Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Do you wish you could understand the Bible better? Do you want to know how you can remain faithful to historic Christianity in our contemporary society? Let's take a journey to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Faithfullyliven, the podcast is here to uplift your soul and encourage you to live a life honoring to God
Faithfullyliven:the podcast
Exploring Ancient Egypt's Influence on Biblical Narratives with Erika Brown
Join us as we unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt's profound influence on biblical history. In this episode we talk with Erika Brown who gives insights into the rich tapestry of Egypt's pivotal role in the stories of Joseph, the Israelites, and Moses. Erica's passion for bridging archaeology with biblical history promises to enrich your understanding of these narratives like never before.
Check out Erika educational videos via the Youtube Series, "Just So You Know,"
https://www.youtube.com/@JUSTSOYOUKNOWBYERBrown
Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven
Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org
Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map
Welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives.
Speaker 1:I am Dwan, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the Podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully. We're offering guidance on how to study the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. So you know, understanding the history and cultures behind a country and a nation, you know, can make it come alive. And Egypt has a prominent role in the narrative of the Bible. You know. We know about the narratives about Abraham and Sarah in Egypt in Genesis 12, 10 through 20. Genesis 12, 10 through 20. And then we have the story of Joseph. It is a major biblical narrative that spans from Genesis 37 to 50. We have the Egyptian, the Israelites, excuse me, in Egypt and this story details the latter part of Genesis through Exodus, part of genesis through exodus. And then the book of exodus, mainly chapters 1 through 15, tells the story of moses leading israel out of slavery from egypt and in the flight to egypt. In the new testament, where we have, we can find that in matthew 2, 13 through 15 records the account of Mary Joseph and the infant Jesus fleeing to Egypt to escape King Herod's massacre of the infants. So you can see how there are a number of passages in the Bible and I'm pretty sure I didn't touch on all of them that has the setting of Egypt in it.
Speaker 1:And in this episode I get to talk with Erica Brown. She's an archaeology student and we talk about Egypt and how it relates to the Bible, and it was a very interesting conversation. I can't wait to share it with you. But before we get started with our conversation, let me tell you a little bit about Erica. All right, erica is an archaeologist, educator, content creator, nerd mom, wife and believer. She was a preacher's daughter in a small town. She is an army veteran. She loves archaeology, especially that of the Bible, and her goal is to bring it to culture. As an ongoing scholar, she is pursuing her PhD. She teaches college-level courses, small groups, churches and seminars seminars and she has a production company called JSYK Production. She produces educational videos on YouTube called Just so you Know, I'll put a link to that in the description so you can go and check those out. All right, let's dive into our conversation. Hi, erica, welcome to the show. Hi, I'm so glad to be here. All right, so before we get started on our topic here, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Like I said, my name is Erica. I am a biblical archaeologist. I have been studying and working on biblical archaeology for oh my gosh since 2016. So I've been doing it for some time now. I've had a chance to study in Israel and Egypt, so that's been really cool to do. I worked on a couple of sites in Israel, worked on two sites. One of the sites was Tel Gezer, connected to biblical Gezer, and then the other site is Tel Berna, which we believe is biblical Libna. And then I've also worked in Egypt at the Karnak Temple, working on Merneptah's wall, which is really interesting. So I'm currently working on my PhD in the Near East at Lipscomb University. So that's just a little bit about myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all righty. Well, let's get into our topic. We're going to be talking about Egypt, so let's look to know a little bit about Egypt. So tell us a little bit about Egyptian culture In general.
Speaker 2:It's a part of the ancient Near Eastern world so it really fits into that. The broad culture of the ancient Near East, where things are so connected to the weather and the land and those types of things dictate the movements and even beliefs Egypt. As a part of the Fertile Crescent, it gets to do its own thing because of the Nile River. What's really key about Egypt is the Nile. The Nile empowers Egypt. It gives them the ability to be independent. They're not, they don't need other spaces like other countries in other worlds. In the ancient areas they really depend on each other, but Egypt doesn't have to because of the Nile, and that dictates so much of Egyptian culture. The Nile would flood and would produce so much root soil and that's why they can plant things and then most Egyptians would relate that to the movement of their gods. So Egypt is really one of the key things to Egyptian culture.
Speaker 2:Is the Nile River really one of the key things to Egyptian culture is the Nile River and they put that as a part of the order of things. The gods would. As long as the pharaohs and the rulers maintain order, things will work out in the land right. If there's an expression that Egyptians maintain ma'at, m-a-a-t. It's like a maintaining of the orders. That was the pharaoh's job, as the deity on earth was to maintain the order, and so they would have. Whatever practices were set in place to maintain order. And the Nile, the movement of the Nile, if it's famine, if it's flooding, if it's nothing, those things would communicate. If the gods were pleased and if Ma'at was being maintained. So, a lot like other engineering cultures, yes, the weather, the land dictate the beliefs, but Egypt got to do its own thing in that way because of the Nile its own thing in this in that way because of the Nile.
Speaker 1:So you talked a little bit about the climate as far as, like the Nile River, what, what else? Was it like a rainy?
Speaker 2:is it dry or so each, when you read each Egyptian text, um, they'll have the red land and the black land all along the nile. Because of the flooding and everything, it would produce a black soil, rich soil, right. That's the black land and you can almost see it. Even if you go there today, you can see the immediate break off into the red land. That's the desert area. That's where the pyramids are part of the desert most. Most of the tombs and burial sites are in the desert Desert part. It's hot in the desert, but along the fertile crescent I mean along the Nile it's rich and beautiful and green. You can even see that on the map today if you look on a world map satellite and you can see how it's colorful along the Nile, oh, but then right outside it's desert, red land, black land, like it's immediate.
Speaker 2:I tried to video it when I was in Egypt Because you can just see it. We were up on a high space. You can see that immediate, abrupt, where the soil is not doing things and it goes into desert. It's really kind of cool and unique to see that it's red land and black land and that's why they get the expression of the black Egypt. They're talking about the soil, the rich soil that comes from the overflowing of the Nile and that soil that spills over into the land. So that's the, that's the climate. They will have flooding seasons and they will grow based on those flooding seasons and then just wait for that continuous cycle where the Nile floods annually well, that kind of takes care of the geography just a little bit.
Speaker 1:As far as is, I guess there's more redlands and blackland because it's so much more red. Like, where does the now fall within the? Like the geography of the now, like is it? Is it to one side mostly, or is it it? Does it cut through the middle? It kind of cuts down through the middle, all the way down egypt.
Speaker 2:it runs, uh, they have what's called the cataracts, uh the different turns in the Nile there. Anyway, it runs kind of down the center and then at the end, at the northern part of Egypt, you'll see it break off into different areas that break out into the Mediterranean Sea. So it runs down, but right at the coast of the Mediterranean there are numerous branches, river water branches that break off from the Nile into the Mediterranean.
Speaker 1:OK, that's interesting. And then what about, like, the government and governmental structure?
Speaker 2:What was the politics like in Egypt Up until the Romans? Up until the Romans, because you know how the Romans be. Up until the.
Speaker 2:Romans. It was a dynasty system, pharaohs, and I talk about this a little bit in one of my videos where, if you were the pharaoh, they have Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, right, upper Egypt and lower Egypt, right they split. The north part of Egypt is called lower and the south part is called upper. Because of the terrain it dips down. The closer you get to the Mediterranean Sea it dips down. That's why it's lower. But anyway, if you're the pharaoh of both parts then you would wear the double crown, so you're the pharaoh over all of it. But then there were these periods where a dynasty, the last major dynasty, would die off and then everybody's trying to fight for control. So you'll have multiple rulers in Egypt.
Speaker 2:But it's a pharaoh system, pharaonic, which was it's similar to a king, a Western concept of a king, except the pharaoh was the human, human manifestation of a deity, typically the deity horse. Um, he was. Once he became pharaoh, he was like the gods, birthed them, and you'll see that a lot of the tombs and burial spaces where there's imagery of that Pharaoh being conceived by a deity and birth into his deity-ness and that's his role on earth, is the human form of the deity, of the deity, yours to maintain my art. So you fall in that system and one of the things we have to realize is we are a culture where we get to see our leaders first. Probably most Egyptians who served the government or worked for that government never even saw the Pharaoh or knew they saw him. It's not a connectedness, it's probably one of those things. As long as whatever's work is working, it ain't no problem for us. Right, they would have markers and still is in different things to announce themselves as Pharaohs and taking over or when they go through.
Speaker 2:But for the most part that's what it was a pharaohs governing egypt, but governing in the space of the deity, maintaining that order, and they would have prophets that worked for the king, that would help with communication between the deities and the pharaohs. So there are spaces of prophets but then, like most governments, you have people that are running that. You delegate different activities to that run different parts of the of the kingdom or empire, if you will like that so we kind of jumped into it a little bit about the, the religious views and beliefs of the egyptians.
Speaker 1:So if they, if they, if they're saying like the Pharaoh is a manifestation of a God, do they have multiple gods? Because they don't have duplicate Pharaohs of the same God, do they?
Speaker 2:No, they are polytheistic, like a lot of cultures in ancient Near East, polytheistic like a lot of cultures in ancient Near East, and each god represents different parts of the way it comes across. Is there are different parts of nature, or different parts of the world, or different gods cover different things, right? So you would have the god of war, you would have the god of fertility, you would have the god of death. You would have the god of death, you would have the god of the sun. Um, they would have different gods for different aspects of their life. And you would. They would have sacrificial systems in place to sacrifice to whatever that need or thing that you need, you to that particular god.
Speaker 2:Um, the goddess hothor, um, she was like um, military and fertility, not it's, but you know you would sacrifice. She's the one she has a sometimes she's often portrayed as a uh ghoul. Um, even then, they would have these anthropomorphic, like these animal, the deity. So even God, horus, has a falcon shaped head. That's his look. You know his mama, isis, and his dad, osiris. So they would have these different looks.
Speaker 2:Osiris is typically depicted as a black. You'll see him as the color black, noting he's super fertile. Not to his fertility. There's a there's quite a bit of them that they get from there, that they established as their different deities that they will worship for whatever need they have. That's like it's broken up, so you didn't just serve the one for one thing, you would have to go through a number of them. Uh, the god best protects mothers and babies. Um, he's the real funky looking one he's got. He looks like a lion and a monster type figure, but we find like amulets or different things that you would find with women or babies, because he's the god that protects them. Okay, so that's how it works. You would go to whatever god fulfills, whatever need. That's the one you would go to.
Speaker 1:So did they have multiple temples for these gods?
Speaker 2:Oh, my Lord, there are so many. It would be temples in the temples, like there are so many temples. I worked at Karnak, which is started. It's a temple. Karnak Temple it's a temple complex. There are so many temples at the site of Karnak in Luxor, egypt. It's a temple complex.
Speaker 2:So it started as originally started, as a temple to the god Amun, and the pharaoh of the time I forget his name built the temple to honor Amun and to document his victories and to document his victories. But then the pharaoh one of the pharaohs after him was like ooh, I want to do that too, let me add on to his temple and I'm going to do my own little temple, another temple side room, to honor Amun. And that's how the Karnak temple complex became so huge, because all these pharaohs would create all these different temples, they would attach more temples to the temples, and most of them, most of the temples in the karnak are dedicated to the god amun. Um, but they there are others that are dedicated to different gods and goddesses in this temple complex, so you can.
Speaker 2:So many different temples, um, it's one of those things that if a temple wasn't by you, you can build another temple, right, if you had the money, if you had a temple wasn't by you, you can build another temple, right, if you had the money, if you had the well-being, you had the, and so that you can honor that God, especially if that God offers something that you would need. So there are, oh my gosh, numerous temples upon temples upon temples in Egypt, north and south, and then even as you get closer to Nubia, um, you'll see a merging of egyptian gods and nubian gods and building temples for those gods, merging them like that.
Speaker 1:So it's, it's fascinating wow, that's a, that's a lot to keep up with. It is, um, that was like so many needs and so many gods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to keep in mind which God does which and making sure you appease that God. And even in some of their traditions, a lot like what we see in Greek mythology. If those gods were beefing, like Seth was one of the deities he was always causing. He's an Egyptian deity, but he was always beefing with all the other Egyptian gods like this. He's one of those they associate with evil, but you know it's it's different thing. But there is a temple for Seth, but there's a temple dedicated to him. So it's like even managing that, the relationships between the deities and that connection, like I can't girl, I cannot imagine, like oh, it sounds exhausting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. I'm so grateful, girl. Their part, yeah, all right. So now that we know a little bit about the Egyptians, we see we, we have, you know, a number of narratives in the Bible that are set in Egypt in the Bible that are set in Egypt, and there's a lot of them, but we just wanted to kind of touch on some of the common ones, like maybe Joseph's story, the Israelites in Egypt and then Moses in Exodus. So let's start off with Joseph's story, like the culture, historical background within the story of Joseph when he was in yes, so more, not most.
