Well here are the facts. This is what you wrote. ''Not a single thing in Genesis is history.''
Not one thing so that has been falsified since Genesis records the existence of Egypt so your statement is false. I may get back later.
Genesis (along with other books of Torah, like Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy) was most likely composed in parts, beginning with the 2nd half of 7th century BCE, eg during the reign of Josiah (649 - 609 BCE), but Genesis was completed until the time of the Second Temple construction (was completed until 519 BCE).
As I have I already told you, the Silver Scrolls from Ketef Hinnom tomb, along with other artefacts found alongside with the badly damaged scrolls, were dated to any time just before the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the First Temple (587/586 BCE); so late 7th century or early 6th century BCE.
The Silver Scrolls is the oldest text discovered, and could be as early as last part of Josiah’s reign, who died in 609 BCE. And these scrolls were badly damaged and fragmented, that the only surviving and readable passage come from Numbers 6, which is the Priestly Blessings section.
There are no writings of the Bible existing earlier than the time of Josiah.
So Moses couldn’t have written Genesis or other parts of the Torah.
- There are no literary evidences that the Torah (including Genesis) were written by one person (Moses) during the Late Bronze Age (1600 - 1100 BCE).
- No literary evidences that any text from the Bronze Age had survived to the Iron Age (1100 - 50 BCE).
And there are no historical and archaeological evidences that Genesis narrative concerning the existence of Adam to Noah to that of Abraham to Jacob.
And no historical evidences that even Moses and Joshua existed.
- Not the mass liberation from Egypt,
- not the 40 years wandering in the wildernesses,
- and not the Israelite invasion of Canaan.
You were saying that Genesis is historically true, because Egypt is mentioned for the 1st time in Genesis 10, after the Flood, with Egypt or Mizraim (10: 6, 13) being the son of Ham?
But Genesis wasn’t first composed in the Bronze Age, but in the late 7th or early 6th century BCE.
So Genesis was actually recording events when Egypt have been around since the predynastic period (c 3600 - c 3100 BCE), when Egypt was two kingdoms instead of one.
If the Old Testament were all true, then it is possible to dated certain events. So working backward, you get the time line from the Old Testament:
- According to 1 Kings 6:1, when Solomon began building his temple in the “4th year” of his reign, which mean 967 or 966 BCE, and that Moses liberating the Israelites from slavery “490 years” earlier, hence the calculation would set Moses’ exodus starting in 1457 BCE. (Calculation: 967+490 = 1457 BCE.)
- Exodus 12:40-41 stated that the Israelites were in Egypt for “430 years”, hence 1887 BCE. But that’s not possible, because it would mean that Jochebed, daughter of Levi and mother of Moses, would be somewhere between 349 (if she was born when Levi arrived in Egypt) and 261 (if she was born before Levi died in Egypt at age 137), when she gave birth to Moses. If you read the Septuagint, Exodus 12:40-41 stated that Moses’ ancestors, including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived in the lands of both “Egypt and Canaan”, not just Egypt. If you remember Abraham lived in Egypt for a time when Canaan was in a drought and famine, before Moses received the covenant in Genesis 15. So most scholars believed that 430 years most likely dated to Abraham receiving the covenant. This would mean Jacob and his family arrived in Egypt 215 years before Moses was born. But the details of Levi’s life and his daughter were never given in Genesis and Exodus, so we don’t know how old Jochebed was when she gave birth to Moses. Last month, The Anointed in the “I will harden the Pharaohs heart”, post 69, gave me my clues in the apocryphal source Testament of Levi, that Levi was 48 when he arrived in Egypt and 64 when Jochebed was born. That would mean Jochebed would be 119 years old when Moses was born.
- Determining when 430 years occurred in Genesis is important, so it make working out when the Flood occurred possible to calculate. So if 430 years from Moses freeing the slaves and leaving Egypt occurred in Genesis 15, then Abraham (still called Abram then) receiving the covenant, then he would be age 85, in 1887 BCE (source Exodus 12:40-41, hence calculation, 1447+430 = 1887 BCE). And if Abraham was 85 in Genesis 15 covenant, then he would be born 1997 BCE (hence calculation 1887+85 = 1972 BCE).
