David Rohl

To Toto:

Last off-topic word from me, but necessary to put the record straight. I am a big boy and can take criticism of my theories/work. The potential libel from spin was the term 'money grubber'. That is a personal attack which is entirely unfounded and based on total ignorance.

From my point of view this issue is now closed.

spin

The conjecture that Moses is an Egyptian name has been on the books for well over a century. It's got no closer to fact since it was introduced. The Hebrew name M$H is, according to Ex 2:10, derived from the verb to "draw out" (M$H), as Moses was drawn out of the water. The literalist may be caught in a dilemma because the name was given by an Egyptian princess, so why is she giving the child a Hebrew name? but there is no reason to expect the writers of this Hebrew story to have been privy to any real but private events in Egypt, especially when we have no idea when the story was actually written. It may have been written at the time of Jews in Babylon or later, hence the similarity with the Sargon legend. Any Egyptian etymology for the name Moses is at best conjecture and, given the nature of the evidence available, it can be nothing more. The benefit of the doubt should go with the Hebrews that wrote the story.

Now onto David Rohl's twisted logic.

This is: what we want to analyse is the proof of our assumption.

Nowhere did I claim that the city was ever Israelite: this is just an example of David Rohl's active imagination. The Hebrews got their form of the name directly from contact with the town, which is only logical: it is between them and the coast, so their contact was direct. It is woeful to think that they got it via Egypt.

This is a simple failure to demonstrate anything and it is endemic of the sort of ambivalent material that he bases his arguments on.

As I pointed out in the message he didn't deign to respond to (read "ducked out of"),

If you check 1 Kings 14:25 (Ketiv), the name is $W$Q, yup, a waw, a more difficult reading suggesting it was in fact the original. The later Hebrew's apparently been influenced through Greek, Seswnxos, etc. Shoshenq is simply a better fit for $W$Q. (Last letter corrected for exactness.)

What David Rohl failed to point out is that each confirmed case of an Egyptian /s/ transliterated into the Hebrew of the bible uses the letter samek, which gives no room for the sort of shape-shifting he is attempting to pull off. What we would expect is ssw in Hebrew (if the first vowel is long, sysw) not $w$q.

(a) Egypt writing to Ashkelon.
(b) Byblos to Egypt.
(c) Beqa' valley to Egypt.
(d) Ugarit and Mitanni to Egypt.
(e) Unknown provinence.

Not one of these examples is relevant to the issue at hand (assuming that the cultural entity represented by the Hebrews had any connection with the era of the Amarna letters).

So we are left still without any evidence for David Rohl's original claim that an Egyptian /s/ could end up a shin in Hebrew.

To be accurate Hebrew is a North-west Semitic language along with the other Canaanite languages. Akkadian however is East Semitic, so they are not as close as David Rohl would like.

We've had no tangible evidence for Egyptian /s/ to shin.

Before commenting on the Samarian Ostraca, I hope David Rohl can supply a reference to the materials, so I don't have to start cold on sourcing his claims.

Umm, there is no way in Greek to represent SH, so naturally both /s/ and SH become sigmas.

Gen 45:10 LXX says clearly Gesem Arabias, ie the Greek translator understood an Arabian location rather than some place in Egypt. Joshua (Josh 11:16) took the land of Goshen -- obviously not Egyptian, but south of Judah, in what could be considered Arabia. Goshen, turns up in Gen 46:34, in the power of the pharaoh, so looking for something in Egypt proper the closest thing one finds is Qos near the delta. What we see is confusion in the minds of the Hebrew writers as to this Goshen and modern scholars attempting to make sense of the confusion by fixing the data. One could of course try to separate this Goshen into two separate locations in the same general area, but one can understand that this would merely appear expedient.

Hopefully, I've shown that David Rohl is once again over-hasty in his conclusion.

