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Vol. 45:4 · October – December 2017

Amenhotep III and the Exodus

Echoes of the Biblical Narrative from Egypt's Golden Age
Ira Friedman
pp. 211–221·11 pages
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Abstract

Friedman argues that Amenhotep III, whose reign shows a documented gap that Egyptologist Arielle Kozloff attributes to a national epidemic crisis, is the best candidate for the pharaoh of the Exodus. He correlates biblical details — Sekhmet worship, the toponyms Ramesses and Raamesses, and rabbinic chronologies for the Israelite sojourn and enslavement — with the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Hatshepsut, and Thutmose III. The article also revisits Manetho's two Exodus-like accounts preserved by Josephus, proposing that their portrayal of a Thutmossid pharaoh and an 'Amenophis' who expels a diseased population offers non-biblical corroboration for this dating.

Introduction

Most scholars who consider the Exodus historical hold that it occurred in the thirteenth century BCE.1 However, as of yet no traces of Exodus-like events have been found from that century.2 The fourteenth century BCE, on the other hand, seems full of biblical echoes. Recent reports that epidemics may have caused a prolonged pause in the documentation of Amenhotep III (1390-1353 BCE)3 and other information we have about his reign, suggest that he may have been the pharaoh of the Exodus. As this paper shows, biblical passages correlate well with other major events in the fourteenth century BCE, and an Exodus date during Amenhotep III’s reign (ca. 1374 BCE) enables us to identify developments in ancient Egypt that may have played a role in biblical events that led to the Exodus.

Amenhotep III’s Reign and Its Aftermath

Egyptologist Arielle Kozloff reports growing evidence of a surprising and prolonged pause in the otherwise heavy documentation of Amenhotep III’s reign.4 She writes that the gap almost certainly signifies a national crisis, adding that evidence is mounting of massive deaths from epidemics, reminiscent of the biblical tenth plague. She cites documentary evidence that important officials died and had to be replaced when the crisis drew to a close. She suspects that this pharaoh’s first-born son died during this period, as did his in-laws, Thuya and Yuya, both of whom died of malaria.5 Amenhotep III ordered hundreds of statues of war and plague goddess Sekhmet to be made and prayed to; Kozloff believes this was in response to the epidemics. His Sekhmet worship may have biblical significance.6 The first biblical plague may have led the Egyptians to focus their prayers for relief from the biblical plagues by replicating an Egyptian myth in which Sekhmet turned the Nile’s waters red with blood.7 This ultimately set the Egyptians up for the repudiation of their deities when God prevented Sekhmet – referred to as the Destroyer in Exodus 12:23 - from attacking Israelite houses during the night of the tenth plague.8

Amenhotep III’s indulgences could have been the model for biblical laws. He had an unprecedented accumulation of wealth,9 he was “rich in horses,” as a Malkata jar label testifies,10 and he was evidently a womanizer.11 These are the very traits that Israelite kings are prohibited from emulating (Deut. 17:16-17).

Amenhotep III proclaimed himself a deity while he was still alive, something no pharaoh before him had done.12 If the ten plagues did occur during his reign, they proved him unable to maintain cosmic order and stability (ma’at).13 His self-deification may have been an act of personal and theological re-assertion.

Amenhotep III’s son Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE) launched the Amarna revolution, a theological civil war that played out over five decades. Akhenaten’s purge of temples and priests was followed after his death by the efforts of a succession of pharaohs to restore the old gods and obliterate any record of Akhenaten.14 The ten plagues were themselves a blow to worshippers of the gods of Egypt (Num. 33:4), but the theological crisis brought on by the Amarna revolution and its aftermath would have been an even more dramatic manifestation of God’s judgment against those deities (Ex. 12:12).

While the theological civil war was unfolding, Egypt’s Canaanite city-states were fighting each other and nomadic warlords,15 threatening not only Egypt’s hegemony but also its receipt of tribute. Yet, the Egyptian army appears to have been silent for decades.16 One wonders whether the army’s quiescence had something to do with the epidemics reported by Kozloff and bears out Moses’ observation that God destroyed [the Egyptian army] to this day (Deut. 11:4).

