o; is “sm-priest.”50 To which Amenhotep is the scribe referring? Although the year is completely lost from the regnal date on this MS, the surviving month (4) and day (1) mark precisely the date of Amenhotep II’s accession, implying that Prince Amenhotep undoubtedly was his son.51 This prince almost certainly resided in or near Memphis52,due to his office being connected to the high priesthood of Ptah. 53The late 18th Dynasty attests to numerous high priests of Ptah, and their order and tenures in no way prohibit counting the Prince Amenhotep of BM 10056 among them. Actually, a significant gap occurs in the sm-priest list between the end of Thutmose III’s reign and the beginning of Thutmose IV’s reign. This gap, which encompasses the reign of Amenhotep II, can be filled partially with the service of Prince Amenhotep. Redford confidently identifies this prince with another royal personage: the king’s son whom Selim Hassan dubbed “Prince B,” who erected the wall-carved stele in the Sphinx temple of Amenhotep II.54 Three factors support the identification of Prince B with Prince Amenhotep: (1) both were the son of a king; (2) Amenhotep II was the father of both; and (3) they both resided at Memphis, functioning there in the role of sm-priest.Prince B/Amenhotep undoubtedly was an important figure, as he was called “the one who enters before his father without being announced, providing protection for the King of Upper and Lower Egypt,” and “commander of the horses.”55 Since his name was enclosed in a cartouche, he was the heir apparent when the stele was carved, meaning that he stood in line for the throne ahead of Thutmose IV, who obviously was his younger brother. Therefore, some conclusions about this prince may be drawn: (1) he was the royal son of Amenhotep II; (2) he was never called “the king’s eldest son”; (3) he served as the sm-priest and lived in the royal palace at Memphis; (4) he was once the heir to the throne; (5) he lived approximately until Year 30 or 35 of his father’s reign; and (6) he never ascended to the throne.56 If Prince B/Amenhotep was the heir to the throne without being the firstborn son of Amenhotep II, then who was the eldest son of this noted pharaoh?4. An Unattested “Thutmose” as a Candidate for the Eldest Son of Amenhotep II. Redford, who considers the exodus account to be mythical, may supply the answer: “The fact that he (Prince B/Amenhotep) was named Amenhotep like his father might be taken to indicate that he was not the firstborn, that an older son named Thutmose had been born to Amenhotep II. It would be necessary to assume, however, that this Thutmose had passed away in childhood without leaving a trace.”57 Redford suggests that the practice of these pharaohs was not to name their firstborn sons after themselves, but to use an alternative birth-name. If Prince Amenhotep was not the eldest son of Amenhotep II, who by custom may have named his first son “Thutmose,” then the Thutmose sitting on the lap of the royal tutor Hekreshu in a wall painting at Thebes may be “the eldest son” of the king.58 Therefore, if Amenhotep II was the exodus-pharaoh, perhaps his eldest son was Thutmose, who died in the plague without leaving a trace, thus satisfying both the Egyptological and Biblical records (Exod 12:29).V. THE THEORY OF THE EXODUS-PHARAOH DYING IN THE RED SEA Although the Christian community historically has accepted that the exodus-pharaoh died in the Red Sea when his army drowned, there is no such statement to this effect in Exodus, the only first-hand source for the event, or anywhere else in Scripture.59 One of the most important principles that was taught to the present writer during his seminary studies is this: “Say everything the text says; say no more, and say no less!” Saying more than what is written in the text is known as eisegesis, or reading into the text what the interpreter presupposes it to say. Eisegesis must be avoided here. What does the text actually say about the fate of this pharaoh? Moses only states that the Lord would “be honored through pharaoh” by the destruction of his army (Exod 14:4), but throughout the entire narrative of Exodus, Moses never explicitly states that pharaoh died along with his army.1. Psalm 106:11 as a Proof-Text for the Death of the Exodus-Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Supporters of the view that pharaoh died in the Red Sea often appeal to Ps 106:11. The setting is the Red-Sea rebellion that was instigated by “the (Israelite) fathers (who) were in Egypt” (Ps 106:7). God parted the waters “so that he might make known his power” (Ps 106:8). After describing the parting (Ps 106:9), the psalmist adds, “And he saved them from the hand of the hater and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy, and the water covered their adversaries; not one of them remained” (Ps 106:10–11). The adversaries are obviously the Egyptian soldiers, the enemies who were haters of the Jews. The sea covered them, and not one of them remained alive.
Allegedly, pharaoh—the chief adversary
was among the smitten Egyptians. If Amenhotep II actually was the exodus-pharaoh, then his reign would have ended abruptly during the year of the exodus, or ca. 1446 BC. Since he ruled at least 26 years, which will be proven below, his reign must have begun by ca. 1471 BC. The weakness with the death-in-the-Red-Sea theory, though, is that it cannot be synchronized with the reigns of the previous five pharaohs, whose regnal dates are known, being fixed by the Ebers Papyrus. Since regnal dates are known—except for that of Thutmose II, whose rule lasted from four to twelve years—Amenhotep II’s ninth year could not have begun in or before ca. 1471 BC. Even if Thutmose II ruled for the minimum of four years, the reign of Amenhotep II had to begin in ca. 1462 BC or later, leaving nine years too few for the reigns of all of the intervening monarchs. Therefore, due to limitations that represent fixed points in Biblical and Egyptian chronologies, if Amenhotep II was the exodus-pharaoh, he could not have died in the Red-Sea incident.If the exodus-pharaoh lived through the Red-Sea massacre, Ps 106:11 remains uncompromised. The text never specifically mentions pharaoh, so there is no reason to conclude that he drowned with his army. The hater and enemy of Israel is Egypt as a collective whole, and certainly not every Egyptian drowned in the Red Sea when “the water covered their adversaries,” so God delivered his people from Egypt itself. Only those Egyptian adversaries—as national representatives—who chased the Israelites into the sea were consumed by water, and since they were the taskforce dispatched on this mission, their defeat signals the demise of the entire nation.Moreover, not one of these representatives, who comprised the bulk of pharaoh’s vast imperial army, survived after the dividing walls of the sea collapsed. This is confirmed by the Mosaic text that probably provided the basis for the psalmist’s words: “The waters returned and covered the chariots anEnglish Rosetta Stone
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