judge

You have ignored the context of Genesis 45. You want the Goshen in Genesis 46 to be in Arabia but the Goshen in Genesis 45 is clearly in Egypt.

Here is the mention of Goshen again in context. Genesis 45:8-10

You need to explain how if Goshen is in Arabia, Josephs family will be near him.


You don't know what the greek translator thought. You just keep repeating your assertion that you do, all the while ignoring the context of Genesis 45:8-10.

On top of this David Rohl gives an explanation for the LXX translation, however you ignored it.

David Rohl

This is my reply to Ted Hoffman’s support for spin’s arguments:

DR: All history is conjecture – even spin’s suggestion that the story was first written down during the Babylonian Exile. The ‘conjecture’ (i.e. historical interpretation) that the name Moses derives from the Egyptian Mose has ‘been on the books’ for a while precisely because it is historically and linguistically plausible and it has been accepted by some of the greatest authorities in the relevant disciplines, including Albright, Griffith, Gardiner and the majority of both Egyptologists and biblical scholars.

DR: No, but what he did say was that the transmission of the name was the ‘reverse’ of Egyptian to Hebrew, implying that the Egyptians got the name from Israel. I merely pointed out that the Egyptians would not have got the name from Hebrew but from their own contact with Ashkelon (a vassal city to Egypt), therefore this is not an example of ‘reverse’ transmission. This whole diversion by spin is completely irrelevant as the issue is not which direction a word or name is transmitted, but simply that an Egyptian S can and does appear in biblical Hebrew as Sh (shin). Kitchen claims that Egyptian S ‘never’ appears in Hebrew as shin. I have given examples to demonstrate that Kitchen is wrong. This is not ‘ambivalent material’.

DR: I didn’t ‘duck out’. I made it clear that I would not respond to him directly. It is, in my view, a waste of time to debate with people who keep moving the goal posts or introduce diversionary topics, because you get nowhere.

But for your info Ted (as you seem to believe what spin says), the Ketiv version of Shishak (i.e. Shushak) is not ‘a difficult reading suggesting it was in fact the original’ - that really is pure speculation and only derives from a need to demonstrate that the Egyptian original was Shoshenk and not Sysw. Shushak is merely the least attested spelling of the name (one example). The common spelling (in all other Hebrew versions) is Shishak with a yod and not a waw. Therefore I could just as easily argue that the Shishak rendition, being better attested, suggests that it was, in fact, closer to the original.

DR: Quite simply wrong. If you have a biblical Hebrew dictionary (with foreign language parallels) just check for yourself and you will find plenty of examples of Egyptian S represented in Hebrew by shin. And it is not true that ‘each confirmed case of an Egyptian S’ is transliterated into Hebrew samek.

Spin claims that the examples I gave of Egyptian S being transmitted in the Amarna Letters as Sh are irrelevant, because the actual letters I quoted were not directly from Palestine. First, this is just another side-tracking tactic. The argument is that the lingua franca of the region for diplomatic correspondence - from Syria down to Egypt - was Akkadian (with some letters in Canaanite) and that, as the NC places the United Monarchy in this period, the name of the pharaoh who, in the biblical tradition, plundered the temple of Solomon in Year 5 of Rehoboam would have been common currency in that lingua franca. Thus it is directly relevant if Egyptian S becomes Sh in diplomatic correspondence of the time. If letters from Ribaddi of Byblos display this feature where Egyptian officials, whose names include an S, happen to be referred to, then this is proof that Egy. S = Akk. Sh and therefore that Sysw could be written as Shyshw in diplomatic correspondence. If the lingua franca from any part of the region shows this feature, then it can be taken as read that the use of that same lingua franca in Palestine would contain the same feature.

Moreover, spin is completely wrong about reference (e) which he claims has an ‘unknown provenence’. He is clearly not up to date, because the clay from this letter and others written by the scribes of Shubanda (the author) has been tested and shown to come from Ashkelon. Thank you science. So the letter referring to the Egyptian official Ptahmose as Tamashi originates directly from the area under discussion. We do, therefore, have an example of Egyptian S transferring into the lingua franca which originates in Palestine.

So when spin blithely says that ‘Not one of these examples is relevant to the issue at hand’, he is being misleading and factually wrong.

And:

DR: Completely wrong as I have produced tangible examples in every instance.

DR: As I have demonstrated, spin was completely unaware of the fact that one of the largest nomes in the Egyptian Nile delta was called ‘the Arabian Nome’ in which Gesem was located. So he is now feeling a bit uptight about his lack of knowledge. He shouldn’t really as we can’t be experts in everything. But will he retract? Anyone else here think the Israelite sojourn in the Land of Goshen (located there by the Egyptian pharaoh) was in what we today call Arabia?

DR: Hopefully, I’ve shown that spin spin is once again over-hasty in his conclusion.

DR: The Israelites are not described as entering an empty land. The land was very much occupied and the Israelites are supposed to have committed ethnic cleansing. There was indeed continuous occupation of sites at the end of the Late Bronze Age (the OC date of the Exodus), which is why archaeologists reject a Conquest at that time (but not Kitchen). However, towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age the sites identified as those destroyed and abandoned in the Joshua narratives were destroyed and left unoccupied. So spin is very muddled here. He is getting confused between two periods.

andrewcriddle

Hi Ben

The Arnold and Libby paper is (not surprisingly) outdated it assumes that C14 levels in the atmosphere are constant with time. According to most scholars (though not IIUC David Rohl) this is not accurately so. There was say 5% more C14 in 3000 BCE than there is now. This means that wood from 3000 BCE dates (without correction) hundreds of years younger than its true age.

Andrew Criddle

David Rohl

DR: Too early, I'm afraid, in respect of Ebla and Mari which are EB and MB. Ugarit, unfortunately has not produced an Egyptian name ending in the -mes element.

Do you still think I am misinformed about the quality of the C14 samples on the Turin Shroud, having read the latest scientific evidence? The Shroud is only relevant in that it demonstrates that C14 scientists are fallible, and all those working in the field are as human as we historians. How many times has science proved not to be the Holy Grail? There is good science and bad science, just as there is good history and bad history (Kitchen).

spin

Like hell I do. You should read what I said.

Am I to believe that you wanna peddle two Goshens in the same area rather than accept the simpler conclusion that the writers weren't accurate? Can you get Egypt from Josh 10:41, 11:16?

We have what the translator provided, which is sufficient to understand what he wanted to convey.

I didn't ignore it. The linguistics don't work, as he assumes his conclusion, ie that Hebrew behind Goshen is derived from the Egyptian. So far, he's got a very poor record as to what Hebrew terms he has cited that actually come from Egyptian. (The LXX Gesem is derived directly from the Hebrew g$n.)


spin

David Rohl

DR: Andrew, could you explain this to me? How do you know that there was more C14 in 3000 BC than now?

JoeWallack

JW:
This is all fascinating. A few questions:

1) The original sample would have been completely destroyed in the test. So how could you now determine that it was cotton?

2) What exactly does "directly adjacent" mean?

3) The Church has not allowed any official testing of the Shroud since the carbon dating. So what exactly did Villarreal test and how did he obtain it?

4) How could a textile expert not be able to distinguish cotton from linen under a microscope?

5) Is Villarreal a believer?



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Duke Leto

Actually, I was trying to subtly suggest that even appearing to argue in favor of the "authenticity" of the shroud around here is going to go over about as well as opening a "United Gay Communist African Church of Satan Late-Term Abortion Clinic" in the Deep American South. Except the lynching in that case would probably be less severe.

andrewcriddle

The problems with the Old Kingdom are also discussed in Manning Radiocarbon and Egyptian Chronology (previously cited)

There seem to be several possible problems
a/ The conventional archaeological dates for the Old Kingdom are genuinely uncertain (they depend on the length of the 1st intermediate period which modern archaeologists guess as very short).
b/ Most of the problematic dates come from the Pyramid complexes where there may be a problem with old wood (as suggested in your first link.) This may sound like special pleading but it seems clear that there is a surprisingly large spread of dates among different pieces of wood from the same pyramid suggesting that some of the wood used was already old.
c/ By conventional chronology, and assuming brand new wood was not used, the wood used in the pyramids would typically date from c 2600 BCE. According to the results from dendrochronology (if you believe them) this occurs in the 2900-2500 BCE radiocarbon 'plateau' in which the average of the corrected age date span for samples in the younger part of this period will typically be a century or more too old.

(It is claimed by Manning that dates for Archaic wood (from the very beginning of the Dynastic period) give ages matching the dates from the conventional chronology.)

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

Hi David

I was explaining to Ben the current consensus (I noted that you do not share it.) As you are aware the most unambiguous evidence comes from measuring the C14 in treerings from trees (primarily North American) whose absolute ages are known by tree ring matching. There are problems (not generally regarded as major) in applying these results to the Eastern Mediterranean where the tree ring calendar is less solidly rooted in absolute chronology.

(If one accepts the conventional Egyptian chronology then one has no real option but to believe there was more C14 in ancient times but you would correctly regard this as a circular argument.)

Andrew Criddle