New Revised Chronologies Falling Short of Velikovsky and Courville
by
Damien F. Mackey
Some amongst the
newer breed revisionists of biblico-history have acquired, it seems to me, the
unfortunate habit of ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’, of jettisoning
the really solid biblico-historical correlations of pioneers, Drs. Immanuel
Velikovsky and Donovan Courville, in an over-exuberant ‘windstorm’ of
revisionism and modification, and then fishing about in the murk. Sadly, for
the most part, their efforts have fallen far short of Velikovsky’s and Courville’s,
and, considering their poor yield, they would have been better off had they
stuck closer to the originals.
Whilst the best minds amongst the revisionists came to realise that it
was necessary, from the point of view of a sound archaeology, and from
genealogical evidence, to reject Velikovsky’s re-location and re-identification
of the Ramesside 19th dynasty of Egypt, there was no need for them
to abandon the entire Velikovskian package. I tried to sum this up as follows
in my:
But the UK (in particular) revisionists, aware that Velikovsky was
regarded with contempt by the conventional scholars, whose system they
themselves were completely undermining - though perhaps also seeking some
academic respectability - and aware that Velikovsky’s latter phase revision,
e.g. the 19th dynasty of Egypt, was archaeologically untenable (though loyal
Velikovskians have clung to it), sought to distance themselves from Velikovsky completely,
they hardly at all, or at least very scarcely, even mentioning him in their
later books and publications. And when they did mention him, they
laughed him off as a “wayward polymath”, or “maverick”. Now, whilst these
epithets can be appropriate in the right context, they are mean and miserable
when revisionists fail to admit their owing a debt to Velikovsky. The most
arrogant example of this, which is not only unjust to Velikovsky but which demeans
all those others who have put a lot of effort into a revision of ancient
history - as well as the writings of “Creationists” - was this piece in the
flyleaf introducing David Rohl’s The Lost Testament (Century, 2002) as if the
revision recognizing the over-extension of chronology by modern
researchers had begun with him in 1995 (forgetting Velikovsky’s beginnings
in the 1940’s):
The earliest part of the bible is recognised as the foundation-stone of
three great religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – yet over the
last century archaeologists and historians have signally failed to find any
evidence to confirm the events described in the ‘book of books’. As a
consequence, many scholars took the view that the Old Testament was little more
than a work or fiction. The testimony of biblical history had, in effect, been
lost.
Then, in 1995, this scholarly skepticism over the historicity of the
Bible was suddenly challenged when Egyptologist and historian, David Rohl,
burst onto the scene with a new theory. He suggested that modern researchers
had constructed an artificially long chronology for the ancient world - a false
time-line which had dislocated the Old Testament events from their real
historical setting. The alternative ‘New Chronology’ - first published in A
Test of Time: The Bible From Myth to History - created a world-wide
sensation and was fiercely resisted by the more conservative elements within
academia. Seven years on, however, the chronological reconstruction has
developed apace and numerous new discoveries have been made.
Now, in his new book, The Lost Testament, David Rohl reveals the entire
story of the Children of Yahweh - set in its true historical context. An
astounding number of references in the literature of neighbouring civilizations
are shown to synchronise with the Old Testament accounts, confirming events
which had previously been dismissed as mythical. In addition, this contemporary
literature - combined with the archaeological record - reveals new information
and new stories about personalities such as Enoch, Noah, Nimrod, Joseph, Moses,
Joshua, Sau1, David and Solomon.
The Bible has at last been recovered from the ruins of the ancient past
as the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘who’ are explained - throwing unforeseen and
fascinating new light on the world's most treasured book.
