Conspiracy supports its conclusions with interviews with a wide range of explorers, archaeologists, Biblical scholars, religious leaders, and even senior Israeli political leaders, such as President Shimon Peres and opposition leader Benyamin Netanyahu. It contains brilliant cinematography of ancient archaeological sites and the stark desert landscape in which they are situated, taken from original videos shot by the explorers of these sites. The documentary also contains recreations by actors of parts of the Biblical narrative of the origins of the Israelite people, clips from Cecil B. DeMille’s magnificent original 1920’s silent epic “The Ten Commandments,” and oral narrations of the Exodus story by distinguished “storytellers,” actually scholars and/or religious leaders of different faiths and from all parts of the world, dressed in their traditional national costumes. There are beautifully photographed scenes of present-day Jerusalem , and a truly shocking film clip of an Arab mob destroying Joseph’s Tomb, an ancient holy site sacred to three faiths, during the so-called “Intifada.” In short, there is something here for everyone; The Exodus Conspiracy has great educational value and is first-rate entertainment as well.
To bolster the case for the historicity of the exodus, Mahoney cites recent archaeological work in the region that was once called “the land of Goshen,” described in the Bible as the home of the Israelite people during their four hundred year sojourn in Egypt. These archaeological explorations have uncovered the presence of a substantial Semitic population there—which suddenly disappeared in the 13Th Dynasty of Egypt. This just happens to be the same era in which, many historians have surmised from surviving Egyptian historical records as well as references in the Biblical account, the Exodus must have taken place.
The people who lived in this region on the eastern edge of the Nile Delta, until their sudden and mysterious disappearance, kept sheep, which the Israelites raised and the Egyptians did not raise. The architectural style of their houses was characteristic of the Fertile Crescent region and different from that of contemporary Egyptian houses.
Most interestingly, perhaps, there is an elaborate tomb in this area of a high official of a Pharaoh’s government, which could easily be the tomb of the patriarch Joseph. Remnants of paint on a statue of the man even suggest that he wore a coat of many colors!
At around the same time and the same place, there is evidence of a sharp increase in deaths and mass graves have been found, as if victims of a plague were hastily buried without the usual funeral rites. Evidence of the slaying of the Egyptian first-born by the angel of death, as the Book of Exodus records?
Yet no archaeologist working in this region of Egypt has been willing to say publicly that he or she believes that the Semitic people who inhabited the Land of Goshen , and then mysteriously disappeared from it, were the Israelites. Why not? According to several scholars and archaeologists whom Mahoney interviewed, the answer is fear: the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, Dr. Zahi A. Hawass, decides personally which archaeologists will be allowed to work in Egypt, and he would never allow any archaeologist who expressed a belief in an ancient Israelite presence in the country to work there.
If there is subtle, quiet intimidation of archaeologists in Egypt, the intimidation of them in Saudi Arabia has been anything but subtle. Explorers convinced that the Biblical ‘mountain of God,” where He revealed the Law to the Israelites, is in northern Arabia, rather than in the Sinai Peninsula where post-Biblical tradition places it, have encountered fierce opposition from the Saudi authorities. One exploration party was subjected to 78 days of imprisonment. Several have encountered armed Saudi soldiers and police ordering them to evacuate the area immediately. Even the personal physician to a high-ranking Saudi prince, armed with a personal letter from the prince authorizing him to explore anywhere in Saudi Arabia, was denied entry to this area by armed guards. Why, Mahoney and his interviewees ask, is the Saudi government so intent on hiding ancient ruins and inscriptions?
One reason may be that the explorers have discovered a mountain on which are located the remains of religious altars, ancient Semitic inscriptions, and evidence of major encampments by nomads at the base of the mountain—all of which are elements, of course, of the Biblical narrative of the Revelation at Sinai. If the Exodus really took place in northern Saudi Arabia as Mr. Mahoney and his interviewees maintain, then the Arab claim to be the sole “indigenous” inhabitants even of the Arabian Peninsula itself, let alone “Palestine,” could be thrown into doubt.
Mahoney also places the obstructionist tactics of the Egyptian and Saudi governments within the broader context of the archaeological “front” of the Arab-Israeli conflict—a “front” that includes denials by Palestinian Arab religious and political leaders that there ever was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, despite the overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence of the presence of two magnificent Jewish temples there over a 1,000-year period. As a part of their effort to cover up the ancient Jewish presence at the Temple Mount, the Muslim religious authorities who have been allowed to control the site by Israel have carted away and dumped tons of rich ancient soil containing archaeological remains of the two Temples. The shocking desecration and destruction of the tomb of the Biblical patriarch Joseph, who first led the Israelites to Egypt, by Palestinian Arab “militants” in Nablus (the Biblical Israelite city of Shechem) was yet another “action” in the archaeological-historical front of the war. It is as if the Palestinian Arab “militants” think that they can erase the ancient Jewish inhabitant of the land by destroying the surviving physical remains of that presence. The Arabs are waging a war against history itself in an effort to uphold their claims. The Israeli diplomat and scholar Dore Gold, author of The Fight for Jerusalem, in a brief on-camera interview in the film, lucidly summarizes the Jerusalem-Palestine “front” in the Arab war against Israelite-Jewish history. However, additional documentaries are needed to explore more fully this front of the propaganda-misinformation war against Israel and history.
While The Exodus Conspiracy is not the last word on this subject, and many additional documentaries about it should be made in the future, it is a must see for everyone who wants to understand the inseparable connection between the present-day conflict in the Middle East and the ancient events narrated in the Bible.
John Landau Contributed to this Article
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