by
Damien
F. Mackey
Perhaps
even more remarkable still was that Israel's religion was overflowing into
Egypt. That Hatshepsut was re-inventing Karnak as Egypt's Jerusalem is
evidenced by the unmistakably Davidic psalmery that she had written on the base
of one of her obelisks.
Introduction
In a series
of Compass shown on ABC TV
(Australia) in January of 2003, British journalist
and former Beirut hostage, John McGrath, who had developed a great interest in the
Holy Land, set out to find if the best known Old Testament stories had any
basis in archaeological fact. Perhaps the title of the TV documentary, “It Ain’t
Necessarily So”, already gave the viewer a preview, a foreboding, that this
man's search was not going to prove terribly successful. Actually it turned out
to be quite a disaster.
The
experienced archaeologists upon whose information this presenter had to depend
completely, men like William Dever and Israel Finkelstein, unable to find any
evidence for an Egyptianised Israel of the Exodus, or for the Joshuan conquest
of Canaan, or for the Solomonic era, led him to the conclusion that these
biblical events had no basis in reality. It was tragic - and frustrating in the
extreme - to watch these archaeologists in action.
These, every
time, guided by their faulty Sothic dating system (on this, see my:
The Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited
pointed to
an ‘empty’ site or thin air as to where they thought Joshua, or David, or
Solomon, ought to be, whilst at that same moment standing upon the very
archaeological layers where the evidences for these civilizations are actually
to be found.
Talk about
the blind leading the blind!
Some of the
archaeologists interviewed did occasionally come to light with data that they
thought belonged to a given biblical era or nation, such as the Philistines. A
few, even though they had found nothing, argued the ‘absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence’ line. In this regard one cited the case of the Byzantine
era, considered to have had a huge influence upon Jerusalem, of which he had
nevertheless found “not a single sherd”. But by far the majority of
archaeologists interviewed were entirely of the minimalist Dever-Finkelstein
view.
There were a
couple of moments of light. As when the founder of the famous Tell Dan
inscription referring to the “House of David” showed that actual inscription to
the cameras and laughed at the early attempts by archaeologists to explain it
away. And the program's presenter himself came to be convinced that a massive
altar on Mount Ebal in Samaria was the one that Joshua had built there (Joshua
8:30). Indeed it was made of “unhewn stones” (v. 31), and the archaeological
data discovered around this altar seemed to fit very well that this was indeed
an ancient Israelite site of sacrifice.
David
himself was grudgingly accorded a real existence, based largely on the Tell Dan
evidence, but now as only some very petty king over a tiny portion of Israel.
Solomon, however, was virtually denied any real existence at all.
The irony is
that, as with David, so with Solomon, there is an ancient, non-biblical
reference to his “House”"; but, because it was found in Egypt (El-Amarna)
- whose history has not been properly synchronized with Israel’s - it cannot be
identified, as can David's, for what it really is. I refer to the Bit Šulmãni references in the El Amarna archive
(letters 74 and 290), which phrase translates as “House of Šulmãn”. See my
article:
House of Solomon
Tell El-Amarna [EA]
The relevant
EA letters were actually written by the king of Jerusalem (“Urusalim”), but not
unequivocally to a pharaoh. For, as I
noted in my article:
King Abdi-Hiba of Jerusalem Locked in as a ‘Pillar’ of
Revised History. Part Two: With whom was Abdi-hiba corresponding?
“One is
surprised to find upon perusing these letters of Abdi-hiba, that - despite Rollston’s presumption that Abdi-hiba’s “the king, my lord” was an “Egyptian monarch” - no Egyptian ruler appears to be
specifically named in this set of letters”.
The royal
correspondent has been most convincingly identified by revisionists as JEHORAM
of Judah of the mid C9th BC (conventional dating) - who wrote (letter 290): “…the
capital of the country of Jerusalem - its name is Bit Šulmãni - the king's
city, has broken away”.
However, with
the approximately contemporaneous pharaoh Akhnaton conventionally dated almost
half a millennium before King Solomon, there could be no thought that these two
letters could really contain reference to that great king of Jerusalem.
One of the
archaeologists interviewed in the TV program under discussion, comparing the
biblical description of David’s vast kingdom with what he believed to be the
almost total dearth of historico-archaeological evidence for the king,
exclaimed that if David were as great as the Bible describes him as being then
we should expect some reference to him in historical documents outside of
Israel, for instance “by the Egyptians and the Assyrians”.
That is a
fair enough remark. And my response to it is that there is such evidence for
David in abundance, if only one knows where to look for it.
The glorious
and golden era of kings David and Solomon will never be found where Finkelstein
keeps looking for them, in the most impoverished Iron Age strata, but rather in
the Late Bronze Age. Already in my revision I have shown that the Late Bronze
Israelite civilization of king Solomon overflowed like a flood into Egypt and
Ethiopia. See for e.g. on this my article:
Solomon and Sheba
Just as of
old, when the ancient river of Eden (site of Jerusalem; cf. Ezekiel 28:12-17)
"flow[ed] out" and gushed into Egypt and into and around Cush
(Ethiopia), and watered the east as the Tigris and Euphrates (Genesis 2:10-14),
so too did the Israel of David’s and Solomon’s time overflow to become the
civilizing source of wisdom for the entire ancient world.
“Thus King
Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. The whole
earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into
his mind” (1 Kings 10:23-24).
And who were
these contemporary wisdom-seeking "kings"?
They were
great ones indeed. I am talking historically here.
The revision
that I follow has set King Solomon at the time of such celebrated monarchs as:
HAMMURABI of
Babylon;
IARIM-LIM
(i.e., Hiram), Said to be a son of Abibaal (ca. 1000 BC),
of
Syro-Phoenicia;
HATSHEPSUT
(biblical Queen of Sheba, and later) of Egypt/Ethiopia.
Solomon
himself was (according to my “Solomon and Sheba”) the great SOLON of Greek
folklore (appropriated by the Greeks from the Jews; Solon's laws being found to
be largely Jewish however).
The glorious
reign of Hammurabi, a veritable watershed in Mesopotamian history, reflects Davidic
and Solomonic influence in its every facet (socio-economic, law, religion,
architecture). See e.g. my multi-part series:
Davidic Influence on King Hammurabi
commencing with:
So, too, does
Hatshepsut’s reign over Egypt/Ethiopia reflect Davidic and Solomonic influence.
Solomon is
said to have had certain enemies, apart from Jeroboam, rise up in the latter,
decadent part of his reign: namely, HADAD the Edomite and REZIN, a Syrian
(1.Kings 11:14, 23). Rezin I have previously identified with Zimri-Lim of Mari.
Now a possible candidate for Hadad is Ishkhi-Adad of Qatna, ally of David's
arch-rival, Shamsi-Adad I (biblical Hadadezer, as identified by Dean Hickman),
and who continued on as a force for some time after the latter's death.
The two
states of Aleppo and Qatna appear to have developed almost simultaneously. We
are better informed about the history of the second during the reign of
Shamsi-Adad I because he was the ally of Ishkhi-Adad, who occupied the throne
of Qatna at that time. The arrangement between the two monarchs had been sealed
by a marriage, Iasmakh-Adad, the viceroy of Mari, having married Ishkhi-Adad's
daughter. Co-operation was political and military as well as economic. There
were frequent movements of troops between Mari and Qatna, and it seems likely
that a detachment from Mari was stationed in the Syrian town. The presence of
these foreign soldiers at Qatna does not seem to indicate a relation of
dependence, for Ishkhi-Adad himself insisted on their being sent, and invites
his son-in-law to take part in an expedition which seems likely to yield some
spoils. It was Shamsi-Adad who had taken the first steps towards the marriage,
stressing to his son that the house of Qatna had a ‘name’. He also dealt on
level terms with Ishkhi-Adad, whom he called his brother.
That Hadad
would indeed have had a ‘name’, or would come to have had a ‘name’, is apparent
from what we know of his drama-packed early life. Hadad was "of the royal
house of Edom"; a country from which he had had to flee as "a young
boy", with his retainers, when David's General Joab systematically, over a
six month period, slew every male in Edom (1.Kings 11:14-16). The prince
managed to flee to Egypt, to Pharaoh (vv. 18-20), who:
…gave him a
house, assigned him an allowance of food, and gave him land. Hadad found great
favour in the sight of Pharaoh, so that he gave him his sister-in-law for a
wife, the sister of Queen Tahpenes. The sister of Tahpenes gave birth by him to
his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh's house; Genubath was in
Pharaoh's house among the children of Pharaoh.
