The Old Testament and the Hyksos Pharaohs

  The Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1792 BC)
 
 Abraham was born c. 1951 BC. During Senusret III's reign, Abraham arrived in Canaan, which was in the midst of a famine. This drove him into Egypt in 1875 BC. He met the Pharoah, Senusret III.
   
 The next ruler of Egypt was Amenemhet III (1842-1797 BC).    
 
 In 1811 BC, Abraham sent his steward, Eliezer, to Haran to obtain a wife for his son Isaac, who was then about 40 years old. Eliezer finds Rebekah.   
 
 Jacob and Esau were born to Isaac and Rebekah in 1791 BC. It was hoped that she would have borne children earlier – Isaac had prayed, and an answer came to Rebekah, saying that two nations were in her womb. There was a war already going on, in utero. This pregnancy and birth of these twins is thematic in the rest of Biblical history.
 
 The Thirteenth Dynasty (1782-1650 BC)
 
 Associated with Upper (southern) Egypt. It seems that at this time, the pharaohs were not handed down from father to son any longer. The real power had shifted from a pharaoh to a vizier, who was like a prime minister. This type of ruling eventually made its way into northern Egypt also.    
 
 Joseph was a man who rose from somewhat obscure beginnings to become this vizier. During this time, there was a group of quiet Semitics flowing into Egypt. In Egyptian history, they are called the Hyksos. They insinuated themselves into northern Egypt. The Egyptian priest/scholar Manetho says they came in with violence and force. Egyptologists think Manetho may be overstating a bit. In either case, the Hyksos eventually worked their way into many positions of prominence.   
 
 During this time of devolution of central authority, the Hyksos began to dominate political life. Much Egyptian art depicts this group of people. Their hair and dress is different from how the Egyptians depicted themselves. They're associated with livestock. They're depicted as very similar to the Semites, who lived in Canaan and other parts of the Near East.
 
 Joseph is a Semite. Many have speculated that part of the reason he was able to be placed in such a prominent position was not only his ability to interpret dreams (which was impressive), but because the pharaoh was also a Semite.
 
 With the collapse of central authority, in the 13th and 14th Dynasties, the Hyksos began to gain greater control. The 15th Dynasty (1720-1570 BC) is actually called the Hyksos Dynasty. It is later hated by the Egyptians, who resented the idea that foreigners were ruling. The Hyksos were eventually driven out, and their memory is largely expunged from the records. Enough was retained to tell some of their story.   
 
 This was the political backdrop for Joseph coming to Egypt. The Hyksos were also known as the “shepherd” kings due to their livestock populations, whereas the Egyptians, even though they also had livestock, were proud of their grain crops because that's where their wealth producing capabilities came from.   
 
 Specific records regarding the Hyksos era are scant, spotty, and incomplete. The Hyksos themselves were much less interested in leaving archives for the ages. The Egyptians liked to keep records of their exploits for people to read several thousand years later. The Hyksos built from mud brick, which didn't survive very long; the Egyptians built pyramids. The later Egyptian rulers wanted to get rid of all memory of them. In the earliest period of the Hyksos era (c. 1720 BC), they began to make a visible expression of their presence in Egypt.   
 
 This continued until c. 1570 BC, the year of the rise of the 18th Dynasty and the so-called “New Kingdom.”  The Exodus took place under the 18th Dynasty.   
 
 Jacob flees from Esau to Haran around 1720 BC. Genesis 27:43:
 Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; arise, flee thou to Laban my brother to Haran;   
 
 In 1700 BC, Joseph was born to Jacob and Rachel.
 
 In 1698 BC, Jacob, Rachel, and Joseph fled to Canaan. Jacob reconciled with Esau around the same time. In 1683 BC, Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt.   
 
 Joseph arrived in Egypt during a time of decentralized power where Semitic rulers were controlling Egypt. He was sold into the house of Potiphar. Genesis 39:1:   
 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.   
 
 In 1672 BC, Joseph is falsely accused by Potipher's wife of trying to seduce her, though it was the other way around and Joseph denied her advances. But Joseph ends up in prison. After a few years, he is again put in a position of authority. Even as a prisoner, he interpreted dreams of the cup-bearer and the baker to the Pharaoh, and that gets him into the court of Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. This was around 1670 BC, when Joseph became the vizier of Egypt under the Hyksos Pharaoh.   
 
 1669-1662 BC is known as the seven years of plenty. Genesis 41:46-49:
 46 And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. 47 And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. 48 And he gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. 49 And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number.
 
 God had blessed Egypt abundantly in anticipation of the famine that was to come. In southern Egypt, the 17th dynasty, which was running concurrently with the Hyksos Dynasty in the north, was forming plans to drive out the Hyksos.   
 
