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Tuesday January 20, 2026
“Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession… you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.” (God to Moses)
– Exodus 19:5-6
PREFACE
Welcome Everybody!
This week we are considering the historical empirical evidence for the story of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites outside of the Biblical narrative. Myth, or historical memory?
Consider the recent discovery of a “victory stele” related to the Pharaoh Merneptah.
“It’s the earliest reference we have to the Israelites. The victory stele of Pharaoh Merneptah, the son of Ramesses II, mentions a list of peoples and city-states in Canaan, and among them are the Israelites. And it’s interesting that the other entities, the other ethnic groups, are described as nascent states, but the Israelites are described as ‘a people.’ They have not yet reached a level of state organization…
So the Egyptians, a little before 1200 B.C.E., know of a group of people somewhere in the central highlands—a loosely affiliated tribal confederation, if you will—called ‘Israelites.’ These are our Israelites. So this is a priceless inscription.”
NOVA – Archaeology of the Hebrew Bible
Some archaeologists have long resisted accepting the story of Moses and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt as a factual event. Many have equated the action-packed story to a fabricated hero myth, much like those found in ancient legends and modern comic books.
“‘Moses himself has about as much historic reality as King Arthur,’ British archaeologist Philip Davies famously concluded. A more moderate conclusion comes from the historian Tom Holland: ‘The likelihood that the biblical story records an actual event is fairly small.’”
– Andrew Brown (Man Versus Myth: Does It Matter If the Moses Story is Based on Fact?)
However, many archaeologists were already beginning to recognize that the epic adventure of Moses and the Israelites might be something more than just fantasy. It might be the missing puzzle piece to some of the historic incongruities that appeared to make no sense. One of these incongruities was an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, who attempted to change the traditional pagan religions of Egypt to monotheism.
“Yet there are tantalising glimpses in the story of something that may be more than mere folk tale. For a start there is the name ‘Moses’ itself, which is undoubtedly Egyptian rather than Hebrew, suggesting the stories drew on memories of real interactions. There were times in the 16th and 17th centuries BC when tribal groups from the eastern Mediterranean were found in what is now northern Egypt. And the story of Moses has a strange echo in the life of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, the first monotheist known to history.
He reigned from 1352 to 1338 BC, and proclaimed that there was only one true God, Aten, the sun disc. All others were false, their temples were closed, their images destroyed and their names erased. When Akhenaten died, the old religious system revived and then obliterated his memory and, had it not been for the chance discovery of his tomb in the 19th century, the experiment would have been forgotten. As the historian Jan Assmann puts it: ‘Moses is a figure of memory, not of history, whereas Akhenaten is a figure of history, but not of memory.’”
– Andrew Brown (The Man Versus Myth: Does It Matter If the Moses Story is Based on Fact?)
If Moses is not a fictional character it re-enforces the Bible’s reputation as being an ancient historical source pertaining to our pre-recorded past. But does it make historical sense? Does it actually fit into the timeline of history as we know it?
CONSIDERATION #224 – Did Moses Really Exist?
Archaeologists are beginning to see and recognize the patterns of Biblical history in the patterns of human history. The Bible now seems to fit quite well into the natural flow of the history being revealed by modern archaeologists and historians.
“Despite all the ways in which the exodus narratives in the Bible seem to be non-historic, something about the overall pattern can, in fact, be related to what we know from historical sources was going on at the end of the Late Bronze Age [circa 1200 B.C.E.], around when the Bible’s chronology places the story of departure from Egypt.
Now, what is the evidence? First of all, during this period there likely were a lot of people from the land of Canaan, from regions of the eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt. Sometimes they were taken there as slaves. The local kings of the city-states in Canaan would offer slaves as tribute to the pharaohs in order to remain in their good graces. This is documented in the Amarna letters discovered in Egypt. So we know that there were people taken to Egypt as slaves.
There were also traders from the eastern Mediterranean who went to Egypt for commercial reasons. And there also probably were people from Canaan who went to Egypt during periods of extended drought and famine, as is reported in the Bible for Abraham and Sarah.
So Canaanites went to Egypt for a variety of reasons. They were generally assimilated—after a generation or two they became Egyptians. There is almost no evidence that those people left. But there are one or two Egyptian documents that record the flight of a handful of people who had been brought to Egypt for one reason or other and who didn’t want to stay there…
And it’s possible that a charismatic leader, a Moses, rallied a few of those people and urged them to make the difficult and traumatic and dangerous journey across the forbidding terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, back to what their collective memory maintained was a promised land.”
