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Wednesday, December 3, 2014

The World of Moses

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

Moses, the founder of the Jewish religion, was born in 1391 BCE in Egypt.  That's 3,405 years ago.  His parents were Amram and Jochebed from the tribe of Levi.  Levi was one of 12 tribes, stemming from the 12 sons of Jacob-alias Israel.  Jacob was the son of Isaac and Isaac was the son of Abraham who was born in about 2,000 BCE.

 Jacob and 69 others of his family clan had gone to Egypt during a famine and wound up becoming slaves for a 400 year stay there. This was between the 18th and 16th centuries BCE when the Hyksos were the dominant rulers in Egypt.  Joseph, the 11th son of Jacob, had been taken to Egypt and was a high official just under the pharaoh.  He was given grazing land in Goshen which is what his family later used and where they had settled.  Then a new pharaoh arose over Egypt after Joseph died who didn't know about Joseph and his position This is when Joseph's family were enslaved.   (They were used to build the storage cities of Pithom and Ramses and Heliopolis.  These were supply centers.  They didn't build the pyramids.  They had been built before their time. )1
                                                                         
The pharoah  before Moses was born was Amenhotep II who ruled from 1427 to 1397 BCE.  The pharoah just before him who was his father was  Thutmose III and the pharoah who came after him was Thutmose IV who was his son.  "He was the son of Tuthmosis III, with whom he may have served a short co-regency of about two years. His mother was probably Merytra, a daughter of Huy, who was a divine adoratrice of Amun and Atum and chief of choristers for Ra. Apparently, she also served as, at least his publicly acknowledge, wife."

Thutmosis IV was the Pharaoh and along with his Queen Mutemwiya were parents of Amenhotep III( 1380-1349 BCE) .  who probably grew up with Moses.  "Recently a surgeon at Imperial College London (Dr Hutan Ashrafian) has analysed the early death of Thutmose IV and the premature deaths of other Eighteenth dynasty Pharaohs (including Tutankhamun and Akhenaten). He identifies that their early deaths was likely as a result of a familial temporal epilepsy. This would account for the untimely mortality in Thutmose IV and can also explain his religious vision described on his Dream Stele due to this type of epilepsy’s association with intense spiritual visions and religiosity."  When Thutmosis IV died, Amenhotep II succeeded him.  Strangely, Amenhotep II was his father.  

At the time around Moses' birth,  Pharaoh Thutmosis IV was ruler in Egypt. At the very time of Moses' birth, the Pharaoh had ordered that baby boys up till 2 years of age were to be killed in order to stem the growth of the Israelites.  He was afraid their population was growing too large and might eventually take over the land.  Moses's mother, Jochabed,  placed him in a basket and floated it in the Nile River where the Pharaoh's daughter found him and decided to keep him as her son.  He grew up as an adopted son and prince in the royal household, not knowing about his birth parents and who he really was. Pharaoh

Amenhotep III married Tiy in 1385 BCE who became his Chief Queen.
                                                                     
Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Amenhotep IV who belonged to the cult of Aten by 1346 BCE when Moses was 45 years old.  .  His project going on at the time of Moses's birth was the building of Amana, his capital city.  Now it is an extensive Egyptian archaeological site that represents the remains of the capital city newly established and built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten of the late Eighteenth Dynasty (c. 1353 BC), and abandoned shortly afterwards.
                                                                         