Speaker 2:Joseph uh typically is dated to around the the end of the middle kingdom period of of of egypt or the end of the second intermediate period. That's usually where they they hover with Joseph. There's a lot of debate that goes back and forth because at the end of the second intermediate period one of the reasons it's a big deal is because at the end of the second intermediate we have the ruling of the Hyksos. They're Hyksos rulers and they come from the same cultural background as Joseph. They are Semitic people, they're Semitic Egyptian rulers and so there's argument as to whether Joseph served under that rulership or did Joseph work right before that rulership? You know there's discussion and there's no no one knows what certainty, but um, there is significance with we having semitic egyptian rulers. We even have, like egyptian documents that talk about high ranking um semitic people serving in high spaces in egypt. Um, one of them is on display in the Brooklyn Museum. It lists, matter of fact, it has a number of Semitic names of a high ranking Egyptian household and it also lists that the different positions and demonstrates that Semitic people like Joseph or whoever the people that come from that background, and when we say Semitic we're talking about people that come from the region of Canaan, notaan specifically, but that region of canaan um it's usually called the levant, but canaan, syria, almost over to mesopotamia. That area is usually what we associate with in terms of ancient culture, submitted Semitic people. So Amorites were Semitic, hittites were no, hittites were not. I'm sorry they're not, but that area is where we submit. Anyway, so, having people documented in Egyptian documents by the way, these are Egyptian writings talking about Semitic people being in these spaces of affluence like we see with Joseph so that's awesome because it shows you that, okay, this is consistent. And most of these date, a lot of these ones that list these things date to that same time period that they associate with Joseph or the Semitic rulers. So it's awesome to have something like that to demonstrate that the Bible's not making up a semitic person, because a lot of times people are like, oh, we can't, how would you know that somebody of that background would get up so high in position in egypt? Well, we have egyptian documents saying this, talking about these same sorts of things of people moving up in the ranks this way.
Speaker 2:One of the cool things about the Joseph one and I had a little note when he was sold into slavery. They actually have things that talk about the profit of slaves during that time. There are Egyptian documents that highlight that Because you know his brother sold him and, by the way, they sold him to a caravan of people coming in and out of egypt doing trade and there's documentation for that people coming in and out of egypt for trade purposes, like like what we see in joseph um, but with joseph's being sold His price. So he was sold for 20 shekels. He was over 20 shekels. We have documentation that during that time period that is, the it's consistent with the price of slaves during that time period.
Speaker 2:For for the same time period. Later on, slaves are sold for 50 to 60 shekels, so even his selling price is consistent with the time period. Um, which is, which is important for a number of reasons. One, to write that down, to document that, you would have to be a person right, familiar with these numbers like, oh, one of the accusations is that this was made up or written later to give a history. Well, details like that talk about the price of a slave, the cost to be sold and things like that. Like a small thing like that, and to be accurate and consistent with one time period, we don't show pricing for slaves in other time periods after this, for 20 shekels. So that number is consistent with that time period. It matches that time period. So that number is consistent with that time period. It matches that time period. So it's small things like that. I think it's fascinating to highlight the historicity of the text. Ok, it fits within that narrative. So not only do we have documents of Semitic workers, but we have pricing of slaves, the trading and buying of Egyptian slaves at that time, matching in the Joseph narrative. So it's little things like that.
Speaker 2:I do have to tell people there's no, there's no archaeological proof for the story of Joseph, right, and that's OK, because archaeology doesn't work that way. You don't have archaeology that's set out to prove everyday individuals, or it doesn't work that way anyway. Archaeology is not meant to prove things. It's about documenting and collecting information. But it's often when we can document things and collect data, where we know about the cost of slaves, and we can use that and compare that and like, see, this supports what we have, this supports what we have in the text.
Speaker 2:Um, right, um, so with joseph's narrative, that's one of the important things. Um, we do have documentation of a lot of famine, different seasons of famine and, again, as dictated by the nile, um, and even joseph's management of storing food comes from someone, someone writing down that's familiar with the seasons and the agricultural processes of egypt because, like I said, it's a unique. It's a unique situation now and the growing and in the now is is unique to Egypt because of the Nile River. Like, that's amazing to see that. So that's one of the things we see with the Joseph, with the Joseph narrative in particular.
