Evidence for the Exodus (part 6): The Importance of the Amarna Letters
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- The Amarna Letters have revolutionized our understanding of the politics of the Ancient Near East and Levant. Today, we discuss the impact that the Amarna Letters had upon how we look at the exodus and the chronology of Dynasty 18 Egypt. The video is a little out of focus, for which I apologize. Unfortunately, my cinematography skills are not the greatest. Sigh...
In October I will be hosting a tour of Egypt with Tutku Tours. For more information about this tour in Egypt, please visit Tutku Tours (www.tutkutours.com/00_EGYPT_T....
We are raising funds for a new book project on the “Ten Plagues of Egypt.” In this book, we plan to delve into the Egyptian culture context of the plagues of the Exodus so as to discover what those plaques would have meant to the Egyptians. If you would like to help us with this project, please consider a donation to my GoFundMe campaign (www.gofundme.com/help-david-f....
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I've just discovered your channel and have really been enjoying the content. Just ordered The Ark of the Covenant in its Egyptian context.
Thanks Dave!!! Very helpful. You should publish this as a short journal article!
Third time I watched this video, then watched ABR on the same. You do make a person study, you rock.
Best
Second! And I don't get to say that often. Commend and thumb for the algorithm!
Hi dr. Falk. I want to say thank you for your work. First i was very skeptic with your videos. But i watched your videos and listened to your arguments, and i have to say their are very plausibel! amazing. I just have a question, i dont think you made video about the egyptian stela that mentions israel as a state in the late date. Do you have any thoughts on this?(Merenptah-Stele)
Hi Supptra25, I have lots of thoughts on the Merneptah Stela and will be doing a detailed video on it in the near future.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Thank you dr. Falk for your answer.
Fascinating!
Great commentary. I really enjoy your channel and want to hear more.
A lot of good baby names in this video for anyone who is expecting!
🤣🤣🤣 I have named some of my pet rabbits after ancient kings and queens.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Honestly, I'd be surprised if you didn't! I'd name a rabbit King Tut!
@@jedphillips9362 I named a flemish giant Tiglath-Pileser III. And my current bunny is named Merneith.
@@ancientegyptandthebible 🤣🤣🤣
I love using Hititte, Ugarit and Babylonian king names in my tabletop RPG.
Thanks for all your supporting information to your work. You are very thorough, very surprised there are 2 thumbs down.
I guess they didn't like the truth of what you debunked.
Many people hate me. It's an occupational hazard. 🙁
@@ancientegyptandthebible I understand. Unfortunately people don't like to be proven wrong because their theories don't hold water & it hurts their egos & agenda. The truth is very painful so they will try many ways to discredit you with insults & lies as opposed to proven facts.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Im sorry to hear that man. Is it secular people too for providing evidence for the Bible?
@@younggrasshopper3531 I do get the occasional hate mail from secularists, but I get the attacks mostly from other Christians.
@@ancientegyptandthebible My goodness… I have never been able to understand how the Christian family can get so caught up in their own bubbles as to even be concerned about other brothers sharing views and intelligently pointing out why other brothers may be in error about their teachings. It is not as though you are spreading malicious gossip to try to tear down Christianity.
Dr Falk, can you comment on Egyptian circumcision and baptism? How do they contrast and relate to later Israelite circumcision and mikvah respectively?
That is a long an complicated subject and I don't feel that I could cover the nuances of both systems adequately in a CZcams comment. Egypt had both circumcision and ritual bathing. We know that ritual bathing was the precursor to baptism.
Dr Falk, if I may inquire, what denomination do you adhere to?
I don't comment on the denomination that I commune with. Such comments only generate heat, never light. And I have no desire to be divisive along denominational lines.
I respect that. Still, it'll be great to hear you faith journey someday and how it shaped your present understanding of your field.
Nice video
Thank you.
Np
Dear Dr. Falk,
can you suggest any modern resource on the Amarna letters, especially the events in Canaan at the time, including their chronology.