[End of quote]
Vern Crisler, who has, like Rohl and his ‘New’ Chronology colleagues,
come to light with some useful proposals here and there, has also, like the
latter, significantly divorced himself from the solid foundations laid by the
pioneer revisionists. Vern has, for instance, abandoned the compelling
Velikovskian/Courvillean/Glasgow identification of the biblical “King Shishak
of Egypt” - who plundered the Temple of Yahweh at the time of king Rehoboam of
Judah (1 Kings 14:25-26) - with the mighty (Napoleon-like) Thutmose III of
Egypt’s 18th dynasty. By rejecting this equation, one also rejects all of the
evidence that revisionists have stored up in favour of this view (e.g. the
whole Hatshepsut/Sheba reconstruction; and queen Tahpenes; and Genubath =
Genubatye, etc.). See e.g. my:
and my Thutmose III series also at Academia.edu:
In the early C20th Harold H. Nelson, Professor Henry Breasted’s talented
student, wrote a doctoral thesis entitled “The Battle of Megiddo”, in which
Nelson painstakingly examined the topographical and tactical aspects associated
with Thutmose III’s “first campaign”, whose culmination Breasted believed to
have been at the city of Megiddo. But did what Nelson uncover in this thesis
really bear out Breasted’s presumptions?
Essential to Part One (A) were observations made by Harold H. Nelson in his
doctoral thesis entitled “The Battle of Megiddo” (1913) pertaining to
topography and battle tactics. Egyptologist R. Faulkner published an article of
the same title, “The Battle of Megiddo” (1942), in which he lauded Nelson’s
thesis as “admirable” and his “sketch-maps … indispensable to the student”.
Faulkner gave as his justification for re-visiting the subject, not “any
difference of opinion on topographical questions”, but “because a study of the
hieroglyphic text … has led to somewhat different conclusions on various points
regarding the operations”. Here I would like to recall some of what Faulkner
had picked up.
Egyptologists believe that pharaoh Thutmose III had, in his ‘First
Campaign’ against the ‘king of Kadesh’, in the C15th BC, assaulted the strong
fort of Megiddo in northern Israel. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, however, in his
Ages in Chaos (I), whilst accepting that Megiddo was the pharaoh’s target here,
had lowered these dates by 500 years, to the C10th BC. For Velikovsky, Egypt’s
foe was king Rehoboam, and Kadesh, the “Holy”, was Jerusalem. And Thutmose III
was the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (I Kings 14:25). My own view, as
expressed in Part One, is that Megiddo could not have been the location arrived
at by the Egyptians – though I would accept Velikovsky’s dating of Thutmose
III. So, what is the preferential geography for this ‘First Campaign’? And was “Kadesh”
indeed Jerusalem?
So far in this series I have embraced the Velikovskian view that pharaoh
Thutmose III had belonged to the C10th BC - rather than to the C15th BC, as
according to the text books - and that he was at least contemporaneous with the
biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”. I also argued, following Dr. Eva Danelius,
that Thutmose III’s ‘First Campaign’, against the “king of Kadesh”, could not
have been waged against Megiddo as is commonly thought. But, now, can Thutmose
III be reconciled to “Shishak”, in both name and military aim?
In his Ages in Chaos, I, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky boldly proclaimed -
against the general view that “Qadesh” was the famous city of that name on the
Orontes - that (p. 163): “Kadesh, the first among the Palestinian cities, was
Jerusalem. The “wretched foe”, the king of Kadesh, was Rehoboam”. However,
there is good reason now to think that this could not have been the case.
Regarding the Chief of Qadesh, Dr. I. Velikovsky had written in Ages in
Chaos, I (Sphere Books, 1973, p. 143): “Who the king of the city of Kadesh was
is not even asked”. So, who may he have been? I have previously (Part Two C)
rejected Velikovsky’s identification of the Chief of Qadesh as king Rehoboam of
Judah, son of Solomon. Here I begin my search for a new site and identification
for “Qadesh” and its ruler.
An attempt will be made here to identify the ruler of Qadesh, who was
Thutmose III’s chief foe during the pharaoh’s First Campaign, and whose
aggressive activities against Egypt were, according to Thutmose, the very
reason for this Egyptian military action.
Whilst I have accepted Dr. I. Velikovsky’s revised chronology for pharaoh
Thutmose III, as a contemporary of King Solomon of Israel (C10th BC), and,
hence, an older contemporary of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, I have rejected his
view that the pharaoh’s ‘foe of Qadesh’ was Rehoboam himself, and that Qadesh
(Kd-šw) referred to Jerusalem (the “Holy”). And in Part Three B I arrived at a
new identification for the ruler of Qadesh, as the biblical Hadad, the Edomite,
with Qadesh now referring to Qadesh-Barnea in the south. Also, with my
rejection (along with others) of the pharaoh’s “Mkty” as Megiddo, in northern
Israel, it remains to be determined if this “Mkty” can be related to Jerusalem
(as according to Dr. E. Danelius), in support of Velikovsky’s Thutmose III =
“Shishak”.
According to Dr. I. Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, I, 1952, p. 155): The
treasures brought by Thutmose III from Palestine [Israel] are reproduced on a
wall of the Karnak temple. The bas-relief displays in ten rows the legendary
wealth of Solomon. There are pictures of various precious objects, furnishings,
vessels, and utensils of the Temple, of the palace, probably also of the
shrines to foreign deities. Under each object a numerical symbol indicates how
many of that kind were brought by the Egyptian king from Palestine: each stroke
means one piece, each arch means ten pieces, each spiral one hundred pieces of
the same thing. If Thutmose III had wanted to boast and to display all his
spoils from the Temple and the Palace of Jerusalem by showing each object
separately instead of using this number system, a wall a mile long would have
required and even that would not have sufficed. …. But was Velikovsky right
about this?
Vern Crisler, whose task appears to be a modification of Courville, describes
his revision as ‘The Neo-Courville Interpretation’. Courville, for his part,
whilst sometimes differing from Velikovsky, had basically accepted the latter’s
18th dynasty revision (including Hatshepsut/Sheba and Thutmose III/Shishak).
Vern, as we read, does not. So, with which mighty pharaoh does Vern instead
identify ‘Shishak’ of massive strength? Vern puts his case:
The Neo-Courville Interpretation has Merneptah is Shishak, and we
have an actual statement from Merneptah that he conquered Israel. Moreover, Merneptah was the son of Ramses 2, who can be correlated
archaeologically to Ahiram, and this Ahiram I believe is none other
than the Hiram who was the Phoenician ally of David & Solomon.
The only archaeological "squeeze" that's required for this
identification
is a recognition that the Iron Age 1 is only about 10 or 20 years,
not 2 or 3 hundred years. The only real reason IA1 is stretched out
to 2 or 3 hundred years is because there's a 300 year archaeological
gap between the end of the Late Bronze Age (end of 14th century,
conventional dating) and the Iron 2b period (beginning of divided
kingdom and start of Omri's reign on conventional dating). Thus, what is really a non-existent archaeological interlude is filled in
with the biblical Judges & Monarchy period. Thus, a failed
chronology of the ancient world is rescued by appeal to the
historical truthfulness of the Bible -- though denying the truth of
biblical history is the [consequence] of the acceptance of conventional
chronology!
is a recognition that the Iron Age 1 is only about 10 or 20 years,
not 2 or 3 hundred years. The only real reason IA1 is stretched out
to 2 or 3 hundred years is because there's a 300 year archaeological
gap between the end of the Late Bronze Age (end of 14th century,
conventional dating) and the Iron 2b period (beginning of divided
kingdom and start of Omri's reign on conventional dating). Thus, what is really a non-existent archaeological interlude is filled in
with the biblical Judges & Monarchy period. Thus, a failed
chronology of the ancient world is rescued by appeal to the
historical truthfulness of the Bible -- though denying the truth of
biblical history is the [consequence] of the acceptance of conventional
chronology!
Vern claims to be
big on the importance of archaeology (see next section), but he virtually
annihilates all Iron Age strata. Whoops. Velikovsky was never this reckless!
Merenptah
[Merneptah], the ageing king of a dying 19th dynasty! “He conquered Israel”.
But did Merenptah launch a frontal attack on Jerusalem, as did ‘Shishak’? And,
if so, where is the record of it?
