Evidence for Genesis

In order for us to make a cohesive argument for the Creation account, the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah and the stories that lead into the Exodus, you'll need to understand the Old Earth interpretation of Genesis first.

Axis of Evil
This discovery was made in the early 2000s that show that, based on anomalies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (or CMB radiation), we can deduce that our solar system is in the centre of the universe! This violates the Copernican Principle that states that we are not privileged observers of the universe and we are simply a cosmic accident.

This idea was again affirmed in 2013 when the Planck Satellite returned and it's findings were published, affirming the anomalies in the CMB as not just a mess-up, but something that is a genuine problem for atheistic scientists.

In a paper published in 2016 titled Preferred Axis in Cosmology, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences states:


 * "This problem has been investigated in the literature and shows a significant dominance on the CMB power spectrum stored in the odd multipoles over the even ones. This odd parity preference was also confirmed in the recent Planck data. By defining various directional statistics, in previous works, we investigated the directional properties of the CMB parityasymmetry, and found that CMB parity violation favors a preferred direction, which is independent of the choice of the statistics. In this paper, we shall review the directional properties of the CMB parity asymmetry, and search for the preferred directions stored in CMB low multipoles. In particular, we compare this preferred direction with the announced preferred directions in CMB quadrupole and octopole, and find that these directions have strong correlations. The alignment between them is also confirmed at more than 3σ confidence level. This result indicates that the CMB parity asymmetry should have a common explanation with other anomalies including the alignment problem of CMB low multipoles, the low quadrupole problem, and the lack of large-scale correlation. Most importantly, we find that all these preferred directions are coincident with the direction of CMB kinematic dipole. In addition, the preferred directions were also reported in a number of other cosmological observations: the velocity flows, quasar alignment, anisotropy of the cosmic acceleration, the handedness of spiral galaxies, and angular distribution of the fine-structure constant. Even though there are many debates, it was also reported that all these preferred directions seem to coincide with the CMB kinematic dipole."

Basically all that jargon states that the number of these alignments found in the CMB are steadily multiplying as more discoveries are being made. It appears the more we research the Axis of Evil, the more we find it violates everything we had initially thought of our existence in the universe according to the Copernican Principle.

Lawrence Krauss, one of the leading voices in the New Atheist movement, stated this in an Edge article:


 * "...when you look at CMB map, you also see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun — the plane of the earth around the sun — the ecliptic. That would say we are truly the centre of the universe."

He went on to state:


 * "The new results are either telling us that all of science is wrong and we're the centre of the universe, or maybe the data is imply incorrect, or maybe it's telling us there's something weird about the microwave background results and that maybe, maybe there's something wrong with our theories on the larger scales. And of course as a theorist I'm certainly hoping it's the latter, because I want theory to be wrong, not right, because if it's wrong there's still work left for the rest of us."

Krauss just can't help but be excited over this discovery, even though it would be something that completely undermines his theological position. Atheist scientists are panicking over this discovery. Just like how Einstein was forced to become a theist after publishing his theory of general relativity, these "experts" are scrambling to find an explanation as to why we are essentially in the centre of the universe.

The Occam's Razor explanation (the explanation that requires the least amount of assumptions) is that we are, in fact, privileged observers of the universe. We are not insignificant bags of molecules. Someone or something has put us here.

S.U.R.G.E
This acronym states the five main pieces of evidence that show the universe had a beginning, whilst also inferring the idea that an intelligent mind is necessary in a "creation" process.

Second Law of Thermodynamics
Everyone knows the SLOT. Heat energy cannot continuously flow from one source to another forever. Everything is running down. That means that someone or something must have wound it up. This suggests the universe had a beginning.

Alexander Vilenkin, an agnostic theoretical physicist, stated:
 * “It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

This argument has it's origins from an Islamic philosopher named Al-Kundi who coined the idea of Kalam philosophy, which led to the development of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Richard Feynman, an atheist Nobel Prize winner stated:


 * "... the fact that there are rules at all to be checked is a kind of miracle; that it is possible to find a rule, like the inverse square law of gravitation, is some sort of miracle. It is not understood at all, but it leads to the possibility of prediction - that means it tells you what you would expect to happen in an experiment you have not yet done."

Universe Expansion Rate
Edwin Hubble discovered in 1929 that the universe is expanding. He concluded that, at some point, everything in the universe came from a single point in time - called the singularity, which is basically nothing. A point of infinite density where the universe had a beginning.

Stephen Hawking noted in his book A Brief History of Time that:


 * "If the Rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size."

Hawking then attempts to justify this, saying:


 * "Moreover, the rate of expansion of the universe would automatically becomes very close to the critical rate determined by the energy density of the universe. This would explain why the rate of expansion is still so close to the critical rate, without having to assume that the initial rate of expansion of the universe was very carefully chosen."

However, this does not fully explain how or why life could continue to exist seeing as the cosmos is essentially balanced on a knife's edge. See the Anthropic Principle for more on this.

Radiation Afterglow
Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of CMB radiation (check back up to the Axis of Evil for an explanation on the significance of CMB). The radiation patterns that they discovered later reinforced the Big Bang Theory and showed that at the beginning of the universe there was a massive explosion. The CMB is literally the smoking gun to the Big Bang. So who or what pulled the trigger?

Penzias seemed to be convinced of a need for a Creator upon making his discovery when he stated:


 * "... the best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, and the Bible as a whole."

Keep in mind this is the guy responsible for giving us the Big Bang Theory stating this. I'm not one to appeal to man's authority, but this seems pretty significant for him to state this.

Great Galaxy Seeds
These seeds are fine temperate variations in the Radiation Afterglow discovered by George Smoot and Robert Jastrow that allowed the galaxies to form in the early universe. They are basically bundles of matter, not too small to dissipate and not too large to have the fresh universe collapse. In light of this, an intelligent designer would still be necessary to maintain the balance of these seeds to ensure the new universe does not collapse back in on itself under it's own weight.

Upon making these discoveries, Jastrow (an agnostic) stated this:


 * "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Einstein's Theory of General Relativity
The theory of General Relativity states that space, time and matter are correlative - they all must have come into existence at the same time for existence to be possible.

If the universe is just a random collocation of atoms, as Bertrand Russel brilliantly put it, then it makes no sense for there to be uniformity in the establishment of space, matter and energy.

From what we can see of these five points, the universe not only had a beginning at some unknown point in history, but that the uniformity in the cosmos and the fine tuning of the universe for life to exist, there must be a cosmic caretaker who created all things and sustains all things. This would later develop into the Teleological Argument.

Arthur Eddington, the man who was responsible for bringing the GR theory to light in the English world, stated in 1933:


 * "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural"

MTDNA Mutation Rates
The mutation rate of our mitochondrial DNA can give valuable insights into human origin and population growth over the millennia. Several studies published by secular institutions and academic journals confirm the biblical timeline as well as the explosion of human population and origins.

The evolutionary timescale of human origins (dating to around 5.5 million years ago with the Australopithecus) relies on the idea that our mtDNA (or Mitochondrial DNA) mutation rate is one mutation every 300-600 generations, which would equate to one mutation every 6,000 to 12,000 years. However, new studies have revealed that the mutation rate was much faster than previously thought: Dr Thomas Parsons and his team made these amazing conclusions:


 * "...our observation of the substitution rate is roughly 20-fold higher than what would be predicted from phylogenic analysis. Using our empirical rate to calculate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in in an age of the mtDNA MCRA of only ~6,500 y.a."

Ann Gibbons of Science writes:


 * "Evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate. For example, researchers have calculated that "Mitochondrial Eve" - the woman whose mtDNA is ancestral to that of all living people - lived around 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6,000 years old."

More recent studies in 2015 also confirmed the recent origin of humans:


 * "... we resequenced 15,336 genes in 6,515 individuals of European American and African American ancestry and inferred the age of 1,146,401 autosomal single nucleotide variants (SNVs). We estimate that approximately 73% of all protein-coding SNVs and approximately 86% of SNVs predicted to be deleterious arose in the past 5,000–10,000 years."