– Gary Glassman (Moses and the Exodus: Interview with Carol Meyers)
The prophet Balaam is mentioned 92 times in the Bible, including Numbers 22:1-41. This verse directly references the Israelites coming out of Egypt.
“Then the people of Israel set out and camped in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan at Jericho. And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. And Moab was in great dread of the people, because they were many. Moab was overcome with fear of the people of Israel. And Moab said to the elders of Midian, ‘This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.’ So Balak the son of Zippor, who was king of Moab at that time, sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the River in the land of the people of Amaw, to call him, saying, ‘Behold, a people has come out of Egypt.’”
– Numbers 22:1-41
In 1967, the fragments from the Book of Balaam were discovered at Deir Alla. The inscription on a stone there matched the Biblical reference to Numbers 22:1-41.
“Another Old Testament archeological find is of the prophet Balaam, who was working with the Moabites, the enemies of the children of Israel. As at the time of the Exodus, the Israelites were marching toward the promised land, and were mowing down the people along the way…
The Moabites were worried they would be mowed down as well, so they hired a prophet to curse the children of Israel (Balaam). At Tel Deir ‘Alla, Jordan, on the other side of the Jordan, where the Jabat River meets the Jordan, they found a sort-of administration building (pictured below) for the Moabites.
It was covered with plaster that had fallen off, but on that plaster, they had written various stories. Written on this stone, they found the story of Balaam the prophet, written by the enemies of the children of Israel.
One line from the wall says, “Warnings given by Balaam, the son of Beor. A seer of the gods.” This inscription is dated from the 8th century BC. Numbers 22:5, of course, says, ‘So he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor, at Pethor, which is near the river…’”
– Welcome to the Truth (Amazing – 21 Greatest Old Testament Biblical Archaeology Discoveries Ever)
This discovery represents the first recorded non-biblical evidence of a Biblical prophet in addition to being a direct reference to the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt.
“In an unprecedented discovery, an ancient text found at Deir Alla, Jordan, in 1967 tells about the activities of a prophet named Balaam. Could this be the Balaam of the Old Testament? The text makes it clear that it is. Three times in the first four lines he is referred to as ‘Balaam son of Beor,’ exactly as in the Bible. This represents the first Old Testament prophet to be dug up in Bible lands — not his tomb or his skeleton, but a text about him. The text also represents the first prophecy of any scope from the ancient West Semitic world to be found outside the Old Testament, and the first extra-Biblical example of a prophet proclaiming doom to his own people.
‘The warning of the Book of Balaam, son of Beor, who was a seer of the gods.’
1. Echoing the Bible exactly, the phrase ‘Balaam son of Beor’ is found three times in the first four lines of the Balaam wall inscription that dates to 750 BC.
2. The God referred to in the inscription is “el” and “Shaddai” which is again exactly how God was referred to during the period before Moses.
3. Deir Alla, is identified with Succoth may also be identified with Pethor from a tablet discovered here.
– Balaam Son of Beor Inscription at Tell Deir Alla, Succoth: 1406/750 BC
The evidence for the Bible being a reasonable and accurate source of basic ancient history appears to be increasing with every new archeological discovery.
POSTSCRIPT
Other recent discoveries related to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt include, but are not limited to:
• Jericho: Old Testament Jericho has been identified in the mound known as Tall Al-Sulṭān (at the source of the copious spring ʿAyn Al-Sulṭān), which rises 70 feet (21 metres) above the surrounding plain. A number of major archaeological expeditions have worked at the site… one of the main objectives has been to establish the date of the town’s destruction by the Israelites—a matter of importance for the chronology of the Israeliteentry into Canaan. (Kathleen Mary Kenyon – Britannica)
• Tel Hazor: According to the Old Testament, Hazor was the site of one of Joshua’s key victories in his conquest of Canaan after Moses’ death; he supposedly burned the city to the ground, clearing the way for Israelite settlement. Excavations are ongoing, and though some evidence of burned materials and structures have surfaced, archaeologists are still debating whether the biblical battle actually took place. (Sarah Pruitt - Explore 10 Biblical Sites)
• The Motza temple: Tel Aviv University archaeologists calculate that a temple, discovered during reconstruction of Israel’s Highway 1, near Jerusalem, was built around 900 B.C. The Motza temple is estimated to be similar in size to the temple built by Solomon a half-century earlier and just five miles to the east. The rival temple was likely used to worship the God who brought the Israelites out of Egypt...