When he ascended the throne his name was Amenhotep IV, but in his sixth year of rule in 1345 BCE he changed it to “Akhenaten” a name that the late Egyptologist Dominic Montserrat translated roughly as the “Benevolent one of (or for) the Aten.”"  "So, Amenhotep IV-alias Akhenaten was a pharaoh of Egypt who reigned over the country for about 17 years between roughly 1353 B.C. and 1335 B.C. Queen Nefertiti was his wife and King Tut was his son.   .In 1334 BCE, Tutankhaten became Pharaoh of Egypt  as DNA testing today supports this.  Tut married Ankhesenpaaten, daughter and wife of his predecessor, Akhenaton.    I saw a bust of Nefertiti, a copy, shown in the museum in Boise, Idaho many years ago.  She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.  King Tut renamed himself to Tutankhamun in 1331 BCE and abandoned the capital, Amarna by returning to the capital of  Thebes, where it had been previous to Amarna.  Moses at this time was 60 years old and living in Midian.  King Tut ruled from 1321 to 1311.  
                                                                       
A religious reformer,  “Akhenaten made the Aten, the sun disc, the center of Egypt’s religious life and carried out an iconoclasm that saw the names of Amun, a pre-eminent Egyptian god, and his consort Mut, be erased from monuments and documents throughout Egypt’s empire. He had deified the sun and praised Aten as the Creator and giver of life.  This was the first monotheistic try of religion in Egypt.  

An empire called the Hittites, based in modern-day Turkey, became increasingly assertive during Akhenaten’s rule,  The Hittites were also stirring up instability in the vassal states of Syria, and a nomadic group, the Apiru,  (Hebrew) was creating unrest in Syro-Canaan.  This must be when Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan.  The information comes from letters.  (350 tablets known as the “Amarna letters” were uncovered in 1887, showing the diplomatic correspondence between Akhenaten, his fellow kings in west Asia, as well as those of vassals who owed the Egyptian king allegiance.)

In 1324 BCE, Pharaoh Ay was crowned king of Egypt.  Moses was then 67 years old, still in Midian and away from the royal scene.  Pharaoh Ay II ruled from 1311 to 1307.  

The next pharaoh was not related to the family and was Horemheb, who did away with this sun religion and who ruled from 1319 BCe to 1292 BCE.  He was of common birth."   THIS IS THE PHAROAH THAT MOSES HAD TO MEET WITH IN GETTING THE ISRAELITES FREE.  

When Moses was a young man, he killed out of anger an Egyptian overseer that was beating a Hebrew slave.  When he realized the trouble he was in with the royal family, for this was a common occurrence and he had no defense for killing the overseer, he fled through the desert and came upon a family in Midian, a Bedouin tribe that was related to Abraham.  They were closely related to the Israelites.    The tribal chieftain was Jethro and he had daughters.  Moses married Zipporah and had 2 sons, Gershom and Eliezer.  

He had the experience at Mt. Horiah of seeing a burning bush that really wasn't on fire and heard G-d speaking out of it to him .  It was the message to return to Egypt and lead out his Israelite people.  He met with his brother in Egypt, Aaron, who helped him speak to the Pharaoh, as he had a speech impediment and was lisping.  

There with the Pharaoh, he had to bring forth plague after plague, use magic and finally the 10th plague was of the 1st born being killed in people and animals before the Pharaoh let the Israelites leave Egypt.  After a 2nd thought, he sent his soldiers after Moses just as they were about to cross the Reed Sea.  They witnessed the Egyptians soldiers drowning in their attempt and were told by G-d not to rejoice in seeing their enemies die as they were his children also.  

By 1320 BCE when Moses was 71 years old, Egypt had seen the end of the 18th dynasty of Pharaohs and had started the 19th Dynasty.  

When Moses was 80 years old in the year 1311, he was happily married many miles away but the burning bush episode told him he had to go back to Egypt.   He had to appeal to the next pharaoh.  It should have been Pharaoh Horemheb,  of the new 19th dynasty for Moses to deal with.  It may have been Ramses, also of the 19th Dynasty.  By figuring at a much later date, others figure that 1250-1230  BCE was the date of the start of the Exodus.  I figure it to have started in 1311-1310 BCE: Israelite exodus from Egypt during the reign of King RamsesII of the 19th Dynasty who ruled from 1279 BCE to 1213 BCE. I have Moses dying in 1271 BCE. so he was the pharaoh when Moses died

"According to the midrash (set of Jewish oral stories), the Pharaoh of the Exodus was named Adikam. He had a short reign of four years before drowning in the Red Sea. The Pharaoh who preceded him, whose death prompted Moses's return to Egypt (Exodus 2:23, 4:19), was named Malul. Malul, we are told, reigned ninety four years. Due to the length of his reign, many people hesitate to take this midrash literally. 

