Biblical Ruth was a “foreigner”, geographically, but not ethnically

by Damien F. Mackey “Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, ‘Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should notice me, when I am a foreigner?’.” Ruth 2:10 One of the readings at Mass last Saturday (23rd August, 2025) was on the story of Ruth, introduced by the Marist priest as: “Boaz was ruthless [Ruth-less] until he got married”. From a surface level reading of the biblical text one would gain the strong impression that Ruth was an alien to the House of Israel. She is called “Ruth the Moabite” (2:2) and “the Moabite” (2:6). These texts, coupled with 2:10, “a foreigner”, would seem to put the matter past doubt that Ruth could not ethnically have been an Israelite woman. However, there is one insurmountable problem with Ruth’s belonging to the race of Moab, and it can be neatly coupled with Achior in the Book of Judith’s supposedly being an Ammonite. It is this unequivocal statute from Deuteronomy 23:3: “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation”. In my article: Bible critics can overstate idea of ‘enlightened pagan’ (3) Bible critics can overstate idea of 'enlightened pagan' I proposed that various biblical characters who have traditionally been regarded as being ‘enlightened pagans’ were, in fact, Israelites - and this included Ruth and Achior. Two of these supposedly ‘enlightened pagans’, Rahab and Ruth, emerge as ancestors of Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 1:5-6): Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. But, that neither of these two may have been Gentiles, I have argued (based on the research of others) as follows: Regarding … Rahab, Ruth and Achior, to have been former Gentile pagans, Canaanite in the first case … and Moabite and Ammonite in the other two instances … then this would have meant a serious flouting of Mosaïc law and prohibitions: Deuteronomy 7 for Rahab, and Deuteronomy 23:3 for Ruth and Achior. …. 1. RAHAB. The Canaanite harlot, Rachab (Hebrew: רָחָב), whose ‘faith’ both Paul (Hebrews 11:31) and James (2:25) praised, may not have been she who became the ancestress of David and Jesus, despite what is universally taught. The likely situation, as explained in the following article, is that Rachab the harlot is to be distinguished from the Israelite woman, Rachab (note different spelling), whose name is to be found in the Davidic genealogical list. Thus we read at: http://dancingforyeshua.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/bible-lies-part-4-ruth-and-rahab.html … the name of the harlot is NOT, after all, Rahab because no woman by the name of Rahab is in the entire Book of Scripture! In the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, Rahab is a poetic or metaphorical name applied three times to the land of Egypt, with the meaning of being 'arrogant' or 'proud' (Psalm 87:4 See, and Isaiah 89:10 51:9). But these three passages have nothing to do with Joshua, Jericho, or the prostitute who lived there. The same Hebrew word 'Rahab' is, in fact, quite correctly translated in the authorized as 'proud' in Job 9:13 and 26:12 version, but in Isaiah 30:7 which is mistranslated as ‘force.’ This verse says - in the Hebrew text - "Help from Egypt is futile and useless I have called her Rahab still" - (or 'stationary Egypt'). The name of the prostitute is' Rakhab ' … a different Hebrew word for ‘Rahab,’ with a totally different meaning to 'expand' or ‘to make wide.’ It is not written with the Hebrew letter 'He,' like in Rahab, but with the letter 'Khet' (which has a guttural sounded hard as the `ch' in 'loch' or the German 'macht).' The Greek alphabet, however, has no equivalent letters that correspond to 'he' or 'Khet.' Therefore, in the Septuagint version of the Book of Joshua, the name of the harlot is written 'Ra'ab' and all the passages where it occurs. And exactly the same spelling is used in the New Testament in the Greek text of Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 - but NOT in Matthew 1:5. Also, her name is always linked to the name 'whore,' either directly or by association with that name in the same context in which her name appears. If the wife of Salmon was indeed 'Rahab' the whore, why is it then that in the Greek text of Matthew 1:5, is written 'Raxab' and not 'Ra'ab' as in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25 and in every passage of the Greek text of the Septuagint where the name of the woman prostitute is found? And why it is that the name Raxab in Matthew 1:5 is not coupled with the term 'whore'? This is the first and only appearance of this name in the New Testament. So if Rahab was really the whore of Jericho, then it is even more necessary to identify her here as the prostitute in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25. …. [End of quote] 2. RUTH. I have long believed, too, that Ruth of the Judges era could not plausibly have been a Moabitess for reasons already explained (Deuteronomy 23:3), but considered especially in my extensive research on the identity of Achior, presumably an Ammonite, in the Book of Judith (see 4. next). 3. I discussed Achior at length in Volume Two of my university thesis (2007), A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background (accessible at: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973). Whilst Ruth, a woman, apparently gets away with it, Achior (Ahikar), a male, does not (see 4. next). The necessity of Ruth’s being an Israelite is well argued in the above-mentioned “Ruth” article: http://www.israelofgod.org/ruth.htm The Story of Ruth the Israelite!? Have you been taught that the Moabitess Ruth, the daughter-in-law of Naomi, was a Moabite? Yes, that is the question, it is neither intended as jocular nor facetious, although it may well be rhetorical. Ruth 1:4 And they took them wives of the women of Moab; the name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other Ruth: and they dwelled there about ten years. In the first chapter of the book of Ruth it appears to be quite clear that Ruth and her sister Orpah were Moabite by descent or lineage. Ruth 1:1 ¶ Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehemjudah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he, and his wife, and his two sons. Further, as we can see in the above verse, Naomi, with her husband and sons, went to sojourn “in the country of Moab.” Now, if we stop here, we got about as far into this matter as the traditional scholars, theologians, biblical historians, and the vast masses of people who look to the bible as the word of God. By stopping here we are doing what so many do with the bible and in bible study, we take what appears to be “obvious” and indisputable as fact, then either ignore or find it imperative to “explain away” the contradictions within scripture created by our newly created “fact.” What contradictions are we referring to? Glad you asked. For just one (there are several): Deut. 23:3 An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: While “forever” in the Hebrew does not mean for the rest of eternity, it does mean so far into the future as to be impossible to “see” (or foresee from that vantage point). Thus, the expression, “even to their tenth generation” is not literally specific, but an idiom meaning that they can forget it, it won’t happen. So, the difficulty in justifying the two positions- (1) that Ruth was a Moabite by lineage, and (2) Naomi’s sons, as well as Boaz, would marry a Moabite and not only bring her into the “camp,” but in turn bring her into the line of David and Jesus (Yeshua), is in stark contrast with Deut. 23:3 and what a God-fearing Israelite would possibly do, especially when we consider what God had to say about such actions, not just in this time frame, but even in the time of Ezra. It then makes God look incompetent or extremely forgetful in His old age, or maybe God is just double-minded? Not to mention that this all transpires little more than a century after God declared His stand concerning this very matter to Israel in Deut. 23 above. …. The Problems 1. How could a law abiding Israelite, whether Mahlon or Boaz, legally marry a Moabite? 2. How can we circumvent Deut 23:3 in order to accept the actions of Mahlon, Elimelech, Naomi, and later Boaz to let Ruth become a part of their family by law and bring her into Israel? 3. The women of Israel welcomed Ruth into the “family” in Ruth 4:11 … The LORD make the woman that is come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem: 4. If Ruth was a Moabite by race, why would there be such attention to detail concerning the law of redemption by Naomi, Boaz, and the “near-kinsman” more near than Boaz? It would all have been performed in complete opposition to the very law being invoked to settle the issue being settled! 5. Judah’s eldest two sons were slain by God, Er for his wickedness and Onan for his disrespect for the very law Boaz invokes to accomplish his goal to marry Ruth. Now Er and Onan were both from a Canaanite mother, the first wife of Judah. Point being, God slew Onan for not obeying a part of the very law that Mehlon and Boaz would likewise have been guilty of breaking had Ruth really been Moabite. …. [End of quotes] 4. ACHIOR. I argued at length in the above-mentioned university thesis that Achior was not an Ammonite at all but a Naphtalian Israelite. He was Ahikar (var. Achior, Vulgate), the nephew of Tobit (Book of Tobit 1:22). The mistaken notion that Achior was an Ammonite leader is perhaps the primary reason why the Jews have not accepted the Book of Judith as part of the scriptural canon. I live in the hope that this, one day, can be rectified. For further clarification of this subject, see my article: Achior was an Israelite not an Ammonite (4) Achior was an Israelite not an Ammonite according to which “Ammonite” needs to be replaced by “Elamite” - Elam being the province that the Israelite Ahikar (Achior) would govern for the Assyrians. Even the famous Delilah of the Book of Judges may not have been a Gentile Philistine: Samson’s Delilah may have been an Israelite (5) Samson’s Delilah may have been an Israelite | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Ruth’s husband, Boaz, for his part, may find his alter ego in the Judge, Ibzan, as according to Hebrew tradition: Boaz and Ibzan https://www.academia.edu/117280247/Boaz_and_Ibzan

God sends Moses back to Egypt

