Point of View December 5, 2024 – Hour 2 : Biblical and Egyptian History

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, and now Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:00:20] And welcome back to Point of View. I've got to tell you, I am excited about this hour. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.

[00:00:26] My guest is Ramez Salama. He is a native of Egypt and he is an Egyptologist, studied Egyptology there in Egypt, and he leads tours with Morningstar Tours, one of the groups he works with.

[00:00:40] And we have been on that tour, and I met Ramez back last March as a group of us with Dallas Theological Seminary went on a tour of Egypt.

[00:00:50] And so he was our tour guide, and we were blown away. There were several of us there, the head of Dallas Theological Seminary and others, but there was a number of people there.

[00:00:58] But we all agreed, one thing we all agreed on when we came, this was the best tour we had ever gone on.

[00:01:05] And in part because not only are you looking at the archaeology there, but the Bible and Egypt play such an integral role that we see that when you see it mentioned in the Bible time and time again, and yet most of us don't think much about Egypt.

[00:01:21] We think about Israel. So Ramez, thank you for joining us.

[00:01:24] Thank you so much. You're from Egypt, but you're in town today and we were able to get you in on the studio.

[00:01:30] And so thank you for joining us. Let's talk. Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got involved in this.

[00:01:36] So I'm Egyptologist guide. Basically, I've been doing this for the past 22 years.

[00:01:43] I've been working with Morning Star Tours in Egypt.

[00:01:46] Basically, what we do is we make the Bible comes to life through amazing transformational experiences.

[00:01:54] You may think what's Egyptologist guide? Egypt is the only country in the world that have got a science attributed to its own name.

[00:02:00] So we've never heard about Kenyan analogy or French analogy, some cultiology that does not exist.

[00:02:06] But we do know Egyptology.

[00:02:08] Egyptology. So basically, I studied Egyptology for four years.

[00:02:13] It was Jeff-François Champignon in the 1800s.

[00:02:17] He transferred the hieroglyphic inscriptions.

[00:02:19] All of these mysterious symbols have came to be a language and that's when the science of Egyptology emerged.

[00:02:25] So I studied Egyptology and with a Christian background that I have, we have started creating all of these amazing experiences,

[00:02:33] emphasizing over the biblical aspect from the history point of view in the land of Egypt.

[00:02:40] So I'm a father of two girls, my wife, Anne, and Grace and Eliana.

[00:02:47] So, and we all live in Cairo.

[00:02:50] Born and raised in Egypt.

[00:02:51] I'm from the Coptic community.

[00:02:53] You may think what Coptic is.

[00:02:55] Coptic means Egyptian.

[00:02:56] So I'm a Coptic Evangelical Egyptian.

[00:02:59] So that's what we call it.

[00:03:00] And I thought, was it your grandfather something that was a pastor for a while?

[00:03:03] Yes.

[00:03:03] He built a church in Upper Egypt.

[00:03:06] And we have been coming from a long-lasting evangelical family in the country.

[00:03:11] Let's talk a little bit about Egypt today.

[00:03:13] There's a Christian community.

[00:03:15] There's also an Arabic Muslim community.

[00:03:18] Tell us about the community today.

[00:03:20] We are 10 million Christian Egyptians living in Egypt.

[00:03:24] All of us known as the Coptic Egyptians.

[00:03:27] They're all called Coptic.

[00:03:28] That's just the term for it.

[00:03:30] You can be a Coptic Orthodox or you can be a Coptic Protestant or you can be a Coptic Catholic.

[00:03:34] So Coptic means Egyptian.

[00:03:36] So if I'm saying I'm Coptic Egyptian, I'm saying it Egyptian Egyptian.

[00:03:40] Remember, buddy, a long time ago, Egypt was known as Egyptos in the Greek language.

[00:03:47] When the Arabs came and conquered Egypt 641 AD, they wanted to differentiate between the dwellers of the Nile and the new immigrants coming to the land.

[00:03:55] So they told the people living on the Nile, since you're living in this country, Egyptos, we're going to call you Coptos, from which the word Coptic comes later on.

[00:04:05] So those dwellers of the Nile, the Christians of the Nile, they were known as Coptic by the Arabs coming from the word Coptos, coming from the word Egyptos, which is Egypt basically in Greek.

[00:04:20] Egypt has been a major Christian center at times in the past.

[00:04:24] And I don't think people are always familiar with that, but it has been a major Christian center.

[00:04:28] Yes.

[00:04:29] So remember, it was four intellectual cities in the world at that time.

[00:04:34] It was Ephesus.

[00:04:35] It was Egypt, Alexandria.

[00:04:37] It was Rome and Athens.

[00:04:39] So Alexandria, this is where the Library of Alexandria was.

[00:04:42] And that's where Mark-

[00:04:43] Very far north.

[00:04:44] The far north of the park.

[00:04:45] Yes.

[00:04:45] That's where Mark came and preached the gospel.

[00:04:48] So Mark is the one who brought the gospel to Egypt in year 43 AD.

[00:04:53] He traveled and he started converting the Jewish community of Alexandria.

[00:04:59] Then he traveled to Rome and he returned back again to evangelize the Egyptians.

[00:05:05] And this time, the church has started growing rapidly.

[00:05:09] So Christianity had been in Egypt for from over 1,974 years ago.

[00:05:17] This is one of the oldest existing churches in the world are in Egypt.

[00:05:23] You know, buddy, we were talking earlier like how people, they see the Middle East, they

[00:05:28] don't think of Christians living in the Middle East.

[00:05:30] But really, there's a big population.

[00:05:32] We're talking about 10 million Egyptians who are believers on the Nile.

[00:05:38] So that's an amazing number in this region.

[00:05:42] Is Egypt such that you can worship as a Christian and not be persecuted?

[00:05:46] There's no persecution among Christians in Egypt?

[00:05:49] There is no persecution among-

[00:05:52] Actually, I was talking to a pastor yesterday.

[00:05:54] And it is very interesting that we, in Egypt, you can be granted a land if you're building

[00:06:00] a religious institution.

[00:06:02] Like if you're building a mosque or building a church, you can get it for free.

[00:06:07] You can actually either buy it or you can just wait for your turn and get a free land

[00:06:11] from the Egyptian government.

[00:06:13] So no, there's basically, we feel that we're free.

[00:06:17] There's tolerance.

[00:06:18] My best friend is a Muslim guy.

[00:06:21] So basically, yes, you can worship freedomly in Egypt.

[00:06:26] So Egypt is sort of the cradle of civilization.

[00:06:29] Yes.

[00:06:29] When you go into Cairo, you fly into Cairo and you look out there and you can see the great

[00:06:33] pyramids of Giza and you see this.

[00:06:36] And one of the points says, most of us think there are three pyramids, but there's a lot more

[00:06:40] than three pyramids, aren't there?

[00:06:41] Yes.

[00:06:42] There is 115 pyramids in Egypt.

[00:06:45] So if you think that there's only three pyramids in Egypt, then you're absolutely wrong.

[00:06:49] There is way more than three pyramids in Egypt.

[00:06:53] Look, Cairo, we are a city of 23 million people.

[00:06:56] Yeah.

[00:06:57] So 23 million people, that's the same exact population of Australia.

[00:07:00] So imagine you bring the whole entire continent of Australia and place the whole people of

[00:07:05] Australia in one city.

[00:07:06] That would be Cairo.

[00:07:09] Cairo, it is busy but not busy at the same time.

[00:07:12] So this is where I'm born and raised.

[00:07:15] This is where I came from to Dallas here and I'm returning back in three days time.

[00:07:19] So Cairo is very charming, even though it's very old.

[00:07:23] I mean, like this is a city that had been 974 years.

[00:07:27] It was built in year 947 A.D.

[00:07:31] In Egypt, that's considered young because we have Alexandria.

[00:07:35] Alexandria is from the time of Alexander the Great, 2,300 years ago.

[00:07:39] You think that's old?

[00:07:40] Then you're absolutely wrong because we have Luxor, 3,900 years ago.

[00:07:45] The city had been into presence since that time.

[00:07:48] You know Memphis?

[00:07:49] Not Memphis, Tennessee.

[00:07:51] Memphis, Egypt.

[00:07:52] Because Memphis, when it started, it started in Memphis, Egypt on the Nile,

[00:07:55] on the banks of the Nile, 5,100 years ago.

[00:07:59] Until today, this city is existing.

[00:08:02] So it is, I always think of our Morningstar tours in Egypt.

[00:08:07] It's like a magic carpet ride.

[00:08:09] So you travel back into time.

[00:08:11] So coming out of Dallas on an airplane, this is not an airplane.

[00:08:15] It's a time capsule.

[00:08:16] It takes you back into time.

[00:08:18] When you walk in 1,000 old streets, that is a normal thing.

[00:08:22] When you see buildings and tombs, and 3,400 years ago, that is absolutely fine.

[00:08:28] I mean, it takes you into this transformational, dazzling journey.

[00:08:35] When we come back, we'll start talking about some of the roles that the Bible plays in Egypt.

[00:08:39] So stay with us.

[00:08:40] We'll be right back.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] Decades ago, Ronald Reagan observed no government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.

[00:09:10] Government programs, once launched, never disappear.

[00:09:13] Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.

[00:09:17] This is a challenge that Elon Musk and Vivek Rameshwamy face as they lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

[00:09:24] The two of them explained their plan to reform the government in their Wall Street Journal op-ed.

[00:09:29] They are assisting the Trump transition team in identifying and hiring a team of small government crusaders

[00:09:34] who will work with the Office of Management and Budget.

[00:09:37] Now, they aren't the first outsiders to attempt to trim the bureaucracy.

[00:09:41] J. Peter Grace led the Grace Commission that filed its report with Ronald Reagan in 1984.

[00:09:45] President Obama formed the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, often called Simpson-Bowles, in honor of the two co-chairs.

[00:09:54] Neither commission had much of an impact on the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.

[00:09:59] Both Musk and Rameshwamy believe they have a better chance of success due to two Supreme Court rulings concerning federal regulations.

[00:10:07] They will present a list of regulations to President Trump, who will pause the enforcement of those regulations by executive action.

[00:10:14] They also challenge the conventional assumption that civil service protections stop a president from firing federal workers.

[00:10:21] But they don't plan to target specific employees, but merely reduce the size of the department.

[00:10:26] And they point to other Supreme Court cases to support their belief.

