December 7, 2024 • 45 mins
Join us as we unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt's profound influence on biblical history. In this episode we talk with Erika Brown who gives insights into the rich tapestry of Egypt's pivotal role in the stories of Joseph, the Israelites, and Moses. Erica's passion for bridging archaeology with biblical history promises to enrich your understanding of these narratives like never before.
Check out Erika educational videos via the Youtube Series, "Just So You Know,"
https://www.youtube.com/@JUSTSOYOUKNOWBYERBrown
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Everyone, welcome to FaithfullyLiving, the Podcast, where we
(00:26):
strive to encourage you to livefor Christ faithfully.
We're offering guidance on howto study the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So you know, understanding thehistory and cultures behind a
country and a nation, you know,can make it come alive.
(00:47):
And Egypt has a prominent rolein the narrative of the Bible.
You know.
We know about the narrativesabout Abraham and Sarah in Egypt
in Genesis 12, 10 through 20.
Genesis 12, 10 through 20.
And then we have the story ofJoseph.
It is a major biblicalnarrative that spans from
(01:08):
Genesis 37 to 50.
We have the Egyptian, theIsraelites, excuse me, in Egypt
and this story details thelatter part of Genesis through
Exodus, part of genesis throughexodus.
(01:28):
And then the book of exodus,mainly chapters 1 through 15,
tells the story of moses leadingisrael out of slavery from
egypt and in the flight to egypt.
In the new testament, where wehave, we can find that in
matthew 2, 13 through 15 recordsthe account of Mary Joseph and
the infant Jesus fleeing toEgypt to escape King Herod's
(01:50):
massacre of the infants.
So you can see how there are anumber of passages in the Bible
and I'm pretty sure I didn'ttouch on all of them that has
the setting of Egypt in it.
And in this episode I get totalk with Erica Brown.
She's an archaeology studentand we talk about Egypt and how
(02:18):
it relates to the Bible, and itwas a very interesting
conversation.
I can't wait to share it withyou.
But before we get started withour conversation, let me tell
you a little bit about Erica.
All right, erica is anarchaeologist, educator, content
creator, nerd mom, wife andbeliever.
(02:38):
She was a preacher's daughterin a small town.
She is an army veteran.
She loves archaeology,especially that of the Bible,
and her goal is to bring it toculture.
As an ongoing scholar, she ispursuing her PhD.
She teaches college-levelcourses, small groups, churches
(03:00):
and seminars seminars and shehas a production company called
JSYK Production.
She produces educational videoson YouTube called Just so you
Know, I'll put a link to that inthe description so you can go
and check those out.
All right, let's dive into ourconversation.
(03:21):
Hi, erica, welcome to the show.
Hi, I'm so glad to be here.
All right, so before we getstarted on our topic here, tell
us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like I said, my name is Erica.
I am a biblical archaeologist.
I have been studying andworking on biblical archaeology
for oh my gosh since 2016.
So I've been doing it for sometime now.
I've had a chance to study inIsrael and Egypt, so that's been
(04:02):
really cool to do.
I worked on a couple of sitesin Israel, worked on two sites.
One of the sites was Tel Gezer,connected to biblical Gezer,
and then the other site is TelBerna, which we believe is
biblical Libna.
And then I've also worked inEgypt at the Karnak Temple,
(04:23):
working on Merneptah's wall,which is really interesting.
So I'm currently working on myPhD in the Near East at Lipscomb
University.
So that's just a little bitabout myself.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, all righty.
Well, let's get into our topic.
We're going to be talking aboutEgypt, so let's look to know a
little bit about Egypt.
So tell us a little bit aboutEgyptian culture In general.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's a part of the ancient Near Eastern world so it
(05:15):
really fits into that.
The broad culture of theancient Near East, where things
are so connected to the weatherand the land and those types of
things dictate the movements andeven beliefs Egypt.
As a part of the FertileCrescent, it gets to do its own
thing because of the Nile River.
What's really key about Egyptis the Nile.
The Nile empowers Egypt.
It gives them the ability to beindependent.
They're not, they don't needother spaces like other
(05:36):
countries in other worlds.
In the ancient areas theyreally depend on each other, but
Egypt doesn't have to becauseof the Nile, and that dictates
so much of Egyptian culture.
The Nile would flood and wouldproduce so much root soil and
that's why they can plant thingsand then most Egyptians would
relate that to the movement oftheir gods.
(05:57):
So Egypt is really one of thekey things to Egyptian culture.
Is the Nile River really one ofthe key things to Egyptian
culture is the Nile River andthey put that as a part of the
order of things.
The gods would.
As long as the pharaohs and therulers maintain order, things
(06:18):
will work out in the land right.
If there's an expression thatEgyptians maintain ma'at,
m-a-a-t.
It's like a maintaining of theorders.
That was the pharaoh's job, asthe deity on earth was to
maintain the order, and so theywould have.
Whatever practices were set inplace to maintain order.
(06:38):
And the Nile, the movement ofthe Nile, if it's famine, if
it's flooding, if it's nothing,those things would communicate.
If the gods were pleased and ifMa'at was being maintained.
So, a lot like otherengineering cultures, yes, the
weather, the land dictate thebeliefs, but Egypt got to do its
(07:00):
own thing in that way becauseof the Nile its own thing in
this in that way because of theNile.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So you talked a little bit about the climate as
far as, like the Nile River,what, what else?
Was it like a rainy?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
is it dry or so each, when you read each Egyptian
text, um, they'll have the redland and the black land all
along the nile.
Because of the flooding andeverything, it would produce a
black soil, rich soil, right.
That's the black land and youcan almost see it.
(07:34):
Even if you go there today, youcan see the immediate break off
into the red land.
That's the desert area.
That's where the pyramids arepart of the desert most.
Most of the tombs and burialsites are in the desert Desert
part.
It's hot in the desert, butalong the fertile crescent I
mean along the Nile it's richand beautiful and green.
(07:56):
You can even see that on themap today if you look on a world
map satellite and you can seehow it's colorful along the Nile
, oh, but then right outsideit's desert, red land, black
land, like it's immediate.
I tried to video it when I wasin Egypt Because you can just
see it.
We were up on a high space.
You can see that immediate,abrupt, where the soil is not
(08:20):
doing things and it goes intodesert.
It's really kind of cool andunique to see that it's red land
and black land and that's whythey get the expression of the
black Egypt.
They're talking about the soil,the rich soil that comes from
the overflowing of the Nile andthat soil that spills over into
the land.
So that's the, that's theclimate.
They will have flooding seasonsand they will grow based on
(08:44):
those flooding seasons and thenjust wait for that continuous
cycle where the Nile floodsannually well, that kind of
takes care of the geography justa little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
As far as is, I guess there's more redlands and
blackland because it's so muchmore red.
Like, where does the now fallwithin the?
Like the geography of the now,like is it?
Is it to one side mostly, or isit it?
Does it cut through the middle?
It kind of cuts down throughthe middle, all the way down
(09:19):
egypt.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
it runs, uh, they have what's called the cataracts
, uh the different turns in theNile there.
Anyway, it runs kind of downthe center and then at the end,
at the northern part of Egypt,you'll see it break off into
different areas that break outinto the Mediterranean Sea.
So it runs down, but right atthe coast of the Mediterranean
(09:43):
there are numerous branches,river water branches that break
off from the Nile into theMediterranean.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
OK, that's interesting.
And then what about, like, thegovernment and governmental
structure?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
What was the politics like in Egypt Up until the
Romans?
Up until the Romans, becauseyou know how the Romans be.
Up until the.
Romans.
It was a dynasty system,pharaohs, and I talk about this
a little bit in one of my videoswhere, if you were the pharaoh,
they have Upper Egypt and LowerEgypt, right, upper Egypt and
(10:23):
lower Egypt, right they split.
The north part of Egypt iscalled lower and the south part
is called upper.
Because of the terrain it dipsdown.
The closer you get to theMediterranean Sea it dips down.
That's why it's lower.
But anyway, if you're thepharaoh of both parts then you
would wear the double crown, soyou're the pharaoh over all of
(10:44):
it.
But then there were theseperiods where a dynasty, the
last major dynasty, would dieoff and then everybody's trying
to fight for control.
So you'll have multiple rulersin Egypt.
But it's a pharaoh system,pharaonic, which was it's
similar to a king, a Westernconcept of a king, except the
pharaoh was the human, humanmanifestation of a deity,
(11:08):
typically the deity horse.
Um, he was.
