Historical Evidence fo the Ten Plagues of the Exodus

The last article established some basic considerations that are hard to refute.  For your recollection, these were: 1. The Exodus occurred in the last two years of the reign of Amenhotep III, 2. Moses was a Crown Prince of Egypt and in fact was the renegade Thutmose, 3. Monotheism was already becoming a contentious issue in Egypt and was challenging the existing pantheon of gods. 4. The city of Pi-Ramses was actually Avaris and over a twenty-five year span, Amenhotep used slave labour comprised of the Hapiru, the same people it is believed were the Hebrews.   All this sounds very convincing but it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  There is far more evidence which is about to be discussed which helps cement the case solid.  Once again, I repeat  my belief that the more scientific, archeological, historical evidence that can be provided to support the Exodus story, even if it does not actually portray the events exactly as they are described in the Torah these are vital to the overall teachings of the Law Giver, proving that it was not the story but the lessons that must be learned by all.  Again, this is the essential pillar of Karaism, that the teachings and the law supersedes all else.   And if clarifying the means by which these teachings are portrayed helps to create believers of those that have lost their way, then so much the better.     Because teaching is what not only being a Karaite but being Kahana is what our purpose in life has been since the beginning.

Dating the Plagues

The matter of the plagues has already been discussed in the article http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus and therefore rediscussing each individual plague doesn’t serve any purpose in establishing the time line since none were ever recorded by Egyptian historians.  But this article did serve the purpose of demonstrating that such events could occur if there was a major eruption.  And the reality of an eruption of this magnitude was thoroughly discussed in http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus-2 where we see there were a series of major volcanic eruptions occurring in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries BC, the Thera eruption being the most catastrophic and the one which occurred during the reign of Amenhotep III.
Now the first of those articles looked at the plausibility of the plagues occurring but the question has always been why was there never any record of them in Egyptian history?  And as mentioned previously, Egyptian Pharaohs had no desire to list their disasters for posterity, concentrating only on their successes.  Unfortunately, this meant that even if they did occur, there purposely would be no record of them as proof and that is where most investigators leave off their pursuit and classify the event as impossible to prove.  Had they thought beyond the black and white they would have seen that there was circumstantial evidence to suggest the plagues actually did occur and they happened in the last two years of Amenhotep III’s reign.
For every action there is a reaction.  We have all experienced this law of mankind.  If someone was to hurt us, we would take action to protect ourselves from it ever happening again.  There is always a response to an adverse event and Amenhotep was no different from any other human.  He had been hurt, his country had suffered, his firstborn was lost to him forever, and he would rely on the gods to ensure that he would never suffer such a catastrophe again.  There was only one god of Egypt that he would turn to.  The goddess of disasters, Sekhmet and in the last two years of his reign, the Pharoah dedicated to Amun and Ra at his birth was suddenly history’s biggest advocate of this small time goddess.  He began erecting hundreds upon hundreds of statues all over the country.  The temple at Ashur that he was building for the chief goddess Must was suddenly dedicated to this second string goddess, Sekhmet.  Many of these statues can now be found in museums all over the world because he erected so many.  At Luxor alone he erected seven hundred Sekhmet statues.  So despite history’s recording of Amenhotep III’s reign as being a period of stability, prosperity and expansion, there was obviously something that occurred that sent shivers down his spine and made him start trying to appease the goddess of disasters almost to the point of madness.  If we examine Egyptian Mythology and realize that Sekhmet according to legend tried to destroy all of mankind and only through the intervention of her father Ra was mankind saved, then we have a gauge of the degree of madness he was experiencing.  As far as Amenhotep was concerned, he was saving his people, his country, his kingdom from total destruction; the weapons of mass destruction known as the Ten Plagues.  He was desperately trying to appease the goddess of disaster so that she would stop the plagues being visited upon the land by this unknown God of his son, Thutmose.

Summary

Now we have a date.  The last two years of Amenhotep III"s reign which places the events somwhere between the years 1350 to 1360 BC since we don't actually know the actual dates of Egyptian Pharaohs within more or less  of a decade.  Even though the historical records do not say that the plagues were visited upon Egypt at this time, we have enough evidence in the form of statues to suggest that a major catastrophe did occur that terrified the Egyptian monarch beyond any nightmare that we could imagine.  But then again, we don't have to imagine it because the Torah provides us with a pretty accurate description of what occurred.  I'm not about to stop here, there is more to my investigation yet to be revealed but that will have to wait until the next article.  So until then, Peace be with You.
Avrom Aryeh Zuk Kahana

Exodus and Ethiopia Part 7

The most read article that I have on this website concerns the Ethiopian Princess that Moses married. Why has this story created such a stir that it has become a feature on other sites that have copied and posted it, spreading the word of this long forgotten relationship? I have seen the information in the article used from those proclaiming the true decent of the Israelites was through Africa, by others that proclaim that we are all one people, and also by those that have seen it as one more device to spread anti-Semitic propaganda. Three different perspectives, diametrically opposed and yet all quoting the same article for their justification. I have even witnessed its rebuttal by Jewish groups, totally ignoring that the Torah, the Old Testament, itself states that our origins were as a mixed multitude. Do they not understand what a mixed multitude means? Are we that myopic that we must divide our religious beliefs between black and white and taint it with the prejudices that have afflicted mankind since its creation? Or cannot the simple beauty of this ancient story, where a man and a woman see one another, not in terms of their external appearance but for what they are inside. That which counts the most is the lesson tht must prevail. And no where better do we learn this lesson tha from the Queen of Sheba.

A Sacred Line

I cherish the fact that we had roots that extended beyond the borders of Canaan and Egypt.  I praise Moses for his lofty ideals that transcended race or creed or colour.  And once upon a time, so too did the rest of the Israelite population as we can recognize from Flavius Josephus’s record of this fabled liaison, the inclusion of such stories in the Talmud (one of the few times I’ll praise the Talmud for any of its content) and the writings of Artapanus and Cornelius Polyhistor.  None of these authors saw the marriage of Moses to the Princess of Ethiopia as anything less than a testimony of Moses’ greatness.  A relationship that was well known and understood in ancient times because the Queen of Sheba had no other purpose in seeking the bed chambers of Solomon but to re-establish the sacredness of offspring of her lineage.  Recognizing that the line of Moses had been superseded by the house of David, in her wisdom she knew that that the legitimacy of her own reign rested on carrying this seed blessed by God.  And whether or not we choose to recognize the legends and historical records of the Ethiopian royal house, this is exactly how they explained the traditions that they have passed down from father to son for the last three thousand years.   And although no one can state exactly how the Felashim came to be, those Black Jews of Ethiopia, the majority now residing in Israel, that practiced a religion not dissimilar from that which was practiced in Israel pre-Babylonian exile, why should we doubt the obvious.  That they did return with the Queen of Sheba and her son Menelik, and they did rekindle the faith that had been first introduced to them by Moses when he married their princess Tharbis, three hundred years earlier.  Probably the most valuable lesson I learned in life, long ago was that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it is a duck.  Why are there are so many of us that refuse to accept that.  This simple Karaite belief, the fundamental concept of Karaism, that some things in the Torah simply are the way they are described.

The Queen of Sheba

Or do we forget what it says in the Song of Songs? In chapter 1 Verse 5 she admits that she is a beautiful black woman. In the next verse she repeats that she is swarthy, tanned darker than the daughters of Jerusalem. As dark as the tents of Kedar. The Kedarites were a tribe descended from Ishmael. The expression to dwell in the Tents of Kedar was often used to imply that one was cut off from serving God. Therefore she is admitting that she does not follow the Hebrew faith but in Solomon’s eyes she is still beautiful. To read the Targum now, the Rabbis will insist that the story has nothing to do with the love between a man and a woman. They state that the kiss is representative of Gods revelation of the Torah at Sinai. That when the woman says that she is black she is actually referring to Israel’s sinning nature to chase after idols. And that in Verse 9 her reference to herself as Pharaoh’s mare is in reality a reminder of the crossing of the Red Sea. Even Maimonides could not accept the Song of Songs as it simply reads, stating in his Guide to the perplexed it was actually about the love between God and the human soul and not with Israel proper. The fact is that they were all embarrassed by its inclusion by the earlier editors and in their efforts to justify what essentially would have been early pornography they have spent eons trying to explain away the obvious. Because if they didn’t, then they would have to confess that the stories of Moses in Ethiopia were all true and the reasons for the Queen of Sheba visiting Israel had far more to do with a continuation of a royal lineage than they did with coming to ask Solomon a few questions to test his wisdom. They’d have to admit that Solomon as this pinnacle of God’s faithful was lusting after a woman that was neither part of the faith nor physically resembling the general populace.
Firstly, if we were to accept the Rabbi’s arguments then we would have to accuse them of anthropomorphizing God, giving him human features which the woman (being Israel in their view) has now described physically. The invisible, indefinable God is no more. He has circlets on his cheeks and wears beads about his neck as it says in verse ten, and God also has a desire for gold and silver as it states in verse 11. Human obsessions and human frailties and therefore the intended man in this song could never have been God. But in verse 9 we have the ultimate perversion of the Song if we choose to attribute its description to the Almighty. To be a steed has only one implication when a woman describes her lover in such terms. It creates an image that is religiously profane for it would be not in any way dissimilar from the images of Greek gods where Zeus had taken delight in riding human woman after woman, just like a steed rides a mare. And if this truly was a description of a God:Israel relationship, then the banter that is exchanged between the lovers makes no sense at all. For example in Chapter 6 Verse 8, the woman speaks of his having 60 other queens and 80 concubines, as well as a number of serving women, a recognition that she must be happy with the moments she does have with him, content that for a time he has placed her above the others. And as we read Chapter 8 we recognize that they are parting, that the Queen is going away. She cannot be fenced in with walls and turrets as he could do with other women; hardly a comment that Israel would make to God. She knew that the people did not accept her, she admonishes them for her rejection, knowing that had they been of the same people (a brother) then her presence in his bed chambers would have caused no offense to the daughter of Jerusalem that have awoken to condemn their love. But though she must leave, not all the water in the world could quench the love they have for one another. Obviously this is not a song about God and Israel but is exactly what it claims to be. A song of Solomon. A song of Sheba. A song of love!

Exodus and Direct Clues from Moses Part 6

That Which Has Been Written

From http://hubpages.com/hub/A-Karaite-Reading-of-Exodus I wrote about the fable about Moses's name being Moshe, a Hebrew word meaning to draw out, as in to 'draw out of the water' a reminder of the baby in the basket inference. But this was an addition, a post exilic Rabbinic creation. And we know this for a fact because in their commentaries to the Torah, they admit it freely that they knew that the word 'mehshitihu' only had the barest resemblance to the name Moshe and that an Egyptian princess would never have used, let alone known the Hebrew language.  But although they admit this literary flight of fancy, they also refused to admit what the name really meant even though they knew that it was a shortening of the Egyptian meaning ‘son of’.  And in that article, I wrote of the likelihood that Nunmose or Nunmoses was probably the actual name of Moses. And being the primordial god of the river, the Egyptian god that was there at the beginning of all things, it is understandable how the story of drawing the baby from the Nile was born.  Later in the article http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus-2 I mentioned that the likelihood of the Egyptians even mentioning the Exodus of 15,000 slaves was unlikely, but as I will discuss in a later article, the plagues were a completely different matter.  And there is evidence through extrapolation of events in Amenhotep III’s reign that a catastrophe of biblical proportions did take place.  Throw in the fact that the Exodus was led by a renegade prince from the Great House, his own son, and it is understandable that the events were stricken from Egyptian historical records as was the common practice for all embarrassments to the royal household.    Do we have an indication of any such son of Amenhotep that was erased from history, yes we do, because even with the best attempts to erase memories, there is always something overlooked.  And then in the article http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus-3 I quote from the Book of Jasher, “But the tribe of Levi did not at that time work with the Israelites their brethren, from the beginning, for the children of Levi knew the cunning of the Egyptians which they exercised at first toward the Israelites.”  And from this I suggested that the Levites were actually an Egyptian priestly caste that for reasons unknown threw their lot in with the Hebrew slaves at the time of the Exodus.  Conjecture would say that in some way, the Levites did something that offended Pharaoh and therefore lost any status that they once held in Egypt.   And sure enough, we have record of a priestly rebellion amongst the priests of Heliopolis that ultimately failed and was put down by Amenhotep III.  And then we have other stories, stories which I inferred in http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus-4 talk about Moses’ role in conquering the Cushites or Nubians.  A role which in Egyptian history is attributed to this disgraced son of Amenhotep III.  And there are other stories that state this conqueror of Ethiopia later rebelled against his Egyptian Pharaoh.  His punishment was never defined but we know that the man responsible was never caught or slain.  It would have been something that the Amenhotep III would have made certain never got recorded in his own royal chronicles.  And the pharaoh might even banish his son to one of the religious cities where it would be expected that he could do no harm.

Egyptian Clues

Much of the preceding events indicated will be discussed in subsequent articles, but more importantly we must ask ourselves, if Moses was truly a Egyptian Prince, a prince of the blood, did he leave us any clues to confirm this?  Because if we believe the great Law Giver was far more than the average slave, a man of destiny, of privilege, of intelligence then that part of him that was Egyptian would want to ensure that his life was never obscured; that it was immortalized no differently from those buried in their pyramids and royal tombs. The likelihood of his displacement, of his history being rewritten was already evident to him through the numerous insurrections, rebellions, and challenges he had to face, especially from those closest to him.   Knowing all this, then someone like Moses would attempt to leave a trail of evidence that would go unnoticed by most but for those taking the advice of an Anan ibn David, or a Kirkisani, they would search for the truth, the logic of it all, and they would find that which was purposely left behind to be rediscovered.  And just how would Moses accomplish such a feat?  He would do so by leaving this trail of bread crumbs scattered through the Torah, but so sublime that it would be overlooked completely and not recognized for just how Egyptian it truly was.  Something completely overlooked by those he knew would attempt to make revisions of the sacred book in the future.  And the obvious choice for a man raised and educated in the Great House would be to use something that no other culture had at that time and that was Egyptian mathematics.   The most extensive Egyptian mathematical text that we have available is called the Ahmes Papyrus or Rhind Papyrus dated to c. 1650 BC but likely a copy of an older document from the Middle Kingdom of about 2000-1800 BC.   This papyrus provides evidence of a mathematical knowledge that included composite and prime numbers as well as arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means.   Prime numbers are the key here since there is no known formula that yields all of the prime numbers and no composites. The distribution of primes, by calculating the statistical behaviour of primes was only modelled in a proven statement since the end of the 19th century.  So there use in ancient Egypt were intentional and could never have occurred randomly or coincidentally.  As I have always said, there are no coincidences.  And since the knowledge of Prime Numbers was exclusively the domain of Egyptian scientists, the high priesthood and the Royal Family, then their incorporation into the Torah would have been intentional.  And if intentional, then Moses was using them to make a statement.

