Reply #5: The Egyptian POV

[onager]

If one thing irritates Egyptian tour guides more than stupid Americans asking about the space aliens who built the Pyramids, it's stupid Americans spouting the Charlton Heston View Of Egyptian History. :-)

As most of you know, I've spent much of the past year+ in Egypt, mostly in Alexandria. But I did spend some time in Cairo and visited the incredible Egyptian Museum several times.

The Museum contains the only mention of Israel in all of recorded Egyptian history...which goes back quite a ways. It appears on a Victory Stele (Big Writing-Covered Rock) from the time of Pharoah Meneptah, son of the long-lived Ramses II.

I've seen it with my own atheist eyes, which brings me to a baffling pheomenon I've noticed. Many websites run by Xian...cough, cough...historical experts seem desperate to make Ramses II "the Exodus Pharoah." As a former SoB-aptist who had the Exodus story drummed into my head from babyhood, that just doesn't make sense. Ramses II ruled Egypt for 67 years. If he had drowned with his army in a supernatural Red Sea occurrence, someone in Egypt would have probably noticed and mentioned it.

Anyway, the Victory Stele is a straightforward account of Pharoah Meneptah taking his army west, to deal with Terrorist Insurgents in Libya. Then, as long as he was roaming the countryside with a perfectly good army, he decided to turn east and take care of some troublemakers in Palestine:

The princes are prostrate saying: "Shalom!"
Not one of the Nine Bows lifts his head:
Tjehenu is vanquished, Khatti at peace,
Canaan is captive with all woe.
Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized,
Yanoam made nonexistent;
Israel is wasted, bare of seed...

Well, spin by the ruling classes is also an ancient art. And that bit of propaganda is pretty funny, since Israel's seed is still in the same neighborhood and still annoying the Egyptians to this very day.

You can see the entire Victory Stele here: http://touregypt.net/victorystele.htm