Episode 303 - Pharaohs and the Exodus with Alexander Hool
Max talks to Alexander Hool, author of Pharaoh: Biblical History, Egypt, and the Missing Millennium about alternative theories on the chronology of ancient Egypt as it relates to the Exodus and other biblical narratives. Max also talks about his further dives into ancient Egypt and what he's learned.
Alexander Hool
Alexander Hool emerged as a distinguished scholar while being mentored by his father, Rabbi Maurice Hool, in Kingsbury, London. His formative years were spent in the esteemed Gateshead Yeshivah, absorbing wisdom under the guidance of Rav Avrohom Gurwitz. His quest for knowledge led him to Israel, where he has dedicated over two decades to advanced study in the Ponevezh Yeshivah and Kollel.
Renowned for his scholarly pursuits, Rabbi Hool has carved a niche for himself in the realms of historical chronology, mathematical concepts, and other captivating areas of study. He is celebrated for his groundbreaking book, "Toras Yom VoLaylah," which delves into the intricate Halachic definitions of day and night and their extensive implications.
His scholarly contributions include a pivotal work on ancient celestial calculations and their impact on the Halachic Dateline, alongside a detailed examination of the Murex Trunculus snail as a potential source for the historic blue dye, Techelet. His latest scholarly endeavor is an exhaustive study on the metrics and distances prevalent in the Middle East prior to the Common Era, titled "Shiur HaShiurim."
Links
Pharaoh: Biblical History, Egypt and the Missing Millennium by Alexander Hool
The History of Ancient Egypt by Dr. Bob Briar
Dr. Bob Briar - Website
Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaelogy - Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?
Transcript
Max: You're listening to the Local Maximum episode 303.
Narration: Time to expand your perspective. Welcome to the Local Maximum. Now here's your host, Max Sklar.
Max: Earlier this summer, I was walking around wandering around the bookstore somewhere, as I often do. I don't know why I have so much time to wander around bookstores, but I have to drive around a lot, travel around a lot. And so when I want to get up and stretch, a bookstore, or library is always a good place to do it.
So as I'm walking around the bookstore somewhere, I saw a book on Ancient Egypt, nice looking cover, inviting, looked like it wasn't so long that I was never gonna finish it. So I picked it up. Now I know there's a meme going around that, I guess all the men in the world are supposed to be thinking about the Roman Empire these days or something, something like that. I don't really understand that meme. I'm not sure about the origin of that.
But I think Egypt, ancient Egypt, is just as interesting as ancient or classical Rome. Ancient Egypt is also much more mysterious. It's so much older, and it factors into the Bible. And I guess Rome also factors into the Christian Bible. But, but Ancient Egypt, also factors into the Bible.
There's various collapses and Dark Ages, where we don't really know what's going on. And then all of a sudden, it comes back, and we know what's going on again. And also the religion seems fascinating, like, why spend decades building these enormous tombs, for example organizing your entire economy around it seemingly.
So Egypt is cool. I got this book, Pharaoh by Alexander Hool, and it was maybe not the historical narrative that one might start with. Nor is it the mainstream history that one would start with, it looks at ancient Egyptian history from a biblical perspective, and in particular, the age old perspective of who is the Egyptian pharaoh that presided over the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, under Moses that features so prominently in the Bible, specifically, the book of Exodus itself?
Well, many people have asked this before, of course, you might be flipping through one of those late night History Channel shows or something like that, oftentimes, you see this from a Christian perspective. And sometimes there's a sticking point where they seem to find some evidence of it.
But it doesn't quite match up with the chronology that's given in the Bible. And then the chronology given by the archaeologists to the Egyptologist don't quite match up. And so they have a very compelling, very compelling theory, but they can't quite get it to work. And they might want to offer an alternative chronology to match the Bible. But mainstream academics, while admitting there is some room for error in their calculations of who is king when seemed to be pretty confident that their timings are not off by centuries, maybe a few years here and there, but not centuries. So you're at a kind of an impasse there.
And I for one, don't believe that there is some major conspiracy among Egyptologists. I think that people get into Egyptology because they enjoy the subject. I don't see any other reason why you'd want to do it, though I'm sure they can be uncertain about some things or even get some things wrong from time to time.
Still, the Exodus is such an earth changing narrative, that these types of explorations are just inherently interesting, I think, which is, I think, why I picked up this book, Alexander Hool’s Pharaoh argues for a rearrangement of our current knowledge of Egyptian history that matches the biblical timeline, but includes loads of arguments and synchronicities, for example, in terms of how the calendar works, and how the King’s List works. And so that helps make the argument. So it was a big learning experience to pick this up.
Now, I should point out that when I personally approach the topic, I don't feel compelled to believe that everything that happened to the past happened on the biblical timeline, when you go further back, I'm certainly convinced with the evidence for the many millennia of pre history, which doesn't exist in the Bible, or at least not directly.
And the truth is that there is no archaeological evidence for the Exodus from Egypt. And I infer from that, that if the story refers to a real event, then if it indeed in first refers to a real event, then it would have been in smaller numbers than the book of Exodus suggests.
But still, there's no reason to believe that the cultural memory is not based on a real event. And some of the specifics that the Bible gives in terms of locations might well be true. And I know there are people who are certain it's all made up on the one extreme end. But the story does seem to align with what we know about ancient Egypt in many ways.
So I, even though I can't completely rule out that this is some kind of fable, created an ancient Mesopotamia, or ancient Israel, I put better odds on there being some real events that inspired the cultural memory. There are people, by the way, who seem to have a psychological need for it to be a fairy tale, just as there exists people for which it must all be true as written.
You know, I don't tend to see it either way. So it's a hotly debated topic, it seems like everybody, everyone with a theory comes with lots of circumstantial evidence to show that it's a perfect fit.
But these need to be weighed against the negative evidence somebody has to cross examine them, somebody has to. You don't have a fair trial, if only one lawyer side is allowed to speak. And then also alternative theories have to be weighed against each other. If I have a theory, where I have all this evidence that seems to stand up under cross examination, and then you have a theory that also has a lot of good evidence that seems to stand up under cross examination. Well, now we have two competing theories, now they need to be weighed against each other.
So I realized that in order to truly understand this debate, and understand Egyptian history, I had to get a good mainstream primer on Ancient Egypt. So to do that, I went to Amazon. And I found the course, The History of Ancient Egypt, which is a series of history lectures from Bob Brier. I'm not quite done with it, I'm still going through it a little bit.
These are excellent courses, by the way, from a mainstream University Scholar, which gives you a high level overview of ancient Egypt. And I highly recommend them, I particularly enjoyed it, because these lectures were recorded in the 90s on Long Island, and that's I grew up in the 90s on Long Island, and they were recorded at CW Post University, whether that's what it's called at the time, which was somewhat close to where I grew up, I think. Now, it's called LIU Post. And so there's something really familiar about these lectures.
Obviously, I wasn't going to college then, I moved out when I was 12. But it could just be Professor Brier’s attitude, and the way of speaking that I recognize from Long Island and my childhood, or I thought it could actually be that I did see him at some point, either, like on a school history trip, or maybe on like a local television, or like some some school television or something. It's possible, he seemed very familiar.
So I especially think it's possible because Bob Brier is one of the world's foremost experts in Egyptology, and mummies, which is, you know kids are really into mummies. And so if someone wanted to get a quote, or some information while on Long Island at the time, probably even now, I'm sure they'd go to him.
So I learned a lot about ancient Egypt so far from this course. First, I already knew this part. But Ancient Egypt is like the history of it, the time timing of it is vast 1000s of years of history. And I've heard it said that Queen Cleopatra, who was the last Pharaoh of Egypt before it became a Roman province, is actually closer to our time chronologically, than it is to the building of the pyramids. So for us Queen Cleopatra is ancient. For Queen Cleopatra, the pyramids are even more ancient.
Now, obviously, we know the alternative chronology that Alexander Hool might be a little bit different and might move the pyramids up a little bit, but that But that notwithstanding, is still in the same order of magnitude here. So, in fact, Dr. Brier points out that ancient Egypt had archaeologists of their own in ancient Egypt to learn about still more ancient Egypt, which is crazy to think about.
So I've also gotten acquainted with the chronology of ancient Egypt that we know and that has not changed since the 90s. There are lots and lots of dynasties or ruling families, and they're numbered. They'll be like dynasty one, dynasty two, dynasty three, which is kind of confusing, because then somebody brings up hey, then under dynasty twelve, and you're like, wait a minute, which one is twelve?
So it really takes a lot of getting used to, but each dynasty was a ruling family and the first one, King Narmer, he was the first one to unite Egypt. He becomes the first king or pharaoh of the first dynasty. And then you see Egypt's power rise and fall several times. So it starts with the Old Kingdom. That's Narmer. A few dynasties down the road, they start building these enormous pyramids, notably Sneferu and Khufu, those are the big ones that we all know that we see on TV and all that.
Then a couple hundred years later, you have this king Pepi II, who reigns for 94 years. I think that's a historical record. You know, he became king when he was six and he died at 100. And so soon after he died, society just seems to collapse. And then you have this like century or two centuries long of just we have some, like very little historical record. And then you have this Middle Kingdom, which gets together again, with a slightly different religion. Or actually kind of, I don't know if slightly is the right term there, they build large temples and things, but not the type of pyramids that were done earlier.
Then the Middle Eastern Hyksos come in, they take over for a while. And finally, the local Pharaohs are back in charge with the new kingdom. So it rises, it falls, it rises and falls, and then it rises again, finally, with the New Kingdom.
So the Exodus, by the way, is usually placed in the New Kingdom, although who moves some of these things around, especially that 94 year ruler, which we'll get into in a moment. So I also learned from Dr. Brier’s lectures a lot about how we know what we know, and why there are sometimes difficulties in archaeology and getting to the bottom of certain facts for Egyptologists.
