Tuesday, August 20 we visited the King Tut Exhibit at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. I thought this was an excellent exhibit and we all had a good time in the museum. Unfortunately, they would not let us take photos in the exhibit area, so this will not include the photos that I enjoy posting here.
After seeing the museum presentations of King Tut, I thought it would be interesting to do some research about the Pharaohs and their interaction with the Bible. I was specifically interested in the time of Moses and the Pharaohs that he would have known or been known by. It turns out that these pharaohs would have been Thutmose 1, 2, 3 and Amenhotep II who followed Thutmose III. These were several hundreds years prior to the King Tut that we visited.
Remember that Moses was found in the bulrushes by a princess (probably the daughter of Thutmose 1). Her name is Nefure and was later known as Queen Hatshepsut who co-ruled with Thutmose II and later Thutmose III (her step-son). She was a very powerful woman and leader in her own right.
Of course, we could find information in the history textbooks but I chose to do all of my research on the Internet. The first place to look for information of historic value is often Wikipedia. So, I did a search and read Thutmose’s wiki. There is plenty of interesting reading about Thutmose III according to Wikipedia. However, we often have to read the wikis with an understanding that these are written by others just like you and me. To be most accurate, much of this is probably written by professors and others with better than average abilities to understand history. The downside of Wikipedia is that it is often written and edited by people who do not regard the Bible as authoritative, so we also need to get information from the Bible and other Bible scholars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thutmose_III
Another history writer about Bible times is Josephus. His lifetime and writing occurred during the first century AD. I don’t know where he got his information about Moses, but I suppose it was passed down by word of mouth, so it could certainly have included some exaggerations. Josephus stated that Moses became a general under Thutmose III but Thutmose took credit for his victories. According to Josephus it was during one of these campaigns that he met his Ethiopian wife. We do know as a fact from the Bible that Moses did have an Ethiopian wife.
http://www.biblehistory.net/Moses_Pharaoh.pdf
There is also evidence in Acts 7 and Hebrews 11:24 that would show the royal importance of Moses. Perhaps he could have even succeeded Thutmose II. Read this:
http://www.bibarch.com/Chronology/Exodus/Hathseptsut.htm
The following link is also a very interesting bit of research from a Biblical viewpoint. It is easy to see how Moses could have actually become a Pharaoh himself.
http://biblelight.net/moses.htm
Unfortunately, you can see that there are certainly a good number of opinions about who Moses was or when he lived, etc. It is most important that we KNOW he really did live and delivered the Jews from Egypt into the Promised Land (Canaan/Israel).
So, I invite you to join my adventure and follow the links above and even find some more on your own. However, please don’t let all of this become more confusing that it should.
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