Prime Numbers

On this premise, the inclusion of a string of prime numbers in the Torah would be the means by which Moses would be clearly pronouncing his Egyptian heritage. His vehicle for stating that he was raised not only in the Great House, but would have also attained the higher learning of the high priesthood. We know that the Prince Tuthmose was installed in the high priesthood of Heliopolis following his conquest of Ethiopia. A strange reward for someone that should have been hailed as the next conqueror and heir apparent. In the twenty-third year of his father’s reign, Tuthmose suddenly disappears, never to be heard from again. Two years later, Amenhotep’s reign ends. Far from coincidences but actual facts.
So where are these prime numbers? Placed exactly where they would go unnoticed because they would be hidden in plain sight. In the one book where Moses knew statements bordering on the fantastical could be readily accepted; that book being Genesis, incorporating the legendary stories of the ancient traditions. As Karaites, we learn from the Book of Genesis the morals and origins that shaped our civilization but as both Anan ibn David and Kirkisani stated, we must use logic and build our faith not on the literal translation but on the intent. As we read about the incredible ages of our ancestors, we have a choice; either accept them as actual ages or look for something deeper. Firstly, it matters little that Adam lived for 930 years or Methuselah 969 and but yet they are included in the Torah with no seeming purpose. Until we look at Adam’s age, made up of the four prime numbers 2, 3, 5 and 31. Each number unique and used only once. Just like Enosh, consisting of the two prime numbers 5 and 181, and his son Kenan consisting of 2, 5, 7 ,13, and his son Mahalel consisting of two prime number 5 and 179, and his son Jared consisting of three prime numbers 2, 13 and 37, and his son Enoch consisting of two prime numbers 5 and 73. This trend continues with Enoch’s son Methuselah, 3, 17 and 19, his son Lamech 3, 7 and 37, and his son Noah, 3, 11 and 29, and his son Shem 2, 7 and 43, and his son Arpachshad 2, 3, and 73, and his son Shelah consisting of a single prime number 433. From the above list, only Seth, Adam’s son has an age that does not consist of single use prime numbers. It would appear that it was Moses’ intent to highlight Seth as being different for another purpose. So out of a possible thirteen ages, twelve are purposely derived from the multiplication of prime numbers used only once. Clearly intentional and serving a specific purpose. Only when we reach Shelah who’s age is derived from a single prime number does the trend stop once more with his son Eber who’s age like that of Seth’s consists of multiple use of the same prime number. But Eber’s son Peleg consists of a single prime number 239, as does his son Reu, also 239. Clearly Eber was to be highlighted, framed between generations using only single prime numbers, an obvious change of trend from the previous ages. And Reu’s son Serug is a return to three prime numbers 2,5 and 23 and his son Terah once more only consisting of two prime numbers 41 and 5. After this we are in to the Abraham and his children and we no longer have a need to conceal any message in the ages of the patriarchs since Moses is aware that the knowledge of Abraham and subsequent patriarchs was already well established as would have been any legends regarding their ages. Eighteen generations out of which sixteen have been clearly manipulated to consist of prime numbers used only once.

In Conclusion

Whether you choose to believe it or not, the ages described were intentionally selected since you have a better chance to win the lottery than to have successive ages made up of single use prime numbers occur with such a high frequency.  Since the statistical formula for deriving these numbers, which again is only a probability formula and not exact, was only arrived at in the nineteenth century, then the author of these ages had an advanced knowledge of higher mathematics and was able to determine prime numbers, even one as high as 433 without the advantages we have of our present education.  So truly this was a person of exceptional skill and knowledge, but knowledge that only existed amongst a very elite in Egypt.
As to why highlight Seth and Eber from amongst all those other patriarchs, that too can be explained if I attempt to be so bold as to guess at what Moses may have been suggesting. If we look at the three individuals, Seth, Eber and Abraham, we have the three identifiable fathers of our people. Seth, who came into existence so that we would be his descendants and not those of Cain, Eber who fathered us as a distinct race, that being the Hebrew, derived from his name and the language he gave us, and then Abraham who’s own name states clearly that he would father a people that would be unique amongst the nations. Through the use of mathematical principles, Moses has made two very evident statements. Firstly that his origins were clearly Egyptian from that of the Great House but secondly that the parentage of the majority of the people he led were not. Our Lawgiver has spoken to us directly in a manner that only he was capable of doing. A message that he passed down through time so that we would have a better understanding of our origins.

Exodus and the Book of Yasher Part 4

Hopefully, many of you have already begun investigating the book of Yasher for yourself and realize just how important this ancient text is for the understanding of our origins both historically and religiously. One might ask why it was not included in the original canonization of the sacred Tanach and that is a very legitimate question because if a book was actually being used as a reference text, it is surprising that it never made it into the final scriptures which have ultimately changed the world through three major religions.
There are there possible explanations for this failure to include the Book of Yasher. First, it may not have been available at the time having been used as a resource based on oral traditions but never formalized into an actual document. It would not have been unusual after Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Seleukid occupations that the oral traditions never had an opportunity to actually edit the stories into a structured version. But what goes against this possibility is the fact that even in Joshua and Samuel, it is referred to as a Book of Yasher, thereby implying that it had undergone the process of final editing and scripture.
The second possibility is what we now experience in our current age, where there are multiple versions of the Book of Yasher, most obvious hoaxes and therefore they would have presented a problem for the editors in the 2^nd Century BCE to decide what was truth and what was fiction. They had neither the investigative tools that we now have, nor the knowledge of period texts and styles that would have supported their decisions that currently exist in our time. So, in order to avoid including a heretical and false text it was easier to exclude them all.
The final possibility is that those canonizing the Tanach refused to include the Book of Yasher because of some of the stories that were included. Some do appear more of a fantasy nature and in conflict with some of the events as recorded in the Torah. For example, in the Book of Yasher, both Abraham and Noah were concurrent rather than separated my many generations. In order to avoid confusion and conflict, it was best to remove the presence of these stories completely. But if I was to make an educated guess, it was not only this reason that they used as their justification to exclude the Book of Yasher but specifically it concerned the stories of Moses that brought them their greatest distress. In my earlier article, http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Ethiopian-Princess , which also happens to be my most popular article with close to a thousand readings, it is clearly evident that there are far more stories about Moses’ origins that have been intentionally kept from us than there are actually included in the Torah. The reasons for this are obvious; they suggest that Moses was neither Apiru (Hebrew), or Shazu, but could have been very easily Hyksos or even Egyptian. These stories are well preserved in the Book of Yasher and they certainly confirm his presence in Ethiopia which took a large part of his earlier life to achieve. So as you read these verses taken from Yasher, I ask that you open you mind and ask, what is far more believable; that a son of slaves walked into the palace of the Pharaoh and made demands on the most powerful regent in the known world, or that a man of equal status walked into the chambers of his father and caused an insurrection that eventually led to the release of a people because Pharaoh feared the consequences of refusing this Prince and his protector God more than he feared the loss of his own power and influence in acquiescing.

Establishing the Timeline

In Chapter 70 verse 1 of the Book of Yasher it reads, “And in the third year from the birth of Moses, Pharaoh was sitting at a banquet, when Alparanith the queen was sitting at his right and Bathia at his left, and the lad Moses was lying upon her bosom, and Balaam the son of Beor with his two sons, and all the princes of the kingdom were sitting at table in the king's presence.”  This corresponds well with the legends recorded by Ginzberg, the works of Josephus and other tales of Moses’ early life.  Some texts record his royal mother as Bithyia, but I believe this one to be the most accurate.  The one on his left would have been a secondary wife, sister or daughter, whereas Alparanith would be the Royal Consort, or primary queen.  The name Bathia if it was a Hebrew construct would translate as the House of Yahweh.  We can call this a mere coincidence but as I have stated repeatedly, there are no such things as coincidences.  Her name had a purpose and it was to inform us that there was a royal wife of Pharaoh that was a follower of this desert God. 
But who was Bathia?  Do we have any suggestion in Egyptian recorded history of such a woman existing?  And if so, why has no one bothered to connect the dots so to speak to explain one of the great mysteries of the Bible.  Well, avoiding connecting the dots does make sense if the editors feared the consequences of Moses’ origins being known more than their intent to commit a serious crime of omission.  What they failed to comprehend was that it never really mattered who Moses’ parents were, even though they felt they had to prove they were Levites and therefore part of the migrant tribes that entered Egypt at the time of Joseph.  That was more important to them than the realization that it mattered not whom God chose, whether he was from the Apiru, Mittani, Canannites, Egyptian, Hittites or whomever.  What was truly important was that God found a man that was willing to undertake the greatest burden imaginable, defy odds and persecutions that would have humbled and destroyed most human beings, and do so all because in his heart and in his mind he heard the voice of God and he had no doubts regarding his mission.
To identify the period in which Bathia may have been a secondary queen it is necessary to focus on the name of his primary wife.  The fact that we have an actual Egyptian name as evidenced by the ending of her name of ‘nith’ or ‘neith’ as was commonly used in such names as Neithotpe, Herneith, Merneith, Nit, Henite, all suggest that this truly was a royal name.  In fact the Egyptian meaning of Neith is either "water" or "weaver." In mythology, this is the name of a mother goddess, the personification of the waters of life which would be interchangeable with the male form or the god Nun that I have already disclosed in http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Ethiopian-Princess as the most likely concealment of Moses’ actual name and how the Rabbis have still preserved the ‘Nun’ in the Hebrew texts for fear of altering sacred scriptures too much. Since Nun was the primordial god of Egypt, or the one that preceded all other gods, then he would have been essentially the one and only for a period of time even in Egyptian religion.  So Alparanith could have been easily referring to a time when monotheism had a hold on Egypt.  If we divide the word into Al-Para-Neith then we know her name actually means The Province of Neith, which means strictly that she belongs to or was dedicated to Neith. Neith also was thought of being the goddess of wisdom, so this could actually be a characteristic reference to the Queen, meaning the one who is wise, or gifted with wisdom if she had a been given a role in making royal judgements in the court.  It is said by some that Tiya or Tiye was the most influential royal queen in Egyptian history, which is quite a statement since Hatshepsut had actually ruled as a Pharaoh all on her own.   Egyptian Queen. Tiye was the daughter of Yuya, the King's Lieutenant of Chariots and Master of the Horse, and Thuyu the Superintendent of the Harem of Min of Akhmim and of Amun of Thebes. Tiye was also the niece of Mutemwiya, a wife to Thutmose IV making her Amenhotep III's first cousin and sufficiently royal to be his Great Wife. But it is Tiye's parentage which is a subject to debate and provides us with a significant clue; she was probably not full Egyptian. We know from the study of the mummies found in 1904 that her mother had Egyptian features, but her father did not and from the features it is most likely that her father may have been Apiru, Shazu or similar coming from Mesopotamian origins. . Tiye bore the pharoah at least seven children including Thutmose, Sitamen, Isis, Henut-Taneb, Nebetah, Beketaten, and Amenhotep who is better known to history as Akhenaten. Historians believe that Tiye was the power behind the throne as she acted as her husband's advisor and confidant, playing an active role in foreign relations; so much so that she was the first Egyptian queen to have her name included on official records.  Tiye even remained visible during the reign of her son, Akhenaton's correspondence speaking of Tiye's continued political influence.  So the picture of Alparanith and Tiye being one and the same has a better probability than most.  But what of this second wife Bathia.
From the list of offspring above we know that Princess Nebetah was apparently the fourth daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye.  Once again we have the intial ‘Nun’ beginning the name, as is the possible case with Moses, but only the last part of the name being preserved, or in this case Betah or as the Book of Yasher would have recorded it as Bathia, to give it a more Hebrew sound, the same way that Moses loses it Egyptian orginin when transcribed into its Hebrew form of Mosheh.  Though she is not as well known as her sisters, perhaps because she has disappeared from the palace later on, as the story of the Exodus suggests, her name does mean 'Lady of the Palace' or 'Great Lady', which would be unusual for a lesser daughter and one that certainly didn’t marry her brother as was tradition.
In fact, it appears as if Nebetah has been intentionally removed from Egyptian history by her father for some act that she must have committed even though it is clear from her name that he prized her quite highly at one point.  All of her sisters appear frequently on statues and reliefs during the reign of their father and are also represented by smaller objects but Nebetah is purposely absent as if any of these items had been destroyed.   This removal of her existence is further enhanced by the Egyptian chronicles where she is never  referred to as a 'King's Wife' and she was never officially married to her father, Amenhotep III. Yet here she is referred to as the ‘Great Lady’ and was recorded to have the official title of ‘'King's Daughter Whom He Loves.' All these would suggest that she was her father’s favourite, and if Tiye was as powerful as the history would suggest, then she could easily have stopped her husband from officially marrying this daughter, yet still permitting her to sit on the left hand of the throne in the early days, and if as the Exodus story suggest, Bathia went with her attendants and retinue into the wilderness with Moses, then it would make sense that her father eradicated practically every memorial to her existence.   And like any favourite daughter, she would have had her every wish granted by her doting father until such time that she defied him and then he would have overreacted as is human nature and declared that she was no longer any child of his.

Young Prince Moses

If the reign of Amenhotep III is correct in fixing the time that Moses existed then what evidence is there to support that Moses was a member of this particular royal dynasty?  For this we have to look at Chapter 72 verse 22 and following from the book of Yasher to read, “And Moses was eighteen years old when he fled from Egypt from the presence of Pharaoh, and he fled and escaped to the camp of Kikianus, which at that time was besieging Cush.
 23 And Moses was nine years in the camp of Kikianus king of Cush, all the time that they were besieging Cush, and Moses went out and came in with them. 
24  And the king and princes and all the fighting men loved Moses, for he was great and worthy, his stature was like a noble lion, his face was like the sun, and his strength was like that of a lion, and he was counsellor to the king.
25 And at the end of nine years, Kikianus was seized with a mortal disease, and his illness prevailed over him, and he died on the seventh day.
26 So his servants embalmed him and carried him and buried him opposite the city gate to the north of the land of Egypt.
27 And they built over him an elegant strong and high building, and they placed great stones below.
28 And the king's scribes engraved upon those stones all the might of their king Kikianus, and all his battles which he had fought, behold they are written there at this day.
29 Now after the death of Kikianus king of Cush it grieved his men and troops greatly on account of the war.
30 So they said one to the other, Give us counsel what we are to do at this time, as we have resided in the wilderness nine years away from our homes.
31 If we say we will fight against the city many of us will fall wounded or killed, and if we remain here in the siege we shall also die.
32 For now all the kings of Aram and of the children of the east will hear that our king is dead, and they will attack us suddenly in a hostile manner, and they will fight against us and leave no remnant of us.
33 Now therefore let us go and make a king over us, and let us remain in the siege until the city is delivered up to us.
34 And they wished to choose on that day a man for king from the army of Kikianus, and they found no object of their choice like Moses to reign over them.
35 And they hastened and stripped off each man his garments and cast them upon the ground, and they made a great heap and placed Moses thereon.
36 And they rose up and blew with trumpets and called out before him, and said, May the king live, may the king live!
37 And all the people and nobles swore unto him to give him for a wife Adoniah the queen, the Cushite, wife of Kikianus, and they made Moses king over them on that day.
38 And all the people of Cush issued a proclamation on that day, saying, Every man must give something to Moses of what is in his possession.
39 And they spread out a sheet upon the heap, and every man cast into it something of what he had, one a gold earring and the other a coin.
40 Also of onyx stones, bdellium, pearls and marble did the children of Cush cast unto Moses upon the heap, also silver and gold in great abundance.
41 And Moses took all the silver and gold, all the vessels, and the bdellium and onyx stones, which all the children of Cush had given to him, and he placed them amongst his treasures.
42 And Moses reigned over the children of Cush on that day, in the place of Kikianus king of Cush.
As was discussed in the article on the Ethiopian Princess, Moses actually came to the land of Cush with an army intent on conquering its major city.  There are similarities in that for 9 years Moses fought until such time that the city fell.  According to the other story it was the daughter of the Ethiopian King that finally put an end to the war, whereas here it would appear to be tied to the death of Kikianus.  At first reading it would appear that Moses was fighting for Kikianus and for some reason the Ethiopian King was attacking his own city.  But on closer examination, although it says that Moses went to the camp of Kikianus, it could have just as easily been a mistranslation of the word ‘against’ as ‘in’.  The former making far more sense that Moses came as general and counsellor for Pharaoh in a war against Kikianus’s city which he eventually took after nine years.  But most importantly is that after the death of the Cushite king, Moses has himself proclaimed as king or Pharaoh of Upper Egypt.  The reference to ‘his treasures’ makes us well aware that Moses has taken the glory all for himself and not for his Pharaoh. 

The Nubian War

Do we have anything in Egyptian history that lends veracity or is comparable to this history provided by the Book of Yasher? The answer is obviously yes.  It is recorded that before Akhenaton, Egypt was to be ruled by his brother since Crown Prince Thutmose was the eldest son of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye. He is also knowns as Djutmose, Thutmosis and Tuthmose. His name means "Thoth is Born" or "Child of Thoth." Thutmose disappears from Egyptian records completely somewhere between year 27 and year 33 in his father's reign, so he never became a Pharaoh, otherwise he would have been Pharaoh Thutmose V.  One can say that he probably died, but that would not explain why his tomb was not discovered with or close to those of the rest of his family.  So very little is known about this doomed Prince Thutmose, that it would suggest that he too, like Bathia was erased from the records intentionally.  But during the short period of his life that was, recorded, he was a very important member of the royal family, clearing being bred to be Amenhotep III's successor as he was a member of the priesthood of Ptah in Memphis, most likely being the High Priest and had a role in the military though this is not elaborated upon. Prince Thutmose had a pet cat, Ta-Miu ('the Kitten' or 'the lady cat'), who, like many animals in Ancient Egypt, was mummified and placed in her own sarcouphagus when she died. The cat sarcophagus of Prince Thutmose, states that he was indeed the eldest son of Amenhotep III giving his current title of 'Crown Prince at the time of the cat’s death.   Thutmose is also attested by a total of 7 pairs of calcite and pottery vases in the Louvre. But the cat is most interesting in that it was buried within his mother’s tomb, that of Queen Tiye, who died long after her husband, almost as if this was the last possession or memory of a son that she had and she wanted to cherish it even after death.  One would think that if the son had died naturally, there would have been many items that the Queen would have selected to take into her tomb with her having preserved a son’s memory as best as she could as any mother would do.  But all she had left was the cat that he himself had mummified. Everything else was gone, but with her husband dead 12 years earlier, he could not stop her from having this last item of a cherished son buried with her.
Building on this connection of the Crown Prince and the military campaigns of Moses, we do know that Amenhotep III did have campaigns in Nubia, or Cush to the South.  His army we can presume was under the direction of the man appointed as his Viceroy of Cush, one  Merimose.  Obviously, this is a very different name from Thutmose but it must be remembered that Egyptian members of the royal family had numerous names by which they were called.  And since Meri-mose translates as ‘Beloved Son’ there is no reason why these two men were not one and the same.  As to how this son could be both Thutmose and Nunmose as I consider the case, then as mentioned each Pharaoh had five different names but it is of interest that Toth the god referred to in Thutmose was considered the tongue of the chief god, as well as the messenger.  Now this Merimose, Viceroy of Cush was found in a burial tomb for servants of the king and his mummy currently lies in the British Museum.  And though it says Royal son, this Merimose was not a member of the royal family, nor was he treated as such in his burial so it is clearly not the same man as Crown Prince Thutmose, whom also would have been Merimose, or the beloved son.  So the presence of this mummy in no way excludes the fighting prince of the Book of Yasher from being the fighting prince of Amenhotep’s army.
So more importantly, the clarification of this issue of warfare in Ethiopia is paramount as it  should connect this Prince of Egypt with the Moses in the Hebrew stories being proclaimed a king in Cush.  We know that in 1375 BCE there was an ending to a revolt by the Nubians against Amenhotep III, the 27^th year into his reign if counting from the time he was co-regent with his father.  How interesting that Moses would have been 27 years of age when he finally took the city and became king of Cush according to the Book of Yasher.   This war in Cush is the only recorded military activity undertaken by Amenhotep III army and it is only commemorated on three rock-carved stelas found near Aswan and Sai Island in Nubia. Hence, it was not an undertaking of such tremendous magnitude that it was commemorated with the building of massive temples such as was the case of Amenhotep’s father and also by later Pharaohs such as Rameses II.  Instead it was merely marked within the affected territory itself, clearly indicating that the Pharaoh never had an actual presence during the skirmish and also that it was not given the status of a major threat to Egypt itself that Amenhotep could claim to be the Defender of the Two Lands.  The official account reads as follows:

“Regnal Year 5, third month of Inundation, day 2. Appearance under the Majesty of Horus: Strong bull, appearing in truth; Two Ladies: Who establishes laws and pacifies the Two Lands, King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Nebmaatra, heir of Ra; Son of Ra: [Amenhotep, ruler of Thebes], beloved of [Amon]-Ra, King of the Gods, and Khnum, lord of the cataract, given life. One came to tell His Majesty, "The fallen one of vile Kush has plotted rebellion in his heart." His Majesty led on to victory; he completed it in his first campaign of victory. His Majesty reached them like the wing stroke of a falcon, like Menthu (war god of Thebes) in his transformation...Ikheny, the boaster in the midst of the army, did not know the lion that was before him. Nebmaatra was the fierce-eyed lion whose claws seized vile Kush, who trampled down all its chiefs in their valleys, they being cast down in their blood, one on top of the other.” 
The title of the rebellious king of Cush is the ‘fallen one.’  Fallen from where one might ask.  Fallen from grace, from honour, but then that would imply that he had a high status to begin with.  Perhaps it was not fallen in any of those senses but to be taken literally as in he has fallen down dead.   Whoever he was, he had underestimated Amenhotep’s general who came at him like a lion.  Or in the sense of a nine year campaign, a general who refused to give up and was relentless in his pursuit to destroy the city.  This rebel is given a name or an insult being Ikheny, the boaster but this could easily be a play upon his actual name as recorded in the Book of Yasher.  Kikianus is obviously a Greek stylized rendition of the name, and in most likelihood it would have ended in a vowel, such as ‘i’.  In that situation we’d have the name Kikiani.  If we remove the first letter k then we have a name that is very similar to Ikheny.  In fact it would be almost indistinguishable.   This King of the Cushites did not know this lion before him, this Lord of Ra’s Ma’at that clawed his way through Kush until he finally conquered it.  This would suggest that the general was a young unknown, with no reputation that preceded him.  And because he was unknown and underestimated he was able to take the country piece by piece, eliminating each chieftain of the Nubians one by one until the finally laid siege to the king’s city.  But it is clear that although the other chiefs that had fought under the banner of this rebel were slain, the king of Cush, the man responsible for the rebellion was never caught or slain.  Just like Kikianus in the Book of Yasher, neither of these was possible because the king died of other causes during the siege at which point the people threw open the doors and ended the war by surrendering.  Hardly a victory worth commemorating with a major building project to the north, and certainly not one to be commemorated if this general-Prince happened to place the crown upon his own head and place himself in direct opposition to Amenhotep III.  It would have been something that the Pharaoh would have made certain never got recorded in his own royal chronicles but he would not have been able to eradicate the steles set up independently by his general far to the south near Aswan.

In Conclusion

Though one might claim that the historical data listed in this article in no way confirms or establishes that the time frame and family connections of Moses as being part of the 18^th Dynasty in Egypt, it must be appreciated that it does not deny it either. In fact, it is the only historical time period in which the almost all the events of the Exodus have a correlating connection to actual events. As I stated in http://hubpages.com/hub/Rediscovering-the-Exodus-3 my role is to make you think, to open your minds and appreciate that in the Karaite manner, the Torah is a compilation of historical truths that merely need to be interpreted in their proper context. And as such, the true miracle is that Yahweh not only made them happen for a specific purpose but that when required there were men of incomparable stature that rose to the occasion, defied incredible odds, and in the end overcame impossible barriers because God imbued them with a faith that could move mountains. And the history that we uncover together only emphasizes how incredible those feats may have been.

Exodus and The Book of Yasher: Chapter 3

As mentioned previously, one of the most common questions asked is how can such a major event, a defining event for the monotheism of today’s world, be overlooked so completely from the historical records. This has led many to falsely accuse the Old Testament, the Torah, of being a fable, a fabrication of nomadic tribes that sat around the campfire and concocted their own history. It is what the atheists, Anti-Semites, archeologists, etc. have used as their weapon to challenge the veracity of the Bible. And they have done an admirable job of overlooking the obvious, discounting the clues, and ridiculing the researchers that have even attempted to connect the dots on what is a poorly established historical truths that we are taught in school. For example, we are taught the Sphinx was constructed around 3500 BCE but those geologists that have examined it found the traceable waterlines of a much earlier flood engraved on into its stone; a flood that occurred four thousand years earlier. In Germany they have discovered stone implements and designs, quite intricate stone carvings by the way, that have been dated to 25,000 years ago, long before current historians and scientists claim we had the tools and skills to create such devices. So why are we so reliant on our current historical knowledge, provided by research that obviously is inaccurate, confused, and concealing, that we will let those that wish to repudiate, mock and ridicule the accuracy of the Torah to do so publicly within our schooling system?
In Rediscovering the Exodus, I am not asking you to take every word I have to say as undeniable truths. They are alternatives, suggestions, issues to be discussed honestly and openly, as we use the knowledge that we do have in an effort to understand events long ago for which we no longer have confirmation of eye witness accounts. We must let go of our 21^st century thinking and try to perceive events through the eyes of what were primitive and tribal thinkers; men who saw miracles in every bolt of lightning and covenants in every rainbow. When you can open your minds at that level, then you will make the connection with your ancestors and see the world and the truths as they perceived them. That is the Karaite way. 