The discovery was startling but fits well with the Old Testament narrative of national disputes over where, how, and who to worship. (Gordon Govier – Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2020)
• The Amarna Letters: The earliest reference to the City of David (Jerusalem in this case) (2 Samuel Ch. 5) is from the ‘Amarna Letters’, dating back to the 14th century BC. This is a cuneiform tablet sent from Abdi-Heba, ruler of Jerusalem, to the Egyptian pharaoh. This inscription references ‘Jerusalem’… These finds build a strong case that parallels ancient Jerusalem with the children of Israel. (Welcome to Truth – Amazing – 21 Greatest Old Testament Biblical Archaeology Discoveries Ever)
• The Weld-Blundell Prism: The Weld-Blundell Prism, found in 1922, in Babylon, Iraq, contains a list of Sumerian Kings that ruled before and after some sort of ‘great flood’ (sound familiar?). The kings that pre-dated the flood are attributed enormous life spans reminiscent of, though greater than, the lifespans of pre-flood inhabitants of the Bible. It is dated to around 2170 BC, and is a baked clay prism. (Welcome to Truth – Amazing – 21 Greatest Old Testament Biblical Archaeology Discoveries Ever)
• Semitic abecedary found in Egypt: Biblical history intersects multiple times with the history of writing, as illustrated by an inscribed piece of limestone discovered in 1995 in a tomb along the west bank of the Nile at Luxor. University of British Columbia Egyptologist Thomas Schneider has deciphered the letters and announced this year that it’s an abecedary, a very early version of the Semitic alphabet in ABC order. The excavated tomb dates back to 1450 B.C., the time of Moses, according to the biblical chronology. (Gordon Govier -Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2018)
• Ketef Hinnom Amulets: In 1979 during the excavation of a late Iron Age (seventh century B.C.E.) tomb at the funerary site of Ketef Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay uncovered two small silver scrolls—no bigger than the diameter of a quarter—that were originally worn as amulets around the neck… High-resolution photos of the miniature writing were taken in 1994 by the West Semitic Research Project at the University of Southern California, giving researchers the opportunity to study and decipher the Hebrew text on the ancient amulets. When they finally read the arcane writing, the researchers discovered that the inscriptions, dating to the eighth–sixth centuries B.C.E., contained blessings similar to Numbers 6:24–26. (Robin Ngo– Miniature Writing on Ancient Amulets)
• Tel Shiloh: A new archeological find at ancient Shilo fits in with the Biblical narrative regarding the war at Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer], and could confirm scholars’ conjectures as to how Shilo was destroyed.
The First Book of Samuel does not say when and how Shilo, which served as the Israelite capital for 369 years, was destroyed. The latest archeological find at the Shilo site – a broken vase and remains of ashes from a fire – indicate large scale destruction. The remains are from the same period in which the War of Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer] against the Philistines was waged…
Archeologists and scholars now have more evidence to back the assumption that after defeating the Israelites at Even Ha’ezer [Ebenezer], the Philistines advanced upon Shilo and sacked it. (Todd Bolen – Evidence of Shiloh’s Destruction Claimed)
• Mount Nebo: According to the Old Testament, Moses lived his final days here, and climbed to the top to look out over the Promised Land before he died. Some believe Mount Nebo was also where the Hebrew prophet and leader was buried. (Sarah Pruitt – Explore 10 Biblical Sites)
Other notable Biblical references recently dug up by archaeologists providing evidence of Old Testament people, places, and events include: the first temple at Jerusalem, King David’s palace, the palace of the House of Omri, the palace of King Manasseh in Armon Hanatziv promenade, the “House of David” Tell-Dan Inscription, the House of Yahweh Ostracon, the Pool of Gibeon, the ancient city of Petra, Assyrian god carvings, the kingdom of Geshur, DNA history of Ashkelon, the alter horn of Tel Shiloh, the Goliath wall at Gath, the Yerushalayim pillar, Esarhaddon inscriptions at the shrine of Johah, the “beka” weight from the Temple Mount, the statue head of Abel Beth Maacah king, the Augustus temple altar of Caesarea, the Behistun Rock, 1906 excavations at Boghazkoy, the Lachish Ostraca, the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, the Moabite Stone, Shishak’s Invasion Record, Hezekiah’s Tunnel, the Ugaritic Texts, seal of Immer, seal of Adonijah, seal of Natan-Melech, seal of Jerusalem’s governor, seal of Isaiah, the Azariah Seal, the Gemariah Seal, the Gedaliah Seal, the Jerahmeel Seal, the King Hezekiah Seal, seal of Megiddo, the names of over 50 kings, leaders, and officials recorded in the Bible from Egypt, Moab, Damascus, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and the excavation of the city of Tel Megiddo commonly known as Armageddon.
Next week we will consider the historical authenticity of Jesus before completing our consideration of Book III and beginning our consideration of Book IV…
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