Hi, I've never really posted here before, and I subscribed about a week ago and became really intrigued with the answers and just the premise of this subreddit.
So the series in question is religiously perhaps one of the more accurate portrayals of any figure from scripture so far (at least done by a Muslim), so I'm not asking about the contradictions between the series and faith (Quran, Bible, Hadith, etc.)
What I want to know is the historical inaccuracies, for example the younger King of Egypt in the series is shown to be Amenhotep IV, nicknamed later as Akhenaten; but from what I remember from a high school history course, Akhenaten and Joseph wouldn't have existed in the same Kingdom (I think Joseph, the grandson of Abraham would have been in the Old Kingdom, and Akhenaten uncle of King Tut would have been in the New Kingdom).
If anyone has seen the series and is knowledgable about this era in history, I'd be very interested in seeing what the historians have to say about it.
The serial can be viewed in it's entirety with English subtitles here if anyone needs it/has time and would like to see it
THANK YOU so much in advance!
Hi Historian of antiquity here, I just checked what Thomas Römer from the college de France said about the story of Joseph. I have watched all of his courses over the last years but here is a link to a powerpoint he made to support a lecture about Judaism and Egypt in 2009 (in french) Looking for more than just a pdf I found that the story of Joseph will be the subject of his course for this academic year it begins in february.
Back to the pdf the important elements is that it's a story written in the sixth century BC, the pages 17 and 18 briefly talk about Joseph. It highlights that the story was written by and for the egyptian community in Egypt in the sixth century BC. Apparently the names of the characters fits with the egyptian saite period (so the sixth century). I have tried to find more informations, the chapter of this book argues that it was written in the tenth century. I can't prove you that the book is more or less recent between these two dates as it's not my main field of study but the story we can agree that the story was written centuries after the events that are told in it... and that doesn't surprise me at all, it's the same with (almost?) all the events in the old testament that were supposed to take place before at least the tenth century BC (and I am generous by a few centuries to avoid being disproved). One example among others are the camels (Dromedaries) in the book of exodus. The animal itself was domesticated around the 8th-7th century BC, so the book was written later. The story itself could be more ancient though and would have been transmitted orally but the main point is that the old testament reflect element from the culture of the 1st millenium BC even if it tells events partly from the 2nd millenium (and I don't even mention the flood). You can also check his course of Abraham arguing that the travels of the patriarchs were created during the babylonian exile.
As a side note apparently Tutenkhamen was the son of Akhenaten and not his nephew.