by
Damien F. Mackey
Whilst
much of my thesis appears to have held firm, there is no doubt that some ideas
that may have seemed quite plausible ten years ago have not stood well the test
of time.
This
relatively brief assessment can serve as a manageable précis of what is fully a
2 Volume thesis comprising some 550 pages. The thesis in its
entirety can still be accessed at: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973
Introduction
The
period since the completion of my university thesis, A Revised History of
the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background (2007), has enabled
for me to take an objective look at the whole effort in light of what I have
learned and written since. I do not want to be one who sits back complacently
on a project and refuses to admit that it can be improved in any way – though I
am basically happy with the outcome and overall would not change it
substantially. I had made it quite clear, though, during my writing of this
thesis that: “… I am not claiming any of this to be the last word on the
subject; only the best ‘alternative’ with which I am able to come up at this
point in time”. (I, p. 5; cf. I, p. 358).
Since
then, I have been able to include in a series of articles further fascinating
developments, based on this foundational or seminal work: an indication to me
that this revision has deep and healthy roots, capable, in due time, of bearing
much historical fruit. From these more recent developments I have learned that
some of my former conclusions - though generally heading in the right direction
- needed refinement and re-wording. And, in several cases, they were just
completely wrong. Fortunately the mistakes do not irreparably damage the
overall thesis; although one in particular, quite frequently alluded to
especially in an early part of the document - but still rearing its ugly head
even as late as pp. 362-364 - does, I must admit, spoil the overall effort and
badly needs to be corrected. That I intend to do in this assessment.
A
simpler mistake, which I can correct immediately, is the wrongful insertion of
the name Shebna (I, p. 368, i), which I did not pick up in my proof
readings of the thesis prior to its being bound and submitted.
I was
well aware when writing the thesis that I was building an historical structure
upon some very sturdy foundations as laid by earlier revisionists who had
objectively scrutinised the conventional system and had found it sorely wanting
(by contrast with much revisionism that is amateurish and a waste of time).
That is not to say that I was ungrateful for, or dismissive of, all of the
herculean efforts of conventional scholars down through the decades (centuries)
without whose painstaking toil our knowledge of antiquity would have been too
meagre for any thesis writing of this type to have taken place.
What is
irritating, though, are the completely closed minds towards revision of
many conventional scholars.
Anyway,
upon the sturdy foundations of genuine revisionism, I was able to create a
radically different approach to the era of King Hezekiah of Judah than had
formerly been attempted. I was extremely excited about various new insights
that I was developing, to be summarised in the succession of sections below
headed Setting the
record straight for …. And, since then, I have embarked upon others
that further supplement this seminal tertiary work. I tried always to adhere to
a rigorous methodology. For instance, I never deliberately constructed a
scenario that went against clearly established archaeological sequences. And I
made sure that this methodology was made evident. And, indeed, examiners’
comments showed an appreciation of this sound approach. I believe that some
revisionists have ruined their promising work by not respecting the
archaeological data, and by refusing to be corrected. This does revisionism no
favours whatsoever. If a theory contravenes well-established data, throw it
out, no matter how attractive it may seem to be. I well appreciate the
temptation not to. But one has to be utterly ruthless in the pursuit of truth.
Occasionally
I wrestled with a new idea, and then allowed it admittance into my thesis, even
though realising at the time that it was highly controversial. But I would
always insist in such a case that it was only a “tentative” theory. It
nevertheless seemed to provide the solution to certain problems. In one or two
cases, those decisions have proven to be the wrong ones and have come back to
bite me.
For
some other aspects of the thesis the jury must still be out, as I am not yet
sure whether or not they can be confirmed. Time will tell. But, as I have said,
the bulk of the thesis I believe to be sound and enduring.
Indeed,
so that examiners and critics could not accuse me of embarking upon a project
that was completely groundless and without any sort of proper
historico-archaeological foundations - even though it was admittedly radical by
comparison with the textbook models - I was at pains to emphasis my starting
point. This was the recommendation by an examiner of my previously
successful MA thesis, The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar (1994),
that, since I had shown the foundations of the conventional Egyptian-based
system to be unsound, the way lay open for me and others to provide “a ‘more
acceptable alternative’” to the conventional system. (I, p. 5):
The Sothic theory I had concluded [in the previous
thesis], as had Velikovsky, Courville and others, is artificially based and has
consequently thwarted efforts by historians to establish proper syncretisms
throughout (mainly early) antiquity, especially when it is considered that the
chronology of the other nations is usually assessed with reference to Egypt.
Happily, this testing thesis was passed by examiners on both
chronologico-historical and astronomical grounds. Scientist Dr. R. Grognard for
instance, one of the examiners of my thesis, referred to my:
“... critical analysis ... when examining the
opposite points of view [i.e. the Sothic theory]. Indeed, most get a thrashing
...”.
Having
thus cleared the ground for a new and more accurate chronology of the ancient
world, with the patient support of Dr. Noel Weeks of the History Department of
the University of Sydney (the MA thesis), I now offer the inevitable work of
reconstruction. This was already envisaged by another of my MA examiner’s when
noting, favourably, that: “It is important to show the weaknesses or errors in
our understanding of a theory in order to leave our minds free to think of a
more acceptable alternative”.
This
is precisely what my new thesis was intended to be: the best ‘alternative’ that
I was able to present at that particular point in time. And to underscore that
this second thesis grew right out of the fertile ground of the first one –
though it was quite different from the first – I painstakingly reproduced (in
I, pp. 10-13 of my General
Chronologico-Historical Problems and Proposed Solutions) some pertinent slabs of relevant parts
and quotations from my previous thesis. This, I coupled with my emphasis on
underpinning my revision with a sound archaeology. Unfortunately, the whole
point of this was completely lost on certain examiners, who never once alluded
to any of this foundational effort and whose comments made one wonder if they
had actually read the thesis properly at all. Anyway, all that is past history,
as the new thesis, intended as a Doctoral thesis, was finally awarded a Master
of Arts degree.
