by
Damien F. Mackey
“Eminent historian Trevor Bryce estimates Amenhotep III's harem at 1,000
women. Interestingly enough, the Bible uses that exact same number for
Solomon's wives:
"He had 700 royal wives and 300 concubines…." First Kings 11:
3”
Jim Stinehart
Given my
identification of the historical King Solomon of Israel with the quasi-royal
official Senenmut (or Senmut) of Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt - not to mention Senenmut’s
being the model for ‘Solon’ of the Greeks - in e.g. my article:
Solomon and
Sheba
then the
definitely Solomon-like pharaoh of that same dynasty, Amenhotep III, could be
only, at best, an imitator of the illustrious Solomon, and not be identical
with Solomon as some think.
For,
chronologically, Amenhotep III (c. 1385 BC, conventional dating) came to the
throne some 7-8 decades after the
death of Senenmut (c. 1460 BC, conventional dating).
Jim Stinehart, writing
on the Graham Hancock site, has a somewhat different angle.
There was no
actual King Solomon, he claims. This “fictional” character was based on the
historical Amenhotep III, father of the controversial Akhnaton (or Amenhotep
IV):
Date: February 10, 2005
07:24PM
SOLOMON IS AKHENATON'S
FATHER
Hebrew King Solomon is fictional. But Solomon is very closely modeled on a very real, historical person -- Akhenaton's father, Amenhotep III, the "King of Kings".
1. Each reigned for 40 years in peace.
2. Neither great king ever did anything militarily. Rather, both were renown [sic] for adroit diplomacy. (In the real world, that "adroit" diplomacy of Amenhotep III consisted primarily of him throwing unbelievable amounts of gold foreign kings' way, as bride's-prices for their semi-royal half-sisters, which was possible only because Egypt was temporarily awash in gold being mined just south of Egypt proper in Nubia.)
3. Both ruled in ridiculously extravagant, totally decadent, grandeur. (In humble Canaan? Not!)
4. Their Queen was an Egyptian princess. (In Canaan? Outside of Egypt? Not!!! Perish the thought.)
5. Each had an unbelievably large number of harem wives. Eminent historian Trevor Bryce estimates Amenhotep III's harem at 1,000 women. Interestingly enough, the Bible uses that exact same number for Solomon's wives: "He had 700 royal wives and 300 concubines…." First Kings 11: 3
Meanwhile, neither king ever sent even one daughter/princess abroad to marry a foreign leader.
And neither king (including Solomon) is known to have had a Hebrew wife.
6. Both were very famous for building a magnificent tripartite temple (Luxor Temple/ Solomon's Temple) to the deity referred to as A-M-N. (Amen is a 14th century BCE Egyptian god. In Hebrew, Amen later meant "so be it, it is God's will".)
7. Yet despite #6, each is equally famous for BREAKING with that deity A-M-N. A-D-N (Adon or Aton or Aten) will be the new deity in Amenhotep III's later years, and the sole deity for his son Akhenaton. Solomon's apostasy is of course well-known.
So though Hebrew King Solomon is fictional, there's nevertheless quite a bit of accurate ancient history in the King Solomon saga in the Bible.
SOMEBODY was THERE in
mid-14th century BCE Egypt and witnessed first-hand what was going on, and it
all made it into the Bible. First Kings tells us about Akhenaton's father.
Jim
Stinehart really gets carried away after that, seeming to find the eccentric
pharaoh Akhnaton (“Akhenaton”) embedded in:
The last 40 chapters of
Genesis tell us about Akhenaton (complete with Lot impregnating his 14- and
12-year-old daughters "that we may maintain life through our [son-less]
father" at Genesis 19: 34, and the whole 9 yards of the Amarna saga). And
though the Book of Exodus has few accurate historical facts, it does beautifully
recall all those darn mudbricks, made of clay and straw, that Akhenaton ordered
up on the double to build his entirely new city of Amarna.
SOMEBODY was THERE, brothers and sisters, and that somebody must have been the world's first Hebrew. All the professors in academia assure us not to worry, that all that jazzy stuff was made up out of whole cloth by wily Hebrew scribes 700 years after the fact, in 7th century BCE Jerusalem. But how on earth could wily Hebrew scribes in Jerusalem, 700 years after the fact, conjure up all that ACCURATE historical information about Akhenaton's father and Akhenaton? Not!
