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The translation of the stele
Photo of the stele
Drawing of the stela
The first problem we have is this is a recounting of a victory over Libya.
Libya back then is where it is today, to the west of Egypt. Bibleland is
east of Egypt. Yet towards the end it gives three names of places in
the the bible, Canaan, Ashkelon and Israel among others which are not. It is
not clear why places in a war to the west of Egypt would mention places to
the east of Egypt. It is reasonable to consider the names are merely
similar.
But how similar? The passage is in hieroglyphs not a phonetic language. The
the glyphs would be Is, Re and El. That would be roughly place or seat or
land of Ra and El -- a place ruled by the chief Egyptian god and another
generic god. This can be any place. Further we should not be surprised when
names are reused. They are today. And when we mostly have no idea what the
name originally meant we have no basis for saying it is unlikely. For all we
know Canaan could have meant "hometown" or something like that.
How can this be a mention of biblical Israel as the bible does not describe
this kind of destruction? Even exaggeration on one the Egyptian side does
not match the bible description.
So how does a description of a war in the Northern Sahara to the west of
Egypt possibly refer to places in bibleland? And even if it does, how does
this confirm an Israel as described in the bible?
It is legitimate to ask if this really is a mention of places west of Egypt
can be confirmed. Yes. In the course of the Punic Wars much was written
about Carthage. Carthage was in what is now Libya. One of the things
mentioned is the peasants outside the city of Carthage were called the
Kanana. That is about as close to Canaan as you can get and closer than any
place or people name found in bibleland.
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