Now,
I want briefly to recount the developments that I think have made it all well
worthwhile. And to tell of how these have since (in the intervening years) been
added to. This also affords me the opportunity to point out the flaws in the
thesis and what I think should now be rejected and not taken up by other
scholars. It is a case of setting the record straight.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of King Hezekiah of Judah
The
highly-favoured Edwin Thiele’s The Mysterious Number of the Hebrew Kings
(Grand Rapids, 1983) had, by ignoring the impressive biblical syncretisms for
the reign of king Hezekiah, and re-aligning Hezekiah now with a faulty
neo-Assyrian chronology, placed the beginning of king Hezekiah’s reign about a
decade later in relation to the fall of Samaria than the Bible has situated the
king. Taking the conventional date of 722/21 BC for the fall of Samaria, in
Hezekiah’s 6th year, according to the Bible, would mean that the
reign of Hezekiah began in 727 BC. But Thiele has the king, instead, in 716 BC.
Though Thiele had the best of intentions, and had sought to set biblical
chronology on the firmest of foundations, his methodology was disastrous. His erroneous
belief that the chronology of neo Assyria was virtually rock solid was a
terrible presumption. Consequently, Thiele’s treatment of king Hezekiah is one
of the worst features of his book. The Tangi-i Var inscription that I discussed
(I, Chapter
6, p.
144, and Chapter 12), for
one, has shown that the reign of Sargon II aligns quite differently with
Ethiopia than according to the received chronology – this chronology also
having Sennacherib invading Judah during the reign of king Hezekiah at a point about
half-way through the reign of Sargon II.
The
Bible has provided us with a three-way synchronism for (i) the Fall of Samaria;
this having occurred in (ii) the 9th year of king Hoshea of Israel and (iii)
the 6th year of king Hezekiah of Judah. Moreover, extra-biblically,
Sargon II tells us that it occurred during (iv) his first year of reign, which
was apparently also, according to Sargonic information, (v) the first year of
Merodach-baladan king of Babylon. Here, then, is a most impressive five-way synchronism
in relation to the Fall of Samaria. But it is entirely annihilated in Thiele’s
book thanks to his unrealistic idolisation of the accepted neo-Assyrian
chronology.
In my
thesis, the reign of king Hezekiah was chronologically restored to its original
firm place in relation to the Fall of Samaria. Neo-Assyrian history instead,
now, had to undergo scrutiny, for one to find out why the reigns of Sargon II
and Sennacherib were constantly running into each other, and why the standard
chronology of Sargon II was greatly embarrassed by the Tang-i Var find.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of Sargon II/Sennacherib
In
the process of this thesis I told of the startling development of an initial
thought that there must have been a far more substantial than believed (that
is, for those who do allow for it) co-regency between Sargon II and
Sennacherib. As I plumbed the depth of this perceived co-regency, I came to
realize that it was bottomless, that the major regnal year events of Sargon II
could be aligned, in the same order, right the way though, with the recorded
campaigns of Sennacherib. This forced me in the end to the highly controversial
conclusion that Sargon II, the supposed father of Sennacherib, was Sennacherib
himself. And so I posed (I, p. 166):
A Question By Way of Summary
What are the chances of two successive kings
having, in such perfect chronological sequence - over a span of some two
decades - the same campaigns against the same enemies; even allowing for a
certain sameness amongst Assyrian kings due to their heavy use of repetitive,
formulaïc language?
1.
Merodach-baladan (Sargon). Merodach-baladan (Sennacherib).
2.
Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sargon). Ellipi, Medes and Tumunu (Sennacherib).
3.
Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia (Sargon). Egypt-backed Judah/Philistia
(Sennacherib)
4.
Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sargon). Merodach-baladan and Elam (Sennacherib).
5.
(Not fully preserved) (Sargon). (Not fully preserved) (Sennacherib).
6.
Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin (Sargon). Babylon, Elam and Bit-Iakin
(Sennacherib).
7.
Elam (Sargon). Elam (Sennacherib).
Since
then, this part of my thesis has been published by the
Society for
Interdisciplinary Studies (UK), as “Sargon and Sennacherib”
C and C
Workshop 2010:1 (February 2010), http://www.sis-group.org.uk/workshop.htm and
these 7 points have received their proper notational references.
I was
able to show, for one, that a crucial Assyrian document pertaining to the
supposed succeeding by Sennacherib of his father Sargon II had been doctored by
the early Assyriologists, Winckler and co., who had presumed to add the name
“Sargon” to where they thought it must originally have been (I, p. 137).
How
many other ancient texts have been thus doctored to conform to a preconceived
idea?
Undoubtedly,
this identification of Sargon II with Sennacherib was one of the major
discoveries of the thesis. It enabled for the traditional chronology of king
Hezekiah to be retained. It solved outright the Tang-I Var difficulty and
problems associated with clashes between the reigns of Sargon II and
Sennacherib. It also accorded with the testimony of the ancient text of the
Book of Tobit, that Sennacherib had succeeded Shalmaneser, with no mention there
of Sargon (Tobit 1:15). Finally, it paved the way for a resolution of the
history in the Book of Judith, the subject of Volume 2 of my thesis, especially
the tricky problem of the Assyrian king, there called “Nebuchadnezzar”, who
seemed to be like a composite of Sargon II and Sennacherib. He was in fact
‘both’, as I came to conclude.
I
shall come back to this “Nebuchadnezzar”, who has further implications for a
revision of chronology.
Wrong
About Esarhaddon
A
very important factor for the development of this thesis, as I had then thought
- of crucial significance especially to Volume 2 - was my further shortening of
the neo-Assyrian succession by incorporating the entire reign of Esarhaddon
within that of his father, Sennacherib, with the latter dying at the hands of
his regicide sons some time after the demise of Esarhaddon on his way to
conquer Egypt. This, I had imagined, would enable again, in Volume 2, for the
resolution of the identity of the ill-fated Assyrian commander-in chief,
“Holofernes”, a central character in the drama of the Book of Judith.
This
pet reconstruction remained with me until fairly recently, but I have finally laid
it to rest as historically inaccurate in various articles, including:
“Nadin went into
everlasting darkness”
I had
deliberately included in the scope of my thesis, and its title, the
“Background” history to the era of king Hezekiah of Judah. Though it would have
been a far simpler matter - and less fraught with problems - to focus just on
the era of king Hezekiah himself, including the Judith factor in Volume 2 (the
reconstruction of which examiners have generally praised), I had wanted to make
far better known to scholars the revision of history, for instance the well
worked out, well-documented El Amarna [EA] period, but I had also realised that
it was necessary to supply a revised background to what was looming as being a
far more complicated era (Hezekiah’s) than was formerly known.
My
foundational point for the thesis, based on what had generally been considered
a very strong facet of Velikovsky’s revision - even being supplemented by other
revisionist scholars - was (within the context of Velikovsky’s ‘folding’ into
the C9th BC of the EA era of Egypt’s 18th dynasty rulers Amenhotep
III and IV, Akhnaton) his identification of the supposedly C14th BC EA kings of
Amurru, Abdi-Ashirta and Aziru, with the C9th BC biblical Syrian
kings, respectively, Ben-hadad I and Hazael. These two Syrian kings, Ben-hadad
I and Hazael, would become major players in my thesis. I was able to develop
them beyond Velikovsky’s scenario, taking them into some completely new
territory. For instance, realising that the geography of the activities of Abdi-ashirta
(Ben-Hadad I) were the same as those of the powerful Mitannian king, Tushratta,
I posed some new questions (I, pp. 65-66):
Now, an apparent anomaly immediately strikes me in
regard to this connection between Ben-Hadad I and Abdi-ashirta, though
it is not one of Velikovsky’s making but one that pertains to the EA structure
itself. It is this: Why do we never hear of a conflict – or perhaps an
alliance - between this Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta (var. Dushratta) of
Mitanni? Why, in fact, do we never hear any mention at all of these two
kings together in the same EA letter? I ask this firstly because, as Campbell
has shown, Abdi-ashirta and Tushratta were exact contemporaries,
reigning during at least the latter part of the reign of pharaoh Amenhotep III
and on into the reign of Akhnaton … and, secondly, because their territories
were, at the very least, contiguous.
At about the same time (judging that is by
Mercer’s numbering of the EA Letters) as Tushratta’s raid on Sumur, generally
considered to be Simyra north of Byblos, Rib-Addi made the following
famous protest about Abdi-Ashirta to pharaoh (EA 76): “... is he the
king of Mitanna [Mitanni] or the king of Kasse [Babylon] that he seeks to take
the land of the king [Pharaoh] himself?” This huge region covetted by Abdi-ashirta
(Mitanni to Kasse) would have, even in the most minimal terms, spanned from
eastern Syria to southern Babylonia. Either Tushratta was trespassing
all over Abdi-ashirta’s region, or vice versa. Whatever the case, we
should thus expect some mighty clash between the forces of Abdi-ashirta and
those of Tushratta, who ruled Mitanni.
Yet we hear of none.
My
first major development of Velikovsky’s identification was to conclude that Abdi-ashirta
and Tushratta were the same king, the biblical Ben-Hadad I, a veritable
master king. This had major ramifications for my thesis. I ventured the
suggestion that (I, p. 67): “… the seemingly ‘Indo-European’ name, Tushratta, or Dushratta,
is simply a variant form of Abdi-Ashirta, var. Abdi-Ashrati, meaning
‘slave of Ashtarte’, being simply Ab-DU-aSHRATTA, or DUSHRATTA”.
Early,
I had dedicated Chapter 2 of the thesis to the Philistines, notable foes
of king Hezekiah, but I did this primarily for the purpose of engaging the ‘Indo-European’
element that I had expected was going to be important. And, although I believe
it has turned out to be to some extent, I think that I may well have overcooked
it.
Thanks
to Velikovsky’s efforts, a positive start had been made on the necessary
‘folding’ of the ‘Middle’ Assyro-Babylonian period with the
Neo-Assyro-Babylonian period, thereby filling in all of the epigraphical,
documentary and archaeological holes, Dark Ages and unwanted spaces. These dark
holes in history are the unfortunate result of the erroneous conventional
model. Now, further to Velikovsky, a very important ‘folding’, most relevant to
the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah, is that of the ‘Middle’ Assyro-Babylonian
period of Nebuchednezzar I, generally thought to have been a C12th BC
Babylonian king, but now ‘folded’ with the C8th BC period of Sargon
II/Sennacherib.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of Nebuchednezzar I
In my
thesis I gave art-historical examples of perceived likenesses between C12th BC
and C8th BC Assyrian art, on the one hand, and C13th-12th BC
Egyptian art with C8th BC Assyrian art on the other. And, again further to
Velikovsky’s ‘folding’ of the C14th BC EA period with the C9th BC period, I
developed a new and rich seam of ‘fold’ between the supposed C12th BC era of
Nebuchednezzar I and that of Sargon II/Sennacherib. I there found that the
approximate ‘Middle’ contemporaries of Nebuchednezzar I, such as
Tiglath-pileser I and Merodach-baladan I, were eminently ‘foldable’ with their
namesakes, respectively, Tiglath-pileser III (a promising identification of I
and III had already been proposed and developed to some degree by revisionists)
and Merodach-baladan II. Archaeologists find it difficult to distinguish
between the archaeology of the latter and that of his former namesake.
