Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings

by Phillips, Graham

  Although both 'The Hymn to the Aten' and Psalm 104 describe in a similar way how their gods are seen as creators, nurturers and prime movers of all phenomena on earth, and show that the deities were regarded in a like manner, we only have this isolated example from which to make a comparison. There is, however, other evidence which actually associates two of the Hebrews' most important figures with what seems to have been the birthplace of Atenism – the city of Heliopolis.

  Heliopolis was the name the Greeks eventually gave to the city; in ancient times it was called On. According to Genesis Chapter 41: Verse 45, the Hebrew patriarch Joseph married the daughter of the high priest of On. A story survived in Egypt during Roman times which also linked Moses with the city. The scholar Apion, who taught in Rome under the emperors Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius, wrote in the third volume of his History of Egypt that, 'Moses, as I have heard from the elders in Egypt, was a native of Heliopolis'.

  Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, even considered that Moses may have been inspired by Akhenaten. In his book Moses and Monotheism, published in 1939, he argued that the Hebrews had been followers of Akhenaten's religion, and that their God was actually the Aten. Much of Freud's evidence rested on the similarity between the Hebrew word for God – Adonai – and the word Aten. The Hebrew letter D was a transliteration of the Egyptian letter T, he argued, and likewise E and O. Accordingly, the Egyptian pronunciation of the Hebrew word for God would be Atenai – which sounds very similar to Aten. However, linguists have since pointed out a flaw in the argument. The word Adonai, meaning 'Lord', was not an exclusive term for God; it was used just as the English word Lord is used, either to address God or as a title of nobility. The Egyptian word for Lord is Neb. Consequently, if the Hebrews had adopted the custom of addressing God by the title Lord from the Egyptians, their term would not have been derived from the word Aten at all.

  For another more fundamental reason it seems unlikely that the Hebrews took their faith from Atenism: there is no evidence of Atenism as a cult anywhere in Egypt before the accession of Akhenaten. Logic dictates, therefore, that if there is a connection between the two religions, Akhenaten took his ideas from the Hebrews.

  However, there is compelling evidence to link the two faiths which does suggest that some Atenists later merged with the Hebrews and contaminated their religious practices. There is one pagan practice that both religions seem to have retained. We have seen in Chapter Four how the sole concession Akhenaten seems to have made to the old ways was the continued veneration of the bull. Just such an animal seems to have been revered by the early Hebrews.

  A sacred bull is echoed in the biblical story of the golden calf. According to Chapter 32 of Exodus, when Moses is absent communing with God on Mount Sinai, his people, fearing some ill has befallen him, ask his deputy Aaron to make images of the gods to protect them. Agreeing, Aaron collects golden jewellery from the people and makes a 'molten calf. In fact, contrary to the popular Hollywood image, it is not one calf they make but many, as the others are said to follow Aaron's lead (Verses 31 and 35). Aaron declares that these calves are, 'thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt' (Verse 4). Furthermore, they do not seem to be life-size representations either. We are not told how big they are, but Verse 4 seems to suggest that they are small enough to be held in the hands. When the people gave Aaron their golden earrings to make the idol, 'he received them at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool'.

  That the early Israelites historically did venerate such idols is supported by archaeological evidence. A number of hand-size carved bulls have been found at early sites throughout Palestine. Perhaps the most interesting was a bronze bull, some 200 centimetres (8 inches) long, found at a site excavated by Israeli archaeologist Dr Amihay Mazor (of Hebrew University, Jerusalem) in the Samarian Mountains just to the north of Nablus. This was the biblical Shechem, one of the holiest sites in ancient Israel where Abraham and Joshua both raised altars to God. The artefact dates from the twelfth century BC, a time after the period that Moses apparently lived, and consequently a time when the Hebrew faith was said to have been fully established. This can be gathered from an inscription on a large granite stela found by Flinders Petrie in 1896. It came from the funerary temple of the nineteenth-dynasty pharaoh Merenptah near Thebes and is dated as the fifth year of his reign. Now in the Cairo Museum, it has become known as the Israel Stela because it includes the first and only known mention of Israel in an Egyptian text. (See Chapter Eight.) Its unique importance is that it shows that Israel already existed during Merenptah's reign in the late thirteenth century BC (circa 1212 to 1202 BC) – a time before the date of the bronze bull (the 1100s BC).

  If the Old Testament story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan is remotely true, then the site of Shechem was the most sacred Hebrew site of the period. According to the Book of Joshua, after Canaan is conquered by Joshua he erects an altar to give thanks to God:

  So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest you deny your God. (Joshua: 24. 25–27.)

  If the Bible is right then Shechem is the religious heartland of the Israelites in their earliest days in Canaan. The bronze bull – coming from a contemporary site in this very area – is clear evidence of the continued veneration of the pagan bull, certainly by some Hebrews, well after they had apparently settled in the 'Promised Land'.

  Of all the hundreds of pagan religious practices that there were in the world, that both the Atenist and Hebrew religions should seemingly be tainted by one that is exactly the same, is surely more than coincidence.