[End of article]
That last piece of uninformed and frenzied
collapsing of biblical history by Jim Stinehart reminds me of Islamic scholar
Ahmed Osman’s own perfervid efforts that I have so roundly criticised in my
articles:
Osman's
'Osmosis' of Moses. Part One: The Chosen People
and:
As Senenmut
(King Solomon) was to Hatshepsut (the female ruler of Egypt), so, too, did
Amenhotep III have his own Senenmut type in the mysterious Amenhotep son of
Hapu, leading me to wonder who the latter was.
For more on
this intriguing character, see e.g. my article:
Amenhotep son of Hapu had rôle like Senenmut
If Amenhotep
III had modelled himself on King Solomon of Israel, might not his high official
and namesake, Amenhotep son of Hapu, have done so even the more?
In an
article, “Amenhotep the Magnificent”, we read further about the enigmatic son
of Hapu, here likened instead to Imhotep (biblical Joseph of Egypt): https://erenow.net/ancient/temples-tombs-and-hieroglyphs-a-popular-history-of-ancient-egypt/20.php
….
Like other kings of the Eighteenth and Nineteeth
Dynasties, Amenhotep built himself a mortuary temple along the cultivation on
the West Bank. Amenhotep’s mortuary temple was the largest of the lot. So badly
destroyed was it that in modern times nothing remained except a vast plain
covered with weeds and prickly camel grass—and two of the most imposing
monuments on the West Bank, the so-called Colossi of Memnon. These giant, badly
battered statues marked the entrance to the temple. Recent excavations by a
German team have uncovered buried remains of the structure itself, including
some fine statues.
The man responsible for the erection of these gigantic
statues is an interesting character in his own right. His name was Amenhotep,
son of Hapu, and like that of another great official, Imhotep, it survived in
men’s memories for millennia, so that he became a demigod. His only titles were
those of a scribe and he is shown in the traditional scribal position, seated,
with his writing implements on his lap. But the king Amenhotep must have
cherished him, for there are several such statues, carved by the king’s order,
and the scribe even had his own mortuary temple, a signal token of royal favor.
He was eighty years old when he died, and how we wish we knew more about him!
….
[End of quote]
Indeed:
“… how we wish we knew more about [Amenhotep, son of Hapu]!”
My
sentiments, exactly.
The
proper chronological relationship between King Solomon and pharaoh Amenhotep
III is explained in an article, “Was there such a
King as Solomon?” – {which I think was one of my titles at the old www.specialtyinterests.net site, here
greatly modified by sysop, Johnny Zwick}:
Because of widespread
misconceptions on the historicity of the early Israelite kings we endeavor here
to make a comparison study to show how things fit together. Especially the very
existence of King Solomon has come under criticism because of the apparent lack
of corroborating evidence from excavations in Israel itself. How can we explain
that? Shouldn't there be at least some evidence attributable to King Solomon or
David by way of inscriptions? To be sure small items have been found, i.e. a
Solomonic seal for instance, but we are looking more for larger items. Egypt's
kings left inscriptions on buildings, statues, stela - why is there such a lack
of the same in Israel from any king?
This is a fair question to ask and we must address this issue. On the outset we would like to say that the lack of inscriptions, carvings, ornate stone reliefs in Israel and Judah must have a definite reason and that it does we shall try to explain. Of course they were very much aware of the richness of Egyptian inscriptions and stone carvings, after all they used to live there.
The evidence for that
however is very early in their experience, right after they had left Egypt.
Arriving at Mt. Sinai they clamored for the same things they were used to have
around them in Egypt. The Israelites wanted images to dance around and worship
- something they could see. But the faith they were taught about of the very
God who had led them out of slavery was directed at worshipping Him in faith
and deeds rather than by representations.
Self glorification of rulers
also was not in accord with their beliefs. Only God deserved veneration and
being written about. If Solomon would have left inscriptions in his cities the
Jewish people themselves would have defaced and done away with them not to
leave any trace. This may be not good for us today who are trying to understand
those times from the remains, but it is why we should not even expect such
artifacts. Those who want to make comparisons to Egypt and argue because of the
lack of artifacts in Israel that these kings did not really live and reign as
we are told just don't seem to take into account the times they lived in and
the Jewish mind. We cannot impose Egyptian conventions on the Jewish people.
However, other scholars note
that there are other blank spots in Jerusalem's archaeological record during
periods when the city is known to have been occupied, and they caution against
reading too much into a lack of evidence. Ronny Reich, an archaeologist with
the Israel Antiquities Authority, notes, for example, that excavations near the
Gihon spring outside the present Old City have turned up "no pottery,
nothing" from the Byzantine era–roughly A.D. 330-1450. "Does that
mean there were no people in Jerusalem?" Reich asks. "Of course not.
How do you explain it? You can't."[J.L. Sheler, `News from the Holy Land']
In fact the lack of such
personal records carved on stone is evidence in itself that we are at the right
place of Jewish habitation. But a few reminders of the early Israelite monarchy
are being found often in the form of the stone masons skill to produce smooth
stones, with no chisel marks for constructions. All other cultures in the
ancient Near East were much closer to Egyptian conventions with respect to
artifacts, the Jewish lands are quite singular on the lack of such. But we must
not forget that the kinds of artifacts like idols, ushabtis, scarabs and the
like found in Palestine are probably those used and on occasion hidden or kept
by Israelites who employed them in trade or, in the case of idols perhaps, had
become unfaithful to their God.
Laws pertaining to royalty -
"When you enter the land...and you say: `Let us set a king over us like
the nations around us' be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God
chooses. He must be from among your own brethren. Do not place a foreigner over
you, one who is not an Israelite. The king...must not acquire great numbers of
horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for
the Lord has told you, `You are not to go back that way again.' He must not
take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large
amounts of silver and gold."
Deuteronomy 17:14-17
Critics also often doubt the
existence of the early Israelite accounts of constructions and achievements
because during excavations they are unable to locate any of these supposed
palaces, city gates, walls or dwellings. The cities of Hazor, Gezer and Megiddo
have been excavated to a great extend [sic]. A stratum containing remains of
palaces, temples and fortifications was found in each of these cities but
strangely enough the name of Solomon was not found but that of Pharaoh
Amenhotep III was. How can that be? In conventional thinking Pharaoh Amenhotep
III reigned from about 1405-1367 BC, long before Solomon. No wonder critics are
baffled and discount the scriptural account of history.
But let us see what happens
when we apply revised chronology.
In revised view Pharaoh
Amenhotep III reigned from about 878-870 as coruler with Amenhotep II, and sole
from 870-843 BC, right in the middle of the El Amarna Age. That is just 60
years after the death of King Solomon. He, like Solomon, inherited a vast,
glorious and rich empire with connections from the Nile to the Euphrates river.
He left a wealth of evidence of his existence in his many constructions of
palaces, temples, monuments, documents, art unparalleled and numerous except
perhaps that of Ramses II. It was during the reign of Amenhotep III that cities
like Gezer were refortified and Egyptian garrisons were set up in strategic
locations. Why? Because of the many incursions into Palestine by restless
rulers from Damascus, Syria, the great deserts and Assyria. For the Egyptians
Palestine was a buffer zone. Stop any would-be-enemies before they reach the
border of Egypt. We just need to read about the troubles involving Palestine in
the days of Jehoshaphat, Ahab and their sons to understand how desperate the
situation sometimes could become. So when we mentioned the palaces of Gezer,
Hazor and Megiddo - we must be blind not to realize that they are the ones we had
been looking for as belonging to the time of the early Israelite kings. What
has been hiding their presence from us is not sand and dirt, but a false,
conventional, Egyptian chronology, for Amenhotep III did not live 400 years
before Solomon but 60 years after him.
It appears that Amenhotep
III patterned his life after that of Solomon. But he was not hampered by
religious oriented restrictions like Solomon, he could freely create idols,
images of himself and vain glorious monuments to his greatness. But as the
reader may recall we claim that Solomon most likely was Senenmut, the most
trusted noble of Queen-Pharaoh Hatshepsut. It appears that in time Solomon,
after having married an Egyptian princess, may have felt himself too restricted
in his own kingdom and during the second half of his 40 year reign his gaze was
directed toward Egypt. Being a cozy friend with the Egyptian king, he became
the highest official and closest adviser to Hatshepsut. What he could not do in
Israel he could do in Egypt - leave inscriptions, representations and monuments
with his name on them. No wonder his own people would not leave any stone
unturned in their homeland which would remind anyone of their wayward king.