Dr. Immanuel
Velikovsky may very well have found, as he claimed to have (Ages in Chaos I), references to both
Queen Tahpenes and Genubath in the Egyptian records, appropriately spaced
according to his chronological revision. Thus Velikovsky wrote (pp. 80, 157-158):
The pharaoh
[who received young Hadad] must have been Ahmose. Among his queens must have
been one by the name of Tahpenes. We open the register of the Egyptian queens
to see whether pharaoh Ahmose had a queen by this name. Her name is actually
preserved and read Tanethap, Tenthape, or, possibly, Tahpenes.
… Hadad had
returned to Edom [sic] in the days of Solomon, after the death of Joab. Since
then about forty years had elapsed. Genubath, his son, was now the vassal king
of Edom; he dwelt either in Edom or in Egypt.
Tribute from
this land, too, must have been sent to the Egyptian crown; there was no need to
send an expedition to subdue Edom. When Thutmose III returned from one of his
inspection visits to Palestine he found in Egypt tribute brought by couriers
from the land "Genubatye", which did not have to be conquered by an
expeditionary force.
"When
his majesty arrived in Egypt the messengers of the Genubatye came bearing their
tribute."
It consisted
of myrrh, "negroes for attendants", bulls, calves, besides vessels
laden with ivory, ebony and skins of panther.
Who were
these people of Genubatye? Hardly a guess has been made with regard to this
peculiar name. The people of Genubatye were the people of Genubath, their king,
contemporary of Rehoboam.
And thanks
to Velikovsky's 18th Egyptian dynasty reconstruction, we can know too that Saul
of Israel was contemporaneous with pharaoh Ahmose, and that Israel was in fact
allied with the Egyptians; an alliance forged in their common struggle against
the hated Amu /Amalekites.
With this in
mind, I had previously suggested that David's resounding defeat of Hadadezer's
Syrian coalition (e.g. 2.Samuel 8:3-6) would have been achieved with Egyptian
military support; this last being a factor that would become common practice
(at least in theory) during a later phase of the 18th dynasty (el-Amarna).
But it had
seemed that there was far more than just a military union between Israel and
Palestine. Egypt was in fact beginning to be flooded by Israel’s new, vibrant
civilization.
But how
could this be happening to a nation known to be extremely conservative, insular
and closed to change?
While the
beginnings of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt and the United Monarchy of Israel
were closely concurrent (as per Dr. Velikovsky), I had erred in the past by
trying to identify the Kings of Israel also as 18th dynasty Pharaohs.
This is a notion of Dr. Ewald Metzler, with which I had previously become quite
enamoured, having written as follows:
The Encouraging Signs that King Saul of Israel was
Pharaoh Amenhotep I.
There were,
I found, some initial encouraging signs for Amenhotep I's being king Saul. For
instance:
1. Amenhotep
I was not related to Ahmose, but married his daughter, Ah-hotep. Now,
amazingly, Saul had a father-in-law called Ahimaaz, which seems to be an exact
Hebrew equivalent of the Egyptian name, Ahmose; Saul having married Ahimaaz's
daughter, Ahinoam (1 Samuel 14:50).
2. Secondly,
DNA testing has shown that Amenhotep I was not related to Thutmose I; just as
David was unrelated to Saul.
3. Thirdly,
Amenhotep I and Thutmose I may have shared a co-regency; just as Saul and David
were yoked together (though usually in uncomfortable harness, as enemies) in a
co-regency.
Despite
these encouraging early signs, I considered my Amenhotep I = Saul equation to
be extremely tentative when I wrote my article on the new 18th dynasty
scenario, entitled "The House of David", in which I proposed that the
Thutmoside 18th dynasty of Egypt was actually, in its origins, a Davidic
Israelite dynasty.
Whether the
biblical “Ahimaaz” may yet be identifiable with pharaoh Ahmose may perhaps be a
matter for further consideration.
