The Four Pillars of Egyptian Chronology

[Adam]

Great work, Shunya!
You did exactly what I asked you to do!
Your link to dendrochronology (tree rings) led to one quote from Rohl himself, however. So Rohl was aware of this problem for him. He presented in Appendix C the difficulties in accepting dendrochronology and Carbon-14 dating. Some results were self-contradictory!
So does anyone know what the status is of the dating schemes now, 2007? I believe Thera's eruption remains dated earlier than convenient. Has Rohl held to his dates as firm, or has he amended them? How about Mohler's The Exodus Case and his 18th Dynasty dates? Or has some new theory arisen correlating the Exodus with Egyption history and Thera?
Adam

[Jezz]

First, you are misusing the 'begging the question' type of logic for many reasons.

No, I am not.

First, begging the question is for logical arguments, and not scientific research results.

Firstly, this is a false dichotomy. Scientific research results are useless unless they make use of logical arguments. If they make use of arguments that aren't logical, then the results aren't worth anything.

Secondly, the "begged question" that I was talking about doesn't have anything to do with "scientific research results", per say - it was your argument as to why Rohl is wrong. You said he fails to acknowledge the lack of evidence for the Exodus. But this is simply not true. He does acknowledge it - that's why he sets about trying to explain it. His explanation is that the evidence has been dated wrong.

Primarilly the dating methodes do not presume the results, and they are correlated and corraborated by diifferent methodes by different researchers. The question,ie - What is the date the cities were destroyed?, is not circular with the dating methods nor does it presume the result based on different sources.

So you assert. But a closer inspection reveals that the dates of some of these "different" sources actually depend on each other.

Second, Rohl did not present any coherent argument why he objected to the dating methods and the results. Can you cite why Rohl objected to the dating methods?

I gave an overview in my first post in this thread. If it's not enough for you, go get his book and find out for yourself or join the discussion forum. I don't feel like doing it now - it's been a couple of years since I last looked like it and I don't remember the details, and I don't have time to re-read them all again now. Don't be lazy and do your own legwork if you're really interested.

The research is very extensive carried out over the past fifty years. The results are not controversial and accepted by the professional archeological community. There are more problems than dating of these cities and their destruction, which occured more than once. There is not any evidence for anything close to the numbers cited in the Bible anywhere in the Sinai or Canaan.

This is a begged question. You say that "the results are not controversial and accepted by the professional archeological community". The fact is that Rohl and James et al are professional archeologists, and that there is some controversy. It is precisely this controversy which is the subject matter for this thread. Asserting that there is no controversy is equivalent to asserting that Rohl is wrong.

Third, it is clearly acknowledged that the evidence Rohl cites indicates migrations took place, but the dating, numbers, and other available records in the region do not match.

Exactly. And he does not, as you asserted, "fail to acknowledge" this - he attempts to explain why the dates don't match (his explanation being that the dates are wrong and the records have been interpreted incorrectly).

Again. Rohl has failed to coherently address the conflicts and problems with his work, and cites the sources that agree with the Bible for the dates and events in his conclusions.

Argument by repetition.

The reason why Rohl's account is not generally accepted is he bases his account on a biased selection of evidence.

All archaeologists make biased selections of evidence. When there is a conflict, they decide which evidence they will give greater weight (that is, greater bias) to. This is impossible to avoid. The reason there is little evidence for the Exodus in the current chronology is because archaeologists put greater weight on the evidence from Egypt (as they have interpreted it) than they do on the Biblical evidence.

Archeologists in general acknowledge all the different sources of evidence, the problems with dating, numbers and evience of events, and acknowledge that there are a number of possible scenarios for 'Exodus,' and reserve judgement a waiting the finding of further evidence.

And how is this any different from what Rohl is doing? He is pointing out the problems with dating, numbers and evidence of events, and coming up with an alternative scenario to account for the data.

[shunyadragon]

Firstly, this is a false dichotomy. Scientific research results are useless unless they make use of logical arguments. If they make use of arguments that aren't logical, then the results aren't worth anything.

Logic is used appropriately in evaluating scientific research.

