Help Support My MA-PhD Research

Requesting Your Support in Building my Torah-Affirming

M.A. and PhD Theses (plural) on the ‘Proto-Alefbetic’ Inscriptions

at Serabit El-Khadim

To Friends and All Supporters of Torah-affirming Biblical Archaeology,

As a lifelong Torah scholar and retired rabbi turned academic researcher, after 8 years of work under private academic supervision, I’m beginning a new chapter in this journey. That is, as a graduate student in Archaeology at Ariel University. Only top academic credentials can give my discoveries the chance to have a significant and lasting influence on how mainstream academia treats the historicity of the core elements of the early biblical narrative.

Background: Early on in my research, I made startling discoveries that have convinced my academic mentors that Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions in the Sinai Desert (at Serabit el-Khadim), bear writing in a startlingly clear, early Hebrew (Northwest Semitic) language. They bear messages that provide compelling evidence for core elements of the Exodus narrative.

This research now includes solid interpretations for over 22 ancient inscriptions found in the Sinai Desert and Egypt proper. They include 7 inscriptions that I propose could have been authored by the historical personage of MSh, as his name is found in two of them: Moshe, or Moses. This proposal is based not only on their content but minute epigraphic details.

According to my careful, critical readings, these inscriptions bring to life many fascinating points on the culture and daily life of Hebrew slaves, as told from their perspective.

As I rush to complete my proto-thesis, this is a public petition to fund the continuation of my work at Ariel University. This will enable me to integrate all that I have put together into the mind space of the academic world, such that it can be ignored no longer. Below are the first two stages of the “Exodus Inscriptions” project.

Here are the first two stages:

• Phase I proto-paper: The Exodus Inscriptions at Serabit el-Khadim | Michael S. Bar-Ron - Academia.edu

• Phase II proto-paper: Sinai 351 and 360 as “Exodus Inscriptions” as Par Excellence | Michael S. Bar-Ron - Academia.edu

During this precise time, the final touches are being made to a 150+ page proto-thesis. Thanks in part to the donations to this page and a grant from the archaeological society Wort und Wissen, this broad work has grown to include the sum total of all my research on these inscriptions and more. It includes my readings of all the complex Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions found to date, to my awareness.

All of this has been under the supervision of my academic adviser Dr. Peter Van der Veen.* It will serve as the basis of my MA and PhD thesis projects under an additional, new academic supervisor at Ariel University.

Images from the title page:

The precision and quality of this new work are well beyond any of my work published to the Internet to date. This is thanks to the insights and critique of arguably the highest-ranking expert of these inscriptions: Dr. Ludwig Morenz, Head of the Egyptology Department at Bonn University.

Above: At the University of Bonn with Dr. Morenz in January 2023

No less important has been the opportunity to study, hands-on, several of the original stone inscriptions, as well as casts of impeccable quality made by Hubert Grimme, housed at the Semitic Museum at Harvard University. They were made over a century ago when they were in a more pristine state of preservation.

My proto-thesis also brings to light other finds that bring to life an important figure among the Semite (Hebrew) elite in Egypt during the 13th Dynasty: the Egyptian high official Ankhu. This Semite elite, who first appeared in Egypt in the late 12th Dynasty, seems to have had an important role in the development and spread of this phonetic script in Egypt and the earliest Proto-Alefbetic inscriptions.

These include the Stele of Renisseneb, son of Ankhu, housed at the Egyptian Wing of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. For reasons presented in the paper, he could be identifiable as the historical “Manasseh son of Joseph”. The stele features an actual depiction of Ankhu (Tzafenat Pa-Ankh, Yoseph the Vizier), seated next to his wife (Renisseneb's mother), Asenat (or "Senet"), explicitly mentioned in Gen. 41:45, 41:50, and 46:20. She is mentioned twice in the stele.

Above: Images of the Stele of Reniseneb, Bar-Ron 2023

This is all according to the translation provided by the Museum authorities and additional insights by two other experts. It provides compelling evidence for our proposal of Ankhu as the biblical Joseph. This seems to provide insight into my reading of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions, presented thoroughly in the proto-thesis. Here is one of them, Inscription 2 from Wadi el-Hol:

(Note: High-resolution images of the original stone surface are included in the developing paper.)

Added to all this is more evidence of the same from my 2017 paper “The Seal of Joseph”, exploring the symbolism on a cylinder seal impression found in the ruins of the Middle Bronze Age palace at Tell el-Dab'a, dated to what some understand to be the 'early Israelite period' at Avaris.

WHY YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT IS SO NEEDED AT THIS TIME

Pursuing this dream of taking my career to the highest level has been a leap of faith. All that I require is proper funding, so that I can finally pour my full attention into completing this paper. Otherwise, I would be compelled to continue exhausting my time and energies as an English instructor, to make ends meet and support my children.

As noted above, by supporting this work, particularly at this critical stage, you have an opportunity to have a hand in making a monumental, historical change: to affect how the biblical narrative is treated from within the ivory tower of academia.

Unfortunately, even noted academics in the field with noble intentions, with hearts for God, have brought this approach into disrepute. Hubris, populist-driven sensationalism, together with weak, faulty methodology by Bible-affirming scholars have yielded weak proposals for “biblical messages” in such inscriptions. This has earned the justifiable ire of the vanguard authorities in the field.

On the contrary, I have spent 8 years studying these inscriptions objectively, with grinding rigor, harsh self-critique, peer review, challenging and refining my readings. Not for the goal of “proving the Bible”, but to arrive at the truth of these inscriptions, with an open but critical, objective mindset. The result is that there is no need to embellish nor sensationalize: the inscriptions are revealed to say what they do, and the ramifications for biblical truth are greatly profound.

And so, if you could find it within your ability to provide the support I require for this deeply important project (and it supports a lot more), I would be most deeply grateful.

I am thankful in advance for the understanding, patience, and good faith: not only on behalf of my personal life and my family, but in light of the incredible ramifications of this work, grounding our biblical traditions in confirmed history. As my mentor David Rohl has told his students (see endorsements here), my “Exodus Inscriptions” work may well be the most important breakthrough towards that end in the last 50 years.

Sincerely,

Michael S. Bar-Ron (my page on Academia)

* Dr. Pieter Gert van der Veen (PhD, habil.), senior lecturer of Levantine archaeology at the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz