I'm just now watching these, one by one. Thank you Mr. Fleishman, for posting these for everyone. You answered alot of my questions, I could never afford to go back to school to study, thank you. God bless you 🙏 ❤️ shalom 😊
Thank you for making these videos. So many teach the Bible but never connect it to the world events outside of the Bible or in the historical context. Your videos give reading these books new life and I've been going over them again to look at the details for histocial clues to tie it together.
This video is fascinating. It truly gives me a better understanding of the events leading to the many questions surrounding the Bible´s Exodus. Perhaps the Semites peoples who arrived to Egypt, left that land with a new identity, new culture, language, even an alphabet. Beautiful video. I have to watch it again several times!
Thank you for this series of lectures. Find them to be accurate based on my knowledge of history and thankful where I find that they bring my eduction up to date, being I am in my 70s now.
Wouldn’t it be possible that Exodus is actually an amalgamation of the Hyksos being expelled and another (possibly smaller), later event? We know from other examples of legends that multiple historic events hundreds of years apart merged over time into one narrative. In this case, the parallels are so striking, particularly with the Hyksos being Canaanite, that it sounds reasonable for this historic event to have been incorporated into the Exodus story.
Don't think I had seen this one yet. Great, as usual.. I don't see the earlier vids for this serie. Example= Egypt , Namar or is it just first video you posted to youtube?
So if the Hyksos didn't enter Egypt until 1630BC how is Abraham interacting with them in about 1750 (approximately the time according to the rabbis). Most Egyptologists put the start of the 2nd Intermediate Period beginning after Sobekneferu in about 1802BC. According to the less well attested intermediate period, this would be around the time of Ammu Aahotepre, who presumably was a Hyksos.
Hi Seth, I love your videos. You do a great job of pulling all the bits of ancient history together for me. I’m having some trouble organizing them for viewing in the right historical order, I wonder if you could maybe add numbers (or date ranges?) to them to make it easier to get the consistent narrative?
Thanks for your kind comments! As for the proper order, I number them all. On TH-cam, if you mouseover each of the lectures or open them up, you'll see they are numbered Z01, Z02, Z03, etc. A couple caveats: => Lectures Z01 and Z02 are a little rough because they were never meant to be on TH-cam. I recorded myself talking for a few friends, but I ended up deciding to post them anyway. You'll see that I use my normal formatting with Z03 (Abraham lecture). => The math videos are not numbered because they are out of the continuity
You have very interesting videos, very informative, and I realize your passion is great. but as I'm watching (22:03) you have this map showing the kingdom of cush. Why are historians calling it Cush and not Nubia? Cush should be around the Euphrates River not the Nile. What am I missing?
Yet another engrossing lecture. Some things I already knew, such as the writing system connections. But some other things I didn't know. Btw would you call yourself a Bible maximalist?
Yay, the Hyksos! Given the parallels with the Exodus, which you discussed... The forest through the trees for me is the number of people. Exodus 12:37 "about six hundred thousand"...archaeology has it around five hundred thousand. Is there any other period of Egyptian history with such a large migration of people in a very short period of time? Likewise, is there any (other) Biblical reference to the Hyksos fleeing Egypt (that is not the Exodus)?
@@maragolihistory2118 I think that strengthens the case, as we are looking for a period in Egyptian history when enslavements were a thing. The Canaanites who conquered Egypt (Hyksos) could have enslaved other Canaanites just the same as Egyptians as Canaan was itself comprised of multiple different groups of people. The interesting thing is the Hyksos would have been more accepting (initially) and the Hyksos likely could communicate with other Canaanites, such as Joseph and his family, more easily than the native Egyptians. There a lot of points in favor of this time period. Joseph is a name found in Hyksos Egypt. It would be easier to mistake Moses as a prince when everybody in the Palace is of Canaanite origin too. Hyksos extensively used mud brick construction, as highlighted in the Bible, and the Hyksos really conquered Egypt with their war chariots, something also highlighted in Exodos. If the Hyksos Pharaoh and his chariot army really did meet their a fate under a Sea, I'd expect the Southern Egyptians would have an opportunity to take both lower and upper Egypt. Finally, the resulting migration in the hundreds of thousands back to Canaan (likely the once enslaved), a huge number as stated in the Bible that should have archeological evidence, actually happened at the end of the Hyksos era. Some other dated archeological events that corroborate the Hyksos timeline are the destruction of Jericho and possibly the Minoan eruption at Thera (a possible explanation of the plagues). @World History by a Jew - The Channel
The “Egyptian Princess” status of Hagar could just be an example of the very-human tendency to glorify one’s lineage that is seen throughout history and literature, like the Greek heroes and Roman Patricians, and many other examples throughout world history, being descended from one of “the gods”. Alternatively, it could be from the gradual process of translating-up; she might actually have been just an ordinary servant-class semitic woman, then translated up to a high-status or wealthy one, then translated to a noblewoman, then finally to a princess. I don’t believe that royal princesses ever served as maids to other women below an empress, regardless of the wealth or status of the mistress, it just doesn’t make any sense. Previous civilizations had much stricter class/caste boundaries than we can really conceive of now.
