Evidence of Israelites in Egypt with Dr. Douglas Petrovich

[00:00:01] okay thanks for being here my name is kevin conover if you’re listening locally we’re down here in southern california we broadcast on k praise 12

[00:00:08] 10 a.m and um also on fm 106.1 in north county and then of course we’re all over

[00:00:13] the world um on streaming uh live on the web as uh on social media and other platforms um

[00:00:20] so my guest today is dr petrovic um if you know anything about him he was very involved in is genesis history that’s

[00:00:27] where i first got to know about him but he hasn’t earned phd from the university of toronto he has a major in sierra

[00:00:32] palestinian archaeology a first minor in ancient egyptian language and a second minor in ancient near eastern religions

[00:00:39] so he knows what he’s talking about he was also formerly the academic dean and professor evan

[00:00:45] at novosibirsk if i’m saying that correctly biblical theological seminary in siberia

[00:00:51] russia russia and so um dr petrovic i don’t know

[00:00:56] how you feel about what’s going on or uh over in um ukraine and russia if you have any uh

[00:01:03] direct ties there after after uh being a professor and dean over there um

[00:01:09] has that impacted anybody you know um it it hasn’t adversely impacted people i

[00:01:15] know in siberia it’s far away from all of the conflict and so there’s really not not much that they have to suffer

[00:01:21] through but certainly uh my family we have friends and um you know people who are dear to us in both russia and

[00:01:27] ukraine uh we almost were going to go to ukraine for our ministry we ended up in

[00:01:32] the last minute switching over to siberia russia but uh yeah my heart’s very heavy with everything that’s going

[00:01:38] on and uh yeah lots of deep feelings of pain i’m sure yeah yeah well um we’ve been

[00:01:46] praying i pray almost every day for the people over in ukraine uh with my students um over at christian

[00:01:52] um with uh where i work at christian high school associated with pastor jeremiah shadow mountain community

[00:01:58] church and so um we are praying they’re raising funds sending uh hundreds of thousands of dollars over to uh ukraine

[00:02:04] to support ukraine and help them and so um our hearts are are also breaking for the

[00:02:10] people over there it’s just a horrible tragedy um well um also um dr petrovich he’s the author

[00:02:18] of two uh books very significant books he’s the author of the world’s oldest alphabet hebrew as the language of the

[00:02:25] proto-consonantal script that’s a mouthful and hebrews new evidence for israelites in egypt from joseph to the

[00:02:32] exodus and that just came out in 2021 is that right doctor petrovic yes origins of the

[00:02:37] hebrews just came out in december of 2021 um it’s been a a whirlwind since then uh

[00:02:45] just about a thousand books have been bought by people already which is oh that’s fantastic yeah my first book it

[00:02:50] took three years for a thousand to sell but wow this one in three months a thousand have sold so oh my gosh very

[00:02:58] exciting what’s going on what is it what is it about the the book that’s that’s driving so much interest well i think

[00:03:04] it’s that it’s it’s the first time anyone has ever attempted in history uh to to even address let alone to try

[00:03:12] to pull off presenting evidence for the israelites in egypt for the period that the bible describes as 430 years that

[00:03:19] they lived there before the exodus took place so and i think a lot of the interest too is that

[00:03:25] um certainly one of the most important stories in the bible and definitely the most important story in ancient

[00:03:32] in the history of the of the jewish people ancient times and modern times is the exodus i mean look at cecil b

[00:03:38] demille’s ten commandments look at disney’s um prince of egypt so

[00:03:44] um that in itself demonstrates the huge interest that there is in all of these

[00:03:49] kinds of of events so um the book really kind of scratches or or uh yeah

[00:03:55] scratches an itch that nobody else has really tried to scratch before yeah and of course this is

[00:04:01] incredibly important to both christians jews and uh even muslims who are all very much interested in the

[00:04:08] history of um what happened in the exodus uh and so for our listeners who are new

[00:04:14] to this subject um share with us you know in brief that the dispute that’s taken place over

[00:04:20] um you know whether the the jews were in egypt because if you’re a biblical christian

[00:04:25] who’s just not in tune with what’s happening in the academic world you just think oh yeah this is what happened but but this has

[00:04:32] been in dispute forever tell us a little bit about that sure and and this is one of the reasons why this book and um and

[00:04:39] the evidence for it in it is so important because um university professors around the

[00:04:45] world have been for decades and probably over a century if not close to two

[00:04:51] centuries have been criticizing uh biblical history um they have a lot of

[00:04:57] areas of attack but one of the areas of greatest attack is this whole idea of you know the sojourn in egypt because

[00:05:03] there’s really never been a case that’s been presented before so they’re you know um they’re attempting

[00:05:10] to um so what i’ve done is is is kind of you know

[00:05:15] stumble into all of this evidence that that demonstrates um that the exodus took place in 1446 bc

[00:05:22] the er what’s called the early exodus view and not in the 13th century that’s the view of

[00:05:29] um scholarship today the the majority of scholarship but the irony is that that

[00:05:34] the middle of the 15th century bc was the time honored position until a an

[00:05:40] archaeologist of the 20th century named william albright came along and he had a really dynamic personality and he was

[00:05:46] very authoritative and he demanded that it had to have occurred in the 13th century bc because we have no evidence

[00:05:53] of israelites running around in canaan from 1400 to 1200 bc so because of that

[00:06:00] it has to be a late exodus and that kind of led to a whole change in the paradigm

[00:06:05] and then cecil b demille picked it up and he set ten commandments movie in the 13th century bc so that’s kind of the