Vern continues:
Revisionists -- if they want to be scientific --need to accept what archaeologists say when it comes to their own
business, and the business of archaeologists is to analyze pottery,
and to link it up with Egypt as best they can. Denying the basic
facts as presented by archaeologists will be an uphill battle, and
anyone who does so should have an abundance of evidence to show that
archaeologists are wrong in their description of the archaeological
facts. Nevertheless, most revisionists are not trained in
archaeology or history, and should not be disagreeing with
archaeologists when it comes to a description of the basic
archaeological facts. That's not to say that revisionists can't
disagree with the *interpretations* of those facts by archaeologists,
especially chronological interpretations, but revisionists will be on
shaky grounds if they adopt the approach of Velikovsky, Mackey, and
others in telling archaeologists how to do their business.
Normally speaking, the ‘baby’ is always more impressive than is the ‘bathwater’, and, once it is thrown out, the substitute is always a miserable one. For instance, no efforts by revisionists (Vern, Rohl, etc.) to find a substitute era for El-Amarna - different from the Velikovsky-Courville C9th BC one - can hold a candle to the original. The power of this latter was well appreciated by the ‘Glasgow school’ of the 70’s and 80’s, who saw in Velikovsky’s Ben-Hadad I = Abdi-ashirta and Hazael = Aziru, a most compelling foundation for the revision. And they initially built on it splendidly, with Dr. John Bimson adding another Ben-Hadad to the sequence, and Peter James, in one of the best modifications of the early revision, pinning the biblical Jehoram of Judah to El-Amarna’s Abdi-hiba.
Can their ‘New’
chronologies match these? By no means.
See e.g. my:
and
A huge stumbling
block to the revision of Mesopotamia, and to a revised stratigraphy, has been
the person of Hammurabi. Historians do not have a clue about where to locate
him.
Hammurabi is
clearly of the Solomonic era:
Courville famously
described Hammurabi as ‘floating about in a liquid chronology of Chaldea’, and had
promptly dragged him down the centuries to c. 1400 BC, to the time of Joshua.
This was based on a most tenuous supposed link with the biblical Jabin of Hazor
– a link that Vern has basically retained (though with this slight
modification).
….
10. The Palestinian Early Bronze, Middle Bronze, Late Bronze, and
Iron Ages are keyed to Egyptian chronology. Mesopotamian,
Babylonian, Assryian chronology (at least for pre 911 BC) is
reconstructed on the basis of king lists, and other sources. There is
at least one important correlation between Mesopotamian chronology
(in the broad sense) and Egyptian chronology, and that's the relation
between Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad, Mari's Zimri-Lim, Babylon's
famous king Hammurabi, king Yantin'ammu of Byblos, and Egypt's
Thirteenth Dynasty kings Khasekhemre Neferhotep and Khaneferre
Sobekhotep 4. These can be correlated with a Jabin, King of Hazor,
who is mentioned in the Mari letters. (See *Chronologies in Old World
Archaeology*, p. 55 and Yadin's *Hazor*, p. 5.)
The archaeological period is MB2b. Archaeologists use the date of
Hammurabi to date the rest of these kings, but of course, the
date of Hammurabi is a matter of intense controversy among
archaeologists, who divide up into those who adopt a high, middle, or
low chronology. Revisionists, of course, reject all three views.
Rohl thinks this Jabin is Jabin 1 who lived in Joshua's day, but on
the Neo-Courville Interpretation, it would be Jabin 2, who lived in
Judge Deborah's day. I have MB2c as the time of Abimelech's
destruction of the city of Shechem.
Hammurabi to date the rest of these kings, but of course, the
date of Hammurabi is a matter of intense controversy among
archaeologists, who divide up into those who adopt a high, middle, or
low chronology. Revisionists, of course, reject all three views.
Rohl thinks this Jabin is Jabin 1 who lived in Joshua's day, but on
the Neo-Courville Interpretation, it would be Jabin 2, who lived in
Judge Deborah's day. I have MB2c as the time of Abimelech's
destruction of the city of Shechem.
Connecting Hammurabi to the Middle Bronze Age II causes chaos with archaeology, for instance with the famous Jericho, where have been found Babylonian cylinder seals, stylistically dated to the reign of Hammurabi. And, though revisionists have definitely steered King Hammurabi closer to chronological ‘port’ (c. 1400 BC as opposed to the conventional c. 1800 BC), he is still floating off a long, long way from his true chronological home.
It was Dean Hickman who, in a paper (“The Dating of Hammurabi”) - of the same sort of inestimable value for the revision as Peter James’s on Jehoram; and Dr. Eva Danelius’s on Shishak; and Ed Metzler’s on Solomon and Sheba - appreciated the true era of Hammurabi, i.e., at the time of David and Solomon. Hickman’s was almost half a millennium after Courville’s date for the great king. As Velikovsky had done for El-Amarna, so did Hickman do for this era, identifying Shamsi-Adad I with the biblical Hadadezer, foe of David’s, the former’s father, Ilu-kabkabu (or Uru-kabkabu), with Hadadezer’s father, Rechob (2 Samuel 8:3), and so on.
I have since taken
this much further (“Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim” article), identifying Zimri-Lim
with Hammurabi’s foe, Rezin, whose father, Eliada, I have identified with Zimri-Lim’s
father, Iahdu-lim.
Iarim-Lim, the
greatest king of his era, according to the Mari letters, I have tentatively suggested
was David’s and Solomon’s ally, Hiram (much earlier than Vern’s view of Hiram
as the Ahiram at the time of Ramses II). My:
“How does the above Neo-Courville Interpretation differ from Paleo-
Courville views?”, Vern Crisler asks.
Perhaps it would be good to examine Courville's view in the light of other, similar conceptions of ancient
chronology. One of these is by Damien Mackey . …. Mackey's chronology identifies (makes contemporaneous) the end of the
Middle Bronze Age with the end of the Early Bronze Age. This is much
more radical than Courville's view. Courville realized he couldn't
make the MB2a period (Egyptian 12 dynasty and start of 13th) contemporaneous with the EB3 period, so he basically *delinked* the
12th dynasty from the MB2a period. This allowed him to place the
12th dynasty as contemporary with the 6th dynasty (correlated to EB3
in conventional chronology).
If we are talking archaeology, as Vern wishes - and quite rightly - then I am following the view of no less an authority than Dr. Rudolph Cohen, known as “the King of the South”, who has recognized compelling likenesses between the biblical Israelites of the Exodus/Wandering, on the one hand, and the nomadic Middle Bronze I [MBI] people, on the other. That, coupled with the view of another expert archaeologist of the region, Professor Immanuel Anati, that the Early Bronze III [EB III] Jericho was the site level destroyed by Joshua and his army, has to be the foundation for any biblically-based archaeology.
I have often
insisted upon this ‘baby’.
Typically, Vern has
‘de-linked’, and the ‘baby’ has gone right down the plughole.
Courville’s radical
proposal of an alignment of Egypt’s Old and Middle kingdoms, which I accept,
e.g. my:
though it all still
needs to be properly integrated, will necessitate - in due time - a complete re-naming
of the major phases of Egyptian history and their corresponding archaeology.
See my exploratory
(and till very tentative) archaeologically-based effort on this:
And (not a
Courvillean view) King Hammurabi must be recognized in due course as belonging
later than the Middle Bronze II period. Of course the latter does not “link up
[with] 12th dynasty Egypt”, as Vern will now say, which dynasty I am claiming
is far earlier than Hammurabi’s time (18th dynasty)!
Courville's approach is possible, given how difficult it is to link
up 12th dynasty Egypt with the MB2a pottery period. (For a
comprehensive overview of the links, and the tenuous nature of these
links, see Susan L. Cohen's *Canaanites, Chronologies,
and Connections: The Relationship of Middle Bronze Age IIA Canaan to
Middle Kingdom Egypt* [2002], p. 132.) Nevertheless, while it seems
possible to delink 12th dynasty Egypt from the MB2a pottery horizon,
this doesn't mean it's plausible. Such a delinkage would also
require that the 12th dynasty be disconnected from the 13th dynasty,
since the latter dynasty is clearly connected to both MB2a & MB2b
pottery contexts. (See, Ibid., p. 49, 135, etc.)
….
Mackey thinks that he can adopt the more radical view -- correlating
the late EB period with the late MB period [but see my comments above on the need for a re-casting & re-naming of the conventional archaeological series – what I actually “correlate” is EBIII with MBI] -- on the basis of some of
Kathleen Kenyon's doubts about linear approaches to stratigraphy. However, Kenyon fully [and wrongly] accepts the linearity of stratigraphy during the Bronze and Iron ages. A more careful reading of Kenyon indicates that her doubts are about the linearity of pottery cultures that were
in existence *before* the Bronze age. In other words, she's talking
about the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, not the later Bronze
and Iron age stratigraphy of Palestine.
Mackey thinks that he can adopt the more radical view -- correlating
the late EB period with the late MB period [but see my comments above on the need for a re-casting & re-naming of the conventional archaeological series – what I actually “correlate” is EBIII with MBI] -- on the basis of some of
Kathleen Kenyon's doubts about linear approaches to stratigraphy. However, Kenyon fully [and wrongly] accepts the linearity of stratigraphy during the Bronze and Iron ages. A more careful reading of Kenyon indicates that her doubts are about the linearity of pottery cultures that were
in existence *before* the Bronze age. In other words, she's talking
about the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, not the later Bronze
and Iron age stratigraphy of Palestine.
….
Turning now to Joseph
and Moses, Crisler continues:
Mackey has Joseph in the 3rd dynasty, and Moses in the 4th. This
would make it impossible for the MB1 strata to be the Exodus/Conquest
strata, since those are MB1 (which is post 6th dynasty).
would make it impossible for the MB1 strata to be the Exodus/Conquest
strata, since those are MB1 (which is post 6th dynasty).
Mackey’s comment: Not if the 6th dynasty is not placed in its usual linear sequence well beyond the 4th dynasty.
On Joseph’s era,
see my:
On Moses’s era, see
my series at Academia.edu:
If any revisionist historian had placed himself in a good position,
chronologically, to identify in the Egyptian records the patriarch Joseph, then
it was Dr. Donovan Courville, who had, in The Exodus Problem and its
Ramifications, I and II (1971), proposed that Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms
were contemporaneous. That radical move on his part might have enabled
Courville to bring the likeliest candidate for Joseph, the Vizier Imhotep of
the Third Dynasty, into close proximity with the Twelfth Dynasty – the dynasty
that revisionists most favour for the era of Moses. Courville, however, who did
not consider Imhotep for Joseph, selected instead for his identification of
this great biblical Patriarch another significant official, MENTUHOTEP, vizier
to pharaoh Sesostris I, the second king of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty. And very
good revisionists have followed Courville in his choice of Mentuhotep for
Joseph. With my own system, though, favouring (i) Imhotep for Joseph; (ii)
Amenemes [Amenemhet] I for the “new king” of Exodus 1:8; and (iii) Amenemes I’s
successor, Sesostris I, for the pharaoh from whom Moses fled (as recalled in
the semi-legendary “The Story of Sinuhe”), then Mentuhotep of this era must now
loom large as a candidate for the Egyptianised Moses.
It is apparent from the Scriptures that Moses lived his life in three
40-year stages: (i) From his birth to his flight into Midian; (ii) His long
sojourn in Midian; and (iii) As a prophet of Israel, from the Exodus to his
death outside the Promised Land. Can we trace the pattern of his life for (i)
above - the ‘Egyptianised’ Moses (Acts 7:22) - in relation to the Egyptian
kingdoms and dynasties?
There do not appear to have been any depictions of horse-drawn chariots in
early Egypt (Old/Middle Kingdom). So in what sort of “chariot” was Joseph
conveyed (Genesis 41:43)? And what of the 600-plus war chariots of the Pharaoh
of the Exodus? (Exodus 14:7)?
The era of Moses as a high Egyptian official, prior to his flight to the
land of Midian, would most likely have spanned the major part of the
construction of the Giza pyramids and Sphinx.
