Ha'aretz Magazine |
(from
Ha'aretz Magazine,
Friday, October 29, 1999)
Following 70 years of
intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found
out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn
in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is
there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source
of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years,
but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it
The Kaufman Collection
Hezekiah son of Ahaz, king of
Judah Tobshalem,
commander of the army
Elishama ….servant of Ahaz
This is what archaeologists have learned from their
excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt,
did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military
campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even
harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and
Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at
most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to
many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the
early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of
the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.Most of those who are engaged in
scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology
and the history of the Jewish people - and who once went into the field
looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story - now agree that the
historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence
are radically different from what that story tells.
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/jerques.htm
In a September 22nd, 2002 speech to visiting
Christian Zionists, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asserted, "This
land is ours... God gave us the title deeds..." However, recent
scholarly research, including discoveries by an archaeological team from
the University of Tel Aviv, not only deconstruct the Biblical Old
Testament and Torah stories upon which this claim rests, but grant
previously unthinkable credence to an ancient historian's claim that the
Israelites of Exodus were actually the Hyksos, and therefore of Asiatic
origin.
To trace the foundations of this ongoing Biblical bonfire, we must go
back to 1999.
All hell broke loose in Israel in November of that year when Prof. Ze'ev
Herzog of Tel Aviv University announced: "the Israelites were never in
Egypt, did not wander the desert, did not conquer the land, and did not
pass it on to the twelve tribes". Moreover, the Jewish God YHWH had a
female consort - the goddess Asherah!
His conclusion that the kingdom of David and Solomon was at best a small
tribal monarchy, at worst total myth, has made enemies for him in the
camps of traditional Jewish and Christian belief systems. He asserts:
all evidence demonstrates that the Jews did not adopt monotheism until
the 7th Century BCE - a heresy according to the Biblical tradition
dating it to Moses at Mount Sinai.
Tel Aviv University's archaeological investigation at Megiddo and
examination of the six-sided gate there dates it to the 9th Century BCE,
not the 10th Century BCE claimed by the 1960's investigator Yigael Yadin
who attributed it to Solomon. Herzog, moreover, states that Solomon and
David are "entirely absent in the archaeological record".
In addition, Herzog's colleague, Israel Finkelstein, claims the Jews
were nothing more than nomadic Canaanites who bartered with the city
dwellers.
The team's studies concluded that Jerusalem did not have any central
status until 722 BCE with the destruction of its northern rival Samaria.
However, the real bombshell is Herzog's discovery of numerous references
to Yahweh having a consort in the form of Asherah. Inscriptions, written
in Hebrew by official Jewish scribes in the 8th century BCE, were found
in numerous sites all over the land. For Yahweh, supposedly the "One
God", to have had a female consort and, of all people, the goddess
Asherah, is dynamite of wide ranging significance.
But what does all this do to the validity of the
"Title Deeds" from God that Ariel Sharon refers to? Quite apart from the
obvious conclusion that the god assumed to have given the "promised
land" to his chosen people was just one god from a pantheon and not the
alleged monotheistic only God of the cosmos, Herzog's findings
corroborate theories that have been "out there" for some time.
The Hyksos
Like Herzog, the historian Josephus (c. 37CE - c. 100CE) denied the
account of the Hebrews being held in captivity in Egypt, but he went a
drastic step further about the racial origins of the Jews, whom he
identified with the Hyksos. He further claimed they did not flee from
Egypt but were evicted due to them being leprous.
It must be said that Josephus has been vilified over the ages as a Roman
collaborator by both Jewish and Christian scholars who have argued that
the dating of the exodus of the "Hebrews" from Egypt in the Bible
positively rules out their identification as Hyksos.
However, Jan Assmann, a prominent Egyptologist at Heidelberg University,
is quite positive in his writings that the Exodus story is an inversion
of the Hyksos expulsion and furthermore that Moses was an Egyptian.
Likewise, Donald P. Redford, of Toronto University, presents striking
evidence that the Expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt was inverted to
construct the exodus of the Hebrew slaves story in the Torah and Old
Testament. His book, which argued this theory, "Egypt, Canaan, and
Israel in Ancient Times" was Winner of the 1993 Best Scholarly Book in
Archaeology Award of the Biblical Archaeological Society.
There is irrefutable evidence that the Hyksos, a mixed Semitic-Asiatic
group who infiltrated the Nile valley, seized power in Lower Egypt in
the 17th Century BCE. They ruled there from c. 1674 BCE until expelled
when their capital, Avaris, fell to Ahmose around 1567 BCE.
The Hyksos in Egypt worshipped Set, who like ISH.KUR they identified as
a storm deity.
Under the "inversion theory", Jewish scholars in the 7th Century BCE
changed the story from "expelled" to "escaped" and as a further insult
to their enemy, Ahmose, changed and miss-spelt his name to Moses,
presenting him as leader of a Hebrew revolt. But there is also a strong
possibility of two separate origins to the "Moses" character being
merged into one, which I will come to later.
Ahmose's success in 1567 BCE led to the establishment of the 18th
Dynasty in Egypt. ThotMoses III overthrew the transvestite Pharaoh
Atchepsut, and under ThotMoses IV Egyptian conquests extended beyond the
Sinai into Palestine, Syria, reaching Babylonia and included Canaan.
By the end of this expansion, Amenophis III (1380BCE) ruled an Egyptian
empire whose provinces and colonies bordered what is now known as
Turkey. This empire would have included the regions in which most of the
expelled Hyksos now lived.
Amenophis IV succeeded the throne in 1353BCE. He established a new
monotheism cult establishing "Aten" as the one supreme god and he
changed his name to Akhenaton. Married to the mysterious Nefertiti,
Akhenaton declared himself a god on earth, intermediary between the
one-god Aten (Ra) and humanity, with his spouse as partner, effectively
displacing Isis and Osiris in the Egyptian Enead.
Declaring all men to be the children of Aten, historians suspect
Akhenaton planned an empire-wide religion. He banned all idolatry, the
use of images to represent god, and banned the idea that there was more
than one supreme god.
It is alongside Akhenaten and his father Amenophis III that we find the
second Moses.
An important figure during this period was confusingly called Amenophis
son of Hapu. He was First Minister (Vizier) to both kings. He is
generally depicted as a scribe, crouching and holding on his knees a
roll of papyrus. He more than anyone was responsible for authoring the
religion in which the old gods were merged into one living god, Aten,
who had been responsible for the creation of the Earth and of humanity.
The symbol of this god, the sun disk, represented Ra, Horus and the
other gods in one. The sun disk, in symbolism, was supported between the
horns of a bull. The Son of Hapu says this about creation: "I have come
to you who reigns over the gods oh Amon, Lord of the Two Lands, for you
are Re who appears in the sky, who illuminates the earth with a
brilliantly shining eye, who came out of the Nou, who appeared above the
primitive water, who created everything, who generated the great Enneade
of the gods, who created his own flesh and gave birth to his own form."
The king's overseer of the land of Nubia was a certain Mermose (spelled
both Mermose and Merymose on his sarcophagus in the British Museum).
According to modern historians, in Amenhotep's third year as king,
Mermose took his army far up the Nile, supposedly to quell a minor
rebellion, but actually to secure gold mining territories which would
supply his king with the greatest wealth of any ruler of Egypt.
Recent scholarship has indicated Mermose took his army to the
neighborhood of the confluence of the Nile and Atbara Rivers and beyond.
But who was this Mermose? According to historian Dawn Breasted, the
Greek translation of this name was Moses. Does Jewish tradition support
this identification?
According to Jewish history not included in the Bible, Moses led the
army of Pharaoh to the South, into the land of Kush, and reached the
vicinity of the Atbara River. There he attracted the love of the
princess of the fortress city of Saba, later Meroe. She gave up the city
in exchange for marriage. Biblical confirmation of such a marriage is to
be found in Numbers 12:1. "And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses
because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married
an Ethiopian woman."
The archaeology of the Land of Israel is completing a
process that amounts to a scientific revolution in its field. It is
ready to confront the findings of biblical scholarship and of ancient
history. But at the same time, we are witnessing a fascinating
phenomenon in which all this is simply ignored by the Israeli public.
Many of the findings mentioned here have been known for decades. The
professional literature in the spheres of archaeology, Bible and the
history of the Jewish people has addressed them in dozens of books and
hundreds of articles. Even if not all the scholars accept the individual
arguments that inform the examples I cited, the majority have adopted
their main points.
Nevertheless, these revolutionary views are not
penetrating the public consciousness. About a year ago, my colleague,
the historian Prof. Nadav Ne'eman, published an article in the Culture
and Literature section of Ha'aretz entitled "To Remove the Bible from
the Jewish Bookshelf," but there was no public outcry. Any attempt to
question the reliability of the biblical descriptions is perceived as an
attempt to undermine "our historic right to the land" and as shattering
the myth of the nation that is renewing the ancient Kingdom of Israel.
These symbolic elements constitute such a critical component of the
construction of the Israeli identity that any attempt to call their
veracity into question encounters hostility or silence. It is of some
interest that such tendencies within the Israeli secular society go
hand-in-hand with the outlook among educated Christian groups. I have
found a similar hostility in reaction to lectures I have delivered
abroad to groups of Christian bible lovers, though what upset them was
the challenge to the foundations of their fundamentalist religious
belief.
It turns out that part of Israeli society is ready to
recognize the injustice that was done to the Arab inhabitants of the
country and is willing to accept the principle of equal rights for women
- but is not up to adopting the archaeological facts that shatter the
biblical myth. The blow to the mythical foundations of the Israeli
identity is apparently too threatening, and it is more convenient to
turn a blind eye. Ha'aretz.,
October 29, 1999
|
Abraham
One remarkable thing about God and His
promises to Abraham is that He told Abram the same thing several time (See
13:14-15, 15:5), but Abram and Sarai weren't quite sure how God was going to
fulfil His promise. You see, they couldn't have children (11:30), and it seemed
obvious that this problem was a major obstacle in the way of the promise that
they would become a great nation. At one point, Abram seems to think he'll never
have any children and that a servant will be his heir (15:2), and then Sarai
comes up with the idea that maybe God wants Abram to have children through
Sarai's servant, Hagar (16:1). So, between having severe doubts and trying to
solve the problem themselves, Abram and Sarai ended up going through a lot of
turmoil as they waited to see God's promise come into being.
It seemed like God was delaying, and in the
mean time, trouble would come their way. A famine came into the land (12:10ff),
and they went to Egypt, but because Abram was afraid, he and Sarah agreed
to deceive the Egyptians and conceal their marriage, claiming that
they were only brother and sister. The same sort of thing happened again later
when they deceived another king about their marriage. Because of this deception,
Sarah was taken into the household of other men, first of Pharaoh and
then of Abimelech. Imagine how you would feel if you were Abram--imagine how you
would feel if you were Sarah!
-
Abraham
and his tribe travel to Egypt since famine struck the lands where they lived
and needed grain and food supplies, and Egypt had plenty.
-
Abraham
heard of a naughty Pharaoh, who has nothing else to do but stay at the
border of Egypt looking for beautiful women coming through the gates of
Egypt.
-
Abraham
fears that pharaoh sees his 80 years old most beautiful of all women, that
yehova has created, his
wife Sarah, at the entrance of the borders and kills him and takes her for
his harem.
-
Abraham
tells Sarah that she must act as his sister and not as his wife in order to
protect her.
-
The
naughty Pharaoh and his henchmen waiting impatiently, and peeping out the
gates at the Egyptian border to see if they can grab anything that comes
their way from the foreign lands.
