Wednesday 3 October 2007

Who Joseph and Moses really were

Ok this is gonna be really long and complicated-just thought I'd better warn you first.
Two of the most intriguing old testament characters are Joseph and Moses.Each played an important role in the formation of the hebrew nation and both have historical identities that can be examined quite independently of the bible.Genesis 41:39-43 tells how Joseph was made Governor of Egypt:
"And pharaoh said unto Joseph...Thou shalt be over my house and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled:only in the throne will I be greater than thou...and he made him ruler over all the land of egypt."
Referring to Moses, Exodus 11:3 informs us similarly that:
"Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of the pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people."
Yet for all this status and prominence,neither Jesus nor Moses appear in any Egyptian record under their given biblical names.
The annals of Ramesses II (c.1304-1237 BC) specify that semitic people were settled in the land of Goshen and it is further explained that they went there from Canaan for want of food.But why should Ramesses' scribes mention this nile delta settlement of Goshen?According to standard bible chronology,the hebrews went to Egypt some three centuries before the time of Ramesses and made their exodus in about 1491 BC,long before he came to the throne.So,by virtue of this first-hand scribal record,the standard bible chronology as generally promoted is seen to be incorrect.
It is traditionally presumed that Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt in the 1720s BC and was made Governor by the pharaoh a decade or so later.Afterwards, his father Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel) and seventy family members followed him into Goshen to escape the famine in Canaan.Notwithstanding this,Genesis 47:11, Exodus 1:11 and Numbers 33:30 all refer to " the land of Ramesses' (Egyptian: 'the house of Ramesses')-but this was a complex of grain storehouses built by the Israelites for Ramesses II in Goshen some 300 years after they were supposedly there!
It transpires, therefore, that the alternative Jewish Reckoning is more accurate than the Standard Chronology: Joseph was in Egypt not in the early 18th century BC,but in the early 15th century BC.There he was appointed Chief Minister to Tuthmosis IV (c.1413-1405 BC). To the Egyptians, however, Joseph(Yusef the Vizier) was known as Yuya and his story is particularly revealing-not just in relation to the biblical account of Joseph,but also in respect of Moses.The cairo-born historian and linguist Ahmed Osman has made an in-depth study of these personalities in their contemporary Egyptian environment and his findings are of great signifigance.
When pharaoh Tuthmosis died,his son married his sibling sister Sitamun (as was the pharaonic tradition) so that he could inherit the throne as Pharaoh Amenhotep II.Shortly afterwards he also married Tiye,daughter of the chief minister (Joseph/Yuya). It was decreed,however,that no son born to Tiye could inherit the throne and because of the overall length of her father Joseph's governorship,there was a general fear that the Israelites were gaining too much power in Egypt.So when Tiye became pregnant,the edict was given that her child should be killed at birth if a son.Tiye's israelite relatives lived at Goshen and she owned a summer palace a little upstream at Zarw,where she went to have her baby.She did indeed bear a son,,but the royal midwives conspired with Tiye to float the child downstream in a reed basket to the house of his father's half-brother Levi.
The boy, Aminadab (born c.1394 BC), was duly educated in the eastern delta country by the Egyptian priests of Ra.Then,in his teenage years he went to live at Thebes.By that time,his mother had acquired more influence that the senior queen,Sitamun,who had never born a son and heir to the pharaoh,only a daughter who was called Nefertiti.In thebes,Aminadab could not accept the Egyptian deities with their myriad idols and so he introduced the notion of Aten,an omnipotent god who had no image.Aten was thus akin to the hebrews' Adon (a title borrowed from the phoenician and meaning 'lord') in line with Israelite teachings.At that time Aminadab (The hebrew equivalent of Amenhotep:'Amun is please') changed his name to Akhenaten,meaing servant of Aten.
Pharaoh Amenhotep then suffered a period of ill-health and,since there was no direct male heir to the royal house,Akhenaton married his half-sister Nefertiti in order to rule as co-regent during this difficult time.In due course,however,when Amenhotep III died,Akhenaton was able to succeed as Pharaoh,gaining the official style of Amenhotep IV.He and Nefertiti had six daughters and a son called Tutankhaten.
Pharaoh Akhenaton closed all the temples of the Egyptian gods and built new temples to Aten.He also ran a household that was distinctly domestic-quite different from the kingly norm in ancient Egypt.On many fronts he became unpopular,particularly with the priests of the former national deity Amun(or Amen) and of the sun God Ra(or Re),as a result of which plots against his life proliferated.Loud were the threats of armed insurrection if he did not allow the traditional gods to be worshipped alongside the faceless Aten.But Akhenaten refused and was eventually forced to abdicate in short-term favour of his cousin Smenkhkare,who was succeeded by Akhenaton's son Tutankhatan.On taking the throne at the age of about eleven,however,Tutankhaten was obliged to change his name to Tutankhamen,but he only lived for a further nine or ten years,meeting his death while still comparatively young.
Akneaten,meanwhile,was banished from Egypt.He fled with some retainers to the remot safety of Sinai,taking with him his royal sceptre topped with a brass serpent.To his supporters he remained very much the rightful monarch(the heir to the throne from which he had been ousted)and he was still regarded to them as the Mose,Meses or Mosis,meaning 'heir' or 'born of'-as in Tuthmosis(Born of Tuth) and Ramesses(Fashioned of Ra).
Evidence from Egypt indicated that Moses(Akhenaten) led his people from Pi-Ramesses(Near modern Kantra)southward,through Sinai,towards Lake Timash.This was extremely marshy territory and,although it was manageable on foot with some difficulty,any pursuing horses or chariots would have floundered disastrously.
Among the retainers who fled with Moses were the families of Jacob-Israel:The Israelites.Then,at the instigation of their leader,they constructed the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant at the foot of Mount Sinai.Once Moses had died,they began their invasion of the country left by their forefathers so long before,but Canaan(Palestine) had changed considerably in the meantime,having been infiltrated by waves of Philistines and Phoenicians.The records tell of great sea battles and of massive armies marching to war.At length,the Israelites(under their new leader,Joshua)were successful and,once across the Jordan,they took Jericho from the Canaanites,gaining a real foothold in their traditional promised land.
Following Joshua's death,the ensuing period of rule by appointed Judges was a catalogue of disaster until the disparate Hebrew and Israelite tribes united under their first king,Saul,in about 1048 BC.Eventually,however, with the conquest of Canaan as complete as possible,David of Bethlehem married Saul's daughter to become King of Judah(corresponding to half the palestinian territory)in around 1008 BC.Subsequently,he also acquired Israel(the balence of the territory) to become overall King of the Jews.

No comments: