Letter #31
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WATCHMAN�S TEACHING LETTER

 

Monthly Letter #31; November 2000 By: Teacher Clifton A. Emahiser

1012 N. Vine Street, Fostoria, Ohio 44830; Ph. (419)-435-2836

 

ISRAEL Covenant Two Seedline Racial IDENTITY

 

AN ANGLO-ISAAC-SON CAUCASIAN CULTURE

AWARENESS TEACHING LETTER

 

This is my thirty-first monthly teaching letter and continues my third year of publication. In the last two letters (#29 & #30), we covered the Hurrians and Hittites. We found they were a Mongolian people. We also discovered that the Egyptian pharaohs took women of these peoples into their harems, and later pharaohs were from these bloodlines. We found that not only did the pharaohs mix blood, but also there was much mixing by the Egyptian people themselves. In lesson #30, I diverged from this theme to the topics of Biblical tithing and new research on Two Seedline doctrine. Also, we covered, to some degree, the archaeological find at Ebla.

 

Because I didn�t want to start the subject of Egypt in the middle of a lesson, I saved the material for the two lessons to be mailed out in December of 2000. Because the subject of Egypt is so long and strung-out time-wise, I am not sure how many lessons will be required to cover it in connection with Esau-Edom. While we are on this subject, there are simply many items we cannot omit. I believe, after we have researched this subject, you will see Egypt in an entirely new light. I believe you will be so enraptured with it; you will want to continue researching it for yourself, for Egyptian history is like no other chronicles in the world.

 

For the part of Egyptian history we are interested in, and how Egyptian history fits in with Biblical history, I will present some evidence of what Egyptian and Biblical history is not. It is my responsibility, as a watchman on the wall, whenever someone is exhibiting falsehood along any Biblical subject, to expose the false teaching for what it is. Once you have attained the truth of a matter, it will be your responsibility to judge any writer on the topic for what he (or she) is. I doubt very much, if I were to show this writer undeniable, irrefutable positive evidence of his error, that he would change his position, but continue his teachings in spite of the reliable testimony to the contrary. But you must be the judge in the end. We certainly don�t need any more confusion as we already have too much!

 

! !  WHAT EGYPTIAN AND BIBLICAL HISTORY IS NOT !!

 

The book to which I refer is: Hebrew Sages of Ancient Egypt (A Revised Discipline In Antiquity), by F. David Fry Jr. The reason I believe this man would not change his position is because he has written several books and made several cassette tape lectures on the subject; and therefore, he would be reluctant to change his posture even in the face of overwhelming credible evidence. It�s just too much humble pie to ask a man to eat. F. David Fry�s position is: Egyptian history is 1000 years younger than historians claim. In chapter 2, pages 5-6, Fry says the following:

 

�THE BIRTH OF EGYPT and Her Exaggerated Antiquity ... For almost two hundred years, historians have calculated that Egypt�s history retreats in time far enough to predate the supposed Hebrew myth of Noah�s flood [2350 B.C.]. Indeed, historians extend this retreat even beyond the biblical creation date [4004 B.C., Ussher]. To rectify this difference, some theologians reason that populations existed before Adam and Eve, while others are forced to disclaim the biblical worldwide flood.

 

�Over the last hundred years, Egypt�s history has been steadily revised downward, from 5000 B.C. [1st Dynasty] to today�s 3000 B.C. Even so, the anomaly still exists unless something gives. The question we must answer here is, �Whose history should give, Egypt�s or the Hebrew�s?��

 

On pages 13-14, Fry associates the 1st Dynasty tomb of Unefes (fourth king of Dynasty 1): �Hebrew history suggests that the designer of this tomb was the celebrated and world famous Sage, Abraham ... I (Fry) shall go one step further: I (Fry) propose that Abraham is the only person in all of history who could be common to the tomb, its design, and the era in which it was built.� Fry continues on page 19: �... it is obvious that the traditional time model needs drastic revision. It needs to either push the era of Abraham further back in history or pull Egypt�s history drastically forward.� Fry further states on page 20: �... we must connect Abraham�s era with the 1st Dynasty ... it explicitly places Abraham on the Egyptian scene a thousand years earlier than where he has commonly been placed ... The life and times of that great Hebrew Sage Abraham, occurred during Dynasty 1 ... and not a thousand years later as traditional history teaches.� Fry continues, page 28: �As already established, Abraham did not live during Egypt�s Middle Kingdom (Dynasty 12).�

 

Fry places Joseph as the same person as Imhotep, page 35: �Since Joseph was Vizier of Egypt and Imhotep was also Vizier, is it possible they might just be the same person?� On page 38, Fry continues to suggest that Joseph and Imhotep were the same person: �... Is it possible to establish a medical parallel between this famous healing god Imhotep and Joseph the Hebrew Sage?� Fry continues, page 39: �If this is found to be true then we must conclude that Joseph/Imhotep was the inventor, or at least initiator of Pathology ... coupling him (Joseph) to both Imhotep and the Old Kingdom.� Continuing on page 41, fry quotes [Peter Tompkins Secrets of the Great Pyramid, p. 168]: �However, it remains distinctly possible that Path (Imhotep) could have been Joseph himself.� On pages 42-43, Fry says: �The truth is that chronologists should properly reassign Egypt�s 3rd Dynasty to the days of Joseph ... for we are fast arriving at the startling, but verifiable conclusion that Joseph, Imhotep and Pathotep were one and the same man ... All three men lived during Dynasties 3 and 4 ... Once again, the probability increases that Joseph, Imhotep and Pathotep were the same individual.� On page 51, Fry says: �Yes, Joseph was Imhotep.�

 

Fry continues on page 91: �MOSES FOUND in Egyptian records. With dynasty 5 ruling far up the Nile to the south, and Dynasty 6 ruling adjacent to Goshen, we should consider Dynasty 6 as the prime candidate for the place where [when] Moses was born.� On page 92, Fry makes the following remark: �That shift will make Egypt one thousand years younger at the time of Moses.� On page 94, Fry again mentions Moses with the 6th Dynasty: �... as we will see, the Exodus story is a perfect fit to the end of the 6th Dynasty (the end of the Old Kingdom era).� Further, Fry remarks on page 95: �Historians can find no place in Dynasty 18, 19 or even 20 when baby Moses could have been an adopted heir to Egypt�s throne ... Yes, Moses was raised in Egypt during the Sixth dynasty, not the 18th Dynasty.�

 

IN SHORT, Fry places Abraham with Dynasty #1, Joseph with Dynasty #3, and Moses with Dynasty #6. He could probably get by with this scenario if it were not for the fact of some very important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

 

THE 18TH EGYPTIAN DYNASTY, or THE NEW KINGDOM

 

Because we are going to be dealing with the 18th Egyptian Dynasty, we should get familiar with their names (spelling of these names will vary slightly from one reference book to another). These Egyptian pharaohs are in the sequence as follows: Amosis Amenhotep I Tuthmosis I Tuthmosis II Hatshepsut Tuthmosis III Amenhotep II Tuthmosis IV Amenhotep III Amenhotep IV, (same as Akhenaten) Tutankhamun Ay Horemheb.

 

ARCHEOLOGY PROVES FRY�S THESIS TOTALLY IN ERROR

 

Finds at Jericho prove beyond all doubt that Fry cannot be correct. If you know your Bible story of Jericho, it will be remembered that after the Israelites destroyed it, Joshua placed a curse on it that it would never again be occupied. With this in mind, let�s read The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible, �Archaeological Supplement�, page 1802, �1990 (As Thompson is continually updating this supplement, your copy may read differently than the one I am quoting). I will be only quoting a portion of this article:

 

�On the outskirts of the old city mound Garstang discovered a cemetery where he opened scores of graves that yielded quantities of pottery vessels, considerable jewelry, and about 170 scarab beetles. In these tombs he found pottery from the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze periods, but only a few sherds of Mycenian ware ... The Egyptian scarabs can be dated with certainty since they mention various pharaohs by name and represent each of them from Thutmose III ... One scarab bears the name of Queen Hat-shep-sup and Thutmose III, another that of Amenhotep II, who was depicted as an archer, corresponding well with his tomb records in Egypt. The series of dated scarabs end with the two royal seals of Amenhotep III ... Nothing else in the tombs suggests later dates.�

 

For more evidence that this documentation is correct, I will now quote from Wonders Of The Past, (in two volumes) edited by Sir J. A. Hammerton, �Jericho and the Biblical Story�, a portion from page 1220 (Notice the slight difference in spelling of the pharaoh�s names):

 