The book I got a hold of is unfortunately from the 1960s.
William Moran's book "The Amarna Letters" is from the 1987 and it's still very useful. However, if you want something even more modern, there is Anson Rainey's book "The El-Amarna Correspondence" from 2015. I will warn you though that it is published by Brill and is therefore very expensive.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Thanks a lot!
@@str.77 My pleasure. 😁
👍
Dr. Falk does this timeline supports or refutes the claims of the documentary Patterns of Evidence?
Refutes. Viciously.
🙌
Interesting and educational?
DEFINITELY YES!
I hope that Dr David Falk considers writing a comparative chronology (in both written and visual form) of the Near Eastern people groups, Egypt; (hopefully touching upon the Mycenaeans and Minoans)… and the Israelites… highlighting his view of the Exodus… for the world to read… If time/resources allow of course.
I have often thought about it… including as far east as India-ish… etc… but your video productions make me realise how uneducated I actually am on the subject… 😄 If only I was able to specialise my thoughts… hehehe.
Unfortunately I am a ‘jack of all trades… master of none’ even though my friends think I am very knowledgable… just not as knowledgable as I would like. 😀
Did someone mention Suppiluliuma I?
Very interesting. Would the apparent paranoia of the Canaanites explain why King Sihon of Hesbon attacked the Israelites unprovoked?
Yes, very much so.
Am I right in thinking that I've heard you're writing a book on the Exodus (and its historicity)? If that's wrong, what works do you suggest and endorse on that subject?
I would like to do a book on the Ten Plagues of Egypt. I am hoping to do this as a detailed study, which could then lead to more general works on the subject. 😉
Please up your volume !!
So who would you say the hapiru were professor?
Hi, I was wondering what your opinion is on why Raamses in Exodus 1:11 is transliterated the way it is, it isn't written the same as the new capital city in the Ramaside period
Thank you
I'm not sure that I know what you mean. Could you please be more specific?
@@ancientegyptandthebible Sorry, the city was Pi-Ramesses but the Bible says Raamses with two A's, why would they write it like that?
@@nathanaelbuchanan341 Actually, Ramesses is written in the Hebrew as r-`-m-s-s. The spelling in Exod 1:11 is an effect of the Masoretic pointings adding a second A to the ayin. This second A is not attested in Num 33:3 and 33:5 which are clearly referring to the same place as Exod 1:11. The inspired text only has consonants, not vowels. The vowels were added by the Masoretes in the 5th-10th centuries AD, so the Masoretic pointing are a very helpful guide to pronouncing Hebrew but they are not inspired. As for the "pi/pr" in Pi-Ramesses, the Egyptians themselves sometimes dropped that prefix simply calling Pi-Ramesses, "Ramesses." So, it should not surprise us that the Hebrew writers also did likewise, as they did with Pithom/Etham. It is clear that the Hebrew is transliterating the Egyptian spelling of Ramesses (r-`-ms-sw) and even duplicates the phonetics of the second S.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Thank you very much, that’s really helpful! I hadn’t realised about Numbers 33
@@ancientegyptandthebible Hello Dr. Falk,
velkyn1, this one guy who always attacks your youtube channel has raised this argument: "600 military units is not enough to build two cities" that's it. Respond to this, please.
There is also a guy called "Ford Perfect" on youtube, who said he was banned from your channel for specific reasons. Was this the one egyptologist you mentioned in your interviews?
Yeehaw
Q. If what you say is true, what chronological period could we place the Exodus? Before 1446? or later than 1350's?
1280s-1260s
@@str.77 An Exodus of biblical proportions? I don't think it ever happened, if you don't mind me attempting a late answer. The Hebrew's pottery, language and religious rites are definitely Canaanite, with a lack of pork remains the only thing tot set them apart from contemporary Moabites or Phoenicians, for exemple.