Moses’ Travel Time to Pharaoh’s Residence

The Bible describes a series of meetings between Moses and Pharaoh and in one case speaks of Moses leaving the city where Pharaoh resided (Ex. 9:33). Since Amenhotep III was based in Memphis during the first part of his reign,17 Moses would have had either to find lodgings in or near Memphis or travel back and forth over a long distance if, as commonly thought, the Israelites resided well north of Memphis, near Avaris or the Wadi Tumilat.18 However, if the Israelites lived in or near Heliopolis, as Josephus believed, Moses would have had a short trip to Memphis from his home base.

There are several reasons to believe that the Israelites resided near Heliopolis. Joseph probably arrived in Egypt during Hyksos rule.19 Appointed overseer of food accumulation and distribution in anticipation of the great famine, he was likely based near a temple, where large warehouses were maintained for such purposes.20 In all likelihood, a Hyksos pharaoh chose as Joseph’s wife the daughter of a major Heliopolitan priest, rather than a priest of his principal deity Seth, because Joseph was to be based in Heliopolis. He settled his family nearby (Gen. 45:10). Joseph may have wanted to keep his family far away from the Hyksos capital Avaris because he foresaw that the Egyptians would someday rebel against these foreign rulers. This concern is borne out by his statement that all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians (Gen. 46:34); Manetho’s implication that the Egyptians referred to the Hyksos derisively as shepherds21 may be key to understanding this statement, especially since animal husbandry was hardly abhorred in Egypt (cf. Gen. 47:17). Indeed, Goshen, used far more frequently to identify the region in which the Israelites lived, may be the Hebrew composite of Gosh, meaning “near” and On, Heliopolis.22

The Meanings of Ramesses and Raamesses

The widely-held theory that Ramesses II was the Exodus pharaoh is based first and foremost on the explicit mention in the Bible of two locations called Ramesses or Raamesses. The Land of Ramesses, where the Israelites are reported to have lived (Gen. 47:11), seems to imply an association with a pharaoh of that name.23 The “store city” Raamesses (Ex. 1:11) is taken by leading scholars to undoubtedly mean Ramesses II’s magnificent palace Pi-Ramesses.24

Despite these admittedly strong intimations, the use of toponyms to identify the Exodus pharaoh seems curious, particularly given that the Bible avoids identifying that pharaoh directly. So, perhaps the terms Ramesses and Raamesses mean something else.

Turning first to Ramesses, it seems unnecessary to have used it to identify the region settled by the Israelites, inasmuch as the region is called Goshen everywhere else in Genesis.25 Even Pharaoh’s order (Gen. 47:6) speaks of Goshen, not Ramesses.26 There are at least two possible explanations. First, Moses may have added the reference to Ramesses in order to help future generations locate the Israelite settlement. The Bible implies that Moses was raised among children of influential families in the Delta, so he may have known that the Delta was destined to be identified with the Ramessids.27 Alternatively, the term may have been added after Moses’ death, along with other possible post-Mosaic additions identified by the biblical commentator Ibn Ezra (Deut. 1:2).

The second toponym, Raamesses (Ex. 1:11), is an example of the “store cities” at which Israelite slave labor was deployed. Over their century-long enslavement the Israelites likely worked on other sites. In fact, the Septuagint authors added a reference to Heliopolis in Exodus 1:11. Raamesses is vocalized differently from Ramesses, a difference that Ibn Ezra considers significant.28 Perhaps Ramesses is a contraction of “Ra (im) ses,” i.e., Ra – Ses,29 a syncretized reference30 to the temples of two of the three predominant deities in northern Egypt, Ra31 and Seth.32 Alternatively, Raamesses may have been another post-Mosaic addition.

Milestones on the Path to Redemption: Immigration and Enslavement

In 1 Kings 6:1, we read that the Exodus occurred 480 years prior to the construction of the First Temple, reasonably dated 966 BCE.33 The year 1374 BCE falls within the documentation gap reported by Kozloff and may be said to satisfy the 480-year criterion, even if not literally.34 Using this date as a reference point, we can date two important milestones on the Israelites’ path to the Exodus and look for non-biblical correlations.

The Israelites’ journey to the Exodus began with Jacob’s arrival in Egypt.35 Rabbinic commentators estimate that this occurred 210 years before the Exodus, meaning ca. 1584 BCE according to our dating. They were driven to Egypt by a widespread famine that began two years earlier (Gen. 45:11).36 Given that the unusually powerful Thera volcanic eruption occurred at roughly the same time, it is quite possible that the biblical famine was one of its far-reaching effects.37

Rabbinic commentators estimate that the Israelites were first enslaved sometime between 116 and 86 years prior to the Exodus.38 Our Exodus dating puts this at the beginning of Thutmose III’s rule,39 when his aunt and stepmother Hatshepsut was on the throne. In her Speos Artemidos inscription, Hatshepsut seems to boast that she expelled the Hyksos.40 We know that to be untrue. The late Egyptologist Hans Goedicke, however, understood the inscription to be claiming that she rid Egypt of the Israelites,41 who may have been the last remnant of the Hyksos. Goedicke took the last phrase in the relevant passage – the earth has swallowed their footsteps – to indicate that Hatshepsut was writing of the Exodus itself. However, that phrase may have been a common pharaonic exaggeration,42 leaving open the possibility that she was boasting of having “rid” Egypt of the Israelites by enslaving them.43

The Testimony of Manetho’s Accounts

The thesis presented in this paper identifying the pharaohs who enslaved and later released the Israelites may be supported by a non-biblical source. Manetho, a third century BCE Egyptian priest/historian, wrote two purportedly historical accounts, preserved by Josephus,44 of expulsions from Egypt more than a thousand years earlier. Each involved a group portrayed in terms reminiscent of the early Israelites: the Hyksos of the first account are said to have settled in Jerusalem after their expulsion, and the lepers and other diseased persons of the second were enslaved and then released, whereupon they rebelled under a law-giving leader named “Moses”. The very same pharaohs to whom this article attributes the enslavement and later release of the biblical Israelites are the central players in the Manetho accounts: a Thutmossid pharaoh expelled the Hyksos, and Amenhotep III rid Egypt of the lepers.45 Even though scholars question the accounts’ authenticity and sources,46 historical sense can be made of the portions of the accounts that are relevant to the Exodus thesis presented here.

The Hyksos account, which Manetho said he based on records maintained by the priests of Heliopolis,47 may be a conflation of the actual Hyksos expulsion, Hatshepsut’s version of it,48 and the true meaning of her claim as interpreted by Goedicke.49 As the account claims, the Hyksos were indeed expelled in two stages by two pharaohs, although not by Thutmossids.50 The account’s priestly author may have attributed the expulsion to Thutmossids because Hatshepsut was a Thutmossid, and to Thutmose III in particular because he celebrated Hatshepsut’s death by ordering that his name be substituted for hers in Egyptian records.51 Goedicke’s interpretation of Hatshepsut’s claim would explain the link drawn between the Hyksos and Jerusalem; the Israelites did ultimately establish their capital in Jerusalem, as Heliopolitan historians may have deemed noteworthy when their princess married King Solomon.52

Manetho’s second account, which he may have attributed to oral traditions known to the priests,53 also has kernels of biblical truth.54 The laws attributed to Manetho’s Moses are remarkably similar to biblical Mosaic laws. Just as Manetho claims, Exodus 20:3-5 prohibits worshiping gods sacred to the Egyptians (compare Waddell, p. 127), Exodus 8:22 reports that Moses told Pharaoh that the Israelites would be sacrificing sacred animals (compare Waddell Ibid.), the Israelites roasted the Paschal lamb (Ex. 12:8-9; Waddell, p. 131), and Moses did frame a great number of laws completely opposed to Egyptian custom (Lev. 18:3; Waddell p. 127). If nothing else, it is hard to imagine that Manetho had the biblical fluency or Jewish contacts needed to compile his list of “Mosaic” laws.55 Thus, the possibility that the Exodus-like elements of the second account originated with priestly sources who had first-hand knowledge of historical events surrounding the biblical Exodus should not be ruled out.

Conclusion

A national catastrophe during the reign of Amenhotep III seems all but certain. If Kozloff and others are correct in blaming epidemics, he certainly merits consideration as the Exodus pharaoh. This proposition should gain plausibility from the possible correlation between the biblical narrative and the non-biblical events discussed in this paper. Finally, Manetho’s two Exodus-like accounts, in which a Thutmossid pharaoh and Amenhotep III played the leading roles, may be the earliest non-biblical evidence we have confirming key elements of the Exodus.

Footnotes

  1. See, e.g., Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003); and James K. Hoffmeier, “What is the Biblical Date for the Exodus? A Response to Bryant Wood,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50.2 (2007). The Merneptah stela, from the very end of the thirteenth century BCE (ca. 1209), is the earliest known mention of “Israel” (Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 159). Israelite settlements first appear in great numbers toward the end of that century as well (Adam Zertal, “Israel Enters Canaan: Following the Pottery Trail,” Biblical Archeological Review 17.5 (1991)). Most scholars who believe an Exodus took place identify Ramesses II as the Exodus pharaoh. However, there are many other Exodus dating theories (Lawrence T. Geraty, “Exodus Dates and Theories,” in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archeology, Culture and Geoscience (T.E. Levy, T. Schneider, W.H.C. Propp, eds.) (New York: Springer, 2015), pp. 55-64). ↩

  2. Perhaps for this reason, Kitchen writes that the Exodus - and presumably the ten biblical plagues that preceded it - was a “fleeting, if unpleasant” event in the minds of the Egyptians (Kenneth A. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1982), p. 71). ↩

  3. Unless otherwise stated, regnal periods in this paper are based on Ancient Egyptian Chronology, (E. Hornung, et al., eds.) (London: Brill, 2006), pp. 490-93. ↩

  4. Arielle P. Kozloff, Amenhotep III: Egypt’s Radiant Pharaoh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 110-19. ↩

  5. Zahi Hawass, et al., “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamen’s Family,” Journal of the American Medical Association 303 (2010), pp. 638–647. ↩

  6. For a detailed analysis of biblical hints that Sekhmet worship played a part in God’s design of the ten plagues, see Ira Friedman, “ ‘And Upon All the Gods of Egypt I will Execute Judgment:’ The Egyptian Deity in the Ten Plagues,“ Tradition 48.1 (2015), pp. 8-18. ↩

  7. Brad C. Sparks, “Egyptian Texts Relating to the Exodus: Discussions of Exodus Parallels in Egyptology Literature,” Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, p. 268. ↩

  8. In Exodus 12:23 God told the Israelites that He would not allow the Destroyer to attack the Israelites’ houses as long as they spread the Paschal lamb’s blood on their doorposts. Since the Passover Haggadah tells us that God Himself killed the Egyptians, the Destroyer could not refer to an angel ordered by God to carry out the tenth plague and is not the Malakh ha-Mashchit referred to in Samuel II, 24:16. Rather, given that one of Sekhmet’s cognomen’s was “the Destroyer by plague,” it seems reasonable to read Exodus 12:23 as recording God’s promise that He would prevent Sekhmet from wreaking vengeance on Israelite houses. For a further discussion of this point, see Friedman, “The Egyptian Deity in the Ten Plagues,” pp. 17-18. This association between Sekhmet and 12:23 is supported by Egyptologist Thomas Schneider’s observation that “the Destroyer” in 12:23 correlates closely with demons sent by Sekhmet to slaughter on her behalf (Thomas Schneider, “Modern Scholarship Versus the Demon of Passover: An Outlook on Exodus Research and Egyptology through the Lens of Exodus 12,” Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, pp. 545-49). ↩

  9. Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 210, 212. ↩

  10. Kozloff, Amenhotep III, p. 161. ↩

  11. Ibid., p. 2. ↩

  12. W. Raymond Johnson, “Monuments and Monumental Art under Amenhotep III: Evolution and Meaning,” in Amenhotep III: Perspectives on his Reign (D. O’Connor, and E. H. Cline, eds.) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), pp. 86-94. ↩

  13. James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 151-53. ↩

  14. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 228; and Stephen Quirke, The Cult of Ra: Sun-Worship in Ancient Egypt (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001), pp. 169-171. ↩

  15. Volkmar Fritz, The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries B.C.E. (J. W. Barker, tr.) (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), pp. 71-76; and Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, p. 12. ↩

  16. We know from the Amarna letters that urgent pleas to Amenhotep III and Akhenaten from Canaanite city-state rulers for help went unanswered (Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, pp. 230-31). Kitchen notes that the “long absence of Egyptian armies” during this period emboldened some of the city-states to “forget” to pay tribute (Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, p. 12). ↩