  Standing alone, the story of the golden calf is a mystery: why should a people, who had recently witnessed the awesome power of their God free them from captivity in Egypt, lose faith so easily and revert to idolatry? More importantly, why should they have chosen a calf to venerate? If there is any historicity reflected in the story – and the archaeological evidence suggests that there is – then the answer to both questions must be that they had only recently abandoned the calf as an object of veneration. As the biblical narrative provides no prior evidence of such a practice among the Hebrews, we can only construe that it was an external influence, and judging by the reference in Exodus 32:28, which tells us that the idolaters were only a faction (3000 individuals that the tribe of Levi were ordered to kill), then they also seem to have been a Gentile (non-Hebrew) element among the Israelites. The only Gentiles we know of during this early era who would have had enough in common with a monotheistic religion to embrace the Hebrew God are the Atenists. The very people that also venerated the bull.

  Why the Atenists might have been among the Hebrews after their flight from Egypt. we shall return to later. Firstly, we must see if there is any firm historical evidence to place the Hebrews in Egypt during, or just prior to, Akhenaten's time.

  SUMMARY

  • Akhenaten's revolution in religious thought springs into existence seemingly from nowhere. Although the Aten existed as a divinity before Akhenaten came to power, there was apparently no such thing as Atenism.

  • Akhenaten seems to have been struggling to find a conventional Egyptian context with which to convey his new religious ideas. In an attempt to distinguish his deity from any previous god Akhenaten represented it by a new glyph: a disc from which emanated rays. Akhenaten, therefore, seems to have been inspired by an idea which was impossible to fit into an established Egyptian context, implying that the thinking behind Atenism was a foreign concept.

  • There are three essential aspects of Akhenaten's god which set it apart from all other Egyptian deities: it is the one and only universal god; it appears
to have had no name; and it cannot be represented by a graven image. This is also an exact description of another god – the God of the Hebrews. Like the Aten, God, as represented in the Old Testament, is the only god, he cannot be addressed by name, and cannot be represented by a graven image. The Hebrews are certainly the only other people on earth who are known to have conceived of monotheism so early.

  • The Bible does not provide dates, but it does tell us that the Hebrews were held captive in Egypt before they escaped during the Exodus. It consequently may have been possible for Akhenaten to have been influenced by the early Israelites.

  • The sole concession Akhenaten seems to have made to the old ways was the continued veneration of the sacred bull of Re. Just such an animal seems to have been revered by the early Hebrews. A sacred bull is echoed in the biblical story of the golden calf.

  • As the biblical narrative provides no prior evidence of such a practice among the Hebrews, we can only construe that the bull-worship was an external influence. Judging by the reference in Exodus 32:28, which tells us that the idolaters were only a faction, then they may also have been a Gentile (non-Hebrew) element among the Israelites. The only Gentiles we know of during this early era who would have had enough in common with a monotheistic religion to embrace the Hebrew God are the Atenists. It is possible, therefore, that a number of Atenists joined the Hebrews when they too were persecuted around fifteen years after Akhenaten's reign.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Children of Israel

  In the biblical account, the Israelites spend 430 years in Egypt before the Exodus. They are originally made welcome by a pharaoh during Joseph's time, but later, concerned by their growing numbers, the Egyptians enslave them. Eventually, Moses is called by God to lead them out of Egypt and, after the country is beset by a series of plagues and terrible deaths, the pharaoh begrudgingly lets them leave. Suffering a change of heart, he then pursues the Israelites, who manage to escape when the waters of the Red Sea miraculously part. Finally, after wandering for forty years in the wilderness, they are led by Joshua into the 'Promised Land' of Canaan.

  Although the narrative concerns what are purported to be monumental historical events, the Bible gives us no idea when they were supposed to have occurred: it provides no dates and fails to name the pharaohs in question. Despite the mass of contemporary records that survive from ancient Egypt, not one historical reference to the presence of the Israelites in that country has yet been found. Not a word about Joseph, whom the Bible tells us was the pharaoh's 'grand vizier' – his chief minister. Not a single mention of Moses, whom the Bible tells us was raised as an Egyptian prince. Nothing concerning the plagues, which included the day turning to night and the Nile turning to blood. And nothing regarding the spectacular flight from Egypt by a people which, we are told, number over half a million. In fact, there is no ancient evidence independent of the Bible – from anywhere – which directly corroborates any of these events. From the purely historical perspective, there would seem to be no real evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt at all.

  There were certainly a people known as the Israelites who had settled in Canaan – an area which included modern Israel, Palestine and the Lebanon – by around 1200 BC, as demonstrated by the Israel Stela (see Chapter Seven) and archaeological evidence (see below); and that they were the forefathers of the Jews is not in question. Historians, however, have long debated whether or not the Israelites had really arrived there from Egypt as the Bible relates.

