by
Damien F. Mackey
Upon close examination, the Book of Genesis appears
to provide us with several vital clues
about the “Pharaoh” encountered by Abram and
Sarai.
These may be
such clues as can assist us in determining just who was, in the Egyptian
records, this enigmatic ruler.
From a study of
the structure of the relevant Genesis passages, from toledôt and
chiasmus, as considered in my article:
Toledôt Explains Abram's Pharaoh
we learned that
the biblical pharaoh:
Was the same as the
Abimelech of Gerar, ruler of the Philistines, contemporaneous with both Abram
(Abraham) and Isaac.
Which means that:
This particular pharaoh
must have reigned for at least 60+ years (the span from Abram’s famine
to the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah).
The era of Abram
also closely approximated, we have found - as archaeologically determined by Dr.
John Osgood - the time of Narmer.
Now, while some
consider this Narmer to have been the father of Egypt’s first pharaoh, Menes, my
preference is for Narmer as the invasive Akkadian king, Naram-Sin.
See my combined:
Thanks to the important revision of Dr.
John Osgood, in “The Times of Abraham”, the Sothically mis-dated monarch,
Narmer (c. 3100 BC, though conventional dates vary) can now be established
archaeologically during the lifetime of Abraham (c. 1870 BC).
and
…. what makes most intriguing a possible collision of … Menes with a
Shinarian potentate … is the emphatic view of Dr. W. F. Albright that Naram-Sin
… had conquered Egypt, and that the “Manium” whom Naram-Sin boasts he had
vanquished was in fact Menes himself (“Menes and Naram-Sin”, JEA, Vol. 6, No.
2, Apr., 1920, pp. 89-98).
a contemporary
of Menes and the latter’s vanquisher.
I am also
inclined to accept the view that the classical name “Menes” arose from the
nomen, Min, of pharaoh Hor-Aha
(“Horus the Fighter”).
Most
importantly, according to Manetho, Hor (“Menes”) ruled for more than 60 years (http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn01/01menes.html).
Moreover, Emmet
Sweeney has provided a strong argument for a close convergence in time of
Abraham and Menes (http://www.emmetsweeney.net/article-directory/item/70-abraham-and).
Conclusion
My tentative estimation
would be that Abram came to Egypt at the approximate time of Narmer, and
right near the beginning of the long reign of Hor-Aha (Menes), who in his
youthfulness had fancied Sarai.
However, by the end of the
pharaoh’s long reign, at the time when Isaac had married Rebekah, he (as
Abimelech) no longer sought personal involvement with the young woman, but
rather commented (Genesis 26:10): ‘What if one of the men had taken Rebekah for
himself?’
