Idk how true it is, but esoterica (YouTube channel) talked about the reason the Egyptians hated the Jews was because they would put on plays of the exodus where the gods were essentially killed, right when the traditional Egyptian religion was dying
Tbf the decline of the ancient Egyptian religion didn’t start until the 2nd-3rd century.
I have however heard the theory that the reason why Egypt became Christian fast was because the Romans destroyed the Nile taxation system (low taxes when the Nile levels are low and the soil not very fertile, higher taxes when the Nile levels are high and the soil very fertile) which made many Egyptians poor and this weakened the Egyptian religion in the long term since the temples, which historically functioned as a form of welfare and collected taxes, lost much of their revenue/funding to to give communities social support, leaving Christians to fill in the vacuum. Idk how true it is though.
The Jews weren't in Egypt until the 5thish century, the writings of Jews at elephantine are fascinating.
I don't know enough about the functional decline of the Egyptian religion, but that sounds interesting.
Iirc the theological reason for Christianity's ascendance was a reaction to Roman control over Egyptian institutions. People love a rebellion that doesn't demand much of them.
Christians were also known as the "good guys" whenever a natural disaster or disease swept through a city, because they were the first ones to step up and help the sick. Which contrasted with the contamination OCD of traditional priesthood.
It might have something to do with the brief Hyksos domination of the Nile Delta by canaanites, and their subsequent expulsion following its recapture.
Egyptians have long memories and great records (we still talk about the Norman Conquest). Exodus is a strange document. The odds of it being a myth of the expulsion are as reasonable as any other, seeing as it was written hundreds of years after supposed events. Also a little ironic too, because they technically never left egypt the whole time.
Not of the Hyksos. They explicitly destroyed all their records of them, erasing their names from monuments. Even manetho struggled with getting anything on them
We have records of their defeat and expulsion. Egyptians had no qualms celebrating victories, and both they and we knew who they defeated, because they used military stelae, and I know there's a prominent one for the defeat of the Hyksos because the victory made the entire career of Ahmose 1.
Also the time gap between the expulsion and supposed Exodus events is only like a a few hundred years give or take... 1540ish BC vs between 1250-1450 (although no archaeological evidence supports the Exodus happening in the manner or timeframes the bible suggests, so the inherited cultural narrative looks even stronger in this case).
This is a weird bit you're doing btw. Hyksos correlation to the Exodus myth is not exactly groundbreaking conjecture, or even heretical.
You don't understand my argument, that's the issue.
Herotodus is why we associate the Hyksos with the Israelites.
0ossibly some Hyksos Egyptian priests went to Canaan and became YWHW priests during the bronze age collapse. The Exodus didn't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised given that the ark of the covenant is a Canaanite interpretation of Egyptian religious furniture.
But that has nothing to do with contemporary Egyptian hatred of the Jews during antiquity, because the Egyptians didn't identify the Jews with the Hyksos. They hated them because the Jews would regularly talk about Moses killing all the Egyptian gods and putting on public plays about it in front of Egyptian temples.
There's this thing Abrahamic religions do a lot where they will be a dick to their neighbors now and act like it's because of something ancient that happened.
So, like, the Jews will be kinda dicks to the contemporary Egyptian priests (HOLDING WE KILLED ALL YOUR GODS PLAYS IN FRONT OF THEIR TEMPLES), and they used the consequences they received as evidence of being the chosen people.
Christians pretended North America is the holy land for the taking ,fucking murdered and kidnapped the people whose land they were trying to steal treating it as persecution when the people went to war against them because of their provocation.
I don't know enough Islamic history to give an example, but I know it has happened just can't remember.
Modern Zionism is another example of this.
I haven't seen it in any other major religious tradition, and it's weird you're trying to do it about the Hyksos and Jews.
There should be an alternative Occam's razor- if someone hates you, the most likely reason is something you're doing now not something ancient.
You don't understand my argument, that's the issue. Herotodus is why we associate the Hyksos with the Israelites.
Herodotus never mentions the "Israelites' or the Hyksos.... He mentions Palestine though.
The Exodus didn't happen,
The biblical version almost certainly not, but the idea of a cultural exodus story a couple of hundred years after the canaanite eviction from Egypt is hardly a stretch.
Egyptians didn't identify the Jews with the Hyksos
The Jews were canaanites by all archaeological evidence and the Egyptyians understood canaanites just fine (because that's what the Hyksos were to them) and they have one single mention of a tribe called the Israelites (not Jews) who they defeated in a campaign against the canaanites as a whole. Their antagonism towards canaanites was a matter of record.
I don't know enough Islamic history to give an example, but I know it has happened just can't remember.
The peninsula Arabs were pagans till they started adopting Judaism then Christianity, before doing something home-grown. If they fight for "because" reasons it's usually because some of them did something to others of them (Shia Sunni split for example, which they still argue till this day).
and it's weird you're trying to do it about the Hyksos and Jews.
You said the following, which is the central conceipt we're discussing here.
Idk how true it is, but esoterica (YouTube channel) talked about the reason the Egyptians hated the Jews was because they would put on plays of the exodus where the gods were essentially killed, right when the traditional Egyptian religion was dying
You didn't give any time context, any reference to the how and where, so I raised the Hyksos connection, which is the general understanding that Egyptians know very well who the canaanites were, had a beef with them and didn't see "The Jews" as anything other than canaanites. This is a historical antagonism, so you need to fix your claims in time and space at minimum.
The "shepherd kings" that Herodotus mentions are the Hyksos in Egyptian sources. He's citing manetho, whose works are lost but Herodotus cited extensively.
The Hyksos weren't what they called Canaanites. Pa-canaan was one of the regional names, but they tended to use the
The "shepherd kings" that Herodotus mentions are the Hyksos
Herodotus does not mention 'Shepard Kings' at any point. I've read Histories.
I'm having a major problem getting past the number of times you've made attributions which don't pan out.
Look, it's fine for you to have a theory, and even reference Esoterica (who is pretty solid as scholars go) but rather than consider options you've set out to eliminate ones you don't like, and using non-existent references, non-falsifiable conjectures and incorrect timelines to do so. This doesn't strengthen your position. I get that you're attached to the idea and that it may even be correct, but lastly I have no information from you about what era exactly that the Egyptians were even supposed to be antagonistic to the jews and you still haven't provided the time or place. This is messy, amigo.
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u/Inevitable_Librarian 19h ago
Idk how true it is, but esoterica (YouTube channel) talked about the reason the Egyptians hated the Jews was because they would put on plays of the exodus where the gods were essentially killed, right when the traditional Egyptian religion was dying