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Dating the Exodus and affiliated Biblical events

(Followed by a record in English and Greek of Jesus’ trial)

Archaeologist-Historians try to complete jigsaw puzzles of 3000 pieces with only 100 pieces in their hands and they choose to ignore half of these, because they do not fit their hunch or hypothesis. For example, they found skeletons of dinosaurs grouped together, with their mouths full of food. However, as this does not fit the prevailing theory that the dinosaurs were extinct because their ecosystem and, hence, their food supply was destroyed by the persistent dust cloud formed by the fall of a meteorite, they choose to ignore this information.

Another example is the figuring out of the racial identity of the Hyksos. As these, like the Aryans that destroyed the Harrapan culture, were hordes of marauders that conquered far more multitudinous races in the Middle East and relics of their passing, (many of them adopted from the local people), are scant and mixed with those of the conquered people, they are wrongly identified by archaeologists as Hurrians, Semites, Hebrews, Canaanites etc. The telltale as to the origin of these marauders is their advanced weaponry, including the chariot, common to allHyperboreans; the Danaans, the Aryans and the Hittites, as well as the Hyksos. (The Hyksos were actually the vanguard of the Hittites).

What is important in history is the sequence of events and not the exact dating. You may push back all the dates quoted by as much as 20-40 years. The way dates are calculated from the reigns of kings occasionally misses a year, systematically and accumulatively. The Temple reckoning is more accurate because it is continuous. For example, the calculated date for the end of the Babylonian captivity is 536 BCE whilst by the Temple reckoning it is 550 BCE, (as it appears in the minutes of Jesus’ trial, where Tiberius’ 17th year, 30 CE, is also quoted as the 580th year from the end of the captivity).

The Patriarchs of Israel were in effect Princes with armies of servants or ‘subjects’, as we know from Abraham’s army that liberated Lot, defeating the combined army offour kings, and Esau’s troop of 400 men, with which he received Jacob on the latter’s return from Paddan-aram. As Princes, they would keep fairly good records of their ancestry.

The books of the Pentateuch were written by the Israelites and not by Moses, though he gave them the Law, the Priesthood rituals and the basics of the Memphis version of Creation. It is worth noticing that though in these books the Israelites go to great lengths to list the names of their own ancestry and give detailed stories of their lives, they do not mention the names of any important Egyptians, even as important as the Pharaohs, except for Poti-phar, Joseph’s first boss, and Joseph’s wife Asenath and her father Potiphera. Following the example of the Pharaohs, who wiped out of their own history any record of the Israelites, the latter did the same for their masters that reduced them to slavery and tried to wipe them out as a Princely Nation by putting to death all their newborn male progeny. The almost complete absence of important Egyptian names in the books of the Pentateuch is the cause of all headaches around the history of the Exodus and related events.

Contemporary information should be taken as correct when written down at the time they occurred. Admittedly, there is a possibility that these records, written on the material the Israelites had in Sinai, might have later been damaged and some information copied incorrectly from damaged manuscripts. Or most probably, no records were kept in the Sinai and all was written in Canaan later, out of memory and oral transmission.

Though the duration of the sojourn is mentioned in Exodus 12. 40 as 430 years, this grossly contradicts the possible time length of Moses’ ancestry, (son of Yokhebed, the daughter of Levi, with Levi about 50 at entry into Egypt). This must be a miscopy. It is easier to copy a number incorrectly than a whole passage and miss a number of generations.

Josephus gives the duration as 215 years; most probably quoting sources that arbitrarily halved the 430 years, in order to make better sense. In ‘Galatians’ Paul mentions the 430 years as the time between the ‘Covenant’, Isaac’s birth, and the ‘Law’, probably quoting some revised sources that used these 430 years again in a text that made better sense.Isaac was born 190 years before Jacob’s entry into Egypt. Hence, according to this quotation, the sojourn lasted 240 years, though even this seems excessive.

Neither is necessarily correct, though they make better sense than a 430-year sojourn.

