Egyptian Enslavement of the Hebrews ?

[Furion Matsuya]

Other then in the Old Testament is there any actual evidence or proof that the Ancient Egyptians ever actually enslaved the Hebrews/Ancient Israelites ?

If there is what Pharaoh is supposed to have reigned during the time of Moses ?

I'm not a believer in the bible but I'm curious and trying to separate fact from mythology "please don't take offense at my usage of the term" and find out if any of it has some basis in fact etc :happy:

 

[Orinsul]

We know they had caanite slaves, and slaves from pretty much everywhere. There were enough caanite slaves that they had ghetto settlements that left records.
However it's not the mass slavery as presented in stories, that's a more modern addition to the story.

As for Moses, Joseph is the more exciting part, that probably happened during the Hyksos peroid, where after the foreign invaders were thrown off, the egyptians destroyed all records of them. Which, the important part of the story, that a semite from the levant became a senior minister, is the interesting part of the story. As that is a period where Egypt was conquered by, probably, an alliance of merchants, foreignors, mercenaries and nomads, but definitely, semites form the levant.
Who after they were overthrown, either fled or were reduced to slavery.
And here we have slaves leaving egypt, who claim to have been invited to egypt and moved in, after one of them got a senior position in the egyptian government.

Um, anyway, acouple years ago, I could have answered this question really well, as I read two books on it. However that was two years ago. Maybe three.

Anyway, from memory, there is lots of evidence that there were Canaanite slaves in egypt at the suggest time, but none of moses' rebellion or plagues.
And that slavery wasn't on the thousands of slaves under whip-masters, but household, agricultural, etc, slaves like every other ancient part of the world have. The idea of thousands of slaves in intolerable conditions comes from a misunderstanding about how pyramids were built and post-slavery european imaginations of what slavery was like, and hell, from US chattel slavery centuries later as our image of slaves in egypt is more from pictures, films and etc than the bible.

 

[Furion Matsuya]

Ah that makes quite a bit of sense.

I thought it was well know that the Pyramids were build by Egyptian labourers putting in their annual service rather then slavery but I can't say I'm surprised given the number of people who seem to think Humans couldn't have build them and Aliens had to be involved. "I'm looking at you History Channel"

 

[Sabotage13]

I thought it was well know that the Pyramids were build by Egyptian labourers putting in their annual service

It is well known today, after more than a century of proper academic history and study of actual primary sources.

Europeans used to have a lot of weird misconceptions about ancient African and Near Eastern civilizations, some of which endured in popular history well into the modern age (just think of the legends of Near Eastern "sacred prostitution").

 

[Orinsul]

It is well known today, after more than a century of proper academic history and study of actual primary sources.

Europeans used to have a lot of weird misconceptions about ancient African and Near Eastern civilizations, some of which endured in popular history well into the modern age (just think of the legends of Near Eastern "sacred prostitution").

Just a couple decades ago, slave labour was still the mainstream orthodox theory. And even today, slave labour pyramids is whats taught in primary schools about egypt so it's what most people are going to think.

 

[joak]

One of the more interesting textual arguments for some Egyptian connection and a "Moses" figure has to do with the etymology of the name.

In the Bible, the baby Moses is found (by an Egyptian) among the reeds and the name comes the Hebrew phrase for picking him out of the water or something. Of course, an Egyptian wouldn't know Hebrew, but Moses is a believable Egyptian name. If it was completely made up you'd have either a Hebrew name, or wouldn't have a pretend explanation for the Egyptian name. Maybe, anyway.

(Incidentally, along these lines a professor I had also believed that the phrase Moses used when told to speak to the Hebrews--"my tongue is heavy" or something--is best interpreted as him not actually speaking Hebrew since he was raised among Egyptians. Hence Aaron the spokesman is vital, since Aaron is in fact a translator.)

