Judaism
Dating Ancient Near Eastern History III.2
Abstract
If an excavator believes from the scriptures that an ancient mound must contain buildings from Solomon’s reign, it is almost certain that sooner or later he will find structures that fit the bill. The spurious air of biblical authority given to such a discovery can then make the identification stick, despite any evidence to the contrary. In the meantime a small tourist industry may even have grown up around this “confirmation” of the Bible.Peter James
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Tuesday, August 28, 2001
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Computer Matching Ancient Astronomical Records
Wayne Mitchell, seeking to establish an absolute chronology for the ancient Near East, reviewed the records of ancient astronomers, particularly the extensive Kassite collection called Enuma Anu Enlil for Agade, Guti/Uruk V, and Ur III, preserved in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (669-627 BC). To minimize any doubt, his analysis was based upon “observations for which there are very few date-assignment possibilities within a large span of time”.
P M Muller and F R Stephenson had classified ancient solar eclipse records according to their reliability. Only four were classed as truly reliable:
- 7 July 709 BC—total eclipse at Chu-Fu
- 26 September 322 BC—timed eclipse at Babylon
- 4 March 181 BC—total eclipse at Ch’ang-An
- 15 April 136 BC—total eclipse at Babylon.
Of these the last one is the most reliable of all, and two descriptions of it are known that agree with each other. This reliable date allowed the factor that applied to the deceleration of the earth’s rotation in the first millennium BC to be found. The rate of deceleration of the earth’s rotation varies but the extrapolation from the second century back two millennium is considerably less than the extrapolation of the present conditions back for four millennia.
Using computer programs taking account of the deceleration of the Earth’s rate of rotation, such as that used by P J Huber, and other modern analysts and statisticians, Mitchell found sensible matches later than any previously proposed. Strikingly, and with some certainty (a “rather probable solution”), the accession of king Ammi-saduga of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon was revised down from J A Brinkman’s 1646 BC to 1419 BC. It gives the least number of severe inaccuracies, calculating back, of three—or only one, depending on the precise adjustment of the deceleration factor—and it matched those solutions yielding the “remarkable” coincidence of a lunar and solar eclipse in the succeeding reign of Samsu-ditana.
This finding confirmed that of Huber and co-workers, covering the period 1978 BC to 1363 BC, who also found that the accession of Ammi-saduga at 1419 BC gave the best fit with the data. Beginning from the accession date for Ammi-saduga, the period to the end of the Ur III Dynasty is 360 +/- 15 years, making 19 April 1793 BC the best candidate for the eclipse marking the end of the reign of Ibbi-suen (Ibbisin, conventionally 2028-2004 BC). Another known eclipse marks the end of the reign of Shulgi (conventionally 2094-2047 BC), now dated to 31 July 1835 BC. From the accession of Ur-Nammu (conventionally 2112-2094 BC) now 1901 BC, the Du’uzu eclipse, associated with the victory of Utu-hegal, must have been 28 June 1908 BC.
The period from the fall of Agade to the start of Ur III is given precisely by Brinkman as 42 years, but really lies between 15 and 100 years. If the king-list of Gutium is accurate and the Gutian king, Sarlagab (1988-1983 BC) is the contemporary of Shar-kali-sharri of Agade (conventionally 2217-2193 BC), the lowest feasible chronology corresponds to the partial eclipse on the 25 April 2035 BC, which would mark the end of Rimush (conventionally 2278-2270 BC). The successive eclipses on the 27 March 1959 BC and the 16 March 1958 BC would then be the accurately dated end of Shar-kali-sharri.
Mitchell concludes that a satisfactory match for the accounts requires the accessions of Ammi-saduga and Ur-Nammu, respectively, to be 1419 BC and 1901 BC. From these, by historical interpolation, the accession of Hammurabi (conventionally 1792-1750 BC) is 1565 BC. If Hammurabi and Neferhotep I are contemporaries then the chronology of the Egyptian dynasties before Babylon I are clarified. Neferhotep (conventionally 1751-1740 BC) acceded to the throne between 1550 and 1515 BC.
