A bit of intellectual rigour might have been nice

There was some interesting information in this documentary, and it was a handsome, expensively-mounted production that was fascinating and beautiful to watch. But wow it was frustrating !

I lost count of the number of times I found myself shouting at the screen "Hang on, that doesn't "prove" it at all !!"
(OK, I get a bit worked up sometimes , but really !)

Example: they are digging at the ancient site of Avaris, determined to prove the theory they've already stated (that it was a city of Israelite immigrants living under the name of the Hyksos), and lo and behold, they claim to have found a seal from a signet ring with the name "Jacob" on it. They give no explanation for why Joseph would be wearing a signet ring with his father's name on it -- which would in fact be a kind of fraud, given that a signet ring was really a proof of identity and was used for making one's mark on binding documents; but beyond that, they give no provenance for the find, give nothing to verify it or examine whether it actually even came from someone living there or arrived there through trade (they later claim there was a great deal of trade between ancient Greece and the city of Avaris, which only muddies their own waters), nor do they examine whether it was in fact an Israelite it would have been representing ... at best, if it really did belong to a Hebrew named Jacob, it is merely consistent with their hypothesis. But instead they suddenly take the massive leap to saying the entire Biblical story of the Exodus has now been "proved". WTF ??!!

They claim -- with no evidence put forward whatsoever -- that the Exodus took place around 1500 BC, and then claim to be able to link it with the event known as the Hyksos Expulsion, and also with the reign of the Pharaoh Ahmose. The trouble is, the established dates of these two events -- Ahmose's reign and the Hyksos Expulsion -- are around 100 years apart; so it appears as if they've chosen the date of 1500 BC for the Exodus simply by way of picking a date somewhere between the two proven historical events. And they then argue for how it is possible to rejig Egyptian dates, presumably to paper over the cracks of their own making, but don't give us any evidence to justify doing so -- why change the dates of other events that have evidence to support them, other than to make them fit nicely with their theory ? So it seems their theory is shaping the facts, rather than the other way around, the way it should work. Not content with completely rewriting the history and timeframe of Ahmose's reign, they even claim that his name means "Brother of Moses". (Shades of Cecil B de Mille !!) But that requires his name to be translated as if the syllables of it were actually ancient Hebrew rather than Egyptian, and also for it to work his name has to be mispronounced from the usual pronunciation of the glyphs that are used in many places to write his name, so they're really just bending things a long way out of their likely shape in order to make a compelling-sounding connection.

(Surely they know, when they make claims like this, that what they're saying isn't factual ? Surely they aren't willing to just repeat hearsay ? Surely they would have checked their facts before actually making a film to present them as definitive ?)

They then state that at the same time of the Exodus (ie the time period they themselves have argued for, of 1500 or so BC), the island of Santorini exploded, and go into great detail to show how the effects of this could explain the miracles of the Biblical account. Surprise surprise, they then suddenly speak of the miracles as if they've proved that they were the after-effects of the Santorini eruption. One major problem with this, other than it being a clichéd bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand, is that the Santorini eruption actually took place more than 100 years earlier than the date they themselves have argued for as being when the Exodus took place, something that isn't made clear in the documentary but is papered over by simply saying the two events happened "around the same time". (But the volcanic cloud that darkened the sky and blotted out the sun, and the red volcanic mud stirred up by the eruption that clouded the water and made it seem like blood, and the tsunami that swept across the Mediterranean to its eastern shore and drowned all the coastal inlets, wouldn't have still been there 100 years later. It doesn't fit their own scenario.)

It's an ongoing problem with the show that they make apparent links between known historical events, or established archaeological artefacts, while completely ignoring the difference in dates between them, which are on occasion more than 300 years. In the end, it means that -- if the links they appear to be establishing are to be believed -- pretty much every single artefact or historical event they mention would have to have occurred at a radically different date from the ones that are currently attached to them by consensus. All of them. And they don't even suggest any evidence or reason for revising all these dates at all; it would seem that they want all these events to fit their theory neatly, and their mention appears to offer support for its validity; but in not ever mentioning any dating disparities, the film-makers are either showing their woeful ignorance and lack of understanding, or else their utter dishonesty.

They get into serious trouble from the get-go. They don't explain, for instance, why they suddenly go from trying to prove the Israelites were actually the Hyksos, wealthy Semitic merchants (according to this documentary) who arrived in Egypt at their own volition by migration and became so wealthy and influential they were the de facto rulers of the country (until the disgruntled locals rose up against them and drove them from the country under military threat), to describing the Israelites as unwilling slaves fighting for their freedom against severe oppression and determined to win their right to return home from a monarch unwilling for them to leave. Presumably they want to prove the Israelites were the Hyksos, because otherwise there is currently zero archaeological evidence for the Israelites ever having been in Egypt at all. And then they have to turn to the scriptures for the Biblical account of the Exodus, because there's otherwise no archaeological evidence that that ever happened either. So they're trying to give the idea of the Israelites in Egypt real-world validity, which is fair enough, but they completely ignore the fact that it's two disparate groups of people they're trying to equate. Even allowing for self-interest on the part of those telling the two stories -- the Egyptians in the case of the Hyksos, and the ancient Hebrews in the case of the Israelite slaves -- the narratives are incompatible on pretty much all levels. And this documentary never even acknowledges this as an issue, let alone addresses it.


Anyway, such issues, and their loose treatment of them, continue throughout the entire documentary. (It'd be exhausting for all of us if I were to try to document them all here.) It's a pity, because as I say there is some fascinating information to be had here, but it's mostly presented without any rigorous context and is attended by flying leaps of conclusions that the information as it is presented really doesn't support (and which tend repeatedly to morph very quickly from "it's possible that ..." to "now that it's been proved that ..." without any justification). I very quickly found my head spinning, just trying to fend off the circular logic and to keep separate what was demonstrated fact from the wild allegation and unjustified conclusions.

A pity, because the subject is fascinating.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.