So, were the Israelites (and migrants to Troad) the Hyksos?
No, I don't think so. This has been pondered, debated, and/or misinterpreted IMO by almost anyone and everyone (including me) who has taken an interest in this subject.
Herodotus says that the Egyptians –
"…expelled all the aliens gathered together in Egypt. The most distinguished of the expelled foreigners followed Danaus and Cadmus into Greece: but the greater number were led by Moses into Judea." (British History Traced from Egypt and Palestine, Rev. G.A. Roberts, p.122)
Many assume he is talking about the expulsion of the Hyksos. I say no, the intermarrying between Canaanite kings of Ugarit (the biblical patriarchs) and the line of the Pharaohs took place later. I say that this expulsion of foreigners was a "cleaning out" in Egypt following the reign of Akhenaten, the blasphemous Pharaoh who discarded the entire pantheon of old gods and goddesses in Egypt in favor of a single "sun" god.
Suddenly, I don't think Michael Tsarion is so crazy after all. 🙂
Manetho's account, as recorded by Josephus, of the appearance of the Hyksos in Egypt describes it as an armed invasion by a horde of foreign barbarians who met little resistance and who subdued the country by military force.
Herodotus account: After Asychis reined a blind man of the city of Anysis, whose name was Anysis. In his reign the Ethiopians and Sabacos the king of the Ethiopians marched upon Egypt with a great host of men; so this blind man departed, flying to the fen-country, and the Ethiopian was king over Egypt for fifty years.
When the time had expired, during which it had been prophesied to him that he should rule Egypt before he departed thence. For when he was in Ethiopia the Oracles which the Ethiopians consult had told him that it was fated for him to rule Egypt fifty years: since then this time was now expiring, and the vision of the dream also disturbed him, Sabacos departed out of Egypt of his own free will.
elreb, I see the Exodus/migration to Greece as being later and separate from the Hyksos expulsion. IN FACT, I see the monotheistic trend originating with Akhenaten. Does this mesh with your thinking?
Yes…you are totally correct.
elreb, I should add that I've become really curious about the "Hebrew" identity of the nomadic tribes which showed up in Mongolia circe 1200 B.C. (that's by Chinese accounts), tribes of which variously later formed the Hunnic, Avar and Khazarian Empires. It turns out that two Avar Khagans whose names happened to get written down from the period just after Charlemagne's reign were named Abraham and Isaac. Avar Khagans!?! … so this makes me wonder, is it a coincidence that the Hyksos' capital was Avaris? And ever since I figured out that the proto-Israelite/Trojan migrations out of Egypt could (probably) not have been concurrent with the expulsion of the Hysos, and since I've always wondered how or if those nomadic "Turkic" tribes which migrated out of the Near East (long enough ago to allow them all to show up in Mongolia 3200 years ago) relate in any way to the proto-Israelite/proto-Trojan movement out of Canaan/Syria before those people were in Egypt (or before those Trojans who may not have moved into Troad via Egypt got there just by walking north and taking a left …) … and it occurred to me, I'll bet dollars to donuts the Hyksos, who were a ruthless lot and who easily conquered the Egyptians who resisted their initial invasion with the help of superior COMPOSITE BOWS, just keep going after their expulsion … migrating all the way to Mongolia. After all, they had been in Egypt for centuries … their old homeland, wherever that was, wouldn’t have been empty. They had to either conquer someplace occupied or find someplace that wasn’t.