  17. Lawrence M. Berman, “Overview,” in Thutmose III: A New Biography (E.H. Cline, and D. O’Connor, eds.) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 15. ↩

  18. Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 261. ↩

  19. See, e.g., Nahum Sarna, Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p. 16; and Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, pp. 345-46. ↩

  20. Cf. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, p. 116. For a discussion of the function of grain storehouses maintained by Egyptian temples see Karl W. Butzer and Leslie G. Freeman, Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 88. Note, also, that Pharaoh “requested” that able-bodied Israelites be appointed officers over his livestock (Gen. 47:6), which were likely kept on temple grounds. If the Israelites dwelled on temple-owned grounds, it would explain why the Bible tells us twice that the priests were fed by pharaoh and did not have to sell their land for food (Gen. 47:22, 26). ↩

  21. Manetho’s etymology of “Hyksos” as “shepherd-kings” is incorrect, but his repeated references to the Hyksos as “shepherds” may correctly reflect the Egyptians’ disdain for these foreign rulers and their origins (Manetho, with an English Translation by W.G. Waddell (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964 Reprint), pp. 85-89, 101) (cited here as “Waddell”). ↩

  22. This approach to the derivation of Goshen is similar to the approach taken by Albright, who noted that Gush is Hebrew for a kind of soil (William F. Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: An Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths (New York: Eisenbrauns, 1968), p. 155n. 8). ↩

  23. Kitchen asserts that the connection between Land of Ramesses and a Pharaoh named Ramesses “is universally recognized by all competent observers,” meaning Ramesses II at the earliest (Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 348). ↩

  24. James K. Hoffmeier, “Rameses of the Exodus Narratives is the 13th Century B.C. Royal Ramesside Residence,” Trinity Journal 28 (2007), pp. 281-89. ↩

  25. The region is called Goshen in Genesis 45:10, 46:28, 29, 34; and 47:1, 3, 6. Reflecting Genesis 47:11, Ramesses appears again in Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 33:3. ↩

  26. Rabbinic commentators Rashi and Radak both pick up on this anomaly. ↩

  27. Ramesses II’s great-grandfather Sety may have become a rising star in Egypt’s military corps at about the time Moses completed the Pentateuch. He took his name from the god Seth of Avaris in the northeast Delta, set in the prosperous province “Tract of Ra” (Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, p. 14-24). His son’s birth name was “Pramesse”; he later ascended the throne as Ramesses I (1292-1291 BCE). ↩

  28. Both Hoffmeier and Kitchen consider the differences in vocalization unimportant (Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt, pp. 117-18; 130 n.85; and Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, pp. 255-56). ↩

  29. The Hebrew spelling of the god Seth is commonly set, not ses as in the Hebrew spelling of Raamesses. However, the transmission of foreign names into another language does not consistently follow a strict set of rules (Peter van der Veen, Christoffer Theis, and Manfred Gorg, “Israel in Canaan (Long) Before Pharaoh Merneptah? A Fresh Look at Berlin Statue Pedestal Relief 216871,” Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 2.4 (2010), p. 19). That the Hebrew letters samekh and tav may have been interchangeable is perhaps illustrated by Onkeles’ translation of the Hebrew adjective for the Golden Calf, maseikha (ending with a heh) into the Aramaic maseikha (ending with an aleph) (Ex. 32:4)). ↩

  30. The names of major Egyptian deities are often found in syncretized form – e.g., Amen-Re, Re-Horakhty-Atum (Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames & Hudson, 2003), pp. 93-94, 208-09). ↩

  31. Thutmose III engaged in extensive building activity in Ra’s Heliopolis (Piotr Laskowski, “Monumental Architecture,” Thutmose III: A New Biography, pp. 219-20). He also constructed a palatial compound in Seth’s Avaris (Manfred Bietak and Irene Forstner-Müller, “The Topography of New Kingdom Avaris and Per-Ramesses,” Ramessides: Studies in Honour of K. A. Kitchen (M. Collier & S. Snape, eds.) (Bolton, Great Britain, 2011), pp. 25-30). ↩