�Happily again, the evidence from the tombs as regards this period is complete and satisfactory ... is represented by hundreds of intact specimens; their stratification is undisturbed, and their continuity is attested by the discovery at the appropriate levels of further royal Egyptian scarabs, notably one of Thothmes III, the successor of Queen Hatshepsut, in Tomb 5, and two of Amenhotep III in Tomb 4 ...  and with his reign the deposits in the tombs and city alike come to an abrupt end.�

 

BINGO! If you are aware of Egyptian history, then you understand the above named pharaohs were of the 18th Dynasty, a time-period which Fry wholly disallowed. If you want to believe Fry, in spite of this evidence, it�s your choice, but don�t say you were never told. This evidence puts F. David Fry Jr. totally out of the ballpark on his thesis. You will remember, Joshua was only one generation after Moses, and only 40 years after the Exodus. If this doesn�t suggest an Egyptian-Hebrew time comparison, I don�t know what it would take to do so. But this is not the only evidence of this time similitude. For further documentation that we are on the right track, I will now quote from the National Geographic magazine, December 1987, a story of the �Oldest Known Shipwreck Reveals Splendors Of The Bronze Age.� This shipwreck, according to National Geographic, �... represents seven civilizations that flourished in the eastern Mediterranean area in Late Bronze Age times. Thousands of other items provide an astonishing portrait of an era symbolized by the reign of Egypt�s Tutankhamun and the fall of Troy.� Tutankhamun is only the second pharaoh past Amenhotep III, whose scarab was found at Jericho. This shipwreck is closely contemporary with Moses, Joshua and the Exodus. While this shipwreck contained many items of interest, I would like to quote from pages 731-732:

 

�Tufan saved the best for last. One morning he surfaced with the small plastic box he stored his treasures in and lifted a solid gold scarab [pictured on same page]. As we do with all our finds, we photographed the scarab, and I later took the slides back to Texas.

 

�It had been more than 30 years since I studied hieroglyphics, but with the help of an Egyptian dictionary I translated the end of the inscription on the base of the golden beetle: �Nefertiti.�

 

�Nefertiti! Is there a more beautiful face from antiquity than that of Pharaoh Akhenaten�s great Queen? Her timeless features have been captured for eternity in the exquisite bust from Tell el-Amarna...

 

�Temple inscriptions record the fact that Nefertiti was an important figure in her husband�s reign, but just how important has been a question in modern times. Some scholars believe she was immensely powerful, possibly the co-ruler of Egypt.

 

�... Not only was this the first gold scarab ever found of �the Exquisite Beauty of the Aten [sun disk] Nefertiti�, as her full name is translated; it also was the first artifact found in Asia Minor or the Aegean that names either the famous Akhenaten or his beautiful wife. (Akhenaten�s son was Tutankhamun.)

 

�... Was the scarab carried by an envoy of Nefertiti? We can only guess. The scarab is well worn. Cemal�s map of the wreck site shows that it was found near the scrap gold, suggesting that it may have belonged to the same hoard. If it did, the ship sank after Nefertiti�s death, for one cannot imagine her scarab�s being discarded during her reign...�

 

Among other items found at the site of the shipwreck were Cypriot pottery and a wooden folding tablet called a �diptych� spoken of by Homer, �... he sent him to Lycia and gave him baneful signs in a folding wooden tablet�, Iliad, Book VI, line 169, which helps date the contents discovered. With this evidence, there is no way F. David Fry, Jr. can be correct with his supposition. Now we can know what Egyptian history is not, and that we are indeed dealing with the 18th Egyptian Dynasty for the Exodus. As we continue along, you will start to see how well all of this fits the overall portrayal of Egyptian history along with events pertaining to the Hebrews of the Bible.

 

In quoting from The Thompson Chain-Reference Bible, Wonders Of The Past and the National Geographic, I intentionally left out the dates. I did this because I believe that Garstang may be 120 to 160 years off on his dates. In The Bible And Archaeology by J. A. Thompson it states on page 59: �This state of affairs suggests that the Exodus did not take place till after 1300 B.C.�  On page 60, this same book says: �Garstang made a case for the fall of Jericho in 1400 B.C. and an exodus in about 1440 B.C.� This discrepancy doesn�t, however, rule out the 18th Dynasty for these events.  

