exodus out of egypt
TRANSCRIPT
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Saudi_Arabia_map.png -
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Exo 3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the
priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and
came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to
him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush
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A marching day over flat
terrain was typically about
10 miles. For example, the
Roman Legion typicallymarched about 10 miles per
day. Also, during the US
Civil War, Union and
Confederate troops typically
marched about 10 miles per
day on foot (assuming over
average terrain and not aforced march).
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Exo 14:28 The
waters returned and
covered the chariots
and the horsemen;
of all the host ofPharaoh that had
followed them into
the sea, not one of
them remained.
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The Split Rock
and the blackened peak,
the rocks appeared to
have been in a fire
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When it came to pass that Pharaoh had let Israel go "God led them not through
the way of the land of the Philistines"(Exodus 13:17). This was north, along the
coastal area of the Mediterranean Sea. Rather, "God led the people about,
through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea"(v. 18).
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Archeologically speaking, none of these
have been proven to be legitimate sites.
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Today, a highway traverses
this gorge, which is known as
Wadi Watir, which leads down
to Nuwaiba that is today
turned into a tourist attraction.THE Gulf of Aqaba is very
deep, in places over a mile
(1,600m) deep. Even with the
sea dried up, walking acrosswould be difficult due to the
steep grade down the sides.
But there is one spot where if
the water were removed, it
would be an easy descent for
people and animals. This is the
line between Nuweiba and the
opposite shore in Saudi Arabia.
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WHEN Ron Wyatt first visited Nuweiba in 1978, he found a Phoenician style column lying in the
water. Unfortunately the inscriptions had been eroded away, hence the column's importance was
not understood until 1984, when a second granite column was found on the Saudi coastline
opposite -- identical to the first, except on this one the inscription was still intact. In Phoenician
letters (Archaic Hebrew), it contained the words: Mizraim (Egypt); Solomon; Edom; death; Pharaoh;
Moses; and Yahweh, indicating that King Solomon had set up these columns as a memorial to the
miracle of the crossing of the sea. Saudi Arabia does not admit tourists, and perhaps fearing
unauthorized visitors, the Saudi Authorities have since removed this column, and replaced it with a
flag marker where it once stood.
Solomon's memorial
pillars
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The column is not from the time of Solomon but crafted in the time of
Jesus or later. Columns constructed in the time of Solomon were built
from square stone blocks and were rectangular columns, not round ones.
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From there "they took their journey from Succoth, and encamped in
Etham, in the edge of the wilderness "(Exodus 13:20). This would
cover their journey from the border of Egypt across the "wilderness of
the Red Sea"to its edge in "Etham". But where is Etham? For certain it
is "in the edge of the wilderness".
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As they were encamped by the edge of the wilderness in Etham, "the LORD
spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn
and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against
Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea"(Exodus 14:1-2).
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Exodus 13:21, "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead hem the way; and by night in
a pillar of fire, to give them light; to travel by day and night".
Exodus 19:4, God said, "You've seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and
brought you (swiftly) to Myself"(II Samuel 1:23).
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"TURN"(Heb. Shuwb), which means to "return" or "turn back". If we look on a
modern map (left) and see how the modern highway system goes about the
wadis in that region, we will see that there is an abrupt turnaround at "Ra's an-
Naqb", which then proceeds south on the western side of the Gulf of Aqaba
down to a resort village called Nuwaiba.
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we can see how the children of Israel would have no place to escape
from Pharaohs army. Pharaoh said, "They are entangled in the land,
the wilderness hath shut them in"(Exodus 14:3).
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This point brings us to one of the most spectacular of miracles of the Old
Testament when God parted the waters of the Red Sea, "and the waters were a
wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left"(v. 22) that the children of
Israel might cross on dry ground. The Bible tells us that the Egyptians pursued
Israel into the midst of the sea, but the Lord confounded them and "took off
their chariot wheels"(v. 25) and the Lord caused the waters to return "and
covered the chariots, and the horsemen,
and all the host of Pharaoh that came into
the sea after them; there remained not so
much as one of them"(v. 28).