The lack of archaeological verification was the status quo fifty years ago when various authors were concocting scenarios to explain this lack of verification. (Remember "amphictyony" for example? or the mini-exodus approach?) However, once again David Rohl is making up words for me that I did not say. Here are my words again:

I think, in this specific case, your are both kidding yourselves. You both assume there was an exodus, converting Hebrew legend into fact. For Kitchen it is a given, but in the fieldthe exodus is not considered veracious. Continuous occupation of the land as seen in hundreds of sites in Israel indicates that an exodus is simply questionable.

Can you see any support for David Rohl's representation of a view of mine that there was "a consensus rejection of the biblical narrative based on any philosophical or anti-religious stance"? Rohl's talk of confusion is projection.

Isn't this basically the Velikovskiist argument? The legends don't fit the evidence from the period they supposedly refer to so let's shift the period. But where do we move the exodus to make sense of the city of Raamses, built by Ramses II, and Pithom (Pr-itm), built by Necho II (according to Redford in E.C.&I. p.451), mentioned in Ex 1:11? These are discordant dating indications and cannot be reconciled with any convenient movement of the setting of the exodus story.

And one has to wonder how that will help with Raamses and Pithom. Rohl has the builder of Raamses in the 10th century and the builder of Pithom hopefully at the end of the 7th century. One gets into awful contortions trying to extract history from legend.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I leave it up to you. Do you think David Rohl has shown any single one of his artifices to be more than that?


spin

andrewcriddle

Hi David

Can I ask you how you reconcile your dates for the New Kingdom with the radiocarbon evidence ?

I am fully aware that there are problems with using C14 dating in Archaeology but the evidence does IMO cause problem with reducing the date of the New Kingdom by several centuries

Eg Manning in Radiocarbon and Egyptian Chronology presents data from Tell-el-Amarna (dated between 1350 BCE and 1334 BCE by conventional chronology). This material gives a corrected radiocarbon date range of 1389-1260 BCE. This only allows the conventional chronology to be reduced by a little less than 100 years.

Reducing the conventional chronology by over 200 years seems IMO implausible.

Andrew Criddle

Duke Leto

I think I can cast some doubts over the efficacy of Radiocarbon, since I've done a lot of thinking on the subject.

First an explanation of the science underlying radiocarbon dating. Our atmosphere is under constat barrage of intense radiation from our friendly neighborhood Fusion Power source, to wit, the sun. A statistically predictable number of cosmic rays interacting with the upper atmosphere dislodge neutrons from atomic nuclei, which subsequently hit other nuclei and produce radioactive isotopes. The most common of these isotopes is when a neutron hits a Nitrogen 14 nucleus, by far the most common isotope in the most common element in the atmosphere, and transmutes it to a heavy isotope of Carbon, Carbon-14, with a hydrogen atom sloghed off into the bargain.

Since Carbon-14 has a fairly short half-life, just under 6000 years, there's a natural equilibrium point between the constant creation of Carbon-14 and its constant decay back to Nitrogen-14 by Beta radiation. This equilibrium point is presently at ~ 1 C-14 atom for every trillion standard issue C-12 atoms in the atmosphere. Since living things are constantly exchanging carbon with the atmosphere by means of photosynthesis and respiration, the proportion of C-12 versus C-14 in living things is always the same as that of the local atmosphere. Once something is dead, however, that exchange of carbon comes to an end and the C-14 gradually decays away. So, by measuring the proportion of C-14 to C-12 against the fixed rate of decay, one can state with confidence when the the organism died.

The problem is it isn't that simple. The theory rests on three major assumptions that are simply not true.

1.) The amount of solar radiation causing N-14 transmutation in the upper atmosphere is constant. This is not the case owing to fluctuations in solar output with the sunspot cycles and variations in the strength of Earth's magnetic field.

2) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is constant. As we all know this is emphatically not the case and CO2 has content has gone up dramatically within historial times thanks to human intervention. The more CO2 there is in the atmosphere as a whole, the larger the pool the constant trickle of transmuted C-14 is absorbed into, and the lower its equilibrium proportion.

3) It is assumed no sources of inorganic carbon are escaping into the system to drive down the overall proportion. We know that no systemic human activity capable of releasing considerable amounts of fossilized Carbon has existed until the industrial era, but that leaves volcanic activity as a wrench in the works. (The input of radioactive carbon into the atmosphere stemming from a certain gang of idiots getting access to very powerful "neutron emitting devices" circa 1945.)

Thus carbon dating must be calibrated.

This is generally done via dendrochronology, the study of tree ring widths to determine the age of trees. Since the age of a tree can be known by counting its seasonal rings, and the pattern of thin rings to fat rings within a given environment will be unique over a period years, if you can match the pattern of ring growth in a tree or piece of timber with an unknown date of death to another pattern in a tree or piece of timber with a known date of death, you can fix when the unknown tree died and thus what the proportion of C-14 to C-12 was at that time. In theory.

There are two problems with dendrochronology prior to roughly the start of the common era as I see it.

First is the increasing paucity of source logs. Second is the inherent subjectivity of pattern matching on tree rings, even if done by computer, since climate is still cyclical, and trees will have a tendency to auto-correlate, yielding false positives.

What would be best is if Thera could be pinned down by non-radiocarbon methods. We know a major catastrophic eruption took place that is placed at circa 1640 BCE via radiocarbon and dendrochronological methods, but the sulphur peak captured in the glacial corings of the polar ice caps finger Mt. Aniakchak in Alaska.

David has proposed that the final Thera eruption is represented circa 1090 BCE sulphur peak. If the analysis done on the Mt Aniakchak volcanic glass shards could be replicated on all the volcanic events in the glacial record, and showed Thera's historical era eruptions to have taken place much later than radiocarbon and dendrochronology currently allow, then I think that would be a vindication. (I don't have the spare multimillions lying around to comission such an experiment at the present time however, and Bobby Jindal would object to such research, as we all know.)

judge

Don't you think it's possible the greek translator, writing so many centuries later, might have been the one who was confused?
The context seems to indicate Egypt. You want this to be Arabia, but it seems to be Egypt as far as I can see.

I don't really agree with David Rohls ideas (I have not even investigated them) but I think, from looking at the context, it is difficult to make this location outside Egypt.

David Rohl

Regarding C14 and its dendro calibration, Duke Leto has done most of the spade work for us. Thank you. As a non-scientist, I can only express my concerns by observing that any reliance on this methodology for dating archaeology prior to 500 BC ends up with some pretty silly results. So, I think that its usefulness for determining which chronology is correct is questionable.

The calibrated C14 dates may coincidentally coincide at the Amarna period (and only then) in the Orthodox Chronology, but no Egyptologist would accept having to add 100-150 years to the length of the 18th Dynasty (on any chronology) in order to line up the Thera event with the first appearance of Theran pumice in Egypt and elsewhere (whether you go for early 18th Dynasty or Thutmose III period as with Bietak). Manning is way out on a limb here and no Egyptologist (nor the vast majority of Aegean archaeologists), to my knowledge, goes along with him.

Then we have the problem that, as we go back in time (again using the conventional dating for Egypt), the gap gets wider, with C14 dates for the 12th Dynasty being a couple of hundred years older than the OC historical dates. As we reach the Old Kingdom and the pyramid age the gap is around 400 years.

Then we have the cute little problem of Utzi (Ice Man) found in the Italian Alps. C14 dating puts him in the Neolithic Age but unfortunately he is carrying a copper axe from the Chalcolithic period. Oooops!

And all this within the orthodox dating system. Interestingly enough, the raw (uncalibrated) C14 dates are pretty close to the New Chronology dates. Just an observation.

Ted Hoffman

Thank youn spin and David. From a layman's perspective, I think it is clear that Rohl's conclusions, as far as the linguistic argument is concerned, are hasty and his explanations are insufficient and not attentive to related issues.
I am not sure Duke Leto's arguments against the reliability of Carbon dating are sufficient. I believe similar argiments have been made by others and dealt with though I dont care too much to search the archives.

David Rohl

Regarding Gesem Arabias, at the time the LXX was being written (in the Ptolemaic period), the 21st nome of Lower Egypt was called the Arabian Nome, the capital of which was Phakusa - modern Fakus (ancient Pa Kus), just a few kilometres south of Tell ed-Daba (Avaris). Silvia (AD 385) refers to this town, known as 'the City of Arabia', whist on her journey north from Heroopolis in the Wadi Tumilat to Pelusium on the Mediterranean coast. She was therefore passing through the eastern Nile delta region where Fakus and Tell ed-Daba are located. This is therefore The Goshen (LXX 'Kessan' or 'Gesem') of the OT narratives.

Wow, spin wants to put Goshen/Gesem in Arabia. Unfortunately for him another massive brain fart.

David Rohl

Spent an hour last night with a couple of biblical Hebrew dictionaries and concordances. Not difficult to find several examples to contradict what spin has said and Ted Hoffman has swallowed.

From the Jewish Enyclopedia: The distinction in sound between "sin" and "samek" is not clear. "Shin" interchanges with "sin," and both these (in corresponding Aramaic and Arabic words) with dentals and spirants.

Arabic has no glyph for samek and replaces it with sin.

Prior to the Late Period in Egypt the Egyptian letters T or Tj is represented by Hebrew samek – thus Egyptian Pa Tjufy (‘the reeds’) becomes biblical Yam Suf (‘sea of reeds’) with samek replacing Tj. Hoffmeier states that Egyptian S does ‘normally’ get represented by Hebrew samek – but not ‘always’. Indeed, not unsurprisingly, samek and sin could be confused as they sound almost identical. Here are some examples of Egyptian S represented in Hebrew by sin and NOT samek just to demonstrate the point that no such linguistic rule applies.

Old Egy. sar (prince), Akk. sharru (ruler); Heb. sar (prince)
Old Egy. seref (to be warm); Heb. saraph (to burn);
Egy. sek (headband); Heb. sak (sack)
Egy. sepet (lip); Akk. shaptu (lip); Heb. sapham (lip)

[Note: the use of the letter E in the modern transcription of ancient Egyptian is a standard way to substitute for presumed vowels of unknown value because hieroglyphic writing does not include vowels.]

In the Hebrew articulation of Strong’s Dictionary it describes samek as 'a sharp S'. It then describes sin as 'a sharp S equal to samek'.

Here are examples of Hebrew shin in which the Arabic retains sin because the Arabic script did not develop a sign for shin.

Sheba = Arab. Saba (Arabian country)
Shalom = Arab. Salam (peace)
Shuwk = Arab. Sukh (street)

Even in Hebrew itself there is variation:

Dammesek (Damascus) but Demeshek (cloth of Damascus)

Here are a few more examples where Egyptian words written with S are written in Hebrew with Sh (shin):

Egy. ses (six) = Heb. shesh (six)
Egy. shes (linen) = Heb. shesh (linen)
Egy. sekhekh (to weigh) = Heb. shakal (to weigh)
Egy. sebet (to judge) = Heb. shapat (to judge)
Egy. shemsu (follower) = Heb. shemesh (servant)

And Kitchen says this never happens? Thus Sysw to Shyshk is not isolated when it comes to evidence that Egyptian S can transform to Hebrew Sh.

When a city in Spain can be founded in the Roman Empire period with the name Ceasar Augustus but, 1000 years later is known as Zaragoza from [Cea]sar-A[u]gustu[s], it is surely pushing it a bit to insist that the difference between three types of S (samek, sin and shin) could be distinguished and maintained without transfer or confusion for 1,500 years or more from the 10th century BC down to Massoretic times and 500 years later to our first surviving manuscript of Kings and Chronicles (Leningrad Codex c. AD 1010) where the name Shishak first appears.

Duke Leto

It might be helpful if there were instances from a Northwest Semitic written record of an s -> sh consonantal shift from egyptian to semitic. Are there any instances of X-messes named pharoahs mentioned in Ugaritic or Eblaite tablet hoards? What about Mari?