June 24, 2017 - The Pharaohs of Exodus

The Pharaohs of Exodus

Most people will quickly tell you that the pharaoh of the book of Exodus is Ramses the Great.  Where did that idea come from?  You will assume it has been verified by archaeology.  But I think you would be surprised by the answer.

If you were raised in church, like me, you will know the stories of the Exodus.  A pharaoh decides to kill all the Hebrew boys.  One family hides their son, who is discovered by a daughter of pharaoh.  She raises him as her own.  Later that boy flees the country, only to encounter God.  He returns to tell a new pharaoh that he is taking his people out of the country.  That pharaoh refuses, causing his country to suffer ten plagues that devastate the country.  Once the Hebrews leave, they cross the Red Sea on dry land, with pharaoh’s army in hot pursuit.  That army is destroyed when the sea goes back to its place.

You might not be aware but most of the idea that Ramses was the pharaoh of the Exodus comes from Cecil B. Demille’s 1950s production staring Yul Brenner and Charlton Heston.  It also starred Yvonne DeCarlo as Moses’ wife.  She later played Lily Munster!  There have been scholars that believed he was the pharaoh of the Exodus, but Hollywood made it stick.

Two problems arise as to who the pharaoh is.  First, he is never mentioned by name in the Bible.  There is a reason for that.  Pharaohs considered themselves to be god-kings.  They were the bridge between their brother gods and the common people of Egypt.  God is mentioned early in the book of Exodus, as Yahweh, or I am.  The book of Exodus was never meant to glorify a man who called himself god, but was meant to do that for God.  Moses purposefully never named pharaoh.

Second, most archaeology has depended on dating anything in the Middle East according to Manetho, who wrote a narrative of the kings of Egypt, going back thousands of years.  The problem is his work is only found in copies that never tried to be faithful to the original, so we don't know what the originals said.  Many wanted to group kings in sacred “eights,” so kings were added that there was no evidence for just to complete the eight.  Some of the pharaohs were given longer reigns than archaeology supports.  His works also don't take into account that there were often co-rulers, two pharaohs.  Yet evidence exists that pharaohs often placed their sons as co-rulers, just in case he were to die.  So the length of time might be much shorter.

The Bible, as I discussed in an earlier blog, has proven to be the most historically accurate document in the ancient world.  If we place the Bible in context of what we do know about the pharaohs of Egypt, the story is not only more interesting than Cecil B. DeMille, but also more exciting.

The pharaoh who ordered the execution of the Hebrew children was most likely Amenhotep I, who ruled from 1532 to 1511 BC.  He was a busy king, invading what is now Sudan and Libya.  He is probably best known for his daughter, Hatshepsut.  It is also interesting to note that most of the pharaohs of this dynasty had “Moses” as a part of their name.  It is not a Hebrew name, but very Egyptian.  It seems to have been popular at the time.

Hatshepsut is most likely the daughter of the pharaoh mentioned in the book of Exodus.  She was probably about 15, or younger, when she discovered and adopted Moses.  That would be the reason she sought someone out to nurse Moses.  It seems she was the only surviving child of her father, Amenhotep, and mother, Ahmose, making her important in the palace hierarchy.  When her father had no son to follow him on the throne, he made Hatshepsut his heir.  The plan would have been for her to have a husband one day who would become pharaoh. 

Why do people never question why Pharaoh's daughter suddenly had a son?  Why was she exempt from breaking a law protecting a Hebrew child?  Why was Moses allowed to live?  Because of her closeness to Pharaoh, she could break the law and bring a Hebrew boy marked for death into the palace.  Her father, not wanting to lose his last child, permitted her to adopt Moses.

Her father married her to her cousin, or possibly half-brother, Thutmoses II, but they never had any children.  Because of her preeminence, as being the child of the pharaoh and queen, when her father died, she co-ruled with Thutmoses.  They co-ruled for many years after the death of her father, but she was most likely the one who actually ruled.  Many who study Egyptian history note that she was one of the great rulers of this period, improving the infrastructure and enjoying a period of peace.  It was possible that her adopted son, Moses, would succeed the throne, but Thutmoses II took a second wife who bore a son, Thutmoses III, about the time Moses was 30.  So now, Moses was out of the picture.  You can begin to imagine the palace politics of this family.

Thutmoses II died and Thutmoses III was promoted to pharaoh, even though he was still a baby.  There was probably a lot of politics involved that eventually drove Moses away from court, leaving his adopted mother abandoned.  Twenty-one years later, she died, and some historians suspect that she was poisoned.  Thutmoses III commenced to get rid of everything that had to do with his step-mother.  He must have hated her.  Since Egyptian records were written in stone, he had her name and image chiseled out of every monument possible.  

Records show that he was a powerful king.  He expanded Egypt to the south, farther than any had gone before, as well as to the edge of Palestine and to Libya in the west.  Then in the 39^th year of his reign, his adopted half-brother arrived back in Egypt.  The rest you know from the Bible. 

History shows that he left Egypt a devastated land.

Isn’t that more exciting the Hollywood’s version?

This is also the basis of a novel I am writing.  I'm not sure when it will be finished.  But in the meantime, my novel Onesimus will be out soon.