How long were the Israelites in Egypt?

Why would anybody care if it was more or less. It is what it is. Historians spend lots of time trying to find Moses.

I realise that the godless couldn't care one way or another, but these questions are important to those who seek the truth that leads to everlasting life.

From ‘The World Book Dictionary,’ (Hyksos) “A succession of six foreign rulers of Egypt—from about 1730 B.C. to about 1570 B.C; Shepherd Kings.” --- And from the Encyclopedia Britannica, ‘Hyksos’, invaders who were also called the Shepherd Kings, who in the time of “King Tutimaios” entered Egypt and took possession of it ‘WITHOUT STRIKING A BLOW’ and it is said here that Josephus the historian, identifies them with the Israelites and that their reign ended in 1567 B.C.

Genesis 41: After Joseph had revealed to the king that his dreams were a prophecy telling of a seven-year period of plenty, which would be followed by a seven years period of severe drought, Joseph is made Governor of all Egypt, and all Egyptians were commanded by the King to obey him. The King removed his royal ring with its engraved seal and put it on the finger of Joseph.

He was given the second royal chariot and a guard of honour who went ahead of him crying out, “Make way, make way.” And the King said: I am King, but no one in all of Egypt shall so much as lift a hand or a foot without Joseph’s permission. He gave Joseph an Egyptian wife, Asenath, the daughter of the High priest of Heliopolis, who prophesied that if ever the bones of Joseph left Egypt, the LIGHT of Egypt would go with him. For that reason, a permanent guard was set up to keep watch over the tomb of Joseph, in order that no one could remove the mummified body of Joseph.

During the seven years of plenty, Joseph gathered a percentage of the Egyptian grain crop as a tax, which was stored in silos throughout Egypt. In the early stages of the great seven-year drought, the Egyptians had to buy their grain from Joseph, when their money had all gone, they traded their possessions and livestock, after which, they were forced to sign their land over for grain in order to survive.

Genesis 47: 20-21. Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for the king. Every Egyptian was forced to sell their land, because the famine was so severe; Joseph made slaves of all the people from one end of Egypt to the other, ‘WITHOUT STRIKING A BLOW.’

If Josephus the historian is correct and the exodus of the Shepherd Kings did occur in 1567 BC, and Jericho was destroyed after they had wandered in the desert for 40 years, then according to the biblical account, the destruction of Jericho would have occurred around 1527 BC. 1567 minus 40 equals 1527.

But then, why would you care to believe any of the many, many historians who confirm the truths as revealed in the scriptures?

Many Biblical tales are based in history. No argument there.

Myths and legends make up lots of the Bible, too.

That would be because the Biblical accounts as recorded in the OT, are the history of the Jews.

You probably think Noah's flood was real and that Methuselah lived to be 900 years old.

Funny that you should mention that, because I do.

Over 2,000 years before George Smith’s discovery of the deluge tablets in Iraq, there existed an account of the Chaldean [pre-Babylonian] flood myth. Berosus, an ancient Chaldean historian living in the time of Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C.E, relayed to the Greeks the antiquity of his peoples deluge myth in the following words: “After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great deluge; the history of which is thus described.

The deity Cronos appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the fifteenth day of the month Daesius there would be a flood, by which mankind be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things, and to bury it in the city of the sun at Sippara; and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations; and to convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals, [In the area of his known world] both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep.

Having asked the Deity whither he was to sail, he was answered, “To the Gods;” upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition and built a vessel five stadia in length, and two in breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared, and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children and his friends. After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel; which finding no food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second time; and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds; but they returned to him no more: from whence he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters.

He therefore made an opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded upon the side of some mountains; upon which he immediately quitted it with his wife, his children, and the pilot. Xisuhrus then paid his adoration to the earth: and having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the Gods.”

It should be noted that the account of the deluge relayed in the tablets discovered by George Smith differ only very slightly from Berosus’ account, which differs only slightly from the story handed down by the Chaldean, Abraham, whose father ‘Terah’ was High Priest in the temple of the Chaldean city of Ur.

The flood of Noah didn’t come as a surprise. It had been preached on for four generations. Something strange happened when Enoch was 65, from which time “He walked with God.” Enoch was given a prophecy that as long as his firstborn son ‘Methuselah’ was alive, the judgement of the flood would be withheld, but as soon as he died, the flood would be sent forth.

