Converging Streams
In a systematic presentation of the evidences in the field of Christian
apologetics, it is necessary to review the Egyptian and Chaldean records
as they bear upon the text of the Scripture, and illumine its meaning.
For it is here that the streams of History and Revelation converge, to
continue their flow in mingled harmony throughout all the centuries
which follow this original conjunction.
In the very nature of the case we would not expect direct archeological
confirmation of a great deal of the earlier portions of the Old
Testament. The record of creation which was handed down from Adam to
each generation delineated an event which was not witnessed by any human
being. As has been very clearly shown in the illuminating book, “New
Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis,” by P. J. Wiseman, this record
was undoubtedly preserved in a written form from the very time of Adam
himself.
[Illustration: Khnum and Thoth in Creation Tradition.]
The events of the Garden of Eden and the subsequent history are not such
as would leave archeological material for the exact enlightenment of
later generations. There is, however, a manner in which the study of
antiquity can bring a tremendous light to shine upon the dark problem of
the credibility of these records. It is generally conceded by
ethnologists that when races of people hold a strongly developed idea or
belief, in common, there must have been an historical incident as the
basis of that universal tradition. Thus, among the very earliest
traditions of ancient Egypt, there is a record of the creation of man
that bears a valuable relationship to the account in Genesis.
The Mosaic record states that God stooped and created the body of man
out of the dust of the earth. Life was imparted to that body by the very
breath of God.
The earliest Egyptian record recounts how the god Khnum took a slab of
mud, and placing it upon his potter’s wheel, moulded it into the
physical form of the first man. The illustration facing this page shows
the entire process, with Thoth standing behind Khnum, and marking the
span of man’s years upon a notched branch. Here then is a coincidence of
traditional belief in the manner of creation of man that is of
tremendous significance.
We also note that the earliest records of Sumeria have this same
incidental bearing upon certain portions of the Old Testament text.
_All_ of the records of antiquity begin the history of man in a garden.
This is of considerable significance in view of the account of Eden that
is so prominently given in the record of Genesis.
Among the seals to which we shall occasionally refer and which are shown
in Plate 8, there is one from an early period in Sumeria from which we
have derived considerable understanding of Sumerian beliefs. This seal
shows Adam and Eve on opposite sides of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and can be nothing less than a direct reference to the
event that is recorded in the Book of Genesis.
One of the most constantly cited documents of antiquity, is the
so-called Gilgamesh epic. The high antiquity of the original form in
which this occurs may be seen from the fact that many of the seals that
go as far back as the year 3,000 B. C. are made of illustrations of the
various episodes that are contained in this valuable document. The
original home of Gilgamesh seems to have been at Erech. The city was
evidently besieged by an army led by Gilgamesh, who, after a three-year
war, became the king of the city. So harsh was the despotic rule of the
conquering monarch that the people petitioned the goddess Aruru to
create a being strong enough to overthrow Gilgamesh and release them
from his sway.
Some of the gods joined in with this prayer and as a result a mythical
being, partly divine, partly human, and partly animal, was created and
dispatched to Erech for the destruction of Gilgamesh. This composite
hero bears a great many different names, but the earliest accepted form
in the Babylonian account was Enkedu. Gilgamesh, learning that an enemy
had been created for his destruction, exercised craft and lured Enkedu
to the city of Erech. The two became fast friends and set out finally to
do battle with a mighty giant named Khumbaba. When they arrived at his
castle, they besieged and captured the stronghold of the giant, whom
they slew. They carried off his head as a trophy and returned to Erech
to celebrate their victory.
The plan of the gods being thus frustrated, the goddess Ishtar besought
her father Anu to create a mighty bull to destroy Gilgamesh. The bull
being formed and dispatched upon its duty, also failed of its purpose
when Enkedu and Gilgamesh vanquished the animal after a tremendous
battle. And so on, the story goes with episode after episode,
culminating with a crisis in the account of the deluge.
In this climax, in a notable and fascinating manner, we see again the
coincidence of tradition with a record of the Scripture. In the
Babylonian account of the deluge, every major premise of the Mosaic
record is sustained in its entirety. The Gilgamesh account tells of the
heavenly warning, it depicts the gathering of material and the building
of an ark. In the ark was safely carried the hero, his wife and his
family with certain beasts of the earth for seed. The ark of the
Gilgamesh episode was made water tight with bitumen exactly as was the
ark of Noah in the record in the Book of Genesis. Entering this ark, the
Babylonian account tells how the boat came under the direct supervision
of the gods. On the same night a mighty torrent fell out of the skies.
The cloudburst continued for six days and nights, until the tops of the
mountains were covered. The sea arose out of its banks and helped to
overflow the land. After the seventh day, the storm abated and the sea
decreased. By that time, however, the whole human race had been
destroyed with the exception of the little company who had been within
the Babylonian ark.
The ark of Babylon grounded in that portion of the ancient world known
as Armenia, the Hebrew name of which is Ararat. Seven days after the
landing of the ark, the imprisoned remnant sent forth a dove. When she
found no place to light and rest, the dove returned to the ship. They
waited a short while and then sent forth a swallow. The swallow also
returned, wearied from a long flight, and several more days were allowed
to elapse. The next attempt to discover the condition of the earth by
the imprisoned remnant resulted in the sending forth of a raven. The
bird returned and approached the ark, but refused to re-enter the ship.
The remnant knew then that the flood was ended. They accordingly went
forth with all the redeemed life, and celebrated their preservation by
offering up sacrifices to the gods upon the mountains.
The goddess Ishtar was so pleased with the sacrifice of the godly
remnant that she hung in the heavens a great bow, which Anu, the father
of the gods, had made for the occasion. She swore by the sacred
ornaments that hung about her neck that mankind should not again be
destroyed by a flood, and this heavenly bow was the sign of that
covenant.
The incidental details which are found in this hoary manuscript coincide
too closely with the record of Genesis to admit of coincidence.
Archeology has brought no stronger testimony to the historicity of the
Mosaic record of the deluge than this great account in the Gilgamesh
epic, although interspersed with mythological characters and deviating
from the simplicity of the Genesis account.
One of the most valuable publications of the British Museum is their
monograph on the Gilgamesh legend, which contains a fine and scholarly
translation of the deluge tablet in an unabridged form. Our own copy of
this publication has been of great value to many students who have
sought its aid in their detailed studies of the Old Testament.
Another one of the disputed portions of the Old Testament text which
brought great comfort to the habitually hopeful among the destructive
critics, is that section of Genesis which deals with the record of
Nimrod and the tower of Babel.
Modern archeology not only has failed to bring any aid to the critics in
this particular incident, but has robbed them of all their carefully
erected structure of argument which was predicated upon the assumption
that the tower of Babel was entirely mythological. Among the recent
excavations in Mesopotamia was the work in the region which bore the
oriental name of Birs-nimroud. When the excavators had finished their
enormous task, they had laid bare a magnificent ziggurat of tremendous
antiquity which was the largest so far discovered. At the time these
ruins were first seen, this enormous tower covered an area of 1,444,000
square feet. It towered to the height of a bit more than 700 feet. Time
has, of course, ravished this monument to some extent, but enough of its
grandeur and glory remains to show it forth as the most ancient as well
as the most magnificent of the Babylonian ziggurats.
According to the description given by Herodotus, in the middle of the
fifth century, B. C., the structure then consisted of a series of eight
ascending towers, each one recessed in the modern fashion of
cutting-back that is used in certain types of sky-scraper architecture.
The famous Step Pyramid at Sakkara is another ancient example of this
type of structure, each successive and higher tower being smaller than
the one upon which it rests. A spiral roadway, according to Herodotus,
went around the entire ziggurat, mounting rapidly from level to level.
He states that at each level a resting place was provided in this spiral
roadway. At the top of the structure was a magnificent temple in which
the religious exercises of the day were observed.
That this was the tower of Nimrod is generally accepted by the
authorities of our present day. The name of Nimrod which in the Sumerian
ideographs is read “Ni-mir-rud” is found on a number of artifacts and
records of high antiquity, and reference is made as well to the great
monument that he built.