by Damien F. Mackey “Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh”. Exodus 7:7 Forty years ago, back in Egypt, Moses had thought himself ready to lead his people to freedom, but had found them squabbling amongst themselves, and not interested. Nor was Moses himself yet an apt instrument for the gargantuan task. Was he even circumcised? He would need to be fully de-paganised, his heart taken out of Egypt, so that he could ultimately lead his people out of the heart of Egypt. Even so, for many of them, their hearts would remain in Egypt, so it is said: “You can take Israel out of the heart of Egypt, but you cannot take the hearts of Israel out of Egypt”. Providence would so arrange it that Moses would now experience forty more years living amongst a culturally more compatible, Semitic people, the Midianites. These, too, were descendants of Abraham, though not through Sarah, but Keturah. Many of their customs would have been like those of their fellow Hebrews, whilst some were different. Unlike the Israelite practice of circumcision on the eighth day after birth, as mandated by God, the Midianites may have delayed circumcision until later. But Moses never forgot that he was something of an alien amongst this desert people. Had not Jethro’s daughters referred to him initially as “an Egyptian” (Exodus 2:19)? And did he not name his first born child, “Foreigner” (Exodus 2:22): “Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom [גֵּרְשֹׁ֑ם], saying, ‘I have become a foreigner in a foreign land’.” (The couple would later have another son, Eliezer). It would not be surprising, though, if Moses, who had grown somewhat comfortable with his family in Midian, had deferred to his Midianite wife, Zipporah, regarding certain different customs - the Midianite attitude to circumcision being one of them. This would almost cost Moses his life – or would it be his firstborn son, Gershom, who would be in mortal peril? Moses would also undergo a profound metaphysical and spiritual conversion in Midian, especially the theophany experience at the Burning Bush near Mount Horeb. Despite all the work that Yahweh had put into preparing Moses for the job at hand, the Lord now found his servant reluctant, making excuses. For instance (Exodus 4:10): “Moses said to the Lord, ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue’.” St. John of the Cross took this as indicating that Moses was experiencing the mystical dark night of the senses, when speech can become difficult. But Moses here claims this always to have been the case with him. That was just how he naturally was. Moses was now playing with fire, and the Divine volcano was about to erupt. But, for the moment (4:11-12): “The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say’.” In one of a multitude of biblical appropriations by Islam, the Prophet Mohammed, interestingly at the age of forty (Moses had fled Egypt at forty) - who, note, was illiterate - is told (not to speak, but) to read. And he is similarly admonished when, Moses-like, he demurs: https://www.islamicity.org/11380/when-an-illiterate-man-was-asked-to-read/ “When Prophet Muhammad (صَلَّىٰ ٱللَّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ) received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira' through the angel Jibril (Gabriel), he was asked to read (iqra'). However … he was astounded, replying both with fear and astonishment: "I am not literate (I cannot read)". He was asked two more times to read, but after each time he answered that he was not literate and so, couldn't read. After that, the angel conveyed the intended first revelation: "Read in the name of your Lord Who created; created man from a clinging substance. Read, and your Lord is the most Generous Who taught by the pen; taught man that which he knew not" (al-'Alaq, 1-5)”.” Cf. Jeremiah 1:6: “‘Alas, Sovereign Lord’, I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am too young’.” Also, Jeremiah refers to a “23 years” prophetic span (25:3). And Muslims believe that the Qu’rān (Koran) was verbally revealed from God to Mohammed through the angel Gabriel gradually over a period of approximately 23 years. Moses, for his part, was now begging the Lord (Exodus 4:13): ‘Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else’. Vv. 14-16: Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, ‘What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it’. How did Aaron know to where Moses had fled? Perhaps Moses had told him just before his rude departure from Egypt, or, maybe, had sent a message to Aaron later, say, via Midianite caravans. (Cf. Genesis 37:28) Finally, Moses was ready to return to Egypt. Or, was he? For, what about that critical matter of circumcision? Exodus 4:18: Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, ‘Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive’. Jethro said, ‘Go, and I wish you well’. Moses ‘a bridegroom of blood’ ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me’, she said. So the Lord let him alone. Moses, ever a type of Jesus Christ, was called by his wife Zipporah ‘a bridegroom of blood’. Exodus 4:19-23: Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, ‘Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead’. So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. The Lord said to Moses, ‘When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me”. But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son’.” Will the Lord now go after Moses’s own firstborn son? Clement Harrold has written well on this: https://stpaulcenter.com/posts/why-does-god-try-to-kill-moses-in-exodus-4?srsltid=AfmBOooi3-yMqddlAM1l-M0jUDFlyV3vjagk8jDpN8ogb9RMMNdJ3BaM Chapter 4 of the Book of Exodus contains one of the strangest passages in all of Sacred Scripture. Verses 18-26 describe how Moses, living in exile in the land of Midian, goes to his father-in-law Jethro to request permission to return to his own people back in Egypt. Jethro consents, and so Moses sets off together with his wife, Zipporah, and their sons. Then comes the weird part. We are told that, "At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to kill him" (v. 24). In a bizarre display of quick thinking, Zipporah responds by hastily circumcising her son, and holding the foreskin to his feet. Stranger still is the fact that this unorthodox tactic actually works! God allows the family to continue on their way. How are we supposed to understand this perplexing episode? We must acknowledge from the outset that the passage in question is one of the most obscure texts in the whole Bible. Modern commentators and ancient rabbis alike have wrestled with its meaning, and various different theories have been proposed over the centuries. Here we shall offer just one such theory - not with an eye to solving all of the difficulties, but simply to offer a few pointers that might render it a little more intelligible. The emphasis on circumcision in the passage suggests that Moses was guilty of failing to circumcise his son. The implication is that the family had lapsed into the Midianite custom of delaying circumcision until shortly before marriage. This was in direct contravention of the Abrahamic covenant, in which God commanded that all male newborns be circumcised on the eighth day after birth (see Gen 17:9-13). Moses, it seems, had become overly acquainted with the cultural customs of his in-laws, even to the point of disobeying the edicts of the God of Israel. This is a risky business because, as the passage reveals, the divine patience may be considerable, but it doesn't last forever. Having appointed Moses as His chosen deputy to lead His people out of Egypt (see Ex 4:1-17), God now calls him to account for failing to keep his own house in order. It's at this juncture that we confront the first of several major ambiguities in the text. When verse 24 recalls that "the Lord met him and sought to kill him," it actually isn't clear whether the "him" in the passage refers to Moses or, alternatively, to his son Gershom. In a number of respects, assuming that the target of the attack is Gershom makes the whole passage easier to understand, and so that is the interpretation we will adopt here. …. [End of quote] This particular interpretation of a difficult passage makes perfect sense, I believe. Surely, Moses himself would have been attended to in this regard (circumcised) when, as a child, he was weaned by his Hebrew mother, Jochebed (Exodus 2:8-9; cf. 6:20). There is a tradition that she was the influential midwife, Shiphrah, whom Pharaoh had commanded to slay the male Hebrew babies (1:15-16). (We learned that the name Shiphrah also appears in the famous Brooklyn Papyrus for this approximate era of Egyptian history: Twelfth/Thirteenth dynasties). The likely scenario is that Zipporah had in this, what we would call a ‘mixed marriage’, influenced Moses towards Midianite custom. She would have learned from Moses that the Hebrews circumcised babies much earlier. And that would explain why it is she who acts quickly and circumcises Gershom, thereby saving the firstborn child’s life. Egyptian (Moses) names While Moses was safely tucked away in Midian, the oppressive Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt would fade out, and, now, a Thirteenth Dynasty ruler was seated upon the throne of Egypt. He was NEFERHOTEP KHASEKHEMRE. It should be noted, though, that so-called Thirteenth Dynasty high officials had already been serving the two mighty (Book of Exodus) Oppressor Pharaohs, and even that these latter two figures also emerge historically in the Thirteenth Dynasty lists. Such are the complexities of Egyptology! Now, not so unexpectedly, linguistic scholars have determined that some of the major Book of Exodus characters had Egyptian names: https://academic.oup.com/book/36060/chapter-abstract/313145992?redirectedFrom=fulltext “A surprising number of personal names of the exodus-wilderness generation bore Egyptian etymology, including Aaron (possibly), Ahira, Assir, Hur, Merari, Miriam, Moses, and Phineas”. An important Sixth Dynasty governor, exactly contemporary with Moses, bore the name Harkhuf, which may possibly suggest, again, Hur. The Egyptian names given to the two stand-out biblical heroes, Joseph and Moses, have proven most difficult for commentators to unravel. Joseph was given the grand name of Zaphenath paneah by Pharaoh (Genesis 41:45), while it was a later Pharaoh’s daughter who devised the name, Moses (Exodus 2:10): “She named him Moses, saying, ‘I drew him out of the water’.” The historical Moses, I have multi-identified across supposedly three dynasties of the Old Kingdom and one of the so-called ‘Middle’ Kingdom. Do any of these manifestations of Moses have a Moses-like name? Let us try to determine if such be the case. Moses was, as we have recently found, an actual Pharaoh, though of short reign length due to his having abdicated - a fact which appears to harmonise with the Scriptures (e.g. Hebrews 11:24). As Pharaoh He was Djedefre (var. Djedefhor, Djedefptah) (Fourth Dynasty); and Userkare (Sixth Dynasty). As Userkare, his name/reputation was later trashed by the oppressive and jealous pharaoh Pepi, so we found, who relegated Userkare’s kingship to “the desert” (Midian?