise. We simply observe here that the plural form of Ugaritic, "inpr" is "inprm", not "inprym", which we would expect if a normal Ugaritic gentilic were intended.

The Sagas Apiru occupied a dependent subordinate status, only rarely becoming a recognizable element in the sociopolitical power structure. Though often foreigners, a debatable point however, they were not invaders from the outside. Probably of urban origin, they were not a desert people. Not restricted to the Hill Country, they were at least comfortable in the presence of chariots, and in some periods at least, they were adept at chariot warfare. No discernible united purpose may be divined in their activities, nor were they structured in tribal units.

Their numbers were frequently augmented by desertions of natives to them. Judging from the requests for help of Amarna Age city state rulers. Groups of Sagas Apiru troops rarely, if ever, amounted to more than a few one-hundred. If the Amarna Apiru appeared to have been somewhat more obstreperous than their namesakes at other times and in other places, that fact may be a correlative of local instability. During the Amarna Age, the Sagas Apiru seemed for the most part to have been military mercenaries. Lacking that employment opportunity, others became renegade robbers.

Virtually nothing in the above description augers well for a wholesale identification of the Amarna Age or other Apiru with the Hebrews of the Exodus and conquest or other periods. Nevertheless, scarcely had the Amarna letters been examined by epigraphers before it was noticed that the syllabic writing Ha-bi-ru, first attested in these documents, bore a striking resemblance to the word Hebrew. Since the archive dates to the first half of the 14th century B.C., the possibility that the Vassal Correspondence was reporting the Hebrew invasion of the Promised Land from the Canaanite viewpoint, was too tempting to resist. One of the letters even gives us the proper name Yahshuyah, which a few scholars dutifully claimed was the cuneiform spelling of Joshua. The last syllable of which, however, would have had to be written with a "ha" phoneme in order properly to have represented the "ion" in Joshua’s Hebrew name.

Although the question of the entry of the Israelite tribes into Palestine must be distinguished from that of the relationship between Habiru and Hebrew. And although most would now agree that the words Apiru and Ivri, Hebrew, are not completely interchangeable in every context. The possibility of an etymological connection between them warrants a brief survey of the occurrences of Ivri, and its feminine counterpart Ivri-yah in the Old Testament.

It is not often noted that Ivri appears only thirty-four times in the entire Old Testament. Less than 1/3 the number of times that Sagas Apiru occurs in the Amarna corpus alone. The term is found twenty-two times in the Pentateuch, twelve times in the prophets, and not at all in the writings. It is attested in only six Old Testament books: Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Jonah. We observe immediately that the word Ivri, Hebrew, does not appear in either Joshua or Judges. In fully twenty-five of the instances, it is an ethnic kind, a gentilic, either clearly or by implication. In six of the remaining nine cases, an Egyptian, during the Patriarchal and Exodus periods, or a Philistine, during the Late Judges and Early Monarchy periods, uses the term Hebrew. Sometimes, but not always pejoratively. In a way that does not reject the possibility of a gentilic interpretation.

Two other occurrences are closely related in context to two of

the just mentioned six and should therefore be understood in a similar way. In other words, thirty-three out of the thirty-four cases are gentilic. This leaves us only 1 Samuel 14:21, I quote, “[t]hose Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp. Went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.”

That verse bears repeating 1 Samuel 14:21, “[t]hose Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.”

If ever Ivrim looked like a non-ethnic term coinciding with the kind of Apiru that appear in the Amarna letters, it is here. And the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which translates Ivrim by Hebreos twenty-eight out of thirty-four times, renders Ivrim as doulos servants or slaves in this passage. Nevertheless, since only ten verses earlier Ivrim is a gentilic, as recognized by the Septuagint Hebri Roy, the word cannot be totally discounted as an ethnic con, even in 1 Samuel 14:21.

In an important, if controversial, article, Mary P. Gray understands Ivrim as a non-ethnic appellative throughout the Old Testament and she contends that it did not become a gentilic until post biblical times, that is, until after the Old Testament was completed. It might, therefore, be helpful to briefly examine as typical, her arguments concerning the first and last occurrences of Ivry in the Old Testament.

In Genesis 14:13 we read of Abraham the Hebrew. Among Mary Gray’s many arguments, this one is the most critical and I quote, “[t]he Greek translation of the passage uses the word Haw-Pirates, meaning the wanderer, the transient, the one who crosses or passes through.” She connects the word Ivri with the verb Avar to cross or pass. “In other words, the translators of the Septuagint understood the word in this case to be appellative rather than gentilic and rendered it as such.” True enough, but what she passes over in silence is that Abraham is called Ha-Ivri, the Hebrew, in the same verse in which his associate Mamry is called Ha-amori, the Amorite, a term that is surely understood as an ethnic con throughout the Old Testament. Why take away from Hebrew what we willingly grant to Amorite?

In Jonah 1:9, the prophet says "I am a Hebrew". His statement is in response to a series of questions. The sailors asked him, "where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" It would seem then that his answer, "I am a Hebrew", would indicate that Jonah was using Hebrew as an ethinicon. Mary Gray, however, prefers the Septuagint reading at this point, "Doulos kyrios ego eimi; a servant of the Lord am I". Which assumes instead of an original continental "inbry", the reading, "inbd" followed by the name Yahweh. Later abbreviated to "inbd-y", and then misread and miscopied as "inbdy". But three pages later, in support of her contention, that Hebrew began to be used

ethnically only in the Intertestamental, she states this, “[t]he ethnic sense of the term Hebreos appears in Judith 10:12. In response to a question and challenge from the Assyrian Guard, “[o]f what people are you? And from where are you coming and where are you going?” Judith answers. "The Gutter Ami Tone Hebrion". "I am a daughter of the Hebrews.” Again, I ask, why deny Jonah what we allow Judith?

“The date of the Exodus is one of the most debated topics in Old Testament studies because of the ambiguous nature of the evidence.” Thus, William Shea begins his excellent article on the subject in the revised edition of the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. I can personally attest to the truth of his statement. Since I am in print in at least three different volumes in advocacy of a 13th century date, and in at least three other different volumes in support of a 15th century date. In most of those publications, I had the good sense to say something like this. “In view of the difficulties surrounding this problem. I currently hold that the Exodus took place at such and such a time.” But without being dogmatic about it.

Although I presently believe that the Exodus of the Israelites occurred during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, in the middle of the 15th century B.C., it will be clear from what I have said above that I do not believe that the Amarna Sagas Apiru are identical with Joshua’s invading armies, or that the second millennium Sagas Apiru can be simply equated with the biblical Ivrim without further ado. Given the present state of the evidence, perhaps the most that can be said about the relationship of the Amarna Apiru to the biblical account of the Exodus and Conquest, is that Apiru type elements appear in the book of Judges among Abimelech’s hired reckless adventurers, Judges 9:4, and Jephthah’s group of adventurers in Judges 11:3. At least twenty-five years too late for Joshua’s sudden, sustained, strategic blitzkrieg, if we assume an early date for the Exodus. The number of Sagas Apiru could nevertheless have served as sociopolitical midwives for the restless malcontents who, in the succeeding centuries, followed in their train. Thank you very much.

Itzhaq Beit-Arieh

Professor of Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. From 1971 to 1982 he directed the Ophir Expedition to Sinai; researching the Central Southern area, the Eastern strip and the Serabit el Khadim area. Since 1979 he has directed excavtions in Eastern Negev of Iron Age period sites.

Tracks in Sinai

By Itzhaq Beit-Aireh

Thank you and good morning.

There is a perplexity that afflicts practically all scholars and researchers who have ever grappled with problems connected with the wanderings of the Children of Israel through the Sinai desert on their way to the Promised Land. Reading about it in the Bible all seems wonderfully clear. The route taken by the Israelites is described there in elaborate and astonishing detail, yet the moment when we attempted to trace and map this route on the ground in the region where these wondering took place, we ran into a host of unexpected problems. These essentially boiled down to four.

One, the complete absence of archaeological remains in the region, which can clearly be dated to the period of the Exodus. Two, the impossibility in most cases to match real geographical location with the places mentioned in the Bible. Three, the uncertainty over the identification of Mount Sinai. That is, which of the mountain peaks in this region was in fact the biblical Mount Sinai? And these three problems raise a fourth one, which is connected to them; their routes. As I already said, none of the biblical way stations can be identified with the actual site in the region of Sinai. This means that we cannot hope to reconstruct with any degree of historical accuracy, the path of any of the routes associated with the Bible, with the Israelites wandering after they left Egypt.

May I have the first slide please? On the map before you are drawn the main route mentioned in the Bible along the conjecture path. The way to the land of the Philistine, which is the line on the upper line. This is the shortest and most convenient route between Egypt and the Levant. By the ancient Egyptians, more precisely in the reign of Seti I, it was called The Ways of Horrors. From the Roman period on it became known as Via Maris. The Bible states explicitly that this was not the route

taken by the Israelites after they left Egypt. The second way, below it, the way of Shur, this would lead from the Negev to Kadesh Barnea from there to Shur Mitzrayim on the fortified eastern border of Egypt. Apparently, this was the route taken by the Patriarchs on the way to the land of Goshen. The latter has been identified with Wadi Tumilat.

The way to Seir Mountain is the third one. This route led from the Gulf of Suez in the direction to Uf Allah. This is the same route which today is known as Double Hard, way of the celebrant, so named because the caravans of Muslim pilgrims traveled along it on their way to Mecca. During biblical time it was named after the final destination, the mountain of Seir or Edom, the way to the Amorite Mountain. This would lead from Mount Horeb in the south by way of Mount Amorite to the Kadesh Barnea area. Apparently, Amorite Mountain was the biblical name for the column massif in the Negev highlight. And now back to the third point which was mentioned, Mount Sinai.