Gerard Gertoux, member of the International Association of Assyriology, states:


 * The world population was 6 billion in 2000 and 1 billion in 1800 indicating a growth rate of 0.9 % (1,009) and the following equation: Population (N) = 100x(1.009)N with N = year. For example Population (2000) = 100x(1.009)2000 = 6x109. The population growth is exponential and it is easy to check that: Population = 2 when N= -437 (438 BCE). This surprising result is explained because the growth rate of the population rose sharply after the two world wars until 1964 (1,022). This rate decline since the 90s because of the contraception policy in some countries (notably China)... It is difficult to establish an average rate over a long period but the estimated curve between 1000 and 2000 shows that the growth of the world population has always been exponential despite many wars and serious epidemics like the Black Death in Europe in the years 1343-53. Consequently the new equation is: Population (N) = 11.5x106 x(1.003)N with an average growth rate of 0.3 %. (1.003). With these new figures: Population (N) = 2 (persons) when N = -5000. Estimates that predict the existence of a human population before -5000 are forced to admit that the growth rate has been rigorously 1.000 (0 %) over long periods of time, from -50,000 to -5,000, which contradicts the law of human growth, which is exponential, not constant."

Gertoux concludes:


 * "... according to the exponential law of human growth, a global population of 6 billions of individuals in 2000 CE implies a beginning of mankind around 5000 BCE."

The Biblical genealogies found in the many generations written in the text can be traced back to around 6,000-7,000 years ago when Adam and Eve would have lived. It is incredible how these secular studies confirm the origin of all human life living today to around this point.

New Testament Affirmation
This is more of an argument for the liberal Christians who believe that Adam and Eve were just allegories for the first humans. Absolutely not. Jesus did not die for a the sins of a mythical Adam who lived in a mythical garden. No original sin, no need for atonement. No need for atonement, no need for a saviour. But I hope that by citing the sources above, we can see that there is evidence for Adam and Eve's existence. Here are the affirmations of Adam and Eve in the New Testament from both Jewish and Gentile authors:

Matthew 19:4-5 - “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?" 

Luke 3:38 "...which was the son of Enos which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Romans 5:15 - "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was the come."

1 Corinthians 15:45 - "And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening of the spirit."

2 Corinthians 11:3 - "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtly, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."

1 Timothy 2:13-14 - "For Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, fell into transgression."

Jude 1:14 - "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints.'"

Ancient Confirmation
Josephus, writing in the first century AD, quotes several ancient historians who affirm that the ark came to rest somewhere in eastern Turkey and was still visible in their day : Josephus himself states:
 * Berosus the Chaldean: "It is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyaeans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away and use chiefly as amulets for the averting of mischiefs." (Some may claim that Josephus was just making up Berosus' quote, however we have Berosus' words extant to this day ).
 * Nicolaus of Damascus: "There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man whom Moses the lawgiver of the Jews wrote."
 * Hieronymus of Cardia is referenced, but a quote is not given.
 * Mnaseas is also referenced, but no quote is given.


 * "However, the Armenians called this place Apobaterion, The Place of Descent; for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown there by the inhabitants to this day."

And...


 * "...there are also in [the country called Carra] the remains of that ark; wherein it is related that Noah escaped the Deluge, and where they are still shown to such as are desirous to see them."

Theophilus of Antioch writes in the second century AD:


 * "And of the ark, the remains are to this day to be seen in the Arabian mountains."

Locals near the site call one of the nearby peaks Cudi Dağı in Turkish, or Çîyaye Cûdî in Kurdish. The Quran in Surah Hud 11:44 states:


 * "And it was said: O earth! Swallow thy water and, O sky! be cleared of clouds! And the water was made to subside. And the commandment was fulfilled. And it (the ship) came to rest upon (the mount) al Cudi and it was said: A far removal for wrongdoing folk!"

Compared to Global 'Flood Myths'
There are many stories of global deluges in the ancient world.
 * The Enuma Elish is a story of ancient Babylon that details the creation of the world, a battle between gods and a great flood. The composition of the story dates to about 1900 BC, whilst the tablets themselves date to around the 800's AD.


 * The Sumerian Flood Myth is recorded on the Sumerian King List. It details the legends of the leaders of the Sumerians before and after the Great Deluge. However, the King List itself is dated to around 2600 BC and the earliest records of the Sumerian dynasties, as far as archaeology can confirm, date to around 2900 BC, shortly after the Flood according to the Bible's genealogies.


