Cege

Hex, there's nothing in the Time article to support Lars' claim about Kenyon. Here's that pertinent section from ARE THE BIBLE'S STORIES TRUE?:

Unlike the Exodus, the story of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan can be tested against a rich archaeological record. The scientific consensus: bad news for the biblical account. According to the Book of Joshua, the Israelite leader and his armies swept into Canaan, destroying cities including Jericho, Hazor and Ai, after which the Israelites settled the land.

Archaeology tells a more complicated tale. Historians generally agree that Joshua's conquest would have taken place in the 13th century B.C. But British researcher Kathleen Kenyon, who excavated at Jericho for six years, found no evidence of destruction at that time. Indeed, says Dead Sea Scrolls curator emeritus Broshi, "the city was deserted from the beginning of the 15th century until the 11th century B.C." So was Ai, say Broshi and others. And so, according to archaeological surveys, was most of the land surrounding the cities. Says Broshi: "The central hill regions of Judea and Samaria were practically uninhabited. The Israelites didn't have to kill and burn to settle." - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...3854-7,00.html

dpiperoax

Joining this discussion after seven pages, I notice that while Lars is, shall we say, exceedingly voluble about various abstruse or imaginary details of carbon dating, mummy's toes, and so on, he has never bothered to reply to various posters who point out the obvious impossibilities the supposed exodus describes. Lessee now: he mentions "a million or so" escaped Israelites wandering around the desert. Since the number of men who "were able to go forth to war" is specified in Numbers as 603,550 this makes for some peculiar demographics. Normally a society will have roughly equal numbers of adult males and females, so already we have 1,200,000. Add in the oldsters- surely at least one father/mother/aunt per couple and we're at 1,800,000.
When we get to the children things get a little confusing: Deut. x says that there were only 70 original people who went down into Egypt, and Gen. 15 that there were four generations between the going down and the exodus, so assuming that all the men found wives somehow in Egypt, each mother must have had about twentynine children (Gen 1:70, gen 2: 2030 , gen 3: 58,870, gen 4: 1,700,00.) But maybe they stopped at gen 4 and only had two kids each, that still gives us around three million, not counting the mixed multitude and the Levites and so on. And we're supposed to believe that this entire throng, old ladies, pregnant women, the sick and injured, five-year-old kids, plus several million animals ("Not an hoof was left behind") assembled at Rameses on a few hours notice and then ran, at the speed of a good midpack ultramarathoner, the 35 miles or so (my Biblical Atlas doesn't give the exact distance, but that's what it measures at) to Succoth, without food or water, all in one day.
Lars mentions several times that they lived in tents. Where did they get them? A WW2 USArmy six man tent weighs about 110 pounds; they needed half a million tents. I suppose they encountered Omar the Tent Maker in the desert and he happened to have a stock of 27,500 tons of tent making material on hand? Not to mention the wood for tentposts and so on.
The water problem has already been mentioned. Lars has ignored it. I'll add that not only did they need drinking water for the throng and their beasts, they were forever supposed to be washing their clothes for ritual purposes.
As for the unmummified bodies decaying completely: this is the Sinai desert we're talking about. I've never been there, but I've been to the Atacama where you can dig up dried lizards and birds that are four thousand years old, not to mention a lot of human remains. Since all the original three million were supposed to die, that means there were around 200 deaths (and births) per day, which also leads to the problem of where all the sacrificed cattle and doves and so on that they needed to purify themselves after touching a dead body or an "unclean" woman came from. And how Aaron and his sons were supposed to kill and eat maybe six hundred cows a day, (anybody else who tried to perform any priestly jobs was apparently zapped by YHWH) and carry the remains outside the camp to burn (a distance of maybe ten kilometers).
And so on. Try here: http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/mat...saa_mod04.html for a lot more.

dpiperoax

Sorry, wrong reference: http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...hapter_04.html

Hex

While this tablet is important – perhaps the first record of an eclipse that we have, it is unlikely that it ‘had only current interest interest and was not an astronomical text reference that might have been filed in an archive’. “Since it's the only "liver reading/eclipse" text found, it's reasonable to presume it had only current interest and was not an astronomical text reference that might have been filed in an archive.” A liver reading. Doesn’t that sound, oh, Babylonian? Heptascopy was big with them in terms of getting messages from beyond. In the context of Mesopotamian oracles, the mix of haruspicy and astronomy is common. It’s just not well documented in Ugarit. Such portents as what has been understood from the tablet state:

Now … What’s the big deal here?