  The Bible does not come into any known historical context until around 1000 BC, before which time the Israelites seem to have existed as separate tribes ruled by a series of chieftains called Judges. According to the First Book of Samuel, the prophet Samuel is instructed to unite the tribes of Israel under one king. He first chooses Saul, who ultimately fails to keep the country together. Saul's son-in-law David is then proclaimed king by Samuel and he succeeds were Saul has failed. He establishes the united kingdom of Israel, and captures the city of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and makes it his capital. David is succeeded by his son Solomon who builds the first temple in the holy city. After Solomon's death the southern part of the country, around Jerusalem, breaks away from the rest of Israel to form the kingdom of Judah (which the Romans later called Judea), named after one of the Hebrew tribes. It is with the kingdom of Judah that the Judaic tradition thereafter focuses, the name Jew actually coming from the Hebrew word Yehudi – meaning a member of the tribe of Judah.

  Most modern historians accept that these particular events did occur during the tenth century BC, although there is much disagreement regarding the finer details. After this time, however, the Old Testament account becomes increasingly verifiable from external sources. Jerusalem was sacked and the temple destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, after Judah was invaded by the Babylonians and thousands of the Jews were carted off to exile in Babylon. They were eventually resettled by the Persians who conquered the failing Babylonian empire in 538 BC, although thereafter they were subjected in turn to rule by the Persians, the Greeks and ultimately the Romans. Under the Romans, Judah enjoyed enough independence for its king, Herod the Great, to rebuild the temple completely, but after the Jews later revolted it too was razed to the ground in AD 70. This effectively spelt the end of Judah, as many of its citizens were reduced to slavery and deported.

  Historically, it was sometime between the building of the first temple and the exile in Babylon that Judaism as we now know it emerged. It was also during this time that most scholars believe that the account of the Israelite period in Egypt was actually written.

  The first five books of the Bible, which cover the period from the Creation to the arrival of the Israelites at the Promised Land, were traditionally believed to have been written by Moses himself. Collectively called the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), they are now thought by biblical scholars to have been derived from various sources, as different elements in the narrative do not share the same literary character. For example, the accounts of Joseph or Joshua do not belong to the same literary class as the stories of Adam and Eve or Noah's Ark. The authors fail to identify themselves, but whoever they were it seems unlikely that they were eyewitnesses to the events they are describing. Indeed, they may not even have been remote contemporaries, as the Pentateuch contain a great many anachronisms.

  According to Genesis 37:25, Joseph and his brothers encounter a company of Ishmaelite traders, 'who came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt'. The Egyptians depicted every type of animal in their art, but never once show camels as a means of transport until the seventh century BC. Like the other contemporary works from the Asiatic, they show asses being used to carry goods. The oldest literary reference to domesticated camels is by the people of the Arabian Gulf around 850 BC, and not from Egypt for another two centuries. This was long after David's time, yet the Bible itself tells us that Joseph had lived hundreds of years before David.

  Another example is early references to the Israelite enemies the Philistines. Genesis describes Joseph's great-grandfather, Abraham, living in the Land of the Philistines at Beersheba, in southern Canaan. According to Genesis 21:32–34, Abraham makes a treaty with the Philistine king Abimelech. The name Philistine comes from Peleset, an Egyptian word meaning 'Sea Peoples', and they are first recorded arriving in the Eastern Mediterranean in the reign of Ramesses III around 1180 BC. Archaeology, which has shown them to have been of Aegean origin, has produced no evidence of Philistine migration into Canaan much before the twelfth century BC. Although this is around 150 years before David's time, the Bible tells us that Abraham had lived well over 500 years before the Israelites even left Egypt.

  In the 1970s Professor Donald Redford, in his A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph, argued that the Egyptian elements in the story reflect the seventh century BC at the earliest. For instance, in Genesis 42:16, Joseph uses the oath, 'by the life
of the pharaoh', which would not have existed in that form until the seventh century BC; and an Egyptian who appears in the Joseph story is an officer called Potiphar, a mime which only occurs as an Egyptian name at the same late date. Other scholars consider that the entire Pentateuch was written as late as the seventh century BC, due to a number of tell-tale clues. For instance, money, in the form of coins, is referenced repeatedly, although the oldest known form of coinage was that used by the Lydians around 650 BC. This does not mean to say that the events were invented in the seventh century BC, only that they were committed to writing in their present form at that time.

  Many biblical authorities consider that the stories were handed down verbally for generations and, like many oral accounts, were embellished or reinterpreted. Fundamentalists would disagree, of course, believing that every single word in the Bible is absolutely true. Regardless of whether or not the events were originally the result of divine intervention, the Old Testament, as it appears in the most popular English edition, is the product of a series of translations from one language to another – and even these individual languages changed over time. That certain elements in the narrative would also undergo change is almost inevitable.

  These are minor problems, however, compared to actually translating a completely foreign tongue. A perfect example of a totally misleading mistranslation occurred in the Exodus account concerning the place were the sea parted to allow the Israelites to escape Egypt. In the original Hebrew it was written Yam Suph, which was mistranslated as 'Red Sea'. It actually means 'Sea of Reeds' and appears to have been a location in the Nile Delta (see Chapter Ten).