Kings, for example, they'd be buried in multiple places, you'd have several tombs. You go in one king's tomb, the mummy wouldn't be there, maybe the mummy would be in another two, maybe the mummy doesn't exist anymore or was moved elsewhere. Maybe it was because they were trying to evade grave robbers, which happens all the time, or maybe they just wanted monuments and multiple places.
There are very well developed religious and philosophical beliefs about the dead and about the soul. One illustration of the soul that they had in Egypt that I found interesting was it had kind of people's heads attached to a bird flying around their body. And so from my kind of western perspective, or you know, my modern perspective, I guess, it just, it looks kind of ugly, like us head attached to a bird.
But if you think about it, it might just be another way to illustrate an angel or like an outer body experience. Like maybe it wasn't, maybe it wasn't the maybe maybe it's not the the actual shape of the bird itself, but it's to illustrate, how else would you illustrate that kind of that outer body experience? type of type of thing? Oh, you become a bird. Okay, I guess that kind of makes sense.
The religion also placed a lot of weight in prophetic dreams, which I find interesting. And this is illustrated in the book of Genesis as well, where dreams were believed to be prophetic. But it was supposed to take expertise to interpret them. I also learned that they really like cats. And the ancient Egyptian word for cat was “miu,” or something like that.
Also, it's very difficult to do archaeology in certain places, particularly in the wetter Delta area where the Israelites settled, where the mud and whatnot ends up, you're swallowing lots of ruins. I guess that was kind of the explanation there. Like, I know, there are people who have tried doing archaeology there and have gotten somewhere, but maybe not as much as we would like.
So Dr. Brier also gives a really great point to counter the arguments that I'm sure you've heard this, there's a lot of conspiracy theories about the pyramids, that the aliens built the pyramids. You must have heard that one? From the History Channel. There's that meme from Ancient Aliens? You know, I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's aliens.
But in the course, we see that they were actually — you could go to Egypt, and you could see some of the first attempts at pyramids, which basically starts out with a little monument to the dead, and then they start stacking, why not? Why not stack a monument and top of another monument? And so on and so forth. And there are also a bunch of failed attempts as well. Well, this guy tried to build a pyramid, but it kind of started caving in. So they built the pyramids somewhere else.
So what's remarkable about the building of the pyramids is not the technological know-how — technically they were feasible. And Dr. Brier goes into several ways that could have been built. But what was remarkable was the social organization and economic conditions that allowed for it, which is why it's not often reproduced. But that's what you had in Egypt at the time. That's why Egypt, ancient Egypt was Egypt — social organization.
So back to the Exodus, the biblical Exodus, and back to the overall timeline. Hool’s changes are very complicated, and the arguments are complicated. That's the you know, that's why it's a whole book. But remember that 94 year old king, he gets kind of moved around a bit. And Hool argues that the evidence is thin that this Sixth Dynasty was actually the sixth chronologically, and this dynasty essentially ends with the Exodus.
So while he presents very compelling evidence, it will be an uphill battle to weigh it against the evidence produced over the many decades that has constructed the mainstream narrative.
I didn't get a chance to ask everything and you know, I'm not an expert. You can't in order to have a really good discussion, you'd have to weigh this against. You'd have to weigh different experts against each other but I'm sure Egyptologist would bring up additional evidence such as carbon dating of mummies and things like that I'm sure for their answers, Hool some answers for this, and then they'll have to be kind of weighed.
So I think you're gonna learn a lot from this discussion. I know this book has led me to learn a lot more about ancient Egypt, and you might be inspired as well. Also, we're gonna think about the problem, or the process of puzzle solving with evidence. So questions that I want you to think about in this discussion are: how much weight do you put on different pieces of evidence?
There are different ways to do it, and all are consistent. And there are different ways that are consistent with Bayesian mathematics and Bayesian thinking, and the scientific method. And also, how do you put those puzzle pieces together? Do you kind of say, okay, well, these pieces of evidence seem to be the most ironclad, so I am going to set them in stone. And then like kind of build everything around that. How do you pick which piece to set in place first? Those are, those are kind of interesting questions. A lot of this is like putting together a puzzle, which is another reason why it's so much fun, so interesting.
So that's what you're going to hear about today. And I hope you look forward to it. And I hope you find it as interesting as I do. Now, one more thing I should point out before going forward. Our guest is in Israel, I'm not going to say where and this interview was recorded before the war broke out earlier this month. But I have been in touch with today's guest since then. And so you know, obviously we wish them well. And we're going to talk about the situation on the podcast, as it develops.
So, without further ado, my next guest has developed a particular expertise in history, dating, mathematics, and other unique and intriguing subjects. He has been studying in the Ponovezh Yeshivah for over 20 years. And he is the author of Pharaoh Biblical History, Egypt and the Missing Millennium. Alexander Hool, you've reached the Local Maximum. Welcome to the show.