There could have been, however, an 'exodus' of ideas, or that of a smaller, influencial group of people. It could also have been an influx of coastal Canaanites who were fleeing the Sea Peoples in the wake of the Bronze Age Collapse (more or less 1190-1140 BC), the date from which Hebrews - the tribe of Israel - became a valid political entity, setting themselves apart from other types of Apiru.
@@martinportelance138 It's just ignore the sources then. This historian here says no to that.
And what do you mean biblical proportions? Inflated numbers are common in ancient historiography. Just read Herodotus. That doesn't mean that the Persian Wars never happened.
@@str.77 Evidences are the best of sources. Merneptah stele show Israel did exist before the BAC, around the date you mentionned, but it was as a bunch of nomadic herders in the hills, Apirus. Only after the BAC were Hebrews strong enough - and Egypt weak enough - to become a kingdom of sorts.
See his earlier videos.
for the algo
🤷🏾♂️So if the Hapiru in the Amarna Letters were not Hebrews then Where were the Hebrews during this period? Still in Egypt? Still wandering the wilderness? Still in UR? Or were they still Canaanites who had yet to Convert to Monotheism?
An Off Topic Question:
What do you think about Genesis 15:17. "Cutting the covenant" is an ancient near eastern practice?
Is that what is happening here in this verse?
After watching the content on this channel, I don't see how the early date hypothesis is defendable at all compared to the late date.
It's not defensible. It survives through fear and malice.
Hadda from reno
I'm sorry but I don't think you answered to 480 years in Kings you only answered from archaeological POV I'm sorry if I missed anything but how do you explain from the biblical pov?
Hi friend, I don't know if this is Dr. Falk's position, but Kenneth Kitchen does a good job of collating data and showing the following:
1. The 480 year date does not accord with a simple tally of the year dates in Judges, and thus those who argue that 480 must be taken as an exact count of years runs up against a problem. Instead, you have 554 years plus the unstated years of other periods - 554+x+y+z. Thus, while advocates of the early Exodus point to 1 Kings 6:1 as according with their perspective, in order for this to be the case, they are already required to see the numbers of years in Judges either as symbolic or as (at least in some cases) contemporaneous.
2. The number "40 years" shows up as a generational count throughout the Old Testament. Kitchen suggests it seems to assume 20 years to arrive at childbearing age, plus 20 years for a first child to arrive at childbearing age. Thus, it stands as a numerical symbol for a generation.
3. Other Ancient Near East cultures counted eras using a symbolic stand-in for an exact number of years, including in Assyria and Babylon.
4. Kitchen's proposition is that 480 is another way of saying twelve generations ("12x40"). 480 sounds like a very specific number to us, but if Kitchen is right, that's an artifact of cultural distance. James Hoffmeier (who also argued for this position) references not only Kitchen, but also Siegfried Herrmann and John Bright as advocates for this view. From my own library, I find that Donald Wiseman suggests "twelve generations (each of 40 years, Deut. 1:3)" but does not insist on it.
In conversations with Early Date advocates, I've been told that I'm making up excuses while they're just adding up numbers. In reality, any perspective on 1 Kings 6:1 has to do more than just adding up numbers, since a strict count brings you closer to 600 years than 480. I think Paul House illustrates the actual state of the question when he says,
"Those who believe in a ca. 1450 B.C. date for the exodus think the 480 years is a rounded, yet accurate number, while those who date the exodus ca. 1290-1250 B.C. argue that the author has approximated the years from the number of generations between the exodus, the temple’s construction, and the exile, or that the number has symbolic significance." --House, P. R. (1995). 1, 2 Kings (Vol. 8, pp. 126-127). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
So the choice is actually between 480 as "rounded," "approximate," or "symbolic." This hardly seems like a text that must determine our Exodus timeline.
Is this the Krusty Krab?
*No! This is patrick!*
Let's not get the true definition of spammy.
Did egyptians sacrifce children to the golden calf, or Apis god?
