Unfortunately none of these locations have been identified. The 'way of the land of the Philistines' is almost certainly a later name for the area: as we have seen, the Philistines are not recorded anywhere near Egypt until around 1180 BC, almost a century later (see Chapter Eight). Like the name Pi-Ramesses for Avaris, it was no doubt a later name used for the route. Most Egyptologists, however, think that it refers to a trade route into Egypt, about twelve kilometres wide, between Lakes Ballah and Timsah, about 40 kilometres south-east of Avaris. When the Philistines eventually overran much of Canaan and the area to the east of Egypt, the failing Egyptian empire had much difficulty controlling their borders at this point. This would certainly fit the narrative context. Exodus tells us that the Israelites had been in Avaris (Pi-Ramesses), and the most direct route out of Egypt towards Canaan would be here. However, it would have been patrolled, and so it would certainly have been prudent to have taken a different route, as Exodus relates.
If the Israelites did head in the direction of the Thera plume from Avaris, then they would have reached the Mediterranean coast some eighty kilometres north-west of Avaris, near the shores of Lake Manzala.
Two verses after the above passage, in Exodus 14:1–2, we are told that God ordered the Israelites to turn and make camp: 'And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.'
Again these locations are now unknown, although it is quite clear that the 'wilderness' referenced here and in the preceding passage is actually the 'Sea of Reeds' itself. In the former we are told of 'the wilderness of the Sea of Reeds', and here, when they have their backs to the sea, 'the wilderness has shut them in'. In other words, the pharaoh will assume that they are trapped as the 'Sea of Reeds' is barring their escape. Indeed, a great swampy, reed-strewn expanse of water that no ship or person could cross would be aptly described as a wilderness.
At this point in the narrative, the pharaoh decides to bring the Israelites back. Perhaps, by this time, the Egyptians have recovered their wits enough to go after their runaway slaves. Although in Exodus 13:17 we are told that the pharaoh has chosen to let the Israelites go, in Exodus 14:5 he appears to have had no idea they had left, as he has to be informed: 'And it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled.' When the pharaoh's army reaches the Israelites, the waters of the sea part allowing them to escape. If the Israelites had been following the Thera plume before they turned and made camp beside the 'Sea of Reeds', then Exodus 14:19 makes it quite clear what the 'Sea of Reeds' actually is, and it also reveals the crossing point. We are told that before they crossed, 'the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them'. For this to have happened – if it was the Thera plume – then the Israelites must have made an abrupt turn to face Lake Manzala in a southeasterly direction. Lake Manzala, therefore, would seem to be the 'Sea of Reeds'.
Lake Manzala is now a misleading name, as it is actually open to the sea. However, this was not always the case: in Roman times, and presumably earlier, it was divided from the Mediterranean by a narrow ridge of dry land some fifty kilometres long, broken here and there by a few hundred metres of water at high tide. If the Israelites managed to cross this causeway, then it would have afford them escape from Egypt in the direction of Canaan.
It would have been a sensible policy for the Israelites to attempt to cross the Manzala causeway in any event, as the sections of the land bridge submerged at high tide would be wet and muddy, impeding the passage of chariots and heavily armed soldiers. Exodus 14:25 actually tells us that when the Egyptians tried to pursue the Israelites across the 'Sea of Reeds' they were hampered by the ground 'clogging their chariot wheels so they drove heavily'. Remarkably, it is here that a tidal wave could also have been used to the Israelites' advantage.
During the Krakatau eruption, a series of tsunami occurred over a period of two days. The same would certainly be true for Thera. In fact, a succession of tsunami may have hit the Egyptian coast for much longer, swilling up and down the Mediterranean like water in a bath. Preceding the arrival of a tsunami, the sea withdraws, sometimes for hours. After the Krakatau eruption, a huge coral reef on the coast of Java, usually six feet under sea level, even at low tide, was completely exposed for more than an hour before the wave hit. (It is basically the same phenomenon that causes the sea to withdraw before the breaking of a normal wave, only over a longer duration.)