Having said this we may get
an idea about the importance of correct chronology before we go around and
teach doubt and reproof of the Hebrew sources. But we realize that the majority
of those who have voiced opinions on the ancient history of the Bible lands are
still captivated by the rightness of conventional chronology. How can so many
famous historians, scholars, archaeologists, scientists be wrong and so few,
nameless new people be right? Could it be that sometimes being too close to
something for too long disables us to get a clear view? Should we trust in the
pronouncements of famous people just because `they must know what they are
saying for they dig it out themselves and see it?' Yes, they certainly do, but
still their interpretations are colored by their scholarly upbringing. What can
we say? Explaining the same history in line with revised chronology will open
up so many more intrinsic, grand views of enchanting history that it is well
worth to try and study and think our way into it.
His
scarabs found in Ashurnasirpal’s city of Calah
“Strange
as it may seem, Ashurnasirpal II was also a great builder.
He
too raised monuments throughout Assyria. These included a new capital named
Calah.
In
Calah archaeologists found numerous [artifacts] … of Egyptian manufacture.
There
were, for example, many scarabs of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty,
especially
from the time of Amenhotap [Amenhotep] III”.
Emmet Sweeney
Emmet Sweeney
gives evidence here to indicate that pharaoh Amenhotep III reigned closely in
time to Ashurnasirpal (so-called II) of Assyria, who Emmet thinks must also be
the enigmatic “Assuruballit” of El-Amarna (EA letters 15 and 16).
EA 15 is
addressed “To the king of the land of Egypt”, whereas
EA 16 is addressed more specifically “To
Napkhororia, Great King, king of Egypt, my brother”- generally considered
to be Akhnaton, the son of Amenhotep III.
Emmet Sweeney writes: http://www.hyksos.org/index.php?title=Shalmaneser_III_and_Egypt
Shalmaneser III and Egypt
….
Immanuel Velikovsky argued that roughly five and a
half centuries needed to be subtracted from New Kingdom Egyptian history to
bring it into line with that of Israel; and indeed in Ages in Chaos (1952) he
demonstrated many striking synchronisms between the two histories once these
extra years were removed. In line with that system he suggested that Ahab of
Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah were two of the correspondents of the Amarna
documents who exchanged letters with Amenhotep III and Akhnaton.
He also argued that Shalmaneser III of Assyria, a
contemporary of Ahab, was the “King of Hatti” who threatened northern Syria in
the time of Akhnaton. This part of his reconstruction however was not well
received, and always remained problematic. We know, for example, that the King
of Hatti named in the Amarna Letters was Suppiluliumas I, whilst the King of
Assyria at the time was called Ashuruballit, a man who was very definitely not
the same person as Shalmaneser III.
For all that, a host of other evidences suggest
that Velikovsky was broadly correct in his demand for a five and a half century
reduction in Egyptian dates, and that the errors he made in his reconstruction
of the Amarna period were errors of detail. What was needed was fine tuning,
not complete rejection.
All attempts at historical reconstruction must be
based firmly upon the evidence of stratigraphy; and it so happens that the
stratigraphy of Assyria fully supports Velikovsky. A whole series of sites in
northern Mesopotamia show the following:
Neo-Assyrians and Neo-Babylonians (860-550 BC)
Mitannians (1550-1350 BC)
Akkadians (2350-2250 BC)
We see that, without exception, the Mitannian
levels are followed immediately, and without any gap, by the Neo-Assyrian ones;
and the Neo-Assyrian material is that of the early Neo-Assyrians, Ashurnasirpal
II and his son Shalmaneser III. Now, since the last Mitannian king, Tushratta,
was a contemporary of Akhenaton, this would suggest that Ashuruballit, who
wrote several letters to Akhenaton, was the same person as Ashurnasirpal II,
father of Shalmaneser III.
The end of the Mitannian kingdom is documented in
a series of texts from the Hittite capital. We are told that Tushratta was
murdered by one of his sons, a man named Kurtiwaza. The latter then [fled],
half naked, to the court of the Hittite King, Suppiluliumas, who put an army at
his disposal; with which the parricide conquered the Mitannian lands. The
capital city, Washukanni, was taken, and Kurtiwaza was presumably rewarded for
his treachery.
The region of [Assyria] … was a mainstay of the
Mitannian kingdom. A few years earlier Tushratta had sent the cult statue of
Ishtar of Nineveh to Egypt. So, if Kurtiwaza was established as a puppet king
by Suppiluliumas, it is likely that his kingdom would have included Assyria. We
know that immediately after the overthrow of the Mitanni lands we find a
supposedly resurgent Assyria reasserting itself under King Ashuruballit.
