Toto

The Ipuwer Papyrus again. Read the prior discussion (I'm getting tired of having to pull this up):

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000361" target="_blank">What is the scoop on the "Ipuwer Papyrus" re: the Plagues of Egypt? </a>

citing this:

"The point of these papyri is to show that when people act wrongly, disasters come upon the country," said James Tate, an associate curator at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. "They always end up with a new pharaoh coming who acts properly, who restores the country to righteousness and right order."

from:

<a href="http://www.toxicmold.org/documents/0104.html" target="_blank">http://www.toxicmold.org/documents/0104.html</a>

Corwin

Well you'd think there would have been SOME reference, even if only along the lines of 'Our Mighty Emperor ran after those damn hebrew slaves and was killed in an unfortunate tragic accident.'

KeithHarwood

It's been a long time since I last lookeed at this, but my recollection is that Ipuwer lived and wrote at the end of the sixth dynasty, the end of the Old Kingdom, and that he described some of the events that brought about that end. I was also under the impression that there are many copies of this testament because it was a favourite exercise given to trainee scribes. I was further under the impression that the exodus, if it happened, happened at the height of the New Kindom, some thousand odd years later.

To use Ipuwer to support exodus is like saying that the Venerable Bede's descriptions of the Danish invasions of Britain is proof that the Eugenic Wars really happened.

NOGO

If we are to believe the Bible then some 3 million people left Egypt. Now if we assume that Egyptian historians wanted to ignore this event they should surely have described the sudden dip in the standard of living of Egyptians in general. Just think of the impact on the Egyptian economy due to the loss of 3 million workers.

What makes this story difficult to believe is the fact that these 3 million slaves had a meal which consisted of meat on the night before their departure. Think about this for a moment. 3 million meals with meat, searver to slaves, in Egypt which was an agrarian society.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

nerv111

Another possible explanation for the lack of records of the exodus in Egypt would be that we are looking in the wrong place. I forget who suggested this, but it goes something like this:

The story of the Exodus found in the Bible is based on the expulsion of the Hyksos (Asiatic tribes who gained control of Egypt during the 2nd Intermediate Period) by Ahmose. After the victory of the Egyptians, the Hyksos were expelled form Egypt. This is some I believe 300 prior to when the Exodus was suppose to have occurred. What was suggested is that the story over a few generations was twisted into that of the Exodus by the descendants of the Hyksos (who were expelled back into the Levant region). So the oppressors rationalized their defeat by stating that they were the ones being oppressed, seems reasonable.

Thus the records are there, its just that the accounts of the event differ.

[ March 21, 2002: Message edited by: nerv111 ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

The following from Egypt, Cannan, and Israel in Ancient Times by Donald B. Redford:

But the problem goes beyond an absence of information ...

spin

Sole Controller:
--------------------
According to my understanding of history, the acient Egyptians were excellent keepers of records. With this in mind, Why are there no records of a mass exodus of Jewish slaves in acient egyptian history. Also would that not have put a black mark on Ramses rein.
--------------------

There strangely is a record of such a mass exodus of Jews from Egypt, though sadly it is dated very late, a bowdlerized text of Manetho preserved in Josephus which was compiled after the time of the last Nubian king Tanutamani fled south as a garbled version of that event is preserved in the Manetho account. It equates the Hebrews with the Hyksos, so, while that equation is obviously wrong, there is a historical core to the exodus story though it has nothing originally to do with any Jews and a mass departure from Egypt. We have a historical event based on the Hyksos who were driven out of Egypt by the pharaoh Ahmose being reattributed to the Jews during the post-exilic era, when I think the exodus story was compiled as a response to the Egyptian attacks.

Obviously the Egyptians knew how to repackage historical events to their own favour as in the case of the near disaster at Qadesh when the Egyptians were lucky to have survived the battle against the Hittites. Ramses II's version makes it seem like a victory to the Egyptians, but a close reading of the events with what can be gleaned from the Hittites shows that the glowing victory was more an avoidance of a routing. If they wanted to cover up a Jewish departure the story could have been recooked for a better taste. It wasn't.

As stated though there was already a mass departure of unwanted people from Egypt when Ahmose drove out the Hyksos. The Egyptians followed up that campaign with a series of subsequent romps into Palestine eventually setting up an empire which spread as far as Qadesh, most of which it maintained down to the time of the arrival of the Philistines and other "sea peoples" around 1160 BCE. The point of the empire was to assure that something like the Hyksos infiltration and takeover could not happen again. It didn't, though they didn't stop small movements of nomadic peoples across their borders. However there were forts along the Suez border to ensure against mass movements or buildups.

The exodus was not a fabrication. It was simply an event which was wrongly attributed by the Egyptians of the post-exilic period to the Jews (for propagandistic purposes), which the Jews latched onto and dealt with according to their own traditions.

Radcliffe Emerson

I saw a special on this on Discovery International, and they do have records from Egypt mentioning Israel.
They said, however, that Egypt never recorded details of their defeats, only their victories. As the exodus, if it happened would have been a defeat, they would not have recorded it.

Jayhawker Soule

I watch the news daily and Egypt often mentions Israel. Your point?

lpetrich

Modern Egypt, yes.

Pharaonic Egypt, no.

However, as I'd pointed out, this defeat is too big to hide, and they would likely have presented it as a triumph. "We successfully drove out those disease-ridden, rebellious slaves," or something like that.

Manetho's account is something like that -- and it may have been invented as a reply to the Exodus account.