[00:06:12] crux of the of the dispute

[00:06:23] sorry can you hear me there no i can’t hear you sorry about that so you’re so what you’re doing is you’re pushing that back to

[00:06:28] the biblical time frames is what you’re doing you’re making the case exactly and what i’m doing is i’m taking and i’m not

[00:06:34] the only one to do this of course but i’m taking literally the the reference in first king six one

[00:06:40] that says in the 480th year after the exodus solomon began to work on the temple

[00:06:46] right so if you take that number literally it means 479 years and change pocket change

[00:06:52] backwards from the time that the temple starts being worked on and that’s where you can can sink your your teeth into the right

[00:06:59] date for the exodus and if you take that literally you know everybody knows that it’s 967 bc um

[00:07:06] there’s all kinds of evidence that proves this but 967 is the right year for the beginning of the building on the

[00:07:12] temple so 479 plus 967 is 1446 bc and

[00:07:17] and that’s the very year of the exodus so i’m taking that literally people who hold to the 13th century bc

[00:07:23] exodus view they have to take that number 480th which by the way is not a

[00:07:29] cardinal number it’s an ordinal number so it’s not an even 480 it’s 479 plus

[00:07:35] they’re taking that number though um an ordinal number and they’re

[00:07:40] interpreting it allegorically so that’s a huge problem hermeneutically now that

[00:07:46] they’ve kind of fallen prey to when you begin to take texts that’s meant to be read literally and you begin to read it

[00:07:52] allegorically yeah and so so along those same lines you know um

[00:07:58] when when people are arguing that are people actually arguing that it’s a different time frame that the hebrews

[00:08:05] were in in um egypt or are they arguing that they weren’t in egypt at all well they’re

[00:08:11] uh there are plenty of people in in each of those camps kevin um certainly it’s the

[00:08:18] liberal scholars and it’s the the atheists who are telling us it never happened and these are the ones who are

[00:08:24] dominating the uh the classrooms in in our universities around the world but then there are christian um scholars who

[00:08:31] have you know phd some of them have a background in egyptology others don’t and they’re telling us that

[00:08:38] the exodus did happen but it had to happen in the 13th century bc because um we don’t see the israelites you know

[00:08:45] much evidence of them as they’re running around in in the early part that that um they would have to be

[00:08:51] there if there’s an early exodus okay and so and so um

[00:08:57] when you say they don’t see the evidence of them running around uh how are they missing the evidence you’re you’re arguing there’s plenty of

[00:09:03] evidence they’re arguing there there is no evidence where where’s the well my book is mainly dealing with um the

[00:09:10] period that the israelites were in egypt but but the area that they’re they’re talking about is after the um the exodus

[00:09:18] after the 40 years wandering in the desert and then the entry into the land in what would be according to the early

[00:09:23] exodus view 1406 bc they’re saying uh around 1400 and the

[00:09:29] two centuries after we’re not seeing evidence of israelites there but here’s the interesting

[00:09:36] tidbit that comes up now kevin i just published with literally within the last couple weeks so this would be

[00:09:42] early march of 2022 just published an article

[00:09:47] on an inscription that was uh found and published in in late spring i think may

[00:09:54] may or june of 2021 and my article uh and this this inscription was found

[00:10:00] at a site called lahish that’s one of the early sites that joshua would have captured or conquered um you know after

[00:10:08] jericho and after i and after they had the fiasco at gibian and so forth it’s one of the the cities

[00:10:14] very much you know close to that um so the inscription that was found is from

[00:10:20] lahish right and it dates to the end of the what we call the late bronze age 1b

[00:10:25] which means right around 1400 which is fitting perfectly with 1406 as the year

[00:10:31] for the entry into the land so the inscription is in a script that is the

[00:10:37] exact same script that i write about ad infinitum in my first book

[00:10:42] trying to powerfully demonstrate and persuasively that this is hebrew and we

[00:10:47] can we can translate all 15 of these inscriptions that i’ve tried to to to decipher all 15 can be translated if

[00:10:54] that’s hebrew and so that same script is found on this inscription at lachish

[00:11:01] that dates to right around the time of what should be the conquest so that presents a major major problem for

[00:11:08] people who hold the late exodus view because according to them in 1400 bc the israelites should be you know

[00:11:14] um struggling to stay alive as slaves in egypt and so um yeah because this is giving

[00:11:20] evidence that they’re actually in the promised land they’re actually in canaan and so so um and you know you’re you’re saying

[00:11:28] um people are disputing whether this is actually hebrew or not but uh and and my understanding is you’re arguing that

[00:11:34] this is a form of hebrew that was it’s it’s uh when it was first coming into exit or not first coming to existence

[00:11:40] but it’s an older form of hebrew which uh people then say no no this isn’t hebrew but yeah it’s just the languages

[00:11:46] change over time well the language changes over time somewhat and but not all that much but

[00:11:52] the script changes a lot because it started off kevin in the 19th century bc

[00:11:57] and it’s attested as early as 1842 bc um and this is the argument you make also

[00:12:03] for that that this is actually the original language prior to the to the dispersion at babel is that correct no

[00:12:10] there are people who argue that i don’t okay i don’t i don’t think that hebrew was the first language i think it came

[00:12:15] into being at the earth babel okay but the script it was originally what we call pictographic so

[00:12:23] when you saw it as it first would have been invented they’re drawing pictures the exact pictures that are used in

[00:12:29] hieroglyphics but uh with with egyptian hieroglyphics there are over 800 signs but this is