From Avaris, the Israelites could easily have reached the Manzala causeway within a couple of days of the initial eruption. If a section of the causeway, usually under water, had been exposed by the pre-tsunami conditions, then the phenomenon might indeed have saved the Israelites if the Egyptians were in close pursuit. The sea would have been made dry land, as the Bible relates: 'And the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided'. (Exodus 14:21.)
This is an excellent description of what would have happened at the Manzala causeway, with the waters of the Mediterranean having divided from the waters of the Lake Manzala. The pressure drop over the lowering coastal waters of the Mediterranean would even have caused a strong wind to blow from the east over Lake Manzala. The Israelites could have made it safely across and, if the timing was fortuitous, the pursuing soldiers may have been attempting to follow when the tsunami hit, washing them all away. 'And the waters returned and covered the chariots, and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.' (Exodus 14:29.)
In every aspect but one – there would not be a wall of water to the left and right as the Bible says – the scenario precisely matches the biblical account of the crossing of the 'Sea of Reeds'.
The plagues alone, being so similar to the effects of Thera, would be evidence enough that the volcanic eruption was responsible for the Exodus events. That the pillar of cloud and fire, and the parting of the sea also match the Thera effects is all the more compelling. From the scientist's perspective, the Exodus could indeed have happened pretty much as the Bible describes. From the historian's perspective, the unique set of circumstances favoured the Israelites to such a degree that faith in their God endured for generations to come. From the theologian's perspective, such a incredible series of events favouring one group of people is surely beyond coincidence. Whatever way you look at it, if Thera was the cause of the Exodus, then it certainly ranks as one of the most remarkable events ever to have shaped the course of human history. Without it, Judaism might never have developed, nor indeed Christianity – in which case the Western world would be a very different place.
Let us return to the Egyptians at the time of Thera. From the sheer magnitude of the events and the fear that must have been aroused, it is quite understandable that Amonhotep III should frenziedly erect so many statues to Sekhmet. In the north-east, however, spared the worst horrors of the fallout, the priesthood would almost certainly have considered their god Re responsible for the event: he had punished Thebes for the worship of the god Amun. For some reason Akhenaten allied himself with the cult of Re, which may have been because he too was in north-east Egypt when the eruption occurred. Traditionally, the eldest son of the New Kingdom pharaohs – the heir to the throne – would serve as the governor of Memphis, less than fifty kilometres south of Heliopolis. As governor of Memphis, he would have been responsible for Lower Egypt. It is in this role that he may have actually come to associate the Thera eruption with the Hebrew God.
If the Israelites were escaping from Avaris, it would certainly have been Akhenaten's responsibility to bring them back. Akhenaten, therefore, may have been the very pharaoh who pursued the Israelites. Although he would not have been pharaoh at the time, we have seen how the Exodus account often refers to things b
y their later names. It is quite possible that they might refer to Akhenaten as pharaoh, even though he did not become king until some time later. (Although the popular movie interpretation of events often has the pharaoh being washed away with his army, the Bible does not make it clear whether he was with them or not. We are merely told that all those who followed the Israelites across the sea perished.)
Akhenaten's adoption of the Hebrews' religious beliefs would therefore be quite understandable. The apparently miraculous circumstances surrounding the Israelite escape may have convinced him that the Hebrew God was responsible. That he initially associated his new god with Re does not contradict this hypothesis. Ancient cultures were forever identifying other people's gods with their own. The Romans, for instance, considered the Greek Zeus to be their Jove, and sky god of the Gauls to be their Mercury. There is no reason for Akhenaten to think differently. It would make sense for him to associate the Hebrew God with the Egyptian Re. He was, after all, the god of the sun, and it was the sun's appearance that had been strangely altered. Re had also spared much of the north where the cult of Re flourished. Akhenaten may, therefore, have converted to the Hebrew God, firstly linking Him with Re, then later, aware that Re did not fit the profile of an invisible and omnipresent deity, represented Him as the Aten.