 

A STARTING POINT

 

A good place to start our story of Egypt would be a city called �On.� We are told by most reference books that on represented the heathen worship of the sun god. I hope to set the record straight concerning this city. Originally, on was called �Beth Shemesh� (House of Shem). It was not until the time of Ankhenaten that a temple was built to Aten the sun god. I find the documentation for this in the book The Boehm Journey To Egypt, Land Of Tutankhamun by Frank J. Cosentino, page 48:

 

�Akhenaten had to have a circle of loyal adherents who converted to his new religion. Friendly foreign princes were not particularly concerned with the change and accepted it as long as their relationships with the royal house were maintained. The king steadfastly forged ahead, trying to impose his new philosophies on Egyptian life. He succeeded in building temples to Aten in Thebes, Gem-Aton in Nubia, Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis, Hermothis, and in some smaller cities.�

 

In the Halley�s Bible Handbook by Henry H. Halley, page 107, it states: �Joseph Made Ruler of Egypt. Joseph married a daughter of the priest of On; and, though he had a heathen wife, and ruled a heathen kingdom, and resided in a center of vile Idolatry, he maintained his childhood faith in the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.�

 

I am going to have to beg to differ with Halley on Joseph�s wife, for it appears she was of the House of Shem, just as Tamar was (the mother of Pharez and Zarah).  And, I don�t believe that Joseph�s father-in-law was practicing �vile Idolatry�, for he was a priest of �Beth Shemesh.� It is also evident that there were, at least, some Shemites in Egypt during Joseph�s time, and Joseph didn�t marry a heathen as implied!

 

AKHENATEN�S NEW RELIGION: WHERE DID HE GET IT?

 

For the answer to this question, I am going to refer to a book entitled: Barnes General History by Joel Dorman Steele and Esther Baker Steele � 1883 & 1889, page 17 (and it is simply amazing what these two writers were able to establish considering the archaeology that had been done up to their time): �Khu-en-Aten  (Akhenaten), the heretic king, rejected the Theban gods for the one-god (Aten) sun-worship of his foreign mother. He founded a new capital (now Tel-el-Amarna ruins), but neither capital nor religion long survived him.� It says here that Akhenaten got his religion from his mother. Much can be determined from the Egyptian statuary of Akhenaten and his mother, Queen Tiye. Akhenaten was so overpowering in Mongolian features, we don�t even have to guess what bloodline he and his mother were from. Akhenaten�s mother was considered a non-royal commoner, wife of Amenhotep III. Therefore, the only conclusion, which can be made, is that Akhenaten�s mother was one of the women, which were sent to Egypt by the Hurrians in the peace treaty Egypt made with them. The Bible As History by Werner Keller, page 98 (pages vary in different editions) states: �In three successive generations of rulers Indo-Aryan (?) (Meaning Hurrians) and Egyptian blood was mixed for the first time.� This being true, Akhenaten and his relation were of the serpent seedline. There are many pictures of Akhenaten in Egyptian books, so you won�t have any trouble identifying him as such. A picture is worth a thousand words. We can trust these portrayals and sculptures, for they were developed in greater detail during the Akhenaten era than at any other time in Egyptian history. What you see is what you get! You can be very sure, if Akhenaten looked Mongolian, he was indeed Mongolian.

 

Further information concerning the mixing of the Egyptian pharaohs with the Hurrians is found in the book The Pyramids And Sphinx by Desmond Stewart, page 51 (To understand, you may need my previous lessons dealing with the Hurrians):

 

�Tuthmosis IV�s immediate descendants, products of his marriage to the daughter of the King of Mitanni (Hurrian), a powerful new state in northern Syria, were no less arresting. His son by his foreign queen was Amenhotep III, builder of colossal statues in which he and his nonroyal wife, Tiye, are posed as equals (unlike most earlier groups, in which a queen might be a quarter the size of her spouse). One unforgettable late portrait a bitter comedown from such colossi as still stand on the west bank of the Nile, facing Luxor shows Amenhotep III looking like a weary and corpulent (overweight) chairman of some giant corporation.

 

�The son of Amenhotep III and Tiye was the greatest eccentric in Egyptian history, the heretic who, by changing his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, incorporated into his new title the Aten that his grandfather had honored ... This outstanding family, with its characteristically oval-shaped faces, large noses, and insubstantial builds, presided over a renaissance of Egyptian power, a transformation of Egyptian culture, and ironically, the first intimations (hint) of final decline.� A further description of Akhenaten�s physical features is given on page 65 as follows: �...his elongated head, heavy lips, large ears, distended stomach, and wide hips which were undoubtedly the end-product of generations of royal inbreeding.� I would rather suggest �out breeding� with other races!

