When did Yetzias Mitzrayim take place? To answer this question we find ourselves in front of the opposite difficulty as in the case of the duration of the

period of the Second Commonwealth. There, the problem is that traditional Jewish chronology contradicts „historical evidence”. Here, the problem is that we actually lack any kind of „non-Biblical, historical evidence”. Egyptian sources are completely silent about the Jewish people’s sojourn in Egypt and the Exode.

On the other hand, as O. EISSFELDT states „It is quite inconceivable that a people could have obstinately preserved traditions about a dishonourable bondage of its ancestors in a foreign land, and passed them on from generation to generation, unless it had actually passed through such an experience”.² Generally, this „lack of evidence” instead of being considered as evidence for fictitiousness, is explained by the fact, that the Egyptians only marked events favorable for them.

Consequently, catastrophs like the Ten Plagues were omitted from national memory.

The first mention of Israel is on the stele of Pharaoh MERNEPTAH (1212-1202 BCE, 19th Dynasty) erected in the fifth year of his reign, somewhere towards the end of the 13th century BCE.

Earlier opinions (e.g. MAHLER³) identified the Pharaoh of the Exode with YAHMES I (Ahmose, Amosis, Nebpehtire; 1552-1527 BCE; 18th Thebean Dynasty) who expelled the Hyksos and, through this, established the New

1 Dr. Chaim Shlomoh HEIFETZ, in Megadim 14 (1991) [in Hebrew].

2 Otto EISSFELDT, Palestine During the Nineteenth Dynasty. In: The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. II, Part 2, History of th Middle East and the Aegean Region c. 1380-1000 B.C. I. E. S. EDWARDS, C. J.

GADD, N. G. L. HAMMOND, E. SOLLBERGER eds.

3 Jüdische Chronologie…, p. 120.

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Kingdom; or with AMENMESSE MENMIRE (after 1213 - before 1186 BCE; 19th Dynasty) who defeated the Lybians. DUBNOV and others, recently John BRIGHT

(referring to certain archeological evidences: there have been excavated in Palestine cities destroyed by fire in the 13th century BCE) pretend the Exode took place during the reign of RAMSES II (1290-1224 BCE) who fought with the Hettites for Syria and Palestine (the battle at Qadesh, repartition of the discussed territories). According to them, the construction of Pisom (Taanis) and Ramses mentioned in the Torah and also the latter’s name is an allusion of RAMSES’ constructions at Abydos, Abu-Simbel (the sanctuaries carved into the rock) and Thebai (Ramesseum).

According to the rendering of the traditional Jewish chronology, Nissan 2448 would coincide with the year 1312 BCE, during the reign of HOREMHEB

Jeserheperure (1334-1306 BCE; the last Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who came to the power as a general of the army).

On the other hand, according to midrashic sources, the „Sefer haYoshor”, the name of the Paroh of Yetzias Mitzrayim was: Adikom / Adikos. He ruled for only four years and his Kingdom was destroyed by the Plagues, and his army drowned into the sea. His father, by the name Molol, reigned – also according to the „Sefer haYoshor” - for an extraordinary long period: 94 years!

Curiously enough, in the king-lists we can actually find a Pharaoh who ruled for such a long time: PEPI Noferkaré II effectively ruled over 90 years c. 2350-2260 BCE – according to Manetho as well to the Turin Royal Canon. The only problem on the way of identifying him as the Paroh of the Exode is that he was of the SIXTH Dynasty (Memphis) of the OLD Kingdom! But historians almost unanimously seek to fit Yetzias Mitzrayim somewhere into the periode of the New Kingdom. Besides, Pepi II was the next to the last king of the sixth dynasty

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before the collapse of the Old Kingdom, as was Molol before the collapse of Mitzrayim due to the Ten Plagues. And he was followed by his son, who ruled for only four or five years. And the ressemblance of the situation in Egypt during the collapse of the Old Kingdom as described by the so-called Ipuwer-papyrus, evokes the descriptions of the Ten Plagues in the Torah. Astonishing coincidence which can hardly be considered as being incidental!

Immanuel VELIKOVSKY, in his „Ages in Chaos” (1952), proposed for the first time to revise Egyptian chronology, and synchronize Egyptian history with that contained in the TANACH. More recently, Brad AARONSON proposed to identify the Ten Plagues with the events accompanying the collapse of the Old Kingdom, and to connect the date of the latter to the traditional date of Yetzias Mitzrayim!¹ This would naturally result in reducing Egyptian chronology with almost thousand years (naturally with all the difficulties being implied) and, parallel with this, in reconsidering Mesopotamian chronology also, viz. the entire chronological edifice of the history of the Ancient Middle East! Consequently, major credit will be given to Jewish tradition, instead of the far less reliable Greco-Roman descriptions.

In the letter column of the Summer 1991 issue of Jewish Action, Aaronson answers a rather critical letter by Rabbi Alan Yuter from Springfield, NJ. There he writes among others: „Why assume that the rest of the world is right and that we need to adapt our traditions to the theories currently in fashion? Why not instead do as our father Abraham did and take a stand for what we know to be the truth? Emunat chachamim demands that we give Chazal this benefit of the doubt.”

1 Brad AARONSON, The Exodus and Ancient Egyptian Records. In: Jewish Action, Spring 1995.

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