I agree with the basic pillars of Immanuel Velikovsky's Egyptian 
chronology (Middle Kingdom Exodus with the Hyksos invading some time 
after the Red Sea incident, Thuthmosis III as Shishak, El Amarna era 
during the divided Kingdom, Ramses II as Necho, Ramses III as Nectenbos 
of Diodorus with the Prstt being the Persian Empire and Sea Peoples as 
Ionian Greeks, The Maunier Stele depicts Alexander's visit to the Siwa Oasis).
 I don't agree with his weird theories about the planets
 though.
Rohl I don't agree with on Egyptian chronology, but I 
like his identification of Enmerkar with Nimrod and Eridu with Babel and
 have written my own study on that subject.
I do want to discus some of the details of Velikovsky and his contemporary supporters' model I disagree with.
On
 the Hyksos Amalekites connection which I've touched on elsewhere I just
 want to say I feel it's not that simple.  The Hyksos were many tribes 
of Asiatic peoples.  They included the Amalekites and possibly other 
Edomite tribes (I think the king remembered by Greek myth as Belus was 
an Edomite King connected in some way to Bela son of Beor of Genesis 
36:32&33), I think they had a Midianite aspect too (Hor II of the 
13th Dynasty I think was the Midanite king Hur mentioned in The Bible). 
 Archaeology clearly shows they had an Amorite aspect at all.
The
 most prominent is Hatshepsut as the Queen of Sheba.  If she was an 
Egyptian queen The Bible wouldn't have obscured that, it dealt with 
Solomon's interactions with Egypt unambiguously both before and after 
this.  Also since Tuthmosis I must be the Pharaoh who's daughter Solomon
 married, Hatshepsut was her Sister.  If this Queen was Solomon's sister
 in law that wouldn't been overlooked.
Yeshua calls her the "Queen of The South"
 in Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31.  And then Daniel 11 is cited where the
 "King of The South" is consistently Egypt.  South in Biblical geography
 is south of Israel/Jerusalem, in the context of Alexander's successors 
only Ptolemy is south of Israel, and Egypt was the core of his Kingdom 
but not all of it.  
There are three Shebas on the Table of 
Nations, Two in Genesis 10 and another being Abrahamic.  The two in 
Genesis 10 are one Hamitic/Cushite and the other Semitic/Joktanite.  But
 in both I Kings 10 and II Chronicles 11 the Queen of Sheba narrative is
 linked to Ophir another Joktanite name.  And the other two Shebas are 
virtually inseparable from the Dedan who is their brother, but no Dedan 
is alluded to here.
Serious Archaeologists all know that Sheba 
was the name of a Kingdom in southern Arabia, modern Yemen.  ( Israel 
Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman,David and Solomon: In Search of the 
Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition p. 167).  
The Saba that was a capital of Nubia/Ethiopia didn't appears till very 
late, Meroƫ was their Capital until after the fall of the 25th Dynasty 
(When Nubia ruled Egypt).  The Cushite Sheba of Genesis 10 I believe 
settled in Ancient India where he was deified as Shiva and his rather 
Ramaah as Rama an avatar of Vishnu.
I do believe the Ark of the 
Covenant came to Ethiopia.  But the Menelik legend is propaganda created
 by the Christian Auxomite kings to give them a Biblical lineage.  I 
believe Graham Hancock and Bob Cornuke's theory for how it got there.  
First being at Elephantine island from sometime after King Manasseh's 
reign of terror to the time of Cambyses.
The Arabic traditions of
 Balqis/Bilqis/Bilquis did exist in Pre-Islamic times (Mohammed didn't 
really come up with much of anything new) and so have good reason to be 
viewed as more Ancient and Valid then the purely invented Ethiopian 
legend.
I do believe Hatshepsut probably visited Solomon also.  
The Bible says many rulers come to visit Solomon and witness his Wisdom.
  The Queen of Sheba is singled out NOT because she's the most important
 by secular standards, but because she became a Saved individual, so 
Yeshua cited her as such.