Most the identification and location of Mount Sinai, in fact is the truth of the matter. Most theorists concerning the route taken by the Israelites through the Sinai desert have been conditional on knowing the location of this mountain. Yet, we are all aware that the location of Mount Sinai is still in dispute and the subject of speculation. There are some scholars who would locate it in the deep south of Sinai, while others go right the other way and place it in the Negev Highlands. From Mount Serbal and Mount Moses in Southern Sinai can be shown here, (down there, are signed in the triangular sign supported by N Hershel, Bright, Aroni and others) to Mount Serabit el Khadim in Central Sinai, to Mansin Bishar, and Mount Helal in Northern Sinai, and to Mount Karkom in the Central Negev and even a mountain in the Arabia Peninsula. However, it should be noted the remains indicating human activity in ancient time have been discovered at only two of these locations, namely Mounts Serabit el Khadim and Mount Karkom.

At Serabit el Khadim, where a turquoise deposit had been exploited by the Ancient Egyptians, they established, in the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess Hathor. This sanctuary was located in the vicinity of the ancient turquoise mines which were worked during the Middle and New Kingdom Period. (This is one of the crater, in the shape of it in Serabit el Khadim. Here before we (us) are one of the turquoise mines.)

Since the beginning of the present century there have been discovered in the area of this mine, this series of so-called Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions. Here just to give you an idea on the turquoise which the two girls are offering. (Shows picture.) Yeah, since the beginning of this present century there has been discovered in the area of this mine a series of so-called Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions written in Canaanite pictographic script. Like this one, this small statue, which was discovered

by Hilda and Flinders Petrie in the beginning of this century, bearing the name Mt l b’lt, from left to right. Examples of this characteristic straight script have also been found in Canaan, in the sanctuary were found several stela, on which were inside the name as well as pictorial representation indicating Semitic person. It has been suggested that this was a member of an Egyptian mining expedition.

Some scholars have tried to explain the appearance of this Semitic name, as portrayed in this place, by invoking an Egyptian religion tradition which sanctified Mount Serabit el Khadim, and they claim that this tradition passed on to the Israelite. However, we should bear in mind that we are speaking here of the period of the Exodus, which is contemporaneous with the New Kingdom Period in the reign of the 19th Dynasty. This was the time when the Egyptian mining of turquoise in Sinai was at its most intensive, and as we are reminded by the Egyptian dedication stela in the sanctuary, there were Egyptian army escort in the area to safeguard the miners and mining personnel. It is, therefore, unlikely that the Israelites were present during this period at the site.

Mount Karkom is the second of the mentioned sites at which entrance remains were found. It is located in the Central Negev Highland at the distance of seventy miles from Beersheba and fifty miles from Eilat. This mountain massive was investigated in recent year by an Italian Israeli archaeologist, Emmanuel Anati, who recently published his investigation in a sumptuously illustrated book, printed by Luizoli titled, The Mountain of God.

I have no wish here to comment at length with Professor Anati’s interpretation on certain structure discovered on this massive, except to note that his interpretation seems to me to strain the limit of the strictly scientific approach. However, the most important point in this context, is that most of the remains date to the third millennium B.C., but no remains were found which are contemporary with the date to the period in question, that is, the period of the Exodus, which is one millennium later. On the other hand, those architectural elements at Mount Karkom which are thought to be cultic, happen to be parallel at other mountainside bowls in Eastern Sinai and in the Negev itself. One mountain site in the Negev has shown a tariff, located some forty miles west south of Eilat, it is of great archaeological interest.

At various points on this mountain and also in the area around it, was discovered the remains of sanctuaries, most of them open air, which has been dated to the fifth of the fourth millennium B.C. This is one of the sanctuaries, the open sanctuaries at Hasham at Reef, and another one, if you can see the monumental stones which were found in another place. There was contemporary to the sanctuary recently excavated in the ‘Uvada Valley on the ‘Arabah Valley, some thirty miles north of Eilat. This sanctuary also has been dated to the fifth millennium B.C.E. Moreover,

one may assume that the remains discovered on the mountain core massive are likewise from this same period up to the third millennium B.C.E. So, in this case too, the research has been unable to furnish the solution to the problem of the location of Mount Sinai, unless we accept another suggestion of these early dates for the Exodus, an idea raising many other difficulties.

Now the Northern theory concerning the route of the Israelites through the Sinai is favored by a group of scholars and, in keeping with this theory, these scholars seek to identify Mount Sinai either with Jebel Sin Bashar in the north or with Jebel Helal. This theory restricts the wandering of the children of the Israel, to the Negev Highlands and North Sinai. Yet, it is evident that other scholars prefer the social theory, who accordingly identified Mount Sinai with one of the majestic Granite Mountain in the Central Sinai, which region in turn, they identified with the biblical Sinai desert.

Since my research is not specifically located within the historical or geographical historical province, I would not wish here to enter the long continuing discussion on this difficult and unsolved subject, which has occupied the attention of some of the most distinguished scholars. Instead, I intend to make my contribution from the ethno-ecological aspect in respect of the period antecedent to the biblical historical one, that is after I have presented the result of my researches in Sinai. However, before I begin my presentation, I would like to note that modern biblical research frequently makes use of archaeological finding, especially in cases where the biblical text does not provide a clearcut answer to specific problems, but we, the archaeologists, state our conclusion on facts only.

During the years from 1971 to 1982, I headed an archaeological expedition on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, which was concerned with investigation of archaeology in Southern and Eastern Sinai. With the help of a slide, I will now give you a brief overview of Southern Sinai which is the region where most of our research was conducted. (Here once again, well, all the peninsula of Sinai with the, in the corner of the triangular, down you can see the high mountain of the Sinai.) (Pointing at Slides) The region of Central Southern Sinai is known as the High Mountain. (And here’s the map.) (Pointing at Slides) It embraces an area of 7500 square kilometers while the total area of the entire Sinai Peninsula is 60,000 square kilometers. The geological formation of this region consists of rock strata and geographically it forms part of the Arabian Nubian Massive. (This is one of the landscapes and the high mountain. It’s the mountain of Seir. This is another one. It’s not far from a Santa Catarina Monastery.)

The highest peak of Central Southern Sinai reaches up to 2500 meter above sea level. This mountain landscape is broken and cut by

many ravines and gullies, called Wadis. It’s an Arabic name in the Hebrew term, like this one. (Points at Slide) Some of which are few hundred meters wide. These Wadis make natural and convenient passage along which traffic can move. They form the principal routes and arteries of the region, and also the area in which human activity was and still is mainly concentrated.

Central Southern Sinai is a semi desert climate with the lowest median winter temperature of twenty-five centigrade and the maximum media summer temperature is more than one-hundred centigrade. Rainfall in the region is irregular and low; the annual average does not exceed 2 1/2 inches. However, to this must be ever the small amount added, about a small amount of melt water from the snows that clothe the mountain peaks during the cold winter. Southern Sinai has exploitable water resources, is a form of rock aquafers which are sufficiently close to the surface to be stepped with comparative ease. (Like you can see here, we have to dig no more than the twenty inches in some of the river in the Wadi’s bed to get the water.) (Pointing to Slides) It also has natural open pools along the stream bed, the Wadis, in which run off rainwater collects. The water accumulated in these pools can be drawn on during long months of the year. There are also a few places where springs, fed by high groundwater level, flow into that stream bed. (You can see it here.)

It is these places that to us is developed such as the famous words of Therahn. With the palm trees in the west of the region and Enkid in the east, the Wadis through which the stream bed takes the course, as well as many of the plain areas nearby are covered by fairly dense growth of typical desert trees. Stunt trees and bushes, which are exploited by the local Bedouin populations for grazing the animal, as well as for fuel for their cooking fire. The region has a population of approximately 10,000 Bedouin, who are the local population, who lived in temporary, as well as permanent settlement. Their dwelling consists mostly of tents, wooden huts and a few stone structures at the more permanent sites.

In the survey conducted by our expedition as well as by other expeditions, it was shown that the largest concentration of ancient settlements was in the region of the high mountain in Southern Sinai. (This is this region. Like this site, for example. It was found in one in the survey.) (Pointing to Slides) In this region were discovered many settlements ranging in date from the Preparatory Noralytic, which is sixth and fifth millennium B.C.E, to the Early Bronze Age 2, first half of the third millennium B.C.E. The majority of the settlements date of this later period, that is, Early Bronze 2, which is the archaeological period in certain Southern Sinai that have been most thoroughly investigated by our expedition. There are scores of Early Bronze 2 settlements in this

region, of which we excavated six. (Here’s the map and you can see the various sites which were found and excavated.) (Pointing to Slides)

These excavations have provided instruction data on the structure and character of the Early Bronze Two settlements, and also permitted an appreciation of the economic capacity and the ecological potential of the region. It has been clearly shown, by the excavation and intensive research conducted by ourselves, that the series of small settlements was established in this region of South Sinai by a Canaanite population. This population, evidently, was connected to the city of Arad. (So in the map, this is Arad. Canaan to Arad and here, the concentration of the settlement in Southern Sinai.) (Pointing to Slides) Around that period was the largest Canaanite center in Sassoon, Canaan. A virtual identity in the material culture of this settlement with the material culture of Arad can be observed. This identity extends to the ceramic. (Like here. You can see the identity. You can compare these two vessels came from Iran in the left hand, in the right hand and in the left hand they all of them came from the Sinai. This jar was found in Sinai one of the site and the other one following this is the same. The same class of the same family came from Arad.) (Pointing to Slides)

Also, the identity we can see by the artistic and architectural aspect of this culture as well as proper artifact. The right group came from Sinai and the left one from Arad. Now, this is one of the excavated sites near the tomb of Shef Nabi Saleh, which is located about ten miles north of Santa Catalina Monastery. (Points to Slide) This is the site before we started to excavate it. Now, this is one of the units after the excavation, the main unit. (Points to Slide) This is a dwelling. It has the shape of a belt surrounding an open courtyard which you can see here consists of here, in this case 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, rooms, the dwelling room and the others are for other purposes like storerooms and so on.

This is a reconstruction of this unit that can be seen much clearer, the entrance to this unit was here. It was so that the people could close this during the night and so they can have one protected unit. Here we can see the one of the rooms, an elongated room, what we call it a broad room, with an opening in one of the longest wall with steps leading down, because a manual of all the living room where the surface of the living room are lower, with about ten inches than the surface of the outer door. Two monoliths in both sides, a bench, in most cases one or two or even four benches, and one pillar to support the roof was found here. (Pointing to Slides) Or for down here, yeah, another boardroom with an opening here, the entrance was here, bench around there was here, and even one pillar. Here we can see the similarity, this room is came from, is taken in Arad. (Pointing to Slide) It’s the same, the same elongated room, the same broad room with entrance into one of the long walls here, and the pillar which was left from the remainder of the

pillar here, and benches along the walls here, and the level of this room is lower with about twenty to twenty-five inches than the surrounding area. (Pointing to Slide)

An important economic activity of the population of the region was production of copper from locally mined area, which was transported by caravan to the largest population metal centers in Canaan. The metallurgical industry around the Mediterranean basin, where at this time, just as a takeoff point in the fabrication center of the Canaanite Kingdom, strained hard to obtain supplies of this expensive metal for which there were the few known sources. Therefore, given this economic connection, the close cultural relationships between the small settlements in Southern Sinai and Arad, should not strike one as out of the ordinary, notwithstanding the fact that some 300 miles separate between these two locations. Yet despite the economic imported, it is clear that capital production was the occupation of only part of the population of the region and was concentrated in only comparatively few of the settlements.

I want to show you slides of two of the settlements we excavated, so you may get the idea of the location and the environment of the ancient settlement of the Early Bronze Two in Central Southern Sinai. One of these settlements is located near the Tomb of the Sheikh Mukhsem, some twenty miles north of Santa Catarina Monastery, and the second settlement is located near the Valley of Ferran, some forty miles to the west of the first settlement. So here you can see the site located here, and the Wadi which was the path or the route here was nearby, but they always found that they were looking for the highest places to build their sites. (Pointing to Slide) It is worth paying attention to the location of this settlement in their geographical environmental context, and especially the way they are cited in close proximity of roads. The greater population density in Southern Sinai during early historical period, as compared to other region of Sinai results, in my view, from the influences of four factors.

First, the variability of water resources, as I have related to you already. Second, the relatively comfortable climate, which makes it possible to maintain a daily lifestyle suitably adapted by the condition of the desert. Moreover, the high mountain of Central Southern Sinai is geomorphically adapted to provide plenty of rocks shelter, and at the time it is High Cliffs Shield settlement established in their league against the blasted cold winds as can be seen in the Wadi path slide and the site is located right here. (Points to Slides) Third, the region, compared to most other parts of Sinai, is ecologically better adapted to the substances of life. It is covered by assorted vegetation. Vegetation consisting of acacia and palm trees and a fairly dense growth of perennial bushes, along with a seasonal cover of grasses and weeds,

suitable especially for sheep and goats.

I believe a personal economy that’s specifically of flocks and goats is essential for maintenance of population living in these desert conditions where all the known agriculture is not possible. As it happened, the animal flocks of the Bedouin are mostly comprised of black goat of the special draft breed, physiologically adapted to exist in arid condition. This breed of goat can go as far as fourteen days without water, losing 40% of his body weight. At the end of the two weeks period, the desert goat managed drinking very rapidly, in up to two minutes, to absorb an amount of water equal to the 40% of its body weight. During the period in which the goat was deprived of water, it’s shown no ill effect and continues to carry out its body functions normally. This animal’s ability to endure for weeks without water, allows the pastoralist of Sinai to wonder long distance with the flocks. It may also explain the migration across the great expenses between Canaan and Southern Sinai. We therefore assume that the economic existence of the population of Central Southern Sinai was entirely dependent on the domestication of the desert goat, which provide the populace with not only meat and milk, but also with herds and perhaps wool as well.

In our excavation of Early Bronze Two sites in the region, we found numerous animal bones which there is good reason to suspect were the bones of black draft breed goats. With flocks of such goats, the Bedouin could reign the growth, the desert with heaven constantly to keep it high site of water soils, sources like pools, system walls and so on. Four, there can be no doubt that easy communication routes were contributory factors in the population concentration of this region. They were not however, a vital factor in the way of the other factors I mentioned before. As we observed earlier, the roads and trackways in the Sinai, ran along the dry stream bed, that is the Wadis today, and given the virtually unchanged condition of the region, there is no reason to suppose that in the early historical period also, the tracks would not have followed along the same route. As we know, most of the ancient settlements were built alongside the roads and trackway that ran in the Wadi beds. This one, is one of the side and the Wadi bed over there. Or like here, this is the slide and Wadi bed, the route there.

The importance of these communication routes in the creation of the settlement pattern of the region was, therefore, very considerable. People choose to build their settlement and roadside the Wadi roads and tracks not only for the obvious reason of ease of communication with other settlement, but also because the available water resources was located most in the Wadi bed and not on the high mountain. The fact that this region was preferred as a settlement area during various periods of the past, is reappearing today by a large population of Bedouins, which has made its habit in preference to another adjoining

region of the Sinai.

Reviewing the data from the researchers in Central Sinai, which I briefly outlined to you in this lecture, it seems to me that this was the reason most qualified to serve as a stopover ground for the Israelite tribes after they quitted Egypt. In addition to the factor already mentioned which qualified this region, there is one more important factor, namely geographic isolation with the region that’s surrounding it. This isolation results from the region geomorphology structures which cut, (Here you can see) (Points to Slide) which cut it off from the mountain ranges to its north and from the gulf of its east and west. It has been shown by researchers that the Egyptians did not penetrate into the region of Central Southern Sinai. Moreover, there is no evidence to indicate that the Egyptians were active in the exploitation of the copper deposit in the area. However, they did not penetrate the western strip of Southern Sinai, the area of the Serabit el Khadim and Wadi Marara, where they work the local turquoise mines. If they refrained from penetrating beyond into the mountain region, it was perhaps because they wished to avoid entering into conflict with its local population, which enjoyed a clear strategic advantage over any foreign invaders.

A monument detailing this situation of conflict, is represented by the Egyptian relief discovered in Wadi Marara. This relief, which dates to the time of Sekhemkhet, third king of the Third Egyptian dynasty of the Early Kingdom, depicts the King smiting an enemy. The scene loses nothing of its significance whether we regard the action depicted as a real historical events or as something of a symbolic invocation of the operation of a magical power against a hypothetical enemy. In any event, the situation at its existence during the Early Kingdom period continued unchanged throughout the entire history of the ancient Egypt. At no period do we find any evidence of Egyptian presence in Central Southern Sinai.

In Central Southern Sinai was variously shown to have the economic ecological potential to serve as a wandering ground of the Israelite tribe. It is now also shown to be suitable for the geopolitical viewpoint as being a region free of any Egyptian presence. It should be noted that Mount Moses which is Jebel. (It’s upside down, sorry.) (Pointing to Slide) But anyway, it’s one of these three mountains. Mount Moses Jebusa in this region was adapted as a Sinai Mountain by the Christian faith who built on the foot of the Santa Catarina Monastery in the sixth century A.D. However, along with the positive data indicating our lecture, we must also admit to the absence of any archaeological indication in this and in other regions of the Sinai as well as in the Negev Highlands pointing to the existence of a material culture that could be assigned to the Israelite tribes or the Exodus period. This absence of archaeological evidence for an Exodus material Israelite culture in the region of Central

Southern Sinai has caused frequent puzzlement and questioning, especially in view of the evidence of early culture, culture discovered in some other regions in the Sinai. Of course, those adhering to the traditional biblical conception cannot avoid accepting the negative archaeological evidence. Though they may interpret it as indicating the existence of material culture of the kind that leave no traces, with presumably any remains, artifacts consisting of perishable material only. Thank you.

Gerald Lee Mattingly

Professor, Cincinnati Christian Seminary. Ph.D., Southern Baptsit Theological Seminary. Archaeological fieldwork includes: Smithsonian Institution's excavation at Tell Jemmeh, Israel, Emory University's Archaeological Survey of Central and Southern Moab, Jordan, Drew University's Khirbet Iskander Project.

Another Look at Transjordan

By Gerald Mattingly

What I will be doing is reading text for part of our time, and then we will literally take another look by way of some slides at the end of our time. The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate the historical and archaeological data from Transjordan that bear upon the problematic dating of the Exodus and Conquest. Like the other topics in our symposium, this evidence deserves another look because the investigation of Jordan’s history and archaeology is characterized nowadays by unparalleled activity and progress. Archaeological excavations and surveys and historical cultural interpretation are shedding new light on all periods of Jordan’s past, both distant and more recent, including the problematic Middle and Late Bronze Ages. It is a privilege to participate in this process through the study of ancient Moab in particular, and I’m pleased to have an opportunity at this gathering to summarize the state of research on Transjordan’s Late Bronze Age remains.

Due to practical considerations, the present discussion will not exhaust the assigned topic and I will not attempt to deal with every site from this period and region. Instead, I will identify the main avenues of inquiry and proffer some alternative solutions to the outstanding problems. Because it has been more controversial and is more directly related to the biblical accounts, I will concentrate on the archaeological evidence from Central and Southern Transjordan.

The most recent surveys of this information are found in Bimson 1981, Dornan 1983, Mattingly 1983 and Sauer 1986. The present update will address these issues. One, the relation between the biblical accounts and the archaeology of Late Bronze Age Transjordan. Two, Glueck’s Gap hypothesis and the late date of the Exodus and Conquest. Three, Late Bronze Age remains from Transjordan. Four, Egyptian references to Late Bronze Age Transjordan. And five, conclusions.

First, the relation between the biblical accounts and the archaeology of Late Bronze Age Transjordan. The biblical narratives that recount Israel’s passage through Transjordan prior to the conquest of Canaan are relatively few. Of primary importance is a series of accounts in the Book of Numbers. First, Israel’s journey around Edom, Numbers 20:14-21. Second, Israel’s journey around Moab, Numbers 21:10-20. Third, Israel’s defeat of Sihon and Og, Numbers 21:21-35. And fourth, Israel’s itinerary between Kadesh and the plains of Moab, Numbers 33:37-49. Important parallels are found in Deuteronomy 2:1-3:11 and Judges 11:1222. The Transjordanian settlement of Ruben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh is described in Numbers 32, Deuteronomy 3:12-17, and Joshua 13. Passages that contain numerous place names associated with the era of conquest and settlement.

While these passages are not extensive, their interpretation is fraught with difficulty. With regard to Israel’s initial encounter with the peoples of Transjordan, the subject matter of the passages listed above, John Bright laments the fact that “Israel’s wanderings cannot be clarified in detail, both because most of the places mentioned are of unknown location and because the traditions themselves are at times difficult to harmonize with one another.” Apart from the specific identification of place names and the questions concerning the overall archaeological context of Late Bronze Age Transjordan, the major problem in the biblical tradition is the lack of harmony in the accounts describing the route taken by the Hebrews in their movement through this region. Specifically, the itinerary of Numbers 20 and 21 seems to indicate that Israel followed a circuitous route through Edom and Moab in an effort to avoid conflict with these related peoples, while Numbers 33 seems to describe a more direct route through the Edomite and Moabite territories. Various solutions to this problem have been proposed, none of which has won universal acceptance.

Some scholars suggest that these conflicting traditions represent two separate episodes, with each account describing the itinerary of different groups of Hebrews, while other interpreters simply admit that the evidence is too sparse and or too ambiguous to harmonize. Most modern scholars accept the conclusions of critical literary analysis, acknowledging that the whole tradition is composite and is the product of a lengthy transmission. Of course, there are considerable variations in the literary critical studies that seek to disentangle the various strands of the tradition. In spite of these difficulties, the biblical accounts of Israel’s passage through Transjordan are in full agreement on at least one point. The Hebrews, while on route to Canaan, encountered a host of peoples east of the Jordan Rift. The unnamed kings of Edom and Moab and the Amorite kings Sihon and Og opposed the Hebrews, and the Ammonites are mentioned as being near

the route Israel followed across Transjordan’s Table Land. Numbers 21:24 and Deuteronomy 2:19 reference the presence of Ammonites. This series of references to the various peoples of Transjordan is an open invitation for the discipline of field archaeology to interact with the discipline of Old Testament studies. This interface is created by the literature’s testimony of real people in real places, the precise circumstances in which archaeological inquiry becomes possible and desirable. In other words, archaeological evidence of occupation and Transjordan should be retrievable from the period of the Conquest regardless of the date assigned to this event, if the biblical texts are understood correctly and the archaeological data are located and recovered properly. This demand for accuracy should force biblical scholars, historians, and archaeologists to ask two critical questions. First, what does the biblical tradition say about the nature and density of the Edomite, Moabite, Amorite, and Ammonite occupation at the time of the Conquest? Second, what do the archaeologists say about late Bronze Age occupation in Transjordan? To put these questions in another way, we ask, what do the texts say should be there and what is actually there?

Unlike the situation that prevailed a generation ago, many scholars have concluded that the Old Testament does not require that the Transjordanian opponents encountered by the Israelites were all highly organized, urbanized, and sedentary. For example, the Edomites concern about possible Israelite destruction of their fields and vineyards might point to a sedentary lifestyle, but a semi-nomadic people could also engage in agricultural pursuits. Indeed, Bimson suggests that “[i]t is possible that the kings we read of in Numbers 20 and following were chieftains of semi-nomadic groups who refused to let another nomadic group, the Israelites, pass through their areas of pasturage.” If this is true, then the term used to identify the level of sociopolitical organization of these Transjordanian peoples, for example, kingdom, state, or tribe, should be chosen with care. This designation, kingdom, state, or tribe or some other word, can, in fact, bias our inquiry by placing a requirement on the kind of archaeological evidence thought necessary for a harmonization with the biblical tradition.

It should be noted that the Bible does not necessarily point to the existence of a large population. See Numbers 22:1-5 and Deuteronomy 2:4. Nor does the biblical account necessarily point to the presence of fortified towns, but note Deuteronomy 2:24, 34, 36 and Joshua 13:10, 17 and 21, which seemed to imply there were towns and satellite villages. Nor does the biblical text necessarily demand the existence of large standing armies in Transjordan at this time. On the basis of Numbers 20:18, 20-21 and Numbers 21:24b, if the Masoretic Text is followed, which speaks about the border of Amman being fortified, we

would, however, expect to find enough occupation in this area to pose a threat to the Hebrew militia. In other words, to refuse passage through the territory.

We turn now to Glueck’s Gap hypothesis and the Late Bronze Age date of the Exodus and Conquest. Because of the present state of knowledge about the archaeology of Transjordan. It is sometimes difficult to imagine how Nelson Glueck’s theory of a Middle and Late Bronze Age occupational gap could have been advocated so forcefully. To understand this situation, one must simply recall that Glueck proposed his theory over fifty years ago and that most of our information concerning these enigmatic periods has been recovered in the last two decades. And it is only in our day that a more accurate picture of the occupational history of ancient Jordan is emerging.

Since the details of Glueck’s theory and its subsequent modification or dismantling have been treated elsewhere, a reminder of its importance in the dating of the Exodus and Conquest is all that is necessary here. As a result of his monumental survey of Transjordan between 1933 and 1947, Glueck concluded that there was a virtual extinction of sedentary communities in central and southern Transjordan between the 18th and 13th centuries. All dates are B.C. Glueck published his work widely and held his hypothesis until he published a substantially revised edition of the book The Other Side of the Jordan in 1970, though he had begun to modify his views and use less absolute terms long before. See, for example, the 4th volume of Exploration in Eastern Palestine, published in 1951, considerably before his revised edition of The Other Side of Jordan in 1970.

Although Glueck had always admitted that there were a few exceptional sites that yielded a small quantity of Middle and Late Bronze Age sherds, his revised work took into account his own study of the Transjordanian materials and the fairly substantial quantity of new evidence that challenged his old hypothesis. The old theory assumed that the land was devoid of any significant sedentary population, and it was not until around 1300 that the Bedouin population was replaced by the settled populace of the newly formed kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom. Because he found little or no evidence of Middle Bronze or Late Bronze occupation, he assumed it was not there, or that the nomads who lived there left no trace of their presence in the archaeological record.

Glueck’s revised position simply acknowledged that the situation was not nearly as extreme as he had once supposed. In the meantime, Albright had concurred with Glueck’s original gap hypothesis, partially because Albright had found a gap in the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods during his own excavations at Adair in central Moab in 1933. And the gap hypothesis quickly became one of the main pillars

in the archaeological arguments supporting the late date for the Exodus and Conquest. Albright, Glueck and their followers maintained that if the Israelites had entered Transjordan prior to the 13th century, that is before the Transjordanian kingdoms were established, there would have been no significant population to prohibit the Hebrew migration through the territory east of the Jordan Rift. Thus, the archaeological evidence from Transjordan, or more accurately, the lack of archaeological evidence from Transjordan, seemed to support the other evidence marshalled by advocates of the 13th century Exodus and Conquest. And, as McGovern has observed, “[i]n one form or another, Glueck’s theory found its way into most of the standard biblical and archaeological handbooks.”

Without being overly critical, it is necessary to show why Glueck’s gap hypothesis, at least in its original form, cannot be held today. Basically, Glueck’s methodology can be criticized on four levels. First, surface survey, by its very nature, cannot be expected to recover a complete sample of sherds from all periods at every site. Pottery collected from the surface of a site is not always a microcosm of its subsurface contents. Second, Glueck’s survey was superficial. Quite simply, Glueck overlooked hundreds or thousands of archaeological sites in his survey of Transjordan, and this often skewed his conclusions, though it is true that some have stood the test of time. Third, Glueck’s knowledge of ceramics was not adequate given the geographical and chronological scope of this project, and his hypothesis, therefore, was built on a weak typological foundation. Indeed, many of the changes made in the 1970 edition of The Other Side of the Jordan were based on Glueck’s better understanding of Transjordan’s ceramic repertoire. Fourth, Glueck was accustomed to interpreting archaeological evidence with a strong bias in favor of certain hypotheses he held about biblical history. Specifically, his gap hypothesis was based on his assumption that a gap had been caused by the invasion and consequent destruction that was left behind at the time of the eastern kings who came into the land, according to Genesis 14. Perhaps these four criticisms are too harsh, and perhaps it is unfair to criticize Glueck because he used methods that appeared sound in their day. Given the validity of the criticisms listed above, however, Thompson is correct in his observation that “[t]he real curiosity is that Glueck’s hypothesis was ever taken so seriously, as literally true in the first place.”