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Userkare “Egyptologists thus suspect a possible Damnatio memoriae on Pepi I's behalf against Userkare”. As Vizier and Chief Judge He was Kagemni (Fourth and Sixth dynasties); Ptahhotep (Fifth Dynasty); Weni (Uni) (Sixth Dynasty); Mentuhotep and (the semi-fictitious) Sinuhe (Twelfth Dynasty). As an intellectual and writer Under the famous guises of Kagemni and Ptahhotep, again, Moses was an intellectual and a sage, a writer of Maxims and Instructions. As Weni, he produced a brilliant Autobiography. The versatile Hebrew, Moses, was also the travelling trader and warrior (like Weni), Iny (Sixth Dynasty), and was General Nysumontu (Twelfth Dynasty). No wonder the ancients considered this Moses to have been a genius! Some of the above names connect, e.g. Djedefre (var. Djedefhor, Djedefptah); also Djedefptah and Ptahhotep; Mentuhotep and Nysumontu. And so do all of the Weni-type names. For these, just remember: Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses (2) Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses And I have added another recently-discovered guise for Moses, again as a Pharaoh: Niuserre Ini (Fifth Dynasty). I consider it to be most encouraging for my rather complex revision of the Era of Moses - in Egypt’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Twelfth dynasties - that the Egyptian name for the historical Moses, Weni (Uni), looking like a diminutive name, or hypocoristicon, is common, in its variant forms, Ini, Iny, for my Moses through the Old Kingdom: Niuserre Ini (Fifth); Weni (Uni) (Sixth); Iny (Sixth). Niuserre Ini (var. Iny) Regarding pharaoh Niuserre Ini, I wrote in my recent article: Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty (2) Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty This re-working of my article under the same title, “Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty”, has become necessary due to my brand new recognition of Moses as the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh, Niuserre Ini, to accompany his pharaonic alter egos of Djedefre-Djedefhor (Fourth Dynasty) and Userkare (Sixth Dynasty). …. As we found with the pharaonic Moses in his Fourth Dynasty guise (as Djedefre-Djedefhor), and in his Sixth Dynasty guise (as Userkare), so might we expect that he, in his Fifth Dynasty guise - if as Niuserre Ini - to be compatible, should reveal himself to have been a ruler of short duration, highly competent, having a profound influence upon Egypt, and much revered down through time as a saint and a thaumaturgist. Excitingly, as a very good start, in the name Ini, we appear to get an immediate clue. For I have already identified Moses, as a high official of Pharaoh, as Weni (Uni) of the Sixth Dynasty, and as Iny of the Sixth Dynasty – whatever that name may mean. So, the name (Niuserre) Ini fits beautifully here alongside these names. Thus: INI; WENI; UNI; INY …. The king's power slowly weakened as the bureaucracy expanded … although he remained a living god in the eyes of his subjects. My comment: He was virtually deified, “a living god in the eyes of his subjects”, like Imhotep (Joseph). …. This cult was most active until the end of the Old Kingdom but lasted at least until the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom … at which point is the latest known mention of a priest serving in Nyuserre's funerary complex. …. But, getting back to our question: Do any of these manifestations of Moses have a Moses-like name? - it appears that the majority of names listed above have no appreciable likeness to Moses. Before investigating any further, it needs to be noted that Moses was something of a secret name. Amongst the Egyptians only Pharaoh’s daughter, Meresankh (“Merris”), knew who Moses really was. Pharaoh presumed that he was a royal child. Thus the scribes, not being cognizant of the secret, and who had difficulty with unusual and foreign names, would not have been able to form the name into properly etymological hieroglyphs. They would simply have to represent the name phonetically. Most tentatively, I take the name Moses, Hebrew Moshe to have been derived from the Egyptian words for water, mw (mu) 𓈖 and son s3 Thus: Mw-sa, ‘Son (Child) of the Water’ (Water Baby). And I suspect that this name has been captured in the name of the semi-fictitious ‘Moses’, Sinuhe (or Sanehat), with the first element (si, sa) representing “son”, as according to Sir Flinders Petrie, and the second element (nu, like mu) representing “water”. The only two possible Moses name from above, then, would be Niuserre, again perhaps intending those two elements: Nu (Niu) and sa (se) elements, and very like Sinuhe: Si nu he Se niu Re and Nysumontu, structured just like Niuserre: Ni (Ny) Se (Su) and god name (theophoric) Re (Montu). Before Pharaoh Neferhotep “Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three, when they spoke to Pharaoh”. Exodus 7:7 Joseph, by contrast, had been only thirty when he had entered the service of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:46): “Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt”. That seemingly benign ruler was Horus Netjerikhet of Egypt’s Third Dynasty, Old Kingdom, whom I have equated with Horus Netjerihedjet (Mentuhotep) of Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty, so-called ‘Middle’ Kingdom. More recently, I have added a further dimension to this ruler, as Djet (presumably an abbreviation of Netjerihedjet) of the First Dynasty, during whose reign, wrote Manetho, ‘a great famine seized Egypt’. Far less benign than Horus Netjerikhet of old would prove to be this Neferhotep of Egypt’s Thirteenth Dynasty. He obviously had no particular historical grudge against Moses (cf. Exodus 4:19). Approximately half a century would have elapsed since Moses himself had ruled Egypt. Was Neferhotep even alive, then? Did he know that an earlier Pharaoh has proscribed this man standing before him, who, with his brother, had already succeeded in unifying “all the elders of the Israelites” (Exodus 4:29-31). And now this intruding pair was demanding that Pharaoh release the Israelite slaves (Exodus 5:1-2): Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness’. Pharaoh said, ‘Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go’. The Lord was about to declare war, to “bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Exodus 12:12), including Pharaoh, the presumed divine Son of Ra (the Sun God).

Moses as Twelfth Dynasty general Nysumontu

by Damien F. Mackey “On the Sinai front, General Nysumontu reported a victory over the Bedouins in the 24th year of Amenemhat’s reign – this would have safeguarded the turquoise mining operations at El-Kadim in Sinai”. Egyptopia The historical Moses, I have by now multi-identified across supposedly three dynasties of the Old Kingdom and one of the so-called ‘Middle’ Kingdom. Thus Moses is no longer lacking in historical identification. Strangely, though, almost none of these alter egos has a name that one could construe as being Moses-like. I would be expecting something along the lines of a Sinuhe combination of the elements Si/Sa (son) and Mu/Nu (water). On this, see my article: The Sinuhe connection (3) The Sinuhe Connection It needs to be noted, though, that “Moses” was something of a secret name. Amongst the Egyptians only Pharaoh’s daughter, Meresankh (“Merris”), knew who Moses really was. Pharaoh presumed that he was a royal child. Thus the scribes, not being cognizant of the secret, and who had difficulty with unusual and foreign names, would not have been able to form the name into properly etymological hieroglyphs. They would simply have had to represent the name phonetically. Apart from Sinuhe, who is semi-mythical anyway, we do find our hopeful combination in the name of the revered (divinised) Fifth Dynasty pharaoh, Niuserre (Nyuserre) Ini (or Iny), one of my more recent historical identifications of Moses: Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty (3) Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty And there is a double bonus here because that pharaoh’s presumably hypocoristic other name, given variously as Ini and Iny, works in perfectly well with that set of Moses like names related to his Sixth Dynasty alter ego, Weni (Uni). On this, see my article: Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses (3) Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses Finally, we may find this combination again (Ny/Nu, Su/Sa), apparently, in the name of the genius Twelfth Dynasty general, perfectly contemporaneous with Moses: NYSUMONTU. There may be a double bonus here as well, in that this name also connects with the Montu element in the name of Mentuhotep, who was, like Moses (like Weni), a Vizier and Chief Judge over Egypt (cf. Exodus 2:14). Unfortunately, like much in ancient history, there is not yet a lot that can be told about general Nysumontu. I did glean at least this for him in my Sinuhe article (above): …. A likely further Twelfth Dynasty link is general Nysumontu, described, like Weni, as a “genius”, and perhaps combining Sinuhe elements, Ni-su, or Su-ni, with Mentuhotep (through Montu). Margaret Bunson mentions Nysumontu in connection with pharaoh Amenemes (Amenemhet) I in Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (p. 26): Amenemhet) I proved an efficient administrator and militarily astute ruler. He established his new capital between the boundaries of Upper and Lower Egypt in order to have increased control of the DELTA. He also erected the WALL OF THE PRINCE, a series of forts that safeguarded Egypt’s eastern and western borders. He founded SEMNA fort in Nubia and routed the Bedouins on the SINAI peninsula, using the genius of General Nysumontu. We know that Weni had battled a Bedouin people known as the “Sand-dwellers” at least five times. And Dr. Breasted mentioned in relation to the inscriptions of Sesostris I, who was Sinuhe’s pharaoh, a “General Mentuhotep”. http://egyptopia.com/the-twelfth-dynasty/ “On the Sinai front, General Nysumontu reported a victory over the Bedouins in the 24th year of Amenemhat’s reign – this would have safeguarded the turquoise mining operations at El-Kadim in Sinai. At the same time, diplomatic relations were resumed with Byblos and the Aegean world”.

