The Egyptian pharoah "Menenre II went after the slaves who were 'trapped' in a valley near the Reed Sea (near the 29th parallel), with the sea on one side, making it like a box canyon. Menenre II went with his horsemen and chariots to gather the slaves back and never returned, neither he nor his mounted army. That is what this record states. It does mention plagues in the narrative. It does state that the man who took the slaves out was a general of the previous King, but had fallen from grace..."
"The story relates that it was all the slaves from Giza (Goshen) area! What is truly remarkable is that the story was written shortly after Menenre's unexplained disappearance, placing it in the 22nd century BCE. The record was lost for a few thousand years. It was not available to the Hebrews in the time of Ezra. It seems that it was buried before the Hyksos invasion of Egypt and did not come to light again until a little over a hundred years ago."
"The reason for the pharaoh to chase after them was due to the fact that the Hebrews broke in to one of the tombs (it does not relate whether it was in the valley of kings or from the pyramids there at Giza...) and 'stole' the body of a previous pharaoh (not just a vizier.)"
      - Rev. Robert Palmer (private correspondence)

It is almost certain that the Egyptians did not possess chariots until at least the 13th Dynasty in the 16th century BC. Does this story actually refer to a much later incident?

"So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them."
     - Exodus 14:6-7

"...Scholars have always believed it was the Hyksos who introduced the chariot into the Levant and Egypt. Therefore, the Egyptians could not have assembled a chariot force to pursue the Israelites until they had acquired the technology from their foreign Hyksos oppressors. This understanding has recently been brought into question by the discovery of horse remains in archaeological contexts datable to the 13th Dynasty. If horses were introduced into Egypt prior to the Hyksos occupation, then they must have been employed to pull chariots - simply because horseback riding was not introduced until much later."
A stela shows son of Dudimose "and Army Commander of Edfu, Khonsuemwaset, seated with his wife on a chair with a pair of gloves depicted under his seat". Such gloves are part of the trappings of a charioteer.
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 284

"Under cover of darkness intruders from the desert approached the border of Egypt.
"...His majesty of Shou went to battle against the companions of Apopi.' Apopi was the fierce god of darkness. The king and his hosts never returned; they perished."
     - Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos

"His Majesty...finds on this place called Pi-Kharoti."
"Now when the majesty of Ra-Harmachis [Harakhti?] fought with the evil-doers in this pool, the Place of the Whirlpool, the evil-doers prevailed not over his majesty. His majesty leapt into the so-called Place of the Whirlpool."
     - Stone Shrine at el-Arish

"But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh...and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pi-ha-hiroth [Khiroth]."
"For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them."
     - Exodus 14:9 , 15:19

There is much conjecture among biblical historians as to the exact location of the crossing.

"During unusual storm conditions, strong winds have been known to blow back waters and cleave a temporary passage. At the north tip of the Suez Gulf, off the Red Sea, north-west gales occasionally still drive the waters back until it is possible to wade across. And sudden rainstorms can flood fords across the marches north of Suez. One theory is that the biblical 'Sea of Reeds' [Yam Suph] was in this marshy area - the Israelites crossing the water somewhere along what is today the Suez Canal. But Egyptian texts of the Exodus era mention a 'Papyrus Marsh' near Per-Rameses, the main city, from the vicinity of which the Israelites traveled out of Egypt."
     - Marshall Cavendish, Genesis and Exodus

"For nearly a century, there has been speculation that the Red Sea mentioned in Exodus is not the huge 100-mile-wide expanse as it is known today, but the western 'finger' of the Red Sea--which is now called the Gulf of Suez--that extends to the border areas of Egypt. This notion stems from the fact that the original Hebrew phrase for Red Sea was 'yam suph,' which actually means 'Reed Sea.' This phrase most aptly describes the lake region north of the Gulf of Suez, including the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah. According to the account in Exodus of Moses's feat, enough water was present initially to block the fleeing Israelites, and then later to drown the pursuing Egyptians. "Assuming all of that is true, researchers believe that a logical location for the biblical Red Sea is modern-day Lake Sirbonis. According to a 'Bulletin Of The American Meteorological Society' account, computer calculations indicate that because of the peculiar geography of the northern end of the Red Sea, a moderate wind blowing constantly for about 10 hours could have caused the sea to recede about a mile and the water level to drop 10 ft., leaving dry land for a period of time before crashing back when the winds died down."
     - Mike Fillon, "Science Solves the Ancient Myteries of the Bible", Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1996

"Professor Galanopoulos of the Athens Institute of Seismology...suggests that this 'Sea of Reeds' can probably be identified with Sirbonis Lake, one member of the string of so-called 'Bitter Lakes' to the east of the Nile's right branch."
     - Charles Pellegrino, Unearthing Atlantis (1991) p. 245

The Biblical account of the parting of the waters is foreshadowed in an old Egyptian tale of magic. In the story a woman accompanying the pharaoh on a rowing excursion drops "a fish shaped charm of new turquoise into the lake."

"Then said the chief lector Djadjaemonkh his magic sayings. He placed one side of the water of the lake upon the other, and lying upon a postsherd he found the fish-shaped charm. Then he brought it back and gave it to its owner. Now as for the water, it was twelve cubits deep, and it amounted to twenty-four cubits after it was folded back. He said his magic sayings, and he brought back the water of the lake to its position."
     - "The Marvel Which Happened in the Reign of King Snefru"

"The papyrus was "inscribed in the Hyksos period before Dynasty 18, but the composition appears to belong to Dynasty 12 [during the Old Kingdom]."
      Bob Brier, Ancient Egyptian Magic

"The parting of the Red Sea, as several scholars have recognized, is strangely reminiscent of the Symplegades-motive. Here, it will be remembered, the hero barely succeeds in passing through some treacherous feature of the natural landscape such as clashing rocks, while his evil pursuer is caught and killed.
"The slaying of the Pharaoh, similarly, given his explicit identification with the dragon Rahab in Rabbinic sources, appears to bear more than a trace of the imagery associated with the dragon-combat. The latter theme, alluded to in numerous passages in the Old Testament, refers to the primeval occasion in which the demon of chaos was vanquished by Yahweh himself (or with the aid of a supernatural warrior-hero). The episode of the wandering in the wilderness also has numerous parallels in the myths of other lands, a period of wandering frequently distinguishing the events associated with the Creation prior to the Creator finding a suitable spot to settle. The darkness said to have accompanied the period of the Israelite's wandering, similarly, would appear to relate to the darkness which is typically said to have preceded Creation, such darkness signifying a time of chaos."
     - Efemeral Research Foundation, "Exploring the Saturn Myth"

Hyperlinks

·The Exodus
·Into the The Realm of the Spirit
·The Resurrection