101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

196 101 Myths of the Bible
And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou
mayest inherit the land wherein thou [i.e., Jacob] art a stranger, which God gave
unto Abraham. (Gen. 28:4)
And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father [i.e., Isaac] was a stranger, in the
land of Canaan. (Gen. 37:1)
The first stage in our reconstruction, then, is to recognize that Canaan caused the
affliction, not Egypt, and that in the prophecy, the seed of Abraham will“come out” of
the land of affliction. Next, look at the passage about“the fourth generation.”
But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the
Amorites is not yet full.
This passage has always been interpreted to mean that Israel will come out of
Egypt, but that it will have to wait until problems with the Amorites disappear. It is
then argued that Moses fulfilled the prophecy in that he was in the fourth generation
after Jacob. But the prophecy says in the fourth generation, not after the fourth generation.
Since Moses is in the fifth generation beginning with Jacob, he doesn’t fall within
the terms of the prediction.
The Hyksos, the basis of the story about affliction, were of Canaanite origin, but
which Canaanites they were we don’t know. They ruled parts of Egypt from about
1750 B.C., and all or most of Egypt from about 1680 B.C., and remained in power to
about 1572 B.C. The name Hyksos means“chieftains from the hill country.”
The term Amorite originally meant specific groups of people in Canaan. It eventually
evolved into a term describing Canaanites from the central hill areas in Canaan.
So, Hyksos and Amorite both referred to people from the hill country, although the
similar definitions don’t necessarily mean they referred to the same groups of people.
In any event, when Abraham went to Egypt, the Hyksos were in charge of the
northern delta and Abraham later fled from that territory. The very next Israelite to
come to Egypt was Joseph, and lo and behold, Joseph is in the fourth generation from
Abraham—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Chronologically, following the Jewish
tradition, Joseph arrived in Egypt at about 1564 B.C., which is right after or just about
when the Egyptians decisively defeated the Hyksos.