 * The Epic of Gilgamesh has a character named Utnapishti build a cubical ark to survive a flood sent Adad the Storm God. There are many uncanny similarities of the Epic and the Biblical Flood. The latest possible date for the Epic is around 2100 BC.


 * The Australian Aborigines also had a flood myth . Neil Godfrey, a sceptic, notes on Vridar that "the Bible associates the cause of the Flood with violence across the earth; the archaeological evidence (rock art) depicts the first wars in the wake of the advancing waters robbing them of traditional land-space."


 * The Greeks had the story of Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, who builds an ark with his wife to survive flood sent by Zeus. The earliest extant account of this story is in Ovid's Metamorphosis (8 AD).

How is it that almost single civilisation in the world, from America to Australia has a story about a worldwide inundation from a wrathful god/gods that almost always details a man building an ark to survive the Flood? Surely one of them has to be true or at least have part of the truth somewhere. (This is linked to the Universal Revelation Argument).
 * The Native Americans had around 20 different flood myths to describe their origins. They even had a Flood God called Iwarrika the Trickster.

The Bible records that the Flood happened before any of these accounts. They are clearly all descended from the same event that was cataclysmic and on a global scale.

Seaworthiness of the Ark
A study done by the Korea Association for Creation Research headed by Dr Seon Wong Hong shows that a vessel with the dimensions of that found in the Genesis account was easily seaworthy and was similar to that of most ocean-liners we see today.

The description of the Ark Genesis 6 gives the length of the Ark at 300 cubits, it's breadth at 50 cubits, and it's height at 30 cubits. Based on these descriptions, the Ark would have been 135m long, 22.5m wide and 13.5m high. The study claims that these dimensions, along with several other factors, meant that the Ark was not only seaworthy, but could withstand barrages of waves up to 30 metres.

This allows us to debunk the other flood myths that include Arks, as the only one that is feasibly able to survive a flood of global proportions is the Biblical one. When Utanapishi is given the commands to build the Gilgamesh Ark, the god Ea states, ''"The boat you will build, her dimensions will be equal: her length and breadth the same." Simmond's Ark Tablet states that the Ark to be built would have "a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same."''

These arks would have tumbled during the Flood, maiming or killing it's passengers. However, the Ark of the Bible would have easily survived the Flood, based on the study I cited earlier.

Y Chromosome Molecular Clock
In a study by Nathan Jeanson and Ashley Holland show how evolutionary models of Y-Chromosome mutation rates rely on low-coverage sequence runs. We show that pedigree-based mutation rates from high-coverage sequence runs are hidden in the evolutionary literature, and we demonstrate that these rates confirm a 4,500-year history for human paternal ancestry.


 * "...based on the results of the accompanying paper (Jeanson, 2019), we also explored an alternative, better supported (see Jeanson 2019) root position, and we found that the high coverage Y chromosome mutation rate explained all but the most divergent haplogroup A branch lengths in about 4,500 years."

Fountains of the Great Deep
Genesis 7:11 tells us that the "fountains of the great deep" were broken up, causing the flood. The idea implied by the text is that there were masses of water under earth's surface. A secular study led by Graham Pearson from the University of Alberta reports a find of "vast oceans beneath earth's surface."


 * "Analysis of the mineral shows it contains a significant amount of water — 1.5 per cent of its weight — a finding that confirms scientific theories about vast volumes of water trapped 410 to 660 kilometres beneath Earth’s surface, between the upper and lower mantle. “This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth in this area,” said Pearson, a professor in the Faculty of Science, whose findings were published March 13 in Nature. “That particular zone in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world’s oceans put together.” Ringwoodite is a form of the mineral peridot, believed to exist in large quantities under high pressures in the transition zone. Ringwoodite has been found in meteorites but, until now, no terrestrial sample has ever been unearthed because scientists haven’t been able to conduct fieldwork at extreme depths."

This study validates something that was once thought as just a myth; that there are bodies of water under the earth's surface.