So as we _read_ our way through the episodes which constitute the
earlier records of Genesis, we also _dig_ our way into the older strata
of humanity and find ourselves walking hand in hand with the twins of
revelation and scientific vindication! They coincide in all their
utterances, teaching us that all that the Word of God has to say to men
may be accepted without question or doubt.
The late Melvin Grove Kyle has written extensively of his own researches
at Sodom and Gomorrah, so that it is unnecessary to recapitulate the
results of his lifetime of labor. The sulphurous overburden and the
startling confirmation of the Book of Genesis derived from the work of
Dr. Kyle and his associates would vindicate the Scriptural claims to
historical accuracy even if they stood by themselves.
In the general argument and discussion that long has clustered about the
record of Abraham, the starting point of critical refutation has
generally been the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. It is stated that the
battle of the kings that occurred in this disputed portion of Holy Writ,
was in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar. Since a contemporary is
named as Ched-or-la-o-mer, a storm of argument has swept over and about
that one opening verse of this important chapter. The allies of
Ched-or-la-o-mer are well known from his own records, and Amraphel was
not to be found among them. It was a tremendous blow to criticism when
the discovery was made that Amraphel is the Hebrew name of the Sumerian
form, Khammurabi.
Plate 3
[Illustration: Colossi of Karnak]
[Illustration: Colossi of Luxor]
Plate 4
[Illustration: Colossi of Amen-Hetep III guarding Valley of the
Kings]
[Illustration: At tomb of Tutanhkamen, in the Valley of Kings]
The brilliant ability of this mighty ruler is one of the high points of
far antiquity. The king-lists of antiquity, derived from many sources,
were compiled by order of several of the kings of Assyria and constitute
another of the many valuable records to be found in the British Museum.
A recent publication of the Museum entitled “The Annals of the Kings of
Assyria” is well worth many times the price of one pound sterling which
is demanded for the volume. This scholarly and brilliant piece of work
contains the original Assyrian text transliterated and translated with
historical data that the careful scholar cannot be without. It settles
the question of Khammurabi. This Khammurabi, whom we shall now call by
his Hebrew name Amraphel, has left us a long series of tablets,
monuments, letters, and a code of laws which stands engraved upon a
great monument preserved also in the British Museum.
It is a long way back to that twentieth century before Christ, but
neither time nor distance prevents our hearing the clamoring voices of
men long dead, who shout to us their vindication of the nature,
character, and integrity of these testimonies which are the Word of God!
It is a matter of common knowledge in our day that the word, or name,
pharaoh, may be applied either to a person or to an office. Exactly as
our modern word “president” may be applied to the function of the
office, or to the possessor of it in person, so the ruler of Egypt could
be known simply as The Pharaoh, or shorter still, as Pharaoh. As every
president, emperor or king, however, has his own proper name, so each
pharaoh also is designated by his personal name. Fortunately for our
purpose, many pharaohs are mentioned in the pages of Holy Writ under the
clear identification of their proper names. Many of them, however, are
not identified by their personal name but are referred to only by the
title of their kingly office. Thus, for instance, the pharaoh of the
Exodus is not named personally in the text. Such attempts at
identification of this pharaoh as are made, must be made from external
sources. However, there can be no question of the identity of the rulers
of Egypt, who are specifically named in the Word of God. Such men as the
Pharaoh Shishak, the Pharaoh Zera and the Pharaoh So, are identified
beyond any possibility of question.
It is a happy circumstance for the student of apologetics that each of
the pharaohs who is so named in person by the writers of the Bible, has
been discovered and identified in the records of archeology. No more
emphatic voice as to the credibility and the infallible nature of the
historical sections of the Scripture can be heard than that which is
formed by the chorus of these pharaohs.
To note the background of this record, may we remind the reader that in
early times, Egypt was a divided kingdom. It was known as Upper Egypt
and Lower Egypt, and a separate monarch reigned over each section. It
happens that in the period of the divided kingdom, there were fourteen
dynasties in each section of the land. The Egyptian, like all Eastern
people, highly prized ancestral antiquity. The farther back into
antiquity a man’s family could be traced in his genealogy, the more the
honour that accrued to him. We are not without modern counterparts, even
in our present democracy.
Therefore, when the two kingdoms were united, the first kings of the
united kingdom added together the fourteen dynasties of Upper and Lower
Egypt, making them consecutive instead of contiguous. Thus they built a
spurious antiquity of twenty-eight dynasties to enhance their greatness.
The earlier archeologists fell into this trap, and consequently erected
an antiquity phantom which obscured the problem of chronology for some
considerable time. When it was discovered that these dynasties were
concurrent, a great deal of the fallacious antiquity of Egypt was
abandoned. This fictional antiquity, which doubled the factor of time
for that period, had been used to discredit the text of the Bible by the
critical scholars, so-called. Now, in the light of our present learning,
we find no discrepancy between the antiquity of Egypt, properly
understood, and the chronology of the Scripture, when it is divorced
from the errors of Ussher. Incidentally, the chronology and antiquity
demands of both archeology and revelation coincide beautifully with the
demands of sane anthropology.
To delineate this background so necessary to the proper understanding of
the record of the pharaohs, it is necessary to introduce the first
occasion of the coincidence of the text of the Scripture with the land
and the people of Egypt, as it is here that the streams of revelation
and history begin to converge. This beginning is made, of course, in the
flight of Abraham into Egypt at the time of a disastrous famine.
Overlooking for the moment the reprehensible conduct of Abraham
concerning the denial of his wife Sarah, and the consequent
embarrassment of the pharaoh, we digress to make a brief survey of the
incidents that lead up to the kindness of Pharaoh to Abraham.
There had been previous Semitic invasions of Egypt. The first reason for
these forays, of course, was famine. Due to the unfailing inundation by
the river Nile, the fertile land of Egypt was a natural storehouse. The
land of Egypt is fertile, the sun is benevolent, and wherever water
reaches the land, amazingly prodigious crops are the inevitable result.
So in the ancient days, whenever there was drought in the desert
countries surrounding Egypt, the hungry hordes looked on the food
supplies of their neighboring country, and, naturally, moved in that
direction. Thus the pressure of want was the primary reason for these
early Semitic invasions.
The secondary cause was conquest. These people of antiquity were brutal
pragmatists, as are certain nations in our present Twentieth Century.
The theme song of antiquity undoubtedly was, “I came, I saw, I
conquered.” The motive for living in those stern days seems to have
been, “He takes who can, and keeps who may.”
The activating motive of much past history is simply _spoils_. Here now
is a case in point. A family of kings ruled in Syria, who counted their
wealth by flocks and herds. Driven by a combination of circumstances,
they descended upon Egypt. They were pressed by the lack of forage in
their own land, due to the drought, and they also lusted after the
treasure and wealth of the neighboring country. So, without need for any
other excuse, they descended with their armed hordes and conquered
Egypt. There they ruled, established a dynasty and possessed the land
for themselves. Since their principal possessions were their flocks and
herds, they were known as the Shepherd Kings. They have come down in
history as the Hyksos Dynasty. They unified Syria and Egypt, and it is
intriguing to study the development of this unification as that process
is seen in the pottery of that period. The work of Egyptian artisans
began to take on certain characteristics of Syrian culture until,
finally, the characteristic Egyptian line and decoration disappeared and
the pottery became purely Syrian. The Shepherd Kings established
commerce between the two halves of their empire and prosperity followed
their conquest. These kings imported artists from their native Syria,
together with musicians and dancers innumerable.
This intrusion of a foreign culture so changed the standards of Egypt
that for generations the ideal of beauty was a Syrian ideal. Later, when
the Syrian kings were expelled by Tahutmas the 2nd, the situation was
reversed and Egypt, now governed by an Egyptian, kept Syria as her share
of the spoils.
Four hundred years later another Semitic invasion swept over the land
from Ur. It is quite probable that these conquerors were Sumerians. They
established the sixteenth dynasty and brought with them also their
treasure in the form of livestock. Thus, when Abraham entered Egypt, he
found that it was ruled by his relatives! Thus we have an explanation of
the cordial welcome that a Sumerian from Ur received from a pharaoh in
Egypt. This contact is well established through the arts of that day, by
pottery, by frescoes, and by means of the records of ancient customs. We
know these things to be facts.