[00:10:30] Trimming the administrative state won't be easy, but I think they may have found an open door that will allow them to succeed in reforming the federal government.

[00:10:38] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of anti-Semitism, go to viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:54] Viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View.

[00:11:00] Your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:11:05] My guest in studio, Ramez Salama.

[00:11:08] He is a tour guide, an Egyptologist, and he takes people through the down the Nile, through Egypt, as you find out the Bible, the connection of the Bible with Egypt.

[00:11:20] And it's massive.

[00:11:21] And so, Ramez, we were talking before a little bit about the pyramids because there's one of the seven original ancient seven wonders of the world.

[00:11:30] There's one left.

[00:11:30] And it's in Cairo.

[00:11:32] Yes.

[00:11:32] Or just outside of Cairo.

[00:11:33] So, the seven wonders of the world are all gone except the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

[00:11:39] It's not the Giza Pyramids.

[00:11:40] It's the Great Pyramid of Egypt.

[00:11:41] It's the only surviving wonder of the wonders of the world.

[00:11:45] This building, buddy, it's over like 2.3 million blocks.

[00:11:50] Each one single block is around eight tons to two tons.

[00:11:55] One single block, 70,000 tons.

[00:11:58] So, it's amazing.

[00:12:00] I mean, like every single time I take people there, I get dazzled myself.

[00:12:03] I mean, like this is something that never get me bored from seeing it.

[00:12:08] You know, it's interesting because I think of Moses as having lived a long time ago, but the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built about a thousand years before Moses.

[00:12:17] Yes.

[00:12:18] Actually, the pyramids were built 500 years before Father Abraham.

[00:12:22] Remember Father Abraham when he traveled to Egypt and he was with Sarah and he told Sarah to say that she's his sister rather than his wife.

[00:12:31] Right.

[00:12:31] Not to avoid the pharaohs, not to desire her.

[00:12:36] Abraham himself have seen the pyramids.

[00:12:39] Abraham falls in history around 2,000 years BC.

[00:12:42] The pyramids were built 2,500 years BC.

[00:12:44] So, that means 500 years before Abraham.

[00:12:48] So, basically the pyramids were the first known tourist attraction in the history of humanity.

[00:12:54] Abraham himself have seen the pyramids.

[00:12:57] Even the Greeks, when they came there, they would come and go on tours.

[00:13:01] And I understand because I've read about this that there is even some Greek graffiti on various parts of some of the monuments and so forth.

[00:13:08] But you mentioned the pharaohs.

[00:13:10] Tell us about the pharaohs because that's, I mean, we sort of think a pharaoh is a king.

[00:13:15] What exactly is a pharaoh?

[00:13:18] A pharaoh is a king.

[00:13:19] It's a title given for the king.

[00:13:21] Pharaoh, it's an English word, comes from the ancient Egyptian word which is per-ha.

[00:13:28] Per-ha means great house.

[00:13:29] So, the person who lives in the great house, the king of Egypt, his name was too holy to be pronounced.

[00:13:37] So, for instance, Ramsey II, if I was an ancient Egyptian, I would never call him by his name.

[00:13:42] I would call him by where he lives.

[00:13:44] So, he lived in the great house, per-ha.

[00:13:48] So, per-ha, pharaoh.

[00:13:50] So, every single king is a pharaoh and every pharaoh is a king because basically the great house where he lives.

[00:13:56] Now, there were a lot of pharaohs.

[00:13:58] I think people are most familiar with what we call King Tut Tutankhamun, but he was actually a fairly minor pharaoh in the history of Egypt.

[00:14:06] Yes.

[00:14:07] Ironically, King Tutankhamun, the icon of Egypt, has never been the icon of Egyptian history.

[00:14:12] It was only his tomb that was not looted.

[00:14:14] That's why he's famous.

[00:14:15] If it wasn't for his tomb, no one would have known about him.

[00:14:18] I mean, like, he's a king who ascended to power at the age of eight.

[00:14:22] He died at the age of 18.

[00:14:24] So, about ten years.

[00:14:24] So, he lived only for ten years.

[00:14:27] So, he was one of the very mere pharaohs.

[00:14:30] I mean, like, if it wasn't for his tomb again, no one would have known about him.

[00:14:34] So, who is he to be compared to Ramsey II or Tutmodus III or Queen Hatshepsut?

[00:14:40] I mean, like, we had way major pharaohs more than King Tutankhamun in Egypt.

[00:14:45] You know, one of the things, interesting things, and we found this when we were in Cairo, is that you have a museum there that have a lot of these mummies there.

[00:14:52] So, Hatshepsut is there.

[00:14:55] Ramses II is there.

[00:14:57] You can go and look on the faces of some, they don't look great, but you can go see the faces of these people who were living thousands of years ago and played such a major role in the Bible.

[00:15:08] Yes, and actually, one of the very interesting mummies that you get to see is the mummy of Abdelham Hattab II, which we believe that he was the pharaoh of Exodus.

[00:15:18] Yeah, let's get into that, because most people, if they've seen the movie The Ten Commandments, they think Ramses is the pharaoh, because that's who's going after Charlton Heston, who's playing Moses.

[00:15:31] But Ramses II is probably not the actual pharaoh of the Exodus.

