Merneptah as The Pharaoh who destroyed Gezer

Once again I’m shifting my Revised Chronology views.

One argument against Shoshenq as Shishak we don't make enough is how Shoshenq was the first of his dynasty and so it makes the Pharaoh who destroyed Gezer and married a Princess of his Royal House to Solomon a Pharaoh of the dying and never really that militarily strong to begin with 21st Dynasty.  There simply is no archeological evidence for any 21st Dynasty Pharoah doing anything in Canaan especially not militarily, the last Pharaoh attested in the region until Shoshenq is Rameses VI of the 20th Dynasty.  And that Dynasty lasted over a century (in conventional chronology anyway) while 44-45 years separated Shishak's campaign agaisnt Rehoboam from the beginning of the reign of Solomon.

Another argument is how even in conventional chronology Shoshenq is actually too late. See the conventional dates for Shosenq are based on identifying him with Shishak and thus place him when mainstream Bible Scholars place the end of Solomon's reign.  When the 22nd Dynasty ended is pretty undisputed, we’re at the dawn of classical antiquity when all that goes down, plenty of solid verifiable synchronizations.  And proponents of various Revised Chronologies have pointed out that conventional chronologists are really stretching the dates for the 22nd dynasty even to have it start contemporary with those late mainstream dates for Solomon and Rehoboam.  It really should probably begin about the same time as the 23rd Dynasty, the other Libyan dynasty who ruled Upper Egypt, I think both were born of the same Libyan take over.

I’ve always placed Solomon decades sooner as a long time proponent of Bishop James Ussher for the Kingdom period, but how much I agree with Ussher has lessened over the years.  And now that I’ve advocated for an approach to the historical books of the Kingdom Period that allows me to consider their stated reign lengths may not even have to be accurate at face value, I’ve come to consider that Josephus’s dates for Solomon may be correct since he had access to now lost Temple records.

In Wars of The Jews Book 6 near the end of Chapter 4 he says that the destruction of The Temple in 70 AD was 1130 years besides 7 months and 15 days from when Solomon first laid its foundations, that gives us 1061 BC or 1062 BC depending on how the 7 months affects things.  In Antiquities of The Jews Josephus sought to correct mistakes he’d made in Wars, but in 20.10.2 he pretty much confirms that previous date for The Temple by saying it was 466 years 6 months and 10 days from the finishing of The Temple till it’s first destruction in 588-586 BC giving us 1054 or 1055 BC.  Back to Wars Josephus says it was 477 years and 6 months after King David that the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem happened.  Since David’s death was about 11 years before the full consecration of The Temple that lines up well with David dying and Solomon’s reign beginning in 1065 BC.  Solomon reigned for 40 years and Shishak’s raid was in the 5th year of Rehoboam according to 1 Kings 14:25 and 2nd Chronicles 12:5 giving us 1021 or 1020 BC.  But Shishak was already reigning in Egypt while Solomon was alive to harbor Jeroboam so was on the throne by 1025 BC. [Update: the possibly that Solomon reigned longer then conventionally assumed is one I'm also considering now, in a way that could potentially make the start of Rehoboam's reign 20 years later in 1005 BC and Shishak's invasion in 1001 BC.]

These same Josephus dates give us an Exodus in 1673 BC.

So I’m proposing a revised chronology today that’s really a comparatively slight revision.

In Judges 1:29 the city of Gezer is among the cities the Israelites weren’t originally able to drive the Canaanites out of. Gezer was subdued by the Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married in 1 Kings 9:15-17, he gave it to Solomon who then rebuilt it as an Israelite city.  Gezer is clearly still a Canaanite city in the Amarna period, so placing Amarna later then Solomon doesn't work.

That argument agaisnt Velikovsky's chronology has been stressed by David Rohl and supporters of his New Chronology, and my last posts on this blog that were actually about Revised Chronology were me supporting Rohl on at least the Amarna Period.  But that timeline for David and Saul combined with his viewing Rameses II during one of his earliest campaigns as Shishak would have to make the Pharaoh who took Gezer either Horemheb, Rameses I or Seti I.  But there are no surviving references to any of those three or Rameses II himself taking Gezer.

Instead in all of Egyptian History the most well known and celebrated destruction of Gezer by an Egyptian Ruler was Merneptah the son and successor of Rameses II on the Stele named after him.  But this Stele isn’t the only reference, we know from the Amada Temple that Merneptah destroyed Gezer himself, he’s not merely referring to someone else destroying the cities in the region as Velikovsky’s 19th Dynasty theory had to interpret it.  

However the Merneptah Stele is also known as the “Israel Stele'' because of a line commonly read as saying “Israel is laid waste and his seed is not”.  If Israel was actually Merneptah’s ally and at the height of her prosperity under Solomon then how does this make sense?  Well I believe that reading is wrong and agree with those who argue “Israel” should read “Jezreel” instead.

We are no longer dependent on this stele for archaeological verification that Israel even existed, and one thing those other references seem to show to me is that Israel was not a name the Israelites were called by outsiders, especially not a hostile one bragging about claiming to have destroyed them.  Like how the Japanese don't generally call themselves that.  I think often outsiders would have just called them the same names they called the Canaanites because they weren't interested in the region's ethnic make up changing.  Besides that Egyptian and Assyrian records more often then not used the names of capital cities or more localized regions, tribes and clans.

The only other inscription commonly read as being a foreign King using the name Israel is Shalmaneser’s reference to King Ahab, but that too has been alternatively interpreted as reading Jezreel, and since that city was Ahab's capital and he didn’t actually rule all of Israel, that definitely makes more sense.  Both these sources were not using Alphabet based written languages like Hebrew, Jezreel absolutely would be represented in characters that could easily be confused with how the same system would say Israel.

Now Jezreel in The Bible is the name of both a City and a Valley by the City, but I believe the City was pretty much founded by the House of Omri, perhaps Ahab himself, and that any reference chronologically before then is referring to the Valley.  And that agrees with the Merneptah Stele which doesn’t call Jezreel a city as it did Gezer and Ashkelon in the preceding lines.  Jezreel in this Stele could be referring to basically the same region that is the subject of 1 Kings 4:12, the cities linked to Jezreel there were also ones the Canaanites weren’t driven out of back in Judges 1:27.  

That said there could have been some actual Israelites allied with the Canaanites who Merneptah fought this campaign agaisnt, perhaps some northerners were still resistant to unifying under the House of David, the "Sea Peoples" I'm still working on my theory for.

However the popular Israel reading of the Merneptah Stele is also the main argument against the Shasu of Yhw being Israelites.  So I do principally believe those of Jezreel Merneptah defeated were Canaanites.

The Shasu as Israelites I'm becoming very convinced of. (Of course other Abrahamic people like Edom are also included.) They are depicted as having invaded and taken over the Mountains of Canaan while the older populations survived more in the low lands.  That perfectly fits the picture painted by passages like Judges 1:19.  

Back in 1 Kings 9:15-17 the taking of Gezer by Pharaoh is to add context to Solomon doing construction projects there but also other places like Megiddo, a city in the above verse whose name is also applied to the valley of Jezreel.  I don’t think this Pharaoh destroyed any of those cities in a similar way, but the same campaign may have also weakened Canaanite presence in and around the Valley of Jezreel, the language could be of a specific obscure Canaanite clan tied to the valley.

Every daughter of a Pharaoh was given the title “King’s Daughter” which she kind of held for life.  So the “Daughter of Pharaoh” Solomon married may not actually be the Daughter of the Pharaoh at the time but of a previous one.  I mention this since Rameses II had a lot of spare daughters we know little about, this excess of royal daughters could be exactly why Merneptah was more willing to marry one off to a foreign King then the prior 18th Dynasty Pharaohs had been.  But given how old Merneptah was when he became Pharaoh, a Granddaughter or even Great Granddaughter is also possible.

That leads me to discussing the mysterious figure of Irsu.  Hans Goedicke advocated a reading of the Papyrus Harris I where Irsu is not some usurper ruling Egypt but a “rebel” in the land of Canaan who the later 19th Dynasty had been in the opinion of this 20th Dynasty propagandist too soft on and that Twosret had even allied herself with, and then Setnakhte the first Pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty finally stopped tolerating this “rebellion”.

Basically I’m suggesting that Solomon was Irsu.  Irsu is an Egyptian designation that means “He who made himself”. I could see enemies of Solomon choosing to describe him that way.  Another way Irsu has been transliterated is Yarsu, that really makes me consider the possibility that in addition to what it means in Egyptian it’s also a play on the name of Jerusalem.  There is also no actual reference to Tworset dying at the end of her reign, she could have just left.

Timeline wise it still wouldn’t be Setnakhte who was Shishak but Rameses III, that’s who’s reigning 44 years after Merneptah no matter when in Merneptah’s reign you start counting.  Now as I’ve pointed out before that many miss, Shishak didn’t actually fight any battle with Rehoboam at all, Rehoboam following the advice of a Prophet willingly offered tribute.  The language making it sound like “everything” in The Temple was taken by Shishak is hyperbole, none of the major Temple Sacred Relics were taken, and I don’t expect Ramses III would have even considered the incident all that notable.

Rameses III also fought land battles in his wars with the Sea Peoples and that’s what probably brought him to the land of Israel.  The Tjekker are linked in the Story of Wenamun to Dor, another city Judges 1:27 tells us was Canaanite.  The Teresh I think could be Tarshish/Tarsus because they had close relations with both Tyre and Solomon.  I finally have a view on Egyptology that doesn’t have me rejecting the Peleset=Philistines identification, but conventionally it’s said they weren’t in the Gaza region till after Rameses III which is obviously not the case here.  And despite how we use the term these Egyptians texts don’t call the Tjekker or Peleset Sea Peoples.

It’s also plausible from the reading of the Papyrus that Irsu himself wasn’t still in charge when Seknakhte put down the “rebellion” and so his pacifying Rehoboam is The Bible’s account of that same event.

Once again I consider it futile to look for the name of Shishak among any names any Pharaohs actually used, it’s a Hebrew name with a Hebrew etymology and probably serves a similar function to Jeremiah calling Babylon Sheshach.  Both Kings and Chronicles are commonly believed to enter their final written down forms around Jeremiah’s time or later.  The same method by which Sheshach is B-B-L, Shishak would be B-B-D but I don’t actually think that’s the answer either.  My point is it’s some type of poetic nickname.  No one thinks Pharaoh is a personal name (except for the Mizriam isn't Kemet at all theory which I once flirted with but have abandoned), but the fact is it's largely because of The Bible that we use Pharaoh as a word for every Egyptian Monarch.  When dealing with the texts of Kings and Chronicles, Pharaoh is in fact never used of Shishak, rather when we compare the references Shishak is being used in place of Pharaoh.  The problem with reading Pharaoh as an Egyptian synonym for King is that the word King is also used when Pharaoh is, it's Pharaoh King of Egypt and Shishak King of Egypt.  It might be that in this period Pharaoh is used of the 19th Dynasty while Shishak is used of the 20th.

