Moses, Hebrews leaving Egypt, etc. - backed up by other histories?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To the degree that Moshe leaving the land of Mizraim is based on history, it most likely a remembrance of Aten worshippers leaving Egypt after their cult was suppressed.  The name of Moshe is reminiscent of the early XVIIIth Dynasty pharaohs Ahmose I and  Thutmose I-IV. The -mose part of their names means roughly "born of".  Hence Moshe as the name of an Egyptian who gave birth to a monotheistic religion among the peoples to the east of Egypt would be quite understandable.

If it were a thin veneer of priests, they likely wouldn't leave much of an archaeological imprint.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Bible never says the Hebrews built pyramids.  Quite the opposite in fact, as it makes clear they were nowhere near Giza and the task they were set to was the building of fortress cities at the eastern edge of the Nile delta.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Within 1 pharaoh without boils, Akhenaten comes to power & rejects all of Egypt's gods and worship one sun god.

Akhenaten was born more than a century after Thutmoses II died.  Also the god Aten that Akhenaten worshiped was a prexisting, albeit minor, deity in the Egyptian mythos.

Also, if there is a historical correspondence between the Exodus and the archaeological record, the XVIIIth dynasty is too early. The exodus itself had to have happened after the battle of Qadesh during the reign of Ramesses II. Sometime in the XXth Dynasty is most likely.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There are the dual problems of the Hebrew slaves being used to construct the city of Ramesses, which was named after one or more of the Rameside pharaohs of the XIXth and XXth centuries and that in Exodus 13:17, the reason given for God not having the Hebrews take the direct path from Egypt to Canaan was that he did not want them to encounter the Philistines too soon.  The Philistines did not come into their power until the XXth Dynasty.

There really are only two choices, either the Book of Exodus is not an accurate historical record, or the pharaoh who refused to let Israel go was of the XXth Dynasty.

If one posits a connection between Akhenaten's monotheism and the Hebrews, it would be far more likely that it was caused by respect for what the God of Joseph had done for Egypt rather than by fear of what the God of Moses had done to Egypt.  Trying to place Moses in the XVIIIth dynasty, especially in the early XVIIIth dynasty as you are doing means placing Joseph's arrival in Egypt during the chaotic Second Intermediate Period of Egyptian history.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Do you have a cite for Jericho being destroyed so late?  From the best source I've found, the radiocarbon dating of the destruction of Jericho is c.1574 BC ± 44 years at the 95% confidence level.  Any date later than 1500 BC is simply not congruent with the archaeological evidence I've come across.

Of course, that is a big problem for any attempt to assert the historicity of the Hexateuch.  The archaeological record simply does not place the destruction of Jericho at a time at which would allow Joseph to be vizier of a strong Egypt which could have served as the granary of the known world.

As fr the boils, you're aware that it wasn't just pharaohs who were mummified, aren't you?  Any evidence of widespread boils for that time should be able to found in way more than three mummies.

Also, could you provide some sources for your claims?  Many of them are ones I've not read before, and some, such as of the Egyptian style houses, contradict what I have read before.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I see the source of your error.  You are using uncalibrated carbon dates.  Because of variations in the amounts of atmospheric C₁₄, carbon dates have to be calibrated using information from tree rings and other sources where the date can be determined external of the variable carbon dates.  Uncalibrated carbon dates are almost always too recent.

Here's a link to a site where you can input the raw radiocarbon data and get a calibrated result. http://calib.qub.ac.uk/calib/calib.html

Putting the data for the most recent result in your table:
GrN-19063 3240 ± 18 -23.72 Hordeum vulgare (i.e., barley)
(After adding in an additional 21 years since the data was collected in 1991 and 1992.)
yields 1550BC as the most probable date of that sample and 1490BC as the upper bound at the 95% confidence level.  The rest of the samples you cite are all older, but even that most advantageous sample puts the destruction of Jericho as at the latest taking place a decade before the reign of Hatshepsut.

I don't know if your source used the raw data in error or in deliberate disregard of basic radiocarbon dating principles because it needed the uncorrected dates to support its chronology.  Either way, the error is obvious to anyone who isn't desperately trying to shoehorn the evidence to fit into a predetermined chronology.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Tree ring seems like a good way to calibrate it.  But is that accurate? Don't trees only live a few hundred years?

Yeah, but you can build a chronology using multiple trees from the same area and the size of the growth rings of each.

Apparently any carbon dating in this region is disputed by 100 -150 years due to volcanic activity that affected carbon levels.

