TRACING THE HEBREW PHARAOHS OF EGYPT...WHO IS THIS KING DAVID?
It did not take me long in Seminary to figure out that the Bible is basically a historical work which had become distorted as a result of its long oral tradition which and also to some extent at the hands of Biblical editors who eventually set it down in writing. Because of this long oral tradition which was both "forgotten" and "altered" down through history we are deprived today of important and necessary truths and facts concerning the identities and events that shaped the beginning of the Jewish nation let alone the subsequent development of Christianity.The more I studied the more convinced I became of the alteration of key facts concerning not only the Patriarchs but their true identities as well. The more I read of the finds of modern archeology in the last two hundred years the more convinced I became that the identity of major figures in Egyptian history were disguised and depicted as major Jewish figures in the Bible. This was deception at its highest level and I had to get to the bottom of it and it would be a challenging but yet a very rewarding study to say the least. Let me get your feet wet for what is to come in the forthcoming articles.
Out study will be begin with the examination of King David and progress until we are centered on the very important 18th dynasty of Egypt. At the end of the 18th dynasty (after Hatshepsut and 4 other pharaohs) there reigned a strange pharaoh named Amenophis IV, who later called himself Akhenaten. Amenhotep IV was a pharaoh so revolutionary, so radical that those following him had his name which he changed to Akhenaten and face deleted from the Egyptian records so completely that only 3000 years later did archaeology rediscover his new royal capital at Akhet-Aten (modern el-Amarna). The story of Akhenaten is all through the first five books in the Jewish-Christian Bible but due to revisionism we don't recognize him. He is the Biblical Moses and I will present evidence to show that this is a fact. This amazing and courageous Pharaoh worshipped only one god whom he called Aten (the sun disk), and founded a new capital, Akhet-Aten (Horizon of Aten), today called Tell el Amarna. This period is called the Amarna period in Egyptian history. Countless books have been written about Akhenaten but few have put together key pieces of Egyptian and Biblical History together correctly as I hope to reveal to the reader. Of course the point of such study is to see the unbelievable knowledge that Egypt possessed about the God of the Cosmos and their unique and deep understanding of this God and his workings in the Cosmos and its ultimate meaning for mankind. At the same time we will focus upon the efforts of Akhenaten, the Biblical Moses, to bring a religious revolution to bear on his nation who had at his time fallen into the deception of the worship of the "God-man" Osiris which is so similar to the same sin of idolatry which is attached to the worship of the Christian God-man Jesus Christ. The startling ramifications of such a deception, both back then and now, will become evident the more we study. At the crux of this whole study is the growing understanding and revelation that if Moses, the Egyptian Akhenaten, lived today he would oppose such worship of the post-Nicean "God-man" Jesus created by Rome.
It did not take me long to recognize the more I studied Egyptian history and religion that there exists a unique link and relationship between Akhenaten's monotheism and Jewish monotheism that does not exist in Christianity. There had to be a link between the two and my efforts at continued in-depth study revealed to me in time this very important connection between the Egyptian Pharaohs and the Biblical Patriarchs and later Jewish leaders like King David and King Solomon which we will examine in these next articles.
Answer for yourself: Just what is this link and are major players and Pharaohs in Egyptian history depicted in our Christian Bibles under different names like King David, Solomon, etc? Could it be that Moses was a Pharaoh himself and what if any is the link with Joseph whom was sold into slavery and ended up in Egypt where he married the daughter of the Priest of On (Heliopolis)?
What we will find in examining Egyptian history and religion is that most have missed this link connecting major figures in the Bible with these major figures in Egyptian history. The error to which most has fallen is that they approach such studies trying to fit Egyptian history into the Bible rather than, as common sense would suggest, fit the Bible into Egyptian history. You need to stop and read that sentence once again. What we find upon study is that acceptance of the wrong date for the two dates given in the Old Testament for the length of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt, four hundred years instead of four generations, will cause us to place incorrectly the events depicted in the Bible at the wrong time and the wrong place. For example this incorrect dating explains why there is no evidence for the Exodus at the time that traditional scholarship looks for Biblical Exodus. It simply occurred at a different time and a different place in Egyptian history and our failure to recognize this leaves us looking for evidence of its occurrence at the wrong time in the time-line of Biblical history. Truly this is a fascinating study to say the least and obtaining the knowledge long lost to this world concerning not only Egypt and their religion but the true identities of King David, Solomon, Moses, etc., as well as what they believed about God has important ramifications upon the Christian faith and their understanding of basic tenants of their faith let alone the "Messiah" today. It is to these issues we now turn as we begin our study with King David of the Bible. Get ready for your world to be rocked.
Answer for yourself: Have you ever wondered how we stumbled onto this knowledge of the existence of the Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt? I suggest that we read this information before we continue out study into King David.
RECOVERING THE TRUE IDENTITY OF KING DAVID AND OTHER KEY BIBLICAL FIGURES...WERE THEY OBSCURED BY MISLEADING TEXTS?
Little did I ever think when beginning the study of the "Jewish Roots" of Christianity in the 1980's that I would find myself baptized in Egyptian religion but all roads seemed to lead there as my studies into discovering a "Jewish Jesus" expanded. Behind the Jewish people I first discovered this very important link with Egypt which goes concealed in the Hebrew Old Testament to all but a few with a discerning eye when reading the texts and studying the Jewish connection with Egypt. As I grew in my studies of the original Biblical languages as well as my growth in archeology and Jewish history Egypt kept recurring over and over again in my studies. Soon I found repeatedly references in my readings that began to link very important Biblical messianic figures like King David with Egypt and the dynasties of Pharaohs. At first I was bewildered for I thought that unlike the New Testament the texts of the Old Testament were relatively free from tampering as I had found extensively in the New Testament. But that was not the case as I was to discover as my studies continued to develop. Before we begin to look at the Biblical King David and find his true identity some things need to be said about how we lost this information about Thutmose III (King David) in the first place.LOOKING AT THE TRANSMISSION OF THE BIBLICAL TEXTS & THE LOSS OF THE TRUTH
I was to find in my studies that the sacred books that make up the anthology modern scholars call the Hebrew Bible - and Christians call the Old Testament - developed over roughly a millennium; the oldest texts appear to come from the eleventh or tenth centuries B.C.E. The Hebrew Bible, written over a period of more than 500 years, consists of many types of literature and reflects varying points of view. The Bible has undergone substantial changes with regard to its early manuscripts and their translated versions. This Book is a collection of various materials and the worst part is the crude 'editing' where the joints are much in evidence. Gathering and the codification, giving the final written form, of the Books of the Bible took centuries. It uses descriptive methods. Its language is abstract, very rich in images. The smallest or shortest of reports turns into a story in the Bible, full of puzzling descriptions whoseambiguity is intentional. There's no getting away from the fact that the Bible is a very human book. It was not written by God, it was not edited by God, it was not translated by God. In the beginning it wasn't written down at all. Most parts of the Bible started life as sayings or stories that were handed down from generation to generation as part of an oral tradition and doubtless became altered, adulterated, and embellished in the process. Eventually they got written down, which tended to fix them a bit more, but before the invention of printing they were handed on by being copied out, and inevitably mistakes were made. And when they were translated from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, they suffered still further alteration because translation can never be exact. Yet the Bible is essentially a religious book, but, unlike most ancient religious books, the Old Testament is characterized by a strong sense of history; even laws and exhortations are woven into the narratives.The Pentateuch is also called the Torah, or Law, and seems to have reached its current form with Ezra - in the books of Nehemiah and Ezra a rough summary can be seen which matches the Torah as it is now. An interesting clue as to how the current Torah came about is revealed by an episode in the time of Ezra. In the book of Nehemiah Ezra is described as reading the Law to the people. Verses 13 - 18 tell of the first celebration of the "Festival of Booths", or Sukkoth, which is described as not being celebrated like so since the days of Joshua, assistant and successor of Moses. Apparently the festival had been added, and it is not unreasonable to imagine that adding other things were both "added", "deleted", and "concealed" as well as "manufactured" over time.