 In 1660 BC, Jacob and his family settled in Goshen, the richest, most comfortable region in Egypt.  
 
 Generally speaking, the Egyptian political realities are somewhat hostile to attempts to vindicate the Old Testament record in ways that favored the Jewish or Christian tradition. When archaeologists want to vindicate Old Testament records, they run into difficulties. Work has still been done in the past 30-40 years in the region of Goshen. There have been some interesting and encouraging discoveries from a Biblical point of view there.   
 
 One of the most interesting is the discovery of a peculiar architecture dating to this time frame, unknown to Egypt but common to later Israel. The architecture involved a kind of large horseshoe-shaped dwelling area with a courtyard in the front. It was a distinctive Hebrew architectural design.   
 
 In 1646, Jacob dies. In 1590, Joseph dies. The Hyksos are driven out by the 17th Dynasty in 1570, when the 18th Dynasty was established. This is a great change in the political environment of Egypt.   
 
 “A new king (Pharaoh) arose in Egypt who "did not know Joseph." The implication is that previous Pharaohs respected Joseph's role in saving their nation, while this new ruler had either no knowledge or no concern for this history. Despite popular use of the name Rameses, the exact identification of this Pharaoh is uncertain. Likely candidates are Thutmose I, Neferhotep I, or possibly Amenhoteph I.”
 
 Part of what the new dynasty wanted to do was get rid of every memory and favorable comment about the Hyksos and pretend it never happened. So the 18th Dynasty represents a dynasty of deep hostility, not only to the Hyksos, but to the remaining Hebrews still in Goshen, who become the target of a very different political attitude. They began to be reduced to slave status, which continued until the Exodus in 1450 BC.     

 Interview of philosopher and apologist Dr. William Lane Craig by ReasonableFaith.org's John Ankerberg Show. Video of the full interview can be found here.   

 1 God is the best explanation for the origin of the universe.   
 
 In contrast to scientists of bygone days, modern science believes that the universe is not eternal in the past, but had a beginning a finite time ago. Astrophysics believe the universe began with the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. According to this theory, all matter, energy, space, and time came into being at the moment of the Big Bang. It represents the origin of the universe out of nothing. But out of nothing, nothing comes. To say the universe just popped into being is irrational. It would be more logical to say that there's a transcendent cause that brought the universe into existence.
 
 
 2 God is the best explanation of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.
 
 The universe has been incredibly fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent life from the moment of its inception. This fine-tuning is delicate beyond comprehension. The number of seconds in history back to the Big Bang is about 10 to the 18th power (2016). The number of sub-atomic particles in the known universe is about 10 to the 80th power.     
 
 The examples of fine-tuning are so diverse and so numerous that they are unlikely to disappear with any future advance of physics.   
 
 There are three possible explanations for the fine-tuning of the universe:
 1 Physical necessity.
 2 Pure chance.
 3 Intelligent design.
 
 The first two aren't very plausible. The most logical explanation is intelligent design.   
 

 
 3 God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.
 
 It's hard to find any other objective standard of right and wrong and good and evil. In Atheism, moral values are merely byproducts of biological evolution and social conditioning. In an Atheistic view, there actually are no objective moral values and duties in the world. But in life, we find objective moral values and duties, objectively binding and true.   
 
 If God exists, then we have a transcendent, objective foundation for right and wrong, and for good and evil, that Atheism can't explain. If God doesn't exist, then moral values and duties don't exist. Moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists.
 
 4 God is the best explanation for the historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth.
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was a remarkable person. New Testament historians agree that He came on the scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority – the authority to stand and speak in God's place. He claimed that in Him, the Kingdom of God had taken human form. As visible demonstrations, He performed miracles and exorcisms. The most radical confirmation was His Resurrection from the dead.  If Jesus did actually rise from the dead, that means He had to have been who He claimed to be. It means God publicly vindicated His claims.   
 
 Most people think that the Resurrection of Jesus is something that people believe in by faith alone. But of his Doctoral studies at the University of Munich on this subject, Dr. Craig says, “I was surprised to find that there are actually four established facts which are agreed to by the wide majority of New Testament scholars today which, I think, are best explained by the fact of Jesus' Resurrection.”
 
 Following His crucifixion, Jesus was laid in a tomb by a member of the Jewish high court named Joseph of Arimathea. That tomb was found empty the Sunday morning after His crucifixion. Afterwards, different people and groups of people, under a variety of circumstances and in different locales, saw appearances of Jesus alive. The original disciples came to believe that God had raised Jesus from the dead. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright says, “...as an historian I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again leaving an empty tomb behind Him.”    
 