There is almost certainly overlap between the reigns of Asa and Rameses III given how long they were.  Zerah The Cushite was probably a chieftain of one of the Cushite tribes of Arabia and so I don’t feel the need to look for him in Egyptian records at all. The reference to Asa having dealt with invasions by Cushites and Lubims is a long after the fact statement that I don’t think actually means those two attacks were the same, the Lubim incident is just not otherwise in Scripture.  The Lubim in Egyptian history were active and working with the Sea Peoples again in the time of Rameses III.

This theory has been suggested before by a Peter James, and one objection to Solomon as Irsu was that Irsu is called a Hurrian.  But some have argued that the family of Abraham were Hurrians originally, and maybe even as late as the time of Solomon many still used a Hurrian Language alongside the Language of Canaan.

I've settled on viewing Rameses III as Shishak but I still think there was more then the conventional 30 years between Merneptah Year 5 and Rameses III's year 8 and that that involved a longer reign for Twosret.

A lot of people don't understand how complex the Biblical picture of the Judges period is which is why so many people have trouble buying that the Amarna Letters are any period after Joshua.  All the Authors of those letters are Pagan Canaanites and that's what I'd expect from The Biblical depiction.  The major players are all among cities Judges 1 and other passages tell us were still Canaanite at least till the time of David (unless they are arguably outside the range of what was allotted to Israel entirely) Gezer, Megiddo, Jerusalem, Sidon and her daughter Tyre.  And it could be more cities were Canaanite then just ones The Bible specified, Pella in the Trans-Jordan does not seem to be directly mentioned in Scripture at all, but most of the Roman era Decapolis cities were ones that had stayed Canaanite.

The Israelites entered Canaan as primarily a pastoral nomadic people, for all of the Judges Period a good percentage of them, maybe even the majority, probably didn't even live in cities but preferred the rural life.  Judges 1 also clarifies how The Israelites initially mainly took over power in the most mountainous regions while the Canaanites held out in the plain. 

But the major cities we know were Israelite cities during this period do not have Kings or Mayors who wrote letters to Pharaoh at Amarna.  Hebron, Lachish, Bethlehem, Kirathjearim and Bethgader in Judah, Gibea in Benjamin, Bethel and Hai, Jericho, Shiloh, Shechem and Tirzah in the House of Joseph's allotment. Japhia and the other Bethlehem in Zebulun, Kedesh-Naphtali and so on.  Some of these cities are mentioned in the letters, some Canaanite Kings claimed sovereignty over them, but Kings do love to claim to be King of more then what they actually were.

Labaya is the enigma, he's not really linked to a specific city the way the others are, he's been called the King of Shechem by modern scholars but that's actually a city he claims is in his domain and is not depicted as his capital at all.  David Rohl argues for him being Saul and other revised chronologies have tried almsot every major Northern Kingdom monarch.  But again Gezer shows that the post Solomon period can be ruled out for Amarna.  And I really don't see Saul writing these kinds of letters to Pharaoh, even during his darker final years.

This timeline most likely makes Labaya contemporary with Eli and the rise of Samuel. In which context Labaya as a leader of the Philistines oppressing Israel could work.  Though a more minimalist interpretation of the Judges time period could make Labaya an Ammonite oppressor which would better fit his son being in the Trans-Jordan.

But he could just be a King of one of the Judges 1 Canaanite cities who's Amarna era King isn't specifically known, probably one of the Jezreel Valley ones disputed between Issachar and Manasseh in Joshua 17:11 and Judges 1:27.  Taanach is seemingly missing from the Amarna records, and it's far enough south to be in the West Bank on a modern Map of Israel, since Labaya's fall was at the hands of nearby Gina/Jenin it fits well.  The name of Labaya however is believed to come from a word for Lion, and a famous Stele at Bethshean depicts a Lion and Lioness.  Another Semitic word for Lion is Gur often translated "whelp" as in a baby lion, and Gur is also a place name connected to Ibleam in 1 Kings 9:27.  Dor is also missing from the Amarna records, Labaya could have ruled an alliance of everyone in those verses but Megiddo.

Back to the Sea Peoples subject, the Peleset being the Philistines and Tjekker the Canaanites of Dor I haven't changed my mind on, but they and the Lukka are NOT actually called Sea Peoples in the original Egyptian inscriptions.  [Update 2026: I have recently come to consider that the Lukka could be the Lecah (pronounced lew-kah) clan descended form Shelah son of Judah in 1 Chronicles 4:21.]

Based on Genesis 10 I think the term Philistim/Philistines was originally a term for Mizraimite colonists in Canaan and/or their puppets, though they could also have some Libyans like the Meshwesh and Tehenu, I believe Casluhim equates to what the Greeks and Romans would later call Cyrenaica and that the Lubim are a contracted form of Lehabim.  Gaza has been described as Egypt's capital in the region during the New Kingdom.  The Peleset name doesn't show up in Egyptian records till Ramses III because that's when these colonists sought independence.  And so the Philistine oppressors of the eras of Jephthah, Samson, Eli, Samuel, Saul and David are really just the proxies of the 18th and early 19th Dynasty Egyptian Empire.  And/or in addition to all that the Philistines could also be one of the tribes that made up the Hyksos.

But I now know that in the Merneptah records it's confirmed that the Ekwesh, Teresh, Shekelesh and Sherden were all Circumcised peoples, so that most likely rules out the Teresh being the Tarshish of Japheth and thus Tarsus.  However 1st Chronicles mentioned a Tarshish of Benjamin, but with only one "sh" the Teresh could perhaps more likely be Tirzah a name linked to Western Manasseh.

The Danuans mentioned in the Amarna letters are all in letters about affairs in Lebanon, so that fits them being Dan after their migration recorded in Judges 18 to an area north of Apheca and expanding from there.  They hadn't taken over Gebel/Byblos yet but I think they will by the time of Solomon.  From there they colonized the "islands" that Rameses III associated his Denyen with.

The Sherden I once again think are the Sardite clan of Zebulun descended from Sered of Genesis 46:14 and Numbers 26:26, and perhaps also connected to the place named Sarid in Joshua 19:10-12.  The Shekelesh has been suggested  to be Issachar (Egyptian like Japanese uses often confuses the L and R sounds).  The Weshesh has been argued by some scholars to be Asher.  I feel like the name of Ekwesh could be explained as tied to Akko, they are the Asherites who felt Akko belonged to them and kept trying to take it.  The Weslesh and Ekwesh never appear together so them being different designations for the same people is plausible.

I kind of want to explain all the Circumcised Sea Peoples as clans of either Dan, Asher or Zebulun, they are the ones with Biblical passages hinting at them becoming "Sea Peoples", either in their Blessings in Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 or the Song of Deborah.  But Western Manasseh did have access to the coast, from how the allotments are usually mapped way more so then Zebulun.  Meanwhile Issachar is linked to Zebulun in those blessings.

So I've been looking into the Alashiya (a people often identified with Elishah of Genesis 10 and Ezekiel 27), and the old scholarly discussions on if they were on Cyprus or on the mainland in Syria or Cilicia, and I'm so annoyed that everyone felt it has to be either/or.  I think their capital was probably Enkomi which was close to where Salamis was in New Testament times, but I think they probably had colonies or at least trading ports on the mainland coasts, and my hunch is one was around where Antioch on the Orontes would later be founded.

I think references to "The Isles" in The Hebrew Bible and other ancient Semitic texts prior to Alexander The Great are chiefly to the Greek world, it contained a lot of Islands, the Peloponnese was sometimes called an island even though it's technically not.  I think to the ancient Near East who didn't know much about the world further west then that, the Greek world including Magna Grecia was probably thought of as being the Isles of the West.

In The Bible this phrase first appears in Genesis 10:5 where the portion of either Japheth as a whole or just Javan from verse 4 is called "The Isles of the Nations".  Next is Esther 10:1, since Ahasuerus is Xerxes that being a reference to his invading Greece fits.  Psalm 72:10 says "the Kings of Tarshish and of the isles", Isaiah 60:9 associates the term with Tarshish and Isaiah 66:19 again sociates them with Javan.  Jeremiah 2:10 refers to the Isles of Kittim, and then 25:22 refers to the Isles that Tyre and Sidon trade with which Ezekiel 27 repeatedly identify with Javan and his sons.

So likewise I think "The Isles" that are associated with the Denyen by Rameses III are the Greek world and thus they are the Danaoi/Danaans of Homer.  If they are also a colony of The Tribe of Dan I don't think that means Dan made any significant permanent impact on the Hellene Gene Pool.  The Danaans/Acheans/Argrives of Homer chiefly ruled the Peloponnese where I don't think they ever full replaced the prior population and their kingdoms were later taken over by the Dorians.  The "Acheans" of Classical Antiquity are just Dorians who appropriated that name.  The Dorians never fully subjugated Arcadia, but I don't think the Danaans did either.  

Dan West of Baalbek

 So I'd commented on Velikovsky's Dan as Baalbek theory before.  I no longer agree with that theory but have came up with one similar.

While Baalbek was a site with Temples going way back into the Bronze Age, the most impressive structures there now are Roman ones, chiefly The Temple to Jupiter built by Hadrian.  It seems like originally the far more important cult center was to the West, in the eastern part of the Byblos District of Modern Lebanon.

A site in that region called Afqa/Afka/Apheca/Afeka is one of the sites proposed to be the Aphik/Aphek allotted to Asher in Joshua 19:30 and Judges 1:31.  Marvin H. Pope of Yale University proposed that somewhere in this area was the ancient home of El referred to in the Ugarit texts.  In Greek Mythology this same region is associated with the myth of Adonis/Adonais who's name comes from the Biblical Hebrew Adoni/Adonai which is not otherwise known to have been used by Canaanites who preferred Baal as their word for calling a god Lord.  So I really do think this is evidence this cult was a Paganized worship of of the God of Abraham.

Both those references to Asher's Aphik mentioned a Rehob nearby.  If this is the same Rehob that is identified with the "Entering in of Hamath" in Numbers 13:21 as well as the Bethrehob of Laish in Judges 18, then that is the city of Northern Dan.  Judges 1:31 lists these cites as among those Asher didn't drive the Canaanites out of, so that's consistent with them still being Canaanite when Dan arrives later.  