In our estimations, we are first going to set out a number of thoughts based on the scriptures as well as historical references, keeping in mind that, like today, names and relationships are known, remembered and quoted more accurately in story telling than dates, ages and time durations. Reliable dates and numbers will be shown in bold as ‘given’.

  1. Isaac had Esau and Jacob when he was 60 (given).
  2. Isaac was quite old and blind when he blessed Jacob. Esau had taken several wives by then. Jacob left for Paddan-aram soon after.
  3. Since Isaac lived to be 180 (given), his ‘old age’ may be estimated as after his 130th year. This makes Jacob more than 70 when he left for Paddan-aram.
  4. Levi was Jacob’s third son from Leah, whom he married 7 years before Rachel. Then Leah had a fourth, the two maids had four with some overlap (after Jacob married Rachel) and then Leah had another two, before Rachel had Joseph, Jacob’s eleventh, while still in Paddan-aram. So, we wouldn’t be far out if we estimated some 11 years between Levi and Joseph. Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born (given, Jacob was 130 and Joseph 39 at Jacob’s entry). So, Levi was born when Jacob was about 80.
  5. Jacob was 130 (given) when he entered Egypt. This means that Levi was about 50 then. Levi’s sons, 1-Gershon, 2-Kohath and 3-Merari were members of Jacob’s family at entry. (Jacob and hismale offspring numbered70 altogether, including Joseph and his sons: Genesis 46. 26-27). So Kohath was born when Levi was about 45.
  6. Amram was Kohath’s son and he married his auntYokhebed, Levi’s daughter.
  7. Moses was the second son of Amram and Yokhebed, three years younger than Aaron.
  8. If Levi had Yokhebed when he was about 80 and she was about 40 when she had Moses, then Moses was born about 120 years after Levi and about 70 years after the entry of Jacob’s family into Egypt.
  9. Moses was only about 60 at the Exodus, exaggerated to 80. Joshua went looking for Moses just after the Pharaoh (Thutmose I) that reigned during Moses’ crime died. Moses could not have stayed in Midian for more than 20 years. His sons were only small children at the Exodus. Therefore, the sojourn lasted for 130 years, (miscopied or exaggerated orally to 430).
  10. Thepure Israelite malesbetween 20 and 60 at the Exodus numbered less than 1000. It is written in the Bible that 603000adult males, not counting the house of Levi, entered Sinai.This is a very huge number. This must have also included all house members: the far more numerous offspring of the households they took with them into Egypt and that of many others, reduced to slavery earlier, during Joseph’s rule, when the construction of the storage cities was started; (still exaggerated). This means that the order concerning the Hebrew male babies was either not effective at all or, most probably, concerned only the Israelite princes,descendants of Jacob, not the rest of the slaves. (The pharaohs would be stupid to stop the male progeny of all their slaves; no males no next generation of slaves, male or female).
  11. If we accept the reckoning of time after the Israelites entered Canaan as more accurate than in earlier disorganized times, then we may consider also that the quotation of 480 years between the Exodus and the foundation of the Temple as reliable.
  12. Taking the date of the foundation of the Temple, (temple reckoning), around 1000 and counting backwards, the Exodus was around 1480, Jacob’s entry around 1610 and Joseph’s entry around 1632, (22 years earlier than Jacob).
  13. This means that Joseph’s pharaoh was most probably the Hyksos pharaoh Khyan. To honor Joseph, the pharaoh allowed him the use of his second chariot(Genesis 41, 43). Joseph’s rise to prominence, (30 years old), could not have been before the Hyksos. It was the Hyksos that first introduced the horse-driven chariot into Egypt and, at that time, nobody else in Egypt used one. The area of Goshen, where the Israelites settled, was very near the Hyksoscapital Avaris. Joseph rode in a chariot from Avaris to Goshen to meet his father, (with his servants or subjects and herds of livestock), on arrival. Goshen was a frequently flooded pastoral area, part of “the land of Raameses”, where the storage city of Raameses was built.The king that “did not know Joseph”,(or even envied Joseph because Khyan placed Joseph above everybody else), must have been some later king of the same dynasty.
  14. It was definitely the Hyksos that built their storage cities of Raameses and Pithom near their capital Avaris. (The Egyptian pharaohs destroyed Avaris). They were completed by the Hyksos kings that “did not know Joseph”, using Hebrew slaves also.
  15. Joseph had helped theHyksos take all the gold of the Egyptians in the area, all their cattle and all their land in exchange for wheat during the seven years of famine (Genesis 47, 13-21). So, after the Hyksos were expelled, the Egyptian Pharaohs had a very strong reason to feel mistrust or even animosity towards the Israelite princes and, in consequence, wanted to curb both their power and their numbers.Hence, the order concerning only theIsraelite male babies; not the rest of the slaves.
  16. Notice the namesMoses, Kamose, Ahmose and Thutmose, the liberators,attributed to Kamose who drove theHyksos out of Middle Egypt and Kamose’s successors who completed the job, driving the Hyksosout from the rest of Egypt, including Avaris.
  17. This makes Thutmose II the Exodus pharaoh, a weak pharaoh dominated by his half-sister and wife Hatsepsut. His death coincides with the year of the Exodus. That he is the Exodus pharaoh is supported by the fact that most, not all, of his monuments were dismantled by Hatsepsut, (later restored by Thutmose III). It is more probable that Hatsepsut and Thutmose III jointly carried out the whole restoration or renovation of most of his monuments, in order to wipe out any references to Moses contained in the originals. Such must have also been the fate of some monuments of the two pharaohs before him that contained similar references, depicting Moses as a glorious Egyptian Prince, who distinguished himself in their campaigns.
  18. These estimates give the birth dates of the Patriarchs as follows: Abraham 1900, Isaac 1800 and Jacob 1740 BCE.

