The Exodus of the Hebrews,
Moses and the Pharaohs
Part II
The Mythical Conquest of Canaan
Archaelogical evidence fails to support the Ezra bible’s account of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. The account of the Migration of the Faithist from Egypt in Oahspe, however makes it clear that the Israelites who migrated from Egypt, did not conquer or take territory in battle, but were a peaceful nation for more than 400 years (1550 to 1150 b.c.e.) after migrating into Canaan. In which case, if Jericho was destroyed around 1400 b.c.e.|1| which was about 150 years after the Exodus, it was not attacked by the Israelites. Indeed, the New Kingdom Pharaohs following Ahmose I, intermittently forayed into the north eastern lands to conquer. Thutmose IV, reigning around 1400 b.c.e., was also called “Conqueror of Syria”|2|. Syria was the Egyptian name for the region north-east which included Canaan.
Oahspe, Bk of Saphah, Basis of the Ezra Bible,
||35/K.31. In the four hundred and ninth year after the departure out of Egypt,
the entire PEACE POLICY and NON-RESISTANCE of the Mosaical Inspiration
was overthrown, and the Israelites became warriors, and even warred against
one another.||
Archaelogical surveys of the areas purported to be conquered by Joshua around 1400 b.c.e. indicate that there is a lack of evidence of sedentary settlements until centuries later:
http://www.bibleorigins.net/ExodusJosephusVSManetho.html
retrieved 20 Feb, 08.
||……The Bible suggests Joshua successfully seized the "Hill Country" of Canaan from Galilee to the Negev. Extensive on-foot archaeological surveys of this area by professionally trained archaeologists under the aegis of the Israeli Department of Antiquities carried out field surveys collecting pottery shards from the top soil at hundreds of sites (1970's through the 1980's), and the collated and published results showed a "near-void" of sedentary and non-sedentary peoples in this area in the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1540-1200 BCE) which would include the Protestant Conservatives' Israelite Conquest of ca. 1406 BCE. However, this area in Ramesside Iron I (1230-1100 BCE) EXPLODED with over 300+ stone farms, hamlets and villages as compared to the preceding Late Bronze Age period…..The pottery in these sites was not Egyptian, it was Canaanite in form. ||
This date is also supported by archaeological evidence whereby the descriptions of the strength of the cities of Canaan associated with the migration of the Israelites, as found in the Ezra Bible, indicate that they were at the peak of their development:
http://www.ancientdays.net/datingfiasco.htm
retrieved, 19 Sept, 07.
||On the other hand, at the close of the Middle Bronze Period (1550 BC) the cities were at their peak development. Cities at the end of the MB Period may be described as having the greatest fortifications in all the history of the Land.
Logic suggests that those who hold to the biblical story must go backward (from 1400 BC) to the time when the cities fit the description of Moses’ spies. They had described the cities as “fortified and very large” (Numbers 13:28, Deuteronomy 1:28, Joshua 2:15, and many other citations).
Go back to 1550 BC….|| “The Exodus, Conquest dating Fiasco”. Livingston, 2003.
The apostate Israelites who began to wage war did not appear until more than 400 years after their departure from Egypt. This means that the Ezra bible account of 40 years of wandering in the desert followed by the Conquest of Canaan, in which a generation of peaceful unarmed Faithists fleeing tyranny are quickly succeeded by a horde of marauding conquerors, proves itself to be a convenient compressions of historical time. A device the authors of the Ezra bible use on several occasions to weave together a national history, part myth part fact.
Other such time compressions are evident in the times between Abraham and Jacob, and Jacob and Moses (See Who was Thoth). According to Oahspe, there were more than a thousand years between these three individuals.
Between Abraham and Jacob…………………1100 years (3950 to 2850 b.c.e.)
Between Jacob and Moses……………………1300 years (2850 to 1550 b.c.e.)
As well as evidence of compression of historical time, there is also evidence that the sources of the Ezra bible included the lies of their enemies taken and recorded as fact by its scribes. Oahspe reveals the information sources of the Ezra bible contain the Egyptian account of the Exodus of the Hebrews.
Oahspe, Bk of the Arc of Bon
||27/20.21. And behold, it came to pass that the [Egyptian] records were worthless;
And to make matters worse the records were so voluminous, being more than
six thousand books, that the scribes of Ezra could make neither head nor tail of them.
