Friday, March 21, 2014

On Shishak and Agag

Shoshenk's City List
Shoshenk I campaign into Palestine: His city list is an imitation of that of Thutmoses III but very instructive. The first 9 names are the `Nine Bows', #10 is the introduction saying simply "List of the towns". They are: 11=Gaza, 12=Makkedah, 13=Rubuti, 14=Aijalon, 15=Kiriathaim?, 16=Beth- horon, 17=Gibeon, 18=Mahanaim, 19=Shaud[y], 20=?, 21=Adoraim, 22=Hapharaim, 23=Rehob, 24=Betshan, 25= Shunem, 26=Taanach, 27=Megiddo, 28=Adar, 29=Yadhamelek, 30=[Heb]el?, 31=Honim?, 32=Aruna, 33=Borim, 34=Gathpadalla, 35=Yahma, 36=Betharuma, 37=Kekry, 38=Socoh, 39=Bethappuah... Between #17 & 18 should be Jerusalem by sequence if that is where he went according to conventional history, 1.Kings 14:25-26 & 2.Chronicles 12:2-9. In fact he went no where near there.

Kadesh comes from Qdsh, the Hebrew word for Holy, it applied to many cities in the region, to assume Egyptian records always meant the same one is naive, The Bible repeatedly refers to Jerusalem as Holy.

While the "n" is sometimes dropped from Shoshenk, it never is in inscriptions recognizing him from this region.

It is well known that the later Egyptian pharaohs had as many as five names. Now Birch has noted in this regard that "... the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau, Cheser-khau, (Sheser-khau?);" names that come very close indeed to "Shishak" (Hebr. qwaOwi) according to Birch. Nor do these names have the problem of the presence of the letter "n" as found greatly complicating discussions on the name Shoshenq's appropriateness for "Shishak". Regarding the succession of consonants - considered much more important than the changeable vowels in ancient names - we get for Sheser-kau the pattern, Sh-S-K, corresponding almost exactly to Sh-Sh-K, and more suitable than Shoshenq (Sh-Sh-N-K). And since an R is dropped in getting Ozymandias from the Throne Name of Ramses II I see no reason to make that an objection here.

As far as whether or not that's a normal name for a foreigner to call that pharaoh by, again the Bible is often abnormal, Shishak works well as a Hebrew pun, for example it's similar to Jeramiah's code for Babylon.

Among the Treasures looted from Tuthmosis's campaign are many matching relics of Solomon's Temple including the Menorah.
http://www.specialtyinterests.net/karnak_loot_english.html
There are a lot of ideas on this site I like. But plenty that annoy me, like Hatshepsut as Sheba but especially Solomon as Senenmut.

In the textbooks, that equate Sosenk I with the biblical Shishak, it is pharaoh Osorkon IV - or his (Nubian) general (un-named) - who is usually regarded as "Zerah the Ethiopian" who, in c.897 BC, attacked king Asa of Jerusalem with a massive army of Ethiopians and Libyans, but was soundly defeated by the Jewish king (2 Chronicles 14:9-15). Velikovsky had synchronized this biblical incident with the reign of the belligerent Amenhotep II (son of Thutmose III, Velikovsky's "Shishak") whom he equated with Zerah. Whilst I completely accept Velikovsky's dating here, I believe that his attempts to 'prove' that pharaoh Amenhotep II had Ethiopian blood flowing in his veins was not quite convincing.

Nor does the Bible say that Zerah was even a pharaoh; nor that he led native Egyptian troops. I, for my part, prefer to equate Zerah with Amenhotep's old friend, User-tatet, Nubian (Ethiopian) commander. I do not think that it is stretching the imagination too far to believe that Semites - who in the EA letters called Akhnaton, Naphuria, from his coronation name, Nepher-kheperura - could have turned User into Zerah. Moreover, we know from the Egyptian records that User-tatet did campaign in the vicinity of Maresha, in the Shephelah plain of Israel (given in the Egyptian records as Retenu - and distinguished from Upper Retenu, or the hill country). The Egyptian records, as it is thought, are not going to record any military defeat.

Now that I've synchronized Tuthmosis III's Kadesh campaign with the 5th year of Rehoboam, lining up Biblical dates with 18th Dynasty dates we get the final overthrow of the Hycsos in the same year the Amalekites attacks Ziklag and David became king. And the overthrow of Apepi is about 10-11 years before that, which is only a year or to before when Saul was sent to war against Agag.

I agree with Ages in Chaos about Agag being Apepi,

The early Hebrew written signs as they are preserved on the STELE OF MESHA show a striking resemblance BETWEEN THE LETTERS G (GIMEL) AND P (PEI). NO OTHER LETTERS are so much alike in shape as these: each is an oblique line connected to a shorter, more oblique line, and is similar to the written number 7, THE SIZE. OF THE ANGLE BETWEEN THE TWO OBLIQUE LINES CONSTITUTES THE ONLY DIFFERENCE.

Nevertheless, it seems that not the Hebrew reading but rather the EGYPTIAN MUST BE CORRECTED....Almost EVERY hieroglyphic consonant [Egyptian] stands for MORE THAN ONE SOUND, and only empirically are all the sounds symbolized by a consonant found.
but I don't agree with how this is presented in many other theories were Saul's war with him is the same battle as when the Thebans overthrew him.

Apepi seems to have been a usurper to begin with.

Apepi is thought to have usurped the throne of northern Egypt after the death of his predecessor, Khyan, since the latter had designated his son, Yanassi, to be his successor on the throne as a foreign ruler.
Ryholt, p.256
Who knows maybe neither his predecessor or successor where even Amalekites but of other Hyksos tribes.

Velikovsky and others are wrong in citing Genesis 14 as proving the Amalekites existed already before Esau/Edom. The reference to them there is an editorial note form Moses, telling his reader where on the Geography their familiar with he's referring to. Like how we after say "near modern _____".

So when it was his tyrannical behavior, particularly killing Seqenenre Tao, sparked the Theban revolution, I suspect the other Hyksos leaders overthrew him with a coup and banished him. He then with whatever supporters he had (mainly the fellow Amalekites) and set himself up a new home base in southern Israel.

Saul's refusal to simply kill Agag as ordered may have been politically motivated, seeing Agag as a useful hostage. Now if as generally thought he was just a leader of violent nomads I don't see him being to useful. But if he was an exiled former Pharaoh of Egypt? That makes sense. I Samuel 30 records an Amalekite having an Egyptian slave.

The timing also makes Tuthmosis I the Pharaoh when Solomon began his reign, and this who's Daughter Solomon married.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefrubity
Nefrubity (Akhbetneferu) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th dynasty. She was the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose I and Ahmose, the sister of Hatshepsut and the half-sister of Thutmose II, Wadjmose and Amenmose.
Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3 p.140

She is depicted with her parents in Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahari mortuary temple, then vanishes. It is assumed that she died young.
Dodson & Hilton, p.130
Joyce Tyldesley: Queens of Egypt. 2006
The assumption she died young is of course I feel a false one. She disappears from Egyptian records because she was married to Solomon and after that remained in Israel.

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