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

Egypt. The most obvious one is Ipuwer’s statement that the river is blood, and the people thirst for water (Lichtheim 1973, p. 151). In Exodus 7:19─24 we see that there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt, in the rivers, the streams, pools of water, ponds, and wood and stone vessels. The water was undrinkable. Both Ipuwer and the Bible say that the river was blood, not that it looked like blood. We might wonder how the skeptics get around this. Not surprisingly they have come up with some explanations for this phenomenon. One popular rationale is that the Nile waters carried so much red soil from the south at that time of year that the water looked red (e.g., Enmarch 2011, p. 174)). Another explanation offered is that a certain plant suddenly bloomed in the Nile to make it look red (Humphreys 2003, p. 117). Both of these suggested possibilities present difficulties because the Bible clearly says that not only the water in the Nile turned red, but the water in all the streams and ponds and pools and vessels turned to blood when Aaron smote the waters with his rod (Exodus 7:19, 20). Then the red color suddenly disappeared seven days later (Exodus 7:25). These details of the biblical narrative are hard to explain, short of a miracle. This one statement of the river as blood makes it very likely that the Ipuwer manuscript refers to the time of the Exodus. 4. Statements that can be interpreted more than one way In reading the Ipuwer poem, we need to be aware that a statement that means one thing to one person can mean something else to another. Indeed, nearly 3500 years after the Exodus, our minds may not think in the same way as an ancient Egyptian poet. We show a few examples here. “Foreigners have become people everywhere” (Lichtheim 1973, p. 150). Who are these foreigners? Mӧller (2002, p. 145) claims that they are the Israelites. But we might wonder whether after over 200 years in Egypt that the Children of Israel would be considered foreigners. Because they lived in the Delta in the land of Goshen (Exodus 8: 22–23), they could not be said to be “everywhere.” These foreigners could well be people from outside Egypt who, after the Exodus, with the Egyptian army destroyed, now could enter the undefended country with ease, as mentioned earlier. “What the ancestors foretold has happened” (Lichtheim 1973, p. 150). Mӧller claims that this refers to Joseph telling the Children of Israel that they will leave Egypt (2002, p. 145). But would Ipuwer not be more likely to refer to his own Egyptian ancestors who may have foretold some disaster? “Behold, Egypt is fallen to pouring of water, and he who poured water on the ground has carried off the strong man in misery” (Lichtheim 1973, p. 156). This is claimed to refer to the drowned pharaoh by Stewart (2003, pp. 276–277), who makes a (somewhat) plausible case for this. Alternatively, there are those who quote Exodus 4:9 where God told Moses to pour water on the ground if the Children of Israel would not believe Moses, and this water would turn to blood on the ground. We suggest that this statement could even refer to God, who poured a terrible storm of rain and hail in the seventh plague (Exodus 9:33, 34). “See now, fire has leaped high” (Lichtheim 1973, p.155). This has been taken to refer to the pillar of fire that God used to lead the Children of Israel by night (Exodus 13:21:22) (e.g., Kolom 2008, p. 114). Alternatively, some believe that this refers to fire that accompanied the plague of hail (Exodus 9:23, 24) (e.g., Holden and Geisler 2013, p. 223). We cannot use lines in the poem that can be interpreted more than one way to support our argument, even though we might claim that our preferred interpretation is backed by the Bible. 5. What if the Papyrus does not describe actual events? Obviously, if scholars can convince us that the events described by Ipuwer did not really occur, we can dispose at once of the possibility that it refers to the time of the Exodus. Indeed, some scholars practically trip over their feet in their eagerness to claim that this manuscript does not refer to real events at all, biblical or otherwise. As an example, Mark (2016) displays almost contempt for those who actually believe. According to him, “One can only accept The Admonitions of Ipuwer  as history if one has little or no knowledge of Egyptian history and literature.” Lichtheim (1973, p. 150) says that “the Admonitions of Ipuwer has not only no bearing whatever on the long past First Intermediate Period, it also does not derive from any other historical situation.” According to Egyptian scholars, we are supposed to believe that it was very popular back in Ipuwer’s day to write lamentation types of literature that had no connection to real events. For further information on this subject, see Pessimistic Literature (2005), and also Shaw (2003, pp. 134–136). We need to consider that these various known pessimistic texts, that were written over a fairly short period of time, might all refer to the troubles that resulted from the plagues and Exodus. We must also beware of scholars who claim contra statements in the Papyrus that are not true. For instance, Enmarch (2011) says that the Ipuwer poem contradicts the Bible because it speaks of an invasion of Asians, rather than a large-scale emigration. In fact, immediately after the Exodus, with the Egyptian army destroyed, there was no longer any manned defense against the Asian hordes who constantly wanted to get into Egypt from the east. The building of defense walls along the eastern border of Egypt by Amenemhat I at the beginning of the 12 th Dynasty to keep Asiatics out is well documented by historians (e.g., see Shaw 2003, pp. 147─148). But now these people could walk right in. If Enmarch had looked carefully at the biblical narrative and realized its consequences, he would have seen this. 6. What we learn if the Ipuwer Papyrus does describe the time of the Exodus A large proportion of the text of the Ipuwer Papyrus consists of details that are not mentioned in the biblical narrative, because they are describing the chaotic state of Egypt after the Children of Israel left. We would expect this because the biblical writer is focused on the movements of the Children of Israel, not on the Egypt that they left behind. But if this papyrus really does describe Egypt at the time of the Exodus, we learn some very interesting things about what went on after the Children of Israel left. We see total chaos, with the normal roles of society reversed, servants and masters exchanging positions, rich becoming poor and poor becoming rich, rebellion against all authorities, and a high rate of crime. There was famine. Ipuwer goes on and on describing in detail how Egypt totally fell apart. It is small wonder that the Children of Israel were not bothered by the Egyptians during the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. 7. Final remarks We might wonder why there are not more directly parallel statements between the Ipuwer Papyrus and the Bible listed in Table 1. It is suggested here that this is because Ipuwer could not have known exactly what the biblical writer was going to say, and the biblical writer could not have known what Ipuwer was going to Habermehl ◀ Ipuwer Papyrus and the Exodus ▶ 2018 ICC 5