Asteroid impact events in history/mythology

... the exodus is said to have occurred at the time of the santorini eruption...

Flying too far from the earth, they caused the inhabitants to freeze and shiver as the sun chariot flew higher and higher, and all the plants began to shrivel and die. But at once plunging down and flying too close to the earth, they scorched and burned the people and landscape, causing terrible grief and hysteria.

There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Paethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around the earth, and a great conflagration of things upon the earth, which recurs after long intervals; at such times those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore.

cont'd

Incidentily, the mischievous conduct of Phaethon has been explained by Plato in the Timaeus dialogues with Socrates:

The Babylonian Captivity is certainly real. It was Babylonian policy to undermine ethnic and political identities by uprooting minorities and moving them around. I think the leaders of those displaced reacted intelligently and creatively in this case by fabricating an epic past with a made-up Moses character, a great escape from slavery, hero kings, and a whole lot of human interest stories involving fascinating men and women characters and dramatic situations.

I don't know of any contemporary records the refer to any of these events occurring at whatever time they were supposed to occur. If you do---if you know of any evidence that events before the Babylonian Captivity were real---any references to someone named Moses etc. Especially if the sources are accessible online, I would love to know of them.

I've always thought of the early Old Testament stories as great literature, so it would be exciting for me to learn of credible evidence that the main events actually happened and were not purely made up.

Abstract

A previously unnoticed correspondence between the name of Moses' mother in the Bible and that of the mother of King Oedipus in Greek traditions leads to a convincing new proof that both women were one and the same as historical Queen Tiye, mother of the sensational and mysterious Egyptian 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten. The mother of Moses is named in the Bible as Jochebed ("nobility of Jo/Yah"). The Hebrew name Jochebed is identical to that of Oedipus' mother, which is given in the Sophocles plays as Jocaste. Jocaste also translates from the Greek as "nobility of Jo/Yah." The mother of Akhenaten has been established by archaeology as the Queen Tiye. Tiye was in turn the daughter of the Prime Minister "Ya" (Vizier Yuya) who governed Egypt during the reigns of Pharaohs Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III. Ahmed Osman has previously established the relationship between Yuya and the Biblcal Joseph. Both names, Yuya and Joseph/Yuseph, derive from the deity Yahweh/Jehovah. Therefore, Tiye as the real life mother of Akhenaten, was quite literally of the "nobility of Ya" as well!

This triple correspondence is entirely reasonable. However, the controversy involves the emphatic assertion by Sophocles and other Greek writers that Oedipus also sired heirs through a dynastic marriage with his mother. Surprisingly, a fresh investigation of relevant passages in the Bible and the Talmud also indicates that Zipporah, the wife of Moses and mother of his two sons, was also considered by ancient Jews to be Moses' own mother. Pseudonyms were used to separate the two roles of Tiye. As mother of Akhenaten she is Jochebed, and as his wife Zipporah. Moreover, there is strong circumstantial archaeological evidence attesting to a dynastic marriage between Akhenaten and his mother Tiye. This does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that Akhenaten (Moses/Oedipus) actually did produce royal heirs by his mother Tiye (Jochebed/Jocaste). It does lead to the conclusion that, right or wrong, this is what reliable and independent textual sources are explicitly and implicitly telling us. DNA testing of 18th Dynasty royals, which is presently underway at Brigham Young University may help resolve this emotionally charged issue.

In any case, let us assume that whoever named Moses knew Hebrew. How
valid, then, does the Hebrew etymology seem? As an Egyptologist, I must
here rely on the arguments of Hebrew scholars, who generally agree that
it simply doesn’t make sense.2 The biblical etymology—which says the
baby’s name is based on his having been drawn out of water—would lead
one to expect a name that means "the one drawn out" or "he who was
drawn"; that is, a passive form. But Moshe has an active participle
behind it;3 the name means "the one who draws." (That’s why Isaiah calls
him "the drawer" of his people [Isaiah 6:3].) The passive form would
result in a name like Mashuy, not Moshe.

The Egyptian language provides a far more plausible etymology.4 The name
Moses is related to common Egyptian names like Amenmose, Ramose and
Thutmose,* which are formed of a god’s name followed by mose.5 These
compound names mean something like "Amen is born" or "Born of Amen" or
"The offspring of Ra" or "The child of Thoth." When the name Mose
appears by itself, as it occasionally does in Egyptian, it simply means
"the Child" or "the Offspring."6 But in Egyptian, Mose most frequently
appears along with the name of a god as part of a compound name.

Most likely of all, the name Moses (assuming that he originally had a
longer name) is short for Ramose, a popular name related to the name of
the reigning pharaoh, Ramesses II.**—would also mean "Ra is born," but
his name is normally written R‘-ms-sw (roughly, Ramessu) and means
"Ra-fashioned him," using another meaning of the verb msi, that is, "to
fashion, form." The two senses of the verb are related, however, in that
Egyptians thought of the fashioning of a divine statue as equivalent to
the god being born.) It was a common custom among the Egyptians to
rename foreign slaves or captives after the pharaoh.

The technical term for a compound name with a divine element is a
"theophoric" or "theophorous" name, derived from a Greek word meaning
"bearing [derived from] a god."7