Who came first -- Moses or Abraham?

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M*W: I've been researching the connection between Moses and Akhenaten and came upon a few of interesting theories:

1) Did Abraham live about 200 years before the birth of Moses?

2) Did the Exodus really happen in Moses' lifetime?

3) Were the early Hebrews really Egyptians?

4) Was Moses only 30 years old when he died?

5) Did the Exodus take more than 400 years to complete?

6) Was Nefertiti one of Moses' wives?

7) Was King David an Egyptian?

8) Were Moses and Nefertiti King Tut's parents?

Anyone else hear of these theories? Any comments?

 

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Okay i have a couple of anwsers

1: Abraham was the grandfather of Jacob, later named Israel by God. Joesopth, Jacob's son, led their people into Egypt by Gods hand because of the Famin. It is "estamated" that there is a 500 hundred period where the Hebrews were slaves in Egypt before Moses. So that is a negitive. Moses about 500 (slavery) 90 (3 generations) so about 590 estamated in years.

2. Moses lived through the exodus until the Hebrews entered the promise land. So yes.

3. No, slaves to the Egyptions. From mesopotamia i think.

4. 120 years. 40 years as a prince of Egypt, 40 years as a Shepard (when he ran cause he killed an egyptian.) and another 40 years of the Exodus

5. about 40-50. Moses led them straight to the promise land. But the people were afraid of the people who already lived there. And with the Golden Calf and everything, God was kinda pissed. He apparently believed they were not ready to enter. He had them stay in the wilderness for 40 years so that all the "bad" people would die out.

6. I dont know

7. No, Saul was the first King of israel because the people wanted a ruler other than God. God was pissed, but granted them their wish. Saul became disobediant and Samuel told Saul that his kingdom would be taken from him. David was the second king of Isriael.

8. Doesnt say, but possible. I doubt it because Ramsees the second was Pharoh when Moses led the Exodus and without an heir he died. There has got to been more than 11 years in between. Which makes it not likely because tut was only 11 or so i think

Thats about all i got

Some reference is Genisis for Abraham and when the Hebrews went to Egypt during the famine. Exodus is about Moses at first then the accuall Exodus from Egypt.

Dueteronomy has about Moses' death.

either 1 or 2nd Kings is about David.

 

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No, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt for only about 100 years (note that their Egyptian masters were dark skinned, not the Greco-Egyptian blend we see now, which is in stark contrast to the light skinned masters of the American slavery experience). Thinking the Israelites were in slavery for 400 years is a common mistake. The entire sojourn, from the time Abraham left Haran until the time the Hebrews left Egypt, was 480 years (to the day, or so says the Torah). The lineage is Abraham-Isaac-Jacob/Israel-Levi-Kohath-Amram-Moses (but you have to keep in mind that Amram married his Aunt, the daughter of Levi, so this really only leaves 6 generations to fill the time span).

There is a common mistake in Egyptology that places Rameses II as the pharoah during the exodus. However, Rameses (common name Shesha) is more acurately placed in biblical chronology as the pharoah during the reign of David/Solomon/Rehaboam and is known in the bible as Sheshak (for more, Google David Rohl). Moses was a contemporary of Hammarabi which was many centuries before Nefratiti. Moses, according to the bible, had two wives (not necessarily at the same time) - one from Ethiopia and one from Midan.

Yes, the Hebrews (who married Egyptian women) were Egyptians by modern thought, but by ancient thought, the lineage was purely paternal. Abraham died about three centuries before Moses was born (you can figure it out exactly if you are so inclined). The Exodus took exactly (to the day) 40 years (of course their calandars were lunar and ours are solar) and many of the Hebrews who left were Egyptians, not Israelites. However, the original children of Israel (the original 70 who came to Egypt 215 years prior to the Exodus) were not Egyptians - they were light skinned.

 

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David F.: ]No, the Israelites were slaves in Egypt for only about 100 However, the original children of Israel (the original 70 who came to Egypt 215 years prior to the Exodus) were not Egyptians - they were light skinned.
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M*W: So, David F., my friend, what are you saying? The Egyptians you speak of were light skinned? Skin doesn't matter, my friend. History matters.

 

I doubt it was only a 100 years. In 100 years 12 brothers could not have several hundred children (estimated about 500+ hebrews). Estimating 3 per child it can be about 100-200 if they have 3 kids every 30 years. However this isnt evidence so it can be either way. Im gonna take a look into Ramsees, because During the reign of Solomon the Egyptians lost their empire...they were ruled by someone from the south, im gonna look this up and see what I can find.

 

Okay i did some research and Found that Ramsees the III was Pharoh during the start of the Iron Age. Which if you do not know, was started by the Israelights after the Exodus. Information on the Iron age can be found in most history books. I learned this back in high school. So based off of that, it is possible it is Ramsees the II or any of the following: Merenptah, Amenmessu, Sety II, Septah, Tausret. These Pharoahs were of the 19 Dynasty, which is where they stumbled in their economy. Assuming that this might be proportional to the Exodus. But this is an assumption and not fact.

 

M.W. Yes, of course you are right, skin does not matter. I point out skin color for only two reasons. First, that slavery is not confined to whites enslaving blacks (which actually has nothing to do with this thread) and second that the proto-Israelites could not have been Egyptians because they were light skinned while the original Egyptians were dark-skinned. We know that the original Babylonians or Phenoicians were light skinned (from which the tribe of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob came) and we know that light-skinned peoples from Caanan came to Egypt (drawings on tomb walls where the Egyptians draw themselves as black and the travelers from Cannan as white) and in the late 1990's there was a discovery, in the land of Goshen where the Hebrews were supposed to have lived, of a cult-statue which is thought by many to be a statue of Joseph - and it is light skinned with red hair (definitely not Egyptian) and wearing a coat of striped (many) colors (not white like the Egyptians). Joseph (and Moses) would have been light-skinned royalty in a land of dark-skinned people. The elite of Egypt were all dark-skinned and the light-skinned minority (Hebrews) would have been looked down upon and despised for their light skin (why are these light-skinned descedants of slaves rulers over us?) in much the same way the dark-skinned descendants of slaves were looked down upon and persecuted previously in America.

Notice also in Cantations (Song of Solomon) that Solomon's Egyptian princess says she is black - as if to say "don;t hate me because I am black". She wouldn't say such a thing unless it was a differentiator - if the Israelites were also black then no one would notice.

You are right, skin does not matter and it is wrong to judge based upon skin - but it happens anyway.

 

Unfortunately, there is a very large problem with Egytology and much debate in the works today. This was started when Napoleon's Egyptologists made the (totally unsupported) assumption that Rameses II was the Pharoah of the Exodus, even though they had no evidence to support such a thing. This has caused a 300 year error in Egyptian timelines which persists even until today. In the last decade, there has been much effort (started at least in part by British archealogist Dr. David Rohl) to correct the timeline but, as everyone knows, acedemia does not change quickly. Thus there is still much error in the "conventional wisdom". It may take the retirement of the current generation of Egyptologists to correct this problem.

 

No, the Hebrews were in Egypt for 215 years and the twelve brothers already had many children before that. For the first 70 years or so, Joseph was in charge of the land of Egypt and the children of Israel did not immediately become slaves at the death of Joseph - it took some time for the Egyptians to forget Joseph. How long? Certainly a decade or two or five. The enslavement of the Israelites did not happen over night but as a gradual process - they were tricked. So an actual number of years is not possible, but a good estimate might be 100 years.

I think you are way off on your estimates. The bible says Benjamin had 10 sons before he even came to Egypt, and he could not have been more than 25-30 years old. When you live well over 120 and you have no birth control, and there is no prohibition on multiple wives, then you end up with lots of children - especially when your brother is ruler of the land and you get anything you want or need (you never go hungry).

 

I forgot to correct myself. I realized later than "guessing" about 2-4 generations (ie:sons, grandsons, great-, etc) went with the family, as stated in Genisis (which was written by Moses). So it is probable.

 

David F.: Notice also in Cantations (Song of Solomon) that Solomon's Egyptian princess says she is black - as if to say "don;t hate me because I am black". She wouldn't say such a thing unless it was a differentiator - if the Israelites were also black then no one would notice.
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M*W: Some modern day researchers whom I've read associate this black Egyptian princess with Mary Magdalene. I'll see if I can find the citations.