Secondly, the "begged question" that I was talking about doesn't have anything to do with "scientific research results", per say - it was your argument as to why Rohl is wrong. You said he fails to acknowledge the lack of evidence for the Exodus. But this is simply not true. He does acknowledge it - that's why he sets about trying to explain it. His explanation is that the evidence has been dated wrong.


So you assert. But a closer inspection reveals that the dates of some of these "different" sources actually depend on each other.

This is a begged question. You say that "the results are not controversial and accepted by the professional archeological community". The fact is that Rohl and James et al are professional archeologists, and that there is some controversy. It is precisely this controversy which is the subject matter for this thread. Asserting that there is no controversy is equivalent to asserting that Rohl is wrong.

Yes, Rohl, acknowledged the problems in the Apendix, but stuck to the strict Biblical interpretation, which does not in reality take these problems into consideration.

And how is this any different from what Rohl is doing? He is pointing out the problems with dating, numbers and evidence of events, and coming up with an alternative scenario to account for the data.

Acknowledging the data, and then basing your conclusions to reflect something differnt than the data indicates is weak at best.

[shunyadragon]

Great work, Shunya!
You did exactly what I asked you to do!
Your link to dendrochronology (tree rings) led to one quote from Rohl himself, however. So Rohl was aware of this problem for him. He presented in Appendix C the difficulties in accepting dendrochronology and Carbon-14 dating. Some results were self-contradictory!
So does anyone know what the status is of the dating schemes now, 2007? I believe Thera's eruption remains dated earlier than convenient. Has Rohl held to his dates as firm, or has he amended them? How about Mohler's The Exodus Case and his 18th Dynasty dates? Or has some new theory arisen correlating the Exodus with Egyption history and Thera?
Adam

I will cite more problems with Rohl in a bit, because I have to borrow his book again to check it out again. The book nontheless is a weighty text that tries to stradle the layman and academic and leads to errors ans conflicts when it tries to cover too much ground and resolve too much with weak conclusions. There is a reasonable critical review of his book here by Dennis Forbes.

http://www.egyptology.com/kmt/winter95_96/book.html

[Adam]

I will cite more problems with Rohl in a bit, because I have to borrow his book again to check it out again. The book nontheless is a weighty text that tries to stradle the layman and academic and leads to errors ans conflicts when it tries to cover too much ground and resolve too much with weak conclusions. There is a reasonable critical review of his book here by Dennis Forbes.
http://www.egyptology.com/kmt/winter95_96/book.html

Thanks, Shunya,
For the link to that great review by Forbes. Pointing out detailed mistakes by Rohl undermines his grander ideas that are already questionable based on Carbon-14 and dendrochronology.
On the latter, however, isn't there anything in the last ten years about it?
And if Rohl is flawed, are Christians thrown back to the Fundamentalism of Dr. Mohler's The Exodus Case: New Discoveries Confirm the Historical Exodus (2002)?
Adam

[mikeledo]

There are many problems with coming up with a date for the alledge Exodus. In fact there are so many problems I have come to the conclusion the problems are not with C-14 or archaeology, but with the text itself. Here is what I have come up with (From The Cosmic Myth of the Bible):

Chronology Problems of Biblical Proportions

One of the major problems for anyone who wants to date the period of the alleged Exodus is that of the subsequent conquests of Joshua. Many of the cities mentioned have extensive archaeological data. The main problem, as we have already seen with some previous cities is that there is no single period that fits the data. In fact we are not even close with any one period. In spite of this there are those who contend that there is nothing wrong with the text, and fault archaeology and radiometric dating. I do not. Clearly there are textual problems. These are solved when we claim the text is a living document. Let us look at the cities mentioned. William H. Stiebing Jr.’s Out of the Desert is my source of information unless otherwise end noted.

Jericho: Destroyed at the end of Early Bronze III. Destroyed at the end of Middle Bronze II C or LB I. Not occupied in the Iron Age. (Used in original text)

Ai: Destroyed at the end of Early Bronze III. No Middle Bronze occupation. Small Iron Age village. No evidence of destruction (Used in original text)

Gibeon: Little to no Early Bronze III occupation. Village in Early Bronze I. Existed Middle Bronze II. No occupation in LB I. A walled town in the Iron Age (Omitted from original text)

Lachish: Occupied Early Bronze III, Middle Bronze II. Unoccupied most of Iron I (Omitted from original text)

Hazor: Early Bronze III destruction. Middle Bronze II C destruction. Small city in the Iron Age. No wall. (Used in original text)

Hebron: No Early Bronze III occupation. Destroyed at the end of Middle Bronze II C. Occupied in the Iron Age. (Omitted from original text)

Makkedah, Libnah, Eglon, Debir: Location uncertain. (Debir is used as the name of a King. Otherwise everything is omitted.)