Some of the Old Kingdom pharaohs who are famous-often due to their
magnificent building efforts-are, however, but poorly known. Investing them
with a 'Middle' Kingdom alter ego may be just the kind of 'royal service' they
need in order for flesh to be added to their bones. Enfleshing Khufu Take
pharaoh Khufu (" Cheops ") as a perfect case in point. Incredibly, as
we read (http:// www.guardians.net/egypt/khufu.htm): " Although the Great
pyramid has such fame, little is actually known about its builder, Khufu.
Ironically, only a very small statue of 9 cm has been found depicting this
historic ruler. This statue [see below] was not found in Giza near the pyramid,
but was found to the south at the Temple of Osiris at Abydos, the ancient
necropolis ". Obviously there is something seriously missing here: namely a
detailed historical record, and extensive monuments, concerning the reign of
one of the mightiest pharaohs of Egypt!
Professor Emmanuel Anati, for one, had recognised that the famous Egyptian
Tale of Sinuhe, shared “a common matrix” with the Exodus story of the flight of
Moses to the land of Midian (Mountain of God, p. 158). And fortunately for us
that much-copied story tells us during the reign of which 12th dynasty pharaoh
Sinuhe’s flight had occurred.
While Moses was sojourning in exile, in the land of Midian, the
long-reigning “Chenephres” (i.e., pharaoh Sesostris I), who had sought to take
Moses’ life, passed away (Exodus 2:23). Then, some time later, that pharaoh’s
descendants, apparently, had also died (Exodus 4:19): “Yahweh said to Moses in
Midian, ‘Go return to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead’.”
-
Astute revisionists (e.g. Tom Chetwynd) have drawn many parallels between Joseph and the Vizier Imhotep of the 3rd dynasty. I have suggested that the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, built by Imhotep, was a ‘material icon’ of his father Jacob’s vision of a ladder (or staircase or ramp) to heaven. And indeed Egyptologists (e.g. Joyce Tyldesley) have spoken of the pyramids as ‘staircases to heaven’. But pharaoh Unas of the 5th dynasty also talks about a ‘ladder to heaven’ (Pyramid Texts), and he was also, as Vern notes, a king of a famine era.The great sage Ptah-hotep, who lived to be 110 (same age as Joseph) and who wrote along the lines of the biblical Proverbs, must also be Joseph.
Vern’s linear approach, which is the conventional attitude, misses out on much richness – too much ‘bathwater’ and very little ‘baby’.
Mackey discusses various king lists, quoting Storck's writings.
While Storck's views are interesting, they are hardly conclusive. He
has himself warned against basing a lot of one's historical
reconstructions on superficial name similarities. Mackey follows
Storck in identifying the time of Abraham with Ur 3, but this is just
the same correlation that is given by conventional chronology.
Yes, this is actually one phase of early ancient history that may, coincidentally, approximate fairly closely with a designated biblical era.For the time of Abraham in a revised context, see my series:
Thanks to the important revision of Dr. John Osgood, in “The Times of
Abraham”, the Sothically mis-dated monarch, Narmer (c. 3100 BC, though
conventional dates vary) can now be established archaeologically during the
lifetime of Abraham (c. 1870 BC).
…. what makes most intriguing a possible collision of … Menes with a
Shinarian potentate … is the emphatic view of Dr. W. F. Albright that Naram-Sin
… had conquered Egypt, and that the “Manium” whom Naram-Sin boasts he had
vanquished was in fact Menes himself (“Menes and Naram-Sin”, JEA, Vol. 6, No.
2, Apr., 1920, pp. 89-98).
Conclusion
I think that
Velikovsky and Courville got us all off to a very good start. And that we need
to retain their tour de force
discoveries, whilst rejecting what is obviously against the facts. I think that
the early Velikovskian-Courvillean modifiers (notably the ‘Glasgow school’)
were able to make great progress by retaining the ‘baby’, but emptying out the
murkying ‘bathwater’.
But the later
revisionists (including once key ‘Glasgow’ ones), and perhaps Vern himself,
have now upended the whole thing in search of their much vaunted ‘New’ scenario.
The revised model
that I favour, with its roots deep in the early efforts, but greatly modifying
these, can, I believe, produce fully-rounded historico-biblical characters by
comparison with some of the rather ghost-like versions of same as presented in the
‘New’ chronologies.
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