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I think you may be confounding two related theories, from what I learned. There is little to no evidence for the Israelites ever being in Egypt, though there wa
by lr4444lr 9y ago
I think you may be confounding two related theories, from what I learned. There is little to no evidence for the Israelites ever being in Egypt, though there was a brief dynastic period (known to ancient historians as Hyksos, IIRC) of Canaanite rulers in Egypt, ostensibly as a brief post-war outcome, and it is possible but without evudence that some Israelites migrated during that time.
The "Sea Peoples", a term itself controversial because they don't seem to have any strict delineation in language, art, or leadership, subsumed a much larger presence in the Mediterranean, and it is during their height that we have the earliest solid evidence of Israelites, but also of other Bronze age tribes elsewhere in Greece, Anatolia, etc.
- nautikos 9y agoThis is fascinating to me. From the Wikipedia page, the story of the Hyksos and how they were driven out of Egypt sounds very similar to the book of Exodus. Even the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar.
- stan_rogers 9y agoEven the words Hyksos and Exodus sound similar. That comes under the heading "Wacky Coincidences in Liguistics". One means "rulers of foreign lands" in a an older Afro-Asiatic language (a precursor to Coptic); the other is an English retention of a Latin adaptation of a Greek word meaning "the road/path out" (exodos) from the book titles in the Septuagint, all Indo-European. It's related to exit (literally, "he goes out").