-
Abraham
introduces, his wife Sarah as his sister,
gives his wife Sarah to be married to pharaoh and goes to be part of the
royal harem, and gets paid very well, lands, cattle, herds, gold and silver.
-
Pharaoh
gives Abraham and his Tribe all the gifts and gold and grain and what ever
their hearts desired as a gifts for marring Sarah.
-
She lives
as a queen and is pregnant after nine month after living with pharaoh,
but of course it is not the pharaoh who impregnated her, but it was Abraham,
except the bible fails to says when, where, and how? also this god made sure
that the king of Egypt does not touch the eighty year old beauty, however she must
have had some explanation to say to the king on how she was pregnant or may
be god did the explanation himself.
-
Sarah has
Child named Isaac nine monthlater
-
She
confesses to pharaoh and tells him the truth about herself and Abraham.
-
Pharaoh
is chocked however very kind and has a good
heart that such sins did not anger him at all nor the whole court of Egypt
who must have been shocked at the news, even though that Abraham and Sarah
both lied, deceived and committed adultery, Pharaoh sets them free and
gives Abraham more great wealth, lands, and presents and gifts.
- Cf. Genesis 12:17-19:
But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great
plagues because of Sarai .... So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, 'What is
this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?
Why did you say, 'She is my sister'? so that I took her for my wife? Now
then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone'.
-
For Pharaoh must have enough
of the 80 year old (beauty)
and even paid a fortune to get rid of her along with his confused son or son
of Abraham and his tribe. so the bible say.
Surly the LORD had his hands into this situation.
The Sins of Abraham and Sarah
Cowardice
Deceit
Lust
Greed
Betrayal
Lying
Adultery
Accessory to Adultery
Prostitution and
Pimping
1- Abraham
is a cowered and feared Pharaoh more than his own
god
2- Sarah
is an adulteress both in Egyptian law and Hebrew yehovic law And would
have been executed by
the Egyptian court along with Abraham
3- Abraham
is a pimp for accepting Gold and gifts from the sale of his own wife to
Pharaoh.
4-
A pure business transaction
according to the bible as in our world today in brothels or high business
deals
involving great amount of wealth and seduction by beautiful women.
5- Isaac,
The born child, whose child is he? The fooled Pharaoh or the 100
years old Abraham.
The Birth of Isaac.]
And Abraham
was ninety-nine [Fol. 25b, col. 2] years old when God went into his house
and gave Sârâ a son, and he was one hundred years old when Isaac was born to
him. And Isaac was thirteen years old when his father took him and went up to
the mountain of Yâbhôs (Jebus) to Melchisedek, the priest of God, the Most High.
Isaac and Rebecca.]
And when
Isaac was forty years old, Eliezer, a son of the house of Abraham, went down and
brought Rabkâ (Rebecca) from the east, and Isaac took her to wife. And
when Abraham died Isaac buried him by the side of Sârâ.
Abraham was
175 years old when he died, and Isaac and Ishmael buried him. Rebecca was the
daughter of Bethuel, the Aramean,(armean did not yet exist in the region,
not for anthor 1000 year later)a native of the town of Arâch
(Erech ?).
Is this the Truth? Or may be another version
would be better and would make more sense at these
Roman fabricated ones
That a prophet
of god, who had many conversations with his good god would allow such wickedness
and evil primitive ways. To give up his wife and give her to another man, in
exchange for material gain.
Alternatively,
perhaps the real story is different but written by ignorant illiterate primitive
scribes, who with no doubt could not read what they have written.
The real
Story
"Fear
not to go down into Egypt; for I will THERE make of you a great nation."
Genesis 46:7
1- Egypt
becomes the world’s greatest power under King Thutmosis III (Tawout
Mose) III who conquered all the land beyond the Egyptian borders and built
the Egyptian empire from the Nile to the Euphrates.
2- Most
of the ancient world pays tribute and became vassals under Egyptian rule.
3- Abraham
was a smart tribal leader of
a new united small shepherds tribes wandering around for food and want to join
the big world at his time.
4- Abraham
ventures into Egypt, which
was the great super power of her time.
5- Abraham
wanted his children to be
taught and learn to read and write, and to evolve his tribe to a better quality
in life.
6-Abraham
offers his sister or daughter to the harem of the pharaoh court as sign of
alliance and respect to the king of Egypt and by this secure a good dowry and
avoids famine or invasion.
7- The
sons of minor foreign wives in the Egyptian court would not be able to rule
Egypt, but would rule their mother’s estates or lands, when under the influence
of Egypt. Isaac is probably one of those sons, who was raised as an Egyptian and
would always make him divine and special.
This version
would be at least being more honourable and would make the story truer, unless
this god of Abraham is not a god but a demon, which likes these events in his
way.
The choice is yours
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Joseph
Yo seph / Waser
/ Oser Seph
The story was created from the following
Stories and Royal Inscriptions and Tombs
The author and the inventor of the
fantasy biblical, Joseph, Moses, studied in Egypt well and were well acquainted
with a lot of its famous classical literature and of its historic events.
1-
Vizier Imhotep
2-
The Famine Stela of King Djoser
3-
The Tale of the Two Brothers
4-
The Akhnaton Period (Actual History)
5-
Vizier Aperia / Aper El
6-
Manetho Histories
7-
Chaeremon Histories
8-
EGYPTIAN RELIGION
Yoseph /
Joseph
Joseph is sold
into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. He is falsely accused by Potiphar's wife,
and is imprisoned. He interprets Pharaoh's dreams, saving Egypt (and his own
family) during a famine.
"Joseph was thirty years old
when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from
Pharaoh's presence and traveled throughout Egypt."
- Genesis 41:46
"So Joseph bought all the land
in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the
famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh's..."
- Genesis 47:20
Pharaoh gave Joseph the name
Zaphenath-Paneah..."
- Genesis 41:45a
So Joseph settled his father and his
brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the
district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed."
- Genesis 47:11
Pharaoh asked the brothers, 'What is
your occupation?'
'Your servants are shepherds,' they replied to Pharaoh, 'just as our fathers
were.' They also said to him, 'We have come to live here awhile, because the
famine is severe in Canaan and your servants' flocks have no pasture. So now,
please let your servants settle in Goshen.'"
- Genesis 47:3-4
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of
his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a
richly ornamented [the meaning of the Hebrew for 'richly ornamented' is
uncertain] robe for him."
- Genesis 37:3
gave Joseph 'to wife Asanath the
daughter of Potipherah priest of On'
generation of Ephraim's children. Also
the children of Makir son of Manasseh were placed at birth on Joseph's knees
[that is, were counted as his].
Then Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am about to die. But God will surely come
to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' And Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath and
said, 'God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up
from this place.'
So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten. And after they embalmed him, he
was placed in a coffin in Egypt."
- Genesis 50:22-26
Vizier Imhotep
Joseph |
Imhotep |
Second in command under
unknown Pharoah |
Second in command under
Pharoah Djoser |
Lived to be 110 years of age |
Lived to be 110 years of age |
Great architect and builder |
Great architect and builder |
Stored up corn during 7 yrs of
plenty |
Stored up corn during 7 yrs of
plenty |
Saw seven years of famine -
fed people |
Saw seven years of famine -
fed people |
Interpreter of dreams |
Interpreter of dreams |
Built pyramids & palaces |
Built the Step Pyramid &
palaces |
Zaphnath-paaneah-
Over physicians
|
Was a physician |
Instituted a income tax of one
fifth |
Instituted a income tax of one
fifth |
Married into the Priesthood of
On |
Married into the Priesthood of
On |
Knowledge of astrology |
Knowledge of astrology |
Coat of many breadths/colors
(pas) =wide tunic) |
-------------- |
Became an educated man |
A poet and educated medical
writer |
Overseer of public works |
Overseer of public works |
Legendary history |
Legendary history |
Name means to add, increase,
to join or gather together |
Name means the one who comes
in peace |
Was one of twelve siblings |
Was one of twelve siblings) |
Seal-bearer of the King of Lower Egypt, one who is near the head of the King
(i.e., vizier), Director of the Great Mansion, Royal representative, High Priest
of Heliopolis, Imhotep, the carpenter and the sculptor..."
- from a limestone bust from a lost statue of King Djoser
"...Imhotep was often
characterized in inscriptions as 'the image and likeness of
Thoth'
- and also as the 'successor to Thoth' after the deity had ascended to heaven.."
- Graham Hancock, The Sign
and the Seal
"At some point, through
a shift in the Egyptian psychological view of the status of Imhotep, his role as
a sage became enhanced by attributing his birth to the direct intervention of
one of the major gods. Imhotep became 'son of
Ptah'
creator god of Memphis, whose nature as a god of craftsman particularly suited
the fathering of an offspring renowned for sculptural skill. From the Saite
period (Dynasty XXVI) there is ample evidence of a vigorous cult centered around
Imhotep son of Ptah at Memphis and Saqqara. Hundreds of bronzes depict him in an
iconography which subtly emphasize his wisdom and divine parent. He is
represented seated with a papyrus scroll across his knees, wearing a skullcap
and a long linen kilt. We can interpret the papyrus as suggesting the sources of
knowledge kept by scribes in the 'House
of Life'.
The headgear identifies Imhotep with Ptah, and his priestly linen garment
symbolizes his religious purity."
"By the Ptolemaic period "as his cult spread, more and more emphasis was placed
on his role as a supreme physician readily identifiable with the Greek Asklepios....The
cult of Imhotep became a focal point for married couples desiring a son....It
was this immediacy of Imhotep son of Ptah as resolver of human problems, often
medical, that ensured the popularity of his cult into the Roman period."
- George Hart, Egyptian Myths
The Famine Stele on the
Island of Sehel
The Legend
During the reign of Djoser (3rd dynasty) a terrible drought lasted for
seven years.
I was in mourning on my throne, Those of the palace were in
grief….because Hapy had failed to come in time. In a period of seven years,
Grain was scant, Kernels were dried up…Every man robbed his twin…Children
cried…The hearts of the old were needy…Temples were shut, Shrines covered
with dust, Everyone was in distress….I consulted one of the staff of the
Ibis, the Chief lector-priest of Imhotep, son of Ptah South-of-the-Wall….He
departed, he returned to me quickly, He let me know the flow of Hapy…
Translation by Lichtheim
Imhotep, a high official and Renaissance man, revealed to the king that the
Nile had its origins in a land consecrated to
Khnum
and gave an account of the building materials available at Elephantine. Khnum
appeared to Djoser in a dream with the promise to end the drought and described
how a temple should be built. Grateful, Djoser re-established the cult of Khnum
at Elephantine.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aperia Vizier/Aper-el
Vizier of Amenhotep III
1390 -1353
B.C.
Aper-el
was an Asiatic who rose to become Amenhotep III's vizier. I don't
know anything else about him, and don't know if he served before or
at the same time as Ramose. Aper-el may have been Vizier of
Lower Egypt while Ramose was Vizier of Upper Egypt. |
Aperia
is in fact a diminutivo of this Vizier, whose official
name according to the habitual formulation of the time for this type of names is
Aper-El , with an evident similarity with other names of semítico origin.
Although Aperia very is known being the Vizier of Ajnatón, the data contributed
by its tomb indicate to us that it developed almost all his race under the reign
of Amenofis III.
Next the long list of titles is
exposed that appear writings in their tomb:
1.
First Prophet of the God Atón.
2. Father of the God, divine Father, bienamado divine Father.
3. Vizier
4. Judge
5. Mayor of the city.
6. That that is at the top of the whole Earth.
7. Messenger of the king
8. Nobleman and Prince
9. Chancellor of the king of the Low Egypt.
10. Unique companion (of the king).
11. That that satisfies to the Gentleman with Two Earth thanks to its
personality.