Speaker 1:And then what about the Israelites in Egypt? The Israelites again, the slaves in Egypt, like during that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we have documents of Semitic workers working for the Egyptian government. We have documentation of Semitic people being taken captive and becoming workers for the Egyptian government, like these are depicted on walls in Egyptian texts. So it's not without the realm of it's not something that's inconsistent with what we see. Matter of fact, most of the time, those type of people, semitic people, they have their own distinct depictions they're often depicted with, when it's color. They'll have an auburn or reddish hair, they have a beard and they also always, typically have these headbands. That's distinctly for that type of people group.
Speaker 2:The egyptians would depict different people groups different ways, but with semitic people asiatic people is what they call them they would have that, you would see them, and they would have the multi-color um robes and cloths, which is again when we talk about joseph and his um multicolored robe. Yeah, it's consistent with that culture, that particular culture, people from that area, uh, but anyway, sorry, uh, with the israelites. Again, there is no archaeological proof that says israelites were here. Um, but we do find Semitic cities, semitic villages, specifically because we know from the pottery and the type of things that we find there that these belong to this specific people group that live and work for the Egyptian kingdom, but they lived in the space in Egypt, so we do have that Egypt, so we do have that.
Speaker 2:There's this connection to with and with the Israelites. That narrative typically falls with what we call the new kingdom period of Egypt. There's debate about the dates. There's two major arguments there's a low date and a high date, but both within the realm of the one at the end of the second intermediate period and one is right, in the New Kingdom, but it's still relatively in that same time period.
Speaker 2:But there is the cities. A number of the cities listed in the text are been documented. Egyptian Egyptologists have been able to identify a number of the cities mentioned in the israelite accounts, um and uh, but there's no mention of them specifically, except except um, the merneptah stella, but that's sometime after the exodus, right, um, but they. Merneptah is the only egyptian that references the Israel, israel in particular, but before Manepta we don't have any reference to them. But we do have depictions and each Egyptian text references to Semitic people like, like the Israelites, the Israelites would be considered a Semitic people Even when we look at the Exodus.
Speaker 2:There's a number of debate, a lot of scholars I've read. They don't take the Red Sea as the literal Red Sea as we would. It's more so like Reed, but it may have been more descriptive than name as well, because in ancient times the Reed-ed marshy area would have connected the red sea, the gulf of zoos and up all the way up to the mediterranean sea, so it would have been more water there. But what, what? There's different water levels. There's people who are studying those different water levels. But one of the interesting things about the exodus account is there is a I believe it's called an oceanographer I butcher the name people who study the uh, water, water contents water yeah, I think that's right um, hydrologist there, it is sorry, hydrologist.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a hydrologist who did a study on the, so you know where israel ends and right where the sinai. It's a plate, a tectonic, tectonic plate, right, okay, he did a study on the water under these plates and, uh, long story short, the sulfur, the sulfur readings for that water that builds up under these plates and pushes to the surface. The sulfur is so high that it creates a bitter taste in the water. And again, when we read the uh exodus accounts, they complain about the water being bitter when they're crossing over. They're like all this water's gross. Right again, to know that you would have to be in that space, like that's not right. Yeah, you know, I'm saying so. It's different information like that I think's helped to. We may not have direct archaeological evidence for the exodus, but small details like the bitter water. Um, one of the things is there's two major quail patterns. There's a researcher who looked at quail patterns. So you remember in the Exodus account they were eating quails.
Speaker 1:There is a In the wilderness, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a major quail migration pattern. There's a researcher that documents it and there's that pattern will take the quail through the Sinai at one part of the cycle yeah, oh, wow, right. And then it takes them a different spot throughout their cycle, their migration cycle Again, it's such a small thing, you would have to have been in that space. It's such a small thing, you would have to have been in that space. You have had to have experienced that to know that there is a quill cycle, a migration cycle that comes through there. So I said, all I say is, yeah, there's not direct.
Speaker 2:But man, these small little details, these towns being identified, semitic workers, documentations of Semitic peoples working in Egypt. There's a tomb scene of brick making in one of the high ranking government officials in his tomb and this scene depicts almost verbatim what is described in the book of Exodus of what the Israelites were doing to make these bricks for the buildings. And we know a lot of, a lot of in ancient Near Eastern period and a lot of structures in Egypt are built with mud brick, which is what the Israelites were doing, were making. And, yeah, this relief shows the process. It shows an Egyptian worker counting, counting, documenting the process, how many bricks they're making. So it's just this very awesome detail, small detail, things that, right, yeah, found, um, egypt egyptologists and egypt egyptian archaeologists have found that supports or demonstrates that whoever wrote, whoever wrote the Bible had to be pretty familiar, right, right, and so I've always think that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially Well cause you, you know they. They say they think Moses wrote like Genesis, exodus. So with those things, those small details he would have to, since he lived in Egypt, part of his, you know, he grew up.