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Exo 14:22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry
ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
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To cross the Gulf of Aqaba, they would have
had to climb down an underwater mountain
and back up again the same night: the depth
reaches about 5,000 ft. in the center of the
gulf. There is no hint to such a grave difficultyin the Bible, nor any clue how Pharaoh's army
could have driven chariots down such a steep
slope and then up the other side.
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Succoth was a military base
on the eastern border of
Egypt large enough for this
great number of people andflocks to assemble in ranks
to depart from Egypt in an
orderly fashion by the way of
the wilderness toward the
Red Sea (Exodus 13:18).
Succoth was called variously
"Tharu", T'aru", and "Takut."
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Great Bitter Lake
The trip across the sea took less than
ten hours (Ex. 14:2127).
Great Bitter Lake is about forty kilometers long, north-to-
south, and about ten kilometers wide at the widest place.
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problems
1) Exodus 15:22 says that when they came out of the sea, Mosesled them through the wilderness of Shur. The wilderness of Shur iswell known from Egyptian records to have been along the flank ofEgypt proper in Western Sinai, not in Saudi Arabia.
2) The Bible, in the original Hebrew, never calls the sea theycrossed the "Red Sea." This is a traditional and incorrect translation.
The Hebrew says "yam suf" which means "sea of reeds." The "Seaof Reeds" is something quite different from "Red Sea." Neither theRed Sea nor the Gulf of Suez or the Gulf of Aqaba has extensivecoverage of salt grass ("reeds").
There are at least two lines of
argument that completely
invalidate the possibility of a seacrossing in the Gulf of Aqaba:
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The wilderness of Shur is east of the Red Sea and in the western area of the Sinai. This location is
also attested in Egyptian sources. To cross the Red Sea and be in the wilderness of Shur one could
only be crossing the western most arm of the Red Sea and not the Gulf of Aqaba.
Shur, meaning an enclosure, or a wall,was located in the northern Sinai
Peninsula, on the north-eastern border
of Egypt (see map below). As the
name implies, the Wilderness of Shur
was named after Shur, which was part
of the fortified Egyptian defensive lineto protect Egypt
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By the way: fringing coral reefs are common on the edges of marine water bodies in the
area, and steep-sided "ridge reefs" occur in slightly deeper water. Pedestrians cannot
"walk" over extensive exposed coral reefs; they would have to climb, without the benefit
of suitable hand holds, and the climbing would be difficult and dangerous.
If th fl i I lit h d l b d th d l f
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If the fleeing Israelites had clambered over the rugged coral reefs
along the margins of the Red Sea or the Gulf of Suez, it would
have caused many injuries
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An extensive Juncuscover (although notnecessarily 100%)
requires salt water, butJuncus ordinarily thrivesin salinities lessthannormal marine, or inareas where seawaterreaches the plants only
briefly at high tide. Waters along the coastsof the Red Sea and theGulf of Suez are typicallysaltier than averageseawater, because of the
very high evaporationrate in the area (abouttwo meters per year).
Cargo ship on the Great Bitter Lake
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Exo 14:21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the
LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the
sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
Super-elevation, caused by the windblowing steadily and strongly for hours,can drive much of the water out of a veryshallow basin. However, it is not areasonable mechanism for water onehundred meters deep, or one thousandmeters deep, and, therefore, is not
applicable to either the Gulf of Suez, orto the Red Sea. And since the historicaltext is very clear about what happened,the reader is not entitled to use a"miraculous augmentation."
Thus, the reader should be careful todistinguish between (1) a supernaturalmechanism (which requires no rationalphysical limitations or causes, andtherefore cannot even be discussed inany detail within a rational framework),and (2) a supernatural cause for thetimingof a natural mechanism. Thewriter of Exodus clearly chose the latter.
