© Charles Chandler

 

He also campaigned in the Levant, fighting the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 bce. Egypt gained no territory in this maneuver, but firmed up the borders, and thereafter had tight control over Canaan. For Hebrew culture to be flourishing in the Levant during this period could only have been with the explicit approval of Ramesses.

 

Meanwhile, Ramesses commissioned the construction of Pi-Ramses, employing Canaanites in public works. It's possible that he did this to ease the tension in Canaan, where the indigenous population found itself competing for resources with the Hebrew settlers. So to have the support of the Amun priesthood in Egypt, Atenism had to be suppressed. To avoid an insurrection, he had to give the Atenists some other place to live (i.e., on the Egyptian frontier). But to not make enemies of the Canaanites, who would have been eagerly supported by the Hittites, Ramesses needed to ease the burden on the Canaanites. He also wanted tighter control over the Sun-worshipers in the delta, still inspired by Akhenaten's influence. Put it all together, and it made political sense to keep the capital in the delta, and to subsidize public works there, for anybody willing to worship Ra instead of Adonai.

 

Joseph is said to have been sold into slavery by his brothers, later to rise to prominence. This could have echoed the outcome of a rivalry between Ehud and Joseph, with Ehud being named governor of Canaan by Seti I, and Joseph being sent to Egypt as a disenfranchised envoy. But when Ramesses created jobs for a lot of people at Pi-Ramses, Joseph was their leader, and was good enough at it that he got promoted to minister of agriculture in Goshen.¹ He was 41 years old at the time.

 

While there is archaeological evidence of Hebrews in the Judaean Mountains during this period (i.e., the lack of pig bones in the trash heaps), there is no such evidence in the delta, suggesting that the people who migrated to the delta were Canaanites, diametrically opposed to the Hebrews. But there might not have been such a dramatic difference between them. The delta dwellers were sun-worshipers in the Ra cult, while North Canaan later became known as Is'Ra'El, which designated a fusion of the Ra cult with Elohim, the principle god of the northern Canaanites. So the religious difference was a matter of sect, not core beliefs, and the two groups were similar enough that the Deuteronomic Reform could merge them. But in the capital city of Egypt, the Kashrut was not observed, so we are left with a confusing absence of evidence of Hebrews in Goshen during the reign of Ramesses, despite the Torah's insistence that Israelites were there.