No basis identified for treating Buddha as an historical figure

by Damien F. Mackey “… in 1937, various expeditions were dispatched … to seek out the holy child according to the heavenly omens … each group included wise and worthy lamas of highly distinguished status in the theocracy. In addition … each group took costly gifts with them …”. Holger Kersten The Buddha is, like the Prophet Mohammed, a fictitious, non-historical composite, with roots in the Old Testament. In the case of the Buddha, Moses appears to have been the original (though not the only) matrix: Buddha partly based on Moses (4) Buddha partly based on Moses In the same article, I gave a list of Buddha borrowings from the life of Jesus Christ. Scholars frequently point to Buddha and Moses (and Jesus) comparisons. Here are just a few examples (of Buddha and Moses comparisons): https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/jm214p573 “Telling birth stories: a comparative analysis of the birth stories of Moses and the Buddha”. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369948217_Gautama_Buddha_an_incarnation_of_Biblical_Moses Milorad Ivankovic (2023): “Gautama Buddha an incarnation of Biblical Moses”. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4061&context=etd Upananda Thero Dedunupitiye (2009): “Buddha and Moses as primordial saints: a new typology of parallel sainthoods derived from Pali Buddhism and Judaism”. https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/the-buddha-the-book-of-exodus/10340 “The Buddha and The Book of Exodus”. https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/jewishweekly?a=d&d=JW20010202.2.122.25&e= Ronnie Caplane (2001): “What Buddha and Moses share”. And, as considered in my article: Magi incident absorbed into Buddhism? https://www.academia.edu/113301736/Magi_incident_absorbed_into_Buddhism the Magi incident in the Gospel of Matthew’s famous Infancy narrative (2:1-11) appears to have set off a long-standing Buddhist tradition of seeking out a holy child. “At last, in 1937, various expeditions were dispatched from Lhasa to seek out the holy child according to the heavenly omens, in the direction indicated. Each group included wise and worthy lamas of highly distinguished status in the theocracy. In addition to their servants, each group took costly gifts with them …”. Holger Kersten David Drewes has written tellingly on the likelihood that the Buddha is un-historical. I refer to his 2017 article: The Idea of the Historical Buddha [JIABS 2017] https://www.academia.edu/36121418/The_Idea_of_the_Historical_Buddha_JIABS_2017_ much of which could be applied, too, to the Prophet Mohammed. Here is the beginning of this must-read article: The idea of the historical Buddha is one of the most basic and familiar in the field of Buddhist studies, but also one of the most confusing and problematic. On one hand, the Buddha is universally agreed to have lived; but, on the other, more than two centuries of scholarship have failed to establish anything about him. We are thus left with the rather strange proposition that Buddhism was founded by a historical figure who has not been linked to any historical facts, an idea that would seem decidedly unempirical, and only dubiously coherent. Stuck in this awkward situation, scholars have rarely been able to avoid the temptation to offer some suggestion as to what was likely, or ‘must’ have been, true about him. By the time they get done, we end up with a flesh and blood person – widely considered to be one of the greatest human beings ever to have lived – conjured up from little more than fancy. here I would like to try to shed some light on this problem by reviewing the scholarship that introduced and sustained the idea of the historical Buddha. Though several valuable studies of this work have already appeared, they generally depict the process as one of progressive, ultimately successful, discovery. What I will try to suggest is that, if we pay close attention, it turns out that no discovery was actually made, and that no basis for treating the Buddha as a historical figure has yet been identified. Although the western encounter with Buddhism goes back centuries, in the first decades of the nineteenth century, hardly anything was actually known, and the question of Buddhism’s origin remained completely open. Many authors felt comfortable treating the Buddha as historical, but opinions varied widely. The idea that the Buddha was from Africa, proposed by Engelbert Kaempfer in the early eighteenth century, retained sufficient currency that Jean-Pierre Abel-rémusat, the leading French authority, devoted an article to refuting it in 1819. In 1823, Julius Klaproth argued against the still popular identification of the Buddha and the Norse god Odin, which had been proposed by William Jones in 1788. In 1825, Horace Hayman Wilson, arguably the leading British authority, proposed a version of the so-called two-Buddha theory, according to which there was an elder Buddha who lived between the tenth and twelfth centuries B.C.E., and a younger one who lived in the sixth or seventh. He also suggested that Buddhism may have been brought to India from central Asia. At the highest level of scholarship, the Buddha’s historicity was regarded as something that remained to be established. Rémusat, though sympathetic to the idea that the Buddha was historical, suggested in his 1819 article that it was necessary to avoid “prejudging the question one could raise on the reality of the historical existence of the figure called Buddha.” In his 1819 Sanskrit dictionary, Wilson defined Śākyamuni as “the real or supposed founder of the Baud’dha [i.e., Buddhist] religion” (s.v.). In 1827 Henry Colebrooke, the other leading British authority, similarly referred to the Buddha noncommittally as the “reputed author of the sútras” (558). The development that began to focus scholarly inquiry was Brian Houghton Hodgson’s discovery of Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts in Nepal in 1822, which he first discussed in print in 1828. Recent scholarship has focused mainly on the fact that Hodgson sent shipments of these manuscripts to Eugène Burnouf, who used them as the basis for his Introduction à l’histoire du bouddhisme indien, published in 1844, which some have considered the main publication that established the Buddha as a historical figure. As we shall see, however, the actual argument Burnouf makes is not based on anything he found in Hodgson’s texts, but on two facts that Hodgson himself reported in 1828, which occupied scholarly discussion through the 1830s: first, that Nepalese texts report that Buddhism was revealed consecutively, over a period of aeons, by seven Buddhas: Vipaśyin, Śikhin, Viśvabhū, Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kāśyapa, and Śākyamuni; and, second, that these texts claim to preserve the teachings of Śākyamuni, but not those of any of the earlier Buddhas. ….

Does Proto-Sinaïtic Inscription mention Moses – around time of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty?

“A burned Ba'alat temple, built by Amenemhat III, and references to the ‘Gate of the Accursed One’, likely Pharaoh’s gate, hint at resistance against Egyptian authority”. Stacy Liberatore For my (Damien Mackey’s) reconstruction of the life of Moses during ancient Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty, see e.g. my articles: Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel (2) Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel and: Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty (2) Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty I certainly do not accept the over-inflated BC dates given in the following article: STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM Mysterious message 'from Moses' found in ancient Egyptian mine could prove the Bible true | Daily Mail Online Mysterious message 'from Moses' found in ancient Egyptian mine could prove the Bible true …. Published: 02:13 AEST, 29 July 2025 | Updated: 03:35 AEST, 29 July 2025 A controversial new interpretation of markings etched on the walls of an ancient Egyptian mine could prove the Book of Exodus to be true. Researcher Michael Bar-Ron claimed that a 3,800-year-old Proto-Sinaitic inscription, found at Serabit el-Khadim in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, may read 'zot m'Moshe,' Hebrew for 'This is from Moses.' The inscription, etched into a rock face near the so-called Sinai 357 in Mine L, is part of a collection of over two dozen Proto-Sinaitic texts first discovered in the early 1900s. These writings, among the earliest known alphabetic scripts, were likely created by Semitic-speaking workers in the late 12th Dynasty, around 1800BC. Bar-Ron, who spent eight years analyzing high-resolution images and 3D scans, suggested the phrase could indicate authorship or dedication linked to a figure named Moses. According to the Bible, Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and is famously known for receiving the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. But no evidence of his existence has ever been found [sic]. Other nearby inscriptions reference 'El,' a deity associated with early Israelite worship, and show signs of the Egyptian goddess Hathor's name being defaced, hinting at cultural and religious tensions. Mainstream experts remain cautious, noting that while Proto-Sinaitic is the earliest known alphabet, its characters are notoriously difficult to decipher. An independent researcher has re-examined ancient markings in Egypt, suggesting a phrase could be the first words of Moses. He said it reads: 'This is from Moses' Dr Thomas Schneider, Egyptologist and professor at the University of British Columbia, said the claims are completely unproven and misleading,' warning that 'arbitrary' identifications of letters can distort ancient history.' However, Bar-Ron's academic advisor, Dr Pieter van der Veen, confirmed the reading, stating, 'You're absolutely correct, I read this as well, it is not imagined!' Bar-Ron's study, which has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, re-examined 22 complex inscriptions from the ancient turquoise mines, dating to the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. Some scholars have proposed that Amenemhat III, known for his extensive building projects, could have been the pharaoh mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Mackey’s comment: Amenemhat (Amenemes) was, in fact, the “new king” of Exodus 1:8. The language used in the carvings appears to be an early form of Northwest Semitic, closely related to biblical Hebrew, with traces of Aramaic. Using high-resolution images and 3D casts studied at Harvard's Semitic Museum, Bar-Ron grouped the inscriptions into five overlapping categories, or 'clades,' including dedications to the goddess Baʿalat, invocations of the Hebrew God El and hybrid inscriptions that show signs of later defacement and modification. Some carvings honoring Baʿalat appeared to have been scratched over by El-worshippers, possibly reflecting a religious power struggle among the Semitic-speaking laborers. Mackey’s comment: The Hebrews, amongst other slaves, built the Pyramids: Giza Pyramids: The How, When and Why of Them (4) Giza Pyramids: The How, When and Why of Them The inscriptions also contained references to slavery, overseers, and a dramatic rejection of the Baʿalat cult, which scholars suggest may have led to a violent purge and the workers' eventual departure from the site. The 3,800-year-old Proto-Sinaitic inscription were found at Serabit el-Khadim in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. They littered the rock walls of an ancient mine The researchers also identified text dedicated to ancient Egyptian gods that appeared scratched off and replaced with the Hebrew God A burned Ba'alat temple, built by Amenemhat III, and references to the 'Gate of the Accursed One, likely Pharaoh's gate, hint at resistance against Egyptian authority. Nearby, the Stele of Reniseneb and a seal of an Asiatic Egyptian high official indicate a significant Semitic presence, possibly linked to figures like the biblical Joseph, a high-ranking official in Pharaoh's court, as described in the Book of Genesis. Mackey’s comment: Joseph lived during the previous Egyptian Dynasty: Joseph in Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty, Moses in Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty (4) Joseph in Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty, Moses in Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty Joseph, sold into slavery and later rising to power through his dream interpretations, facilitated his family's settlement in Egypt. 'We find worshipful inscriptions lauding the idol Ba’alat, with clearly an El or God-serving scribe coming in later and canceling out certain letters, in an effort to turn the message into a God-serving one,' Bar-Ron told Patterns of Evidence. A second reference to Moses was found inside the mine, but the researchers is unclear about the context 'This is ground zero for this conflict. A second possible 'Moshe,' or Moses, reference in nearby carvings adds intrigue, though its exact context remains unclear. 'I took a very critical view towards finding the name 'Moses' or anything that could sound sensationalist,' Bar-Ron told Patterns of Evidence. 'In fact, the only way to do serious work is to try to find elements that seem 'Biblical,' but to struggle to find alternative solutions that are at least as likely.'

