Jacob and Khufu/Cheops

Jacob and Khufu/Cheops. Part 1: Introduction & General Match:

(The purpose of this article is to show proofs that Jacob matches Khufu/Cheops of the 4th dynasty of ancient Egyptian history.)

Is the history in the Bible true or a lie/myth? To answer this one has to objectively and thoroughly look into history and archaeology as well as textual criticism to see if there are or are not quality matches or clashes between the Bible and history. However, many scholars have been investigating history but have come to differing conclusions as to whether the bible and history match or not, and there is an uneven struggle between orthodox/conventional chronology and alternative chronologies. Conventional chronology has found some matches between the bible and history, but they also claim that there are quite afew/alot of supposed major gaps and/or clashes. Meanwhile some alternative chronologies including ours contend that they have found far better horizontal and vertical matches than the conventional chronology has, and they show that there are matches for most of the history in the bible. The conventional chronology views hold the reigning mainstream position in the modern world while alternative chronologies are largely dismissed/ignored, and so it is necessary to challenge them if there is evidence they are wrong/untrue, because it is important that people know the truth and not false views or lies.

Now, with a view to proving whether the history in the bible is true or not, and whether the orthodox chronology or an alternative chronology is right, we need to pick some few best pinpoint examples because the subject/topic/field of biblical history and archaeology covers a too large amount of time and number of nations for one person to be able address at one time in one article. In the bible one of the nations which the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews had alot of contact with throughout biblical history is Egypt, and among these contacts with Egypt one of the major ones is the one of Joseph and Jacob in Egypt (in Genesis). Conventional chronology claims/asserts/contends/believes that Joseph was in Egypt in the Hyksos period, but they also claim/admit that they have found "little or no actual matches evidences of Joseph and Moses in Egypt" in the dynasties they assert they were contemporary with. One of the only few major widely-favoured alternative chronologies is Rohl's which contends/holds that Joseph was in Egypt in the (11th-)12th dynasty. However, the true time of Joseph in Egypt seems to actually rather be the 3rd-4th dynasty as suggested and evidenced by Mohler's, Wyatt's, Hoeh's and my own findings. One of the most interesting Joseph in the 3rd-4th dynasty evidences is the one that Jacob surely seems to match "king/pharaoh" Khufu/Cheops of the 4th dynasty. This article is gopng to focus on trying to show that our case for Jacob matching Khufu is itself a stark enough match evidence that the conventional chronology is wrong and our chronology is right.

Dates match or "mismatch"?
Before we can address the more awesome actual matches between Khufu/Cheops and Jacob we first need to address the chronological aspect. What would convince people that Jacob matches Khufu? The only major reason we can see that the mainstream historical establishment refuse to accept that Jacob = Khufu is even possible is because they claim that they are supposedly different dates according to their expert conventional chronology and so can't be contemporaries. Khufu/Cheops was supposedly "2500s" bc in their chronology, while Jacob was ca 1800s bc in biblical chronology. Now our own answer to this is that the conventional chronology dates of the dynasties are only modern theoretical ascribed dates without any real concrete proofs and hardly any major pin/pillar/staple supports. The whole subject of this Egyptian chronology dispute is too big to address in this article, and this article's prupose is only to show the matches between Jacob & Khufu/Cheops, so we can only give some quick short evidences on this "different dates" dispute.

To match Egyptian and biblical history one has to have both vertical chronological matches of dates, and horizontal synchronisms matches of events/persons/places/details.
The bible's internal vertical chronology is not majorly disputed. Joseph was 430 or "215" years before Moses who was 480 years before Solomon who was ca 1000/900s bc.

Some people dispute whether the period in Egypt between Joseph and Moses was 430 or "215" years, and whether 600 or 400 years between Abraham and Moses, but evidence seems to support the longer periods/ages/lengths.

Genesis says 400 yrs (or "4 generations of a 100 yrs") in a foreign land.
The Greek Septuagint version of Exodus says "430 years in Egypt and Canaan", and the Septuagint and DSS and Josephus all imply 215 years.
The Hebrew/Jewish Masoretic Text of Exodus says "430 years in Egypt".
Stephen in Acts 7 says enslaved 400 yrs, though Paul says 430 yrs after Abraham in Galatians 3:17.
Versions only mention 400/430 yrs, they don't mention any 200/215 years.
"Egypt and Canaan" could mean either Canaan (Abraham-Joseph) and then Egypt (Joseph-Moses), or Egypt which held sway over Canaan at the time (as also alot during ancient history), and/or the Torah does imply some sons of Ephraim/Manasseh were in Canaan while the others were in Egypt.
400/430 years is in line with other 40/42 years trials periods of the flood, wildernss wanderings, Elijah, Jesus' temptation, 42 months in Revelation (see Rick Warren's book), as well as also the 480 yrs between Moses and Solomon.
Some add up the years of Levi 137, Kohath 133, Amram 137, and Moses 80, which seems to imply a period closer to 215 yrs, but it has been claimed that the word for begat/son in Exdous 6 genealogies is not direct son of like in the Genesis genealogies, and so implies gaps between Levi & Kohath & Amram, though others have claimed it is not true that the Exodus begats/sons words are not direct son of? Other tribal genalogies like that of Caleb have a larger number of generations between the sons of Jacob and the post-Exodus persons/
Joseph was in the 3rd-4th dynasty. There were "300 years" from Surid (3rd/4th dynasty) to the "flood" in Masudi.

