[Dog Gone]

How can the author refer to Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank and a couple paragraphs later suggest that it is in Egypt?

[roamer_1]

How can the author refer to Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank and a couple paragraphs later suggest that it is in Egypt?

Joseph exacted a promise from his sons upon his death bed that they would take him with them if they ever went home... He lay in Egypt for many years, but the Bible is very specific that he was disinterred and carried to the Promised Land, so both tombs can be true.

[Swordmaker]

Re: Joseph’s tombs

Biblically, it is not inconsistent that Joseph had two tombs. As Vizier to Pharoah, Joseph was buried in a lavish tomb in Egypt. A couple hundred years later, when the Hebrews left during the Exodus, they took Joseph’s bones with them to be reinterred in the Promissed Land.

The Egyptian tomb attributed by archaeologist David Rohl to Joseph was empty and had been desecrated contemporaneously with the time of the Exodus.

[fatez]

I have read a ton on this "issue". This article makes some mistakes. The Exodus according to most scholars who believe in it, occurred in the 13th century BC (19th Dynasty), not the 13th dynasty. The sudden "disappearance" of the Semitic population in the northeast delta occurred in early in the 13th century. Interestingly enough, there is a sudden appearance of a new "Semitic" population in the hills of Canaan and in west-central Jordan (the areas settled by the tribes of Reuben and Manasseh) dated late in the 13th century that almost all archaeologist acknowledge as proto-Israel.

There is an active suppression of Israelite history by Arabs, and there are Israeli archaeologist who do not believe in the Biblical Exodus (Finkelstein, Silberman to name 2 prominent); but there are also very good archaeologist / historians who do believe in the Exodus or a form of it (Dever, Kitchen, Hoffmeier). There is a very rigorous debate on this issue right now (actually over the last 30 years). I have read most of the major scholarly books on this from all the sides (I plan on reading the rest over the next 2 years), I think the side that advocates the historical Exodus has the superior argument (based on the evidence of chronology, written documentation, physical evidence, linguistics, etc). Here is my disclosure though, I am a Bible believing Christian.

Here are some real good books on the pro-side:

Hoffmeier: Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Tradition

Hoffmeier: Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition

Kitchen: On the Reliability of the Old Testament