Who was Pharaoh during the Israelite Exodus?

Answer 1

Other answers from our community:

>>It is said, "Most historians believe that Ramesses II was the Pharoh during the Exodus."<< However, it was most definitely NOT Ramses II.

We know for a fact that Ramses II died when he was 90 years old. How? Not only because Pharoah's birthdays, coronations and deaths are well documented but also because he built the Temple at Abu Simbel.

The most spectacular engineering achievement of Abu Simbel is that sunlight shines directly into the temple twice a year. Once on Ramses II's birthday and once on his coronation. (Even though the temple was moved due to the construction of the High Dam, the dates the sun illuminates the chambers are only off by one day.)

And we know how old he was when he died. This is confirmed by the obscure fact that Pharoah's burial chambers are a specific height. The age of the Pharoah at death x Pi = the height of the chamber.

Now Moses, according to The Bible, was 80 years old when he first approached the Pharoah with the demand to "let my people go.". If Pharaoh died right after the Exodus he was a maximum of ten years older then Moses. The problem?

The Bible says that Pharoah's daughter found Moses in the reeds and kept him and raised him as her own child. Ramses could not have had a daughter old enough to pass for Moses' mother when he himself was only ten years old.

Some possible answers:

1) The Jewish scribes who wrote the Bible made up the whole story about Moses being found by Pharoah's daughter. There are many reasons why they might have done this. Also, you would have to believe that Moses never passed for Ramses II's grandson but possibly his son.

2) The Egyptians not only incorrectly documented Ramses' age but the architects of both Abu Simbel and Ramses II's burial chamber were buffoons.

3) The Jewish scribes who wrote the Bible were incorrect about Moses' age by around 26 years. (Assuming Ramses II had a daughter at the age of 13 and she was at least 13 herself when she found Moses.)

4) The Jewish scribes were incorrect about Moses being 80 years old when he approached Pharaoh.

5) The whole thing is fiction.

Why do some people believe Ramses was the Pharaoh during the exodus? Because the Bible tells of the Jews building the cities of "Pithom" and "PiRamses" aka "Ramesses." However, archeologists have found evidence of Egyptian settlements long before PiRamses was built by the Jews making it much older then originally thought. Since Pithom was built, as the Bible accurately describes, of mud brick there are few remains of this city.

For this reason scholars consider that the earlier name was updated to make it recognizable to those who read the account. It is thus not an anachronism or has no direct bearing on the age of the city. There are many examples of this kind of thing. In referring to Russian cities we would no longer use St. Petersburg but the current name. It is also worth noting that a number of scholars consider that the hole Egyptian chronology is in need of revision by several centuries and so it is difficult to state categorically who the Pharaoh was.

Answer

Acording to Wikipedia: In the Bible, the name of the Pharaoh of the Exodus is not given. He is simply called "Pharaoh." Muslims also believe in the exodus, as the story is told in the Muslim holy book the Qur'an (Koran), although some details of the story are different. Candidates for the identity of the King of Egypt at the time of the Exodus include

clude:

• Amenemhat IV (1815 BC to 1806 BC)
• Tutimaios (circa 1690 BC)- also known as Dudimose
• A Hyksos king (circa 1648 BC to 1540 BC)
• Ahmose I (1550 BC to 1525 BC)
• Thutmose I
• Thutmose III (1479 BC to 1425 BC)
• Amenhotep II (1427 BC to 1401 BC)
• Amenhotep IV, also known as Akhenaten (1352 BC - 1336 BC)
• Horemheb (circa 1319 BC to 1292 BC)
• Ramesses I (circa 1292 BC to 1290 BC)
• Ramesses II (1279 BC to 1213 BC)
• Merneptah (1213 BC to 1203 BC)
• Amenmesse (1203 BC to 1199 BC)
• Setnakhte (1190 BC to 1186 BC)

Answer:

The Bible very clearly places the Exodus from Egypt around 1440 BCE, but we now know from Archaeology that Egypt was at that time very much in control of Canaan and remained so until the thirteenth century, which brings us to the time of Ramesses II, or Ramses II, pharaoh from around 1290 to 1224 BCE. No earlier pharaoh could have been the the biblical pharaoh who drowned in pursuit of the fleeing Israelites as the crossed the Red Sea. Moreover, it was he who built the city of Ramses (Pi-Ramesses), mentioned in the story of the Exodus, thus ruling out his predecessors.

Unlike the biblical pharoah, who was drowned in the Red Sea, Ramses II was buried in a tomb in the Valley of Kings. His body was later moved to a royal cache. Assuming there really was an Exodus from Egypt, which few scholars now accept, Ramses II could not have been that pharaoh, regardless of popular tradition.

Answer 2

It could not have been any pharoah who lived before Ramses II, because the Amarna letters show that during his reign, the petty Canaanite rulers continued to hold sway under the overall military rule of Egypt, with no mention of any threat from foreigners. Had the Exodus occurred at this time, the Hebrews would have been fleeing from Egypt into Egyptian-occupied territory, yet the Bible never mentions this.

It could not have been anyone after Ramses II because the biblical genealogies place the Exodus around 1400 BCE. In any case, we know from Egyptian records that Israelites inhabited parts of the remote interior by 1205 BCE, so anyone after Ramses II would be too late.

Some try to jump through intellectual hoops to prove that the pharoah who let Moses leave was either Ramses II or some other, earlier pharaoh, because to do otherwise is to accept that the entire story could be fiction. Yet all the evidence does point to it being a fiction.

Answer 3

The short answer is that we don't know for sure. The names of the Pharaohs are not given in Genesis (ch.12, 37, 39, etc.) or Exodus (ch.1, 7, 12, etc.), because their precise identity was not important. See also:

Evidence of the Exodus

Answer 4

Some modern researchers have placed the time of the Exodus to 1446 BC, in which case Thutmose III would have been the 6th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty.