episteme on 05 December 2014
If you want to know what happpened in Egypt during the time of Ramesses II or one of his successors, you have to look at Egyptian sources of that time. Not at a religious text that was written down around 600-800 years later.
And no, there are no indications that Egypt suddenly suffered from massive plagues at that time. Entire regions were abandoned due to environmental changes, but that were developments over centuries, not sudden events.
The ten plagues seem to be hyperboles of natural events. So yes, they're probably loosely based on real issues that people had at that time, but they weren't as bad as described.