Admittedly, this part is speculative. There is so little information to go on. However, if you look at the role of "chambermaid" or better "Lady-in-waiting" ... well into the modern world of Europe, a lesser princess could serve in this type of role to a higher royal official. It's not so far off ...
Thanks for watching the additional video. A great deal of scholarly work has been dedicated towards determining when the Torah was first committed to writing. The rabbis teach that there are two Torahs: Oral Torah and Written Torah. Jewish tradition states that Moses was given the Oral Torah at Mt Sinai, but the Written Torah came later. The Talmud is clear though, that Moses wrote the Torah (except the last few lines). However, modern scholarship feels strongly that the Torah was written by multiple authors from about 800-400 BCE (disputed) and codified around 450-350 BCE (by Ezra?). The Hebrew script of the Torah, as it has been dated by scholarly experts, makes it appear that ~800 BCE would be the oldest. However, Orthodox rabbis would disagree. To find the happy medium, one may argue that the Oral Torah was dated to Moses, but there was a much longer gap before it was committed to writing, or at least its oldest extant writing. This is speculative, though. If you find evidence of the Written Torah being earlier than 800 BCE, please tell me.
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Thank you. I understand all that but I've never heard of any scholar using the specific form of Old Hebrew script as the Samaritans have it (presuming it hasn't itself evolved much from an original form that all Jews used. ) as an indicator as to when The Torah was written down. This question needs to be put before a specialist on north-west Semitic alphabets.
@@Zebred2001 I agree that this is for a specialist, not for me, but you bring up an interesting point. The script I discuss in this video, the Proto-Sinaitic Script, dates to circa 1900 BCE, which you well know. It was replaced by Proto-Hebrew (usually given 1000 BCE by perhaps at early as 1200 BCE), which is said to be the script of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. To my untrained eye, the Samaritan script is much closer to this Proto-Hebrew, then the Hebrew script of the Jewish Torah with its Aramaic influences. If you equate as almost the same (Samaritan & Proto-Hebrew), you could argue the point that the Torah had to be written prior to 800 BCE, perhaps 1200s BCE, which would give you the date you need for Moses. However, I'd see this as perhaps part of a body of evidence, but not necessarily the smoking gun. I don't mean to belittle your deduction ... it's an excellent point! However, I freely admit I'm far from a specialist.
@@sethfleishman9892 I set aside the issue of whether or not Moses wrote the Pentateuch. I have no skin in that game. It was just an interesting thought I had and would like an alphabet scholar to weigh in. I truly appreciate your comments and thank you for your consideration on this Seth. Keep the great videos coming!
Yes, Jericho is another reason why the Hyksos period is so interesting, because the archaeological record says Jericho still had walls during the time of the Hyksos.
Is the rise of Ahmose (or one of his successors) what the book of Exodus means by "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph."? (Exodus 1:8 JPS Tanakh 1917.) The timing seems to work if the Israelites did not leave at the time of the Hyksos expulsion.
I've always taken this line in a very literal sense ... that the king who cracked down on the Israelites was NOT the same king who befriended Joseph. That being the case, it could really be any two kings. You probably made this comments before you watched the Joseph (th-cam.com/video/ddGTSCDNVrs/w-d-xo.html) and Exodus (th-cam.com/video/LJUdGlG0LBg/w-d-xo.html) lectures, so did they help with your own thoughts?
