The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

Habermehl, A. 2018. The Ipuwer Papyrus and the Exodus. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism , ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 1–6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship. THE IPUWER PAPYRUS AND THE EXODUS Anne Habermehl , B.Sc., Independent Scholar, 25 Madison St., Cortland, NY 13045 USA, anneh@twcny.rr.com ABSTRACT Controversy surrounds the Ipuwer Papyrus, an Egyptian manuscript residing in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands. On the one side are those who claim that this manuscript describes chaotic conditions in Egypt at the time of the biblical Exodus. On the other side are those who deny this on the basis of disbelief that the Exodus ever took place, or who claim that the date of the events described in the manuscript are wrong for the Exodus. In this paper we show that this ancient document most likely describes Exodus conditions; and that the Ipuwer Papyrus therefore offers strong extra-biblical evidence for a historical Exodus. With respect to dating the events in this papyrus, it needs to be understood that the secular historical timeline diverges from the biblical timeline, and furthermore, that the Old Kingdom and the Middle Kingdom of Egypt ended at the same time (contrary to the standard history). This puts the manuscript’s original date (as determined by scholars) exactly where it should be. The question of divergence of the secular and biblical timelines is a matter of enormous importance for biblical apologetics. Often secular scholars declare that biblical events like the Exodus cannot have taken place because there are no evidences of these at the time in history where the Bible places them. The Ipuwer papyrus therefore supports a divergence of several hundred years between the biblical and secular timelines at the time of the Exodus. KEY WORDS Ipuwer Papyrus, Exodus, plagues, biblical timeline, secular timeline, Egyptian history Copyright 2018 Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA www.creationicc.org 1 INTRODUCTION Controversy surrounds the Ipuwer Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian manuscript that describes chaotic conditions in Egypt at some time in the distant past. The disagreements focus on whether or not this manuscript describes Egypt at the time of the Exodus, whether it describes events at some other time in history, or whether it describes real events at all (but is merely a literary genre called a lament). Because many secular scholars do not believe there actually was an Exodus, naturally they do not believe that this papyrus describes Exodus events. Sorting this all out is not simple, because it involves dating the manuscript, dating the Exodus, accepting or not accepting divergence between the biblical and secular timelines, and belief versus disbelief in a literal biblical Exodus. We will quote the Lichtheim English translation of 1973 in this paper. It is widely used and comes with notes as well as references to and discussion of prior translations (Gardiner 1909; Erman 1966; Faulkner 1965; Wilson 1969). We recognize that there are more recent translations (e.g., Dollinger 2000; Enmarch 2008). However, from the point of view of this paper, the various translations do not vary greatly beyond nuances of certain expressions and some differences in guesses at what missing words in the manuscript might be (there are quite a number of those). Any of these translations could be used. A translation of the entire Ipuwer text by Dollinger (2000) appears online. DESCRIPTION OF THE IPUWER PAPYRUS The Ipuwer Papyrus is an ancient Egyptian manuscript written in hieratic script, 378 cm x 18 cm, residing in the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Netherlands. Its official designation is Papyrus Leiden I 344 recto. The papyrus is also called The Admonitions of Ipuwer and The Dialogue of Ipuwer and The Lord of All. It was acquired in Egypt by a wealthy merchant and antiquarian, Jean (Giovanni) d’Anastasi, consul for Norway and Sweden, who sold it to the Dutch government in 1828. The “recto” designation indicates that the text written by Ipuwer is the primary material, because the recto of a papyrus was the best- quality side to write on. The back side, called the “verso,” has unrelated text, a long hymn to the god Amun. For a description and origins of this papyrus see e.g., Gardiner (1909, p. 1); Lichtheim (1973, p. 150); and Jeffrey (2002, p. 59). For a photo of part of the papyrus, see Fig. 1. The Ipuwer content on the recto side of the papyrus is in the form of a long poem. It is largely a conversation of an Egyptian called Ipuwer, who is talking to someone called The Lord of All. Because the composition is in the form of a poem, the ideas are not presented in a straightforward manner as they might be in a narrative (poetry has not changed greatly in this regard over the millennia). Because of damage to the manuscript, there are some lines missing both at the beginning and the end; and there are lacunae (missing words) here and there throughout . These latter present problems in determining the exact meaning in some places in the manuscript, and scholars vary in their suggested translations. Papyrus writing surface is produced by laying down layers of the inner pith of papyrus plant stalks and drying the sheets under pressure (we get our word “paper” from papyrus). The earliest known surviving papyrus with text dates to the 4 th Dynasty (about 2500 BC secular), considerably older than the Ipuwer Papyrus; this shows that this medium of writing survives time well. For information on the history and making of papyrus paper, see Gaudet (2014, pp. 44─56). The hieratic script of the Ipuwer manuscript is the form of writing used by the ancient Egyptian scribes on papyrus. It is not to be confused with hieroglyphics, which are symbols engraved on stone monuments. Hieratic has been described as a sort of cursive form of hieroglyphics. Both forms of writing were used concurrently over many years (Te Velde 1988).