So when we read of the record of Abraham, we have at our disposal a vast
and overwhelming source of evidence as to the credibility of this
section of the record. The statements that are made in Genesis could
have been written only by one who was intimately familiar with the Egypt
of that day and time.
The second contact of Egypt and the Genesis record is found in the
experience of Joseph. Although harsh and unkind, the action of the
brothers in selling the youngest into slavery was perfectly legal under
the code of that day. The younger brethren were all subject to the
elders, and the law of primogeniture gave to the elder almost unlimited
power over the life of the younger. The brutality and envy of this act
are far from unparalleled in the secular records of that day. Nor was
Joseph’s phenomenal rise to power unusual in the strange culture of that
day and time. We must remember that Joseph was a Semite at a Semitic
court. There is an unconscious introduction of a collateral fact in the
simple statement of Genesis, chapter thirty-nine, verse one. After being
told that Joseph was sold to a man named Potiphar, the statement is made
that Potiphar was an Egyptian.
At first thought it would seem to be expected that a trusted officer in
the court of a pharaoh would naturally be an Egyptian. The contrary is
the case here, however. The pharaoh himself being an invader, he had
surrounded himself with trusted men of his own race and family. As far
as may now be ascertained, Potiphar was the only Egyptian who had
preserved his life and kept his place at the court. He seems to have
been the chief officer of the bodyguard of Pharaoh, and as such was
entrusted with the dubious honor of executing the Pharaoh’s personal
enemies. This, then, is a simple and passing statement that gives us an
unexpected means of checking the scrupulous accuracy of the Genesis
record.
Joseph was comely, attractive, and faithful. With an optimistic
acceptance of his unfortunate circumstances, which seem much harder to
us in our enlightened generation than would actually be the case to one
accustomed to such vicissitudes of fortune, he set himself to serve with
fidelity and industry. But above all this, the blessing of God rested
upon him and upon all that he did. Since he was in the line of the
promised Seed, and was under the direct blessing of that promise, it was
inevitable that he should prosper.
There is a flood of illumination that shines upon this period from the
frescoed tombs, the ancient papyri, and the records crudely inscribed
upon walls and pillars. Particularly is this true of the entire section
of Genesis that begins with the fortieth chapter and continues to the
end of that Book.
Plate 5
[Illustration: {open burial}]
[Illustration: {open burial}]
[Illustration: {open burial}]
[Illustration: Open burial lower left]
[Illustration: Another mural from an ancient tomb: butchers at work]
[Illustration: The god Hapi drawing the Two Kingdoms into one]
Among the quaint frescoes of antiquity, there is one that has no word of
explanation. There are many such murals in Egyptian tombs, and the
cattle also figure often in the pictures on the papyri. (See Plate 9.)
This fresco, however, was quite unique. Across the scene there parade
fourteen cattle. The first seven are round, fat and in fine condition.
They are followed by seven of the skinniest cows that ever ambled on
four legs! No word of explanation is needed to clarify this scene for
those who are familiar with the history of that time.
There is another mural showing the chief baker of Pharaoh, followed by
his servants and porters. In his hand he holds a receipt for the one
hundred thousand loaves that were daily delivered to the palace of
Pharaoh. These “loaves” were in the nature of large buns.
The multiplicity of these paintings would require a volume to delineate
carefully, but there is information here that cannot be passed over in
silence. They bring to us the solution of one of those mysteries of
Egyptian history, which is found in the collapse of the feudal system
and the consequent complete possession of the land by the crown. We can
now read from the secular evidences thus derived, that in a time of
plenty a trusted lieutenant of the king built granaries to store the
surplus left over from the time of plenty. Of course, to our enlightened
times or in the culture of this generation, that is the height of
ignorance. The proper thing to do in a time plenty is to _destroy_ the
surplus and plow under the excess. We sometimes wonder what would have
happened in Egypt if our modern culture had prevailed in the seven years
of plenty, in the light of the famine that followed!
We now find that when the whole land hungered, the lords ceded their
real estate to the crown for grain to keep themselves and their families
alive. The people sold themselves to Pharaoh and became slaves, on
condition that he feed them as he would his cattle. When this time of
famine was ended, Egypt was so absolute a monarchy that Pharaoh owned
even the bodies of those who had been his subjects.