Most
strikingly, I found that a succession of three Shutrukid Elamite rulers
contemporary with Nebuchednezzar I had names extremely close to the three
Elamite opponents of Sennacherib. Thesis (I, p. 180):
Now, consider further these striking parallels
between the C12th BC and the neo-Assyrian period, to be developed below:
Table 1: Comparison of the
C12th BC (conventional) and C8th BC
C12th BC
Some time before Nebuchednezzar
I, there reigned in Babylon a
Merodach-baladan [I].
The Elamite kings of this era
carried names such as Shutruk-
Nahhunte and his son, Kudur-
Nahhunte.
Nebuchednezzar I fought a hard
battle with a ‘Hulteludish’
(Hultelutush-Inshushinak).
|
C8th BC
The Babylonian ruler for king
Sargon II’s first twelve years was
a Merodach-baladan [II].
Sargon II/Sennacherib fought
against the Elamites, Shutur-
Nakhkhunte & Kutir-Nakhkhunte.
Sennacherib had trouble also
with a ‘Hallushu’ (Halutush-
Inshushinak).
|
Too spectacular I think to be mere coincidence!
Having
said that, this whole idea still requires a much fuller ironing out and
development. But I think that it has enormous promise. One of its unexpected
bonuses may be that it can provide a solution to the problem of the Assyrian
ruler, “Nebuchadnezzar”, of the Book of Judith. He is Sargon II/Sennacherib,
who also conquered and ruled Babylon. Here is what I wrote about how this new
connection accounts for this long dominance of Babylon (I, p. 185):
This new scenario, identifying Nebuchednezzar I as
the Great King of Assyria, puts a completely new slant on Sargon
II’s/Sennacherib’s presumed ‘modesty’ in not taking the title of ‘King of
Babylon’ as had Tiglath-pileser III, preferring to use the older shakkanaku (‘viceroy’).
That modesty however was not an Assyrian characteristic we have already seen
abundantly. And so lacking in this virtue was Sargon in fact, I believe, that historians
have had to create a complete Babylonian king, namely, Nebuchednezzar I, to
accommodate the Assyrian’s rôle as ‘King of Babylon’.
The
thesis revised many other aspects of Assyro-Babylonian (and Kassite) history as
well, some parts more convincingly than others in retrospect.
One
of my main concerns was to try to resolve what has become known amongst
revisionists as “The Assuruballit Problem” [TAP]. This had loomed early as the
major problem for Velikovsky’s revision, though it would soon have fierce
competition in two other problems: where to locate the long-reigning Ramses
II; and how to resolve the tricky TIP.
As I
explained (I, p. 230):
TAP is this:
If EA is to be lowered to the mid-C9th BC,
as Velikovsky had argued, why then is EA’s ‘king of Assyria’ called
‘Assuruballit’ (EA 15 and 16), and not ‘Shalmaneser’, since Shalmaneser III –
by current reckoning – completely straddles the middle part of this century (c.
858-824 BC)?
That king Assuruballit is a problem for the
revision cannot be denied. However, he turns out to be a real problem for the
conventional system as well. Whereas Assuruballit’s father - as given in EA -
was called Assur-nadin-ahe, his father is named in the King List as
Eriba-Adad, not Assur-nadin-ahe.
Assuruballit of Assyria, I identified with Aziru.
Time will tell whether or not my then rather complex explanation
(I, pp. 230-233):
EXCURSUS: ‘THE ASSURUBALLIT PROBLEM’ [TAP]
does actually provide any sort of real solution to TAP.
But, more recently, I have ‘taken a short cut’ in a series
of articles by removing the problematical Shalmaneser III right out of the EA
era (mid-C9th BC) and newly identifying him as Tiglath-pileser III (=
Shalmaneser V) of the C8th BC (this last equation, TPIII = SV) was already made
in my thesis. Time will tell regarding this bold move as well, which, if it
holds, will virtually solve, in one blow, TAP.
Mistaken
about the Omrides
Perhaps
the most persistent problem of my own making, as referred to at the beginning,
concerned a part of my treatment of the biblical Omrides - an overcooking of
ideas that has served to burn my thesis in places here and there. Now affords
me with the opportunity to rectify that matter, to set the record straight, so
that those who may wish to learn from, and build upon, this university thesis
of mine, may not pursue this particular line of erroneous argument. It concerns
my confusion of Omrides and Zimrides. The problem was created in connection
with the relationship between kings Ben-hadad I and Ahab, who had just defeated
the former, but who was now calling him “brother”. I was to take that ‘brother”
bit quite literally, but should not have. Read about it in the next section.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of Ahab and Jezebel
Naturally
Velikovsky, having proposed an EA identification for Ben-Hadad I, had also
tried to find a suitable EA alter ego for Ben-hadad’s famous foe, the
notorious king Ahab of Israel. Velikovsky’s choice for Ahab of EA’s Rib-Addi,
however, has been roundly criticised by revisionists, as well it should be.
I myself wrote on this matter (I, p. 83):
Velikovsky … had … looked to identify Ahab with Rib-Addi
of Gubla, the most prolific Syro-Palestine correspondent to the EA
pharaohs (over 50 letters in number). …. And this was surely a big mistake.
For, in order for him to ‘make’ Ahab, like Rib-Addi, a very old man at
death, Velikovsky was prepared to fly in the face of the biblical data and
completely re-cast the chronology of Ahab’s life. He had convinced himself that
there existed a contradiction between the accounts of Ahab in Kings and
Chronicles so that, as he claimed, Ahab did not die at the battle of
Ramoth-gilead as is stated in 1 Kings 22 (cf. vv. 6, 29 and 37), but rather
reigned on for a further 8-10 years. Thus, according to Velikovsky’s view, king
Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates), never truly existed, but
was a ghost.
From a biblical point of view, the fact that Rib-Addi
had been able to report the death of Abdi-Ashirta (Velikovsky’s
Ben-Hadad I) meant that Velikovsky was quite wrong in identifying Rib-Addi with
king Ahab; since Ahab’s death preceded that of Ben-Hadad (cf. 1 Kings 22:40 and
2 Kings 8:15). But this was Velikovsky in his favourite rôle as “the arbiter of
history”, according to Sieff … forcing historical data to fit a pre-conceived
idea. Velikovsky called this Rib-Addi king of Gubla and Sumur (var.
Sumura) … which EA cities he had tried to equate with Ahab’s chief
cities of, respectively, Jezreel and Samaria; though they are usually
identified with the coastal cities of Byblos (Gebal) and Simyra. Moreover, letters
from Egypt may indicate that Sumur was not really Rib-Addi’s concern
at all. …. Velikovsky greatly confused the issue of Ahab of Israel for those
coming after him, since Rib-Addi was chronologically and geographically
unsuitable for Ahab. Revisionists have since rightly rejected this part of
Velikovsky’s EA reconstruction, with Sieff suggesting instead that Rib-Addi may
have been Jehoram of Israel.
As
far as I was concerned, Ahab was clearly the same as EA’s powerful and
rebellious Lab’ayu of the Shechem region (I, p. 85):
Whether or not Rib-Addi turns out to be
Jehoram of Israel, a far better EA candidate for Ahab than Rib-Addi, in
my opinion, and indeed a more obvious one – and I am quite surprised that no
one has yet taken it up – is Lab’ayu, known to have been a king of the
Shechem region, which is very close to Samaria (only 9 km SE distant);
especially given my quote earlier (p. 54) from Cook that the geopolitical
situation at this time in the “(north) [was akin to that of the] Israelites of a
later [sic] time”. Lab’ayu is never actually identified in the EA
letters as king of either Samaria or of Shechem. Nevertheless, Aharoni has
designated Lab’ayu as “King of Shechem” in his description of the
geopolitical situation in Palestine during the EA period (Aharoni, of course,
is a conventional scholar writing of a period he thinks must have been well
pre-monarchical): ….
In the hill country there were only a few
political centres, and each of these ruled over a fairly extensive area. In all
the hill country of Judah and Ephraim we hear only of Jerusalem and Shechem
with possible allusions to Beth-Horon and Manahath, towns within the realm of
Jerusalem’s king.
... Apparently the kings of Jerusalem and Shechem
dominated, to all practical purposes, the entire central hill country at that
time. The territory controlled by Labayu, King of Shechem, was especially large
in contrast to the small Canaanite principalities round about. Only one letter
refers to Shechem itself, and we get the impression that this is not simply a
royal Canaanite city but rather an extensive kingdom with Shechem as its
capital.
Moreover,
this Lab’ayu, had, like Ahab, two prominent sons. I tentatively
identified the more prominent of these, Mut-Baal¸ with Ahab’s older son,
Ahaziah (I, p. 90), who – having no heir – was succeeded by his brother,
Jehoram.
Now,
the bad mistake (Mistaken about the Omrides above) that I made was to
take too literally the following biblical quote (I, p. 56):
… I am going to suggest that the obscure Tab-rimmon,
father of Ben-Hadad I, was the same person as Omri, and that therefore
Ben-Hadad I and Ahab, son of Omri, were brothers. And I shall be basing myself
on this text ([I Kings] 20:32-33):
… [Ben-Hadad’s] servants tied sackcloth round
their waists, put ropes on their heads, went to the king of Israel, and said,
‘Your servant Ben-Hadad says, ‘Please let me live’.’ And [Ahab] said, ‘Is he
still alive? He is my brother’. Now the men were watching for an omen;
they quickly took it up from him and said, ‘Yes, Ben-Hadad is your brother’.
(20:32-33)
I
wrestled with this perceived connection, knowing that it was highly
controversial (I, p. 57):
Thus, on the face of things, it would seem that
Tab-rimmon and Omri were two quite distinct kings, differing in their origins
and belonging each to a different regal ‘House’, and having two different
geographies of rule. Such is a view that would be accepted by conventional and
revisionist scholars alike. (Moreover, there is a chronological stretching
involved with my interpretation. See p. 64).
But
still it seemed to me (I, pp. 57-58):
Nevertheless that long-standing view is not
without difficulties of its own. These, as we are going to see, have been
pointed out by commentators, who have not, however, thought to challenge the
basic premise: namely, that Ben-Hadad I and Ahab were of different fathers. I
think that my account of the situation below can at least perhaps resolve some
of the difficulties with which commentators have had to grapple in connection with
the terms of the treaty just discussed between Ben-Hadad I and Ahab.
And I even think that Ben-Hadad’s bald
juxtaposition of ‘my father’, and ‘your father’, can be accounted for to some
degree in terms of this new identification.
What, then, are the main difficulties I find with
so literal an interpretation of the treaty as is the standard version of it?