Such a shallow basin is precisely what isneeded to have a "Sea of Reeds."
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We have to get the Israelites across, even if the Egyptians are mired. And when
you look at these ancient chariots, and see how thin their wheels were, you can
understand why they would cut through almost any wet surface and get mired.
Especially with three men in each chariot, because we are told each one had a
captain. That means a driver, an archer, and a captain in each, unless a scribe
or copyist added the captain in later for greater effect.
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Excavation of the
canal was begun on
April 25, 1859, and
the canal was
opened to
navigation on
November 17, 1869
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Mt. Sinai-in-Arabia Started as a
Muslim Polemic The general idea goes back to
about 1225 AD, when Muslimgeographers began toarbitrarily shift Biblical placenames largely because theyhad been identified by
Christians Among modern scholars
Charles Beke was the pioneerarguing for Sinai-in-Arabia,starting in 1834 (withoutpinpointing a specific peak) andculminating in his book, MountSinai a Volcano, published in1873. (shortly retracted beforedeath)
The mountain peak scorched bySupernatural heat?
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Traditional Southern Sinai Site is
Ancient
An Eastern Orthodox icon depicts
Saint Helena standing next to herson, the Emperor Constantine.
According to the Williams-Cornuke
book an unnamed "psychic or
seer" is said to be responsible for
choosing the traditional Sinai site
for Emperor Constantine. But
elsewhere their book says this"myth" has arisen only within the
last "almost 250 years" as a long-
running "tourist scam," and "prior
to that time [about 1740],
numerous other mountains were
claimed" to be Mt. Sinai though noexample is given (pp. 17, 50) and
the claim is patently false.
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Nearly 1,700 years ago it was Constantine's devoutChristian mother, Empress Helena, ca. 330 A.D., who
chose the site for a church, to build the church to
protect monks from murderous raids by nomads.
According to the tradition, the church was built at the
place where the local monks pointed out what they
believed was the Burning Bush. (17) Hence the sitewas already well known as Mt. Sinai by that time.
About 550 A.D., Emperor Justinian built a fortified
monastery to replace this church, likewise also
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, which still stands today.
Much later, the monastery took on the name of St.
Catherine, the earliest mentions perhaps about 1244.
False Assumption #1: The Sinai
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False Assumption #1: The Sinai
Peninsula was considered the
Land of Egypt
The Land of Goshen was the eastern limits ofthe Land of Egypt. Apparently the fortresseson the Eastern Frontier Canal was the borderbetween Egypt and the Sinai (Hoffmeier 1997:164-175).
Sir Flinders Petrie, the Father of PalestinianArchaeology, states that the copper andturquoise mines in Sinai were in the desertoutside the territorial border of Egypt, whichpassed to the east of the delta
In summary, Egypt exploited the naturalresources of Sinai and controlled certainroads in the northern part of the peninsula,but it was not within the borders of the Landof Egypt.
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False Assumption #2:
Mt. Sinai is in the Land
of Midian
This incident was repeated about a year hence on a later visit to Mt.Sinai by Moses' Midianite father-in-law or nephew Hobab (Numbers
10:29-31). Moses asked him to stay and guide the Israelites to thePromised Land, but he declined, saying he would return to "my ownland"(Midian) and "my own people"(Midianites) from Mt. Sinai.He did not want to go on a long journey to Moses' land with Moses'people. Hobab's land (in what is modern Saudi Arabia) was clearlynot the same land where they were at (Mt. Sinai)
Exodus 18:27 states that, while the Israelites were camped near Mt.Sinai,3 Moses sent his Midianite (Saudi Arabian) father-in-lawJethro back to"his own country"of Midian. Clearly, Mt. Sinai andnorthwestern Saudi Arabia (Midian) were in two differentlocations. The making of the statement signals the importance ofthe action, it was not a trivial event or insignificant journey for Jethroto go back to Midian from Mt. Sinai.
