# 18th dynasty exodus - resources needed



## MW (Feb 24, 2016)

I'm doing research on Egypt at and around the time of the exodus. The virtual evangelical consensus ("academically") dates the exodus under the 19th dynasty. I've never taken with this view as it requires the biblical chronology to be adjusted. It seems to me to be an attempt to synchronise data.

Allowing the Bible to set its own chronology gives a prima facie date around 1446. Allowing Egyptology to undertake its own study without adjusting it to a biblical chronology, the 1446 date falls within the 18th dynasty in the reign of Amenhotep II. If we overlay the Egyptian timeline on the biblical account we come up with a tentative hypothesis which correlates very well with the biblical narrative.

The problem is that there appear to be very few resources which explore this correlation. Eugene Merrill's Historical Survey accords with the hypothesis but gives little to no reference to historical sources. Bruce Gore's Historical Context is more systematic and provides a good correlation. Are there other resources which explore the likelihood of an 18th dynasty exodus?


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## MW (Feb 24, 2016)

au5t1n said:


> I remember Gleason Archer's _A Survey of Old Testament Introduction_ having a thorough discussion of the correlation between the biblical events and the Egyptian dynasties. I don't recall the dynasty numbers themselves, but he prefers the view that the Exodus occurred earlier than is usually thought and the 430 years date to Abraham. That may lead to other sources. I was borrowing the copy I read and have returned it.



Thanks Austin. His "Bible Difficulties" adopts 1446 and the 18th dynasty. I will have a look at his "Survey."


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## py3ak (Feb 24, 2016)

Matthew, Walter Kaiser takes an 18th Dynasty view in _A History of Israel_, and I think the "Exodus" portion of the _Bible Knowledge Commentary_ does as well.


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## arapahoepark (Feb 24, 2016)

Evidence of Israel in the Desert
Evidence of Israel is Egypt

I believe those are the titles of two books by James Hoffmeier who teaches at TEDS.


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## MW (Feb 24, 2016)

py3ak said:


> Matthew, Walter Kaiser takes an 18th Dynasty view in _A History of Israel_, and I think the "Exodus" portion of the _Bible Knowledge Commentary_ does as well.



Thanks Ruben. I'll look into those. I generally find Kaiser's OT work to be insightful and he is a clear writer.


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## MW (Feb 24, 2016)

arap said:


> Evidence of Israel in the Desert
> Evidence of Israel is Egypt
> 
> I believe those are the titles of two books by James Hoffmeier who teaches at TEDS.



Thanks Trent. Hoffmeier has been helpful to sift through the archaeological material, but he defends the later date.


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## arapahoepark (Feb 24, 2016)

MW said:


> arap said:
> 
> 
> > Evidence of Israel in the Desert
> ...



Ah ok. Now I know. I just assumed more Bible believing scholars nowadays were jumping on the earlier date.


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## MW (Feb 26, 2016)

Just a follow-up note, R. K. Harrison's Old Testament Times presents the material in terms of both earlier and later exodus dates, and provides an excellent background to the situation in Egypt.


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## iainduguid (Feb 26, 2016)

This site provides some additional resources:
http://www.davelivingston.com/articles/Redating the Exodus.pdf


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## MW (Feb 26, 2016)

iainduguid said:


> This site provides some additional resources:
> http://www.davelivingston.com/articles/Redating the Exodus.pdf



Thanks Prof. Duguid. There is good material here for the knock-on effect with the conquest. 

Agreeing with what these authors suggest, I had just read in Geisler's Popular Handbook of Archaeology:



> some have suggested (based on recent archaeological excavation) lowering the date of the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) to about 1400 BC (instead of about 1550 BC), which would bring harmony between the fall of the cities of Canaan and Joshua’s account of the conquest.


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## MW (Feb 26, 2016)

There are a few JETS articles by Bryant Wood which are available in pdf at the JETS site.

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/48/48-3/48-3-pp475-489_JETS.pdf

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/50/50-2/JETS_50-2_249-258_Wood.pdf

http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/51/51-2/JETS 51-2 225-243 Young-Wood.pdf


Some more appear at the following site, which has quite amount of information to process.

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/category/Exodus-from-Egypt.aspx


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## Peairtach (Feb 27, 2016)

The "Exodus - Patterns of Evidence" comes to an early date conclusion and includes contributions and discussion by Hoffmeier and Rohl. 

The filmaker, Timothy ?, unfortunately presents archaelogolical evidence as the answer to a crisis of faith, although the Lord never promises archaeological evidence, which evidence is inferior to the evidence of His written word.

There is a book and further DVDs that go into gretaer detail.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


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## johnny (Feb 27, 2016)

I found the Exodus (patterns of evidence) an interesting documentary.

I would have gained more from this documentary, had I have had a greater understanding 
of the history of the other positions, (which I did not, being a complete novice)

They do however, use an overlay technique in the animation part of this video,


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## arapahoepark (Feb 27, 2016)

Exodus Decoded was another documentary, though not necessarily Christian, they agree that it probably happened and opt for earlier date.


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## MW (Feb 28, 2016)

I find it very difficult to get to the facts through a documentary. They appear to work on the principle that seeing is believing. They can be useful for a general impression, but not for examining debated material.

The idea of "patterns of evidence" is a good approach, especially if it avoids revising accepted data to try to make it synchronise with a specific biblical interpretation.


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