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AdvancedSpecial charactersHelpHeadingLevel 2Level 3Level 4Level 5FormatInsertLatinLatin extendedIPASymbolsGreekGreek extendedCyrillicArabicArabic extendedHebrewBanglaTamilTeluguSinhalaDevanagariGujaratiThaiLaoKhmerCanadian AboriginalRunesÁáÀàÂâÄäÃãǍǎĀāĂ㥹ÅåĆćĈĉÇçČčĊċĐđĎďÉéÈèÊêËëĚěĒēĔĕĖėĘęĜĝĢģĞğĠġĤĥĦħÍíÌìÎîÏïĨĩǏǐĪīĬĭİıĮįĴĵĶķĹĺĻļĽľŁłŃńÑñŅņŇňÓóÒòÔôÖöÕõǑǒŌōŎŏǪǫŐőŔŕŖŗŘřŚśŜŝŞşŠšȘșȚțŤťÚúÙùÛûÜüŨũŮůǓǔŪūǖǘǚǜŬŭŲųŰűŴŵÝýŶŷŸÿȲȳŹźŽžŻżÆæǢǣØøŒœßÐðÞþƏəFormattingLinksHeadingsListsFilesDiscussionReferencesDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getItalic''Italic text''Italic textBold'''Bold text'''Bold textBold & italic'''''Bold & italic text'''''Bold & italic textDescriptionWhat you typeWhat you getReferencePage text.<ref>[https://www.example.org/ Link text], additional text.</ref>Page text.[1]Named referencePage text.<ref name="test">[https://www.example.org/ Link text]</ref>Page text.[2]Additional use of the same referencePage text.<ref name="test" />Page text.[2]Display references<references />↑ Link text, additional text.↑ Link text==Historicity== [[File:Moses_Dura_Europos.jpg|thumb|260x260px|Moses and the [[burning bush]]. Painting from [[Dura-Europos synagogue]], third century CE]] Scholars hold different opinions on the historicity of Moses.<ref name="Nigo1993">{{cite journal|last1=Nigosian|first1=S. A.|date=1993|title=Moses as They Saw Him|journal=Vetus Testamentum|volume=43|issue=3|pages=339–350|doi=10.1163/156853393X00160|quote=Three views, based on source analysis or historical-critical method, seem to prevail among biblical scholars. First, a number of scholars, such as Meyer and Holscher, aim to deprive Moses all the prerogatives attributed to him by denying anything historical value about his person or the role he played in Israelite religion. Second, other scholars, ... diametrically oppose the first view and strive to anchor Moses the decisive role he played in Israelite religion in a firm setting. And third, those who take the middle position ... delineate the solidly historical identification of Moses from the superstructure of later legendary accretions ... Needless to say, these issues are hotly debated unresolved matters among scholars. Thus, the attempt to separate the historical from unhistorical elements in the Torah has yielded few, if any, positive results regarding the figure of Moses or the role he played on Israelite religion. No wonder J. Van Seters concluded that 'the quest for the historical Moses is a futile exercise. He now belongs only to legend.'}}</ref><ref name="Archaeo" /> For instance, according to [[William G. Dever]], the modern scholarly consensus is that the biblical person of Moses is largely mythical while also holding that "a Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in the southern [[Transjordan (Bible)|Transjordan]] in the mid-late 13th century B.C." and that "archeology can do nothing" to prove or confirm either way.<ref name=Archaeo>{{cite journal | last=Dever | first=William G. | title=What Remains of the House That Albright Built? | journal=The Biblical Archaeologist | publisher=University of Chicago Press | volume=56 | issue=1 | year=1993 | issn=0006-0895 | doi=10.2307/3210358 | pages=25–35| quote=the overwhelming scholarly consensus today is that Moses is a mythical figure| jstor=3210358 | s2cid=166003641 }}</ref><ref name="Dever2001" /> Some scholars, such as [[Konrad Schmid (theologian)|Konrad Schmid]] and Jens Schröter consider Moses a historical figure.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture |last1=Schmid |first1=Konrad |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-674-24838-0 |pages=44 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0AlBEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 |last2=Schröter |first2=Jens |quote=Moses was in all likelihood a historical figure}}</ref> According to Solomon Nigosian, there are actually three prevailing views among biblical scholars: one is that Moses is not a historical figure, another view strives to anchor the decisive role he played in Israelite religion, and a third that argues there are elements of both history and legend from which "these issues are hotly debated unresolved matters among scholars".<ref name="Nigo1993"/> According to Brian Britt, there is divide amongst scholars when discussing matters on Moses that threatens gridlock.<ref name="Britt">{{cite web |last1=Britt |first1=Brian |title=The Moses Myth, Beyond Biblical History |url=https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/Britt-Moses_Myth |website=The Bible and Interpretation |publisher=University of Arizona |date=2004}}</ref> According to the official Torah commentary for Conservative Judaism, it is irrelevant if the historical Moses existed, calling him "the folkloristic, national hero".