The Thera eruption is just about the only episode that makes any sense of the otherwise bewildering Amarna period: an event which must surely be linked with the biblical plagues and the miraculous flight from Egypt. How, therefore, does the dating of the Exodus to around 1360 BC compare with the traditional dating of the Exodus to the reign of Ramesses II, almost a century later?
SUMMARY
• The effects of the Thera eruption on Egypt bear a striking similarity to the plague of darkness and other ills which the Bible tells us God inflicted upon Egypt when the pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave. God punishes the Egyptians by a series of plagues including darkness, fiery hailstorms, boils and the Nile turning to blood.
• Within a day of the Thera eruption the fallout cloud would have drifted high over Egypt and the skies would have darkened. After the Mount St Helens eruption the sun was obscured for hours 500 kilometres from the volcano, and after Krakatau the skies were darkened to a much greater distance – it was actually as dark as night for days on end up to 800 kilometres away. Because of the greater magnitude of the Thera eruption, we can assume that the same must have been true for much of Egypt. According to Exodus 10: 22: 'There was thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.'
• In Exodus 9:24–25 we are told that Egypt is afflicted by a terrible storm in which, 'there was hail and fire mingled with the hail . . . and the hail smote all throughout the land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast, and brake every tree in the field'. This would be an accurate description of the terrible ordeal suffered by the people on the Sumatran coast after the eruption of Krakatau: pelletsized volcanic debris falling like hail; fiery pumice setting fires on the ground and destroying trees and houses; lightning flashing around, generated by the tremendous turbulence inside the volcanic cloud.
• 'And it shall become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man, and upon beast.' (Exodus 9:9.) Throughout three states after the Mount St Helens eruption, hundreds of people were taken to hospital with skin rashes and sores caused by the acidic fallout ash, while cattle, horses and other livestock perished due to prolonged inhalation of the volcanic dust.
• As well as the grey pumice ash the volcano blasted skywards, Thera had another, more corrosive toxin in its bedrock – iron oxide. In the submarine eruptions that still occur at Thera, tons of iron oxide are discharged which kill fish for miles around. According to Exodus 7:21: 'And the fish that were in the river died.' As iron oxide oxidizes in contact with air, the consequent red-coloured rust stains also turns the sea blood red. According the Exodus 7:20: 'And all the waters that were in the river turned to blood.'
• The 'parting of the Red Sea' may also be accounted for by the eruption of Thera. The name 'Red Sea', used in Exodus for the place where the waters miraculously part to allow the Israelites to escape Egypt, comes from a mistranslation of the Hebrew words Yam Suph, which actually means 'Sea of Reeds'. The term 'Sea of Reeds' probably applied to an expanse of water which looked exactly like it sounds: a large shallow lake or inlet covered by reeds. The most likely location of the 'Sea of Reeds' is a broad inlet on the Delta coast now called Lake Manzala. In biblical times it was divided from the Mediterranean by a narrow ridge of dry land some fifty kilometres long, broken here and there by a few hundred metres of water at high tide. If the Israelites tried to cross here, a tidal wave created by the Thera eruption might have worked to their advantage.