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Thank you for the question (and you wonderful lectures). I've watched the videos you mentioned multiple time (at least twice each). I ask the question because I, too, presume that the king who began the oppression of the Israelites could not be the same king who befriended Joseph and appointed him vizier. The passage from Exodus tells us it can't be the same king, because he was one who didn't know Joseph. Furthermore, It is startling to hear about a king of Egypt forgetting about a prominent vizier over the land, and especially one who had such a profound impact. Egyptian history makes it painfully clear that Egyptians had the collective memory of an elephant. W.M. Flinders Petrie made that point over and over in his books, in which he recounted how Egyptian kings five to ten dynasties later remembered and preserved the worship of former kings from the IV and V dynasties, as well as great viziers like Imhoteop. They even kept lists of the priests who presided over their worship. Thus, for a king not to know Joseph strikes me as evidence not only of a new king, but of a change in dynasty and dynastic family. Members of the royal family that befriended Joseph would certainly have remembered him. Ahmose, on the other hand would have no such memory. He began as a prince of upper Egypt when Egypt was divided. He would have only learned about the Israelites once he completed his expulsion of the Hyksos. Also, the extreme prejudice of the new king against the Israelites would seem more likely from an ethnically Egyptian king, and less likely from a Semitic Hyksos king (although the latter is still possible). Tack on two hundred and fifty to three hundred years to the reign of Ahmose (beginning ca. 1500 b.c.), and you come close to the date of the Exodus. That's why I think the oppression began with Ahmose or one of his immediate successors. BTW - I have read the fragments of Manetho's alleged account of the Exodus (in which he equates it with the expulsion of the Hyksos), and find it terribly problematic. Not only does he under-count the number of Semites that left due to Ahmose's expulsion, if indeed they were Israelites. He also claims that the same expelled Semites went on to establish the city of Jerusalem (which the Israelites later conquered). It's obvious that he is not dealing with the Semitic group.
it’s interesting that the Egyptians abhorred shepherding yet 1 of the 2 symbols of the Pharaoh was a shepherd’s crook along with the grain threshing flail 🤔
The best explanation I've heard is that it's more of a societal rivalry. Egypt was a settled, highly-civilized world, whereas shepherds were seen as being nomadic and barbaric. In other words, it's likely distinction of class or perhaps race (although Egyptians were probably less racist than much of today's world). However, let's face it ... there had to be shepherds in Egypt for their flocks, and the crook is certainly symbolic of a king herding his people.
Agreed, and the Hapburgs did it for the same political reasons ... keep the power within the family. However, they sometimes had to fight the church for the right to marry cousins, whereas Egyptian religion supported it because they saw the pharaohs as being like their gods.
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Tradition does not always mean correct. You should explain that in your videos. Moses often did not write in order of lineage but of importance.
So, all these old old stories are 100% reliable? Back in the times no stories were ever embellished or skewed for political reasons? Right, I got it now.
Thanks for your feedback, but that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that you should try to find what you think are kernels of truth, and then you see where they lead you ... maybe right or maybe wrong. For example, if you want to see an explanation of how I use the texts, see this excerpt from another of my videos: th-cam.com/video/kOlKa_ER81I/w-d-xo.html
I'm just now watching these, one by one. Thank you Mr. Fleishman, for posting these for everyone. You answered alot of my questions, I could never afford to go back to school to study, thank you. God bless you 🙏 ❤️ shalom 😊
Thank you for making these videos. So many teach the Bible but never connect it to the world events outside of the Bible or in the historical context. Your videos give reading these books new life and I've been going over them again to look at the details for histocial clues to tie it together.
Thanks! Glad you enjoy!
This video is fascinating. It truly gives me a better understanding of the events leading to the many questions surrounding the Bible´s Exodus. Perhaps the Semites peoples who arrived to Egypt, left that land with a new identity, new culture, language, even an alphabet. Beautiful video. I have to watch it again several times!
Excellent! Thanks so much!
Great lectures! Keep them coming!
Thanks!
great lecture series. love the slides.
Many thanks!
Seth, this is just great! 👏👏👏👏
Thanks so much!!!