Enoch named his firstborn to reflect this prophecy. The name Methuselah comes from two roots: muth, a root that means death, and from shalach, which means ‘To Bring’ or ‘To Send Forth.’ Thus, the name Methuselah signifies, ‘His Death Shall Bring.’ And, indeed, in the year that Methuselah died, the flood came.

Remembering that Abraham was the son of Terah the High priest of the temple in the Chaldean city of Ur, and he was, according to the erroneous Roman OT, 58 when Noah died, but who, according to the Septuagint, was born 822 years after the death of Noah, the question is now asked, could the Chaldean name ‘Arsates’ mean, ‘When he dies it will happen? And could the name ‘Xisuthrus’ have the same meaning as that of the name ‘Noah’, which is, “One who brings relief or comfort?”

The Chaldean month of Daesius, is the 2nd month, which corresponds with the biblical account that it was in the second month that the flood came. But there is a two-day discrepancy: the biblical account is the 17th day, [See Genesis 7: 11.] whereas the other is the 15th day.

These three flood accounts are so similar it becomes obvious that they originated from the one source. Another interesting similarity between the Chaldean deluge story and the one as handed down through the Hebrew, is that before the flood, people lived extraordinary long lives until the god/gods declared that man shall no longer live past a restricted age limit. This signifies that the floods of both cultures mark the same transition in the history of the world, that being, the birth of the modern world.

I rest my case.

What is the Roman Old Testament?

Is there a Greek Old Testament?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament
Here is a pretty good roundup of different versions of the Bible.

These three flood accounts are so similar it becomes obvious that they originated from the one source. Another interesting similarity between the Chaldean deluge story and the one as handed down through the Hebrew, is that before the flood, people lived extraordinary long lives until the god/gods declared that man shall no longer live past a restricted age limit. This signifies that the floods of both cultures mark the same transition in the history of the world, that being, the birth of the modern world.

The more that I am forced to look at the flood accounts, the more I am convinced that some catastrophic event occurred 4,500 years ago, which caused worldwide devastating floods and tsunamis, of which the more accurate account of the flood that devastated the civilized world of that day, can be found in the Hebrew culture that came down from the Chaldean Abraham, and his family, whose language and racial religion have remained intact for over 4,000 years.

Genesis 7: 11-12; When Noah was 600 years old, on the seventeenth day of the second month ‘all the outlets of THE VAST BODY OF WATER BENEATH THE EARTH BURST OPEN’, all the floodgates of the sky were opened, and rain fell on the earth for forty days and nights.

Scientists have long suspected there was a lot of water beneath our feet, but this may be the first direct evidence that a vast reservoir of water is locked inside the mantle’s “Transition Zone.” The significance: if just one percent of the “Transition Zone” is made up of water, researchers say, it would triple the amount of water on the Earth’s surface.

Scientific researchers today, have absolutely no idea of how much water is locked up in the transition zone, and yet they believe that if just one percent of the “transition Zone” is made up of water, it would triple the amount of water on the Earth’s surface. But if in the future it is discovered that much, much, more than one percent of the “transition zone” is made up of water, then how high would our oceans rise?

Psalms 104: 5-9; You have set the earth firmly on its foundations, and it will never be moved. You placed the ocean over it like a robe, and the water covered the mountains. When you rebuked the waters, they fled; they rushed away when they heard your shout of command. They flowed over the mountains and into the valleys, to the place you had made for them. You set a boundary they can never pass, to keep them from covering the earth again.

Two separate worlds (ages of man,) the world that was destroyed by water, and this world which is destined to be destroyed by fire.

Perhaps you would like to sleep on that tonight.

There was never a worldwide flood such as we associate with Noah. There have been floods, of which one or more inspired the story of the Ark. That's the extent of it without any longwinded blathering.

I know about all the different languages used in building different versions, different translations, I just never heard anyone refer to the Old Testament as the Roman version.........but perhaps the OP is referring to the Roman Catholic Church.........or Greek Orthodox or Russian or Romanian or any of the various Catholic versions.....I always assumed the Old Testament was left alone, only the the New Testament was translated, and retranslated, and retranslated again and again. So many of the gospels were left out depending on the people translating the various languages or by persuasion from Kings or others.

If you have a chance, see if you can find a copy of "Misquoting Jesus", it's a fascinating account of a young man's journey into 'born again culture' who studied Aramaic and Greek so he could read the 'original' scripture in those languages. It's an eyeopener, and another example of how education can allow people to think for themselves. I think I have an extra copy, if you are interested....

