The bible and ancient history.

[dyresand]

That's not what you said, shitstain. You said that we didn't even know the names of the kings of the 25th dynasty except for your stupid fucking bible and as I have just shown you are full of shit. As usual.

I said the Bible gave the name thousands of years before we discovered them, Egyptian history doesn't record them as pharaohs. Good old archaeology delivered the truth, deny it if you must to rub your ego, that doesn't change the truth.

#GetEducated GC

Egypt, a nation mistakenly known worldwide as the land of the pharaohs, is so embedded in history you can trace back its culture, spirituality and traditions for thousands of years way long before the world crossed the threshold of civilization; when ancient Egypt was building the great pyramids under a powerful, highly organized central government the world was still crawling out of its prehistoric ages

The thing that makes the ancient Egyptian kingdom stand out as a unique civilization in the ancient world history, besides the magnificent legacy of colossal wonders and engineering and the highly spiritual texts and moral teachings is the fact that the ancient Egyptians kept a solid and coherent documentation of their chronicles that covered the geo-political, socio-economic, military records and even covered the daily life activities in a way that left not much room for second guessing or speculation.


Civilization long shrouded in silence – David Roberts 1838

With the demise of ancient Egypt, the language of that civilization – hieroglyphs – that kept intact and thriving for well over three millennia was eventually declared extinct following the Ptolemaic and Roman period(332 BC- 395 AD)

After that, the ancient Egyptian monuments and texts had been shrouded in sheer silence and neglect. The great civilization that had once witnessed the first dawn of human conscience and helped to shape the human code of moral conduct turned into oblivion.

For the following 1500 years too many narratives and stories had been spawned seemingly trying to retell the story of ancient Egypt, not as it actually occurred but through interpretations and manipulations that somehow served the interests of the story tellers.

Of all the narratives that were told about ancient Egypt, the Hebrew Bible is the one narrative that managed to convince/deceive the world with its stories of some Pharaoh and Hebrew slaves that, it alone, monopolized the truth about the history of ancient Egypt.

Most of the scholars of the history of the ancient Near East for nearly two millennia relied primarily on the Bible as a scientific reference. And in doing so they simply followed what the Hebrew scribes wrote, or better yet tampered with in the history of ancient Egypt and blindly took it for granted.

As for the common people, who were illiterate, they fell prey to the rabbinic oral literature of Midrash and Mishnah that ceaselessly boasted about the infamous myth of Moses and pharaoh.

According to the book of Exodus, the king who ruled Egypt in Moses’ time was referred to as Pharaoh. He is addressed as Pharaoh 128 times. e.g:

When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian… [2:15]

Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet.” [7:1]

When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry land. [15:19]

The world began to recognize Egypt, according to the Hebrew’s alleged narrative, as the land where pharaohs brutally reigned and enslaved the ancient Hebrews. Biblical Egypt was the land that witnessed the alleged devastating ten plagues, the fictional parting of the sea and the exodus of the Israelites.

But if the Israelites were in such a rush to depart from Egypt why and how would they wander in Sinai, part of Egypt and heavily protected by Egyptian military garrisons, for 40 years … funny eh!

Moreover, why does the whole of Egypt, specifically the desert of the Sinai Peninsula, remain archaeologically alien to the Israelites and their whole Exodus story?

So whenever Egypt was mentioned during the last two thousands of years, the word pharaoh would simultaneously pop up in the discourse thus adding more power, albeit deluding, to the Hebrew and Biblical designation of the rulers of ancient Egypt as pharaohs.

It was not before 1822 when Jean-François Champollion, the French philologist managed to decipher the hieroglyphs in his arduous task and breakthrough of translating the Rosetta stone.

Thanks to this brilliant Champollion, the long muted and almost buried records and chronicles inscribed on stone and written on papyrus scrolls were resurrected and finally brought back to life.

What the predecessors thought of as mute masonry covered with some weird scribbling and coffins haunted with some kind of eternal curse began to attract eager historians and modern archeologists . Upon dusting off the ancient artifacts and temple inscriptions modern archeologists, and for the first time, began to listen to the stone and the papyri uttering the truth about the genuine story of ancient Egypt.

In the mid-nineteenth century the genuine version of the history of ancient Egypt and the Near East began to unravel as its true stories were being retold again.

Ironically enough, what the excavated records of ancient Egypt told the modern historians and archeologists was totally different from what the Hebrew narrative said or claimed to have taken place on the land of Egypt.

But what struck historians as a total surprise is the fact that ancient Egyptian records had no mention of any Israelites in Egypt, non-whatsoever, whereas the Hebrew Bible is replete with tales of Egypt. As the more of ancient Egypt texts and inscriptions were unraveled, the remoter from truth the Biblical narrative looked.

Interestingly, and as the historical findings and the non- stop archeological discoveries were in the process of resurrecting the true story of ancient Egypt the Biblical narrative kept on decomposing subjecting some of the dominant Israelite stories, like the exodus, to scientific doubts and second thoughts.

The Exodus story is currently refuted by prominent modern archeologists, many of whom are interestingly Israelis. Egyptologists now view the story of the Israelites’ exodus as a mere myth or as one of the ancient Israelite’s tales that had been somehow politically manipulated by the Hebrew scribes of the Bible.

If we went back in time and tried to find how the word “Pharaoh” claimed that worldwide fame, we would undoubtedly have to stop before the Hebrew landmark story of the exodus from Egypt.