 

If what we are reading here is true � with the blood mixing of the Egyptian pharaohs with the Hurrians � the pharaoh enslaving the Hebrews may well have been of the Cain-Satanic-Seedline. For more information in regards to this product of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye (the Hurrian), I will again quote from the book The Pyramids And Sphinx by Desmond Stewart, page 64:

 

�The heir of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye assumed the throne ... under his father�s name, but then abruptly renamed himself Akhenaten. On the new king�s orders the name of the god Amen Re was deleted from most monuments. At the same time the pharaoh moved his residence from Thebes to a new, hastily built capital some three hundred miles to the north. The site, a half-moon-shaped plain on the east bank of the Nile, had been visited by Akhenaten�s grandfather Tuthmosis IV. The new capital, with its sunlit, open temple to the Aten, was an attempt at Utopia and was given the name Akhetaten, or Horizion-of-the-Aten. (The site�s modern name, Tell el-Amarna, comes from the names of two nearby Arab villages ... The city was not without an economic base, since all the river-borne transport headed north and east passed by it and could be milked to the disadvantage of rival Thebes.�

 

NEW RELIGION, NEW CITY

 

To understand this part of Akhenaten�s story, I will quote from the book Wonders Of The Past,  (in two volumes) edited by Sir J. A. Hammerton, �Tell-el-Amarna: City of Akhnaton and Tutankhamen� pages 1123-1124:

 

�... A closer examination of the immediate foreground detects a series of long, low mounds, many of which have been, so to speak, disemboweled and disclose ruins of mud brick walls. To the right there rise two sickly palm trees and a solitary flat-roofed house the home of the excavators. A modern village or two, with their domed tombs, lie half concealed in the palm plantations.

 

The site, somewhat unpromising at first glance, has proved one of the most thrilling in the Near East; it is the only city of ancient Egypt yet uncovered. Its life was short, barely a score of years, yet from its remains has been obtained a vivid picture of the life of the Pharaoh�s court, of his nobles and of the poorer classes ... whereas the government archives of Tell-el-Amarna throw a flood of light on international relations at one of the most momentous periods in ancient times. But even greater interest attaches to the place from the cause of its foundation. Its existence is due to a great religious revolution, the only one that ever convulsed Egypt, that home of rigid conservatism, during several thousands of years.

 

�Under Amenhotep III ... the priesthood of Ammon (Amen) at Thebes had grown dangerously powerful. On his death his widow, Queen Tiyi (Tiye), a remarkable woman of non-royal birth, encouraged her twelve-year-old son, now Amenhotep IV, (later to become known as Akhenaten), to give precedence to the sun god Ra who after being paramount in earlier times had now been ousted by Ammon. The boy king accordingly erected a temple at Thebes to Ra, under the form of Aton (or Aten), �the Sun�s Disk�, by which he intended to symbolize the deity behind the sun who gives heat and life to the world. He thus at one sweep superseded the worship of Ammon, and with it that of the whole Egyptian pantheon, substituting an ideal monotheism. Finding it impossible to make any headway in the stronghold of Ammon himself he decided, no doubt with his mother�s support, on the bold plan of changing his capital.�

 

[NEW GOD, NEW NAME]

 

�So he sailed downstream some 250 miles and founded a new city on a virgin site �belonging to no god or goddess, no prince or princess, and of which no man could claim ownership.�  At the same time, as an outward sign of his complete break with the old polytheism, he changed his name from Amenhotep, �Ammon is at rest�, to Akhn-aton�, �the Aton is satisfied� ... Here he erected the temple to the Aton, 250 feet square, within an oblong enclosure half a mile in length. Close by were the palace buildings, covering a space of 1,500 by 500 feet.�

 

MOSES NAMED AFTER 18th DYNASTY PHARAOHS

 

This may come as a surprise to many of you, but Moses was named from a pharaoh family of the 18th Dynasty. For a reference of this sort of thing, I will refer to a book Civilization Before Greece & Rome by H. W. E. Saggs, page 105:

 

�At some periods, when scribes signed documents, they added the names and professions of their fathers after their own names, and from this we learn something about the class to which they belonged. At the end of the third millennium they were mainly sons (or, rarely, daughters) of well-to-do people, such as city governors, temple administrators, army officers, tax officials or priests. We also find references to poor orphan boys being adopted by generous patrons, who, at the height of their kindness, put them to learn the scribal art.�

 

The following are a list of pharaohs with this name: Amosis, Tuthmosis I, Tuthmosis II, Tuthmosis III and Tuthmosis IV. It is now just a matter of finding out which �mosis� is the pharaoh family, which adopted Moses and gave him their name. Exodus 2:10 definitely states that the Pharaoh�s daughter named him:

 

And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh�s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, because I drew him out of the water.