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Midian was placed at least partly in theSinai by later authors (Antoninus of
Placentia, Italy, ca. 570 A.D., Arab
historian Makrizi, d. 1441). (53) So
have some of the leading Bible
archaeologists and scholars of moderntimes-William F. Albright, H. H. Rowley,
G. Ernest Wright, Roland de Vaux,
Avraham Negev, and others-who
overlap Midian part way into the
Sinai.
William F. Albright
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One careful scholar of the geography of the Exodus route, Graham Davies of
Cambridge, has argued that in the late Tannaitic period (about 100-200 A.D.), forexample, rabbinical literature described the distance between Pharan and Mt. Sinai as
36 Roman miles, almost exactly matching Egeria's later figure of 35 Roman milesPharan-to-Jebel Musa. In other words, Mt. Sinai = Jebel Musa. To Davies this showsthat Jebel Musa (the later St. Catherine's) had already been identified as Mt. Sinai byJewish pilgrims around 100 A.D. (Davies, Wilderness (1979) pp. 14-28, esp. 23-24.)
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Mt. Sinai in
Arabia?Gal 4:25
JOSEPHUS: "Moses went up to a mountain that lay between EgyptandArabia, which was called Sinai...." Josephus, Against Apion 2:2[2:25].
In the first century AD, based on the prior use by Herodotus, Pliny andStrabo, Arabia extended from the Persian Gulf to the Nile Delta, thusincluding the Sinai Peninsula in Arabia. Paul would be perfectly correctin placing Mt. Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula because the Sinai Peninsulawas part of Arabia of his day.
Moreover, in the mid-third century BC, 72 Jewish scholars translated theHebrew Bible into Greek (known as the Septuagint) and followed thecontemporary use of the word Arabia when they referred to Goshen asGoshen of Arabia (Gen. 45:10; 46:34). While Goshen is clearly part ofEgypt (Gen. 37:6, 27; Ex. 9:26), the translator imposed the third century
BC geographical reality on their translation.
Rembrandt
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In Apostle Paul's time, "Arabia"
covered a wide area that
"included the Sinai Peninsula"
as well as what we now call
Saudi Arabia, according to
Cambridge scholar GrahamDavies.
Even in modern times, Wilhelm
Gesenius listed both MT. SINAI
and the Sinai Peninsula as PART
OF "ARABIA," in his famous
1834 Hebrew Lexicon.
Rembrandt
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Like his Midianite hosts, Moses
could have wandered far outside of
Midian in reaching Mt. Sinai. In
fact, the Bible seems to say just
that: In Exodus 3:1, where Mosesis said to have "led" Jethro's flock
to Horeb (Mt. Sinai), the Hebrew
verb "nahag" actually means to
"forcibly or exhaustingly drive," not
gently lead, suggesting Moses
traveled a great distance.
The Harper's Bible Dictionary and Smith's BibleDictionary, both saying the Midianites were nomads.
The Bible reports Midianites traveling long distances
into Egypt for trade (Gen. 37:28, 36) and into Western
and Northern Israel for war (Judges 6-8).
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Petrie's student and scholar, Lina
Eckenstein, in her History of Sinai, has alsodescribed the "reckless
deforestation...which has gone on
unchecked for thousands of years," turning
a Sinai of "great fruitfulness" into a vast
wasteland. Forests once covered the Sinai
valleys. Gone are the Sinai's "extensive
tamarish groves," the "enormous
plantations" of palms and dates, such asthe grove of 10,000 date-palms reported in
1335, the "numerous fruit and vegetable
gardens," and the numerous "herds of
gazelles," all of which were still in existence
as late as the Middle Ages, according to
Eckenstein. "pasture lands which formerly
fed sheep and goats" were turned intospreading desert by the introduction of the
camel, "a most destructive animal, " she
states, "like a huge goat." (36)
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The book contends that God's presence on top of Mt. Sinai supernaturally burned it
(Exodus 24:17; Deut. 5:23) -- though the Burning Bush was not burned up (Exodus 3:2-
3). (p. 98). Plants may have been supernaturally melted right into solid rock, it is said.