Answer for yourself: Why would the priests and scribes do this? Simply said "agendas". As intimated previously the war between Persia and Egypt had a strong influence upon Ezra in shaping the texts which would later become the history of the Jewish people and in so doing we see today the true identities of the Patriarchs concealed. We have to face the facts that the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament, are are edited works, collections of various sources intricately and artistically woven together.
The five books of Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy), for example, traditionally are ascribed to Moses. But by the eighteenth century, many European scholars noticed problems with that assumption. Not only does Deuteronomy end with an account of Moses' death (a tough assignment for any writer to describe his or her own demise), but the entire Pentateuch shows anomalies of style that are hard to explain if only one author is involved.
By the nineteenth century, most scholars agreed that the Pentateuch consisted of four sources woven together. This notion of four sources came to be known as the Documentary Hypothesis (J, E, P, D) and, in various forms, it has been the prevailing theory for the past two hundred years. Israel thus created four independent strains of literature about its own origins, all drawing on oral tradition in varying degrees, and each developed over time. They were combined together to form our Pentateuch sometime in the sixth century B.C.E. by Ezra and his successors.
By this time, many of the other biblical books were coming together. Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings form what scholars call a "Deuteronomistic History" (because the work's theology is heavily influenced by Deuteronomy), a history of the Israelite states over a five-hundred-year period. This work contains much of historical value, but it also operates on the basis of a historical and theological theory: i.e., that God has given Israel its land, that Israel periodically sins, suffers punishment, repents, and then is rescued from foreign invasion. This cycle of sin and redemption shapes the work's way of writing history and gives it a powerful religious dimension, so that even when the sources behind the biblical books are "secular" accounts in which God is far in the background, the theology of the overall work places history in the service of theology. In other words history is altered to serve the purpose of created theology. The last edition of the Deuteronomistic History, the one in our Bible, comes from the sixth century B.C.E., the time of the Babylonian Exile. In this context, it offers an explanation for Israel's poor condition and implicitly a reason to hope for the future.
In addition to the prophets, the Hebrew Bible contains what Jews often call the "Writings," or the Hagiographa, hymns and philosophical discourses, love poems and charming tales. These include Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth), Song of Songs, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. These books were the last completed and the last to be received as Scripture, although parts of them may be very ancient indeed. The books of Psalms, for instance, contains many hymns from Israelite temple worship from the monarchic period, i.e., before the Babylonian Exile in the sixth century B.C.E.; songs such as Psalm 29 may be borrowed from the Canaanites, while Psalm 104 closely resembles Egyptian hymns. In its current form, the 150 psalms fall into five "books," modeled on the five books of the Pentateuch.
Israel did not exist in political, religious, or intellectual isolation from its geographical neighbors. Intellectual and even direct literary contact is nowhere more evident than in Israel's book of Proverbs. William Kelly Simpson, in his The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry, as well as man other scholars teach us that the book of Proverbs looks a great deal like the instruction literature that has survived from ancient Egypt. The commonality of the book of Proverbs with Egyptian instruction literature suggests that it may have been the court wisdom that was used to train the next generation of Israel's leaders for effective public service. TheInstruction of Amenhotep has the most direct bearing on the book of Proverbs. Written in thirty chapters and probably dating to 1200 B.C.E., it has close parallels to many verses in Proverbs 22:17-24:22. Thus we find that Proverbs also has many old parts, including one apparently translated from the second-millennium B.C.E. Egyptian text the "Instructions of Amenhotep" which we find in Proverbs 22. Bryce, in his A Legacy of Wisdom: The Egyptian Contribution to the Wisdom of Israel, 1979, has done a thorough study of parallels between biblical and Egyptian wisdom literature. He notes that there are varying degrees of dependence, from direct literary borrowing to "thought" borrowing; the latter is barely recognizable in the Hebrew Bible because it has been so seamlessly integrated over time and through redaction. Although there are differences in wording, proverbial parallels with Egyptian Instruction sayings seem quite close here in Proverbs. This he states is the evidence of direct literary borrowing from earlier existing Egyptian wisdom.
Answer for yourself: What have we learned so far? Simply that the Hebrew Old Testament was "put together" from many different streams of thought and traditions somewhere around the 6th century B.C.E. and that the name of Egypt keeps coming up repeatedly.
Richard Elliott Friedman, in his masterful book Who Wrote the Bible? teaches us, as do other scholars, that Ezra, in the end, was the one who created this synthesized work that we call the Old Testament which the Jewish nation and Christians have read all these years. In this book Friedman shows the reader how the Jewish scriptures are the product of traditions of oral transmission and eventual scribal transmission which were handed down over hundreds and hundreds of years if not longer.
Answer for yourself: Is it likely that oral transmission of tales and stories change or information can become lost the longer oral transmissions are handed down over chronological history? That is not a hard question when you think about it.
Over centuries, myths, legends, hymns and other literary forms were passed down orally from generation to generation from the time of the Egyptian sojourn, Babylon captivity, and the Persian repatriation of the captured Jewish nation. Only much later following the Persian defeat of Babylon and the repatriation of the Jewish nation did Ezra reconstruct or should I say "create" the Old Testament as the "assumed" history of the Jewish people.
Much of the earlier history of the origin and emergence of the Jewish people from their Sojourn in Egypt was lost or forgotten. The apocryphal writing tells how Ezra dictated all the writings which had been lost in the destruction of Jerusalem during and following the Babylonian war. A. Soggin, in his Introduction to the Old Testament published in London in 1989 states on page 13-14 that the traditions given by Ezra "do not seem to have any historical foundation".
Answer for yourself: Were you aware that much of the historical information in the Old Testament is not accurate to the findings of archeology and much is out of historical chronological sequence? Well it is and no greater example can be found than when dealing with Egyptian history and Egyptian references in the Old Testament as we will come to see. Remember that Ezra is behind this synthesis of oral traditions that become the written texts and the "official history" of the Jewish people after returning from the Persian captivity. Having no Torahs in captivity and with Ezra "writing" the past history of this new emerging nation of Jews being returned to their homeland it is not far fetched to see how and why Ezra would create a history for these Jews which is not truthful nor accurate to the facts that archeology has provided us today.
A. Soggin is not the only author nor source that reveals that the production of Ezra in drafting the Old Testament has within it many historical inaccuracies regarding the identity and origin for the Jewish nation which was returned to Israel by Persia following the Persian defeat of the Babylonian nation. One could go so far as to say many of these tradition given these returning Jewish captives were "made up" and this is where Ezra comes in as the Egyptian roots of the Jewish Nation is purposefully omitted and concealed by the work of Ezra and instead of identifying correctly the Pharaohs of Egypt they were purposefully characterized as Jews in giving the returning Jews a "false history" of their past which they remembered not. There are reasons why Ezra would conceal the Hebrew-Egyptian link that we have already discussed above. There is reason to believe that Ezra had an official position at the Persian Court and functioned as a commissioner for the affairs of the Jewish minority within Persia. At any rate, he was able to obtain palace sponsorship and aid for a trip to Jerusalem in 458 BC, some 57 years after the completion of the Temple. The reason for the trip was to restore strict religious observance and revive the national identity of the repatriated, which had declined since the original return and this was done under the watchful eyes of Persia and this explains why Judaism has so much Persian apocalypticism within it. The war between Persia and Egypt explains also why the true identity of the "parent" of these returning Jews were misidentified when Ezra rewrote the Old Testament since Persia certainly did not desire that these returning Jews learn that at Persia was almost at war with "their biological parents". Cyrus the Great of Persia frees the captive Jews from Babylonia 539 B.C. and finally conquers Egypt, the biological parents of this returning nation, in 525 B.C. some mere 14 years later. Also if you had not already guessed it these Jews of the Bible had "black skin" as did their Egyptian parents. If Persia was to hope for the friendship and loyalty of these returning Jews let alone allow them to function as an "outpost" half-way between Persian and Egypt and thereby be a warning of any impending Egyptian retaliation then it was necessary to conceal the true identity of these black skinned Jews as children of Egypt.
Answer for yourself: Did the war with Egypt play a role in Ezra's misidentification of key Biblical characters like David and Solomon let alone Abraham and Jacob? Well considering the above it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
Eventually these "traditions", both true and untrue, were recorded in early scribal forms and were revised over time while at the same time combined with other texts and edited in a process called redaction. The Jewish scriptures, the product of many different theological positions contending over many centuries since their origin in Egypt were later recorded, edited, combined and redacted in the form that we have them today during a process that took many centuries to form. Although some believers hold the Old Testament to be a seamless, monolithic text, historical-critical methods developed by modern scholarship and the findings of archeology in the last 200 years proves them as representing many different perspectives on God and Israel's relationship with God when filtered primarily through the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Persian religious systems. So the bottom line is that not everything in it is "true" which can be said of the New Testament as well. Let us never forget that men with agenda write books and not God.
THE TRUE IDENTITY OF KING DAVID OF THE BIBLE
Answer for yourself: How much do you presently know concerning the Pharaoh Thutmose III and the other Amarna Pharaohs? Well if you are like most then you know very little if anything at all.Answer for yourself: Have you ever compared the accounts in the Bible of David and his wars and military battles described in the Tanakh with the exploits of Amenhotep III's great grandfather, the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III as they were written on the stone walls on the Temple of Karnak in Thebes?
Answer for yourself: Do you know what you find when you do? You find that not only are their achievements equivalent and identical but so are their very names as well!
I will try to present evidence showing that the Pharaoh Thutmose III is the King David we find depicted in the Old Testament. Thutmose is an Egyptian compound name comprised of "Thut" (from Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom) and "mose" (an Egyptian title or suffix indicating son or rightful heir).
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that in the ancient Egyptian language, like the later Hebrew language, words were written without vowels? Should we not expect knowing this that the Hebrew language was a later development similar to the Egyptian language if the Jews were the offspring of the Egyptians? It sure would seem so and writers like Godfrey Higgins in his Anacalypsis proves the point as do many other scholars today.
The first element of the famous Pharaoh Thutmose III was always written as "twt", i.e. with 3 consonants. For some mischievous reasons the middle consonant letter was changed to the vowel "u" by some Egyptologists. When "Twt" was written, in the equivalent Hebrew alphabetical characters, it becomes "Dwd". When "Dwd" is pronounced phonetically it becomes "Dawood" which the Hebrew name for "DAVID" (Moustafa Gadalla, Historical Deception: The Untold Story Of Ancient Egypt, p. 147.
Answer for yourself: Is this but a coincidence? Is there the remotest chance that the Egyptian warrior Pharaoh King was the Biblical warrior King David who was better know as the historical Thutmose III? Is the Biblical account historically without merit?
"Thut", in Egyptian, was, therefore, written as "Twt". The ancient Hebrew language, although very different from Egyptian, originally derived its written structure from the Egyptian language (Cross, "Origins of the Alphabet" in Ebla to Damascus: Art and Archaeology of Ancient Syria, 271-278.) As with Egyptian, the consonants were written and the vowels were vocalized only.
Answer for yourself: Can you guess what you get when you transliterate the Egyptian word "twt" into Hebrew? Let me give you a hint. The name begins with a "D".
Because of their similar alphabets, you end up with "dvd". If you add the vowels necessary for pronunciation in Hebrew you get David! (Cross, "Origins of the Alphabet" in Ebla to Damascus: Art and Archaeology of Ancient Syria, p. 88).
Now let us look at one event recorded and attributed to King David.
