The traditional Hebrew text of the Bible states that 70 members of Prophet Jacob’s family went down to Egypt (Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5). The ancient Greek translation (the Septuagint) and Stephen’s speech in the New Testament Book of Acts 7:14 record the number as 75 persons by including additional grandsons and great-grandsons. Even if there were 50-100 more servants it is too small to be written on the Merneptah Stele.

Many scholars think that the 70 or 75 adult Hebrews who went to Egypt were only a small part of Prophet Jacob’s extended family of dozens of hundreds of them. The Merneptah Stele, erected in Egypt in 1208 BCE, is an Egyptian victory stele erected by Pharaoh Merneptah that tells how he (and his army) defeated the Libyans, and put down uprisings in Canaanite cities, followed by a claim about the destruction of a people called “Israel”.

The Egyptian inscription describes the Israelites as a stateless group of semi-nomadic men and women inhabiting Canaan at a time when Canaan was under Egyptian rule. Pharaoh Merneptah groups them together with several Egyptian-ruled city states in Canaan that were crushed.

The Hebrew’s Exodus from Egypt occurred just a........

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