Alexander Hool: Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here with you.
Max: Yeah, me too. So most of my audience is not too familiar with ancient Egypt, other than what you might get from popular culture, or casual readings. So, given your research, before we get into what you're saying, what are some misconceptions that people might have about ancient Egypt, its state and the pharaohs in charge?
Alexander: Well, in general, we must realize that there are basic misconceptions about history, in general terms. People, many people who are outside the nitty gritty of, of any historical discipline, believe or are led to believe that that history is like a science and it is rock solid and robust, and the general opinion of academia is unbreakable. It is rock solid, and is nothing to talk about.
That is not the case. That is really not the case. The more one builds into history, the more one realizes that history is not is a not a recondite field of research, there are elements of the unknown. Because you're going into the past, you can't get the full picture you can get, you can try and build with whatever archaeological finds you have any documentation you have.
But to be able to get a full picture is extremely difficult. And therefore, at the end of the day, you're going to have to settle with conjecture, one, one way or another. And basically, you're trying to put the pieces of the jigsaw together, there are always going to be pieces missing of that jigsaw. And sometimes the pieces missing are crucial pieces, and can give you a completely different picture than the actual reality of the historical story behind what we're trying to work out. That's number one in general.
But in Egyptology it emphasizes this problem because many people think that this is just a simple question of ordering the kings from the of the creation of the Egyptian state and just following things, one after the other, and if we can get a chronological order of the kings, then we basically got a basic history of, of Egyptian empire. That is not the case because Egypt was a very big land. And it can accommodate several empires.
In fact, we do know that, during history, during the Egyptian history, there was what we call the Lower Egypt, which is actually North Egypt — although we call it low because of its low elevation — and Upper Egypt, which was the Southern Egypt. And there were some times during the course of history, concurrent empires, Egyptian empires running at the same time. So it's not just good enough to know the list of kings, we have to know where they fitted in history, and when were their concurrent regencies, when were their consecutive regencies. And this all adds in complications when we want to try and build a picture of Egyptian history.
Max: Yeah, it's very interesting. By the way, I should show the book just to prove that I have it right here. Pharaoh — Biblical History, Egypt, and the Missing Millennium. So you get a picture there. Right. So it seems like with Egypt, from reading this book, it sounds like we have far fewer pieces of that jigsaw puzzle. I was almost, I was talking the other day about American history, like if someone came and said, Oh actually, Teddy Roosevelt and James Madison, were presidents at the same time, I'd be like, oh, that's crazy, like but Egypt.
Just to get a sense, like, how long ago are we talking about when we talk about the Egyptian state, we're talking about huge lengths of time, aren't we? And give us a sense of what is the timeline of the Egyptian state?
Alexander: Right. Well, according to the conventional chronology, we're talking about the beginning of the Egyptian state 3000 years before the Common Era. That's the beginning. And it went all the way through to the Second Temple because Darius, which is in the Bible and constructed the Second Temple, he was actually a ruler in Egypt, and he's part of the dynastic era of Egyptian history. So it extends all the way from 3000 BCE to just very shortly before the Common Era.
Max: Right. So that's how that's what 3000 years, that's- it's not even if you count back 3000 years before now, that's you're already in that time period. That's crazy. So that would be 1000 before the Common Era. That's okay. Just trying to wrap my mind around that. Right.
So you mentioned Darius, you have a few kind of like, time markers that you came across, where you sort of discovered that or come to the conclusion that like everybody can kind of agree on what year this is. Maybe it's Darius, maybe it's with someone else. What are some of your roadmaps when you're trying to lay out Egyptian chronology? Roadmaps, road markers, I guess.
Alexander: Right? Right. So the first problem with any kind of chronology is trying to work out and historical framework. Before the Common Era, we don't have the luxury of a common dating system. That's why we don't have any problems with any basic historical event from the Common Era, because since the whole world, we're using the Common Era, and we're still following that Common Era. So any date which was referred to we can easily extrapolate back and know exactly when that took place, relative to the present day.
However, before the Common Era, civilizations did not have, before the Greek, actually a few hundred years before the Common Era was already the Greek dating. It also had produced, [Greek Time Measurement], it's called it was also a common era of dating. But before that, before the Greeks introduced that system, basically every civilization had kings, and they dated documents and inscriptions according to the reigns of the particular kings. So we might even be able to form a chronology of the kings or a certain group of kings, that we still don't know where in history, this group of Kings actually lived. So we have another problem that we have to work out that after we work out the actual chronology of the kings, to work out where in history they were.
Now, actually in fact, the absolute dating of Egyptian history — anywhere in history — is actually you can't go to the Egyptologist because they don't know. There is no absolute dates of the Egyptian dynastic era.