The latter’s domain included the Mitanni
heartland, for we find him plundering the Mitanni capital of Washukanni and
taking from there various treasures with which to adorn his own monuments in
Nineveh and Ashur. Indeed, Ashuruballit seems to have been a great builder, and
we hear of many new monuments raised by him and many old ones renovated.
Strangely, however, none of these structures have been found by excavators.
What they have found, right on top of the monuments built by the last of the
Mitannians, are the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, supposedly five and a half
centuries after the destruction of Mitannian power.
Strange as it may seem, Ashurnasirpal II was also
a great builder. He too raised monuments throughout Assyria. These included a
new capital named Calah. In Calah archaeologists found numerous [artifacts] …
of Egyptian manufacture. There were, for example, many scarabs of the latter
Eighteenth Dynasty, especially from the time of Amenhotap [Amenhotep] III. (See
Austen Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (London, 1853)
p. 282)
So, just in the place where we would expect to find
the monuments of Ashuruballit, who was a contemporary of the latter Eighteenth
Dynasty, we find the monuments of Ashurnasirpal II, whose buildings are full of
artifacts of the latter Eighteenth Dynasty. This would strongly suggest, even
demand, that Ashuruballit and Ashurnasirpal II are one and the same person.
Furthermore, since Ashuruballit, the new king of Assyria after the death of
Tushratta, seems to be an Assyrian alter-ego of Tushratta’s parricide son
Kurtiwaza, this would imply that Ashurnasirpal was yet another alter-ego of
Kurtiwaza, and was himself the murderer of Tushratta.
Is there then any evidence to suggest that
Ashurnasirpal II was a parricide?
The Babylonian Chronicle tells us that a “Middle
Assyrian” king named Tukulti-Ninurta was murdered by his own son. The name of
the murderer is give: it is Ashurnasirpal.
The “Middle Assyrians” were a mysterious line of
kings who ruled Assyria before the time of the Neo-Assyrians and supposedly
after the time of the Mitannians. Yet we know of no Assyrian stratigraphy which
can give a clear line from Mitannian to Middle Assyrian to Neo-Assyrian. On the
contrary, as we saw, the Mitannians are followed immediately by the
Neo-Assyrians of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III. This can only mean that
the Middle Assyrians must have been contemporaries of the Mitannians, and were
most likely Mitannian kings using Assyrian names. We know that ancient rulers
often bore several titles in accordance with the various nations and ethnic
groups over which they reigned. Since the Mitannian royal names are
Indo-Iranian, and therefore meaningless and probably unpronounceable to the
Semitic speakers of Assyria, it is almost certain that they would also have
used Assyrian-sounding titles.
That the Middle Assyrians were in fact
contemporary with the Mitannians is shown in numberless details of artwork,
pottery, epigraphy, etc. (See for example P. Pfalzner, Mittanische und
Mittelassyrische Keramik (Berlin, 1995)
Thus it would appear that Tukulti Ninurta, who was
murdered by his son Ashurnasirpal, was one and the same as Tushratta, who was
murdered by his son Kurtiwaza. This latter, upon being appointed king of
Assyria by Suppiluliumas, first used the Assyrian name Ashuruballit, but later
changed it to Ashurnasirpal. Such adopting of new titles to mark different
stages in one’s life and career was by no means uncommon in ancient times.
[End of quote]
But
Ashurnasirpal of Assyria’s reign also appears to have been quite close to the era
of pharaoh Seti I of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty, which, if that truly be
the case, does not bode well for Dr. Velikovsky’s lengthy separation of the Nineteenth
from the Eighteenth Dynasty.
This is what I
wrote about it, again with reference to Emmet Sweeney, in my university thesis:
A Revised History of the Era
of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background
(Volume One, pp.
80-81)
Some Related
Technological and Art Anomalies
Though a
neo-Assyrian king as to dating (C9th BC), there are strong indications that Ashurnasirpal
II was also in fact closely contemporaneous with the early 19th dynasty (c. 1300
BC, conventional dating) and the latter’s Hittite opponents - and by no means, therefore,
was he separated from these by the approximately four centuries that are usually
estimated. Similarities between C9th BC Assyrian art and that of the early Ramessides
(and contemporaneous Hittites) is of course just what one should expect in terms
of this revision. They are reflected in both warfare - particularly in cavalry
tactics
and horsemanship -
and in art. (For more on this, see Chapter 10, p. 250).
….