Was pharaoh the name of the Egyptian king, or was it his title or his epithet, that is one thing the Bible had not been clear about. But while such nuance could be appreciated in fictional works, it could never fit satisfactorily into a scientific historical account.

Tracing the etymology and the historicity of that word “Pharaoh” and for an avid reader and researcher of Egyptology who spends almost all of his weekends at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, I stumbled upon the most astonishing discovery.

I haven’t discovered a new royal mummy nor have I found the lost tomb of king Akhenaten, I simply found out, contrary to what everybody believed, that the history and the chronicles of ancient Egypt had no mention of pharaohs.

History shows that ancient Egypt only knew kings and sometimes queens but never pharaohs nor any mention of enslavement of Israelites. As a matter of fact; slavery was not a common practice in ancient Egypt and it was introduced into the late dynasties of ancient Egypt only after the Persian and the Roman conquest.

The old kingdom (2686-2181 BC) knew kings such as Djoser, Khufu and Teti , the middle kingdom ( 2055-1650 BC) had kings such as Senusret I and Senusret II and the new kingdom ( 1550-1069 BC) witnessed the topnotch kings such as Thutmose III, queen Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Usermaatre Setpenre ( Ramsses II )

Egyptian kings typically had five names, a Personal name (nomen) which was bestowed upon them at birth and another four names- Horus name, Nebty (“two ladies”) name, Horus of Gold, Throne name (praenomen),that were not given until they took the throne.

The final four names were bestowed upon the king to officially commemorate his transformation from a mortal to a deity. The birth name of the king seems to have remained very prominent in the king’s life. It was the birth name that was primarily used in the cartouche and the name by which the king was most commonly known.


King Tutankhamun royal cartouche with his coronation name

The coronation name inside a cartouche was usually accompanied with the title nesu-bity, “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” and the epithet neb tawy, “Lord of the Two Lands”, referring to upper Egypt and delta regions of Egypt.

For example, king Tutankhamun’s throne name was Neb-Kheperu-re, which means “Lord of Manifestations of Re and was customarily accompanied by the epithet “lord of the two lands” followed by the usual benediction “life, prosperity and health”

According to the ancient texts and papyri, high ranking officials like high priests, princes, commanders of the army… etc, addressed the king as the ruler of the crowns, beloved of the gods, lord of the diadems, living forever and forever… but never as Pharaoh.

Not so often kings of ancient Egypt were referred to as the magnificent in earth and heaven, lord of crowns and as “the sun in the sky” and this was the ultimate titulary that reflected the ascension of the king to the realm of deities.

Etymology shows that the word pharaoh is the Greek pronunciation of the compound word “pe-ro” or “pr –aa” which referred to the palace of the king or rather the great house and not necessarily the king himself. It’s a very controversial thesis; we don’t even know who came up with this hypothesis in the first place.

Obviously it was suggested by the early 19th century Egyptologists whose mindset was soaked up with Biblical narrative. The first generations of archeologists of the ancient Near Eastern history came and started digging in Egypt and around the Levant hoping to trace back and corroborate the ancient stories of the Hebrew Bible not seeking to find out the historical truth be that as it may.

The staggering truth, after almost more than two centuries of archeological digging in Egypt and the Levant, is that the geography of the Hebrew Bible cannot and will not fit into the Egyptian nor the Palestinian territories. The case we have here before us is a unique case of lost geography and identity!

Some argue that during the eighteenth dynasty (sixteenth to fourteenth centuries BC) the title pharaoh was employed as a reverential designation of the ruler as is the case in a letter to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), who reigned 1353 – 1336 BC, which is addressed to ‘Pharaoh, all life, prosperity, and health!.

But then again, that was not entirely correct, as shown in the letters of Amarna (Tablet correspondence between the Egyptian administration during the reign of king Akhenaten (1350-1334) and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru and also the state of international affairs between Egypt and the major powers of the Middle East, Babylonia, Mitanni and Assyria).

In the letters sent by the kings of Babylon and Assyria Akhentaen is addressed as the king of Egypt whereas in those sent by the Canaanite representatives he is addressed “To the King my lord, my sun, my god, the breath of my life… your slave and dust under your feet. At the feet of the King my lord, my sun, my god, the breath of my life, I bowed down seven times”

THE GREAT HOUSE VS. THE WHITE HOUSE

Like we of today refer to the president of the United States and his inner circle of high officials as the white house, in the ancient world and especially amongst the Asiatic foreigners may be they referred to the mighty king of Egypt and his court of priests and commanders as the great house.

And just as the white house is neither the title nor the name of the president of United States likewise the “pr – aa” was not the name nor the title of the ruler of ancient Egypt.

Never was there a papyrus or an inscription on any wall or pylon of any Egyptian temple that showed the word pharaoh as a reference to the king himself. The name of the king, as the ancient Egyptian traditions decreed, was always enclosed in a royal cartouche.

And if we are to be challenged, like we had frequently been, with allegations of the presence of royal Cartouches encircling the word pr-aa, like may be that incident found in Kalabsha temple (Greco-Roman temple) … we always respond “foul play”

Kalabsha temple has been renovated/tampered with by scribes affiliated with the Greco-Jewish circle of power that was primarily behind the grand scale fraud of relocating the theater of the Exodus from its actual geography to the valley of the Nile in Egypt (this crime that has been growing like a snow ball and rolling from century to century distorting the whole history of the ancient Near East and thereby the whole world is to be exposed in the coming series of articles)