You may not know about Merneptah, but he was king of Egypt during an important time of great upheaval in Canaan — a time when Israel was settling in and taking land. Merneptah’s reign overlaps the Biblical record of Israel in Canaan; best of all, he is the first one (outside of the Bible) to …
Category Archives: Egyptian
Israel in Egypt
In the November/December issue of Biblical Archaeology Review there is an article about Israel and the formation of the nation. The article starts with a discussion of the Merneptah Stele. This stele has Egyptian writing that contains the earliest known non-Biblical use of the word Israel (it also refers to Gezer). It is hard to …