Great, this is Seth!
Thank you for this series of lectures. Find them to be accurate based on my knowledge of history and thankful where I find that they bring my eduction up to date, being I am in my 70s now.
Thanks for watching!
Fantastic! Thank you Seth.
Glad you liked it!
Wouldn’t it be possible that Exodus is actually an amalgamation of the Hyksos being expelled and another (possibly smaller), later event?
We know from other examples of legends that multiple historic events hundreds of years apart merged over time into one narrative.
In this case, the parallels are so striking, particularly with the Hyksos being Canaanite, that it sounds reasonable for this historic event to have been incorporated into the Exodus story.
Don't think I had seen this one yet. Great, as usual.. I don't see the earlier vids for this serie. Example= Egypt , Namar or is it just first video you posted to youtube?
Thanks! The first two videos are Zoom recordings. They were not meant to be on TH-cam, but I posted them anyway. That's where I talk about Narmer.
So if the Hyksos didn't enter Egypt until 1630BC how is Abraham interacting with them in about 1750 (approximately the time according to the rabbis). Most Egyptologists put the start of the 2nd Intermediate Period beginning after Sobekneferu in about 1802BC. According to the less well attested intermediate period, this would be around the time of Ammu Aahotepre, who presumably was a Hyksos.
Hi Seth, I love your videos. You do a great job of pulling all the bits of ancient history together for me. I’m having some trouble organizing them for viewing in the right historical order, I wonder if you could maybe add numbers (or date ranges?) to them to make it easier to get the consistent narrative?
Thanks for your kind comments! As for the proper order, I number them all. On TH-cam, if you mouseover each of the lectures or open them up, you'll see they are numbered Z01, Z02, Z03, etc.
A couple caveats:
=> Lectures Z01 and Z02 are a little rough because they were never meant to be on TH-cam. I recorded myself talking for a few friends, but I ended up deciding to post them anyway. You'll see that I use my normal formatting with Z03 (Abraham lecture).
=> The math videos are not numbered because they are out of the continuity
@Kimberly, I explain the order in more details here: th-cam.com/video/xKApc3rMHxw/w-d-xo.html
You have very interesting videos, very informative, and I realize your passion is great. but as I'm watching (22:03) you have this map showing the kingdom of cush. Why are historians calling it Cush and not Nubia?
Cush should be around the Euphrates River not the Nile. What am I missing?
Where is the Musnad script? It's older than "Phoenician"
Thank you so much for sharing
Thanks for watching!
Yet another engrossing lecture. Some things I already knew, such as the writing system connections. But some other things I didn't know.
Btw would you call yourself a Bible maximalist?
Yay, the Hyksos! Given the parallels with the Exodus, which you discussed... The forest through the trees for me is the number of people. Exodus 12:37 "about six hundred thousand"...archaeology has it around five hundred thousand. Is there any other period of Egyptian history with such a large migration of people in a very short period of time? Likewise, is there any (other) Biblical reference to the Hyksos fleeing Egypt (that is not the Exodus)?
I hope you're aware that Hyskos enslavd ancient Egyptians???
@@maragolihistory2118 I think that strengthens the case, as we are looking for a period in Egyptian history when enslavements were a thing. The Canaanites who conquered Egypt (Hyksos) could have enslaved other Canaanites just the same as Egyptians as Canaan was itself comprised of multiple different groups of people. The interesting thing is the Hyksos would have been more accepting (initially) and the Hyksos likely could communicate with other Canaanites, such as Joseph and his family, more easily than the native Egyptians. There a lot of points in favor of this time period. Joseph is a name found in Hyksos Egypt. It would be easier to mistake Moses as a prince when everybody in the Palace is of Canaanite origin too. Hyksos extensively used mud brick construction, as highlighted in the Bible, and the Hyksos really conquered Egypt with their war chariots, something also highlighted in Exodos. If the Hyksos Pharaoh and his chariot army really did meet their a fate under a Sea, I'd expect the Southern Egyptians would have an opportunity to take both lower and upper Egypt. Finally, the resulting migration in the hundreds of thousands back to Canaan (likely the once enslaved), a huge number as stated in the Bible that should have archeological evidence, actually happened at the end of the Hyksos era. Some other dated archeological events that corroborate the Hyksos timeline are the destruction of Jericho and possibly the Minoan eruption at Thera (a possible explanation of the plagues). @World History by a Jew - The Channel
The “Egyptian Princess” status of Hagar could just be an example of the very-human tendency to glorify one’s lineage that is seen throughout history and literature, like the Greek heroes and Roman Patricians, and many other examples throughout world history, being descended from one of “the gods”. Alternatively, it could be from the gradual process of translating-up; she might actually have been just an ordinary servant-class semitic woman, then translated up to a high-status or wealthy one, then translated to a noblewoman, then finally to a princess. I don’t believe that royal princesses ever served as maids to other women below an empress, regardless of the wealth or status of the mistress, it just doesn’t make any sense. Previous civilizations had much stricter class/caste boundaries than we can really conceive of now.
