Redating the Hebrew Exodus, Part 3

Greek origins from Egypt

In circa 1580 to 1568 B.C., a group of colonists from Hyksos controlled Egypt, led by a mixed breed (probably Hyksos-Egyptian) called Inachus, settled in the harbor in what would become known as Attica (and later, Athens).

These colonists spoke Attic, or a variant of Syriac-Babylonian. Some scholars will call it a Semitic dialect. From this colonization until the Doric Invasion, the average generation was reckoned as anywhere from 20 to 33 years. It would be safe to say about 25 - 27 years, to the Greeks of pre-1000 B.C., to be the length of a generation.

Prior to the Trojan War, both the Greeks and the Egyptian Homer reckon Greece to be populated by “Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans” (Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.3).

From the time of Inachus to the Trojan War, are 20 Attic generations.

In 1016 B.C., the Dorian invasion brought the Doric language to Greece (Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 1.12).

In 909 B.C., the Ionic language took root there. In later centuries, Greece also came to possess an Aeolic and a Koine (common) language. It is by this last language that we have come to possess the New Testament. But more importantly, in the third century B.C.: through Egypt, we receive a translation of the Old Testament (known as the LXX or the Septuagint) as well.

The Greeks, in their culture and philosophy, --are intertwined like strands on a rope-- with Egypt for over 1,000 years.

First, we have the era of Ogygus (ca. 1551 B.C.), then with the marriage of Ceres seven short generations later.

This is followed by the settlement of the navies of Danaus.

Sethos, whom called himself Aegyptus (Josephus, Against Apion, 1.26), was brother to Danaus.

Danaus also goes by the name of Hermeus. Tertullian, in his Apology, .19 calls him as “the most ancient name” of the Romans. That honor is exclusive, and suggests the lineage of Rome’s rulers as being, in part, as from the families of the Pharaohs. Later, we see the Greek settlements on the Nile and in the Delta, and so on.


The Biblical, Greek, and Egyptian points to ponder
1) In Egyptology, we find that there is a relief that celebrates Raameses victory at Kadesh in 1180 B.C. This same victory is recorded in Judges 13:1, which the biblical record of successions tells us, is 331 years AFTER THE EXODUS. Therefore, this Pharaoh is not the one who died in the Red Sea during the Hebrew Exodus in the era of the Hebrew Judges of Israel, who judged IN ISRAEL.


2) Kadesh: 31 years earlier. In Judges 11:26, Jephthaa speaks of 300 years having passed from the entry of the Hebrews into Israel, to his time. The Judges, like Jephthaa, are more so contemporaneous with the Tell El-Amarna tablets, than is the Exodus to its contents. The tablets, dated by some to ca. 1375 - 1358 B.C., calls for Egypt to deliver the Philistine Lords from their ‘apiru” or ‘habiru’ oppressors.
Archer, Gleason L. “A Survey of Old Testament Introduction,” Chicago: Moody Press, ©1964, p. 164, (1974 edition.); cf. pp.241,289-295 (1994 edition.)


In 1422 B.C., Amenophis ruled Egypt, until 1391 B.C. Osiris is known as the deity of Heliopolis. In the reign of Amenophis, there were ambassadors “sent out to those shepherds driven out of the land (of Egypt) by Tethmosis, to the city of Jerusalem, whereby he informed them of his own affairs…” (Josephus, Against Apion. 1.26.). The result of this communication forges an alliance between the Rephaims and Philistines with Egypt, against the local Israeli Hebrew population.

If this is the case, this supports the validity for and the era of the Tel Amarna tablets. These Babylonian linguistic tablets from the Philistines to Egypt are to be dated to circa 1384 B.C., when: 1) Ehud, the son of Gera, of the tribe of Benjamin, delivers the Israelites from Eglon (Judges 3:16 -20); and 2) Shamgar, the son of Anath, kills 600 Palestinian men with an ox goad the same year (Judges 3:31).

The Hyksos, former masters in Egypt, only 167 years after their concurrent Exodus through the northern Sinai, were servants of Egypt in Israel. In Canaan/Israel, the once oppressive Hyksos were, in turn, afflicted by the Hebrews: and resorted to asking Egyptians (who their ancestors despised as weak), for archers as protection against the Hebrew judges and a popular uprising.

In 1391 B.C., Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis was upon the throne. Isis, says Clement of Alexandria, in Miscellanies 1.21. will be deified in what we may reckon as somewhere near 1271 B.C.

The Romans over a thousand years later, will worship her as Demeter: the deity of the fruitful and bountiful earth, and the “protector of marriage”. Her son, Horus, also is -- centuries later -- remembered by the Greeks, and thought of as a deity: Apollo. His sister, Acenchres (called “Nefertiti”), is Artemis and Diana. She ruled from 1354 B.C. until 1342 B.C. through Ikhnaton (Amenhotep IV). Her successor from 1342 to 1333 B.C. was Rathotis (a.k.a., Tutankhamen). Thus, the Tell Amarna tablets become a type of formula for prayers or requests to the fabricated deities Apollo (Horus) and Diana (Acenchres), for deliverance from the Jews, and the One True Faith in YHVeH.

3) In the Tell El-Amarna tablets, the Philistine lords or city-kings, communicate to Egypt in the Babylonian language…not in Egyptian. Why? One tablet speaks of Gezer having fallen, along with Ashkelon and Lachish. In Joshua 16:10, 21:21; and Judges 1:29; we find that Gezer was portioned as half-Jewish priests with their families and half-Canaanite. The Babylonian language entered the land with distinction in ca. 1450 B.C. with the invasion of Chushanrishathamin (Judges 3: , and remained the language of trade from 1450 B.C. until ca. 1211 B.C., some 239 years later. This example we see again with the Hellenization of the region and the influence of the Greek language over 1,000 years later.

4) In Isaiah 52:4, we find the Jewish history that those who oppressed the Jews in Egypt before the Exodus were not Egyptian at all: they were Syrian or Assyrian. In other words, the only peoples that fit this description within Egypt during the era in question: are the Hyksos, who came out of Syria-Assyria and into Egypt, because the Hittites were too strong for them to defend against at the time. This brings into Egypt the language of Aram, which is later characterized as Syriac-Babylonian.

Therefore, the language of Moses and of the Hyksos was a separation of distinctions or dialect of the same general mother tongue. To not be immersed and familiar with the characterizations and recent slang might cause one to stammer and stutter in conversing with those who use certain unfamiliar idioms regularly. This is perhaps what Moses meant in his asking GOD for, and receiving, a helper in Exodus 4:10-16.