What Egyptologists have to rely on is absolute dates from the Assyrian era, which are interconnected with Egyptian history and therefore build their relative chronology of Egyptian history based on those yardsticks of the Assyrian area, and Assyria was also based on Persian era, the Babylonian era and the Persian era. So if there's any mistake in it, it has the domino effect of completely uprooting the whole of absolute dating of Egyptian history.
Even if we've got a relative chronology of Egyptian history, we still need to get a firm, absolute dating system where we can pin Egyptian chronology onto. So yes, a major yardstick would be the Second Temple, which everyone agrees upon roughly. When that took place. We know it was Darius, we established it.
And since Darius was part of the 27th Egyptian dynastic era, then we can move backwards and be able to fit, if we have a chronology, a relative chronology of Egyptian history going back from bearish all the way to the beginning of the Egyptian era, then we have an absolute dating system for the Egyptian dynastic era.
Max: Yeah, very interesting. You mentioned there was a technique that's used, like you mentioned a few things you mentioned radiocarbon dating and Sothic dating. Yeah. How do those kind of fit in in terms of trying to piece the puzzle together?
Alexander: Right. Well, I think the most important piece of information about Egyptian history and Egyptian chronology is the Sothic dating system. Because firstly, it is something which is really unsusceptible to falsification, we have to always be wary of falsification of the manipulation of documentation, that something which is susceptible to such a kind of actions is very useful.
Now, these are astronomical dates, which were referenced over the course of Egyptian dynastic history. It could have spread over thousand years Egyptian history where the Egyptians marked the rise of the Dog Star, Sirius, when it took place, and they referenced it with with with regard to the Egyptian calendar.
Now this is quite crucial because the Egyptian calendar, not like the Julian calendar, has only 365 days, the Julian calendars 365 and a quarter days to fit in with the solar year. But the Egyptian can only have 365 days. So the first of the new year, the first day of the new year in the Egyptian calendar will wander throughout the course of history throughout the seasons, because every four years it will drop one day back in the seasonal year.
So if we know a sighting and a certain reign of a king, dated by the Egyptian calendar. And we have another sighting of many years beforehand of the rising of the Sirius star, also dated by the Egyptian calendar. And we can work out how many days have elapsed by looking how many days that Egyptian New Year has fallen in between the two periods. By doing that, we basically have a skeleton chronology of establishing a how many years transpired between the first sighting in a certain king year, one of the Egyptian king and the second sighting in in that relevant king year in which we have a second sighting for. And we have several sightings, astronomical sightings dated to the Egyptian calendar, one font we have from the 12th dynasty, we have from the 18th dynasty.
We also have from the 27th dynasty, also astronomical datings which we can use to identify how many days elapsed between the 12th and the 18th and how many years have elapsed between the 18th and the 27th. So we have a rough time for Darius. So Darius was in the 27th dynasty, so we could actually work out already how many years there are to the 18th dynasty. So that is quite crucial.
And in fact, it will actually take us all the way back from the Second Temple with Darius, all the way back to the Exodus, because following the years of the Bible from Darius, the Second Temple, all the way back to the Exodus, and following that back in using our Sothic dates, leads us to the 18th dynasty, the beginning of the 18th. dynasty, for the time of the Exodus.
Max: So what, so we have this, I'm trying to think in my head, okay, so what we need in order to do this, this type of Sothic dating, we need to have some kind of Egyptian record, right, that references this, this star. And then we also have to have on the same record, a date in the Egyptian calendar. So how- are those, like widely available for every dynasty? Are they carved in stone? Or how does that work?
Alexander: No, it's, it's thankfully, because there's so much archaeological work done. They have found inscriptions or documentation of various sorts that do reference these sightings. And they have given us a basic skeleton idea of, of when the, of how the Egyptian can only look, for example, if I know that the Sirius star in a certain King's reign took place in the first of Thoth, that's the one month in the Egyptian’s calendar. And we know in another king's reign, the same sighting took place in the first of I can't think of the name of another Egyptian drifting calendar name. Whatever, let's call it x.
So we know and we've since we know that, that the sightings of the Sirius star always rises in July, whenever. So therefore, in between those two kings, I have how many days there are between the first of Thoth and the first of month x. It has fallen back. In that year of the king, it was the first the Fourth of July was in the first of Thoth. And many years later, the first of July fell in the first of month x.
So we can — and we know how every four years it drops one day — so we can work out how many years there are between the two. So yeah, we have those a few days, which we have, but they give us those landmarks between the 12th dynasty, the 18th dynasty and 27th dynasty.
Max: Interesting. Now, those dynasties are numbered in the conventional chronology, do they come one after another? Or does the conventional chronology also include, like reorderings of this?
Alexander: Right. Well, as it happened, from the 18th dynasty, all the way to the 27th dynasty, the general consensus of opinion is that they were consecutive. In my research, I found that this is actually true. I correlated the information from Egyptian history from the chronologists, the work they've done, and I correlated it with information from the Bible, and I found perfect matching.