Admittedly, this part is speculative. There is so little information to go on. However, if you look at the role of "chambermaid" or better "Lady-in-waiting" ... well into the modern world of Europe, a lesser princess could serve in this type of role to a higher royal official. It's not so far off ...
Very lucid lecture. I would still like to put my question regarding the dating of the Old Hebrew Torah to an alphabetic specialist scholar.
Thanks for watching the additional video. A great deal of scholarly work has been dedicated towards determining when the Torah was first committed to writing. The rabbis teach that there are two Torahs: Oral Torah and Written Torah. Jewish tradition states that Moses was given the Oral Torah at Mt Sinai, but the Written Torah came later. The Talmud is clear though, that Moses wrote the Torah (except the last few lines). However, modern scholarship feels strongly that the Torah was written by multiple authors from about 800-400 BCE (disputed) and codified around 450-350 BCE (by Ezra?). The Hebrew script of the Torah, as it has been dated by scholarly experts, makes it appear that ~800 BCE would be the oldest. However, Orthodox rabbis would disagree. To find the happy medium, one may argue that the Oral Torah was dated to Moses, but there was a much longer gap before it was committed to writing, or at least its oldest extant writing. This is speculative, though. If you find evidence of the Written Torah being earlier than 800 BCE, please tell me.
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Thank you. I understand all that but I've never heard of any scholar using the specific form of Old Hebrew script as the Samaritans have it (presuming it hasn't itself evolved much from an original form that all Jews used. ) as an indicator as to when The Torah was written down. This question needs to be put before a specialist on north-west Semitic alphabets.
@@Zebred2001 I agree that this is for a specialist, not for me, but you bring up an interesting point. The script I discuss in this video, the Proto-Sinaitic Script, dates to circa 1900 BCE, which you well know. It was replaced by Proto-Hebrew (usually given 1000 BCE by perhaps at early as 1200 BCE), which is said to be the script of the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. To my untrained eye, the Samaritan script is much closer to this Proto-Hebrew, then the Hebrew script of the Jewish Torah with its Aramaic influences. If you equate as almost the same (Samaritan & Proto-Hebrew), you could argue the point that the Torah had to be written prior to 800 BCE, perhaps 1200s BCE, which would give you the date you need for Moses. However, I'd see this as perhaps part of a body of evidence, but not necessarily the smoking gun. I don't mean to belittle your deduction ... it's an excellent point! However, I freely admit I'm far from a specialist.
@@sethfleishman9892 I set aside the issue of whether or not Moses wrote the Pentateuch. I have no skin in that game. It was just an interesting thought I had and would like an alphabet scholar to weigh in. I truly appreciate your comments and thank you for your consideration on this Seth. Keep the great videos coming!
If you have a late Exodus, you get no Jericho.....
Yes, Jericho is another reason why the Hyksos period is so interesting, because the archaeological record says Jericho still had walls during the time of the Hyksos.
Is the rise of Ahmose (or one of his successors) what the book of Exodus means by "Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph."? (Exodus 1:8 JPS Tanakh 1917.) The timing seems to work if the Israelites did not leave at the time of the Hyksos expulsion.
I've always taken this line in a very literal sense ... that the king who cracked down on the Israelites was NOT the same king who befriended Joseph. That being the case, it could really be any two kings. You probably made this comments before you watched the Joseph (th-cam.com/video/ddGTSCDNVrs/w-d-xo.html) and Exodus (th-cam.com/video/LJUdGlG0LBg/w-d-xo.html) lectures, so did they help with your own thoughts?