Once he became pharaoh, he waslike the gods, birthed them, and
you'll see that a lot of thetombs and burial spaces where
there's imagery of that Pharaohbeing conceived by a deity and
birth into his deity-ness andthat's his role on earth, is the
(11:31):
human form of the deity, of thedeity, yours to maintain my art
.
So you fall in that system andone of the things we have to
realize is we are a culturewhere we get to see our leaders
first.
Probably most Egyptians whoserved the government or worked
for that government never evensaw the Pharaoh or knew they saw
(11:53):
him.
It's not a connectedness, it'sprobably one of those things.
As long as whatever's work isworking, it ain't no problem for
us.
Right, they would have markersand still is in different things
to announce themselves asPharaohs and taking over or when
they go through.
But for the most part that'swhat it was a pharaohs governing
egypt, but governing in thespace of the deity, maintaining
(12:16):
that order, and they would haveprophets that worked for the
king, that would help withcommunication between the
deities and the pharaohs.
So there are spaces of prophetsbut then, like most governments
, you have people that arerunning that.
You delegate differentactivities to that run different
parts of the of the kingdom orempire, if you will like that so
(12:41):
we kind of jumped into it alittle bit about the, the
religious views and beliefs ofthe egyptians.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So if they, if they, if they're saying like the
Pharaoh is a manifestation of aGod, do they have multiple gods?
Because they don't haveduplicate Pharaohs of the same
God, do they?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
No, they are polytheistic, like a lot of
cultures in ancient Near East,polytheistic like a lot of
cultures in ancient Near East,and each god represents
different parts of the way itcomes across.
Is there are different parts ofnature, or different parts of
the world, or different godscover different things, right?
So you would have the god ofwar, you would have the god of
(13:26):
fertility, you would have thegod of death.
You would have the god of death, you would have the god of the
sun.
Um, they would have differentgods for different aspects of
their life.
And you would.
They would have sacrificialsystems in place to sacrifice to
whatever that need or thingthat you need, you to that
(13:46):
particular god.
Um, the goddess hothor, um, shewas like um, military and
fertility, not it's, but youknow you would sacrifice.
She's the one she has asometimes she's often portrayed
as a uh ghoul.
Um, even then, they would havethese anthropomorphic, like
(14:09):
these animal, the deity.
So even God, horus, has afalcon shaped head.
That's his look.
You know his mama, isis, andhis dad, osiris.
So they would have thesedifferent looks.
Osiris is typically depicted asa black.
You'll see him as the colorblack, noting he's super fertile
.
Not to his fertility.
(14:31):
There's a there's quite a bitof them that they get from there
, that they established as theirdifferent deities that they
will worship for whatever needthey have.
That's like it's broken up, soyou didn't just serve the one
for one thing, you would have togo through a number of them.
Uh, the god best protectsmothers and babies.
(14:51):
Um, he's the real funky lookingone he's got.
He looks like a lion and amonster type figure, but we find
like amulets or differentthings that you would find with
women or babies, because he'sthe god that protects them.
Okay, so that's how it works.
You would go to whatever godfulfills, whatever need.
That's the one you would go to.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So did they have multiple temples for these gods?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh, my Lord, there are so many.
It would be temples in thetemples, like there are so many
temples.
I worked at Karnak, which isstarted.
It's a temple.
Karnak Temple it's a templecomplex.
There are so many temples atthe site of Karnak in Luxor,
egypt.
It's a temple complex.
(15:34):
So it started as originallystarted, as a temple to the god
Amun, and the pharaoh of thetime I forget his name built the
temple to honor Amun and todocument his victories and to
document his victories.
But then the pharaoh one of thepharaohs after him was like ooh
, I want to do that too, let meadd on to his temple and I'm
(15:55):
going to do my own little temple, another temple side room, to
honor Amun.
And that's how the Karnaktemple complex became so huge,
because all these pharaohs wouldcreate all these different
temples, they would attach moretemples to the temples, and most
of them, most of the temples inthe karnak are dedicated to the
(16:16):
god amun.
Um, but they there are othersthat are dedicated to different
gods and goddesses in thistemple complex, so you can.
So many different temples, um,it's one of those things that if
a temple wasn't by you, you canbuild another temple, right, if
you had the money, if you had atemple wasn't by you, you can
build another temple, right, ifyou had the money, if you had
the well-being, you had the, andso that you can honor that God,
(16:36):
especially if that God offerssomething that you would need.
So there are, oh my gosh,numerous temples upon temples
upon temples in Egypt, north andsouth, and then even as you get
closer to Nubia, um, you'll seea merging of egyptian gods and
nubian gods and building templesfor those gods, merging them
(16:57):
like that.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So it's, it's fascinating wow, that's a,
that's a lot to keep up with.
It is, um, that was like somany needs and so many gods.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, to keep in mind which God does which and making
sure you appease that God.
And even in some of theirtraditions, a lot like what we
see in Greek mythology.
If those gods were beefing,like Seth was one of the deities
he was always causing.
(17:32):
He's an Egyptian deity, but hewas always beefing with all the
other Egyptian gods like this.
He's one of those theyassociate with evil, but you
know it's it's different thing.
But there is a temple for Seth,but there's a temple dedicated
to him.
So it's like even managing that, the relationships between the
deities and that connection,like I can't girl, I cannot
imagine, like oh, it soundsexhausting.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, it does.
I'm so grateful, girl.
Their part, yeah, all right.
So now that we know a littlebit about the Egyptians, we see
we, we have, you know, a numberof narratives in the Bible that
are set in Egypt in the Biblethat are set in Egypt, and
there's a lot of them, but wejust wanted to kind of touch on
(18:14):
some of the common ones, likemaybe Joseph's story, the
Israelites in Egypt and thenMoses in Exodus.
So let's start off withJoseph's story, like the culture
, historical background withinthe story of Joseph when he was
in yes, so more, not most.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Joseph uh typically is dated to around the the end
of the middle kingdom period ofof of egypt or the end of the
second intermediate period.
That's usually where they theyhover with Joseph.
There's a lot of debate thatgoes back and forth because at
the end of the secondintermediate period one of the
(18:57):
reasons it's a big deal isbecause at the end of the second
intermediate we have the rulingof the Hyksos.
They're Hyksos rulers and theycome from the same cultural
background as Joseph.
They are Semitic people,they're Semitic Egyptian rulers
and so there's argument as towhether Joseph served under that
(19:19):
rulership or did Joseph workright before that rulership?
You know there's discussion andthere's no no one knows what
certainty, but um, there issignificance with we having
semitic egyptian rulers.
We even have, like egyptiandocuments that talk about high
(19:41):
ranking um semitic peopleserving in high spaces in egypt.
Um, one of them is on displayin the Brooklyn Museum.
It lists, matter of fact, ithas a number of Semitic names of
a high ranking Egyptianhousehold and it also lists that
the different positions anddemonstrates that Semitic people
(20:04):
like Joseph or whoever thepeople that come from that
background, and when we saySemitic we're talking about
people that come from the regionof Canaan, notaan specifically,
but that region of canaan umit's usually called the levant,
but canaan, syria, almost overto mesopotamia.
That area is usually what weassociate with in terms of
(20:26):
ancient culture, submittedSemitic people.
So Amorites were Semitic,hittites were no, hittites were
not.
I'm sorry they're not, but thatarea is where we submit.
Anyway, so, having peopledocumented in Egyptian documents
by the way, these are Egyptianwritings talking about Semitic
(20:49):
people being in these spaces ofaffluence like we see with
Joseph so that's awesome becauseit shows you that, okay, this
is consistent.
And most of these date, a lotof these ones that list these
things date to that same timeperiod that they associate with
Joseph or the Semitic rulers.
So it's awesome to havesomething like that to
demonstrate that the Bible's notmaking up a semitic person,
(21:13):
because a lot of times peopleare like, oh, we can't, how
would you know that somebody ofthat background would get up so
high in position in egypt?
Well, we have egyptiandocuments saying this, talking
about these same sorts of thingsof people moving up in the
ranks this way.
One of the cool things about theJoseph one and I had a little
note when he was sold intoslavery.
(21:36):
They actually have things thattalk about the profit of slaves
during that time.
There are Egyptian documentsthat highlight that Because you
know his brother sold him and,by the way, they sold him to a
caravan of people coming in andout of egypt doing trade and
(21:56):
there's documentation for thatpeople coming in and out of
egypt for trade purposes, likelike what we see in joseph um,
but with joseph's being sold Hisprice.
So he was sold for 20 shekels.
He was over 20 shekels.
We have documentation thatduring that time period that is,
(22:23):
the it's consistent with theprice of slaves during that time
period.
For for the same time period.