[00:12:35] only 22 so that what they hand picked they cherry picked 22 of those 800 plus

[00:12:40] hieroglyphs and they turned them into the hebrew consonantal script meaning consonants only know vowels

[00:12:47] interesting so that script and this gets back to your question that script then over time over the centuries it changes

[00:12:54] it it if you don’t mind it it evolves sure very logical because

[00:13:00] um it takes a lot of hard work to draw careful pictures but the more abstract

[00:13:05] you can make it the faster you can write so so necessity and speed

[00:13:11] worked to to be the the pushing factor to cause the alphabetic script to adapt

[00:13:17] and become more pictographic that’s interesting less pictographic and more abstract that’s

[00:13:23] right yeah yeah uh we we’ve um in looking at things like uh you know the

[00:13:29] origins of of languages and or the origins of um people groups uh you know

[00:13:34] i’ve looked into the the whole thing about the chinese language and how it also changed just like you’re saying

[00:13:40] um so that’s a similar that’s a similar ev thing that’s taking place here yes

[00:13:46] and question about that so so is this a is this a very common thing among languages that they start off more

[00:13:52] with as pictures and then they gravitate towards um you know abbreviations of those those

[00:13:57] pictographs those hieroglyphics really kevin it depends on the script what type of script it is because this

[00:14:04] is the this is the third is essentially it’s the third script that has come into being the

[00:14:09] alphabetic script first is cuneiform second is hieroglyphics or egyptian hieroglyphics and then third is this

[00:14:16] um pictorial um alphabetic script but other types of scripts

[00:14:22] um are not as pictorial and therefore they don’t have as much kind of

[00:14:27] necessity to evolve because they can be written quicker um easy you

[00:14:33] know in an easier way in other words there’s there’s really no no way to improve them or cause them to

[00:14:40] be um you know written faster right i see what you’re saying yeah but this is the kind

[00:14:47] of script that’s conducive to to an evolution that makes it less detailed and and careful and and

[00:14:54] faster and more abstract now if somebody wants to look up uh this article you wrote on this particular um this this

[00:15:00] particular finding of this script um where can they go to to uh look that up

[00:15:06] that’s a great question they can go to my academia.edu webpage um and um and i know you already have the

[00:15:13] link for this and that on that web page are all of my eight uh peer-reviewed articles and uh lots of

[00:15:21] other sources and tools that i’ve uploaded there as a teacher right for for my students and for anyone who’s

[00:15:26] interested in learning um and i also have the front matter to my two books that are up there so you can read about

[00:15:32] my two books and kind of get a feel for it and if you like it and you can always find a way to get a copy of it but yeah you can download it uh for free the

[00:15:40] article um the the 20 20 22 article on the lahish milpal ostrich right from my

[00:15:47] academia.edu page okay so for those of you listening that’s the bible seminary.academia.edu

[00:15:53] forward slash douglas petrovic and um you can read that article there now um

[00:16:00] what other evidence is there that that is very compelling uh that the israelites

[00:16:05] you know were in egypt in the time frames that the bible is uh putting uh

[00:16:10] forward i know there were some pretty wild uh things when i was looking at um

[00:16:15] is genesis history and then digging a little deeper into that there’s a lot of things um that i was completely unaware

[00:16:21] of about the evidence of uh you know joseph and egypt and these sorts of things since that movie came

[00:16:27] out um have there been additional um uh evidences that have been uncut uncovered

[00:16:33] to to support this this uh contention yeah um and so my book includes all the

[00:16:40] latest research i continued to improve it um even in the stage where i was editing and you know cleaning it up and

[00:16:48] and re uh repositioning certain parts and that whole process i was also scouting for

[00:16:53] more um information that’s out there um the newest areas of of information that are in my

[00:16:59] book that maybe i didn’t talk about too much in conferences where i’ve spoken and so forth is um

[00:17:05] the whole um the whole history of of what are called

[00:17:10] um four-room houses that are attested in egypt so the four-room house is a well-known uh

[00:17:18] architectural design of israelite houses in canaan which became the land of israel uh during the entire monarchy

[00:17:26] period right what’s what’s the average israelite living in in israel it’s easy four room

[00:17:31] house any archaeologist will tell you that so it’s indisputable well so is this all through is that all through is

[00:17:38] uh israeli history um up until you know the time of solomon and so forth and well it

[00:17:44] it um let’s put it this way it’s attested uh in the time of solomon uh david and

[00:17:50] solomon and it’s attested all the way down until the israelites go off into babylonia in the captivity of 587 bc

[00:17:58] okay so that whole time period you will find four room houses over and over and over you can check the excavation

[00:18:04] reports and the drawings and all that it’s in disputed so what my book demonstrates though is

[00:18:10] we have at least three phases of occupation at the site of a vars in egypt that i and others are

[00:18:17] connecting with where jacob moved his family you have at least three occupational phases with

[00:18:23] space between them where you have four room houses attested and the earliest

[00:18:28] phase kevin is actually the phase when jacob would have moved there with his family and bryant wood and i he’s

[00:18:34] another uh biblical archaeologist where can you i’ve interviewed him yeah we’re convinced that that was actually jacob’s

[00:18:40] house so but there’s there are also now other um plans uh architectural um plans that

[00:18:48] have been published by the excavators there the austrian team that’s there that demonstrate we have four four room

[00:18:53] houses later so there’s a continuity of architectural design that’s the exact

