Egypt in the Bible: Joseph – When? – Christianity

There is no direct archaeological evidence that Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, was ever in Egypt. This is not surprising. We could say the same for almost every person that lived in the ancient world. So, what do we do? We look for indirect evidence provided in our only written source, the Bible. This article focuses on the When. In other words, if the biblical account is reliable what period of history does it suggest?

Historical Anachronisms

About a month ago, my wife and I added a fence around our patio. Now, as I gaze through the sliding doors, it feels as though the fence was there forever. How about cell phones? They came into their own only recently. Our younger generation cannot imagine a time when they were not available. Automobiles and commercial air travel were unknown a hundred and fifty years ago. It is easy to carry modern assumptions into our reading of the Bible. Consider the following verses. We read:

He (pharaoh) made him (Joseph) ride in the second chariot which he had. (Gen 41:43)

Joseph prepared his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen. (Gen 46:29)

I’ve read these verses many times. Until recently, I never considered that there was a time when chariots and horses didn’t exist in Egypt. This detail is an important clue that helps us establish a date for the life of Joseph.

Horses

Wild horses originated long ago on the plains of North America. Eventually, they went extinct. But first, some managed to cross the Bering land bridge into eastern Asia.¹ There were times when horses nearly disappeared from there as well.

One could say that domestication saved the day. The Botai people (in today’s Kazakhstan) were first (c. 3500 BCE). They found horses useful for food, skins, etc. Unfortunately, their culture died out and their horse knowledge was lost. It wasn’t till much later (c. 2200 BCE) that the Sintashta people (west central Russia) repeated the domestication. Through their travels, horse husbandry quickly spread throughout Europe and Asia.² DNA analysis shows that all modern horse breeds descend from the obscure Sintashta.³

Domestication doesn’t mean horseback riding. Saddles, bit design, feed, breeding techniques, care, and many other supporting technologies had to be invented first. Even something as basic as horseshoes would not be perfected until the days of the Romans.⁴ Early attempts of riding were clumsy and quite impractical (picture to the left). I seriously doubt that a horse would respond well to a rider sitting on its butt, balancing with hands on the withers, while pulling the tail.

The Sintashta Culture

The Sintashta culture was short lived (c. 2200–1750 BCE). Its people occupied a couple dozen heavily fortified cities at the border between Europe and Asia. They were herders who managed large flocks. They particularly loved their horses and were known for their horsemanship. Burial sites include numerous skeletal remains. They are also credited with the invention of spoked wheel chariots (picture to the left).⁵

War Chariots⁶

Shortly after horses were introduced as a draft animal, chariot technology rapidly advanced. The first models were found in Northern Mesopotamia at the start of the second millennium BCE. The Hittite spoked wheel version shown to the left came onto the scene c. 1700 BCE. It featured a charioteer, archer, and shield-bearer. They moved at eight mph, galloping at perhaps double the speed.

The Buhen Horse⁷

Wild horses are not native to Egypt. No equine fossils have been found anywhere in North Africa which date to the last thirteen thousand years. So, when did domesticated horses arrive?

Buhen is an ancient Egyptian fort located just north of the second Egyptian cataract one thousand miles south of the Mediterranean. It occupied an area of about three and a half acres. Walter Brian Emery found a horse skeleton at this site in 1958. At the time, this was the earliest evidence for a domesticated horse in Egypt. It was dated to 1675 BCE, though many archaeologists question the date as being too early.

More remains have since been found by Manfred Bietak in human tombs at Avaris. This was the capital of the Hyksos, foreigners who ruled Northern and Middle Egypt (c. 1650–1525 BCE). Little is known about the era of the Hyksos, but burial sites indicate that they employed horses.

Prior to the reign of Ahmose (the pharaoh who drove out the Hyksos) there is no evidence for chariots in Egypt. This changed quickly. Chariots appear prominently on Ahmose’s tomb (see illustration at the top of this article) and on those of subsequent pharaohs. Warfare changed as Egyptians improved the technology creating lighter, faster moving, reliable vehicles. Battles became more lethal and violent. Chariots provided stable platforms from which to launch javelins and shoot arrows.

The Hyksos

There is ongoing debate as to how the Hyksos (foreign semitic rulers) quickly subdued most of Egypt. Some suspect that they took over peacefully when the Middle Kingdom collapsed. Others point to a more sudden and violent conquest. The Egyptian historian and priest, Manetho (third century BCE) states:

Invaders of an obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land. By main force they easily overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly, razed to the ground the temples of the gods, and treated all the natives with a cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others.⁸

New weaponry found at Avaris lends support to an aggressive conquest. This includes the Hyksos bit, composite bow, and advanced body armor. Equid skeletons were also found at various sites throughout Canaan. Archaeologist Flinders Petrie concludes that these “obviously belong to the Hyksos.”

