Biblically Compatible Archaeology and Geography

by Damien F. Mackey “I identify Khasekemre-Neferhotep I as the pharaoh from whom Moses demanded Israel’s release. I do so because Petrie found scarabs … of former kings at Kahun [Illahun]. But the latest scarab he found there was of Neferhotep, who was apparently the pharaoh ruling when the Israelite slaves suddenly left Kahun and fled from Egypt in the Exodus”. Dr. David Down The dynasty that began the cruel Oppression of Israel, the Twelfth Dynasty (including its various Old Kingdom duplications), faded out while Moses was yet in Midian (Exodus 4:19), its last ruler being a woman who has been triplicated in conventional Egyptian history (as Khentkaus, Nitocris and Sobekneferu(re)). During the course of this dynasty, Egypt advanced technologically. According to N. Grimal (pp. 165-166): “Foreign workers were also flowing into Egypt, bringing with them new techniques and preparing the way for a slow infiltration that would eventually result in ‘Asiatics’ gaining tempora...

by Damien F. Mackey If the one whom we call Sirach was actually Eleazar ben Sira, then that would do no harm whatsoever to my identification, and would likely enhance it. For, according to Abarim Publications, the Hebrew name, Eleazer, is related to both Azariah and Ezra. Although Daniel 3 portrays the three Jewish youth as defiant, the underlying reality - if I am correct in identifying Azariah with Ezra son of Seraiah (Sirach), and with the author of Sirach 51 - is quite different. The prospect of being burned alive in fire, or in boiling hot oil, is utterly terrifying. And I think that we get an eye-witness impression of the horror of it from Sirach 51. Previously I wrote on this most dramatic episode: Sirach 51:1, 2, 4: “I will give thanks to you, Lord and King … for you have been protector and support to me, and redeemed my body from destruction … from the stifling heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled …”. Saved “from the heart...

“The vivid Old Testament saga of the 10 plagues that devastated the land of Egypt and its people (Exodus 1-12) has intrigued some to seek rational explanations for a chronicle of disasters that befell one population yet spared another. Indeed, biblical scholars in a 21st century translation of the Old Testament concede that from an historical standpoint, the first nine plagues resemble natural events well known in the Middle East, save for their patterns and rapid succession”. N Joel Ehrenkranz and Deborah A Sampson I (Damien Mackey) am not completely averse to the theory that God may have used natural phenomena, catastrophism, to effect the Plagues of Egypt and also some aspects of the Exodus. I have been struck by the incredible likeness of the series of phenomena accompanying the Mount St. Helens eruption and the biblical Plagues - almost identical in some cases, except as to the order in which they occurred. N. Joel Ehrenkranz and Deborah A. Sampson have written (fo...

by Damien F. Mackey A tentative theory, which may provide nothing more than just a nice symmetry. Introduction When it comes to the place where Noah built the Ark there appear to be no firm traditions to offer us any helpful clues. This I find surprising, considering the significance of the event. It may simply be that, down through the ages, it has been presumed that the great Flood was so total that it destroyed every single vestige of anything on the ground that had preceded it. A complete tabula rasa effect. And, whereas that was also my early opinion, it is not any more. For instance, the four rivers of Genesis 2:10-14, far from having been erased from the face of the earth, were still flowing as late as Sirach’s day (Sirach 24:25-27), conventionally estimated as being the C2nd BC (about two millennia after the Flood). Indeed, they still flow to this very day (16th May, 2025). More significantly, from the testimony of Jesus Christ we learn that the Jerusale...

by Damien F. Mackey However, neither Flavio nor his brother, Claudio, believes that professor Anati is correct in his linking of both Sinai and Horeb as one and the same sacred mountain. They came to believe that the real Mount Horeb was an un-named mountain (no. 788) in the middle of the Karkom valley. The Midianites amongst whom Moses would dwell for forty years (from age 40-80) were descendants of Abraham by his second wife, Keturah (Genesis 25:1-2). The atmosphere living amongst those presumably God-fearing Semites must have been totally different from that of Moses’s first forty years of life, living amongst those fearers of the gods in “the land of Ham” (e.g., Psalm 78:51) - the Hamitic Egyptians and the Ethiopian descendants of Cush, the oldest son of Ham (Genesis 10:6, 8). Locating Midian and Mount Sinai Where was this land of Midian with its Holy Mountain, Horeb, or Sinai, that will become a central point of focus during this time? Here I substantially - but ...

by Damien F. Mackey “During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and He remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them”. Exodus 2:23-25 Introduction “During that long period, the king of Egypt died”. The “king of Egypt” here, the legendary “Chenephres” (Eusebius from Artapanus), died late during Moses’s Midian phase, and, with him, the dynasty virtually ended. There would yet be a brief-reigning female Pharaoh. I suited the last male Pharaoh with his historical (dynastic) alter egos in my article: The King of Egypt of Exodus 2:23 https://www.academia.edu/124085893/The_King_of_Egypt_of_Exodus_2_23 wherein I concluded: Conclusion: The vindictive “King of Egypt” of Exodus 2:23 was, all at once, “Chenephres” (tradition) – Chephren (Khafre)...