***When Moseswas asked recently, he confirmed the Exodus Pharaoh. He said that he spent 17 years in Midian, he was 67 at the Exodus and the crossing of Sinai took 33 years and 8 months. The dates may be adjusted accordingly but they are about right.

As for the complete absence of Egyptian records on the Exodus, it was quite usual for pharaohs to destroy inglorious records of history. The worst of them in this was the mad fanatic Horemheb, infamous for his destruction of records of everything and everybody he hated, especially what and who was associated with monotheism and the Aten heresy.

We would like to make a special reference here to Horemheb and the struggle between Atenites and Amonites, because this will also throw some light on the fate of Tutankhamun and the two religious doctrines of Aten and Amon.

The Aten heresy was founded by the very enlightened pharaoh Amenhotep (Amenophis) IV (1350-1335), who adopted the Atenmonotheism, changed his name to Akhenaten and moved his administrative and religious capital to a new city he built in the center of Egypt between Memphis and Thebes and called it Akhetaten. He proclaimed his One God under the name ‘Aten the God of Love’. He consequently proclaimed also the equality of all men, which undermined authority among the ignorant. This is what brought about the alienation and later the bloody clash between the adherents of the two religions. It was not a clash between monotheism and polytheism. The Amonite religion was also monotheistic.

Explanation of the two religions:

In our Supergalactic System there is a very multitudinous pyramid of command, with our Heavenly Father as the single vertex of this pyramid. As in the case of any administrative or control system, every coordinating Node in the pyramid controls a number of subordinate control Nodes but is itself controlled by a single coordinator above itself. So, although there are literally trillions of such governing Nodes or Gods in the pyramid of command of our Supergalactic system, every individual, whether a Node high up in the pyramid or an individual at the bottom of the pyramid, should necessarily be monotheistic. Otherwise the coordinated system would collapse into disarray.

‘Aten’ is an Atlantian word meaning the ‘center of all things’ or the ‘heart’ or the ‘Soul’. It was used to express the Universal Creative Principle, Agape-love the Universal Father;(the same as Atman in Hinduism). The Universal Fatherdoes not have an objective personality and, hence, hedoes not exercise any authority. He is manifest as the basic subjectivity in every sentient being with objective personality. He is the property of Infinite and Unbound space and, together with the rest of the triune Universality, answers more to “What is it?” than to “Who is it?” He was symbolized as the UniversalSun Ra.

The Universal Father relates directly and equally to everything and everybody. Every Proton exhibits all the subjective characteristics of Life, attributes of the Universal Father. Having this leveling relation with the ‘Father’, you see no reason why you should obey anybody. There isno hierarchy. However, the Universal Father, Agape-love, tends to level out everything and destroy all structured or coordinated Systems. In this leveling relationship, you are equal to all the gods but, at the same time, equal to every grain of sand in aninfinite desert;and, with the ruthless increase of Entropy outside any structured or coordinated System, this is where you will finally end up. (See ‘Cosmogony … clarified’).

‘Amon’ is an Adamite word meaning ‘the Faithful and Devoted One’ and from it come words like ‘Amnon’-the-Lamb and Ami in French. Jesusand Zeus (Amon-Zeus) as well as Ra (Amon-Ra) were given this adjective as faithful representatives of the Heavenly Father.

The name‘Amon’ was taken to Egypt byIonian/Phoenicianimmigrants (worshipers of Amon-Zeus) after their great exodus from Asia Minor around 2750 BCE, who founded the Amon sanctuary in Luxor/Thebes, (no pyramids), at the same time that Cadmus founded Thebes in Boeotia/Greece and Phoenix founded Tyre. It was for this reason that the Thebanpharaohs considered the Tyrian and the Boeotian Phoeniciansas their brothers.

As mentioned further up, the Amonites were monotheistic too. The problem, as the Amonite priesthood saw it, was that the ‘equality of all men’ proclaimed by the Atenite doctrine undermined hierarchy and respect of authority among the ignorant. (Just like today’s misunderstood and misused contestation democracy). Though they saw the philosophic merits of the Atenite concept, they considered the doctrine as a threat to stability. It is most unfortunate that such confrontations always create and bring to power and prominence stupid fanatics. Such was Horemheb and many among the priesthood.

After Akhenaten’s death, his wife Nefertiti ruled Egypt from Akhetaten. His 8-year old son Tutankhaten was lured away from Akhetaten by commander-in-chiefPaatenmheb,[whom Nefertiti trusted as a devoted follower ofAten(feigned)], and abducted to Thebes, where Paatenmheb revealed himself as a fanatic Amonite with the name HoremhebMeryamun. The Amonite priests needed a puppet pharaoh in order to give themselves royal legitimacy. Tutankhatenhad to accept the name Tutankhamun in order to survive as puppet pharaoh in Amon’s capital, allowed out of the palace only under military escort. The actual rulers were the military commanders Horemheb and Ay. Ay’s granddaughter (Tutankhamun’s half-sister) Ankhesenaten-Ankhesenamun was given as wife to Tutankhamun, who, together with Ay and Ankhesenamun, remained undeclaredAtenites. Tutankhamun was alive until Nefertiti’s death. Nefertiti was killed when Akhetaten was attacked and totally destroyed by an army from Thebes led by Horemheb and its memory erased, together with the memory of the queen. At the same time Tutankhamun was murdered, (may be a staged accident), and so were his children, as part of the same plot. (Their mummies are not those of miscarried fetuses. Even the smaller mummy has full-grown hair.) Ay moved quickly and married the queen, before Horemheb returned to Thebes, and declared himself pharaoh. Ay died 4 years later and Ankhesenamun was murdered soon after. Ay was succeeded by Horemheb, who erased the memory of Tutanhamun from all records, even chiseled his cartouche off all monuments and replaced it with his own. He did the same for Ay and Ankhesenamun. This was his way of wiping out any vestiges of the Aten heresy.