Not that we know of. Children may have been sacrificed to Bes, but we don't have any evidence of that from Egypt. However, there is a lot of evidence of child sacrifice to Bes across the Mediterranean. Horrible little deity.
@Jonathan Billings Yes, there is extra-biblical evidence that the Canaanites practised child sacrifice. It is portrayed in the war reliefs of Seti I, Ramesses II, Merneptah, and Ramesses III. It is also found in a Ugaritic text (RS 24.266 Vo) (Spalinger 1978, 55-56).
Apis is not the golden calf. The latter was worshipped by the Israelites at Mont Sinai and was actually an idol representing the LORD.
The Hapiru, is a generic name for a non-specific group of people. I don’t think you can say the Israelites were not among them, though not all of them. As for nothing in the Bible mentioning the Israelites occupying a city in Lebanon, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Other than that good work boiling down the synchronisms.
I can say that the Israelites were not among the Hapiru because they were elsewhere. Likewise, the Israelites not occupying Lebanon is not an absence of evidence argument because we have positive evidence of their farthest Northern expansion, which was the boundary of the inheritance of the tribe of Dan. In the same way, I can say that in the Late Bronze Age, the Israelites were not in Japan because we have evidence that they were in Israel. And while absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, presence of evidence can show evidence of absence. This is why having an alibi is so effective as a criminal defence, "Your Honor, my client couldn't have committed the murder because he was in another city; see these restaurant and hotel receipts." The reason why this works is because absence of evidence arguments are a variant of the universal negation fallacy. But once you can show a presence of evidence, the universal proposition becomes a particular proposition, and as long as the evidence is sufficient, the argument is valid.
@@ancientegyptandthebible You are saying there is evidence that the Israelites were in Avaris at the exact time the Hapiru were wandering about Canaan so they have an alibi.
@@501Mobius Essentially, yes.
@@ancientegyptandthebible I have since read the translation of the Amarna Letters and have mapped out the locations of the cities mentioned. Since the letters are from the mid 14th Century, they do prove that the Israelites had not conquered the cities at the time. There were two regions that were under attack by some of the Hapiru and both groups had their leaders killed. They were then led by the sons of the leaders. Of course, in the Bible Joshua was not killed nor did his sons take over the Conquest.
So what I’ve gathered from watching these videos is that your saying the exodus timeline comes after the El Armana letters and happens around 1250 bc. But all you have put is proof it didn’t happen in a certain time not that it did in fact happen but you believe it happened based off what the religious text says, the only thing you put that can be considered proof is that Avaris was attacked and they made them slaves, which Avaris is also known as the Hyksos capital.
@@mickeylax9975 the evidence that’s available already debunks the biblical story and it’s the
I think you are disconsidering too easily the possibility that the Habiru might be the Israelites or at least can be included in the category of Habiru. Etymologically, it obviously was used to refer to multiple categories or groups. The possibility of false cognates used in different languages is something to consider. Also, it could refer to the ethnic group of the Heberites, descendents of Heber, the linguistic association can be easily made. Given that there are 6 generations from Heber to Abraham, that would definitely ramify to one huge number of descendants that can be also categorised in other families or clans. Heber is given a special attention and place in Genesis 10 and 11, and from him his descendants received the language they spoke. Knowing a little about the lifestyle of Abraham's family (Jacob and Lot especially) we can clearly get the idea that they were sheep herders and these tended to live a nomadic lifestyle.
I appreciate your scholarship, but I feel you are not considering this possibility enough because it does not fit your 13th century chronology. Let the data take you wherever it will, that is what I admire about you. PS. I am not advocating a 15th century Exodus, I am certain it does not fit the data.
A Hapiru=Hebrew equation is often discounted in academia, to which I cannot agree completely. I think the equation is more or less valid - if one keeps away from ethnical, essentialist misconceptions - but remember that it was not the Hebrews that left Egypt but the Israelites. The Israelites were Hebrews, at least at the time, but not all Hebrews were Israelites.