Here is what Sweeney has noted in regard to the
similarities between Ashurnasirpal’s cavalry tactics and that of the Hittite
opponents of pharaoh Seti I (c. 1294-1279 BC, conventional dates):[1] “Hittite cavalry are shown in action
against Seti I, and their deployment etc. displays striking parallels with that
of the cavalry belonging to Ashurnasirpal II”. Thus for example the Assyrian
horsemen, he says, “ride bareback, obtaining a firm grip by means of pressing
the raised knees against the horse’s flanks - exactly the method of riding
employed by the Hittites portrayed on the monuments of Seti I and Ramses II”.
Again, both the early neo-Assyrian cavalry and those of the Hittites against
whom Seti I battled, employed the bow as their only weapon. “Even more
importantly, they are used in an identical way tactically: they are invariably
used in conjunction with the chariotry”.
Sweeney next turns to Maspero’s description of the
cavalry of Ashurnasirpal: “The army [of Assyria] ... now possessed a new
element, whose appearance in the field of battle was to revolutionize the whole
method of warfare; this was the cavalry, properly so called, introduced as an
adjunct to the chariotry.” More specifically, he writes:
This body of cavalry, having little confidence in its
own powers, kept in close contact with the main body of the army, and it was
not used in independent manoeuvres; it was associated with and formed an escort
to the chariotry in expeditions where speed was essential, and where ordinary
foot soldiers would have hampered the movements of the charioteers.
Again, this is just what one would expect from the
prevailing ‘Indo-European’ influence, the ‘chariot-riding aristocracy’, with
its magnificent horsemanship.
Similarly, James tells of the definite likeness
between the neo-Assyrian art of Ashurnasirpal II and that of the ‘Middle’
Assyrian period several centuries earlier, C13th-12th BC:[2]
One scholar noted that the forms of decoration of the
intricately carved Assyrian seals of the 12th century are ‘clearly
late’, as they ‘point the way to the ornate figures which line the walls of the
Neo-Assyrian palace of Assurnasirpal [mid-9th century BC]’. The
sculptors employed by this king, in the words of another expert on Assyrian
art, ‘worked within a tradition that went back to the thirteenth century BC’.
Professor Greenberg has observed, along the same
lines, that Mycenaean Greece Shaft Grave Stelae, currently dated variously to
the late C14th, or mid C13th BC, “make a good deal more art historical sense
when compared, for example, with the hunting scenes of Ashurnasirpal II from
Nimrud, which are dated in the ninth century BC …”.[3]
Thus [Eduard] Meyer was being perfectly logical, according to his own artificial
context - with its subsequent misalignment of the early history of Israel -
when issuing his bold challenge to gainsay the traditional view that Moses was
a real historical person. And Meyer was entirely correct too back then, in 1906
(a full century ago), when stating that “not one of those who treat [Moses] as
a historical reality has hitherto been able to fill him with any kind of
content whatever …”. For Meyer’s chronology, as promoted by the Berlin School
of Egyptology, and later by Sir Henry Breasted, which had become the standard,
had made it quite impossible for scholars even to locate Moses in that complex
scheme, let alone “to fill him with any kind of content”. Whilst an
independent-minded historian like Sir Flinders Petrie might try valiantly to
make a major adjustment to Sothic chronology - though still unfortunately based
on that system’s faulty premises, by adding an extra Sothic period - he did not
like what he eventually saw and so had to reject his novel idea.[4] Meyer’s Sothic chronology therefore
survived the challenge and prevailed.
Today, for those who do give some credence to the
story of Moses and the Exodus account, the favoured era is, as it was in
Meyer’s day, the 19th Ramesside dynasty, Sothically dated to the
C13th-C12th’s BC – but still two or more centuries after properly calculated
biblical estimates for Moses. Ramses II (c. 1279-1212 BC, conventional dates)
is now generally considered to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus; though no
evidence whatsoever for a mass exodus of foreigners can be found during his
reign.
Fortunately, the work of revision is serving to
resurrect some long-lost biblical characters of great import. I have already
shown in fair detail in Part I how C9th BC biblical characters, for
instance, emerge in some profusion when a Velikovskian-based revision is
carefully applied to the well-documented EA period. ….
[1] Ibid, p. 24.
[2] Centuries of
Darkness, p. 273.
[3] ‘Lion Gate at Mycenae’ (1973), p. 28.
[4] Researches in
Sinai, ch. xii; q.v. his A History of Egypt, vol.
i, add. xvii, xviii.
”.204
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