2 Sam 8:5-6 5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to succour Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand men. 6 Then David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus: and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that the same things are said of Thutmose III in prior Egyptian history where it is recorded on stone monuments that Thutmose III defeated an earlier coalition of Syrian and Canaanite kings as described in the Bible and attributed to King David? Are you aware that it is told in Egyptian stone and history that Thutmose III also established garrisons in these same regions in order to permanently secure Egyptian control there? Is this proof that these two men are the same? (Cross, "Origins of the Alphabet" in Ebla to Damascus: Art and Archaeology of Ancient Syria, p. 106, 119).Answer for yourself: Is this name similarity and identical events described above connected to both Thutmose III and King David just a coincidence? Well this is not enough evidence for me yet to make such a certain identity between King David and Thuthmose III so we keep studying so we can be certain. More evidence to connect the two as identical personages is easily located when one knows to look.
It is a historical fact that at the beginning of the Egyptian 17th Dynasty that much of Egypt was still being dominated by foreign rulers known as the Hyksos. The Hyksos were an important influence on Egyptian history, particularly at the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period. Most of what we know of the nature of the Hyksos depends upon written sources (of the Egyptians), such as the Rhind Papyrus. Also of considerable importance is the systematic excavation of the capital of the Hyksos, Avaris (Tell el-Dab'a). Today the term Hyksos has come to refer to the whole of these people who ruled Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt's ancient history, and had to be driven out of the land by the last ruler of the 17th Dynasty and the earliest ruler of Egypt's New Kingdom. Through the initiative of the early Pharaohs of the 17th Dynasty, the Hyksos were attacked and eventually driven out of Egypt during the reign of Ahmose I. Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I extended their campaigns into Asia, "principally to deter any fresh incursions by roving bands into the Eastern Delta [of Egypt]" (Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 121). The Hyksos were basically a Semitic people who were able to wrestle control of Egypt from the early Second Intermediate rulers of the 13th Dynasty, inaugurating the 15th Dynasty. The basic population of Egyptians allowed, from time to time, a new influx of settlers, first from the region of Lebanon and Syria, and subsequently from Palestine and Cyprus. The leaders of these people eventually married into the local Egyptian families (like Joseph?), a theory that is somewhat supported by preliminary studies of human remains at Tell el-Dab'a.
Answer for yourself: Does this remind you of Joseph who married the Egyptian priest's daughter and had children from the mixed marriage of a Semite and Egyptian (Ephraim and Manasseh)?
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that this Hyksos were called "Shepherd Kings? Is this the reason possibly that the Old Testament attests that Joseph warned his family when entering Egypt to not mention this fact?
Gen 46:31-34 31 And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, and say unto him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me; 32 And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have. 33 And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation? 34 That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: As you can see Joseph did not want the Pharaoh to know that his people and family were "shepherds". Is this a veiled reference to the Hyksos from Palestine?Parallels for the foreign traits of the Hyksos at Tell el-Dab'a/Avaris (capital of the Hyksos) have been found at southern Palestinian sites such as Tell el-Ajjul, at the Syrian site of Ebla and at Byblos in modern Lebanon. By about 1720 BC, the Hyksos had grown strong enough, at the expense of the Middle Kingdom kings, to gain control of Avaris in the northeastern Delta. This site eventually became the capital of the Hyksos kings, but within 50 years, they had also managed to take control of the important Egyptian city of Memphis.
Manetho, and Egyptian Priest-Scribe records in his Aegyptiaca., frag. 42, 1.75-79.2:
- Then," he says, "the kings of Thebes and the other parts of Egypt rose against the shepherds, and a long and terrible war was fought between them." He says further, "By a king, named Alisphragmuthosis, the shepherds were subdued, and were driven out of the most parts of Egypt and shut up in a place named Avaris, measuring ten thousand acres." Manetho says, "The shepherds had built a wall surrounding this city, which was large and strong, in order to keep all their possessions and plunder in a place of strength.
- Tethmosis, son of Alisphragmuthosis, attempted to take the city by force and by siege with four hundred and eighty thousand men surrounding it. But he despaired of taking the place by siege, and concluded a treaty with them, that they should leave Egypt, and go, without any harm coming to them, wherever they wished. After the conclusion of the treaty they left with their families and chattels, not fewer than two hundred and forty thousand people, and crossed the desert into Syria. Fearing the Assyrians, who dominated over Asia at that time, they built a city in the country which we now call Judea. It was large enough to contain this great number of men and was called Jerusalem.
Now back to our study of King David.
When Amenhotep I died without a male heir, he was succeeded by the commander of the army who became Pharaoh Thutmose I. Inspired by previous successes, Thutmose I, now as Pharaoh, led his army into Canaan and Syria and crossed the Euphrates River at the Carchemish. After routing Mitanni forces, he set up a monument (stele) to his achievement on the north side of the Euphrates. The heiress daughter of Thutmose I, Hatshepsut was married to her step-brother Thutmose II who became Pharaoh. Thutmose II and Hatshepsut had no surviving sons. After the death of Thutmose II, his young son Thutmose III (by a minor concubine-wife Isis who was possibly of foreign birth) was denied the throne by Hatshepsut who had been married to Thutmose II of full Egyptian blood. Thutmose III, being the offspring of a mixed marriage, was not entitled to the throne. Hatshepsut continued to rule even after Thutmose III had clearly come of age (Diop, The African Origin of Civilization, p. 12). So we find in the final analysis that Thutmose III, the son of a concubine, came to the throne of Egypt as the fifth ruler of the 18 Dynasty in odd circumstances. The dynasty has been founded nearly a hundred years earlier when, after just over a century rule by the invading Hyksos shepherds, the princes of Thebes united in the 16th century B.C. in a successful attempt to drive them out of Egypt, and Ahmosis was crowned as the dynasty's first ruler (1575-1550 B.C.E.). As we saw shortly before the death of Thutmose II, Hatshepsut have birth to a daughter, Neferure. The normal method of ensuring the right of Thutmose III (born of the concubine Isis) to inherit the throne would have been marriage to Neferure, his half-sister, who was the heiress. This marriage never took place between Thutmose III (David) and Neferure. We only know that Hatshepsut continued to insist that Neferure was the only legal heir and her daughter was called "the Lady of the Two Lands, mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt". In these circumstances, Thutmose II had to have his son adopted by the State god Amun in order to ensure his right to the throne which reminds us of the passage in Psalm 2 which is said of King David:
Ps 2:7 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. (KJV)
This makes all the sense since Thutmose III was only of half royal blood and since Egypt was a matriarchal society the throne and rulership came through the wife thus the marriage of their sisters. This brings many questions to our mind at once. Thuthmose III was not recognized as King-Pharaoh during the time of the rule of Hatshepsut, the wife of Thuthmose II.If we follow the life of King David we find the same scenario of rejection of David as we find with Thutmose III.