[00:15:36] Ramses II comes, he falls in history almost 200 years after Exodus.

[00:15:41] So, Exodus happened in the 1400s, Ramses BC.

[00:15:46] Ramses II, he lived around 1200 years BC.

[00:15:50] So, he falls 200 years after.

[00:15:52] So, there's actually two timings of the Exodus.

[00:15:55] There's the classical timing and the new timing.

[00:15:58] So, in the 1800s, the archaeologists, they said it was Ramses II.

[00:16:04] And that, for the fact that there is a city in the Bible, in Exodus, the Bible states that the Israelites were enslaved in hard labor, building two cities, Pithom and Ramses.

[00:16:16] So, in the 1800s, automatically they said, okay, the Bible talks about the city of Ramses.

[00:16:21] So, it should be Ramses II.

[00:16:24] But, we have actually an evidence of his son traveling to Israel, like the son of Ramses II, attacking the people of Ashkelon, attacking the Israelites.

[00:16:37] So, basically, the son of Ramses II, showing off his victories, he said, I've smashed the Canaanites.

[00:16:44] The seed of Israel is gone.

[00:16:47] So, he's talking about the Israelites being in this region.

[00:16:53] So, that means Exodus cannot have happened at the time of Ramses II because there were the 40 years of wilderness in the desert.

[00:17:02] So, according to the Bible in 1st Judges, the temple of the Lord was built 480 years after Exodus.

[00:17:11] So, and we know that the temple of the Lord was built 909 years BC.

[00:17:15] So, if you go back to the chronological order 400 years earlier, it would take us to the 1400s.

[00:17:23] And we think that Amnem Hattu II would be the right fit for the Exodus.

[00:17:28] And I would be telling you more about that.

[00:17:30] But, however, when you go to the Egyptian Museum and you see all of these mummies of these pharaohs that have been living for thousands of years,

[00:17:37] it is an amazing experience.

[00:17:41] So, you mentioned Abraham of Medico.

[00:17:43] But the next major step is when Joseph ends up in Egypt.

[00:17:50] So, walk us through what happens there.

[00:17:53] Buddy, a lot of people always think of Egypt whenever they read the Bible.

[00:17:58] They always think of Egypt as the sojourn place, the bondage, the oppression of the Israelites.

[00:18:02] But they obviously forget about something very important.

[00:18:06] That Egypt had been always the place of refuge for the early patriarchs.

[00:18:10] Abraham sought refuge in Egypt.

[00:18:12] Joseph, he excelled in Egypt.

[00:18:15] It was there that the 12 tribes, the children of Israel and Jacob himself traveled to Egypt.

[00:18:22] Remember in the Bible, Jacob was worried.

[00:18:24] He was an old man.

[00:18:25] And God told him, do not be afraid to go down to Egypt because surely I'll bring you back again.

[00:18:31] So, there had been a promise there.

[00:18:34] Like if you're traveling to Egypt, you'll be safe and you'll surely be back again.

[00:18:38] So, it's very interesting that the patriarchs have always seen refuge in Egypt.

[00:18:43] Then Moses and the Exodus happen.

[00:18:45] And yes, that's the time of the oppression of the Israelites.

[00:18:48] But later on, Egypt have seen the other good face of a place of refuge.

[00:18:54] Jeremiah lived in Egypt.

[00:18:55] Jesus came in Egypt.

[00:18:57] So, the Old Testament, the oppression of the Israelites in the New Testament have turned to be the place of refuge.

[00:19:03] For Jesus, Virgin Mary and Joseph have traveled to Egypt, roaming in Egypt, blessing the Egyptians almost for three and a half years according to the church tradition.

[00:19:15] So, Joseph goes to Egypt.

[00:19:17] He is, but he's working with, eventually ends up working as the Pharaoh, sort of second-hand man.

[00:19:23] His family comes and they go to the land of Goshen.

[00:19:26] Now, do we know where Goshen is?

[00:19:28] Yes.

[00:19:28] I actually have been to Goshen several times.

[00:19:30] I live two hours away from the land of Goshen.

[00:19:34] So, it's very interesting out there.

[00:19:36] The Bible have made it very clear that they were taken, they were enslaved, building storages of grain made out of mud and straw.

[00:19:46] So, if you go to this region, if you may say there's a lot of storages of same time, not exactly the same ones, but storages made out of grain and straw.

[00:19:57] It is very interesting to see that.

[00:20:00] So, you know there's no much evidence of the Israelites being in the, we know according to the Bible where the land of Goshen is, but there's no much evidence of where they are exactly because they were enslaved.

[00:20:12] So, slave history is not documented history.

[00:20:15] Right.

[00:20:15] So, that's why the glory was always for the Egyptians.

[00:20:19] The Egyptian pharaohs would always document victories and not defeats.

[00:20:22] And the whole entire Exodus story is a defeat for the Egyptian culture.

[00:20:26] All the gods that are being defeated like the sun that is not rising anymore, that is again a straw, the sun god.

[00:20:34] The Nile, the source of hope, the source of life, have turned to be the source of blood and the source of death.

[00:20:41] The frogs was the symbol of 10,000 years in Egyptian culture.

[00:20:45] So, every single king was seeking to live 10,000 years.