My current theory reads that verse as making them the northern most of those cities and Accho/Acco the Sothern Most.  Accho is the city called Ptolemais in Greco-Roman times and thus in The New Testament, Acre by the Crusaders and is now known as Akka in modern Israel.  It would be the only of the Judges 1:31 cities that is today in Israel rather then Lebanon.  And Asher unlike the tribes in the surrounding verses didn't even make these Canaanite cities Tributaries, they remained fully independent.  

So Rehob/Laish/Dan is probably Yanouh (the nearby temples at Qaalat Faqra and Yammoune are also interesting).

For Naphtali the main cities they didn't drive the Canaanites out of, but that they did make Tributaries, were Beth-Anath and Bethshemesh according to Judges 1:33.  These Tributaries I think were still practicing their Native Baal Worship however.  Two of the sites proposed for Beth-Anath are in South Eastern Lebanon close to the proper Naphtalite territory.  

More then one city is called Beth-Shemesh in the Hebrew Bible since naturally there were many Houses of Sun Worship.  The one west of Jerusalem was no longer in use by Hellenistic times.  The Bethshemesh in the Land of Egypt mentioned in Jeremiah 43:13 we know was called Heliopolis by the Greeks.  Baalbek was also called Heliopolis by the Greeks.

Baalbek and Afqa are close to being on the same Latitude, along with the port city of Byblos.  In 1 Kings 5:18 what the KJV weirdly translated "Stonequarers" is actually Gibilites or people of Gebel/Byblos.  Since a Maternal Danite was the architect of The Temple I consider this evidence Gebel was Dan's port city.

The Byblos District is among the regions of Lebanon where today the majority of the population is Maronite.  I have a theory that the Maronites are the modern descendants of the Danites.  They are significantly the Majority of Christians in Lebanon, and DNA studies have shown the Lebanese Christians to be among the groups even closer related to The Jews then the Arabs are.  Since the people classified as Arabs includes the Ishmaelites, Keturites, Edomites and probably now also descendants of Moab and Ammon, that would have to make The Maronites fellow descendants of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

The Adonis connection also means this region's version of Astarte might be the version who became Aphrodite after entering Greece through the Southern Peloponnese.  The same region of Greece said to have been colonized by Danoi/Danaans.

The Three Kings skipped by Matthew

King Ahaziah

King Joash aka Jehoash

King Amaziah

It is appropriate for this kind of Hebrew genealogy to skip generations, and Matthew outright admits he wants to make this three sets of 14 generations. Timescale and comparison to Luke has me convinced Matthew is also skipping generations from the Captivity to Jesus. And I think even the Hebrew Bible genealogies skip some generations from Nasshon to Boaz. All that said why leave these three of all of them out is something worth enquiring about. The usual explanation for Matthew 1:8 skipping right from Joram to Uzziah is that the three kings skipped were “bad” kings. But they weren’t the worst kings, in fact Joash and Amaziah could be considered pretty okay. Manasseh was way worse but Chronicles records his repentance, however Amon and Ahaz were also worse than those three and have no repentance recorded. I’ve seen one suggestion that it has to do with them starting good but then “going bad” and not repenting, but that narrative describes Solomon more than anyone else, and can arguably apply to Uzziah and Josiah as well. I’m intrigued by the fact that all three are consecutive, it’s like an entire era of the Davidic Monarchy’s history is being skipped. What’s also interesting is that the two names flanking this skip are both names for which the Hebrew Bible has a degree of chaos concerning what their name even is. Uzziah is also called Azariah and Joram is also called Jehoram. And in each case at least one of those names is shared by other individuals who lived at the same time they did.

Now Jehoram and Joram are undeniable different forms of the same name, and I think a Greek Transliterator would wind up with Joram even if transliterating form a source that specifically had Jehoram. But the difference between Uzziah and Azariah I do find significant. There are a lot of people named Azariah in The Bible but none of the Prophets ever refer to a King Azariah, the prophets of that era only know a King named Uzziah agreeing with the name Matthew uses. I’ve been considering the possibility that the post Pentateuch Historical books of the Hebrew Bible should perhaps not be considered as authoritative or infallible as those books much more directly quoted as Scripture by Jesus or other New Testament writers. They are not unambiguously quoted in the NT, New Testament references to the “Old Testament” are focused on the Law and the Prophets. When Paul talks about “rightly dividing the word of truth” and about testing all things, maybe it’s okay to subject the historical books to the same historical criticism other historical texts are given. Immanuel Velikovsky in the first volume of Ages in Chaos in the section on the Amarna letters deals with what he perceives to be contradictions in the text by suggesting that Jehoram King of Israel didn’t exist. I however, even back when I wasn’t open to what I’m suggesting now figured a far more plausible theory would be to say it's the Jehoram of Judah who didn’t exist. That perhaps both Kings and Chronicles in their final forms are Judean histories seeking to erase that there was a time when Judah was conquered by the House of Omri. That perhaps 2 Kings 8:16 was originally saying the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel’s reign in Israel was when he became King of Judah. And 2 Kings 8:25 that in his twelfth year he made his son Ahaziah King of Judah similar to how the heir to the throne of England is the Prince of Wales. And Jehoram was perhaps married to his sister which was acceptable in some ancient Near Eastern pagan monarchies. And so when Jehosheba and her husband the Priest Jehoiada conspire against Athaliah to put a kid on the Throne, it’s their kid not a Nephew. The Azariah who lived at the same time as King Uzziah was a “chief priest” in 2 Chronicles 14-20, a term that is distinct in Hebrew from “High Priest” but many treat it as the same. Maybe Uzziah was the first patrilineal descendant of Jehoshaphat to sit on the Throne of David since Jehoshaphat was alive and that is what Matthew 1:8 is actually telling us?

I've discovered people arguing that the "Aryans" descended from Ham.

[Update 2023: I regret this post, I don't even to even facetiously endorse any Nazi ideas.]

Chariots had been used in Egypt as far back as the Old Kingdom.

This is now known thanks to discoveries made in 2013.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariotry_in_ancient_Egypt

In ancient Egyptian society chariotry stood as an independent unit in the King’s military force. Chariots are thought to have been first used as a weapon in Egypt by the Hyksos^[1] in the 16th century BC, though investigation of materials long held in the Tahrir Square Egyptian Museum has potentially revealed the presence of chariots as early as the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC).^[2] The Egyptians developed their own design of the chariot.

3. Hyskos introduced chariots to ancient Egypt Archived 2010-06-29 at the Wayback Machine
4. 
   
Nevine El-Aref, “Old Kingdom leather fragments reveal how ancient Egyptians built their chariots”, English Ahra, Monday 22 Apr 2013, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/69897/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Old%20Kingdom-leather-fragments-reveal-how-ancient-E.aspx

Much past discussion of when in Egyptian History certain Biblical events could have happened were based on the long held assumption that there were no Chariots in Egypt till the Hyksos period.  But we now know otherwise.  I wish I'd known about this sooner, being made in 2013 it predates my starting this Blog, I could have opened with it.

I'm still reevaluating just how much of my past Revised Chronology speculations I still agree with.  But for now this is an enlightening discovery either way.

What does Greek even mean?

First I want to remind people that when I discus the Table of Nations I don't expect direct easy correlations between Noah's sons and modern "racial" classifications or DNA Haplogroups or ancient assumptions about the continents.  I think things were a lot more complicated then that.

In the KJV of the Hebrew Bible any time you see Greece or Greek or Grecia or Grecian it's a reference to Javan son of Japheth, his descendants and where they settled. Which scholars of the ancient Bronze/Iron Age and early classical antiquity know refereed to the Ionians and Ionia.

However in the New Testament those words are translations of references to the Hellenes.  The Hellenes as an ethnic term didn't always  include everyone we today mean by Greeks.  However the word was also associated with anyone who could speak the Hellenic language and is thus used of Hellenized Jews like the Seven Deacons in Acts 6.

The Ionians were Hellenes, but only one of a number of Hellenic tribes.  And of the mythical founder figures of the original four Hellenic tribes, Ion's parentage is questionable, which may be a mythical memory that the Ionians were not Hellenes originally but became absorbed into them.  And the same may be true later on of the tribes said to descend from Hellen's sisters' sons.

The ancient root of the words Greek and Greece is one of those nephews of Hellen, Greacus, but the Hellenes typically said to come from him were mainly those of Southern Italy and Sicily, Magna Graecia.  The Latins called all Hellenes Greeks after them and thus via the Vulgate that's why there are so many Greeks in our English Bibles.

Ionia was a part of Asia Minor/Turkey, south of Mysia and west of Phrygia, it included the cities of Miletus, Ephesus and Smyrna, and Islands like Samos.  The Ionians also colonized more Aegean islands and eventually came to the actual mainland of modern Greece and by the early Classical period a significant portion of the population of Athens/Attica were Ionians, maybe even the majority.  But the Athenians of legends set in the Heroic Age were not likely to have been Ionians.

Athens becoming the cultural capital of Greece during the Classical Period is the main basis for treating Ionian and Hellen as synonyms, but on purely genealogical grounds it doesn't work so well.  Alexander The Great can be called of Javan based on his culture, being educated by Aristotle made him in many ways more Athenian then Macedonian in his way of thinking.  But also Daniel 8:21 arguably describes Alexander as a King of Javan in a way that doesn't' necessarily make him Javanite himself.  Daniel 11 doesn't directly link Alexander to Javan at all but mentions Javan as where the Persian Wars started, the first conflict of which is known as the Ionian Revolt.

Now I do believe that the Grandsons of Noah had more children then just the ones named, the sons named are founders of offshoot nations.  Therefore I do think Ionian strictly speaking doesn't include the nations of Javan's four sons.  So does that justify expanding Javan's descendants to include all Hellens?  Well that's complicated, there is plenty of reason to think all their original locations were also either in modern Turkey or on islands not far from Turkish coast-lands.

Kittim is well known to refer to Cyprus, Kition, but perhaps not even all of it as Kition was one of ten ancient kingdoms of Cyprus.  Attempts to expand it to being synonymous with "Greece" start with desiring to see Isaiah 23 as about Alexander's siege of Tyre.  But Kittim is not actually identified as Tyre's enemy here but a place Tyrians would try to flee to, which can potentially apply equally to both Alexander's siege and Nebuchadnezzar's.  Daniel 11:30 is used to try and make Kittim into Rome because in the traditional view this is where Rome starts becoming a thorn in the side of Antiochus Epiphanes, but that encounter between Antiochus and Rome happened on Cyprus.  In my alternative view that this is about the reign of Ptolemy IV this may have to do with how Cyprus was under Ptolemaic control.  There was even a brief dynastic connection.

Elishah is the big factor in trying to make all Hellenes into Javanites, sometimes by arguing the name Hellen itself comes from Elishah which is pretty tortured, as well as Elysium and the Elysian fields which were underworld locations, and Josephus said the Eleans (people of Elis) came from Elishah.  However the Elishah of Javan is probably the Alashiya, another kingdom of ancient Cyprus, perhaps specifically the sites of Kalavasos and Alassa.  Elishah and Kittim are both mentioned together with Mizraim in Ezekiel 27:7-8, at the time Ezekiel was writing Egypt was also colonizing Cyprus, or in one theory I've considered had been exiled there.

The Dodanim is most likely supposed to be read Rodanim which I explained the textual reasons for on my Sola Scirptura blog.  It most likely refers to Rhodes, an island north-east of Crete and closer to Turkey then it is to Crete, south of Ionia.  KJV onlyists however will cling to Dodanim irrationally, which makes Dodona an attractive identification.  Dodona was an Oracle in Epirus even more ancient then Delphi, and also a city in Thessaly.  Aristotle said Dodona was the original homeland of the Hellenes, but history wasn't his area of expertise.  Attempts to say they were actually the Dardanians are also made, but there is no textual support for a d-r reading.

Tarshish is who's identification is the most mysterious.  I do not think possibly misunderstood Chronicles verses are good justification for placing Tarshish in the east rather then west.  Regions of ancient Spain like Tartessos I think were first settled by Phut, there has long been speculation that the Basques are related to the Berbers.  And if I were to theorize a Biblical origin for the name Tartessos itself, Tirzah is closer then Tarshish since there are reasons that letter for Z sometimes become a T.

I no longer support fanciful theories about Tarshish being Briton or India or Japan.  However of mainstream theories Tarsus is the most probable.

Tarshish is another example of my maybe coming to support a theory of Velikovsky I originally didn't think I would, which is making them the Minoans/Crete or more specifically Knossos.
https://www.varchive.org/nldag/tarshish.htm

However it could also simply be the Tarsus of Cilicia which was already known by that name in Assyrian Inscriptions.

In Greek Mythology a people called the Telchines were the earliest inhabitants of Rhodes, and also lived on Cyprus and Crete. So this term could be a name given to the offshoots of Javan.  And that makes them Pre-Hellenic not Hellens.

The Pre-Hellenic people of Greece were often called Pelasgians as a whole, yet Pelasgians are sometimes implied to be one specific group.  Some theories about the etymology of Pelasgian imply there wasn't originally an S before the G, which makes a connection to Peleg possible.

I also believe two Canaanite tribes were among the Pre-Helelnic Greeks.  The Arkite tribe were the Arcadians and the Sinite tribe the Sintians.

Thrace I think was the ancient nation of Tiras, but I think Thracians also traveled north and contributed to Scandinavia.

Where do I think the Hellens came from Biblically?  Well I think they may have been Israelites who lost their identity.  Partly from north western coastal tribes of the Northern Kingdom becoming sea traders and thus mingling with the Phoenicians as well as Ionians in cities like Miletus.  And partly from what Joel 3 says about children of Judah and Jerusalem being sold as slaves to Javanites by Tyre and Philista.  Which could include the wives and children of Jehoram of Judah some of whom were taken by the Philistines.

On my comparative mythology blog I shall in the future discus evidence for that from Greek mythology.  But one particular factor there, since the Joel verse gives good reason to see Benjamites as included, is that the Tarsus of Cilicia could come from the Tarshish of the Tribe of Benjamin in 1 Chronicles 7:10.  Paul was born in Tarsus of Cilicia and is well known to have been a Benjamite.

But for now I want to remind those trying to argue Paul only brought The Gospel to the "Lost Tribes" that specifically Ionian places are important in Acts.  Ephesus and Miletus in Ionia (likewise Ephesus and Smyrna in Revelation), Athens, Cyrpus, Rhodes and Crete were all visited by Paul.  And then of course Paul's hometown may itself be Tarshish.

Update October 2020:  I'm updating this in the context of my Language of The Table of Nations discussion on another blog.

The Linguistic unity of all the subtribes of Greece has caused me somewhat change what I argued above and still view all of them as ultimately of Javan.  First look at this Map from the Dorian Invasion Wikipedia page.

Elishah I believe was the Northwest Greeks and the Aeolians.

Further Update June 2021: There is plenty of reason to suspect the region of Ionia is where all the ancestors of the Hellens lived first.  Linguistically that Phrygian is considered closely related to Greece fits, and the Anatolian Languages might be as well, perhaps they are the branch of Javan represented by Tarshish.  Archeologists don't believe Hellenic speakers arrived on Western site of the Aegean till about 1600 BC.  Revised Chronology could bring that down another 4 or 5 centuries.

Homer is believed to have lived on an Island on Anatolia's side of the Aegean, and Hesiod is said to have been born there as well.  Ionia is also where Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy started, the three Milesian Philosophers, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Xenophanes of Colophon, and Pythagoras was born in Samos.

The Richat Structure as Atlantis theory

Recently I learned of the Richat Structure theory via this video from the Bright Insight YouTube Channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDoM4BmoDQM
He believes a number of fringe things I don't support, like when he talks about Baalbek in other videos.
[[That video now has a follow up https://youtu.be/lyV8TUlV3Ds.]]

Here is a playlist of the full documentary on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzaG2Oyvx5GAFhqrPSo5CyrmBNL3Z1E3
It brings up the debunked Dogon/Sirius mystery stuff, but other then that seems like solid research.

Now I was aware of Atlantis possibly being in North-West Africa long before I heard of the Richat Structure.  So these advocates of the theory would benefit by mentioning how broadly Atlantis in this region theories were proposed before the Richat Structure was even discovered in 1965.

Like the theories of French geographer E. F. Berlioux first published in 1874, and expanded in 1883 in L'Atlas primitif et l'Atlantis, of the Saharian Sea, which located Atlantis in the Hoggar mountains of the Saharan Atlas.  A different part of North-West Africa, but still in the ballpark broadly.

That theory was among the influences on French novelist Pierre Benoit (1886-1962) when he wrote his novel L'Atlantide, first published in France in February 1919.  It was adapted to film multiple times before 1965, and influenced other fiction including some Italian Sword and Sandal films, the character of Queen Antinea was an important influence on the modern Femme Fatale archetype.
http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/atlantide.htm

These two different theories could be compatible, the Hoggar Mountains could have been home to one of the Colonies of Atlantis.

Herodotus refereed to Atlantians in North-West Africa in Book IV of his Histories, sections 184-185.  Diodorus Sicilus Library of History Book III Chapters 52-57&60-61 talks about people of North-West Africa (Libya to the Ancient Greeks was all of Saharan Africa west of Egypt and Cyrene, not just modern Libya) including people called Atlantians and the Libyan Amazons (and also claims the Gorgons were actually a Human Matriarchal Tribe of the region rather then Snake monsters).  The curious thing about Diodorus account though is it's the Amazons rather then Atlantians who's history resembles Plato's Atlantis.  Their capital city is on an island in a Marsh, they build a vast empire through conquest including making a connection with Aegytpos, but are stopped by Greeks, sometime after which their homeland is said to be submerged.  His account does equate ancient Atlantian Kings with the Titans and Olympian deities however.

The question for me as a Biblical Literalist is, how do we fit this into a Biblical View of history?

First, if Atlantis (or whatever it was originally called) was a Post-Flood Civilization, they were probably among the descendants of Phut who is traditionally associated with North-West Africa.  I believe Ezekiel 38 uses Phut as an idiom of the Far West, not unlike Greek Mythology associating Mount Atlas with the Far West.

But the idea that the Sinking of Atlantis is another memory of Noah's Flood should also be considered.

I've already explained why I think it's futile to assume the Euphrates of Genesis 2 must be where the Post-Flood Euphrates is.  That was in the context of arguing for Eden being Aden in Yemen, a theory I still lean towards, but in my search for truth I consider many theories.

The Garden of the Hesperides in Greek Mythology are often thought to be a corrupted Greek memory of the Garden of Eden, and it is traditionally placed near Mount Atlas as the Titan Atlas was sometimes the father of the Hesperides.  In Plato's account of Atlantis the innermost island included a Sacred Garden of Poseidon.  So could Atlantis also be a corrupt memory of Eden?

Maybe when Cain was exiled from Eden he was exiled from the Richat.  Or maybe only from the inner most Island and it was the city he or his son founded that became this great imperial capital.

I've also Biblically argued for The Flood being proceeded by a major war.

And maybe in light of some speculation on my Comparative Mythology Blog the Gorgons could be an all female tribe descended from Lilith.

What I've said above can apply to a Global Flood model, which remains over all my view of The Flood.

However I said when addressing the Racist associations of Old Earth Creationism that I could be open to a local flood interpretation of Genesis, it's an Old Earth model I'm completely against (though I am intrigued by Peter Hiett's The History of Time and the Genesis of you theory which is the only such compromise that doesn't separate the Genesis 1 and 2 Adams or in some way claim not all Human descend from Adam and Eve).

I've looked at some of Michael Heiser's material on the subject.  But here is the thing, if the purpose of a Local Flood model is to make The Bible fit more with what mainstream science assumes.  Then Adam and Eve have to be placed in Africa not the Near East.

I have also found some sites arguing that via correcting possible translation ambiguities Genesis 7 could have been describing a Tsunami, which fits with what is proposed to have happened to Atlantis in the Richat Structure theory.  So maybe it's possible Noah's Ark was built inside or near the Richat Structure, then a tidal wave took it out to the Ocean and it somehow wound up landing somewhere in the Near East.

What's important is all Homo-Sapiens descend from both Adam and Eve.  If there are some who don't descend from Noah, the mainstream interpretation of the Genetic evidence implies they would have been in Africa.  Now Racists could attempt to twist that kind of view to their means too, saying non Noahites are not as Chosen as the rest of us.  But Romans 5 and 1st Corinthians 15 promise Salvation to all descendants of Adam, and Romans 11 that all Ethnicities will be grafted into Israel.

I've talked about Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups on this Blog before.  Not all my conclusions there necessarily need to be abandoned under this hypothesis.  Here is a Tree of how mainstream scientists view the descent of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups.

People who descend from A or B but not the rest are all indigenous to Africa.

The most attractive way to interpret that in this proposed Local Flood model would be BR is descent from Seth or Enos and CR is descent from Noah.  I would then guess that C is Japheth (Enlarge is a mis-translation in Genesis 9, something I intend to talk about elsewhere, C is attested among Greeks and Cypriots). DE is Ham as Haplogroup E dominates much of Africa including Egypt including some ancient Mummies), Sudan, Ethiopia and North-West Africa, and has presence in the Middle East and even the Far East. And lastly F is Shem from whom comes Abraham who's descendants were destined to be the most numerous.  People of Hamite Pater-lineal ancestry did get incorporated into Israel via the Mixed Multitude and The Torah specifically saying to welcome Mizraimites, so that's why there are both Ashkenazim, Shaphardi and other Jews who are in Y-Haplogroup E.  (Though I've also been considering a model that would switch Ham and Shem.)

In-spite of all that speculation, I still lean towards a Global Flood.  It's simply that if you want to convince me of a Local Flood model, this is the only viable one.

Jehu and the Tel-Dan Stele

[Update: April 2026: I have firmly changed my mine on this, it makes perfect for Hazael to claim credit for the Deaths of Ahaziah and Jehoram, and non for Jehu to be crediting Hadad rather then YHWH.]

Combining aspects of Rohl and Velikovsky.

Well, I'm now probably moving away again from the Mizraim was in Arabia theory.

As I've said before, even as I've become more critical of Velikovsky in terms of the 18th Dynasty,  I've become more convinced then ever of his models for the 19th, 20th and 21st Dynasties.

I've been considering the Implications of keeping that aspect of Velikovsky while at the same time considering that Rohl may have been at least partly right in his view of the Amarna Letters.

Mutbaal as Ishbaal/Eshbaal has always been Rohl's strongest argument.  Even conventionalists agree that Mutbaal also means Man of Baal.  We have someone ruling mainly in the Trans-Jordan but who's father controlled Shechem, and with basically the same name.  Too many perfect alignments to just ignore.

The name Labaya is suspected to be related to a Hebrew word usually translated Lion, Labiy Strong Number 3833.  The primary verse using this word I've seen so far cited to support it being a name for Saul is Psalm 57:4 which David wrote while on the run from Saul, and there it appears in a Plural form, Labaim.  Sometimes the plural suffix is used of an individual in Hebrew as a sign of respect.

I however have been looking at Prophecies in the Torah, Genesis 49:9, Numbers 23:24 and Numbers 24:9, where two words for Lion get used, Ari and Labiy.  Ari is definitely the Lion of Judah since only Ari is used in Micah 5:8, and Isaiah 29 uses Ariel (Lion of God) as a name for Zion, The City of David (Which is Bethlehem), and the Lions of Solomon's Throne were Ari.  So I wonder if it's possible that in these prophecies the Ari is David and the Labiy is Saul?

Rohl doesn't seem to have an identity for Abdi-Heba the King of Jerusalem in the Amarna Letters.  Probably because he assumed The Bible never names the Jebusite King of the region.  But that's because English translations obscure that the Hebrew of 2 Kings 24:23 says Araunah was a King.  And both accounts agree he was a Jebusite.

The fact that Abdi-Heba seems to have later started working with the same Hapiru that he'd complained about Labaya working with, is probably his alliance with David.  It can be inferred from the Biblical Narrative that they were on friendly terms already even before the Plague happened.

Now one implication of combining those two views, is bringing us right back to the 22nd Dynasty seemingly being the era of Solomon, Jeroboam and Rehoboam.  The starting point of Revised Chronology is usually saying that identification is obviously wrong.

Unless there is a forgotten dynasty, or forgotten final phase of the 18th, to come between the end of the Amarna period and the Libyan take over.

One criticism of the Shoshenq as Shishak view to come to me recently is that The Bible would have called Shosenk a Libyian (either by calling him a Lubim or of Phut).  When it refers to the Nubian Dynasty ruler Taharka it calls him a Cushite King, and doesn't call him Pharaoh or even directly say that he rules Egypt.

And then there is the fact that even the conventional date for Shoshenq is too late for when I place the end of Solomon's Reign, being Ussher's date (975 BC) at the latest.  Conventional Chronology places Ussher's date for Solomon's Death during the reign of Siamun of the 21st Dynasty.

This returns me to the mystery of how Manetho's 18th Dynasty does seem to last longer then Archeologists usually think.  And has him seemingly recording Ramses Minaium twice, once as part of the 18th Dynasty and then in the 19th Dynasty.  But Seti exists only in the 19th Dynasty account.

I still think Orus of Manetho is Akhenaten, and Rathotis is Tutankamun.  And then Acheneres as Ay and finally Armasis'Harmais as Horemheb.

Rohl has Horemheb as the Pharaoh who's daughter Solomon Married, that adds up well.  Since Labaya is now agreed to have probably died before Amenhotep III did, Horemheb was probably King when Solomon took the Throne 40 and one half years after Saul died.  Still it's possible that even though he was King at the time the daughter Solomon married was one of Akhenetan's, or any woman who held the title "King's Daughter".  Maybe Solomon wound up marrying the same Queen who had written to Suppiluliuma I?

That still leaves the Shishak question up in the air.

Jeroboam as Labaya

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.

This Blog isn't Dead

I won’t be making be making any new posts on it for the foreseeable future since I’m out of completely new ideas, and really have been for awhile.

But I’ll still be notified of any new comments left and still try to respond to them.  I may continue editing/updating some old posts as well.

If I do wind up making a new post because a burst of inspiration came to me.  That doesn’t likely mean I’ll be returning to making new posts regularly.

My Sola Scriptura Christian Liberty blog, and A Chronological View of Revelation, I’ll continue trying to add to at least once a month.  And my main JaredMithrandir-Olorin blog I'll likely be updating at least weekly.

A Theory about Troy

When Troy fell is a common subject in revised Chronology.  But Velikovsky also questions if the current proposed site of Troy fits the geography of Homer.

I however have come to think that regardless of where Homer thought Troy was, perhaps the origin of the Legend of Troy wasn’t in Anatolia at all?

The myth of Laomedon (Priam’s father) and Herakles has been noted to strongly resemble that of Perseus and Joppa/Jaffa.  A Princess being offered as a sacrifice to appease a Sea Monster, and a Greek Hero who’s a son of Zeus saves the day.  The oldest version of the Trojan Horse legend also refers to a sea monster off the coast of Troy.

Greek Mythology also has three Flood Legends.  So it’s possible there are other cases of different myths based on the same historical inspiration, yet later given distinct points on the mythical timeline.  So could Joppa and Troy be the same city?  Or different cities of the same kingdom?

Joppa is located in Israel, the Book of Jonah also affiliates it with a Sea Monster, (in the Septuagint and New Testament it’s referred to as Cetos).  Which Kingdom it was part of during the Divided Kingdom period is difficult to tell, it possibly changed over time as the borders shifted, in Jonah it’s seemingly part of the North.  And the story of Omri's rise to power implies the original Danite allotment was under the Norther's control since the north was battling the Philistines over Gibbethon.

There is an 18th Dynasty Egyptian text known as The Taking of Joppa.  In which an Egyptian general named Djehuty captures Joppa by offering them a gift of many baskets and claiming he was surrendering but hidden in the Baskets were his soldiers.  The similarity of this to the Trojan Horse legend has been noted before.  In any Chronology however this event predates the fall of Troy, and was certainly before Homer and any other written accounts of Troy.

Djehuty is independently verified to have lived during the reign of Tuthmosis III.  But Egyptologists now suspect the campaign that is the story’s intended setting is from the reign of Amenhotep II.

Could the name of Troy possibly be connected to Tirzah?  A City that sometimes served as the royal capital of the Northern Kingdom.   I've suggested before the Teresh of the Sea People could have come from Tirzah, and I think others have suggested connecting the Teresh to Troy.

Memnon in the Prose Edda.  Some people question if Memnon was in fact who’s meant.  The spelling it uses is “Munon or Mennon”, which could instead refer to Menon, a Trojan soldier mentioned in The Iliad.  In Greek translations of the Old Testament the Hebrew name Menahem sometimes becomes Manaem or Manaen.  A name most notably associated with a Northern Kingdom ruler near the end of it's history who came from Tirzah.

But the name Memnon itself could be viewed as referencing the first two letters of the Hebrew spelling of Menahem.  Memnon was a king of the mythical "Aethiopia" which was also linked to Joppa and thus the same dynasty as Cepheus and Andromeda.

The Prose Edda is just one of many examples of European Royalty claiming descent from Troy (many Norse and Anglo-Saxon royal houses traced their ancestry to Odin).  It seems before British Israelism made Ephraim popular, it was Troy the nations of Western Europe sought to use to give themselves a more ancient/classical heritage.  Virgil and Livy weren’t the first to connect Aeneas to Rome, Homer himself directly supports no such connection, but does imply people will descend from Aeneas.  Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth further connects the Britons to Aeneas.  Geoffrey of Tours traced the Franks back to Helenus and Andromache.

But it is in the Prose Edda we see an early clue this descent from Troy may have been code for, or a middle stage of, descent from Israel all along.  Because the Prose Edda says Troy was 12 Kingdoms with one High King.  And it says Troy was in the middle of the Earth, a location traditionally given to Israel in Judeo-Christian thinking, justified by it being where Africa and Eurasia meet.

Given my past speculations of a connection between the Ketos of Greek Mythology and the creature that swallowed Jonah.  And the fact that Jonah, Amos, Hosea (and traditionally Joel) were all contemporaries of Jeroboam II.  I think Laomedon and Cepheus may both be Greek mythological corruptions of the memory of Jeroboam II. And thus all royal families who claimed descent from either the House of Laomedon or Andromeda were descendants of the House of Jehu.  And all tracing descent back to Mennon were the House of Menahem ben Gadi.  And the Dorians were of those of Manasseh who dwelt in Dor, while the Thesselians were of Asher and their royal family of the governor of Dor who married Solomon's Daughter.  And those claiming descent from Perseus and/or Herakles were Danites or Ephraimites.  Sometimes Hercules rather then Mars is given as the father of Romulus and Remus.

Some writers wanting to argue for Troy actually being in the British isles say they find the claimed presence of Chariots in the Trojan myths implausible for a north western Asia Minor setting. Chariots are definitely present in Biblical Canaan/Israel, being associated with Solomon, Ahab and Jehu.  Solomon is just the oldest example I can think of of the Israelites using them, the Canaanites Joshua was warring with had them, which is strategically why he started by capturing the mountainous regions.

My thoughts on some theories of John R Salverda

He left a comment on the very first post of this blog.  And I commented on him briefly in  my theory on the Amazons and Dan.  I find some of his research useful but much of it is a stretch.  For those who don’t know,  on Britam and some other sites he’s talked about parallels between Greek Mythology and Biblical stories to tie those into Lost Tribes speculation.

One mistake that clouds much of his research is accepting the identification of the so called “Hittites” of Anatolia with the Biblical Hittites.  The Biblical Hittites were located around Hebron and worshiped the same gods as the Sidonians, hence not having their Idol named in 1 Kings 11.  The Hittites of Anatolia I think were descendants of either Lud, Japheth or people who had previously been in Mesopotamia, perhaps from Aram or Arphaxad.  They did not have the characteristics of Canaanites.