• During the Krakatau eruption, a series of tidal waves occurred over a period of two days. The same would certainly be true for Thera. In fact, a succession of such waves may have hit the Egyptian coast for much longer, swilling up and down the Mediterranean like water in a bath. Preceding the arrival of such tidal waves, the sea withdraws, sometimes for hours. If a section of the causeway, usually under water, had been exposed to such conditions, then the phenomenon might indeed have saved the Israelites if the Egyptians were in close pursuit. The sea would have been made dry land, as the Bible relates, and the Israelites could have made it safely across and, if the timing was fortuitous, the pursuing soldiers may have been attempting to follow when the tidal wave hit, washing them all away, just as the Bible relates. Akhenaten's adoption of the Hebrew's religious beliefs would therefore be quite understandable. The apparently miraculous circumstances surrounding the Israelite escape may have convinced him that the Hebrew God was responsible.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Strangers in a Strange Land
For many years biblical scholars have tended to place the Exodus during the early thirteenth century BC, some hundred years later than the time that Thera seems to have erupted. This dating is primarily because of the reference in Exodus 1:11, naming the cities where the Israelites were enslaved: 'And they did build for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.' The city of Raamses is generally accepted to have been a reference to the city of Pi-Ramesses – meaning 'The Domain of Ramesses' – which was built during the reigns of the first three kings of the nineteenth dynasty. Like Amarna, it was basically two cities in one – an administrative centre and a palace and suburban district. Pithom, therefore, may also be referring to a part of the same city. Work on Pi-Ramesses actually seems to have started in the reign of Ramesses I, the first pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty, around 1307 BC. Horemheb had been the last eighteenth-dynasty king who, during his thirty-year reign, had purged the country of undesirable elements, such as the Atenists, and restabilized the nation under a virtual military dictatorship. Like his four predecessors, he had no male heir to succeed him, and so his general, the 'Vizier and Troop Commander' Ramesses, became the new king – Ramesses I. This time there were no royal princesses to marry and so a completely new dynasty emerged. To signal a break with the past, the new king decided to move his capital from Thebes to the old Hyksos capital at Avaris, in the north-east Delta of Lower Egypt, and there construction on the new city of Pi-Ramesses began.
Ramesses I only lived for some two years as king and also died without an heir. Ramesses' chief general, Seti, therefore succeeded him as pharaoh. Seti broke completely with tradition and married a commoner named Tuya, the daughter of a humble junior officer. This seems to have been a wise move, for it broke an hereditary bane that had afflicted six pharaohs, not one of them having produced a male heir for over half a century. Although Tuya's first boy died in infancy, the second, also called Ramesses, lived to become Ramesses II.
Ramesses II came to the throne around the age of twenty-five and soon earned his title, 'Ramesses the Great'. He reigned for a remarkable sixty-seven years, making him one of the oldest men recorded in Egyptian history. During his reign he did everything on a gig
antic scale, and even exceeded the building projects of Amonhotep III. He added to the great temples of Karnak and Luxor and built one of his own at nearby Abydos. All over the empire he erected monuments that in some ways rival the architectural achievements of the Old Kingdom. In Nubia, for instance, at Abu Simbel, he built the so-called Great Temple. Well deserving its name, it is a remarkable piece of engineering, even by today's standards: a huge artificial cave cut into a mountain, some 60 metres deep and 40 metres high. Inside the vast excavated dome are a series of temples, and outside the imposing entrance is flanked by four 18-metre-high statues of the king, hewn from solid rock.
These remarkable building projects required a vast labour force. On the west bank of the Nile, at Thebes, Ramesses constructed a massive mortuary temple called the Ramesseum, and inscriptions from a nearby quarry reveal that 3,000 workers were employed in the cutting of its stone alone. This must have been a tiny portion of the complete work force necessary to erect the temple which, by Ramesses' standards, was a modest undertaking. When we consider that the entire army, as described on the south wall of the Hypostyle Hall at the Ramesseum, only numbered some 20,000 men, we can gather that large numbers of conscript workers were needed – and many of them would have been foreign captives. The majority of these would have been used in the construction of the new city of Pi-Ramesses which, when completed, became the wonder of its age. It was here, it is argued, that the Hebrews were used as slaves.
Apart from the name of the city being mentioned in the Exodus account (which we shall examine shortly), the advocates of a Ramesses II Exodus also draw attention to references to the Apiru at this time. As we have seen in Chapter Eight, the Apiru were used in construction gangs, and are recorded making bricks in Fayum and erecting a pylon at Memphis during the reign of Ramesses II. In Exodus 1:14, this is exactly what the Hebrews are made to do: 'And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick.'
Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings Page 23