Finally, five possibilities exist for for an eclipse at sunset mentioned in Ugaritic tablets, and the only candidate from 1450 BC to 1000 BC that can correspond is that of the 9 May 1012 BC. Cross-dating from historical records confirms a date of 1362 BC for the end of Babylon I (conventionally 1595 BC). If 1012 BC reasonably dates Nikmed II, then Akhenaten is dated similarly, and the date of the Hittite king, Murshili (conventionally ?-1590 BC), is 984 BC, matching the solar eclipse of 30 April of that year. Perhaps the Murshilis of Hatti have been confused or have not been properly distinguished, like the Shoshenqs of Egypt, and the Jeroboams of Israel.
Frank Yurco
Biblicist, Frank Yurco, calls those he disagrees with “minimalists,” “nihilists” and even “charlatans!” Yurco thinks everything in the biblical, historical and archaeological gardens is lovely. He still thinks that the Sothic system of dating is valid, that mice erupt spontaneously from dirty linen and that demons are responsible for disease. The Mesha Stone, the Merneptah Stela and the Shoshenq I campaign relief all confirm everything the bible tells us.
- The best extant evidence for the existence of Israel, and David and Solomon’s kingdom comes from their foes in antiquity.
- Merenptah first mentions Israel in his Canaanite campaign of about 1207 BC. Israel existed.
- Pharaoh Sheshonq of Dynasty 22 campaigned against Judea and Israel and this is cited in the Bible—Shishak (Sheshonq) came up against Rehoboam, son of Solomon, in his fifth regnal year. Sheshonq took enough plunder from his campaign that he could afford to reopen the sandstone quarries and to add a whole court onto the Karnak complex of temples. Rehoboam had inherited a wealthy kingdom. Rehoboam is Solomon’s son, so how can Solomon be a late invention?
- André Lemairé published in BAR (May/June 1994) a Moabite inscription that mentions the House of David.
Yurco concludes that Israel existed in the late 13th century BC, by Dynasty 22 Judea and Israel had emerged as powerful and wealthy states that appealed to Sheshonq I for plunder, and the Moabites, Israel’s staunch foes, acknowledged the House of David existed. “Why do the minimalists persist in their single-minded myopia?”
Yurco thinks the Merneptah Stele proves that Israel “already existed back in the late 13th century BC.” Yurco illustrates that biblicists cannot get the bible out of their heads. It is like a supporter of Hunslet Football club finding an ancient reference to Hunslet and concluding that the football team existed in antiquity. The place where the football team was founded existed but not the team. Merneptah’s inscription shows Israel was a name that Merneptah knew. The questions are what was the entity called Israel, and when did Merneptah live—in the 13th century BC or as late as the 9th century BC? In the first case, the Israelites were just moving into Canaan, or so the bible says. In the second case, Israel was a statelet in Canaan confirmed by Assyrian archives, though they called it the House of Omri, not Israel!
Yurco studied the Ashkelon Wall at Karnak where there were scenes of 19th Dynasty Egyptians battling supposed Israelites using chariots—when they should have been slaves fleeing from Egypt pursued by the Egyptian chariots, according to Exodus. If the Canaanites of prosperous cities like Megiddo were considered as Israelites, then the possibility that the carvings depict thirteenth century Israelites is possible, but then they were not escaping slaves from Egypt! The Israel of Omri in the ninth century might have included these cities in the north either as subjects or as allies, and had chariots, but then the pictures are 400 years later than Yurco thinks. Biblicists can never see the contradictions of their rationalizations.
Yurco also thinks that Pharaoh Shoshenq I of the 22nd Dynasty is the biblical pharaoh, Shishak, plunderer of Solomon’s temple in the 5th year of Rehoboam, king of Judah. Yet, the Assyrians vocalized the name Shoshenq as Su-si-in-ku, which gives no basis for the nasal sound being omitted in Semitic language vocalizations of the Egyptian. More important, contrary to Yurco’s statement, the places Shoshenq attacked noted on the walls of the temple of Karnak did not include Judah, nor is Jerusalem featured in his list of cities, even though the bible makes it the focus of his attack and claims it bought him off with a vast treasure. Should not Shoshenq have mentioned this particularly lucrative vassalage, espacially as it was previously a large empire that he had subdued? Shishak is the ally of Jeroboam of Israel and the enemy of the kingdom of Judah, according to the bible, while Shoshenq, in his monuments, plunders the country known at that time, according to the bible, as Israel, while ignoring Judah as if it did not exist. Biblicists like Yurco cannot see these important distinctions and fool the ordinary Christian with their lies.
