According to historical evidence, who appeared first as a people, the Egyptians or the Jews? And who developed a religion first?

by Flippydaman

Adding the question posted by TheRetardedGoat:

"Adding to the question, did the Israelites and Egyptians share any cultural/religious traditions?"

EvanRWT

The earliest historical mention of a people called the Israelites is from the Merneptah Stele, an ancient inscription carved on stone by the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah, whose victories over the Libyans it commemorates. Towards the end, there’s a little note about conquering Canaan, where it says that Ashkelon, Gezer, Israel, Hurru and Yano’am are all defeated.

It’s important to note that the Jewish religion is much more recent than the ancient Israelites. Monotheistic Judaism only dates to the Babylonian captivity in the 6th century BC, after Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem. The earliest books of the Old Testament were compiled in this period, though the oldest books may derive from older sources, possibly as old as 1000 BC.

Egyptian civilization, on the other hand, dates to around 3000 BC, if you start with the Dynastic period, when the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united. The pyramid of Djoser is from around 2650 BC, the Great Pyramid at Giza is from around 2550 BC.

So Egyptian Civilization is about 1500-2000 years older than the first mention of the Israelites, or about 2500 years older than the beginnings of Judaism, and around 3500 years older than modern Rabbanical Judaism which dates to when the Torah was compiled in the 6th century AD.

This is what we know based on historical evidence. But Judaism has its own mythology, supposedly beginning with Abraham’s covenant with God. Abraham is not a historical figure and his story is not history. However, going by Biblical chronology, he is imagined to have lived in the 2nd millennium BC, so even by that mythology Egyptian civilization would be older.

TheRetartedGoat

Adding to the question, did the Israelites and Egyptians share any cultural/religious traditions?