Later on, slaves are sold for50 to 60 shekels, so even his
selling price is consistent withthe time period.
Um, which is, which isimportant for a number of
reasons.
One, to write that down, todocument that, you would have to
(22:45):
be a person right, familiarwith these numbers like, oh, one
of the accusations is that thiswas made up or written later to
give a history.
Well, details like that talkabout the price of a slave, the
cost to be sold and things likethat.
Like a small thing like that,and to be accurate and
(23:06):
consistent with one time period,we don't show pricing for
slaves in other time periodsafter this, for 20 shekels.
So that number is consistentwith that time period.
It matches that time period.
So that number is consistentwith that time period.
It matches that time period.
So it's small things like that.
I think it's fascinating tohighlight the historicity of the
text.
Ok, it fits within thatnarrative.
So not only do we havedocuments of Semitic workers,
(23:36):
but we have pricing of slaves,the trading and buying of
Egyptian slaves at that time,matching in the Joseph narrative
.
So it's little things like that.
I do have to tell people there'sno, there's no archaeological
proof for the story of Joseph,right, and that's OK, because
archaeology doesn't work thatway.
You don't have archaeologythat's set out to prove everyday
individuals, or it doesn't workthat way anyway.
(23:57):
Archaeology is not meant toprove things.
It's about documenting andcollecting information.
But it's often when we candocument things and collect data
, where we know about the costof slaves, and we can use that
and compare that and like, see,this supports what we have, this
(24:18):
supports what we have in thetext.
Um, right, um, so with joseph'snarrative, that's one of the
important things.
Um, we do have documentation ofa lot of famine, different
seasons of famine and, again, asdictated by the nile, um, and
even joseph's management ofstoring food comes from someone,
someone writing down that'sfamiliar with the seasons and
(24:42):
the agricultural processes ofegypt because, like I said, it's
a unique.
It's a unique situation now andthe growing and in the now is
is unique to Egypt because ofthe Nile River.
Like, that's amazing to seethat.
So that's one of the things wesee with the Joseph, with the
Joseph narrative in particular.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
And then what about the Israelites in Egypt?
The Israelites again, theslaves in Egypt, like during
that time.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, so we have documents of Semitic workers
working for the Egyptiangovernment.
We have documentation ofSemitic people being taken
captive and becoming workers forthe Egyptian government, like
these are depicted on walls inEgyptian texts.
So it's not without the realmof it's not something that's
(25:33):
inconsistent with what we see.
Matter of fact, most of thetime, those type of people,
semitic people, they have theirown distinct depictions they're
often depicted with, when it'scolor.
They'll have an auburn orreddish hair, they have a beard
and they also always, typicallyhave these headbands.
That's distinctly for that typeof people group.
(25:55):
The egyptians would depictdifferent people groups
different ways, but with semiticpeople asiatic people is what
they call them they would havethat, you would see them, and
they would have the multi-colorum robes and cloths, which is
again when we talk about josephand his um multicolored robe.
Yeah, it's consistent with thatculture, that particular
(26:19):
culture, people from that area,uh, but anyway, sorry, uh, with
the israelites.
Again, there is noarchaeological proof that says
israelites were here.
Um, but we do find Semiticcities, semitic villages,
specifically because we knowfrom the pottery and the type of
(26:41):
things that we find there thatthese belong to this specific
people group that live and workfor the Egyptian kingdom, but
they lived in the space in Egypt, so we do have that Egypt, so
we do have that.
(27:03):
There's this connection to withand with the Israelites.
That narrative typically fallswith what we call the new
kingdom period of Egypt.
There's debate about the dates.
There's two major argumentsthere's a low date and a high
date, but both within the realmof the one at the end of the
second intermediate period andone is right, in the New Kingdom
, but it's still relatively inthat same time period.
(27:24):
But there is the cities.
A number of the cities listedin the text are been documented.
Egyptian Egyptologists havebeen able to identify a number
of the cities mentioned in theisraelite accounts, um and uh,
but there's no mention of themspecifically, except except um,
(27:47):
the merneptah stella, but that'ssometime after the exodus,
right, um, but they.
Merneptah is the only egyptianthat references the Israel,
israel in particular, but beforeManepta we don't have any
reference to them.
But we do have depictions andeach Egyptian text references to
Semitic people like, like theIsraelites, the Israelites would
(28:09):
be considered a Semitic peopleEven when we look at the Exodus.
There's a number of debate, alot of scholars I've read.
They don't take the Red Sea asthe literal Red Sea as we would.
It's more so like Reed, but itmay have been more descriptive
(28:30):
than name as well, because inancient times the Reed-ed marshy
area would have connected thered sea, the gulf of zoos and up
all the way up to themediterranean sea, so it would
have been more water there.
But what, what?
There's different water levels.
There's people who are studyingthose different water levels.
(28:51):
But one of the interestingthings about the exodus account
is there is a I believe it'scalled an oceanographer I
butcher the name people whostudy the uh, water, water
contents water yeah, I thinkthat's right um, hydrologist
there, it is sorry, hydrologist.
(29:13):
Um, there's a hydrologist whodid a study on the, so you know
where israel ends and rightwhere the sinai.
It's a plate, a tectonic,tectonic plate, right, okay, he
did a study on the water underthese plates and, uh, long story
short, the sulfur, the sulfurreadings for that water that
(29:36):
builds up under these plates andpushes to the surface.
The sulfur is so high that itcreates a bitter taste in the
water.
And again, when we read the uhexodus accounts, they complain
about the water being bitterwhen they're crossing over.
They're like all this water'sgross.
Right again, to know that youwould have to be in that space,
(29:57):
like that's not right.
Yeah, you know, I'm saying so.
It's different information likethat I think's helped to.
We may not have directarchaeological evidence for the
exodus, but small details likethe bitter water.
Um, one of the things isthere's two major quail patterns
.
There's a researcher who lookedat quail patterns.
(30:19):
So you remember in the Exodusaccount they were eating quails.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
There is a In the wilderness, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
There's a major quail migration pattern.
There's a researcher thatdocuments it and there's that
pattern will take the quailthrough the Sinai at one part of
the cycle yeah, oh, wow, right.
And then it takes them adifferent spot throughout their
(30:47):
cycle, their migration cycleAgain, it's such a small thing,
you would have to have been inthat space.
It's such a small thing, youwould have to have been in that
space.
You have had to haveexperienced that to know that
there is a quill cycle, amigration cycle that comes
through there.
So I said, all I say is, yeah,there's not direct.
But man, these small littledetails, these towns being
(31:10):
identified, semitic workers,documentations of Semitic
peoples working in Egypt.
There's a tomb scene of brickmaking in one of the high
ranking government officials inhis tomb and this scene depicts
almost verbatim what isdescribed in the book of Exodus
(31:31):
of what the Israelites weredoing to make these bricks for
the buildings.
And we know a lot of, a lot ofin ancient Near Eastern period
and a lot of structures in Egyptare built with mud brick, which
is what the Israelites weredoing, were making.
And, yeah, this relief showsthe process.
It shows an Egyptian workercounting, counting, documenting
(31:54):
the process, how many bricksthey're making.
So it's just this very awesomedetail, small detail, things
that, right, yeah, found, um,egypt egyptologists and egypt
egyptian archaeologists havefound that supports or
demonstrates that whoever wrote,whoever wrote the Bible had to
be pretty familiar, right, right, and so I've always think
(32:19):
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, especially Well cause you, you know they.
They say they think Moses wrotelike Genesis, exodus.
So with those things, thosesmall details he would have to,
since he lived in Egypt, part ofhis, you know, he grew up.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
details he would have to since he lived in Egypt part
of his, you know he grew upthere, he would have to know,
like those specific details.
Yeah, moses is even an Egyptianname.
You know when they did a studyon the words of different.
You know how we have we'll haveloan words in English.
So pizza is not an english word, but it's the word we use as
(32:58):
english speakers, right, but weknow that it's not.
Um, it's italian.
Don't quote me on that, I'm notfamiliar, but I think it's
italian anyway.
That's called a loan word.
They looked at all the egyptianloan words in the bible and the
vast majority of them are foundin Exodus, right, versus Aramaic
(33:20):
, which is the language of thePersians.
The vast majority of the loanwords are found in the later
books Esther, nehemiah, ezra,right.
So even that type of thingwhere someone had to be familiar
enough to use all of theseEgyptian words to have these
different expressions Right, youwould have to be familiar with
(33:44):
that, yeah, so it's fascinatingto see that in the common name
of Moses being, there's eventhings of Semitic people being
taken in and taught to learn howto write in an Egyptian way and
learn Egyptian things.