 

[Orinsul]

Given that semites invaded egypt, hebrews lived as slaves, merchants and etc in egypt and later, the levant was under egyptian rule and they're right next to each other, hybrid names isn't so much an argument.
But it's still cool and interesting so no worries.

 

[Gordy]

I think "Habiru" is found in a list of tribes in Egypt. Some think "Habiru" is "Hebrew".

 

[Duke of Adamski]

manetho speaks about the hebrews in his history of egypt.

 

[Lord Tim]

I think "Habiru" is found in a list of tribes in Egypt. Some think "Habiru" is "Hebrew".

Habiru or Apiru actually means "bandit" or "raider", and is usually used to describe people who attacked settlements in the Levant and then retreated into the desert. Who would have come into Canaan out of the desert at a time when the Egyptians were weak in the area, presumably after the Sea Peoples invasions.

 

[Swamp Rat]

manetho speaks about the hebrews in his history of egypt.

He does have a single reference to Hebrews in Fragment 53. However since his work is from the Hellenistic times (basically more than a millenium after the fact) it is not a particularly convincing argument in favour of the reality of the story.

 

[Amallric]

There is an Egyptian stone something like 3500 years old and it has "ISRAEL" written on it(no really I'm serious). It is also common knowledge that Egypt had what is now Palestine and also of course SInaï, and other places in the Levant under control for some time. After that Egyptians lost control over these places. So generally speaking there is nothing particularly strange with the story of a Semitic tribe that wandered around, was at some point controlled by Egyptians, and then escaped this control. However the actual story from the Bible was written much later, certainly not before 500 BC, and it has a very deep eschatological meaning that has nothing to do with real events, and was never supposed to have really.

 

[Swamp Rat]

There is an Egyptian stone something like 3500 years old and it has "ISRAEL" written on it(no really I'm serious). It is also common knowledge that Egypt had what is now Palestine and also of course SInaï, and other places in the Levant under control for some time. After that Egyptians lost control over these places. So generally speaking there is nothing particularly strange with the story of a Semitic tribe that wandered around, was at some point controlled by Egyptians, and then escaped this control. However the actual story from the Bible was written much later, certainly not before 500 BC, and it has a very deep eschatological meaning that has nothing to do with real events, and was never supposed to have really.

However it doesn't have anything to do with the story about Jews being enslaved by Egyptians in Egypt however, quite the contrary in fact.

 

[Amallric]

Yes but it shows that there were contacts between the two nations, there was some awareness. Faint memory of such contacts could have remained and served as a basis for the Bible story.

 

[Swamp Rat]

Yes but it shows that there were contacts between the two nations, there was some awareness. Faint memory of such contacts could have remained and served as a basis for the Bible story.

That is very likely.

 

[Barsoom]

There's a lot of guesswork in squaring the Biblical story with what we know of Egyptian history. The two episodes that are mentioned in connection with this are 500 years apart and for neither is there any direct evidence of Hebrew involvement.

Egypt didn't really govern Canaan but it had patron-client relations with the local leaders since forever. The people of Canaan for the most part spoke a language related to Phoenician and had many of the same deities. No Jews or Hebrews or Israelites are attested during this period, as far as I know. There was apparently a mass migration of Middle Eastern peoples to the Nile Delta before the 17th century, because at that time a group of foreigners established a dynasty of their own in the Delta; these people are known as the Hyksos. Some of them had names that appear Semitic, sometimes even Hurrian (from upper Mesopotamia).

After their overthrow, during the 16th to 11th centuries BC, Egypt again extended its influence over Canaan. Apparently their interest this time was also to prevent a recurrence of the Hyksos takeover but, considering the constraints on government of the time, it was still mostly in the form of patron-client relations. The next upset is the Bronze Age collapse which is commonly dated between 1200 - 1150 BC. Egypt was beset by "Sea Peoples" whose place of origin is hard to establish, some of which might not even have come by sea. We are, however, reasonably certain that one of these groups settled down on the coast of Canaan as the Philistines. (There's some evidence that the Philistines originally spoke a non-Semitic language but they quickly adopted the local lingo.) These too were eventually brought into a relation of clientelism with the rulers of Egypt, which was simply the strongest power in the area.

In the run-up to the collapse, just before 1200 BC, an Egyptian pharaoh commemorated his victories on a stone, the Merneptah Stele, which mentions Israel as one of the enemies he defeated. This is the first mention of Israel anywhere AFAIK but unfortunately it gives very little information. It's one line and formulaic so the words are more ritual than description. The date is interesting of course and from the placement next to some other defeated enemies it may be inferred that Israel was a tribe somewhere in Canaan but that's about it. Israel is not mentioned alongside the Sea Peoples when they invaded Egypt itself. The next bits of external evidence are inscriptions from the Levant, particularly Phoenicia and Moab (another stone from 850 or so), which make it clear that an Israelite kingdom existed from ca. 1000 BC onwards.

Going back to the Bible, the kingdom of David and Solomon is usually placed around 1000 BC. Most scholars accept that the Biblical narrative about "Judges" refers to a tribal stage before the establishment of a (more or less) centralized kingdom. Some kind of struggle against Egyptian allies is likely in this period, perhaps against Egyptian troops sent to support their local client kings; that could be the basis for the Exodus story. Taking the Exodus more literally as referring to an exit from Egypt proper, is very hard to do if it is placed during the Bronze Age collapse, as that would compress all the stories of the judges to a time period of less than two centuries. On the other hand, placing the Exodus during or shortly after the Hyksos period creates a 550 year gap between it and the establishment of the Israelite kingdom and a 350 year gap between it and the first mention of the name Israel. If you're a Biblical literalist, this is your best bet; but most historians seem to suspend judgment until they find something that sheds light on that very long undocumented period.

 

[joak]

Given that semites invaded egypt, hebrews lived as slaves, merchants and etc in egypt and later, the levant was under egyptian rule and they're right next to each other, hybrid names isn't so much an argument.

I basically agree--you don't really know what to do with the conclusion since it could mean anything. It mostly just implies some vague connection to Egypt. As you say, not much of the argument.

But to pitch it a bit more, part of the point is that it is attached to one person, and so odd it needed to be explained in the text. If there were a lot of people like that you wouldn't need to explain it, and if none of them did something memorable you would just make up a more common name when you told a story.

 

[Gordy]

Habiru or Apiru actually means "bandit" or "raider", and is usually used to describe people who attacked settlements in the Levant and then retreated into the desert. Who would have come into Canaan out of the desert at a time when the Egyptians were weak in the area, presumably after the Sea Peoples invasions.

I'm not saying this is true but a Bible literalist would probably argue that "Hebrew" might derive from bandit / raider or that bandit / raiders were named "Hebrew" in the way that vandals are named after a tribe that lived in Eastern Europe.

 

[Gordy]

The people of Canaan for the most part spoke a language related to Phoenician and had many of the same deities. No Jews or Hebrews or Israelites are attested during this period, as far as I know.

Archaeologists pretty much consider the Hebrews to be a sub-tribe of Canaanites. The only major differences seem to have been that Hebrews didn't eat pork (hence no pig bones found at various sites) whilst other Canaanites did.

Of course reading the bible would give you the impression that the Canaanites were enemies of the Hebrews and nothing to do with them but the known facts don't really support this.

 

[Orinsul]

Archaeologists pretty much consider the Hebrews to be a sub-tribe of Canaanites. The only major differences seem to have been that Hebrews didn't eat pork (hence no pig bones found at various sites) whilst other Canaanites did.

Of course reading the bible would give you the impression that the Canaanites were enemies of the Hebrews and nothing to do with them but the known facts don't really support this.

People always hate the people closet too them. Reading the bible would give you the impression its the history of one tribe of Canaanites being all pissy about the other tribes.