Speaker 2:details he would have to since he lived in Egypt part of his, you know he grew up there, he would have to know, like those specific details. Yeah, moses is even an Egyptian name. You know when they did a study on the words of different. You know how we have we'll have loan words in English. So pizza is not an english word, but it's the word we use as english speakers, right, but we know that it's not. Um, it's italian. Don't quote me on that, I'm not familiar, but I think it's italian anyway. That's called a loan word.
Speaker 2:They looked at all the egyptian loan words in the bible and the vast majority of them are found in Exodus, right, versus Aramaic, which is the language of the Persians.
Speaker 2:The vast majority of the loan words are found in the later books Esther, nehemiah, ezra, right. So even that type of thing where someone had to be familiar enough to use all of these Egyptian words to have these different expressions Right, you would have to be familiar with that, yeah, so it's fascinating to see that in the common name of Moses being, there's even things of Semitic people being taken in and taught to learn how to write in an Egyptian way and learn Egyptian things. So that's not even a stretch. So it's consistent with what we've seen in the archaeological record that these were common things. So everything that we see accounted for in the book of Exodus and in Genesis with Joseph, it's not something that's not far fetched, that's not something that we don't see in the archaeological record. So it's just really comforting and it's just helpful and even it helps us understand those contexts, why they're making moves, because this is a part of this culture, this is what we do.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's just fascinating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. So, wow, wow, I did not know that that's interesting, yeah yeah, um, there's a researcher.
Speaker 2:He looked at um the re in the in that same region, egypt, sinai region um, the way the water can be stored in the rocks, and there are shepherds who know, if you tap the rock, certain rocks a certain way, or you know which one, you know you're going to get water out of them. Okay, what's interesting is because we've always read the uh narrative where moses taps the rock and he taps it, and then in the story we have to look at the details. Yahweh told him the miracle wasn't the water coming out, him tapping the rock. The last time, moses was supposed to speak to the rock, but he didn't do that. What did he do? He tapped. He did the regular way. So he got in trouble because he tapped it when God told him to speak to it.
Speaker 2:There's no thing for it to tap the rock. I know how to turn a faucet on, but, baby, what happens when I speak to the faucet and the water comes out? Right, it's that of god was supposed to be glorified in this moment, but you didn't do that. You was getting caught up in your feelings and you didn't do what you're supposed to do. So it's even in small stuff like that. It's okay, I see how the text is moving. It was about moses failing to as a leader, as what god has told you to do, you were failed to do. It showed up in the space. I wanted to show these people that, but you didn't call it in your field. So everybody can everybody know about the tap of the rock. That's not special. What would have been special is you speak into that rock and water coming out huh right, I did not know that that is an.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting. Yeah, there there are people who do hydrologists. I mean, I didn't even know it was a thing I did not know that that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:There are people who do hydrologists I mean, I didn't even know it was a thing but people who study in these types of things. And you would have to. It makes sense because there are Bedouin people who live out in these desert areas. And you're like, even if you go to Israel, in the wilderness area of the desert desert area of Israel, there are people who live out there. They can live out there. It's because they know about the different oases, the different water sources in that area, that area, so they know where to draw from right. It'll be no different in the Sinai region or whatever desert region. You would to live out there. You would have to know those things. Yeah, and again, that shows the writer. That writer would have to be familiar with this process of drawing water from rocks right in the area and where to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, this has been a very insightful conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I tell people we get so caught up in they found a wagon wheel in the red sea which is not. That's not real, it's not true. We gotta let that one go. Um, like it kind of, we're trying to see these things, but I think all of these smaller I think they're super dope. These smaller things offer so much more to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the details, the details of, like the selling of the slave for 20, you said, 20 shekels are knowing the environment like the shepherds. Tapping on the rock is something that is pretty like built in and then to just let it flow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, Because with the 20 shekels, think about it. If this is coming from a person who's writing hundreds of years later, um, they would have put the price. If they're making it up, by the way, too, right, you would have put the price the current, that price at at that time. They like to say that those accounts were written at least during the exile or after the exile, and that's when the cost of a slave to each of them is at 50 to 60 shekels. Well, if you're writing something and you're making something up, you would put that number. You don't have the number of a slave past that period. Those numbers wouldn't match. You see, I'm saying like it's like okay, someone knows something, someone is getting some account that has experienced this space in some way. You have to acknowledge that, that's so I I always offer that. What do I do with that information? That's, you want to say it's made up, but where are they getting this accurate data? Where to get this information?