[00:20:49] And suddenly this source of hope have turned to be a source of disaster.

[00:20:53] And unbearable frogs that the Egyptians do not want to have.

[00:20:56] So, I mean like it's very interesting that the Egyptians have never documented anything related to a defeat.

[00:21:02] And what you say in English, I mean like victory is written by the victorious, right?

[00:21:07] So, that's why the Hebrew text is talking about the victories of God over the Egyptians.

[00:21:12] But in Egyptian texts, we have never documented anything that would come against the Egyptians.

[00:21:18] My guest in studio, Ramez Salama, he is a tour guide in Egypt.

[00:21:22] And we're talking about how Egypt plays a role in the Bible.

[00:21:25] Stay with us.

[00:21:25] We'll be right back on Point of View.

[00:21:30] It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:21:36] They say men can be women and women men.

[00:21:40] People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:21:45] Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens.

[00:21:49] It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing.

[00:21:53] You feel like giving up.

[00:21:54] But we can't.

[00:21:56] We shouldn't.

[00:21:57] We must not.

[00:21:58] As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II,

[00:22:02] Never give in.

[00:22:04] Never give in.

[00:22:05] Never, never, never.

[00:22:07] Never yield to force.

[00:22:08] Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:22:12] And that's what we say to you today.

[00:22:15] This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos.

[00:22:22] We can't do it alone.

[00:22:24] But together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness.

[00:22:29] Invest in Biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:38] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151.

[00:22:48] Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:57] You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:09] And now, here again, Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:23:13] And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:23:14] My guest in studio, Ramesh Salama.

[00:23:17] He is an Egyptologist and takes people on tours of Egypt.

[00:23:20] And we're talking about the role that Egypt plays in the Bible because it is a massive role.

[00:23:26] And, Remittus, when we left off, we were talking a bit about the patriarchs coming to Egypt.

[00:23:32] Joseph, of course, goes there and becomes very, very prominent in Egypt.

[00:23:36] And we talked about Goshen a little bit.

[00:23:38] Now, would Joseph have been around Goshen or would he have been someplace else?

[00:23:45] That's a good question because Joseph was not around the land of Goshen.

[00:23:49] The Bible stated very clear that basically the land of Goshen in the northeastern part of the Delta,

[00:23:58] it is when you're coming from Canaan, it is like on the way to Egypt.

[00:24:02] It is in Egypt, but it's kind of like the beginning of Egypt in the Delta.

[00:24:06] It's like 850 kilometers away from Luxor.

[00:24:11] So, and Joseph was in Luxor.

[00:24:14] He was not in the land of Goshen.

[00:24:17] So, the family were near, but not too near.

[00:24:20] You know what I mean?

[00:24:21] So, they were shepherds.

[00:24:23] Remember, shepherds is not considered a prestigious job in the ancient Egyptian culture.

[00:24:28] Because Egyptians were farmers, right?

[00:24:29] We were farmers.

[00:24:30] We were builders.

[00:24:31] We were people of civilization.

[00:24:33] I mean, like this is where the history have started.

[00:24:36] Before there was any history, there was Egyptian history.

[00:24:39] So, I mean, like this is where the beginning of civilization.

[00:24:42] And what happened at Joseph when his brothers came, they were shepherds, which was not a prestigious job.

[00:24:49] So, they were granted the land of Goshen far away from the administration of Egypt, which was in Luxor at that time.

[00:24:57] And that would make a certain amount of sense.

[00:24:59] Now, when Joseph, we see the death of Joseph and they go through a type of mummification process.

[00:25:07] And interestingly, what the Bible has on that seems to be what we understand as the actual mummification process.

[00:25:13] Yes, it's very interesting because when I studied Egyptology, we were studying about how you do the mummification.

[00:25:20] You know, you basically bring the brain out of the nostrils.

[00:25:23] You pull the organs out of the liver, lungs, intestines and stomach from the lower left abdomen.

[00:25:28] You cover the body for 40 days as that was the time required for embalming.

[00:25:34] In kind of a natron salt.

[00:25:35] Natron salt, so the body gets to be dehydrated.

[00:25:37] That's why all the mummies that you see are very tiny and small.

[00:25:40] Because now they were small people because they were dehydrated for 40 days of salt, then 30 days of wrapping, making it total 70 days as that was the time the Egyptians have mourned their dead.

[00:25:52] And the interesting thing in the very last day, they would open the mouth of the father, the mummified father to enable him to talk, to drink, to eat, to have everlasting life.

[00:26:03] So when I was reading the Bible and I was studying Egyptology, it was interesting.

[00:26:09] I passed through this passage here, which basically talks about Joseph mummifying his father, Israel.

[00:26:14] So Israel was mummified.

[00:26:17] So Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.

[00:26:21] This is, I'm reading from Genesis 50.

[00:26:23] Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father, Israel.

[00:26:28] So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full 40 days for that was the time required for embalming and the Egyptians mourned for him 70 days.

[00:26:38] Buddy, I ought to think when you read the Bible in America here and don't know much of the Egyptian culture, it makes a story, but does not make sense more.

[00:26:47] But when you travel to Egypt with morning star tours in Egypt, when you get to see the history connected to the Bible, that makes the difference.

[00:26:55] Look, in the last sentence in Genesis, and Joseph died at the age of 110.