As an illuminating collateral incident, we now learn that a Sumerian
name was given to Joseph, the trusted lieutenant. To him was accorded
the title “Zaph-nath-pa-a-ne-ah.” The Sumerian meaning is “Master of
hidden learning,” and was a title of honour and distinction which was
conferred because of his wisdom and forethought in providing for the
future. To him also was accorded the royal honour. He was to be preceded
by a herald who called upon the people to bow down as Joseph passed by.
Herein there comes the explanation of a slight philological difficulty
in the text of Genesis. They have tried to make this title of honour to
mean “Little Father.” This difficulty, however, disappears when we
understand that it is not a Hebrew word that is found in the text, but
an ancient Egyptian phrase. The common form of the word is “Ah-brak” and
literally it means “bending the knee.” The Babylonian form of the word
is “Abarakhu.” In some parts of the ancient world the term “Ah-brak” is
still used by cameliers to make their beasts of burden kneel to receive
their load. Thus when Joseph, the master of the hidden learning, went
abroad throughout the land the herald preceded him crying, “Bend the
knee,” and all the populace bowed in homage to him in acknowledgment of
his distinguished accomplishments.
Against this background of understanding, we now turn our thoughts to
one of the most stirring dramas in all human history. Again there was a
famine in the entire land of Sumeria, and the people turned, as was
customary, to the land of Egypt for succor and relief. Had this epic
been invented by some literary genius of antiquity, the arrival of the
brothers of Joseph to buy grain for their starving clan would be deemed
one of the most melodramatic episodes ever conceived by the human mind.
Therein we see again how God overruled the evil deed of the brethren,
and by that very deed saved the guilty. In a time of world oppression
and bitter famine, the family of Abraham was reunited in the shelter of
Egypt.
As the story unfolds, we see the significance of Joseph’s instructions
to his brethren. These Semitic kings were shepherds who highly prized
their flocks and herds. The Egyptians, however, despised husbandry, and
thus the monarchs were in great distress because of the want of capable
herdsmen. The brethren of Joseph were distantly related to the reigning
pharaoh. They were of the same race of people, and their father Abraham
had been a prince in that land of Sumeria. So when the pharaoh asked
them what their occupation was, recognizing them as distant relatives,
they were canny enough to reply, “We be shepherds; to sojourn in the
land are we come.” With great delight, the pharaoh employed them to be
the personal overseers of his treasured animals.
Goshen, which consisted of two hundred square miles of fertility, and
was the finest province and the juiciest plum in Egypt, was turned over
to them for a pasture! They entered into a life of comparative ease, of
absolute security, and of importance in the court of their day.
So there came into Egypt that group which was to constitute the spring
that gave rise to the historic stream of the Hebrew people. The tribes
were there in the persons of their founders, and the long contact of
Israel and Egypt began through the pressure and want occasioned by a
time of famine.
One further interesting and collateral evidence of the accuracy of these
records is found in the various texts and sections of the Books of the
Dead, and in the records of the customs and practices of the ancient art
of embalming. In Egypt the general rule was to allow seventy days for
the embalming of a dead body, the burial, and the mourning for the dead.
But the fiftieth chapter of Genesis dealing with the death and burial of
Joseph tells us, in the third verse, “And _forty_ days were fulfilled
for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those _which are embalmed_:
and the Egyptians _mourned_ for him _threescore and ten days_.”
These statements could be true only in the days of a Hyksos or Sumerian
dynasty. The manner of embalming introduced by these Syrian conquerors,
required forty days for the complete process and the burial. Seventy
days was their custom for mourning, thus making a total of one hundred
ten days. Only in these exact periods of Egyptian history could this
record of Genesis be thus established and accredited.
It is a fascinating experience for the student of archeology to wend his
way through the mass of evidence derived from these generations and now
in the possession of the great museums of our earth. A pilgrimage begun
in the British Museum, at London, continuing through the Egyptian Museum
at Cairo, passing by way of Sakkara to culminate at Karnak, will enable
the fascinated student to read this entire book of Genesis from the
sources of antiquity. Thus in the very beginning of the convergence of
the two streams, Revelation and History, we see that dead men _indeed_
tell tales; and their stories vindicate the record of the Word of God!
Much of this evidence is, in the very nature of the case, inductive, and
is valuable largely because of the light it sheds on dark places in the
text of the Scripture. The customs of the people of antiquity were in
many ways so different from those of our day, we have lost the
comprehension of their conduct that is dependent upon mutual experience.
There are thus certain obscurities in the pages of the Bible that have
baffled modern man for a long time, but which are now clearly understood
in the light of fresh understanding of the beliefs and practices of the
times that are dealt with in the Scriptures. This is by no means the
least of the benefits of archeological investigation.
One such field will be found in the record of the exodus of the Hebrews
from Egypt, and the manner in which God shook the power of the
conquering pharaoh and devastated Egypt for the relief of the oppressed.
The entire record has been repudiated point by point by the various
critics and the varying schools of criticism, until their limited
opinions leave no grounds for belief in the very fact of the event
itself. These objections, when analyzed carefully, are all predicated
upon the personal ignorance of the individual critic concerning some
phase of the proceedings that climaxed with the departure of Israel from
servitude.
One of the commonest objections to the credibility of the Old Testament
history was the oft-repeated assertion that though the children of
Israel were in bondage for a long period in Egypt and left that land in
the most dramatic exodus antiquity had known, there is no record from
Egyptian sources of the people or history of Israel. Such is not now the
case, but had it been so this would not necessarily have diminished the
value of the historical statements to be found in the record of the book
of Exodus.
Very few of the races of antiquity recorded in detail their defeats!
Certainly no nation that prided itself upon its greatness and power ever
suffered a more complete overthrow than did Egypt in the redemption of
Israel. It is only natural to presume that they would make very little
reference to the crushing blow that they suffered at that time. There is
even today a strong tendency on the part of the Egyptians to hush up all
evidence of this event as far as it is possible to do so. In the great
Egyptian Museum at Cairo, for instance, we find a record of one of these
texts that does refer to the Israelites.
Exhibit 599 in this aforesaid Museum is a large stele in dark gray
granite, which is beautifully engraved on both sides. On one side there
is an extensive inscription in which Amenophis the Third gives a
categorical list of his gifts and offerings for the temple of Amon. The
other side of the stele has been appropriated by Amenpthah. He gives a
highly dramatic account of his battles and victories over the Libyans,
and then alludes to the assault of Ascalon, of Gezer, and of Yanoem in
Palestine. In the course of this later record, the inscription reads,
“Israel is crushed. It has no more seed.”
In the Egyptian Museum this exhibit is accompanied by the following
ingenious statement: “This is the sole mention of the Israelites in the
Egyptian texts known up to the present day.”
This is not exactly the truth. The Egyptian Museum itself at Cairo has a
number of the tablets containing the correspondence between the Egyptian
court and the kings and governors who were vassals to Egypt in Palestine
and Syria. These communications make urgent demands upon the crown of
Egypt for military help against the invasion of an armed horde who are
called in the text, Hebiru. The word “Hebiru” is commonly identified
with the modern term Hebrew.
Again, the late Director General of the Department of Antiquity of Egypt
and the great founder of the Cairo Museum, Maspero, has left us an
interesting note of this monument of Menepthah. Maspero points to the
fact that in comparison to Egypt, Chaldea and Assyria, Israel was a very
insignificant race. If this was true when the nation was ruled by her
greatest and most glorious dynasty, that of David and Solomon, it would
be more so when the nation consisted of a slave company lodged in a
corner of the delta.
The later ravages undergone by the temples of Egypt, when they suffered
incalculable harm through the vandalism of the darker ages, makes it
indeed extraordinary that _any_ record of those earlier times has
remained.
In the very nature of the case, these details could not have been
comprehended by the scholars of the past generation, as they dealt with
customs and ideas that were lost to our age. The insatiable curiosity of
the archeologist, combined with the care with which the Egyptians
preserved their records, can be credited with the recovery of this lost
information, the possession of which so wonderfully establishes our
faith in this more enlightened age.