Yurco ignores science and logic to imply that Shoshenq was able to carve monuments from the plunder he took from the wealthy kingdom of Judah, his biblical belief. Millennia of Pharaohs that carved monuments never needed any such source previously, yet monuments were carved. Professor Finkelstein has shifted the archaeological material previously associated with Solomon down into the 9th century, one of the most impoverished archaeological periods in Levantine history. Solomon now rules in Iron Age IB when there is no monumental architecture. It is pure fantasy to imagine that Judah could ever have been wealthy before it became the centre for collecting the taxes of Abarnahara for the Persian kings.
There are no identifiable remains of Western Asiatics at Pi-Ramesse (biblical Raamses) which have come to light, even after a quarter of a century of excavations. There was no destruction of a fortified city of Jericho because it was a ruin at the end of the Bronze Age. Nor is a destruction of Hazor attributable to the time of Joshua’s conquest.
Excavations of the Late Bronze Age palace at Hazor is producing a date for the burning of that building around the time of Seti I, some 100 years before the proposed date for any Israelite destruction of the city. No destructions of Canaanite cities can be unequivocally attributed to the Israelites. There was a cultural continuity between the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Domestic pottery was continuous between the two periods, with no particular sudden Egyptionizing as would be expected from an influx of people that had lived in Egypt for 400 years. Admittedly population increased and technological advances were made, but all this is better explained by increasing prosperity caused by climatic improvement.
Fundamentalists like Yurco are at a total loss to understand that the bible stories of David and Solomon are mythical wnd therefore simply wrong when read as history. They persist in accepting biblical “history” and think therefore that the elimination of spurious years still allows Solomon and David to remain. If Rameses II was Shishak, as some revisionists suggest, then the apologists protest Seti I was invading Judah when Solomon was a great emperor. One apologist writes, utterly confused:
What are we to make of these Egyptian operations against rulers in the heart of Israel during the 25th year of Solomon. Why doesn’t the Bible record this and why doesn’t Seti mention Solomon?
Why doesn’t he answer his own questions? Seti I erected a stele in Bethshan lauding his campaign in the Jordan valley, sending one army to Hamath another to Bethshan and a third to Yanoam. These seem like individual city states being disciplined, and not a mighty empire able to fend him off. If Omri was the founder of Israel around 900 BC, all that could have existed before were city states. There never was an Emperor Solomon.
This same apologetic source notes that the principle states to the north and east of the Palestinian hills in David’s days were Hamath and Zobah, the same as they were when Sargon the Assyrian king conquered the area in 720 BC, whereas a shortened chronology would make the principle northern states at the time of David Qadesh, Qatna and Tunip, as they were at the time of the El Amarna correspondence. “You don’t need to be a genius to see that the New Chronology is flawed,” he smugly writes. That the David stories were made up after the later period, drawing upon the situation as the author knew it, quite evades the apologist. He cannot grasp that these stories in the bible are fictional.
This same debunker dates the Egyptian kings from the Assyrian eponyms even though he admits they are flawed before 911 BC. They are only ten years out back to 1450 BC, he tells us. He cannot grasp that the earlier lists of kings and eponyms were written by the later Assyrian administrators to give prestige and continuity to the country and the line of kings, when there is reason to think that for several hundred years Assyria was a divided country with parallel dynasties. Certain that the king lists as well as the bible are God sent, these apologists defend them like terriers.
In the 3000 year long history of Ancient Egypt, 300 years is a minor adjustment. It is only major in the briefer history of Israel—and that is what the biblicists do not like. Even if it were accepted, it would not deter them from their fancies. They would be certain then that the Israelites were the Hyksos and old ideas would be revived once again to save God’s reputation as an historian. Rohl reveals himself to be one of these, a latter day Albrightian, declaring from a close study of his bible that the few Egyptian remains found in Jerusalem are the palace of a Bronze Age Solomon’s Egyptian wife. He admits quite openly referring to biblicist F Yurco, a critic of new chronologies:
It is ironic that Yurco should describe people like me as “minimalists” when, in fact, what the New Chronology advocates is a maximalist view of biblical history.
Ho hum! He now declares that the plaque nailed to the cross of Jesus has been found. And Rohl calls Kitchen a Christian fundamentalist! Why can’t they all find a god that does not need fools and liars to defend him, so that honest people can try to find out what happened in history?