He is also guilty of many common mistakes regarding how Cyrus and the Magi related to Zoroastrianism.  Cyrus worshiped Mithra, he was never a follower of Zoroaster.  And the Magi like Astyages were originally the enemies of Zoroastrianism.  But I think all three may descend from the deportation of the Northern Kingdom.  The Magi I think came from either Jeorboam’s non Levitical Priesthood and/or the Kenites who Balaam foretold would also be carried away by Asshur.  Zarathustra I think was probably a Naphtalite seeking to create his own new doctrine.  And Cyrus like other Persians and Iranians I think descended from Ephraimites like the Eranite clan.

His argument for Sisyphus as Joseph is more about the House of Joseph in general.  In which case I think the main individual in mind is more so Jeroboam.  For one thing Sisyphus is pretty much vilified in Greek myths.  I don’t see descendants of Joseph doing that to Joseph, but maybe in time they would Jeroboam.  But since Jeroboam’s male line was wiped out, I think all or most supposed sons of Sisyphus in Greek Mythology were other chiefs of Ephraim and/or Manasseh.

I should note Corinth was not the city in Greece called Ephrya, there was also an Ephrya in Elis.  And since we move down the time where Sisyphus and his successors supposedly lived, to when we have an unbroken line of Historical Corinthian kings back to 1069 BC.  I think originally Sisyphus wasn’t linked to Corinth at all but, like other figures I shall discus here, in Elis.

The oldest sources give Aeolus only four sons.  Sisyphus, Amathas, Salmoneus and Cretheus.  But in time other brothers would be added to this group.  He hasn’t said much I’ve seen on Cretheus, I shall get to him while discussing Salmoneus.

Aeolus was one of three sons of Hellen, from whom came three tribes of Ancient Greece, the Aeolians, the Dorians from Dorus, and the Acheans from the son of Xuthus.  The Dorian “invasion” is usually dated to the 1100s BC, but under revised Chronology that can be moved down to the 600s and early 500s BC.  Xuthus adopting Ion progenitor of the Ionians I think is a mythical explanation for the descendants of Javan being intermingled with Israelite Sea Peoples.  And maybe a reflection of other Biblical themes of Gentiles being adopted into the Tents of Shem, starting with Japheth in Genesis 9.

I associate the Sea Peoples with four tribes, but two are a pair of tribes often linked.  So I think these three tribes of the Hellenes equate to Manasseh (from Joseph), Asher, and Zebulun&Issachar.

Britam when arguing the Anglo-Saxons came from Joseph, argues the name Angle somehow comes from Aegel, the Hebrew word for Bullock used in Jeremiah 31:18 using the Bullock as a symbol of Joseph.  That feels like a stretch to me, but at any rate I could argue Aeolus/Aiolos and Aeolians could come from Aegel just as easily.  Later on here I will argue for a descendant of Aeolus being the husband of Europa, as well as for Anglo-Saxon royalty descending from Aeolus via their claimed descent from Odin.

Salverda argues the myths of Salmoneus to come from both Judah in Genesis 38, and Solomon, called Salomon in the Septuagint.  (Salmoneus as Solomon I’ve commented on before in the context of the Song of Solomon.)  The Genesis 38 connection is based entirely on arguing a parallel between Tyro and Tamar.   I think Tamar’s story may have influenced the Embellishment of Tyro’s story.  But Solomon we are told had two daughters in 1 Kings 4:11&15, I think Tyro is possibly both of them merged together.

For starters her stepmother Sidero could be a Sidonian wife of Solomon.  The mother of Tyro was said to be an Arcadian.  I believe the Arcadians of Greece were the Arkite tribe of Canaan.  But for this myth it could easily refer to a Hittite or Sidonian wife of Solomon, the ones who were Canaanites.

Ben-Abinadab who was appointed governor of Dor married Taphath.  I think in her we have Tyro as the lover of Enipeus.  Enipeus was a river god, but Tyro never got to lie with him, but rather Poseidon disguised as him.  I’ve read the Greeks often associated Poseidon specifically with the Mediterranean Sea, Dor was a Mediterranean coastal city, but it was also near a river.  Remember that Dor also comes up discussing the Sea Peoples, and some want to link the Dorians to Dor.

Dor is often presumed to be in the land given to Western Manasseh, but some of these borders shifted over time quite a bit (Shechem was originally allotted to Ephraim but is also on Maps often in Manasseh).  Dor is close to Zebulun, and Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 foretell Zebulun would be a sea port.  Zebulun is often inseparable from Issachar, wouldn’t surprise me if Baasha was a descendant of Taphath and Zebulun via his mother or grandmother.  Zebulun is otherwise not mentioned in 1 Kings 4, and Western Manasseh does have other governors here.

Ahimaaz in Naphtali was married to Basemath.  Because the name Basemath is given to wives of Esau in Genesis, I suspect this was the daughter of an Edomite wife of Solomon.  But one Basemath married to Esau was also a Hittite.  In my post on The Widow’s Son, I discussed how Hiram’s Danite mother was probably first married to a Naphtalite.  And I suspected that she had born him a son before he died and had Hiram with a man of Tyre.  Maybe Ahimaaz is that son?  And Cretheus becomes known as the brother of Salmoneus because he was a Brother of the Architect of Solomon’s Temple?  Naphtali was the other son of Dan’s mother Bilhah, and once Dan moved north he bordered Naphtali.  Cretheus came up in my post on the Amazons and Dan.

Cretheus is said to have had another wife also, this might be just a result of Tyro being two different women merged together.  Cretheus had daughters, usually not attributed to Tyro, two have names common among the Amazons (and the name Myrina in addition to an Amazon connection was also possibly the wife of Dardanus an ancestor of Trojan royalty).  And a third is the unnamed wife of Tectamus son of Dorus, and mother of the husband of Europa.

It could also be the story of Tyro later marrying Sisyphus is based on both these being parts of Israel that went with Jeroboam.  And the story of her killing her sons by Sisyphus from the male line of Jeroboam being extinguished, chiefly by Baasha.

Or maybe Tyro is just one of these daughters, and the pagan mythology wanted to give divine parentage to two sons who really had the same father as the others.  All the sons of Tyro by either are linked to Thessaly.  But it’s also said Thessaly is where the Dorians were before migrating to the Peloponnese.  Joshua associates Dor with three Tribes, Manasseh, Asher and Issachar.  But logically Issachar’s connection could only be via his relationship with Zebulun, since Zebulun was east of Dor but west of Issachar.  Maybe Cretheus/Ben-Abinadab as a brother of Sisyphus was a Manasseite, while the line of Dorus was either Asher and/or Zebulun.

It might also be that the Taphians of Greek mythology were named after Taphath.

Salmoneus’s Kingdom was placed in Elis in Greek Mythology, a region in the Western Peloponnese where Mt Olympus also was.  The first King of Elis is sometimes said to be Aethilus, who was sometimes a son of Zeus, but sometimes another son of Aeolus.  Other times Endymion is the first king of Elis.  Endymion is sometimes the son of Zeus and sometimes of Aethilus.

Endymion being both a Shepherd and a King makes me think of David.  Endymion was the lover of the Moon, Selene.  One of David’s wives was Avital whose name means “Father of the Dew” a fitting title for the Moon.  Avital was a wife married at Hebron in Judah.  The Jerehmeelites were a clan of Judah near Hebron who we know David had good relations with.  And the name Jerehmeel could come partly from Jerah the Hebrew name for the Moon.  So maybe Avital was a Jerehmeelite?  Endymion had other wives also.  The name of Elis could come from David’s son Elishua.  The name Eleius could also be related to Elishua, Eleius in Greek mythology was a maternal grandson of Endymion.

Pelops also ruled in Elis who I’ll talk more about latter.

While many mythical figures of Elis seem linkable to both the House of David and Ephraim.  The people of Elis in general are sometimes described almost like the Levites of Ancient Greece.  Like in Diodorus Siculus.

“Since the Eleans were becoming a numerous people and were governing themselves in accordance with law, the Lacedaemonians viewed their growing power with suspicion and assisted them in establishing a settled mode of life for the community, in order that they might enjoy the benefits of peace and never experience the activities of war. 2 And they made the Eleans sacred to the god,1 with the concurrence of practically the whole Greek world. As a consequence the Eleans took no part in the campaign against Xerxes, but they were relieved of service because of their responsibility for the honour due to the god, and further, in like struggles, when the Greeks were warring among themselves, no state caused them any annoyance, since all Greek states were zealous to preserve the sanctity and inviolability of the land and city. Many generations later, however, the Eleans also began to join in campaigns and to enter upon wars of their own choosing.

The Eleans took no part in the wars in which all the rest of the Greeks shared. In fact, when Xerxes advanced against the Greeks with so many myriads of soldiers, the allies relieved them of service in the field, the leaders instructing them that they would be returning a greater service if they should undertake responsibility for the honour due to the gods.”

But remember, Jeroboam created his own Non-Levitical Priesthood.  Among the later Priesthoods I think descended from Jeroboam’s are the Magi mentioned here already, the Priestly class of Japan, and of course the supposed Levites of the modern Samaritans.  Many of these groups can be linked to Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup E, or D which came out of E.  E is also the dominant Haplogroup in Greece.  Meanwhile the genetically confirmed descendants of Aaron are in Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup J.

Salverda also argues for those Israelites who went west by sea starting to do so even before the Northern Kingdom fell.  And that is valid, again Zebulun (from whom came the Sardites) was foretold to be sea farers.  I don’t identify the Sea Peoples with all of the Northern Kingdom or even all areas not deported, but mainly the coastal regions.  When you think about it, the Book of Jonah implies even the port of Joppa was in the Northern Kingdom.  I also think after the first deportation in 745 BC, that Samaria become barely more than a City State controlling not even all of Ephraim.  Salverda argued Israelites might have been included in how the Greeks defined Phoneceans.  I also think they were included among the Pelasgians as descendants of Peleg.

Salverda also argues for parallels between Ahab and Pelops.  But here more than anywhere else he strongly argues that that the Greeks families said to descend from him actually descend from the Biblical figure in question, in seemingly the exact equivalent amount of time (since he supports a Revised Chronology date for Pelops, making him contemporary with the first Olympiad, 776 BC).  The problem with the last part is the descendants of Ahab were wiped out.  But some argued similarities between Ahab and Pelops are interesting.

I think there was an historical Tantalus and Pelops as separate figures who first lived among Israelite colonists in Ionia around 830-800 BC.  And then Pelops migrated to Elis and Olympus by 776 BC  And that maybe stories about Ahab (who I place in the early 800s close to 900 BC) got applied to them later.  