 

Skin color doesn't matter, except in genetics. I only bring up the issue of skin color to answer your question concerning whether or not the Hebrews were Egyptians. The 3,000,000 or more refugees which left at the exodus (600,000 Israelite men + their women and children + other refugees) were of mixed races so some were Egyptian and other nationalities, but the ancestors of the Israelites were not Egyptian (at least their paternal line was not).

 

camphlps: Okay i did some research and Found that Ramsees the III was Pharoh during the start of the Iron Age. Which if you do not know, was started by the Israelights after the Exodus. Information on the Iron age can be found in most history books. I learned this back in high school. So based off of that, it is possible it is Ramsees the II or any of the following: Merenptah, Amenmessu, Sety II, Septah, Tausret. These Pharoahs were of the 19 Dynasty, which is where they stumbled in their economy. Assuming that this might be proportional to the Exodus. But this is an assumption and not fact.
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M*W: Thanks for your effort on the lineage of the pharaohs. It's confusing because they all had several given names, official names, official titles and were called familiar names by their families. For example, our familiar Moses started out in life as Aminidab. This is what his family called him. He became Amenhotep IV when he was only 17. As it was the common practice in those days to take as many wives as one could handle so as to beef up one's gene pool. Those many wives had as many children as they could bear in the short lifespan of their day, and of course all these wives and progeny had multiple names, too. It was following Moses' pharaohship from 1367-1350 BC when he was also known as Akhenaten. It was during his reign as pharaoh that he instituted the idea of monotheism. Moses existed during the middle years of the 18th dynasty. The 19th dynasty didn't begin until about 1308 BC with Ramses I. When Nefertiti died, Moses married his eldest daughter who was already married to Aaron (also known as Semenkhkare). And, of course, a family as tightly knit as this one surely had some skeletons to hide along the way. Moses apparently couldn't get enough sex from all those wives, sisters, concubines and daughters, he also had a homosexual affair with his own brother Aaron/Semenkhkare who was also his son-in-law. I wonder if both of them were sleeping with the wife/daughter at the same time? Makes one wonder, doesn't it? It's already been established that King Tut is Moses' son, but now the question is: Who was King Tut's mother? Nefertiti or his own eldest sister? Man... can you imagine birthdays around that house? I guess that explains why Miriam, Moses' sister, was also his mother.

 

So far, who hasn't Mary Magadelene supposedly been? So many theories on who Mary Magdalene was that they all branch out in various ways so they each have their own differing stories so that no sense can be made of it all. There's lots of interesting theories said if you place Mary Magalene as [insert other name here] but damn, when she winds up being everyone, it all turns to rubbish.

- N

 

I prefer to put Arkenaten (18th Dynasty) in the time of the Biblical King David rather than at the time of Moses and put Moses far earlier in the reign of Pharoah Dudimose, Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I (13th Dynasty). This puts Joseph in the reign of Amenemhat III (12th Dynasty).

http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/thera/newchrono.html

Cute story (maybe even true) though it doesn't apply to Moses.

 

Neildo: So far, who hasn't Mary Magadelene supposedly been? So many theories on who Mary Magdalene was that they all branch out in various ways so they each have their own differing stories so that no sense can be made of it all. There's lots of interesting theories said if you place Mary Magalene as [insert other name here] but damn, when she winds up being everyone, it all turns to rubbish.
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M*W: It might appear that I have some sort of intense fixation on Mary Magdalene, and I will admit to having read everything I could find that has been written about her (or even allegedly by her). It's not that I think she's following me or anything. For all I know, you could be following me. For all I know, you could be Mary Magdalene. Do you have long red hair and carry around a jar of Vick's Vapo Rub? BTW, do you do any reading or research of biblical characters and events outside that great mythology called The Bible? Your vast fund of knowledge about biblical persona seems to be rather limited. Now prove to me that you're not Mary Magdalene.

 

David F.: I prefer to put Arkenaten (18th Dynasty) in the time of the Biblical King David rather than at the time of Moses and put Moses far earlier in the reign of Pharoah Dudimose, Sobekhotep IV and Neferhotep I (13th Dynasty). This puts Joseph in the reign of Amenemhat III (12th Dynasty).
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M*W: David, my research of Moses is quite recent, and I relied on the following sources:

Alan H. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1961.

