In his book, The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage from a Hieratic Papyrus in Leiden, Alan H. Gardiner "argued that all the internal evidence of the text points to the historical character of the situation. Egypt was in distress; the social system had become disorganized; violence filled the land. Invaders preyed upon the defenseless population; the rich were stripped of everything and slept in the open, and the poor took their possessions. 'It is no merely local disturbance that is here described, but a great and overwhelming national disaster'." - Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos
"Forsooth, the Desert is throughout the land. The nomes are laid waste. A foreign tribe from abroad has come to Egypt." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 2:5-6
[The "foreign tribe from abroad" appears to refer to the invasion by the Hyksos.]
"...There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt." - Exodus 7:21
"Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 2:5-6
"...All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood." - Exodus 7:20
"The river is blood." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 2:10
"...The fire ran along upon the ground....There was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous." - Exodus 9:23-24
"Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 2:10
"...The flax and the barely was smitten: for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was boiled." "...There remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the fields, through all the land of Egypt." - Exodus 9:31, 10:15
"The land is left over to its weariness like the cutting of flax."
"Forsooth, grain has perished on every side." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 5:12, 6:3
"...The hand of the Lord will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field..." - Exodus 9:3
"All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan..." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 5:53
"And he that regarded not the word of the Lord left his servants and his cattle in the field." - Exodus 9:21
"Behold, cattle are left to stray, and there is none to gather them together. Each man fetches for himself those that are branded with his name." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 9:2-3
"...And there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neiher rose any from his place for three days." - Exodus 10:22-23
"The land is not light..." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 9:11
"The land was in great affliction. Evil fell on this earth....It was a great upheaval in the residence....Nobody left the palace during nine days, and during these nine days of upheaval there was such a tempest that neither the men nor the gods could see the faces of their next." - Stone Shrine at el-Arish (from the Ptolemaic period but referring to the much earlier King Thom)
"The first nine plagues described in Exodus "can be explained
as natural phenomena, occurring as a result of an abnormally high Nile inundation
between July and the following March...The Nile turning to blood could reflect
the fact that its waters were filled with red earth carried in suspension
from the highlands of Ethiopia. As a result, the river would then become
polluted and frogs would infest the shores in search of shelter. Mosquitoes
and flies would find ideal breeding grounds in the brackish ponds left behind
by the receding floodwaters.
"The death of Egypt's livestock could be due to an anthrax epidemic
spread by the insects with men and animals breaking out in sores. Hail ruining
the crops of flax and barley could have happened in January, when such a
climatic phenomenon, though rare, is most likely to occur. Swarms of locusts
could have been blown into the Nile valley by winds from the Sudan and Ethiopia
and the three days of darkness are typical of a severe khamsin, a sandstorm
of unusual proportions." - Great Events of Bible Times
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will send just one more disaster on Pharaoh and his land, and after that he will let you go; in fact, he will be so anxious to get rid of you that he will practically throw you out of the country. Tell all the men and women of Israel to ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold and silver jewelry'." - Exodus 11:1-2 (Living Bible)
"Yahweh gave the people such prestige in the eyes of the Egyptians, that they gave them what they asked. So they plundered the Egyptians." - New Jerulsalem Bible
"The storehouse of the king is the common property of everyone." - Papyrus of Ipuwer10:3
"And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon." - Exodus 12:29
"Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 4:3, also 5:6
"...There was not a house where there was not one dead." - Exodus 12:30
"He who places his brother in the ground is everywhere."
"Forsooth, those who were in the place of embalment were laid on the high ground." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 2:13 and 4:4, also 6:16
"...There was a great cry in Egypt." - Exodus 12:30
"It is groaning that is throughout the land, mingled with lamentations." - Papyrus of Ipuwer 3:14