Evidence for a Recent Cataclysm
In an article published in the Smithsonian Magazine, Walter Pitman and William Ryan found evidence to suggest an anomalous deluge from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea. Within the last 7,500 years.


 * "In this scenario, the mud beneath the shell hash represents sediments from the rivers that fed the freshwater lake, the shell hash the remains of the animals that lived in that lake, and the layers above it the result of the saltwater incursion. It was this event that Pitman and Ryan believe could be the flood recorded in the Book of Genesis."

Pitman himself notes concerning the buried civilisations around the area:


 * "When you look at the settlements those people built, not one of them is less than 150 feet above sea level!"

More New Testament Affirmation
Once again, the New Testament authors, both Jewish and Gentile, affirmed the existence of Noah and the Flood. This ain't for you, atheists. This is for the lukewarm Christians.

Matthew 24:37-39 - ''"But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days that they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." ''(Paralleled by Luke 17:26-27)

Luke 3:36 - "... which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Shem, which was the son of Noah, which was the son of Lamech."

Hebrews 11:7 - "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

1 Peter 3:20 - "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water."

2 Peter 2:5 - "... and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly."

Evidence for Sodom and Gomorrah
The major archaeological site that has been proposed for the site of Sodom and Gomorrah is the Tall el-Hammam site, located northeast of the Dead Sea. There was also a site near Masada proposed by Ron Wyatt, however, I have my own doubts concerning the reliability of Wyatt's claims, so I have decided to leave it out.

Lead excavator of the Tall el-Hammam site Dr Stephen Collins lists three factors that confirm the site as Sodom and Gomorrah:

Right place (geography)
H.B. Tristan, in the 19th century, summarised that, based on Genesis 13:1-12, the site of Sodom was northeast of the Dead Sea. Tall el-Hammam is located precisely where Tristan concluded it would be, based off the Genesis account.

Collins observes that Tall ell-Hammam was the largest city in the southern Levant for most of the Bronze Age, and dominated the landscape viewed by Lot from the area of Bethel/Ai on the highland peaks northwest of Jericho. It also covers 160 acres of land in total, which would make it a viable candidate for a significant city like Sodom.

Eugene H. Merrill observes that the location of Tall el-Hammam satisfies the geography of the Sodom narratives, in particular Gen 13:1-12. Indeed, it does, and with a remarkable fidelity of detail.

Right time (chronology)
Collins states that the destruction date for the Tall el-Hammam site ranges between 1750-1650 BC. Kitchen’s date-range for the Genesis patriarchs is between 1900 and 1600 BCE, which places the site in the right time-frame for Abraham.

Right stuff (archaeology)
In archaeological terms, the case for Tall el-Hammam as biblical Sodom is overwhelming. It sports massive Middle Bronze Age fortifications and gateways, just as described in Genesis 19:1.

There is also enormous evidence for a sudden and destructive end for the city.

Philip Silvia states:


 * "Toward the end of MB2 (Middle Bronze Age), civilisation throughout the Kikkar came to an abrupt end. The wide-spread destruction encompassed Tall el-Hammam, Tall Kefrein (1 km NW of Tall el-Hammam), Tall Nimrin (another 4 km to the NW), Talls Mustah and Bleibel (“twin”talls that straddle the wadi just north of Tall Nimrin), Tall Iktanu (<1 km S of Tall el-Hammam), and every one of the smaller talls on the eastern side of the Kikkar that was occupied at that time."

Collins states:


 * "Across Tall el-Ḥammam, archaeologists found widespread evidence of an intense conflagration that left the Middle Bronze Age city in ruins. They found scorched foundations and floors buried under nearly 3 feet of dark grey ash, as well as dozens of pottery shards covered with a frothy, “melted” surface; the glassy appearance indicates that they were briefly exposed to temperatures well in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the approximate heat of volcanic magma. Such evidence suggests the city and its environs were catastrophically destroyed in a sudden and extreme conflagration."

Josephus, writing in the first century, states:
 * "[Sodom] was of old a most happy land, both for the fruits it bore and the riches of its cities, although now all burned up... there are still remainders of of that divine fire, and the traces of the five cities are still to be seen, as well as the ashes growing in their fruits... if you pluck them with your hands, they dissolve into smoke and ashes."

Collins ultimately concludes:


 * "Bronze Age Tall el-Hammam—the largest city in the S Levant for most of the Bronze Age—is Sodom by every possible indicator. With the date of its violent, fiery destruction, we now have a scientifically established chronological anchor from which a more accurate and authentic understanding of the patriarchal chronology can emerge."

Other Discoveries
In 1974–75 some 1,757 clay tablets (with some 4,875 fragments) were discovered under the direction of Paolo Matthiae of the University of Rome, during the excavations of the ancient city of Tell Mardikh (Ebla, Syria, dated to abround 2500-2250 BC), which contained about 1,000 place names from the ancient Near East.

Giovanni Pettinato, the original epigrapher at Ebla, announced in 1976 that he had identified the names of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Zoar/Bela in the Ebla tablets.

Semitic Archaeological Sites
Extensive evidence of the Hebrews in Egypt has been uncovered in recent years in the Tell el-Daba site in the Nile Delta region, which has been identified as the ancient city of Avaris.

At the site, a Syrian style house was discovered. We know from Genesis 12:4-5 that the Abraham led the Hebrews out of Haran, which is modern day Syria. So the culture that turns up in Egypt seems to have come from north Syira via the Hebrews migrating south, validating the existence of a Semitic group of people in Egypt at that time. In addition to these discoveries, the Beni Hasan Tomb, near the city of Minya, is a painting that depicts multiple "Asiatics" migrating into Egypt from Palestine. It is dated to 1890 BC, which fits well into the Biblical timelines.

Alfred Horeth expands on what the painting depicts:


 * “Portion of the Beni Hasan tomb painting that depicts people from Palestine entering Egypt.  The men are wearing kilts or long garments that cover the chest and one shoulder.  Their clothes are multicolored and fringed on the bottom and they wear sandals on their feet.  Each man is shown with a full head of hear, a short beard, but no mustache.  The women also wear multicolored garments, but theirs are longer. Their footwear appears to be a type of slipper sock, and headbands decorate their long hair.  The painting also depicts some weaponry: spear, bow and arrow, ax, and sword."

Finally, before we move into inscriptions that confirm the story of the Hebrews leading up to the Exodus, we have a papyrus named the Story of Sinuhe that mentions one of the early patriarchs:


 * "Prince of Meki from the east (Qedem); Jeush the mountain chiefs of Edom (Kushu) Menus from the lands of Phoenicia (Fenkhu)"  

This story, surviving on a papyrus from 1900 BC, confirms that Jeush, mentioned in Genesis 36, was Chief of Edom.

Various Inscriptions
Inscriptions that mention Israel in ancient Egypt include:

Sinai 315
One of the oldest inscriptions discovered by Flinders and Marie Petrie, the writing states:


 * "Six Levantines: Hebrews of Bethel, the beloved."

This inscription confirms that the Hebrews considered Bethel their capital city (Genesis 12:8, 13:3, 28:16-22).

It also affirms that the Hebrews had a good relationship with the Pharaoh (Genesis 41:41-44, 50:6-7)

Sinai 375
Another discovery by the Petries includes this inscription, stating:


 * “The house of the vineyard of Asenath and its innermost room are engraved. They have come to life.”

This inscription posthumously confirms Asenath, the wife of Joseph mentioned in Genesis 41:45

Soleb Inscription
The Soleb Inscription dates to around the 13th century BC. The inscription states:


 * "The Land of the Shasu of Yahweh."

It is most likely the oldest inscription affirming the existence of "Yahweh" in the ancient world.

Frank Moore Cross calls the inscriptions:


 * "... the earliest appearance of what appears to be the independent form of the name [Yahweh]... No other suggested occurrences seem to withstand close linguistic scrutiny."  

The Mernaptah Stele
The Merneptah Stele, also discovered by the Petries in 1896 states this:


 * "The Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe: Ashkelon has been overcome; Gezer has been captured; Yano'am is made non-existent. Israel is laid waste and his seed is not; Hurru is become a widow because of Egypt."

Alexandru Mihăilă describes the work of William G. Dever in his article “ Ethnicity in Early Israel. Some Remarks on Merneptah’s Stele," stating:


 * “William G. Dever opposes the revisionists/minimalists, defending that the Israelites from the Merneptah’s stele should be understood as an ethnic group, distinct socio-economically and politically from the Canaanites, known as such by the Egyptian intelligence, sufficiently numerous and well established in the central hill country to be perceived as a threat by the Egyptians, although not organized into city-states.”

 James K. Hoffmeier also affirms this, stating:


 * "The mention of Israel in the Merneptah Stele (ca. 1208 B.C.) suggests tribal Israel was already a significant presence in the Levant prior to the sedentarization... this would predate the beginning of the Iron I settlements."

John Bimson further states:


 * “There is actually no unequivocal proof that the culture of Iron Age I (1200–1000 B.C.) should be associated with the arrival of the Israelites. Indeed, with the exception of the introduction of Philistine ware in the coastal region, there is sufficient continuity between the cultures of Late Bronze and Iron Age I to make it doubtful that the latter marks the arrival of any newcomers at all.”

Berlin Pedestal
In a list of defeated and subdued enemies, this relatively unknown inscription details "Israel" as amongst the many defeated nations of Egypt. The pedestal is dated to the thirteenth century and may even predate the famous Mereptah Stele.

Peter van der Veen states:


 * “...indeed suggest that Proto-Israelites had migrated to Canaan sometime during the middle of the second millennium BCE.”

Potiphar's Wife and Joseph
Tale of Two Brothers Papyrus is an Egyptian style folk tale that became popular in the New Kingdom period. The text is preserved on the D’Orbiney Papyrus. The text tells the tale of two brothers, Anubis and Bata, who grow up in a typical Egyptian household. When Anubis’ wife tries to seduce Bata, she responds by claiming that Bata had seduced her, which turns the brothers against each other.

Susan Tower Hollis states that the story may “contain reflexes of an actual historical situation.”

Miriam Lichtheim states that the relationship between Beta and his brother’s wife is often mentioned as a similar story to Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Gen 39:1–20).

7 Years of Plenty
The Famine Stela, discovered by Paul Barguet in 1953 dating to the 4th century BC, details that a seven yearlong famine swept Egypt and that there was a portion of land assigned to some priests in order to ensure Egypt survives the famine.

What is amazing is that Genesis 47:22 tells how Pharoah assigned land to some of his priests! What is more, he writers of the stela were using the story of the 7 years of famine to justify their claim to some land. They were not referring to some mythological event. They obviously believed that the land grants given by Pharoah were still in effect some 1000 years after the event.

Just as a side note, Charles Aling, professor of history at the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, discusses Egyptian slavery at the time of Joseph's life.


 * "It is interesting to note that slavery was not a very old concept in . It had not existed earlier in the, the period when the great pyramids were being built. Those structures were not, as is sometimes stated, built by slave labor. They were constructed by drafted peasant labor. The Middle Kingdom is the first major period in Egyptian history where slavery was well known."

He also affirms the idea of Joseph's life being dated back much further than the traditional dating systems:


 * "1 Kings 6:1, a pivotal reference for all Old Testament chronology, dates the Exodus 480 years before the fourth year of Solomon, accepted by virtually all scholars as 966 BC.  This places the Exodus in ca. 1446 BC; a date which agrees with the so-called Early Date for the Exodus. Next, Exodus 12:40 states that Jacob came to dwell in 430 years before the Exodus.  Thus he came to  in ca. 1876 BC.  These Biblical references clearly show that Joseph ought to be dated in the Middle Kingdom."

Egyptian Palace
Genesis 47:11 describes the place of Joseph's dwelling in Egypt as "Rameses." Archaeologists have searched the site of Rameses and found no evidence of Semitic residence. However, the village of Avaris, mentioned earlier, is buried under the town of Rameses. (Moses, when writing the Torah, would have referred to Avaris as Rameses, as that would have been the name of the location in his day).

On top of the Syrian House that I mentioned earlier, an Egyptian-style Palace was erected, flattening the small Syrian house. The size and bravado of the palace indicates that the palace belonged to a wealthy and important official.