That 1375BCE date. We can run the astronomical data backward and forward to ‘prove’ an eclipse. As we’ve learned, ‘we have the technology’.

But, the thing to note, the thing I meant to get across, is that not –all- historical descriptions of eclipses are of celestial origin.


And that’s only if you take that translation …


I’m not saying that they’re total hoaxes, just that they –were not- first-person reporters. They could have got some things wrong, even as much as they had intentions of being as truthful as possible. As such, they should be used to back up the –physical- information, not as a primary source, right?


No problem. It’s one of the benefits of doing research, you find out really cool things.

I didn't limit the reference. The reference is limited in the scope of what you want it to do.

Now, one thing in here … Is that third quarter going forward or backward in time? See, in working in the BC’s to me, I’d put that third quarter at 1375-1350. Minor detail? Maybe, but it’s one of the reasons that academic reports explicitly state dates and date ranges. No confusion, or chance for same, = good.


No. It’s a range. It depends on how far back in time, how big the sample is, the means of dating, and/or how ‘clean’ or uncontaminated the sample is. Take where I do most of my work. A gram of charcoal run through a C-14 AMS dating analysis, even to go back 500 years, could have a range of 50 to 60 years, depending. Hence, a range of +/- 8 years to the BCs, to me, is very impressive. It’s a great help in putting the finds in context. In putting the remains above and below the charred layer in context, with closer and closer resolution. But it’s –not- pinpoint accuracy!

No matter how much you want to give that ‘peak’ on the chart a 99% accuracy, it –isn’t-.

No, I’m not questioning the chart. I’m questioning the extrapolation that you put on it. It’s –your- numbers that I thought were laughable, at least I assume that it was your addition to put on the wonderfully colored boxes and numbers.


Oh … Now here I thought were were concerned with Shishak’s conquest. Seems that’s supposed to occur during the Level V time-period. You want to look at Level IV? Okay, let’s look at the report …

If Shishak's invasion falls in this level, we’re looking at a 880-836 time period. 871 BCE, then, is still within the range, but –way- on the early side. And, how the heck do the archaeologists working on the site screw up enough to put the invasion you so dearly want to put here in Level V?

Well, look at what they do. They look for things that –do- fit. We’ve got a couple of the Aramean invasions, an Assyrian invasion and the Jehu Revolt in there. The archaeologists look to the plausible before trying to jam something they want into the data.

Or wait …

You’re saying that the archaeologists are all using the wrong eclipse to date the invasion? Come on. If you’re so positive about the Ugarit eclipse, then can you somehow –prove- that the Assyrian one is wrong?


Okay … Since we’ve already covered the eclipse above, let me just hit on your hero of the hour here, Rohl. Now, he’s an Egyptologist. And he has written up his prestigious ‘New Chronology’, through Test of Time and Legend, involves a major reworking of not only Egyptian chronology but also some general Mesopotamian chronologies. Why is it that his chronology isn’t widely accepted?

It’s –not- well based in fact! Look to Pharaohs and the Bible. David Rohl's chronology untenable (English Translation), from the December 1999 Dutch journal, Bijbel, Geschiedenis en Archeologie. And, not just that article, there are many problems when one tries to integrate Rohl’s chronology with the rest of the world.

In light of that, I’ll stick with chronologies that are a bit more … oh … conservative and factually based. But, since you want to use Rohl’s chronology then you have to use it consistently. Now, that said, how does all this work as Rohl puts Akhenaten as pharoh from 1006 to 990 BCE?

Who ruled Egypt from 1386 BCE (when, as you state above) Amenhotep III died until 1006?


Point the next: Akhenaten's Monotheism.

Aton, the god, existed far before Akhenaten came to power. It's not his version of Yahweh. Look to the Sed-Festivals for proof:

Aton is understood as the father of Re. Akhenaten, when he sets himself up as a monotheist, is also supposed to be the son of Aton.

He's not inventing a new god to emulate the Hebrew god.


So, you’re positing that the ruler of a country/nation/empire actually does everything during their reign –personally-? So when he dies, everything just stops?

Governments have a great administration of scribes, accountants, emissaries, military officials, local governors, you name it. These are the people who keep things going while the ruler idles away time, travels to different places, and, of course, after the ruler’s death and before the new ruler takes power. These people continue to work. To record. To monitor commerce.

