El Amarna's Lab'ayu for King Ahab preferable to Dr. Velikovsky's choice of Rib-Addi

1. Ahab not Rib-Addi When I around 2017, after ten years, re-assessed my university thesis (2007): A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background https://www.academia.edu/3822220/Thesis_2_A_Revised_History_of_the_Era_of_King_Hezekiah_of_Judah_and_its_Background I wrote as follows on Dr. I. Velikovsky's proposed identification (in Ages in Chaos, I, 1952) of El Amarna's [EA's] prolific letter writing king, Rib-Addi of Gubla, with the biblical king Ahab of Israel. "Velikovsky … had … looked to identify Ahab with Rib-Addi of Gubla, the most prolific Syro-Palestine correspondent to the EA pharaohs (over 50 letters in number). …. And this was surely a big mistake. For, in order for him to ‘make’ Ahab, like Rib-Addi, a very old man at death, Velikovsky was prepared to fly in the face of the biblical data and completely re-cast the chronology of Ahab’s life. He had convinced himself that there existed a contradiction between the accounts of Ahab in Kings and Chronicles so that, as he claimed, Ahab did not die at the battle of Ramoth-gilead as is stated in 1 Kings 22 (cf. vv. 6, 29 and 37), but rather reigned on for a further 8-10 years. Thus, according to Velikovsky’s view, king Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates), never truly existed, but was a ghost. From a biblical point of view, the fact that Rib-Addi had been able to report the death of Abdi-Ashirta (Velikovsky’s Ben-Hadad I) meant that Velikovsky was quite wrong in identifying Rib-Addi with king Ahab; since Ahab’s death preceded that of Ben-Hadad (cf. 1 Kings 22:40 and 2 Kings 8:15). But this was Velikovsky in his favourite rôle as “the arbiter of history”, according to Martin Sieff … forcing historical data to fit a pre-conceived idea. Velikovsky called this Rib-Addi king of Gubla and Sumur (var. Sumura) … which EA cities he had tried to equate with Ahab’s chief cities of, respectively, Jezreel and Samaria; though they are usually identified with the coastal cities of Byblos (Gebal) and Simyra. Moreover, letters from Egypt may indicate that Sumur was not really Rib-Addi’s concern at all. …. Velikovsky greatly confused the issue of Ahab of Israel for those coming after him, since Rib-Addi was chronologically and geographically unsuitable for Ahab. Revisionists have since rightly rejected this part of Velikovsky’s EA reconstruction, with Sieff suggesting instead that Rib-Addi may have been Jehoram of Israel". As far as I was concerned, Ahab was clearly the same as EA’s powerful and rebellious Lab’ayu of the Shechem region. I continued: "Whether or not Rib-Addi turns out to be Jehoram of Israel, a far better EA candidate for Ahab than Rib-Addi, in my opinion, and indeed a more obvious one – and I am quite surprised that no one has yet taken it up – is Lab’ayu, known to have been a king of the Shechem region, which is very close to Samaria (only 9 km SE distant); especially given my quote earlier (thesis Vol. I, p. 54) from Cook that the geopolitical situation at this time in the “(north) [was akin to that of the] Israelites of a later [sic] time”. Lab’ayu is never actually identified in the EA letters as king of either Samaria or of Shechem. Nevertheless, Aharoni has designated Lab’ayu as “King of Shechem” in his description of the geopolitical situation in Palestine during the EA period (Aharoni, of course, is a conventional scholar writing of a period he thinks must have been well pre-monarchical): …. In the hill country there were only a few political centres, and each of these ruled over a fairly extensive area. In all the hill country of Judah and Ephraim we hear only of Jerusalem and Shechem with possible allusions to Beth-Horon and Manahath, towns within the realm of Jerusalem’s king. ... Apparently the kings of Jerusalem and Shechem dominated, to all practical purposes, the entire central hill country at that time. The territory controlled by Labayu, King of Shechem, was especially large in contrast to the small Canaanite principalities round about. Only one letter refers to Shechem itself, and we get the impression that this is not simply a royal Canaanite city but rather an extensive kingdom with Shechem as its capital". Moreover, this Lab’ayu, had, like Ahab, two prominent sons. I tentatively identified the more prominent of these, Mut-Baal¸ with Ahab’s older son, Ahaziah (I, p. 90), who – having no heir – was succeeded by his brother, Jehoram. 2. Circumstances of Jericho being rebuilt at time of King Ahab This I have discussed in various articles, such as e.g. my multi-part series "Hiel's Jericho",esp: Hiel's Jericho. Part Two (a): Who was this “Hiel of Bethel”? https://www.academia.edu/31553055/Hiels_Jericho_Part_Two_a_Who_was_this_Hiel_of_Bethel_ This series removes all doubt, I believe, that Lab'ayu was King Ahab of Israel, because the EA letters tell us that Lab'ayu had given away the land of Shakmu (Shechem) to the rebels, to the "Sa Gaz Mesh", whom Dr. Velikovsky identified with Mesha of Moab. Shechem was the same as the Bethulia of the Book of Judith, the northern Bethel (see below). King Mesha of Moab tells us quite specifically that he built Jericho ("Qeriho"), and with Israelite slaves. Mesha was, like Hiel the Bethelite, a sacrificer of his won sons. On Bethulia as Shechem, see my series "Judith's City of 'Bethulia', esp: Judith's City of 'Bethulia'. Part Two (ii): Shechem https://www.academia.edu/34737759/Judiths_City_of_Bethulia_Part_Two_ii_Shechem