Passover in Egypt: ‘Did the Exodus Really Happen?’ Asks Author Roger Isaacs
CHICAGO, April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Passover is the Jewish festival that celebrates the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt. “During this Passover season it is particularly pertinent to wonder, did the Exodus really happen?” asks Roger Isaacs, author of Talking with God: The Radioactive Ark Of The Testimony.
According to Isaacs, clues and speculations abound regarding alleged evidence discovered for the Exodus, and nearly all have their champions and detractors. “It seems that every time a theory is proposed and the Exodus mystery appears to be solved, it is quickly shot down for one reason or another.”
Nevertheless, ongoing archeological and etymological investigations into the Exodus have produced some tantalizing items and scholarship. For example, consider the Ipuwer papyrus.
How could plagues described in an Egyptian papyrus be so similar to those found in the Bible?
In the early 1800s, a papyrus was found in Egypt called The Admonitions of an Egyptian. It is now in the Leiden Museum in Holland. An Egyptian named Ipuwer wrote it at the end of the Middle Kingdom, around 1650 B.C.E. Scribes copied it in the 19th Dynasty, in the 1200s B.C.E. Below are some of the amazingly similar plagues described in both the Ipuwer papyrus and the Bible. The biblical plagues befell the Egyptians at the time of Moses and the Exodus, which has been dated sometime between 1570 to 1290 B.C.E.
IPUWER EXODUS-LEVITICUS All the waters of the river were The river is blood. turned to blood. (Exod. 7:20) The Egyptians dug around the river Men ... thirst after water. for water to drink. (Exod. 7:24) Gates, columns and walls are And fire came down to earth. (Exod. consumed by fire. 9:23) Everywhere barley has And the flax and the barley were perished. smitten. (Exod. 9:31) The hand of the Lord is ... on the The cattle moan because of cattle, which is in the field. the state of the land. (Exod. 9:3) At midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt from Men are few, and he who the firstborn of Pharaoh ... to the places his brother in the firstborn of the captive who was in land is everywhere. prison. (Exod. 12:29) The children of princes are dashed against the walls. I have sent forth my hand and Pestilence is throughout the smitten you and your people with land. pestilence. (Exod. 9:15) The land [was not light or bright]. (This is a guess of translators. It's There was thick darkness (or actually blank on the darkness of gloom) in all the land papyrus.) or Egypt. (Exod. 10:22) Hair [has fallen out] for He whose hair has fallen out. (Lev. everybody. 13:40) ------------------------- ----------------------------------- Gold, lapis lazuli, silver ... And they asked of the Egyptians are strung on the necks of articles of silver and ... gold ... and maidservants. they plundered Egypt. (Exod. 12:35) ------------------------------ ---------------------------------------
“Admittedly this biblical reference about hair falling out occurs after both the writing of Ipuwer and the flight out of Egypt. However, I include it here because in my book, Talking With God, I explain that the cloud that settled on the ark was radioactive, and one of the effects of close contact was hair loss. Mysteries abound!” Isaacs said.
The disparity of the dates between the Ipuwer and Exodus documents is enough to convince many scholars that no relation exists between the two. In addition, prevalent theory now claims the papyrus is simply ahistorical. Be that as it may, the similarities are striking, and why they are remains a mystery.
Isaacs wonders, “Could it be that the scribes who copied the document at the time of the Exodus were experiencing similar calamities to the earlier ones and were using Ipuwer’s words to warn the present-day Pharaoh?”
Although the comparisons between the Ipuwer Papyrus and the Bible are tantalizing, Ipuwer alone does not provide absolute evidence for the Exodus and the Passover. For that matter it can’t even account for the existence of the Israelites. “However, while there is little tangible archeological evidence, there are additional interesting clues,” Isaacs says. For more clues, see the complete article.
Isaacs says, “Until the mystery is finally solved, we are left to rely on the venerable Passover service to connect us to our past at this holiday season. We must be content to repeat the most pertinent of the famous ‘Four Questions,’ which the youngest at the table asks on the first night: ‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’”
Facts about what really happened to the Israelites are in the new book Talking with God: The Radioactive Ark Of The Testimony by Roger D. Isaacs. Available at Amazon. Join our ongoing investigation of Old Testament mysteries at TalkingWithGod.net.
Janice Williams Miller
SOURCE Roger Isaacs