  32. Similarly, Pithom (Ex. 1:11) might hint phonologically at the temple of Ptah in Memphis. ↩

  33. Kenneth A. Kitchen, “How We Know When Solomon Ruled,” Biblical Archaeology Review 27.5 (2001), pp. 32-37, 58. ↩

  34. The interval is expressed in 1 Kings 6:1 as 80 years and 400 years. The phrasing may support the reading that Moses’s age at the time of the Exodus, 80 years (cf. Ex. 7:7), when added to a rounded 400 years, produces the 480-year period. Alternatively, a scribe may have written or substituted “80” (shemonim) instead of “8” (shemoneh), mechanically a minor change, in order to produce an exact multiple of the symbolically significant “40 years.” ↩

  35. Rashi (Gen. 15:13). ↩

  36. The Midrash explains that it struck in Phoenicia, Arabia and Palestine – i.e., up and down the Near Eastern Mediterranean coast (Gen. 41:54, 43:1, and Gen. Rabbah 90:6). ↩

  37. Radiocarbon dating estimates that Thera erupted around 1600 BCE (cf. Hendrik J. Bruins, et al., “The Minoan Santorini Eruption and Tsunami Deposits in Palaikastro (Crete): Dating by Geology, Archeology, 14C, and Egyptian Chronology,” Radiocarbon 51.2 (2009), pp. 397–411). Thera’s effect may have spread out over a number of years, with its combination of tsunamis, ash deposition and depressed temperatures causing harvest failures and famines (K. Jan Oosthoek, Volcanic Eruptions and European History (April 30, 2010)). ↩

  38. Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology (Heinrich W. Guggenheimer, tr.) (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), p. 40. ↩

  39. Slave labor on construction projects under Thutmose III’s rule inspired the famous scene in the tomb chapel of his vizier Rekhmire showing mainly foreign slaves making bricks for the workshop/store places of the temple of Amun at Karnak in Thebes, very much the same work as the Israelites were forced to do (Ex. 1:14; 5:7-8) (Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 247). ↩

  40. As commonly translated, the relevant passage of the inscription speaks of a violent takeover of Egypt by roving hordes among the Avaris-based “Asiatics” - i.e., the Hyksos. Hatshepsut boasts of having banished these abominations of the gods, whereupon the earth has removed their footsteps (Alan H. Gardiner, “Davies’s Copy of the Great Speos Artemidos Inscription,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 32 (1946)). ↩

  41. Hershel Shanks, “The Exodus and the Crossing of the Red Sea, According to Hans Goedicke,” Biblical Archeology Review 7.5 (1981). Goedicke’s translation differs in various details from Gardiner’s standard translation. ↩

  42. See, e.g., Thutmose III Victory Hymn found on a tablet at Karnak, claiming cut down are the heads of the Asiatics; there is not a remnant of them (James H. Breasted, ed., Ancient Records of Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906), vol. 2, p. 264). Kitchen calls such phrases examples of a “rhetorical style” employed by the pharaohs and their scribes (Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, pp. 174-75). ↩

  43. If Hatshepsut was the oppressing “new king,” it would help explain a number of biblical passages. First, Lehmann observed that the Hebrew va’yakam in Exodus 1:8 (a new king arose over Egypt) appears to suggest usurpation (Marcus Lehmann, Passover Hagadah Illustrated, with the Commentary of Rabbi Dr. Marcus Lehmann of Mainz (New York, 1974), p. 108). Many scholars view Hatshepsut as a usurper (see, e.g, Diamantis Panagiotopoulus, “Foreigners in Egypt in the Time of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III” in Thutmose III: A New Biography, p. 370). Second, it is easier to imagine a female ruler, intimately familiar with the birthing process, calling upon midwives to ensure that all male babies are killed. Finally, internal dissension within the royal court during Hatshepsut’s reign could explain why the midwives were not punished for disobeying a direct order from the powerful pharaoh. ↩

  44. The accounts excerpted by Josephus are set forth in Waddell, pp. 77-89, 101-110, 119-147. ↩

  45. Manetho’s Amenophis is almost certainly Amenhotep III (Kozloff, Amenhotep III, p. 112. She notes that Donald B. Redford held the same view). ↩

  46. The scholarly debate is reviewed in Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, “The Reliability of Josephus Flavius: The Case of Hecataeus’ and Manetho’s Accounts of Jews and Judaism - Fifteen Years of Contemporary Research (1974-1990),” Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period, 24.2 (1993), pp. 224-34. ↩