In the fourth century Jerome translated the Hebrew bible into the Latin Vulgate. Even though he was not too fluent with the Hebrew language, instead of translating from the Greek Septuagint, the bible from which Jesus and his disciple taught, which was a Greek translation of the Hebrew bible that still existed some three hundred years before Jesus, he instead translated the Roman OT from the Hebrew bible that existed in his day.

The Aleppo Codex, the oldest Hebrew Bible in existence today, was written by scribes called Masoretes in Tiberias, Israel, around 930 C.E. The Aleppo Codex is considered to be the most authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible.

It is unknown from which copy of the Hebrew scriptures the Aleppo Codex was translated almost a thousand years after Jesus, but knowing that the Roman Church had any and all Christian literature of those who opposed their teachings, burned, I don’t believe that there would be too much Hebrew literature to be found in the Roman Empire in those days.

It was Emperor Constantine who decided to personally summon all the opposing and quarrelling Christian leaders to the first ever ‘World Council’.
The date was 325 AD, in the town of Nicaea, where Constantine was to resolve the bitter source of contention between those differing bodies of beliefs. After Constantine the Judge, had made his decision on which belief the Christians should follow, he urged all council delegates to sign the revised formula as a statement of faith on which all Christians should in the future agree.

From the book--- “Jesus The Evidence,” by Ian Wilson. P. 144. “The Middle Ages, for the Jews at least, began with the advent to power of Constantine the Great. He was the first Roman Emperor to issue laws which radically limited the rights of the Jews as citizens’ of the Roman Empire, a right conferred on them by Caracalla in 212. As Constantine’s church grew in power it influenced the emperors to limit further the civil and political rights of the Jews.

But if times were again difficult for the Jews, for the Christian Gnostics and other fringe groups they were impossible. The books of Arius and his sympathizers were ordered to be burnt, and a reign of terror proclaimed for all those who did not conform with the new official Christian line decided upon by Emperor Constantine.

:Understand now by this present statute, Novatians, Valentinians, Marcionites, Paulinians, you who are called Cataphrygians. . . . with what a tissue of lies and vanities, with what destructive and venomous errors, your doctrines are inextricably woven! We give you warning . . . .Let none of you presume, from this time forward, to meet in congregations. To prevent this, we command that you be deprived of all the houses in which you have been accustomed to meet . . . . and that these house’s, should be handed over immediately to the catholic/ i.e. universal church.

Within a generation, hardly leaving a trace of their existence for posterity, the great majority of these groups simply died away as successive Christian emperors reiterated the policies that Constantine had pursued.”

The English translation of the Latin Vulgate, and the English translation of today’s Hebrew scriptures, complement each other, but both contain the same contradictions against the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that existed well before the days of Jesus.

In fact, I could almost be persuaded to believe that around 930 of the Christian era, the Masoretes in Tiberias, Israel, translated their Aleppo Codex, the oldest Hebrew Bible in existence today, from Jerome’s Latin translation of a Hebrew bible that still existed in his day, five hundred years earlier.

The Israelites stayed n Egypt long enough to pick up some of their religion, The Ten Commandments first appeared in The Egyptian Book Of The Dead.

In Ancient Egyptian religion, Ptah, was the God that called everything into existence. He was also regarded as the father of the human sage Imhotep, who was later deified and became a god.

Imhotep, was called the “God of Medicine,” “Prince of Peace,” and a “Type of Christ,” as was Melchizedek. Imhotep was worshipped as a god and healer from approximately 2850 B.C. to 525 B.C., and as a full deity from 525 B.C. to 550 A.D.

Imhotep was a known scribe, chief lector, priest, architect, astronomer and a creator of drugs and medicines from plants. For 3000 years he was worshipped as a god in Greece and Rome. Early Christians worshipped him as the “Prince of Peace,” ‘Salem.’ A poet and philosopher, Imhotep coined the saying “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die.”

The similarities between Imhotep and Enoch, of who it is said in scripture, was translated in order that he should never experience death, and who, like Imhotep, was chosen as the heir of ‘The Most High in the creation,’ and also deified and became a god: will be discussed later if there is any interest in the subject.

Ehrman has a whole string of these videos.

Why does that get special treatment?

I can’t see much interest in any of your nonsense.