[00:18:59] design that is germane to the history of israel nobody

[00:19:04] else before them has four room houses and even during the time they’re in canaan so the egyptians did not use the

[00:19:09] four room houses is that no no they used other other architectural designs

[00:19:14] wow interesting huh so that’s a that so so when that kind of information is presented to somebody who’s a skeptic um

[00:19:21] how do they respond to that uh i’m waiting to see i mean my critics haven’t had time to digest

[00:19:27] uh my book yet it’s it’s it’s very detailed it’s very um thorough and it’s

[00:19:33] uh it’s very well um documented so they’re gonna have their hands full for quite a while

[00:19:40] most of my critics actually will be closet critics because it will be way safer for them just to ignore my book

[00:19:47] rather than attempting to really refute it because they know i’ll go after it right i will respond yeah

[00:19:54] and how long did it take you to to gather all the information and and and to write this book uh years and

[00:20:01] it it’s measured in thousands of hours and i don’t even know where to stop or start with those numbers yeah

[00:20:07] it’s astronomical really yeah well this could be a watershed book as far as um

[00:20:13] how it impacts really everybody so that’s exciting um

[00:20:18] and have you received any um responses from from critics at all have you

[00:20:23] at this point yet has anybody uh said anything i’m waiting for my first responses from from my real uh rivals

[00:20:30] out there the ones who have made it um loud in public that you know

[00:20:36] my view on all these things is you know out to lunch that hebrew isn’t the the language of the first alphabet and

[00:20:43] so forth so i’m waiting to hear from them but i’ve had a really overwhelming overwhelmingly positive response from

[00:20:50] the christian community and some within the jewish community who take the bible seriously literally and um see it as

[00:20:58] historical that’s fantastic yeah i’m sure you’re gonna you’re gonna end up on um

[00:21:03] some of these uh shows to uh to talk this out i i love uh you know uh michael medved who is jewish i don’t know if you

[00:21:10] know who he is he’s a popular radio show host and he has had on many times um uh

[00:21:16] people from the discovery institute or uh dennis prager he should have you on uh do you know who he is no no oh man

[00:21:24] i’m gonna you gotta you gotta connect with either uh dennis prager is huge and and michael

[00:21:30] medved is pretty big too and both of them are jewish and they’re both very very um

[00:21:35] supportive of the bible in in every way so um

[00:21:40] that that’d be an incredible opportunity to explode for your book to just explode so i’m gonna i’m gonna pray about that and and see if

[00:21:47] i can send a message over to them connect me if you’re willing oh yeah i

[00:21:53] i’m absolutely willing so now you said um that you actually stumbled on this whole evidence of

[00:21:58] of the hebrews in egypt how do you stumble on something like that what happened that’s a great question and and

[00:22:04] here here’s the thing i mean it’s funny how many people um try to assume and assert what are my motives in

[00:22:10] all of this yeah i was innocently kevin studying for my

[00:22:16] um my comprehensive exams for my phd program at the university of toronto i

[00:22:21] was looking on websites for material and all of a sudden i somehow stumbled across um the the recent um excavational

[00:22:28] activities taking place at avarus and i knew that bryant wood had connected that

[00:22:33] site with the israelites i hadn’t committed one way or the other but i started uh you know they put a lot

[00:22:39] of that on the web and so i i stumbled onto this and i started just studying it and seeing all of this material and i

[00:22:47] realized that they had found things that relate to biblical history that are

[00:22:52] extremely important and powerful and they have no idea what they found and most specifically most powerfully was

[00:23:00] evidence for the four types of animals that the bible describes in exodus 11

[00:23:06] and 12 as having been there and present at the time of the first passover right

[00:23:11] the tenth plague on egypt yeah the killing of the firstborn so

[00:23:17] um so what they found was burials and and these were found in the

[00:23:23] palatial district not in the residential area where they would you’d expect there to be more animals but in the palatial

[00:23:29] district which means where the palaces were the king there were three palaces at the time not just one

[00:23:35] so in that area they found mass burials in other words multiple animals in each

[00:23:41] grave pit right and they’re the they’re the four kind we read about in exodus 11 and 12. dogs cattle sheep

[00:23:49] and goats and the the uh the excavators said the majority of the

[00:23:55] the burials are sheep and goats and the majority of the sheep and goats

[00:24:00] are in their first year of age which when i when i heard that when i read that my

[00:24:06] mind just blew and i thought oh my goodness they have found some of the sacrificial animals we read about in at

[00:24:14] the time of the first passover over you have to be kidding but i knew my english bible said that

[00:24:20] these sheep and goats that were sacrificed had to be one-year-olds which of course in english means between one

[00:24:25] and two so i checked the hebrew and the hebrew doesn’t say that it says literally ben

[00:24:31] shania which means son of a year and that’s a technical term for less than a

[00:24:36] year i can give you all kinds of examples where it’s used in the hebrew bible to mean less than a year so

[00:24:42] what i realized was our english bibles are not intentionally for sure but a little

[00:24:47] bit uh misleading in that term they should be less than a year olds

[00:24:53] right that’s how it should be written and sure enough we find you know there was this one

[00:24:59] mother that was giving birth and died at the time she was giving birth so she and the baby died um you know a u u lamb and

[00:25:07] there’s there’s one um ram that was killed by a blow to the back of a head from a blunt instrument which shows that

[00:25:13] it was killed purposefully right it’s not just you know a lamb doesn’t bump the back of its head

[00:25:19] and die um it’s not it’s not chance and it’s not it’s not killing um

[00:25:26] in the usual ways so so all of this shows that um these are

[00:25:31] examples that that relate to this this event of the sheep and the goats that are being sacrificed and where did they

[00:25:37] find these these were found in pits um as they were

[00:25:43] excavating in the in the area of the palaces at avarus which is biblical

[00:25:48] ramses wow that’s amazing and and so how many of

[00:25:53] these animals is this like a mass graveyard of animal animals or what is that well it’s

[00:25:59] i don’t know if they ever gave a final number maybe in their final excavation report we’ll see a total number but it

[00:26:05] seemed to be um you know over 30 and you know under 100 somewhere in there

[00:26:11] but i’m not sure exactly where that would be okay and and this is the kind of stuff that you saw and when you say

[00:26:16] you stumbled on it you saw this you saw the connection here and that’s what uh caused you to decide to look into it

[00:26:22] further yes kevin and and the the little pottery evidence that was there

[00:26:27] is pottery that can be dateable it can be dated to the reigns of thutmose the

[00:26:32] third and amenhotep ii and as i’ve proven already in my 2006 journal

[00:26:37] article ahmed hotep ii is the only pharaoh who meets all of the

[00:26:42] biographical requirements of the exodus pharaoh and so i i knew we’re at the right site and we’re at the right time

[00:26:49] and it just fits like a glove so that’s when i said oh my goodness there could

[00:26:55] be some amazing things found here if i can research it um more because what i

[00:27:00] concluded was well if we have evidence of israelites there in the very year of the exodus and they were there 430 years

[00:27:07] you’d think there’d be evidence that they were there for a lot longer than just that last

[00:27:13] year yeah so i went out i went on a research expedition if you will through all the

[00:27:19] sources to study to see if i could find uh more material and it just happened that god allowed for me to have middle

[00:27:27] egyptian hieroglyphics and and late egyptian hieroglyphics as the um the

[00:27:32] the major uh yeah the i’m sorry the first minor of my phd so hieroglyphics is the first minor of my

[00:27:39] phd so i could study ancient hieroglyphic writings to learn things that not many other people can yeah

[00:27:47] wow that is really that is really amazing and um you know

[00:27:52] is there is there ongoing evidence um i know that when we we looked at is

[00:27:57] genesis history um and what everything that was done there and there was the evidence that was found about joseph being in egypt and

[00:28:04] these sorts of things and then um you said that ammon hotep the second is the pharaoh of the the actual axis where

[00:28:11] moses is visiting him as they’re going out um is there evidence of you know um

[00:28:18] and and you said right there you i mean there was evidence with the passover lamb but as far as the plagues are

[00:28:23] concerned um is there any evidence for that is there evidence of the the there was some a movie that came out

[00:28:30] called the search for the real mount sinai it got a lot of attention um do you believe that

[00:28:36] there’s evidence for all of that is that stuff that can actually be established well it’s very different when you go

[00:28:43] from places of residence to to areas where

[00:28:50] being nomadic right it’s a completely different world and so when you see

[00:28:55] people categorically talking about the place where the crossing of the uh sea of reeds was and um this is where mount

[00:29:02] sinai is now you’re off the reservation you’re off the map from careful archaeology to

[00:29:08] um to conjecture gotcha there is no firm evidence and

[00:29:14] this whole idea of uh you know objects found in in water bodies that are um

[00:29:20] wheels of the chariots from from the exodus that is the biggest joke in the world okay almost certainly would have

[00:29:27] been covered by um the process of silting over the course

[00:29:32] of 30 you know 3 450 plus years so there’s no way that that this could be

[00:29:38] you know chariot wheels it’s it’s very likely that where they cross the point of the sea of reeds it’s now above water

[00:29:45] it very well may be above water nowadays because because time has given us a much

[00:29:50] receded sea as you go from uh from the what originally was the um the red sea

[00:29:58] all the way to the mediterranean at one point they were connected and as time went along the receding got you know

[00:30:03] further and further and further so where the israelites crossed it could be you know land today

[00:30:10] okay okay interesting and then what about the plagues um is there any evidence um

[00:30:17] archaeological evidence solid evidence as far as the plagues are concerned only for this tenth plague and the

[00:30:22] animals that i’m talking about that i’ve come in contact with so i haven’t found any evidence of of any of the other

[00:30:28] plagues but most of the other plagues are either events that happen in the sky

[00:30:34] um you know they’re environmental yeah issues or they involve um life

[00:30:40] forms that are organic material and they die and decompose you know frogs and so forth sure sure

[00:30:46] and locus so it’s going to be really hard archaeologically to to expect to

[00:30:52] find evidence of any of these other plagues but it just so happens that buried animals from the 10th plague

[00:30:57] that’s a lot more plausible a lot more possible to to but there’s not anything that’s been

[00:31:03] found in in hieroglyphics or egyptian uh record-keeping of any sort in that regard

[00:31:09] there is one disputed um uh papyrus manuscript it’s called the ipower papyrus most scholars believe

[00:31:16] that the events of that described on the papyrus date back to the 13th dynasty which is way before

[00:31:23] moses’s lifetime which is the 18th dynasty in fact joseph is from the 12th dynasty

[00:31:30] but some scholars are convinced that the the ipo where papyrus uh the events of

[00:31:36] it uh go back to the 18th dynasty and the and the time that that i would connect to

[00:31:42] the um uh the exodus and so there’s a there’s actually an article in that same um

[00:31:49] in that same uh volume of bible in spade where my article is uh on the lahish

[00:31:56] milkball ostrich there’s an article on the ipower papyrus where a friend of mine named titus kennedy

[00:32:02] tries to prove that the ipoor papyrus dates to that time and the ipo air papyrus describes some not all but some

[00:32:10] events going on in egypt that you could possibly connect to some of the plagues

[00:32:15] that we read about of the 10 plagues so it’s you know it’s it’s conceivable if if if it does date to the 18th dynasty

[00:32:22] it’s conceivable that that document refers to some of the plagues on egypt that are recorded in the bible

[00:32:28] okay okay um and then um what what uh what are the

[00:32:34] hebrews referred to in uh you know in egypt i i read something

[00:32:39] with you you mentioned uh i don’t know how you pronounce it haberu yes now what what is that

[00:32:46] how does that relate to the hebrews oh great question let’s go back to abraham for a second

[00:32:52] so when moses introduces us to this character this figure named uh and he was called abram at the time his name

[00:32:58] changes later so when we’re introduced to abram moses says that he is

[00:33:05] the hebrew right it says abram the hebrew which means he’s not the forefather of the

[00:33:12] hebrews he’s not neither is jacob his great-grandson they are not neither of

[00:33:17] them what it means is there’s a progenitor that goes back further in time and abraham simply derived from him

[00:33:25] so who are these hebrews from whom abram um derived well

[00:33:32] the bible um refers to in genesis 10 when it’s giving this this this flow

[00:33:38] this genealogical record of of the movement from noah all the way

[00:33:43] down to abram it mentions one person of very great importance his name is a bear

[00:33:49] right a bear and every egyptologist and ancient or eastern scholar who knows the languages will tell you that the um that

[00:33:57] the hobby roo are equal to the opiru right habiru

[00:34:03] habiru is with acadian language and then opiru is essentially the egyptian version of that word well the word apiru

[00:34:12] contains an initial guttural just like the hebrew word for hebrews or hebrew

[00:34:19] and so it’s very plausible that what we see in egyptian is similar to what we

[00:34:25] see in hebrew for the mention of the name a bear so a bear is the is the forefather of abraham

[00:34:33] after whom um their family name um derives so

[00:34:40] we know that there are lots of hobby room running around in the ancient near eastern world at the end of the uh

[00:34:46] third millennium bc and at the start of the second millennium bc but where do they come from well i would say they all

[00:34:54] come from a bear and abram is simply one of the descendants who comes from a bear he’s just the one who becomes the most

[00:35:00] famous and has the most ink written about him so so um what happens then is let’s let’s

[00:35:07] fast forward in time now we’re we’re going much further you know much closer to our time

[00:35:13] um to the time of the after the the exodus and after the conquest joshua has

[00:35:19] died later in that same century a little bit later a few decades later we have a

[00:35:24] bunch of tablets written and they’re written by petty kings in canaan who are being attacked

[00:35:32] mainly by these people called the they call them hobby roo and so this is the

[00:35:38] the middle of the 14th century bc so this is you know around 1350 you know give or take

[00:35:43] a few decades um these habiru are attacking these petty kings in their their city-states well

[00:35:49] who are these people well um the the mightiest

[00:35:55] um ruler of one of the petty states in canaan is the king of khatsur i was part

[00:36:01] of the dig at hazor years ago and he is the only one in these letters

[00:36:07] they’re called the amarna letters they were found in egypt and they were they were in the care of

[00:36:12] the textual archive of the scribes who oversaw the um the work

[00:36:18] or the reign of akhenaten he’s also known as ahmed hotep iv uh the egyptian

[00:36:24] king of the 14th century bc isaka is sorry to interrupt is akhenaten

[00:36:29] um wasn’t there a pharaoh who was a monotheist that’s the guy okay okay

[00:36:36] yeah and i i had a the funniest thing i i had to take a credit um at ucsd when i was

[00:36:43] um in in uh college and i i i took a class on egyptology just

[00:36:49] because i thought it would be interesting from a biblical perspective and that guy’s name came up and i just

[00:36:54] latched on to him because he was the monotheist and i just i never forgot that and i wrote a whole paper on him it was very interesting to me um do you

[00:37:01] think there’s i kind of got you off track here but do you think there’s any um connection there biblically as to why he would have

[00:37:08] become a monotheist that’s a great question and late exodus people will they have a problem here because for

[00:37:14] them akhenaten comes before the exodus but for me uh the exodus comes before akhenaten

[00:37:21] and the confrontation not just the x’s the confrontation between the god of moses and the gods of the egyptians and

[00:37:27] who wins the one god of the of the hebrews defeats the the multitude

[00:37:33] of gods of egypt right so the egyptian people know in this big time

[00:37:39] um war of the gods their gods lose and israel’s god wins so it’s very plausible

[00:37:45] that akhenaten got his idea of monotheism from the israelites that would that idea would have been passed

[00:37:51] down to him from the 15th century to the 14th century bc and he would have kind of turned it into his own form of

[00:37:58] religion interesting oh that’s very interesting huh um sorry to get you off track there so

[00:38:04] back to the the haberu and uh what was happening there so 14th century bc we have um katsur the biggest city it’s the

[00:38:11] only city in canaan where the ruler is called a king the other the other rulers

[00:38:17] of canaan only refer to themselves as rulers but they refer to the king of hassor as a king the only other person

[00:38:23] they call the king is the king of egypt right so this is a big guy he’s a big player he’s he’s the bully on the block

[00:38:30] the king of kosovo well what happens is over the course of the amarna letters um