 There are four established facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth:
 1 His honorable burial.
 2 His empty tomb.
 3 His post-Resurrection appearances.
 4 The disciples belief in Jesus' Resurrection.
 
 The best explanation of these facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead. The explanation that God raised Jesus from the dead requires that God exists. Therefore, God exists.   
 
 5 God can be personally known and experienced.
 
 This is not really an argument for God's existence - it's the claim that you can know that God exists entirely apart from arguments by personally experiencing Him. This was the way that people in the Bible knew God. For them, God was a reality that gave significance to their lives.   
 
 For those who listen, God will become a personal reality in your life, too. The Bible promises, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8). So we shouldn't focus on only the arguments. We also need to draw near to God. For those who have never considered talking to God before and would like to try it, Dr. Craig advises:
 
 1 Kneel down and pray daily. Ask God to show Himself to you. Tell Him you want to know Him.   
 
 2 Start reading about the life of Jesus in the Gospels (New Testament). As you read these stories, ask yourself, “Who was this man? Could He really have been who He claimed to be? Could He really have been God incarnate, who came to die for my sins so that I could come into a personal relationship with God?” If you pursue this path, you will find God in the same way that Dr. Craig did.
 
 For those who already believe that God exists, and He has revealed Himself, and has raised Jesus from the dead, it would be a good idea to commit your life to Christ as your Savior and Lord. You can say something like, “God, I believe that You exist and that You've revealed Yourself in Jesus and raised Him from the dead. Right now, in the best way I know how, I want to invite You to come into my life, forgive my sins, change my life, and make me into the kind of person that You want me to be. I would like to be a disciple of Jesus and follow Him. Please change my life – I'm trusting you to do that right now. In Jesus' name, Amen.”
 
 God will hear your prayers. He will come into your life and begin to transform you from the inside out, to make you into the sort of person that He wants you to be.   

bible evidence, faith and religion

 This stele was set in place around 840 BC by King Mesha of Moab (now Jordan). King Mesha told how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and helped Mesha throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. The stele is preserved in the Louvre.
 
 It was discovered by the Rev. F. Klein in 1868 at Diban (Dibon of the Old Testament) in Moab. The writing is in ancient Hebrew characters, which continued in use until around 140 BC, but was gradually replaced by the modern square Hebrew characters that are in use today.
 
 When the Mesha Stele was discovered, amateur explorers and archaeologists were searching the Levant for evidence proving the Bible's historicity. News of the finding set off a race between France, Britain, and Germany to obtain the stone. A papier-mâché impression had been made by a French archaeologist in Jerusalem. The next year, the stele was smashed into several pieces in an act of defiance against Ottoman authorities who had pressured the Bedouins to hand over the stele for Germany. Archaeologist Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau later acquired most of the fragments and pieced together 613 of about 1,000 letters originally cut into the stone, thanks to the papier-mâché impression.
 
 2 Kings 1:1: 

Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.   
 
 The stele's story parallels, with some differences, a story in 2 Kings 3:4–8: 

4 And Mesha king of Moab was a sheepmaster, and rendered unto the king of Israel an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. 5 But it came to pass, when Ahab was dead, that the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. 6 And king Jehoram went out of Samaria the same time, and numbered all Israel. 7 And he went and sent to Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, saying, The king of Moab hath rebelled against me: wilt thou go with me against Moab to battle? And he said, I will go up: I am as thou art, my people as thy people, and my horses as thy horses. 8 And he said, Which way shall we go up? And he answered, The way through the wilderness of Edom.   
 
 The stele provides invaluable information on the political relationship between Moab and Israel in the 9th century BC. It's the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to Israel. The stele reads:
 
