Coinciding Migrations to Egypt Or the Same? Jacob And The Hyskos

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                                                 Here Come the Hyksos To Avaris 

Jacob is often associated with the Hyksos (an Egyptian term meaning "rulers of foreign lands"). The Hyksos were a Semitic and West Asiatic group who gradually migrated from Canaan into the Nile Delta during the Middle Kingdom, eventually establishing their own dynasty as pharaohs.  Was this a larger group that Abram and his family band joined to migrate into Egypt? Abram and his descendants (including Jacob and Joseph) migrated from Canaan to Egypt during times of severe famine.  

Before Jacob (also called Israel) ever left Canaan for Egypt, God spoke to him in a vision at Beersheba. God told him not to be afraid to go down to Egypt because He would make Jacob’s descendants into a great nation there. 

Archaeological findings at the Hyksos capital of Avaris show that a massive Semitic population had settled in the region long before they took control.

While the name "Avaris" does not appear explicitly in the biblical text, biblical scholars and archaeologists connect it to the ancient city of Rameses (or Raamses) and the region of Goshen. Avaris (now known as Tell el-Dab'a) was the ancient capital of the Hyksos and serves as a major focal point in the debate surrounding the Israelites' time in Egypt.

"Tucked beneath the layers of Nile Delta soil lies a city long forgotten by many, yet central to the biblical story of Joseph and the Israelites in Egypt—Avaris, the ancient capital of the eastern Delta. This city, once teeming with Semitic life and bustling trade, holds the key to understanding where Jacob and his family settled when they entered Egypt, as described in Genesis.   

   Jacob and His Family  of Leah with all the children, mother of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah  on left;   and her sister, Rachel, mother of Joseph now in Egypt with Jacob in center with her 2nd child-Benjamin;  and the sisters' handmaidens-Zilpah from Leah, mother of Gad and Asher; and Bilhah from Rachel, mother of Dan and Naphtali. Jacob's family make up the 70 who descended to Egypt.  According to the Bible, the "70 souls" are Jacob's direct blood descendants, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons. This group specifically excludes the wives of Jacob and his sons.

The Math: 66 direct blood descendants + Jacob himself + Joseph + Joseph’s two sons (Ephraim and Manasseh) = 70 people.

Leah's Descendants (33): Her six sons (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun), their children, and her daughter Dinah.

Zilpah's Descendants (16): Leah's handmaid Zilpah, her two sons (Gad and Asher), and her grandchildren.

Rachel's Descendants (14): Rachel, her two sons (Joseph and Benjamin), and Joseph's two sons born in Egypt.

Bilhah's Descendants (7): Rachel's handmaid Bilhah, and her two sons (Dan and Naphtali) along with their children.

 The reality of the events are described in Genesis and Exodus. We Jews have been educated in the fact that we built storage cities, not the pyramids.   Thanks in part to the tireless work of archaeologists like Manfred Bietak, filmmakers like Tim Mahoney, and interpreters of biblical history like Nate Loper, the true story of Avaris is finally being unearthed—both literally and figuratively.  Avaris, located at the modern site of Tell el-Dab‘a in Egypt’s eastern Nile Delta, became the capital of the Hyksos rulers during the Second Intermediate Period. But before the Hyksos dynasty rose to power, this site was already home to a large Semitic population—shepherds and settlers who had come from Canaan, just as Genesis 47 describes.  In the Bible, the specific region of Egypt designated for Jacob and his family to live is the Land of Goshen. This territory was chosen for its excellent pastures to accommodate their livestock, and it offered the family separation from Egyptian societal and religious practices.  Then, did Jacob's family of 70 come before the migration of the Hyksos?  Seems like it.  In biblical tradition and scholarly chronology, Jacob and his family of 70 migrated to Egypt in 1876 BCE. The Egyptian priest wrote about Hyksos in 3rd century BCE which would be in 300-301 BCE.  Then Josephus in 1st century  CE spread the rumors and people ate it up.   

