Customer Reviews

Rameses - Wrath of God or Man?

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Kent Weeks, rediscoverer of KV5, found three partial human remains in a pit in that tomb. He speculates that one of these (one in particular) is the remains of Amonherkhopshef (Amonherwenemef), firstborn son of Ramses II. Like a lot of people, Weeks saddles on to the mistaken claim that Ramses II "the Great" was the pharaoh of the Exodus. The rest of the video then treats both identifications as factual, then uses those straw men arguments to prove that the Exodus didn't happen.

For example, the skull is that of a grown man, not a child, so despite the fact that no one will ever know the identity of the remains, the words in the narration are, "the Biblical tradition must be wrong." This is unforgivably shoddy, silly, and stupid.

Even more grandiose are the video's claims to show that none of the details of the Exodus, from the identity and age of Moses, through the Plagues, the fountainhead of monotheism, the nature of the escape, all the way through the actual cause of death of the pharaoh, are false.

Since 18th dynasty Hatshepsut's bas relief of her voyage to Punt names the port official who greeted her there, and it matches that of a Solomonic-era port official in charge at Ezion Geber, and since the Amarna archive of the 18th dynasty contains names right out of the Old Testament from the time of the early monarchy of the House of David, Akhenaten must have lived centuries after Moses, and could not have been the source of Moses' monotheism.

And more obviously, the 19th dynasty was not the time of the Exodus.

The video is well put together otherwise. Morgan Freeman's narration is pretty cool. I give the product a mere two stars because the script and the premise isn't worth a you know what. If this is what it takes to keep Kent Weeks excavating KV5 for the rest of his life, close the excavation right now.

Poorly done - mostly fiction with no fact! Good for entertainment but not for science. I was totally disappointed and believe now that the intent of the DVD was to do a hatchet job on the bible - and done poorly. The DVD starts out like it is going to trace the biblical Exodus to Egypt's Pharaohs and tell what really happened to the Pharaoh's first-born son - was he killed by God's wrath or by man's wrath. The DVD reminded me of a Laurel and Hardy movie - sending Egyptologist Weeks and journelist Sennet around Egypt in a comedy fashion. It starts out with finding a skull, believed to be Rameses' son and half-way through the DVD they find out that this skull is not the skull they were looking for and so they tossed it and took another skull from the tomb (four total in one mass grave - which is kind of strange for Pharaoh's sons) and reconstructed this skull to look like what they think Rameses's first born looked like without any evidence that it is THE one. Rameses is alleged to have over 100 children. Overall, the producers of this DVD didn't know where the Red Sea geograhical crossing took place, where the mountain of God was located or where the burning bush was located or at what date this all took place, or under which Pharaoh, etc - all of which I believe now to be wrong in their hypothesis. Since their hypothesis didn't agree with the bible, it didn't dawn on the people putting this expose together that they might be looking in the wrong places, time, Pharaohs, etc; so ... they changed the bible text! Is this what schools are teaching for science today? I recently ordered and reviewed the DVD Exodus Revealed and the book Exodus Case by Dr. Moller, both which are outstanding and CREDIBLE and based on science. In these two items - they do reveal where the crossing took place and where the Mountain of God (Mt. Sinai) is, as well as finding evidence of Pharaoh's chariots on the bottom of the Red Sea. I recommend these two as a must see if one is interested in the Exodus Red Sea crossing and would wait to see the Rameses DVD on Discovery, Nat'l Geographic and other PBS channel types.

What a nightmare! About 99% of this movie is based on wild assumptions. About the only real and credible evidence that they have about the "skull" is that the somebody "died", and probably died in battle or possibly due to murder (gash in the skull). As the movie progresses, it seems obvious that these guys set out and were "bent" on butchering the Biblical account of the Exodus. They even butcher the account of the Red Sea crossing by "explaining" that the "RED" sea was mis-translated, and was really the "REED" sea, and they actually take us there in the movie; it's just an oversized SWAMP! The Bible states that the people of Israel crossed the sea on DRY ground (not a knee-deep swamp) with a "wall of water to their right and to their left"! Doesn't sound like a swamp to me. Supposedly, in the SWAMP, the people of Israel waited in ambush for Pharoah's army. When the army got close enough, Moses and his people jumped out from behind the "reeds" and slaughtered the army. What in the world are these people thinking? Pharoah's warriors were well-trained butchers, fully prepared for battle, mounted on horse-driven chariots! The people of Israel were loaded down with their household belongings, etc, NOT WEAPONS! Nor were they trained to fight; they wouldn't have even been able to hold off the army for even a minute, much less "slaughter" them. The whole thing doesn't even make sense! Based on the "evidence" they present, I get the idea that the "skull" was from a household servant perhaps. They don't even know if it was the right Pharoah or not. My opinion is that your money will be better spent on a thoughtful gift for your significant other.

