Queen Tiy may have been Jezebel’s contemporary
by
Damien F. Mackey
“What is the main problem with Jezebel-Nefertiti? I've been meaning to test
the chronology of that revision but haven't gotten around to it”.
This question was raised by a reader in relation to my old, and popular, theory, now discarded, that the biblical Queen Jezebel was the famous Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian queen, Nefertiti. A more promising alter ego for Jezebel is, I believe, as El Amarna’s only female correspondent, Baalat-neše:
I replied to the above correspondent:
….
When I decided to do a new and more rigorous run through the chronology (intending from the Beginning to Jesus), my "The Bible Illuminates History and Philosophy" series, I thought things went rather smoothly (that is not to say that I am necessarily right) all the way down to "Shishak". That is already a long period of time.
But I had come to have some misgivings about my former efforts with "Shishak" - though still accepting that he was Thutmose III - and have subsequently written:
Thutmose III best candidate for “Shishak”
This article, whilst undoubtedly not being the last word on the subject, sits better with me.
The next 'roadblock' after that, which actually terminated my series at least for now, was El Amarna. I would love to have kept Nefertiti as Jezebel, but my more rigorous chronology (I don't like maths, or charts) had Jezebel somewhat earlier than Nefertiti.
Jezebel, I now considered, would be more closely contemporaneous with Queen Tiy (and indeed the famous Jezebel seal has definite likenesses to some of Tiy's iconography).
I since thought of commencing another series that cut out the philosophical aspects and so streamlined the whole thing. That may yet happen. I can tend to be over-ambitious at times (e.g. my second thesis took on too much).
That can make it tough for the reader.
….
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