[00:27:01] And after they embalmed him, he was placed in coffin in Egypt.

[00:27:07] It wasn't until Moses basically took the body out on the Exodus day.

[00:27:12] But basically, Jacob was mummified.

[00:27:17] Joseph were mummified.

[00:27:18] Both of them were mummified and an Egyptian son.

[00:27:21] And this was a great honor because non-Egyptians were not entitled or having the advantage of being mummified.

[00:27:29] So that means, Pharaoh, Joseph meant a lot for him that he would mummify him and he would mummify his own father as well.

[00:27:36] So this is an important point because they do the mummification because Egyptians are essentially what we might say resurrectionists.

[00:27:44] They thought that they come back to life at some point, right?

[00:27:47] Yes. So the whole entire concept of mummification was to rise from the dead one more time.

[00:27:52] At the sunrise every day in the morning and the sun sets every single day, there's a hope for you if you're mummified to be rising again from the east at the sunrise one more time.

[00:28:01] You know, buddy, I live in a place called Heliopolis.

[00:28:05] The sun.

[00:28:05] The sun city.

[00:28:07] And the Bible talks about Joseph marrying to the daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis.

[00:28:16] So, I mean, like I always claim that I got married at the same place where Joseph got married.

[00:28:23] So we were married and an eye in Heliopolis, which is the city of the sun.

[00:28:29] That's not the daughter of the high priest of Heliopolis got married to Joseph.

[00:28:36] So when the patriarchs eventually come back through the Exodus, we have we talked a bit about the Exodus.

[00:28:42] Now, they end up tell us a little bit about where the Sea of Reeds and that type of thing, because there's some confusion about that.

[00:28:49] So the story tells us that a new Pharaoh came and did not know what Joseph did for the Egyptians.

[00:28:57] And that's true, because according to the chronology, Joseph came to falls into the last ruler of the Middle Kingdom.

[00:29:05] And then Egypt fell in the hands of foreign rulers known as the Exos.

[00:29:09] And they are the ones who basically did not know what the Israelites did.

[00:29:13] And they have started persecuting the Israelites.

[00:29:16] So actually, when the Exodus, when the sojourn and the oppression happened, it started by the foreign rulers who were in the ruling the Delta area.

[00:29:27] Then the Egyptians were able to kick out these foreign rulers known as the Exos.

[00:29:32] But later on, the sojourn and the bondage completed by the Egyptian rulers.

[00:29:38] So as we are assuming, I'm not hot of the second affair of Exodus.

[00:29:44] So what happened that the Bible very clear talks about 600,000 men, not including women and children.

[00:29:52] You're talking about over a million and a half.

[00:29:55] They have traveled a journey of three days till they have crossed the Red Sea.

[00:29:58] Right.

[00:29:58] The Red Sea is far away from the land of Goshen.

[00:30:01] Three days, 1.5 million people walking.

[00:30:05] That is no way.

[00:30:06] So there is the Hebrew text actually in the Bible talks about something called the Sea of Reeds.

[00:30:15] If you omit one E, it turned to be a red, red sea.

[00:30:19] But it's actually the Hebrew text talks about Sea of Reeds, which is actually makes sense.

[00:30:27] It's only three days away and away from the land of Goshen.

[00:30:31] And it's humongous lake.

[00:30:33] Today, it's not the same because the Suez Canal will go through it.

[00:30:37] So it's not like the huge lake as it was before.

[00:30:42] But the Exodus, when it happened, a lot of biblical scholars and archaeologists believe that probably the Exodus has gone through the Sea of Reeds,

[00:30:53] which is the Bitter Lakes today, north of the Red Sea, not the actual Red Sea.

[00:30:59] And they could have gotten there in three days then.

[00:31:01] They have gotten there in three days, yes.

[00:31:03] And so they cross that and they end up in Mount Sinai.

[00:31:06] And you've got the St. Catherine's Monastery, isn't it?

[00:31:09] I love the Sinai area.

[00:31:11] So one of the very interesting parts of Sinai, it is in all our churches around the world, we always talk about God, the great healer.

[00:31:20] I'm Jehovah, the God that healeth thee.

[00:31:23] This actual promise was said in Egypt.

[00:31:27] As Egyptians, this is very powerful for us.

[00:31:30] So because when the slain water in Mara have turned to be good water, God have given his promise,

[00:31:40] I'm God, Jehovah, the God as healeth thee.

[00:31:43] So the promise was given there.

[00:31:44] And after this, they have traveled for a journey until they arrive to Ulim.

[00:31:49] And after Ulim, they have went to the battle with the Amalekites.

[00:31:58] And then after this, they went to Mount Sinai where God revealed himself on the top of Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments were given there.

[00:32:06] So, you know, in the Bible story, we always talk about like the Israelites have worshipped the calf and they have ignored God.

[00:32:17] And Moses was late and they were worried.

[00:32:20] And remember, they were enslaved for 400 years in Egypt.

[00:32:23] So they have started nagging and remembering the old good days.

[00:32:28] And one of the joyful goddesses was Goddess Hathor.

[00:32:32] She was the goddess of joy, laughter, drinking.

[00:32:35] She was the goddess of every joyful aspect for the Egyptian culture.