It is of course entirely possible that ambitious Israelites who were not descended from Ahab might have claimed they were.  And in so doing sought to imitate accomplishments of Ahab, and encourage other similarities to be emphasized.

Homer can’t be Omri because I agree with dating Homer to the time of Gyges of Lydia.  I have argued that Gyges of Lydia is Gog ben Joel of the Tribe of Reuben deported by Assyria in 1 Chronicles 5.

Salverda argues two Greek parallels for both Naboth and Elijah.  In the case of Naboth he unfortunately didn’t lead with the stronger case.  Stymphalus’s proposed parallel to Naboth is fairly solid, while with Oenomaus he’s stretching things a bit.

As the father of his Jezebel figure, I don’t know why he didn’t just argue Oenomaus was Ithobaal/Ethbaal the father of Jezebel?  It could be the part about Pelops killing him was just a result of the necessity of changing the geography of the story.  And/or simply that the Greeks liked stories of someone taking over a kingdom by marrying the Princess.  Ahab did set up his capital not where his father’s was but at Jezreel, much closer to Tyre then other capitals.

Oenomaus’s wife and presumed mother of Hippodamia is said sometimes to be a daughter of Danaus and sometimes of Acrisius, who himself descended from the Danoi.  We know from the Bible intermarriages between Sidonians and Danites were common.

According to Meander as quoted by Josephus, Ithobaal like Oenomaus didn’t descend from an earlier line of kings.  He was a Priest of Astarte who took over the Kingdom.  Maybe he descended from the Priesthood of Micah’s Idol that was located in Lebanon and strongly linked to Dan.

On the other hand Myrtilus resembles Elijah better than Aeacus.  Aeacus is linked to the end of the drought but not its start.  Aeacus is perhaps a better parallel to Obadiah in 1 Kings 18.  The Myrtilus=Elijah argument can also seem like a stretch.  But now that I know there is a Chariot constellation linked to stories like Elijah’s, it adds new context to my theory that Enoch and Elijah were taken to a planet orbiting another Star to prepare them for their time as the Two Witnesses of Revelation 11.  His basis for reading a Chariot race into Elijah’s story is the ending of 1 Kings 18.

Salverda’s Pegasus=Moses connection I don’t agree with.  The parallel to Moses in the Basket is like Sargon and other Pagan versions of that motif, in having it be a child of Royalty raised with a humble childhood, rather than a child of slaves raised as royalty.  If Perseus is based on a Biblical story, it’s Jonah’s, but with the Greeks moving the geography of the story backwards.

Connected to both that and his Sisyphus premise is Bellerophon as Joshua.  First off he thinks that Pegasus was originally with Perseus and added to Bellerophon’s story later, the actual development of Greek mythology was the opposite.  Pegasus was in origin Bellerophon’s horse, Perseus having anything to do with Pegasus is a very late development.

I have a feeling Bellerophon could be Jehu.  Jehu’s dynasty was the only one besides Jeroboam’s we know was from Joseph, but he was Manasseh rather than Ephraim.  Jehu too started his story east of the Jordan as a captain in Ramoth-GIlead.  It’s possible those in ancient Israel who told his story in a more positive POV then II Kings wanted to hype any potential parallels to Joshua.  And Bellerophon attempted to conquer Olympus, the Kingdom of Pelops though the myth as it’s survived doesn’t connect that to the human government in the area.  Bellerophon’s attempt to seize Olympus ends in failure, but perhaps that’s just the Greek version of the story being preserved mostly through a party favorable to Jezebel’s form of worship.

The proposed meaning of Bellerphon being "Slayer of Beliar" I think also fits Josiah better, who specifically stamped out the worship of Baal.

Salverda also compares Acrisius and Proetus to Jacob and Esau.  The similarity of striving in their mother’s womb I’d noticed on my own.  But Salverda sees Acrisius as Jacob and Proetus as Esau.  I find that off, if these Greeks mainly descended from Jacob then why would he be the one vilified in the story?  But I have argued before that the Danoi could also have an Edomite connection via the Hyksos.  What I find odd here is Salverda suggesting Acrisius is Jacob, but not noticing how he like Jacob has a daughter whose name is a feminine form of Dan.

What isn’t well known is that in some sources it wasn’t Zeus who impregnated Danae with Perseus, but rather Proetus her uncle.  Abas is said to have had two other children, Lyrcos and Idomene, his only daughter.  Biblically Esau certainly didn’t marry or reproduce with Dinah, but one of his sons could have.  

Salverda also brings up Velikovsky’s Oedipus and Akhnaton theory.  I don’t have that book yet as I’m writing the first draft of this, but I’ve ordered it off Amazon and so may read it before I finish this.  Reading about the theory online is complicated by many people today who want to also throw the Akhnaton is Moses nonsense into it.

Even if I did believe in conventional Egyptian Chronology, or any chronology that could make Akhenaton and Moses contemporaries, I wouldn’t believe they were the same person.  Why would the Hebrew sources downplay Moses status by leaving out that he had been Pharaoh?  They didn’t hesitate to make him seem like a potential heir to the throne.

If I were hypothetically willing to consider such a chronology, it would be easier to argue Akhenaten's brother Tuthmose was Moses (and Ralph Elis has already done that).  Some argue the name of Yah comes from Ah/Iah the Egyptian name for the Moon parallel to Aten as a name for the Sun.  There would be symmetry to seeing one brother starting a Solar cult and the other a Lunar cult.  I of course have argued against that origin for Yah elsewhere.  But the god Toth is also linked to the Moon, and Slaverda sees Hermes as partly based on Moses. The Hellenists identified Hermes with Toth, So Tuthmose as a name for Moses can look pretty attractive.  We don’t have Tuthmose’s body so he could have been a son by adoption for all we know, (but if he was then that rules him out as the father of Tutankhamun who we know via DNA was a patrilineal biological grandson of Amenhotep III).

But I don’t believe in mainstream Chronology, I place Akhnaton during the divided Kingdom.  So back to Oedipus and Akhnaton.

The theory is easier to make sense of when I explain it like this.  Some Greek travelers in Egypt or a nearby land heard Akhnaton’s story, probably already distorted since they tried erase his memory.  And so the story was told in Greece, and at some point got adapted to play out as if it took place in Greece, like moving the setting of Death Note from Japan to Seattle.

It also involves identifying Laius with Amenhotep III, Jocasta with Tiye, and I would assume Creon with Ay and Yuya with Menoeceus.  The name Menoeceus is assumed to come from Menos meaning strength and Oicos meaning House.  But since Yuya was also the Prophet of the god Min, and Menos could make sense as a Greek transliteration of Min, the name could be reinterpreted as House of Min.

It seems the oldest versions of the Oedipus story don’t involve him going blind, and also probably not him living in exile during the reigns of his sons either.  But Velikovsky sought parallels for those in Akhnaton’s biography also.

One thing we now know Velikovsky was wrong on here was Tutankhamun being the son of Tiye and Akhnaton.  We know from DNA that Tutankhamun’s mother was a woman’s who’s mummy we have but don’t know her name.  And she was the daughter of Tiye and Amenhotep III.  And his father we know would have been a son of Amenhotep III, but since we have the mummies of none of his sons, we can’t be certain which one.  Amenhotep III did marry some of his daughters, so Akhnaton may have likely married a few women his father was also married to.  Due to Egypt being Patriarchal yet mateirlianel for succession, the Pharaoh was encouraged to marry all the women in his family.

Now that I have the book, I note that Velikovsky discussed how in different versions of the Oedipus legend he had other wives and Jocasta was not always the mother of the children, or at least not all of them.  And he also mentions an obscure reference to Oedipus being called Son of Helios, as Akhnaton was called the Son of Aten.

The sons of Oedipus agreeing at first to share the throne by rotating was perhaps an attempt by the Greeks to translate to a City-State setting an arrangement to divide Egypt between two kings via Upper and Lower Egypt.

The argument as I understand it so far mostly comes down to finding a basis for many details of the Oedipus legend in the history of Akhnaton, right down to the meaning of Oedipus (Swollen feet).  But I haven’t heard of any example of the most notable thing Akhnaton did being associated with Oedipus, a major controversial religious reform.  

It’s of course possible to see it just thematically in how Oedipus can be seen as trying to subvert the will of the gods (the story as we know it developed when Educated Greeks were already inventing proto-Calvanism).  Tiresias could represent the religious establishment of the old gods.  And since Royal Incest wasn’t a problem in Egypt the Greek story clearly changed the central conflict.

The book is not branded as part of the Ages in Chaos series cause it’s only tangentially related.  Number 1 a Greek adaptation of a story need not make sense timeline wise anyway.  But Number 2 Oedipus also is traditionally placed in an older era then when Velikovsky places Akhnaton.  Velikovsky ties in the Revised the Chronology only by saying Cadmus founder of the Greek Thebes must have lived later than the myths said based on how we know the Greek language developed.  But at the same time the whole premise of the theory weakens Oedipus’s connection to Cadmus (Velikovsky didn’t try to make all the Greek Thebans 18th Dynasty rulers) anyway.  So you could believe this while believing in conventional chronology, thus some people now also tying the Moses identification into it.

Salverda however ties this into his Pelops as Ahab identification, since Laius had relations with Pelops.

Velikovsky in Ages in Chaos volume 1 places the Amarna period (last 10 years of Amenhotep III, entire reign of Akhnaton, and some of the period following his reign) during what is Biblically the Reign of Jehoram of Israel.  But he did so while arguing Jehoram of Israel didn’t exist, because two Jehorams at the same time is too coincidental I guess, and that Ahab had a longer reign.  I objected to his arguments on that in my first Amarna post.  Today I want to add that even if I were willing to hypothetically consider The Biblical text corrupt, it would be the Jehoram of Judah who would be easier to argue didn’t exist as a separate person.  That he represents a period during which Jehoram of Israel annexed Judah, and later placed his Crown Prince in charge of Judah, and that he’d married his Sister as many ancient Kings did.  Fortunately we have the Tel Dan Stele to verify two different Jehorams did exist, and that one was of Omri and one was of David.

Back on topic, in that timeline the early reign of Amenhotep III, and also later reign of Tuthmosis IV, would probably be contemporary with Ahab.  Fitting Salverda’s identifications well.  Things is I proposed a chronology for the 18th Dynasty a few decades different from Velikovsky's.  Where I identify Omri with Labaya, and in a new context possibly Ahab with the same Amarna King Velikovsky did.  And so the rulers in Israel during the time of transition from Tuthmosis IV to Amenhotep III would be Asa in Judah, and Baasha in the North.  It may be the Pelops cycle developed well before the Oedipus cycle, and the Oedipus story just chose the first ruler of that kingdom they thought of.