Ini, Weni, Iny, Moses

by Damien F. Mackey I consider it to be most encouraging for my rather complex revision of the Era of Moses - in Egypt’s Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Twelfth dynasties - that the Egyptian name for the historical Moses, Weni (Uni), looking like a diminutive name, or hypocoristicon, is common, in its variant forms, Ini, Iny, for my Moses through the Old Kingdom: Niuserre Ini (Fifth); Weni (Uni) (Sixth); General Iny (Sixth). Niuserre Ini (var. Iny) Regarding pharaoh Niuserre Ini, I wrote in my recent article: Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty (2) Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty This re-working of my article under the same title, “Moses in Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty”, has become necessary due to my brand new recognition of Moses as the Fifth Dynasty pharaoh, Niuserre Ini, to accompany his pharaonic alter egos of Djedefre-Djedefhor (Fourth Dynasty) and Userkare (Sixth Dynasty). …. As we found with the pharaonic Moses in his Fourth Dynasty guise (as Djedefre-Djedefhor), and in his Sixth Dynasty guise (as Userkare), so might we expect that he, in his Fifth Dynasty guise - if as Niuserre Ini - to be compatible, should reveal himself to have been a ruler of short duration, highly competent, having a profound influence upon Egypt, and much revered down through time as a saint and a thaumaturgist. Excitingly, as a very good start, in the name Ini, we appear to get an immediate clue. For I have already identified Moses, as a high official of Pharaoh, as Weni (Uni) of the Sixth Dynasty, and as Iny of the Sixth Dynasty – whatever that name may mean. So, the name (Niuserre) Ini fits beautifully here alongside these names. Thus: INI; WENI; UNI; INY …. The king's power slowly weakened as the bureaucracy expanded … although he remained a living god in the eyes of his subjects. My comment: He was virtually deified, “a living god in the eyes of his subjects”, like Imhotep (Joseph). …. This cult was most active until the end of the Old Kingdom but lasted at least until the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom … at which point is the latest known mention of a priest serving in Nyuserre's funerary complex. …. In later times, the official cult of Nyuserre was essentially reduced to a cult of the royal ancestor figure, a "limited version of the cult of the divine" as Jaromir Malek writes … manifested by the dedication of statues and the compilation of lists of kings to be honoured. …. My comment: “This cult was most active until the end of the Old Kingdom but lasted at least until the Twelfth Dynasty during the Middle Kingdom”, both so-called kingdoms pertaining to the Era of Moses. …. In parallel to that official cult were the more private cults of pious individuals venerating Nyuserre as a kind of "saint", an intercessor between the believers and the gods. …. This popular cult, which developed spontaneously, perhaps because of the proximity of Nyuserre's pyramid to Memphis … referred to Nyuserre using his birth name Iny … and likely consisted of invocations and offerings to statues of the king or in his mortuary temple. …. Therefore, archaeological traces of this cult are difficult to discern … yet Nyuserre's special status is manifest in some religious formulae, where his name is invoked, as well as in the onomastics of individuals, notably during the Middle Kingdom, whose names included "Iny", such as Inhotep, Inemsaf, Inankhu and many more. …. Although the veneration of Nyuserre was originally a local phenomenon from Abusir, Saqqara and their surroundings … it may have ultimately reached even outside of Egypt proper, in Sinai, Byblos and Nubia, where fragments of statues, vessels and stelae bearing Nyuserre's name have been discovered in cultic contexts. …. My comment: Moses rightly likened to Imhotep (Inhotep)/Joseph. “… Nyuserre's special status is manifest in some religious formulae, where his name is invoked, as well as in the onomastics of individuals, notably during the Middle Kingdom, whose names included "Iny", such as Inhotep …”. Weni (Uni) I have discussed this proposed identification of Moses in articles such as: Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep (3) Historical Moses may be Weni and Mentuhotep There is a famous Sixth Dynasty official, Weni (or Uni), who may be the parallel of the Twelfth Dynasty’s Sinuhe as a candidate for the elusive Moses. I have previously written on this: Now, given our alignment of the so-called Egyptian Middle Kingdom’s Twelfth Dynasty with the Egyptian Old Kingdom’s Sixth Dynasty (following Dr. Donovan Courville), then the semi-legendary Sinuhe may find his more solidly historical identification in the important Sixth Dynasty official, Weni, or Uni. Like Weni, Sinuhe was highly honoured by pharaoh with the gift of a sarcophagus. We read about it, for instance, in C. Dotson’s extremely useful article (“…. The Cycle of Order and Chaos in The Tale of Sinuhe”): https://journals.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/StudiaAntiqua “…. The king gives Sinuhe a sarcophagus of gold and lapis lazuli as a housewarming gift. The gift of a coffin by the king was considered a great honor and a sign of respect. In the Autobiography of Weni from the Old Kingdom, Weni records that the king had given him a white sarcophagus and “never before had the like been done in this Upper Egypt.” …. [End of quote] Naturally, Dr. Courville’s radical proposal that the Egyptian Sixth and Twelfth dynasties were contemporaneous - whereas, according to conventional history some four centuries separate the end of the Sixth (c. 2200 BC) from that of the Twelfth (c. 1800 BC) - has not been well received by non-revisionist historians, such as e.g. professor W. Stiebing who has written: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Yf2NWgNhEecC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=co “There is simply no textual support for making the Sixth and Twelfth Dynasties contemporaneous, as Courville does”. However, as I have previously noted: …. [Dr.] J. Osgood proposes a possible close relationship between the 6th and 12th dynasty mortuary temples ....: Edwards certainly opens the possibility unconsciously when referring to the pyramid of Sesostris the First ....: “... and the extent to which its Mortuary Temple was copied from the Mortuary Temples of the VIth dynasty, as illustrated by that of Pepi II ... is clearly evident.” The return of a culture to what it was before ... after some three hundred years must be an uncommon event. The theoretical possibility that the two cultures, the Twelfth and the Sixth Dynasties were in fact contemporary and followed a common pattern of Mortuary Temple must be borne in mind as real. …. [End of quote] That there is in fact some impressive evidence to suggest that: Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms [were] far closer in time than conventionally thought (8) Egypt's Old and Middle Kingdoms far closer in time than conventionally thought | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Comparing Weni - (and Sinuhe) - with Vizier Mentuhotep About Sinuhe, we learn (http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/sinuhe.htm): “I was a henchman who followed his lord, a servant of the Royal harim attending on the hereditary princess, the highly-praised Royal Consort of Sesostris in the pyramid-town of Khnem-esut, the Royal Daughter of Amenemmes in the Pyramid-town of Ka-nofru, even Nofru, the revered”. We have already learned something of the greatness of Mentuhotep [previous article]. Weni has, for his part, been described as a “genius”. This little excerpt on the “Autobiography of Weni” already tells us a lot about the man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobiography_of_Weni Weni rose through the ranks of the military to become commander in chief of the army. He was considered by both his contemporaries and many Egyptologists to have been a brilliant tactician and possibly even a genius. His victories earned him the privilege of being shown leading the troops into battle, a right usually reserved for pharaohs. Weni is the first person, other than a pharaoh, known to have been portrayed in this manner. Many of his battles were in the Levant and the Sinai. He is said to have pursued a group of Bedouins all the way to Mount Carmel. He battled a Bedouin people known as the sand-dwellers at least five times. …. Weni’s famous “Autobiography” has been described as, amongst other superlatives: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=sgoVryxihuMC&pg=PA352&lpg=PA352 “… the best-known biographical text of the Old Kingdom and has been widely discussed, as it is important for literary and historical reasons; it is also the longest such document”. This marvellous piece of ancient literature, conventionally dated to c. 2330 BC - and even allowing for the revised re-dating of it to a bit more than half a millennium later - completely gives the lie to the old JEDP theory, that writing was not invented until about 1000 BC. On JEDP, se e.g. my article: Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP (7) Preferring P. J. Wiseman to un-wise JEDP Here I take some of the relevant inscriptions of the renowned Vizier, Mentuhotep (http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Ancient_Records_of_Egypt_v1_10000750), and juxtapose them with comparable parts of the “Autobiography” of Weni (in brown) (http://drelhosary.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/weni-elder-and-his-mor) (all emphasis added): INSCRIPTIONS OF MENTUHOTEP …. 