One is that Omri, a most powerful king as we are
going to see - upon whom the kings of Assyria looked “as the father of the
Israelite royal house” … - would have to be regarded in the conventional scheme
of things as having been subjugated by the Syrians, with even his capital city
occupied. The second main point is that, despite Ben-Hadad’s reference to
Samaria as having been occupied by his father, that is, Tab-rimmon, the Old
Testament nowhere records any invasion by the armies of Syria of this vital
part of Israel. The only previously mentioned incursion into Israel by the
troops of Syria was during the reign of Baasha of Israel, when Ben-Hadad I had
ravaged northern Galilee; this being quite a distance, however, from Samaria.
There is nothing whatsoever in the Old Testament
account of Omri’s rule, albeit briefly recorded (1 Kings 16:23-28), to suggest
that this king had suffered, at the hands of Syria or of anyone else, anything
like a significant reversal - which the loss of Samaria, whether of brief or
long duration, would most assuredly have been. Had Omri, for whatever duration
of time, forfeited, to an enemy power, control of his newly-bought site, then
the recorder of his history would doubtlessly have experienced the greatest
satisfaction in having been able to recount that Omri, “who did more evil than
all who were before him” (16:25), was thus punished for his sins by the
occupation of his capital city by a foe. Instead, the writer of Omri’s history
tells only of “the power that [Omri] showed”; a view apparently shared by
neo-Assyrian kings and by modern historians (see e.g. Finkelstein and
Silberman, p. 64 below).
Bright, obviously aware of the difficulty
associated with the view that Omri had been forced to pay tribute to the
Syrians, has written with reference to Mazar: …. “If these concessions were
wrung from Omri himself (so Mazar …), this must have been before he established
himself firmly in power”. Bright then adds: “But the language is formulaic in
character: “father” can mean merely “predecessor”; a view that is also endorsed
by Lasor et al….. Ellis, for his part, has speculated about “… possibly
… cities lost by Omri in an otherwise unrecorded war”. ….
On the strength of Bright’s linguistic distinction
above, between ‘father’ and ‘predecessor’, Ben-Hadad I’s concessions could have
this, admittedly somewhat complex, meaning: namely, that he would return to
Ahab, king of Israel, those northern cities of Israel that his ‘father’ (their
father), as ruler of Syria, had taken (by the hand of his son, Ben-Hadad) from
king Baasha, Ahab’s ‘predecessor’ in Israel.
Thus Ben-Hadad and Ahab could still physically be
brothers.
From
this, admittedly now rather convoluted, argument, I went on regularly to refer
to line of Ben-Hadad I as Omrides, which they were not, and I also identified
the Omride line ethnically as Indo-European.
Ben-Hadad
I was of an entirely different line, a Syro-Mitannian one: Hezion, his
grandfather, and Tab-rimmon (a foe of Omri’s) being Ben-Hadad’s father.
I, having now cleaned the slate, or set the record
straight, about my messy interrelationship between Ben-hadad I and Ahab, can
now follow up the findings in my thesis with real confidence.
Perhaps
more correctly I had speculated, with regard to the new pact of friendship
between Ben-hadad I and Ahab, that it would have afforded them the opportunity
also to seal a marriage alliance (I, p. 57):
If these two kings were ‘brothers’ in the sense of
‘brothers-in-law’, then this occasion of their having agreed upon a treaty
would have been the most likely opportunity for, say, an exchange of a
daughter, or daughters, in marriage. That was a customary thing for kings to do
in this approximate era of history (revised).
Here
I was preparing the ground for my mini-thesis in I, Chapter 9 (section,
“Queen Jezebel”, beginning on p. 209), that has since received a fair amount of
publicity, that Jezebel was the same person as the famous Queen Nefertiti of
Egypt. Whilst, in my thesis, I had presented the cumbersome marriage-sequence
scenario of Nefertiti, passing (as Jezebel)
(i) from Ahab to (as Nefertiti)
Amenhotep III, and then
(ii) to Akhnaton.
I
have since refined this in abundant articles (some tentative) pertaining to a
revised EA era and the Omride dynasty which I now believe to have been
ethnically Egyptian: Ahab, rather, was Akhnaton; whilst Amenhotep III (or
Immuria) was the mighty biblical king
Omri of Israel. Neither of these two latter identifications appeared in the
thesis, in which I had set Akhnaton chronologically later than king Ahab (I, p.
82). Moreover, I had accepted the standard view that the EA letters were
indicating that Lab’ayu and Akhnaton (Naphuria) - both now being
Akhnaton, according to my view - were, respectively, servant and master, with
EA 248, for example, from Biridiya to, supposedly, Akhnaton (but notice
that the original letter does not actually say that) informing about Lab’ayu
(I, p. 94):
Biridiya importantly records the violent death of Lab’ayu:
LETTER 248:
Further, I said to my brethren, ‘If the gods of the king, our lord [i.e.,
pharaoh Akhnaton], grant that we capture Lab’ayu, then we will bring him alive
to the king our lord’; but my mare was felled by an arrow, and I alighted
afterwards and rode with Yasdata, but before my arrival they had slain [Akkad.
dâku] him.
Queen Jezebel
Queen
Jezebel herself I have, as said, identified with Queen Nefertiti. Referring to
all this in a post-thesis article:
I
wrote:
Following
on from Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s lowering of the El Amarna [EA] Age of
pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV (Akhnaton), and Queen Nefertiti, down from the
C14th BC (where the textbooks locate EA) to the C9th BC (Ages in Chaos) -
according to which biblical characters and events of the latter era can be
found in the extensive EA documents - I had proposed an identification
of the famed Queen Nefertiti with the biblical bad girl, Queen Jezebel:
“The Shattering Fall of Queen Nefertiti”
….
