Date Discovered of Exodus by Naked Archaeologist

 Nadene Goldfoot                                        

I watched an amazing video done by Simcha Jacobovici of his Naked Archaeologist program that I subscribe to on YouTube.  It was about his 3 year venture into discovery of more about the Exodus.  Simcha is a young Orthodox Jew, born in Israel but then moved to Canada.  His grandparents were killed in the Holocaust along with the rest of his family members, and he has had a burning desire to know more about our history.                                                    

     mural on Egyptian wall of  Israelites entering Egypt, Egyptians in the picture leading or assisting

Simcha discovered that  our ancestors started with Moses on the Exodus in the year 1500 BCE.  They had entered Egypt 200 years earlier, so that would have happened in 1700 BCE;  3,721 years ago, almost 4,000 years ago.  As the Bible stated, the Israelites had grown in population enough to have frightened the Egyptians, and they were then taken as slaves.                                     

Our records show that Moses was born in 1391 BCE and died when he was 120 years old, which would have been 1271 BCE.  He started on the Exodus at age 80, which would have been the year of 1311 BCE. He died in 1271 BCE, not making it into Canaan, but buried as he ordered, in an unknown grave.  

We have a discrepancy of 189 years.  When you're speaking about 4,000 years in the past, this seems rather inconsequential, but, it matters in that it upsets the rest of the dating from then on.  

As for the Exodus and all its events, Simcha managed to prove scientifically, that they were all provable.  He uses the obvious and more logical thinking and managed to go straight to the source, to Egypt where he found the facts.  You have to watch his video, entitled:

Exodus Decoded: The Exodus Decoded is a 2006 documentary film by "investigative archaeologist" and filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and producer/director James Cameron. It aired April 16 on The History Channel. The documentary proposes naturalistic origins for the plagues of Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XObk07uabLI

The write-up for the video:  While few mainstream historians would consider the Book of Exodus as a reliable narrative, the film presents a speculative question as to whether the events as described, particularly relating to the plagues of Egypt, could be explained naturalistically. Central to its thesis is the volcanic eruption of Thera/Santorini.

A suggested date of 1500 BC is made for the Exodus, during the reign of pharaoh Ahmose I. The "palpable darkness" described as the 9th plague, is hypothetically attributed to the cloud of volcanic ash caused by the Minoan eruption. A conjectural limnic eruption in the Nile Delta, similar to that of the Lake Nyos disaster in 1986, is explored as a further source of mass death.

The documentary first aired on Discovery Channel Canada on April 16, 2006.

I see from this line, The documentary deals with The Exodus, the founding myth of the Israelites. that most people do not believe that this event, remembered every year since then in our Passover holiday, is believed to be true, called a myth by non-Jews.  Simcha, bless his heart, has found such logical geologic events of that period that brought these on shows how G-d, in his magnificence, would have used natural means to being these on.  His dating is depending on the date of the Pharaoh  he found to be the one that Moses had bartered with.  

Encyclopedia Britannica gives the date as 13th century BCE. My information from The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia would say 14th Century.  

A review in The Jerusalem Post noted that none of the arguments made in the film were accepted by mainstream archaeology and that film-maker Jacobovici freely admitted his lack of academic credentials.  The Washington Post described the use of CGI (computer generated images) as "stunning",  No comment on his theory, I notice.  

He had quit working on his PhD a few months before receiving it with the 

revelation that with his past education, he had taught logic at the college

level, told him he could find better ways of finding information he was

seeking.   

The Exodus is the most meaningful of holiday to Jews.  To call it a fairy-

tale or myth is highly unacceptable.  It's at the heart of all 3 religions of

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Simcha has found Egyptian history

telling the story.  Take a look.