Moses, Double Booked
Witnessing Tools
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Wendy Wippel
The Wikipedia entry on the Exodus declares that “Mainstream history and archaeology now consider the Exodus to be an entirely fictional narrative put together between the 8th and 5th centuries”. This supposed “consensus” was based on 1) “lack of any archaeological evidence, and 2) chronological contradictions between the Exodus and Egyptian histories.” My response? In their dreams.
Archaeologists have scoured the Biblical route of the Exodus and come up empty. No trace of the substantial numbers of people that traveled through. No luck identifying the places named in the Biblical narrative.
Archaeology, however, actually consists primarily of looking for remnants of building or piles of trash (called middens), to make trash-picking sound more scientific. According to the Bible, the Israelites didn’t build any permanent buildings in the wilderness, and as for trash?
Well, it’s s been several thousand years.
I personally participated in Hands Across America in 1986—6.5 million people holding hands, in a single line which stretched from New York City to the California coast. That was only 30 years ago, and there is no archaeological evidence left of that massive event left either.
It was, moreover, a celebrity-laden, high-profile event, with Ronald Reagan clasping hands at the Capitol, Michael Jackson in Youngstown, Ohio, and Bill Clinton in Arkansas. As well as 50 Abraham Lincoln impersonators in Springfield, IL , and 54 Elvis impersonators in Memphis.
(And in my hometown-- Cincinnati, Ohio-- no less a celebrity than Chewbacca. The Wookie, from Star Wars.)
It was a gargantuan undertaking that garnered world-wide publicity. Nonetheless, if there were no written records, the event would be obliterated from human history in just a few dozen years.
So even if there isn’t any “archaeological” evidence (which is not in fact the case, but that’s another day, another column), it wouldn’t really bother me.
And we do have written records of the Exodus. The Hebrews recorded the events in some detail in the book of Exodus. Of course, we know what the “scholars and experts” think of that record; someone made it up.
Fortunately, we have another set of records. Two, actually, from the other party involved. Egypt. A black granite monument housed in a museum in Ismalia, and an ancient piece of papyrus found near the Pyramids at Saqqara.
That document is known as the Ipuwer Papyrus. And it describes the same events that Moses did.
Now housed in a Dutch Museum, the Ipuwer Papyrus is a document written by an Egyptian Priest named, Ipuwer, condemning the decisions of the current Pharaoh and pleading for the Pharoah to rectify the situation. Ipuwer describes a series of catastrophic events experienced by Egypt as the result of the Pharaoh’s decisions.
And those catastrophes are, point by point (and for the most part in the same order), are chillingly the same as those described in Exodus.
Beginning with the fact that the Papyrus confirms that Pharoah’s court officials were at odds with him as stated in Exodus 10:7:
"Then Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “How long shall this man be a snare to us? Let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God. Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed?”
And that’s only the beginning.
The First Plague: Blood
EXODUS 7: And Moses and Aaron did so, just as the Lord commanded. So he lifted up the rod and struck the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants. And all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. 21 The fish that were in the river died, the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink the water of the river. So there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.
IPUWER: Plague is throughout the land, blood is everywhere. (2:6)
Forsooth, the river is blood. (2:10) Behold Egypt is poured out like water. He who poured water on the ground has captured the strong man in misery. (7:4)
The Second Plague: Frogs
EXODUS 8: Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt.
The frogs were a nuisance, as the Exodus passage records, but other ancient Hebrew sources also mention the unbearable noise created by so many frogs (a 2008 invasion of penny-sized frogs in Hawaii, with a density of 50,000/ acre/ created levels as high as 100 decibels throughout the Islands. Nobody slept.)
IPUWER: Oh that the earth would cease from noise, and the tumult be no more…(6:1)
The Fifth Plague: Livestock Diseased
EXODUS 9: Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and tell him, ‘Thus says the Lord God of the Hebrews: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. 2 For if you refuse to let them go, and still hold them, 3 behold, the hand of the Lord will be on your cattle in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the oxen, and on the sheep—a very severe pestilence
IPUWER: all the animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan…(5:5) the hand of the Lord is upon thy cattle in the field… and there is very grievous sickness…(9:3)
The Sixth Plague: Boils
EXODUS 10: Then they (Moses and Aaron) took ashes from the furnace and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses scattered them toward heaven. And they caused boils that break out in sores on man and beast. 11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians
IPUWER: Hair has fallen out for everyone…(4:1)… It is groaning throughout the land, mingled with lamentations (3:14)
The Seventh Plage: Hail
EXODUS: 18 Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause very heavy hail to rain down, such as has not been in Egypt since its founding until now. 19 …the hail shall come down on every man and every animal which is found in the field … and they shall die.”
