Ancient History Reconsidered

Patterns of Evidence - The Exodus (Film and Book Review)

In this book and film, which has resulted in a whole series of documentary films, Director Timothy Mahoney challenges the archaeologists’ interpretations of the archaeological evidence. The reason why archaeologists cannot find evidence of the Exodus is because they are all looking in the wrong places and are using the wrong time frame. Most archaeologists assume that the Exodus took place during the time of Rameses II, known as Rameses the Great, and dogmatically base their arguments around that assumption. The mention of the city of Rameses in the Book of Genesis is, however, an anachronism. Someone at a relatively late date has amended the Biblical texts. Tim Mahoney has noticed that the city of Rameses is mentioned in Gen. 47:11 in connection with Jacob and his family moving to Egypt to be under the care of Joseph, who by now had been given great power and authority by the Pharaoh. This was around four hundred and thirty years before the Exodus, though Rabbinical sources would argue that it was more correctly around 230 years, the 430 years being calculated from the time the LORD gave the promise to Abraham.

Other anachronisms are:

• The city of Dan being mentioned in Gen. 14:14 long before Dan was born.
• The country of the Amalekites being mentioned in Gen. 14:7 long before Amalek son of Eliphaz, son of Esau was born.
• When Jacob stayed at Bethel, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream:

  “And he called the name of that place Bethel: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.” (Gen. 28:19)

  At that time, there was no city on the spot where Jacob rested his head. At some subsequent date, the city of Luz was built by the Biblical Hittites (as opposed to the people archaeologists have wrongly called Hittites) and was conquered more than four hundred years after Jacob by the House of Joseph during the time of the Judges. (Judg. 1:23-6) If a city had been built on the spot, it would have been impossible for anyone returning after a four hundred year sojourn in Egypt to have been able to identify the place. We are told that the Hittites were forced out of Luz and they built a further city by the name of Luz elsewhere. (Judg. 1:26) The Book of Joshua, which is supposed to be earlier than the Book of Judges, calls the original city of Luz, Bethel and talks of the Joseph’s border being “from Bethel to Luz, and passeth along unto the borders of Archi to Ataroth”. (Josh. 16:2) This new city of Luz did not exist at that time, which means that someone, at some later date, has updated the book of Joshua.

Israel is mentioned as already being settled in the land of Israel during the time of Merneptah, the son of Rameses II. The name Israel has also recently been restored in a fragmentary text known as the Berlin Pedestal which has been tentatively dated to the time of Rameses II if not earlier. (See http://www.bible.ca/archeology/bible-archeology-victory-stele-of-merneptah-israel-1205bc-israel-berlin-statue-pedestal-relief-1350bc.htm.) If so, then it means that Israel was already firmly established in the land during the time of Rameses II. In Ancient History Reconsidered, I demonstrate that the whole of the Egyptian and Assyrian chronologies as they currently stand are highly contrived. This means that the amendments Tim Mahoney is making to the Egyptian chronology require an even further reduction to the dates being proposed.

Tim Mahoney’s documentaries reveal just how much disagreement there is among archaeologists as to the route of the Exodus as well as the numbers involved, with some archaeologists arguing that only 200,000 people left Egypt compared to the Biblical number which states that there were 600,000 “on foot that were men beside children”(Exod. 12:37) a number which is confirmed in other parts of the Books of Moses. The argument being put forth is that, rather than ‘a thousand’, the word אֶלֶף elef actually means ‘captain’ – hence reading אֶלֶף elef as אֲלוּף aluf, but this makes no sense whatsoever for the following reasons:

• In the second chapter of the Book of Numbers we are provided with a breakdown of the 600,000 between the tribes. These numbers only add up correctly when we read אֶלֶף elef as one thousand.
• When the congregation was numbered: “This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD. Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.” (Exod. 30:13-5) Furthermore: “And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was a hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and three-score and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary. A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for every one that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men.” (Exod. 38:25-6.) A talent is understood to have been worth 3,000 shekels: 100 x 3000 = 300,000 + 1,775 = 301,775 shekels. (NB: In Babylonia a talent was worth 3,600 shekels.) When you do the maths, this equates to around 600,000 men aged 20 years plus.
• We are told that “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And the officers which were over thousands of the host, the captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds, came near unto Moses”. (Exod.18:21) If אֶלֶף elef is to read as ‘captain’, then this passage quite clearly states that each אֶלֶף will be in charge of 1,000 people – hence 600 אֲלָפִים will be in charge of... er! ...600,000 men of war. This means, when you add in the women and children, that you are talking of nearly two million people.

In short, archaeologists are interpreting the archaeological evidence according to what they want the evidence to say and are then manipulating what the Bible says in order to fit that interpretation, even to the extent of rewriting the meaning of the Hebrew.

In The Red Sea Crossing Parts 1 and 2, Tim Mahoney looks at the various candidates for the sea which the Israelites crossed, closely examining the various arguments which are put forward for each proposed crossing site. In The Journey to Mount Sinai Parts 1 and 2, he looks at six possible locations for Mount Sinai which are being proposed, the traditional site in the southern end of the Sinai Peninsula, which is known as St Catherine’s Mount, having been identified as Mount Sinai by Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, around 330 ce. In my work entitled Legacy of Edom, I demonstrate the various pieces of evidence which shows that the correct location of Mount Sinai is in north-west Saudi Arabia and that the Greek historian Diodorus informs us that there was a Jewish sacred sacrificial place in this region of Saudi Arabia in the first century bce. These same group of Jews were also mentioned by the Latin writer Pliny who informs us that they were still there in the middle of the first century ce. In this book I also demonstrate that the Bible also clearly identifies Jebel al Lawz in this district of north-west Saudi Arabia as being part of the Mount Sinai range, the mountains also being referred to as Horeb.

For more information on Tim Mahoney’s work, visit http://www.patternsofevidence.com. He also has a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PatternsofEvidence.)  

Dated 28 Jul 2023.
^©AHR Researches.