  47. According to Waddell, as a priest, presumably highly ranked, Manetho likely had access to records of all kind – papyri, annals, sacred books, hieroglyphic tablets, wall sculptures and inscriptions (Waddell, pp. vi-vii, xx). This is important because the Heliopolitan priests were, according to Herodotus, reputed to be the best skilled in history of all the Egyptians (George Rawlinson, ed., The History of Herodotus (E.H. Blakeney, tr.) (London: John Murray, 1910), vol. 1, p. 111). ↩

  48. Waddell appears to have acknowledged the relevance of Hatshepsut’s inscription to understanding Manetho’s first account. He cited an article by R. Weill noting that Hatshepsut “usurped” credit for ousting the Hyksos, after which Thutmose IV took credit for it as well (p. 86n.3). Perhaps Weill had Thutmose III’s order in mind but misattributed it to Thutmose IV. ↩

  49. Tcherikover attributes a similar conflation to Josephus’ report that Alexander the Great met with the Jewish High Priest and then with the Samaritan leader Sanballat, who actually lived more than a century earlier (Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America (Atheneum reprint 1970), pp. 42-45)). Manetho’s first account may contain other conflations than those that are pertinent here. Most notably, Manetho’s portrayal of the Hyksos invasion as brutal may conflate a gradual Hyksos takeover with events known to have been horrifying to the Egyptians (see, e.g., Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, pp. 156-57; John Van Seters, The Hyksos: A New Investigation (Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock, 1966), pp. 97-126; and Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 101)). ↩

  50. The pharaohs were Kamose (? – ca. 1540 BCE) and Ahmose (ca. 1539-1515 BCE) (Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, p. 9), who became Misphragmuthosis and his son Thumosis (Waddell, pp. 87, 101) in Manetho’s retelling. ↩

  51. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, p. 187. ↩

  52. Manetho reported that the Hyksos/ Israelites reigned over Egypt for 511 years (Waddell, pp. 85-87). We know for a fact that their rule of Egypt, primarily Lower Egypt, lasted several centuries at most. Waddell notes in a footnote (Ibid., p. 86n.1) scholarly opinion that this may include “the whole period of their rule in Palestine and Syria.” Thus, it may be of interest to students of Manetho that 511 years was the length of time between 1479 BCE, the year in which Hatshepsut is conventionally thought to have taken the throne, and 968 BCE, approximately the year in which King Solomon married pharaoh’s daughter (Kitchen, Reliability of the Old Testament, pp. 110-12, and Kitchen, “How We Know When Solomon Ruled”). ↩

  53. Calling the second account “manifest lies and nonsense” (Waddell, p. 133), Josephus alleges that Manetho admitted basing it on “anonymous legendary tales” (Waddell, p. 107). But Josephus does not quote Manetho, who might have been referring to oral traditions. ↩

  54. The pharaoh of Manetho’s second account considered enslavement to be an acceptable way of complying with the gods’ command that he rid Egypt of the lepers. Perhaps this is evidence, albeit indirect, that the ancient Egyptians understood Hatshepsut’s boast the same way; i.e., as suggested in this article, she was claiming to have rid Egypt of the Israelites by enslaving them. ↩

  55. Even if Manetho had access to the Septuagint as it was being prepared, or cooperation from its translators, it seems unlikely that he had become intimately familiar with the verses he seems to have paraphrased in the second account. He may have seen a similar, earlier account written by Hecataeus of Abdera about a pestilence that struck the Egyptians for which foreigners were held responsible and expelled. However, Manetho adds details, particularly as to the Mosaic laws, that do not appear in Hecataeus. ↩

About the Author
Ira Friedman

Ira Friedman is an independent researcher with an interest in the intersection of the Bible and ancient Egyptian history. Friedman has a BA in Political Science from Brooklyn College and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law.

Cite this article
Chicago

Ira Friedman. "Amenhotep III and the Exodus." Jewish Bible Quarterly 45, no. 4 (October – December 2017): 211–221.

MLA

Ira Friedman. "Amenhotep III and the Exodus." Jewish Bible Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 4, 2017, pp. 211–221.

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