12. Favorite of the perfect God (the king).
13. Tutor of the children of the royalty.
14. Boy of the Kap
15. Mouth that calms in the whole Earth.
16. That to that occurs what it is in the heart to have conformity to the words
of its Majesty.
17. Balance of the Gentleman of the Double Country.
18. Eyes of the king in all the country. (or in all place)
19. That that the Gentleman of the Double Country has made his Ka (double)
20. Head of the horses (General of the Chariots) - doubtful but very probable
Pharaoh
Thutmose III (1457-1425 BCE) initiated the Egyptian practice of raising princes
of subject kings of Western Asia. Aper-el, the Semite who became a vizier, was
referred to as “a child of the nursery.” These nurseries might have housed
dozens to hundreds of children.
In addition to some titles that could
be but well honorary, this man showed a series of very high responsibilities in
the regency of Egypt, beginning by the title of Vizier.
The funeral equipment of the family of
Aper-El, is very similar with the one of Yuya and Yours, and consequently with
the royalty of Egypt.
Gifts coming from the real pair
Amenofis III and its Tiye wife can be emphasized directly. To be concrete, that
was a wood coffer with the developed protocol of Amenofis III, with his prenomen
of Neb-Maat-Re, as well as the one of the Great Real Wife queen Tiye
[1] . Also were two slopes engravings with the cartridges of this king.
On the other hand, also were seal
fragments with the inscription " Nefer-Jepru-Ra ua-n-Ra, loved of Unnefer
(Osiris)" that is the name of coronation of Amenofis IV. This indicates to us
that this man entered functions in the reign of this king very initially.
Everything what we know Aperia, has
been obtained from the discovery of its tomb, that luckyly has given enough
information, non single of he himself but also of certain part of its family as
it is its Tauret wife, Uriai alias, and one of its children called Huy. one can
be done presentation of this family from two of the inscriptions of its tomb:
" the Mayor of the City and Aperia Vizier, justified
(late) in the west of Menfis (y) its sister (he is to say his
wife), loved his, the Lady of the Uriai House, justified in the west of
Menfis, favored by Unnefer" (designation of Osiris).
"Offering that gives the king to the living Atón, Gentleman
of the Sky, Sir of the Earth, that illuminates the Two Shores
(Egypt), when rising which all man and all woman live;
with such aim that it gives bread, water, pie, (...) to the Mayor of the City
and Aperia Vizier, justified " and it follows
immediately: "By its son who makes live his name, the Head of the Horses
(General of the Chariots) of the Gentleman of Two Earth, Huy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
King Solomon Pharaoh Amenhotep III
In the Bible,(1)
King Solomon is said to have:
1.
Inherited a vast empire conquered by his father David that extended from
the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia (1 Kings 4:21; Gen.
15:18; Deut. 1:7,11:24; Joshua 1:4; 2 Sam. 8:3; 1 Chron. 18:3).
2.
Accumulated great wealth and wisdom (1 Kings 10:23).
3.
Administered his kingdom through a system of 12 districts (1 Kings 4:7).
4.
Possessed a large harem, which included "the daughter of Pharaoh" (1
Kings 3:1; 1 Kings 11:1,3; 1 Kings 9:16).
5.
Honored other gods in his old age (1 Kings 11:1-2,4-5).
6.
Devoted his reign to great building projects (1 Kings 9:15,17-19),
including:
a.
the Temple (1 Kings 6).
b.
the Royal Palace (1 Kings 7:2-12).
c.
the walls of Jerusalem,
d.
the Millo (an earthen fill made to enlarge Jerusalem) (1 Kings 11:27)
e.
the royal cities of Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer
f.
the store cities, the cities for his horsemen and the cities for his
chariots throughout his empire.
To be consistent with the pattern of
other great Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the ancient Near East (Egyptian,
Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite), it would be expected that numerous
documents, art, and inscriptions on buildings or public monuments would have
been left by such a great king or by his descendants later in honor of him.(2)
Yet no article of any kind bearing his name has ever been found.(3)
The cities of Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer
have now been extensively excavated. A stratum containing large palaces, temples
and strong fortifications was found in each of these cities. The name of Solomon
was not found, but the cartouche of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh
Amenhotep III instead.(4)
In Jerusalem, it has not been possible to excavate the temple mount, however,
extensive excavations in the city, including the areas adjacent to the temple
mount have not revealed the existence of a Solomaic palace complex.(5)
Moreover, excavation of the Millo has revealed (due to pottery found in the
Millo) that its original construction was also contemporary with the Egyptian 18th
Dynasty of Amenhotep III.(6)
Amenhotep III, known in ancient times as
the "King of Kings" and "Ruler of Ruler's,"(7)
was a Pharaoh of Egypt's glorious 18th Dynasty. He, like Solomon, inherited a
vast empire whose influence extended quite literally from the Nile to the
Euphrates.(8)
In contrast to the empire of Solomon, the empire of Amenhotep is indisputable.(9)
The buildings, monuments, documents, art, and numerous other vestiges of his
reign are ubiquitous and unparalleled (with the possible exception being those
left by the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh, Ramses II).
The entire reign of Amenhotep III was
devoted to monumental construction throughout Egypt, Canaan, and Syria.(10)
In addition to the ancient world's most glorious temple at Luxor,(11)
he built many other temples of similar design throughout Egypt and in the rest
of his empire,(12)
including the Canaanite garrison cities of Hazor, Megiddo,
Gezer,(13)
Lachish and Beth-shean.(14)
According to Egyptian records,
Amenhotep's father Thutmose IV and grandfather Amenhotep II deported over 80,000
Canaanites. The Canaanite inhabitants of Gezer were specifically included
in this deportation.(15)
It was during Amenhotep III's reign that Gezer and other major Palestine cities
were refortified as royal Egyptian garrisons, and endowed with fine temples and
palaces.
The Bible states that in Solomon's day,
the Pharaoh of Egypt captured the Canaanite city of Gezer and presented
it to his daughter as a dowry upon her marriage to Solomon (1 Kings 9:16-17).(16)
It was customary and obligatory for
Amenhotep III to marry "the daughter of Pharaoh" in order to secure the throne.(17)
This is precisely what was done when he was married to Sitamun, the daughter of
his father, Pharaoh Thutmose IV.
The network of Egyptian 18th Dynasty
garrison cities also included Jerusalem. If construction by Amenhotep III at
Gezer, Hazor, Megiddo and other garrison cities is any indication, then a
magnificent temple undoubtedly was also built by Amenhotep on Jerusalem's
venerated Temple Mount.(18)
The structure adjacent to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, known traditionally as
"Solomon's stables," is consistent with the architecture of Amenhotep's garrison
cities.(19)
Archaeology has also confirmed that chariots were kept in these cities during
his reign in groups of between thirty to one hundred and fifty each.(20)
The ancient mining operations at Timna
in the Negev desert, known as "Solomon's mines," "are earlier than Solomon by
some three hundred years [in the conventional chronology],"(21)
dating once again to the time of Amenhotep III. Copper from Timna, gold from the
Sudan,(22)
other precious metals, jewels and high quality stone were used in great
abundance in Amenhotep's temples, just as they were in Solomon's.(23)
A stela from Amenhotep's mortuary temple boasts that the temple was "embellished
with gold throughout, its floor shining with silver ... with royal statues of
granite, of quartzite and precious stones."(24)
The list of materials used in another temple built by Amenhotep is also
"staggering: 3.25 tons of electrum [an alloy of silver and gold], 2.5 tons of
gold, 944 tons of copper..."(25)
The Biblical Solomon's greatest
satisfaction is said to have been the challenge of completing grand projects
(Ecclesiastes 2:4-11). The same was said of Amenhotep III. A royal Egyptian text
of the period reads, "Lo, His Majesty's heart was satisfied with making very
great monuments, the like of which had never come into being since the primeval
age of the Two Lands."(26)
Only an enormously wealthy king of a long established empire could have built so
splendidly and in so many widely distributed locations in the ancient world.
Amenhotep III was arguably the ancient world's wealthiest king. The completion
of such magnificent projects required management of a considerable and constant
source of labor and revenue extending over a period of many decades.
The administration and taxation system
of Amenhotep with its 12 districts(27)
is identical to that of Solomon as described in the Bible (1 Kings 4:2-7,27;
5:13; 9:23). Amenhotep also dedicated himself to rediscovering the wisdom,
mysteries and traditions of earlier Egyptian Dynasties.(28)
A strong relationship has been established between the "Proverbs of Solomon" in
the Bible and the "Maxims of Amenhotep III" found in Egypt.(29)
In addition to the projects already
mentioned, Amenhotep also built a completely new palace complex in Thebes. The
new royal residence included all of the elements contained in the palace complex
of Solomon which are described in the Bible (1 Kings 7:2-12),(30)
namely:
1.
a house made almost entirely out of cedars of Lebanon (built for
Amenhotep's Jubilee festival);(31)
2.
a colonnade (hall of columns) fronted by a portico (porch) and surrounded
by a column-lined courtyard;(32)
3.
a throne room built with many wooden columns and whose floor was a
painted lake scene (identical to the one crossed in wonder by the Queen of Sheba
when she approached the throne of Solomon, as described in the Koran);(33)
4.
a separate palace built for Sitamun, "the daughter of Pharaoh;"(34)
5.
a royal palace (consisting of his own residence, the residence of his
Great Wife, Tiye, and a residence for the royal harem).(35)
Amenhotep, like Solomon, was relentless
in his pursuit of women for his harem, especially beautiful foreign women of
both royal and common backgrounds alike.(36)
Amenhotep's harem included two princesses from Babylon,(37)
two princesses from Syria, two princesses from Mitanni, and like Solomon's
harem, it included a princess from each of the seven nations listed in 1 Kings
11:1.(38)
As the mightiest king of the Middle East, Amenhotep did not send any of his own
daughters to other kings in exchange, nor did any other Pharaoh of this dynasty
(or likely any other throughout Egypt's history).(39)
He specifically denied a request by the king of Babylon for an Egyptian wife.(40)
Importantly, the Bible emphasizes Solomon's Egyptian bride, but does not mention
that Solomon had any Hebrew wives.(41)
Rehoboam, who is said to have succeeded Solomon, was the son of an Ammonite
princess.(42)

Palace of
Amenhotep III in Thebes, wher (queen shebawalked with her dress raised from the
tiles that looked like a pond) and where it housed over five hundred wives of
the king
The court of Amenhotep III was an
extremely liberal one, and reflected every possible excess of an affluent and
secure kingdom.(43)
Eroticism in art and court life reached its height during the reign of
Amenhotep.(44)
The famous "nude dancing girls" mural dates to Amenhotep's reign.(45)
As with Solomon, Amenhotep denied himself nothing "his eyes desired" and
"refused his heart no pleasure" (Ecclesiastes 2:10). However, the last years of
Amenhotep's thirty-eight year reign were not pleasant ones. The long years of
indulgence had taken their toll and he had many ailments. As a compassionate
gesture, his Mitanni brother-in-law(46)
sent him an idol of the goddess Ishtar (i.e., Asherah)(1 Kings 11:5).

