Biblically Compatible Archaeology and Geography

by Damien F. Mackey “It should be noted … that the king is absent from Ankhtifi’s autobiography …”. Dr. Doaa M. Elkashef Just who was this incredible character like no other, the mysterious Ankhtifi? I asked this question right at the end of my recent article: Egypt’s high official, Ankhtifi, outboasts even great Senenmut (4) Egypt’s high official, Ankhtifi, outboasts even great Senenmut | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Who, indeed, was Ankhtifi, a high official of Egypt, seemingly a quasi-Pharaoh (see “ruled like a pharaoh” below), who, in his Autobiography, did not even bother to observe standard Egyptian protocol by mentioning the current Pharaoh? Which means that Egyptologists cannot be exactly sure when Ankhtifi lived. Bearing a host of impressive titles, Anhktifi - or whoever wrote his Autobiography - boasted of his having been like no other man ever born: “I am a man without equal …. I am the front of people and the back of people because (my) like will not exi...

Part One: Was this “another Gezer”? by Damien F. Mackey “There was another Gezer on the south-west of Canaan, the inhabitants of which David and his warriors smote, 1 Sam. xxvii. 8”. John Brown Archaeology, when considered in a revised context, may seem to favour the view that that the city of Gezer sacked by the biblical “Pharaoh king of Egypt” (I Kings 9:16) was at the site of Tel Gezer in central Israel. I have written on this: …. Thutmose I fits nicely into place for Velikovsky as … [the] Pharaoh, who attacked Gezer. Dr. John Bimson once argued that this identification appears to be supported archaeologically. Dr. Velikovsky had identified David’s era as the same as that of the 18th dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose I, as Dr. J. Bimson tells when providing an appropriate stratigraphy (“Can there be a Revised Chronology without a Revised Stratigraphy?”, SIS: Proceedings. Glasgow Conference, April, 1978): In Velikovsky’s chronology, this pharaoh is identified as Thutm...

by Damien F. Mackey In short, the reason why the renowned priest and scribe Ezra is missing, seemingly inexplicably, from the list of “illustrious men” in Sirach 44-50, is because Ezra was the author of the book. At least, that can be concluded from the following argument of mine, identifying Ezra as the author’s ben Sira. Sirach 51:1, 2, 4: “I will give thanks to you, Lord and King … for you have been protector and support to me, and redeemed my body from destruction … from the stifling heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled …”. Saved “from the heart of a fire”, “hemmed in” by its “stifling heat”. Could Sirach’s be a graphic description by one who had actually stood in the heart of the raging fire? - had stood inside “the burning fiery furnace” of King Nebuchednezzar? (Daniel 3:20) Another translation (GNT) renders the vivid account of the Lord’s saving of Sirach as follows (Sirach 51:3-5): “… from the glaring hatred of my enemies, who ...

“This was Joseph’s artificial river (to match his granaries) which turned the Fayoum into the first man-made lake”. William Golding An interesting observation made when walking in Egypt: http://www.ancient-egypt.info/2012/05/josephs-canal-1985-walking-through.html Joseph’s Canal, 1985 | Walking Through Egypt Joseph’s Canal, 1985 William Golding …. Then we drove south for about twenty kilometres along the side of the canal in sugar cane country. I looked at this canal until it became ordinary to me. It was a canal, that was all. Idly, I asked Alaa which canal it was and he said it was the Bahr Yusuf. I was moodily and quite illogically vexed. For Joseph’s Canal is alleged by all persons like myself who prefer a good story to literal historical accuracy (whatever that may happen to be) is, I say, alleged to be the very canal that Joseph he of the coat of many colours built for Pharaoh. They say that lot say that it isn’t Joseph’s canal but a canal built by a much late...

by Damien F. Mackey “One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place”. 2 Kings 19:37 Tobit 1:21 collaborates this, but without naming the two regicidal sons: “… two of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the empire”. Tobit 1:21 Adrammelech Emil G. Kraeling thinks that: “Sharezer was probably not a son” (“The Death of Sennacherib”, Jstor 53, No. 4, December, 1933, cf. note 32). I shall come to him after a consideration of Adrammelech, who, thanks to professor Simo Parpola, appears to have been identified as one of Sennacherib’s known sons: http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm ...

by Damien F. Mackey In the case of the latter, King Nabonidus, I have been able to identify (as an historical companion to the ‘Jonah incident’ article) a perfectly parallel situation between Nebuchednezzar, alienated from his kingdom, with his son Evil-Merodach temporarily left in charge, and Nabonidus, away from his kingdom, with his son Belshazzar temporarily left in charge. King Nebuchednezzar was likened by the prophet Jeremiah to a great Sea Monster (51:34): “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty dish; he has swallowed me like a Sea Monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies; he has vomited me out”. No doubt the prophet had well in mind in this description the Sea Monster’s devouring, then vomiting out, of the contemporaneous prophet Jonah. Especially considering that King Nebuchednezzar was Jonah 3:6’s “King of Nineveh”. On this, see e.g. my article: De-coding Jonah (6) De-coding Jonah...

by Damien F. Mackey “… officials … bewildered by the king's behavior, counseled Evilmerodach to assume responsibility for affairs of state so long as his father was unable to carry out his duties. Lines 6 and on would then be a description of Nebuchadnezzar's behavior as described to Evilmerodach”. British Museum tablet No. BM 34113 Tradition has King Nabonidus going through a period of sickness, or alienation, during which time he was absent from his kingdom. For example we read this somewhat inaccurate account at: https://www.archaeology.org/issues/458-2203/features/10334-babylon-nabonidus-last-king …. Nabonidus, who is mistakenly identified as his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar II (r. 605–562 B.C.), is described as a mad king obsessed with dreams. According to the Book of Daniel, the king leaves Babylon to live in the wilderness for seven years. This depiction overlaps somewhat with Nabonidus’ own inscriptions, in which he emphasizes that he was an especially pious ...

“This article reviews the context surrounding Belshazzar and the more recent archeological discoveries that attest to who he was and confirm the historical accuracy of the long-maligned account in the Bible”. Zack Duncan I (Damien Mackey) think that, with a few tweaks, the following (2024) article by Zack Duncan can really work: https://medium.com/@zduncan/who-was-belshazzar-c82d7dc23574 Belshazzar: The Fictional Babylonian King Who Actually Lived …. Belshazzar was having a party in Babylon on the night the Achaemenid Persians assumed power from the Babylonians. He’s become a pretty popular guy in the 2,500+ years since his death in 539 BC. At least, he’s more popular than he used to be. That’s because many scholars long believed him to be a historical forgery and wrote him off. This article reviews the context surrounding Belshazzar and the more recent archeological discoveries that attest to who he was and confirm the historical accuracy of the long-maligned a...

by Damien F. Mackey Whilst Daniel, qua Daniel, is not accorded a specific tribe, nor is he given a genealogy, or even a patronymic, I have concluded - following the Septuagint version of Bel and the Dragon wherein Daniel is called a priest, the son of Habal - that Daniel was a Levite, a priest. The prophet Daniel is thought to have departed the official scene, at least, early in the Medo-Persian era (c. 555 BC): “The last mention of Daniel in the Book of Daniel is in the third year of Cyrus (Daniel 10:1)”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_(biblical_figure) “Rabbinic sources suppose that he was still alive during the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus (better known as Artaxerxes – Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 15a, based on the Book of Esther 4, 5), when he was killed by Haman, the wicked prime minister of Ahasuerus (Targum Sheini on Esther, 4, 11)”. During the reign of Nebuchednezzar “Daniel and his friends refuse the food and wine provided by the king of B...