Nevertheless, they were all written, in the first place not by the Israelites, but by their
enemies, where, even so, the testimony of the miracles is none the weaker.||
According to Oahspe, the Jewish Ezra bible was written by Ezra ca 494 b.c.e. Biblical scholars have placed the language in which the Jewish Ezra bible was written as no earlier than 560 b.c.e:
http://www.bibleorigins.net/HebrewDatesPentateuch.html
retrieved 9 Sept, 07.
||...On the basis of archaeological findings, as well as endings to historical compositions, I understand along with other scholars, that the "Hebrew" Bible, more specifically, Genesis-2 Kings was composed in the [Babylonian] Exile ca. 560 B.C.... The findings of archaeology have revealed that some sites which appear in the Pentateuch did not come into being until the 8th-7th centuries B.C. (as for example Edomite Bozrah, Arabic Buseira of Genesis 36:33) ....Mention is made of the Edomites possessing kings before Israel had kings (Genesis 36:31). Israel's first king was Saul (reigned circa 1020-1000 B.C.), then David (reigned 1000-965 B.C.), so obviously, the author of the Pentateuch wrote some time in the Kingdom period, after David...||
The Ezra Bible was compiled from more than one source, it contains, some Egyptian derived texts as well as previously written Hebrew texts such as the Levitican laws written by Moses. The account of the Exodus of the Hebrews, was gathered by Ezra from the Egyptian records existing in his time.
Oahspe, Bk of the Arc of Bon
||27/20.13. And in not many days, Moses wrote the Levitican laws; for the inner
temple of Jehovih was in spoken words only; but the outer temple was written. So
that it was said: The Hebrews have two laws; one which
no other man knows, and
one for those who are not eligible by faith, being those who were called
Leviticans;
but not Leviticans in fact, but hangers‑on, who had followed the Israelites out of
Egupt and who for the most part had no God, little judgment and no learning.
27/20.16.Of Pharaoh and his hosts who were not destroyed in the sea, be it said,
they returned home to their places.....
17. The scribes and recorders
assembled in
Kaona, and appointed Feh-ya (an Egyptian), to write the departure of the Israelites
out of Egypt.....Fey-ya’s record was afterward accepted by Ezra, and is that which is
known to this day as the First Book of Exodus. And so far as the records now stand
the spirit of both books was the Egyptian version of the whole subject.||
After the Exodus, the Ezra bible involves Moses in its stories of spying and conquest, putting swords into the hands of the Faithists and at the same time cursing the generation who left Egypt for infidelity. These details identify this source as that of the apostate Israelites who became worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth, who turned to war and conquest finally abandoning the tribal system to live as subjects under kings.
The patchwork weaving of the final Jewish history as given in the Ezra bible reveals glaring seams in the two different timekeeping frames used to calculate Moses’ age. Moses’ age was computed differently in Egyptian time compared to Hebrew time:
Bk of the Arc of Bon
||27/20.15.
At the time Moses reached Shakelmarath he was forty-four years old
by the
Hebrew sun, but by the Eguptian he was eighty-eight years old.||
The Ezra bible account declares Moses’ age when he died, to be 120 years old. Moses’ youth and the Exodus part of the account, having been taken from the Egyptian records, takes Moses’ age, in Egyptian years, to be around 80 years old. The Egyptian calendar had only one sun (solstice) in a year, i.e. 6 months. But the 'wilderness wandering' part of the account did not come from the Egyptian source but the descendants of the Levites who maintained the written laws and ceremonies, and were the worshippers of Baal and Ashtaroth, under the name Lord and God:
Bk of Saphah:
||35/K.47. [From 2439 to 2139 years before Kosmon] The Faithists proper
were a small minority, and scattered in many lands. The rest, who were called
Jews, lived under written laws and ceremonies, which were compiled and
established
by Ezra, in Jerusalem (under the inspiration of Looeamong), which combination
of books was called the Bible, and was completed in the year 2344 B.K.
35/K.48. From that time forward, the Jews became worshippers of
the Lord and the God, but the scattered tribes of the Faithists
still held
to the Great Spirit, Jehovih, keeping their service secret.
These latter were
without sin, doing no war nor resistance of evil against
evil, but returning
good for evil, and loving one another as one's self.||
And so we find that added to the 80 Egyptian years were added 40 Hebrew years to account for the years of wandering in the wilderness. Of course Ezra bible believers are expected to accept that at 120, just like the other arbitrarily extended years of earlier Ezra bible patriarchs such as Abraham and Sarah, Moses still had the agility of his youth to climb up and down mountains!
