The second account of a Semitic invasion and sacking of Egypt and the question of its historicity:

{Josephus continues:}

15. But now I shall produce the Egyptians as witnesses to the antiquity of our nation. I shall therefore here bring in Manetho again, and what he writes as to the order of the times in this case; and thus he speaks:

“When this people of shepherds were gone out of Egypt to Jerusalem, Tethtoosis the king of Egypt {certainly King Ahmose I; King Yah-Mes(s)u; Nebty name Tut-Mesut; the reign length is correct; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/ahmose-i/}, who drove them out, reigned afterward twenty-five years and four months, and then died;

after him his son Chebron took the kingdom for thirteen years {King Thuthmose II, according to Pharaoh.se; erroneous placement by Manetho; actually not the second king of the 18^th dynasty but the fourth; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/thutmose-ii/};

after whom came Amenophis, for twenty years and seven months {clearly King Amenhotep I; the reign length fits; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/amenhotep-i/};

then came his sister Amesses, for twenty-one years and nine months {Queen Hatshepsut; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/hatshepsut/};

after her came Mephres, for twelve years and nine months {King Thuthmose I, according to Pharaoh.se; erroneous placement by Manetho; should be placed after Amenhotep I, as the third king of the 18^th dynasty; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/thutmose-i/;

after him was Mephramuthosis, for twenty-five years and ten months {King Thutmose III; Birth Name Djehooti-Meseeoo; “His 54-year reign includes the first 22 years as co-regent with Hatshepsut, where neither had any obvious seniority over the other, and Thutmose III was head of the army, while she was the de facto ruler. After her death, his military genius created the largest empire Egypt had ever seen.” Source: https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/thutmose-iii/};

after him was Thmosis, for nine years and eight months {King Thutmose IV; erroneous placement by Manetho; actually the successor of King Amenhotep II (below); https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/thutmose-iv/};

after him came Amenophis, for thirty years and ten months {King Amenhotep II; the seventh king of the 18^th dynasty; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/amenhotep-ii/};

after him came Orus {important information, since Orus is mentioned in the account of the lepers and the second “Hyksos” invasion; King Amenhotep III; King Amenhotep the Great; “The reign of Amenhotep III was a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendour, when Egypt reached the peak of its artistic and international power.” Source: https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/amenhotep-iii/}, for thirty-six years and five months;

then came his daughter Acenchres {likely a corruption of the Throne Name Ankhkheperura, used by both Queen Nefertiti and King Smenkhkara}, for twelve years and one month {probably Queen Nefertiti; likely wife of King Akhenaten; erroneous placement and identification by Manetho; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/neferneferuaten/};

then was her brother Rathotis {Ra-Tut(-is)?}, for nine years {King Tutankhamen; erroneous placement by Manetho; actually the son of King Akhenaten; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/tutankhamun/};

then was Acencheres, for twelve years and five months {King Amenhotep IV; King Akhenaten; probably erroneous reign length; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/amenhotep-iv/};

then came another Acencheres, for twelve years and three months {King Smenkhkara; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/smenkhkara/};

after him Armais, for four years and one month {King Horemheb; “Horemheb was commander in chief of the army and the designated heir to Tutankhamun. The vizier Ay managed to seize power when Tutankhamun died suddenly, probably while Horemhab was abroad with the army. However, Ay died after only a few years reign, and Horemheb finally ascended the throne. (…). Horemheb initiated a return to religious normalcy by restoring the old gods to power, reducing the worship of Aten introduced by Akhenaten to rubble.” Source: https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/horemheb/};

after him was Ramesses, for one year and four months {King Ramesses I; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/ramesses-i/};

after him came Armesses Miammoun, for sixty-six years and two months {King Ramesses II; King Ramesses the Great; erroneous placement by Manetho; actually the successor of King Seti I; see below; one of his revealing Horus Names, variant L, is Ka nakht sedj setjetu, “The strong bull, who shattered the Asiatics”, setjetu, indicating a connection to the deity Seth, here being translated as “Asiatics”, as is customary; “Armesses Miammoun” is likely a Hellenic rendering of his Birth Name, Ramessu mery Amun, “Ra has fashioned him, beloved (mery) of Amun (or Amen)”; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/ramesses-ii/};

after him Amenophis, for nineteen years and six months {King Merenptah or Merenptah; the fourth king of the 19^th dynasty, the King who defeated the first wave of the misleadingly named “Sea Peoples”, and who recorded his victory over them on the “Merneptah” or “Israel” Stela: this is the reason for his Horus Name Ka nakht der pedjut, “The strong bull who repelled the Nine Bows”; c.f. my separate paper on the topic of the mysterious “Sea Peoples” and their allies; could this be the king who vanquished the alliance of “lepers” and descendants of “Hyksos” from Jerusalem spoken of by Manetho? The name “Amenophis”, from Amenhotep, matches the one Josephus says Manetho used.};

after him came Sethosis {this has to be King Seti I, who until now has not been mentioned by Manetho, unless it is a reference to King Seti II, son of King Merneptah – King Seti I was actually the second king of the 19^th dynasty; one of his Throne Names was Men-Maat-Ra, “Eternal is the Truth of Ra”, and one of his Nebty Names was Men-Menu-em-hutaat-Maat, “Enduring of Monuments in the Great Mansion of Maat”; https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/seti-i/},

and Ramesses, who had an army of horse, and a naval force. {Possibly Ramesses III, since a naval force is mentioned; repeller of the second wave of “Sea Peoples” and their allies; Horus Name variant E is Ka pehty, sekhem khepesh, nakht-a, neb neru em tau khasut Fenkhu Temehu, “The powerful bull, potent of sword, strong-armed, lord of dread in the lowlands and the highlands of the Fenkhu (‘Asiatics’) and the Temehu (‘Libyans’); https://pharaoh.se/ancient-egypt/pharaoh/ramesses-iii/}”

(Josephus, 2016, Kindle Location 36382)

{A number of pages later, Josephus writes as follows:}

When Manetho therefore had acknowledged that our forefathers were gone out of Egypt so many years ago, he introduces his fictitious king Amenophis, and says thus:

“This king was desirous to become a spectator of the gods {not to be taken in a literal sense, I think, but as referring to the entering of what is now often called an altered state of consciousness, and to holy contemplation; the experience Socrates and Plato called a theoria (the obtaining of a life-changing vision of the Divine)}, as had Orus {i.e. King Amenhotep the Great}, one of his predecessors in that kingdom, desired the same before him; he also communicated that his desire to his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake of a divine nature, both as to wisdom and the knowledge of futurities.” {The king in question is, in other words, also named Amenhotep, and is living after King Amenhotep III.}

Manetho adds, “how this namesake of his told him that he might see the gods, if he would clear the whole country of the lepers and of the other impure people; that the king was pleased with this injunction, and got together all that had any defect in their bodies out of Egypt; and that their number was eighty thousand; whom he sent to those quarries which are on the east side of the Nile, that they might work in them, and might be separated from the rest of the Egyptians.”

He says further, that “there were some of the learned priests that were polluted with the leprosy; but that still this Amenophis, the wise man and the prophet, was afraid that the gods would be angry at him and at the king, if there should appear to have been violence offered them; who also added this further, [out of his sagacity about futurities,] that certain people would come to the assistance of these polluted wretches, and would conquer Egypt, and keep it in their possession thirteen years; that, however, he durst not tell the king of these things, but that he left a writing behind him about all those matters, and then slew himself, which made the king disconsolate.”

After which he writes thus verbatim: “After those that were sent to work in the quarries had continued in that miserable state for a long while, the king was desired that he would set apart the city Avaris, which was then left desolate of the shepherds, for their habitation and protection; which desire he granted them. Now this city, according to the ancient theology, was Typho’s city.

{Typho, or Typhon, is here a reference to the Egyptian deity Seth, and what Manetho says here is therefore perfectly consonant with the historical reality, which is that Avaris was a center of the cult of Seth, and, moreover, that this city became, under the rule of “Hyksos” emperors like Apophis, a place where a strange “proto-monotheism”, namely the worship of Seth alone, came into existence. C.f. my paper dealing with material in Plutarch’s Isis and Osiris treatise of relevance to Egyptian history (https://www.academia.edu/129552638) for more on Typhon and his association with the “Proto-Israelites”, and c.f. my paper on “The Tale of Apophis and Seqenenre” (https://www.academia.edu/129552638) for a consideration of “Sethian” monotheism.}

But when these men were gotten into it, and found the place fit for a revolt, they appointed themselves a ruler out of the priests of Heliopolis, whose name was Osarsiph, and they took their oaths that they would be obedient to him in all things. He then, in the first place, made this law for them, That they should neither worship the Egyptian gods, nor should abstain from any one of those sacred animals which they have in the highest esteem, but kill and destroy them all; that they should join themselves to nobody but to those that were of this confederacy.

When he had made such laws as these, and many more such as were mainly opposite to the customs of the Egyptians, he gave order that they should use the multitude of the hands they had in building walls about their City, and make themselves ready for a war with king Amenophis, while he did himself take into his friendship the other priests, and those that were polluted with them, and sent ambassadors to those shepherds who had been driven out of the land by Tefilmosis to the city called Jerusalem; whereby he informed them of his own affairs, and of the state of those others that had been treated after such an ignominious manner, and desired that they would come with one consent to his assistance in this war against Egypt.