The King Amenhotep III bedroom in Malkata Palace
The "inescapable conclusion"(47)
is that the story of Solomon was patterned specifically after the life of
Amenhotep III. The name Solomon itself, which literally means "peace" or
"safety" points to Amenhotep III whose long and pervasive reign in the 14th
Century B.C. did not include any major military campaigns, but was characterized
by unprecedented stability throughout the Near East.(48)
After the Egyptian 18th Dynasty, the region between the two great rivers was not
controlled by a single power again until the Assyrian empire of Ashurbanipal
(the grandson of Sennacherib) who invaded Egypt and pillaged Thebes in the 7th
Century B.C.,(49)
and the 6th Century B.C. empire of Cyrus, who also conquered Egypt and made it a
Persian province.(50)
There is no evidence of any empire at any time controlling this region whose
capital was Jerusalem.(51)
Solomon is said to have had "a thousand
and four hundred" chariots (1 Kings 1:26). This represents a prodigious army by
ancient standards, and one which could only have been amassed over a long period
of time by an established civilization.(52)
Yet we are told that only five years after the great King Solomon's death, the
Egyptian Pharaoh Shishak and his allies invaded Judah and captured its fortified
cities with little or no military resistance (2 Chron. 12). The Bible adds that
Jerusalem itself was spared only after delivering up the entirety of King
Solomon's accumulated wealth to Shishak.
The rapidness with which Solomon's
empire was established, as described by the Bible, and the ease with which it
shortly thereafter submitted to a foreign power is also not consistent with the
pattern set by other great ancient civilizations.
In the New Chronology model, the Pharaoh
Seti I ascends in Egypt around the middle of the fourty year reign attributed to
Solomon. Shortly after his coronation, Seti I and the Egyptian army set out to
deal with a crisis in Palestine. The Karnak account states, "their chiefs are
gathered... on the hills of Palestine,"(2)
and that "Beth Shean was under attack from a Canaanite king and could not get
help."(3)
Beth Shean is listed as one of the most important Solomonic cities, and yet it
is Seti I who is taking action to defend Egyptian interests there.
The Bible does not mention this
Egyptian military intervention. However, it does mention the capture of Gezer by
the army of Egypt during the reign of Solomon. The Bible also records that
Solomon had troubling adversaries, e.g., Jeroboam who is said to have fled from
Solomon to the Pharaoh Shishak in Egypt; Rezon, the former minister of Hadadezer
(identified by Rohl as Aziru of the Amarna letters) in Damascus; and Hadad in
Edom (I Kings 11:14-40). Osman notes that both the Bible and the Talmud agree
that Solomon was not the original name of the local monarch, but perhaps
Jedediah.(4)
It is too obvious that the fictional Solomon Stories were Taken from the life
of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, since he was always referred to as the King of
Peaceful Times.
One of the most amazing
discoveries of all time occurred in 1999 in Egypt. In 1999 Archaeologist Edgar
Pusch of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany discovered the
floor remains of an immense temple ruin with the gold dust floors still intact
under nearly sixty centimeters of Nile mud about 100 kilometers north of Cairo,
Egypt, in the area assigned by Biblical literature to the dwelling place of the
Hebrews in Egypt.
Nothing like it has
ever been found in Egypt before. Because the cartouche (hieroglyphic insignia of
the king) of Ramses II has been found there, the Temple has been assigned to
Ramses II.
As shown in other pages
of LexiLine and from the revised dating of the birth of Moses to ca. 1700 BC on
the authority of Artapanus, Ramses II can only have been the famed King Solomon.
Hence the temple floors discovered by Pusch belonged to the destroyed FIRST
Temple of Solomon.
It is the temple in
which Solomon kept the Ark of the Covenant. The floors are made of a substance
into which great amounts of gold dust were mixed. When one walks on them, the
shoes leave a trail of gold dust in the air behind, verifying the legend of the
wealth of Solomon, according to which even the dust of the streets in Per-Ramses
(Pi-Ramesse) was of gold.
The legendary king of Israel, King David's son and successor,
which reign became known as Israel’s golden age. His date of birth is placed
between 975 and 970 BC, and his death between 928 and 922 BC.
Building on David’s achievements, Solomon instituted a
proficient centralized government, with a professional army and an advanced
trade network. Above all, he poured attention on Jerusalem, raising superb
public buildings and palaces, and carrying out his father’s plan to construct a
Temple for the Lord, worthy to house the
Ark of the Covenant.
Solomon had about 700 wives and 300
concubines. Many of the exotic women were in fact living treaties. He
sustained alliances by taking wives from the family of every ruler willing to
sign a treaty. He even kept mighty Egypt out of Israel by marrying an Egyptian
princess, daughter of a Pharaoh Shishaq / Shoshenq, and that Shishaq paid the
city of Gaza as a Dowry to Solomon.
By loving so many foreign women and allowing them to continue
their own forms of worship corrupting the Holy City with their exotic rituals
and gods, Solomon not only tolerated this paganism but also participated in
it himself. Some even say that he became a skilled
sorcerer. According to one of the many legends about him, Solomon
used pagan
magic to imprison 72 rebellious
evil
Demons into a brass vessel, throwing it then into a deep lake, where they
were supposed to stay until the end of time. In an attempt to find great
treasure, the
Babylonians rescued the vessel and broke it
open, allowing the
demons to escape. These
devils
became known as the 72 spirits of Solomon.
Pharaoh Shishaq According to the bible conquered and sacked
Jerusalem Just when Solomon Died.
The Sack of Jerusalem
Very fanciful, false and doubtful
1-since It is man who pays Dowry to marry a woman, especially
if Solomon wanted to keep the might of Egypt out of his lands.
2-According to all the Diplomatic letters of correspondence
found between Egypt And other Nations, it was customary for these princes and
kings to marry their daughters and sisters to the Egyptian kings as a form of
respect and alliance to the ruling Egypt who were a super power in her days.
In the case of the references to Solomon’s marriage to
Pharaoh’s daughter, several other facts lessen confidence in their historical
reliability. First, as noted above, there is nothing in the references to
indicate that they were drawn from any first-hand source; that is, any account
that was written close in time to the events and by a person or persons in a
position to know the facts about Solomon’s reign. Quite the contrary—Had the
biblical writers been drawing from first-hand sources found in archives or
records coming from Solomon’s time, they surely would have included the names of
the pharaoh and his daughter. After all, the point of a royal marriage of this
sort was to establish an alliance, and listing the names of the participants was
indispensable to this process. Also, a comparison of these notices to the
biblical report about Shoshenq’s (Shishak’s) campaign in Palestine (1 Kings
14:22-25) immediately shows the differences. In the latter, not only is a year
given, but a specific king’s name is also mentioned. Neither of these data is
found in the reports of the marriage. Nor is the princess’s name given.
Undoubtedly when the biblical authors had access to specific names, places,
dates and such, they included them. Therefore, the references to Solomon’s
marriage resemble tradition and stock royal ideology not first-hand reports
drawn from inscriptions, annals, archives, etc.
Second, we have explicit evidence from Egypt itself that
pharaohs did not marry their daughters to foreigners. In a letter dating to the
time of Amenhotep III (ca. 14th century BCE), Kadashman-Enlil I, king of
Babylon, quoted Amenhotep III as having said, “From of old a daughter of the
king of the land of Egypt was not given to anyone.” Indeed, from what is
otherwise known of the Amarna period, the time of Amenhotep III, Egyptian
pharaohs regularly married princesses from foreign countries, but never allowed
their own daughters to marry a foreign potentate. Moreover, an analysis of
Egyptian evidence from the time of David and Solomon supports this fact by
showing a lack of marriages of pharaoh’s daughters to foreigners. Although a few
scholars have attempted to demonstrate that such marriages occurred, primarily
when Egypt was weak, my analysis of their published evidence and arguments shows
that their claim does not hold up. To date, there are no clearly attested
marriages of princesses of reigning pharaohs to foreigners. All of these
considerations should make us skeptical of the historical reliability of the
biblical reports of Solomon’s marriage to an Egyptian princess. True, we cannot
prove that it never happened, but prudence and caution make it necessary to
avoid placing any weight on these reports in our reconstruction of relations
between Egypt and Palestine during Solomon’s reign.
please note that after heavy intensive excavation in Israel, nothing has been
found of Solomon or any of his subject or the mention of his name any where.
Most artifacts found belongs to Pharaoh Amenhotep III and other Pharaohs of
Egypt.
When I was in Israel in 1968 1 took the tourist bus to view
the so-called "Pillars of Solomon --impressive geological structures north of
Eilat. I smiled within myself at the knowledge which the other tourists did not
have that we were in an area of ancient copper mining activities as slag heaps
were all around. Later I learned to my chagrin that Benno Rothenberg in 1969
discovered at the base of those pillars an Egyptian temple with inscriptions of
the XlXth-XXth Dynasties dating from the 14th to the 12th centuries B.C.
Rothenberg therefore maintained that these were earlier Egyptian mines and not
Solomon's. 75 In a recent article Bimson argues that radio-carbon
dates do indicate that the Timna mines were being utilized during Solomon's
reign.76
EDWIN M. YAMAUCHI
History Department
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
It is too obvious that
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tel Amarna Tablets
Biblical
Parallels in the Time of David
"In 1887, 380 clay tablets were discovered in Egypt at a place called Tell
el-Amarna and have come to be known as the Amarna tablets. These tablets were
letters from foreign rulers, mainly of city-states but also of the more powerful
northern kingdoms of present-day Syria, Turkey and Cyprus, as well as what was
once Babylonia and Assyria. They were written to the Egyptian pharaoh of the
day; this was Amenhotep IV who soon changed his name to the famous Akhenaten.
"The tablets were carried to Egypt, transcribed onto papyrus from the original
Akkadian/Cuneiform script into heiroglyphs for the pharaoh to read and then the
original tablets stored at Amarna to be discovered some 3000 years later."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
According to conventional chrononology, Amenhotep III ruled from 1402 to 1364
B.C.E. and his son Akhenaton from 1364-1347 B.C.E.
Amenhotep IV "revived the ancient cult of the sun god in the form of Aten
(the disc of the sun). Amenhotep believed that the Aten revealed himself only to
his 'son', the king. He changed his name to Akhenaten ('living spirit of the
Aten') in honor of his god."
- The Useborne Book of the Ancient World"
"The Akkadian language was the lingua franca of the time [of the Pharaoh
Akhenaten] and was used as the official language of correspondence between the
city-state rulers of the Levant and Pharaoh. The majority of the tablets found
at Amarna were letters sent to Egypt from these city-state rulers or file copies
of replies from Pharaoh (EA 45 to EA 382), but there was also correspondence
from the 'Great Kings' of the powerful northern kingdoms of Mitanni, Hatti
(Turkey), Alashiya (Cyprus), Karduniash (Babylonia) and Assyria (EA 1 to EA
45)."
"In the Amarna Letters to Pharaoh from the city-state rulers of Palestine and
Syria (including Phoenicia) we find copious references to a group of people
called the habiru (or in Sumerian logogram-form 'SA.GAZ')."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1973), pp. 196, 200
"Some of them were anxious letters written from Jerusalem (Urusalim), warning
the pharaoh an invasion by the 'Habiru [Khabiru]', approaching from
Trans-Jordan."
- Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos
Akhenaton's mother, Queen Tiye, was evidiently the recipient of the letters
addressed to her son and ignored the pleas for help.
"The Amarna tablets paint a picture of a tribal Palestine ruled by various
city-state rulers of Canaanite, Philistine and Israelite/Hebrew origin as well
as the larger state of Amurru/Aram to the north, very much corroborating the
biblical picture of Samuel. They tell us that the coastal plains were in the
hands of Philistines of Indo-European origin, dominated by city-state rulers
with Indo-European names who communicate with Pharaoh Akhenaten in the Amarna
letters. The Bible tells of the coastal plains being out of the control of Saul
and under Philistine rule. The city of Gezer in the Amarna letters is under
Canaanite rulers; Gezer in the Bible is under Canaanite rule until given to
Solomon as a dowry by Pharaoh in I Kings 9:16."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
![]()
(1) David in the Time of Tuthmosis III?