Jarmuth: Not excavated enough to draw conclusions. (Omitted from original text)

Dor: Founded about 2000 B.C.E. (Omitted from original text)

Sidon: Great Phoenician City State founded circa 2750 B.C.E. (Used in original text)

Achshaph: Ancient Phoenician City State. Identification uncertain (Used in original text)

Madon, Shimron: Identification Unknown. (Used in original text)

It appears from the above cities that there were at least two periods of destruction were alluded to in the Bible. There is our destruction in the Early Bronze III period and another major destruction in Middle Bronze II C. From this list it would seem that Ai is the major “fly in the ointment” for a dating in Middle Bronze II C.

However when we add the cities of Moses, we come up with a third period of invasion, that is the Iron Age. Heshbon, Dibon, and Aroer were not even occupied in the Middle Bronze age. And of those three only Aroer was occupied in the LB period. These three cities are part of an Iron Age addition to the text.

[runtmc2jc]

This is a long-awaited and long-promised look at the "New Chronology" (hereafter NC, as opposed to CC for Conventional Chronology) proposed by David Rohl in "Pharoahs and Kings" (aka "A Test of Time") and Peter James et al in Centuries of Darkness. Apologies if there have been other in-depth threads on this, but I wanted to start fresh with chsalvia.

Let me get one thing straight: From my reading of these books it would appear to me that none of these authors are Biblical inerrantists. Naturally it is true that they have gathered a following from such people, but they themselves don't seem to have an agenda to support the Bible other than as an ancient historian should. For example, in his 434 page book, James devotes only 41 pages to Biblical chronology in a single chapter entitled "Biblical chronology without Egypt". The rest is about other ANE civilisations. Similarly, Rohl in his sequel to Pharoahs and Kings ("Legend") buys into the idea that the Hebrew God YHWH was an imported Canaanite God called El. So we can put to rest the claims of "fundamentalist bias" right from the outset. Their only goal is to come up with a chronology that makes better sense of the available evidence (including Egyptian).

As to the chronologies themselves: the two authors take slightly different approaches, but share some common features. Rohl's book is more concerned with the relationship with Biblical and Egyptian history, and looks at this in some detail without considering much else. James' book, on the other hand, spends only a chapter on the Bible but a lot more time looking at other civilisations. He finds a series of chronological problems in all these areas that eventually trace their source back to a supposedly faulty Egyptian chronology.

In this thread, I think it is important to remember that when constructing an ancient history, you're building on a foundation. If one of the foundational pillars of a chronology is moved, this can undermine the entire picture of the history built up. This possibility needs to be born in mind. I think that quite often what happens in debates of this type is that a person will continue to argue from conclusions that depended on that pillar long after the pillar has been removed. They thus beg the question without realising it, because they are relying on conclusions that in turn relied on evidence which has since been disproven. This needs to be born in mind. An example, James recounts such a case here:

In a 'critique' of CoD Egyptologist Professor Frank Yurco (1993, 10) claimed that we had overlooked "an important synchronism". He stated that at the battle of Karkar (Syria) in 853 BC, Pharaoh Osorkon II of Egypt contributed 1,000 troops to fight king Shalmaneser III of Assyria. If that were the case, our redating of Osorkon II to the 8th century would be impossible. However, Yurco seems to be unaware of what a synchronism means. A synchronism between two individuals requires that two names are given. The Assyrian texts of Shalmaneser III do indeed refer to an Egyptian contingent at the battle of Karkar. But they do not name the Pharaoh who sent them. Yurco has simply supplied that name, probably by reference to the chronological tables in Kitchen's book.

Now, I have no real reason to doubt the veracity of the above account, however even if the above is not entirely true it still serves as a useful illustration of the principle I am talking about. The identity of the Egyptian Pharoah that Yurco was using was based on Kitchen's chronology and not on the Assyrian texts themselves, therefore this is not a genuine synchronism. Given that the identity of this king is dependent on the CC itself, it begs the question to use it in evidence against a challenge to the CC.

So for people who wish to argue against the NC in this thread, don't be surprised if I keep asking questions. For example, if I say "Israel was a force in Palestine in 1400 BC" and you retort with "That's impossible! Palestine was an Egyptian province at that time!", then I will want to see the raw evidence for how this dating came apart. Because it is very possible that, because the pillar is moved, the evidence that once disproved my statment is no longer valid. This might be tricky, as most of us here don't have access to primary sources, but it is absolutely necessary if we are to have any meaningful discussion on the matter.

With that methodological issue out of the way, let me now move on to some of the concrete arguments. One of the main arguments used by all revisionists (including Velikovsians) is that the Egyptian chronology is propped up by four main "pillars":

1. The sacking of Thebes by Ashurbanipal (664 BC).
2. Identifying Pharoah Shoshenq I with the Biblical Shishak of 1 Kings 14:25-26 (925 BC). This sets the beginning of the 22nd dynasty to 945 BC.
3. Using the Sothic dating system and the Ebers papyrus to date the accession of Ahmose to 1550 BC.
4. The accession of Ramesses II in 1279 BC based on a lunar date.

During this period in question, there is a dearth of monuments and missing reign lengths for some pharoahs. Egyptologists use the above synchronisms to "fill in the gaps" by guessing reign lengths for the unknown kings (called "dead reckoning"). The problem is, of course, that if the dates at either end of the period are incorrect, then the reign lengths will need to be stretched or compressed beyond what they should be. An example of this is Pharoah Takeloth, who Kenneth Kitchen assigns a reign of 14-15 years - despite the fact that he left no dated monumental evidence. Well, I suppose that it's possible that he was simply an unassuming leader - however, this is also the kind of thing we would expect to see if the reign lengths had to be artificially lengthened in order to fill in an artificially long gap...

It is the position of the revisionists (or at least, Rohl and James - the ones in question in this post) that synchronism 1 is valid. However, they discard the other three. They argue that this mistake sets the accession of Shoshenq I too early, which artifically lengthens the period between the end of the Third Intermediate Period (TIP) and the start of the 22nd dynasty. This, of course, would solve the problem of Takeloth and his buddies not having any monumental evidence.

Let me now address each of these in turn. I'll address them in a slightly different order to above for convenience.

Firstly, #3 - the Sothic dating system. This is pretty easy to dismiss. Since the work of James et al, Sothic dating has been discredited as a good means of dating. On the surface of it it was always going to be a flimsy way of dating - it works on a 1461 year cycle, and assumes that the Egyptians made no corrections to it during that cycle as the rising of Sothis gradually became out of sync with the solar year and the seasons. Rohl quotes Manfred Bietak (Professorin "A Test of Time" (p137):

The framework of regnal dates from the monuments together with the genealogical data has become so secure that it is possible from safe fixed points to calculate backwards with tolerable uncertanties. The chronology of the New Kingdom therefore no longer depends on the Sothis-date of the Year 9 of Amenhotep I, which is insecure and should not be used any more.

As this quote shows, Bietak still holds to the CC, though he acknowledges that the Sothic dating cannot be used to support it.

So it seems that Egyptologists no longer use the Sothic dating system. That pillar has been knocked out.

Secondly, #4 - Now this is a lunar date, but since the lunar cycle repeats every 25 years, it can't be used as a pillar by itself. It can only be used to "fine tune" an existing framework that is broadly correct. Thus, this pillar actually depends on the veracity of pillars 2 and 3. If they fall, then this one falls with it.

Finally, #2 - the most complicated one. This pillar has been assumed since the time of Champillion 1828. On the surface, this seemed like a good match: "Shoshenq" and "Shishak" seem closely related, and according to Shoshenq campaigned in Palestine. Moreover, according to his campaign list, Judea is actually listed as one of the destinations.

However, the similarity is superficial. Look a little closer and things start to fall apart:
1. It has been conclusively shown that Champillion misread Shoshenq's campaign list. It did not say "Judea the Kingdom", but "Monument of the King".
2. An examination of Shoshenq's campaign shows that he avoided Judea and definitely avoided Jerusalem. His main attack was into the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This leads to two problems:
2a. The "Shishak" recorded in the Bible is supposed to have attacked Judea and specifically Jerusalem, not Israel.
2b. According to the Bible, Jeroboam fled to be under the protection of Shishak when Solomon wanted to kill him. It would seem odd that Shishak would later reverse his attitude and attack him when he was king of the Northern Kingdom (though granted not impossible), and the Bible certainly doesn't record that he attacked the Northern Kingdom.
3. Equating Shishak with Shoshenq breaks an even stronger synchronism with the Phonecian kingdom. There is monumental evidence that shows that the successive kings of Byblos Abibaal, Yehimilk and Elibaal are contemporaries with Shoshenk I and Osorkon I. The CC breaks this synchronism.
4. Even from a purely literary point of view, the name similarity is not as close as it at first seems. Egyptian "sh" is usually transliterated into "s" when transliterating into a Semitic tongue, and vice-versa. For example, Shoshenq is transliterated as "Susink" in a contemporary Akkadian document (as an example of the opposite, Egyptian Askelan = Hebrew Ashkelon). Moreover, of the few monuments to Shoshenq that have been found in Palestine, the "n" is never dropped from his name. Thus, "Shoshenq" would be most likely be transliterated as "Sisank" in Hebrew.

Putting all this together, it becomes pretty obvious that the link with Shishak=Shoshenq is pretty weak. I think perhaps the strongest point is the fact that the Bible does not mention Shishak attacking the Northern Kingdom. That requires that we postulate the rather absurd situation where the Bible got the name of the pharoah right, but got the target of his campaign wrong. This pillar falls.

And because the TIP and the New Kingdom is dated relative to this synchronism, it means that the whole TIP dating is rather shaky - and with it, the whole Egyptian chronology. Unless the CC has some other pillars that I am unaware of and that Rohl/James haven't dealt with, then there are no remaining pillars supporting the absolute Egyptian chronology before the sacking of Thebes.

An aside: who was Shoshenq? Does the Bible mention him, given that he campaigned in the Northern Kingdom? Well, there is a reference to a pharoah who campaigned in the Northern Kingdom in the Bible: the "Saviour" who came to rid the Northern Kingdom of the invading Arameans (2 Kings 13:1-7). This is not an unexpected action of an Egyptian pharoah if the kingdoms of Palestine were vassal states of Egypt. I understand that the identity of this pharoah is a problem that has always perplexed scholars of the CC. Having cast off the old Shishak=Shoshenq synchronism, Rohl postulates that the "Saviour" pharoah in question was Shoshenq. Although the passage in 2 Kings does not mention the pharoah by name, given that Shoshenq campaigned in the same area, it seems a good match. As an added bonus, identifying Shoshenq with this "Saviour" also restores the synchronism with the Phonecian kings I mentioned in 3 above, as well as fitting well with the rest of Rohl's NC. Rohl goes into more detail about this match, but I will leave it at this overview level for now.

Well, that should give us enough to start with. Fire away!

There is much confusion with regards to the synchronization of ancient contemporaneous civilizations, despite the plethora of records, monuments, etc.... I prefer Velikovsky's approach, because he took one event (which he considered at the very least regional in scope (i.e. the entire middle east - if not much of the world) and not just local (i.e. Egypt), that being the events of the Exodus. His theory assumes major disruptions politically/geographically throughout the Middle East (and other affected areas) during this "event" to include the destruction of kingdoms, the displacements of peoples, etc. Such an event is the perfect place to find synchronization, as it becomes a sort of "new beginning".....following this path, Velikovsky (in his "Ages in Chaos" series) finds much synchronization, but his new chronology is too radical for the tenured historians of the conventional chronology to accept....in his chronology, Hatshepsut is the Queen of Sheba; Shisak is Thutmose III, - and on and on. There is much evidences to support his claims....on and on through the decades/centuries he finds synchronization between neighboring civilizations comparing papyrus, stelae, the scriptures, temple engravings, etc.....I believe his premise is solid, if the causal agent of the Exodus affected numerous civilizations simulataneously. According to Velikosky, there are catastrophic changes over much of the world in the 15th century B.C.E.