The Book of Yasher

Firstly, it must be recognized that there were other holy books in existence besides the Tanach that were passed down through the centuries. One of these is referenced twice in the Tanach and that is the Book of Yasher. It is not seen as a companion text but as a resource text from which both the Books of Joshua and Samuel have drawn their material. Therefore it is a very ancient text which preceded most of the books in the Tanach. The dilemma is that there are in existence several books with that title. Some are easy to identify as later Greek period frauds. Some are Latin period frauds and one is even an 18^th century English fraud but then there are a select few that appear to be segments from a single text, ending well before the establishment of David’s Kingdom and therefore concerned only with the early events of Children of Israel. These are the texts from which the next few articles will be drawn because they paint a very intriguing and interesting picture of the Exodus that does correlate to historical events recorded in Egypt and Canaan. They also say much regarding our early priesthood, a priesthood that many claim only began with Aaron but which may have predated him by centuries if not millennia and from which Aaron was just one of many on a line of descendancy from earlier times. As one of the Kohanim, this in no way depreciates or deprecates my family’s historical background but what it does implicate, is that those now caught in the genetic tracing of our roots and claiming historical accuracy regarding the J1 controversy, most likely have it all wrong but that I will save for another article on another day. Using the Book of Yasher, known as the Book of the Upright, I will make an attempt to connect the dots but for those that are adamant that every word in the bible is to be taken literally, without interpretation ,then I’m afraid that what I have to discuss is only going to offend your religious values and you may wish to desist reading now. Because if you truly believe that the Hebrew slaves were constructing the cities of Pithom and Ramses as is recorded, not recognizing that when the stories of the Torah were finally written down, 700 years later, there were only these names in existence for the places where the slaves toiled and the earlier names had been forgotten and erased from memory, then you are failing to do as Anan ben David instructed; to seek with an open mind and find the answers that are good to you. But if you choose to recognize that that the recorders were merely using names familiar at the time to provide location, reference markers and scale of construction, then what I have to say I believe you will find enlightening. Remember, as Kohan, I have inherited a primary purpose and that is to teach and I have always dedicated my life to doing so.

The Levite Priesthood

The book of Yasher has been divided into chapters even though its original format would have been one continuous dissertation that scrolled on paragraph after paragraph.  The current format makes it easy to reference certain sentences and therefore is a convenient tool for this discussion.  Those that obtain a copy of the particular Book of Yasher that I’m reading from will find these sentences easily. 
The Torah already indicates to us that Aaron is a recognized leader of the people.  He has authority, prestige and the people listen to him  He also serves as interpreter and spokesperson for Moses, indicating that either Moses did not speak the same language as the Hebrews, or else he could not immediately command the same respect that Aaron already had.  Either way, it provides us with a clue that Aaron, and the entire Levite Tribe have an inherited status far exceeding that of the other Children of Israel.     Part of this has already been discussed in my article A Karaite Reading of Exodus at http://hubpages.com/hub/Of-Karaite-Things but I will look to the Book of Yasher to provide a more in depth perspective than what can be gleaned only for the Torah.  In Yasher, specifically Chapter 65 verse 32 we find the following written. “But the children of Levi were not employed in the work with their brethren of Israel, from the beginning unto the day of their going forth from Egypt.”  What we can interpret from this sentence was that the Tribe of Levi were not part of the slave force.  That from the beginning, ie. beginning of recorded Egyptian history, or from the time of their arrival in Egypt, hundreds of years earlier, or even from being of a specific and recognized caste, they were elite and therefore not subject to manual labour, or treated as inferior to the native Egyptian population.   This is further emphasised in the next sentence 33 in which it is written, “For all the children of Levi knew that the Egyptians had spoken all these words with deceit to the Israelites, therefore the children of Levi refrained from approaching to the work with their brethren.”  What we can infer from this, is not only are they not subject to being treated as an inferior stock, but they have access to all the written laws and beliefs, ordinances and palace documents, so that they are well aware of what was happening to the Hebrew slaves but they ensured that they neither became embroiled in the issues nor attempted to intercede in any manner to stop the persecution.   The book then makes its most startling of comments in the next verse 34 which reads “And the Egyptians did not direct their attention to make the children of Levi work afterward, since they had not been with their brethren at the beginning, therefore the Egyptians left them alone.”  What this sentence clearly implies is that the Tribe of Levi was not identical to the Hebrew slaves.  It had different origins, different roots and in the eyes of the Egyptians, were not considered Apiru, Shazu or similar which made up the Hebrew stock.  And later in verse 37 where it is written, “And the children of Israel called Melol the king of Egypt "Meror, king of Egypt," because in his days the Egyptians had embittered their lives with all manner of work,” it is clear that servitude is what the Children of Israel were subjugated with but it was not in the time period of Ramses or his father Seti, but during the reign of the Pharaoh bearing a title that sounded like ‘Melol’.  A first clue as to placing the time of the Exodus and proving the veracity of the Biblical story.  Later on in Chapter 69 verse 9, the author of Yasher reaffirms his earlier statement thusly, “But the tribe of Levi did not at that time work with the Israelites their brethren, from the beginning, for the children of Levi knew the cunning of the Egyptians which they exercised at first toward the Israelites.”  This is a most surprising statement because if you read it correctly, not only are the Levites distinct and separate from the Hebrews but in fact, they persecuted the Hebrews no differently than did the other Egyptians.  From this we can surmise that that the Levites were actually an Egyptian caste that for reasons unknown threw their lot in with the Hebrew slaves at the time of the Exodus.  Conjecture would say that in some way, the Levites did something that offended Pharaoh and therefore lost any status that they once held in Egypt.  So they went from first being persecutors of the Hebrews to allies and leaders of this outcast group through some strange quirk of fate.  Exactly what this may have been, I will leave for the next article.  For now I believe I have left you with enough to contemplate and discuss as we rediscover the Exodus.

In Search of The Real Exodus: Chapter One

One of the most pivotal events in Jewish history is the Exodus.  No other event played such a defining role in the establishment of a people.  Yet, the entire story appears to be absent from the cultural histories of those nations in the immediate vicinity at the time the event likely occurred.  This has led many to claim that the plagues and the actual events of the Exodus never occurred otherwise this vacuum could not exist.  Faith can take one only so far before doubts begin to creep into one’s belief system.  But without the Exodus, the justification for monotheism, the rational origins for Judaism, Christianity and Islam are suddenly placed in a precarious situation.  And as bizarre as this might seem to religious fanatics, we may have to rely on science to prove that the events of the Exodus.  What has always been perceived and accused of being the anathema of religion may in fact prove to be its savior.   By understanding what science has recorded and teaches us about the time period, through means of extrapolation we can rediscover the Exodus.