[00:32:38] And she's the cow goddess.

[00:32:39] She was the cow goddess.

[00:32:40] So suddenly, this cow goddess was worshipped by the Israelites who were remembering the days that they have lived in the land of Egypt.

[00:32:50] So that's why basically Sinai, the southern part of Sinai, was a cult center for goddess Hathor.

[00:32:59] Because Hathor, she loved the turquoise color.

[00:33:02] And Sinai is the land of turquoise.

[00:33:05] This is where the Egyptians have minded turquoise.

[00:33:07] So Sinai had been always under the Egyptian power, but no much garrisons in that part.

[00:33:15] So that's why when the exodus happened, there were few miners of mining the turquoise, but there was no military presence there.

[00:33:22] So it was very interesting that suddenly they are returning.

[00:33:27] They forgot all the great deeds that God did for them in the ten plagues and the glory of how they came out.

[00:33:35] And suddenly, they are returning back to the old gods of Egypt.

[00:33:39] We'll be back on our last segment with Ramez Salama in just a minute.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:00] Back with our final segment with Ramez Salama, Egyptologist.

[00:34:04] And we're talking about Egypt and its role in the Bible.

[00:34:08] And so we were just talking, Ramez, about Mount Sinai.

[00:34:13] We sort of have a good sense of where Mount Sinai is.

[00:34:16] It's been around there for a number of years.

[00:34:17] A number of years.

[00:34:18] The Israelites end up going on into the land of Canaan.

[00:34:23] But it doesn't stop there.

[00:34:25] Egypt plays some more roles later on with the prophets and others.

[00:34:28] Yes.

[00:34:30] Mount Sinai.

[00:34:30] Every time the Bible talks about Mount Sinai, it talks about the Bible, Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, mountain of God.

[00:34:39] So Mount Horeb never mentioned on its own.

[00:34:43] Oldest Mount Horeb, mountain of God.

[00:34:46] So remember the story of Elijah who traveled for 40 days and 40 nights all the way to Mount Horeb, Mount of God.

[00:34:56] Elijah came to Mount Sinai.

[00:34:57] So Jeremiah comes to Egypt as well.

[00:35:01] I mean, like Jeremiah had been kidnapped and he brought to Egypt.

[00:35:06] Remember the Babylonian captivity happened.

[00:35:08] And when the Babylonian captivity happened, Jeremiah had a lot of prophecies against those Jews who did not trust the Lord.

[00:35:16] And instead of saying in Israel, they've started moving to Egypt.

[00:35:21] Remember, this was the land of slavery.

[00:35:23] And they were returning back to the same land that God brought them from.

[00:35:27] And Egypt at that time, it was a dominant great power.

[00:35:30] So no one ever thought that Egypt would fall.

[00:35:34] So what happened that the Israelites in big numbers have started seeking refuge in Egypt.

[00:35:39] And Jeremiah told them, you are having refuge in a land that no longer God had so much prophecies.

[00:35:48] Again, it's how Egypt, the glorious country, no longer going to be glorious.

[00:35:52] You're holding on to false hopes.

[00:35:57] And basically, the Israelites did not like what Jeremiah was prophesying.

[00:36:02] So they kidnapped him and he was brought to Egypt.

[00:36:05] In matter of fact, there's actually a synagogue that you can go to in Cairo being built by Jeremiah according to the Jewish tradition.

[00:36:14] So it's basically in the heart of Cairo.

[00:36:18] And it's called Ben Azar Synagogue, built on the same location where Jeremiah built his original synagogue there.

[00:36:26] And a lot of the Jews end up going into Alexandria.

[00:36:28] And they end up writing the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible.

[00:36:33] Yes, this is very interesting because Alexandria, thousands of years after, was established.

[00:36:39] And a few hundred years after, was established.

[00:36:42] Alexandria, the Greek comes.

[00:36:43] And a lot of Jewish community lived in Alexandria.

[00:36:47] And the Greeks in Alexandria did want to know what's going on.

[00:36:50] I mean, like, they wanted to know what's in their Bible.

[00:36:53] So one of the Greek rulers, Ptolemy, he brought 70 rabbis from Israel.

[00:37:00] And these 70 rabbis, he told them to translate the Bible from Hebrew to Greek.

[00:37:08] So in Alexandria, they were all imprisoned in 70 cells.

[00:37:13] Because the king wanted to make sure that the translation is coming accurate.

[00:37:17] So 70 cells, 70 rabbis, they were given 70 days to translate the Bible.

[00:37:24] And this would be the Old Testament because we haven't got to the New Testament yet.

[00:37:28] That's the Old Testament.

[00:37:29] And that's the substitute with manuscripts because it was made in 70 days, 70 rabbis, 70 cells.

[00:37:36] And that's the 70 days translation.

[00:37:38] And we need to mention that Jesus ends up going to Egypt.

[00:37:42] Blessed be my people in Egypt.

[00:37:46] Out of Egypt, I call my son.

[00:37:47] The Egyptians hold on to two verses in the Bible.

[00:37:51] Blessed be Egypt, my people.

[00:37:54] Actually, this is in Isaiah 19.

[00:37:57] It's a very interesting chapter because the Bible talks about prophecies against Egypt.

[00:38:06] And then at the end, it says that Egyptians would know the Lord.