Conventional Egyptian chronology though has only a small number of vertical chronological dating methods and they are all unreliable.
- The only one major pillar of modern ascribed dates of the Egyptian dynasties is the 2 Sothaic/Siriadic dates for the 12th and 18th dynasties. However, some orthodox sources admit that the sothoaic/siriadic dating is problematic and that they have supposedly moved away from it (even though they still retain the dates).
- Adding up hundreds of Egyptian/Assyrian kings and dynasties reigns lengths is unreliable. In addition, the 1st Intermediate Period is a lacuna of uncertain/indefinite length. And yet they claim that regnal years are the backbone of contemporary Egyptian chronology.
The date of the first dynasty has ranged from 5000 years bc to 2000s years bc in conventional sources of modern times. A few decades ago the orthodx date of the 1st dynasty were suddenly reduced by "400 years closer to the present" due to deciding some dynasties were contemporary or overlapped. (Though one source seems to say that the modern coventional Egyptology still has this particular 300-400 yrs difference in opinions of 1st 8 dynasties dates.) Sources say dates may still be out by up to a few centuries for the Old Kingdom dates (refs Clayton, Wiki, etc).

Joseph's/Jacob's biblical or proposed date ranges at maximum from 1980 bc, to 1876 bc, to 1749/1727-1658 bc (Jerome), to 1706 bc (Usher, Oxford), to 1657/1635 bc (NWT) to 1647/1621 (Compton) to 900 bc (PSBA)?

(Joseph's placement in Egyptian history has ranged from 2nd dyn (me, a Hancock forum poster), to 3rd dyn (Mohler, Wyatt, Walker, me), to 4th dyn (Hoeh, me), to 5th dyn (Courville, Wyatt, me), to 11th dyn (Rohl), to 12th dyn (Courville, Hoeh, Rohl, Alford, Bullen), to 13th dyn (Aufni), to 15/16th dyn (Bey, Compton, conventional), to "immediately before 18th dyn" (Bey), to 18th dyn (Marquart, Jeremias, Mercer, Barton, Rancke, Boysen, Albright, Osman, Sullivan), to 19th dyn (2018 linkedin comment), to 19th-20th dyn (Sayce, PSBA), to 22nd dyn (PSBA)?)

The traditional or theoretical date of the 3rd dynasty and/or Sekhemhet's pyramid has ranged from 4945-4731 bc (Petrie), to 3966-3766 (Bey), to 3712 (Rhodius), to ca 3200s (Sekhmekhet carbon date), to 2980-2900 (Breasted, Berlin school), to 27th cent / 2686-2613 bc (Shaw, current conventional consensus), to 1737-1663 (Hoeh).

The traditional or theoretical date of the 4th dynasty and/or Great Pyramid and/or Sphinx has ranged from "150,000" yrs ago (some believe), to "73,300" yrs ago (Balkhi), to "10,000 yrs bc" (Pyrmamidology), to Age of Leo/Cancer (Hancock, Tomas), to 7000-5000 bc (Schoch), to "4731" (Petrie), to "3733" (Bey), to 2900-2750 (Breasted, Berlin), to "The boat of Khufu dates 200 years before Egyptological date of pyramids built", to "2690", to 27th cent bc / 2613-2498/2494 (Shaw, Clayton), to "Kate Spence's astronomical work says Khufu's pyramid should be  dated 50 years the other way from the historical  date ... in other words 250 years lower than the radiocarbon date", to 2144/2140 (astronomical?), to "1726-1703/1699/1663" (Hoeh), to "838" bc (Newton), to "not before 800 ad" (Fomenko)?

Josephus' information that Menes of the 1st dynasty was only 1300 years before Shishak/Solomon (1000/900s bc), and Herodotus' information that Moeris of the 12th dynasty was only 900 yrs before 26th/28th dynasty both support a ca 1800s date of the 3rd/4th dynasty.

