Pharaohs, Famines, and Floods - History Confirms the First Two Books of the Bible

In the last post, we looked at just a little bit of the scientific confirmation of the Bible’s truth. As impressive as that subject is, it pales when compared to the topic of historical confirmation. When we look through the writings of history and the study of archaeology, we see the Bible’s record confirmed over and over again.

Once again, this subject contains much more information than I can cram into one article. But this time, I want to spend a few posts covering this topic...we need to be a little more thorough with this.

I would invite anyone who finds this post interesting to do your own research into the topic. As you do, you’ll find that there is no credible reason for anyone to doubt the historical authenticity of the Bible!

Arguments From Silence

Let me start with an important point. Every Christian should keep this in mind: Historical silence is not a strong argument against the Bible.

Here’s what I mean: Over and over again, secular historians have criticized events in the Bible by claiming that there is no record of the event outside the Bible. When you think about this, the idea doesn't hold up to logic. The “historical silence” argument is silly for one reason...does any skeptic really think that we have discovered the written records of every event in history?

What if the event was recorded, but that record hasn’t been discovered yet? Over and over again, critics who used this argument have had to eat their words when a new discovery was made confirming the Bible.

Here's another thought; what if the event that the Bible records wasn’t recorded anywhere else? Would the Bible’s record be enough? As we’re about to discover, the Bible has an impeccable track record based on known history. If that’s the case, why wouldn’t we trust it as a source even when it's the only source?

The Flood of Noah

If the Bible was accurate in its record of a global flood destroying the world, wouldn’t we expect to see that event at least mentioned outside the Scriptures? Did you know that cultures around the world have legends of a worldwide watery disaster? Here are just a few:

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh tells of a global flood and a man bringing animals on boat to save them

The Chinese tell of a man named Fuhi who built a boat and survived a flood, along with the animals he brought on board.

India has the story of Manu, a man who was warned by a fish god of a coming flood. He built a boat, survived the flood, and landed on a mountaintop.

The Incas told of a global flood that they survived by moving to a mountaintop.

The Ojibwe tribe in North America tell of a man named Waynaboozhoo who survived a flood along with a few animals by floating on a large log. In this story, the flood was sent by the Creator to purify the earth of evil.

The Aztecs tell of a man named Tapi who was told to take a pair of each kind of animal on a boat to survive a flood that would cover the mountains

Even the Greeks tell of a time when Zeus wanted to wipe out every human with a global flood, but Prometheus took one human couple and put them in a wooden box to survive and restart the race.

This list just keeps going! Every inhabited continent in the world has their own version of this story. Each legend is slightly different from another, but the elements are all there when you look at them as a whole.When you put all these flood legends together, you can see:
There was a time when mankind became wicked and a deity in heaven decided to flood the earth.
One family was spared because of their righteousness - they were told to build a boat.
Once the boat was built, this family filled it with all different types of animals.
The flood destroyed every living thing that wasn’t on the boat.
The boat came to rest on a mountain, and the righteous family offered sacrifices of thanksgiving.
All of the human race descended from this one family.

We can reconstruct all of this without even looking at the record in the book of Genesis! Clearly this was a historical event that was passed down from generation to generation throughout the world - this is why we can see traces of it in almost every culture. And yet, the only place where the true version of this story is found in its entirety - and without any kind of distortion or perversion - is in the Bible!

Egyptian History

One of the ancient cultures most mentioned in the Bible is Egypt. Egypt and the people of Israel have a long history...going all the way back to the book of Genesis.

For a long time, worldly historians would scoff at Biblical mentions of the nation of Egypt. They claimed that there was no record in Egyptian history that supported the claims of the Bible. But when we look at their arguments, we see that most historians have been wrong about this and that the Bible was correct the whole time!

Have you ever heard someone say “There is no record of the Exodus in the history of Ancient Egypt?” Turns out, the historians have been looking in the wrong historical time-period!

Traditionally, historians and archaeologists have based their timelines on the sequence of Egyptian pharaohs and the length of their reigns. But now we know that Egyptian chronology was a mess. Sometimes Pharaohs would exaggerate their reigns and the reigns of their ancestors. Other times two pharaohs would be ruling at the same time, but they would be recorded as if they were back-to-back. When we compress Egyptian history back to where it should be (by using the more reliable Assyrian timeline)...we see an amazing confirmation of nearly every time the Bible mentions Egypt!

Joseph was sent as a prisoner to Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Sesostris I. During his reign, we see an Egyptian record of a man named Mentuhotep, the pharaoh’s second-in-command, saving Egypt from famine. Of course, we know that Mentuhotep was actually Joseph after he was promoted!

During the reign of Sesostris III, we see an outbreak of building projects performed on the backs of slaves. Graveyards of these slaves reveal Semitic, not Egyptian names. What's more, many of these slave graveyards had an unusually high percentage of children and infants buried in them - over sixty percent in some places! Why was there such a high infant death rate among these slaves? It appears that archaeology is just now discovering the tragic death toll of the pharaoh’s command in Exodus 15:16 “...if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”

Eighty years later, Pharaoh Neferhotep I was reigning when these slaves suddenly left Egypt, without even finishing their building projects. It appears that the "slave cities" were just abandoned - seemingly overnight! It's also worth mentioning that this pharaoh’s body was never buried, and we don’t have a sarcophagus or a mummy of this man. Why? Because the Bible tells us he was drowned in the Red Sea!

After Neferhotep died, his dynasty ended and it was his brother, not his son, that took the throne...confirming what the Bible says about his son dying during the first passover.

History also shows us that Egypt was invaded by a foreign military after his death, and the invaders found no military resistance whatsoever. Think about that statement. Egypt was the most powerful nation in the Middle-east at the time...so how could the world’s superpower be defeated without even a battle? The easiest answer comes from the Bible - all of the Egyptian army was floating in the Red Sea right beside Pharaoh Neferhotep!

One of the most-used arguments against the book of Exodus goes something like this, “If Egypt was really struck with something as disastrous as the ten plagues, then surely there would be a record of it somewhere.” Does this sound reasonable to you?

First, remember back to what we just said; “arguments from silence” don’t prove that an event didn’t occur. As Christians, we hold onto the Word of God no matter what we see or don’t see in recorded History.

But having said that, let me show you a quote from an ancient Egyptian poem called the Ipuwer Papyrus:
“Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere...the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water...alas gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire...alas men are few. He that lays his brother in the ground is everywhere...the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognized...alas corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume, and oil. Everyone says ‘there is no more.’ The storehouse is bare...It has come to this. The king has been taken away by poor men.”

Now let me ask you, after looking at just the first two books of the Bible, how could anyone say “There’s no historical evidence for the Bible”? Looking at the way these ancient records line up with the Word of God...aren’t you glad you have already made the decision to trust that Book?