Ahmed Osman, Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus, Bear and Company, Rochester, VT, 2002.

I don't claim to be a Mosaic scholar by any means. The area of my biohistorical knowledge is centered on Mary Magdalene. However, a slight diversion of researching other characters has stemmed from my interest in proving the Bible and Christianity to be false.

Gardiner lists the Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty to be:

Ahmosis 1575-1550 BC
Amenhotep I 1550-1528 BC
Tuthmosis I 1528-1510 BC
Tuthmosis II 1510-1490 BC
Hatshepsut 1490-1468 BC
Tuthmosis III (co-regent) 1490-1436 BC
Amenhotep II 1436-1413 BC
Tuthmosis IV 1413-1405 BC
Amenhotep III (Moses' father) 1405-1367 BC
Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten/Moses) 1367-1350 BC
Semenkhkare (Aaron) 1350-1347 BC
Tutankhamun (Tut, Moses' son) 1347-1339 BC
Aye 1339-1335 BC
Horemheb 1335-1308 BC

I assume these are the ruling dates of the 18th Dynasty and not their lifespans.

I will leave this to you to look over and comment while I go watch the season premiere of Boston Legal by my favorite writer, David E. Kelley. Back in a bit.

 

Hmmmm... not sure how to answer (I caught ths second half of Boston Legal and thoroughly enjoyed it).

The biblical date for the Exodus is something in the 1550BC range (which would put Moses on your scale at about Ahmosis/Amenhotep I, and the previous 80 years).

The biblical date for Solomon is something around 1000BC (I think some put Solomon's Temple at around 950BC so David would have started around 1000BC). The key of course is the Armana letters which mention King David and the Habiru by name, (they also mention a king prior to David called Labiu, or <i>the Lion</i> which some have taken to be the biblical king Saul - Saul or Shaul means "asked for" and it is the name he would have taken when he became the Hebrew king, not his given name) and the Armana letters were written to Pharoah Akhenaten. It would be pretty hard to square the bible account with the Jebusites (in Shalem/Jerusalem) sending letters to Akenaten/Moses about King David. This would make David and Moses contemporaries. I don't think this quite works.

In the biblical account, David attacked and took the city of Shalem/Jerusalem on mount tsiana/Zion from the Jebusites.

The Armana letters give an excellent non-biblical reference to a biblical event and pin it directly to Akenaten.

 

David F.: I caught ths second half of Boston Legal and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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M*W: It's a spin-off from Kelley's The Practice. I was addicted to that show. I'm not much for TV, but he's an excellent writer and his shows (Picket Fences, Boston Public, The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal) are all entertaining and so well-researched! He's a former Boston lawyer.
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David F.: The biblical date for the Exodus is something in the 1550BC range (which would put Moses on your scale at about Ahmosis/Amenhotep I, and the previous 80 years).
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M*W: Scientists believe that Akhenaten's physical disfigurement may have been Froelich's syndrome, an endocrinological disorder that gives men the more rounded breasts, bellies and fat pads around the genitals. Sometimes in the male, the penis is ingulfed in pubic fat and can't be seen. Some thought that this pharaoh was a woman disguised as a king.

It's been documented that Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and later changed his name to Akhenaten. He tried to reform Egypt's religious system replacing it with a sole god called 'Aten.'

Akhenaten was known to have written poetry. There is a certain resemblence to Psalm 104 of the Bible. Hey, wait a minute! I though David was supposed to have written the Psalms? There may be more of a connection to David than we yet realize.

