h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*bump*

(For some reason, this thread is showing up twice on my Personal Space.)

Erm... where had we got to?

Gif

de

that's a reported bug, Gif. There are a number of conversations buried in the depths that show up twice. This is one of them. I get it twice as well.

Hi everyone

I got rid of the "ghost" by unsubbing and resubbing. Don't know if there's another way.

Where had we got to?

We were discussing whether it is possible to establish a synchronisation of the Exodus with Egyptian history, and, given the unlikelihood of an "Exodus event" (roughly defined as a time when something really bad happened in Egypt, and the Israelites [or the nucleus of the people who would become the Israelites] decamped towards Palestine) during the New Kingdom of Egypt, whether Velikovsky's belief that he had established such a synchronisation at the end of the Middle Kingdom (and ignoring for the moment the question of how subsequent history should be revised) was reasonable (without trying to establish definitively its correctness or otherwise).

It's now generally agreed by historians that the end of the 13th dynasty and the Middle Kingdom was a time when "something bad" happened in Egypt (Ipuwer, Manetho and Tell el Daba); the problem is to decide whether it's the *same* something bad as the Exodus, or a different one.

One specific point of contention is the history of Asiatic/Semitic people in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate. See posts 133-135 for some of the points.

More generally, and of historiographic as well as historical interest, is the comparison and validity of the textual evidence.

Noggin

That worked for me, too!

Its my understanding that in all the great mass of Ancient Egyptian text there are only two mentions of Israelites - one in a long list of subject tribes and the other a reference of an obscure biblical "king" as a bandit. Given this doesn't it indicate the bible stories about Egypt are a mixture of myth and allegory and using then as a premise to try and alter history has more to do with superstition than science.

Hi tucuxii and welcome.

I'd be interested to have a bit more information on those two. I only know of one - the reference on the Merneptah Stele. I'm guessing that the bandit reference is to the Habiru of the el-Amarna letters, but this identification is now discredited (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habiru )

The lack of mentions of Israel doesn't prove much, though. The ancient Egyptians rarely mentioned the names of foreign kings in inscriptions, and generally listed the cities captured, rather than the names of countries. Moreover, during the period when we can say with some confidence that Israel existed (from Omri to Hosea), there isn't a single mention of them in the Egyptian records. Which brings us back to "bible stories about Egypt are a mixture of myth and allegory" which I take to mean the sojourn and Exodus (correct me if I'm wrong about that), as the next mention of Egypt in the bible dates to nearly 500 years later, in the time of Solomon, and lacks a "mythic" dimension.

Noggin

Solomon is also mythical - there may or may not have been a real king of Israel of that name, but he certainly didn't rule anything like the local superpower described in the Bible.

It's around the time of Omri that the Bible starts to resemble secular history, at least in the broad outlines.

(I wanted to say that - but by posting this I'm also unsubscribing and re-subscribing to this thread. I'll see if I only get it once now...)

Gif

Solomon may or may not be mythical. But the reference to a king of Egypt capturing and burning Gezer is of a fairly mundane nature.

Strictly speaking, it should be said that it is from around the time of Omri that the resemblance of the bible to a real history is confirmed from outside sources. It should be pointed out that in the standard chronology the invasion of Shishak in around -925 is a key fixed date, and that it is fixed by the biblical chronology.

Noggin

As an addendum, and to bump this back up, I suppose the real question would be "Do you accept the Standard Chronology's fixed date of c925 BC for the campaign of Sheshonk into Palestine and his identification with the biblical Shishak?" If not, you're well on the way to becoming a chronological revisionist . If you do, then you are accepting the basic historicity of the bible back to that time. That's just 5 years before the death of Solomon, and there's nothing in the narrative that would suggest a break point in that 5 years between history and myth.

Taking that thought a little further, we note that in the mid-10th century the power of Egypt was at an all time low, and the ascendency of Assyria still in the future. Given something of a power vacuum in Palestine, the idea of a strong local ruler establishing a temporary hegemony in the region is not unduly improbable (granted we have no evidence for this, but neither do we have any contrary evidence). If this happened it would probably have had a tribute based organisation that would have made the said ruler relatively wealthy, at least by the standards of the time and place. Later, this accumulation of wealth would have been siphoned off to Egypt by Shishak.