 “I, Mesha son of Chemosh-Melech king of Moab, the Dibonite. My father reigned over Moab thirty years and I reigned after my father. I made this monument to Chemosh at Korkhah. A monument of salvation, for he saved me from all invaders, and let me see my desire upon all my enemies. Omri [was] king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land. His son followed him, and he also said: I will oppress Moab. In my days Che[mosh] said; I will see my desire on him and his house. And Israel surely perished for ever. Omri took the land of Medeba and [Israel] dwelt in it during his days and half the days of his son, altogether forty years. But there dwelt in it Chemosh in my days. I built Baal-Meon and made therein the ditches; I built Kirjathaim. The men of Gad dwelt in the land of Ataroth from of old, and built there the king of Israel Ataroth; and I made war against the town and seized it. And I slew all the [people of] the town, for the pleasure of Chemosh and Moab: I captured from thence the Arel of Dodah and tore him before Chemosh in Kerioth: And I placed therein the men of Sh(a)r(o)n, and the men of M(e)kh(e)rth. And Chemosh said to me: Go, seize Nebo upon Israel; and  I went in the night and fought against it from the break of dawn till noon: and I took it, and slew all, 7,000 men, [boys?], women, [girls?] and female slaves, for to Ashtar-Chemosh I devoted them. And I took from it the  Arels of Yahveh, and tore them before Chemosh. And the king of Israel built Jahaz, and dwelt in it, while he waged war against me; Chemosh drove him out before me. And I took from Moab 200 men, all chiefs, and transported them to Jahaz, which I took, to add to it Dibon. I built Korkhah, the wall of the forests and the wall of the citadel: I built its gates, and I built its towers. And I built the house of Moloch, and I made sluices of the water-ditches in the middle of the town. And there was no cistern in the middle of the town of Korkhah, and I said to all the people, Make for yourselves every man a cistern in his house. And I dug the canals for Korkhah by means of the prisoners of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the road in [the province of] the Arnon. [And] I built Beth-Bamoth, for it was destroyed. I built Bezer, for in ruins [it was. And all the chiefs] of Dibon were 50, for all Dibon is subject; and I placed one hundred [chiefs] in the towns which I added to the land: I built Beth-Medeba and Beth-diblathaim , and Beth-Baal-Meon, and transported thereto the [shepherds]?... and the [pastors] of the flocks of the land. And at Horonaim dwelt there ...And Chemosh said to me, Go down, make war upon Horonaim. I went down [and made war] ...And Chemosh dwelt in it during my days. I went up from thence...”
 
 The Moabite Stone contains the earliest extrabiblical reference to Israel's God Yahweh. It is one of four known contemporary inscriptions naming Israel - the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith.

  https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=5053
 
 https://www.companionbiblecondensed.com/AP/ap54/index.html?page=1
 
 bible evidence, faith and religion 

 The Septuagint is the earliest existing Greek translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew. It was presumably made for the Jewish community in Egypt when Greek was the common language throughout the region. Analysis of the language has established that the first five books of the Old Testament were translated near the middle of the 3rd century BC, and the rest of it was translated in the 2nd century BC.   
 
 The Letter of Aristeas, a letter addressed from Aristeas to his brother Philocrates, deals primarily with the reason that the Greek translation of the Septuagint was created, as well as the people and processes involved. It describes the Greek translation of the Hebrew Law by 72 interpreters - six from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, who worked independently to translate the whole and ultimately produced identical versions. They were sent into Egypt from Jerusalem at the request of the librarian of Alexandria.
 
 The letter relates how the king of Egypt, probably Ptolemy II Philadelphus, is urged by his chief librarian to have the Hebrew Law translated into Greek, to add the knowledge of the Hebrews to the vast collection of books the Library of Alexandria had already collected. The king responded favorably - he freed the Jews who had been taken into captivity by his predecessors, and sent lavish gifts to the Temple in Jerusalem. The high priest there chose the six men from each of the 12 tribes and gave a long sermon in praise of the Law. 

 When the translators arrived in Alexandria, the king wept for joy and for the next seven days asked questions to the translators. Their wise replies are related in full. The 72 translators completed their task in exactly 72 days. The Jews of Alexandria, after hearing the Law read in Greek, ask for copies, and lay a curse on anyone who would change the translation. The king rewards the translators lavishly, and they return home.     
 The letter is mentioned and quoted in other ancient texts, most notably in an excerpt from Aristobulus of Alexandria (c. 160 BC), in  Life of Moses by Philo of Alexandria (c. 15 AD), and Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus (c. 93 AD).   
 
 The language of much of the early Christian church was Greek, so many of the early Christians relied on the Septuagint to find the prophecies that they claimed were fulfilled by Christ. The Jews considered that a misuse of Scripture, and stopped using the Septuagint altogether...the Christian church is what kept it alive. The Greek text, not the original Hebrew, was the main basis for the Old Latin, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, and part of the Arabic translations of the Old Testament. It's always been the standard version of the Old Testament in the Greek church. St. Jerome used the Septuagint to begin his translation of the Vulgate Old Testament in 382 BC.
 
 The Septuagint under Christianity separated the minor prophets and some other books. It has four divisions: law, history, poetry, and prophets, with the books of the Apocrypha inserted where appropriate. This division is still used in most modern Bible translations.   
 
 The text of the Septuagint is contained in some early, but not necessarily reliable, manuscripts. The best known of these are the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus, and the Codex Alexandrinus, from the 5th and 4th centuries BC. There are also many earlier papyrus fragments and later manuscripts.    
 
 http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/
 https://www.septuagint.bible/
 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_Aristeas