For example, if we go back, following the Sothic dating from Darius, we arrived at the beginning of the 18th dynasty, for the Exodus. Now we know following the bible that 520 years after the Exodus, Shishak the king Shishak from Egypt, ransack the store houses of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, the king, in Jerusalem, and indeed if we follow 520 years following the beginning of the 18th dynasty, we come to a matching King in Egyptian history, known as Shishak, following going on, if we take another 250 years from Shishak, we arrive also as dictated in the Bible to a king in Egypt called Tirhaqa. Again, following the Egyptian records, the consensus of Egyptian chronology is indeed we find 250 years later, the king Tirhaqa.
Once again following that, Tirhaqa, 103 years following the biblical data, we arrive at Pharaoh Necho. Once again with all the information garnered by Egyptian historians and chronologists. We also arrive at the king, Pharaoh Necho, so, to my mind this confirms the great work and analysis of conventional chronologists in creating a historical framework of Egyptian history from the beginning of 18th dynasty all the way up to Darius, which is quite crucial.
Max: Darius is 27th? Is that right?
Alexander:Yes.
Max: Gotcha. Cool. Yeah. So, I guess but before we get into the Exodus, I want to definitely ask about that. But like, first, I want to ask, so before the 18th dynasty, we see a very different picture in your book than mainstream. So how is your process different from the conventional process of gathering evidence and putting the pieces together? What allowed you to come to new conclusions?
Alexander: Right? Well, I think, I think the main difference, a major difference in approach I took is generally speaking, conventional chronology is based on putting everything you have, any information, archaeological evidence, historical evidence, anything which we have, which talked about, portrays, relates to the particular era in history we're talking to, to put together and try and try to understand everything with all the information and things which are contradicted and proven to be false, or omitted. Everything else is put into the basket. And we form a historical picture and historical chronology from that.
Basically, you're innocent until you're proven guilty, any information is taken as true until it has been proven false. This is unfortunate, because it's going to bring in information, which is irrelevant, which is wrong, which is unreliable.
But because it hasn't been proven to be false, is going to now disturb the whole picture, which is being garnered, which is being created by the historian and the analysts. I didn't do that. I, from the outset, only looked at evidence, which I could determine was completely non susceptible to falsification. And therefore could be used as solid ground to be able to build a chronology.
I looked for the Bible data, I took the Bible data. And I took this information, which, from archaeological information, for example, like the astronomical dating of the Sothic cycles, and put together the chronology which actually fits with the biblical data. And with the authentic archaeological evidence, and I found no contradiction whatsoever. On the contrary, I found harmonization which allowed me to draw conclusions which others have not.
Max: Interesting, interesting. So let's talk about the Exodus or maybe we'll talk about the we'll start with the pharaohs that are often associated with the Exodus, which would be Ramses II and you know, for those of us who have you know, listen to information archaeology, we often hear about Merneptah, because there's documentation there I believe that you know, that establishes Merneptah, as after the Exodus. Where did those guys fit into the story and, and, and then we can go into where did you fit Exodus into the story?
Alexander: Right, this is the common belief that the pharaoh of the Exodus was Ramses because it's mentioned. The word Ramses is actually mentioned in the Bible; the Israelites’ Exodus. They exited Egypt from Ramses so naturally assumed that it must have been that Ramses was around that time.
However, the problems, which are presented by identifying Ramses, with the pharaoh of the Exodus are quite overwhelming. For example, the whole of the campaign of the Israelites 40 years after the Exodus into the land of Canaan, the destruction of the cities and the thirty kings mentioned in the Bible, we do have archaeological evidence of mass destruction of all the major cities that were destroyed.
We have exact archaeological representation, which fits in perfectly, but they're all much much too early. In fact, they’re even before the time of Ramses, so we've got the destruction of the Israelites campaign into the land of Canaan before the reign of Ramses. So that automatically negates Ramses as the Pharaoh of Egypt. The fact that the Bible refers to the city of Ramses does not necessarily mean that Ramses, King Ramses, was actually alive at the time.
The Bible does use terms for, in the future, names that are referenced in future times. And in fact, he's actually even hinted in the Bible when actually Pharaoh speaks to Joseph, although the verse talks about Ramses but when the verse is actually quoting Pharaoh, he doesn't actually refer to the name Ramses, which indicates that at the time, when Pharaoh was talking, the name of the town, the name of the city was not actually called Ramses.
It was a later date, but the Bible refers to it as Ramses maybe indicating because King Ramses called his name, the city after that. It's a prestigious area, which the Israelites were settled in by the Pharaoh at the time. So Ramses really falls very very short for identification of the pharaoh of the Exodus.
Max: Yeah. So where did you find the Exodus fell, and the Exodus is, um, I believe is not mentioned in the Egyptian records. So how did you get that? How did you get that thing?
Alexander: Right, so, so already, just with the Sothic dating, I arrived at the conclusion that the Exodus took place in the beginning of the 18th dynasty. And then I went to look for archaeological evidence around that time for the Exodus. And I found a tremendous amount.