The longevity and influence of Glueck’s theory is remarkable when one considers the fact that his assessment of the occupational history of such a large area was based on what amounts to an argument from silence and was proposed at a time when relatively little research had been done. In a recent discussion of survey methodology, Banning argues that “no investigator can realistically scrutinize every square meter of a survey universe; the area being examined.” Any evidence that

is overlooked, like the hundreds of sites that Glueck bypassed and the ceramic evidence that he did not recognize, detracts from the quality of results. Banning highlights the inherent danger of archaeological sampling by asking a question that relates directly to our critique of Gleuck’s gap hypothesis. “How can we demonstrate depopulation, for example, when missing populations may have inhabited places bypassed by the surveyor?” Perhaps the best way to describe the present understanding of Late Bronze Age Transjordan, is to say that much of that missing population, proposed by Glueck, has been discovered by more recent excavations and surveys. And it is to this new evidence that we now turn; the Late Bronze Age remains from Transjordan.

Many scholars have provided inventories of Middle and Late Bronze Age artifacts from Transjordan in an effort to disprove Glueck’s gap hypothesis. This has been done over and over. The most recent critique is Sauer’s essay on Transjordan’s Bronze and Iron Ages 1986 in BASOR. Sauer lists and documents the Late Bronze Age sites on pages six through nine, beginning with the northern and central regions, and here I simply list the main sites from these areas that have displayed Late Bronze Age remains: Sahab Jalloul, Tell Safut, Tell el-Hesi, Tell Irbid, Tabel-got-fal, Tell es-Sa'idiyeh, Tell el Mazar, Tell Dehaila, the Amman Airport Temple, the Amman Citadel, Madaba, Amman itself, the Beqaa Valley, Qibla and Kataret es-Samra.

Sauer also refers to the collection of Late Bronze Age pottery by the East Jordan Valley Survey and Siegfried Mittmann survey in Northern Jordan. As a supplement to Sauer, reference should also be made to the handful of Late Bronze Age sites studied in the Small Scale Archaeological Survey of the Hesban region, including the massive Bronze Age, Iron Age sites of Jalloul and Tell al-Umayri. And, reference should be made to the 1984 survey of the Madaba Planes Project, he project associated directly with the excavation of Tell al-Umayri. Although the Jalloul excavation was recently canceled, Garrity et al have begun an important project at the Bronze and Iron Age site of Tell alUmayri, a sixteen acre Tell, located between Hisban and Aman.

The sites of Tell Hisban, Dhiban and Aroer remain problematic even though they have been excavated. And I emphasize the fact that Dhiban has been excavated for some years, and we would think that we would have time to solve the problems with it by now. The official reports of the Tell Hisban excavations conclude that there was no occupation at this site before about 1200. In a recent paper, Garrity in 1983, enumerates and analyzes eight possible ways of explaining the lack of Late Bronze Age remains at Tell Hisban, a requisite if this was the capital of Sihon. Although Garrity views several of these options as viable, he clearly prefers number eight, that is, Late Bronze Age Heshbon was located

at the archaeological site of Jalloul and the name migrated when the Reubenites built the new Heshbon in the Iron Age at Tell Hisban. So, the solution is a matter of the name migrating from one site to the next.

Dhiban was occupied for most of the third millennium, but archaeological excavations have shown that there was an occupational hiatus there during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. At the beginning of Iron Age 1, around 1200, occupation of the site resumed. These conclusions were presented in the excavation reports by Winnett and Reed in 1964 and Tushingham 1970, and they have been reaffirmed by William H. Morton in an as yet unpublished report on the 1955, 1956 and 1965 seasons at Dhiban. Along with Dibon, Aroer is mentioned in the account of Israel’s Transjordanian settlement. The site was partially excavated by Emilio Olivari and some published sherds were assigned to the Late Bronze Age. But in a passing reference to Olivari’s report, Sauer expresses doubt about the accuracy of this dating. While Sauer believes that Central and Northern Transjordan were organized into a system of city states, similar to the situation that prevailed in contemporaneous Palestine, the Late Bronze Period in Southern Transjordan is still unclear especially with respect to the extreme south, the territory of ancient Edom.

What information that is available largely comes almost exclusively from surface reconnaissance. Only five excavations have been published from the Moabite region between Wadi Mujib and Wadi Hesi, the biblical rivers Arnon and Zered, and none of these sites yielded evidence of Middle or late Bronze Age occupation. To shed light on this neglected region and these elusive periods, Emory University sponsored a major survey in the summers of 1978, 1979 and 1982. Under the direction of J. Maxwell Miller and Jack M. Pinkerton, the Archaeological Survey of Central and Southern Moab collected over 50,000 diagnostic sherds from 585 sites in a space of around 250 square miles.

While the Middle and Late Bronze Ages are clearly represented in the pottery collections made at a number of sites, the number of sherds from these periods was not as abundant as that from some other areas, for example, Early Bronze Age and Iron Age. On the other hand, Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery was found at more sites and in greater quantity than sherds from certain other periods, for example, Persian and Hellenistic. And we should be cautioned that we’re not placing any statistical significance on the numbers of sherds found from the surface. Only preliminary reports have appeared thus far, but the final editing of the site reports and ceramic data will be completed in the near future. Meanwhile, a brief summary of the pottery evidence that relates to the Middle and Late Bronze Ages will justify the interest generated by this project’s findings. A total of sixty-two sites yielded sherds from the Middle Bronze Age, that is, undifferentiated Middle Bronze sherds, MB1

sherds, MB2 sherds or transitional MB/LB sherds, with each site having between one and forty-six sherds with this designation. A total of 111 sites yielded sherds from the Late Bronze Age, that is, undifferentiated LB sherds, LB2 sherds or LB2/Iron Age 1 sherds, with each site having between one and forty-six sherds with this designation.

Pottery from the 1978 season was read by James A. Sauer, who was at that time director of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Sauer served the project in an advisory capacity during the 1979 season. Robin N. Brown did the field readings of sherds in 1979 and 1982 and has prepared a 300 page manuscript on the ceramic history of the Carrack Plateau, the region around Moab. A major study that places the pottery from the 585 sites between the Mujib and the Hasa into the comparative typology of Palestinian and Transjordanian ceramics. The final publication of this survey data will definitely be an important step in defining the nature of Late Bronze Age occupation in Moab. But, as is the case for many parts of Jordan, the pressing need is for more excavated material. As is the case for Central and Southern Moab, none of the relatively few excavations south of the Wadi Hasa, the region of ancient Edom, has yielded stratified remain or remains of Middle or Late Bronze Age periods, and we still rely on survey data to provide a glimpse into this period’s archaeological history.

The 1979, 1981 and 1982 seasons of the Wadia Hasa survey collected artifacts from over 1000 sites, most of which were along the Hasa’s south bank and canyon rim and on the plateau between the Hasa’s southern rim and Tafila. A small number of sites yielded sherds from the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, with nineteen sites yielding sherds from the Late Bronze Age alone, but Bert McDonald, the project’s director, maintains that more sites from this period were found than one could have imagined after reading Glueck. A more recent survey in Edom was funded by the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History. Hart and Faulkner in 1985, surveyed or reported their survey of 115 sites between Tafila and Ross and Nakib, the significant part of ancient Edom, concentrating on a small area in the south during the 1984 season. No Middle or Late Bronze Age sites were reported.

A better picture of Edom depends upon the completion and publication of more surface surveys and excavation, since the more recent investigations in this area remain piecemeal. Egyptian references to Late Bronze Age Transjordan, an in-depth treatment of the Egyptian presence and influence and Transjordan during the Late Bronze Age, would require a lengthy essay of its own. But even a rapid survey at this point will add an important dimension to the coverage of the present study. Although the archaeological and epigraphic data that connect Egypt with Transjordan are relatively few, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom were interested in,

and, on occasion, directly involved in, the affairs of the peoples east of the Jordan Rift. Especially intriguing is the possibility that a toponym list of Thutmoses III points to the Pharaohs involvement in Transjordan in the 15th century. If Redford is correct, sites eighty-nine through one-hundred on this particular toponym list are located on a route that stretches from Gilead to Moab and includes Dhiban number ninety-eight, a water course, which Redford identifies as Wadi Mujib number ninety-nine, and Yarmut number one-hundred, Yarmut being one of the sites surveyed recently by the Survey of Emory University.

Redford concurs with Kitchen in his identification of Dhiban in a text of Ramses II as the Dhiban in Moab, located just north of the biblical River Arnon. Neither the excavations at Dibon, as we have said, nor the surface sherding at Yarmut, have recovered any Late Bronze Age pottery, and Redford’s proposals have not been accepted by everyone. We should note that earlier and New Kingdom references to Northern Transjordan, including the Execration Text and the Amarna Letters, are peripheral to our study, but indicate at this point that Egypt seemed to have more interest in the north during these earlier periods. For example, we have two Egyptian monuments, one from Tell Shihab and one from Sheikh Zayed. The one from Tell Shihab is a Seti I Stele and the one from Sheikh Zayed is a Ramses II Stele. These are the only true Egyptian stele that have been found in Transjordan, and Weinstein is probably correct in his reference to the famous Balu'a Stele, which we’ll see, as a pseudoEgyptian monument. The Balu'a Stele does point to a strong Egyptian influence at this major town in central Moab and the stele probably dates to somewhere in the 12th century B.C.

The lands of Seir are mentioned in early Egyptian references and references to Shasu from Seir are found, for example, in the texts of Ramses II and III. References to Shasu tribes from Edom are made in Papyrus Anastasi six which dates to the late 19th Dynasty, that is, the late 13th century. This is the earliest reference to Edom in Egyptian literature. Bartlett has shown that Seir and Edom are closely associated in the Old Testament, but they are not necessarily the same region. An examination of these texts does seem to indicate that the Egyptians knew Seir and Edom as the homeland primarily of Shasu tribes rather than of sedentary peoples. Of special importance to our subject is the first reference, the earliest reference to Moab in an Egyptian text. It is a Ramses II text from Luxor, and it mentions his campaign in the land of Moab and his conquest of the town of Butyrate, the exact location of which is uncertain. It is possible that this same text mentions Dhiban north of the Arnon. Now conclusions.