Some scholars have said that Moses was born a royal Egyptian and the myth surrounding his humble birth was made up.
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David F.: The biblical date for Solomon is something around 1000BC (I think some put Solomon's Temple at around 950BC so David would have started around 1000BC). The key of course is the Armana letters which mention King David and the Habiru by name, (they also mention a king prior to David called Labiu, or <i>the Lion</i> which some have taken to be the biblical king Saul - Saul or Shaul means "asked for" and it is the name he would have taken when he became the Hebrew king, not his given name) and the Armana letters were written to Pharoah Akhenaten. It would be pretty hard to square the bible account with the Jebusites (in Shalem/Jerusalem) sending letters to Akenaten/Moses about King David This would make David and Moses contemporaries. I don't think this quite works.
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M*W: Interesting. There are some similarities between Moses and the religion of Akhenaten. Moses was attributed to have written "Hear, O Israel, the Lord they God is one God." When translated into Hebrew, it's supposed to read, "Hear, O Israel, our God Aten is the only God." The question remains, if were Moses were Egyptian and became the Jewish law-giver, there's got to be similarities between the two cultures-religions.
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David F.: In the biblical account, David attacked and took the city of Shalem/Jerusalem on mount tsiana/Zion from the Jebusites.

The Armana letters give an excellent non-biblical reference to a biblical event and pin it directly to Akenaten.
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M*W: It's been discovered and known for quite some time now that Moses was married to Nefertiti and they had some six daughters and possibly one son together, King Tut. He had other wives and concubines who bore him children, including his own daughter, as was the custom in those days.

The Habiru were a tribe of Egyptian nomads. Perhaps they were the ancestors of the Hebrews. Another interesting point is that during the Exodus (mind you, now, some biblical scholars believe the Exodus didn't happen), but if there was some archeological evidence of the Exodus, they haven't found any yet. However, the Egyptians did not cross the Red Sea but the Sea of Reeds. There is also some speculation that Moses didn't write the Torah. There may be some evidence that the Torah was written prior to Moses.

In those days, the lifespan was quite a bit shorter than it is today. Live fast, die young as they say. I've read where Moses was about 18 years old when the Exodus began, and about the ripe old age of 30 when he died. I cannot confirm these dates, but I'll keep looking.

So the question arises: At what point does the significant pharaoic religion and culture end and the Hebrews culture begin?

 

David wrote some of the Psalms but not all... Moses wrote Psalm 90.

The name Moses was appearently a common name in Egypt, especially among the Pharoahs. It had special significance, since the river was sacred, to be drawn out of the river - something like being born from the river (baptised?). The trick is to find a Moses in Egypt which is actually the same as the Moses of Exodus.

Habiru is an Egyptian word which means "dusty ones" which was applied by the Egyptians to <i>all</i> nomadic tribes.

There was something special about the tribe of Abraham which caused them to live a long time (there are records of Sumerian kings living hundreds of years but no one seems to believe them). It is true that the Egyptian life-span was shorter and it seems that those who lived in the Egyptian royal court had shorter life-spans (Moses and Joseph both had shorter life-spans than others in their immediate family). Perhaps there was something about the food, or the medical care, which caused them to die younger - of course in the case of Joseph, dieing younger still meant living to 110 and in the case of Moses, 120. This seems long to us but for an Isrealite which lived into the 130-140 range this was a significant shortening of his lifespan - 20%. I particularly like the reaction of Joseph's pharoah when Joseph's father, Jacob, is brought in. Pharoah's reaction is "How old <i>are</i> you." and Jacob replies "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." Jacob is actually upset by 130 years (he doesn't die for another 17 years). I sometimes think that Abraham and Isaac send their sons back home to Pandanaram for breeding purposes. They don't want their sons marrying these short-lived Caananites and Egyptians - they want them to marry the long-lived girls back home. In any case, their lifespan keeps getting shorter until David notes that men live to be 70-80.

Moses did not cross the Red Sea or the Reed Sea. This is a purposeful mis-translation. The correct translation is "the sea at the end [of the land]" They crossed on the land bridge at the tip of Sinai over to the Arabian Penensula (the land bridge is usually under about 20-30 feet of water, depending upon the tides) and Mt. Sinai is not on the Sinai penensula at all. Sinai has always been a part of Egypt so the 40 year sojourn could not have been on the peninsula. Mt. Sinai is known today as Jabal Al Lawz. All Muslims know this and the Saudi Kingdom guards the mount religiously. Even Paul says so in Gal 4:25. It seems only the Christians don't know where Mt. Sinai (Horeb) is.

I had not heard that the Torah was written before Moses although it was certainly written before Akhenaten/Moses. Josephus, the Jewish historian, does seem to suggest that Moses had source material (two stone/brick pillars) written by Adam and Methusalah before the flood.