6. The Adventures of Abraham in Egypt

The ancient history of Egypt intersects for the first time with the Biblical narrative when Abraham traveled from Canaan to Egypt during the 12th Dynasty, possibly during the reign of Sensusret III. By that time the great pyramids had stood for hundreds of years, and Egyptian civilization had realized some of its most important accomplishments. There are no known Egyptian records attesting to Abraham's visit, as recorded in Genesis 12, but the story, taken a face value, presents a picture compatible with the history of the Land of the Nile, and that perspective forms the assumptions of the presentation here.