Filmmaker
Founder, Thinking Man Films, a production and distribution company that encourages people to reexamine what they have been taught about religion, history, science and culture;
Founder, Thinking Man Media, a multi-media publishing company that develops music, books, curricula and educational materials for all ages
Co-writer, director and producer: Patterns of Evidence, his first documentary film, winner of Best Feature Documentary - 2014 Pan Pacific Film Festival, Best Documentary - 2014 CFCFF International Film Festival, Best Picture 2014 - ICVM Gold Crown Award, Gold REMI Award Winner - Best Director 2014 Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, Best Cinematography- Reelheart International Film Festival 2014 Toronto
Wife: Jill
Father of four
Grandfather of six |
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Guest Bio
Filmmaker Searches for Proof of Biblical Exodus
CBN.com
–DID THE EXODUS OUT OF EGYPT REALLY HAPPEN?
Timothy grew up in a Christian home. His mother held devotions and read him stories from the Bible. In 2002, Tim, now a filmmaker, started on what ended up being a 12-year journey to investigate archeology related to the stories in the Bible. Tim was excited about this new project. "I was to film amateur Exodus explorers in the Sinai Peninsula as they searched for the route the ancient Israelites might have taken after their exodus from Egypt," says Tim. One of the professional archeologists he was interviewing said, "What's the point of looking for the route if the Israelites never existed in Egypt in the first place?" Tim couldn't shake the remark. “After interviewing some of the top experts, they offered no evidence for the presence of Israelites in Egypt. I was having a crisis of faith.” Tim knew the events of Exodus were primarily dismissed by mainstream scholars. He made numerous trips across the world to explore whether there was any hard evidence for Exodus at all. Egyptian historical records make no reference to a Jewish settlement around the time of Exodus which would have been around the 13th century BC. The entire Old Testament would be in question if the Exodus, which is the central event of the Old Testament, did not take place. If this foundational story in the Bible did not occur, then the two religions of the Bible, Judaism and Christianity, would be based on a lie.
Exodus is one of the most important and foundational stories in the Bible. From the twelfth chapter of Genesis on, the early history of the people of Israel occupies the first six books of the Bible and establishes the basis for every book that follows. The stories are about a family of shepherds, Jacob and his 12 sons, who were descendants of Abraham. Jacob's name would be changed to Israel, which is the reason why his descendants are called the "children of Israel." Joseph, the great-grandson of Abraham, was Jacob's favorite son. He was sold by his jealous brothers to slave traders and taken to Egypt. In an extraordinary turn of events, Joseph was called on by the Pharaoh to interpret his dreams in which Joseph interpreted them to warn of an upcoming famine. Because of his insight, Joseph was made a ruler over all of Egypt. During the famine, Joseph's brothers moved to the best land in Egypt's Nile Delta. The descendants of this family grew so numerous over time that the Egyptians grew nervous. A new Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites, and they toiled for generations making bricks from mud and straw. Then God chose Moses to deliver the Israelites out of slavery. After Pharoah refused, God sent a series of plagues until the Israelites were released. The Bible describes how Moses led the people through a miraculous parting of the Red Sea and drowned the entire Egyptian army after they pursued the Israelites. God led the Israelites across the desert to a mountain where He gave Moses the Ten Commandments to live by. God also promised the Israelites to make them His people and to lead them to the Promised Land. They were afraid of the inhabitants of that land and wandered in the desert for 40 years. This left the next generation, led by Joshua, to enter and conquer the Promised Land (known as Canaan). This Promised Land would become known around the world as the Holy Land and in the center resides the ancient city of Jerusalem, which means “City of Peace.” When Joshua entered the Promised Land, he built an altar to God. The major events of the Exodus story include: the arrival of Abraham’s descendants in Egypt; their tremendous multiplication; their descent into slavery; the judgment of the nation that enslaved them; their deliverance and exodus out of Egypt; and the conquest of Canaan, the Promised Land. If the Exodus really happened, there are elements in the story that are so dramatically prominent that there would be remnants left behind somewhere in Egypt’s past.
PATTERNS OF EVIDENCE
Over the years, their team shot over 1,200 hours of footage, took thousands of still photos, recreated several 3D digital models of biblical cities based on actual dig surveys. They gained access to old maps and early archaeological field books. Tim traveled extensively and filmed over 50 in-depth interviews with leading scholars, archaeologists and Exodus explorers in the U.S., Europe, North Africa, New Zealand and the Middle East. Tim is still gathering information today.
Egyptologist David Rohl, an agnostic, believes the evidence for Exodus existed in a period earlier than normally considered. There was no evidence of Israelites in the city of Ramses (Ramses was the word used to describe the land where Joseph’s family settled). However, David says by digging deeper, there is a city, called Avaris, full of evidence of western Asisatics living there underneath the city of Ramses. The evidence, including architecture, graves and tombs, match the story of Joseph. Archeologists found a palace that belonged to a high Egyptian official, but the occupant of the palace was not Egyptian. In the garden behind the palace were 12 main graves with memorial chapels on top of them. The palace had a façade with a portico with 12 pillars. (12 graves, 12 sons of Jacob, 12 tribes of Israel.) One of the graves was a pyramid tomb. Only pharaohs and queens had pyramid tombs. Inside the chapel of the tomb was a colossal statue of a man with mushroom-styled red hair, yellow skin and who seemed to be wearing a coat with the faintest remains of paint which match what the Bible says Joseph wore: a multicolored coat! The tomb did not contain a body. Tim asked David, “Do you think this is Joseph?” David said, “Either it is Joseph, or it’s somebody who had a career remarkably the same as Joseph did.”
A canal, called the waterway of Joseph, goes back thousands of years and flows parallel to the Nile. David believes Joseph, as a vizier of Egypt, cut the canal to divert 50 percent of the water to the basin and saved Egypt from flooding. Flooding could cause a famine just as easily as drought and Joseph anticipated these floods and prepared for them by creating the canal to siphone off the water and to later be an effective source for watering during a famine. The canal is known to have been developed in the same period as the early settlement at Avaris. David told Tim about a remarkable Semitic expansion in Avaris whose remains have been found at a number of sites. These remains are buried with non-Egyptian weapons, pottery and some were found buried with their donkeys, not typical Egyptian practices. Remnants of the material of their dwellings fits with people from the southern part of Canaan.
OTHER EVIDENCE
An Egyptian scribe named Ipuwer wrote a document known as the Ipuwer Papyrus or the Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage. This significant text describe events that bear a remarkable resemblance to the plagues of the Bible, only from an Egyptian point of view. The composition of the Admonitions appears to be composed in the only period when Egypt’s Delta was dominated by Semites.
Two hundred yards from the tomb of Joseph in Shechem, archeological discoveries match what the Bible calls the temple where Joshua and the Israelites gathered after conquering the Promised Land. One last find at Shechem is a great white stone, more than seven feet high, that was carefully carved and fitted into a base. In 1913, a German explorer named Ernst Sellin uncovered huge stones of a fortification wall which were later determined to match what the Bible calls the tower of Shechem. Tim says it is unclear whether Ernst identified this as anything more than the main religious symbol of the temple. To David, the conclusion seemed obvious: this was the covenant stone of Joshua where he challenged the Israelites, “Choose this day whom you will serve, the Lord or other gods. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
For more information, visit www.patternsofevidence.com
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