Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great: The Mystery of the Exodus
Transcript
- Lucas: So, Luna, we've covered Ramses the builder, Ramses the diplomat, Ramses the father — but there's one Ramses that lingers in the popular imagination more than any other, and it's the one we haven't touched yet: Ramses the possible pharaoh of the Exodus. Luna: Oh, right — the Moses story. I've always wondered if there's any actual evidence for that. Lucas: That's the million-dollar question. The biblical book of Exodus describes a pharaoh who refused to let the Israelites go, who suffered ten plagues, and whose army was drowned in the Red Sea. And because Ramses II was such a towering figure — and because the Bible mentions a city called 'Raamses' — he's been the prime candidate for centuries. Luna: But what do the Egyptian records actually say? Anything about Moses or the plagues? Lucas: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that's the first problem. Egyptian inscriptions are notoriously boastful — they record every minor military victory, every building project, every diplomatic marriage. But there is not a single hieroglyph that mentions Moses, or a mass departure of slaves, or a series of catastrophic plagues. Not a word. Luna: So the whole story might be a myth? Lucas: Well, not necessarily a myth — but it's almost certainly not a straightforward historical account. Let's look at what we do have. There's a stele from Pharaoh Merneptah, Ramses's son, dating to about 1208 BCE. It's the only ancient Egyptian text that mentions 'Israel' — and it's just one line: 'Israel is laid waste, its seed is not.' That's it. It suggests that by Merneptah's time, there was a people called Israel in Canaan. But it says nothing about an Exodus. Luna: So that means the Exodus, if it happened at all, had to have happened before Merneptah's reign. Lucas: Exactly. And that pushes it back earlier than Ramses II — maybe to the 18th Dynasty, or even earlier. Some scholars point to the expulsion of the Hyksos around 1550 BCE as a possible kernel of truth. The Hyksos were Semitic rulers of northern Egypt, and their overthrow was remembered for centuries. But that's a very different story from the Exodus. Luna: What about the plagues? Could they have been natural phenomena exaggerated over time? Lucas: Absolutely. Scholars have proposed all sorts of explanations. The Nile turning to blood could have been a red algae bloom. The frogs, lice, and flies could follow from that. Hail and locusts are not uncommon in the region. Even the death of the firstborn might be linked to a disease that preferentially affected the eldest — or it's a theological motif. But there's one document that's often brought up: the Ipuwer Papyrus. Luna: I've heard of that — it describes plagues in Egypt, right? Lucas: It does. It's a poem from around the 13th century BCE that laments a time of chaos: 'The river is blood. Men shrink from tasting — human beings thirst after water.' It also mentions gates and walls being destroyed, and the land being without light. It sounds eerily similar to the plagues of Exodus. But here's the catch: the Ipuwer Papyrus is almost certainly not describing a single historical event. It's a literary lament about the breakdown of social order — probably written centuries earlier, during the First Intermediate Period, around 2100 BCE. The parallels are striking, but they're coincidental. Luna: So it's not evidence, just an interesting echo. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the challenge with the whole Exodus story. There's no direct archaeological evidence for a huge migration of people from Egypt into the Sinai. The total number of Israelites given in the Bible — 600,000 men, plus women and children — would mean over two million people. There's no trace of such a group wandering in the desert for forty years. No campsites, no graves, no pottery. It's just not there. Luna: But some scholars still argue for a historical Exodus, just on a smaller scale? Lucas: Yes. A common theory is that the Exodus story is a foundational myth that grew out of the experience of a small group of Semitic slaves who escaped Egypt — perhaps during the reign of Ramses II or his father Seti I. Over centuries, that story was expanded and theological by later writers, especially during the Babylonian exile, when the Israelites needed a story of divine deliverance. The name 'Ramses' in the Bible might just be a later addition to give the story a familiar setting. Luna: So Ramses II is more of a symbolic figure than a historical villain in this story. Lucas: Exactly. He's the archetypal oppressive pharaoh, but he might not have been the actual one. And honestly, Ramses's own records show that he employed a lot of Semitic people — we have records of 'Apiru' or 'Habiru', a term for displaced people, sometimes translated as 'Hebrews', working on building projects at Per-Ramesses. But they weren't slaves in the sense we think of — they were laborers, often paid, sometimes even rising to high positions. Luna: So the Exodus story might have some historical roots, but it's been heavily mythologized. Lucas: That's the most balanced view. The Bible itself is a theological document, not a history book in the modern sense. The Exodus is a story about God's power and his covenant with Israel. Whether it happened exactly as written — or even whether it happened at all — is less important to faith than what it says about the relationship between God and his people. But as historians, we have to follow the evidence, and the evidence just doesn't support a literal reading. Luna: It's fascinating how even today, the debate over the Exodus is so charged. Lucas: It is. Because it touches on the foundations of three major religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And for many people, questioning the historicity of the Exodus feels like questioning the Bible itself. But you can hold both: you can appreciate the profound spiritual meaning of the story while acknowledging that it may not be a factual account. Ramses II, for his part, probably never knew he'd become the villain of one of the world's most famous stories. Luna: A legacy he never could have imagined. Lucas: Right. And that's a good place to leave it. Next time, we'll look at Ramses's final years — how the great pharaoh faced old age, death, and his own mortality. Thanks for listening. Luna: Thanks, Lucas. That was really enlightening.