- And according to the calculations in Genesis 11, in the genealogy between Noah’s Flood (Noah’s Age at 600) to Abraham being born (Genesis 11:26), is 292 years. What this mean is that the Flood “supposedly” occurred in 2264 BCE, if all my calculations are correct (1972+292 = 2264 BCE).
The reasons why I did all the calculations, is to show that none of these dates matched with any known and archaeological and historical dates of Egypt, and that If Egypt only existed after the Flood.
2264 BCE would put the Flood in the reign of Pepi II (reign 2278 - 2184 BCE), the 5th king of the 6th dynasty (2345 - 2181 BCE), Old Kingdom.
Pepi II has a small pyramid at Saqqara. And his Pyramid is neither largest, nor the oldest.
The greatest pyramid is that of Khufu (2589 - 2566 BCE), the 2nd king of the 4th dynasty (2613 - c 2494 BCE), Old Kingdom. It was built in Giza.
The first and oldest pyramid was built at Saqqara, in the reign of Djoser (c 2686 - c c 2667 BCE), 3rd dynasty (c 2686 - c 2613 BCE).
Now how can all these date-able pyramids exist in Egypt, if they all occurred before the Flood, and before Mizraim/Egypt was born to Ham?
And Egyptian culture go all the way back in times, when Egypt was divided into 2 kingdoms, from c 3600 to 3100 BCE.
Egypt is far older than the claim of Genesis 10.
Genesis 10, not only got Egypt wrong. It is also wrong about Erech or Uruk. According to Genesis 10, Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, found many cities in Babylonia, then in Assyria, and one of them is Uruk or Erech.
But Uruk’s earliest settlement have been dated as far back 5000 BCE, but it was thriving and largest city in the ancient world, between 4000 and 3100 BCE (known as the Uruk period), and reached its zenith, from 3500 to 3100 BCE, when large temple building programme, predated the Sumerian civilisation.
The other problems in the Genesis and in the Exodus, is that they never mentioned any of the Egyptian rulers by names, eg when Abraham was in Egypt, or Jacob, nor the names of the rulers, when Moses was born or when Moses freed the slaves. So how do you expect to the Old Testament to have history, when it rulers of foreign kingdoms remained nameless?
In 2 Kings, some of the Assyrian kings were named. With these names, we can search Assyrian records of any king of Judah or of Israel, to verify if anything written in 2 Kings have any reliability.
That certainly not the cases with Genesis or with the Exodus.
And in Exodus 1, it stated that Egyptian king forgot the debt they owed to Joseph during the 7-day famine, but the king is not named. But if the “490 years” in 1 Kings 6:1, is supposedly dated to 1457 BCE, then Moses being born 80 years earlier, then Moses’ birth would be dated to 1537 BCE (calculation, 1457+80 = 1537 BCE).
The problem with dating Moses’ birth to 1537 BCE, would put the timeline to the reign of Ahmose I (1549 - 1524 BCE), the 1st king of the 18th dynasty (1549 - 1292 BCE), New Kingdom.
And Exodus 1 stated that the king had the Israelite slaves building the cities, Pithom and Rameses (Pi-Ramesses, or “House of Rameses”). The problem is that Egyptian records showed that the Pi-Ramesses was built during the reign of Ramesses II (1279 - 1213 BCE), the 3rd king of 19th dynasty (1292 - 1189 BCE).
So how Exodus’ Rameses be built in 1537 BCE, when the city didn’t exist until Ramesses II’s Pi-Ramesses, 13th century later?
Although, Pi-Ramesses and Rameses have never been found, we know that Ramesses II was the greatest ruler of the 19th dynasty, and was involved in many large building programs (palaces, temples, tombs), in different cities throughout Egypt, which included Thebes and Abydos.
If your claim that Genesis in regarding to Egypt be historically true, then Genesis should match with historical and archaeological evidences in Egypt, but it doesn’t.
So the Genesis and Exodus are wrong, and so are you.
