Table of Contents
Expedition Bible treats the Exodus pharaoh as a dating problem. From 1 Kings 6:1 he counts four hundred eighty years from Israel leaving Egypt to Solomon’s first temple year. He puts that year at 966 BC, adds the span, and gets 1446 BC, inside the reign he calls Amenhotep II. Josephus quoting Manetho is his outside witness for that name. Two more tests follow. The previous king must have ruled longer than Moses’ forty years away, and the heir was not the firstborn, which he links to the last plague and to a Sphinx text about a missing crown prince. A Delta palace, he says, was abandoned in that reign. Ramses II is much later, with only a brief reign before him, so the late date has to shrink the biblical number and set Manetho, Stephen, and Jephthah aside. A city called Ramses, he argues, can be a newer name for an older place.
Key points
- The host puts the departure in 1446 BC by counting forward from Solomon’s temple year.
- He reads Manetho, through Josephus, as already naming an Amenhotep for that departure.
- Amenhotep II fits, he argues, because the previous reign was long and the heir was not the eldest son.
- A Delta palace abandoned in that reign, and a Sphinx text about a missing crown prince, are his extra checks.
- Ramses II fails the same tests, and shortening the biblical span is called an agenda, not a reading.
- A later city name, he says, does not pull the departure down into the Ramses era.
Short quotes
so to get the date of The Exodus all we have to do is add 480 years to 966 BC and we get 1446 BC
Expedition Bible, Amenhotep II and the Exodus
He turns Solomon’s temple year plus the biblical interval into 1446 BC. Watch at 5:15
his firstborn son died mysteriously we know from the Egyptian records
Expedition Bible, Amenhotep II and the Exodus
He treats the missing eldest son as the mark of the final plague. Watch at 7:52
sometimes the Bible uses later names for cities in place of earlier ones
Expedition Bible, Amenhotep II and the Exodus
A newer place name, he says, need not date the story that uses it. Watch at 14:06
Video by Expedition Bible. Watch on YouTube.