And, the thing to note here is that –all- of the records of Akhenaten’s reign are –not destroyed. And, one would think that those administrators already at work on a task would continue on it until re-assigned. Inscriptions would continue to be made. Life, for everyone (except the dead ruler, of course) continues. And, Akhenaten –does- start out as Amenhotep IV. For a while, he’s just another pharoh; legitimate. Why –wouldn’t- life as usual continue?

Off Topic, and in response to questioning: Those of us with –training- see history not as a series of dates, but as a continuum of human existence. People make all those amazing events you’re trying to put in context happen, if they actually occurred.


So, no other rulers thought maybe to write down someplace, or make note of this ‘living God of some slaves’ who kills rulers? The Assyrians and Babylonians who later conquer Israel and Judeah didn’t take this death of a pharoh as a lesson to stay away from these folks? I don’t buy it, and it again, is conjecture. If it was, in fact, ‘big news’ where’s the 72 point headline on a clay tablet?


Whoa!

Executed? You can infer that from that wording? How about this …

How about all those people who have a loved one die, say … by being on a plane that crashes. So long as it’s not a pilot error or sabotage and it’s a simple mechanical malfunction, we can’t really call it an execution in any sense, right? But wait, how about if the president of the airline calls the family and says ‘Oh, I wish it had been me instead of your family member. Wait, it would have been better if 100 of my airline’s employees had died than your family member.’

Does that automatically make it into an execution somehow?

Whoa again!

Where does the mass death come into it? It’s a trade. It’s talking about how the pharoh’s life is (to the writer) –worth- 10,000 normal people.

Please, show me, explicitly, word for word where the execution of –a single person- ruler or not, is in your miraculous EA 29. If it’s just interpretation, please recognize that I, and perhaps many others, don’t see –your- interpretation.

Not ‘When you consider’ but ‘If you consider’. The numbers you bring up in all of this don’t work for me.

Now, note, when I say that, even though I’m trained in the social sciences, I can tell that 10 x 1000 = 10,000, and that 10,000 seems to be the number on EA 29. (I say that because I haven’t been able to lay my hands on the –exact- text of the entirety of EA 29.)



It’s a statement of –sympathy- between aristocrats. I can’t get what you get from it. If you –want- to read the Red Sea scene from DeMille’s The Ten Commandments in to this letter, I’m not likely to be able to persuade you, even if it’s not there. (which it isn’t, BTW)


Punished?

-Where- do you get this to read into it? It’s not a ransom note, it’s a condolence letter.


Oh … Confused. Right.

I assume by bringing in Finklestein to the arguement, you're looking to The Bible Unearthed. That in no way is meant to be a mainstream view. Finklestein and Silberman do a job of supporting an ideological agenda. They, in that book, make those same unsupported, perhaps unsupportable, claims and connections that I see in your arguement. Were they to post their stuff on the board here, I'd go after their arguements as bad archaeology too.

Look up above for the Tel Rehov arguement. I still contend that there is -not- a "high probability of 99% for a range between 874-867BCE".

You brought the 'dysfunctional' tag into all of this ...

In looking at the month shift, you -are- taking into account the shift between the Julian and Gregorian calendrical systems, right? The vernal equinox in 1375 BC occured on or within a day of April 2 (Sawyer and Stephenson). Are you -sure- you've found a dating inconcistancy?

Doesn't that make you wonder, if you're the only one who gets 'your truth'?

No, cultural analogy is a bit more than conjecture. My interpretation of -why- Akhenaten tries to work Egypt into a monotheism is very much like what Theodosis wanted to get out of making Christianity the state religion of Rome. How the Byzantine Emperor worked himself into becoming the patron of the Eastern Orthadox church. How the Aztec Emperors maintained control by being the most prominent and important figures to deal with the gods on a personal level.

Political leaders + the lure of religious control over a populace = total control. Heart and mind. Very tempting, no?


Really? Live and recently deceased bodies are pretty durable. And, in high-saline water situations, bouyant. The Red Sea isn't particularly violent, and the assumed 'Reed Sea' even less, being a shallow lake.

Um ... Please not that I didn't mis-quote. I actually quoted -everything- in your original post.

And, if 'correctly applied' means only taking the bits that you like and that don't go against what you like, well ...

It's very likely that most archaeologists don't apply archaeology 'correctly' for you.

Hence, NOT your friend.


I'm not even going to get into how you relate the Exodus and the Jews returning to Palestine in 1947. I can't even fathom it.

And, for what it's worth here, again, no. Not when you put the pieces together as I've laid out here.

Sorry.

No problem. As a "professional", I'm glad to help. And, even if I don't convince you, but I do show some other readers how to do 'research' and make it 'valid', my job here is done ...

jess

Hi! :wave: and welcome to the boards!

spin

Larsguy47 is cherrypicking his date for the KTU 1.78 eclipse. He has the temerity to assume that the writer of this text must have been Egyptian or Egyptian influenced though no evidence has been put forward for this, and though he clearly shows no knowledge of Egypt's relationship with the Levant at the time of, and as seen in, the Amarna letters (and coincidentally KTU 1.78). As KTU 1.78 was written not in Egyptian hieroglyphics or even Western Peripheral Akkadian, but in Ugaritic, this guarantees that the writer was Ugaritic, making Larsguy47's position untenable, for he depends on the necessity of the text having been strongly Egyptian influenced. A Ugarit found text written in Ugaritic, says that his assumptions are totally unfounded.

He poo-poos other, later analyses of KTU 1.78 because they don't fit his assumptions. What would one expect? He is conclusion driven.

I pointed to de Jong and Van Soldt's Nature article on the text, which gave 5 March 1223BCE. Then there is the Dietrich/Loretz Ugarit-Forschungen (#34, 2002, pp.53-74) date of 21 Jan 1192BCE. But Larsguy47 likes his date just fine and isn't interested in anything else, because his a priori commitments go for the 1375BCE.

You don't argue with that. There is no analysis going on. That would require a certain dose of scholarly acumen.

Why does he like 1375? Why does he have to have an Egyptian interpretation? He believes he can justify the exodus through such an unscholarly approach. But justify the exodus to whom?


spin

darinmac

If i did my math right ,2 million people walking in a single file line , say 3 feet apart . would be a line a people stretching some 1136 miles long . It would be difficult not to be able to find these people

Larsguy47

Hi Spin, WHY are you soooo worried about 1375BCE? It's a legitimate match, so it will need to be considered anyway. Let me tell you WHY, again, 1375BCE has always been the best choice:

1) This is an Amarna Period event. That is, 1375BCE occurs during the "conventional" dating of Akhenaten, who is conventionally dated beginning his rule in 1378BCE. So 1375BCE belongs to the Amarna Period, no matter what, if you assign the eclipse to 1375BCE.

2) The whole suspicion of David Rohl for matching this text is an AMARNA LETTER to Akhenaten about a palace fire. That is significant because the text was found charred in a burned building. This was not the final level, however, another level that was also burned, the final level, above this level.

The reference is found in EA 151 (BM 29813) from Abi-Milku to Akhenaten, in part:

To the king, my Sun, my god, my gods: Message of Abi-Milku, your servant... 49-58 The king, my lord, wrote to me, "Write to me what you hve heard in Canaan." The king of Danuna died; his brother became king afer his death, and his land is at peace. Fire destroyed the palace at Ugarit; (rather), it destroyed half of it and so half of it has disappeared."

That's it. That's the whole entirety of connecting this fire, with that eclipse text. Very circumstantial. But also unavoidable, why?

BE-CAUSE...ONE

1) Ugarit is where the text was found in the palace ruins

AND TWO

2) Because the letter about the fire at the palace was written to Akhenaten.


For some reason, this was dated to the 12th of Akhenaten. As far as I can tell, there was only one dated Amarna text that was partially broken off and they can't decide if it was 12 or 2, but 12 has been the consensus and so it is dated to this year of Akhenaten. But I really don't care, since the Exodus dating to 1386 BCE would preempt the year of the fire if it was applied. It just so happens that year 12 is the correct year to make year 1 of Akhenaten fall in 1386BCE.

So, please understand, I'm representing the CONSERVATIVE dating here. Dating during the conventional time for Akhenaten and the only eclipse event happening during this time. Rohl and others have not only to move the timing for the destruction of Urgarit to some non-archaeological supported time, but the Amarna Period down to the time of David too? PA-LEEEZE! Even if there were three other potential dates for this reference, the history and archaeology alone would exclude them.

NOW ABOUT THE EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE.