So I do agree that Punt was an Egyptian
 name for Canaan/Israel.  And I don't think the similarity between 
Make-Ra (A name of Hatshepsut) and Makeda (The name of the Queen of 
Sheba in the Ethiopian traditions) is a coincidence.  I think various 
Egytpian Jews, first at Elephantine and then latter in Alexandria and 
the Onias colony, drew the same false conclusion and began giving her 
that name.  And this may have influenced Josephus who was very familiar 
with Alexandrian Jewish traditions.
El Amarna period.
I 
agree with Velikovsky's on Jehoshaphat as Ebed-Tov/Abdi-Heba King of 
Jerusalem and Mesha King of Moab with the Mesh of the Amarna letters.  
The Amarna letters also lsit 3 of the Captains of Jehoshaphat from II 
Chronicles 17:14-19.  Addudani/Addadani=Adna and Ada-danu mentioned by 
Shalmaneser in 825 BC, "Son of Zuchru" = "son of Zichri", 
Iahzibada=Iehozabad/Jehozabad.
And I agree about the Habiru being bandits or mercenaries, not an ethnic term.
But
 his identity for Ahab is very problematic.  Gubla is the Amarna letters
 name for Byblos not Jezreel.  So Rib-Addi/Rib-Hadda was not Israelite.
Labaya
 I feel is logically is Ahab, (or whoever the Northern Kingdom ruler was
 at the time).  The whole Jezebel-Nefertiti connection suggested by 
SpecialtyInterests I don't like however.
Velikovsky's references to "Sodomites" is really weird, he's unaware that that is a reference to Sodom only in English.
Velikovsky
 did NOT believe in the infallibility of Scripture.  Which of course is 
an assumption many critics of revised chronology make about all revised 
chronologists.  This fact about him is most apparent in the part of Age 
sin Chaos about the Death of Ahab.  He basis it on what he saw as a 
contradiction between this verse.
II Kings 1:17 "So he died 
according to the word of the LORD which Elijah had spoken. And Jehoram 
reigned in his stead in the second year of Jehoram the son of 
Jehoshaphat king of Judah; because he had no son."
And these two verses.
II
 Kings 3:1 "Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to reign over Israel in 
Samaria the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, and reigned 
twelve years."
II Kings 8:16 "And in the fifth year of Joram the 
son of Ahab king of Israel, Jehoshaphat being then king of Judah, 
Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat king of Judah began to reign."
There
 is no contradiction here however, he'd know this if he'd studied 
Ussher's chronology.  Jehoshaphat made his son a co ruler for the latter
 years of his reign, this is why the 18th year of Jehoshaphat can also 
be the second year of Jehoram.
As for the fact that Ahab did 
Repent after Elijah rebuked him over the Naboth business.  That was 
negated when Ahab sinned again believing the False Prophets over 
Micaiah.
But Velikovsky creates a whole convoluted theory that Ahab survived the battle of Ramoth-Gilead and lived another 9 years.
Mesha
 of Moab's rebellion was right after Israel's defeat at Ramoth-Gilead, 
Velikovsky sees the Moabite stone documenting this event as saying it 
was in the Middle of Ahab's reign, not after he died.  First off the 
stone sounds like he's relating a Prophesy made by a Prophet of Chemosh,
 who's Prophecy may have came true not not completely accurately.  But 
also if it was made immediately at the start of the rebellion he may not
 have heard of Ahab's death yet.
Regardless of those arguments, 
not all readings of the Mesha Stele even agree with the one Velikovsky 
used to support his theory.
The Denyen of the Greek Islands
I
 said I agreed about the Prstt being the Persian Empire and Sea Peoples 
as Ionian Greeks.  But his Identity of the "Peoples of the Islands" the 
Denyen as Athens I think is silly.  The Denyen are also in the Amarna 
letters where they are in northern Syria, very northern, by the modern 
Turkish border.  Associated with Hammath.  Their also identified with 
Adana is Cilicia.
"And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan." Deuteronomy 33:22
The
 Tribe of Dan originally settled north of the Philistine Lands, around 
the port city of Joppa/Jaffa modern Tel-Aviv.  The books of Joshua and 
Judges both record events when Danites left their allotted land traveled
 north conquered a city and renamed it Dan.
