User:David Rohl/NCdraft

Original text:

Implications

Redating the floruit of Ramesses II three centuries later would not only reposition the date of the Battle of Qadesh and revise the linked chronology of Hittite history, it would also require a less severe revision of the chronology of Assyrian history prior to 911 BC. Given a dependence of Hittite chronology on Egyptian chronology, a lowering of Egyptian dates would result in a lowering of the end of the Hittite New Kingdom and a resulting reduction (or complete removal) of the Anatolian Dark Age. Rohl identifies Labaya, a ruler of the central hill country of Israel/Palestine whose activities are documented in the Amarna Letters, with King Saul, and identifies King David with Dadua ('Tadua'), also mentioned in Amarna Letter EA256. Saul and Labaya, for example, share the same demise - "both die in battle - against a coalition of city states from the coastal plain - on or near Mount Gilboa, both as a result of betrayal." Both have a surviving son whose name translates as 'Man of Baal'. The New Chronology also places King Solomon in the wealthy Late Bronze Age, rather than in the relatively impoverished Early Iron Age, as in the conventional chronology. Rohl and other "New Chronology researchers" contend that this certainly fits better with the Old Testament description of Solomon's wealth.

Expanded draft:

Implications

The implications of a radical down-dating of the conventional Egyptian chronology, such as that proposed by Rohl and other revisionists, are complex and wide-ranging. The New Chronology affects the historical disciplines of Old Testament studies, Levantine archaeology, Aegean and Anatolian archaeology and Classical studies, whilst raising major issues concerning Mesopotamian chronology and its links with both Egypt and Anatolia. At the same time, it indirectly challenges the scientific disciplines of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology which have been used to support the conventional dating scheme employed in mainstream academic and popularist publications.

Implications for Egypt and its Neighbours

Redating the floruit of Ramesses II three centuries later would not only reposition the date of the Battle of Qadesh and revise the linked chronology of Hittite history, it would also require a less severe revision of the chronology of Assyrian history prior to 911 BC. Given the dependence of Hittite chronology on Egyptian chronology[18], a lowering of Egyptian dates would result in a lowering of the end of the Hittite New Kingdom and a resulting reduction (or complete removal) of the Anatolian Dark Age.[19]

During the Amarna period, a synchronism between Egypt and Assyria is attested through the correspondence of Pharaoh Akhenaten and a King Ashuruballit. In the conventional chronology, this Ashuruballit is identified with Ashuruballit I of the early Middle Assyrian period, whilst the New Chronology has proposed the addition of an Ashuruballit ‘II’ during the Middle Assyrian ‘dark age’. Bernard Newgrosh claims that this king has a different father to Ashuruballit I and that the historical setting recorded in the annals of the early Middle Assyrian ruler differs from information gleaned from the Amarna correspondent’s letters. Given that the Ashuruballit I synchronism with Akhenaten has become the crucial link between Egyptian and Mesopotamian history in recent years, this issue is a key area of focus and dispute.

Implications for the Old Testament

As explained above, the New Chronology, rejects the identification of Shoshenk I with the biblical Shishaq, and instead offers Ramesses II (also know by his nickname ‘Sysa’) as the real historical figure behind the Shishaq legend. As a result, Ramesses II can no longer be identified with the Pharaoh of the Exodus as has been popularly claimed in mainstream literature and Hollywood movies for the past hundred years and more. But there are many other implications for Old Testament historical interpretation which stem from a lowering of Egyptian dates against a biblical chronology derived from data provided in the Old Testament narratives.

For instance, Rohl identifies Labaya, a ruler of the central hill country of Israel/Palestine whose activities are documented in the Amarna Letters, with King Saul, and identifies King David with Dadua ('Tadua'), also mentioned in Amarna Letter EA256. Saul and Labaya share the same demise - "both die in battle - against a coalition of city states from the coastal plain - on or near Mount Gilboa, both as a result of betrayal."[2] Both also have a surviving son whose name translates as 'Man of Baal'.

The New Chronology places King Solomon at the end of the wealthy Late Bronze Age, rather than in the relatively impoverished Early Iron Age, as in the conventional chronology. Rohl and other New Chronology researchers contend that this certainly fits better with the Old Testament description of Solomon's wealth.[2]

But, perhaps the most dramatic outcome of a radical revision of this nature is the shifting of the Israelite Sojourn, Exodus and Conquest from the end of the Late Bronze Age to the latter part of the Middle Bronze Age – in other words from the Egyptian 19th Dynasty to the 13th Dynasty and Hyksos period. In reality it is the shortened Egyptian chronology which is shifting downwards against the biblical chronology but the result is that the postulated biblical events would appear earlier, in relative terms, in Egyptian history. Rohl claims that this solves many of the problems associated with the historicity issue of the biblical narratives. Where in the conventional scheme there is no evidence for these events at the end of the Late Bronze Age, the position is very different in the Middle Bronze Age/Second Intermediate Period. He makes use of the archaeological reports from Tell ed-Daba (ancient Avaris), in the Egyptian eastern delta, which show that a large Semitic-speaking population lived there during the 13th Dynasty. These people were culturally similar to the population of Middle-Bronze-Age (MB IIA) Palestine. Rohl identifies these Semites as the people upon whom the biblical tradition of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt was subsequently based.

Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age (late MB IIB) archaeologists have revealed a series of city destructions which John Bimson and Rohl have argued correspond closely to the cities attacked by the Israelite tribes in the Joshua narrative. Most importantly, the heavily fortified city of Jericho was destroyed and abandoned at this time. On the other hand, there was no city of Jericho in existence at the end of the Late Bronze Age, drawing William Dever to conclude that, “Joshua destroyed a city that wasn’t even there”. Rohl claims that it is this lack of archaeological evidence to confirm biblical events in the Late Bronze Age which lies behind modern scholarly skepticism over the reliability of the Old Testament narratives before the Divided Monarchy period. He gives the example of Israeli professor of archaeology, Ze-ev Herzog, who caused an uproar in Israel and abroad when he gave voice to the ‘fairly widespread’ view held amongst his colleagues that “there had been no Exodus from Egypt, no invasion by Joshua and that the Israelites had developed slowly and were originally Canaanites’ However, Rohl contends that the New Chronology, with the shift of the Exodus and Conquest events to the Middle Bronze Age, removes the principal reason for that widespread academic skepticism.

Implications for Aegean and Anatolian History

[Over to Cush?]