This may be old hat to some, but...

I was looking for what extra-biblical evidence there is for the Plagues of Egypt as told in the Old Testament story of Exodus. I started searching at encarta.msn.com to begin my little quest, and I seem to have hit upon some startling evidence for its truth in something called the "Ipuwer Papyrus", which is talked about at: http://www.ohr.org.il/special/pesach/ipuwer.htm

This website was linked from an MS Encarta search.

What is the deal with this? The way this appears, there is strong corroboration that the plagues of Egypt actually took place. Can anyone else shed some more light on this for me?

Thanks!

To me it looks like a haox of some kind, never even saw anything about this on any of those great ancient mysteries shows I like so much, including the really dumb ones. Ask someone at expertcentral.com they have Egyptologists & historians. I know a lot of cultures have tales similar to this, the Sumerians had the 'Lament of Ur' & 'the Lament of Inanna' which sound similar. I have heard some suggest that the 'Plagues' were caused by a natural disaster such as when a volcano blew up & destroyed Minoa or Thera (?) Thats as close as anything I've ever seen to this except Velokowski's "When Worlds Collide" which is considered bogus.

Toto

I did a Google search, and the papyrus appears to be real, but implications drawn from it may not be. E.g., it was a favorite of Velikovsky.

The most reasonable item I found was a reprint of an article about a medical doctor analysing the papyrus for evidence of early diseases, with this comment:
http://www.toxicmold.org/documents/0104.html
also this:

http://pages.ancientsites.com/~plagu..._Inca/who.html

The scroll seems to read that the flames are against the 'enemies of the land', not lighting their way.

What are the dates ususally given for the writing of the book of Exodus? If the Ten Commandments were taken from the book of the Dead, the authors of Exodus probably borrowed this too.

Heh, Pitshade. Good catch. That little bit does seem to be a significant problem for the idea.

Everyone else, great reading choices. Thanks. It's beginning to look like a case similar to "Noah's Flood" where there might be some reality behind the myth, but that the myth itself isn't what people crack it up to be (such as a local NOT a global flood.)

Everyone agrees it is somewhere in 1400 BCE - 500 BCE. Which is rather general...
It all depends on whether one subscribes to the JEPD source hypothesis or not. Among scholars who do there is still great disagrement over dates and which passages should be attributed to each source. But in general JEPD supporters date it somewhere in 1000 BCE to 500 BCE.
Those who don't support JEPD generally date it between 1400 BCE and 700 BCE.

Personally I don't support the JEPD hypothesis and believe that it should be dated in the 14 century BCE.

Typical, if the historiic docuement does not agree with an Atheist's faith, it must be "a haox" or "bogus."

Why is it "a haox"? Because "[marduck] never even saw anything about this." Ignorance is the equal to evidence against. Normally a fallicy, but acceptable rational to Atheists.

FarSeeker

Toto

Marduck was wrong on this particular point, but any ancient document could be a hoax. It's just something you have to watch out for. And even if it's not a hoax, it could be fiction, propaganda, or just not true.

It also appears that the document does not support the Biblical account of Exodus, or the arrival of space aliens in ancient cultures.

"Why is it "a haox"? Because "[marduck] never even saw anything about this." "


Yes, it's true. lazy marduck called it a hoax before reading the entire thing, only to discover he was correct in pointing out that it's a typical ancient "Lament" after going back & looking at it.