I love the story of Moses. I had a little picture book when I was a kid that depicted his life. And I loved it!

When I started researching historical evidence to prove the Bible stories (apart from just the Bible), Moses was one of the first things I searched for.

Surprisingly, outside the biblical texts there is little to no evidence that Moses (or anyone like him) ever existed.

The pharaoh in the story isn't even named in the Bible. It is widely believed to have been Ramses II (ruled 1279-1213 BC) but no one is exactly sure when this story is even supposed to take place. Others think the Pharaoh could have been Seti I (ruled 1290-1279 BC).

There are similar stories of a child being sent down a River by a mother unable to care for him (Sargon of Akkad, king of Mesopotamia). And the Hindu god Krishna was carried across the Yamuna River to safety in old legends.

So Moses isn't exactly original in that sense. Which stories came first is a mystery to me but it's entirely possible that some inspired the others.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/king-sargon-akkad

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/10/was-moses-real/

Egyptian scholars believe Moses may have been based on Akhenaten who reigned from 1353-1336. He was Known for being the first monotheist and banning worship of all gods but Aten. HOWEVER exodus is believed to take places around 1447 BC (timeline wouldn't match). Others say it takes place anywhere from 13th to 17th century BC.

Moses is not mentioned in any historical records kept by the Egyptians. However this can be dismissed by the fact that rulers might not have wanted to record anything that made them look bad (such as a man escaping with all of their slaves). So I will mention this argument in passing but I understand why it is not the best.

The closest an Egyptian was to mentioning him was the priest Manetho the Third, who wrote of Moses in the third century BCE. I'll attach the link for those interested.

https://vridar.org/2015/05/26/moses-and-exodus-according-to-the-egyptian-priest-manetho/

I will also mention the Ipuwer Papyrus, which recorded instances of plagues of locusts, famine, blood, etc. While these are all things described in exodus, it could just be that the place was struggling and people wanted answers. That answer for them was the Christian God was angry. However there could be a perfectly logical explanation for these tragedies, as we do often see in various tales of folklore and mythologies.

You might say, well what about the proto-Sinatic inscriptions, which have the name Moses on them. Well to that I would say, you're right they do. But Moses wasn't an exactly an originally name. We could debate on whether the name is Egyptian or Hebrew, but many scholars do agree that the name is likely Hebrew and possibly short for Ramose.

https://www.baslibrary.org/bible-review/19/3/4

https://amp.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/30/moses-man-versus-myth-ridley-scott

I've heard the argument that there are Egyptian words in the Hebrew text and that it is proof Moses existed. Well when there's Hebrew slaves in Egypt, it's entirely possibly the languages were used interchangeably and mixed at times. Used by everyone.

I would also like to state that yes, there were archaeological findings of what was believed to be an escaped slave population! However it was nothing like the scale exodus describes. And it probably happened much earlier than exodus claims to take place.

https://time.com/3626278/exodus-and-moses/

Many scholars believe that it's possible a few slaves did escape and the story was told time and time again until it was eventually blown out of proportion, as many stories are.

There were many searches done by archaeologists in the later half of the 20th century. They tried to find evidence of this large scale exodus of slaves from Egypt. And they really didn't find anything.

I think it possible there was a person LIKE Moses in ancient times who tried to rescue or escape with all the slaves, but that it was most likely on a much smaller scale. The story was probably just exaggerated as the years went by.

When archaeologists find proof of a mass civilization of escaped Israeli slaves, then I will consider this again.