However that was one of two chronologies I proposed in that 18th Dynasty post.  The second was one that allows the 19th dynasty to immediately follow the 18th, while still placing the 19th when Velikovsky placed it.  It makes Labaya one of the later Northern Kingdom rulers, like Menahem.

And now as I’ve been reading more into the Oedipus and Akhnaton theory, I’ve come to see ways to make that fit.  First I read this article doing the opposite of my theory, moving the 19th Dynasty from Velikovsky's position to immediately follow his dates for the 18, while using the Oedipus and Akhnaton theory.  What’s interesting is how it uses much of Velikovsky's evidence for Horemheb being an Assyrian vassal, but while arguing for an earlier Assyrian conquest of Egypt.

Velikovsky treated Horemheb as the first 19th rather than last 18th Dynasty ruler.  His timeline for Horemheb is complicated, giving in a sense up to 58 years of rule.  When arguing for his date for Troy he emphasis Taharqa as the Pharaoh at that time.  But he also arguably has Horemheb in power at the same time.

I don’t believe Taharqa was Memnon as Velikovsky seemed to.  Taharqa was too busy dealing with Assyria to go to Troy.  When Esarhaddon conquered Egypt in 671 BC, he took many Nubians/Kushites into captivity, including relatives of Taharqa, but not Taharqa himself who fled south.  I think Memnon was a leader of these deported Kushites.  And they might have been mingled with others who’s been carried into captivity by Assyria.  I’ve speculated on reasons to see Memnon and his brother Emathion like other Aethiopians of Greek mythology as possibly Israelites.  Interestingly the Prose Edda also makes Memnon an ancestor of Odin, which can tie into my England and Egypt post.

I think originally Memnon being called a son of Eos was just an idiom of him coming from the East.  This is confused by him also being linked to the area of Mount Atlas.  It’s interesting to remember how Salverta suggests Mount Atlas is sometimes a Greek memory of Sinai.  The parents of Memnon and Emathion are said to be Tithonis and Eos.  But Tithonis himself is said to be a son of Eos by Kephalos/Cephalus.  Cephalus was in some sources the son of Deion/Deioneus, another additional son of Aeolus.

Back to Egypt and Troy.  Neither Velikivosky or this other site I linked to argue for someone in the myths surrounding what happened in Thebes after Oedipus to be Horemheb.  But my noting a possible connection to the Trojan war makes Peneleos seem the most likely candidate.  He’s sometimes referred to as only a Regent but so is Creon.  The Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren of Oedipus are the most likely characters to be completely made up in the Greek story.

And it’s only logical, that if the enemies of Assyria were on the side of Troy, that an ally of Assyria might have fought against Troy.  And Peneleos did fight against Troy.  Peneleos was called the son of Hippalcimus and Asterope.  Another Hippalcimus was a son of Pelops and Hippodamia.

You might think, “it is precisely in the era of the Trojan War that Greek Thebes and Egyptian Thebes are separate”.  Because Homer also referred to a Polybus as lord of “Pharan Thebes” and his wife Alcandra.  But again, Egypt was complicated at this time.  Maybe Polybus was Taharqa?  But as I read the Odyssey closer, arguably it’s not quite calling Polybus king, but as someone the wealthy of Thebes obey.  I’ve seen it talked often about how the Priests of Amun at Thebes were very powerful, sometimes seemingly as powerful as Kings.

Interestingly though, another Polybus in Greek Mythology was the stepfather of Oedipus, who was a king of nearby Corinth.

Now to return again to the subject of Pelops as a contemporary of Laius/Amenhotep III.  And if Pelops could be viewed as a Northern Kingdom figure.  If Menahem was Labya, since he reigned only 10 years, and the reigns right before his were short too.  Jeroboam II of the House of Jehu is in power at the right time.

Shalmaneser III called Jehu the Son of Omri.  And unlike most I think that could be literally true (literal at least in Son as Descendant).  I’ve argued before that Ahab not Omri was foretold to have his male line wiped out.  So I think the Grandfather of Jehu could have been a brother of Ahab.  Or maybe he descended from Omri via his mother.  But generationally Jehu is at the right time to be a Great-Grandson rather then Grandson, having overthrown the son of Ahab.

More than one scholar has dated Jeroboam II such that he reigned through the entire 770s BC.  So indeed a contemporary of the first Olympiad.  Though Bishop Ussher had his reign end when others have it begin.  Similar to Floyd N. Jones dates for King Zachariah, last king of the House of Jehu. The house of Jehu does not have a prophecy of it’s male lines being blotted out as Jeroboam, Baasha and Ahab had, so this line could have continued.  Interestingly none of the notable sons of Pelops in Greek mythology ruled the same Kingdom he did, they all emerged elsewhere.

We don’t have the mummy of Horemheb.  Maybe he was of mixed ancestry and could have been the grandson of a king of Israel?  Menahem was allied with Assyria, but also avenged the usurper of the House Jehu by killing the Usurper who killed Zechariah.  So maybe the Heirs of Jehu were on good terms with Assyria, Jehu himself did bow to Shalmaneser III.

Maybe the argued parallels between Pelops and Ahab could also apply to Jehu and his Heirs? Jehu also did notable things with Chariots.  Maybe Oenomaus was Jehoram.  Elsewhere Salverda likes to make the women in these stories female embodiments of nations.  In which case maybe Hippodamia was Jezreel and/or Samaria?  Hosea has a Prophecy I’ve long seen as having possible End TImes relevance that YHWH will avenge the Blood of Jezreel against the House of Jehu.  Salverda leaves out that Pelops eventually banished Hippodamia and two of her sons, the two who become kings of Argos and Mycenae, one of whom being Atreus father of the Atredes.  Maybe this is a distorted memory of the Exile?  And perhap Chrysippus is Zechariah in that context.

I see Jehu more so then Ahab as a type of the Antichrist, since like Chris White I think the Antichrist may claim to be Messiah Ben-Joseph.  I also see Muadib of Dune as a fictional type of the Antichrist.  Muadib was of the house of Atredes.

Going back to Memnon in the Prose Edda.  Some people question if Memnon was in fact who’s meant.  The spelling it uses is “Munon or Mennon”, which could instead refer to Menon, a Trojan soldier mentioned in The Iliad.  In Greek translations of the Old Testament the Hebrew name Menahem sometimes becomes Manaem or Manaen.  Luke 3 has a Menan son of Matthias son of Nathan son of David, which is find interesting in light of the Rabbinic tradition of Menahem ben Ammiel being connected to David’s son Nathan.

The Prose Edda is one of many examples of European Royalty claiming descent from Troy.  It seems before British Israelism made Ephraim popular, it was Troy the nations of Western Europe sought to use to give themselves a more ancient heritage.  Virgil and Livy weren’t the first to connect to Rome to Aeneas, however Homer himself supports no such connection.  Nennius and Geoffrey of Monmouth further connect the Britons to Aeneas.  Geoffrey of Tours traced the Franks back to Helenus and Andromache.

But it is in the Prose Edda we see an early clue this descent from Troy may have been code for, or a middle stage of, descent from Israel.  Because the Prose Edda says Troy was 12 Kingdoms with one High King.  Trojan ancestry goes back to Dardanus who could come from Dan or Dara/Darda son of Zerah son of Judah and Tamar, Britam argued some Judahites were mingled into Dan.  But it is perhaps Troy’s allies that have stronger ties to the Northern Kingdom, via the Sea Peoples, and Gyges and the Amazons.  Joel also refers to Judeans being sold into slavery to Javan(Ionians).

Now that I’ve read Oedipus and Akhneton.  I can say I agree with the basic premise but not entirely on the details of how he makes the argument.  A lot of the differences have to do with things we’ve learned since.  But I’m even willing to agree that Baketaton is the daughter of Akhnaton and Tiy his mother.

The parts where he talks about Sexuality make me a little uncomfortable.  I don’t think other Ancient Cultures were any less tolerant of Homosexuality then the Greeks.  I’ve shown that The Bible does not Condemn Homosexuality.  I know there are Mesopotamian myths with Homoerotic subtext comparables to what we find in Greece, like Enkidu and Gilgamesh.  And in Egypt Nephthys was associated with Lesbianism.  Also he should have considered that Laius sin against Crisyphus was maybe that it was Rape.

All this thinking about Oedipus leads my brain to thinking about Electra, who in terms of psychological complexes is the female counterpart of Oedipus.  Just recently as I’ve been working on this post, I read a detail of the Electra legend I hadn’t noticed before.  Orestes was it seems an infant when Clytemnestra killed Agememnon, and it seems she wanted to kill Orestes too but he was smuggled away to safety, in some versions by Electra.

And that makes me think of a Biblical Parallel.  I’ve long been intrigued by Jehosheba who saved Jehoash, partly because of how she can be compared to Snow White.  But now I”m seeing a parallel to Electra, with Athaliah as Clytemnestra.  Like in many of Salverda’s theories the family tree has tweaked in the Greek version.

For starters I maintain my long belief that Jehosheba’s mother was not Athaliah.  We know Jehoram had other wives, and she’s never referred to as related to Athaliah.  And Orestes became a brother rather than nephew.  And this evil Queen actually killed her grandchildren rather than Husband.

I still think Agamemnon existed as an actual ruler of Argos and/or Mycene who lead a naval expedition against Troy in around 678 BC.  And that he possibly descended from northern Israelites.  But the myths surrounding his family starting with Homer’s incorporated some distorted memories of Israelite myths.  The story I just talked about is mainly about the Southern Kingdom, but Athaliah was the daughter of Ahab and Jezebel.

In Gospel in the Stars theories, Clytemnestra and Helen’s bothers, the Gemeni Twins, get compared to Levi and Simeon’s actions in Genesis 34.  Levi and Simeon weren’t twins, but I believe Dinah was a twin sister of Zebulun.

Salverda and others have seen the story of Athamas as the main Greek memory of the offering of Isaac.  And I think it definitely is partly.  But I’ve also argued that it was actually a Deer not a Ram offered in Isaac’s place.  So that makes it interesting how in some versions when Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia, Artemis replaced her with a Deer at the last moment.  Of course in character Iphigenia sometimes more resembles the daughter of Jephthah then Isaac.

So this family’s story has a few Biblical themes mixed together.

The parents of Clytemnestra were Tyndareus and Leda.  Tyndareus was the son of Oebalus and Gorgophone.  Gorgophone was a daughter of Perseus and Andromeda.  So she had descent from the Danoi.  And perhaps the name Oebalus came from Ahab calling himself a son of Baal.

So those are my thoughts for today, I hope you enjoyed them.