All language subtitles for Patterns.Of.Evidence.Exodus.2014.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG.ENG

(mysterious music)

- [Tim] I never thought

I would be caught up

in a story such as this,

because I live on the

other side of the world.

On one hand, it's exciting

to be making a film

that searches for the

truth about the Exodus.

On the other hand, I must admit,

I'm a reluctant participant.

I never wanted to go

to the Middle East.

I never wanted to be

involved in controversy

because it means

taking on the giants

of archaeology,

religion and tradition.

(mysterious music)

But what I've found might

shock and surprise you.

You can decide if

it will change you,

like it has changed me.

(mysterious music)

- [Voiceover] The exodus

of the children of Israel

from Egypt and their

journey to the Promised Land

is one of the most influential

and important stories

in all of the world history.

- [Benjamin] The

stories in the Bible

are the most powerful

narratives ever told.

It's not a coincidence

that this book has held

the imagination of mankind

for thousands of years

because the stories

are remarkable.

- It's the most amazing

book, if you think about it.

It's a book that covers

about 4,000 years of history

and it really is the

first history book

until the time of the Greeks.

Herodotus was supposed

to be the first historian

but in fact I think Moses was.

- [Shimon] He remains,

without any competition,

the greatest

legislator of all time.

And as for the Ten Commandments

that he brought down from Sinai,

it is the foundation

of our civilization.

Take away the Ten Commandments

and we are out of business.

- [Voiceover] Yet,

against the idea

that the biblical

account is true,

voices across our culture

and around the world

are raised in protest.

These voices say that

the biblical narrative

is nothing more than

a myth, a fairy tale.

And their antagonistic

claims appear to be supported

by the findings of

modern archaeology.

- [Israel] The

Exodus did not happen

in the way that it is

described in the text

on the background of

the 13th century BC.

- I don't believe there

was a single event

that we can call the Exodus,

archaeologically

or historically.

(upbeat music)

- [Michael] It's 24

minutes past the hour

on the Michael Medved show,

your daily dose of debate,

and right now, debating

some of the most important

questions with Rabbi

David Wolpe, who leads

one of America's largest

Jewish congregations.

In 2001, Rabbi Wolpe

created a national furor

when his Passover

sermon challenged

the historical

reality of the Exodus.

Rabbi Wolpe, what did you say?

- I said that the Exodus

certainly didn't happen

the way the Bible depicted

it, assuming that it was

a historical event

in any description.

I think that if you look

at it scientifically,

it's virtually indefensible

to make the Bible's case.

But you also have to

understand that your faith

isn't based on splitting

seas or archaeological digs;

it's based on

something much deeper.

- But if these are not facts,

if this is a fairy story,

if this is fabricated somehow,

doesn't that undermine

the religious meaning?

In other words, doesn't

that change things?

- The extent to which

it has a historical core

is very hard to say, but my

deeper conviction about it

is that it's a story that,

whether it was true, it is true,

and those are two

different things.

- That seems to be evading --

- Well, in other words,

things that aren't

facts can be truths.

- What part of the Torah

would you grant

to be based upon

historical reality?

- I can't tell

you. I don't know.

I don't know and, although it

may irk people, I don't care.

- [Voiceover] If the

leading scholars agree

with the most outspoken

atheists and agnostics,

if even some rabbis agree

with the most skeptical

archaeologists that

there's no evidence at all

that the Exodus ever

really happened,

then what are the rest

of us supposed to think?

If none of it happened,

then the two religions

of the Bible,

Judaism and Christianity,

are both based on

a gigantic lie.

It was the type of

question that troubled

a filmmaker from Minneapolis

named Timothy Mahoney.

As he probed more deeply,

little did Mahoney realize

how far his journey

would take him.

- [Tim] The more I

looked into the Exodus,

the more I realized

its significance.

I knew I had to investigate

this story for myself,

and the first step was to

explore whether there was

any hard evidence for

the Exodus at all.

I began my journey by

traveling to the very place

the Bible says it happened:

the ancient land of Egypt.

I was raised as a Christian

and I remember hearing

amazing stories from

the Bible as a child,

and I believed them.

Stories about an ancient

family of shepherds,

the sons of Jacob, who came

from a foreign land to Egypt.

They were enslaved

by the pharaoh,

then miraculously

delivered out of Egypt

and journeyed across the desert

to conquer the Promised Land.

But, as I grew older,

I was challenged to

lose those beliefs.

Now I just wanted

to know the truth.

(mystical music)

- [Voiceover] The Exodus is

believed by most scholars

to have occurred in the

reign of Ramesses II.

Ramesses was Egypt's

greatest builder king.

Were these mighty monuments

built on the sweat and

toil of Hebrew slaves?

- [Tim] If experts say

there's no evidence

during the time of Ramesses,

why do they think he is

the Pharaoh of the Exodus?

I'm no historian, so I had

to find a way to visualize

how the history of ancient Egypt

related to the

events of the Bible.

The thought came to me

to imagine a Wall of Time

extending back to the earliest

moments of civilization.

On the first level,

Egyptian history,

and above it the events

recorded in the Bible,

and at the bottom, a

timeline of absolute dates,

an immovable base to gauge

the events of history,

with great pylons marking

every thousand years.

- [Voiceover] Over the

course of 2,000 years,

Egypt experienced three

great periods of power.

It began with the Old Kingdom,

with its great

pyramids of stone.

Then came the Middle Kingdom,

the highpoint of

art and literature.

Finally, the New Kingdom,

with its vast empires that

dominated foreign lands.

These great periods

of power were followed

by dark periods of

disunity and weakness.

Ramesses II was a pharaoh

of the New Kingdom

who ruled a grand empire

and filled Egypt

with his monuments.

There is one crucial

passage in the Bible

that leads many to

chain the Exodus event

to the time of Pharaoh Ramesses,

in what is known as The

Ramesses Exodus Theory.

- A key to that

theory is the building

of the city of Ramesses

mentioned in Exodus 1:11;

the Hebrews are making bricks

to build the city of Ramesses,

or the storage

facilities of Ramesses.

- [Voiceover] Professor

James Hoffmeier

is one of the few Egyptologists

who has written extensively

on the biblical Exodus.

- This important city, which

we know Ramesses II built,

it's being excavated

even as we speak

and continues to be studied.

This city has a

very brief history.

By around 1100 BC,

the city's gone.

It has a very narrow history

of no more than 200 years.

So, the question is, if

this building project

that the Israelites

are involved in,

is Ramesses II's

Delta residence,

then we have no

escape but to say

this is an important

chronological marker,

and that can only be somewhere

in the 13th century BC.

- [Tim] Dates in the BC period

can be confusing to work

with because they move

in the opposite direction

to modern AD dates.

The farther back you go in

time, the bigger the BC number.

So the Ramesses Exodus

Theory places the Exodus

about 250 years before 1000 BC,

or at about 1250 BC.

I wanted an Egyptian

perspective,

so I went to see Mansour Boraik,

director general of

antiquities for Luxor,

one of Egypt's most important

archaeological sites.

I asked Mansour if

he was in agreement

that there was no evidence

for the early Israelites

or the Exodus in Egypt.

- Nobody knows what

the sands of Egypt

can tell of secrets.

Maybe in the excavation

we can find some evidence.

But so far, there's

no documented evidence

about the Exodus.

But we know the Exodus

from the holy books.

It's mentioned in the

Koran, the Holy Koran.

It's in the Holy bible,

but in the ground,

we have no evidence.

(mystical music)

- [Tim] Well it wasn't as if

I hadn't heard this before,

but I was still hopeful

of finding something

in the ruins of this

magnificent civilization.

What I really needed,

though, was physical evidence

of the cultural group that

the Israelites were a part of:

Semites, coming down

to live in Egypt

from a land called Canaan.

- [Voiceover] The problem is

that no archaeological evidence

has turned up for these Semites

in the city built

by Ramesses II.

(lively music)

- [Tim] But then, I

heard of something

that seemed astonishing.

New archaeological discoveries

of a city and a people

that appeared to match

the biblical story,

made at the very location

of the city of Ramesses,

where the Bible

places the Israelites.

- [Voiceover] Mahoney

would be interviewing

one of the world's most

respected Egyptologists.

Professor Manfred Bietak

and his Austrian team

have been digging

in Egypt's delta

for over 30 years at

the site of Avaris.

Avaris lies directly

below the southern sector

of the city of Ramesses.

- [Tim] I asked

Manfred to tell me

about these exciting new finds.

- We uncovered the remains

of a huge town of 250 hectares

with a population

of approximately

25,000 - 30,000 individuals.

These were people

who originated from

Canaan, Syria-Palestine.

Originally they may

have come here as

subjects of the Egyptian crown

or with the blessing

of the Egyptian crown.

Obviously, the town enjoyed

something like a special status,

like a free zone,

something like that.

- [Tim] This sounded

exactly like the Bible.

Pharaoh gave his blessing by

allowing the early Israelites

to freely settle in

the best part of Egypt.

Once there, they

and their flocks

prospered and

multiplied greatly.

This was just what

I was looking for.

So I asked him,

could these foreigners

be the early Israelites?

- We have some

evidence of shepherds.

We find again and

again in this area,

pits with goats and sheep.

So we know shephers,

probably Bedouins,

with huge herds

roamed around this,

But to connect this with

the proto-Israelites

is a very weak affair.

- [Tim] I was stunned

when Manfred said

it was a weak affair.

Why couldn't these

be the Israelites

when they match the

Bible's story so well?

According to my

opinion, the settlement

of the proto-Israelites

in Canaan

only happened from the

12th century BC onwards.

- [Tim] What Manfred

was telling me

is that the physical

evidence of these people

is centuries too

early to be connected

to the events of the Exodus.

This is profound,

because no Israelites in

Egypt means no Exodus,

and no Exodus means

that the foundation

of Judaism is a myth.

And for Christians,

it means Jesus Christ

and the writers of the

New Testament got it wrong

because they all

accepted the reality

of Moses and the Exodus, and

built their teachings on them.

(slow guitar music)

I returned home from Egypt.

I wanted to be open-minded,

but as I replayed the

interview in my thoughts,

a cold chill came over me.

All my life I had believed the

Bible's stories to be true.

I know some people say

you don't need any

evidence, just have faith.

But if there's no hard

evidence for any of it,

had I been believing

in a lie all this time?

And what about my

kids and grandkids?

What should they

put their faith in?

Whether you believe

these stories or not,

isn't it important to

know what's really true?

The more I thought about it,

the more I realized

I couldn't stop now,

no matter how hard it would be.

(lively music)

I made a decision.

I had to go back to Egypt.

- [Voiceover] Mahoney

arranged to meet with one

of America's leading

Egyptologists,

Professor Kent Weeks.

He rediscovered KV5,

the tomb of the sons

of Ramesses II in the

Valley of the Kings.

He brought up a crucial issue

when considering the

problems with these events.

- [Kent] Ramesses II as

the Pharaoh of the Exodus,

how can we prove that?

Chronology doesn't really help.

The chronology of Egypt

is still a bit ambiguous.

Correlations between

Egyptian chronology

and that of other cultures

in the ancient Near East

is even more confusing.

We don't know precisely

when the Exodus happened.

Some people say it

was Ramesses II.

It makes nice theater

because he was

a great powerful ruler,

everybody knows his name,

he built fantastic monuments.

Everything really is appealing

to have him be

the one to choose.

- Because he'd be a very

large opponent, wouldn't he?

- He would be indeed.

So, yeah, pick Ramesses II

as the pharaoh of the Exodus,

but other

Egyptologists disagree.

Almost any pharaoh could be

the pharaoh of the Exodus,

if we can prove there

even was an Exodus.

- [Tim] But if Ramesses wasn't

the pharaoh of the Exodus,

then who was?

Looking for the Exodus

in a different time

or reign could be the solution.

Maybe Ramesses is the problem?

I found Mansour's

openness refreshing.

- Scientifically, you

have to open your mind

to all opinions,

read it by yourself.

Don't let anybody

affect what you believe.

But also on the other hand,

you have to accept

the other opinions.

Your opinions are not

always the right opinions.

You have to accept

the other opinons

and debate wtih me, discuss.

You can convince me or

shall I convince you?

Leave it to the public to judge.

We have a myth, we have a story,

it's in the holy

books; who knows?

And then you will come

with a conclusion.

This conclusion will be

in front of the public.

The public can judge.

- [Tim] It was clear, I

needed a new approach.

What might even be considered

a scientific approach,

beginning by taking

a closer look

at the details of

the biblical story.

- [Voiceover] The oldest

accounts of the Exodus

were written down in Hebrew,

in the first five books of

the Bible known as the Torah.

- [Tim] I asked

Rabbi Manis Friedman,

a member of Judaism's

Orthodox branch,

to recount the ancient

stories of the Bible

from these sacred scrolls.

In order to test

the Exodus fairly,

I wanted to know what the

story was actually claiming.

- [Manis] The

story of the Exodus

begins before the

Israelites leave Egypt.

(sheep bleating)

It begins with Abraham

when God brings him

to the land of Canaan

and makes a covenant with him

and, in that covenant,

spells out the entire Exodus.

The Lord said to Abraham,

"All this land you see

"I will give to you and

your offspring forever.

"Go, walk through the length

and breadth of this land,

"for I am giving it to you."

On that day, the

Lord made a covenant,

a formal promise to Abraham.

He said, "To your descendants,

I give this land."

God led Abraham

outside and He said,

"Look up to heaven and

count the stars, if you can.

"So numerous will

your offspring be."

And God said, "Your

descendants will be foreigners

"in a country not their own.

"They will be enslaved

and oppressed.

"But I will judge the

nation they serve as slaves,

"and afterward

they will come out

"with great possessions

and return here."

- [Voiceover]

According to the text,

the events of the Exodus were

not a historical accident.

They were directed

by the God of Abraham

every step of the way.

- [Tim] As my team and

I looked more closely

at this account,

we could see that

these biblical events

formed a sequence,

a sequence that could guide

the entire investigation.

I imagined the six steps

of the biblical sequence,

the major events of

the Exodus story,

running parallel to Egyptian

history, starting with:

the arrival of Abraham's

descendants in Egypt,

their tremendous multiplication,

their descent into slavery,

the judgment of the

nation that enslaved them,

their deliverance and

exodus out of Egypt,

and, finally, in Canaan,

their conquest of

the Promised Land.

If the Exodus really happened,

there are elements in

the story that are so big

that you'd think some

remnants of evidence

would've been left behind,

somewhere in Egypt's history.

We knew science solved problems

by looking for

patterns of evidence

and a truly scientific approach

looks for those patterns,

no matter where they exist.

I set out to see

whether a pattern

matching this sequence

could be found,

starting with the first step,

the "arrival" of the

Israelites in Egypt.

- The book of Genesis tells us

that the first descendant of

Abraham to arrive in Egypt

was his great-grandson,

Joseph the son of Jacob.

Joseph's brothers had

sold him as a slave,

to a caravan of traders who

brought him down to Egypt.

Then, in an amazing

turn of events,

he rises to become the

highest official in Egypt,

he saves the country

from a terrible famine,

enables his father, Jacob,

and his entire family

to settle in the best

part of the land,

a place called Goshen.

- [Tim] My objective was to

see if any specific evidence

had been uncovered of

this Semitic family-group

arriving in Egypt,

as told in the Bible.

So, far I had none.

- So far, not.

We only know we have some

evidence of shepherds --

So far, not.

- [Tim] I was stuck.

But that was soon to

change, when suddenly,

something was telling

me to go to my library

and search out a book

given to me a year earlier,

that I had never read.

(somber music)

What startled me was that

this author had answers

to the very doubts that

Beitek had raised in me.

He had spent his whole life

exploring the Middle East,

a man familiar with the

mysterious inscriptions

and hieroglyphs of the pharaohs,

and what they might reveal

about the biblical stories.

(celestial music)

- [Voiceover] David

Rohl, author, historian

and Egyptologist is an agnostic,

someone who remains unconvinced

of the existence of God.

Yet, he clearly sees

archaeological evidence

of the biblical Joseph,

Jacob and the early Hebrews

in the Nile Delta

region of Egypt.

Rohl believes that

many Egyptologists

have missed evidence

for the Exodus

because they have

been looking for it

in the wrong time period.

While most scholars

think that the events

of the Exodus happened

in the New Kingdom,

David Rohl's view

would put the Exodus

in an entirely different period,

the earlier Middle Kingdom,

where he claims evidence

for the Exodus can be seen.

- [Tim] I wanted him to

explain why he had come

to such a different

conclusion than Manfred Bietak

about Joseph and the

early Israelites.

Tell me, who is Manfred Bietak?

- Manfred Bietak is probably

one of the greatest

archaeologists alive today

and he's dug up one of

the most important sites

in the eastern delta,

a city called Avaris,

which is in the land of Goshen,

which the Bible calls it.

And I believe this is the place

where Joseph and

his brethren lived.

- Well, I went to see Manfred

Bietak ... - [David] Right.

- ... and that's

not what he said.

He said there's no evidence of

this at the time of Ramesses.

- Exactly right. Most

scholars will say,

if you look at the

city of Ramesses,

there are no Asiatics there,

there are no western Asiatics

living at that particular city.

But dig down a bit

a little bit deeper

and you do find a

city full of Asiatics.

- Yeah, but the Bible

says it happened

at the time of Ramesses.

- [David] Uh-huh.

- What are you saying?

- [David] I'm saying that

this particular mention

of the city of Ramesses,

the building of Ramesses,

is what we call

an "anachronism".

It's something that's been added

into the text

later by an editor.

So what the editor is

basically saying is,

this is the place where the

Israelites built the store city

and we know it

today as Ramesses.

Well, in the ancient times,

it was called Avaris.

- Okay, so the people would

know the area, the region --

- The people of the

Bible would've known

where Ramesses was,

and where therefore

their ancestors

actually built the city.

- [Tim] I also found that the

Bible in the book of Genesis,

uses the word "Ramesses"

hundreds of years

before Pharaoh Ramesses

or his city existed,

to describe the land where

Joseph's family settled.

So, if the name

Ramesses in Genesis

does not refer to the time

of Pharaoh Ramesses II,

then why should the

mention of Ramesses

in the book of Exodus

be any different?

- [David] Now, this

Avaris is the city

which lies under the

biblical Ramesses.

Ramesses of the New Kingdom,

Avaris of the Middle

Kingdom, the 13th Dynasty.

It lies underneath the city

that's mentioned in the Bible.

So, when Bietak digs

up a huge population

of Semitic speaking peoples

with Semitic culture,

living in this city of Avaris

for several hundred years,

and then, at the end of the

period, these Semites all leave,

depart with their belongings

and abandon the city,

whatever Manfred

says, that to me

sounds awfully like

the Israelites.

- Well what he told me was

that there was no connection.

- [David] Well, look at the

evidence that you've got here.

Right at the

beginning, at the heart

of this community at the

end of the 12th Dynasty,

we see a Syrian house appear.

The Austrians call

them Mittelsaal houses.

This type of house is

found in North Syria,

the area where

Abraham came from.

It's exactly the

same style of house

you'd expect Jacob to

build for himself in Egypt.

And we know that the

Israelites sought their brides

from Harran in that region.

They all went back to get

their brides from there.

So, the culture that

turns up in Egypt

at the end of the 12th Dynasty

seems to have come from

North Syria originally.

- [Tim] So, what is

the connection with

Joseph at Avaris?

- Well after this house of

Jacob, if we can call it that,

is built, eventually

it's flattened,

and on top of it an Egyptian

palace is constructed,

Egyptian architecture this time.

However, the occupant

was not Egyptian.

The palace had courtyards,

colonnades, audience chambers.

There was even a robing room.

It obviously belonged to

some high official of state,

who was very, very

important to that state,

because when somebody

gets a palace like this

given to them, it means

they've been honored

for what they've

done for the state.

Now, in the garden

behind the palace,

the archaeologists

found 12 main graves

with memorial chapels

on top of them.

- [Tim] You have 12 graves?

- [David] We have 12 graves.

- But why would

that be significant?

- Well, think about it: how

many sons did Jacob have?

- He had 12.

- How many tribes were there?

- Twelve tribes.

- Exactly.

And what's also amazing is

the palace had a façade,

a portico with 12 pillars.

So you've got 12

sons, 12 tribes, 12

pillars, and 12 tombs.

- Interesting.

- Yeah. Is that all coincidence?

Now, one of these 12

graves was very special,

because it was a pyramid tomb.

This in itself is extraordinary

because only pharaohs

and queens had pyramid

tombs at this time.

Yet the person buried in

this tomb was not a king.

Even so, he was honored

with a king's burial.

And, inside the chapel of

the tomb, was a statue.

What we know from the statue

is that this man had red hair.

He had pale yellow skin,

which is how Egyptians

depict northerners.

He had a throw stick

across his shoulder,

a unique symbol of office

made for this Asiatic official

living in the land of Goshen.

And on the back of his shoulder,

we see the faintest

remains of paint,

colored stripes from

a multicolored coat.

And that matches exactly

with the story of

Joseph in the Bible.

The multicolored coat is a gift,

which shows that he was

the favorite of the father.

And it almost becomes

his insignia, this coat.

It's the thing we remember

about him most of all.

- Do you know of

any other statues

of a Semite of

this kind in Egypt?

- There is nothing

else like this

in the whole of Egyptian

history, nothing at all.

- [Voiceover] David

Rohl is not the only one

to see a connection

with Joseph at Avaris.

Mahoney went to see

Professor Charles Aling,

an Egyptologist who

has also investigated

the events of the Exodus

and its connection to Egypt.

- Would it be unusual for

a tomb to have a statue?

- No. It's unusual to

have one this large.

This would be probably twice

the size of a

normal human being.

- [Tim] What does that tell

you when the statue's larger?

- That it's a very

important person.

Now of course, this is not a

pharaoh's tomb or a palace,

but the man who lived

there, you can identify

his nationality by looking at

the fragments of the statue.

Three things: the

hairstyle he has,

which we often call

the mushroom hairstyle;

and then, secondly,

the weapon he carries

over his shoulder,

called a throw-stick,

which we would associate with

like an Australian boomerang;

and then the coloration of

the skin, the skin is yellow.

All those things

indicate that this would

have been a Syro-Palestinian.

- [Tim] Dr. Aling, do

you think this is Joseph?

- Either it is Joseph,

or it's somebody that has

a career remarkably

the same as Joseph did.

It's just an incredible thing

to find this at

this time period.

(mystical music)

(energetic music)

- [Voiceover] The

Exodus was a story

about the birth of a nation.

It was time for Mahoney

to go to Israel.

This gave him the

unique opportunity

to meet with Israel's

president, Shimon Peres,

and hear his perspective

about the character of Joseph

and his rise from slavery to

governing Pharaoh's court.

- [Tim] If you look at the

way the story is written,

God chose him for a mission?

- I read somewhere that

Tolstoy said that this is

the greatest story ever

published in human literature,

the story of Joseph and his

brothers and his going to Egypt.

Joseph was the first

Jewish advisor on Earth.

And he advised the most

powerful empire in the vicinity.

He conquered the heart

of everybody he saw,

men and women.

- [Manis] With God's help,

Joseph was able to save Egypt

by warning of a coming calamity.

Seven years of plenty

would be followed

by seven years of

terrible famine.

Pharaoh is so impressed

that he puts Joseph

in charge of preparing

for the famine,

and makes him second in command

over the entire country.

- He managed to achieve

this by foretelling

or explaining the

dreams of Pharaoh

about cattle coming out

of the water of the Nile.

First of all as seven fat

cows and then seven lean cows

come out and devour

the fat cows.

It's an extraordinary story,

but the clue here is that

these cows are coming

out of the Nile.

It's the Nile itself

which is the cause

of both the plenty

and the famine.

- [Tim] If David's

interpretation is right,

then the regulation of

the Nile may have been key

in planning for

the coming famine.

- [David] There's a

canal, or a waterway,

that connects the Nile

to the Fayum basin,

which is a large lake area,

which has the name Bahr Yusef,

which means the

waterway of Joseph.

This goes back thousands of

years, as far as we can tell.

- Why do you think that

that canal has that name?

- Because I think he made it.

I think it was under

his instructions,

as vizier of Egypt,

that that canal was cut.

And it was cut to

divert half the water

from the Nile into

the Fayum basin.

You then get back to

the situation where

the water levels are just

right for growing crops.

- Can you see it today?

- It's still in use today.

And the construction of

this water diversion system

is dated to the same period

as the early

settlement at Avaris.

- Joseph gathers

up all the grain

during the seven years

of plenty in Egypt.

He gathered as much as

the sand of the sea.

And then the famine comes

to the entire region,

and only Egypt has bread.

So everyone comes to Joseph for

what they need for survival.

When their money runs out,

they sold their animals.

When that ran out,

they sold their land,

and eventually they

sold themselves.

So Pharaoh, by the end

of the seven years,

owns everything in Egypt.

- [Voiceover] Mahoney

wanted to know

if there ever was

a time in this era

when a dramatic shift

of wealth and power

occurred between the people

of Egypt and the pharaoh.

He went to Pennsylvania

to see an archaeologist

who's spent many years

studying the Exodus

and the Conquest.

His name is Dr. Bryant Wood.

- [Bryant] When we look

at Egyptian history,

we find something

very significant

happened at this exact time.

Egypt was divided up

into areas called nomes,

kind of like districts,

all over the country.

And the leaders of these nomes

had tremendous wealth

and tremendous power.

We get to a point

in Egyptian history

when suddenly that all changes,

and all the wealth is

concentrated with the pharaoh.

What on earth happened here?

If you read the

Egyptian history books,

there is no explanation for it.

They don't know what

happened, how it happened.

I mean this was a tremendous

socio-economic change.

- Well, what do

you think happened?

- [Bryant] Well, we have

the answer in the Bible,

and it's Joseph's famine policy,

and he brings the

wealth into Pharaoh,

and it fits exactly

with Egyptian history.

- [Tim] David believes

these events occurred

during the reigns of

two important Middle

Kingdom pharaohs.

- [David] This key time

is during the co-regency

between Senuseret III and

his son, Amenemhat III.

I believe this is the

time of the famine

and that Amenemhat

was Joseph's pharaoh.

Amenemhat is depicted

with worry lines.

His ears are turned out

so that he can listen

to the concerns of the people.

He's not depicted in the

usual bland way that you see

on all the other statues of

past and future pharaohs.

And I think this is an

indication that, in his time,

Egypt was experiencing

serious problems.

And, guess what? He

builds his pyramid

right next to Bahr Yussef,

the "Waterway of Joseph".

(mystical music)

- [Voiceover] The amount

of archaeological evidence

matching the first step of

Arrival in the biblical sequence

seemed overwhelming to Mahoney.

The Syrian-styled house

that appeared in the Delta

along with a palace

fit for royalty

whose occupant was a

high Semitic official

from the Canaan area, who

wore a multicolored coat.

The Waterway of Joseph,

contemporary with

the rise of Avaris.

The end of influence and wealth

for the regional governors

as the power of Pharaoh

reached new heights.

Yet these events

converged at a time

when the statues of the

pharaohs were depicted

in a unique care-worn way,

the tell-tale signs of

a kingdom in distress.

- Well, why is it we've

never heard of these finds?

- [David] Because in the

scheme that's used by scholars

to date all these events,

they're way too early.

They're much too early

to be Israelites.

I'm basically saying, why

not call a spade a spade?

- [Voiceover] At the

pyramid tomb of Avaris,

excavations revealed one other

important piece of evidence.

- [David] The

crucial clue for me,

which says to me that this man

with the multicolored

coat is Joseph,

is found in the story of Exodus.

When Joseph is on his deathbed,

he tells his brethren

that when they leave,

they must take his body with

them to the Promised Land.

What matches the story

even more incredibly

is that pyramid tomb was empty

when the archaeologists

found it.

There was nothing in

it at all apart from

a few fragments of

this smashed statue.

There were no bones,

there were no mummy beads,

no coffin wood, nothing.

It was cleaned out.

- [Tim] So it was a grave

robber? - Not a grave robber.

What grave robber is

going to take the bones?

Bones are intrinsically

of no value whatsoever

and nobody takes the bones.

Only people who are

treating the body

with reverence take the bones.

The body was taken out

and all the grave

goods were taken out.

I think this is

the tomb of Joseph,

the pyramid tomb of Joseph,

honored by Pharaoh

with a colossal statue,

that when Moses decided to

take the people out of Egypt,

he made sure he fulfilled

that promise to Joseph,

to take the body out of the

tomb and take it to Shechem

and bury him in

the Promised Land.

- [Voiceover] This location,

photographed in the 1800s,

is where many believe

Joseph's bones

were finally laid to rest

in the ancient town

of Shechem in Canaan.

The city is known today as

Nablus on the West Bank,

where this tomb has

been at the center

of much political and

religious tension.

- [Tim] The Exodus is surrounded

by controversy on many levels.

Even David Rohl suggesting

specific evidence of Joseph

and the early Israelites'

arrival in Egypt

is archaeologically

controversial

because he looks earlier in time

than what is

conventionally accepted.

But, at this stage,

I didn't care.

I was determined to

stick with the guidelines

of the investigation, looking

for a pattern of evidence

wherever it might exist.

- [Voiceover] Then David

Rohl began to tell about

the remarkable expansion

that happened at Avaris,

which fits the next

step of the sequence.

What the Bible describes as

"exceedingly great

multiplication."

- [Manis] So Joseph dies,

and his brothers and

their entire generation.

The Israelites are multiplying

and they're fruitful,

exceedingly, until

they fill the land.

- We see a virgin land

with no population at all

and suddenly a small group of

Semitic people settle there,

a dozen houses or so, about

70 or 100 people, all told.

And over a period of maybe

three or four generations,

it becomes a very large city,

and it's one of the largest

cities in the ancient world.

This city is a city of

foreigners in the Egyptian delta

and it's been allowed

by the Egyptian state.

At this stage, there's

no slaves involved here.

We're talking about

Semitic peoples coming in,

living here, bringing their

flocks with them and surviving

in such a way that they

become quite rich and wealthy.

- We do know that

there was a large

Semitic-speaking population,

probably came in

from Syria, Canaan

sometime in the early part

of the second millennium BC.

Their remains have been

found at a number of sites.

We have tombs that are clearly

those of foreigners, Semites.

We can tell this by the

pottery, by the kind of weapons.

These are not

Egyptian-type daggers.

They have donkeys, in some

cases, buried with them.

This was not an

Egyptian practice.

We can't say for sure that

any of these were Hebrews,

but we probably couldn't

distinguish a Hebrew

from a Canaanite in Egypt,

culturally speaking, anyway.

(energetic music)

- [Voiceover] Mahoney

traveled to Bristol, England

to meet with a scholar

who had information

about the expansion of

these people in the Delta.

John Bimson is a

Professor of Old Testament

at Trinity College, Bristol.

He specializes in

biblical history

and its related archaeology.

Bimson sees a clear

connection between

the growth of Semitic

sites in the Delta

and the biblical account.

- [Tim] How many sites

would there have been?

- You've got a good many

settlements, 20 or more,

which would fit

the land of Goshen,

where the Bible says the

Israelites were settled.

Many of these have not

been fully excavated yet.

- [Tim] That are similar

to the Avaris site?

- [John] We don't know

whether they're as big.

Until people start

digging there,

the Avaris site, of

course, no one knew

how big that was until

excavation began.

So there could be a lot

of stuff in the ground

waiting to be discovered and

to throw a lot more light

on this period of

Asiatic settlement.

- [Voiceover] The only

time that the archaeology

shows massive numbers of

Semites living in ancient Egypt

is in this earlier period

around the Middle Kingdom.

This is strikingly

different from

the New Kingdom and

the time of Ramesses,

when there is no

evidence of this.

- [Tim] The question is,

does the Middle Kingdom

also contain evidence

for the next step

of the biblical

sequence: "slavery"?

(mystical music)

- [Voiceover] Cecil

B. DeMille portrayed

this slavery in two

of his famous films,

both called The

Ten Commandments.

(mystical music)

Although Hollywood

likes to focus

on the Israelites moving

large blocks of stone,

the Bible never mentions this.

- [Manis] A new pharaoh arises,

and he doesn't remember Joseph.

He enslaves the people

because they're becoming

too numerous and

becoming a threat.

So he puts them to work

and embitters their lives

building store cities

of Pithom and Ramesses

and makes them create

bricks out of mud and straw.

- [Tim] It was intriguing

to see this type

of construction in

different parts of Egypt.

Were any of these bricks

molded by the hands

of Israelite slaves?

However, Mansour was

quick to remind me

that these types of

mud bricks are present

throughout Egypt's history

and don't prove any

connection to the Israelites.

But is there any

slavery evidence

matching the Bible at Avaris,

the older city beneath Ramesses?

David, what does the

archaeological record

reveal at this location?

- [David] We've got a

situation of prosperity

followed by a lack of prosperity

and a shortage of life.

We begin to see in the

graves of these people

Harris Lines in the bones,

which indicate shortage

of food and nutrients.

These people suddenly

have become impoverished

and they're dying

at an age typically

of between 32 and 34 years.

So how do we explain that?

What is the mechanism

that we would understand

why these people only

lived to such a short age?

And the obvious

answer is slavery.

- The descriptions of slavery

was so horrible,

downhearted.

To take a whole people

and make from them

an inhumane group of men,

working so hard.

They wanted to free themselves.

- The Bible then

tells us that the more

the Hebrews were oppressed,

the more they multiplied

and the more they spread

throughout the land of Egypt.

Pharaoh gives the order

for all the baby

boys who are born

to be thrown into the

river by the Egyptians.

It was during this

time Moses is born,

and in fear for his life, his

mother hides him in a basket

and floats it among the

reeds of the river Nile.

(baby cries)

But God is watching

over baby Moses,

and Pharaoh's daughter comes

down to bathe in the Nile.

She finds him, adopts

him, and names him Moses,

which means, "drawn

from the water".

- [Tim] Is there anything

in Egyptian archaeology

that might reflect

this biblical detail,

the killing of

Hebrew infant boys?

- [David] At this particular

point, we start to see

an increase in the number of

infant burials at the site.

Now normally, in a typical

Middle Bronze Age cemetery,

we'll get something like

25% of burials of infants.

In this particular case,

the figure jumps up

to an extraordinary figure.

- [Tim] David directed me to

the dig reports from Avaris,

where Bietak's team referred

to what they called,

"an extremely high

mortality rate of newborns."

When all the children's graves

aged 10 and younger

were identified,

it was found that

nearly 50% died

in the first three

months of life.

Okay, maybe this

was just an epidemic

that hit the newborns

especially hard.

But when the graves

of those who made it

to adulthood were

examined, it was seen

that there were 60%

females to 40% males.

The reduction

appears to have been

in the male side

of the population.

So could this massive

increase in infant burials

at Avaris be evidence

for the killing

of the male Israelite children?

It's an intriguing thought,

but it made me sad to think

of what it could have meant,

the murder of thousands

of innocent boys.

(guitar music)

- [Voiceover] For

generations, the Exodus story

has given hope to

people around the world

in their quest for liberation,

inspired by the

freeing of the slaves

from the most powerful

nation on earth.

But were the hopes and

dreams of all those people

merely based on a myth?

- [James] Who would

invent a story

about our ancestors were slaves?

I bet just, you know, I

can see people saying,

"Our ancestors were princes.

"Our ancestors were

great merchants.

"Our ancestors were

something wonderful

"and glorious and noble,"

But, "We were slaves."? Why?

I mean, if you are going

to dream up a story,

surely you'd come up with

a better one than that.

- [Tim] And if none

of it happened,

how do you explain

an Egyptian papyrus

with a list of slave

names that seem to come

right out of the

pages of the Bible?

- There's one particular

document which is quite amazing.

It's called the Brooklyn

Papyrus and this actually

is a list of domestic

servants from one estate.

We have maybe up to 100 people

listed as slaves in Egypt.

When we look at those names,

70% of them are Semitic names,

and you can literally pick

off Israelite names in there:

Menahem; Issachar

and Asher, the names

of two of the tribes of Israel;

Shiphrah, one of the Hebrew

midwives in the Exodus story,

a name that appears

in this document.

These are Hebrew,

Israelite slaves

and they're in a papyrus

from the 13th Dynasty.

Not from the 19th

Dynasty, not from the time

of Ramesses II in

the New Kingdom,

but from the 13th Dynasty,

the Middle Kingdom.

- What does this mean to you?

What does it say?

- This is real

evidence for the time

when the Israelites

were in Egypt as slaves.

It's when you get a text,

suddenly you've got history.

Archaeology, you

have to interpret.

When you have a text, this

is something very different.

- [Voiceover] This slave

list is predominantly female,

which matches the grave

evidence from Avaris.

- [Manis] The fact that

they continued to multiply

despite the oppression,

despite the slavery,

despite the boys being killed,

it just shows that there was

a divine plan here at work

and that this whole

event was miraculous.

- [Tim] The thing

that I'm puzzled by is

why so many Egyptologists

ignore the Brooklyn Papyrus.

- Although everybody recognizes

that this list is a

list of Semitic slaves,

and everybody recognizes that

the names appearing in here

are also Israelite names,

these can't be the Israelites,

because it's the

wrong time period.

The Israelites are

much later in history.

So these people

we're seeing here

in this Brooklyn Papyrus

cannot be the Israelites.

- So that's why

they disregard it?

- So they put it to one side

and say it's

another coincidence.

- [Voiceover] So there

appears to be strong evidence

matching the Multiplication

and Slavery steps

of the biblical sequence.

Indication of a rapid expansion

of the Semitic

population at Avaris,

the only time in Egyptian

history that there is evidence

of Semites dominating

the Delta like this.

These Semites begin free,

powerful and prosperous,

but then succumb to

impoverishment and malnutrition.

There is a sharp rise in the

number of infant burials.

Near the end of this period

comes a list of slaves,

many with Hebrew names.

And all this occurring

400 years earlier

than would be expected

with the Ramesses Exodus.

- [Tim] But what

if all these finds

in the Middle Kingdom

are not a coincidence

and the Exodus

actually did happen

much earlier than the

reign of Ramesses?

To see if that's the case,

I would need to

look more closely

at the details of the

biblical story concerning

the next step of the sequence;

the judgment of Egypt

and the Israelites'

deliverance from bondage.

(somber music)

- [Voiceover] The Bible

records that Moses

fled to the land of Midian.

After 40 years of

living as a shepherd,

Moses first encountered God.

(sheep bleating)

- [Manis] Moses sees a

bush from the distance,

and it's on fire, but

it's not being consumed.

So, curious, he approaches

to see what's going on

and God says, "Don't

come any closer.

"Remove your shoes, for

this place is a holy place."

God said, "I have surely

seen the oppression

"of my people who are in Egypt,

"and I have also

heard their cry."

Like a shepherd rescuing his

sheep, God commands Moses

to go back to Egypt

and tell Pharaoh,

"Let My people go, so

that they may serve Me."

Moses comes to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh does not listen,

refuses to let the people go,

and God sends the

first of a series

of spectacular plagues

against the land of Egypt.

(thunder cracks)

(frogs croak)

(insects buzz)

(thunder cracks)

- [James] In Exodus chapter 5,

the God of Israel says,

"Let my people go."

Pharaoh says, "Who is the Lord?

"Who is Jehovah, who is Yahweh

"that I should listen to him?"

And so we have setting

up there this contest.

Who really is the

god to be obeyed?

Who is the one in

control of things?

And, in the Egyptian

view of things,

Pharaoh was the god

of the Egyptian state.

He was responsible

for cosmic order.

He was responsible for the

proper flow of the Nile,

the rising of the sun,

the fertility of the

fields and so on.

And now we have the God of

Israel, the God of Creation,

of the Bible, who's saying,

"Now, wait a minute.

"That's not what you do.

"I'm the one who controls

all these things."

So He begins with the Nile

and ends in the ninth

plague with the sun.

And these two things that

Pharaoh is said to control

are completely outside

of his control.

- [Manis] God protected

the children of Israel

from these plagues, while

the rest of the land

was being devastated by them.

To where Pharaoh's servants

themselves pleaded with him,

saying that this was

the finger of God

and that Egypt was being ruined.

But Pharaoh would not relent.

He knew that Egypt depended

on the work of these

foreign slaves.

- [Voiceover] In Israel,

Mahoney also had the privilege

to speak with the

Prime Minister.

Although seen by most

as a political figure,

Benjamin Netanyahu

was also an author

and historian, like his father.

- [Tim] Tell me about the

effect the Exodus has had

upon civilizations in

the last 3,000 years.

- Moses was the greatest

revolutionary of all time.

Remember that in antiquity

there were grand empires

that were based on one

principle and that is slavery,

and Moses challenged that twice.

He challenged it by taking

his people who were slaves

in bondage in Egypt

and freed them

and took them to

their Promised Land.

But he also challenged

it by providing a code,

a moral code for

mankind that said

that it is not the

king or the emperor

that decides the law,

there's a higher law

and these were absolutely

revolutionary ideas.

(suspenseful music)

- [Voiceover] The text

then says that God sent

the tenth and final plague

to force Pharaoh's hand:

the death of the firstborn

of man and beast.

The Lord told the Israelites

that each household

was to slaughter a lamb

and mark the doorposts

with the blood of the lamb.

And on that horrible night,

death passed over all the

homes marked with blood.

But in every home

that wasn't marked,

all the firstborn males died.

(loud crying and wailing)

There was crying and wailing

in every Egyptian home

because each family

had lost someone.

- [Manis] The tenth plague,

the death of the firstborn,

affected everybody.

Even Pharaoh's firstborn

died that night,

and the will of the

people, the Egyptians,

was completely shattered.

The tenth plague broke

Pharaoh's defiance of God,

and he finally let

Moses and the people go.

But then, Pharaoh

changes his mind,

pursues the Israelites

with his army,

and, at the sea,

God parts the waters

so that the

Israelites can escape,

while it destroys the

entire Egyptian army.

(suspenseful music)

(somber music)

- [Voiceover] Every

year, Jewish families

from around the world

celebrate the deliverance

of Israel from Egypt

during the Passover feast.

Records confirm

that the Passover

has been observed for

thousands of years.

Many believe it is

difficult to explain

the origin of

Passover if there were

no real event on

which it was based.

(somber music)

While in Jerusalem,

Mahoney went to speak

with Rabbi David Hartman,

the founder of the

Shalom Hartman Institute.

- [David] Each

year, we celebrate

the Exodus as if we were there.

We were slaves to

Pharaoh in Egypt

and we dramatically

celebrate the Passover Seder

as if we are participants.

So there's always a renewal,

always a renewed giving,

a new spirit into the

Passover Exodus story.

Because in remembering

the Exodus,

we remember that in the

dark conditions of history,

God, the Lord, had in

some way made possible,

through Moses, our liberation.

- [Voiceover] But

what about those

who think the Exodus

never happened?

Noted Israeli archaeologist,

Israel Finkelstein,

specializes in the ancient

history of the land of Israel.

In his influential book,

The Bible Unearthed,

he has argued that the

Exodus did not happen

in the manner

described in the Bible.

He proposes that it was based

on vague memories of events,

written down for political

motives centuries later.

- Do you believe in

celebrating the Passover?

- Sure, celebrating the

Passover? Definitely.

I think that I make a

distinction in my private life,

in my life as a scholar, in

my life as part of a family.

I make a very clear distinction

between scholarship

and tradition.

- When I sit at

the Passover meal

and we read the

Haggadah with the family

that evening it's all

history from A to Z;

perfect history.

Because history is not only

about the time of Moses,

let's say, okay?

History is also

about all those many

generations of my forefathers

who were sitting to the

same table in Passover

in the same time and

reciting the Haggadah

This is also history.

And so, which means that I

am part of something bigger,

which goes on and on and

on for many generations

and this is important for me.

So yes, the answer

is that there is

a clear distinction

between the two.

- [Tim] What do

you say to people

who are concerned with the idea

that these stories didn't

happen as they were written?

- I would tell them that

this in not important.

Whether the stories,

whether the things happened

exactly in that way

in not important.

I think that it is

more important to

understand the

meaning of Exodus,

the moral of Exodus.

- [Tim] Rabbi Wolpe has said

that Professor

Finkelstein's work

has greatly influenced

his thinking.

- The idea of the Exodus

and the Revelation,

however you configure it,

it is central to the

Jewish tradition.

But I think that doesn't

mean that you have to believe

that the Torah gives a

historical account of it.

I don't think the Torah

is a book of facts.

It's a book of meaning.

- [Tim] However, John Bimson

shared a very different view.

- [John] History and theology

are tightly intertwined

in the Bible.

If you took away the

historical basis,

then you've really deprived it

of a lot of its

theological truth.

So much of what the

Old Testament says

about the character of

God and His purposes

in calling Israel

are intertwined

with this story of these

people coming out of Egypt

and entering the Promised Land.

So history and theology

are tightly intertwined

in the Bible.

- [Tim] After more than

a decade of searching,

this is what it comes down to.

Is the Bible's

account true history,

or is it simply the

traditions of a devout people?

If the judgment happened

as described in the Bible,

Egyptian society

would have collapsed.

Loss of their agriculture,

loss of their first-born sons,

loss of their slave-force,

and the loss of their army.

In fact, Moses recorded that

Egypt was still suffering

from defeat 40 years

after the Exodus.

(energetic music)

- [Voiceover] Critics

are quick to point out

that there is no such

record from Egypt

of supernatural judgment

and devastation.

But others believe there

is an Egyptian document

that actually gives

an eyewitness account

of the plagues and chaos

surrounding the Exodus.

Mahoney went to Holland to meet

the curator of

the Leiden Museum,

where this significant

papyrus is housed.

But Egyptologist Maarten

Raven sees no evidence

for the Exodus in this

document or anywhere else.

- The story of the Exodus is

described in the Old Testament.

It's part of the

national history

of the Jewish people,

or so they say.

We have no independent evidence

that this is a real

historical event.

We can believe it because

we believe in the Bible?

There are no Egyptian

sources that describe it.

There are no other documents.

There are no

archaeological sources

that could prove this took

place as a mass exodus.

- [Voiceover] Raven's

position, again,

is that of most

Egyptologists today.

But there are some

scholars who suggest

that descriptions found

in this Egyptian document

bear a remarkable resemblance

to the plagues of the Bible,

only from an Egyptian

point of view.

Written by a scribe named

Ipuwer, the papyrus known as

"The Admonitions of

an Egyptian Sage"

poetically describes

a series of calamities

and the chaos that followed.

- [Maarten] Ipuwer, we

don't know who he was,

but he was obviously

somebody in a position

to address his

majesty, the king.

There's only one copy

of this specific text

and that is here in

the Leiden Museum.

It's a very, very vivid report,

or would be report, of

what happens to Egypt

when the central

power falls away.

- [Tim] Many believe a

collapse of Egypt's power

is exactly what

would have happened

due to the plagues of Exodus.

And as I compared

the book of Exodus

to the writings of Ipuwer,

I too was intrigued

by the similarities.

- To convince Pharaoh, God says,

"Take some water from the Nile

and pour it on the ground,

"and as it hits the ground

it will turn into blood."

- [Egyptian voice]

Behold, Egypt is fallen

to the pouring of water.

And he who poured

water on the ground

seizes the mighty in misery.

- [Manis] And all the water

in the Nile turned into blood.

And the fish of the Nile

died, and the Nile reeked,

so that the Egyptians could

not drink water from the Nile.

- [Egyptian voice]

The River is blood.

If you drink of it,

you lose your humanity,

and thirst for water.

- [Manis] All the livestock

of the Egyptians died.

(thunder cracks)

Fire ran down from heaven

and the Lord sent

hail upon the land.

Even the flax and the

barley were smitten.

- [Egyptian voice] Gone is

the barley of abundance,

food supplies are running short.

The nobles hunger and suffer.

Those who had shelter are

in the dark of the storm.

(thunder rumbles)

- I see no connection

between the papyrus of Ipuwer

and the story of the

Plagues of Egypt.

It is, in a way, in

a very indirect way,

an eyewitness report

of a historical period.

It pretends to be such a

report, but in fact it isn't.

- At midnight, the

Lord struck down

all the firstborn in

the land of Egypt,

from the firstborn of Pharaoh,

sitting on his throne,

to the firstborn of the

captive in the dungeon.

- [Egyptian voice] Behold,

plague sweeps the land,

blood is everywhere, with

no shortage of the dead.

He who buries his brother

in the ground is everywhere.

Woe is me for the

grief of this time.

- And there was a great wailing

throughout the land of Egypt,

for there was not a

house without its dead.

- [Egyptian voice] Wailing

is throughout the land,

mingled with lamentations.

- All the time we have

to convince ourselves

that this person can't

have seen all this.

He imagined it, or he had

received this information

from other similar

propagandistic literature.

- Because it's so fantastic?

- [Maarten] Yes.

It's very fantastic.

But he hasn't seen it,

he just imagined it.

Don't confuse this with

the message of the Bible,

the Ten Plagues. That's

quite a different story.

Whether this happened

or not is irrelevant.

It's a beautiful

literary document,

and again, yes, God was angry

and punished the Egyptians,

but this is just

a literary cliche.

- [Voiceover] The

influential Egyptologist,

the late Miriam Lichtheim,

ruled out the possibility

that the papyrus,

The Admonitions of Ipuwer,

referred to a real

national calamity.

Agreeing with other scholars,

she stated the following:

- [Miriam] The description

of chaos in the Admonitions

is inherently contradictory,

hence, historically impossible.

On the one hand, the land is

said to suffer from total want;

on the other hand the poor are

described as becoming rich,

of wearing fine clothes,

and generally of disposing

of all that once

belonged to the masters.

- [Tim] However, when you

read the biblical account,

it becomes clear

how this apparent

contradiction could

have happened.

- [Manis] Moses told the

Israelites to ask the Egyptians

for silver and gold

jewelry, and for clothing.

- [Egyptian voice] People

are stripped of clothes.

The slave takes what he finds.

Gold, lapis lazuli,

silver and turquoise

are strung on the

necks of female slaves.

- [Manis] The Lord

gave the people favor

in the sight of the Egyptians,

so they gave them

whatever they asked.

Thus, they plundered

the land of Egypt.

- [Tim] The very point that

Miriam Lichtheim viewed

as "contradictory" and therefore

"historically impossible",

is the very point

that most specifically

matches the biblical text,

but Maarten remains unconvinced.

He revealed to me

the main reason why.

- It's out of the question that

this can refer to one

and the same event.

Conventional chronology has it

that the Exodus

took place somewhere

during the Ramesside

Period in Egypt,

maybe around 1200 BC.

Whereas our papyrus, when

you look at the grammar

and the literary figures,

et cetera, there's no question

that it was composed

in the Middle Kingdom

and it is 600, 700,

800 years earlier.

- [Tim] But I realized

that all the other evidence

I had looked at

was also converging

in the Middle Kingdom,

not the time of Ramesses.

And was it just

another coincidence

that this document was

originally composed

in the only period

when Egypt's delta

was dominated by large

numbers of Semites?

It became obvious

to me and my team

that if people look at

the wrong time in history

for evidence of the Exodus,

they won't find any.

So Ramesses is a giant,

standing in the way

of connecting this

evidence with the Exodus.

And for over 50

years, all the books,

all the television programs,

and all the university

professors who've been

convincing the world

to dismiss the Bible

have been doing so based

mainly on this one issue,

chronology, the dates

assumed for the Exodus,

and the lack of evidence

at the time of Ramesses II.

But if it happened

long before his time,

then it means they're all wrong.

Wrong about the pharaoh,

and perhaps wrong about

the Exodus never happening.

(mystical music)

- [Voiceover] Rohl took

Mahoney to see the replica

of a monument erected

just a few years

after Ramesses' death,

by his son Merenptah.

It's important because

it shows that Ramesses

could not be the

pharaoh of the Exodus

because in his time, Israel

was already a nation,

established in the

land of Canaan.

- [David] So this is the

famous Merenptah Stela,

or what we call

the Israel Stela.

And it actually belongs

to the King Merenptah.

Up there at the top you can

see him, facing the god Amun.

And he lists, in a poetic form,

all the different

conquered nations,

the nations that are at peace.

But right at the bottom, we

have three crucial lines,

because this is where we

find a link to the Bible.

Let's read it together, okay?

We have the two reeds, that's

the sound "yee" or "ee", okay?

Then a bolt, which is

"s", an "r", a mouth,

an "e", an "ah", and

an "l", Is-ra-el.

- [Tim] Israel.

- Israel.

This is the only time

that we see this name

on an Egyptian monument.

After the name "Israel"

are these two figures here,

these two seated figures

of a woman and a man

and three strokes underneath.

These three strokes mean plural.

So it means the people

or nation of Israel.

And then this is

the interesting bit.

It says, "Fekty bin peret f."

"Israel is laid waste,

his seed is no more."

- [Tim] Well, does it mean that

they were literally no more?

- No, it's a sort of

poetical way of saying

they'd been overcome, defeated.

- [Tim] Or pacified?

- Yeah. All these phrases

here above are like that.

It's a poetical

phrase, effectively.

- [Tim] How significant

is this then,

to the story of the Exodus?

- Well, for me it's

very important,

because if we're talking

about Ramesses II or Merenptah

being at the time of the

Exodus of Moses and Joshua,

this just does not

fit the pattern.

It's not tribes wandering

around the Sinai,

lost in the desert or, you know,

during the wandering

periods of Moses and Joshua.

They seem to be a

political entity.

- [Voiceover] This monument

doesn't fit the idea

of Ramesses being the

pharaoh of the Exodus

because it was written

shortly after his death

and it recognizes Israel

already existing in Canaan

as one of the significant

powers of the day.

And that shouldn't be

because the Bible says

that the Israelites did not

even begin to conquer Canaan

until 40 years after the Exodus.

So Ramesses could not have been

the pharaoh who let

the Israelites go.

Then Mahoney got a lead

about another inscription.

Charles Aling brought

him to see his colleague,

historian Clyde Billington,

who has extensively researched

this newly-discovered find.

- Besides the Merneptah Stela,

there's another

reference to Israel.

It's called the Berlin Pedestal.

It's in the State Museum

in Berlin, Germany,

and this is something

that's just now

being studied and

discussed by scholars.

- [Voiceover] On the base

of this Egyptian statue,

they showed Mahoney name rings,

each representing an

enemy defeated by Pharaoh

in the region of Canaan.

- [Tim] So would these

have been captured people?

- Realize that pharaohs

all the time exaggerate,

to say the very least.

- [Tim] So is he bragging?

- He's bragging.

- [Tim] Okay.

- He's bragging.

He's saying, "I've

conquered these people.

"I control these people."

This is the one that's

caused all of the excitement

because you have,

again, a bound enemy,

so telling you that these people

are enemies of the Egyptians,

and the name down here,

that while it's

partially broken away,

has been reconstructed,

and it's the name "Israel".

And this dates to around 1360.

This makes the late date of

the Exodus an impossibility.

This is 100 years earlier.

- [Charles] This

is a very crucial

evidence that we see here.

- [Voiceover] This

name ring demonstrates

that Israel had

already left Egypt

and was in Canaan

as Egypt's enemy

a century before the

Ramesses Exodus date,

so obviously Ramesses

could not have been

the pharaoh of the Exodus.

As another test to

see whether Ramesses

really was the

Pharaoh of the Exodus,

Mahoney would need to find

out if there were any signs

of major problems during

this famous king's reign,

such as a sudden

collapse of power,

that would match the

biblical judgment of Egypt.

- I don't see any

evidence that during

the reign of

Ramesses II there was

a significant decline in

the strength of the army,

in the economic

well-being of the country.

I don't see anything in the

succeeding reign of

Merenptah either.

- [Tim] So you're saying

there was some type

of stability that was formed?

- There was a great deal of

stability during this period,

had to have been for a lot of

these things to have occurred.

- [Tim] But there's more.

It came to my attention

that the Bible itself

contains a passage that's

been largely ignored.

It gives a date for the

Exodus hundreds of years

before Pharaoh Ramesses ruled.

Yet it clearly says

it was 480 years

from the building

of Solomon's temple

back to the time of the Exodus.

- [Voiceover] Most scholars

agree that King Solomon

began his reign in 970 BC,

so 480 years before this

would place the

Exodus around 1450 BC,

200 years before

the Ramesses date.

Yet the popular

view continues to be

that the Exodus occurred

in the time of Ramesses.

- [John] It's a date

that is based on

very flimsy indicators,

but this is where

the majority of scholars look,

almost out of habit really.

Earlier periods have just

dropped off their radar.

- [Tim] And would you say

that's the bottom line

of why they don't find any

evidence for the Bible?

- I would, and I find it

deeply ironic. (laughs softly)

- [Tim] If I'm going where

the evidence is strongest,

then I've got to look beyond

the Ramesses Exodus Theory.

And that's really encouraging,

because it means that

the events of the Exodus

can be shifted

200 years earlier.

(vigorous music)

But my challenge isn't over,

because this new biblical

date, around 1450 BC,

still leaves the

events separated

from the Egyptian

pattern by 200 years.

I was determined to

find an answer for this,

and to do so, I would continue

to explore the pattern

that seemed to exist

in the earlier period.

- [Voiceover] Is there any

indication in the Middle Kingdom

of the next step of

the Bible's sequence:

a massive and sudden exodus

following the death

of the firstborn?

Rohl told Mahoney

about something amazing

that was found at Avaris.

- We find an extraordinary

thing happens.

The archaeologists who've

been digging this area

suddenly find lots of

pits in the ground.

And in these pits are bodies,

and they've been

tossed into these pits.

They're not buried formally.

They have no grave goods

or anything like that.

These bodies are tossed

on top of each other.

They're lying strewn.

You have hands and

legs crossing over.

What is happening

here? What is going on?

Bietak thinks its actually

some sort of plague

that's happened.

A dramatic event where suddenly

they have to bury

people very quickly

because of contamination

of the living population.

So it's an emergency burial.

And then, all of a sudden,

all these Semitic peoples

who were living there

suddenly get up,

they pack their bags

and they leave and the

whole mound is abandoned.

And we don't know for how long,

and it just falls to ruin.

Now, isn't that just

like the story of Exodus?

- [Voiceover] 120 miles

to the south of Avaris,

another similar abandonment

was uncovered at

the town of Kahun.

Excavators found a walled

and guarded settlement,

which supported a large

Semitic population.

They also found

documentation of slavery.

Mysteriously, the

inhabitants here

seemed to have

disappeared overnight.

According to Professor

Rosalie David,

the town's abandonment was

"sudden and unpremeditated".

Their goods were

found in the streets

and houses of Kahun exactly

where they were left,

before being buried by the

sands of the desert so long ago.

- [David] One of the great

moments in Egyptian history

is the collapse of

Egyptian civilization.

When these foreigners

invade, these Hyksos rulers,

come in and destroy the land

and the Egyptian native rule

is completely suppressed,

Egypt is on its knees.

That's what we see in the

archaeological evidence

of this period and

it only happens once

in 1,000 years of

Egyptian history.

If we can link this to

a very famous tradition

told to us by an Egyptian

priest called Manetho,

he wrote a history of Egypt

in the 3rd century BC,

and what we end up with

is a story like this:

in the reign of a

king called Dudimose,

one of the last kings

of the 13th Dynasty,

in his reign, God

smote the Egyptians.

And God here is singular;

you would expect to see

"and the gods" smote the

Egyptians, but you don't.

You see "God" smote

the Egyptians.

And then, because of

the smiting, whatever

the smiting is,

foreigners, "people

of obscure race",

invade Egypt from the north

and they conquer the land,

"without striking a

blow" is the term.

Now why? Because God

smote the Egyptians.

Something had happened

to devastate Egypt,

which made them unable

to defend themselves

and these marauding hordes

took over the whole country.

And we call this

the Hyksos period

and they enslaved the Egyptians.

But the point is they could

have defended themselves,

they had a mighty army,

except for the fact that God

had smitten the Egyptians.

- [Voiceover] The earlier

pattern of evidence

for the Judgment and

Exodus steps includes:

a Middle Kingdom papyrus

that describes events

remarkably similar to

the biblical plagues;

grave pits filled with

bodies, hastily buried;

mass abandonment at

Semitic sites in Egypt;

an Egyptian source,

outside the Bible,

stating that a powerful god

acted in Egypt's history,

delivering a deadly blow,

which led to an

invasion by foreigners;

and all this coinciding

with the only collapse

of Egyptian society

in 1,000 years.

- [David] You look

for a collapse in

Egyptian civilization

and that's where you'll

find Moses and the Exodus.

- [Tim] But what about the

final step of that sequence,

the conquest of Canaan,

the land that had been promised

to Abraham and his descendants?

Would the earlier

pattern of evidence

continue there as well?

(uplifting music)

- [Manis] The children

of Israel leave Egypt.

They travel to Mount Sinai

where they received God's law

and made a covenant

to be His people.

Then, after 40 years of

wandering in the wilderness,

Moses transferred his

authority to Joshua

and ascended the

heights of Mount Nebo,

and there he died.

The Israelites had

been waiting centuries

for the promise to be fulfilled,

and now it was Joshua

who would lead them

in their conquest of Canaan.

- [Voiceover] The land of Canaan

was very different from Egypt.

It was a land ruled by many

independent city-states

with names like Hazor,

Jericho, Hebron, and Arad.

The history of these

cities has been divided

into two major time periods:

the Middle Bronze Age,

matching Egypt's Middle Kingdom,

when they were thriving and

fortified by high walls.

Then a sudden destruction and

burning came upon the land,

leaving those cities in

ruins and bringing in

a new period known as

the Late Bronze Age,

matching the time of

Egypt's New Kingdom.

Archaeologist Norma Franklin

represents a large group of

scholars that sees no evidence

for a biblical conquest

of the Promised Land.

- As an archaeologist, I

hate to disappoint people,

but we have no evidence

for a single mass migration

of people from one country,

over a period of 40 years,

wandering and coming

into another country.

There is destruction,

amazing destructions.

None of them actually

fit one another.

They all happened within 100

years, but not overnight.

Not what you'd expect in --

You know, Joshua

didn't live that long,

(laughs) if he existed, okay?

- First and

foremost, many places

which are mentioned in Joshua,

in the Cnquest story,

specifically mention,

you know, as major

places in Canaan

were excavated and no

evidence for a city

in the Late Bronze Age

has ever been found.

And I'm speaking about

major excavations.

And we are speaking

about many sites.

It's systematic; it's

not only a single site.

- [Tim] This is a serious

problem for the Conquest

if it really happened

in the Late Bronze Age.

But, again, what if it happened

in the earlier

Middle Bronze Age?

It seemed only logical to begin

by looking at the

key site of Jericho,

the first city the Israelites

are said to have destroyed.

And we know exactly

where that was.

- [Voiceover] Major

archaeological

excavations at Jericho

began with a German

team in the early 1900s,

led by Ernst Sellin.

This was followed

by a British team,

headed by John

Garstang, in the 1930s.

At the time of their digs,

both Sellin and Garstang

believed they had uncovered

a layer of destruction

that matched the biblical story.

However, things

took a dramatic turn

when Kathleen Kenyon dug

at Jericho in the 1950s.

She demonstrated that

there was no evidence

for a destruction of Jericho

matching the biblical account

because she dated the demise

of the city much earlier.

A wave of skepticism

began to sweep

across the field of archaeology.

In an instant, Kenyon's

discoveries at Jericho

had undermined the

entire Exodus story.

- [John] She was expecting

that if there was

any evidence there

at all it would be

in what we call

the Late Bronze Age

and it simply isn't there.

If the Israelites had

arrived in the 13th century,

they would have found

almost nobody there,

no walls to collapse.

It just wouldn't have fitted

the biblical narrative.

So her excavations

helped to compound

this very negative view

that was developing,

not just from Jericho, but

from other sites as well.

- [Tim] Is there a time

when Jericho was destroyed

where the walls fell

down or it was burned?

- I don't think so.

I don't think we have evidence,

this kind of evidence

in the case of Jericho.

And I don't think that we can

really look for this evidence.

We are very much past this

phase of archeological research.

- [Tim] But David Rohl

sees things differently.

- If people are telling us

that there was no Jericho

at the time that Joshua

conquered the Promise Land

and therefore Joshua

is a piece of fiction

and therefore the Conquest

is a piece of fiction

and then probably Exodus is

a piece of fiction as well,

if that's the case, why don't

we ask the simple question,

"Well, when was Jericho around?

"When was Jericho destroyed?"

and start from

that point of view.

- [Manis] The Conquest began

with the Israelites

crossing the Jordan River.

Joshua sent men to spy out

the massively walled

city of Jericho,

and there they met a

harlot named Rahab,

who reported that all

in the land had heard

what God had done

for the Israelites

and they were terrified.

Rahab hid the spies and aided

their escape to the mountains.

- What evidence do

you see matching the

conquest at Jericho?

- [Bryant] First

of all, we're told

that Jericho was fortified.

When the archaeologists

dug the city,

particularly Kathleen Kenyon,

when she did her

work in the '50s,

discovered that the tell

that the city's built on

was surrounded by a

great earthen rampart.

- [Voiceover] Excavators

found that Jericho

was protected by a

brilliant defensive system.

At its base was a

stone retaining wall

more than 15 feet high, with

a defensive extension wall

of mud bricks

rising higher still.

Beyond this was the

rampart, a steep slope

covered with a slick

surface of white plaster,

where attackers would

have been exposed

to arrows and sling

stones from above.

At the top of this rampart

was the main city wall,

also made of mud-brick,

this one more than 25 feet

high and 10 feet thick.

- [Manis] Imagine the dread

and the desperate panic

of the people of Jericho.

Day after day, for six

days, the people of Israel

are walking around their city

with the Ark of the Covenant

and the sounding of ram's horns.

Then, on the seventh day,

they encircle the

city seven times,

and the priests give a

long blast on their horns.

(horns blaring)

The people let loose

with a mighty shout.

(loud shouting

and horns blaring)

The walls come tumbling down,

(walls rumble and crash)

(people shouting)

allowing the Israelites

to climb up into the city,

taking it and commencing

the conquering of

the land of Israel.

- [Bryant] Well, when

the city met its end,

these mud brick walls collapsed

and they actually fell down

to the base of the

stone retaining wall.

Kenyon describes it very clearly

and in detail in her

excavation report.

And then we're told they

set the city on fire,

and that's exactly what we find:

Jericho was massively

destroyed by fire.

Kenyon said it was very

clear that within the city,

the walls of the buildings

had fallen as well

and she says that the walls

fell before the fire.

And so we have the sequence

that we read in the Bible:

first the fallen walls,

and then the city being set

on fire by the Israelites.

- [Voiceover] Excavations

at the site uncovered

clear evidence for a

massive destruction by fire

with a very thick burn layer

of extremely high temperatures.

This caused Kenyon to

attribute the burning

to an enemy attack and not fires

that would result solely

from an earthquake.

- She claimed that

the city was destroyed

around 1550 BC by the Egyptians.

Well, there's absolutely no

evidence that the Egyptians

were ever in the Jordan

Valley at this time period.

- [Tim] So because Kenyon dated

the destruction of Jericho

150 years before the Israelites

were supposed to be there,

she made no connection between

the destruction and

the biblical account.

But, once again, this date fits

the earlier pattern

I'd been seeing.

- Within the city, a very

unique discovery was made.

Both Garstang and Kenyon found

in the houses that

they excavated

many jars, full of grain,

that were stored there.

- [John] The store jars in

the city were pretty full.

That suggests the harvest

had only recently

been gathered in.

And the details in

the biblical account

point to an event that happened

sometime in the spring.

And, down there in

the Jordan valley,

spring is when the

harvest was gathered in,

the grain harvest.

- When the Israelites

crossed the Jordan,

the first thing they did

was celebrate Passover.

Well, when is Passover?

Again, the spring of the year.

- [Voiceover] The full

jars also indicate

that if this was a

siege, it was very short,

unusual for a strong fortified

city such as Jericho.

- And that matches

the biblical account

because the siege

was only seven days,

otherwise the people

inside would have consumed

a lot of that grain if it

dragged out for months.

- Was the grain found

all over the city?

- Yes. In every house

that was excavated

they found jars of grain.

- [Voiceover] There was

one other intriguing detail

at Jericho that fits the

Bible remarkably well.

It had to do with the

promise made to Rahab.

- She actually lived

in the city wall,

and after hiding the

spies, they promised her

that she and her family

would be protected

when they attacked the city,

and they kept their promise.

She had marked her home

with a scarlet cord,

which she hung out the window.

- [Voiceover] But if her house

was built into the city wall,

how could it have survived?

- [Tim] I came across the

actual archaeological report

that the German

excavator of Jericho,

Ernst Sellin, had

published in 1913.

He was the first to conduct a

major excavation of the site,

and I could see that

his work was impressive,

but now seemed to

have been forgotten.

Here were detailed

plans and photographs,

including one part of the site,

which echoed the Rahab

story in an unexpected way.

- The Germans found that

in this one short stretch

on the north side of the city,

there were houses

built on the rampart,

between the lower city wall

and the upper city wall,

and some of those

houses were built

right up against

the lower city wall.

They found that the city wall

did not fall in this area.

So that provides an

explanation for how the spies

could have saved

Rahab and her family

because God brought

the wall down

everywhere else except

where her house was,

and we have archaeological

evidence to back that up.

- [Tim] What if people say,

"Well, you're biased."?

- I think everybody in

the field is biased,

(laughs softly)

one way or another.

I admit my bias.

However, I cannot

make up the evidence.

I cannot plant it in the ground.

I have analyzed it and

compared it to the Bible

and I see, wow, it

matches exactly.

That's science: look

at your evidence

and come to a conclusion

based on the evidence.

- [Voiceover] Archaeologists

have uncovered:

a city with high fortification

walls that fell down;

evidence that the

city was intentionally

burned after the collapse;

storage jars filled

with charred grain,

evidence of a short

siege in springtime;

and a section of

houses within the wall,

miraculously preserved, just

as in the biblical account.

According to the

biblical account,

Joshua spoke a

curse against anyone

who would rebuild

the city of Jericho,

and the archaeology shows

that, after the destruction,

the city of Jericho was indeed

abandoned for centuries.

But, of course,

this is all happens

in the wrong time in the

view of most scholars.

Bryant Wood believes that Kenyon

misdated the pottery at Jericho,

resulting in a wrong

destruction date.

He, along with Charles

Aling, believed that

the Conquest occurred

around 1400 BC,

using the conventional

dates for Egypt and Canaan.

However, David Rohl and John

Bimson have a different idea.

They propose that Kenyon came

to a wrong destruction date

at Jericho because

the dates assigned

to the Middle Bronze

Age are not correct

and these dates for history

need a major adjustment.

Regardless, all these

scholars agree that Jericho

was destroyed in a

manner that matches

the story of Joshua

and the Israelites.

But there's more to the

conquest than just Jericho.

Spies had reported that

Canaan was a beautiful land,

flowing with milk and honey.

But it was also filled with

great, fortified cities

that had walls

reaching up to heaven.

One by one, they

would fall to Joshua.

(loud shouting, metals clashing)

- [Manis] Then

Joshua turned north

and headed for

the city of Hazor.

Jabin, king of Hazor,

gathered all the kings of

the region against Israel.

Joshua captured Hazor and

struck its king with the sword

and Joshua destroyed

Hazor by fire.

