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 generation or two before this 1208 BCE victory stele. Pharaoh Merneptah’s totally false claim that Israel had been destroyed is evidence that the Pharaohs were still angry that the Pharaoh of the Exodus had been defeated by the one, imageless, God of the Hebrews.

The mysterious Sea Peoples, recorded as invading Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean around 1250-1150 BCE, but whose identity of this seaborne coalition—blamed for accelerating........

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