Radiometric dating like carbon dating is contended to have proofs/evidences that it is unreliable (even though the exact reason why/how is not known), and it depends on the rates/speeds having always been the same uniformitarian rate/speed as in modern times. Orthodox sources themselves say that material in Sekhemhet's complex dates 600 years older than the conventional Egyptological date of the 3rd dynasty, and their own published works do not follow the carbon date but the Egyptological date. Thera's carbon date conflicts with its conventional "archaeological" date by 100 or more years. A 2013 study on the 1st dynasty yielded carbon date of 32nd-31st century as compared/contrasted to the conventional (34th-)30th century ((3400-)3000), which is a difference of 1-2-3 centuries despite them trying to make it seem like a match by using centuries and using the 400 yrs range between the old 1906 and the modern 2000 ascribed dates for the 1st dynasty. Carbon dates conflict with stark horizontal matches evidences like Jacob = Khufu. Where there is a seeming conflict one has to decide which is the more likely right. In the case of Sekhemhet and Thera they admit either is possible, but with alternative scholars evidences they just unfairly/dishonestly regard their "scientific" dating methods as infallible and reject other matches evidences as supposedly not equal to their conflicting "scientific" evidences.

Dating by the Apis bulls sequence has the problem with that there is a gap between the 20th and 22nd dynasties, and it only covers the 18th to 33rd dynasties period. Plus it is said there is poor documentaion, and i have seen 2 different lifespan ages of Apis bulls in different sources.

There are also other vertical dating evidences which conflict with their vertical chronology but which they unfairly reject or dismiss as supposedly "unreliable" or "not authorities". Eg Herodotus said Moeris (of the 12th dynasty) was only 900 yrs before 26th or 28th dynasty. Josephus said Menes was 1300 yrs before Shishak/Solomon.

Conventional Egyptian & Biblical chronology has only a small number of claimed horizontal matches, and some are wrong or weak. They admit that there are many places where there are no matches or are conflicts, eg "no trace of Joseph and Moses in Egyptian history (in dynasties we place them in)", "no trace of exodus in this time we place it, maybe it was only minor in Egyptian's views" (paraphrase from Millard etc), "not anymuch evidence of Joshua's Jericho in this strata which we place it" (paraphrase from Millard, Sharrukin, etc), "Sheshonk's campaign list doesn't match Shishak's". Moreover other scholars have found much better stronger matches in other dynasties which evidence that the conventional ascribed dates wrong and that the alternative chronology is right. Jacob's stark matches with Khufu is one such weighty match.
Shechem was mentioned in 12th dynasty execration texts, and in the bible Shechem is first founded in Jacob's time, so Jacob can't be later than the 12th dynasty.

Since the orthodox chronology's ascribed dates are only theory and areevidenced to be unreliable/wrong, one can't match biblical and Egyptian history by orthodox ascribed dates. We instead searched through all of ancient dynastic Egyptian history and we found that the only best times that there are matches for Joseph in Egypt is the 3rd-4th dynasty which periodhas alot of quality matches with the details in Genesis. One can also confirm this by comparing the whole timelines of Egyptian and Biblical histories side by side to get an idea of what periods roughly match. Joseph was relatively early in overall biblcial history, like the 3rd-4th dynasty is in overall Egyptian history, while the orthodox Hyksos placement and Rohl's alternative 12th dynasty placement has Joseph too late in overall Egyptian history (see tables). In the old orthodox scenario you can see they have no matches with biblical in all the time before the 11th/12th dynasty! The placement of Joseph and Jacob in the 3rd-4th dynasties also fits with other found previous and suceeding matches between Egyptian and Biblical history (see table). We can't yet fully prove the dates of the Egyptian dynasties, but we can show that the conventional chronology's few vertical dating methods and few horizontal "synchronisms" are wrong, and we can show plenty of strong matches evidences for the true synchronisms between Biblical and Egyptian histories (horizontal matches, and some vertical dating evidences like the aforementioned ones of Herodotus and Josephus).

Orthodox/conventional/consensus chronology:
(3rd/4th dyn -- Byblos -- "2600s/2500s" bc)
(5th dyn -- Sahure in Palestine)
(6th dyn -- Ebla)
11th-12th dyn -- patriarchs, Shechem -- "2000s/1900s" bc
15th-16th dyn (Hyksos) -- Joseph -- "1700s" bc
18th dyn (Amarna) -- Israel not yet in Canaan
19th dyn -- Ramses/Moses/exodus -- "1300/1200s" bc*
19th dyn (Israel Stele) -- Israel*
19th dyn -- Edom (domination of Sinai, ref McEvedy/Penguin)
20th dyn (Peleset Sea Peoples) -- Saul
21st dyn -- David
22nd dyn (Sheshonk) -- Shishak/Rehoboam -- eponym
22nd dyn (Osorkhon) -- Zerah/Asa
25th dyn -- So, Tirhakah, Assyrians
26th dyn -- Necho, Hophra/Vaphres
27th dyn -- Persians.

Rohl's alternative "new" chronology:
(... -- Babel -- Eridu)
(11th-)12th dyn -- Joseph -- "1800s" bc
(12th-)13th dyn -- Moses/exodus
(13th dyn -- Yantin/Byblos -- Mari, Old Babylonian)
evidence of horse/chariots a little before Hyksos
15th/16th dyn (plague pits, Hyksos) -- Joshua/Anakim
18th dyn (Amarna) -- Saul/David
19th dyn (Ramses 2) -- Shishak
TIP difficult period
22nd dyn -- Phoenicians

Our tentative chronology:
1st or 2nd dyn -- Abraham? -- 2000s bc
2nd/3rd-4th/5th dyn -- Joseph/Jacob -- 1800s bc
FIP Asiatics -- Hebrews in Egypt
11th dyn -- Elim?
(6th? &/or) 12th(-13th) dyn -- Moses/exodus -- ca 1400s bc
15/16th dyn (Hyksos) -- Amalek? Anak? Judges, Edom? Jabin? Midian?
400 yrs Hyksos to 19th dyn -- 480 yrs Moses to Solomon
17th dyn -- Sisera
18th dyn -- Abimelech?
18th dyn -- Tahtimodshi?
18th dyn (Amarna) -- David/Achish -- 1000s bc
19th dyn (Ramses 2) -- Shishak - 900s bc
19th-20th dyn -- Zerah?
20th dyn (Sea Peoples) -- Jehoshaphat?
21st dyn -- Zoan & Noph
21st/22nd dyn (Psusennes/Sheshonk/Osorkhon) -- So?
22nd-23rd -- Assyrian (ref Weigall)
25th dyn -- Tirhakah, Assyrians
26th dyn -- Necho, Hophra/Vaphres, 40 yrs -- 600-500s bc
27th dyn -- Persians.

The orthodox chronology seems to be somewhat due to an adherence to the old scenario of Manetho and Josephus and Jerome who placed the exodus in the (18th-)19th dynasty.

Joseph/Jacob in 3rd-4th dynasties:
One other piece of general evidence just before we get in to the really interesting Jacob/Khufu matches: There are many matches evidences for Joseph in the 3rd-4th dynasties period, and this is a major reason which supports our placement of Jacob in the 4th dynasty, but there are too many Joseph evidences to write about in this article, and this article's only main purpose is to show the stark matches between Khufu/Cheops and Jaocb, and so we will only briefly list some example Joseph in the 3rd-4th dynasty matches evidences:
- 7 years drought/famine of Djoser/Zoser.
- models of granaries in Old Kingdom tombs.
- Bent Pyramid may symbolise 7 yrs plenty and 7 yrs scarcity?
- Ra-hotep priest of Heliopolis/On (and/or leader of the warriors of the monarch) may match Potiphera priest of On/Heliopolis (and/or Potiphar captain of the guard?)
- Names similar to Joseph including Djoser/Zoser, Im-hotep, Souphis, Djedef-re.
- Possible matches for Joseph's Egyptian name Zaphenath-Paneah include: Kha-sekhemwy, Sekhemhet (Djoserty-ankh), Huni, Sneferu, Saophis Comastes, Sphinx/Shepshepankh, Shepseskaf, Djedefptah/Thamphthis? Sekhemhet's pyramid complex has many seeming matches similarities with Joseph's story.
These and other Joseph evidences are discussed more in detail in other posts/papers/articles of ours.

Other scholars agree/confirm:
Walker, Mohler, Wyatt, Hoeh, Courville, and myself all agree that evidences agree with Joseph being in the 2nd/3rd-4th/5th dynasties period. A paragraph in Keller's book also implied a connection of Djoser's drought/famine and Joseph's famine.
Other researchers including Bristowe, Fasold, and two forum posters have alternatvely similarily suggested Shem/Melchizedek or Abraham or Job or Seir or Moses were in the same period, in connection with the same persons and places (Imhotep, Surid/Seris/Shaaru, Cheops, Philitis, Unas).
Some scholars have dated 3rd-4th dynasty to about the same time as Joseph/Jacob (see previous section on dates match).

In part 2 we will get to showing the awesome stark Jacob & Khufu/Cheops matches evidences.