As you noted from the Amarna Text Letter, Ugarit was under Egyptian influence at this time. Period. Egypt not only educated everyone in Egyptian universities who served in the government it also had it's own representatives in all these city states. Thus there are two strong possibilities for why Egyptian astroterminology could be used in this text: 1) Is because the Ugaritian magistrate was educated in Egypt and in Egyptian astronomy concepts, and 2) The Egyptian magistrate serving the king who is interpreting the meaning of the eclipse is simply expressing the details of the eclipse in terms of Egyptian astro-terminology.

Those three specific "Egyptian" elements in the text, again are:

1) B++ which becomes a reference to "sixth" HOUR, since the Egyptians had a concept of the 24-hour day. The "hour" was not a cultural concept generally elsewhere until much later (i.e. "hour" is referenced in the NT, but not in the OT); and

2) "Enter the sun through HER GATE" is quite basic for the Egyptian concept of the sun traveling through gates. Specifically 12 gates of the night through the body of the female goddes Hathor. Thus "HER GATE" that the sun enters through at sunrise, is Hathor's gate. Now. Having read hundreds of astronomical texts myself, I can assure you the common reference of significance besides which sector the eclipse begins in around the ege of the sun, and the specific time of the day or its intensity, is the ZODIAC HOUSE in which the event occurs. All that has meaning. But since during the day, you cannot observe the stars readily, the time to determine which zodiac house the sun is residing in is to observe it just before dawn. Thus the idea of which house the sun is in, defaults to which house the sun rose in, expressed in Egyptian as the sun entering through HER (Hathor's) GATE.

3) RESHEP, depicted as a bull and with the title of "LORD of Heaven" which is the same as "BEL/BULL of Heaven" the formal title for the zodiac sign of TAURUS is simply used to refer to Taurus here. This is confirmed because for this date, indeed, the sun was in Taurus. No one is pulling anything fast here or complex. It's very fundamental. Thus line two simply notes that the sun rose in Taurus, the "sun entered her gate in Taurus."

Line one is just as simple as well. The basics: HOUR: Sixth. DAY: New Moon, MONTH: Hiyyaru.

Now. This argument is so obviously convincing, since you can't claim there's no Egyptian influence here since this was the Amarna Period, that David Rohl and his group have given up this eclipse reference totally as part of his promotion for moving the Amarna Period down to the time of David. And that's because they have no choice.

The bottom line is, it is difficult to say there might not be Egyptian influences in this text at this time, and once you presume that B++ means "sixth" and apply that to the Egyptian hour, which begins at midnight, then you have an eclipse reference so specific it can only be matched to an eclipse that occurs there during that hour and the only one that does, likely in a thousand years in either direction is 1375BCE.

You want to go with another date? Be my guest!

All the quotes you gave did not understand the Egyptian text references in this text so they are looking at an eclipse that is non-sepcific to the sixth occur, needing to occur between 5am-6am as the text requires.

So what? What does mean? It means that Akhenaten's rule occurs sometime in the vinicity of 1375BCE. Guess what? We already KNOW that. This text just refines when his rule might have begun, that's all.

So I'm the conservative here by far. It's Rohl and others who want to displace the Amarna Period to a time it doesn't belong.

You misrepresent or misunderstand what is going on. I hope this was helpful,


Larsguy47

spin

Larsguy47,

You haven't added anything to the discussion with this post. You've merely restated your predelictions. You cannot evince the Egyptian influence you wish so badly. Your discussion of fires gets nowhere, because you cannot relate them elsewhere unless you can have an independent marker, which you don't. So stop giving us reading repetitive stress, and show what you are trying to communicate, not by flood of effluence, but by hard evidence. So far you haven't got a thing in your favor. The date is up for grabs and you are in no position to say one is better than another, especially as you need one date and others would simply falsify your position. The text we are looking at has nothing to do with the Amarna letters so is not restricted to the Amarna period. Hello, Larsguy47, come in from the cold and try to do some scholarly analysis rather than let your biases rule your thoughts.


spin

Larsguy47

Like Abraham, skin water bottles were far more convenient. Lighter and more accessible than pottery.

They did leave lots of broken skin bottles lying all over the place too! It was a huge MESS! But, as you know, over time, they biodegrated and so archaeologists, laking the skill to locate those lost molecules are not able to confirm for us anything.

Larsguy47