I think the most vivid piece of evidence archaeological evidence was discovered by someone called Ed Kaspar, which he was probably, you know, he told me over and that he was watching a television broadcast about the mummies of Thutmose III, Thutmose II, and the queen Hatshepsut, which was the mom of Thutmose III, and the nanny of Hatshepsut, and they all they're all those mummies are actually, still exist to us today.
They've been analyzed with CAT scans and, and whatnot. And they have discovered, analysts have discovered that they are covered from top to toe with boils. Now, we know from the Bible that at the time of the Exodus, there was the plague of boils now, just at the time that Thutmose III, Thutmose II, the nanny, and they were not biologically related, all have boils from top to toe.
So we have vivid corroboration that there was a plague of boils at the time of Thutmose III, we also have an inscription by his art the Queen Hatshepsut, who refers to wandering people leaving Egypt, how that fits in perfectly with the Exodus of the Israelites and and she references that the destruction of Egypt at the time, which places the perfect setting for the Exodus at the beginning of the reign of Thutmose III.
Max: Interesting. So who was the pharaoh of the Exodus that the Bible actually refers to in the book of Exodus?
Alexander: Right. So, now it gets a little more complicated. So we do have quite categorical evidence that Thutmose III was at the time, was around at the time of the Exodus. In fact, he was even king. But he wasn't the king of the Exodus. In fact, Psalms refers to, during the plagues that there are a number of kings. So here we come into this concurrent empires at the same time, and it happens to be that at the time of the Exodus, there were actually three concurrent regencies over the whole of Egypt. Basically, the north of Egypt was where the persecution, the main persecution of the Israelites took place, in Avaris, in Zoan, the biblical Zoan. In Ramses, the city of Ramses, that was in the north in the Delta.
But Thutmose was actually in Middle Egypt, he was a king in middle Egypt. And there was actually another set of kings who were reigning from the 13th dynasty in south of Egypt. So there was three actual empires reigning at the time of the Exodus. The actual kings of the Exodus, happened to be what is referred to as the 6th Dynasty, obviously now, if we put everything in perspective, they wouldn’t be called the 6th dynasty.
They might be called the 17th dynasty. But they were concurrent with the 18th dynasty, but they were the 6th dynasty. And what appears to be, they weren't actually native Egyptians, they were part of the Hyksos rulers. Most Egyptian stories know all about the Hyksos. According to Manetho, they reign for almost 500 years. We have references from Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, that they actually got rid of them altogether, the Hyksos.
This was evidently shortly after the Exodus, they took the initiative to be able to rid themselves of the Hyksos after the destruction which took place in the northern kingdom. But the destruction may have took place in the Hyksos kingdom, which was the 6th dynasty of Egyptian kings. So yes, it was the pharaoh of the Exodus, as it were, was the last king of the 6th dynasty, Neferkare the Younger, who, according to the Egyptian records, reigned one year. The king before that, according to the Egyptian records reign, 94 years, in fact, the only king in history who reigned such a long time. And indeed, in Jewish record, we also have such a reign of one of the kings during their persecution.
So yes, the 6th dynasty is also, we have other evidences that it was actually the 6th dynasty which happened to be the Hyksos, which were reigning at the same time as the beginning of the 18th dynasty, when they were actually Hyksos rulers. After the Exodus, which was when the 6th dynasty came to a close, that a new influx of Hyksos kings took over. But they were shortly destroyed, and got rid of by Thutmose who slowly but surely built up Egypt, a bit like Germany after the destruction of the First World War, and he became the Napoleon of ancient history. That was why while the Israelites were wandering in the desert for the 40 years, Thutmose III built up, rebuilt Egypt, and actually campaigned into the land of Canaan quite successfully and established a state inside Canaan itself.
Max: So, this is interesting. It's interesting to think about the idea that there are multiple empires in Egypt, and that these dynasties are contemporary. Should we be able to find like, if this were the case, some kind of, I don't know, references to each other? Did they ever send each other messages or tablets? How does that work? How would we look for evidence to confirm this?
Alexander: Well, being separate dynasties, they weren't naturally in correspondence with each other. However, information of common things that happened can be found between the dynasties. We have archaeological evidence from the 6th dynasty. Records, Egyptian records referring to destruction that took place during the end towards the end of the 16th estate, which really identifies remarkably, with the catastrophic plagues which took place just before the Exodus.
We have, again, we have a list of slaves from the 13th dynasty, Jewish slaves, which clearly took place during the time of the persecution of the Israelites under the Egyptians, we have records of when the 13th dynasty finished, we have correlations between the 18th Dynasty and the 13th dynasty and information of the Exodus calamities with the 6th dynasty.
Put all those three into one area of history and we find that each kingdom has its own base. We know the Hyksos were in the north. We know the 13th were in the south and we know the 18th were in the middle. So we find corroborating evidence that the three empires could have coexisted at the same time, at the time of the Exodus. So it's really all the Exodus evidence, which directs us to tell us what actually happened, and how the three dynasties were actually reigning at the same time.
