Dear
Damien,
I must
have had your paper on Moses ages ago, made my notes in the margin but never
shared my understanding of the man's early life with you.
Damien’s Comment: I recently attempted to identify Moses
historically:
Moses - May be
Staring Revisionists Right in the Face
Used the
following to gainsay those who called him and the Exodus "a myth".
It would
appear we differ on both dynasties and chronology - isn't the XII too early?
MOSES was
a general, as fully described by Josephus in Antiquities, Book II,
ch X.
Damien’s Comment: My Moses was all that and more.
In ch XI,
after he had virtually saved Egypt as its victorious general over the
Ethiopians/Cushites, he had to flee for his life from an assassination plot. He
was heir to a throne in Egypt as the ruler had a daughter but no grandchildren.
Josephus: "if Moses had been slain, there was no one, either a kin or
adopted, that had any oracle on his side for pretending to the crown of
Egypt." Here are our clues - a dynasty in which Moses is General, and one
which effectively ended at the point in history that Moses fled and did not
regain authority in the land. There is such a dynasty which also exercised jurisdiction
in the Northeastern Delta where Israel dwelt and Moses was found - Dynasty
XIII.
Damien’s Comment: Since the Thirteenth Dynasty was partly
contemporaneous with the Twelfth, Moses may also have a Thirteenth Dynasty identity.
Manetho recorded that it was during the reign of one
"Tutimaios" (who may be identified with Dudimose of the Thirteenth Dynasty)
that the Hyksos overran Egypt.
The total
length of this dynasty according to Africanus' and Eusebius' epitomes from
Manetho was 453 years under 60 rulers. But the version of Barbarus provides a
missing detail from Manetho. It reveals that for a time the court was not only
at Thebes, but at Bubastis in the Delta for the first 153 years (Alfred
Schoene's edition of Eusebius, p. 214).
In the
Turin Canon catalogue of kings of the thirteenth dynasty, listed number 17, is
"The General" with the throne name of Semenkhkare (Gardiner's Egypt
of the Pharaohs, p. 440; and Weigall's History of the Pharaohs,
pp 136, 151-152). The Egyptian word for "the General" was Mermeshoi -
not in all dynastic history does this title appear again as the personal name
of a ruler of Egypt.
When
Moses was made General or Commander of the Troops, he automatically inherited
royal authority, as only kings could have the supreme command of the army,
explaining his appearance in the list. Before the rise to power of this famous
General, the thirteenth dynasty was of Asiatic blood. Its kings at time bore
the epithet "the Asiatic" - hence no basic prejudice in adopting the
Hebrew child Moses into the family. (See volume II, ch II of the revised Cambridge
Ancient History, ed.1962.)
The
sixteenth king listed in the Turin Canon - just before "the General"
- is Userkare Khendjer - the latter being an un-Egyptian personal name. He
ruled over the Delta as well as Upper Egypt. A pyramid of his has been found at
South Saqqara. No descendant of his is known to have succeeded to the throne.
Though nothing more is known of this man's family, every evidence points to him
as the Pharaoh whose daughter is mentioned in the book of Exodus. Within a few
years the influence of this dynasty in the eastern Delta ceased.
The kings
of this obscure period often have their names associated with king Neferkare
(Turin Canon) on royal seals who is Phiops of Manetho, and commonly known as
Pepi the Great. Here is the final proof that these minor rulers of Dynasty XIII
were contemporaneous with the last great Pharaoh of the sixth dynasty of
Memphis - the pharaoh of the Oppression.
Damien’s Comment: This would seem to support the Courvillean view
of some contemporaneity of the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt.
More than
one name on a scarab has puzzled many historians, who view Egypt as generally
ruled by one king at a time, but literally hundreds of such seals have been
found. They are generally treated with discreet silence, for the implication of
these seals would revolutionise the history of Egypt. (See The Sceptre
of Egypt, by William C Hayes, Vol.I, p.342)
Moses is
finally able to return to Egypt "and it came to pass in the course of
those many days that the king of Egypt died" (Ex. 2:23) confirms that it
was a long wait as Pepi the Great ruled for 94 years and died at age 100,
succeeded by his son Menthesuphis (Manetho) or Merenre II-Antyemzaef (Turin
Canon) - the Pharaoh of the Exodus who ruled only one year 1487-1486, perishing
in the Red Sea.
Damien’s Comment: Actually, the “Sea of Reeds” (Yam Suf).
