History does support Moses being in Egypt, read Josephus and his claim Moses was a general in the Egyptian army and defeated Ethiopia in a war (which is information that is not in the Bible). And I would imagine 3000 years of hot desert temperatures and windy sand storms would have a way of destroying or covering any evidence of a group of people walking through a desert. And if what you say is true, the fact that evidence has not been found doesn't mean it isn't there. And I"ve already pointed out the building foundation found in Egypt that is similar to other foundations commonly used by the Israelites. I'll try to look into your other points as time permits. I am involved in other threads like the slavery thread and my 6000 posts Evidence thread in the History and Literature Forum - that along with my full time job and other activities.
Josephus, as Cleon has already noted, was writing in the first century CE, over 1,000 years after the time the Exodus was supposed to have taken place. Though Josephus is a reliable source for events of his day, he used legend blended with history when dealing with more ancient events. One example of this is to be found in
Wars of the Jews Book 7, chapter 7, item 4, in which he refers to the iron gates Alexander the Great had used to close off a pass in the Caucasus in order to keep the Sarmatians from invading th civilized lands. Alexander's Gate is part of a corpus of legends that grew up around the great conquerer. There is no historical or archaeological basis for this iron barrier, but Josephus treated it as historical and real.
Regarding Moses leading an Egyptian army against Ethiopia, in
Antiquities of the Jews Book 2, chapter 10, item 2, Josephus tells how Tharbis, daugher of the king of Ethiopia, looking down from the wall at Moses leading the Egyptians beseiging her father's city, fell in love with him at first sight. She betrayed the city's secret entrance to him, and he married her. This story of a love-lorn princess betraying her father's city because she has fallen in love with the virile young king or general beseiging it has parallels in Greek and Roman mythology.
The idea that Moses had an Ethiopian wife came from a misreading of Numbers 12:1, in which Aaron and Miriam speak against Moses because he has a Cushite wife. Josephus, among others, assumed that "Cushite" refered to the biblical land of Cush, south of Egypt, and, by inference, Ethiopia. Hence, the legend inventing Tharbis as the Cushite (Ethiopan) wife of Moses. The refernece in Num. 12:1 to Moses' "Cushite" wife was something of a puzzle, since the only wife of Moses in the Bible is Zipporah, who ws a Midianite.
The puzzle is resolved by a verse found in one of the 12 minor prophets (Habakkuk 3:7):
I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;
the curtains of Midian did tremble.
This couplet utilizes a convention of West Semitic poetry by which a person, nation, etc. is referred to twice, using a different name in the second reference. Perhaps the most famous use of this convention is to be found in Zecharaiah 9:9:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on an ass,
on the colt the foal of an ass.
Since Zion is the Temple mount in Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion and the daughter of Jerusalem are one and the same. Likewise, the ass and the colt, the foal of an ass are one and the same (though the author of Matthew, writing in Greek and not understanding the Semitic poetic convention, had jesus "fulfill" the prophecy in Zech. 9:9 by riding into jerusalem on Palm Sunday on two beasts at the same time).
If we understand Hab. 3:7 in terms of this poetic convention, it is clear that Cushan and Midian are two names for the same land. This explains Moses' "Cushite" wife in Num. 12:1 as a woman of Cush
an rather than Cush. She is none other than Zipporah, the only wife the Bible mentions Moses
having.
Thus, Josephus' reference to Moses as a general in the Egyptian army beseiging the city of the Ethiopian king, and that king's daughter, Tharbis, falling in love with him, is nothing more than legendary elaboration on the biblical text, part typologocial myth, part textual misunderstanding. In any case, any "history' of Moses by Josephus would be nothing more than what Josephus had read in the Torah.
There is no history here.
