Who were the Egyptian Pharaohs when Moses was alive?

Answer 1

A:

This should be an easy question to answer. All we have to do is establish who was the pharaoh of the Exodus, then we would know who his predecessors were over the previous eighty years, as The Bible says that Moses was eighty years old at the time of the Exodus from Egypt.

The Bible very clearly places the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt around 1440 BCE (1 Kings 6:1), but we now know from Archaeology that Egypt was at that time very much in control of Canaan and remained so until the thirteenth century, which brings us to the time of Ramesses II, or Ramses II, pharaoh from around 1290 to 1224 BCE. No earlier pharaoh could have been the biblical pharaoh who drowned in pursuit of the fleeing Israelites as they crossed the Red Sea. Moreover, it was he who built the city of Ramses (Pi-Ramesses), mentioned in the story of the Exodus, thus ruling out his predecessors. For these reasons, a more modern Jewish tradition redates the early history of Israel and places the Exodus much later.

Unlike the biblical pharaoh, who was drowned in the Red Sea, Ramses II died peacefully as an old man and was buried in a tomb in the Valley of Kings. His body was later moved to a royal cache. For Ramses II to have been the Pharaoh who let the people go, we would have to move the date of the Exodus forward by around two centuries and therefore move Solomon's reign to a historically impossible period. We would also have to have Ramses escape the Red Sea, in spite of Exodus 14:28. Assuming there really was an Exodus from Egypt, which few scholars now accept, Ramses II could not have been that pharaoh, regardless of popular tradition.

Ramses' son, Merneptah, ruled from 1213 to 1203 BCE and died peacefully as an old man, buried in the Valley of Kings. Merneptah's successor was also buried in the Valley of Kings, thus ruling out all possible pharaohs until long after the traditional date of the Exodus and even after Israelite settlers began to appear in the Canaanite hinterland.

It is not possible to identify any historical pharaoh with the biblical Exodus. The history of the Hebrews must have been in some way different to that told in the Book of Exodus.

Answer 2

Pharaohs were put into tombs with their belongings. Prominent Pharaohs were put into Pyramids.