Dr. David Falk is willing to acknowledge the Biblical use of Anachronism when talking about the use of Rameses as a place name in Genesis, or calling The King of Egypt Pharoah in Genesis, but not for Exodus.
Falk’s justification for this not working for Pi-Rameses in Exodus is the term translated “Store Cities”, somehow that precludes this being anything other than the Israelites building that City when it was founded by that name.
The problem is that view doesn’t fit Ramses II as the Pharaoh of The Exodus, it would make him an Earlier Pharoah on the timeline, that Pharaoh who had the Israelites build those cities can be still the same as the one when Moses was born or from whom Moses fled when he turned 40 at the latest, but there was definitely at least one change of Pharoah during the 40 years in between. At the earliest Pi-Rameses was founded during the reign of Horemheb.
However the near universal acceptance of the Israel reading of the Merneptah Stele has forced them to rule out any later Exodus model later than Rameses II.
I do not believe Israel was ever an Exonym for Israel prior to the birth of Christianity. OT era Gentiles called the Israelites Hebrews or Aramean, or referred to specific Tribes or houses, or specific cities or regions.
Attempts to debunk the Jezreel reading of Merneptah Stele usually just resort to strawmaning it by thinking the proof that this isn't a City name rules Jezreel out. Jezreel the city was founded by the Omrids so no one thinks that’s what Merneptah mentioned, most Biblical uses of the name are to the Valley, especially early on, it was the name of the Valley long before the city existed. I have no doubt that the Canaanites of the valley felt they were the seed of an ancestor figure named Jezreel, which could have been true, a tribe of the Hivites or something. Jezreel is a name commonly interpreted as meaning “God will Sow” because of how the word for “Seed”, Zerah, is one of its core roots. So what the Menreptah Stele says about their “Seed is naught” makes perfect sense as a play on the name Jezreel. Ya know what cities are suspiciously missing from the Merneptah stele given what Canaanite cities were mentioned just before this? The cities of the Jezreel Valley from 1 Kings 4:12, Joshua 17:17 and Judge 1:27 like Megiddo and Bethshean. Megiddo Stratum VIIA is contemporary with Merneptah at least in its end.
The Israel reading being correct is also a problem for the Rameses II Exodus view. Mernepetah reigned only about a decade and the victory this Stele celebrates is supposed to be before his year 5, so at least 40 years since the Exodus would force The Exodus to be fairly early in Rameses II’s long reign, forcing the birth of Moses to be probably back in the 18th Dynasty given how short the reigns of Rameses I and Seti I are currently considered to be, thus before the founding of Pi-Rameses.Horemheb began his reign in 1319 BC so even if all of Exodus 1-2:9 including the birth of Moses happened right away, 40 years later would still bring us to the year Ramses II became King. To be fair Rameses II is believed to have become King in May and Acts 7 can be interpreted as implying Moses' flight happened exactly 40 years before the first Passover, so late March or early April, but that’s still cutting it close. And the problem with placing the Exodus in Rameses II’s year 40 or 41 is we know which of his sons was legally considered the first born from year 25 to year 40, it was Rameses the firstborn of Isetnofret, the first born of Nefertari had died in year 25.
That’s another thing about a Rameses II Exodus model, we don’t have as much wiggle room for when in his reign the Plague of the First Born could have happened, we know exactly when each time a current first bone of his died. And the only one to happen soon enough to allow the flight of Moses to be from a prior Pharaoh is year 25 when Amun-her-khepeshef died. And that is too soon, it placed the flight of Moses back in the reign of Horemheb and his birth back in the reign of Tutankhamun. There is zero chance The Bible meant the eldest still living son of Nefertari which was Meratum following this point, he was never crown prince and I firmly believe what Exodus means by first born here is the appointed Heir. But even he didn’t die till year 46 at the earliest.
I’m willing to entertain the possibility of not accepting the implausible life spans of Genesis at face value, but Moses' 120 years is absolutely not implausible. The ability of humans to live that long today is NOT because we're living longer now, the average life expectancy statistics people abuse are factoring in the massive drop in infant mortality. Psalm 90:10 records that the Ancient Israelites absolutely saw between 70 and 80 as the average life expectancy and Genesis 6 tells us that 120 was known to be possible. As someone who is 40 right now,, I can absolutely relate to that being the age when someone would want to get in touch with their roots they only abstractly knew about before. Also when Falk wanted to criticize someone taking the Abraham was born when Terah was 70 view of Genesis 11-12 he really took the attitude of “how dare you question Stephen's inspired knowledge of Old Testament chronology in Acts 7”, and that’s also exactly where Moses being 40 when he fled came from. Moses being 80 at the time of The Exodus comes right from Exodus 7:7, no NT clarification necessary, and Aaron being 83 shows this is exact ages they are recording not poetic estimates.
In spite of what I shall do rhetorically in this post, I ultimately favor a much earlier Exodus, chronology. So that isn’t why I oppose the Israel reading, it is simply what the facts lead me to conclude.
Remember the chapter divisions were not in the original texts, the start of Exodus 3 is directly in the context of the end of Exodus 2. Exodus 2:23 days a very long time passed before the King who Moses fled from died, and then presents his death as a key impetus for God finally taking action, telling Moses it’s safe to return to Egypt because those seeking him are dead now. So I lean towards The Exodus happening mere months after the Pharaoh takes the throne, Rameses doing so in May makes his ascension too early. But it makes it being during his reign Moses fled very plausible.
Maybe Moses could actually be listed as a son of Rameses, one of the more obscure ones. Rameses-Uderkhapesh or Rameses-Userpethi are both names that have “Meses” as part of them, and a name that could explain the origin of the name Osarseph (the relevance of that name will come up later).
Merneptah abandoned PI-Rameses as capital but we don’t know exactly when. The consequences of the Exodus could be a factor in why. This would make the fight of Moses about the year 26 or 27 or 28 of Ramses II reign, this would place the birth of Moses either late in the reign of Rameses I or early in the reign of Seti I, Rameses I has no known daughter but Seti I has at least one but maybe two, Tia and Henutmire. There are extra Biblical traditions that Moses was involved in a campaign against Cush (often mistakenly confused with Nubia still), Rameses did campaign there about year 22 of his reign.
Maybe the Israel reading of the Merneptah Stele doesn’t actually contradict the Exodus happening during Merneptah’s reign if it happened in the first year. The Stele’s poetic language is vague, it may be wrong to make assumptions about where anyone is, maybe it is another example of the Egyptians recording a defeat as a victor?
Merneptah (or whatever name was given to the son of the Rameses Miamun who reigned 66 years) was the original 19th Dynasty Exodus model. The Israel reading of the Merneptah Stele is what changed that. Its own origins however are tied to narratives invented by Alexandrian Judeophobes of the Hellenistic Era where Moses is identified with a semilegendary 19th Century villain named Osarseph.
Back to arguing against the Late Exodus.
I think part of the argument against the anachronism interpretation of why Pi-Rameses appears in the text is an outdated belief that it stopped being well known or important very quickly. We now know people were writing poetry about the magnificence of Pi-Rameses over a century after the death of Rameses II, which as a proponent of Ussher’s dates for the divided kingdom brings us to about the time of Samuel. Even past then it remained the most notable city with a known name in the area of where Avaris had been. Avaris is confirmed by Egyptian records to be where Semitic immigrants from the Levant lived in Egyptian from its 12th Dynasty founding onwards till its destruction, those people were not only the Israelites but the Israelites were among them.
I don’t believe The Pentateuch was entirely personally written by Moses. At the very least I think none of the narrative parts really were. This was all being passed down by Oral Tradition originally. The term Torah does not refer to the entire Pentateuch but mainly the Laws given in the second half of Exodus and perhaps their key amendments provided in Leviticus and parts of Numbers.
The written narratives I believe began being a thing during the Samuelite period, for reasons perhaps explained by the history recorded in 1 Samuel.
I believe 1 Kings 6 has subtracted the years of oppression from the real total perhaps in part because of Tabernacle records of things they were unable to keep doing properly during the oppressions. Perhaps principally the Yom Kippur ritual, they may have properly kept Yom Kippure only 480 times, or maybe 479 times given the implied conclusion count.
Returning to Merneptah, a better proof the Israelites were in Canaan (and had been for awhile) in his time not dependent on how to read a name would be that the Eqwesh (and possibly also the Sherden and Shekelesh) are described as a Circusized people, which doesn’t fit them being Canaanites or Aegeans/Proto-Greeks. The Sherden are likely the Sardite tribe of Zebulun who had access to the Sea via Haifa. Shekelesh has by many been argued to be cognate with Issachar, who had a claim to the Jezreel valley according to Joshua 17:11 compared with Judges 1:27 and 1 Kings 4:12. Issachar did not have coastal territory but the Egyptians may have called them Sea Peoples because of their partnership with Zebulun.
My hunch is that the Eqwesh have a connection to Asher/Weshelesh (those names being cognate are well recognized as Issachar and Shekelesh). I could see it being connected to the name of Acco, the Ahserites had a claim to that city but failed to expel the Canaanites from it according to Judges 1:31.
I also have a hunch that the Lukka (who are never called Sea People) are the Lecah clan of Judah from 1 Chronicles 4:21.
But I do NOT think the Denyen are the Tribe of Dan, they are in “The Isles” which is in Near Eastern texts often an idiom for Greece (including Biblically in Genesis 10:4-5, Esther 10:1, Psalm 72:10, Isaiah 60:9 and 66:19, Jeremiah 2:10, Ezekiel 27:6-7, Daniel 11:18), hence they are the Danaans/Danoi of Homer. They are not the same as the Danuna of the Amarna letters either. It is the Denyen alone who brought Aegean artifacts and cultural elements to the Philistines. The Peleset are never called Sea Peoples.
Now identifying any of the Sea Peoples with Israelites is often abused by bad actors. Secular scholars who want to argue the Tribes of Israel don’t have a single common origin. Or British Israelites and Christian Identity cults who want to use this as a way to connect The Biblical Israelites to Western Europe. I believe the Israelite Sea Peoples were traders and explorers of the Seas but not colonizers. The Sherden may have explored Sardinia and even built some stuff there, but they are not the ancestors of classical, medieval or modern Sardinians.
If you use Ussher's date for the Kingdom period, and then count the Judges period backwards form there. The Philistine oppression begins in 1195 BC during the reign of Siptah in Egypt, and they were still firmly in power when Ramesses III fought against them around 1177 BC. Biblically we know the Philistines were Egyptians because of Genesis 10:13-14, Deuteronomy 2:23, Jeremiah 47:4 and Amos 9:7. And we know from Archeology that Gaza was Egypt's administrative within Canaan during the 18th-20th Dynasties.
I believe the Irsu narrative form Papyrus Harris I is the origin story of the Philistines as an independent polity form Egypt. Irsu is someone who began as the Egyptian Governor of Canaan then rebelled and wielded power over Egypt for a time.
This timeline puts year 4 and 5 of Merneptah when Izban of Bethlehem was Judging Israel. This Bethlehem is generally believed to be the Zebulunite Bethlehem not the one in Judah, which is considered arguably part of the Jezreel Valley.
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