Upon Saul's death, David went to Hebron where he was anointed as king of Judah, according to The Lord's instructions, at about age 30 (2 Samuel 2:1-4). A seven and a half year civil war followed between the forces that supported David, and those that did not recognize David's right to the kingship and throne who supported Ish-bosheth, Saul's only surviving son, for the kingship of all Israel. The military and political situation grew steadily in favor of David however, and when Ish-bosheth was assassinated, David was anointed king over all Israel (2 Samuel 4:1-12, 5:1-5).
Answer for yourself: Does this account above concerning Thutmose III remind you of the account in the Old Testament when all of Israel would not accept David as their King and only David's military might finally persuaded the total nation to acknowledge him as King as did the military successes of Thutmose III which persuaded Egypt to acknowledge him as Pharaoh?
When the male blood line of the founding dynasty ended at the death of Amenhotep I, an even greater emphasis was thereafter placed on preservation of the female blood line which by this time had already distinguished itself and wielded considerable power. Ahhotep I had become an interim ruler upon the death of her husband Ahmose I and was immortalized for rallying Egypt's forces against the Hyksos. Her daughter Ahmose-Nefertari was given the title, High Priestess of Amun, and was the first to be designated as the "God's Wife"(Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 139-140). It is important for us to know that the royal offspring of 18th Dynasty Pharaohs were considered to have been conceived through Divine visitation of the state god Amun with the "God's Wife" (Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 139). This concept is clearly demonstrated by large murals in the mortuary temples of both Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III. Ahmose-Nefertari was, according to the famous turn of the century archeologist Flinders Petrie, "the most venerated figure of Egyptian History" (Petrie, A History of Egypt During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Dynasties, p. 41).
Upon Hatshepsut's death, the succession of Thutmose III was complicated not only by his own insufficiency of royal blood, but by the fact that Hatshepsut's daughter Neferure (and holder of the titles "Gods Wife" and virgin High Priestess of Amun) was also no longer living. He could not "marry" into the throne of Egypt as did all other male heirs. The nubile princess who could claim the strongest relation to Ahhotep I and Nefertari was found to be Merit-re, the daughter of Huy, the Superior of the Royal Harem. Thutmose III was married to Merit-ra, and in an official ceremony confirmed as Pharaoh and "adopted" as the son of Amun (Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 70, 141; and Ahmed Osman, House of the Messiah, 110-111).
Answer for yourself: Could this be reference found in Psalm 2:7 as mentioned above?
Ps 2:7 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. (KJV)
The word "begotten", "yalad" in Hebrew, carries with it the meaning of "to declare one's birth or pedigree". Having not married the daughter of a Pharaoh and not possessing a full-blood lineage it was necessary for Thutmose III to be "adopted" and in so doing inheriting the necessary pedigree from Amun as his "adopted son".Like King David Thutmose III is remembered for his great military conquests which helped persuade others to accept his as their Pharaoh (leader). It is recorded that the God/Amun and Father of Thutmose III's spoke of him, "I grant thee by decree the earth in its length and breadth. The tribes of the East and those of the West ... that thy conquests may embrace all lands ... I ordain that all aggressors arising against thee shall fail..."(Maspero, The Struggle of the Nations, 267-268; Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 141).
Answer for yourself: Should we not expect to see a similar pronouncement over King David in the Tanakh? We should and we do find one.
Answer for yourself: Does this not remind you of what is also said of King David in Psalm 2?
Ps 2:1-12 1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. (KJV)
As you can see Psalm 2 is in essence the very same pronouncement made by God over Thutmose III. Again this is further proof that these two men are identical. The evidence keeps mounting and the laws of statistics are teaching us that we have moved beyond just a coincidence in these comparisons.Hatshepsut's daughter Neferure was the real heiress and heir but she suddenly died when 16 years old and from this point on Thutmose III gained increasing importance. The chance for Thutmose III to rule Egypt on his own came in the middle of the 22 year of his co-regency with Hatshepsut when Hatshepsut, the wife of Thutmose II dies.
Answer for yourself: Should we not expect that Thutmose III would respond in such a manner to engender the people toward himself and gain their support through military conquest? We should and we do find that he does just that which reminds us of the exploits of King David. It seemed his first task he undertook was to deface many of the monuments erected to his aunt-stepmother: her reliefs were hacked out, her inscriptions erased, her cartouches obliterated, her obelisks walled up. Thutmose III was not the legal descendant of the earlier Ahmosside dynasty. So now, technically speaking, as he was not the son of of the Egyptian Queen, nor had he married the heiress to inherit the throne, he had going for him that he had been chosen and adopted to to rule by the State god Amun. This is reminiscent again of Samuel, the prophet of God, and his choice of David to rule in place of Saul who was later to die and leave the throne vacant for David to fill. From now until the end of the Amarna rule in Egypt - the rule of Akhenaten, Semenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Aye - it was the dynasty founded by Thutmose III that sat on the throne of Egypt.
The long frustrated Thutmose III was eager to prove himself, and upon becoming Pharaoh his first act was to march out with the military. In anticipation, a formidable confederation of Canaanite and Syrian kings had already consolidated their own armies and were waiting in their camps when Thutmose III arrived in Canaan with his own. Using a risky strategic maneuver, Thutmose III divided the opposing confederation and conquered them at the original epic battle of the Valley of Armageddon (Har-Megiddon) (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 115; and Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 121).
- Thutmose III splits his army and defeats the divided forces of Qadesh near Megiddo. The kings flee and seek refuge behind the gates of their fortress. After seven months of siege, ThutmoseThutmoseThutmose III rejoins his army from a fortress to the east and leads it in the capture of Megiddo.
- David splits his army and defeats the allies of the Amonites in open field. The Amonites flee and seek refuge behind the gates of their city. After the Israelites lay siege to Rabbah (II Samuel 11:1) David rejoins his army from Jerusalem and leads it in the capture of Rabbah.
Answer for yourself: Does this remotely sound like the account of King David in the Old Testament? Well lets see.
The second Book of Samuel describes the taking of Jerusalem as a military operation carried out by the tribal David:
2 Sam 5:7 7 Nevertheless David took the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David. (KJV)
The account in II Samuel goes on to indicate that the city was taken by David's men penetrating the fortress through a water shaft (gutter):
2 Sam 5:8 8 And David said on that day, Whosoever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind, that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. (KJV)
However, the evidence makes it clear that the operation was actually a peaceful one, carried out by Thutmose III, the historical King David, five centuries earlier.Kadesh (Jerusalem) was the first of over one hundred cities listed as having been conquered by Thutmose III in his Asiatic campaign as recorded on the walls of stone in the temple of Amun at Karnak (Osman, House of the Messiah, p.131-132.)
Answer for yourself: Is it just a coincidence that the same battles that we find in the Old Testament are recorded exactly on the wall of the Temple of Karnak but attributed to Thutmose III? Jerusalem (Kadesh)
immediately precedes the city of Megiddo on the list of conquered cites by Thutmose III. The more famous city of Kadesh in Syria, and the center of the Syrian-Canaanite opposition of that time, is known to have fallen to Thutmose III in a later military campaign.The name Jerusalem does not show up on any of the lists of cities conquered during any Egyptian 18th Dynasty military campaign in Asia, however, it was unquestionably part of the Egyptian empire of that time. A diplomatic letter sent to a later Egyptian Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty was addressed from "mat Urusalim," i.e., "the land of Jerusalem." Another letter from the governor of Jerusalem during the 18th Dynasty refers to Jerusalem as a city "in which the king [i.e., the Pharaoh] has set his name" (Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 270).
I Kings 11:36 36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. (KJV)
Answer for yourself: Is this to be believed as just another coincidence?According to Manetho's 3rd Century B.C. History of Egypt as quoted by Josephus, Jerusalem was being ruled at this time by the Hyksos who had been expelled from Egypt by Ahmose I. It is not surprising that they readily resubmitted themselves to Thutmose III since we saw the link to these Thutmose Pharaoh's and Joseph!
The name of Jerusalem which literally means "to establish peace or submission" certainly symbolized the role that it played in establishing and maintaining Egyptian control over Palestine during the 18th Dynasty (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 133). Both names are found in Chapter 11 of Nehemiah where the Hebrew reads as "Yurushalayim ha Qudesh," meaning, "Jerusalem the Holy City" (Osman, House of the Messiah, 132). The capture of Jerusalem/Kadesh by Thutmose III also resolves the formerly unknown source of the name Zion.
Answer for yourself: Can you guess how?
Zion consists of the components:
- On (Hebrew for the holy city of On/Heliopolis in Egypt) and
- The Hebrew word zi (meaning arid place...or desert city).
Answer for yourself: Did you think of Egypt when you read "the holy city of the Desert"? Did you ever have the wildest notion that the word Zion referred to one of the major religious centers in Egypt? Of greater influence than Memphis in Egyptian religious life was the older city, Heliopolis, in which was developed the solar cult that eventually dominated the land. Never politically pre-eminent in historic times, Heliopolis was yet the spiritual heart of Egypt. It gave its gods to the Memphite kings and drew Memphite gods into its circle; it inspired the dogma of Thebes; it paved the way for Akhenaten's crusade to establish the visible disk of the sun as sole god. Until its destruction, Heliopolis was a holy place, repository for the wisdom of the past.
Now we turn to another important historical references between Thutmose III and the city we know by the name of Jerusalem today. We have already seen the link between Thutmose III and Jerusalem derives from the time when he based himself there while his army was besieging Megiddo. His annals refer to his having
stayed "at a fortress east of this town". Although the name of the fortress is not mentioned at any point in the Egyptian text, all the indications are that Jerusalem, which lies to the south-east of Megiddo, is the location meant here. Leaving the besieged city and travelling east, the only route was the Way of the Sea, joined near the River Jordan by the road leading south to Jerusalem. It seems that we have an incomplete account of the fortress where the king stayed because the scribe concerned remained with the army, recording details of the military campaign at Megiddo, rather than accompanying Thutmose III.The biblical reference to "the king and his men" indicates that it was the ruler and his bodyguard, not his entire army, that was involved. As for the "gutter" by which they obtained entry to the fortress, this is thought to have been a shaft dug to ensure supplies of water from a spring known as the Gihon - the Christian Virgin Fountain - that lay in the valley some 325 metres below Jerusalem.
Now we look at some startling information concerning the Ark of the Covenant. On reading Grant R. Jeffrey's book Appointment with Destiny I came across a curious reference to the dimensions of the stone chest in the
King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid in Egypt. This stone chest found in the Great Pyramid King's chamber has the exact same measurement as the Ark of the Covenant. This Chest was the only object within the King's Chamber, as the Ark was the single sacred object within the Holy of Holies, in the Temple. Further, the cubit dimensions of the inner chamber of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, are precisely identical in size to the King's Chamber in the Pyramid and the same volume as the molten sea of water on the Temple Mount as prepared by King Solomon. Since the Pyramid was built and sealed long before the days of Moses, when he built the Ark and the Holy of Holies, and had remained sealed for over twenty-five centuries until the ninth century after Christ, there is no natural explanation for the phenomenon of both structures having identical volume measurements. It is interesting to note however that the Egyptians had portable shrines in the shape of boats that were very similar to the Ark of the Covenant used by the Israelites. These arks became extremely popular by the New Kingdom when Moses would have been in Egypt. One of the discoveries in Tutankhamun's tomb (a Thutmose Pharaoh) was an Ark for the afterlife. The New Kingdom saw a greater attention to the aspects of both the hidden and revealed in temple worship. The most holy was kept sacred by keeping it hidden, while the adoration of the masses was acquired through the use of the revealed. To accommodate these two conflicting ideals the Egyptians kept their most holy inner sanctuary hidden, while placing within it a sacred bark (Ark). The picture on the right is a picture of Tutankhamun's Ark. The portable boat shrines (Arks) were made of wood, but
ornately gilded and decorated and equipped with a closed cabin (sometimes called a seH-neTr, ‘Tent shrine of the god’) in which the image of the deity sat. Long carrying-poles on each side or set laterally and up to five in number bore the shrine along on the shoulders of priests" (Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt, p. 185). Notice if you will the poles which aided in the carrying of the Ark as we would expect and have imaged for us in Israel's Ark of the Covenant. In Egypt the Apet Festival focused around the “Ark of Worship”, with the Arks being borne aloft by groups of priests and adored by hysterical crowds. The similarity between these Arks and the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant is remarkable. What is surprising, is when Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, he found a number of caskets, which appear to be a form of prototype of the Ark of the Covenant.Now most are familiar with the story that shortly after David's arrival in Jerusalem, that he and the Israelites brought in the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem:
2 Sam 6:17 17 And they brought in the ark of the LORD, and set it in his place, in the midst of the tabernacle that David had pitched for it: and David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the LORD. (KJV)
The consequence of bringing the Ark to Jerusalem is said to have made the city the holy centre for the Israelite tribes. However, there is a further element of confusion here because we are dealing not only with two Davids but with two Arks - the Ark of the Covenant, in which Moses placed the Ten Commandments, and the Ark in which Thutmose III carried his god, Amun-Ra, into battle before him at Megiddo, as described in his annals at Karnak:- Year 23, first month of the third season, day 19- awakening in [life] in the tent of life, prosperity and health, at the town of Aruna. Proceeding northward by my majesty, carrying my father Amun-Ra, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands [that he might open the ways] before me." (Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 236).