There are Middle and Late Bronze Age remains in Northern, Central and Southern Transjordan. It is true, however, that archaeological data from these periods are still not known in abundance in the extreme

south. If this is not simply the result of rather limited exploration in this region, then the reason for this situation remains unknown. It is altogether possible that there was a shift in the settlement pattern during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, though not nearly as radical as Glueck originally proposed. Next, the recently recovered archaeological remains from Transjordan demonstrate that Glueck’s original gap hypothesis must be abandoned. Glueck’s new reconstruction, as found in the 1970 edition of The Other Side of the Jordan, is not incompatible with the present state of knowledge. Third, while archaeologists have not recovered evidence of extensive kingdoms in Late Bronze Age Amman, Moab or Edom, it can no longer be said that these regions were devoid of a population that could have opposed the migrating Hebrews. This means that one of the main pillars used to support the late date of the Exodus and Conquest is no longer valid. In general, the archaeological data from this time and region appear to be neutral in the debate on the date of the Exodus and Conquest. No date seems to be favored by the data. No date seems to be excluded by the data. And fourth, the task of site identification is far from complete in Transjordan. Many archaeological sites remain anonymous as far as their ancient name is concerned, including some that have been excavated. Archaeological sites that have long been associated with Old Testament place names present another kind of problem when occupational histories established by excavation do not seem to fit the chronological framework implied by the Bible. In this respect, sites like Tell Hisban and Dhiban are every bit as problematic as Tell Sultan, thought to be Jericho, and Et-Tell, thought to be Ai.

Now I would like to darken our room and illustrate some of the sites that we’ve been talking about and that we have identified as Late Bronze Age sites. Lancet Slide of the area of the survey between the biblical river Arnon, the Wadi Mujib, and the Wadi Hasa, an area of about 250 square miles surveyed by our project. This area is bounded on the north by the Wadi Mujib, this huge canyon, and on the south by Wadi Hesi; this would be Edom to the left, Moab to the right. And I would like to quickly point out that in this area there is a Late Bronze Age site named El-Ina, which yielded in our surface survey four Middle Bronze sherds and twelve Late Bronze sherds. Again, these numbers seem small, we’re talking about simple sherds that are on the surface picked up with a purposive sampling approach by our team in the last few years. The slope of Jebel Sheehan indicates, as we look across the Moabite territory, that this is gently rolling countryside, well-watered and suitable for agricultural and pastoral activities. In other words, the environment does not preclude the possibility of sedentary population. In fact, we wonder why there are still no more places occupied even to this day.

The project plotted the 585 sites on the Palestine grid maps

and the UTMG, a system of maps, and the idea was to locate the sites, plot them, collect and study their surface remains, and then ultimately to publish this material. The sights ranged in type from a site like Kurbat Maharam, a Paleolithic site yielding significant remains from prehistoric times all the way up to Turkish side of Tudun. So, our 585 sites cover a wide range of chronology. All of the surface sherds were kept separate and studied by Robin Brown and Jim Sauer and produced such samples as, Middle Bronze rims from the side of Mahari, which we’ll see in a minute, or these classic Middle Bronze 2 handles from the site of Madawra. All the sherds, as I said, over 50,000 of them, were moved from our field camps and are now in storage in the castle at Kerak, presumably safe under lock and key.

Now I’d like to survey a few of the sites that we have been talking about. This is the site of Khirbet es-Sar, two parts of the site separated by a small Wadi. Khirbet es-Sar, site 2118, yielded four Middle Bronze sherds, seven Late Bronze sherds, again not a significant number but indicating presence during the periods in question. The interesting side of Khirbet Umm es-Sedera, 2060, located between these two natural rock faces, yielded forty-six Middle Bronze sherds and twentythree Late Bronze sherds. Interesting site and figure out exactly what was going on there, all the remains are located between these huge, eroded cliffs. [Pointing to Slide] The remains of the site are today, topsy turvy, and investigation would be difficult, but again forty-six Middle Bronze, twenty-three Late Bronze. We go to the site of the Dhubab, which is right on the southern edge of the Wadi el-Hasa, and Dhubab, site 2049, a large site, something of a Tell, yielded seventeen Middle Bronze sherds and thirty-eight Late Bronze Age sherds. I can’t get that focused. [Fiddling with Slides]

I want to go to several sites that move further to the north, the site of Sewell, 2319, and the site is largely an abandoned village with some occupation at this end, but sherding was done all around the village, yielding five Middle Bronze sherds and twelve Late Bronze sherds. The sight of Mahari, which is largely a later site, site 2375, yielded twenty-four Middle Bronze sherds and only one Late Bronze sherd. The site of Hawiyah, which is an excellent example of a village that has been abandoned and is now being reestablished in a slightly different location, yielded six Middle Bronze sherds, and fifteen Late Bronze sherds that are undifferentiated, and nineteen Late Bronze 2 sherds. Next, we go to the Karak region, the famous site of Karak, and we’ll look at the site of Karak and Ath-Thaniyyah, what we call Metropolitan Karak. The area around the Karak castle was sherded, producing pottery from all periods, especially late Islamic periods, a very significant study will be done on this by Robin Brown. The castle itself yielded three Middle Bronze sherds, fifteen Late Bronze sherds. The site of the castle, in other

words, has been occupied for a considerably longer period, well before the Crusaders arrived. The Kerak Castle from a different angle. [Pointing to Slide]

The site of Ath-Thaniyyah located on this small hill, site 2304, yielded 7 Middle Bronze sherds and fifteen Late Bronze sherds. The site of Carotaine, 2303, yielded six Middle Bronze sherds, seven Late Bronze sherds. The site of Masna, which is one of the few genuine tells that we have in the Moab area. The site of Masna, 8024, yielded twelve Middle Bronze sherds, four Late Bronze sherds and eight Late Bronze 2 sherds. Here’s the site of Rabba looking from Masna, and again the site of Masna a Tell. Kitchen, in 1964, associated this site with the Butyrate attacked by Ramses II and the text that we referred to earlier. A map of the Balu'a district will show us a remarkable site that stretches for one kilometer along the South Bank and is about 1/2 a kilometer in terms of its width. The site sits on the Wadi Balu'a, and you can see that this is a connection with the Great Wadi Mujib system. The site itself is covered by extensive remains, including the famous Cassar. The site of this building site which was the location of the discovery of the Balu'a Stele, this 12th century Egyptianized stele that was found at this site. The walls at Balu'a are extensive and it has been proposed recently by some that in fact this is the side of Ar of Moab.

A map of the Faqqua region showing Balu'a and the site of Faqqua, should be helpful as we locate Faqqua on this promontory because this site has yielded the only other piece of sculpture from the Bronze Age found in the Moabite area. So, the Balu'a Stele of this Egyptianized monument and then this monument, which may be dated to the middle of the second millennium, are the only two pieces of significant artwork found in this district. The sites of Madania North, this fortified site, here it is again for scale, and Madania South located on this hilltop with extensive walls, are exclusively Iron Age 1 sites. [Pointing to slides while talking] So, the sites that show this kind of fortification do not come until later than the period that we’re talking about. Again, our Landsat photograph, we quickly go just above the Arnon. The site of Aroer, which has been excavated yielding very little remains from the Late Bronze Age, Aroer sitting on the Mujib rim. The site of Dhiban, which I’ve alluded to, very significant site that has been well excavated, Dhiban from a distance, and the remains primarily Early Bronze, Iron Age and later. [Pointing to slides] The site of Khirbet-Lid on the King’s Highway, which some identify with Yahaz of the Conquest period. Madaba, which should show remains from this period, also associated with the conquest and settlement. And the great site of Jalloul. Jalloul, this Middle and Late Bronze Age site that was going to be excavated but has now received a cancellation. Jalloul also showing the size of this genuine Tell and the famous side of Hisban, which also is problematic in our reconstruct.

And finally, further to the north, to the northwest of Amman, the site of Tell Safut. All of this to indicate that Glueck’s hypothesis cannot be maintained anymore in its original form, and that we do have significant evidence of Middle and Late Bronze Age materials from the regions in question. And, I’m suggesting, that as one of the main pillars of the late dating for the Exodus Conquest, Glueck’s gap hypothesis, should now be abandoned and spoken of no more except as the curiosity of the history of archaeology. Thank you.

Book Reviews

We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy. By Robert Tracy McKenzie. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2021. 292 pp. $28, hardcover.

Review

by

Terrence Neal Brown

Terrence Neal Brown serves as Director of Library Services of The Ora Byram Allison Memorial Library at Mid-Amerca and Editor and Book Review Editor of The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary.

McKenzie, history, Wheaton College, examines an array of subjects, ranging from the American Founders to Andrew Jackson and Alexis de Tocqueville to the present in We the Fallen People: The Founders and the Future of American Democracy (hereafter Fallen). Amid erudition and complex matters—historical, political, and Christian—McKenzie strives to rivet readers to a single, overarching concern: the role of the democratic idea in both theory and practice in our nation, a democratic republic. Moreover, as an academic historian who is Christian, the author contrasts the orthodox Christian doctrine of the fall, or original sin, to the present political orthodoxy that claims virtue and goodness—an unfallen state— for American democracy, i.e., the American people, and finds the latter lacking and in need of correction or at least great tempering.

Launching Fallen with a consideration of the maxim “America is great because America is good,” an attribution many spuriously attach to Tocqueville, McKenzie immediately introduces the realistic antidote to the anodyne claim, the Christian doctrine of original sin, the fall of humankind in Genesis 3. In the initial part of five segments, McKenzie spends the first two chapters on the American Founding via the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and its defenders, ranging from George Washington and John Adams to James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, authors of The Federalist. These chapters focus on original sources, particularly Founders Online, and demonstrate that the architects of the American Republic, if not orthodox Bible believers, certainly grasped the fallen condition of humankind—even if they limited themselves to strata of white males only—and proposed a federal government, the U.S. Constitution, to the states that considered the epic conflict between power and liberty and the overriding allure of self-

interest.