One has to rate this work with the worst possible ranking, because its main claim that the Exodus didn't happen as tradition states is supported without a foundation. Honest reporting and scientific research should reveal ALL the facts to the audience.

However, full disclosure was not done and I feel this was done on purpose. The viewer is not made aware that nowhere in the story of Exodus, Torah, or any Jewish text does it say that Ramses was the Pharaoh of the Exodus. In fact, the story of the Exodus only mentions Ramses as a location!

Plus, Jewish texts put the Exodus at a much earlier time period in Egyptian history and this is backed up by Archaeological evidence.

If anything, this documentary proves Ramses wasn't the Pharaoh of the Exodus, which supports the Torah timeline.

The fundamental premise is wrong. One would hope that if an "expert" is going to attempt to debunk a text that "expert" should at least be somewhat familiar with it.

I've recently attended a lecture given by archaeological researcher, James D. Long. James is a dynamic speaker and his book, "Riddle Of The Exodus" is even more fascinating. "Scientific method" and sound reasoning are utilized to prove when the Exodus really happened and that the Torah, as well as other ancient Jewish texts provide an accurate account of history. James takes archaeologists in what's known as the "minimalist" camp to task for their lack of biblical knowledge and their frequent attempts to withhold information in attempts to bolster their theories, or help spin their political views.

This movie(can NOT be categorized as a documentary movie!) is based on an assumption that Moses killed Ramses II's son. Interestingly the archeologists found a skull of a murdered that is, more likely, closely related to that of RamesesII as indicated by x-ray analysis. The skull for that murdered person for unknown reason had been suppected to be for the son of Rameses II_the only clear reason for such claim was the location of the skull discovery! Based on the bible, the investigators/archealogists started to investigate wheather the son of Ramses(the discovered skull) had been killed by God or Moses..The narrators mentioned that, based on the bible, the older son of Ramses II had been killed by God and this explains why Rameses II left the jews leave Egypt!!!!!!! Then, the movie postulated a lot of additonal scenarios for how this person had been killed! The most acceptable one was that Moeses was in charge of killing the older RamsesII's son. Moreover, the movie makers assumed that there were two phoarohs survived the Exodus; the first one (erronously, based on the movie, was Ramses II) who brought Moses up and the second pharaoh,the murdered person(presumably is the son of Ramses II!). This was really so amayzing!!!! But, what are the proofs for such claims?!!!! Besides, the movie showed moses as if he were a follower of Akhenaten!!! Anyway, I found the forensic analyses were so good, but the whole story of the son of Ramses II was really a supersition!. Highly recommended for people interested in forensic medicine; Not for those interested in real aracheological findings!

So Bad... Bad science, bad video and waste of money. The same meaningless information over and over. How could they make this big a mess? Wish I had read the other reviews before I paid the twenty bucks. Not even decent filming.... pushed a very weak point way beyond the wall. What that other guy was doing in the film - don't know.. perhaps looking for work and still is.

Fluff. At least that what this program is. For86 minutes you get alot of repetition in the scenes and narration. It could have been sliced down to 30 minutes. The film continuously asks the same questions over and over and over but reveals very little in answers. It gets confusing because they jump from this to that to over there to back there and then they ask the same question they asked 12 times before without even giving any basis for the question in facts. At one point one Dr. asks another Dr. a question, and she replies she doesn't know she has to ask somebody else. We're all glad she was on that dig!The reenactments are beautifully filmed, about 5 minutes worth, but shown over an over and over....It woud have been better if they told the story of Exodus, told the story of what they THINK really happened, then shown what facts and evidence they have. Instead you get 83 minutes of fluff and 3 minutes of fact.So repeat after me a thousand times...."save my money...save my money...for something else!"

This program brings up good questions and the evidence looks convincing but a DNA test would give an absolute answer. Sadly, 90% of this show was the same thing being repeated over and over again. Also there is another thing, in the begining the historians talk about the battle of Kadesh. What in the name of Ra does that have to do with the story of the Exodus? Very little if you ask me. I think they were "trying" to connect the two. (well if Ramses the second lied about the victory at Kadesh, then he may have lied about the Exodus too)Let's Find some undeniable evidence before we start trying to rewrite history, okay kiddies!

I find that many of the videos claiming to be "documentaries" have an agenda. Sadly, many people see them as factual. Teachers need to be extremely careful when they select films for their students.

I found this dvd to be entertaining though I cannot vouch for the facts. This was from the Discovery channel and you could certainly tell where the commercial breaks had been because they repeatedly told you what program you were watching. That got to be extremely annoying. If not for that I would have given this four stars. It did raise some interesting questions about the truth behind the story of the Exodus and give one someting to ponder. I would definitely like to see more about this archaeological site and hope they do a DNA test to see if the skeleton found truly was Rameses' son. I would recommend renting it first or borrowing it from the library before buying it.