Jericho was destroyed around 1406 bc.
Check David Rohl's new Egyptian chronology. It dates the Amarna Letters about 250 years later. The Apiru / Habiru are the Hebrews.
Check out my video where I expose David Rohl's new chronology for the nonsense that it is... czcams.com/video/YriQi7UgFk0/video.html
The fact that there is no Eygptian (Mizri) response to these kings of the various city-states tells me that there is no help coming from a major power. At this time the Egyptians are no longer a Meditteranean power because their army is at the bottom of Yam Suif. The Hapiru, led by Joshua, is waging war on the Canaanite cities in the Levant. And, Mitanni is being overcome by the Hittite nation.
The problem with this is that we have records of campaigns during Akhenaten's, Tutankhamun's, and Horemheb's reign indicating a continuity of military power with sufficient force to engage the full might of the Hittite Empire. It would stretch credibility to suggest that there was no army and then only the following year the Egyptians could field a massive army. We should not confuse reticence to go to war with the inability to war.
"The fact that there is no Eygptian .. response to these kings of the various city-states" is not a fact at all."
The fact is that we cannot read the Egyptian response because these letters have not survived. It is absurd to think that the rulers never received any answers.
PS. Even under an Early Exodus chronology, the Egyptian army did recover. Also, the period covered by the Amarna letters would not fall into Joshua's time but half a century later.
And your point is? Please explain how 2-3 million people survive in a desert for 40 years?
What? There were 2-3 million people in a desert? I've never heard that before. Oh wow, that has come as a shock. I'm shocked!!! Shocked, you hear!!! SHOCKED!!!! Well, not that shocked. 😂 Dude, that has already been accounted for.
@@ancientegyptandthebible Really that's your answer? 623 thousand men over 20 years with family's?
@@robertgray323 Do you realize that (a) the Sinai was not a desert but a savanna that was inhabited by tens of thousands of Shasu who pastured flocks during the Late Bronze Age, and (b) the interpretation that it was 623 thousand men over 20 years with families is a highly disputed reading of the census texts with at least six different possible ways to interpret the text? So, given that you evidently did not know any of that or just didn't care or presumed for the sake of an ideological axe to grind that the only way to read this is through a Western, Fundamentalist lens, why should I give you a better answer to what was clearly a disingenuous question? When you ask disingenuous question, the only thing anyone owes you is mockery.
@@ancientegyptandthebible highly disputed by historians who can do math ? Your apology for numbers plainly printed in your book of myths is amusing as are most Christians I meet who tie themselves in knots over their Christian silliness
@@robertgray323 highly disputed by scholars who can do archaeology, historical demographics, and Biblical exegesis. Keep up there son. Dude, if you can't understand that numbers plainly printed don't always mean a plain, literal reading, then your hermeneutics are in serious need of a 911. Oh, and in case you didn't catch that, that too is mockery. Amazing how pride and idiocy so often coincide. 😂
Bible says there were 2 million Israelites plus animals wandering in the desert or wilderness for 40 years. Dr David Ilan who teaches archaeology at Hebrew Union College in Israel says there's 3 different Exodus stories in the bible that all contradict each other. And none of em true. Also Dr Christine Hayes professor of religious studies Yale University says the same
A lot of people say a lot of stuff. So what? Where does the Bible there were 2 million people? Is that not itself an interpretation? Is that interpretation necessarily the correct interpretation? Is it not also true that ancient sources exaggerate population figures even while maintaining a core historical truth for reasons that are still unknown to historians? As for there being 3 different exodus stories, that's an artifact of the documentary hypothesis which is the laziest form of biblical interpretation. I have heard this, but I am skeptical as to the presupposition that they inherently contradict.
And both are wrong.
The Gospel:
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Many of us believe that here. But please don't get spammy about it, okay?
Thank you for caring about souls enough to share. You deserve likes from fellow Christians.