<ref name="Lieber Dorff Harlow Dorff 2001 p. ">{{cite book | first=Stephen | last=Garfinkel | editor-last1=Lieber | editor-first1=David L. | editor-last2=Dorff |editor-first2=Elliot N. |editor-last3=Harlow |editor-first3=Jules |editor-last4=Dorff |editor-first4=R.P.P.E.N. |editor-last5=Fishbane |editor-first5=Michael A. | editor6=Jewish Publication Society | editor7=United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism | editor8=Rabbinical Assembly | editor-last9=Grossman | editor-first9=Susan | editor-last10=Kushner | editor-first10=Harold S. | editor-last11=Potok | editor-first11=Chaim | title=עץ חיים: Torah and Commentary | publisher=Jewish Publication Society | series=The JPS Bible Commentary Series | year=2001 | isbn=978-0-8276-0712-5 | chapter=Moses: Man of Israel, Man of God | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i1gKAQAAMAAJ | language=he | access-date=13 January 2022 | page=1414 | quote=So the question to ask in understanding the Torah on its own terms is not when, or even if, Moses lived, but what his life conveys in Israel's saga. [...] Typical of the folkloristic, national hero, Moses successfully withstands [...]}}</ref><ref name="The New York Times 2002">{{cite web | first=Michael | last=Massing | title=New Torah For Modern Minds | website=The New York Times | date=9 March 2002 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/books/new-torah-for-modern-minds.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100327132240/https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/books/new-torah-for-modern-minds.html | archive-date=27 March 2010 | url-status=live | access-date=1 September 2022}}</ref> [[Jan Assmann]] argues that it cannot be known if Moses ever lived because there are no traces of him outside tradition.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Assmann|first=Jan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nJv0oyQ-9_AC|title=Moses the Egyptian|date=1998-10-15|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-58739-7|pages=2, 11|quote=We cannot be sure Moses ever lived because there are not traces of his existence outside the tradition [p. 2] ... I shall not even ask the question—let alone, answer it—whether Moses was an Egyptian, or a Hebrew, or a Midianite. This question concerns the historical Moses and thus pertains to history. I am concerned with Moses as a figure of memory. As a figure of memory, Moses the Egyptian is radically different from Moses the Hebrew or the Biblical Moses.}}</ref> Though the names of Moses and others in the biblical narratives are Egyptian and contain genuine Egyptian elements, no extrabiblical sources point clearly to Moses.<ref name="Dever 2008">{{cite web|last1=Dever|first1=William|date=November 17, 2008|title=Archeology of the Hebrew Bible|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/archeology-hebrew-bible/|website=Nova|publisher=PBS|quote="Moses" is an Egyptian name. Some of the other names in the narratives are Egyptian, and there are genuine Egyptian elements. But no one has found a text or an artifact in Egypt itself or even in the Sinai that has any direct connection. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. But I think it does mean what happened was rather more modest. And the biblical writers have enlarged the story.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Megan Bishop|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qjkz_8EMoaUC|title=Biblical History and Israel's Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History|last2=Kelle|first2=Brad E.|date=2011-05-17|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-6260-0|pages=92–93|quote=... no extrabiblical source point clearly to Moses, ...}}</ref><ref name="Ox1" /> No references to Moses appear in any Egyptian sources prior to the fourth century BC, long after he is believed to have lived. No contemporary Egyptian sources mention Moses, or the events of Exodus–Deuteronomy, nor has any archaeological evidence been discovered in Egypt or the [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai wilderness]] to support the story in which he is the central figure.{{sfn|Meyers|2005|pp=5–6}} [[David Adams Leeming]] states that Moses is a mythic hero and the central figure in Hebrew mythology.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Leeming|first1=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kQFtlva3HaYC&q=+moses+central+figure|title=The Oxford Companion to World Mythology|date=2005-11-17|publisher=Oxford University Press USA |isbn=978-0-19-515669-0|language=en}}</ref> The ''Oxford Companion to the Bible'' states that the historicity of Moses is the most reasonable (albeit not unbiased) assumption to be made about him as his absence would leave a vacuum that cannot be explained away.<ref>{{cite book |title=Exodus, The Book of |chapter = Exodus, the|url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195046458.001.0001/acref-9780195046458-e-0245?rskey=QKB1cM&result=17 |via=www.oxfordreference.com |publisher=Oxford University Press |format=Online |date=2004 |isbn = 978-0-19-504645-8|quote=The historicity of Moses is the most reasonable assumption to be made about him. There is no viable argument why Moses should be regarded as a fiction of pious necessity. His removal from the scene of Israel's beginnings as a theocratic community would leave a vacuum that simply could not be explained away.}}</ref> ''Oxford Biblical Studies'' states that although few modern scholars are willing to support the traditional view that Moses himself wrote the five books of the [[Torah]], there are certainly those who regard the leadership of Moses as too firmly based in Israel's corporate memory to be dismissed as [[pious fiction]].<ref name="Ox1" /> The story of Moses' discovery follows a familiar motif in [[ancient Near East]]ern [[Mythology|mythological accounts]] of the ruler who rises from humble origins.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Coogan|first1=Michael David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4DVHJRFW3mYC&q=michael+d+coogan&pg=PR5|title=The Oxford History of the Biblical World|last2=Coogan|first2=Michael D.|date=2001|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-513937-2|quote=Many of these forms are not, and should not be considered, historically based; Moses’ birth narrative, for example, is built on folkloric motifs found throughout the ancient world.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Text, Artifact, and Image: Revealing Ancient Israelite Religion |last=Rendsburg |first=Gary A. |publisher=Brown Judaic Studies |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-930675-28-5 |page=204 |editor-last=Beckman |editor-first=Gary M. |chapter=Moses as Equal to Pharaoh |editor-last2=Lewis |editor-first2=Theodore J. |chapter-url=https://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/rendsburg/118-moses-as-equal-to-pharaoh/file}}</ref> For example, in the account of the origin of [[Sargon of Akkad]] (23rd century BC): {{poemquote|My mother, the high priestess, conceived; in secret she bore me She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid She cast me into the river which rose over me.<ref>{{cite book |first=Timothy D. |last=Finlay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pOigG8qtC8oC&pg=PA236 |title=The Birth Report Genre in the Hebrew Bible |series=Forschungen zum Alten Testament |volume=12 |publisher=Mohr Siebeck |year=2005 |page=236 |isbn= 978-3-16-148745-3}}</ref>}} Moses' story, like those of the other [[Patriarchs (Bible)|patriarchs]], most likely had a substantial oral prehistory<ref>{{cite book |last=Pitard |first=Wayne T. |date=2001 |editor-last=Coogan |editor-first=Michael D. |title=The Oxford History of the Biblical World|publisher=Oxford University Press |page=27 |chapter=Before Israel: Syria-Palestine in the Bronze Age |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4DVHJRFW3mYC&pg=PA27 |isbn=9780195139372}}</ref>{{failed verification|date=March 2024|reason=source supports this statement for the patriarchs, but doesn't mention Moses}} (he is mentioned in the [[Book of Jeremiah]]<ref>{{Bibleverse|Jeremiah|15:1|HE}}</ref> and the [[Book of Isaiah]]<ref>{{Bibleverse|Isaiah|63:11-12|HE}}</ref>). The earliest mention of him is vague, in the [[Book of Hosea]]<ref>{{bibleverse|Hosea|12:13}}</ref> and his name is apparently ancient, as the tradition found in Exodus no longer understands{{clarify|date=January 2024}} its original meaning.<ref name="Hays"/>{{sfn|Dozeman|2009|pp=81–82}} Nevertheless, the Torah was completed by combining older traditional texts with newly-written ones.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Carr |first1=David M. |last2=Conway |first2=Colleen M. |title=An Introduction to the Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts |date=2010 |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]] |location=New York |isbn=9781405167383 |page=193 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dJerjvlxCHsC&pg=PA193}}</ref> [[Book of Isaiah|Isaiah]],<ref>{{bibleverse|Isaiah|63:16|HE}}</ref> written during the Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BC), testifies to tension between the people of Judah and the returning post-Exilic Jews (the "[[Golah|gôlâ]]"), stating that God is the father of Israel and that Israel's history begins with the Exodus and not with [[Abraham]].{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=44}} The conclusion to be inferred from this and similar evidence (e.g., the [[Book of Ezra]] and the [[Book of Nehemiah]]) is that the figure of Moses and the story of the Exodus must have been preeminent among the people of Judah at the time of the Exile and after, serving to support their claims to the land in opposition to those of the returning exiles.{{sfn|Ska|2009|p=44}} [[File:Ms. 33 (88.MP.70) Moses Killing an Egyptian cropping.jpg|thumb|Moses Killing an Egyptian, early 15th century depiction]] [[Kenite hypothesis|A theory]] developed by [[Cornelis Tiele]] in 1872, which has proved influential, argued that [[Yahweh]] was a [[Midian]]ite god, introduced to the Israelites by Moses, whose father-in-law [[Jethro (Bible)|Jethro]] was a Midianite priest.