Skeptics of the Bible sometimes doubt that Israel was present in the land of Canaan during the time period specified by the Bible.  They allege that the Biblical record was made up many centuries later.  The Merneptah Stele is powerful validation of the accuracy of the Biblical narrative’s account of early Israel’s presence in Canaan.

The stele was placed by the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah (who ruled c. 1224-1214 B.
C.).  He claimed to have defeated a
variety of foreign nations to his north, specifying, in his list, “Israel” in a series of comments about victories over groups in
“Canaan.”[1]  The Stele thus constitutes “an official recognition of a
people called Israel in extra-biblical documents.”[2]  Furthermore, the word “Israel” is preceded by the Egyptian
determinative for “people” or “ethnic group,”[3] while Israel’s presence on the stele indicates that the Israelites were a significant nation at the time, one important enough even at this early date for Egypt’s Pharaoh to boast about a victory over them.  Thus, even at this early period  “Israel was well enough established by that
time among the other peoples of Canaan to have been perceived by Egyptian
intelligence as a possible challenge to Egyptian hegemony.”^[4]

Thus, “Israel was definitely in Palestine by ca 1220
B. C.”^[6]  In the words of the agnostic, anti-inerrancy scholar William Dever: “The Merneptah Stele is . . . just what
skeptics, mistrusting the Hebrew Bible (and archaeology), have always insisted
upon as corroborative evidence: an extrabiblical text, securely dated, and free
of biblical or pro-Israel bias. What more would it take to convince the
naysayers?”^[7]

            Further evidence for Israel’s presence in Canaan exists.  An inscription from the
time of the Ramessess II (1303-1213 B. C.) refers to “Israel”
in a captive list also mentioning Ashkelon and Canaan.  Furthermore, two captive lists
found in the Egyptian Soleb temple in the time of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.
C.) mention a people in a “land” that is associated with characters that
“represen[t] exactly the way the Hebrew divine name would appear in
hieroglyphic . . . leading many scholars to associate these inscriptions with
Israel.”[8]  (This last piece of evidence also supports the traditional and conservative date for the Exodus in contrast to the later date adopted by many more liberal scholars.)

            The Merneptah Stele and other Egyptian
sources provide “documentary extrabiblical evidence for . . . a ‘people’ called
‘Israel,’ living in Canaan, and [their] God” as  “known in the Egyptian sphere of influence no
later than Merneptah and probably much earlier . . . the pre-Amarna period.”^[9]

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