I may possibly be done with this blog for awhile, partly for reasons explained on my Prophecy blog in Biblical Egypt may not be Egypt. And the comparative mythology stuff I sometimes talk about here I have a new blog for.
But I'm by no means done with revised chronology completely, and so I'm making this post before 2017 ends to be a continually updated work in progress on a new theory I have for identifying Jeroboam with Labaya. I'm not 100% on it, but it's worth throwing out there.
Many revised Chronologists agree that Labaya is probably a northern Kingdom monarch. Thing is only Jeroboam had Shechem as his Capital, but other factors make people not consider Jeroboam a candidate.
Since I possibly no longer identify Shishak with Kemet (what we today call Egypt) but an Arabian king, those are not really a major problem for me anymore. Instead it could be Shishak's forces are those called the Hapiru who Labaya was apparently in cahoots with.
The Amarna period begins with the last decade of Amenhotep III's reign, and many do think Labaya died before Amenhotep III did. So the King of Jerusalem of the Amarna Letters would probably be Asa.
As far as the sons of Labaya go. That could be an issue since The Bible tells us Jeroboam's were all wiped out. But we don't know for sure how quickly that happened. The only Amarna Letters that refer to plural sons of Labaya are while Labaya's still alive. So it's only Mutbaal who might be an issue. Maybe it's not impossible Mutbaal was lying and only claiming to be a son of Labaya. But it's certainly possible Jeroboam placed a son as a governor in the Trans-Jordan, and that it took a little while for that one to be killed in the purge of Jeroboam's heirs. Jeroboam did have a Trans-Jordan fortress at Panuel which he could have placed a son in charge of.
