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took their expedition to the heights of Mount Serabit. were always separately identified in early texts, although they In the following year, Petrie published the detailed results of his were brought under the wrap of the single God in later times to findings but added to his report the fact that this information suit the emergent Jewish and Christian faiths. To the Egyptians, would not be made available officially to the Egypt Exploration the name of this Lord (Adon) was quite similar; they called him Fund subscribers; they would receive only maps and a general Aten. From this derived the name of Pharaoh Akhenaten, mean- outline. Furthermore, Petrie explained that even though he had ing ‘servant of Aten’. taken previously funded teams into Egypt, from the time of that So, when Moses and the Israelites made their exodus into Sinai, Sinai expedition his sponsorship by the Fund had been terminated. they arrived not as worshippers of Jehovah but of Aten; and it was Why? Had he perhaps broken the binding rule of the Articles by for this very reason that they were given a whole new set of laws divulging something which was contrary to Bible teaching? He and ordinances to bring them into line with the Hebrew culture of certainly had. their prospective new homeland. In fact, Petrie had discovered the great secret of the sacred When Moses and the Israelites left the Nile Delta, their obvious mountain of Moses—a secret which not only made sense of the —_ route to Canaan (where they were eventually headed) would have Exodus portrayals but, in so doing, blew the lid totally from their _ been directly across the wilderness of northern Sinai. So, why did common scriptural interpretation. they push southward into the difficult high country to spend some What the Bible does not make clear is that Sinai was not a for- time at the Horeb mountain of Serabit? This was a question that eign land to the Egyptians. It was actually regarded as a part of _ had long puzzled Petrie and his team. Egypt and came under Pharaonic control. So Moses and the Israelites had not left Egypt once they were east of the Nile Delta: o, what precisely did they find high on the Bible's holy they were still in Egypt, having the whole Sinai Peninsula to cross S mountain? Well, to begin with, they found nothing very before they entered the Palestinian land of Canaan. much. But on a wide plateau near the summit there were During the time of Moses, Sinai came under the control of two distinct signs of ancient habitation, and some pillars and standing- Egyptian officials: the Royal Chancellor and the Royal stones could be seen protruding above the ground-rubble. This Messenger. This was the era of Egypt's 18th Dynasty—the rubble had been deposited, little by little, by wind and landslides dynasty of the Tuthmosis and Amenhotep Pharaohs, along with over some 3,000 years. But when it was finally moved away, the Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. The truth of the Bible story emerged. Royal Messenger of those times was Petrie wrote: Neby, an official who was also the There is no other such monument mayor and troop commander of Zaru w. It is worth making a necessary which makes us regret that it is in the Nile Delta region of Goshen icti H H not in better preservation. The where the Israelites had lived before distinction between the Israelites whole of it ‘has buried, and no the exodus. and the Hebrews of the Mosaic one had any knowledge of it until The position of Royal Chancellor A we cleared the site. was hereditary in the Hyksos family era. At that time they were What they found was an enormous of Pa-Nehas, and Panahesy of this not one and the same, as Bible temple complex. Set within an enclo- family was the official Governor of . . . sure wall was an outer temple, built Sinai. We know him better from the teaching seems to indicate. over an expanse of 230 feet (approx. Bible as Phinehas. He became one of 70 metres). This extended outwards the first priests of the new Mosaic from an inner temple cut within a structure, but previously he had been great cave in the mountainside. From the Chief Priest at Pharaoh Akhenaten's temple at Amarna. the various cartouches, carvings and inscriptions it emerged that Before we get back to Sir William Flinders Petrie, and to under- the temple had been in use from as far back as the time of Pharaoh stand the root significance of his discovery, it is worth making a Sneferu, who reigned about 2600 BC and whose immediate suc- necessary distinction between the Israelites and the Hebrews of cessors are reckoned to have built the pyramids of Gizeh. the Mosaic era. At that time they were not one and the same, as The above-ground part of the temple was constructed from Bible teaching seems to indicate. The Hebrews were the family sandstone quarried from the mountain and it comprised a series of and descendants of Abraham, and their place of residence was, in adjoined halls, shrines, courts, cubicles and chambers. Of these, the main, Canaan (or Palestine). The Israelites, on the other hand, the key features unearthed were the main Sanctuary, the Shrine of were the family and descendants of one of Abraham's grandsons, Kings, the Portico Court, and the Hall of the goddess Hathor (to Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. It was Jacob's family whom the whole complex was dedicated). alone who had moved into Egypt, and it was their descendants All around were pillars and stelae denoting the Egyptian Kings who eventually returned with Moses—to be reunited, after count- through the ages, and certain Pharaohs such as Tuthmosis II less generations, with their fellow Hebrews. (founder of the Rosicrucian movement in Egypt) were depicted The difference between the strains was, of course, that the many times on standing-stones and wall reliefs. Israelites had long been subjected to the laws and religions of The adjoining Cave of Hathor was carved into the natural rock, Egypt and they knew very little about the customs of their cousins with flat inner walls that had been carefully smoothed. In the cen- in Canaan. Through more than 400 years they had been in an tre (from about 1820 BC) stood a large upright pillar of Pharaoh environment with a whole pantheon of gods; and although they Amenemhet III, the son-in-law of Esau. Also portrayed were his had developed a ‘one god' concept within their own fraternity, that Senior Chamberlain and his Seal-bearer. god was not the Jehovah of the Canaanite Hebrews. Deep within the cave, Petrie found a limestone stela of Pharaoh The Israelites' god was a faceless entity whom they called, quite Ramesses I—a slab upon which Ramesses (who is traditionally simply, the Lord. In the Israelite language he was called Adon. reckoned by Egyptologists to have been an opposer of the Aten This is one of the reasons why the names 'Lord' and 'Jehovah' cult) surprisingly describes himself as "The ruler of all that Aten were always separately identified in early texts, although they were brought under the wrap of the single God in later times to suit the emergent Jewish and Christian faiths. To the Egyptians, the name of this Lord (Adon) was quite similar; they called him Aten. From this derived the name of Pharaoh Akhenaten, mean- ing 'servant of Aten’. So, when Moses and the Israelites made their exodus into Sinai, they arrived not as worshippers of Jehovah but of Aten; and it was for this very reason that they were given a whole new set of laws and ordinances to bring them into line with the Hebrew culture of their prospective new homeland. When Moses and the Israelites left the Nile Delta, their obvious route to Canaan (where they were eventually headed) would have been directly across the wilderness of northern Sinai. So, why did they push southward into the difficult high country to spend some time at the Horeb mountain of Serabit? This was a question that had long puzzled Petrie and his team. not one and the same, as Bible teaching seems to indicate. 56 = NEXUS and the Hebrews of the Mosaic era. At that time they were FEBRUARY — MARCH 1999