Coins discovered in Egypt bearing image of Joseph
Yeah, yeah, I know. I just said I wasn’t going to be posting for a while, but this is pretty big, so I couldn’t resist. Anyway, I’m not going to comment on it, just provide the link.
Egyptian paper: Coins found bearing name of Joseph
I’m not saying this isn’t a significant find; but (and this is from Al-Ahram, I can’t link to it) the coin bearing the name of Joseph is not actually in the find that dates from the *time* of Joseph. The piece at MEMRI is a bit misleading.
There is a coin with a picture of a cow from around that period, but it is one cow. The link to Pharaoh’s dream is reading a bit too much wishful thinking into it.
This provides evidence that a) there were coins in Egypt at the time of Joseph and b) the Egyptians later had either a man named Joseph they liked enough to put on a coin, or they traded with people who did.
I agree about the cow. The first thing I thought was “how do they know that?” Unless I’m misreading something, though, it does appear that the coin is dated.
It is a cool find, and is just another piece of evidence pointing to the historical reliability of the Bible.