Yup, besides ending Minoan civilization, Thera caused a major disruption for radiocarbon dating by releasing a fair amount of non-radioactive carbon into the environment.  Problem is, Thera's eruption absolutely predates the Eighteenth dynasty.  Pumice identified as coming from Thera has been found at Avaris in layers predating the destruction of the city by Ahmose I.  (Avaris had been the capital of the XVIIth Dynasty.) That city of Avaris was later rebuilt under the XIXth Dynasty as the city of Pi-Ramesses mentioned in Exodus 1.  Incidentally, that's another reason that no attempt to treat Exodus as literal history can support an XVIIIth Dynasty exodus.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Another problem is, if you date the Israelite exodus of the promised land to the Eighteenth Dynasty, you're placing it a couple of centuries before the iron age begins, and the Book of Joshua mentions them facing enemies with chariots of iron several times.  So an Eighteenth Dynasty exodus requires that the Bible contains factual errors of history which sorta defeats the point of trying to use specific points of the historical record to prove the authenticity of the Bible.

All the genetic markers you mention support is that the kohens have a common patrilineal ancestor, but provides absolutely no support as to who that ancestor is.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There are occasional iron artifacts before the Iron Age proper, but it wasn't until the Bronze Age Collapse caused the interruption of the tin trade that the use of the more expensive iron took place at the levels needed to develop it as a widely useful metal.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

While the Anatolians seem to have entered the Iron Age earlier than their neighbors, the archeological record places their entry as having occurred in the Nineteenth Dynasty, with iron use becoming more widespread in the Twentieth.  Certainly not early to middle Eighteenth Dynasty as would be needed to reconcile the presence of iron chariots in Joshua with the idea that Thutmose II was the pharaoh of the exodus.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It might if those 200 years were for the start of the Iron Age, but they are not.

The archeological record is quite clear that the Nineteenth Dynasty was quite firmly in the Bronze Age as was at least the early part of the Twentieth.  There simply is not enough time that could have have elapsed if the exodus begins while Thutmose II was pharaoh for there to be significant quantities of iron chariots for Joshua to worry about.  Indeed, under your chronology, the Battle of Qadesh would have to have been oddly fought with outmoded bronze chariots more than a century after iron chariots were available in quantity in the promised land.

Your suggested timeline also has the Egyptians taking control of the promised land and thus also of Israel for a period of time during the era of the Judges.  Yet that is not at all mentioned in the Bible which is a strong indication that it did not happen when you propose and that if historical, the exodus happened during the Rameside period sometime after the Battle of Qadesh when Egypt had lost its control over the Levant.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Do you bother to read the stuff you cherry pick?  The 200 year shift is not for the entire Iron Age, but for some specific events in Anatolia that even with the shift happened well after not only the exodus but also the era of David and Solomon.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's obvious you don't read more that the bits you cherry pick in hopes they will support your theory, or if you do, you have poor reading comprehension.

The corrections are not being made because of a change in radiocarbon dating methods.  It's because radiocarbon dates are replacing others that were based upon written records of the neighbors of the Phyrgians.  Hence a layer of destruction at their capital Gordium that had been thought to be due to the Cimmerian invasion in the early 7th century BCE  is now believed to be due to an earlier undocumented disaster in the late 9th century BCE.  Outside of the dating of Anatolian artifacts found in situations where radiocarbon or dendrochronological dating cannot be done, this correction will have no significant effects on the dating of the Iron Age.

Besides, even if there were a large scale shift, it would push the dates of all the New Kingdom dynasties back earlier, which, given the uncertainties of the dates of the chaotic Third Intermediate Period that followed it, would not be unreasonable if there were evidence for it.  One simply does not find appreciable quantities of iron artifacts in Egypt until the late Twentieth Dynasty and we know the relative dates of the Eighteenth thru Twentieth Dynasties too well for those to be compressed.  The archaeological record simply does not support an early Eighteenth Dynasty exodus because if there were such an exodus then, the Israelites could not have encountered iron chariots in Cannon only half century later.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Even if the reconstruction is correct, it would be consistent with the enslavement in Egypt of Israel by the new pharaoh to whom Joseph meant nothing. (Exodus 1:8)  It also would be consistent with the viewpoint that Exodus is a myth based upon some historical underpinnings, much as the Iliad is a myth based upon a real Trojan War.

The bit about the Hittites is more of your cherry picking.  That new kingdom lasted until near the beginning of the twelfth century, so its later history does indeed overlap the early Iron Age of Anatolia, but the author is not stating that they were in the Iron Age at the beginning of the Hittite New Kingdom c.1450 BCE.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Genetic dating is not something that can be done to a precision of ± 10 years as you are trying to do. 

To quote from the Wikipedia article on this subject:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In other words, CMH cannot be used for the purpose of trying to date a historical exodus.  It simply does not offer the necessary level of precision to do so.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Repetition doesn't improve your argument.  Indeed, all you have managed to make me do is make we wonder if you are an atheist trolling by pretending to be a Christian who believes what you are saying.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I would have thought you would have at least been more careful in quoting from the Bible.

Joshua 17:16-18 (NIV)
16 "The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have chariots fitted with iron, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

17 But Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment 18 but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”


Beside the above and Judges 1:19, there are also mentions in Judges 4:3 and 4:13.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Anyone who knows anything about Ancient Egypt knows that one of the things the Eighteenth Dynasty prided itself on was having driven out the Hyskos, who were a largely Semitic group of peoples, and who had reigned from Avaris as the Fifteenth Dynasty.  Not surprisingly, those Semites worshiped their own gods, rather than the Egyptian gods, tho in the manner of most ancient religions, they did become syncretized with the chief Hyskos god being associated with Set, the Egyptian god of the desert, storms, and foreigners and they worshiped Set instead of Re as the chief god.

As for the lack of pomp associated with the burial of Thutmose II, that is easily explained.  The tomb that had originally thought to be his (KV42) is now known to have never been used for him.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

One needs no further proof than the Holy Bible itself, the word of God through his chosen servants, the prophets.

Winfield, I expect better of you when you troll than this.  Granted, I am often disappointed in that expectation, but seldom this badly.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

One needs no further proof than the Holy Bible itself, the word of God through his chosen servants, the prophets.

Winfield, I expect better of you when you troll than this.  Granted, I am often disappointed in that expectation, but seldom this badly.

When one expresses oneself with what one believes does not by any means mean that that individual is trolling.

But when one is trying to convince others that those beliefs are true, you do need a better argument than "Because I say it is true."  You usually provide a better argument than you did here.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

color, Thutmose III was officially the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife.  Frankly there's no need to assume that he was a secret replacement for a missing firstborn son who could have easily come from a different secondary wife and when he easily could have been the product of adultery.  It's not as if the concept was unknown then when you consider that Joseph was accused of it.  Plus, since the primary wife of Thutmose II, Hatshepsut, only had a daughter, the secondary wives had every reason to try extra hard to have a son who could be the next pharaoh.

Until you are able to address my multiple reasons why a date before the Battle of Qadesh for the exodus is implausible for a historically accurate Exodus, you won't be able to convince me of anything in your intricate tale of coincidences and conspiracy.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

  The question is why didn't the 2nd or 3rd son of Thutmose II ( assuming he had more sons) become the next Pharaoh (proclaimed)?  If Thutmose II had other sons, was hiding the fact the the first-born son died that important? 

If the answer were the common human follible of adultery, then the fact that the Ancient Egyptians didn't have DNA testing to prove paternity is a more than adequate explanation.

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Well it sort of calls into question why both the records of ancient Egypt and their neighbors have Thutmose III conquering Canaan and Syria at a time when if Thutmose II had been the pharaoh in Exodus, Joshua would have been doing the conquering.  Egypt continued to receive tribute from Canaan and Syria for the rest of the Eighteenth Dynasty,  It wouldn't be until after the battle of Qadesh in the Nineteenth Dynasty that Egyptian power in the Levant went into a lasting decline.  You'd basically have to have the Egyptians, the Hittites, and the Mittani all engage in a two century long conspiracy to ignore that Israel had conquered Canaan.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Even if the Amarna Tablets are referring to Hebrews (which is a disputed interpretation), you must remember that the Israelites were but one of the Hebrew peoples of the period.  The term could just as easily be applied to the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Midianites, and the Ishmaelites, just to name peoples named in the Bible.  In theory it could also apply to the Qahtanites that Arabic tradition claims as descending from Joktan, son of Eber, but they likely would not be raiding Canaan at that time, as they were a people of southern Arabia.  To assert that the term must have been referring to Israelites is mere wishful thinking.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Those same Avaris-style homes are the earliest Israeli homes in Caanan.

As I said earlier, you've got some claims I've never heard of before (historicity of Exodus isn't a high priority to me) and this is one of them.  It also seems like a highly dubious inference.  Given that Egypt exerted suzerainty over Canaan for much of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties, it seems to me that alone is sufficient to explain Egyptian style houses in Canaan without any requirement for the architectural technique be imported by Israel. What makes the claim even more doubtful is that after forty years in the desert, those Israelis would have no experience in construction.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The reason the uncalibrated date should always be mentioned is because as calibration standards are refined, the calibrated date can change and does change as comparisons with the dendrochronological record and other sources improve.  By including the uncalibrated date, if someone makes use of their data twenty years from now when a more refined calibration scale has been developed, they can use that data and plug it into the new scale.  However the current scale is well enough developed for that area and era, that I find it extremely unlikely that any revised scale would change the calibrated dates for the destruction of Jericho by more than 20 years in either direction.