531. Hereditary prince, vizier and chief judge The exterior face of the north wall incorporates a large niche, and during excavations here a damaged false door inscribed for Weni the Elder was discovered in situ. Not only does this false door provide a nickname for Weni ("Nefer Nekhet Mery-Ra"--Egyptian nicknames were often longer than birth names!), but it also documents his final career promotion, a fact not recorded in his autobiography: Chief Judge and Vizier. attached to Nekhen, judge attached to Nekhen, prophet of prophet of Mat (goddess of Truth), giver of laws, advancer of offices, confirming … the boundary records, separating a land-owner from his neighbor, pilot of the people, satisfying the whole land, a man of truth before the Two Lands … accustomed … to justice like Thoth, his like in satisfying the Two Lands, hereditary prince in judging the Two Lands …. supreme head in judgment, putting matters in order, wearer of the royal seal, chief treasurer, Mentuhotep. Hereditary prince, count the count … chief of all works of the king, making the offerings of the gods to flourish, setting this land … according to the command of the god. the whole was carried out by my hand, according to the mandate which … my lord had commanded me. …. sending forth two brothers satisfied pleasant to his brothers with the utterances of his mouth, upon whose tongue is the writing of Thoth, I alone was the one who put (it) in writing …. …. Etc., etc. General Iny Note immediately that this Sixth Dynasty general and trader for Egypt bears the same name as does Niuserre Ini, variously Iny (see, above: Niuserre Ini (var. Iny). Here is some of what I have written about the Sixth Dynasty’s general Iny in my article: Moses a trusted world trader for Egypt in the Pyramid Age? (4) Moses a trusted world trader for Egypt in the Pyramid Age? “It is likely that Iny travelled to Anatoly by land before Weni led several mighty military expeditions by land and sea against “native” countries, which were not specified in his biographical inscription, but the word “native” … is the same used for people to be brought to Egypt from Hundašša”. Alessandro Roccati Upon reading through Alessandro Roccati’s absorbing paper: Iny’s Travels (3) Iny's Travels | Alessandro Roccati - Academia.edu finding common purpose in Iny’s adventures, by way of comparison with those of Weni - and throwing in Sinuhe, to boot - it occurred to me that Iny most likely was Weni. The latter, as well as Sinuhe (a semi-fictitious character along the lines of Imhotep at the hands of later scholars), I have already identified as the biblical Moses. …. Since Iny served during the same Sixth Dynasty period as did Weni, travelled to some of the same geographical locations, and traded in the same sort of fine quality material (jewellery, precious stones, etc.), I think it a fairly safe bet that - Occam’s Razor and all - this was one and the same official of Old Egypt, Iny = Weni (Uni) = Sinuhe. Weni: “His majesty sent me to Hatnub to bring a huge offering-table …. of lapis lazuli, of bronze, of electrum, and silver; copper was plentiful without end, bronze without limit, collars of real malachite, ornaments (mn-nfr’t) of every kind of costly stone. of the choicest of everything, which are given to a god at his processions, by virtue of my office of master of secret things”. Gold was considered to be the skin of the ancient Egyptian gods, but their bones were thought to be of silver. …. One feature I find most appealing about Alessandro Roccati’s article is his adventurous approach to ancient geography – whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions. That a massive overhaul of ancient geography is urgently required is apparent from the tectonic effect a new geography has had upon a multi-volumed book that I was writing: My book, “A History of the Fertile Crescent”, swamped by a new and unforeseen geographical paradigm (3) My book, "A History of the Fertile Crescent", swamped by a new and unforeseen geographical paradigm | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu and, again, geography will be most relevant subject matter to this present article, especially this one concerning the location of Tarḫuntašša: More uncertain ancient geography: locations Tarḫuntašša and Arzawa (3) More uncertain ancient geography: locations Tarḫuntašša and Arzawa | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Alessandro Roccati writes: “The splendid jewellery discovered in Egypt bears silent testimony to a trade intercourse, direct or indirect, with many remote and little known lands; and it would be of considerable interest to learn through what channels the precious stones that adorned the necks of the Memphite and Theban ladies found their way to the Egyptian markets ... we are tolerably well informed concerning the expeditions that journeyed thither (Sinai) almost annually in quest of the turquoise; but with regard to other much used stones … some of them, like lapis lazuli, from countries farther afield – our ignorance is almost complete.” …. A passage in the Story of Sinuhe was definitely explained as quoting the titles of rulers as far as the Luvian country … and a biography found in Dahshur told of an official, who in the middle of the 12th Dynasty travelled well beyond Byblos. …. Thereafter, although the outstanding archive found at Ebla/Tell Mardikh in 1975 still keeps silent about a likely partnership with Egypt concerning the trade of precious materials … an exciting discovery by Michele Marcolin in Japan … provides decisive evidence in favour of an Egyptian trade much farther than Ebla, reaching the heart of Anatoly in the same time of pharaoh Pepy I, to whose reign the Ebla archive is currently dated. …. A stone built chapel from somewhere in Egypt was illicitly dismantled and sold out in pieces all over the world. It had belonged to a first rank official who lived through the Egyptian 6th Dynasty and left a detailed account of his journeys northwards from Egypt: “… I reached (litt. “I did”) ɂmȝw, ḫntš, pȝws four times when I was a chancellor of the god under the Person of my lord Pepy (I). …. I brought him silver and every good produce that his ka wished, and his Person praised me because of that … exceedingly. Then I was sent to Byblos by the Person of my lord Mernerê. …. I brought three Byblos ships and made the big Palace boats. I brought lapis lazuli, tin … silver, bitumen and every gift that his ka wished, so that I was praised therefore in the Palace … and treasures were given to me. I went down to Byblos from R-ḥȝt and came back … in peace. Never was the same done by any general sent by my god earlier”. …. I was sent by the Person of my lord Neferkarê (Pepy II) to ḫntš. …. brought back one Byblos ship and cargo boats laden … with silver, native men and women. …. The Person of my lord praised me etc.” …. Hitherto almost nothing was known of Egypt’s outreach beyond the Sinai peninsula in this early period, but for the expeditions of general Weni during the reign of pharaoh Pepy I, and the information coming from Byblos and Ebla excavations. Although Marcolin could find out and join together several inscribed slabs from different collections, the relevant piece is kept in Tokyo Archaeological Museum (Kikugawa slab). On it one can read the record of four journeys of Iny under the long reign of Pepy I, that took him to three remarkable towns or countries, their names being perfectly preserved as well as somehow unprecedented. I shall now venture to tackle a reasonable clue for all three, provided that the horizon of the Egyptian civilization is extended in a way that had never been admitted before for such an early period, highlighting the magnificence of Pepy I’s reign, whose pyramid gave the name to Memphis. The reason for presenting a paper in a conference at Istanbul is that the farthest point reached by Iny was sited in central Anatoly and must be the renowned silver market of Burus-ḫanda. This place is well known in the later archive of the Assyrian merchants at Kaneš … and is even quoted in the poem Šar Tamkari. However, Iny’s mention is by far the oldest one, and the hieroglyphic spelling is exactly what we should expect for a name “Purus” or “Bur(r)us” in this period. Its connection with silver ensures the correct identification, whereas the lack of “ḫanda” in Iny’s inscription may be due to it being a later addition, or something that could be omitted in the very concise Egyptian writing. Consider however what is going to be said about ḫntš below. Damien Mackey’s comment: As exciting as one might find the thought of Egyptian Sixth Dynasty expeditions into Anatolia, to Purushanda, this may actually be a bridge too far for that early period of time. What could greatly curtail the geographical distance in Iny’s account is my identification of Tarḫuntašša (thought also to be in Anatolia) as Karduniash, now revised to, approximately, NW Syria. Alessandro Roccati continues: Before reaching Burus, Iny touched two certainly important places, one of which had already been known for a long time, though its exact location is still open to debate. I have the impression that their succession may not represent an exact itinerary, but rather mark the extreme points reached on the east and west (and north) sides. The western place name (ḫntš) occurred during the 12 th Dynasty in the annals of pharaoh Amenemhet II [Mackey: same period as Iny], and later in various sources of the 18th Dynasty … and then until the end of the pharaonic civilization. Moreover, it was mentioned in the 6th Dynasty as the source for the (precious) wood of a prince’s coffin. …. [I cannot reproduce the hieroglyphs here] looks to me as a good Egyptian rendering of “Ḫundašša” (omitting the initial “Tar” of “Tarḫundašša”) and must be related to somewhere on the sea coast. …. Even if a geographical term may have changed its reference in the course of time, I believe that a correspondence with Cilicia Aspera might well fit Iny’s route to Burus. Otherwise that stretch is the closest shore in the continent to Cyprus. …. Damien Mackey’s comment: Byblos is fairly well placed in relation to Cyprus. Alessandro Roccati continues: The third term (ɂmȝw: the first place reached by Iny according to his inscription) is the least certain for a topographical identification as it is known to me only in the present instance, but I suppose that an equation with Palmyra/Tadmor may hit the point. …. Its redundant writing is normal for the archaic writing of the period, but may entail the reduplication of m, perhaps due to assimilation (d > m before m): *Dammuru, or even better *Ṭammuru < *Ṭadmuru. The reference to the writing of the verb “to see” (mȝ, determined with the “eye” sign) may offer a hint of some sort for its reading. Palmyra is already quoted in the letters of Mari, and it must have been from early times the crossroads of important caravan routes. …. The hieroglyphic rendering looks satisfactory in default of another solution, and Palmyra would well suit the easternmost country crossed by Iny. ….

