Egyptian Artifacts Familiar To Bible Readers

King Tut is in the Bible Belt, and Bible readers will find plenty to relate to in treasures from the boy king’s ancient tomb, an Egyptologist says.

“Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” brings 130 Egyptian artifacts to the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center. The exhibit is scheduled to run through May 25.

James K. Hoffmeier, an archaeologist and writer at Trinity International University in Illinois, created an online guide that makes biblical history pop for viewers of the exhibit’s Egyptian statues, personal items, and pieces of furniture and jewelry.

“The Bible provides us with a verbal picture of activities in the ancient world. But sitting over here on this side of the Atlantic 3,000 years later, it is often difficult for us to visualize what this was like,” Hoffmeier said. “This brings it to life.”

Egypt plays a key role in the narrative of faith, readers of the Old Testament or Torah know. The Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt was a defining moment for them.

No one knows the years the Jews were in Egypt or when they left, and some scholars doubt the story is factual, but Hoffmeier places the exodus within a few hundred years of Tut’s reign around 1330 BC.

Seeing a treasure like the golden goblet, which is on display, moves Bible stories out of the realm of imagination and lends them a hard reality, Hoffmeier said.

“We are reminded in the Joseph story about the butler who the story says poured wine for Pharaoh,” he said.

Joseph, one of the Jewish patriarchs, had risen from a prisoner to become a high official in the kingdom and interacted with the butler.

Hoffmeier noted other cultural overlaps between the Jews and Egyptians that are reflected in the Bible, such as the names Moses, Miriam and Phineas, which have Egyptian origins.

Joseph died and was mummified, according to the story, a burial practice not used by Jews. The display has a coffin from that era that shows how the patriarch might have been buried.

Some scholars also think that Jewish leader Moses was influenced in the idea of monotheism, the belief in one god rather than many, by Tut’s father, Akhenaten. Akhenaten set up one god as chief and had other gods’ images destroyed.

The Egyptian technology used to build the gold-veneered jewelry cases and other pieces of furniture is the same technology the Jews would have used to build their sacred and everyday items, Hoffmeier said.

“What we do have from archaeology and what we know from Egyptian history, when they interface with what we have in the Bible, it fits,” he said.

Exhibition information: www.nationalgeographic.com/tut. Download Hoffmeier’s guide: www.kingtutbibleguide.com/free_bible_guide.html. Read more about the exhibit at: www.redandblackflannel.blogspot.com

Walter