The idea of a holy Ark was introduced to the Israelites by Moses (Akhenaten) from Egyptian practices of worship. In his festivals and on other occasions, the Egyptian deity used to be carried by the priests in an Ark, usually in the form of a boat when the king went to live in the fortress. When the Pharaoh, Thutmose III,
went to live in the fortress of Jerusalem at the start of the protracted siege of Megiddo, the only possible location for the god Amun-Ra in his Ark was where the king was in residence which we saw was Jerusalem. In fact, we know that there were some rituals in Egyptian religion that only the king and high priests could perform before the deity (Osman, Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt).The peaceful nature of events is also indicated by the fact that Araunah, the Jebusite king, was still in control of Mount Moriah, the high holy ground to the north of the city. We have an account of how David bought the threshing-floor of Mount Moriah "for fifty shekels of silver" in order to build an altar to the Lord. In the course of these negotiations Araunah said to David:
2 Sam 24:22-23 22 And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood. 23 All these things did Araunah, as a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The LORD thy God accept thee. (KJV)
The choice of a threshing-floor on Mount Moriah may seem a curious one for the site of an altar, but it is "clear that this site was held sacred even prior to David for an elevated, exposed spot used as a threshing-floor at the approaches to a city often served as the local cultic spot. The sanctity of Jerusalem, atop the Temple Mount, is inferred already in the Book of Genesis (Mount Moriah). . . " (Stern, Encyclopedia of Archaeological excavations In The Holy Land, vol. 3, p. 590). This earlier biblical reference describes how Abraham is said to have received holy blessing on this same piece of ground:
Gen 14:18-20 18 And Melchizedek king of Salem (Jerusalem) brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. 19 And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: 20 And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. (KJV)
Therefore, from the time of Abraham this high ground to the north of Jerusalem had been regarded as holy ground, not just for the inhabitants of the city but for other peoples in Canaan as well and this includes Egypt.However, the reality of the situation is that the threshing-floor was not bought by the tribal David to build an altar for the Lord, but by Thutmose III as the site for a shrine to his State god, Amun-Ra. This is again made clear in the Book of Psalms as we have already seen where David (Thutmose III), like Egyptian kings, is spoken of as being the "Son of God"....a title reserved for a Pharaoh (the Son of Ra).
Ps 2:6-8 6 Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (KJV)
The new name of Zion, as we have seen, makes its first appearance in the Bible as soon as we learn of King David's (Thutmose III's) entry into Jerusalem and assumes more importance from this time onward.The name Zion, whose meaning is not known for certain until defined from an Egyptian viewpoint (Desert City...Heliopolis) as we have seen did not originate in the Hebrew Bible as thought and has not been found in any historical source outside of Egypt where it finds its origin. What confuses the matter further is that the name is not always used to indicate the same location. In some cases, as the one cited above, it seems to signify the fortress of Jerusalem itself. Yet, at the same time, we have the suggestion that the fortress was named after the king himself:
2 Sam 5:9 9 So David dwelt in the fort, and called it the city of David (Thutmose III). And David built round about from Millo and inward. (KJV)
In other cases, Zion refers only to the sacred area that was used to build the Temple:
Joel 3:17 17 So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. (KJV)
Here, while Zion refers clearly to the holy area of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem is clearly separate, although related to it. We have also the reference:Ps 20:1-2 1 The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; 2 Send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion; (KJV)
It is clear in this case that by Zion only the sanctuary is meant.
Further complications have arisen from the fact that Mount Zion was later believed not to have been in the area of the Temple, high to the north of ancient Jerusalem, but on the western mount. Here, in the first century A.D., a small church was built on the southern end of the hill, which became identified as the Coenaculum (the room of the Last Supper of Jesus according to tradition). This was followed many centuries later - in 1936 - by a Christian monastery known today as the Church of Mary. Nevertheless, modern archaeology has confirmed that this western mount did not form part of ancient Jerusalem and was not occupied at the time of the tribal chief David.
All the indications are, in fact, that by Zion the ancient holy ground of Jerusalem was meant, the artificially flattened ground on Mount Moriah where Solomon (Amenhotep III) built his Temple and which today includes two of the holiest shrines of Islam - the Dome of the Rock, built by Muhammad's second Calif. Omar, and aI-Aqsa Mosque. The Temple area is surrounded by the colossal Herodian enclosure wall, preserved in the east, south and west: a larger section of the western wall (the Wailing Wall), which survives today, is regarded as the most venerated site in Jewish tradition. In ancient times, before David entered the fortress, this area was regarded as holy ground, not only by the Jebusites but by Abraham. In fact, Mount Moriah is identified as the area where the Temple was first built:
2 Chr 3:1 1 Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the LORD appeared unto David (Thutmose III) his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. (KJV)
It is the same location where, in the account of Abraham's intention to slay Sarah's son, Isaac, until he was forbidden to do so by the Lord, we have the obscure reference:
Gen 22:14 14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. (KJV)
As we saw before, Abraham also received the blessing from the king, Melchizedek, on the same holy ground.However, it was when King David (Thutmose III) brought his Ark and placed it in the same area that this ancient holy ground was transformed into a holy centre believed to be the abode of the Lord:
Ps 132:13-14 13 For the LORD hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. 14 This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. (KJV)
Once Thutmose III had taken the image of Amun-Ra in his Ark to Jerusalem, the logical resting place for it, at a time when religious bigotry did not exist, it was placed on the existing holy high ground of Mount Moriah where, one would expect, Thutmose Ill worshipped during his seven-month stay.After Thutmose III left Jerusalem at the end of his seven-month stay, the holy ground where he had worshipped became Egyptianized because of him. This can be seen easily from the name it acquired, Zion. Although found for the first time in the Bible, it is not an original Hebrew word but consists of two elements, one Hebrew, the other Egyptian as we saw above.
"On", contained in the word Zion, as we saw above, is the biblical name of the ancient Egyptian holy city known from Greek as Heliopolis, which existed a short distance to the north of modern Cairo. In the Old Testament account of the life of Joseph the Patriarch, who brought the Israelites to Egypt, we are told that Pharaoh, having appointed Joseph to a high position, gave him an Egyptian wife:
Gen 41:45 45 And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnath-pa'aneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On (Heliopolis). And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt. (KJV)
Although Heliopolis was the original Egyptian holy city, the emphasis changed during the Eighteenth Dynasty when Thebes in Upper Egypt became the new capital city of the Empire as well as the holy city of the State god Amun-Ra. From this time it became the custom to refer to Thebes as "the southern On" and Heliopolis as "the northern On", with the word "On" being used in the sense of "holy city" (the On (holy place) of the desert.Thus the very word "Zion", used to designate the holy ground to the north of Jerusalem from the time King David (Thutmose III) entered the city, in itself reveals its Egyptian origin. From that time, Mount Moriah, until then holy to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, became holy for all the Asiatic kingdoms of the Empire. By introducing the earlier story of Abraham being blessed by El Elyon, which is one of the names of the Israelite God, on the same Mount Moriah, the biblical narrator wanted to stress that the area was related to the God of Israel even before King David (Thutmose III) used it for his own worship.
After his seven-month stay, Thutmose III returned to Megiddo for his successful assault on the city, then made his way to Thebes.
We have no means of knowing whether he visited Jerusalem again during one of his many campaigns in western Asia. Nevertheless, his descendants, the children of Sarah, never really forgot their great ancestor and, after leaving Egypt and eventually settling in the Promised Land of Canaan, they made his holy ground the most venerated and holy part of their new home.
The sacredness attributed to Jerusalem by the Egyptians initially derived, as we have seen, from the transport of the Barque of Amun (a holy shrine carried on poles in much the same manner as the Israelite Ark of the Covenant) to the city of Jerusalem by Thutmose III (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 125). The Egyptian Ark or shrine was normally kept within the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, howeverThutmose III (just like King David) had carried the Egyptian Ark with him into battle (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 125, quoting from Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 236).
1 Sam 4:5-8 5 And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. 6 And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the LORD was come into the camp. 7 And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. 8 Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods? (KJV)
The Ark of Amun remained with Thutmose III when he took up residence in Jerusalem during the prolonged siege of Megiddo (Ibid. p. 114).Answer for yourself: Does this remind you of King David carrying the Ark of the Covenant into battle with him?
1 Sam 4:3-5 3 And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the LORD smitten us to day before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. 4 So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubims: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 5 And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again (KJV).
After the fall of the Syrian city of Kadesh (in the Biblical region of Zobah and Hamath) during the sixth military campaign (he conducted a total of 17 in all), Thutmose III was able to cross the Euphrates and erect a second stele beside that of Thutmose I.Answer for yourself: What is the significance of this conquest of Thutmose III?
Now watch closely what the Old Testament says about King David in the following verse. In essence, Thutmose III (King David):
2 Sam 8:3 3 David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates. (KJV)
Here we find that Thutmose III (King David) both smote the king of Zobah and crossed the Euphrates as well.Answer for yourself: Is this a coincidence? The evidence is yet mounting that King David is Thutmose III.
This is the border that was originally established his grandfather Thutmose I (Osman, House of the Messiah, p.88). It was at this time that Thutmose III (David) "established garrisons in Syria" (Edom) as the Bible describes but attributes again to a King named David:
2 Sam 8:13-14 13 And David gat him a name when he returned from smiting of the Syrians in the valley of salt, being eighteen thousand men. 14 And he put garrisons in Edom; throughout all Edom put he garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's servants. And the LORD preserved David whithersoever he went. (KJV)
We are almost done but now for some Jewish testimony concerning Kind David being Thutmose III.Kings Saul and David reigned in the 10th century B.C.E. according to the biblical chronology but Josephus dates David to a far earlier period.
"He was buried by his son (questionable) Solomon, in Jerusalem, with great magnificence, and with all the other funeral pomp which kings used to be buried with; moreover, he had great and immense wealth buried with him, the vastness of which may be easily conjectured at by what I shall now say; for a thousand and three hundred years afterward [in the time of] Hyrcanus the high priest, when he was besieged by Antiochus..." - Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews.
The siege of the second Temple in Jerusalem by Antiochus can accurately be dated to 167 B.C.E.
Answer for yourself: What happens if we look 
another thousand and three hundred years before 167 B.C.E as Josephus says? Well this date puts David's funeral at 1467 B.C.E., or almost 450 years before the generally accepted date (circa 1020 B.C.E.)
another thousand and three hundred years before 167 B.C.E as Josephus says? Well this date puts David's funeral at 1467 B.C.E., or almost 450 years before the generally accepted date (circa 1020 B.C.E.)
Answer for yourself: Does this date coincide with the time of Thutmose III? Yes it does! What another coincidence!
This, according to conventional chronology, would be during the reign of the greatest Egyptian warrior-pharaoh Thutmose III [1490-1436 B.C.E.], who extended the Egyptian empire to its furthest limits and in so doing "recovered it all"!
1 Sam 30:19 19 And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all. (KJV)
In closing Ahmed Osman, in The House of the Messiah, makes some key statements which I now quote:
- "The David who established an empire that stretched from the Nile to the Euphrates can only have lived in the fifteenth century B.C.E....The Israelite infiltration of Canaan, the Promised land, was a fragmentary process that did not gather pace until after Egypt lost control over Palestine in the second half of the twelfth century B.C.E."
- "The David whose main campaigns were against the Philistines cannot have lived before the twelfth century B.C. because that was when the mass invasion of the coastal plain of Canaan by the Philistines took place."
- "The King of Qadesh, a strong fortified city on the River Orontes in northern Syria, led a Syrio-Canaanite confederacy in a general rebellion against Egypt. In response, Thutmose III marched into western Asia to regain the territories between the Nile and Euphrates that had been conquered forty years earlier by his grandfather, Thutmose I. In the next twenty years he led a total of seventeen campaigns in western Asia, at the end of which he had earned himself the reputation as the mightiest of all the kings of the ancient world. The account of these various wars, copied from the daily records of the scribe who accompanied the army on its campaigns, is to be found in the Annals, a 223-line document that covers the inside of the walls enclosing the corridor surrounding the granite holy of holies Thutmose III built at Karnak"
So there you have it. It would appear to a "thinking believer" that the preponderance of the evidence is beyond chance and coincidence and the Biblical King David is not a Jew but in reality a part Hebrew descendent who is recognized and attested to my many infallible proofs to be a Pharaoh named Thutmose III. No wonder we find so many parallels between Biblical Judaism and Egyptian religion which both oppose the later replacement religion of Rome called Christianity.
Let us not turn to another very important Hebrew Pharaoh, King Solomon, in the 3rd article in this series.