Waging war on the gods of Egypt

by Damien F. Mackey “The ancient Israelites created “a historical saga so powerful that it led biblical historians and archaeologists alike to recreate its mythical past— from stones and potsherds,” said Israeli scholar and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein. …. In other words, according to them, the Exodus never happened. Critical scholars like Halpern and Finkelstein view the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt as mere storytelling, but with a moral message”. Randall Price Introduction What a spiritually-filled and action-packed document the Book of Exodus is! Even before we have managed to reach Chapter 4 - the return of Moses to Egypt from the land of Midian - so many exciting, agonising, yet providential events have occurred. These are: - The enslavement of the growing nation of Israel - which had long had it good in the fertile region of Goshen where Joseph had settled it - by a new dynastic Pharaoh to whom Joseph meant little (Exodus 1:8); - the slaves set to task to build mighty store cities, Pithom and Raamses (v. 11); - the Pharaoh’s cruel order for male children to be slaughtered, to limit the birth-rate of the Israelites (v. 16); - the birth of Moses and his rescue from death - all strategically planned by his mother - by his being rescued from the water by the daughter of Pharaoh, she giving him the name, “Moses” (2:1-10); - the adult Moses going amongst his people and seeing their affliction, their fighting amongst themselves, and Moses killing an Egyptian overseer (vv. 11-12); - Pharaoh learning of this and determining to kill Moses, who flees for his life to the land of Midian (v. 15); - Moses then assists the seven daughters of the priest of Midian against some shepherds who had driven them from the well, Moses then watering their flock for them (vv. 16-17); - Moses identified by the priest’s daughters as “an Egyptian” (v. 19); - the priest welcomes Moses and gives him in marriage his daughter Zipporah (v. 21): - the couple has a son whom Moses names “Gershom” (v. 22); - during Moses’s long sojourn in the land of Midian the Pharaoh who had sought his life dies, and persecuted Israel groans in its misery (v. 23); - God hears their groaning and is concerned for them (vv. 24-25). All of that fascinating data takes us only, in fact, to Chapter 2 of the Book of Exodus. Is it simply story-telling, as many claim, “pure myth” (see below)? For, the burning question today is: Did it all really happen? Those Biblical minimalists Many historians, archaeologists and biblicists deny that the Book of Exodus is history, insisting that it is merely a type of didactic fiction, or the like. For example: https://israelmyglory.org/article/how-do-we-know-the-exodus-happened/ “The actual evidence concerning the Exodus resembles the evidence for the unicorn,” declared Pennsylvania State University Jewish Studies Professor Baruch Halpern. …. The ancient Israelites created “a historical saga so powerful that it led biblical historians and archaeologists alike to recreate its mythical past—from stones and potsherds,” said Israeli scholar and archaeologist Israel Finkelstein. …. In other words, according to them, the Exodus never happened. Critical scholars like Halpern and Finkelstein view the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt as mere storytelling, but with a moral message”. Previously I have noted other views along these same lines: Today, people laugh at the very idea of the Plagues and the Exodus. The story of the Exodus, Michael D. Lemonick wrote in “Are the Bible Stories True?” (TIME, Sunday, June 24, 2001), “involves so many miracles” - plagues, the parting of the Red Sea … manna, from heaven, the giving of the Ten Commandments - that critics take it for “pure myth”. In this regard he referred to Fr. Anthony Axe, Bible lecturer at Jerusalem’s École Biblique, who has claimed that a massive Exodus that led to the drowning of Pharaoh’s army would have reverberated politically and economically throughout the entire region. And, considering that artefacts from as far back as the late Stone Age have turned up in the Sinai, Fr Axe finds it perplexing that - as he thinks - no evidence of the Israelites’ passage has been found. And I have been told by a learned Dominican priest that the Bible is all about Theology, and that Moses, Joshua, never wrote down anything. What is it with Dominicans and literal biblical interpretation? On this, see e.g. my article: Père M-J. Lagrange’s exegetical blancmange (2) Père M-J. Lagrange’s exegetical blancmange Now, in the following article we read of further such scepticism: Hebrews in Egypt before the Exodus? Evidence from Papyrus Brooklyn / Uncategorized / By Archae27 The presence of Hebrews in Egypt prior to their departure is a key component in the Exodus story, leading to the eventual formation of the Israelite nation and the subsequent settlement of Canaan. However, skepticism about the historical validity of the Exodus story has spread through both academia and the general public over the last century. One of the key problems for asserting the Exodus narrative as historical has to do with the supposed lack of archaeological confirmation for Hebrews living in Egypt. Current academic consensus views the events described in the book of Exodus as myth, without any indication of an historical core, and now a topic which the vast majority of scholars decline to investigate due to their certainty that the story is fictional. Scholars have made claims that according to archaeological investigations, “Israelites were never in Egypt …. The many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the Israelites’ presence in Egypt” (Zeev Herzog). Another archaeologist concluded that investigation of the Exodus story is pointless because of the alleged absence of evidence, stating that “not only is there no archaeological evidence for such an exodus, there is no need to posit such an event …. I regard the historicity of the Exodus as a dead issue” (William Dever). …. Maybe all of these biblical minimalists have a point? The point that they do have is that they are all right in a conventional context, but, unfortunately for them, the conventional context is all wrong. Indeed Fr. Anthony Axe, for instance, is right in saying that an event such as the Exodus would have had widespread political and economic ramifications; but because he has been conditioned to thinking according to the Sothic-based time scale, Fr. Axe is unable to see the wood for the trees, so to speak. For, contrary to the conventional view, the Egyptian chronicles do give abundant testimony to a time of catastrophe reminiscent of the Exodus, and archaeology does clearly attest the presence of an invasive people sojourning for a time in the Sinai/Negev deserts. Michael D. Lemonick, in “Are the Bible Stories True?”, will also cite the claim of Magen Broshi, curator emeritus of the Dead Sea Scrolls (d. 2020), that the Israeli archaeologists of the 60’s-80’s “... didn’t find a single piece of evidence backing the Israelites’ supposed 40-year sojourn in the desert”. But the reason for this is that is because they were always expecting to find such “evidence” in a New Kingdom context. I like to say that Israeli archaeologists are forever pointing to the wrong stratigraphical level for a biblical person or event while ‘standing in’, so to speak, the real archaeological level. Some independently-minded conventional scholars Professor Emmanuel Anati The error of looking to the New Kingdom for the Exodus scenario has already been pointed out by professor Anati. Commenting on Michael Lemonick’s reference to “Israeli archaeologists of the 60’s-80’s”, I have written previously: Not so professor Emmanuel Anati, who has realised that the conventional placement of a mild exodus to the Late Bronze Age, supposedly of Ramses II, is hopelessly inaccurate. Thus he has written (The Mountain of God, 1986): In the last 100 years, many efforts have been invested on finding some hints of the Israelites and their exodus in the Egyptian ancient literature. In the many Egyptian texts that date to the New Kingdom ... there is no mention of the flight from Egypt or the crossing of the "Red Sea". Not even the general historical and social background correspond. ... If all of this tradition has a minimal basis in historical fact, then it cannot have been totally ignored by the Egyptians. …. Nor, according to Professor Anati, did they ignore it: ... The relevant texts do not date to the New Kingdom at all, but to the Old Kingdom. In other words ... the archaeological evidence ..., the tribal social structures described in the Bible, the climatic changes and the ancient Egyptian literature all seem to indicate that the events and situations which may have inspired the biblical narrations of Exodus do not date to the thirteenth century BC but ... to the late third millennium [sic] BC. Professor Anati still accepts the conventional dating of the Old and New Kingdoms. But this only means that his discoveries are all the more meaningful, because he has not set out to make a chronological statement. Dr. Rudolph Cohen Dr. Cohen, Deputy Director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority (until 2005), when asked which Egyptian dynasty he considered to be contemporaneous with the Exodus events, nominated the Middle Kingdom’s 12th dynasty. That is very close to the mark. In this regard he referred to the Ipuwer Papyrus as describing the conditions in Egypt that could be expected as the result of the ten devastating plagues (cf. Exodus 7-12). Dr. Cohen (d. 2007), of course, was not the first to have suggested the relevance of the Twelfth Dynasty, or of the Ipuwer Papyrus, to the situation of the Israelites in Egypt and the Exodus. Dr. Donovan Courville had discussed in detail its suitability as the background for the enslavement and ultimate deliverance (Exodus 1:8-5:22). There is plenty of biographical detail to be found in the Book of Exodus, though recorded there in an extremely concise fashion. It has been left to revisionists to fill in the details, to read between the lines, because, as I wrote above, “the conventional context is all wrong”, their lines are often crooked. Well let us try to unpack the first 2 chapters of Exodus by providing it with a proper historical context. Revisionist scholars setting things straight Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had presented a compelling case for both the Ipuwer and Ermitage papyrii’s being recollections of the plagues and devastation of Egypt: http://www.hermetics.org/exodus.html An important argument set forth by Velikovsky involves the papyrus of Ipuwer placed into the Leiden Museum in the Netherlands in 1828. This papyrus appears to relate events