So that's not even a stretch.
(34:05):
So it's consistent with whatwe've seen in the archaeological
record that these were commonthings.
So everything that we seeaccounted for in the book of
Exodus and in Genesis withJoseph, it's not something
that's not far fetched, that'snot something that we don't see
in the archaeological record.
So it's just really comfortingand it's just helpful and even
it helps us understand thosecontexts, why they're making
(34:27):
moves, because this is a part ofthis culture, this is what we
do.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
So it's just fascinating.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, definitely.
So, wow, wow, I did not knowthat that's interesting, yeah
yeah, um, there's a researcher.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
He looked at um the re in the in that same region,
egypt, sinai region um, the waythe water can be stored in the
rocks, and there are shepherdswho know, if you tap the rock,
certain rocks a certain way, oryou know which one, you know
you're going to get water out ofthem.
Okay, what's interesting isbecause we've always read the uh
(35:05):
narrative where moses taps therock and he taps it, and then in
the story we have to look atthe details.
Yahweh told him the miraclewasn't the water coming out, him
tapping the rock.
The last time, moses wassupposed to speak to the rock,
but he didn't do that.
What did he do?
He tapped.
He did the regular way.
(35:26):
So he got in trouble because hetapped it when God told him to
speak to it.
There's no thing for it to tapthe rock.
I know how to turn a faucet on,but, baby, what happens when I
speak to the faucet and thewater comes out?
Right, it's that of god wassupposed to be glorified in this
moment, but you didn't do that.
You was getting caught up inyour feelings and you didn't do
what you're supposed to do.
So it's even in small stufflike that.
(35:48):
It's okay, I see how the textis moving.
It was about moses failing toas a leader, as what god has
told you to do, you were failedto do.
It showed up in the space.
I wanted to show these peoplethat, but you didn't call it in
your field.
So everybody can everybody knowabout the tap of the rock.
That's not special.
What would have been special isyou speak into that rock and
water coming out huh right, Idid not know that that is an.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
That's an interesting .
Yeah, there there are peoplewho do hydrologists.
I mean, I didn't even know itwas a thing I did not know that
that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
There are people who do hydrologists I mean, I didn't
even know it was a thing butpeople who study in these types
of things.
And you would have to.
It makes sense because thereare Bedouin people who live out
in these desert areas.
And you're like, even if you goto Israel, in the wilderness
(36:37):
area of the desert desert areaof Israel, there are people who
live out there.
They can live out there.
It's because they know aboutthe different oases, the
different water sources in thatarea, that area, so they know
where to draw from right.
It'll be no different in theSinai region or whatever desert
region.
You would to live out there.
You would have to know thosethings.
Yeah, and again, that shows thewriter.
That writer would have to befamiliar with this process of
(36:59):
drawing water from rocks rightin the area and where to go.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, wow, this has been a very insightful
conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, yeah, I tell people we get so caught up in
they found a wagon wheel in thered sea which is not.
That's not real, it's not true.
We gotta let that one go.
Um, like it kind of, we'retrying to see these things, but
I think all of these smaller Ithink they're super dope.
These smaller things offer somuch more to me.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, like the details, the details of, like
the selling of the slave for 20,you said, 20 shekels are
knowing the environment like theshepherds.
Tapping on the rock issomething that is pretty like
built in and then to just let itflow.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So, yeah, yeah, Because with the 20 shekels,
think about it.
If this is coming from a personwho's writing hundreds of years
later, um, they would have putthe price.
If they're making it up, by theway, too, right, you would have
put the price the current, thatprice at at that time.
They like to say that thoseaccounts were written at least
(38:18):
during the exile or after theexile, and that's when the cost
of a slave to each of them is at50 to 60 shekels.
Well, if you're writingsomething and you're making
something up, you would put thatnumber.
You don't have the number of aslave past that period.
Those numbers wouldn't match.
You see, I'm saying like it'slike okay, someone knows
(38:40):
something, someone is gettingsome account that has
experienced this space in someway.
You have to acknowledge that,that's so I I always offer that.
What do I do with thatinformation?
That's, you want to say it'smade up, but where are they
getting this accurate data?
Where to get this information?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
there has to be some type of either documented or
verbal tradition that knowsthese things you know, yeah well
, could you tell us, like you,you've told us so many other
good fun facts about Egypt, butis there a fun fact about Egypt
that you'd like to share with us?
That, since you've beenstudying egypt?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
oh, let me see a fun fact about egypt.
I, I don't know, there's somany of them let me see here.
Or something that I've alreadyshared.
Let me say, um, I just thinkthe the visually, visually, to
see egypt, to see it in person,really adds so much to our
(39:42):
understanding.
Like I said with the black land, red land thing, to me those
types of things are fascinatingbecause, wow, you can see what
they're talking about and you'relike, okay, I kind of get what
you visually see it like.
Um, no, I'll give my favorite.
One of my favorite pharaohs isthe female pharaoh, hathor, I
mean Hatshepsut, and so it wasreally cool to see her temple.
(40:03):
He even made a temple, hertemple that she constructed and
how she depicted herself, howdetermined she was to be
respected.
But then whoever was rightbehind her didn't like what she
did, so they destroyed a lot ofher work, you know, so it's,
that's always interesting, um,but it shows you that there's
(40:25):
significant female leadership.
Okay, um, female rulers.
And she was probably moredominant than Nefertiti, but we
always hear about Nefertiti, youknow, right, yeah, that was
interesting.
When I learned about her, I waslike, why is everybody talking
about Nefertiti?
Hatshepsut did way more thanNefertiti.
So I think what surprised me iswhat's highlighted versus what,
(40:48):
what's talked about versuswhat's not, and that's always
been most surprising.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, Well, let's wrap up here.
Our last question is whatencouragement could you offer,
you know, believers that want tolive faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
My encouragement would be we may start to always
ask God to increase your faith.
I know things happen.
We see things in our life, weread things.
There are so many people thatare against your faith.
I know things happen.
We see things in our life, weread things.
There are so many people thatare against your faith.
But I would always ask God torestore your faith.
Maintain your faith, build yourfaith, because it does so much
(41:27):
more for when you're doing lifeand life is life and you can
stand on your faith.
You can stand on what youbelieve and as God sends you
more and more, he will affirmyour faith.
He will on your faith.
You can stand on what youbelieve and as God sends you
more and more, he will affirmyour faith.
He will build your faith.
So that's usually always mybiggest encouragement because
that's what he did for me.
I remember this journey Istarted.
It has built my faith andstrengthened my faith in so many
(41:49):
ways that when things are bador hard or whatever, I can stand
on that faith.
So that's usually always myencouragement.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
All right.
Well, thank you again for beingon the show.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
No, thank you for having me.
I love to.
I've said it before.
You know I love nerding out, sothat's always awesome, all
right.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Well, take care.
Wasn't that a fascinatingconversation about Egypt and how
, knowing just the details ofthe things that they find in
Egypt, the stories of theEgyptians as they documented
what happened, and then howarchaeologists can go and dig up
(42:32):
and see what a culture was likeduring that time?
I especially found the, I guess, the science or I don't even
know if you would call itscience, but just the fact that
the shepherds could tap on therock and then they could get
water out of it.
(42:53):
So it makes that story of Mosesand Israel in the wilderness
just come alive.
As far as you know you, you cansee how God works.
He doesn't work in the ordinarymundane.
Well, he does, but he, he workssupernaturally.
So the things that wouldnaturally occur you know God,
(43:15):
because he is the creator ofeverything he circumvent, he can
circumvent the naturaloccurring processes.
Say, for instance, you know,when Moses and the Israelites
and Joshua were fighting I can'tremember what nation that they
were fighting, or it might havebeen Joseph, either way God
(43:39):
allowed the sun not to go down.
You know, of course, you knowthat's something supernatural
that happened are like we weretalking about in our episode how
the separets could tap on therock and then the water would
flow.
But God wanted to do somethingsupernatural.
(44:00):
He wanted Moses to talk to therock and then the water would
flow.
So it just goes back to seeingthe character and nature of God
and how God has given us theBible as not only a narrative
(44:20):
but also a guide and to show upand to show us who he is, even
though it may not give us allthe answers that we want.
But God gives us enough to showus who he is and that he is all
powerful, he's all knowing,he's sovereign and that he is
(44:42):
fully able to take care of us.
And that's always exciting.
So I hope this episode aboutEgypt was fascinating for you as
it was for me.
If you want to leave a reviewon Apple or Spotify and remember
God is always good and isalways faithful.
(45:02):
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we
learn how to live for Christ inour daily lives.