"And the coast of the
 children of Dan went out too little for them: therefore the children of
 Dan went up to fight against Leshem, and took it, and smote it with the
 edge of the sword, and possessed it, and dwelt therein, and called 
Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their father." Joshua 19:47
The
 Judges 18 account, where the City is Laish, is often assumed to be the 
same event.  There are however several differences between the two 
accounts:                    
1. In the Book of Joshua the 
children of Dan had received an inheritance in the south but it was 
insufficient for them and so they went to fight against Leshem. In 
Judges though the Danites were in the region of Zorah and Eshtaol (in 
the south) they had yet not taken possession of their own.
2. In 
Judges, at least at first, only six hundred went forth after receiving 
the report of a reconnoitering mission: on the other hand, the Book of  
Joshua may be understood to say that all (or nearly all) of Dan went to 
fight.
3. In the Book of Joshua the city taken is called Leshem: 
In Judges the city is called LAISH. Some Commentators have tried to 
state that "Leshem" and "Laish" are different forms of the same word but
 "leshem" in Hebrew is a type of precious stone (maybe amber) while 
"laish" means a young male lion.
The Joshua account refers to the
 Dan that is frequently used as an idiom of the Northern Border of the 
Kingdom, where Jeroboam built one of his Idols, and which on the map of 
modern Israel is in the Golan heights on the Lebanon border.
The 
Judges event is clearly much further north.  They encountered Sidonians,
 but those Sidonians are also implied to be far from home.  Laish is 
also know as Luash and the Danites who migrated there became known as 
Dananu.  
The king of Sma'al in the valley north of ASI (Orontes 
embouchemont) on the edge of LUASH (LIASH) called himself "KING of the 
DANIM" i.e. of the Danes of Dan. The Danes (Dananu) also controlled the 
neighbouring area of Cilicia and at one stage their capital was Adana by
 Tarsis of Cilicia and their suzerainity reached as far north as 
Karatepe. A bi-lingual inscription of theirs found at Karatepe employs a
 Phoenician type of Hebrew and a version of Hittite. Branches of the 
Hittites in Anatolia neighboured the Dananu of Cilicia. This northern 
portion of Dan is referred to variously as Dananu, Danau, Denye, Denyen,
 Danuna. 
Above I've borrowed a great deal from Britam's "Dan and
 the Serpent Way" study.  I don't agree with all of Britam's premise 
obviously, or any other form of British Israelism, but Dan does have a 
unique history.
Secular scholars agree on connecting the Denyen 
to the Tribe of Dan, you can read about it on Wikipedia's Denyen and Dan
 pages, but the sequence is reversed.  They believe the Denyen traveled 
south and became incorporated into the Hebrew confederation.  This supports their desire to claim that the various Tribes of
 Israel didn't even really have a common origin.  Traditional chronology
 makes that argument easy for them but still doesn't make the Biblical 
picture impossible.  But revised chronology makes it indisputable which 
Dan came first.
The connection Dan has to Greece, is Biblically alluded to in Ezekiel 27.  
Nice work Jared. I enjoyed seeing that someone is taking this type of historic speculation seriously. Perhaps you have seen some of my stuff on the BritAm website also ( http://www.britam.org/salverda/salverdacontents.html ) but if not , I would like to refer you to my "The Hebrew Danites as the Greek Danaans" (at https://www.academia.edu/4112686/The_Hebrew_Danites_as_the_Greek_Danaans ) I think that you may find it of some interrest. Keep up the good work -John
ReplyDeleteThank you, I will check out those Links
DeleteI believe the Dan and Greece connection is more complicated then generally assumed however, because I believe there is also an Edomite element. Andromeda was a Danite of Joppa, but I believe the Egyptian king Belus was actually an Edomite Hycsos ruler.
DeleteI've created a new post expanding on the Danite aspect of this one, and will be doing the same for other subjects of this first post I made.
DeleteIn your Amazon article, I feel compelled to say I disagree with your perception that Miriam and her company of Women from Exodus 15:20-21are meant to be viewed negatively.
DeleteI mentioned you in the post I made today. And I"m thinking of commenting more on your interesting theories in the future.
Deletehttp://mithrandironchronology.blogspot.com/2017/06/amazons-and-tribe-of-dan.html
I've given my own thoughts on many theories of yours here.
Deletehttp://mithrandironchronology.blogspot.com/2017/07/my-thoughts-on-some-theories-of-john-r.html
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