Tomb and Statue of Joseph
One of the garden tombs outside the Egyptian palace was in a pyramid shape, indicating the occupant was the owner of the palace and a man of great importance. When Egyptologist Manfred Beitak and his team investigated the area where the pyramid tomb would have been, there was no body. This is significant as Exodus 13:19 states that Moses, after defeating Pharaoh, took the bones of Joseph with him during the exodus. Grave-robbers don't steal bodies, so where was the body of the man who owned the palace. What they did find, however, was the remains of a statue in the location of the pyramid tomb. There were three qualities of the statue that indicate the statue was of Joseph:
 * The statue was painted yellow . Egyptians portrayed Semites and Turks with yellow skin in their art.


 * The statue had a throw-stick or flail over the right shoulder - a symbol of authority in those days, something which Joseph, being second-in-command to Pharaoh, would have used (Genesis 41:40).
 * On the back of the shoulder, they found the slightest signs of paint detailing a multi-coloured attire . Joseph is described in Genesis 37:3 as wearing a "coat of many colours" as a gift from his father. Schiestl notes, "Such garments are shown as worn by elite men in Egyptian tombs of the Middle Kingdom"

Old Earth vs Young Earth?
As I stated earlier, I am still open on the debate between young earth and old earth. I have seen compelling evidence for both sides. Frank Turek gives a great explanation on why the topic is irrelevant to the issue of Biblical inerrancy.

Concerning it's relevancy to the validity of the Genesis account, there is no reason to think that an old earth would disprove the Biblical account. What I addressed earlier is that the Biblical genealogies needed to be confirmed using DNA testing to show that the Biblical origin of human life was true. That's what the debate is about, not whether the earth is 20 billion or 8 billion or 6,000 years old or whatever. The Bible does not teach that the world is young. It does teach that Adam and Eve lived sometime between 7,000 and 6,000 years ago, based on the genealogies. THAT is what we need to prove, not something that the text does not explicitly say.

Chronologies of Other Civilisations
It should be noted that the further back in time we go, the less and less certain we are concerning the chronologies of other civilisations. It is very convenient that what we know for sure about ancient civilisations ends about the time the Flood would have taken place (around 3,000 BC). Everything prior to that is often speculation drawn from myths conjured by societies thousands of years later for political purposes.

Isaac Newton once noted:


 * "Nations, before they began to began to keep exact accounts of time, have been prone to raise their own antiquities. And this humour has been promoted by the contentions between nations and their originals."

Even ancient sources agree with this. Diodorus of Sicily noted that:


 * “...[historians] deliberately preferred to the truth the telling of marvellous tales and the invention of myths for the delectation [delight] of their readers.”

And Egyptologist James k. Hoffmeier writes:


 * "Even theologians sometimes try to expand the chronologies in Genesis 5 and 11 to accommodate the supposed history of other ancient cultures. The biblical text is assumed to be inaccurate right out of the gate."

The simple fact of the matter is we don't know beyond reasnoable doubt how far these civilisations go back. The dating systems we have rely too much on the assumption of uniformitarianism.

In terms of understanding Egyptian Chronology at least, David Rohl has suggested an entire reshift of Egyptian chronology to fit the idea of the Exodus in with the chronology (remember that Rohl is an agnostic, so he has no Christian bias). However, even Koffmeier agrees that we should not necessarily shift 300 years of Egyptian chronology. Scholars are currently split on whether the chronology should be shifted.

Amelie Kuhrt states:


 * "Many scholars feel sympathetic to the critique of weaknesses in the existing chronological framework presented in these volumes, but most archaeologists and ancient historians are not at present convinced that the radical redatings proposed stand up to close examination."

However, Erik Hornung also states:


 * “…there remain many uncertainties in the Third Intermediate Period, as critics such as David Rohl have rightly maintained; even our basic premise of 925 [BC] for Shoshenk’s campaign to Jerusalem is not built on solid foundations.”

We will have to wait and see for further information on shifting the chronology on ancient Egypt. But until then, the evidence seems strong enough on it's own and does not significantly effect the legitimacy of the Genesis account leading up into the Exodus story.

Evolution
There's hardly enough space for me to discuss evolution theory on this page, so please check here for it.

Academic Sources


Ancient Sources
