Egypt and the Bible

Milton in Egypt 2010

As some of you know, I will be hosting my third Bible land tour to Egypt this coming January 2027. If you're interested check out the information on my home page here.  

I had actually been to Egypt some fifteen years ago in June of 2010 and it was an amazing experience and I'm even more excited to go again in January. Egypt is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world and just last year they opened their brand new, one billion dollar museum, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM). So now is as good a time to go as any. If you love travel, culture and history, you'll love Egypt.

For Christians and Bible lovers of course, Israel is the #1 destination. A second biblical tour is the Journeys of Apostle Paul in Greece and Türkiye. The third of this trinity of Christian travel is Egypt. As one of the earliest civilizations in all of World History, Egypt is not only important historically, it is important biblically. It is a window into the world of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. It is the background to the story of Moses and the Exodus. Abraham and Sarah sojourned in Egypt (Gen. 12). The story of Joseph takes place in Egypt (Gen. 39-50). In the New Testament, Joseph, Mary and infant Jesus fled from King Herod to Egypt (Matt. 2:13-18). The word "Egypt" appears in the Bible over 600 times, mostly in Genesis, Exodus and Jeremiah. Egypt has always played an important role in the Bible and in biblical history. 

Ancient Egypt has a long history of some 3000 years beginning in 3100 BC and ending in 30 BC with Cleopatra of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, considered the last pharaoh of this great ancient civilization. It's history is divided into three major periods: the Old Kingdom (2700-2200 BBC), Middle Kingdom (2000-1700) and New Kingdom periods (1550-1000). The Old Kingdom period is known as the Pyramid Age because it was then that the three great pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure were built. These are the pyramids on the Giza plateau that millions of tourists visit every year near Cairo today.  Moses and the Exodus are dated to the New Kingdom period some 1200 years later so by his time, Egypt was already a very old and great civilization. Linguists today even argue that Egyptian hieroglyphics had an influence on the Semitic language of the Hebrews. Some historians believe the Exodus took place not under some minor pharaoh's rule but under the greatest pharaoh of the New Kingdom period, Ramses the Great. Like Herod the Great, Ramses was a big builder and you will see many giant statues of him all over Egypt. He was not a humble man. 

Some liberal, critical scholars do not believe in the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt. They argue it is a mythological, national origin story and that there is no archaeological evidence for it in Egypt. But there is evidence. Today, in the Egyptian museum there is a stone monument called the Merneptah Stele. It happens to be the earliest archaeological evidence for the existence of "Israel" outside the Bible. The stele is dated rather late, c. 1205 BC, but is Pharaoh Merneptah's account of his conquest of various cities and entities in Canaan including "Israel" at the time:

• Canaan is captive with all woe.
  Ashkelon is conquered, Gezer seized,
  Yanoam made nonexistent;
  Israel is laid waste, bare of seed,
  

If you join me on my tour of Egypt in January, you'll get to see up close with your own eyes this most important "concrete" witness to Israel and the Bible some 3200 years ago!

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