Kings Saul and David reigned in the 10th century B.C.E. according to the
biblical chronology but Josephus dates David to a far earlier period.
"He was buried by his son
Solomon, in Jerusalem, with great magnificence, and with all the other funeral
pomp which kings used to be buried with; moreover, he had great and immense
wealth buried with him, the vastness of which may be easily conjectured at by
what I shall now say; for a thousand and three hundred years afterward [in the
time of] Hyrcanus the high priest, when he was besieged by Antiochus..."
- Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews
The seige of the second Temple in Jerusalem by Antiochus can accurately be
dated to 167 B.C.E. Adding another thousand and three hundred years puts David's
funeral at 1467 B.C.E., or almost 450 years before the
generally accepted date (circa 1020 B.C.E.) This, according to
conventional chronology, would be during the reign of the greatest Egyptian
warrior-pharoah Tuthmosis III [1490-1436 B.C.E.], who extended
the Egyptian empire to its furthest limits.
"The David who established an empire that stretched from the Nile to the
Euphrates can only have lived in the fifteenth century B.C...The Israelite
infiltration of Canaan, the Promised land, was a fragmentary process that did
not gather pace until after Egypt lost control over Palestine in the second half
of the twelfth century B.C...The David whose main campaigns were against the
Philistines cannot have lived before the twelfth century B.C. because that was
when the mass invasion of the coastal plain of Canaan by the Philistines took
place."
"The King of Qadesh, a strong fortified city on the River Orontes in northern
Syria, led a Syrio-Canaanite confederacy in a general rebellion against Egypt.
In response, Thuthmosis III marched into western Asia to regain the territories
between the Nile and Euphrates that had been conquered forty years earlier by
his grandfather, Thuthmosis I. In the next twenty years he led a total of
seventeen campaigns in western Asia, at the end of which he had earned himself
the reputation as the mightiest of all the kings of the ancient world. The
account of these various wars, copied from the daily records of the scribe who
accompanied the army on its campaigns, is to be found in the Annals,
a 223-line document that covers the inside of the walls enclosing the corridor
surrounding the granite holy of holies Thuthmosis III built at Karnak."
- Ahmen Osman, The House of the Messiah
Comparison of Military Campaigns
|
Tuthmosis III |
King David |
Tuthmosis III splits his army and defeats the divided forces of
Qadesh near Megiddo. The kings flee and seek refuge behind the gates
of their fortress.
After seven months of siege, Tuthmosis III rejoins his army from a
fortress to the east and leads it in the capture of Megiddo. |
David splits his army and defeats the allies of the Amonites in open
field. The Amonites flee and seek refuge behind the gates of their
city.
After the Israelites lay seige to Rabbah (II Samuel 11:1) David
rejoins his army from Jerusalem and leads it in the capture of
Rabbah. |
Many city states between the river Jordan and the coast and some in
Syria now recognize the suzerainty of Egypt. "Then that enemy and
the princes who were with him sent out to My Majesty, with all their
children carrying abundant tribute, gold and silver..." |
Then David took "their king's crown from off his head, the weight
whereof was a talent of gold with precious stones; and it was set on
David's head. And he brought forth the spoil of the city in great
abundance." |
|
|
The Egyptian army captures three cities by the River Litani in south
Lebanon, then return to Egypt. |
David's army crosses the Jordan and defeats a new Syrian army,
slaying"the men of seven hundred chariots...and forty thousand
horsemen." - II Samuel 10:18 |
After 3 year campaign, Qadesh in northern Syria captured. The
Egyptians then cross the Euphrates and defeat the King of Mitanni.
By the fords of Carchemish Tuthmosis III erected a stele to mark his
victory. |
David "smote also Hadadezer...King of Jobah (towards Hamath in
northern Syria), as he went to recover his border at the river
Euphrates." - II Samuel 8:3
And "gat him a name" (erected a stele). - II Samuel 8:13 |
"It is remarkable that none of the letters from Tel Amarna refer to central
Palestine. There is no mention of any town in lower Galilee or in Samaria,
except Zabuba, and Megiddo. Taanach, Shechem, Jezreel, Dothan, Bethel, and other
such places are unnoticed, as well as Heshbon, Medeba, Rabbath-Amon, Ramoth-Gilead,
and the places in Moab and Gilead. The Egyptians probably had no stations in
these wild mountains, where their chariots could not pass. No towns in the
regions of Samaria or Gilead or Moab occur in the list of places taken by
Thothmoses III; nor were there any stations in the Hebron mountains. The nearest
places to Hebron seem to have been Nezeb, in the valley of Elah, easily reached
by a broad, flat road, and on the south Kanaan (Kanana), a fortress, which is
only two miles southwest of Hebron. The inhabitants of Hebron were never
apparently disturbed by the chariots, and appear in the Tel Amarna tablets as
marauders of the Egyptian stations. On the other hand, many places in Sharon and
Philistina, and in the lower hills to the east, and in the Nezeb hills south of
Hebron, were conquered by Thothmoses III."
- The Tel Amarna Tablets, translated by C.R. Conder, 2ed., London,
1894
(2) David in the Time of Thutmose IV?
"The city of Beth-shan was long an Egyptian outpost and during his first
battle against the Canaanites, one of the local kings killed in the valley of
Beth-shan, was placed on the city walls along with that king's slain sons, as
was customary for Amenhotep II."
- Encyclopedia Brittianica, "Amenhotep II"
"Thutmose III's forces controlled much of Palestine after his victory over
the locals at Megiddo in 1438 BCE. During the time of Saul at one of the Battles
in the valley of Ephesdam'mim, the enemy's champion had challenged the Israelite
forces for forty days before David came forward to take it up. Goliath was
defeated, and the Egyptians were driven back to their border. Years later Saul
was killed in Battle by Amenhotep II in the valley of Beth-shan, near Mt.
Gilbo'a."
"Many letters were written to the King of Egypt, accusing A'chish of treason
against the alliance and being tied in with the "men of blood" from the central
hill country of Palestine."
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
"The leader of the 'men of blood' is in another letter shown to be D_D. This
is demonstrated to be David."
- C.R. Conder, "The Tel Amarna Tablets" 2ed, London, 1894
"At this time David was pretending to be in league with the Egyptians, a
confederate of A'chish. But he trusted David completely, never realizing that
David had been raiding the cities of the alliance. David was made king over the
tribe of Judah and ruled from Hebron. He continued to make raids on the various
Egyptain outposts throughout the Palestine area. And many letters were written
to Egypt complaining about the "marauders" and "men of blood" based around the
hills of Hebron.
"Three years after Saul's death David became king over all Israel. In his
seventh year as king, David besieged Jerusalem and took it within five months.
Ebed Kheba wrote several letters to Egypt asking for help and why did the
Egyptian troops withdraw from Zion.
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
"Why do you tremble before the
chief of the Habiri and the rulers fear the end?'"
- Ebed Kheba to Egypt from the El-Amarna letters
"Soon Thutmose IV sent out a large force to fight against king David in the
valley of the Giants. This was made up from the armies of the alliance and
troops from Egypt as well. However, David's army caught them by surprise and
defeated Thutmose IV's force and drove them all the way back to Egypt's boundary
south of Gaza.
"King Abimel (Hiram) of Tyre sought to make a treaty with David after Jo'ab
defeated him and others of the alliance."
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
"...As to Ben Zechariah
(another of David's captains) the King has sent not to attack. Lo! Ben Zechariah
with men of blood was known to us to march, and we are conquering him. He gives
up Abukasu. Once more he has made peace."
- Biridia to Egypt from the El-Amarna letters
"David went up into Syria and in league with the king of Egypt as one of his
vassals, fought and defeated Du Srutta king of Mittia. This figure is better
known in the Old Testament as Hadad'ezer of Zoab."
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
"In the Amarna letters, Jerusalem is ruled by Jebusites, a Hurrian elite
race. In II Samuel 5:6,7, this is also the case until the city is conquered by
David. The name of the ruler of Jerusalem is given in the Amarna letters as
Abdiheba, a mixed Semitic/Hurrian name. The Amarna tablets tell of the whole
region of Syria dominated by kings of Amorite stock including a king Aziru. The
Bible in II Samuel speaks of this kingdom being Aram and the king being
Hadadezer, one of David's enemies. Aziru is considered to be the accepted
shortening or hypocoristicon of a longer, more formal name. Given that Hadad was
a prominent god of the Arameans and that -Aziru (or -ezer) means helper of', it
can be seen that the Amarna letters use the shortened name of the Aramean king
Helper of Hadad' or Hadadezer, a startling biblical confirmation."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
"The name 'fierceness as the lion is his strength,' in Hebrew is rendered
Hadad'ezer and in the Syrian (Persian) is rendered as Du(r) Srutta."
- Rev. R.N. Palmer, "Reflections on Biblical Histories, Part 1" CCU, 1997.
"He [David] then went further and defeated the other Syrian forces that came
to Du Srutta's aid. After this David put a garrison at Damascus to put down any
insurrections that may have followed.
"David was feared for his guerrilla military tactics, using nature to his
advantage in over coming his enemies. He was known for many things, but not for
being a prominent member of the Egyptian alliance in Palestine, nor his becoming
a vassal for the Pharaoh."
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
"The first of many Judean kings who served under the sovereignty of Egypt.
Solomon [son of David] is the most noted."
- Shem B. Toshawb, "The True Hebrew Antiquities" CCU, 1984.
David's low profile in the alliance "may be the fault of the historians who
gave the victories of the foreign kings in their lands little to no credit,
while on the other hand heaping all the glory upon the Pharaoh, the king of
Egypt, the god of Canaanites (Ba'al). (The Egyptian kings were worshipped by
their Canaanite subjects and called in both masculine and feminine forms.
Statuettes have been confirmed as in the likeness of king Narmer's famous pose.
[Shem B. Toshawb, The True Hebrew Antiquities and Sayce,
Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions, chapters V and VII])."
"So David ruled in Jerusalem for thirty two and one half years. He served as a
vassal of Egypt for thirty. His deeds and his life had been recorded in the Old
Testament, with the above in formation not included. The reason unknown even to
this day. Though archaeologists have uncovered evidence that shows (suggests)
the dominance Egypt held over the area of Palestine for centuries longer than
that of the Babylonians. (From 3,000 BCE to the time of Herod the Great the
Palestine area was under control of Egypt for an overall period close to 2,600
years, one way or another. The Babylonian influence was mainly in trade and
correspondence language.)
"But David showed that by being a member of the Egyptian alliance that The
Israelites could be masters over their own country. His accomplishments should
reflect this achievement along side all else recorded concerning him."
Rev. R.N. Palmer, "King David of Israel - His Place in History" (July 28th
1997)
(3) David as 'Malchiel'?
At the time of the Tel Amarna tablets Jerusalem was controlled by the
Jeb'usites. Their ruler, Ebed-Kheba [a Hittite name] , was unsuccessful in
preventing the Egyptian garrisons from abandoning their positions before the
Khabiru governor lay siege to the city. The Khabiru governor's name was 'Malchiel'
(God's appointed) who had remarkable parallels to the biblical King David.
Malchiel "lived in Hebron, governed the area there, married a daughter of
Tagi, took Jerusalem and proclaimed himself king of the Hebrews."
"It appears that the Egyptian royal court knew about David [Malchiel] and
allowed him to make raids on the other districts and take over the district that
belonged to the Jeb'usites and Jerusalem as well."
