PENTATEUCH, THE, ILLUSTRATED BY EGYPTOLOGY.
Very little of the papyrus literature of Egypt has survived, and that pertains mostly to their theology and was preserved in their tombs, and yet it may be said that the later chapters of Genesis as well as the whole of the book of Exodus have an Egyptian background. While we cannot expect to find direct records concern ing a foreign people, we must examine the local coloring to see if it accords with the recited facts.
While many others are equally forcible we may suggest the history of Joseph for instance as the history of an Egyptian official, and if it be true we shall find it correct in local color. The scholar who studies the history of Joseph is forced to conclude at least that the author was well acquainted with early Egyptian life. For instance the "chiefs" of the bakers and butlers are mentioned in a list of the officials at court ; the "seven kine" seen in the dream of Pharaoh represent the seven forms of the cow-headed god dess Hathor who symbolized the Nile; the marks of favor which were shown to Joseph were those pertaining to his time, and even his change of name was in strict accordance with Egyptian usage. Joseph's action in obtaining for the king the real estate of the country is illustrated by the facts shown by the study of the monuments.
It appears that Joseph belonged to the age of the Hyksos kings, and before that time the land was held by feudal princes and other private own ers, the crown lands being of very small extent, while during the i8th and the following dynasties the land is divided between the kings and the priests, individual ownership having become a thing of the past. It is only in the book of Gene
sis that the change is explained.
Prof. Sayce says: "The plagues which pre ceded the Exodus appear to have been an ac centuation of natural conditions ; for instance ev ery year the Nile becomes the color of blood and the water is foul and injurious. This phenomena takes place however only when the river begins to rise and not in the early spring. Every summer the frogs become a nuisance and lice cover the bodies of the unclean natives, while flies are abundant, and boils are a common trou ble. The cattle often die of murrain and the southwest wind brings a cloud of locusts over the country. As late as the spring of 1893 a thunder storm destroyed the crops on three thousand acres of cultivated land. We have, it is true, only one record of 'darkness which might be felt' but the dust storms which accompany the spring winds obscure the sunlight and fill the land with gloom." (See "Fresh Light from Monuments," etc.) No records of the extraordinary phenomenon of this sort would be kept, for the Pharaohs like the Assyrian kings did not place the story of their defeats upon their monuments. But bits of local color show the truth of the various nar ratives, and we have occasional admissions even upon the monuments, as in the case of the stone recording the destruction of the firstborn of the Egyptians, and mentioning the name of Israel.