According to the Ezra bible, it was Moses’ spies who produced the information about the Canaan cities. But according to Oahspe, on the day of the dawn of the Arc of Bon, the word of Jehovih’s angels which came through Moses was also heard by his adoptive family, Pharaoh and his daughter. The Voice instructed Pharaoh to allow the Faithists to migrate from Egypt. Pharaoh heeded the word of Jehovih’s angels and gave Moses what he required to fulfil that mission. And so, three years later, after Moses had travelled around Egypt to all the Faithists, setting the plan of the Migration into place, Pharaoh assigned commissioners to examine the lands where the Faithists were to migrate to and these returned with a record of their surveys.
Oahspe, Bk of the Arc of Bon
||27/16.1. The voice of Jehovih came to Moses saying: Have the king give you
commissioners who shall go in advance and examine the countries where I will lead
you....and the king appointed thirty-three men, and allotted to them seven months to
accomplish the inspection.||
These reports would have been official business and records of the Pharaoh, since such information would also be of general use to Egypt in knowing the capacity of powerful neighboring kingdoms. It was not until Nu-ghan, the second Pharaoh of Moses’ time, succeeded the throne that the Migration plans no longer received support from the Pharaoh of Egypt.
The lack of historical references to Moses and the organization of the Migration of the Faithists under the Pharaoh who was Moses’ adoptive father, can easily be attributed to the common practice in ancient Egypt of rulers to destroy the records of any previous rulers whose actions were counter to the ambitions of the succeeding ruler, in an attempt to obliterate their existence and achievements. In the establishement of a new dynasty, as in the time of Ahmose I, in 1550 b.c.e., this would be even more likely.
http://sketchythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/06/king-hatshepsut-female-falcon.html
retrieved 19 Sept, 07.
||.....the new Pharaoh waited decades into his reign before cleansing the historical record. According to Egyptologist, Bob Brier, this historical vandalism was simply because after Tuthmosis III consolidated his rule it was deemed impolitic to record that a woman had ruled Egypt as king. And so in subsequent years all the "king's lists" which later rulers would make to list their predecessors would never mention Hatshepsut having even existed.||
Another such case is evident in the complete disappearance of Arkenaten and Amarna from history until they were rediscovered in the mid-19th century. The Egyptian practise of reworking historical accounts was well known. The Ptolemaic Egyptian, Manetho, upon whom many scholars today depend for historical ‘facts’, was vociferously anti-Semitic. So, not only were his accounts of ancient Egyptian history subject to all the rewriting, cleansing and mythmaking of the past scribes, they are also shaded by his own personal bias.
http://www.hebrewhistory.info/factpapers/fp010-2_egypt.htm
retrieved 29 Sept, 07
||...Historians might well heed the advice of Herodotus, who made a leisurely trip far up the Nile. He was privy to information given to him by the priests, to lists of kings, and to surviving documents, Herodotus makes it abundantly clear that much of the information gathered was hearsay and unconfirmed fables. Herodotus presented this material honestly as material promulgated and probably adulterated by Egyptian warlords. He anticipated a slovenly reading of his work and contemptuously addressed those who would not heed his warning:
"Such as think the tales told by the Egyptians credible are free to accept them for history. As for myself, I keep to the general plan of this book, which is to record the traditions of the various nations just as I heard them and as they are related to me.
It is inexcusable that in this presumably enlightened era, the proselyting of Egyptian warlords and priests referred to by Herodotus, and the tales flagrantly promulgated by Manetho are persistently echoed....||Egypt and the Semites; Samuel Kurinsky, 1994.
In light of the way the Egyptian records were often “cleansed”, rewritten and retold so that the details of historical accounts were altered to represent Egyptian Hegemony as virtuous and victorious, it is not surprising to find the Egyptian account of the Exodus, written under the auspices of the Pharaoh who persecuted Moses and the Faithists, was misrepresented in this way. And like the femaleness of Hatshepsut, Moses, being a male of Israelitish blood, also received an “Egyptian Cleansing” before he was completely lost from their history. For his efforts to be true to the Creator, the Egyptian record untruthfully discredited Moses as a traitor and a murderer.
Even so, since the Egyptian version of the history of Moses and the Hebrews still existed in 494 b.c.e., Ezra was able to retrieve it. And the Egyptian Historian Manetho, in 280 b.c.e., recognizing the history of the Israelites in the expulsion of the Hyksos, indicates that Moses and the migration were still known to be actual persons and events in Egyptian History then also..