His widow
Nitocris (Manetho) or Nitokerty (Turin Canon) ruled 12 years, followed by their
son Neferka "the younger" - his first born elder brother and heir
presumptive having died at the time of the Exodus.
Manetho
ends his list here as the invading Hyksos having by then taken full control of
the country with their Dynasty XV and ruled Egypt for the next 400 years.
I feel we
are on safe ground to designate Pepi the Great as the oppressive pharaoh.
Userkare Kendjer with an ethnic affinity with the Hebrews does not strictly
apply the rules emanating from Memphis by elevating Moses who must later have gained
huge popularity following his military success. Those factors may well have
raised serious concerns at Memphis HO, prompting Pepi the Great to seek Moses'
death by giving those assassination orders to the Bubastis court, and also
maintaining his fatwa against Moses till the end of his life and reign.
Best
regards
....
Damien
Mackey replies:
….
I just
remembered that I, a few months ago, wrote a proposed synthesis of the biblical
era, from Abraham to the Exodus, with the corresponding Egyptian history (and
archaeology). See my:
See also, now, the more recent:
Bible Bending Pharaonic Egypt. Part One: Abraham to
Exodus.
plus the above-mentioned “Moses” article.
…. Fundamental
to my reconstruction are the following (after that I am tentative):
- The archaeological period from Abram at
the time of the four Mesopotamian kings, to the Exodus, is bookended by Abram
in Late Chalcolithic and Ghassul IV (Transjordan) and the Exodus Israelites as
the Middle Bronze I (MBI) people.
- According to this archaeological
evidence, Abram was contemporaneous with … Narmer ….
See:
who may
be the Akkadian, Naram Sin
Part Two: Narmer as Naram Sin
….
[Abram’s
Pharaoh], the biblical Abimelech pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac, was clearly a
very long-reigning ruler, which would suit pharaoh Aha, the first dynastic king.
Pharaoh of Abraham and Isaac
- Joseph is surely Imhotep, and
Ptah-hotep.
Joseph as Thales: Not an "Hellenic Gotterdamerung" but Israelite Wisdom
- I fully accept the expert testimony of
Dr. R. Cohen (Israelites as MBI) and Professor Emmanuel Anati (Har Karkom is
Mount Sinai).
and
- Anati notes (and I accept this) that the
story of the Egyptian Sinuhe shares
‘a common matrix’ with that of Moses fleeing Egypt for Midian. (Obviously there
are some vast differences as well between these two tales). That nails Moses to
late Amenemes I and early Sesostris I. Revisionists have found some striking 12th dynasty
correlations with the Exodus account (e.g. those bricks mixed with straw).
- The MBI people do just what the Israelites did in their trek through the Paran desert, Transjordania and into Palestine, where Early Bronze Jericho falls.
Comparing a One Dimensional Biblico-Stratigraphical Model with a Multi-Dimensional One
The 13thdynasty
may possibly be partly contemporaneous with the life of Moses.
But be
careful.
The name,
“Moses”, did not mean “General”. It was given to Moses with the meaning of
being “drawn from the water” (Exodus 2:10): “She named him Moses, saying, ‘I
drew him out of the water’.” So that might shake your correspondence
between Mermoshis and Userkare K.
(Perhaps
Joseph, not Moses, was more likely to have left a dynasty of Asiatics).
You will
see that I, too, have the 6th dynasty contemporaneous with the
era of Moses, though I have not yet been able fully to integrate it all. Given
my synthesis of dynasties (following Courville’s clue but not his model), then
some 13th dynasty princes (or whatever they were) may well have
been contemporaneous with the 6th dynasty’s Neferkare (Pepi the
Great).
But Pepi
the Great was not a founder, a “new king” (exodus 1:8), so you perhaps need to
allow for two major pharaohs before the Pharaoh of the Oppression: namely, the
founder Pharaoh and then, as according to the Artapanus tradition, the
“Chenephres” (Neferkare?) who married Moses’s Egyptian ‘mother’, “Merris”
(Meresankh, or Meres-ankh).
Artapanus’s
“Chenephres” (Neferkare) and “Merris” pattern is fulfilled both with Chephren
and Ankhesenmerire (i.e. Meresankh), in the 4th dynasty, and
perhaps with Huni (Neferkare) and Meresankh, as explained in the above article,
in relation to Sneferu (as Moses).
Merenre,
followed by Nitocris, then the Hyksos, is a pattern that I, too, have
previously proposed for the finale – but without properly having been able to
blend the entire 6th dynasty with the biblical picture.
I hope
that this is helpful ….
No comments:
Post a Comment