- [Voiceover] Israeli

archaeologists at Hazor

found a massive burn layer

from the same time as

Jericho's destruction.

They also found something else.

- We found tablets in the

Middle Bronze Age palace

belonging to a

king called Jabin,

and that's the name of

the king that Joshua

actually stuck his

sword into in the story.

- [Voiceover] This is

the cuneiform tablet

containing the name of Jabin,

found in remains of the

palace in ancient Hazor.

- [Tim] So you have a connection

between the Bible story

and these tablets?

- We have a name

that's identical.

We have a tablet coming

out of the ground

with the name Jabin on it,

and in the story of Joshua,

Joshua killed King

Jabin of Hazor. - Wow.

- [Voiceover] But, when

looking for the Conquest

in the expected time period,

archaeologists have

found no evidence.

In fact, many of these

sites were not even occupied

throughout the entire

Late Bronze Age;

no high walls; no

massive destructions;

only a series of

burned-out and empty ruins.

This has been a key factor

in the current skepticism

over the biblical

account of the Conquest.

- [Tim] Again, maybe they've

been looking in the wrong time

for evidence of the

Israelites entering Canaan,

because when you look earlier

in the Middle Bronze Age,

all these cities were occupied,

and they were guarded

by high walls,

and, amazingly, they all

suffered major destructions

in the same short period, just

as described in the Bible.

- When you put those

cities side by side,

the biblical account

and the archaeology

match extremely well.

I think we have enough

destroyed and abandoned cities

to say this fits the

sequence of events

the Bible is describing.

There's a high probability

that we're looking here

at Joshua's Conquest.

- [David] The whole

thing, from the beginning

of the sojourn in

Egypt, to slavery,

Moses and the Exodus, the

Conquest of the Promised Land

is all there in one nice neat

line, but it's way too early.

- [Voiceover] Rohl, Bimson

and others suggest that

this problem didn't

start with the Bible,

it began with Egypt.

They propose that early scholars

developed its

dating incorrectly,

and that new

information requires

that the events of Egypt's

history be shifted forward

on the timeline by centuries.

- [David] And all of

a sudden, these things

that are too early

become contemporary

with the events in

the Old Testament.

They sync up again.

Everything links together.

- [Tim] I was so excited to

hear of this possibility.

It would explain

why all the evidence

has been consistently earlier.

But could the history

scholars created for Egypt

really be off by centuries?

- [James] I'm very much against

chronological revisionism.

Very good, very

competent historians

have been working for

decades and decades

on Egyptian chronology and

Near Eastern chronology.

There's still more

work to be done,

but I don't see a possibility

of moving things centuries.

- I'm not into this

business at all,

and I think that we

know enough to say that

we may be wrong 10 years

here and 10 years there,

but there's no way to

change, to shift centuries.

I mean, forget it. I think

that we are on solid ground,

so there's no need to look

for different centuries.

(somber music)

- [Tim] What was I

supposed to do now?

Hoffmeier and Finkelstien

represent mainstream opinion,

and I can't simply ignore it.

The fact is, the

majority of scholars,

even believers in the Bible,

won't allow the evidence

I've seen to be

connected to the Exodus.

It's just too early.

This is the biggest

giant of all,

standing in the way of

solving this problem.

But the biblical

pattern was so strong

that I just couldn't let it go.

- [Voiceover] Mahoney's

researchers uncovered a lead

that led him to

Oxford University.

On St John's Street is

the Griffith Institute,

one of the greatest storehouses

of Egyptological

documents in the world.

He was here to

review the writings

of the late Sir Alan Gardiner,

perhaps the greatest specialist

in reading hieroglyphs

in the 20th century

and he had a great hand

in uncovering what

we know today.

(bright music)

- [Tim] I was moved as I looked

through his personal notes.

In some ways, I was

following a path

that he had helped to clear.

After a lifetime of searching,

Gardiner wrote something

that directly impacted the

question I was dealing with.

- [Sir Alan] It must never

be forgotten that we are

dealing with a civilization

thousands of years old

and one of which only tiny

remnants have survived.

What is proudly advertised

as Egyptian history

is merely a collection

of rags and tatters.

(bright music)

- [Tim] If all we have

are rags and tatters,

how sure can we be

about the dates?

Alan Gardiner said that what

we have is rags and tatters.

Is that still true today or

do you think that's changed?

- No, I think that

basically is true.

What's interesting about

the source material

from ancient Egypt, though,

is that those rags and tatters

are more numerous and

of a more varied kind

than almost any other

civilization on the

face of the Earth.

You name it, every

kind of material

imaginable has come down to us;

not complete, but

tantalizing rags and tatters.

And it's a wonderful thing

to have all of this material,

but it's also extremely

frustrating because it means

there's that much more room

for argument and doubt.

- [Tim] Kent Weeks

made no indication

that he'd be in favor

of anything as major

as shifting Egypt's

history by centuries.

But the reality is, a shift

wouldn't just affect Egypt,

because the archaeological

dates for Canaan

and the surrounding region

are all dependent

on Egypt's history.

- [Kent] When all

is said and done,

it's the Egyptian

chronology that underpins

everything else

that's being done

throughout the rest

of the known world.

It's a big responsibility

and it's one of the reasons

that people look

at it so closely

because in terms of

reconstructing ancient history,

a lot hinges on the answers.

- [Tim] So if Egypt's

historical dates

are not that certain

and need adjusting,

then Canaan's history

would also require

the same kind of shift,

because they're connected.

But a lot of people

don't want to do that.

- [John] No, no, no,

because Egyptian chronology

has been assumed to be fixed now

for a very long period of time.

So the whole idea of taking

it apart and starting again

is an anathema to

most Egyptologists.

- [Tim] Uh-huh,

because it would undo

a lot of their

books, wouldn't it?

- Well it certainly

would, yes. (laughs)

- [Voiceover] But

there's mounting evidence

that the current reconstruction

of Egyptian history

has major problems that have

nothing to do with the Bible.

- There's a whole host of

reasons for being skeptical

about the current

Egyptian chronology,

and some of them to

do with Egypt itself,

but a lot of them

from outside Egypt,

which a number of people

are beginning to look at.

- [Voiceover] Other

good scholars maintain

that you don't need to

change Egypt's timeline

in order to see

evidence for the Exodus.

James Hoffmeier believes

textual clues in the Bible

point to the Exodus happening

at the 1250 BC Ramesses date.

Bryant Wood and

Charles Aling believe

the Exodus occurred

around 1450 BC,

using the conventional

dates for Egypt and Canaan.

They believe a case can

be made for Israelites

living in Egypt

prior to that time,

and later Israel appearing

as a nation in Canaan.

So an Exodus of some kind

must have taken place.

- [Tim] But the only

place that I saw a pattern

matching all the steps

was in the Middle Kingdom,

not the New Kingdom.

And if that's not a coincidence,

it would require some

kind of major change.

Either the Exodus

happened long before 1450,

or the dates for Egypt's

timeline are off.

- [Voiceover] The

debate over the dates

of ancient history

is intensifying.

While the conclusions

of those who support

major adjustments

differ in their details,

they're all of

the same mind that

these things are

worth investigating,

and that chronology is not yet

fixed and is not yet final.

Researchers like Rohl and Bimson

believe the main

problem lies in these

lesser-known dark

periods of Egypt's past.

They think scholars have

miscalculated their lengths,

causing distortions in the dates

for everything before them.

The biggest suspect is this

very long third dark period,

which new information suggests

has been over-inflated

by centuries.

If it were reduced,

the history of Egypt

would need to move

forward in time.

- [Tim] For many years,

I was intimidated

by the giant of Egypt's dating.

But what made me take

a second look was when

I learned that it's been

necessary to insert gaps

into the histories of all

the surrounding civilizations

in order to match the dating

of Egypt's third dark period.

Yet the archaeology

of these cultures

does not seem to

support such gaps.

Something was wrong.

- [Voiceover] What

might history look like

if the dark periods

were adjusted the way

that some scholars believe

the evidence demands?

(tinkling music)

- [David] What's not changing

is the Bible timeline,

because that's not

affected by it.

If you're changing

the Egyptian timeline,

you're moving it against

the Bible timeline.

So, all of a sudden,

things that were not

in the right time

period between the two

are suddenly lining

up in a different way.

And that's the exciting bit,

because that's when

we suddenly start

to find evidence for

the biblical story.

- [Tim] It's startling to think

how significant this could be.

Because chronology, the dates

assigned to these events,

is the thing being used

to convince the world

that the Bible is

just a fairy tale,

but look at the pattern:

evidence matching Joseph

and the early Israelites'

arrival in Egypt;

their tremendous multiplication;

their descent into slavery;

the judgment and

collapse of Egypt;

the deliverance and exodus

of the Semitic population;

and finally, in Canaan,

evidence matching

the conquest of

the Promised Land.

I know there's a lot of

disagreement over the dating,

but what strikes

me is that if you

put all the dates to

the side for a moment,

what emerges from the

archaeology is this pattern

that matches the Bible

every step of the way,

and doesn't that deserve

to be taken seriously?

But for now, those who hold

to established conventions

will not allow these

connections to be made.

(somber music)

I'm not an Egyptologist,

I'm a filmmaker.

And I'm not endorsing any

one dating theory out there.

I'm just searching

for the truth.

Because isn't that what

the pursuit of both science

and faith should be,

a search for truth?

- [Mansour] At the

end, the audience,

the people themselves,

they will judge.

They will know if you

are a scientific man,

a logical theory, or

you are exaggerating

or you have some story

from your own mind.

- [Tim] Are these findings

just an exaggeration?

Or is looking for the

Exodus at the earlier date

the key step in

bringing the Bible

out of the shadows of myth

and into the light

of true history?

People wonder why they haven't

heard about this before,

but what I found out was that

a lot of people don't

want to talk about it.

Archaeologists,

people in the media,

no one's willing to

actually tell this story,

and I had to ask that

same question of myself:

was I willing to follow this

story to where it really led?

But there is something

to these ancient stories

and we just felt

that, "You know what?

"We just have to let people

know what the truth was."

(serene music)

- [Voiceover] After the

Israelites left Egypt,

it is written they miraculously

crossed a mighty sea

and traveled on to Mount Sinai.

No trace of their journey

has ever been found.

But, if there really

was an Exodus,

then the mountain was

somewhere out there.

(serene music)

(uplifting music)