I am Dwan, your host, and Iwould like to invite you on a
journey with me to explore andlearn how to be a faithful
follower of Christ.
Everyone, welcome to FaithfullyLiving, the Podcast, where we
(00:26):
strive to encourage you to livefor Christ faithfully.
We're offering guidance on howto study the Bible, how to
understand the Bible better andhow to remain faithful to
historic Christianity in acontemporary society.
So you know, understanding thehistory and cultures behind a
country and a nation, you know,can make it come alive.
(00:47):
And Egypt has a prominent rolein the narrative of the Bible.
You know.
We know about the narrativesabout Abraham and Sarah in Egypt
in Genesis 12, 10 through 20.
Genesis 12, 10 through 20.
And then we have the story ofJoseph.
It is a major biblicalnarrative that spans from
(01:08):
Genesis 37 to 50.
We have the Egyptian, theIsraelites, excuse me, in Egypt
and this story details thelatter part of Genesis through
Exodus, part of genesis throughexodus.
(01:28):
And then the book of exodus,mainly chapters 1 through 15,
tells the story of moses leadingisrael out of slavery from
egypt and in the flight to egypt.
In the new testament, where wehave, we can find that in
matthew 2, 13 through 15 recordsthe account of Mary Joseph and
the infant Jesus fleeing toEgypt to escape King Herod's
(01:50):
massacre of the infants.
So you can see how there are anumber of passages in the Bible
and I'm pretty sure I didn'ttouch on all of them that has
the setting of Egypt in it.
And in this episode I get totalk with Erica Brown.
She's an archaeology studentand we talk about Egypt and how
(02:18):
it relates to the Bible, and itwas a very interesting
conversation.
I can't wait to share it withyou.
But before we get started withour conversation, let me tell
you a little bit about Erica.
All right, erica is anarchaeologist, educator, content
creator, nerd mom, wife andbeliever.
(02:38):
She was a preacher's daughterin a small town.
She is an army veteran.
She loves archaeology,especially that of the Bible,
and her goal is to bring it toculture.
As an ongoing scholar, she ispursuing her PhD.
She teaches college-levelcourses, small groups, churches
(03:00):
and seminars seminars and shehas a production company called
JSYK Production.
She produces educational videoson YouTube called Just so you
Know, I'll put a link to that inthe description so you can go
and check those out.
All right, let's dive into ourconversation.
(03:21):
Hi, erica, welcome to the show.
Hi, I'm so glad to be here.
All right, so before we getstarted on our topic here, tell
us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Like I said, my name is Erica.
I am a biblical archaeologist.
I have been studying andworking on biblical archaeology
for oh my gosh since 2016.
So I've been doing it for sometime now.
I've had a chance to study inIsrael and Egypt, so that's been
(04:02):
really cool to do.
I worked on a couple of sitesin Israel, worked on two sites.
One of the sites was Tel Gezer,connected to biblical Gezer,
and then the other site is TelBerna, which we believe is
biblical Libna.
And then I've also worked inEgypt at the Karnak Temple,
(04:23):
working on Merneptah's wall,which is really interesting.
So I'm currently working on myPhD in the Near East at Lipscomb
University.
So that's just a little bitabout myself.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, all righty.
Well, let's get into our topic.
We're going to be talking aboutEgypt, so let's look to know a
little bit about Egypt.
So tell us a little bit aboutEgyptian culture In general.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
It's a part of the ancient Near Eastern world so it
(05:15):
really fits into that.
The broad culture of theancient Near East, where things
are so connected to the weatherand the land and those types of
things dictate the movements andeven beliefs Egypt.
As a part of the FertileCrescent, it gets to do its own
thing because of the Nile River.
What's really key about Egyptis the Nile.
The Nile empowers Egypt.
It gives them the ability to beindependent.
They're not, they don't needother spaces like other
(05:36):
countries in other worlds.
In the ancient areas theyreally depend on each other, but
Egypt doesn't have to becauseof the Nile, and that dictates
so much of Egyptian culture.
The Nile would flood and wouldproduce so much root soil and
that's why they can plant thingsand then most Egyptians would
relate that to the movement oftheir gods.
(05:57):
So Egypt is really one of thekey things to Egyptian culture.
Is the Nile River really one ofthe key things to Egyptian
culture is the Nile River andthey put that as a part of the
order of things.
The gods would.
As long as the pharaohs and therulers maintain order, things
(06:18):
will work out in the land right.
If there's an expression thatEgyptians maintain ma'at,
m-a-a-t.
It's like a maintaining of theorders.
That was the pharaoh's job, asthe deity on earth was to
maintain the order, and so theywould have.
Whatever practices were set inplace to maintain order.
(06:38):
And the Nile, the movement ofthe Nile, if it's famine, if
it's flooding, if it's nothing,those things would communicate.
If the gods were pleased and ifMa'at was being maintained.
So, a lot like otherengineering cultures, yes, the
weather, the land dictate thebeliefs, but Egypt got to do its
(07:00):
own thing in that way becauseof the Nile its own thing in
this in that way because of theNile.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So you talked a little bit about the climate as
far as, like the Nile River,what, what else?
Was it like a rainy?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
is it dry or so each, when you read each Egyptian
text, um, they'll have the redland and the black land all
along the nile.
Because of the flooding andeverything, it would produce a
black soil, rich soil, right.
That's the black land and youcan almost see it.
(07:34):
Even if you go there today, youcan see the immediate break off
into the red land.
That's the desert area.
That's where the pyramids arepart of the desert most.
Most of the tombs and burialsites are in the desert Desert
part.
It's hot in the desert, butalong the fertile crescent I
mean along the Nile it's richand beautiful and green.
(07:56):
You can even see that on themap today if you look on a world
map satellite and you can seehow it's colorful along the Nile
, oh, but then right outsideit's desert, red land, black
land, like it's immediate.
I tried to video it when I wasin Egypt Because you can just
see it.
We were up on a high space.
You can see that immediate,abrupt, where the soil is not
(08:20):
doing things and it goes intodesert.
It's really kind of cool andunique to see that it's red land
and black land and that's whythey get the expression of the
black Egypt.
They're talking about the soil,the rich soil that comes from
the overflowing of the Nile andthat soil that spills over into
the land.
So that's the, that's theclimate.
They will have flooding seasonsand they will grow based on
(08:44):
those flooding seasons and thenjust wait for that continuous
cycle where the Nile floodsannually well, that kind of
takes care of the geography justa little bit.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
As far as is, I guess there's more redlands and
blackland because it's so muchmore red.
Like, where does the now fallwithin the?
Like the geography of the now,like is it?
Is it to one side mostly, or isit it?
Does it cut through the middle?
It kind of cuts down throughthe middle, all the way down
(09:19):
egypt.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
it runs, uh, they have what's called the cataracts
, uh the different turns in theNile there.
Anyway, it runs kind of downthe center and then at the end,
at the northern part of Egypt,you'll see it break off into
different areas that break outinto the Mediterranean Sea.
So it runs down, but right atthe coast of the Mediterranean
(09:43):
there are numerous branches,river water branches that break
off from the Nile into theMediterranean.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
OK, that's interesting.
And then what about, like, thegovernment and governmental
structure?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
What was the politics like in Egypt Up until the
Romans?
Up until the Romans, becauseyou know how the Romans be.
Up until the.
Romans.
It was a dynasty system,pharaohs, and I talk about this
a little bit in one of my videoswhere, if you were the pharaoh,
they have Upper Egypt and LowerEgypt, right, upper Egypt and
(10:23):
lower Egypt, right they split.
The north part of Egypt iscalled lower and the south part
is called upper.
Because of the terrain it dipsdown.
The closer you get to theMediterranean Sea it dips down.
That's why it's lower.
But anyway, if you're thepharaoh of both parts then you
would wear the double crown, soyou're the pharaoh over all of
(10:44):
it.
But then there were theseperiods where a dynasty, the
last major dynasty, would dieoff and then everybody's trying
to fight for control.
So you'll have multiple rulersin Egypt.
But it's a pharaoh system,pharaonic, which was it's
similar to a king, a Westernconcept of a king, except the
pharaoh was the human, humanmanifestation of a deity,
(11:08):
typically the deity horse.
Um, he was.
Once he became pharaoh, he waslike the gods, birthed them, and
you'll see that a lot of thetombs and burial spaces where
there's imagery of that Pharaohbeing conceived by a deity and
birth into his deity-ness andthat's his role on earth, is the
(11:31):
human form of the deity, of thedeity, yours to maintain my art
.