that occurred in the early ages of ancient Egypt. According to academicians it contains riddles or prophecies, however it openly relates a number of catastrophes that befell Egypt. The Nile turning to blood, the waters being undrinkable, the death of animals, the sky becoming dark, fires, earthquakes, hungry and destitute Egyptians are among these. If Velikovsky is correct then it disproves the contention that there is no trace of the events related in the Pentateuch recorded in Egyptian history. …. Israel’s enslavement The growth of the Israelite population in Egypt, broadly termed amu (‘Asiatics’), occurred during the reign of the dynastic founding king, Amenemes (Amenemhet), Twelfth Dynasty: “Both the teachings of Amenemhet and the Prophecies of Neferti make reference to Amenemhet having to deal with a large Asiatic (‛3mw) population within Egypt”: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2233&context=facpub Amenemes (Amenemhet), the founding king of the Twelfth Dynasty, was the “new king” of Exodus 1:8, who decreed the slaughter of the male Hebrew babies. Immense building works in the Goshen region, east of the Nile Delta occurred in this period. The presence, then, of Hebrew slaves and labourers is attested by the Brooklyn Papyrus (35.1446), potentially supporting the biblical narrative of the Hebrews’ presence in Egypt with its list of 95 names including 30 Semitic (Hebrew) names. It is dated to the Thirteenth Dynasty, some of whose officials, as we have found, served the Twelfth Dynasty. The occurrence of the name “Shiphrah” and other Hebrew (NW Semitic) type names in the late Middle Kingdom’s Brooklyn Papyrus had constituted an integral part of my detailed argument that Egypt’s: Twelfth Dynasty oppressed Israel https://www.academia.edu/38553314/Twelfth_Dynasty_oppressed_Israel Here is just a part of what I wrote there: The widespread presence of ‘Asiatics’ in Egypt at the time would help to explain the large number of Israelites said to be in the land. Pharaoh would have used as slaves other Syro-Palestinians, too, plus Libyans and Nubians. As precious little, though, is known of Cheops, despite his being powerful enough to have built one of the Seven Wonders of the World, we shall need to fill him out later with his 12th dynasty alter ego. In Cheops’ daughter, Mer-es-ankh, we presumably have the Merris of tradition who retrieved the baby Moses from the water. The name Mer-es-ankh consists basically of two elements, Meres and ankh, the latter being the ‘life’ symbol for Egypt worn by people even today. Mer-es-ankh married Chephren (Egyptian, Khafra), builder of the second Giza pyramid and probably, of the Great Sphinx. He would thus have become Moses’s foster/father-in-law. Moses, now a thorough-going ‘Egyptian’ (cf. Exodus 2:19), must have been his loyal subject. “Now Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a man of power both in his speech and in his actions”. (Acts 7:22) Tradition has Moses leading armies for Chenephres as far as Ethiopia. Whilst this may seem a bit strained in a 4th dynasty context, we shall find that it is perfectly appropriate in a 12th dynasty one, when we uncover Chephren’s alter ego. From the 12th dynasty, we gain certain further elements that are relevant to the early era of Moses. Once again we have a strong founder-king, Amenemhet I, who will enable us to fill out the virtually unknown Cheops as the “new king” of Exodus 1:8. The reign of Amenemhet I was, deliberately, an abrupt break with the past. The beginning of the 12th dynasty marks not only a new dynasty, but an entirely new order. Amenemhet I celebrated his accession by adopting the Horus name: Wehem-Meswt (“He who repeats births”), thought to indicate that he was “the first of a new line”, that he was “thereby consciously identifying himself as the inaugurator of a renaissance, or new era in his country’s history”. Amenemhet I is thought actually to have been a commoner, originally from southern Egypt. I have thought to connect him to pharaoh Khufu via the nobleman from Abydos, Khui. “The Prophecy of Neferti”, relating to the time of Amenemhet I, shows the same concern in Egypt for the growing presence of Asiatics in the eastern Delta as was said to occupy the mind of the new pharaoh of Exodus, seeing the Israelites as a political threat (1:9): “‘Look’, [pharaoh] said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become far too numerous for us’.” That Asiatics were particularly abundant in Egypt at the time is apparent from this information from the Cambridge Ancient History: “The Asiatic inhabitants of the country at this period [of the Twelfth Dynasty] must have been many times more numerous than has been generally supposed ...”. Dr David Down gives the account of Sir Flinders Petrie who, working in the Fayyûm in 1899, made the important discovery of the town of Illahûn [Kahun], which Petrie described as “an unaltered town of the twelfth dynasty”. Of the ‘Asiatic’ presence in this pyramid builders’ town, Rosalie David (who is in charge of the Egyptian branch of the Manchester Museum) has written: It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may have reflected the situation elsewhere in Egypt. It can be stated that these people were loosely classed by Egyptians as ‘Asiatics’, although their exact home-land in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined .... The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear. Undoubtedly, these ‘Asiatics’ were dwelling in Illahûn largely to raise pyramids for the glory of the pharaohs. Is there any documentary evidence that ‘Asiatics’ in Egypt acted as slaves or servants to the Egyptians? “Evidence is not lacking to indicate that these Asiatics became slaves”, Dr. Down has written with reference to the Brooklyn Papyrus. Egyptian households at this time were filled with Asiatic slaves, some of whom bore biblical names. Of the seventy-seven legible names of the servants of an Egyptian woman called Senebtisi recorded on the verso of this document, forty-eight are (like the Hebrews) NW Semitic. In fact, the name “Shiphrah” is identical to that borne by one of the Hebrew midwives whom Pharaoh had commanded to kill the male babies (Exodus 1:15). “Asian slaves, whether merchandise or prisoners of war, became plentiful in wealthy Egyptian households [prior to the New Kingdom]”, we read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Amenemhet I was represented in “The Prophecy of Neferti” - as with the “new king” of Exodus 1:8 - as being the one who would set about rectifying the problem. To this end he completely reorganised the administration of Egypt, transferring the capital from Thebes in the south to Ithtowe in the north, just below the Nile Delta. He allowed those nomarchs who supported his cause to retain their power. He built on a grand scale. Egypt was employing massive slave labour, not only in the Giza area, but also in the eastern Delta region where the Israelites were said to have settled at the time of Joseph. Professor J. Breasted provided ample evidence to show that the powerful 12th dynasty pharaohs carried out an enormous building program whose centre was in the Delta region. More specifically, this building occurred in the eastern Delta region which included the very area that comprised the land of Goshen where the Israelites first settled. “... in the eastern part [of the Delta], especially at Tanis and Bubastis ... massive remains still show the interest which the Twelfth Dynasty manifested in the Delta cities”. Today, archaeologists recognise the extant remains of the construction under these kings as representing a mere fraction of the original; the major part having been destroyed by the vandalism of the New Kingdom pharaohs (such as Ramses II). The Biblical account states that: “... they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar and in brick”. (Exodus 1:14). …. [End of quotes] For the historical Moses in a Twelfth Dynasty setting, see e.g. my articles: Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty (5) Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty Joseph in Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty, Moses in Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty (5) Joseph in Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty, Moses in Egypt's Twelfth Dynasty For the historical Moses and his flight to Midian to escape the wrath of Pharaoh, see e.g. my article: Moses, from the comforts of Egypt to the desert landscapes of Midian (5) Moses, from the comforts of Egypt to the desert landscapes of Midian For Moses during his sojourn in Midian, see e.g. my article: Moses, his marriage in Midian, and the holy Mountain of God (5) Moses, his marriage in Midian, and the holy Mountain of God This takes us into Chapter 3 of the Book of Exodus, and the spiritual Burning Bush episode: The Burning Bush theophany directing Moses back to Egypt (5) The Burning Bush theophany directing Moses back to Egypt Moses and the Burning Bush 3 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. 2 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. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” 4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. 7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation. 16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. 17 And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’ 18 “The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’ 19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. 20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go. 21 “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. 22 Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.” Moses will be tasked with waging war on all of the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12). There have been terrific articles written on the subject of how each individual Plague was directed at one or other Egyptian god (including Pharaoh). For example, Joe LoMusio’s article: “Against the Gods of Egypt” - Identifying the Ten Plagues (5) "Against the Gods of Egypt" - Identifying the Ten Plagues Exodus 12:12 Against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment: I am the LORD. Just before the tenth and final plague brought upon Egypt, God proclaims to Moses that the calamities befalling Pharaoh and his people were divine judgments against all the gods of Egypt. This astonishing statement is repeated in Numbers 33:4, where, referring to the Egyptians, we read, “Also on their gods the LORD executed judgments.” While both statements could be interpreted as relating only to the tenth and final plague, there is a greater possibility that all the plagues should be considered, as each of them can be understood as relating to the various gods and cult practices of the ancient Egyptians. ….