Max: Wow. So how do you present your work to either mainstream audiences or kind of mainstream academia? Is it tough to do? You know, have you been able to at least kind of have a conversation there? How does that go?
Alexander: Right. Well, changing history is a very slow process. And something really what we basically discovered is that Egyptians history because of these overlaps of dynasties, it was all basically before the Exodus. There's actually a contraction of almost 800 years of Egyptian history. So we're not talking about 3000 BCE. We're talking about the beginning of the Egyptian era in 2000 BCE, which fits in with the biblical data. Now, that is a tremendous upheaval, for Egyptologists. So it's not easy for them to digest.
But the evidence is there, it's robust, it's multiple, it’s diverse. And slowly but surely, such platforms like yourself, which present awareness to the public of evidence which is out there, which demonstrates that a revision of Egyptian history is really called for or brings that time closer. There is another factor that Egyptian history is not is actually, the absolute dating of Egyptian history, as I mentioned before, is actually based on the dating of the Syrian era, the Babylonian era, the Persian era. And in a previous book, The Challenge of Jewish History, I discovered evidence that the Persian era has been misplaced. In fact, it was alongside the Greek era. Not before the Greek but the last of the Persian era was actually alongside the Greek era. In fact, the more one looked into that archaeological evidence of the Persian and Greek era, one can see clearly that the two empires coexisted and basically, bringing down the Persian era alongside the Greek era, automatically, like a train, pulls down the Syrian era and the whole of the Egyptian era.
So what we're saying is that it's not only that the Egyptian era itself has to be contracted 800 years, it also has to be shifted up about 200 years further forward in time, but the evidence in support of that is, is astronomical in both meanings of the word.
We have astronomical dates. Besides, for the Sothic dates, we have astronomical dates from the 12th dynasty of Egyptian kings, which has been puzzling and vexing chronologists, which don't fit in in the era which they've set the 12th dynasty, but fit in with the era which we have assembled according to the biblical data and authentic archaeological evidence, as well as astronomical date from latter time papyri, which was 1000 years later.
And therefore the correlation, the harmony of astronomical dating from the 12th dynasty with astronomical dating from the 27th dynasty with the biblical data and all the archaeological information which you have from all civilizations, book, and I do stress, because the history of all civilizations is really dependent on where you place Egyptian history, because Egyptian history interacted with the civilizations and civilizations have been dated according to the Egyptian history, and Egyptian history has been based on Assyrian history.
Once everything moves, basically the whole of civilization, the history of civilization, needs to be reconsidered. So it's a big work ahead. But the evidence is there. And slowly but surely, people are hearing about it and getting satisfied with the proofs and asking for reconsideration.
Max: Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. I can see how it will be hard for someone to digest. If you say, well, your whole framework needs to be changed, but maybe one fact at a time, you know. But Alexander Hool, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I feel like there's so many different like rabbit holes, we could go down. But thank you for also coming on very late on your time today, given the time difference. Any last thoughts and our discussion today? And where can people go to find out more?
Alexander: Yes, thank you so much for allowing me on the show. And I think I'd like to emphasize that once again, platforms like yourself, to present to the public information, new information, a new way of looking at things, yes, sometimes it does involve an upheaval. But in the quest of the truth, it is so worthwhile in discovering the two events to be able to get history right. And to analyze the relevant information, we do have so much new information now. So much information, which is really authentic and not susceptible, not susceptible to falsification, and should be given full light, in order that the world should come to recognition of the truth of history, and really the end of the dates really the truth of the Bible. That's what we're working to be able to get to.
I would invite anyone to try and locate the book Pharaoh, which brings down the investigations which we have made, bringing down the evidence. I'd also like to suggest reading The Challenge of Jewish history. It's, again, it's on the Persian era, it's a completely different section of history. But if you go into it a bit more, you will realize that actually, they're interconnected. And all the evidence in one book actually provides corroboration and confirmation to the evidence of the other. So there's a lot of work to be done. But to get involved in it with information, which we have now. Things can move.
Max: Appreciate it. This will all go on the show notes page. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Alexander: Thank you.
Max: All right, further thoughts. I would, if I were going to try to promote this alternative, I would find the best piece of evidence that disrupts the mainstream chronology and try to debate that rather than the whole thing. You know, I would personally would focus particularly on the 6th Dynasty, to see that if we can verify any of the kings in that dynasty and particularly Pepe the second and where they relate to, to the kings before and after it because there is there is some evidence in the book about you know, King’s lists that seem to that are that are set in stone in ancient Egypt that seem to put them elsewhere?
So I think focusing on that and see if we could fall falsify one side or the other would be my, my hunch here. So, that's interesting. I think often a single shock can lead to further changes. All right. I want to know what you think. Check out maximum.local.com to check out our locals and then email us at local max radio@gmail.com. Hope everyone's doing well. Have a great week, everyone.
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