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64 The Dynasty of the Oppression

World His tory, by Herman L. Hoeh. Vol.I. Am bas sa dor Col lege, Pas a dena, CA. 1963.
Pps.94-95.

There is an other rea son why the Is ra el ites can not have built the city of Ramesses dur ing the
reign of Ramesses the Great. The ear li est ref er ence to Is rael out side of the Bi ble is on the fa mous
MERNEPTAH STELE. Merneptah was the suc ces sor of Ramesses II (“the Great”). No tice what
Hans Goedicke, chair man of the de part ment of Near East ern Studies at John Hopkins Uni ver sity,
has to say:

Merneptah’s fa mous stele re cords his mil i tary achieve ments to the fifth year of his reign. By
that time, ISRAEL HAD SUCH SIGNI-
FICANCE AS A PEOPLE that it is listed
among these achieve ments: “ Is rael’s seed is
not,” Pha raoh Merneptah boasted, with ob vi -
ous ex ag ger a tion. The peo ple of Is rael was
plainly a POLITICAL PROBLEM for
Merneptah. This could hardly have been the
case if the peo ple who be came Is rael had SO
RECENTLY be come a “peo ple” af ter the Ex o -
dus. Are we to be lieve that within 75 years at
most, the Ex o dus group be came A
POLITICAL AND MILITARY POWER of
the mag ni tude re flected in the Merneptah stele,
es pe cially af ter a 40-year desert so journ? --
BAR, Sep tem ber/Oc to ber 1981.

The answer is, obviously, NO!

In 1966, an Aus trian ar chae o log i cal team, headed by Dr. Manfred Bietak, be gan long-term
ex ca va tions four miles north of the delta town of Faqus -- at a site called Tell el-Dab’a. Bietak was
aware that this site had an ear lier name, Tell el-Birka -- “the mound of the LAKE.” Old maps re -
vealed that this lake was at one time joined to the old Pelusiac branch of the Nile by an ar ti fi cial wa -
ter way that an ciently en cir cled the whole area. When ae rial pho tog ra phy re vealed the an cient bed
of the Pelusaic branch of the Nile, Bietak was con vinced he had found the SITE OF RAMESSES.

Dur ing the 1979-80 ex ca va tion sea son, Bietak re al ized that the city had been built DURING
THE 12TH DYNASTY BY AMENEMHET I. -- WITH ADDITIONS AND/OR REBUILDING
BY SENWOSRET III. OF THE SAME DYNASTY!

Some FIVE HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE THE TIME OF RAMESSES II. this had been a
CAREFULLY LAID OUT CITY of some im por tance dur ing the time of Egypt’s MIDDLE
KINGDOM, a cen tury or so PRIOR to Egypt’s take over by the Hyksos. Readily dis cern ible
were the foun da tions of an im pos ing 450-foot-long pal ace, with a huge court lined by col -
umns, that had prob a bly served as a ROYAL SUMMER RESIDENCE....Re cords show that
or der [in Egypt] was re-es tab lished by STRONG GOVERNMENT on the part of the kings
of Egypt’s MIDDLE KINGDOM, and IT IS TO THESE THAT CAN BE ATTRIBUTED

The Berean Voice