The relocation and settlement of Jacob’s family in Goshen are primarily covered in Genesis 46 and Genesis 47:

The earliest we know about the Hyksos was from:  The migration and rise of the Hyksos were primarily described by the Greco-Egyptian priest Manetho in the 3rd century BCE. Writing his history of Egypt (Aegyptiaca) in Koine Greek, he portrayed them as violent invaders from the Levant. This account survives today because it was quoted by the 1st century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in his work Contra Apionem. Manetho of 3rd century BCE described the Hyksos as "invaders of an obscure race" who conquered the Nile Delta without a fight and later fled to Judea and founded Jerusalem . Flavius Josephus later preserved these writings, and actively argued that the Hyksos were, in fact, the biblical Israelites.

It couldn't be our family of 70 which includes many children. That would go against all the principles and morality of Jacob.   They were not violent invaders that may have acted like Genghis Khan did with his invasions much later on.  This is how anti-Semitism spreads, saying things about Abram, Jacob and Moses that are not true at all.  

Rape In Bible Days: Simeon and Levi, Two of Twelve Sons Of Jacob

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Jacob had one daughter that was listed in our Torah.  It was Dinah.According to biblical chronology, the patriarch Jacob lived from roughly 1836 to 1689 BCE, or alternatively 1652 to 1505 BCE depending on the exact calculation used for the Hebrew calendar. Modern historical scholarship views him as a legendary figure rather than a historically confirmed individual as most of them must not Jewish.     

                 A must to read about our Jewish feelings about G-d
              

     Leah                                  Rachel             Zilpah           Bilhah

                                         The Abduction: 

Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, went to visit the local women in the city of Shechem. She was abducted and raped by the local prince, also named Shechem.  Ref: Genesis, Bereishis 34:2ff; birth 30:2ff.  Shechem was the son of Hamor the Hivvite, prince of the region who took her away and raped her, then fell in love with her.  He then appealed to Dinah's emotions and asked his father if he could marry her.  SO....Shechem's father, Hamor, proposed peace and intermarriage between their two peoples. The brothers pretended to agree, but on the condition that all the men of the city be circumcised.  The Hivites were an ancient group of Canaanite people described in the Old Testament as one of the indigenous nations inhabiting the land of Canaan prior to the Israelite conquest. Their name is widely believed to derive from a Hebrew word meaning "villagers" or "tent-dwellers," implying they were primarily nomadic or rural.  But Hamor had a gate.......

Shechem even  had all the people who departed through the gate of his city listened to Hamor and his son Shechem, and all the males----all those who depart through the gate of his city----were circumcised.  The city had to meet the standards of Jacob and marriage of his people to their people by being circumcized, they thought, though there is a lot more to being of their belief than that.

  Jacob heard that Shechem had defiled his only daughter when his sons were with his cattle in the field;  and kept silent until their arrival at home.  He had been hoping to find tranquility in Eretz Yisrael, but now his family had to experience a moral outrage upon its own flesh and blood from its beginning.  His reaction was to not tolerate what others might consider commonplace.

The brothers of Dinah intended to rescue Dinah while the Shechemites were weak and ill, but Simeon and Levi, full brothers, acted on their own, and carried out a death sentence on all the males of Hamor.  On the 3rd day, when all were in pain, Simeon and Levi took their sword and they went to Hamor City and killed every Then they took Dinah from Shechem's house and left.  

Then they plundered the city;  their flocks, their cattle, their donkeys, whatever was in the city and in the field, they took;  all their wealth, all their children and wives they took captive and they plundered, as well as everything in the house.  

Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have discomposed me, making me odious among the people of the land, among the Canaanite and among the Perizzite;  I am few in number and should they band together and attack me, I will be annihilated----I and my household. (It's admirable that he accepts the blame as the father of these boys, something rarely seen today.) The 2 boys then said, "Should we treat our sister like a harlot?  

Jacob had to make amends to G-d. He must have now inherited all the female family left of Hamor.   He was told to go to Beth-el and live now, make an altar there so he told all those living with him to get rid of all their clothing, get rid of any alien gods you have with you ,  and they did so, including rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them underneath the terebinth near Shechem.  No one chased after them as they were afraid of Jacob's tribe.  After that episode, Jacob's name was changed to Israel by G-d.  It was at Beth-el that G-d had spoken to him.   

By what right they did so halachically is discussed by the major commentators.  Whatever the interpretation of the legal statue of the attack on the city, the other nine brothers apparently refused to take part in the attack, and Jacob was sharply critical of Simeon and Levi.             

Genesis 49: The Blessing of Jacob’s Sons…

In his deathbed blessing recorded in ⁠Genesis 49 NIV, Jacob pronounces a harsh rebuke rather than a traditional blessing upon his second and third sons, Simeon and Levi. He condemns their violent massacre of the Shechemites and prophesies that their descendants will be scattered throughout Israel.   Jacob distances himself from their ruthless actions, famously declaring:

"Simeon and Levi are brothers—their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly... Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel." — Genesis 49:5-7 NIV  Instead of cursing the men themselves, Jacob curses their unchecked rage and declares that their tribes will be stripped of the concentrated influence they would have had as dominant groups.

Notice, it was not Simeon and Levi that ever raped anyone but the story tells of them punishing those who possibly made it acceptable in their culture;    one of the reasons the Israelites did not want to marry outside their tribal people.   

Going forward from Jacob we have Judah***, Perez, Hezron, Ram and Caleb, Amminadab, Salma, Boaz, Obed, Jesse and King David!!!

Moses was the leader of the Exodus.  He was the son of Amram, a Levite, and Jochebed.  Jews follow the teaching of Moses.  To besmirch Moses as a bad guy is besmirching our religion and is highly anti-Semitic.  

Resource:

Tanach, (old Testament)  the Stone Edition

Adam and Eve Ate What? An Apple Or A Mango?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Hari Koudabolu, Indian American stand-up comic born in New York, was sure that Adam and Eve ate a mango.  He thought the apple was a European influenced idea.  Ha ha!  Apple translates to תפוח עץ, or tapooakh Aitz in Hebrew.  

        Helen Raptis did the interview on AM Northwest

Hari was interviewed on Portland, Oregon's KATU channel 2 this morning and mentioned his mango idea, questioning the apple. His family is from southern India.   

 Mango eating can be a problem for some.   In mango, urushiol is found in high concentrations in the peel and the fruit just beneath the peel. In most people, contact with urushiol will induce an allergic skin response. With mango, the allergy may not be as common as, say, poison oak or poison ivy but, in some cases, it can be just as profound.                                            

                                                        
                

Hari, I want to tell you, you are so close to the truth!  The fruit of the tree was never named!  It could have been a mango just as easily.  As Hari mentioned, the mango is an important fruit in India.  Mango is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines, while the mango tree is the national tree of Bangladesh.  Well, we have Johnny Appleseed  in the USA to thank for having apples to eat.  

The Bible starts off with Genesis and the story of Hashem G-d planting a garden in Eden, to the east, and placed there man and the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad. 

Garden of Eden

A river came out of Eden to water the garden, and it divided and became 4 headwaters.            

Man was placed in the garden to work it and to guard it.  G-d made man a helper, Eve.  A serpent was also in the garden, smarter than any other beast, and talked Eve into eating the fruit that was forbidden to eat, or she would die.  As he said to her, that she wouldn't die because her eyes would be opened and you would be like G-d, knowing good and bad.  You know the story, she ate it and of course talked Adam into eating some, too.  The fruit was not named. 

The question had already come up with: Was the 'forbidden fruit' in the Garden of Eden really an apple? By Ashley P. Taylor published March 27, 2021

Nobody knows because the Hebrew Bible just says "fruit."

Fruit in Hebrew is:  (Hebrew is read from right to left).    פרי  which is a pay, raish, and youd;  so fruit is: pree or free, as a pay can  be an F or P sound, but I think here its a P sound. I'm going by my 1980 Hebrew class in Haifa.  

Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu was born October 21, 1982 in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, to Uma and Ravi Kondabolu, who had immigrated from the city of Tenali in the Coastal Andhra region of South India. His mother was previously a physician in India, and both parents became the heads of New York area medical labs. Ravi Kondabolu had immigrated to the United States in 1978.

Although his stand-up comedy career was gaining traction in 2007, he was accepted to the Masters in Human Rights program at the London School of Economics in 2007, and thus took a hiatus year from stand-up to earn his MSc.  

He  performed in Portland, thus was interviewed this morning.

Kondabolu's humor often centers on social issues such as poverty, racism, and a rejection of Indian stereotypes seen in media. He has spoken about the challenges of dealing with white fragility when addressing race in his comedy. He has also addressed a variety of other social subjects, such as the LGBT community.  

Reference:

KATU AM Northwest interview 9am 8/19/22.  

Tanakh (Bible) Art Scroll Series, The Stone Edition

https://www.livescience.com/what-was-forbidden-fruit-in-eden.html 

https://katu.com/afternoon-live/lifestyle-health/comedian-hari-kondabolu-08-15-2022

How Our Ancestors Developed: Comparing the Story of Noah to Today's DNA Findings

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

                          The three sons of Noah-We come from Shem.

I'm sitting pretty.  I admire and respect our history as told in the Torah, told to us by Moses who wrote it almost 3,000 years ago.  Knowing, as the teacher I am, that DNA is a brand new science and that we are just finding out more about ourselves, I am in awe at the similarities in our two resources.

Take for instance, the story of Noah, which is told to us by Moses.  We've discovered that clay tiles also tell a most similar story, found in Elba, an ancient city in Mesopotamia, near Ur, where Abraham was said to have come from.  Noah's story tells us that a man named Eber was the ancestor of both Abraham and Joktan.  I already knew that Abraham's father was Terah, as told in Genesis with Abraham.    Abraham was the ancestor of the Jewish people and Joktan was the ancestor of the Arabs.  

         

Arabs will also tell you that Esau, twin brother of Isaac, is the father of the Arabs.  They were not identical twins, and Esau was born first, but Jacob and their mother, Rebecca, managed to cheat Esau out of his rights as a first son.  It was so close-twins, only a matter of minutes.  The birth-right was a big deal, a way of deciding who inherited the father's rights and property.  It was to go to only one son in those days.  Esau, a hunter, and Jacob, the farmer and cook, continued through life with this deception that Esau could not overlook.  It is a way of explaining the problems we have today with the Palestinians, a 3,000 year old incident that hasn't been pardoned till about 3 years ago with the Abrahamic Accords signed with 4 new Arab states now, along with Egypt and Jordan.  Only back then, how did Moses know there would continue to be problems?  Well, we know.  G-d knew.  It's mind-blowing.  

The Abraham Accords are a series of treaties normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, facilitated by the U.S. Administration[1] between August and December, 2020. In the span of five short months, these four Arab states joined Egypt and Jordan in making peace with Israel. The agreements were called “The Abraham Accords” in honor of Abraham - the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Here our connection goes back to Eber.  Eber was a great-grandson of Noah's son Shem and the father of Peleg, born when Eber was 34 years old, and of Joktan. He was the son of Shelah, a distant ancestor of Abraham. According to the Hebrew Bible, Eber died at the age of 464.  This is all found in Genesis, the table of nations, that explains all our connections to each other.  The Arabs are the distant cousins of the Jewish people no matter which reference you use.

70 Nations are said to have come from these 3 sons.  There were 80 descendants of Noah (Song of songs 6:8) include the 74 named in the Tanakh chart 1/2028 (including both Nimrod and Pelishtim) as well as Peleg's son Reu, his son Nahor, his son Terah, his sons Nahor and Haran. (Some omit Nimrod from the count of 70 and instead include Pelishtim (Philistines). 

What I know from DNA is that both males carry the J1, the Y haplotype, that Jews refer to as the Cohen gene. 3-Research shows that (J1) haplogroup makes about 72% of Yemen people, 34% of UAE people, 58% of Qatari people, 50% of Iraq people, 55% of Palestinian Arabs, 48% of Oman People, 34% of Tunisian, and 35% of Algerian. Rest of these countries populations is a mixture of Haplogroups. It's the gene that Aaron, brother of Moses, carried.  They Y haplogroup goes from father to son, on down the line, and has for these past 3,000 with only a few mutations that happen naturally.  

Where and when did the J1 start?  1-(J1) Haplogroup is believed to have been generated some 10,000 years ago south of the Levant and in the heart of the Arabian Peninsula (Source is National Geographic Genetic Project)

I'm Jewish.  My Jewish father's Y haplogroup is one of the others, Q, (QBZ67) to be exact.  I had seen that some Arabs also carry this,  in Marsh Arabs who are known as the descendants of ancient Sumerians. Approximately 2.5% (4/157: 3 Q*, 1 Q-M346) of males in Saudi Arabia belong to haplogroup.  Then they came from Sumer, site of the earliest known civilization, located in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the area that later became Babylonia and is now southern Iraq, from around Baghdad to the Persian Gulf.  Well of course;  Abraham was from Ur practically on the Euphrates River. What I found was Haplogroup Q is found predominantly in Central Siberia, Central Asia and among Native Americans. Approximately 90% of pre-Columbian Native Americans belonged to haplogroup Q, and all descend from the branch Q1a2a1 (L54), including various subclades of Q1a2a1a1 (M3) and Q1a2a1a2 (Z780). In Europe haplogroup Q is found chiefly in southern Sweden (5%), among Ashkenazi Jews (5%), and is various isolated pockets in central and Eastern Europe such as the Rhône-Alpes region of France, southern Sicily, southern Croatia, northern Serbia, parts of Poland and Ukraine. Šarić et al. (2013) also found 6.1% of haplogroup Q out of 412 samples from the island of Hvar in southern Croatia (accompanied by 2% of East Asian mtDNA haplogroup F).

• Q1b1a (L245): found in the Middle East, among the Jews, in Central Europe and in Sicily
• Q1b1a1 (L272.1): found in Sicily (probably Phoenician
• In a report published elsewhere, we recently showed that Jews and Palestinian Arabs share a large portion of their Y chromosomes, suggesting a common ancestry (Nebel et al. 2000). Surprisingly, in the present study, Jews were found to be even closer to populations in the northern part of the Middle East than to several Arab populations. It is worth mentioning that, on the basis of protein polymorphisms, most Jewish populations cluster very closely with Iraqis (Livshits et al. 1991) and that the latter, in turn, cluster very closely with Kurds (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). These findings are consistent with known cultural links that existed among populations in the Fertile Crescent in early history.

One must remember that Iraq is the land of Mesopotamia, with Sumer, Babylon, Ur-home of Abraham.   

We are said to be the closest to the Kurds in DNA.  

Some Western Jews belong to Q-M378 as well. Q-M378's subbranch Q-L245's subclades Q-Y2200 and Q-YP1035 are the only varieties of haplogroup Q that are found in Ashkenazi Jews. Citizen scientists found that some Sephardic Jews carry different subclades of Q-L245, including Q-BZ3900, Q-YP745, and Q-YP1237.

                                         

Resource:

http://goldfoot_genealogy.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-y-haplogroup-movements-of-people.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-DNA_haplogroups_in_populations_of_the_Near_East

http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2017/03/pashtos-of-afghanistan-and-pakistan-and.html

https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/arabian-ydna-j1-project/about/results#:~:text=3%2DResearch%20shows%20that%20(J1,is%20a%20mixture%20of%20Haplogroups.

Tanakh, Stone Edition

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Family Tree DNA

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