How can this be so? A little understood fact is that most of the ancient world is dated off the historical records of the Egyptians and records of their dealings with other cultures. Egypt is the backbone of Ancient world chronology, its thirty-plus Dynasties the clock of ancient time. Since this chronology so grossly fails to support the Bible many have concluded that the chronology is in error.

Following Menes the kings of Egypt ruled relatively peacefully for the first six Dynasties, building large brick tombs. This is known as the Old Kingdom [c.2920 - 2150.] Dynasty III produced the first Pyramid under Pharaoh Djoser, while the famed Pyramids of Gizah were built by Dynasty IV. However after the long reign of Pepi/Phiops Egypt became unstable and fell into chaos, the First Intermediate Period, during which time short-lived Dynasties VII-X reigned. [c.2150-2070]

Dynasty XI reunified Egypt under Mentuhotep, and was followed by the powerful XII Dynasty, which strongly centralised power in the Pharaoh's hands. This period is known as the Middle Kingdom.[c.2070 - 1630] However once again the power of the kings was called into question and the XIII Dynasty was noted by many short reigned kings.   According to Manetho Egypt was ultimately struck by some disaster that let it be invaded by "king shepherds", the Hyksos. This led to the Second Intermediate Period under Dynasties XIV - XVII. [c.1630-1550]

Dynasty XVIII began with a great victory for native rule by Ahmose, who expelled the Hyksos from Egypt, chasing them into Palestine. His strong rule began the New Kingdom [c.1550-1070] and his Dynasty was noted by military excursions in neighbouring lands.

However under Amenhotep IV, who became Akhenaten, a religious crisis arose as Pharaoh abandoned the old gods for one, invisible god, only seen in his sign, the Sun, or Aten. During this time Egypt lost its "empire" and the XVIII Dynasty crumbled. However strong military leadership by the XIX Dynasty, notably Ramesses II, returned Egypt's "empire". But Ramesses II long life led to him out-living many of his off-spring, leaving something of a power vacuum at his death. Weak kings followed, and gave way to the XX Dynasty, most of whom were "Ramesses", and whom ultimately handed over a much weakened Egypt to the XXI Dynasty. Thus began the Third Intermediate Period under the XXI - XXIV Dynasties. [c.1070 - c.664.]

Assyria eclipsed Egypt in power, invaded in 671 BCE and destroyed the sacred city of Thebes in c.664 BCE, but soon after fell away as Babylon rose in power. Babylon in turn was defeated by the Persians, who invaded and ruled briefly in Egypt. By the time Alexander arrrived in Egypt in c.332 he was hailed as the god's son and given the throne.

Redating Egypt

In the 1940s and 50s Immanuel Velikovsky led those who sought to redate Egypt. His scheme of redating grossly violated various lines of evidence by redating some Egyptian Dynasties to massive degrees, and to do so he claimed that several were merely copies of later Dynasties - the XIX was the XXVI, the XX was the XXX. Such a solution is too drastic for the facts.

Since then other redating schemes have been developed. Donovan Courville tried to fit all of Egyptian history into the very small Biblical time-frame of 2150 - 1445 between the Tower of Babel and the Exodus. To do so he theorised that the I - VI and XII - XIII Dynasties ran in parallel to each other. No compelling evidence exists for such a parallelism.

Lisa Liel is an Orthodox Jew who tries to fit the history of Egypt into the Jewish traditions preserved in the Talmud and elsewhere. Apparently several traditions indentify the Pharaoh of the Oppression as one Malul who ruled from age 6 to 100 and was followed by the brief reign of the Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea pursuing the Israelites. Pharaoh Pepi II is the ONLY Pharaoh who fits this precise description, and he dates just prior to the collapse of Eyptian authority known as the First Intermediate Period. Liel dates this event to c. 1476 BCE [1310 BCE using the Orthodox date of 421 BCE for the Babylonian Exile.]

She indentifies the influx of new material culture in Palestine, known as Middle Bronze Age I, as the invading Israelites. Liel then fits the Entire Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos period between 1476 - 1055 BCE. And the Dynasties prior to Pepi II all post date the Babel event dated to c. 1930 BCE, Abram's 48th year. Quite a sqeeze of history, but the early Egyptian reigns are ambiguous in their exact lengths.

An alternative is the work by Gerald Aardsma who joins Liel in indentifying the Pharaoh as Pepi II, but instead redates the Exodus by 1000 years, suggesting that the Hebrew symbol for one thousand was lost from the text which gives the period between Solomon and Moses (I Kings 6:1.) However he retains the orthodox relative dating of Solomon which, as we have seen, is problematic. There is simply NO evidence for Solomon's riches in the Iron Age where he is usually placed.