<ref>{{Bibleverse|Judges|1:16-3:11|HE}}; {{Bibleverse|Numbers|10:29|HE}}; {{Bibleverse|Exodus|6:2-3|HE}}</ref> It was to such a Moses that Yahweh reveals his real name, hidden from the [[Patriarchs (Bible)|Patriarchs]] who knew him only as [[El Shaddai]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Mark S. |last=Smith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1yM3AuBh4AsC&pg=PA34 |title=The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |year=2002 |page=34 |isbn=978-0-8028-3972-5 }}</ref> Against this view is the modern consensus that most of the Israelites were native to [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Karel |editor-last=van der Toorn |editor2-first=Bob |editor2-last=Becking |editor3-first=Pieter Willem |editor3-last=van der Horst |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yCkRz5pfxz0C&pg=PA912 |title=Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans |edition=2nd |year=1999 |page=912 |isbn=978-0-8028-2491-2 }}</ref><ref name="Grabbe2017">{{cite book|first=Lester L.|last=Grabbe|title=Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?: Revised Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4lzyDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA36|date=23 February 2017|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-0-567-67044-1|page=36|quote=The impression one has now is that the debate has settled down. Although they do not seem to admit it, the minimalists have triumphed in many ways. That is, most scholars reject the historicity of the 'patriarchal period', see the settlement as mostly made up of indigenous inhabitants of Canaan and are cautious about the early monarchy. The exodus is rejected or assumed to be based on an event much different from the biblical account. On the other hand, there is not the widespread rejection of the biblical text as a historical source that one finds among the main minimalists. There are few, if any, maximalists (defined as those who accept the biblical text unless it can be absolutely disproved) in mainstream scholarship, only on the more fundamentalist fringes.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of the Historical Books of the Hebrew Bible |last=Killebrew |first=Ann E. |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-007411-1 |page=86 |editor-last=Kelle |editor-first=Brad E. |chapter=Early Israel’s Origins, Settlement, and Ethnogenesis |editor-last2=Strawn |editor-first2=Brent A. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T_kFEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA79 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Oxford History of the Holy Land |last=Faust |first=Avraham |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-19-288687-3 |editor-last=Hoyland |editor-first=Robert G. |page=28 |chapter=The Birth of Israel |editor-last2=Williamson |editor-first2=H. G. M. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pyG3EAAAQBAJ&pg=PA5|quote=}}</ref> [[Martin Noth]] argued that the [[Torah|Pentateuch]] uses the figure of Moses, originally linked to legends of a Transjordan conquest, as a narrative bracket or late redactional device to weld together four of the five, originally independent, themes of that work.<ref name="Coats">{{cite book|last=Coats|first=George W.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bk7_CMIAQOsC&pg=PA10|title=Moses: Heroic Man, Man of God|publisher=A&C Black|year=1988|pages=10ff (p. 11 Albright; pp. 29–30, Noth)|isbn=9780567594204}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Eckart |last=Otto |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LtqjahTUkdQC&pg=PA25 |title=Mose: Geschichte und Legende |trans-title=Moses: history and legend |publisher=C. H. Beck |year=2006 |pages=25–27 |isbn=978-3-406-53600-7 |language=de }}</ref> {{ill|Manfred Görg|de}}<ref>{{cite book |first=Manfred |last=Görg |chapter=Mose – Name und Namensträger. Versuch einer historischen Annäherung |title=Mose. Ägypten und das Alte Testament |editor-first=E. |editor-last=Otto |publisher=Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk |location=Stuttgart |year=2000 |language=de }}</ref> and {{ill|Rolf Krauss (egyptologist)|de|Rolf Krauss|lt=Rolf Krauss}},<ref>{{cite book |first=Rolf |last=Krauss |title=Das Moses-Rätsel: Auf den Spuren einer biblischen Erfindung |publisher=Ullstein |location=Munich |year=2001 |language=de }}</ref> the latter in a somewhat [[Sensationalism|sensationalist]] manner,<ref>{{cite news |first=Jan |last=Assmann |author-link=Jan Assmann |url=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/rezension-sachbuch-tagsueber-parliert-er-als-aegyptologe-nachts-reisst-er-die-bibel-auf-11283521.html |title=Tagsüber parliert er als Ägyptologe, nachts reißt er die Bibel auf |newspaper=[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]] |date=2 February 2002 |language=de }}</ref> have suggested that the Moses story is a distortion or transmogrification of the historical pharaoh [[Amenmesse|Amenmose]] ({{c.