The Ultimate Scientist

There are those that no matter how you try to explain to them that events of Torah were described through the perceptions of people that lived during the time and therefore we of a more modern and learned time must interpret their words carefully but they were biased by the limitations of their knowledge and they refuse to accept this.  Their response is that everything in the Torah has to be accepted literally and if you cannot accept this, then you are not a true believer.  These are the same people that if you show them a uranium dated rock as being three billion years old, accuse you of being in league with the Devil as their world is only less than 6000 years old.  Interestingly enough, the Devil isn’t in the Torah but they’re willing to accept him as being so.
The reality is that their reliance, and our reliance shouldn’t be based on the words of men, for as I stated, those perceptions could only be manifested through their current level of knowledge which we know was minimal at best, but instead based upon that which God has taught us.  As we begin to understand the universe that God created, we begin to appreciate the beautifully designed plan that He worked from.  God created the rules of physics, the laws of nature, to achieve His master plan.  Like an architect, He had a blueprint from which He designed everything around us and only now do we even have an inkling of how He achieved this great design.  It is in this context that we must view the events of the Exodus, as naturally occurring events which followed a sequence of events dictated by physical laws.   And as we now know, energy can be converted into physical mass.  In other words, that which did not exist as a solid object, can be created when enough energy is released and converted.  Had we had the equipment at the time of Moses, we would have been able to measure the EDMs and EMPs that probably preceded each event.  One could even suggest that Moses was given the gift of sensing these energy spikes prior to the event, like the rheumatism in one’s bones making them sensitive to an oncoming storm.  Only Moses would be able to say for certain, but nevertheless, the fact that we know enough now about energy transformation and conversion, and can appreciate that God is pure energy and the source of all that is, then science does tell us that everything was possible.