After his successor's death, the Old Kingdom of Egypt fell into ruin. Utter and complete ruin. A papyrus dating from the end of the Old Kingdom was found in the early 19th century in Egypt. It seems to be an eyewitness account of the events preceding the dissolution of the Old Kingdom."

Egypt's New Kingdom lists the sovereign Pharoah Seti I of the 19th Dynasty  which they figure was from 1290 BCE to 1279 BCE.  Moses died in 1271 according to the Jewish Encyclopedia. 

Assyria's ruler at the time of Moses' death was King Shalmaneser I, who ruled from 1273/1263 BCE to 1244/1233 BCE.  

Around the world in 1390 BCE when Moses was a baby, the Assyrians were becoming an independent power in Mesopotamia.  In 1380 BCE, Amenhotep III connected the Nile river and the Red Sea with a canal.  In 1372 BCE the Hittites conquered all of the kingdom of Mitanni which was west of the Euphrates River.  

Moses was 81 years old in 1310 BCE, the year the Bhagavad Gita was written according to Hindu traditions.  1280 BCE: and Moses is now 111 years old and still on the march of the Exodus and writing his 5 Books of Moses, the Laws of Judaism.  At this time, India's Laws of Manu were being written, regulating almost all facets of rules, from contracts to criminal law. It also forms the basis of India's caste system.

.  Moses receives the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.  Jewish Encyclopedia records Moses being born in 1391 BCE and dying at age 120 in 1271 BCE.  He went to Egypt at age 80 to free the Israelites and the Exodus took 40 years.  Moses died outside of Canaan and Joshua took over the lead into Canaan.  

Three years later in 1307 BCE, Adad-nirari I became king of Assyria.  In 1300 BCE when Moses was on the march of the Exodus, King Pangeng of China moved the capital of Shang Dynasty to Yin.  

"From 1206 BCE to 1187 BCE there was evidence of major droughts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Hittite and Ugarit records show requests for grain were sent to Egypt, probably during the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah. Droughts of equal severity to those of the 1950s in Greece, would have been sufficient to cause the Late Bronze Age collapse. The cause may have been a temporary diversion of winter storms north of the Pyrenees and Alps. Central Europe experienced generally wetter conditions, while those in the Eastern Mediterranean were substantially drier. There seems to have been a general abandonment of peasant subsistence agriculture in favor of nomadic pastoralism in Central Anatolia, Syria and northern Mesopotamia, Canaan, the Sinai and NW Arabia due to the drier conditions. Since Moses arrived to Canaan in 1271 BCE, they came to the same drier condition of the land.  

Abraham was born in the 2nd millennium BCE, the Bronze Age.  
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_millennium_BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_century_BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horemheb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna
http://www.livescience.com/39349-akhenaten.html
http://guardians.net/egypt/amenhtp3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_IV
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_II
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep2.htm
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091021091301AAy4pxd
http://gei.aerobaticsweb.org/egypt_pharaohs_new.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_leaders_in_the_13th_century_BC
http://www.lhaasdav.com/timelines/timeline_30000_1000_bc.html
http://www.kingtutone.com/pharaohs/ramses2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_environmental_history#2nd_millennium_BC
http://io9.com/5983662/new-dna-analysis-suggests-nefertiti-was-king-tuts-mom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pithom
1=added 12/4/14
Tanakh; Exodus 1:6-22.
Pentateuch and Haftorahs II, page 979-year1230 BCE and page 635 as 1447 BCE according to Garstang

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