- Rev. Robert Palmer (private correspondence)
"To the king my lord thus says
Ebed-Kheba thy servant: at the feet of my lord the king seven times seven I
prostrate myself. Behold, Malchi'el has not separated himself from the sons of
Labbawa and the sons of Arzawaya so as to claim the king's land for them. A
governor who commits such an act, why has not the king questioned him (about
it)? Behold Malchi'el and Tagi have committed such an act by seizing the city of
Rabbah. And now as to Jerusalem, if this land belongs to the king, why is it
that Gaza has been appointed for the (residence of the) king ('s commisssioner)?
Behold the land of Gath-Carmel is in the power of Tagi, and the men of Gath are
(his) bodyguard. He is (now) in Beth-Sannah. But (nevertheless) we will act.
Malchi'el wrote to Tagi that they should give Labbawa and Mt. Shechem to the
district of the Khabiri, and he took some boys as slaves. They granted all their
demands to the people of Keilah. But we will rescue Jerusalem. The garrison
which youi sent by Khaya the son of Meri-Ra been taken by Hadad-mikhir and
stationed in his house at Gaza. [I have sent messengers] to Egypt, [and may] the
king [listen to me]....There is no garrison of the king [here]. Verily by the
life of the king Pa-ur has gone down to Egypt; he has left me and is in Gaza.
But let the king entrust to him a garrison for the defense of the land. All the
land of the king has revolted. Send Yenkhamu and let him take charge of the
king's land."
- Tel Amarna Collection (Archaeology of Cuneiform Insriptions,
Chapter VII)
Bringing the
Time Frame Forward
(1) Dating by Astronomy
"To the king, my Sun, my god,
my gods. Message of Abimilku, your servant...Fire destroyed the palace at Ugarit;
(rather) it destroyed half of it and so half of it has disappeared."
- El-Amarna Letter EA 151 (written after the death of Amenhotep III in the
twelth year of Akhenaten)
"The day of the new moon of
Hiyaru was put to shame as the sun (goddess) set, with Raspap as her
gate-keeper."
- Tablet KTU-1.78 (found in the "Western Archive" of Ugarit, burned by the
fire)
"...King Nikmaddu II and the priests of Ugarit watched with foreboding from
the roof of the temple of Baal as the day was 'put to shame at sunset' at
precisely 6.09pm on the 9th of May 1012 BC - just thirty minutes before the sun
set! Close to the eclipsed solar disc was a giant star which would explode so
violently some two thousand years later. Astronomers have christened this
spectacular supernova the Crab Nebula. The god Rashap who attended the sun's
entry into the nether-world was a giant star approaching its nemesis."
This is the only "candidate for a near-sunset total eclipse at Ugarit in
April/May [the month of Hiyyaru] during the second millennium BC."
"This entirely independent chronological determination confirms that the
el-Amarna period fell in the late eleventh century BC and not in the mid
fourteenth century BC as previously believed."
"The 18th Dynasty did not begin in circa 1570 BC, as the
conventional chronology proposes, but rather some three hundred and
seventy-seven years later in 1194 BC."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1995), p. 239, 240, 241
This moves the time frame of the Amarna letters forward to the era of Saul
and David - 1010 to 971 B.C.E.
(2) A Lawless Period
"From the Amarna Letters we can see that the Habiru groups are comprised of
stateless persons who are outside the normal protection of city-state law. The
adult males tend to be fighting men who hire themselves out to the local rulers
as mercenaries. In the earliest letters a number of the city rulers have
platoons of Habiru troops which they use to guard their petty kingdoms and
sometimes to settle feuds over disputed territory."
"The general political topography of the Levant in the Amarna period closely
corresponds to that described in the second book of Samuel which deals with the
beginning of the United Monarchy period in Israelite history."
"The hill country to the north of Jerusalem is dominated by a king who shows
scant respect towards Egyptian sovereignty in Palestine. His hypocoristic name
is Labau - his fuller name being unknown. Moran [Les Lettres d'el-Amarna:
Correspondance diplomatique du pharaon] suggests that name should be understood
as 'Great Lion [of N]' where 'N' represents the name of a deity."
King Saul had "a royal bodyguard named the 'Great Lions' and...a corps of Saul's
archers who were 'servants of the great lioness'..."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1973), p. 200, 205, 206
Hiding from Saul's men in the cave of En-Gedi, David wrote:
"I am in the midst of lions; I
lie among ravenous beasts-- men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues
are sharp swords."
- Psalm 57:4
Labayu contended for power with the kings of Jerusalem and Gezer, and had
possession of the hill country and attempted to penetrate the Jezreel valley,
laying siege to Megiddo. He sent an uncompromising letter to the pharoah
(probably Amenhotep III).
"If an ant is struck, does it
not fight back and bit the hand of the man that struck it?"
- El-Amarna Letter EA 252
"As already recognized by; the interpreters, this idiom is pure Hebrew."
- W. F. Albright, "Two Little Understood Amarna Letters from the Middle
Jordan Valley"Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 89
p. 11
There are close parallels between Labayu's seizure of his home town and
sacred site, and Saul's campaigns against Geba/Gibeah where a Philistine pillar
had been erected at a high place sacred to the Israelites.
"Jonathan smashed the
Philistine pillar which was at Gibeah and the Philistines learnt that the
Hebrews had risen in revolt. Saul had the trumpet sounded throughout the country
and the whole of Israel heard the news: 'Saul has smashed the Philistine pillar
and now Israel has incurred the enmity of the Philistines.'"
- I Samuel 13:3-5
"This event is mentioned by Labayu as he writes to the Pharaoh in EA 252, to
say that he was recapturing his home town which was taken by the Philistines,
even after it had been agreed in the presence of the governor from Egypt that
this would not happen!
"In EA 254, Labayu's third letter to Pharaoh, he reprimands his own son for
consorting with the Habiru/Hebrews without his knowledge. This is also told in I
Samuel 20:30,31."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
Saul (the "Lion [of Yahweh]'") was eventually killed on Mount Gilboa, to be
succeeded by his youngest son and son-in-law (David) . In the Amarna letters,
Labayu was also smitten and replaced by "the two sons of Labayu"
"The deaths of Saul and his sons, Jonathan, Abinadab and Malkishua are
recorded in I Samuel 31. They occur at the battle of Mount Gilboa in a clash
with the Philistines. After gathering at the fountain of Jezreel, the Israelites
retreated into the mountains so that the Philistines could not make use of their
chariots and cavalry. How the Philistines were successful in pursuing Saul up
the mountains is not clear in the Bible but the Amarna tablets answer some
intriguing questions. In EA 250, a ruler of a city-state reports to Pharaoh that
Saul's surviving sons have asked for help to inflict revenge on a city called
Gina (biblical En-Ganim) for killing their father. Also, in EA 245, Biridiya,
Philistine ruler of Megiddo, writes to say that when he arrived on the battle
field, Labayu was already dead and so could not be taken alive and sent to Egypt
for public execution as Pharaoh had wanted."
- John Fulton, "A
New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
(2) David in the Time of Akhenaten?
"The most striking parallels by far are found in the story of David's
outlawry....[David's gang] roam the countryside seeking the favor and protection
of cities (Keilah), wealthy individuals (Nabal), and kings (?Nahash of Ammon,
cf. II Samuel 10:2). Finally David offers the services of his band (600 men - a
veritable army!) to Achish, king of Gath. Achish assigns them quarters ('gives
them' in biblical and el-Amarna usage) in Ziklag. The town becomes the military
base of their marauding operations."
- George Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation, pp. 135-136
"David's power begins to rise after the death of Saul; after seven and a half
years, he is king of all Israel. As his power increases, we read in the Amarna
letters desperate pleas for help from Pharaoh against the rampaging Hebrews.
Most poignant of all comes from the Jebusite king of Jerusalem, Abdiheba. In EA
288 he writes that he is an island amidst a sea of violence as cities fall to
the Hebrews round about him. The fall of Lachish is recorded and Pharaoh is
reminded that he has done nothing to help. The king asks to be brought to Egypt
with his brothers for safety. However, there never was a rescue as in 1003 BC,
David conquered Jerusalem; nothing is ever heard from Abdiheba again in the
Amarna letters!"
- John Fulton, "A
New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
"Nevertheless, David captured
the fortress of Zion, the City of David."
- II Samuel 5:7
"May the king, my lord, be
informed that my younger brother, having become my enemy, entered Muhhazu and
pledged himself to the Habiru. As Tianna is at war with me,
take thought for your land."
- El-Amarna Letter EA 298
"The Hebrew ts (tsade) is often interchanged with a hard t
(tet) in other west-semitic languages such as Ugaritic, Pheonician and
Aramaic, and also in Indo-European Greek."
"With this linguistic trait in mind you will clearly be able to recognize the
Amarna period city of Tian (with its Akkadian termination
'-na') as the equivalent of Hebrew Tsiyon which the English
Bibles translate as Zion."
"The situation described in several of the Amarna Letters from Palestine
reflects the activities of David during his seven years as king of Hebron prior
to the capture of Jerusalem. The stronghold of the Habiru enemy from the
mountains mentioned in the late Amarna letters EA 298, 284 and 306 - there named
Tian-na - is to be identified with the 'fortress of Zion' (Heb. Tsiyon)
captured by David in his eighth regnal year - in other words Jerusalem."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1995), p. 227
"The war between the house of
Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and
stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker."
- II Samuel 3:1
"After the death of Saul/Labayu, we know from the biblical account that
Saul's son Ishbaal/Ish-Bosheth and David vied for power (II Samuel 3:1). Ishbaal
fled across the Jordan after the death of his father and from there he wrote to
Pharaoh the tablet EA 256 (in the British Museum)..."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
"Say to Yanhamu,
my lord: Message of Mutbaal, your servant. I fall at the feet
of my lord. How can it be said in your presence, Mutbaal has fled. He has hidden
Ayab'? How can the king of Pella flee from the commissioner,
agent of the king, his lord? As the king, my lord, lives, as the king my lord
lives, I swear Ayab is not in Pella. In fact, he has been in
the field (i.e. on campaign) for 2 months. Just ask Benenima.
Just ask Dadua. Just ask Yishuya."
- El-Amarna Letter EA 256
·"Yanhamu is the official representative of Pharaoh in
Palestine."
·"Pella is one of the Israelite strongholds across the Jordan."
- John Fulton, "A
New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"
"El-Amarna letter EA 256 contains the names of five of the leading players
from the books of Samuel. The letter itself is written by Ishbaal [=
Mutbaal =' man of Baal], son of Saul, who in turn refers to Joab [=
Ayab = 'Ya(weh) is the father'] (David's military commander),
Baanah [= Benenima = 'son of Ana'] (one of Israel's
chieftains), David [= Dadua = 'the beloved (of Yahweh)] (ruler
of Hebron and son-in-law of Saul), and finally Jesse [= Yishuya
= '(Yahweb) exists'] (father of David)."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1995), p. 229
"As well as confirming the names of these characters, the Amarna letters even
contain the name Goliath in its Akkadian form Gulatu (in EA 292 and 294)!"
"It is interesting to note that the only other mention of David found to date is
the Tell Dan Stela/Tablet, dated to the mid-9th century BC and mentioning the
House of David'."
- John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of
Time'"
"King David, the dynastic founder of Israelite Jerusalem, was a contemporary
of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Ay and Haremheb (early reign) in Egypt and the
Hittite emperor, Suppiluliumas I. He forged his kingdom in the historical period
when Egypt was politically and militarily weak and when the latter's northern
ally, the kingdom of Mitanni, was disintegrating under the combined pressure of
the Hittites to the west and the Assyrians to the north-east."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1995), p. 231
"Thou dost appear beautiful on
the horizon of heaven, 0' living Aten, thou who wast the first to live. When
thou hast risen on the eastern horizon, Thou hast filled every land with thy
beauty.
Thou art fair, great, dazzling, high above every land; Thy rays encompass the
lands to the very limit of all thou hast made.Being Re, thou dost reach to their
limit And curb them [for] thy beloved son;Though thou art distant, they rays arc
upon the earth;"
"The whole land performs its labor. All beasts are satisfied with their pasture;
Trees and plants arc verdant. The birds which fly from their nests, their wings
are (spread) in adoration to thy soul;
All flocks skip with (their) feet; All that fly up and alight Live when thou has
risen [for] them.
Ships sail upstream and downstream alike, For every route is open at thine
appearing. The fish in the river leap before thee for thy rays are in the midst
of the sea."
"Mankind, cattle, all flocks, Everything on earth which walks with (its) feet,
And what are on high, flying with their wings.The foreign lands of Hurru and
Nubia, the land of Egypt - Thou dost set each man in his place and supply his
needs."
- Hymn to the Aten 1-9, 30-40, 55-59,
"Praise the LORD, O my soul. O
LORD my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He
wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a
tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters."
"He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their
thirst.
The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the
fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate..."
- Psalm 104:1-3a, 10-14a,
"The cities and royal residences of LB IIA-B in Palestine were built of fine
ashlar masonry befitting the 'Phoenician tradition' as described in Kings and
Chronicles. The literary tradition of Psalms would now be set in an era of great
hymns and epic poetry, vividly represented in the literature of LBA Ugarit.
Akhenaten's 'Hymn to the Aten', so often closely compared to Psalm 104, would
have been composed in Egypt when King David, the author of Psalm 104, ruled in
Israel. Without question, both culturally and historically, the Late Bronze Age
best reflects the era of the rise and then artistic culmination of Israel's
United Monarchy."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History
(1995), p. 328
The Egyptian
House of David
If King Solomon is to be
properly identified as an adaptation of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, then the
source of his predecessor, King David, should also be found in Egypt. Consistent
with this premise, Osman has compared the account in the Bible of David and his
wars with the exploits of Amenhotep III's great grandfather, the 18th Dynasty
Pharaoh Thutmose III.(1)
Not only are their achievements equivalent, but so are their very names.
Thutmose is a compound name
comprised of Thut (from Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom) and mose (an Egyptian
title or suffix indicating son or rightful heir). In the ancient Egyptian
language, words were written without vowels. Thut was, therefore, written as Twt.
The ancient Hebrew language, although very different from Egyptian, originally
derived its written structure from the Egyptian language.(2)
As with Egyptian, the consonants were written and the vowels were vocalized
only. Transliterating the Egyptian word twt into Hebrew, because of their
similar alphabets, leads to dvd. Reinserting the vowels for pronunciation in
Hebrew leads directly to David!(3)
Moreover, it was the Egyptian King David (Thutmose III) who had defeated an
earlier coalition of Syrian and Canaanite kings, and as described in the Bible,
had established garrisons(4)
in these regions in order to permanently secure Egyptian control there (2 Samuel
8:5,6).(5)
At the beginning of the Egyptian 17th Dynasty, much of Egypt was still being
dominated by foreign rulers known as the Hyksos. Through the initiative of the
early Pharaohs of the 17th Dynasty, the Hyksos were attacked and eventually
driven out of Egypt during the reign of Ahmose I. Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I
extended their campaigns into Asia, "principally to deter any fresh incursions
by roving bands into the Eastern Delta [of Egypt]".(6)
When Amenhotep I died without a
male heir, he was succeeded by the commander of the army who became Pharaoh
Thutmose I. Inspired by previous successes,(7)
Thutmose I, now as Pharaoh, led his army into Canaan and Syria and crossed the
Euphrates River at the fords of Carchemish. After routing Mitanni forces, he set
up a monument (stele) to his achievement on the north side of the Euphrates.(8)
The heiress daughter of Thutmose
I, Hatshepsut was married to her step-brother Thutmose II who became Pharaoh.
Thutmose II and Hatshepsut had no surviving sons. After the death of Thutmose
II, his young son Thutmose III (by a minor wife Isis who was possibly of foreign
birth)(9)
was denied the throne by Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut continued to rule even after
Thutmose III had clearly come of age.
When the male blood line of the
founding dynasty ended at the death of Amenhotep I, an even greater emphasis was
thereafter placed on preservation of the female blood line(10)
which by this time had already distinguished itself and wielded considerable
power. Ahhotep I had become an interim ruler upon the death of her husband
Ahmose I and was immortalized for rallying Egypt's forces against the Hyksos.
Her daughter Ahmose-Nefertari was given the title, High Priestess of Amun, and
was the first to be designated as the "God's Wife."(11)
(The royal offspring of 18th Dynasty Pharaohs were considered to have been
conceived through Devine visitation of the state god Amun with the "God's Wife."(12)
This concept is clearly demonstrated by large murals in the mortuary temples of
both Hatshepsut and Amenhotep III.) Ahmose-Nefertari was, according to the
famous turn of the century archeologist Flinders Petrie, "the most venerated
figure of Egyptian History."(13)
Upon Hatshepsut's death, the
succession of Thutmose III was complicated not only by his own paucity of royal
blood, but by the fact that Hatshepsut's daughter Neferure (and holder of the
titles "Gods Wife" and virgin High Priestess of Amun) was also no longer living.
The nubile princess who could claim the strongest relation to Ahhotep I and
Nefertari was found to be Merit-re, the daughter of Huy, the Superior of the
Royal Harem. Thutmose III was married to Merit-ra, and in an official ceremony
confirmed (cf., Psalm 2:7) as Pharaoh and "adopted" as the son of Amun.(14)
It is recorded that the God/Amun
and Father of Thutmose III's spoke of him, "I grant thee by decree the earth in
its length and breadth. The tribes of the East and those of the West ... that
thy conquests may embrace all lands ... I ordain that all aggressors arising
against thee shall fail..."(15)
Of David, it was written in
Psalm 2, "I will proclaim the decree ... 'You are my Son; today I have become
your Father ... I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth
your possession. You will rule them...'"
Queen Hatshepsut had built
impressively in Egypt but had shown no interest in securing an empire in Asia(16)
where Egyptian influence largely eroded. The long frustrated Thutmose III was
eager to prove himself, and upon becoming Pharaoh his first act was to march out
with the military. In anticipation, a formidable confederation of Canaanite and
Syrian kings had already consolidated their own armies and were waiting in their
camps when Thutmose III arrived in Canaan with his own. Using a risky strategic
maneuver, Thutmose III divided the opposing confederation and conquered them at
the original epic battle of the Valley of Armageddon (Har-Megiddon).(17)
While the nearby fortress of
Megiddo was under a seven month long siege, Thutmose III led a contingent of men
to Kadesh (the present day site of Jerusalem), and as the Bible describes, he
"took the stronghold of Zion."(18)
Kadesh was the first of over one hundred cities listed as having been conquered
by Thutmose III in this campaign as recorded in the temple of Amun at Karnak,(19)
and immediately precedes the city of Megiddo on the list. The more famous city
of Kadesh in Syria,
and the center of the Syrian-Canaanite opposition of that time, is known to have
fallen to Thutmose III in a later military campaign.
The name Jerusalem does not show
up on any of the lists of cities conquered during any Egyptian 18thDynasty
military campaign in Asia, however, it was unquestionably part of the Egyptian
empire of that time. A diplomatic letter sent to a later Egyptian Pharaoh of the
18th Dynasty (of whom we will learn more about shortly), was addressed from "mat
Urusalim," i.e., "the land of Jerusalem." Another letter from the governor of
Jerusalem during the 18th Dynasty refers to Jerusalem as a city "in which the
king [i.e., the Pharaoh] has set his name" (cf. 1 Kings 11:36).(20)
According to Manetho's 3rd Century B.C. History of Egypt as quoted by Josephus,
Jerusalem was being ruled at this time by the Hyksos who had been expelled from
Egypt by Ahmose I. It is not surprising that they readily resubmitted themselves
to Thutmose III.
The name of Jerusalem (literally
meaning "to establish peace or submission")(21)
certainly symbolized the role that it played in establishing and maintaining
Egyptian control over Palestine during the 18th Dynasty. Both names are found in
Chapter 11 of Nehemiah where the Hebrew reads as "Yurushalayim ha Qudesh,"
meaning, "Jerusalem the Holy City."(22)
The capture of Jerusalem/Kadesh by Thutmose III also resolves the formerly
unknown source of the name Zion. Zion consists of the components On (Hebrew for
the holy city of On/Heliopolis in Egypt) and the Hebrew word zi (meaning arid
place). Literally translated, Zion appropriately becomes "Holy City of the
Desert."(23)
The sacredness attributed to
Jerusalem by the Egyptians initially derived from the transport of the Barque of
Amun(24)
(a holy shrine carried on poles in much the same manner as the Israelite Ark of
the Covenant) to the city by Thutmose III. The shrine was normally kept within
the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, however Thutmose III had
carried it with him into battle.(25)
It remained with him when he took up residence in Jerusalem during the prolonged
siege of Megiddo.(26)
After the fall of the Syrian
city of Kadesh (in the Biblical region of Zobah and Hamath) during the sixth
military campaign (he conducted a total of 17 in all),(27)
Thutmose III was able to cross the Euphrates and erect a second stele beside
that of Thutmose I.(28)
In essence, Thutmose III (David) "recovered his border at the river
Euphrates," (2 Samuel 8:3) that border being the one originally established by
his grandfather.(29)
It was at this time that Thutmose III (David) "established garrisons in Syria"
as the Bible describes (2 Samuel 8:13).
Osman suggests that the tribal
David, as with King Solomon, may have had been known by another name initially.
Osman quotes the Encyclopedia Judaica which states, "Elhanan was David's
original name, which was later changed to David."(30)
By
Paul S. Ash
David, Solomon and Egypt: A Reassessment
is a
study into the life and times of David and Solomon and ancient Israel’s
relations with and dependence upon ancient Egypt. The study’s two goals are:
-
To broaden the base of evidence used to determine the relations and contacts
between Egypt and Palestine at the time of David and Solomon.
-
To engage the biblical evidence once again from a standard
historical-critical perspective.
Up to now, the many studies that commented on relations and contacts between
Egypt and Palestine at the time of David and Solomon have engaged and elucidated
only the biblical statements, giving little or no attention to what effect any
Egyptian evidence might have on the question. Moreover, until this point no one
has sought to compile the archaeological evidence for contacts and draw
conclusions from it based on the broader contacts between Egypt and Palestine
throughout ancient history. The first goal of the study, then, seeks to correct
this problem.
In realizing the study’s second goal, I have concluded that contrary to the
generally accepted supposition that this period witnessed significant contacts
between Egypt and Palestine, which resulted in significant Egyptian influence on
Palestine, contacts were minimal. Indeed, they were considerably less intense
and influential than Egyptian/Palestinian contacts earlier or later.
Consequently, the book is divided into three chapters, as well as an
Introduction and Conclusion. The Introduction provides the backdrop for the
study, as well as a delineation of some of the past studies that have argued
that contacts between Egypt, David and Solomon were strong, with many Egyptian
influences on Israelite life during the time. Chapter 1 gives a discussion on
the written evidence from Egypt pertaining to the issue. Chapter 2 details the
archaeological evidence of Egyptian and Egyptian-related artifacts found dated
to this time. Chapter 3 analyzes the biblical evidence. Finally, the conclusion
summarizes the evidence and employs it to briefly reevaluate the many theories
about Egyptian influence on Israel at the time of David and Solomon.
After discussing the problems associated with the chronologies of Egypt and
Palestine for the early first millennium BCE, Chapter 1 looks at the small
handful of texts and art from Egypt that have been used to argue that
significant contacts existed between Egypt and Palestine at the time of David
and Solomon (ca 1000-920 BCE, the time of the late 21st and early 22nd dynasties
in Egypt). Three of these are associated with the 21st dynasty:
-
Siamun’s battle relief, a fragment of a limestone relief portraying a defeat
of foreigners, allegedly Philistines, by Pharaoh Siamun;
-
Papyrus Moscow 127, which mentions “Seir” (perhaps Edom); and
-
The Abydos Stela of Shoshenq, which mentions two individuals from Khor, the
Syro-Palestinian coast.
The other three texts are associated with the 22nd dynasty and include:
-
Inscriptions pertaining to Shoshenq I’s campaign to Palestine;
-
The inscription on the statue of a certain Pediest, mentioning the “city of
Canaan” and the Philistines; and
-
References to Shoshenq found at the remains of Byblos.
Close analysis of these six texts shows that none are evidence of any close ties
between the peoples of Egypt and Palestine during the time of David and Solomon.
Generally, they have been misinterpreted or over-interpreted. For example,
Siamun’s Battle Relief, used to argue that Pharaoh Siamun campaigned to
Palestine, has largely been misinterpreted. An object in the conquered
individual’s hand, almost invariably claimed by scholars to be a Philistine axe,
almost surely is not. Consequently, there is nothing to connect the relief with
Palestine. Indeed, the only indisputable Egyptian evidence for contact between
Egypt and Palestine at this time is Shoshenq’s campaign, and this indicates
hostile relations, not close ties of alliance. Moreover, this was a period of
relative weakness and isolation for Egypt, not a time of bustling trade,
political activity, and cross-cultural pollination of ideas with Palestine. The
broad history of Egypt depicted in the written remains from Egypt shows strong
contacts with Palestine during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1150 BCE), a steady
decrease through and past the time of David and Solomon, and a resuscitation
only late in the reign of Shoshenq, probably after the death of Solomon.
Chapter 2 details the archaeological evidence (as of 1999) for contacts
between Egypt and Palestine during roughly the time of David and Solomon (10th
century BCE). First discussed are the problems concerning the correlating of
material remains to the time of David and Solomon. Recently, there has been much
debate regarding this issue. Israel Finkelstein and David Ussishkin have argued
that the dating has been wrong and that remains usually dated to the time of
David and Solomon really belong to the century after them. Others, Amnon
Ben-Tor, Ahimai Mazar, William Dever, to name a few, argue for the traditional
dating. This study opts to follow the latter and accepts the traditional dating.
The study then details the list of Egyptian and Egyptian-related materials found
in excavations. Upon analysis, one immediately notes the paucity of remains,
particularly when one contrasts them to other periods. The large majority of
items are simple heirloom items such as scarabs and amulets. Most of these are
impossible to date specifically to the time of David and Solomon. Similarly, it
is almost always impossible to determine exactly when these items arrived in
Palestine. The archaeological stratum in which they are found only indicates
their final resting point not the time in which they entered Palestine via trade
or immigration.
On the other hand, the types of items or structures that unequivocally attest to
trade or Egyptian presence are entirely lacking. These things are Egyptian
residences, temples, structures, Egyptian mortuary assemblages and locally made
Egyptian pottery. All of these are well attested during times of strong Egyptian
presence in Palestine, but entirely absent from Palestine of the 10th century
BCE.
Two other conclusions arise from the archaeological evidence. First, the
majority of Egyptian and Egyptian-related items come from the lowland
cities—cities that had well-known Egyptian contacts during the earlier Late
Bronze period. In contrast, highland sites, the sites usually associated with
the Israelites, have so far yielded virtually no Egyptian objects. This is true
of Jerusalem as well. The scarcity of Egyptian artifacts in highland sites seems
to indicate that Israelites had little or no contact with Egypt or Egyptians at
the time of David and Solomon.
Second, the geographical dispersion of the Egyptian objects found in Palestine
for this time suggests that these items entered Palestine via trade with the
Phoenicians not through direct contact. Northern sites, close to Phoenicia, have
yielded considerably more Egyptian artifacts than southern sites. Moreover,
Egyptian goods are consistently found in association with Cypro-Phoenician and
Phoenician goods, indicating that the Egyptian items were arriving in Palestine
from the North. Contacts with Phoenicia to the north were far more regular than
contacts with Egypt.
This evidence strongly supports the conclusions from Chapter 1; namely, that
during the time of David and Solomon there was little contact between Egypt and
Palestine. During periods of strong contacts, Egyptian remains in Palestine are
abundant, but such does not appear to be the case. Again, the archaeological
picture of contacts between Egypt and Palestine shows strong contact during the
Late Bronze period, a steady decline through and past the time of David and
Solomon, and a resuscitation during the 9th century. The time of David and
Solomon clearly is a low point not a high point in Egyptian/Palestinian
relations.
Chapter 3 looks at the biblical evidence. For the most part, the
references to contact are incidental and passing. These include a mention of
encountering a lone Egyptian near Ziklag (1 Sam. 30:11-15), a reference to a
Cushite in David’s army (2 Sam. 18:19-31), and Benaiah’s defeat of an Egyptian
in one-to-one combat (2 Sam. 23:20-23). These are all of the references
regarding contacts with Egyptians during David’s life. One can hardly conclude
from this that strong contact existed at the time of David. In addition, many of
the references regarding contact with Solomon show hostility rather than close
ties of friendship and alliance. For instance, Egypt is said to have harbored
David’s and Solomon’s political rivals and enemies (1 Kings 11: 14-22, 40). This
corresponds to the Egyptian evidence that shows hostility between Shoshenq and
the kingdoms in Palestine.
The following exceptions to the data noted above, however, have been the
lynchpins for arguments that close ties existed: the references to Solomon’s
marriage to a princess of Egypt (1 Kings 3:1, 7:8, 9:16, 9:24, 11:1) and a
report of trade with Egypt (1 Kings 10: 28). Nevertheless, even if taken at face
value as historical remarks, none of these references necessarily indicates
strong ties or influences. Moreover, there are good reasons for not taking these
references at face value.
First, the biblical accounts of Solomon in Kings and Chronicles were
compiled and written long after Solomon’s reign and it is uncertain how much
they preserve an accurate historical memory of the period. Recent scholarship
has called into question the existence of any early sources that the biblical
writers might have used. In fact, it becomes more apparent with every passing
archaeological campaign that the time of David and Solomon was a time of little
or no writing. Writing was known but not used.
Second, the account of Solomon is clearly intended to glorify Solomon and
not to give a dispassionate, antiquarian description of his kingdom. Indeed,
virtually every aspect of Solomon’s reign fits the pattern of typical ancient
Near Eastern royal ideology and propaganda. Therefore, it is unclear whether the
references to marriages with foreign potentates and grandiose trade are
historical or merely part of the stock repertoire of “activities” in which any
ancient Near Eastern king was supposed to have engaged. Consequently, there are
good reasons to be initially suspicious of the historicity of these reports.
In the case of the references to Solomon’s marriage to Pharaoh’s
daughter, several other facts lessen my confidence in their historical
reliability. First, as noted above, there is nothing in the references to
indicate that they were drawn from any first-hand source; that is, any account
that was written close in time to the events and by a person or persons in a
position to know the facts about Solomon’s reign. Quite the contrary—Had the
biblical writers been drawing from first-hand sources found in archives or
records coming from Solomon’s time, they surely would have included the names of
the pharaoh and his daughter. After all, the point of a royal marriage of this
sort was to establish an alliance, and listing the names of the participants was
indispensable to this process. Also, a comparison of these notices to the
biblical report about Shoshenq’s (Shishak’s) campaign in Palestine (1 Kings
14:22-25) immediately shows the differences. In the latter, not only is a year
given, but a specific king’s name is also mentioned. Neither of these data is
found in the reports of the marriage. Nor is the princess’s name given.
Undoubtedly when the biblical authors had access to specific names, places,
dates and such, they included them. Therefore, the references to Solomon’s
marriage resemble tradition and stock royal ideology not first-hand reports
drawn from inscriptions, annals, archives, etc.
Second, we have explicit evidence from Egypt itself that pharaohs did not
marry their daughters to foreigners. In a letter dating to the time of Amenhotep
III (ca. 14th century BCE), Kadashman-Enlil I, king of Babylon, quoted Amenhotep
III as having said, “From of old a daughter of the king of the land of Egypt was
not given to anyone.” Indeed, from what is otherwise known of the Amarna period,
the time of Amenhotep III, Egyptian pharaohs regularly married princesses from
foreign countries, but never allowed their own daughters to marry a foreign
potentate. Moreover, an analysis of Egyptian evidence from the time of David and
Solomon supports this fact by showing a lack of marriages of pharaoh’s daughters
to foreigners. Although a few scholars have attempted to demonstrate that such
marriages occurred, primarily when Egypt was weak, my analysis of their
published evidence and arguments shows that their claim does not hold up. To
date, there are no clearly attested marriages of princesses of reigning pharaohs
to foreigners. All of these considerations should make us skeptical of the
historical reliability of the biblical reports of Solomon’s marriage to an
Egyptian princess. True, we cannot prove that it never happened, but prudence
and caution make it necessary to avoid placing any weight on these reports in
our reconstruction of relations between Egypt and Palestine during Solomon’s
reign.
Regarding Solomon’s alleged trade with Egypt, similar concerns arise.
First, reports of elaborate trade are part of typical Near Eastern royal
ideology. Indeed, the passage in which the report appears is a description of
Solomon’s incredible wealth. Second, external evidence suggests that the report
of trade with Egypt in horses and chariots is less than historical. Most
importantly, evidence for Egypt’s export of horses or chariots is virtually
non-existent. In fact, Egypt usually had to import horses. Hence, both internal
problems and external evidence combine to give us a picture that leans against
having confidence in the historicity of this report. As with the reports of
Solomon’s marriage, there are good reasons to resist the temptation to place any
weight on this reference to elucidate the relations between Egypt and Palestine.
It is at this point that my book differs radically from most scholarship
on this topic. Other works usually begin with an acceptance of the historicity
of the notices of the royal marriage and trade, usually with very little
published critical examination of the texts, and end with these passages as
well. The Egyptian evidence in turn is analyzed and interpreted based on
acceptance of the historicity of the biblical passages. My book has 1) broadened
the examination by including other evidence, 2) interpreted the Egyptian texts
in isolation from the Bible and without the biblical framework, and 3) brought a
published, critical analysis of the biblical texts.
When approached in this manner, all three types of evidence yield the
same picture: There were few contacts between Egypt and Palestine at the time of
David and Solomon and these contacts, when direct, occurred late in the time of
Solomon and were hostile, not friendly. Therefore, the time of David and Solomon
was not a time of vibrant trade and close political ties resulting in a flood of
Egyptian influence on Palestine’s and Israel’s culture. Rather it was a time of
minimal relations and few, even hostile, contacts. Hence, two broad conclusions
arise:
- The lack of Egyptian presence or involvement with Palestine helped to
allow the rise of the Iron Ages states during the early first millennium
BCE. These include Aram, Israel, Ammon, Moab, Judah and Edom, as well as the
Philistine city-states. Egypt’s weakness left a power vacuum that allowed
these states to develop.
- As yet, there should be no talk of direct, immediate Egyptian influence
on Palestine’s political structures, economic structures, art, literature,
and the like, during the tenth century. No doubt, Egypt powerfully affected
the peoples and civilizations of ancient Palestine, but not at the time of
David and Solomon.
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