The author bids us “to listen to the Founders, not canonize them” (p. 49) and repeatedly posits evidence that these men possessed a hard understanding of human nature, “recognizing that our Constitution is, among other things, an extended commentary on human nature” (p. 34) and designed the vigilant system of checks and balances “because none [emphases in the original] of us is naturally virtuous, because we’re all subject to the lure of self-interest, because each of us is vulnerable to the intoxication of power, power is always a threat to liberty” (p. 68). Thus, the Framers of the Constitution maintained a “fundamental suspicion of democracy” (p. 60) and deliberately authored and proposed “a complicated system in order to erect a republican form of government simultaneously ‘derived from the great body of society’ and significantly shielded from popular pressure” (p. 62) while holding, evidently, “an understanding of human nature largely consistent with biblical truth”; consequently, they “went to elaborate lengths to design a Constitution with this understanding in mind” (p. 74). The Founders and Framers recognized human failings, desires, and history (they had mirrors, too), and they provided a bulwark of safeguards, as far as conceivable, to ameliorate human excesses.

From the strengths of the Constitution, Fallen proceeds to Parts II and III— “The Great Reversal” and “Servitude of Liberty”—a focus on President Andrew Jackson and Jacksonian democracy. In four brisk chapters, dealing with the rise of General Andrew Jackson, his election to the presidency and attendant politics, the removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia (the incarnadine Trail of Tears) and Jackson’s destruction of the Second Bank of the United States (BUS), McKenzie traces and highlights democratic impulses and transgressions. The author relays the transformation of the Framers’ approach to the Constitution and the American order, based on flawed humanity, to the new democratic spirit of embracing goodness, virtue, and wisdom in the people. Generally, McKenzie flays Jackson for his heresy against the Framers: “’the People’s President’ was justifying a new democratic mindset by appealing to an understanding of human nature that the Framers roundly rejected and Christian teaching had long contradicted” (p. 125), and the treachery and horrors, to provide a reprehensible misdeed, inflicted on the Cherokee Nation was “a democratic policy, prompted by democratic desires, fueled by democratic sentiments” (p. 158). Lastly, Jackson’s treatment of the BUS, while not as personally egregious, yields further evidence of dismantling the Framers “as he assaulted the constitutional checks and balances that the Framers had instituted to protect their liberty” (p. 189). Democracy regnat.

After inspecting drastic actions and pitfalls of democracy, Fallen turns to consider one of the concept’s most trenchant chroniclers,

Alexis de Tocqueville, in Part IV. These two chapters, centering on fears and aspirations, pay homage to this keen observer’s seminal writing, Democracy in America, and its broad and deep assessments of Jacksonian democracy, and, further, what it illuminates about America in the 21st century. Knowing intimately the bloodletting of the French Revolution, Tocqueville’s apprehension for American democracy anchored, like the Framers, in his persuasion that “power is always a threat to liberty and justice” (p. 203). Thus, he found disturbing that “Americans professed ‘faith in man’s good sense and wisdom, faith in the doctrine of human perfectibility’” (p. 202) when he observed that raw democracy displays the power of the majority over the minority regardless of the demographics of each. This terrible comprehension— tension—dominates Democracy in America, self-interest in any majority, however formed, in running roughshod over any type minority; simply, winners against losers. Yet, Tocqueville tempered grave reservations with flashes of hope, and McKenzie expresses this dose of optimism when examining Tocqueville’s findings about religion, particularly Christianity (pp. 233-43), e.g., “by fostering ‘habits of restraint,’ religious belief can mitigate tyranny and help to perpetuate the republic” (p. 240). In summarizing Tocqueville’s findings and observations, Fallen notes that “democracy carries an intrinsic potential for oppression and injustice” but “the good news, the hope that we cling to, is that it doesn’t have to” (p.243).

Part Five—Remembering, Reminding, Responding—integrates McKenzie’s professional and personal measurements in Fallen’s final chapters. While he notes that he is an academic historian, trained to be objective (p. 246), McKenzie also confesses that he is a Christian historian, operating on basic beliefs: God’s sovereignty in the human experience and history, “individuals in the past were like us in that they were made in God’s image and marked by the fall,” and “remembering the past rightly is crucial to living in the present faithfully” (p. 247). Consequently, Chapter nine concentrates on what Fallen labels “the Great Reversal” (p. 252-254), the political, cultural tectonic shift from the Founders and Framers, with all their warnings and precautions about human nature. i.e., sin, to the odiously ignorant Disneyesque assumption that “the heart is a reliable guide to righteous living” (p. 252). McKenzie recoils from this testament of “democratic faith” and repudiation of Christian biblical teaching and recounts, again, the stern teachings of the Framers and Tocqueville: “democracy isn’t intrinsically intolerant and authoritarian, but it can be”; moreover, “the possibility that democracy will devolve into tyranny is every present” (p. 264).

Chapter ten, a departure, mutates into the sermonic rather than the historical. In this laconic closing chapter (pp. 266-280), McKenzie abandons his pen of academic historian and embraces a new weapon,

vitriol, as he castigates many on the Christian Religious Right—and its sympathizers—from the Moral Majority, Robert Jeffress, Victor Davis Hanson, Franklin Graham, to Tucker Carlson, and, of course, President Trump. Suddenly, Fallen’s entire tenor buckles, yielding a brief and highly selective catalog of shortcomings and sins—true to McKenzie’s thesis about democracy’s reflecting fallen human beings—but here the jejune name-calling outweighs evidence and impartiality, sliding into a tantrum worthy of prepubescent youth in its one-sided petulance.

For most of Fallen, and this adherence proves his greatest strength, McKenzie remains true to his thesis that “we must renounce democratic faith, our unthinking belief that democracy is intrinsically just,” and, moreover, “disavow the democratic gospel” the misbegotten concept of individual goodness and collective wisdom (p. 12). McKenzie provides heaps of evidence to support his cardinal contention in his capacity as a skilled historian. Perhaps Fallen bucks a trend in its weighty approach to a serious, controversial subject—America’s Founders and Framers and those who would smash the original image and intentions—but it rewards in depth and learning which McKenzie “wears” lightly, almost. Until the closing chapter, the book proves academically polemical rather than sensationally shrill. Indeed, McKenzie does not shy from complex issues, e.g., pages 218, 228, and 233 and refuses to edulcorate matters that many wish to silence, if not to avoid entirely. So, McKenzie builds his case, armed with the records—which he employs with learning and skill that appear sure not sour, for the greater part— that the history of democracy, a long river of blood and misery, requires vigilance in containing wild flights of utopianism and unbridled greed from American citizens and institutions.

Beyond commendations, faults persist in Fallen; some consist of technical matters and others of viewpoint and interpretation. McKenzie relies on original resources and other historians, but barely mentions theological, e.g., the Niebuhrs, Neuhaus, Brownson, Machen, Dabney, and Schaeffer, inter alia, or political philosophy perspectives such as Russell Kirk, John Hamilton Hallowell, Harry Jaffa, Willmore Kendall, M. E. Bradford, or Peter Viereck (conservatism is the “political secularization of the doctrine of original sin”—quoted in George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America: Since 1945, Basic Books, New York, 1976, p. 66), all vigorous and learned critics of the American order. Also, despite a heavy reliance on the excellent Founders Online site, and abundant footnotes, no bibliography appears, leaving readers to hunt for sources.

Aside from the few technical cavils, more reproach stems from McKenzie’s viewpoint and interpretation. First, for such an academic work, McKenzie slips into first-person commentary (pp. 188 and 213) and uses his credentials, it appears, to disparage popular writers such

as Eric Metaxas (pp. 192 and 207) and others (pp. 32-35). Following this vein of dismissal, the author blisters various forms of “populism,” from Thomas Paine (p. 57) and the Tea Party (p. 67) to Andrew Jackson, as mentioned (see pages 168-9, 173, 183-84, and 263) and President Trump. Indeed, the most egregious errors of Fallen occur when the text savages President Trump, who receives consistently negative commentary from McKenzie (especially pages 9, 120, 269-78). Moreover, McKenzie tarnishes—exclusively—“white Christians” (p. 268) and Trump’s MAGA crowd, while saying nothing of the extremism of the Black Lives Matter Movement, Critical Race Theory, the lopsided censorship—pro-left—of mainstream media, including, overwhelmingly, social media, radicalized colleges and universities, woke Christianity—the route of fixing specific sins while overlooking the cause of those transgressions, talk about a failure to understand and apply original sin—and the entrenched organs of the “deep state” via governmental agencies. A genuine “howler,” in this reviewer’s opinion, occurs on page 183 when, speaking of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, McKenzie elevates Dred Scott v. [sic] Sanford as “the most infamous judicial ruling in US history” (p. 183); the forty plus million dead from Roe v Wade would undoubtedly dissent had they life and voice. A final note, as the Constitution commences with the phrasing, “We the People,” McKenzie might have to grant more credence to the concept of democracy, begrimed though it may be by the likes of questionable figures such as Jackson, Nixon, Clinton, and Biden, since the American people do serve, after all, as the font of political power and sway from which the entire edifice of government arises. Fallen wants us to respect and to embrace the consequence of a fallen people, the U.S. Constitution and government, all the while teaching that these instruments are, somehow, miraculum miraculorum, above their creators and not merely an extension, fallen and imperfect, too.