The widespread practice of rewriting events to flatter Egyptian Hegemony can explain how, in the Egyptian record, the details of the migration survey commissioned by Pharaoh in ca 1547 b.c.e. were stripped of any official decree or authority and instead were attributed to Moses’ spies. The details of Moses’ years of travel away from Pharaoh’s court to put the plans for migration into effect under the auspices of Pharaoh, also underwent revisions which falsely portrayed Moses as a murderer of an Egyptian and a fugitive in exile, as retold in the Jewish Ezra Bible.
According to Oahspe the attempt to portray Moses as a traitor to Egypt came from the oracles of the false Lord of Egypt (Baal), whom the Egyptians considered to be dependable sources of magical, supernatural knowledge representing their deities. Those spirits who inspired the oracles, deviously made use of the fear of invasion by foreign powers in discrediting Moses with accusations of plotting with foreign powers to overthrow Egyptian rule.
Oahspe, Bk of the Arc of Bon,
||27/15.32. And the oracles of the Eguptians prophesied that when the Israelites were
once out of the country they would unite with the kingdoms to which Moses had been
ambassador, and then return and overpower the Eguptians.
33. And in order to stigmatize Moses they said he fled away from Pharaoh’s palace
because he had seen two men, an Eguptian and an Israelite, fighting, and that Moses
slew the Eguptian and buried him in the sand. And the recorders thus entered the
report in the Recorder’s House.||
27/17.12. ||The king said [to Moses]: You have no authority; you are a frozen serpent
that was taken into the house of the king; and being thawed out, you turn to bite your
benefactors. You are outlawed by men and accursed by the oracles. It is said of you,
you have been to Hored [The Egyptian Underworld], and there wed for the sake of
alliance with my high priest, Jethro for conveyance of my lands unto your people....||
Here Oahspe reveals the origin of the Ezra bible story of Moses’ supposed time in the wilderness after he was supposed to have fled justice for supposedly killing an Egyptian. From Oahspe, we see that this story originated from the Egyptian oracles’ false accusations of wizardry and necromancy by Moses, to marry with underworld deities to gain supernatural favors.
Notwithstanding these
historical misrepresentations, evidence can be gleaned from even these records.
Oahspe highlights the clumsiness of the Egyptian lie when it poses the
question: If Moses had been a fugitive in exile, how was it that he came and
went freely from Pharaoh’s palace after he supposedly killed an
Egyptian.
There is now archaeological evidence that supports the fact that Moses and the
migrating Faithists did not go into Canaan fighting for territory and sending
spies ahead to scout for military advantage, but as a peaceful multitude of
people seeking safe and peaceful places to encamp.
The report commissioned by Moses’ adoptive father, Pharaoh, having shown the prosperous and settled conditions of the land of Canaan, would have also shown the shortest route from Egypt, “the way of the Philistines” as being hostile territory unsuitable to travel through. This meant Moses knew that a less direct route to the north eastern lands had to be taken, which took them toward the south east, where they made the Red Sea Crossing before heading in a more northerly direction. The favorable report indicated that the lands of Canaan were not ravaged by war, since the cities were strong, prosperous and able to receive supplies and trade. This would give confidence to the Israelites that they were not entering warring regions, which was the reason their ancestors had left those regions during the previous three hundred years. From a militaristic point of view, to find a city or cities strong and reinforced would be reason not to attack, especially by a multitude of unarmed people seeking peaceful refuge.
http://www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/355Exodus.html
retrieved 28 Sept, 07
||It seems the Hyksos capital at Avaris was besieged but was never taken, and so, by some arrangement, they were apparently allowed to leave for Palestine, as Josephus claims......... If the Asiatics had been expelled from Avaris and sent to Palestine in about 1550 BC, then there ought to be clear cultural signs of resettlement. The trouble is that the new imperialism of the eighteenth dynasty would have led to cultural changes in Palestine anyway.....||Biblical Archaeology: Evidence of the Exodus; D. Magee. 2003.
The peaceful migration of the Faithists places the whole Ezra account of the so called invasion of Canaan by the Mosaic Israelites, into the realm of myth, evidently created by interweaving into an earlier context, exaggerated and mythologized accounts of later military exploits of apostates.
____________________________
|1| Minnesota State University emuseum page at http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/middle_east/jericho.html
|2| Peter Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. pp.113-114
All Oahspe references are from the Standard Edition Oahspe of 2007
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