Josephus, the source of the name Hyksos, accepted some connection
between them and the Israelites but argued against many of the details
found in Manetho's account. He (Josephus) preferred the term Hyksos as
Captive Shepherds rather than Shepherd Kings.
Manetho presented the Hyksos as gaining control of Egypt without a battle
and then destroying their cities and temples. Many years later the Egyptians
supposedly rose up and fought a long and terrible war against them. Finally
an Egyptian force of 480,000 men besieged them at their chief city, Avaris,
and then, oddly enough, an agreement was reached that allowed the Hyksos
to leave the country unharmed and they went to Judea and built Jerusalem.
(Against Apion, Book I, par. 14)
Manetho adds to the account in what Josephus labels a fictitious addition of a
large group of 80,000 leprous and diseased persons being allowed to settle
in Avaris after the shepherds had left. Those persons later revolted and
called back the "shepherds" (Hyksos?) who destroyed the cities and villages
etc. (Against Apion, Book I, pars. 26, 28)
Though modern historians agree with the idea of a Hyksos conquest, they
believe Josephus quotations as inaccurate in associating the Hyksos with the
Israelites. They can't find much information from ancient Egyptian sources to
fill in the records of the "Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Dynasties." Since
they can't find it, they assume that some disintegration of power occurred in
the "Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties" based upon not much
information, Egyptian folklore, and conjecture they conclude that it was the
"Fifteenth and Sixteenth Dynasties" that Egypt was under the domination of
the Hyksos.
