November 8, 2026

Arguments of Ignorance I: Jeremiah and Pharaoh Hophra


Jeremiah 44:30: "Yahweh says, 'Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies, and into the hand of those who seek his life; as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy, and sought his life.'"

There are many so-called historical experts that claim the Biblical prophet Jeremiah didn’t exist or there was no way to chronologically connect Jeremiah and Pharaoh Hophra because there was no hard empirical/objective historical evidence. 

Pharaoh Hophra is Apries (Egyptian Wahibre), king of Egypt about 589-570 BC. Herodotus (Histories 2.161-169) says that after a disastrous campaign against Cyrene his soldiers revolted and made the general Amasis king; Apries was defeated in battle, kept for a time in the palace, and then handed over to the Egyptians who hated him. Herodotus adds that Apries had believed not even a god could take his kingdom from him. 

One of his obelisks, about 5.5 meters tall, was made for the city of Sais in the Nile Delta, brought to Rome in antiquity. The 5.47-meter red granite obelisk was originally carved around 580 BC under Pharaoh Apries (Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt) in his capital city of Sais. It was later brought to Rome in the 1st century AD to stand at a local temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis. It was later dug up in 1665 beside the Piazza della Minerva; in 1667 it was set on the back of a marble elephant designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Today it still stands in Rome on the back of the same elephant.

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