This gave to Egyptology an explanation for the beginning and ending
of Queen Nefertiti of whom only the middle phase of life is well known. And,
given Queen Jezebel’s shattering fall and horrible death, eaten by dogs (1
kings 21: 23-28, 2 kings 9: 30-37), and physically ‘beyond redemption’, it
meant that Egyptologists were wasting their time looking for the mummy of Queen
Nefertiti.
Most
likely, also, the letter-writing Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 21:8) could now be
identified with the only female correspondent of EA, Baalat-Neše, or
Neše-Baalat; a name commonly thought to mean “Mistress of Lions” (cf. Sumerian:
NIN. UR. MAH. MESH).
If
this is what her name really means, “Mistress of Lions”, then it seems
appropriate that she was married to a Lab’ayu (Ahab) which name means
“Lion Man”.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of Hazael and Jehu
The
anchor man in the “Background” history to King Hezekiah part of the thesis is
the character Jehu, the overseer of the death of Queen Jezebel, the dispatcher
of her son king Jehoram of Israel, and - along with Hazael - the destroyer of
the cult of Baal. The pair, Hazael and Jehu, who figure most prominently in the
thesis, find their perfect alter egos and character types, in Egypt, as,
respectively, Ay and Horemheb. The cult of Aton, which the pair destroy,
along with the House of Akhnaton, now becomes recognized as the cult of Baal,
“the Lord”, or Aton (Adonai), in Egypt.
One
of the features of my thesis that I have prized - but that is, in retrospect,
however, extremely controversial and open to criticism - is that (as I have
thought), thanks to the identification of Jehu as Horemheb in Egypt, and –
according to my thesis – as the founder of the 19th Dynasty Ramessides, I am
able at last to give a firm date indeed for Ramses II ‘the Great’; a problem
that has, along with TAP, vexed the revision.
Jehu’s
four successive son-rulers become the four major Ramessides (Jehoahaz as Ramses
I; Jehoash as Seti I; Jeroboam II as Ramses II; Zechariah as Merenptah). Though
there are problems with this reconstruction, the great builder king, Jeroboam
II, reigning for 41 years, stacks up rather well against Ramses II of 66/67
years of reign when the 22 year interregnum of Martin Anstey (The Romance of
Bible Chronology) is included in the mix. And, even if the four Ramessides
are just contemporaneous with the four Jehu-ides, but not identical with them,
my chronology still holds up extremely well, because the calculated total of
reigns in each case is almost identical (Ramessides 121: Jehu-ides 124).
Thus
I could write with confidence (I, p. 258):
The ‘Glasgow School’ of revision had done an
excellent job in showing that the battles fought by Seti I, and Ramses II, were
basically against the same sorts of enemies, Syrians and Hittites, in the same
sorts of regions, as those of the early Jehu-ides. …. The conclusion then was,
not that the 19th
dynasty
Ramessides were Jehu-ides, as I think, but that the oppressed Jehu-ides
received help from the more potent of the 19th dynasty pharaohs, Seti I and Ramses II ‘the
Great’. So, even if I have gone too far in my bold suggestion that the 19th dynasty was in fact
‘Syrian’ Jehu-ide, I would nonetheless confidently accept the Glasgow view -
now however discarded by its chief exponents - that the Jehu-ides were
contemporaneous with the main 19th dynasty
rulers. Though I myself would have Seti I more adjacent to Jehoash than to
Jehoahaz, hence a little later than then proposed by Dr. Bimson. Now, most
interestingly in regard to this, the biblical span for the Jehu-ides, 124 years
… is almost identical to Grimal’s estimate for (my equivalent era) Horemheb to
Merenptah (1323-1202), 121 years. ….
Given my foundational argument, that Horemheb was
Jehu, then my chronology for the 19th dynasty Ramessides is going to be very accurate indeed even if
these were not - as I think they may well be - the Jehu-ides.
According
to my new scenario of these Ramessides as Jehu-ides, the 19th
dynasty must now end with Merenptah, and not with the customary Seti II,
Amenmesse, Bay and Queen Tausert era.
Velikovsky
had already argued that Seti II had preceded Seti I.
I
identified this obscure period of Seti II with the time of Ay and
princess Ankhesenamun ta-sherit (hence Queen Tausert), since Bay
is often considered to have been an Ay type of manipulative character.
This led to some archaeological difficulties which had to be faced. I had
stressed throughout my thesis that I had attempted always to be honest about
established archaeological sequences, and not to cling to any reconstruction
that went against this. I do not think that many would-be revisionists have
been scrupulous enough in this regard.
The
new scenario afforded a reasonably promising context for the interpretation of
pharaoh Merenptah’s famous “Israel Stele”, which is hopelessly misplaced by the
conventional system, and by Velikovsky as well, who pitched it way down in the
time of the Babylonian Captivity. Even more moderate revisionism, like that of
Drs. Courville and Bimson, has been criticized for having to regard the stele
as recording an Assyrian, not an Egyptian, victory. My location for it (I, Chapter
11, pp. 300-305), at the time of troubles for Israel following the long
interregnum phase (Martin Sieff had first argued this), at least has the
advantage of its being the record of an Egyptian victory – albeit a last gasp
one of a once famous 19th dynasty now about to expire. But my view
on this is open to further consideration.
Seti
II, re-located to around the beginning of the 19th dynasty, as
according to Velikovsky, was now able also to become an anchor figure in my
biblico-historical revisionism. He, of Thutmoside (not Ramesside) appearance, I
identified with the legendary Seti-nakht, the founder of the 20th
dynasty (another highly problematical dynasty for revisionists), the father of
the powerful pharaoh, Ramses III. Biblically, Seti-nakht was king Joash of
Judah, the father of Amaziah, with whom I identified Ramses III. These last
were very potent kings. From there, it was simply a matter of aligning the
basically unrelated 19th and 20th dynasties according to
the biblical interrelationship between Jehu’s Israelite dynasty and Joash’s
Judaean dynasty.
Again,
this is highly controversial and its proper worth or otherwise will need to
await the test of time.
Prophet Elisha
I am
no longer very confident about my efforts to find either the prophet Elijah or
his successor, Elisha, in an EA context. Regarding Elisha, had written:
According
to the Sinai Commission, Hazael, Jehu and the prophet Elisha were to be a
triumvirate against Baalism. But, whilst the Bible tells of the work of Hazael
and Jehu in this regard, it seems to say nothing about what Elisha himself did
to justify the words of the Sinai Commission with which I introduce Chapter
Four:
Introduction
This chapter will be built largely around the
terms of the Sinai commission to the prophet Elijah, but with JEHU being the central
character (1 Kings 19:15-17):
Then the Lord said to [Elijah], ‘Go, return on
your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint
Hazael … as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu … son of Nimshi as king
over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha … son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as
prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall
kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill …’.
Thus Hazael, Jehu and Elisha were to form a
triumvirate to wipe out the House of Ahab and to eradicate the worship of Baal
in the region.
Thus
I asked (I, p. 116):
Finally, what about Elisha, who was commissioned
to “kill” … those who would manage to escape the carnage wrought by Hazael and
Jehu? Actually Elisha, as I believe, will also have a huge part to play, though
generally later chronologically. In Chapter 10 (and beginning on p. 237)
I shall be identifying the famous prophet in quite a new guise, as a
law-enforcing (shaphat) reformer-priest.
I
began by identifying Elisha with the Rechabite Jehonadab, who had accompanied
Jehu on his slaughter of the worshippers of Baal (I, p. 117):
Jehu, we later read, was on his way to Samaria,
after his having just overseen (at Betheked of the Shepherds) the slaughter of
forty-two relatives of king Ahaziah of Judah, whom he had previously slain (cf.
2 Kings 9:27 and 10:12-14). It was then that this meeting occurred (10:15-17):
When [Jehu] left there, he met Jehonadab son of
Rechab coming to meet him; he greeted him, and said to him, ‘Is your heart as
true to mine as mine is to yours?’ Jehonadab answered, ‘It is’. Jehu said, ‘If
it is, give me your hand’. So he gave him his hand. Jehu took him up with him
into the chariot. He said, ‘Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord’. So he
had him ride in his chariot. When he came to Samaria, he killed all who were
left to Ahab in Samaria, until he had wiped them out, according to the word of
the Lord that he spoke to Elijah.
Since this ‘Jehonadab son of Rechab’ is the only
person actually named as a willing supporter of Jehu’s purge, then he stands as
the most likely person to be Elisha, son of Shaphat, in Elisha’s rôle as
terminator of Baalism.
Setting the record straight for the
Chronology of Smenkhkare and Tutankhamun
A
problem to be grappled with in the thesis was the considerable power, even
regal-like, exercised by both Ay and Horemheb, under their various
guises, during the late EA period, but especially during the reign of pharaoh
Tutankhamun. Horemheb, for instance, seems to present himself as a successor of
the great Amenhotep III, as if no other kings (the EA ones) had ruled in between.
I
have come to the fairly obvious conclusion, based on my identification of Queen
Nefertiti with Queen Jezebel, that the younger of the two sons of Akhnaton at
least, Tutankhamun, must be king Jehoram of Israel whose “mother” was,
according to Jehu, Queen Jezebel (2 Kings 9:22). That is, presuming Jehu here
meant the king’s physical mother. Likely, then, Smenkhkare must be the older
son of Ahab, Ahaziah, whom I had identified in my thesis with Mut-Baal of EA.
Since
it is thought that Kiya may have been the mother of Tutankhamun, then the
connection with Nefertiti may still maintain if the answer to my question, “Is
the Amarna Woman, Kiya, Just Another version of Queen Nefertiti?”, is Yes.
Setting the record straight for the
Prophet Isaiah
Excursus: Life and Times of Hezekiah’s
Contemporary, Isaiah.
Some modifications here suggested for this Excursus.
Sufficient here simply
to reproduce part of the assessment I made of it in my article:
Reuben a Key Element in Genealogy of Judith
I wrote:
…. The Excursus on Isaiah … is to be found in Volume Two of my thesis, beginning on
p. 87, titled: Excursus: Life and Times of Hezekiah’s Contemporary, Isaiah. This Excursus now needs to be re-written in part,
as I ‘over-cooked’ some of my alter egos.
On the positive side
(though still open to future revision):
Concerning Isaiah
himself, I am still of the opinion that he is to be identified with the prophet
Hosea and with the Simeonite Uzziah of the Book of Judith. See my more recent:
Family of Prophet Isaiah as Hosea’s in Northern Kingdom
And:
Concerning Isaiah’s
father, Amos, I am still of the opinion that he is to be identified with
Uzziah’s father Micah (also the prophet).
Whether Hosea’s father,
Beeri, is also the same as Merari of the Book of Judith - as I have previously
thought - and Amos, may need to be reconsidered.
On the negative side:
The Isaiah complex
mentioned above can no longer be further extended, as in my thesis, to embrace
also - despite the incredible similarities of language - the prophet Nahum. For
my new opinion on this, see my two-part:
Prophet Nahum as Tobias-Job Comforted
and
and much less can Isaiah
be extended to embrace the far earlier prophet Jonah.
