A History of Sinai

by Lina Eckenstein

Different views were put forward regarding the date of the Exodus and of the Pharaohs who were in contact with Moses.

According to the Book of Kings it was “in the 480th (LXX 440th) year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of his reign,” that Solomon began to build the Temple at Jerusalem (1 Kings vi. 1).

Solomon ruled from c. b.c. 974 to b.c. 935. His fourth year would be 970, and the Exodus, on this basis, happened either in b.c. 1450, or in b.c. 1410 according to the Septuagint.

Prof. Brugsch looked upon Ramessu II as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Prof. Petrie endorsed the view, accepting the date of Ramessu II as b.c. 1300-1234, and of the Exodus as c. b.c. 1220. One of his reasons for doing so was that the Israelites, as stated in the Bible, worked at the “city Raamses” (Exod. i. 11), which, as excavations have shown, was a creation of the Ramessides. But the expression the “land of Rameses,” was used in connection with the story of Joseph (Gen. xlvii. 11), which deals with events that were long anterior to the Ramessides, showing that the compilers of Exodus used expressions that were current at the time when they wrote.

The identification of Ramessu II, a king of the Nineteenth Dynasty, as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, clashes with the information reaching us through Alexandrian and Syriac sources, which suggests that Moses was befriended by Amen-hotep IV, better known as Akhen-aten (XVIII 10), the great religious reformer, and that the Israelites left Egypt under one of his immediate successors. This connection between Moses and the great reformer of Egypt strikes the imagination, all the more as it is in keeping with the Egyptian king’s Syrian affinities. The authorities are worth recalling.

Chief among these were Demetrius Phalereus (b.c. 345) and Manetho (c. b.c. 260) who were quoted by Josephus (a.d. 80) and Eusebius (a.d. 320); and Artapanus of unknown date, passages of whose work were preserved by Alexander Polyhistor (b.c. 140) and accepted by Eusebius and the Chronicon Paschale. The information of Demetrius, Manetho, and Artapanus is peculiar in that it takes no account of Scripture. Moreover, Artapanus compared what the people of Memphis and the Heliopolitans preserved regarding the passage of the Red Sea. Another writer was Philo of Alexandria (a.d. 40) who wrote a Life of Moses.

The Chronicon of Eusebius contains the Egyptian dynasties as derived from Manetho, and in the list of kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Oros stands for Amen-hotep IV (i.e. Akhen-aten). Against his name stands the entry, “the Birth of Moses.”[93] In agreement with this, Epiphanius in his book Against all Heresies, mentioned Thermuthis, the daughter of Amenophis, who adopted Moses,[94] while the Syriac writer Barhebræus († 1218), who had access to many sources, held that the princess who adopted Moses was Tremothisa, in Hebrew Damris, the daughter of Amunphatisus.[95] The historian Josephus called her Thermuthis, and related that she intended Moses for her father’s successor (Antiq., ii. 9).

On the other hand, Artapanus gave the name of the Pharaoh as Palmanothis, adding that he built sanctuaries at Kessa (perhaps Akhet at Amarna) and at Heliopolis. His daughter Merris who was childless adopted Moses. She was betrothed to Chenefres.[96] The Chronicon Paschale called him Chenebron.[97]

Various traditions point in the same direction. Thus, the Arabs held that Moses was saved by the eldest of seven little princesses, who were daughters of the Pharaoh.[98] Students of Tell el Amarna will recall the representations of the little daughters of Akhen-aten, of whom as many as six are seen with their parents on the wall sculptures of the tombs. On the Egyptian side we know that the marriage of Meryt-aten, Akhen-aten’s eldest daughter, with Ra-smenkh-ka (XVIII 11) his co-regent and successor, was without issue.

According to the Artapanus Moses spent his early manhood in the service of the husband of the princess who adopted him, and led a campaign against the Ethiopians (Præp. Evang., ix. 27). In keeping with this, Stephen Martyr († a.d. 36) said that Moses was well nigh forty years old before it came into his heart to look after his brethren, the children of Israel (Acts vii. 23). The exploits of Moses against the Ethiopians were described by Josephus (Antiq., ii. 10).