(39)Geologist Dr. John Morris tells us, the Jebel al-Lawz rock he examined is normal
metamorphic rock typical for the volcanic area it came from, there was nothing strangeabout it nor any sign of plants melted into the rock. (40) The book does not mention that
Jebel al-Lawz is in a volcanic region.
Researchers are interested in seeing the
lab analyses, but they have been
unavailable for the last 13 years.
Judgment on this evidence should be
withheld until the rocks have been
scientifically analyzed and properlypublished.
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Any geologist looking at the pictures of Jabal al Lawz readily recognizes that the
dark-colored rocks shown in the pictures of Jabal al Lawz shown at Bob Cornuke's
web page are quite clearly roof pendants of darker-colored rocks intruded by younger,
light-colored rocks. A roof pendant is: "A body of country rock surrounded by intrusive
rock. If the rocks on the summit of
Jabal al Lawz look "melted" it is
because they consist of
metamorphosed lava and
other extrusive igneous
rocks called "greenstone",
South Bishop roof
pendant, CA. (J.Shelton)
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One Saudi archaeologist who did his doctoral thesis on Saudi Arabian rockart dates the patched bovine to the Neolithic period (Khan 1991: 115; plate1). The Neolithic period is considerably earlier than the Late Bronze Ageand the date of the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, it has nothing to do with thelivestock the Israelites brought out of Egypt (Ex. 12: 38; 17:3; Num. 20:19;32:1; Deut. 3:19).
Lets assume for a minute that this was the site of the golden calf (However,
I do not believe it is). Moses destroyed the golden calf because it was anidol. He would also have erased the petroglyphs of the bovine because theywere graven images.
Bovine petroglyphs were found in the Midian area as well as other parts ofthe country (Livingstone et. al. 1985: 132-134; Plates 126, 127, 133;Nayeem 1990: 91, 92, 95).
Refering to the golden calf
incident?
Are these drawings the Hathor
and Apis bull from Egypt?
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Large stone circles probably connected with burials are typical to thenorthwest Saudi Arabian area. The date and function of the cairns are
unknown (Ingraham et. al. 1981: 69-71). Similar structures have been
found elsewhere in the Levant.
The Altar of Moses and the 12Pillars?
The Bible says that Moses got
up early one morning and built
an altar at the base of the Mt.
Sinai and set up twelve stonepillars representing the twelve
tribes of Israel (Ex. 24: 4).
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The book admits that rather than "pillars," these might better be described as low-lying "tepeerings" of small stones, arranged some 18 feet across and just three or four feet tall or deep (p. 90),
possibly only one to two feet deep (p. 210). These sound suspiciously like Early Bronze II-MiddleBronze I rings, which are usually made of small uncut field stones arranged in circles from 6 to 20feet in diameter and about 2-1/2 feet high. Since only one or two of the "rings" were barely visiblefrom under the dirt and rock, and none of this debris was cleared, it is difficult to see how one can
know if any other such "pillars" existed or that there are exactly 12 of them.
Then Moses and the people of
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Israel sang this song to the
LORD, saying, "I will sing to
the LORD, for he has
triumphed gloriously; the
horse and his rider he hasthrown into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and
my song, and he has become
my salvation; this is my God,
and I will praise him, myfather's God, and I will exalt
him.
The LORD is a man of war;
the LORD is his name.
"Pharaoh's chariots and hishost he cast into the sea, and
his chosen officers were sunk
in the Red Sea.
The floods covered them; they
went down into the depths like
a stone.
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Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues,
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which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw what appeared to bea sea of glass mingled with fire--and also those who had conquered the beast and its image
and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in theirhands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,
saying, "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your
ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you aloneare holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."