|1200 BC}}), who was dismissed from office and whose name was later simplified to {{transliteration|egy|msy}} (Mose). [[Aidan Dodson]] regards this hypothesis as "intriguing, but beyond proof".<ref>{{cite book |first=Aidan |last=Dodson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBnN9I8EvjsC&pg=PA72 |title=Poisoned Legacy: The Fall of the 19th Egyptian Dynasty |publisher=American University in Cairo Press |year=2010 |page=72 |isbn=978-1-61797-071-9 }}</ref> Rudolf Smend argues that the two details about Moses that were most likely to be historical are his name, of Egyptian origin, and his marriage to a Midianite woman, details which seem unlikely to have been invented by the Israelites; in Smend's view, all other details given in the biblical narrative are too mythically charged to be seen as accurate data.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Smend |first=Rudolf |title=Mose als geschichtliche Gestalt |trans-title=Moses as historical figure |journal=Historische Zeitschrift |volume=260 |year=1995 |pages=1–19|doi=10.1524/hzhz.1995.260.jg.1 |s2cid=164459862 |url=https://www.historischeskolleg.de/fileadmin/pdf/dokumentationen_pdf/dok11_smend.pdf }}</ref> The name [[Mesha|King Mesha]] of [[Moab]] has been linked to that of Moses. Mesha also is associated with narratives of an exodus and a conquest, and several motifs in stories about him are shared with the Exodus tale and that regarding Israel's war with Moab ([[2 Kings 3]]). Moab rebels against oppression, like Moses, leads his people out of Israel, as Moses does from Egypt, and his first-born son is slaughtered at the wall of [[Kir of Moab|Kir-hareseth]] as the firstborn of Israel are condemned to slaughter in the Exodus story, in what Calvinist theologian [[Peter Leithart]] described as "an infernal Passover that delivers Mesha while wrath burns against his enemies".<ref>{{cite book |first=Peter J. |last=Leithart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z_gvin9G7LgC&pg=PA181 |title=1 & 2 Kings |publisher=Brazos Press |year=2006 |pages=178ff [181–82] |isbn=9781587431258 }}</ref> An Egyptian version of the tale that crosses over with the Moses story is found in [[Manetho]] who, according to the summary in [[Josephus]], wrote that a certain [[Osarseph]], a [[Heliopolis (Ancient Egypt)|Heliopolitan]] priest, became overseer of a band of [[Leprosy|lepers]], when [[Amenhotep III|Amenophis]], following indications by [[Amenhotep, son of Hapu]], had all the lepers in Egypt quarantined in order to cleanse the land so that he might see the gods. The lepers are bundled into [[Avaris]], the former capital of the [[Hyksos]], where Osarseph prescribes for them everything forbidden in Egypt, while proscribing everything permitted in Egypt. They invite the Hyksos to reinvade Egypt, rule with them for 13 years – Osarseph then assumes the name Moses – and are then driven out.<ref>{{cite book |first=Jan |last=Assmann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IjUiie30Z9cC&pg=PA33 |title=Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2009 |pages=31–34 |isbn= 978-0-674-02030-6}}</ref> Other Egyptian figures which have been postulated as candidates for a historical Moses-like figure include the princes [[Ahmose-ankh]] and [[Ramose (prince)|Ramose]], who were sons of pharaoh [[Ahmose I]], or a figure associated with the family of pharaoh [[Thutmose III]].<ref>{{cite journal |last= Samaan |first=Marla |title='House of Bondage': Can We Reconcile the Biblical Account of Hebrew Slavery with Egyptian Historical Records? |journal=Senior Research Projects |volume=59 |year=2002 |url=https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/senior_research/59}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Billauer |first=Barbara |title=Moses, the Tutmoses and the Exodus |journal=SSRN |year=2014 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.2429297}}</ref> Israel Knohl has proposed to identify Moses with [[Irsu]], a [[Shasu]] who, according to [[Papyrus Harris I]] and the Elephantine Stele, took power in Egypt with the support of "Asiatics" (people from the [[Levant]]) after the death of Queen [[Twosret]]; after coming to power, Irsu and his supporters disrupted Egyptian rituals, "treating the gods like the people" and halting offerings to the Egyptian deities. They were eventually defeated and expelled by the new Pharaoh [[Setnakhte]] and, while fleeing, they abandoned large quantities of gold and silver they had stolen from the temples.<ref name="Knohl">{{Cite web|title=Exodus: The History Behind the Story - TheTorah.com|url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/exodus-the-history-behind-the-story|access-date=2021-07-01|website=TheTorah.com}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page