Here in Part 4 of my look at David Rohl’s book, The Exodus: Myth or History? we are going to look at what he has to say about the figure of Moses and the actual Exodus itself. To get us from the time of Joseph to the time of Moses, though, Rohl first gives a bit more archaeological findings regarding what was found in the city of Avaris.
A Bit More About Avaris and the Semites Who Lived There
According to archaeologists, when the original town of Hawara was renamed Avaris during the co-regency of 12th Dynasty rulers Senuseret III and Amenemhat III (19th-18th centuries BC according to the traditional chronology; 17th century BC according to Rohl’s new chronology). It originally had about 20 houses, with a population of about 100 Semites. After the death of Amenemhat III, the entirely Semitic population increased early in the 13th Dynasty. But then by the middle of the 13th Dynasty, a new sub-dynasty of pharaohs from Thebes gained power and enslaved the Semites. In addition, archeologists note higher death rates in Avaris at one point, with 50% of the burials being of children, and 2/3 of those children being boys. Rohl argues that this is evidence that corresponds to what we find in the opening chapter of Exodus, namely that a pharaoh who “didn’t know Joseph” not only enslaved the Hebrews, but also initiated a scheme to kill off any male children.
Incidentally, going back again to the Egyptian vizier Ankhu whom, as discussed in my previous post, Rohl believes was Joseph, it turns out that Akhu’s daughter, Senebhenas, married the brother of Queen Aya, who was married to Sobekhotep I—first king of the 13th Dynasty. After Ankhu died, his son Resseneb (whom Rohl thinks was Manasseh) became vizier, and who possibly even became King Resseneb, the successor to Sobekhotep II, making him the 14th ruler in the 13th Dynasty, and making Ankhu’s other son, Iymeru (Ephraim) the vizier. Translation? It seems Ankhu’s family was rather tight with the family of the Pharaoh and was actually quite powerful at the time.
But then, midway through the 13th Dynasty, everything changed for some reason. All of a sudden, archeologists found in slave lists at the time (the Brooklyn Papyus being an example) a whole lot of very Hebrew names: Menahem, Asher, Issachar, and even Shiphrah, the name of one of the midwives in the Moses story. Rohl suspects the change came during the reign of Sobekhotep III, the 26th ruler in the 13th Dynasty. Thus, he could have been the “pharaoh who didn’t know Joseph.”
Needless to say, I find that incredibly interesting. With that, let’s get to Moses…
Moses, A Prince of Egypt
In chapter 9 of Rohl’s book, he begins to talk about the figure of Moses and speculates as to who he could have been. In the Book of Exodus, we are told that when that unnamed Pharaoh tried to kill the Hebrew male children, that Moses’ mother put him in a basket and placed it among the reeds by the river’s edge. Eventually, a daughter of the Pharaoh found Moses and essentially adopted him. Moses thus was raised among Egyptian royalty. He, a Hebrew, lived as royalty while the rest of the Hebrews were enslaved. The natural question now becomes, “Is there any evidence for any of that?” I will lay out Rohl’s argument as clearly as possible and let you be the judge. Spoiler alert: I think Rohl’s argument is quite speculative but is nevertheless possible.
Early on, Rohl points to the work of Artapanus, a Jewish historian in 2nd century BC Alexandria, who wrote a history of the Jews in Egypt. His work was burned in the great fire of the Alexandrian library, but fragments of his work are found in other works, like that of the early Church Father Clement of Alexandria. In the fragments we have, we find that Artapanus claimed that the Egyptian princess who became Moses’ adoptive mother was Princess Merris (Thermuthis, in Josephus), daughter of Palmanothes, a smaller ruler in Avaris. Eventually, she married Sobekhotep IV, the 29th ruler of the 13th Dynasty. If true, that would make Sobekhotep IV Moses’ stepfather.
It turns out that Sobekhotep IV had four sons, with his eldest son named Sobekhotep Mio. For some reason, though, it was Merhotepre Sobekhotep V who eventually ascended the throne, not Sobekhotep Mio. We simply are not told why.
Another interesting bit of information that both Artapanus and Josephus give us is that at one point during the reign of Sobekhotep IV there was a Cushite invasion of Egypt and that it was the eldest son Sobekhotep Mio, whom they claim was Prince Moses, who led the fight to repel the Cushites. This war apparently lasted for ten years and ended with Sobekhotep Mio marrying a Cushite wife as part of the peace deal. The reason why this is interesting is that in Numbers 12:1 we learn that at one point Moses had married a Cushite wife. In any case, this Sobekhotep Mio seemed to be quite popular among the ordinary Egyptians and the Semitic population in particular. But nothing else is known about him. He simply drops off the map, so to speak, and Merhotepre Sobekhotep V ends up succeeding Sobekhotep IV.