(Josephus, 2016, Kindle Location 36689–36709)

{The mysterious “Amenophis” who was desirous of achieving Divine Contemplation – actually King Mer-en-Ptah?}

{Let us see if we can identify with certainty the king we have just seen Manetho describe, and during whose reign the “lepers” invited the descendants of the “Hyksos” to invade Egypt – the king Josephus alleges is “fictitious”, on the basis of the information provided.

We know that this king, according to Manetho (or to the epitome Josephus may have been using), was called “Amenophis” in Greek, which corresponds to the real Egyptian name Amenhotep. Well, as we have seen earlier, we have no less than five Egyptian kings who were either actually named Amenhotep or called “Amenophis” by the Greeks – four in the so-called 18^th dynasty, and one in the 19^th dynasty. But Manetho also states that “Orus”, who is certainly King Amenhotep III, i.e. King Amenhotep the Great, was “one of his predecessors”. Note the choice of words here. If the royal “Amenophis” we are attempting to identify had been the son of King Amenhotep the Great, Manetho would have called the latter his father, not a predecessor.

Hence, if Manetho is correct in placing “Orus” significantly earlier in time than the “Amenophis” Josephus accuses him of having invented out of whole cloth, we can eliminate King Amenhotep IV, the infamous rogue king Akhenaten, from the puzzle, and we can also eliminate King Amenhotep I and King Amenhotep II as candidates, of course. This helps us a very great deal, for this process of elimination leaves us with only one King “Amenophis”, namely the fifth, who, as already pointed out, seems to be King Merneptah or Merenptah.

This is a little surprising, since it has often been surmised, by researchers like Ralph Ellis, for example, that the “lepers” were constituted by King Akhenaten and his followers, for the reason that they were “theological lepers” or “heretics”, and it is unclear why he was called “Amenophis” by the Greeks, but the Birth Name of the great Merenptah was, after all, Mer en Ptah, hotep her Maat, “Beloved (mer) of Ptah, Maat (Truth) is satisfied”, so the “hotep” or “ophis” can be accounted for, and one of his Throne Names was Ba en Ra, mery Amun, “The soul of Ra, beloved (mery) of Amun (Amen)”, so “Amen” is also, perhaps, explainable.

Moreover, the strong indication that the king we are seeking to locate in history reigned long after the time of Amenhotep the Great (“Orus”; so great that he was seen as truly incarnating Horus?), makes an identification with King Akhenaten impossible.

There is one piece of information which does not seem to fit, however, and that is Manetho’s claim that the king “communicated that his desire to his namesake Amenophis, who was the son of Papis, and one that seemed to partake of a divine nature”. If this other “Amenophis”, a seer or prophet, be Amenhotep, son of Hapu, which seems possible, we have a problem, since the son of Hapu lived during the reign of King Amenhotep the Great.

Might the king be Akhenaten after all? Or is this another example of the confusion occasionally marring the surviving copies of Manetho’s history of Egypt?

Josephus paraphrase of a part of the Torah narrating the prelude to the Exodus, found in his Antiquities of the Jews, certainly matches the story of the “lepers” rather well:

“Accordingly he called for Moses, and bid them be gone; as supposing, that if once the Hebrews were gone out of the country, Egypt should be freed from its miseries.” (Josephus, 2016, Kindle Location 3246)

However, the “lepers” described by Josephus’ Manetho do not initially leave Egypt in an Exodus – on the contrary, they eventually take up their abode in an empty Avaris, and then invite the descendants of the expelled “Hyksos”, residing in Jerusalem, to come down to the city of their forefathers and join them in an armed revolt against the Egyptians, and this alone makes the debacle associated with the “lepers” incompatible with both the historical exodus of the “Hyksos” from Avaris, as documented by archaeology, and with the literary Exodus of the “Israelites” as described in the Torah and by various Fathers of the Church.

Manetho’s son of Papis chooses to commit suicide when he foresees the future, and there is no record of the son of Hapu having slain himself, so perhaps we are dealing with two entirely different personages with similar names and attributes. A cowardly suicide certainly seems rather incompatible with exceptionally noble character ascribed to the seer who lived during the era of Amenhotep the Great, and also with the great admiration and deification accorded to him by the Egyptians after his death.

As for the name Papis, which, as we have seen, is found in the quote made by Josephus from Manetho given above, it is probably an imperfect Greek rendering of an Egyptian name for the Nile river, as well as for the god associated with the Nile, namely Hapi, and since Hapi (or Hapu) or Papi (or Papu) (?) was thought of as having fathered the gods, and sages or prophets were viewed as divine, it is not inconceivable that “son of Papis” or “son of Hapi” is simply a more or less generic honorific title, given to several persons who were believed to embody Egypt and its life-giving river, or the deity associated with it.