The question remains: “When were chariots introduced?” Scholars do not question whether the Hyksos had horses. We don’t know for sure whether they also employed chariots, but it seems likely in light of their quick conquest.

Joseph

As mentioned above, the Bible records that Joseph rode chariots. This puts an early date limit on when Joseph could have arrived in Egypt. The evidence presented so far in this article indicates that it could not have been before the time of the Hyksos (c. 1650 BCE). What about a late date limit? I’ll address this in the next paragraphs.

Seven Years of Famine

When Joseph became vizier over Egypt, he gathered a fifth of Egypt’s produce during seven good years (Gen 41:34). Apparently, that was a tax that farmers were required to pay. The following verses describe the period of famine that followed.

Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the grain which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.

When the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said:
Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For our money fails.
Joseph said:
Give me your livestock; and I will give you food for your livestock, if your money is gone.
They brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the flocks, and for the herds, and for the donkeys: and he fed them with bread in exchange for all their livestock for that year.
When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him:
We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. Give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land won’t be desolate.
So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine was severe on them, and the land became Pharaoh’s. As for the people, he moved them to the cities from one end of the border of Egypt even to the other end of it. (Gen 47:15–21)

Joseph treated his family (and perhaps other Semites) differently.

Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen; and they got themselves possessions therein, and were fruitful, and multiplied exceedingly. (Gen 47:27)

The native Egyptians became indentured servants. Joseph’s family gained land possessions and prospered.

Loyalty and Reward⁹

The Hyksos ruled Upper and Middle Egypt for more than a hundred years. The small kingdom of the seventeenth dynasty remained headquartered at Thebes in the south. They heavily paid tribute and were squeezed between the Hyksos to the north and the Nubians to the south. Eventually, they began to fight back. Pharaoh Seqenenra was brutally killed early on, but his son Kamose intensified the fight. He succeeded in pushing the Hyksos back to the north. Soon after, his brother Ahmose completed the Hyksos expulsion.¹⁰

Once Egypt’s borders were established, Ahmose launched a system of land redistribution. Loyal veterans involved with military campaigns against the Hyksos and Nubians were first in line to receive this benefit.¹¹

Ahmose’s land redistribution program transferred land ownership from the pharaoh back to the Egyptians. His action undid Joseph’s previous land grab scheme. This means that Joseph’s time as vizier is limited to the years of Hyksos domination (c. 1650–1525 BCE). This is consistent with the synchronisms discussed in my previous two articles regarding Abraham and Terah.^12,13

Conclusion

What if Joseph didn’t seize all of the land and force the Egyptians into indentured servitude? Would the Egyptians of Northern Egypt have fought with the Hyksos to successfully repel the attacks from the south? Could this have averted the subsequent oppression experienced by the children of Abraham? Of course, we cannot know the answer to these questions. We can say that loving ones neighbors and treating others with compassion is a better long-term strategy than seeking short term benefit.

This prepares us to further analyze the life of Joseph. That will be the subject of the next article. Stay tuned.

Thanks for listening

References

E. Gus Cothran, Alois Wilhelm Podhajsky, “Evolution of the Horse,” Britanica.
Christian Thornberg, “When Did Humans Domesticate Horses? Scientists Find Modern Lineage Has Origins 4,200 Years Ago”.
Pablo Labrado, et .al, “The origins and spread of domestic horses from the Western Eurasian steppes”.
Dan J Harvey, “The History of the Horseshoe”.
Dan Davis, “Bronze Age Chariot Warriors: The Sintashta Culture”.
Thomas G. Chondros, “The Evolution of the Double-horse Chariots From the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Times”.
Peter Raulwing, Juliet Clutton-Brock, The Buhen Horse: Fifty Years After Its Discovery (1958–2008).
Manetho, Aegyptiaca, frag. 42, 1.75-79.2.
David Falk, “Explaining the Life of Joseph (Part 2): The Vizier“.
Britannica.
Sally L.D. Katary, “The Administration of Institutional Agriculture in the New Kingdom, in Juan Carlos Moreno García, Ancient Egyptian Administration,” 719–720.
Dan J. Harvey, “The Language of the Torah”.
Dan J. Harvey, “Who Was Terah?”.

Dan Harvey, author of Wrestling with Faith, secondlooknow.com

Egypt in the Bible: Joseph – When?

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