Solomon may or may not be mythical. But certainty that he is as unreasonable as certainty that he isn't.

Noggin

*bump*

Hi Nog,

Sorrysorrysorry... really not had time to follow this convo recently, pressure of work etc. I seem to spend most of my time online these days apologising for not being online more, and nowhere more so than here. I have, in fact, completely lost track of what we were discussing here... sorry

(Also slightly while writing, so apologies if I seem abrupt anywhere...)

>I suppose the real question would be "Do you accept the Standard Chronology's fixed date of c925 BC for the campaign of Sheshonk into Palestine and his identification with the biblical Shishak?"

Yes, I do.

>If you do, then you are accepting the basic historicity of the bible back to that time. That's just 5 years before the death of Solomon

Yes, the conventional Egyptological chronology puts Shoshenq close (5 or 6 years) to the conventional Biblical date of the death of Solomon, which is in accordance with the Biblical date for Shishak's invasion of Judah. So I am accepting *some* historicity of the Bible back to that time. But I don't see that as reason to accept everything that the Bible says about that time - any more than accepting the 'basic historicity' of the Roman Empire means I have to accept every miracle of the New Testament.

It seems to me entirely plausible that a genuine memory/record of Sheshonq's invasion could have been combined with the natural elevation of past rulers to mythical status.

>(granted we have no evidence for this,

So the question then is whether we would expect evidence of the kind of superpower desribed in the Bible, complete with fortifications, imports, exports, etc. If you think that would have left the same type of archaeological evidence we see elsewhere, you need to reject the Biblical account (at least at face value), and hence Vel's chronology.

>Solomon may or may not be mythical. But certainty that he is as unreasonable as certainty that he isn't.

I agree. But certainty that he is similar to the Biblical description is entirely unreasonable.

But I didn't think you were arguing for Biblical inerrancy? If we have two independent chronologies, both dating Shishak/Shoshenq to c. 925 BC, how does that support Vel's equating of Shishak with Thutmose III? If we have a *hundred* reasons to think the Bible is divinely inspired and perfect history, how does that make Sheshonq equal Thutmose III?

Gif

Charlamagne existed - that doesn't mean his mate Roland had a magic sword
Ron L Hubbard did go to China but all the evidence was that it was as a nasty racist navy brat - of course their are Scientologists who will tell you it was a spiritual journey and he was given secret knowledge and they will go to great lengths to suppress any other version - had they been a highly politically active dominant religion for 1,500 years only their version would survive and adherents would take this as proof their version of Ron L Hubbard's life was divinely inspired and perfect history. It is interesting to follow how the story of this man's life is attaining mythological proportions in less than one generation after his death and could an insight into how the mythologies of other religions developed

Hi Gif

No need to apologise. I'm not online often at the moment, for much the same reasons.

I wanted to keep Solomon as an aside for the moment, so I'll try to be brief.

You're right of course that Vel identifies the biblical Shishak as Tuthmoses III, but I was trying to follow the logic of the standard chronology, rather than arguing for Vel. It seemed to me that given the fairly close agreement between the Assyrian annals and the biblical chronology where it can be compared to these, back to the time of Omri, an agreed correlation between Shishak and Sheshonq would extend the historical period of the bible back at least that far. I recognise that there are some outstanding issues there, including the chronology of the reign of Hezekiah, and the identity (and possibly even existence) of our old friend Zerah the Ethiopian, but even so, given that the bible is a continuous narrative, the best assumption for the period immediately preceding Shishak would be more of the same, viz. history, but not necessarily completely accurate, unless there were strong countervailing reasons for discounting it. I'm not averse to the idea that that history has been mythologised to some not easily quantifiable degree, but with that said I tried to show that the likely countervailing reasons are not particularly strong. The big problem here is that evidence either way, both in the written record and the archaeology, is pretty sparse, and there is no real consensus as to how the two are related to each other.

<< If we have two independent chronologies, both dating Shishak/Shoshenq to c. 925 BC, how does that support Vel's equating of Shishak with Thutmose III?>>

It wouldn't. But the truth is we don't have two independent chronologies. The date of Shoshenk was originally fixed by the date of Shishak, and despite the frequent revisions to the number and reign lengths of the kings of the 22nd dynasty, this date has never been challenged.