C.f. footnote one for p. 195 and 196 in Waddell (1964); “The Ancient Egyptian name Ha’pi is applied both to the River Nile and to the god of the Nile. Cf. Diod. Sic. i. 12, 6 (…).” Incidentally, we may note that there is a striking similarity between the great importance and spiritual significance of the Nile to the Egyptian civilization and the role played by the Saraswati river in the Vedic civilization of Northern India.

So, while the mysterious king could be Akhenaten, it seems more likely that it is Merneptah, and not only for the reasons given above, but because the story of the “lepers”, their taking up their abode in the former “Hyksos” city of Avaris, in the Nile Delta (a city Manetho indicates had been left empty since the departure of the “Asiatics”, centuries earlier; perhaps because it was viewed by the Egyptians as “unclean” or “polluted”?) and their alliance with the Amu in “foreign lands”, like the highlands of Canaan, actually fits rather well with the known, historical series of events which define the reign of King Merenptah, namely the great battles fought against the “Sea Peoples” and their allies, the “Libyans”, as well as the campaign against and the alleged destruction of an entity called “Israel”.

If this hypothesis be true, then it would not only help us determine the ethnic nature of the “Sea Peoples” confederation of tribes (see my recent paper devoted to the “Sea Peoples” enigma, and to the inscriptions speaking of them), which has been debated for around a century, but also the reason why this confederation chose to invade Egypt during the reign of King Merenptah, more than three hundred years after the Exodus of the “Hyksos” – which, according to both highly esteemed ancient historians and several Fathers of the Church, took place during the reign of King Ahmose I, i.e. in the 1500s B.C. (See my 2025 post, “The Historicity of the Exodus”)}

{Josephus continued:}

He also promised that he would, in the first place, bring them back to their ancient city and country Avaris, and provide a plentiful maintenance for their multitude; that he would protect them and fight for them as occasion should require, and would easily reduce the country under their dominion. These shepherds were all very glad of this message, and came away with alacrity all together, being in number two hundred thousand men; and in a little time they came to Avaris. And now Amenophis the king of Egypt, upon his being informed of their invasion, was in great confusion, as calling to mind what Amenophis, the son of Papis, had foretold him; and, in the first place, he assembled the multitude of the Egyptians, and took counsel with their leaders, and sent for their sacred animals to him, especially for those that were principally worshipped in their temples, and gave a particular charge to the priests distinctly, that they should hide the images of their gods with the utmost care he also sent his son Sethos, who was also named Ramesses, from his father Rhampses, being but five years old, to a friend of his. He then passed on with the rest of the Egyptians, being three hundred thousand of the most warlike of them, against the enemy, who met them. Yet did he not join battle with them; but thinking that would be to fight against the gods, he returned back and came to Memphis, where he took Apis and the other sacred animals which he had sent for to him, and presently marched into Ethiopia, together with his whole army and multitude of Egyptians; for the king of Ethiopia was under an obligation to him, on which account he received him, and took care of all the multitude that was with him, while the country supplied all that was necessary for the food of the men. He also allotted cities and villages for this exile, that was to be from its beginning during those fatally determined thirteen years.

Moreover, he pitched a camp for his Ethiopian army, as a guard to king Amenophis, upon the borders of Egypt. And this was the state of things in Ethiopia.

But for the people of Jerusalem, when they came down together with the polluted Egyptians, they treated the men in such a barbarous manner, that those who saw how they subdued the aforementioned country, and the horrid wickedness they were guilty of, thought it a most dreadful thing; for they did not only set the cities and villages on fire but were not satisfied till they had been guilty of sacrilege, and destroyed the images of the gods, and used them in roasting those sacred animals that used to be worshipped, and forced the priests and prophets to be the executioners and murderers of those animals, and then ejected them naked out of the country.

It was also reported that the priest, who ordained their polity and their laws, was by birth of Heliopolis, and his name Osarsiph, from Osiris, who was the god of Heliopolis; but that when he was gone over to these people, his name was changed, and he was called Moses.”

27. This is what the Egyptians relate about the Jews, with much more, which I omit for the sake of brevity. But still Manetho goes on, that “after this, Amenophis returned back from Ethiopia with a great army, as did his son Ahampses with another army also, and that both of them joined battle with the shepherds and the polluted people, and beat them, and slew a great many of them, and pursued them to the bounds of Syria.” These and the like accounts are written by Manetho.

(Josephus, 2016, Kindle Location 36709–36733)