I think that I can make a good case for the Exodus to have begun in 1312 BCE, during the reign of Horemheb (1319~1292 BCE). If you're interested, the full version is on my website. The following is the summary of the evidence in support. The full version explores the political, social, and spiritual implications of the Amarna heresy, its continuation through the Exodus and into the Promised Land, and its lasting impact on the Jewish community. I'm interested in getting a critical review of this material, by people who know more about ancient history and archaeology than myself.
Regards to all,
Charles
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First, we have to get an idea of when the Exodus occurred.
Many ancient authors associated the Hebrews with the Hyksos, and the Exodus with their expulsion in 1560 BCE. But DNA studies now show that the Hebrews who settled the Levant were a thorough mix of Egyptians, and became racially distinct after the Exodus, due to their enduring unwillingness to intermarry with other ethnic groups. So the Hyksos expulsion was earlier, and unrelated.
Manetho (according to Eusebius) wrote in the 3rd century BCE that the Exodus occurred in the reign of Rathotis, who most historians believe to have been Tutankhamun. After Tut's 10 years as pharaoh, Ay ruled for 4 years, and then came Horemheb. Yet if the Exodus occurred during Tut's reign, Moses didn't negotiate with the boy-king, but rather, with Horemheb, who was the commander-in-chief of the army and minister of foreign affairs under Tut.
We can draw a loose inference that Moses negotiated with Horemheb from the following passage.
Exodus 3:1-3 wrote:Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
Midian was east of the Sinai Peninsula, while Mt. Horeb is thought by many to be at the southern tip of the Sinai, and by some to be in Sudan near the Red Sea coast. Either way, if the shepherd had ventured that far from Midian, the sheep probably would have complained (especially about having to do all of that swimming, which they don't enjoy). The mismatched geography might be the author's hint that we are to interpret the passage loosely. One possible reading is that Horeb is short for Horemheb, and that the "mountain of God" was the pharaoh, who the Egyptians considered to be a living god.
The Seder Olam Rabbah (a chronology of the Hebrews written in the 2nd century CE) states that the Exodus began in 1312 BCE, or 7 years into the reign of Horemheb.
Tacitus wrote early in the 2nd century CE (based on Lysimachus) that the Exodus occurred in the reign of Bakenranef, who all authorities agree came much later. But the story mentions Moses, who led people out of Egypt and into a new country, where they expelled all of the inhabitants, and built a temple. So it's the right story. Interestingly, Tacitus also mentions the outbreak of a contagious disease. We now know from archaeology that there was a pandemic during or just after the reign of Akhenaten, father of Tutankhamun. And of course the Bible describes plagues just before the Exodus.
We can establish the range of years in which the Exodus occurred by looking at the latest and earliest possible dates. So the Exodus began no earlier than...
- 1405 BCE
- Late in the reign of Amenhotep III (1415~1352 BCE), Egyptian records mention an incursion into Canaan by "Yashuya the Habiru", which we would recognize as "Joshua the Hebrew".
- The Bible tells us that Joshua sacked Jericho after the walls fell down.
- This is archaeological evidence of an earthquake in 1365 BCE that leveled both Ugarit and Jericho, leaving them vulnerable to attack.
- With three independent lines of evidence in support, it's reasonable to conclude that Joshua sacked Jericho in 1365 BCE, after the earthquake knocked the walls down.
- If this occurred at the end of the Exodus, and if the Exodus lasted 40 years, the earliest date for the beginning is 1405 BCE.
- 1359 BCE
- The Hebrews took over the state of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. Jacob found Egypt to be the land of Ramesses (II). The Bible doesn't tell us exactly when he was there, but to figure conservatively, let's say that Jacob was 60 years old in 1279 BCE, which was the very beginning of the pharaoh's 66 year reign. And also to go back as far as possible, let's say that Jacob was 20 years old when the Exodus was completed. That puts the end of the Exodus 40 years earlier than 1279, which would be 1319, and the beginning of the Exodus would be as far back as 1359 BCE.
- Isaac contacted Philistines, who didn't arrive in Asia until 1350 BCE. If Jacob was born c. 1340 (to be 60 years old when he went to Egypt c. 1280), and if Isaac was 30 years old when he had Jacob, then Isaac was born in 1370, and was 20 years old in 1350 BCE. This doesn't alter the range, but it does confirm that this is the right era for these people.
- 1241 BCE
- The Hittite King Khattushil III in his treaty with Egypt mentioned "the land of the Habiru of the Sun" lying between his country and Egypt.
- 1208 BCE
- Merneptah boasted that he had crushed the nation of Israel.
Then the only question is: was there any sort of cultural upheaval involving monotheistic beliefs in Egypt between 1400 and 1250 BCE? And of course the answer is that the biggest monotheistic upheaval in Egyptian history, known as the Amarna heresy, occurred during the reigns of Akhenaten, Smenkhare, and Tutankhamun, or 1352~1323 BCE (start-to-finish). And were there any plagues in that period? Yes, and they were the only Egyptian plagues big enough to show up in the literary records of other countries, and in the archaeological records.
So the present thesis is that Moses' monotheism was the continuation of the Amarna heresy, forced into exile by Horemheb in 1312 BCE. (Note that this means that the fall of Jericho in ~1360 BCE came before the Exodus. This anachronism is addressed in the section on Joshua.)
So who was Moses? Exodus 2:12 tells us that he was a poor shepherd who fled Egypt to escape prosecution for killing an Egyptian. Then Exodus 5 tells us that the poor shepherd just back from the Sinai got an audience with the pharaoh to argue the case of the Hebrews. There had to be more to the story than just that. Aside from divine intervention, only an important Egyptian could have stood toe-to-toe with the pharaoh. He might have been exiled, perhaps for killing someone, but he was still influential enough to re-enter Egypt and meet directly with the pharaoh.
Sigmund Freud was the first to point out the striking parallels between Moses and a very important Egyptian at the time, namely Ramose, vizier to Amenhotep III and tutor of Akhenaten, later to be his vizier as well. Hence it's possible that the person who talked with God at Horeb (or rather, met with Horemheb) was Ramose, second in charge under Akhenaten.
It's interesting to note that Manetho's list of Egyptian kings (according to Africanus) includes Rathose, who ruled for 9 years, and who most historians consider to have been Tutankhamun, based on the length of the reign, and position in the sequence. "Th" is not interchangeable with "m", and thus "Rathose" cannot easily be equated with "Ramose". Nevertheless, Rathose appears in no other literature, and it's possible that this was actually a deliberate obfuscation, accomplished by earlier priests, to mask the fact that Ramose ruled, or at least was co-regent, after Akhenaten, at least until the end of the Amarna period. Perhaps when the capital was moved back to Thebes, and the boy-king changed his name to Tutankhamun, Rathose/Ramose/Moses was displaced, and Horemheb was promoted, who as a later pharaoh completed the eradication of the Amarna heresy, including the expulsion of all those refusing to go back to the old ways, thereby causing the Exodus. Horemheb actually removed the Amarna pharaohs from the record, so in his version, he succeeded Tutankhamun, who succeeded Amenhotep III. The only way Manetho could have known of other pharaohs would have been through scribes, who preserved the names, but perhaps cared not to explicitly say that the architect of the Amarna heresy, and leader of the Exodus, had actually been a pharaoh.
Regardless, the idea that will be explored in this paper is simply that Horemheb was the pharaoh of the Exodus, and that Ramose was its leader.