Chronology of the Plagues

From Exodus Chapter 7 we read:
לְעֵינֵי פַרְעֹה, וּלְעֵינֵי עֲבָדָיו; וַיֵּהָפְכוּ  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה, וַיָּרֶם בַּמַּטֶּה וַיַּךְ אֶת-הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר בַּיְאֹר, כָּל-הַמַּיִם אֲשֶׁר-בַּיְאֹר, לְדָם. 20
And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.
וְלֹא-יָכְלוּ מִצְרַיִם, לִשְׁתּוֹת מַיִם מִן-הַיְאֹר; וַיְהִי הַדָּם בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם  וְהַדָּגָה אֲשֶׁר-בַּיְאֹר מֵתָה, וַיִּבְאַשׁ הַיְאֹר 21 And the fish that were in the river died; and the river became foul, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the river; and the blood was throughout all the land of Egypt
As strange as this first plague may seem to be, rivers turning to blood on demand, it is not that unusual.  We know from events like the eruption of Krakatau, when there is a major disturbance to the bedrock, there is often the release of corrosive toxins such as iron oxide.  It is iron oxide which give Mars the nickname, the Red Planet.  As with Krakatau, fish died in the hundreds of thousands and this devastation extended for hundreds of miles.  If there was a major earth shattering event that made Krakatau look like a relative non-event, the release of iron oxide in Egypt would not have been that unlikely. 
Since an event of this nature also occurred during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helen’s where fish were found floating dead on the surface of the riverways hundreds of kilometres from the volcano, and that the drinking of water in the area was forbidden until such time that the impurities could be filtered from the reservoirs, then we have on a much smaller scale, a repetition of biblical events. 
And from Exodus Chapter 8 we read:
- אֱמֹר אֶל-אַהֲרֹן נְטֵה אֶת-יָדְךָ בְּמַטֶּךָ, עַל-הַנְּהָרֹת עַל-הַיְאֹרִים וְעַל-הָאֲגַמִּים; וְהַעַל אֶת וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה -הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
1 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Say unto Aaron: Stretch forth thy hand with thy rod over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.'
 , הַצְּפַרְדֵּעַ, וַתְּכַס, אֶת-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת-יָדוֹ, עַל מֵימֵי מִצְרָיִם; וַתַּעַל.
2 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן הַחַרְטֻמִּים, בְּלָטֵיהֶם; וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת-הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
3 And the magicians did in like manner with their secret arts, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt
As soon as the water became contaminated by the metal toxins, amphibians have a choice to make. Either stay in the water or run to the next water source in the hope that it would be cleaner.  If they chose to stay they would die, and even the most primitive of neuro-responders have built in fight or flight receptors that tell them when they in dire consequences.  So the swarming of the frogs over the land would have been a normal sequelae and the Egyptian magicians would have been able to think they could reproduce it as well since they could walk to any water source and see similar events unfolding.  In modern times we have seen a similar event though are memories are short lived and people seem to forget.  After Mount St. Helen’s erupted, the toxins from the volcano had settled into most of the water courses and as a result, there were frogs stretching throughout Washington State that were making a run for it but with nowhere to go.  People reported that they could not drive down the roads without literally squashing them in the thousands and this became a driving risk as the roads became slick with frog blood and remains.  In the local newspapers the stories talked about people finding their lawns covered in frogs, and in their search for water, the amphibians were invading the houses. 
Later in Chapter 8 we read:
וְסָרוּ הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, מִמְּךָ וּמִבָּתֶּיךָ, וּמֵעֲבָדֶיךָ, וּמֵעַמֶּךָ:  רַק בַּיְאֹר, תִּשָּׁאַרְנָה.
7 And the frogs shall depart from thee, and from thy houses, and from thy servants, and from thy people; they shall remain in the river only.'
  וַיֵּצֵא מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן, מֵעִם פַּרְעֹה; וַיִּצְעַק מֹשֶׁה אֶל-יְהוָה, עַל-דְּבַר הַצְפַרְדְּעִים אֲשֶׁר-שָׂם לְפַרְעֹה.
8 And Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses cried unto the LORD concerning the frogs, which He had brought upon Pharaoh.
  וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה, כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה; וַיָּמֻתוּ, הַצְפַרְדְּעִים, מִן-הַבָּתִּים מִן-הַחֲצֵרֹת, וּמִן-הַשָּׂדֹת.
9 And the LORD did according to the word of Moses; and the frogs died out of the houses, out of the courts, and out of the fields.
 וַיִּצְבְּרוּ אֹתָם, חֳמָרִם חֳמָרִם; וַתִּבְאַשׁ, הָאָרֶץ.
10 And they gathered them together in heaps; and the land stank.
The significance of these four sentences is paramount to our understanding of events.  What we read in sentences 8 through 10 are in contradiction to what Moses stated he would do in sentence 7.  His promise to Pharaoh was to make the frogs depart, essentially return to the river where they would be confined once again.  But even as he prayed to God, the resultant solution was not as he had promised but instead was massive deaths of the creatures.  Moses did not have complete control nor full understanding of the events occurring.  Because the fact was that the water was still contaminated and the frogs could not return to the waters.  And as we all know about amphibians, without water to maintain their hydration, the oxygen diffusion skin ratios, etc., they die.  And they died in such numbers that the Egyptians made mountains of their remains.  And rather than burn them, it would appear that they permitted these corpses to remain in their piles until they stank.
כָּל-עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ הָיָה כִנִּים וַיַּעֲשׂוּ-כֵן, וַיֵּט אַהֲרֹן אֶת-יָדוֹ בְמַטֵּהוּ וַיַּךְ אֶת-עֲפַר הָאָרֶץ, וַתְּהִי הַכִּנָּם, בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה: , בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.
13 And they did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and there were gnats upon man, and upon beast; all the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.
I prefer this translation of the next plague being that of gnats, and not lice as some versions have been translated. But even more so, I would suggest that the Egyptians made little distinction between gnats or mosquitoes and subsequently there are few words to describe these insects in the ancient hieroglyphics.   For an appreciation of the event as translated being gnats then we merely have to look at more recent situations such as the volcanic eruptions of Mount Pelee in 1851 and again in 1902.  After the eruptions, swarms of flying ants descended upon the villagers and viciously attacked the people.   The ants caused the people to flee, consumed their plantations and were reported to have killed babies through their bites and acid stings.  Gnats fly, lice don’t.  Either way, gnats or mosquitoes, their lives were made miserable.  Of course we also know, that mosquitoes in Egypt bring other plagues, such as malaria, Nile Fever, etc.  Something to consider.
, מִפְּנֵי הֶעָרֹב וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה, כֵּן, וַיָּבֹא עָרֹב כָּבֵד, בֵּיתָה פַרְעֹה וּבֵית עֲבָדָיו; וּבְכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם תִּשָּׁחֵת הָאָרֶץ.
20 And the LORD did so; and there came grievous swarms of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants' houses; and in all the land of Egypt the land was ruined by reason of the swarms of flies.
The flies should be seen as a natural consequence of rotting corpses of all the frogs, fish, and everything else that may have been affected from the toxic nature of the water.  And as any entomologist will inform you, flies go through cycles in which they become active biters as well, a carnivorous phase when they are seeking out living creatures on which to feed. 
The events of Chapter 9 become far more serious:
וַיַּעַשׂ יְהוָה אֶת-הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה, מִמָּחֳרָת, וַיָּמָת, כֹּל מִקְנֵה מִצְרָיִם; וּמִמִּקְנֵה בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל, לֹא-מֵת אֶחָד.
6 And the LORD did that thing on the morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died; but of the cattle of the children of Israel died not one. 
The loss of all the Egyptian cattle is contradicted in sentences 19 and 20 of the same chapter and therefore we realize that the events of sentence 6 was intended as an exaggeration, emphasizing that the Egyptians suffered more than the Israelites but then it was unlikely the Israelites had as extensive a farming industry as the Egyptians, and being in Goshen, the ocean breezes and the fresh moving river waters as they came into the basins of salt water would have meant that the insect populations were far less than those inland.
וַיִּקְחוּ אֶת-פִּיחַ הַכִּבְשָׁן, וַיַּעַמְדוּ לִפְנֵי פַרְעֹה, וַיִּזְרֹק אֹתוֹ מֹשֶׁה, הַשָּׁמָיְמָה; וַיְהִי, שְׁחִין אֲבַעְבֻּעֹת, פֹּרֵחַ, בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה.
10 And they took soot of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it up heavenward; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast.
וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת-מַטֵּהוּ, עַל-הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיהוָה נָתַן קֹלֹת וּבָרָד, וַתִּהֲלַךְ אֵשׁ אָרְצָה; וַיַּמְטֵר יְהוָה בָּרָד עַל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם
We can assume that whatever the clouds were that were passing overhead they definitely weren’t raincloud.  In fact the plagues to follow next suggested that the Egyptians were looking a volcanic ash and far more of it than that which was spewing from the volcano in Iceland that grounded all European air traffic for a week.  It may have come in waves, it may have come all at once, but whatever the case, its high acidic content caused severe rashes and burns to all that it touched.  This is right in line with reports of hundreds of people following the eruption of Mount St Helen’s that had to be taken to the hospital for treatment of acid burns from the fallout.  And just as Moses suggested, it was a contact dermatitis because if the farmers took their beasts inside and sheltered them, then they did not develop the sores. 
It is when we start discussing the plagues associated with the soot and the hail that people start to reject the concept of a geophysical event, since they appear out of order with the locusts and darkness that follow afterwards.  But the question I will raise is where does it insist that the events as they were being retold were guaranteed as being chronological?  As a retelling of the plagues, God wanted us to remember what devastation he had brought down upon Egypt but I see no insistence that they must be recalled in a specific order for a specific reason.  Nor is there anything to suggest that events could not have overlapped in some respects.  It is only the third party narrator that says Moses went back and forth between events to pray to God thereby separating the plagues into distinct timeframes, but who’s to say that each time he prayed represented, a day or days, or even weeks. Perhaps these intervals of prayer were several times within a single day.  The point of the redactor was to emphasize that as intermediary, Moses communicated often with God and God would speak directly to him.  Timing was not the issue here but the evidence of divine intercession.
23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven; and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down unto the earth; and the LORD caused to hail upon the land of Egypt.
Without a doubt we are looking at the fire and ash that one associates with a volcanic eruption.  What the Egyptians perceived as thunder could have just as easily been the massive rumblings of a distant volcano.  The obvious question would be why a people so famous for their historical recordings would not report such a major geophysical event?   I will deal with the answer to that question in the next article because there is a logical explanation. 
Chapter 10 becomes the clean up mission prior to the Exodus.  By clean up I mean anything that hasn’t already been destroyed was not being destroyed, leaving Egypt with nothing of value.
וַיַּעַל הָאַרְבֶּה, עַל כָּל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, וַיָּנַח בְּכֹל גְּבוּל מִצְרָיִם: כָּבֵד מְאֹד--לְפָנָיו לֹא-הָיָה כֵן אַרְבֶּה כָּמֹהוּ, וְאַחֲרָיו לֹא,  יִהְיֶה-כֵּן.
14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such
As I mentioned, there may have been alterations to the chronological events as it was not necessary to record them in the exact order, but also, the possibility of locusts swarming after a major devastation of crops from the ash and fires would not be out of the question.  So in fact, this third plague of insect might be in its proper place.
 וַיֵּט מֹשֶׁה אֶת-יָדוֹ, עַל-הַשָּׁמָיִם; וַיְהִי חֹשֶׁךְ-אֲפֵלָה בְּכָל-אֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם, שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים.
22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days
We already saw earlier that there were clouds of acid ash descending upon people and the beasts.  Initially it would have looked like snowflakes but as the clouds of volcanic ash and debris increased in their magnitude and extent, they would have eventually formed an ash cloud that blotted out the sun.  Three days of darkness gives you an appreciation of just how large this cloud had to be and just as the ancients would panic about an eclipse that lasted for minutes, that fear would also be intensified as each of those days appeared to stretch on for an eternity.
The final and greatest plague occurs in Chapter 11:
וּמֵת כָּל-בְּכוֹר, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם--מִבְּכוֹר פַּרְעֹה הַיֹּשֵׁב עַל-כִּסְאוֹ, עַד בְּכוֹר הַשִּׁפְחָה אֲשֶׁר אַחַר הָרֵחָיִם וְכֹל, בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה
5 and all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sitteth upon his throne, even unto the first-born of the maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of cattle.
We are all aware of the story of how fresh blood was to be painted on the lintel and door posts of the homes where the Hebrews dwelled.  Whereas the emphasis has always been placed on the ‘sign’ perhaps it should have focused on the blood itself.  Having suffered through what may have been days or weeks of catastrophic events, the penultimate plague could be nothing less than death.  Epidemiologist will tell you similar stories of how people were able to thwart plagues carried by insect vectors by similar means.  Insect vectors will be attracted to the easiest food source available.  The path of least resistance so to speak.  Moses through the word of God, knew how to avoid this last plague but not necessarily why.
What was unique about this last plague was the enormity of the events which followed, the apparent knowledge by one man of exactly how everything would play out, and the predictability of Pharaoh’s behaviour.  Firstborn is a common expression for those of the aristocracy and here it is most likely suggesting that the princes, nobles and wealthy of Egypt were not immune from the plagues.  This is further emphasized with the mention of the maid servant to emphasize that this was not merely the death of the poor and helpless.  And further emphasized when the term is used again for cattle.  Cattle don’t have firstborn.  Calves are usually born singly and as they mature are either put into production or slaughtered.  Therefore there is nothing recorded to identify what was the first calve of any cow, so it is obvious that the reference to firstborn means something else.  Once again, the reasonable suggestion is a reference to something ‘elite’.  In this case, a prize cow.  As we recall from the boils, Moses had suggested that all the farmers bring their prize cattle in doors and that would protect them.  Here the event is being contrasted to that earlier plague.  In other words there was nothing that could be done to protect the cattle from certain death. Even if brought in doors, without the blood on the entryway, they would surely die.

To Be Continued

But there is far more to be considered from a scientific perspective than just the plagues. There is geology and archaeology that still has to be considered in the backdrop of these world changing events. Because although the written word of mankind can be lost, altered or never written in the first place, there will always be a record of events recorded in some other manner. These I will explore in the next article and I hope that by the time I’m finished, there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Moses and the Exodus are far more than an interesting story of mythical proportions. For me to present the scenario of a volcano or similar being responsible for the Greatest Story ever told, then there has to be some proof of an eruption of enormous magnitude occurring at the time. There must be events to suggest that such catastrophes didn’t occur just in Egypt but in numerous other areas around the Mediterranean around the same time. Be assured, I would not have raised this topic if I didn’t have far more to say on this matter to support this train of thought. It’s just time to take a break and begin writing the next article.
Avrom Aryeh-Zuk Kahana