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Thank you for the question (and you wonderful lectures). I've watched the videos you mentioned multiple time (at least twice each).
I ask the question because I, too, presume that the king who began the oppression of the Israelites could not be the same king who befriended Joseph and appointed him vizier. The passage from Exodus tells us it can't be the same king, because he was one who didn't know Joseph.
Furthermore, It is startling to hear about a king of Egypt forgetting about a prominent vizier over the land, and especially one who had such a profound impact. Egyptian history makes it painfully clear that Egyptians had the collective memory of an elephant. W.M. Flinders Petrie made that point over and over in his books, in which he recounted how Egyptian kings five to ten dynasties later remembered and preserved the worship of former kings from the IV and V dynasties, as well as great viziers like Imhoteop. They even kept lists of the priests who presided over their worship.
Thus, for a king not to know Joseph strikes me as evidence not only of a new king, but of a change in dynasty and dynastic family. Members of the royal family that befriended Joseph would certainly have remembered him. Ahmose, on the other hand would have no such memory. He began as a prince of upper Egypt when Egypt was divided. He would have only learned about the Israelites once he completed his expulsion of the Hyksos. Also, the extreme prejudice of the new king against the Israelites would seem more likely from an ethnically Egyptian king, and less likely from a Semitic Hyksos king (although the latter is still possible). Tack on two hundred and fifty to three hundred years to the reign of Ahmose (beginning ca. 1500 b.c.), and you come close to the date of the Exodus. That's why I think the oppression began with Ahmose or one of his immediate successors.
BTW - I have read the fragments of Manetho's alleged account of the Exodus (in which he equates it with the expulsion of the Hyksos), and find it terribly problematic. Not only does he under-count the number of Semites that left due to Ahmose's expulsion, if indeed they were Israelites. He also claims that the same expelled Semites went on to establish the city of Jerusalem (which the Israelites later conquered). It's obvious that he is not dealing with the Semitic group.
Greetings from Peru! שנה טובה סת
Toda raba! L'shana tova! My first subscriber from Peru (that I know of)!
it’s interesting that the Egyptians abhorred shepherding yet 1 of the 2 symbols of the Pharaoh was a shepherd’s crook along with the grain threshing flail 🤔
The best explanation I've heard is that it's more of a societal rivalry. Egypt was a settled, highly-civilized world, whereas shepherds were seen as being nomadic and barbaric. In other words, it's likely distinction of class or perhaps race (although Egyptians were probably less racist than much of today's world). However, let's face it ... there had to be shepherds in Egypt for their flocks, and the crook is certainly symbolic of a king herding his people.
Which century did Egypt start in?
Depends on what you mean by "start", but it's believed that Egypt and the civilization what we think of as "Egyptian" began around 3100 BCE
Egypt didn’t exist when Abraham was alive
So the Egyptian royalty ignored the dangers of inbreeding. Well, so did the Habsburgs in more modern times. People just never learn.
EDIT: typos.
Agreed, and the Hapburgs did it for the same political reasons ... keep the power within the family. However, they sometimes had to fight the church for the right to marry cousins, whereas Egyptian religion supported it because they saw the pharaohs as being like their gods.
The oldest son of Noah is not Shem. Read more accurately my friend
I did NOT make a mistake. In Jewish tradition, Shem was the oldest son of Noah. "The three sons of Noah were Shem, Cham, and Yefet" (Genesis 6:10)
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel Tradition does not always mean correct. You should explain that in your videos. Moses often did not write in order of lineage but of importance.
So, all these old old stories are 100% reliable? Back in the times no stories were ever embellished or skewed for political reasons? Right, I got it now.
Thanks for your feedback, but that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that you should try to find what you think are kernels of truth, and then you see where they lead you ... maybe right or maybe wrong. For example, if you want to see an explanation of how I use the texts, see this excerpt from another of my videos: th-cam.com/video/kOlKa_ER81I/w-d-xo.html
@@WorldHistorybyaJewTheChannel - Thanks. I'll take a look.
Too much for me.
Kethura not hagar
Abraham never existed