In 1731BC North Africa experienced seven years of the greatest prosperity it had ever known. It was in this year that the grand vizier, Imhotep, began building the first pyramid complex. This complex included a system of deep, well-like structures that had steps leading down into them. On the sides of these wells were post holes that could be used to set up temporary covers to keep the contents of the wells free of debris and animals. The contents? Grain.
For seven years the Egyptians stored up grain and other stores, keeping them safe in the wells, and in the pyramid. Then came the famine. For seven years the region saw the worst famine it had ever experienced. Having stored up the grain from the excesses of the previous seven years, Imhotep oversaw the distribution of grain to all of the lands. Because Egypt was the only nation-state that had bothered to store up it’s excess, it became the wealthiest nation on earth.
First people spent their money on the food. When the money was gone, they began trading their livestock and their lands. When that was gone they began trading themselves. After seven years of famine the pharaoh had become the owner of everything; money, land and people. Everyone was a slave to the pharaoh, because he owned everything. All of this was due to one man’s vision; Imhotep, the interpreter of dreams.
While to some this may sound like a Biblical story with a name out of place, it’s actually an historical account, written on a rock in the middle of Egypt. Archaeology tells us that there was a vizier of Egypt who saved it’s people from a seven year famine. It also tells us that this man was a physician, or healer, an interpreter of dreams, a writer of psalms and proverbs, and who’s writings are strikingly similar to those found in passages of the Old Testament, or the Torah.
Archaeology also tells us that Egypt, around 1500BC, began to “experiment” with monotheism. In fact, around this time there came a new God into Egypt named Ptah. Ptah is known as the potter, the maker of men from clay. He is the creator God, from which all other gods come.
Yet, despite these amazing coincidences between what science has discovered, and what the Bible tells us, the scientific community attributes these things to separate causes, and does not relate them in any way to the events described in Genesis.
Why would Imhotep build wells and not buildings or silos? Perhaps he had spent some time in a dry well, and remembered how cool, and secure a well can be. Sometimes it takes a little time, on our own, in a dark hole, to really study our circumstance. The wise among us will use that experience to a greater good. The unwise among us will not even be able to put 2 and 2 together in any meaningful way.
Imhotep the fictional character is described as having come back from the dead as “the mummy.” This is because no one has ever found the tomb of Imhotep. There is no body of one of the most important figures in Egyptian history. The reason they can’t find the tomb is because they’re looking in the wrong place:
And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph. (Joshua 24:32)
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