Episode 29 Ramesses the Great: The Later Years
The History of Ancient Egypt
Professor Robert Brier
Film Review
Despite the absence of concrete archeological evidence, Brier believes the mass migration of Israelites from Egypt described in Exodus 1-14 states occurred under Ramesses II. According to the biblical account, their rapid population increase in Egypt’s delta region frightened the “new pharaoh,” leading him to first enslave them as brick makers and later issue an edict to kill all their male children. Instead of killing him, the Egyptian midwife of Moses’s mother set him adrift in a basket in the Nile. The pharaoh’s daughter discovered him, named him Masah (meaning “draw out” of the reeds) and raised him herself.
When the pharaoh rejected the adult Moses’s demand to release the Israelite slaves, God delivered 10 plagues on the Egyptians (turning the Nile to blood, followed by plagues of frogs, gnats, flies, mass livestock deaths, boils, hail, locusts and blotting out the son). It was only when God killed all the Egyptians’ firstborn sons that pharaoh relented.
The Bible gives the number of Israelis leaving Egypt as 600,000. Brier finds this unlikely as the population of Egypt was only 1 million.* According the the Bible, the Israelites didn’t take the Philistine (Palestinian) route as it was lined with military watchtowers. Instead they crossed a sea of reeds in the delta region, and when the Pharaoh sent military chariots to pursue them, the wheels got bogged down in the mud.
Despite the absence of concrete evidence, Brier believes the biblical account is consistent with Egyptian life under the reign of Ramses II.
Unlike elsewhere in the Mediterranean, Egyptian mud bricks contained straw, and Moses is an Egyptian name meaning “birth.” Likewise a stella erected by Ramses II’s son Merneptah celebrating to Egypt’s victory over Canaan states “Israel is laid waste – its seed is not.” Brier finds this significant as Israel is not designated as a foreign country (with the 3 hills hieroglyph), but the with hieroglyphs designating “Israelites.**
He also find it significant that the Exodus occurred during year 20 of Ramesses II’s reign, the same year his firstborn son died.
*Brier believes the number was closer to 600.
**According to Exodus, the Israelites were still wandering in the desert during the reign of Merneptah.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492862
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