For an academic historian, McKenzie frequently engages his reader, almost conversationally, overturning standard prescriptions and posing direct, informal but probing, questions, setting the scene for his answers. Fallen remains a challenging, multi-layered work, leaving the reader wanting more in this style and an eagerness to enter discussion with the author particularly on the current scene of American democracy in its latest incarnation and basic disregard for humankind’s turpitude.

United

to Christ, Walking in the Spirit: A Theology of Ephesians. By

Benjamin L. Merkle

Wheaton: Crossway, 2022, 143 pp., $19.99, softcover.

Review by R. Connor Evans

R. Connor Evans is a doctoral student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans, LA.

A New Testament and Greek professor, Benjamin Merkle teaches at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has authored, coauthored, and edited several books. Among them are Exegetical Gems from the Biblical Greek, Understanding Prophecy: A Biblical-Theological Approach, and Those Who Must Give an Account. Merkle’s United to Christ, Walking in the Spirit offers a fresh exploration into the biblical themes of Paul’s letter to Ephesus.

Merkle divides his work into five chapters: 1) the plan of God; 2) union with Christ; 3) walking according to the Spirit; 4) the unity of the church; and 5) spiritual warfare in the present age. The theological discussions in each chapter precisely nuance the book of Ephesians (14). In his own words, Merkle’s goal is to provide a usable synopsis of Ephesian theology “that highlights the work of God through his Son for the believer who is then able to love and enjoy God because of the ongoing work of the Spirit” (15).

In chapter one, Merkle discusses God’s plan, pointing to the words of Paul, which is “to bring all things together in Christ” (Eph. 1:9). This concept culminates in the second Adam’s redeeming “the entire cosmos” (21). Merkle points to God’s plan for salvation to bring all things together in Christ. God accomplishes his plan for salvation by election, regeneration, redemption, adoption, and the sealing of believers. To accomplish this purpose, God set apart the apostle Paul to reveal God’s purpose in making “both groups [Jew and Gentile] into one” (Eph. 2:14). In response, Paul passionately prayed that his readers would know and understand God’s plan and will for their lives, that they would unite to Christ (40).

Although union with Christ cannot fully encapsulate Paulinian theology, Merkle points to Constantine Campbell’s analogy of a web composed of concentric circles. Following the analogy, because a web does not “have a single defined center,” union with Christ is not the defined center of Paul’s theology; instead, it is a central theme (45). The remainder of chapter two focuses on what it means to be united to Christ. By faith, the Spirit (47) must redeem individuals. Second, they must participate in the “redemptive events of Christ’s narrative” (51).

Third, they must identify in submission to the Lordship of Christ Jesus (54). Lastly, they must incorporate into the family of God, the church (57). Paul often portrayed life through the metaphor of walking (Eph. 2:10, 4:1; 2 Cor. 5:7; Rom. 13:13). In chapter three, Merkle discusses the importance of walking in the Spirit and how for the Christian, Christians are no longer “dead in [their] offenses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Christians are made alive by and through God’s power (73). Accordingly, Christians can walk in the Spirit, a life characterized by “good works, unity, and righteousness” (88). In Merkle’s words, “a redeemed sinner puts aside the old way of life and seeks to imitate the love of God” (88). The believer accomplishes this imitation by walking according to the Spirit.

In chapter four, Merkle examines the body of Christ, tracing several themes that should be woven throughout the church’s identity. Christ, as the head of the church, unites all things in himself (93). Unity between Jew and Gentile should be a defining aspect, as Christ “broke down the barrier of the dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14). Yet, in that unity, there should be the aspect of diversity (104). Everyone is uniquely gifted to conduct his or her purpose for Christ in his kingdom.

Chapter five considers the concept of spiritual warfare. In 2:2, Paul labeled Satan the “prince of the power of the air” and “the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Satan has a present kingdom on earth (112). This contrasts with the present rule of Christ and his kingdom on earth (119). These two kingdoms are currently engaged in warfare, as outlined in Eph. 6. While battles wage, the war has concluded. Christ will come again and consummate all things to his glory (129).

Merkle adeptly covers the theology of Ephesians by walking through its thematic messages. He does well to establish the theme not only in the context of Ephesians but also within the New Testament. Having established the theological aspect of the themes, Merkle rightly applies them to the life of the Christian. In other words, Merkle focuses on orthopraxy in light of orthodoxy. At times, the book’s flow could have been easier to follow. For example, chapter one takes a straightforward approach and correlates to the first chapter of Ephesians. After that connection, however, Merkle tends to move around within the text of Ephesians.

The text is simple enough, making it less academic and more geared toward pastoral ministry. As this book would be ideal for sermon preparation, the audience best suited for this text would be pastors and teachers. Additionally, Christians desiring to dig deeper into Ephesians would benefit from this study. Another excellent use would be a Bible study in a small group environment conducive to discussion. Overall, Merkle’s book is fresh and insightful, making it a great addition to any reading list.

The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from

Narnia

and Middle-Earth

. By Kristen Page. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2022, 126 pp., $17.99, softcover.

Review by Daphne S.

McCaig

Daphne S. McCaig is Former Head of Circulation of The Ora Byram Allison Memorial Library of Mid-America Baptist

Theological Seminary

Kristen Page serves as professor of biology at Wheaton College. Page has written extensively, published in numerous scholarly journals. Her areas of study include wildlife, parasitology, and wildlife biology. The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and MiddleEarth draws from Page’s knowledge and education to create an insightful work. Page pulls from her own experiences, as well as several contributors, to compile comprehensive expository lessons gleaned from Narnia and Middle-earth. She proposes the notion that she enjoys literary depictions of nature significantly more as a scientist, and thus a reader can enjoy true nature significantly more after reading about it. The author supposes that the serenity of nature, both real and written, quiets the soul. Experiencing one provides encouragement to experience the other. Reading of nature helps one to grow in reverence for creation.

According to Page, Tolkien and Lewis used their personal encounters with creation to draft their own landscapes that pull at familiar strings within the reader’s mind. Imaginative landscapes can be transformative landscapes. Much more than mere settings for stories, the scenes of Narnia and Middle-earth transform character and reader experience. Kristen Page states that such landscapes lead Christians to a greater understanding of humanity’s role in creation and its stewardship.

Christina Bieber Lake provides the response to Page’s first chapter. She praises Page for her work and brings to light Page’s theme: liberal arts are directly tied to the environment. Contrary to Page, Lake is a scholar of literature who became a lover of nature. Lake reminisces about early literary adventures as she responds with movement to care for the environment as Tolkien and Lewis did - as a fully alive component. Lake uses poetry to consider that a shift in attitude towards nature must take place before it is too late. Stewardship is a current responsibility of Christians, for without it, the natural world suffers.

Page introduces the second topic of her work: “A Lament for Creation” in chapter two. She writes on the physical reliance on creation for a healthy life. Many use resources that are not readily available to

all, which poses the question, “is caring for creation a way of loving one’s neighbor?” J.R.R. Tolkien’s characters return from their harrowing journey to find that the Shire was decimated to accommodate a mill. Page compares the destruction of Middle-earth ecosystems to the risks that real ecosystems face. The resources that are often taken for granted provide more than meets the eye - trees that provide wood also contribute to the water cycle and climate regulation. Page questions if the economic gains produced are worth the destruction of carefully God-designed ecosystems. The same sentiment is echoed in both Lewis and Tolkien’s writings. Page suggests that the stories of Lewis and Tolkien will deter poor stewardship. Christians can impact this God-given assignment.

Noah Toly writes the response to Page’s second chapter. He writes that the change Page wishes to see in the world, and what one observes in the fictional writings of Lewis and Tolkien is within reach through the Holy Spirit. However, we do not realize the importance of our actions. Tolkien’s story of Bilbo’s journey with the ring is exemplary of how the journey is essential to the outcome. Ultimately, the sentiment throughout is that hardship transforms perception. Those who see the impact of destruction within literary works will be more aware of it in creation.

Chapter three introduces the concepts of regaining wonder and rejoining the chorus of nature. We are to care for God’s creation and learn about Him through it. Page asserts that to care for creation, one must know it well, playing an active role in it. To do so, one must be aware of the status of creation. Creation is changing as species go extinct. Page connects Aslan’s song from C.S. Lewis’s writings to the emotional pull that experiencing creation firsthand has. People will marvel at nature as they interact with it, both in person and through words. As people interact with, and marvel at creation, they join in the chorus of the creatures. One should listen to the groaning and praise that creation presents and respond in kind.

Emily Hunter McGowin provides the final response to Page’s writings. As a self-proclaimed “homebody,” McGowin sees the message of being part of nature as a wakeup call in her personal life. Wonder is posed as a type of fear - a virtue. The wonder of nature is not to be the romanticization of nature; it is a desire to learn and experience. She affirms Page’s methods of cultivating wonder: interaction with physical landscapes and interaction through fictional landscapes. McGowin concludes her response by reiterating Page’s words, “to understand ourselves as created parts of creation.”

Page presents a solid argument for gleaning lessons on stewardship through interactions with creation and reading the works of Tolkien and Lewis, literary celebrants and stewards of God’s creation.

Certainly, Page is passionate in her belief that believers are to care greatly for the treatment of the earth and consider the impact on the environment before acting. While Tolkien and Lewis are both cited in relation to her writings, other authors are cited. Perhaps the title is inappropriate, as it is evident that lessons on stewardship can be gleaned from many writers besides the two primary ones. Additionally, all responses provided by outside contributors affirm the writings of Page, with one author even calling her a personal friend. Page’s book would have proved more thought provoking had some opposition been offered in the responses. Nevertheless, ultimately, The Wonders of Creation: Learning Stewardship from Narnia and Middle Earth provides a thoughtful commentary that many nature and book lovers will enjoy.

The QR code below is a link to The Journal's website. The code will link the reader to the vocal presentations of the eight essays in this volume.