Smoky Mountain Bible Institute
Lesson #52
Break out your maps and histories as we travel again in our
time machine to examine history & geography through a biblical worldview. We
left Jacob’s little clan of around 70 people last month, and things were going well
for them. Life is good in the promised land until around 1878 BC — this is when
the years of famine begin. It only takes
a couple of years for things to start getting desperate, and Jacob sends his
sons to Egypt to buy some grain. By 1876 BC Jacob and his clan are settling in
to the land of Goshen as Pharaoh's honored guest. Jacob lives out his days to
the ripe old age of 147 in Goshen and they have a large funeral procession back
to the promised land to bury him in the family cemetery in around 1859 BC.
Joseph served in essence as the Grand Visor of Egypt for
some 80 years, dying in around 1806 BC after turning this already healthy
nation of Egypt into a very strong and wealthy one. Now which kingdom that is....
is an issue of debate, so without getting too deeply into the details there are
three main options: 1. Accept the Egyptian chronology and fit the biblical
chronology to it. 2. Accept both chronologies and see where they overlap. 3.
Accept the Biblical chronology and fit the Egyptian chronology to it. As we are
looking at things through a biblical worldview we will reject option one and I
will note in passing that the standard Egyptian chronology has its weaknesses.
The two weaknesses of the Egyptian chronology are that it heavily relies on Manetho's
King List (a third century BC Egyptian historian) (problematic primarily
because it does not account for overlapping co-regencies), and the improper
dating caused by the Sothic dating of events. There are many resources
available if you wish to further study these two weaknesses. Specifically I
would recommend "The Test of Time" by David M. Rohl and
"Centuries of Darkness" by Peter James. Using option one also
incorrectly gives you Ramses II as the pharaoh of the Exodus. Ramses is only
given as a place name in scripture — the pharaoh during the Exodus is only
referred to as Pharaoh and his name is not given.
Let's move on to option 2. If we accept both chronologies
as mentioned in option 2, then Pharaoh Ahmos (1539 BC - 1515 BC) becomes the new
king of Egypt who had no knowledge of Joseph, and Thutmose I (1493-1483)
becomes the pharaoh of the Exodus. This also has its problems, not the least of
which is the complete lack of evidence of Semitic peoples in Egypt during the
reigns of those pharaohs from the eighteenth dynasty.
In option 3 there are some interesting parallels that pop
up when you compare the writings of some ancient Hebrew midrashes and the pharaohs
of the late sixth dynasty which is conventionally dated from 2345 BC to 2181
BC. Simply stated, the last kings in this dynasty bear some striking
resemblances to the pharaohs mentioned in this and other midrashes. What is a midrash?
It is in essence a Jewish sermon or homily that seeks out and proclaims the
truth of holy scripture. The best of these are in collections ranging from 200
BC to the present. These collections are used as biblical commentary to explain
what is in the text. So what are the
similarities between the Sefer haYashar midrash and the Pharaohs who
closed out the 6th dynasty?
1. Pepi II
Neferkare reigned for 94 years — the longest reign found on any king
list. The Sefer haYashar mentions a pharaoh by the name of Melol who
reigned for 94 years and is referred to as the "Pharaoh of the
oppression". The difference in names is easily dealt with when you
consider that Melol is a logical Hebrew transliteration of the Egyptian name
Meror which is one of the names ascribed to Pepi II. There is no Egyptian
hieroglyph for the L sound, and the closest sound to L is R (there is no L
sound in Japanese either).
2. Merenre Nemtyemsaf II reigned
for 4 years and could very well be the pharaoh of the Exodus for a number of
reasons. First, he was the second son of Pepe II as his older brother was
unable to rule and would have later died in the 10th plague. Second, Adikam the
son of Melol in the Sefer haYashar also reigned 4 years.
3. The First
intermediate Period. The time that follows the sixth dynasty which ends
with Merenre Nemtyemsaf II is also known as the dark period because
there is very little evidence of anything happening for that 100 year period.
This is what you would expect to find if a nation had suffered the same 10
plagues Egypt had, not to mention having just lost their entire army and
chariot inventory in the Reed Sea. They also gave the bulk of their wealth to
the two to three million departing Jews. It would logically follow that if a
society has no resources, all of its crops are destroyed, and the bulk of its
working and protecting population is gone, it would take at least 100 years to
recover from such an economic blow, and there would be no archeological
evidence of this slow recovery. If you would like a more in-depth description
of this chronological realignment that only requires the sliding of about six
to seven hundred years of the Egyptian timeline to fit with the biblical timeline,
I suggest you read "Riddle of the Exodus" by James D. Long. This book
also has a very good accompanying DVD of the same title.
We will fast forward about 430 years next month and start
off in around 1526 BC with the birth of a man named Moses.
In Christ,
Pastor Portier