So you fall in that system andone of the things we have to
realize is we are a culturewhere we get to see our leaders
first.
Probably most Egyptians whoserved the government or worked
for that government never evensaw the Pharaoh or knew they saw
(11:53):
him.
It's not a connectedness, it'sprobably one of those things.
As long as whatever's work isworking, it ain't no problem for
us.
Right, they would have markersand still is in different things
to announce themselves asPharaohs and taking over or when
they go through.
But for the most part that'swhat it was a pharaohs governing
egypt, but governing in thespace of the deity, maintaining
(12:16):
that order, and they would haveprophets that worked for the
king, that would help withcommunication between the
deities and the pharaohs.
So there are spaces of prophetsbut then, like most governments
, you have people that arerunning that.
You delegate differentactivities to that run different
parts of the of the kingdom orempire, if you will like that so
(12:41):
we kind of jumped into it alittle bit about the, the
religious views and beliefs ofthe egyptians.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So if they, if they, if they're saying like the
Pharaoh is a manifestation of aGod, do they have multiple gods?
Because they don't haveduplicate Pharaohs of the same
God, do they?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
No, they are polytheistic, like a lot of
cultures in ancient Near East,polytheistic like a lot of
cultures in ancient Near East,and each god represents
different parts of the way itcomes across.
Is there are different parts ofnature, or different parts of
the world, or different godscover different things, right?
So you would have the god ofwar, you would have the god of
(13:26):
fertility, you would have thegod of death.
You would have the god of death, you would have the god of the
sun.
Um, they would have differentgods for different aspects of
their life.
And you would.
They would have sacrificialsystems in place to sacrifice to
whatever that need or thingthat you need, you to that
(13:46):
particular god.
Um, the goddess hothor, um, shewas like um, military and
fertility, not it's, but youknow you would sacrifice.
She's the one she has asometimes she's often portrayed
as a uh ghoul.
Um, even then, they would havethese anthropomorphic, like
(14:09):
these animal, the deity.
So even God, horus, has afalcon shaped head.
That's his look.
You know his mama, isis, andhis dad, osiris.
So they would have thesedifferent looks.
Osiris is typically depicted asa black.
You'll see him as the colorblack, noting he's super fertile
.
Not to his fertility.
(14:31):
There's a there's quite a bitof them that they get from there
, that they established as theirdifferent deities that they
will worship for whatever needthey have.
That's like it's broken up, soyou didn't just serve the one
for one thing, you would have togo through a number of them.
Uh, the god best protectsmothers and babies.
(14:51):
Um, he's the real funky lookingone he's got.
He looks like a lion and amonster type figure, but we find
like amulets or differentthings that you would find with
women or babies, because he'sthe god that protects them.
Okay, so that's how it works.
You would go to whatever godfulfills, whatever need.
That's the one you would go to.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So did they have multiple temples for these gods?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh, my Lord, there are so many.
It would be temples in thetemples, like there are so many
temples.
I worked at Karnak, which isstarted.
It's a temple.
Karnak Temple it's a templecomplex.
There are so many temples atthe site of Karnak in Luxor,
egypt.
It's a temple complex.
(15:34):
So it started as originallystarted, as a temple to the god
Amun, and the pharaoh of thetime I forget his name built the
temple to honor Amun and todocument his victories and to
document his victories.
But then the pharaoh one of thepharaohs after him was like ooh
, I want to do that too, let meadd on to his temple and I'm
(15:55):
going to do my own little temple, another temple side room, to
honor Amun.
And that's how the Karnaktemple complex became so huge,
because all these pharaohs wouldcreate all these different
temples, they would attach moretemples to the temples, and most
of them, most of the temples inthe karnak are dedicated to the
(16:16):
god amun.
Um, but they there are othersthat are dedicated to different
gods and goddesses in thistemple complex, so you can.
So many different temples, um,it's one of those things that if
a temple wasn't by you, you canbuild another temple, right, if
you had the money, if you had atemple wasn't by you, you can
build another temple, right, ifyou had the money, if you had
the well-being, you had the, andso that you can honor that God,
(16:36):
especially if that God offerssomething that you would need.
So there are, oh my gosh,numerous temples upon temples
upon temples in Egypt, north andsouth, and then even as you get
closer to Nubia, um, you'll seea merging of egyptian gods and
nubian gods and building templesfor those gods, merging them
(16:57):
like that.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
So it's, it's fascinating wow, that's a,
that's a lot to keep up with.
It is, um, that was like somany needs and so many gods.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Yeah, to keep in mind which God does which and making
sure you appease that God.
And even in some of theirtraditions, a lot like what we
see in Greek mythology.
If those gods were beefing,like Seth was one of the deities
he was always causing.
(17:32):
He's an Egyptian deity, but hewas always beefing with all the
other Egyptian gods like this.
He's one of those theyassociate with evil, but you
know it's it's different thing.
But there is a temple for Seth,but there's a temple dedicated
to him.
So it's like even managing that, the relationships between the
deities and that connection,like I can't girl, I cannot
imagine, like oh, it soundsexhausting.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, it does.
I'm so grateful, girl.
Their part, yeah, all right.
So now that we know a littlebit about the Egyptians, we see
we, we have, you know, a numberof narratives in the Bible that
are set in Egypt in the Biblethat are set in Egypt, and
there's a lot of them, but wejust wanted to kind of touch on
(18:14):
some of the common ones, likemaybe Joseph's story, the
Israelites in Egypt and thenMoses in Exodus.
So let's start off withJoseph's story, like the culture
, historical background withinthe story of Joseph when he was
in yes, so more, not most.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Joseph uh typically is dated to around the the end
of the middle kingdom period ofof of egypt or the end of the
second intermediate period.
That's usually where they theyhover with Joseph.
There's a lot of debate thatgoes back and forth because at
the end of the secondintermediate period one of the
(18:57):
reasons it's a big deal isbecause at the end of the second
intermediate we have the rulingof the Hyksos.
They're Hyksos rulers and theycome from the same cultural
background as Joseph.
They are Semitic people,they're Semitic Egyptian rulers
and so there's argument as towhether Joseph served under that
(19:19):
rulership or did Joseph workright before that rulership?
You know there's discussion andthere's no no one knows what
certainty, but um, there issignificance with we having
semitic egyptian rulers.
We even have, like egyptiandocuments that talk about high
(19:41):
ranking um semitic peopleserving in high spaces in egypt.
Um, one of them is on displayin the Brooklyn Museum.
It lists, matter of fact, ithas a number of Semitic names of
a high ranking Egyptianhousehold and it also lists that
the different positions anddemonstrates that Semitic people
(20:04):
like Joseph or whoever thepeople that come from that
background, and when we saySemitic we're talking about
people that come from the regionof Canaan, notaan specifically,
but that region of canaan umit's usually called the levant,
but canaan, syria, almost overto mesopotamia.
That area is usually what weassociate with in terms of
(20:26):
ancient culture, submittedSemitic people.
So Amorites were Semitic,hittites were no, hittites were
not.
I'm sorry they're not, but thatarea is where we submit.
Anyway, so, having peopledocumented in Egyptian documents
by the way, these are Egyptianwritings talking about Semitic
(20:49):
people being in these spaces ofaffluence like we see with
Joseph so that's awesome becauseit shows you that, okay, this
is consistent.
And most of these date, a lotof these ones that list these
things date to that same timeperiod that they associate with
Joseph or the Semitic rulers.
So it's awesome to havesomething like that to
demonstrate that the Bible's notmaking up a semitic person,
(21:13):
because a lot of times peopleare like, oh, we can't, how
would you know that somebody ofthat background would get up so
high in position in egypt?
Well, we have egyptiandocuments saying this, talking
about these same sorts of thingsof people moving up in the
ranks this way.
One of the cool things about theJoseph one and I had a little
note when he was sold intoslavery.
(21:36):
They actually have things thattalk about the profit of slaves
during that time.
There are Egyptian documentsthat highlight that Because you
know his brother sold him and,by the way, they sold him to a
caravan of people coming in andout of egypt doing trade and
(21:56):
there's documentation for thatpeople coming in and out of
egypt for trade purposes, likelike what we see in joseph um,
but with joseph's being sold Hisprice.
So he was sold for 20 shekels.
He was over 20 shekels.
We have documentation thatduring that time period that is,
(22:23):
the it's consistent with theprice of slaves during that time
period.
For for the same time period.
Later on, slaves are sold for50 to 60 shekels, so even his
selling price is consistent withthe time period.
Um, which is, which isimportant for a number of
reasons.