That’s Rohl’s speculation regarding Moses actually being Sobekhotep Mio. Is there cold, hard evidence for it? Well, there is the writings of Artapanus from the 2nd century BC and Josephus from the 1st century AD—but both are dated to over 1500 years after the time of the Exodus. So, are they convincing to you? Like I said, I find it incredibly interesting and obviously possible, but is that all by itself conclusive? No. Still, I think when it is situated along with everything else that the archeology, Egyptian records, and the biblical account tells us, it certainly is intriguing.
The Plagues Leading Up to the Exodus
When it comes to the events of the Exodus themselves, Rohl points out that one of the last pharaohs of the 13th Dynasty was Dudimose. Rohl thinks that this Dudimose might be the actual pharaoh of the Exodus, for he ascended to the throne about 44 years after the death of Soberhotep IV. If you are familiar with the Exodus account, you know that after Moses fled from Egypt, he remained in Midian for…yep, you guessed it, 40 years.
In any case, when it comes to the actual ten plagues depicted in Exodus 7-12, the two main scholarly explanations for them are as follows: (A) Some argue that there are natural explanations for the plagues. I remember reading a book by Werner Keller entitled The Bible as History in which he gives the details of this argument—pretty interesting. (B) Most every scholar, though, agrees that, regardless of whether or not you can explain the plagues through natural means, the overarching theological message that clearly comes across in Exodus 7-12 is that YHWH, the God of Israel, is more powerful than the gods of Egypt.
What Rohl focuses on regarding the plagues, though, is something different (for that matter, I think Rohl’s view regarding Exodus 7-12 probably is reflected in the above paragraph). What Rohl instead does is to draw our attention to an ancient Egyptian work dated to the Second Intermediate Period at the end of the 13th Dynasty, entitled, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage. It is referred to as the Ipuwer Papyrus.
In short, it tells of a calamitous event in Egypt’s history involving foreigners who brought Egypt to its knees. In the account, it talks of the Nile turning to blood, the destruction of crops and famine, the death of livestock, Egypt being on the brink of ruin, and darkness over the land. And although Ipuwer doesn’t specific speak of “the death of the firstborn,” he does lament the death of children throughout Egypt. In addition, Ipuwer laments that the earlier pharaohs had not wiped out the Asiatics (Semites) who arrived during the 12th Dynasty. He writes: “There is fire in their hearts! If only he [Rohl speculates this refers to Amenemhat III] had perceived their nature in the first generation! Then he would have smitten the evil and stretched out his arm against it. He would have destroyed their seed and their heritage.”
Surprisingly (or not surprisingly?), most scholars seem to dismiss the possibility of the Ipuwer Papyrus being an Egyptian account of the plagues for two reasons: (A) The account just seems too fantastic, therefore can’t be real; and (B) The account doesn’t date to the 13th century to the time of Rameses II, but rather to hundreds of years earlier. Of course, Rohl’s argument (as well as that of many other scholars) is that the Exodus didn’t happen in the 13th century under Rameses II, but rather to hundreds of years earlier.
One Last Look at Avaris…and the Coming of the Hyksos
There is one final thing that Rohl points out regarding the city of Avaris at the end of the 13th Dynasty. There seems to have been some kind of plague called the “Asiatic Disease” that swept through the area. Instead of proper burials, there are death pits in which bodies have just been thrown. After that happened, the entire Asiatic quarter of Avaris (during the time of Dudimose) is completely abandoned. This would mean that the Semitic population of Avaris left about 178 years after the beginning of the 13th Dynasty.
Now, for the longest time, I had tended toward the view that Jacob’s family had come into Egypt during the reign of the Hyksos Dynasty—the Hyksos were a Semitic people who had come in and taken over Egypt for about 100 years or so (according to the conventional timeline, 1650-1550 BC). That, I thought, would explain why the Pharaoh at the time was kind to Joseph and his family—they were all Semites. Then, when Ahmose I drove the Hyksos out in 1550 BC, that could have been the start of the enslavement of the Hebrews. And then, about 100 years later, during the reign of Amenophis II (1450-1425 BC), the Exodus would have occurred.
Rohl, though, argues that the Exodus happened before the rise of the Hyksos altogether, and that it was precisely because Egypt had been weakened by the plagues (the event recorded in the Ipuwer Papyrus) that the Hyksos were able to sweep into Egypt shortly after and dominate it for 100 years, with their capital being Avaris, after being eventually driven out by Ahmose I in 1550 BC.
Again, much of this is speculative, and it does require a rethinking of the long-accepted Egyptian chronology to a certain extent that I am in no way able to speak on with any amount of authority. But nevertheless, there certainly seems to be enough there that should cause one to take it seriously. I don’t think it is possible to absolutely nail down any of this—the Patriarchs, Joseph, Jacob’s family moving to Egypt, the length of their time in Egypt, the Egyptian identity of Moses, the plagues and the specific dates of any of this—with absolute certainty. But my goodness, I think there is a lot more going for this view than the current modern biblical minimalist view that throws up its hands and says, “Well, there’s no evidence for an Exodus in the mid-13th century, so it’s all just a bunch of fiction!”
Next stop on our book analysis journey—The Exodus Journey itself.