IPUWER: Gates. Columns and walls are consumed by fire… Papyrus 2:10 and fire ran along the ground.. there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous.. 9:23-24… and hail smote every herb and the field and broke every tree.
The Eighth Plague: Locusts
EXODUS: tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory. 5 And they shall cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth; and they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field. 6 They shall fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians—which neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’ And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested on all the territory of Egypt. They were very severe; previously there had been no such locusts as they, nor shall there be such after them. 15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every herb of the land and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. So there remained nothing green on the trees or on the plants of the field throughout all the land of Egypt
IPUWER: No fruits or herbs are found…grain has perished on every side (6:3)… trees are destroyed (Papyrus 2:10) there remained no green thing ..through all the land of Egypt. (10:15)
The Ninth Plague: Darkness
EXODUS: So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They did not see one another; nor did anyone rise from his place for three days.
IPUWER: Destruction…the land is in Darkness… (9:8-10)…The land is without light (9:11)…Thick darkness in all the land of Egypt. (10:22)
Let’s take a moment here to recap. Commentators in the midrash imply that the plagues occurred over the space of about a year. So the residents of Egypt have, at this point, endured a year of suffering, hunger, thirst, disease, sleep deprivation and natural disasters that have destroyed the land of Egypt as well as food supplies. Add to that a sudden supernatural darkness, that and it’s a society on the brink of extinction. Pharoah’s advisors--, one of them Ipuwer- have beseeched him to let the Israelites go, in order to avoid more misery and death.
He still refuses.
So, Jehovah issues one final decree. The firstborn of every union will be taken.
All Exodus tells us is that Jehovah was behind the slaughter. No methods revealed.
Ipuwer, however, gives us some tantalizing hints. It would seem that with the deaths of the firstborn, Egypt descends completely into anarchy and all-out civil war.
A man looks upon his son as an enemy, the evils of civil war are everywhere felt.. …. (1:6) He who places his brother in the ground are everywhere. (2:13)
Many dead men are buried in the river.. the stream has become a sepulcher.. (2:6)
Children of Princes are dashed against walls… the offspring of nobility laid out on high ground… the residence is overturned in an instant. (7:4)
With those deaths, we know, the Israelites were finally released. God told His people to collect the wealth of their Egyptian rulers (thereby recouping years of wages they were owed) and head out.
Ipuwer records this as well: Poor men have become the owners of good things… “He who could not make his own sandals now possesses riches.“ (2:4)
“God, blue stone, silver, malachite, carnelian, bronze and Yebet stone are fastened to the necks of female slaves.” (3:3)
“The poor of the land have become rich, the possessor of property like one who has nothing”…(8:2)
We know from Exodus that they were joined by some of the native Egyptians. (Exodus 12:38)
Ipuwer confirms this as well: “Egyptians have become foreigners…” (3:14)
They were then led out of Egypt by a pillar of fire. In Ipuwer’s words: “The fire mounted up on high, its burning goes forth before the enemies of the land. “
But Pharaoh couldn’t let it go, and chased them with his armies, determined to destroy them. We know what happened then. God intervened. Pharaoh and his army drowned in the Red Sea.
And there actually is an additional record in Egypt of exactly that event. In a little town called Ismailia, not far from the Suez canal, a 4x4 black granite monument contains an inscription that documents Pharaoh’s demiseat the “Place of the Whirlwind”.
“Evil fell upon the earth, the earth was in great affliction.. there was a great disturbance in the residence, darkness so that neither man nor gods could see the faces of those in front of them…Pharoah thrown by a whirlwind high into the air and seen no more.”
Still not convinced? It gets better. Exodus 14:9 names the place at which the chosen people made their passage through the Red Sea as Pi Hahiroth.
The inscription in Ismalia says that Pharaoh disappeared from view at Pi KHaroth .
Coincidence? I think not.
Isn’t it strange that modern culture is all about embracing and celebrating everybody’s identity no matter how contrived or counterfeit that identity is?
All but the Jews, of course, whose identity and history (despite being the only unbroken and unedited history of one people in all the earth), is summarily dismissed.
But it ain’t over till its over.
Yogi Berra said that. Was he Jewish?
Subject: Moses, Double Booked 
Wed Jun 24, 2015 6:18 am