Returning to our main theme, we were looking at the end of the 13th dynasty and Middle Kingdom as a time when conditions and events in Egypt seem appropriate for the origin of, and consistent with, the Exodus story.

Noggin

Hi Nog,

Now that I've read your post, it's been deleted from my 'unread posts' list, so I'd better respond or I'll forget!

So we know relatively confidently that the bulk of the Old Testament came to be in its current form at about the time of the Exile, i.e 570-ish BC. I'm wary of using the 'one part is true so we can trust the preceding part' argument - by that logic, we have to trust the whole thing, and I think we can agree a literal interpretation of Genesis is off the table! But nevertheless, if we're going to start this form of logic, we should start from the Exile.

Back into the Kings period, the broad strokes do seem accurate, back to as far as Omri, as you say. However, it is likely that rather than there being a firm cut-off, increasing amounts of exaggeration creep in. So was there a real person called David? Probably. Did his son rule a local superpower like the one described in the Bible? There's pretty clear evidence he did not.

Shishak/Shoshenq falls into this period. I personally wouldn't be surprised to find an element of truth to the Bible here, nor would I be surprised to find outright fiction. Indeed, I wouldn't like to judge without reference to external evidence. Much earlier, and the Bible can be pretty much discounted, much later and we know it's broadly accurate; Solomon and David (and Shishak) are just on the cusp, where fact and fiction blur.

>But the truth is we don't have two independent chronologies. The date of Shoshenk was originally fixed by the date of Shishak, and despite the frequent revisions to the number and reign lengths of the kings of the 22nd dynasty, this date has never been challenged.

That's not quite right. We do now have independent dating for Shenshonq. It's not absolutely perfect - there is about a decade of leeway - but it agrees fairly closely with the Biblical dating. The Sheshonq W***pedia page gives a brief overview.

Gif

Just bumping so I can find it quickly.

Hi Gif

Sorry to have taken so long to get back, but I think we can wind up most of this aside fairly quickly.

<< I'm wary of using the 'one part is true so we can trust the preceding part' argument - by that logic, we have to trust the whole thing, and I think we can agree a literal interpretation of Genesis is off the table!>>

I broadly agree with this (and completely agree with the second part, of course), which is why I included a rider - "in the absence of countervailing cosiderations", and described acceptance as then being the most logical assumption - but obviously only a provisional acceptance.

I also said that I thought exaggeration in the story was likely, but difficult to quantify, and I would add that the point where exaggeration becomes mythology is difficult to define. So I think that methodologically we aren't taking radically different positions. In terms of conclusions, a lot depends on the "clear evidence that he did not".

The question of the chronology of the Libyan dynasties, the identification of Sheshonk with Shishak, and the history of the
history, is much more complicated. The biblical date for Shishak is the older of the two dates, and prior to the discovery of the Sheshonk inscription describing his campaign in Canaan, what we knew about the 22nd dynasty (basically Manetho) suggested a later date for its beginning by about a hundred plus years. Nevertheless, on the basis of the inscription and the similarity of names, Sheshonk was identified with Shishak, and the start of his reign was dated to about 945BC. Since then, the number of Libyan kings, their sequence, and the lengths of their reigns have been revised several times, but that date has remained constant. It has been treated as a fixed date to which the Egyptian chronology had to conform.

It may, of course, still be correct, but there are countervailing considerations. Sheshonk's campaign does not correspond to Shishak's (although there is a damaged portion), and the equation of the two names has been challenged on philological grounds. We wouldn't, therefore, like to judge the accuracy of an admittedly complicated reconstruction without reference to external evidence.

The Libyan dynasty doesn't fare well on this basis, none of the events involving the Egyptians in the 9th and 8th centuries (Zerah the Ethiopian, the Battle of Quarquar, the payment of tribute to Shalmaneser, pharaoh So's involvement with Hosea) being mentioned by them, while the archaeological evidence from Samaria places Osorkon II in the mid 8th, rather than mid 9th, century, and inscriptions in Byblos naming Sheshonk and Osorkon are written in characters that most closely resemble those known from post-Mesha stele inscriptions.

Noggin

For the resumption of normal programming see post 144.

*bump*

Sorrysorrysorry... been busy.

Gif