[00:38:35] we have enough information historical information fortuitously enough to show how the king

[00:38:41] of katsur his allegiance falters from the king of egypt

[00:38:47] to uh to a a submission to these habiru

[00:38:52] so that begs the question if you have this mighty city in canaan that has you know thousands and thousands of people

[00:38:59] and this this uh powerful kingdom that that is more powerful than any other in

[00:39:05] canaan and how is it scholars tell us that the that the hobby roo who who were attacking the

[00:39:12] petty kings of canaan in the 14th century bc they tell us these are these are

[00:39:17] thieves and brigands right well well um how is it that thieves can become

[00:39:25] powerful enough and organized enough that they would attack the greatest city in canaan and cause

[00:39:32] its ruler to submit to them as opposed to submitting to the king of egypt it’s

[00:39:37] impo impossible and one final moment on this kevin um there is um an inscription written by

[00:39:43] the scribes of amenhotep ii in the 15th century uh so right after the exodus

[00:39:50] they record um his his second asiatic campaign and

[00:39:56] they refer to about a hundred thousand captives that were found on this um

[00:40:02] expedition to uh into into the levant to bait it was basically a glorified slave

[00:40:08] run why would you need a hundred thousand slaves well hello if the israelites are your slave

[00:40:14] base and they’ve left egypt and they’re the machinery to make things work you know you you can’t you can’t run your

[00:40:20] car if you take the engine out of it okay the body of the car looks great but it can’t do a thing to move you yeah

[00:40:27] so the israelites were that mechanism for egypt so during this glorified slave

[00:40:33] run of uh where about a hundred thousand captives were were were lynched from

[00:40:39] kanan it says that 3 600 of them were a peru the egyptian name for the acadian word

[00:40:46] hobby roo oh wow so that being the case um shortly after the exodus in the very

[00:40:53] same year of the exodus in in november of that year and the exodus happened in april in november of that year they

[00:40:58] capture a hundred thousand slaves three thousand six hundred are um are opiru those very probably are

[00:41:07] hebrews who left moses’s command and they decided we’re not waiting to go

[00:41:12] into canaan we’re going now they moved to canaan they settled down and god gave them a big fat surprise

[00:41:19] the king of egypt came along and snatched them and took them away and back into slavery in egypt and probably

[00:41:25] gave them a much worse fate than their compatriots who had to wander around in the desert for 40 years

[00:41:32] wow that’s that is interesting now um you know a lot of people say they complain about um

[00:41:39] the idea that there would have been around two million um hebrews who

[00:41:44] left egypt and were with moses and a lot of them say well there’s not even enough room to to move around with too many two million

[00:41:50] people um how do you respond to that complaint well we do have ancient armies that

[00:41:56] travel in at least uh a million you know so it it it is plausible um yeah it’s

[00:42:02] harder for an army um but uh but it’s not impossible

[00:42:08] there are two views as to what the numbers are for the israelites

[00:42:14] either they could be um six hundred thousand males or whatever it is uh six thousand tribes or

[00:42:20] six hundred or six thousand tribes would i forget now which that would be but um if you take it that they are six

[00:42:26] hundred thousand males it means probably you have a realistic body of two million people well bottom line is

[00:42:34] you you could have that many especially if they’re living in different parts of egypt at the time so all of the people

[00:42:41] would have left the various sites where they live they would have joined the the

[00:42:47] you know the leadership under uh moses and joshua and they would have you know followed the israelites um

[00:42:53] you know off into the desert so it’s it’s certainly plausible you can’t say it can’t happen

[00:42:58] it’s really hard to prove that you can’t do this but at the end of the day what you have is this

[00:43:04] you have a people who are supernaturally guided by

[00:43:10] the spirit of god who manifests himself in this um pillar of fire and you know

[00:43:15] and this and this cloud right so um god is providing for them he gives

[00:43:21] them food in the desert from uh you know falling from the sky it it

[00:43:27] drops to the ground and it turns into manna so this can only work if it’s if it’s god behind it so with god

[00:43:35] you know with man it may be impossible but with god all things are possible yeah no problem

[00:43:40] yeah that’s great and then um and i can’t remember offhand if this was

[00:43:46] something that came up in the is genesis history movie but it just uh struck me as something very interesting

[00:43:52] um they made the case that or or i’ve heard this case made before that um you know all the egyptian boys were

[00:43:59] killed during the the plague um the final plague that the young boys were killed and then many of the egyptian men

[00:44:07] went out to fight and ended up dying in order to try to

[00:44:12] bring the the hebrews back into egypt and um i’ve heard that this left a

[00:44:17] gaping hole in in um the egyptian

[00:44:22] the male population of the egyptians at the time um what are your thoughts on that is there is is that uh

[00:44:29] something that um there is a historical evidence to support that there is historical events um that can

[00:44:36] support that maybe indirectly um for one thing uh when when ahmad hotep ii took over

[00:44:42] the throne from his father egypt had come to its height in all of its history

[00:44:48] from the beginning of time until today egypt was never more powerful they they he turned them into one of two

[00:44:55] superpowers and the greater of the two because under under the father of the

[00:45:00] exodus pharaoh that was the third the egyptians went all the way to the euphrates river right through southern

[00:45:06] levant through the northern levant and eastward to the to the euphrates and they sacked

[00:45:11] cities down the river as they went downstream so they were as powerful as powerful can be

[00:45:16] and if you check the theben tombs from this time from the 18th dynasty the reigns of um thutmose the third and i’m