[00:38:11] Look, in that day there will be an altar to the Lord.

[00:38:15] That's what it says in Isaiah 19.

[00:38:18] In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt.

[00:38:22] A mount to the Lord in its borders.

[00:38:24] It would be signed and witnessed to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt.

[00:38:28] When they would cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors.

[00:38:31] And he would send them a savior and defender.

[00:38:35] And he would rescue them.

[00:38:37] And we, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, we believe this happened when Jesus himself came to Egypt.

[00:38:44] And he blessed the Egyptians.

[00:38:45] And there's actually in the temple of Karnak, in the heart of Egypt, the spiritual heart of Egypt,

[00:38:51] there's actually a church was built in the 2nd and 3rd century AD.

[00:38:56] So that was a fulfillment of that prophecy.

[00:38:59] And then the Bible go through, more verses there.

[00:39:03] And at that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria.

[00:39:06] The Assyrians would go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria.

[00:39:10] And the Egyptians and the Assyrians would worship together.

[00:39:13] In that day Israel would be their third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth.

[00:39:21] The Lord Almighty would bless them saying,

[00:39:23] Blessed be Egypt, my people.

[00:39:26] Assyria, my handiwork.

[00:39:28] Israel, my inheritance.

[00:39:32] So, we Egyptians, we hold on to that verse.

[00:39:37] And out of Egypt I've called my son.

[00:39:39] And Alexandria ended up becoming a major Christian sinner then after the New Testament, right?

[00:39:44] Yes.

[00:39:45] Remember Mark when he came over to Alexandria?

[00:39:47] He started evangelizing first the Jews, later on the philosophers and intellectuals.

[00:39:52] And it was very interesting how it moved from paganism into Christianity.

[00:39:58] So, philosophy have moved into Christianity as well during the 1st, 2nd century AD.

[00:40:05] So, that's why a lot of the scholars of the Bible, they were from Alexandria.

[00:40:10] I mean like Origen, not to forget him.

[00:40:12] He is the one who started the symbolism in the Bible.

[00:40:18] Right.

[00:40:18] And later on Athanasius.

[00:40:22] Athanasius.

[00:40:23] Athanasius.

[00:40:24] The one who wrote the Nicene Creed.

[00:40:26] He was Egyptian.

[00:40:27] A lot of people around the world today, they say the Nicene Creed in our churches.

[00:40:31] And we forget that he was Egyptian.

[00:40:35] Father Anthony, the one who started the monastic life.

[00:40:38] He was inspired by John the Baptist, by the Jordan River.

[00:40:42] John the Baptist was somehow a hermit.

[00:40:45] Father Anthony had started the monastic life.

[00:40:49] So, in Alexandria, the church was very powerful, very strong.

[00:40:54] It had defeated a heresy of Arius.

[00:40:57] It had defeated the Gnostic movement, which is a very strong movement.

[00:41:01] And even Paul talked about this.

[00:41:03] And actually, some of the apocryphists were discovered in Egypt because the church have banned these strange movements of Gnostic Bibles rather than the mainstream Bible that we have in our hands today.

[00:41:21] So, you get to see this actually in the Coptic Museum in Egypt, some of these Gnostic Bibles.

[00:41:26] In our closing time, take about a minute to tell us if somebody goes on a tour of Egypt and they want to see these biblical sites, give us a quick reference of what we'll see.

[00:41:35] With Morning Star Tours based here in Dallas, we do amazing craft itineraries based on the footsteps of Moses.

[00:41:43] I mean, like, usually in our churches around the world, people think of the footsteps of Jesus, footsteps of Paul, the seven churches of Revelation.

[00:41:51] But people forget about Moses.

[00:41:53] And there's so much relation.

[00:41:54] The cradle of the Bible started here in Egypt.

[00:41:58] So, the interesting tour that we do, we do three nights in Cairo.

[00:42:04] You get to see where baby Moses was pulled out of the water because there's a synagogue there.

[00:42:09] You get to see the pyramids, obviously.

[00:42:11] You get to see all of these ancient Egyptian culture.

[00:42:13] So, you learn about what Moses lived in.

[00:42:15] And then you go to Luxor.

[00:42:18] That's where Moses had his education in Egypt as the prince of Egypt.

[00:42:23] Then you go on a Nile cruise.

[00:42:25] Then you get to explore the River Nile and how life has never changed on a night for all of these thousands of years.

[00:42:33] Then you go and you fly to Sharm El-Sheikh, a beautiful resort on the Red Sea.

[00:42:38] And then you go to Mount Sinai.

[00:42:40] You get to see the burning bush.

[00:42:42] You get to see Mount Sinai.

[00:42:44] You get to experience the great deeds of God in the worldliness of the desert.

[00:42:50] Remember, we had together a bit of a dinner.

[00:42:52] We didn't have manna, but we were plodding.

[00:42:55] Next trip, we have manna and quails.

[00:42:57] This is amazing to experience the great glory, the deeds of God in Egypt.

[00:43:03] Well, thank you, Ramez, for joining us and taking us through all this.

[00:43:06] And thank you for joining us on Point of View.

[00:43:08] We'll be back tomorrow.

[00:43:10] The Bible tells us not to worry.

[00:43:14] And yet, there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today.

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