Pharaoh of the Exodus

Most scholars believe that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Ramses the Great aka Ramses II. Ramses had a reign of nearly 70 years. He had 52 sons and nearly as many daughters. It paid to be a Pharaoh with a harem.

There is a major problem with identiying him as the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The Pharaoh with at least a 40 year reign was not the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He was the Pharaoh before the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Because the 40 year reigning Pharaoh died while Moses was in Midian.

Now Ramses II's successor, Merneptah, left a stelae proclaiming how he went into Canaan and destroyed all kind of cities and one other thing. He destroyed the people Israel and cut off their seed completely. This indicates that the Hebrews had already left before Merneptah became Pharaoh.

So Ramses could not be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Seti I only had a 13 year reign. Now you can say 40 just means a long time BUT I don't think it can mean 13 years. That is way to short.

There is only one other Pharaoh with a reign of at least 40 years that is in the same period as the Exodus. That is Thutmose III. He ruled from 1479-1425. Except for one little detail, his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, seized power in 1479 and ruled until the 1450s. She was the daughter of Thutmose I and was forced by Thutmose II to marry him to legitimize his rule when she was 13 years old in 1493. Now wouldn't Hatshepsut who defied all traditions of Egypt and ruled as a woman on her own not be a good candidate to be the Pharaoh's daughter of Exodus 2?

If this is correct, this shows that there are actually 4 Pharaohs during the period described in the book of Exodus. Thutmose I is the one that issued the decree that all male babies be killed. Thutmose II didn't do much concerning the Hebrews, Thutmose III chased Moses into Midia. And the Pharaoh of the Exodus was Amenhotep II who ruled from 1425 to 1400.

So why don't the scholars accept this? Because archaeologists have decided that the dates of destructive layers in Canaan do not match this date.

Now it amazes me that a bunch of scholars that never read the Bible literally will take this as their argument against a scenario that fits the description of Exodus perfectly. So the Bible is not to be read as historically reliable except when it matches what they think it should be.

It is beside the point that I think the dating of the archaeologists is wrong.

I think the only reason these scholars refuse to accept Thutmose III as the 40 year reigning Pharaoh is because the conservative evangelicals do. They cannot possibly agree with the evangelicals so they come up with a Pharaoh that does not match the Biblical account but will match archaeology after they play with the dating data of the excavations. After all in the past, the same archaeology data put the destruction layers during the appropriate time.