One, to write that down, todocument that, you would have to
(22:45):
be a person right, familiarwith these numbers like, oh, one
of the accusations is that thiswas made up or written later to
give a history.
Well, details like that talkabout the price of a slave, the
cost to be sold and things likethat.
Like a small thing like that,and to be accurate and
(23:06):
consistent with one time period,we don't show pricing for
slaves in other time periodsafter this, for 20 shekels.
So that number is consistentwith that time period.
It matches that time period.
So that number is consistentwith that time period.
It matches that time period.
So it's small things like that.
I think it's fascinating tohighlight the historicity of the
text.
Ok, it fits within thatnarrative.
So not only do we havedocuments of Semitic workers,
(23:36):
but we have pricing of slaves,the trading and buying of
Egyptian slaves at that time,matching in the Joseph narrative
.
So it's little things like that.
I do have to tell people there'sno, there's no archaeological
proof for the story of Joseph,right, and that's OK, because
archaeology doesn't work thatway.
You don't have archaeologythat's set out to prove everyday
individuals, or it doesn't workthat way anyway.
(23:57):
Archaeology is not meant toprove things.
It's about documenting andcollecting information.
But it's often when we candocument things and collect data
, where we know about the costof slaves, and we can use that
and compare that and like, see,this supports what we have, this
(24:18):
supports what we have in thetext.
Um, right, um, so with joseph'snarrative, that's one of the
important things.
Um, we do have documentation ofa lot of famine, different
seasons of famine and, again, asdictated by the nile, um, and
even joseph's management ofstoring food comes from someone,
someone writing down that'sfamiliar with the seasons and
(24:42):
the agricultural processes ofegypt because, like I said, it's
a unique.
It's a unique situation now andthe growing and in the now is
is unique to Egypt because ofthe Nile River.
Like, that's amazing to seethat.
So that's one of the things wesee with the Joseph, with the
Joseph narrative in particular.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
And then what about the Israelites in Egypt?
The Israelites again, theslaves in Egypt, like during
that time.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, so we have documents of Semitic workers
working for the Egyptiangovernment.
We have documentation ofSemitic people being taken
captive and becoming workers forthe Egyptian government, like
these are depicted on walls inEgyptian texts.
So it's not without the realmof it's not something that's
(25:33):
inconsistent with what we see.
Matter of fact, most of thetime, those type of people,
semitic people, they have theirown distinct depictions they're
often depicted with, when it'scolor.
They'll have an auburn orreddish hair, they have a beard
and they also always, typicallyhave these headbands.
That's distinctly for that typeof people group.
(25:55):
The egyptians would depictdifferent people groups
different ways, but with semiticpeople asiatic people is what
they call them they would havethat, you would see them, and
they would have the multi-colorum robes and cloths, which is
again when we talk about josephand his um multicolored robe.
Yeah, it's consistent with thatculture, that particular
(26:19):
culture, people from that area,uh, but anyway, sorry, uh, with
the israelites.
Again, there is noarchaeological proof that says
israelites were here.
Um, but we do find Semiticcities, semitic villages,
specifically because we knowfrom the pottery and the type of
(26:41):
things that we find there thatthese belong to this specific
people group that live and workfor the Egyptian kingdom, but
they lived in the space in Egypt, so we do have that Egypt, so
we do have that.
(27:03):
There's this connection to withand with the Israelites.
That narrative typically fallswith what we call the new
kingdom period of Egypt.
There's debate about the dates.
There's two major argumentsthere's a low date and a high
date, but both within the realmof the one at the end of the
second intermediate period andone is right, in the New Kingdom
, but it's still relatively inthat same time period.
(27:24):
But there is the cities.
A number of the cities listedin the text are been documented.
Egyptian Egyptologists havebeen able to identify a number
of the cities mentioned in theisraelite accounts, um and uh,
but there's no mention of themspecifically, except except um,
(27:47):
the merneptah stella, but that'ssometime after the exodus,
right, um, but they.
Merneptah is the only egyptianthat references the Israel,
israel in particular, but beforeManepta we don't have any
reference to them.
But we do have depictions andeach Egyptian text references to
Semitic people like, like theIsraelites, the Israelites would
(28:09):
be considered a Semitic peopleEven when we look at the Exodus.
There's a number of debate, alot of scholars I've read.
They don't take the Red Sea asthe literal Red Sea as we would.
It's more so like Reed, but itmay have been more descriptive
(28:30):
than name as well, because inancient times the Reed-ed marshy
area would have connected thered sea, the gulf of zoos and up
all the way up to themediterranean sea, so it would
have been more water there.
But what, what?
There's different water levels.
There's people who are studyingthose different water levels.
(28:51):
But one of the interestingthings about the exodus account
is there is a I believe it'scalled an oceanographer I
butcher the name people whostudy the uh, water, water
contents water yeah, I thinkthat's right um, hydrologist
there, it is sorry, hydrologist.
(29:13):
Um, there's a hydrologist whodid a study on the, so you know
where israel ends and rightwhere the sinai.
It's a plate, a tectonic,tectonic plate, right, okay, he
did a study on the water underthese plates and, uh, long story
short, the sulfur, the sulfurreadings for that water that
(29:36):
builds up under these plates andpushes to the surface.
The sulfur is so high that itcreates a bitter taste in the
water.
And again, when we read the uhexodus accounts, they complain
about the water being bitterwhen they're crossing over.
They're like all this water'sgross.
Right again, to know that youwould have to be in that space,
(29:57):
like that's not right.
Yeah, you know, I'm saying so.
It's different information likethat I think's helped to.
We may not have directarchaeological evidence for the
exodus, but small details likethe bitter water.
Um, one of the things isthere's two major quail patterns
.
There's a researcher who lookedat quail patterns.
(30:19):
So you remember in the Exodusaccount they were eating quails.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
There is a In the wilderness, yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
There's a major quail migration pattern.
There's a researcher thatdocuments it and there's that
pattern will take the quailthrough the Sinai at one part of
the cycle yeah, oh, wow, right.
And then it takes them adifferent spot throughout their
(30:47):
cycle, their migration cycleAgain, it's such a small thing,
you would have to have been inthat space.
It's such a small thing, youwould have to have been in that
space.
You have had to haveexperienced that to know that
there is a quill cycle, amigration cycle that comes
through there.
So I said, all I say is, yeah,there's not direct.
But man, these small littledetails, these towns being
(31:10):
identified, semitic workers,documentations of Semitic
peoples working in Egypt.
There's a tomb scene of brickmaking in one of the high
ranking government officials inhis tomb and this scene depicts
almost verbatim what isdescribed in the book of Exodus
(31:31):
of what the Israelites weredoing to make these bricks for
the buildings.
And we know a lot of, a lot ofin ancient Near Eastern period
and a lot of structures in Egyptare built with mud brick, which
is what the Israelites weredoing, were making.
And, yeah, this relief showsthe process.
It shows an Egyptian workercounting, counting, documenting
(31:54):
the process, how many bricksthey're making.
So it's just this very awesomedetail, small detail, things
that, right, yeah, found, um,egypt egyptologists and egypt
egyptian archaeologists havefound that supports or
demonstrates that whoever wrote,whoever wrote the Bible had to
be pretty familiar, right, right, and so I've always think
(32:19):
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, especially Well cause you, you know they.
They say they think Moses wrotelike Genesis, exodus.
So with those things, thosesmall details he would have to,
since he lived in Egypt, part ofhis, you know, he grew up.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
details he would have to since he lived in Egypt part
of his, you know he grew upthere, he would have to know,
like those specific details.
Yeah, moses is even an Egyptianname.
You know when they did a studyon the words of different.
You know how we have we'll haveloan words in English.
So pizza is not an english word, but it's the word we use as
(32:58):
english speakers, right, but weknow that it's not.
Um, it's italian.
Don't quote me on that, I'm notfamiliar, but I think it's
italian anyway.
That's called a loan word.
They looked at all the egyptianloan words in the bible and the
vast majority of them are foundin Exodus, right, versus Aramaic
(33:20):
, which is the language of thePersians.
The vast majority of the loanwords are found in the later
books Esther, nehemiah, ezra,right.
So even that type of thingwhere someone had to be familiar
enough to use all of theseEgyptian words to have these
different expressions Right, youwould have to be familiar with
(33:44):
that, yeah, so it's fascinatingto see that in the common name
of Moses being, there's eventhings of Semitic people being
taken in and taught to learn howto write in an Egyptian way and
learn Egyptian things.
So that's not even a stretch.
(34:05):
So it's consistent with whatwe've seen in the archaeological
record that these were commonthings.