Speaker 1:there has to be some type of either documented or verbal tradition that knows these things you know, yeah well, could you tell us, like you, you've told us so many other good fun facts about Egypt, but is there a fun fact about Egypt that you'd like to share with us? That, since you've been studying egypt?
Speaker 2:oh, let me see a fun fact about egypt. I, I don't know, there's so many of them let me see here. Or something that I've already shared. Let me say, um, I just think the the visually, visually, to see egypt, to see it in person, really adds so much to our understanding. Like I said with the black land, red land thing, to me those types of things are fascinating because, wow, you can see what they're talking about and you're like, okay, I kind of get what you visually see it like. Um, no, I'll give my favorite.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite pharaohs is the female pharaoh, hathor, I mean Hatshepsut, and so it was really cool to see her temple. He even made a temple, her temple that she constructed and how she depicted herself, how determined she was to be respected. But then whoever was right behind her didn't like what she did, so they destroyed a lot of her work, you know, so it's, that's always interesting, um, but it shows you that there's significant female leadership. Okay, um, female rulers. And she was probably more dominant than Nefertiti, but we always hear about Nefertiti, you know, right, yeah, that was interesting. When I learned about her, I was like, why is everybody talking about Nefertiti? Hatshepsut did way more than Nefertiti. So I think what surprised me is what's highlighted versus what, what's talked about versus what's not, and that's always been most surprising.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, let's wrap up here. Our last question is what encouragement could you offer, you know, believers that want to live faithfully for Christ?
Speaker 2:My encouragement would be we may start to always ask God to increase your faith. I know things happen. We see things in our life, we read things. There are so many people that are against your faith. I know things happen. We see things in our life, we read things. There are so many people that are against your faith. But I would always ask God to restore your faith.
Speaker 2:Maintain your faith, build your faith, because it does so much more for when you're doing life and life is life and you can stand on your faith. You can stand on what you believe and as God sends you more and more, he will affirm your faith. He will on your faith. You can stand on what you believe and as God sends you more and more, he will affirm your faith. He will build your faith. So that's usually always my biggest encouragement because that's what he did for me. I remember this journey I started. It has built my faith and strengthened my faith in so many ways that when things are bad or hard or whatever, I can stand on that faith. So that's usually always my encouragement.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, thank you again for being on the show.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for having me. I love to. I've said it before. You know I love nerding out, so that's always awesome, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, take care. Wasn't that a fascinating conversation about Egypt and how, knowing just the details of the things that they find in Egypt, the stories of the Egyptians as they documented what happened, and then how archaeologists can go and dig up and see what a culture was like during that time? I especially found the, I guess, the science or I don't even know if you would call it science, but just the fact that the shepherds could tap on the rock and then they could get water out of it. So it makes that story of Moses and Israel in the wilderness just come alive.
Speaker 1:As far as you know you, you can see how God works. He doesn't work in the ordinary mundane. Well, he does, but he, he works supernaturally. So the things that would naturally occur you know God, because he is the creator of everything he circumvent, he can circumvent the natural occurring processes. Say, for instance, you know, when Moses and the Israelites and Joshua were fighting I can't remember what nation that they were fighting, or it might have been Joseph, either way God allowed the sun not to go down.
Speaker 1:You know, of course, you know that's something supernatural that happened are like we were talking about in our episode how the separets could tap on the rock and then the water would flow. But God wanted to do something supernatural. He wanted Moses to talk to the rock and then the water would flow. So it just goes back to seeing the character and nature of God and how God has given us the Bible as not only a narrative but also a guide and to show up and to show us who he is, even though it may not give us all the answers that we want. But God gives us enough to show us who he is and that he is all powerful, he's all knowing, he's sovereign and that he is fully able to take care of us.
Speaker 1:And that's always exciting. So I hope this episode about Egypt was fascinating for you as it was for me. If you want to leave a review on Apple or Spotify and remember God is always good and is always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do me a favor by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you.