[00:45:23] gonna hotep the second you will see displays um painted on the tombs of wealth

[00:45:29] pouring into egypt like it never did in all its history right so you have evidence of this great wealth well um

[00:45:37] thomas iii launched 17 campaigns into asia i’m hotep the second launched two

[00:45:43] and the second one was in the year of the exodus it’s the one i told you about that’s in in the same year of the exodus

[00:45:49] but in november a time when kings don’t go out into battle as the bible describes yeah

[00:45:54] so after that kevin after that there’s a complete change in military activity and

[00:46:00] foreign policy there are no more imperialistic uh ventures to gain land

[00:46:07] and gain goods and gain gold right they don’t happen and and up until this time there were no

[00:46:14] political marriages because egypt had the upper hand they didn’t have to offer their daughters and political movements

[00:46:19] yeah then after the exodus you see no more campaigns and you see this flurry of of

[00:46:27] uh political marriages right that demonstrate that the egyptians know that they’re in an inferior position and they

[00:46:33] have to marry up in order to have peace in the ancient world right wow so there’s all that and then there’s one

[00:46:39] other thing and i describe this in my book there is an inscription that most people have

[00:46:44] even scholars have no clue about but it’s published and i refer to the publication where it where it’s um

[00:46:50] um you know where it’s found and i actually try to improve the translation in the egyptian text but

[00:46:58] that that inscription is is from the reign of amenhotep ii and it describes

[00:47:04] a a a an edict that’s issued by the king what edict the edict was that all of his

[00:47:11] courtiers were to go out and destroy the gods what does that mean

[00:47:17] it means you go to the shrines and the temples and wherever you see an idol that’s whatever two feet three feet high you take it and you rip it to shreds and

[00:47:24] you just wow why would this ever be done in egypt yeah

[00:47:30] there’s one there’s one god who’s mentioned by name on on that inscription and the rest of it is kind of broken off

[00:47:36] and we can’t see all of the wording but this god is very clear there and that’s the god amun ra who’s amun ra he’s a

[00:47:43] composite god that consists of amun plus the sun god ra so

[00:47:49] it happens that in the reigns of thutmose the third and ahmed hotap ii amun ra became the god connected with

[00:47:57] the victories that were that were given to the egyptian kings by the gods

[00:48:03] in their asiatic campaigns right so they would come back from their campaign and they would give the glory to amun

[00:48:10] so for amun amenhotep ii who was constantly giving glory to to amun ra

[00:48:16] for the victories in asia for him to turn around and and command his

[00:48:22] courtiers to destroy idols to amun ra oh my goodness that’s telling us that he

[00:48:30] no longer has faith in the god who gave him victories in asia wow that’s huge that is really huge and

[00:48:37] what a what a testament to to the truth of uh yahweh right the god of the bible so the god of the hebrews

[00:48:44] that’s amazing and um you know is there still a lot we’re just about out of time here but is there still a lot to be

[00:48:51] uncovered in egypt is there still a lot to be uh a lot of a lot of headway that

[00:48:57] could can be made to to learn additional things about this sort of stuff great question and

[00:49:03] the answer is maybe i i don’t even know myself if if i did i would probably be

[00:49:09] going broke just studying the manuscripts and studying the sources and studying the

[00:49:15] archaeological records to find them but um but there is that possibility and

[00:49:20] that’s why i’m encouraging uh especially young people out there who may be interested in in history and and they

[00:49:28] already have a love for the bible that maybe god would be using them to love these two i’m sorry to wed these

[00:49:34] two loves together like he did with me and and give you the passion and the drive to study the ancient evidence and

[00:49:41] look for such things and i’m convinced kevin i can’t point to them i’m convinced that they are out there

[00:49:48] waiting for the hard-working people to discover them amen yeah yeah that’s that is and it has

[00:49:54] such a big impact on people as they study this you know i think it just cracks the door of people’s hearts and

[00:50:00] gives them a chance to go back to the bible and say hey you know what yeah i need to give this a second look i need to really um take some time to to get a

[00:50:07] better understanding of what what the real history is so thanks for everything you’re doing uh dr petrovic it’s amazing

[00:50:14] my pleasure thanks for having me absolutely for those of you listening if you want more information about dr doug

[00:50:19] petrovich thebibleseminary.academia.edu forward slash douglas petrovich and um he’s

[00:50:26] doing all kinds of amazing things and uh if you have the the privilege of uh are you are you still um teaching a

[00:50:33] professor yeah i’m still teaching okay where and now where are you currently at i’m currently at the bible seminary in

[00:50:39] katy texas okay there you go so there’s your chance if you want to sit down uh sit under somebody who’s really uh on

[00:50:45] the cutting edge of this kind of stuff uh there you go kd texas so um he wrote the author of the world’s oldest

[00:50:51] alphabet hebrew as the language of the proto-continental script and hebrews his latest book new evidence for israelites

[00:50:57] in egypt from joseph to the exodus 2021 check those out they’ll be a huge blessing to you and i’m going to see if

[00:51:04] i can’t get you on uh dennis prager or michael medved or something because uh i know

[00:51:10] that they would love that they would eat this stuff up so thanks again uh dr petrovich and um you have a great week

[00:51:17] you too thank you kevin okay take care we’ll see you guys all next week my website’s educate4life.org

[00:51:22] you can check out all kinds of useful information on there that will help equip you to be able to defend your faith and to be able to

[00:51:29] share the good news of jesus christ with those around you okay god bless you we’ll see you next time bye

[00:51:46] you