So everything that we seeaccounted for in the book of
Exodus and in Genesis withJoseph, it's not something
that's not far fetched, that'snot something that we don't see
in the archaeological record.
So it's just really comfortingand it's just helpful and even
it helps us understand thosecontexts, why they're making
(34:27):
moves, because this is a part ofthis culture, this is what we
do.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
So it's just fascinating.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Yeah, definitely.
So, wow, wow, I did not knowthat that's interesting, yeah
yeah, um, there's a researcher.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
He looked at um the re in the in that same region,
egypt, sinai region um, the waythe water can be stored in the
rocks, and there are shepherdswho know, if you tap the rock,
certain rocks a certain way, oryou know which one, you know
you're going to get water out ofthem.
Okay, what's interesting isbecause we've always read the uh
(35:05):
narrative where moses taps therock and he taps it, and then in
the story we have to look atthe details.
Yahweh told him the miraclewasn't the water coming out, him
tapping the rock.
The last time, moses wassupposed to speak to the rock,
but he didn't do that.
What did he do?
He tapped.
He did the regular way.
(35:26):
So he got in trouble because hetapped it when God told him to
speak to it.
There's no thing for it to tapthe rock.
I know how to turn a faucet on,but, baby, what happens when I
speak to the faucet and thewater comes out?
Right, it's that of god wassupposed to be glorified in this
moment, but you didn't do that.
You was getting caught up inyour feelings and you didn't do
what you're supposed to do.
So it's even in small stufflike that.
(35:48):
It's okay, I see how the textis moving.
It was about moses failing toas a leader, as what god has
told you to do, you were failedto do.
It showed up in the space.
I wanted to show these peoplethat, but you didn't call it in
your field.
So everybody can everybody knowabout the tap of the rock.
That's not special.
What would have been special isyou speak into that rock and
water coming out huh right, Idid not know that that is an.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
That's an interesting .
Yeah, there there are peoplewho do hydrologists.
I mean, I didn't even know itwas a thing I did not know that
that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
There are people who do hydrologists I mean, I didn't
even know it was a thing butpeople who study in these types
of things.
And you would have to.
It makes sense because thereare Bedouin people who live out
in these desert areas.
And you're like, even if you goto Israel, in the wilderness
(36:37):
area of the desert desert areaof Israel, there are people who
live out there.
They can live out there.
It's because they know aboutthe different oases, the
different water sources in thatarea, that area, so they know
where to draw from right.
It'll be no different in theSinai region or whatever desert
region.
You would to live out there.
You would have to know thosethings.
Yeah, and again, that shows thewriter.
That writer would have to befamiliar with this process of
(36:59):
drawing water from rocks rightin the area and where to go.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah, wow, this has been a very insightful
conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, yeah, I tell people we get so caught up in
they found a wagon wheel in thered sea which is not.
That's not real, it's not true.
We gotta let that one go.
Um, like it kind of, we'retrying to see these things, but
I think all of these smaller Ithink they're super dope.
These smaller things offer somuch more to me.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, like the details, the details of, like
the selling of the slave for 20,you said, 20 shekels are
knowing the environment like theshepherds.
Tapping on the rock issomething that is pretty like
built in and then to just let itflow.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So, yeah, yeah, Because with the 20 shekels,
think about it.
If this is coming from a personwho's writing hundreds of years
later, um, they would have putthe price.
If they're making it up, by theway, too, right, you would have
put the price the current, thatprice at at that time.
They like to say that thoseaccounts were written at least
(38:18):
during the exile or after theexile, and that's when the cost
of a slave to each of them is at50 to 60 shekels.
Well, if you're writingsomething and you're making
something up, you would put thatnumber.
You don't have the number of aslave past that period.
Those numbers wouldn't match.
You see, I'm saying like it'slike okay, someone knows
(38:40):
something, someone is gettingsome account that has
experienced this space in someway.
You have to acknowledge that,that's so I I always offer that.
What do I do with thatinformation?
That's, you want to say it'smade up, but where are they
getting this accurate data?
Where to get this information?
Speaker 1 (38:59):
there has to be some type of either documented or
verbal tradition that knowsthese things you know, yeah well
, could you tell us, like you,you've told us so many other
good fun facts about Egypt, butis there a fun fact about Egypt
that you'd like to share with us?
That, since you've beenstudying egypt?
Speaker 2 (39:19):
oh, let me see a fun fact about egypt.
I, I don't know, there's somany of them let me see here.
Or something that I've alreadyshared.
Let me say, um, I just thinkthe the visually, visually, to
see egypt, to see it in person,really adds so much to our
(39:42):
understanding.
Like I said with the black land, red land thing, to me those
types of things are fascinatingbecause, wow, you can see what
they're talking about and you'relike, okay, I kind of get what
you visually see it like.
Um, no, I'll give my favorite.
One of my favorite pharaohs isthe female pharaoh, hathor, I
mean Hatshepsut, and so it wasreally cool to see her temple.
(40:03):
He even made a temple, hertemple that she constructed and
how she depicted herself, howdetermined she was to be
respected.
But then whoever was rightbehind her didn't like what she
did, so they destroyed a lot ofher work, you know, so it's,
that's always interesting, um,but it shows you that there's
(40:25):
significant female leadership.
Okay, um, female rulers.
And she was probably moredominant than Nefertiti, but we
always hear about Nefertiti, youknow, right, yeah, that was
interesting.
When I learned about her, I waslike, why is everybody talking
about Nefertiti?
Hatshepsut did way more thanNefertiti.
So I think what surprised me iswhat's highlighted versus what,
(40:48):
what's talked about versuswhat's not, and that's always
been most surprising.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, Well, let's wrap up here.
Our last question is whatencouragement could you offer,
you know, believers that want tolive faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
My encouragement would be we may start to always
ask God to increase your faith.
I know things happen.
We see things in our life, weread things.
There are so many people thatare against your faith.
I know things happen.
We see things in our life, weread things.
There are so many people thatare against your faith.
But I would always ask God torestore your faith.
Maintain your faith, build yourfaith, because it does so much
(41:27):
more for when you're doing lifeand life is life and you can
stand on your faith.
You can stand on what youbelieve and as God sends you
more and more, he will affirmyour faith.
He will on your faith.
You can stand on what youbelieve and as God sends you
more and more, he will affirmyour faith.
He will build your faith.
So that's usually always mybiggest encouragement because
that's what he did for me.
I remember this journey Istarted.
It has built my faith andstrengthened my faith in so many
(41:49):
ways that when things are bador hard or whatever, I can stand
on that faith.
So that's usually always myencouragement.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
All right.
Well, thank you again for beingon the show.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
No, thank you for having me.
I love to.
I've said it before.
You know I love nerding out, sothat's always awesome, all
right.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Well, take care.
Wasn't that a fascinatingconversation about Egypt and how
, knowing just the details ofthe things that they find in
Egypt, the stories of theEgyptians as they documented
what happened, and then howarchaeologists can go and dig up
(42:32):
and see what a culture was likeduring that time?
I especially found the, I guess, the science or I don't even
know if you would call itscience, but just the fact that
the shepherds could tap on therock and then they could get
water out of it.
(42:53):
So it makes that story of Mosesand Israel in the wilderness
just come alive.
As far as you know you, you cansee how God works.
He doesn't work in the ordinarymundane.
Well, he does, but he, he workssupernaturally.
So the things that wouldnaturally occur you know God,
(43:15):
because he is the creator ofeverything he circumvent, he can
circumvent the naturaloccurring processes.
Say, for instance, you know,when Moses and the Israelites
and Joshua were fighting I can'tremember what nation that they
were fighting, or it might havebeen Joseph, either way God
(43:39):
allowed the sun not to go down.
You know, of course, you knowthat's something supernatural
that happened are like we weretalking about in our episode how
the separets could tap on therock and then the water would
flow.
But God wanted to do somethingsupernatural.
(44:00):
He wanted Moses to talk to therock and then the water would
flow.
So it just goes back to seeingthe character and nature of God
and how God has given us theBible as not only a narrative
(44:20):
but also a guide and to show upand to show us who he is, even
though it may not give us allthe answers that we want.
But God gives us enough to showus who he is and that he is all
powerful, he's all knowing,he's sovereign and that he is
(44:42):
fully able to take care of us.
And that's always exciting.
So I hope this episode aboutEgypt was fascinating for you as
it was for me.
If you want to leave a reviewon Apple or Spotify and remember
God is always good and isalways faithful.
(45:02):
Thank you for listening to thepodcast.
Do me a favor by following thepodcast and leaving a review to
help spread the word.
I look forward to hearing fromyou.
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