 

Evidently, the meaning �I drew him out of the water� for Moses� name is attributed only by modern commentators and became a secondary meaning for his name. I made a search, and couldn�t find any Hebrew word combination that would suggest such a meaning. It is obvious; the daughter of the Pharaoh didn�t go to him and say, �Look at this Hebrew child I just saved from the river.� If that would have been the meaning of his name, at the time, the pharaoh would have taken Moses to the river and personally drowned him, for the pharaoh had made two different decrees. The first decree was an order to the midwives to kill any male Hebrew children (Exodus 1:16). The second decree by the pharaoh was to cast the male Hebrew children into the river (Exodus 1:22). Actually, the pharaoh�s order was being obeyed in the case of Moses, but the pharaoh didn�t stipulate not to place the Hebrew child in a waterproof basket.

 

So far, we have established beyond all reasonable doubt, with the aid of archaeological evidence, that Moses and the Exodus must have taken place in the 18th Egyptian Dynasty. It has also been established that the city of On was originally a Shemitic city, and that Joseph didn�t marry out of his kinship. We have also learned of a pharaoh by the name of Akhenaten and the new city he built to his god, Aten. Also, that Akhenaten was of a mixed Egyptian-Hurrian bloodline.

 

19th EGYPTIAN DYNASTY EXCLUDED FOR THE EXODUS

 

Most Biblical scholars place the Exodus at the time of Merenptah, son of Ramses II in the 19th Egyptian Dynasty. If you have a Halley�s Bible Handbook, you might check page 116 for his explanation of this period. This has been the popular and traditional placement for the Exodus, yet there are no indications of Egypt experiencing any momentous changes at that particular time, as the Exodus story might require. The 19th Dynasty went along unbroken: Ramesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merenptah Amenmesse Seti II Siptah Tausret. This sequence of pharaohs is taken from The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Egypt by Bill Manley.

 

The best evidence I have found in my research, to conclude the Israelites were not slaves under the pharaohs of the 19th Dynasty, is found on a limestone fragment pictured in National Geographic magazine of April 1991, page 5, in an article entitled �Ramses the Great (spellings vary).� This relief depicts Ramses holding three prisoners by their hair with his right hand while holding a hatchet in his other hand. National Geographic comments thusly:

 

�Clutching Nubian, Libyan, and Syrian prisoners by their hair, Ram [e] ses wields an ax to dispatch them. Egyptian relief�s, like this limestone fragment from the ancient capital of Memphis, proclaim only victories, never defeats. Such painted propaganda had undeviating purpose: to ensure loyalty and inspire fear.�

 

Totally missing from this relief is an Israelite. One might argue the Syrian would represent an Israelite. We know the wars in which Ramses was engaged, and these three represented prisoners of war, not Israelites. It is fairly obvious that Ramses II had an entirely different labor force by his time, rather than the children of Israel. The Syrians here were probably Hurrians.

 

Bible scholars have also connected Ramses II with the building of Pithom and Rameses (Exodus 1:11). I don�t believe that this is a valid argument, as there was a land of Rameses mentioned in Joseph�s time. Halley�s Bible Handbook says of Rameses II on page 116: �It is, however, known that Rameses II was a great plagiarist, taking to himself credit for some of the monuments of his predecessors, having his own name carved on their monuments.�

 

The same National Geographic magazine of April 1991, page 17, in an article entitled �Ramses the Great� says of Ramses II: �He also took credit for many structures built by his predecessors, chiseling out their names and substituting his. �He commissioned so much art�, says Rita Freed of Boston�s Museum of Fine Arts, �that it became mass production. He seemed more interested in quantity, not quality. There probably weren�t enough good artists. Whereas his predecessors chiseled a lot of raised relief, he chose sunken relief. It�s easier to do and harder for your successors to chisel away.��

 

In the next lesson, I will be documenting and placing Joseph, Moses and the Exodus all within the 18th Egyptian Dynasty.

 

 

 

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