I would no
longer attempt to identify King Saul with pharaoh Amenhotep I, nor King David
with pharaoh Thutmose I. However, I still think that the latter pharaoh may be
biblical identifiable, as King Tolmai of Geshur. See e.g. my article:
The vicissitudinous life of Solomon's pulchritudinous wife
The Coronation Ceremonies
On the
potentially Davidic influence upon pharaoh Thutmose I, see my article:
Thutmose I Crowns Hatshepsut
As I have written
previously:
“Moreover,
the overflow from Israel went to the very heart of the matter: to the
coronation ceremony. The very ceremonial procedure, in its three phases, that
David had used for the coronation of his chosen son, Solomon, was the procedure
used by Thutmose I (Amenhotep I’s successor) in the coronation of the former’s
daughter, Hatshepsut”.
Might not
one have imagined that Egypt, so steeped in ceremony and cultic procedure over
so many dynasties and centuries would by now have had its own inviolable court
system?
How great
therefore must have been the Israel of David’s time that even its ceremonial
procedures had flowed into Egypt?
Religious Parallels
Perhaps even
more remarkable still was that Israel’s religion was overflowing into Egypt.
That Hatshepsut was re-inventing Karnak as Egypt’s Jerusalem is evidenced by
the unmistakably Davidic psalmery that she had written on the base of one of
her obelisks. Conventional scholar, J. Baikie, both notes it and
chronologically misinterprets it (A
History of Egypt, 1929, p. 63):
“And then,
in language which might have come straight out of the Book of Psalms, though it
belongs to an age centuries before [sic] the first of the Psalms was written,
she continues:
I did it
under [God's] command; it was he who led me.
"Yet
the Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime ... Teach me thy way,
oh Lord, and lead me in a plain path ... he leadeth me ..." Ps. 42:8;
27:11; 23:2.
I conceived
no works without his doing; it was he who gave me directions. "... when
the king sat in his house, and the Lord gave him rest round about him from all
his enemies ... thou shalt build me an house ..." 2.Sam. 7:1,5.
"He
(David's son) shall build an house for my name ..." 2.Sam. 7:13
I slept not
because of his temple; I erred not from that which he commanded.
"The
wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts." Psalm
119:110.
My heart was
wise before my father; I entered into the affairs of his heart.
"Thou
hast proved my heart; thou hast visited me in the night ... Who so is wise, and
will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of
the Lord." Ps. 17:3; 107:43.
"For he
shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the
joy of his heart." Eccl. 5:20.
I turned not
my back on the City of the All-Lord; but turned to it the face.
"Our
heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy ways ... Thy
face, O Lord, will I seek." Ps. 44:18; 27:8.
I know that
Karnak is God's dwelling upon earth ….
James
Breasted, Records of Egypt, Vol. II, Sec. 316; p. 131. "I have surely
built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in forever.
... The Lord God ... may dwell in Jerusalem forever." 1.Kings 8:13;
1.Chronicles 23:25.
Baikie
continues (loc. cit.):
The
sleepless eagerness of the queen for the glory of the temple of her god, and
her assurance of the unspeakable sanctity of Karnak as the divine
dwelling-place, find expression almost in the very words which the Psalmist
used to express his sense of duty towards the habitation of the God of Israel,
and his certainty of Zion's sanctity as the abiding-place of Jehovah:
"Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my
bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids. Until I
find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob - For
the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my
rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it" Psalms 132:3-4,
13-14; 2.Samuel 7:5-6
As I have noted
in previous articles, not only David's own writings, but even images from the
pre-Davidic Torah (e.g. Genesis) - and from Solomon's wisdom writings and his
love poem, Song of Songs - were used by Hatshepsut in her inscriptions.
Construction Parallels
Hatshepsut had
even had built her magnificent temple at Deir el-Bahari along Solomonic lines -
not surprisingly since Solomon himself, as Senenmut - was her chief architect.
The Phoenician influence this beautiful temple displays (cf. Mariette) would
undoubtedly be the work of Hiram's Phoenicians, allies of Solomon, who were
amongst the master craftsmen for the building of the Temple in Jerusalem
(1.Kings 5:7-18).
Covenant, Ark of the
Hatshepsut
would even employ a high-priest in her religious infrastructure.
Now of the
high offices of priest, secretary and recorder (herald) established by David in
Israel (2.Samuel 8:16-17. Cf. 1.Kings 4:2-3), the latter two are actually
considered by some (wrongly, I think) to have been borrowed from Egypt. More
likely now the correct order of influence is that these became established
Egyptian offices only after having firstly been borrowed from Davidic Israel.
Furthermore,
do we not find at the time of Hatshepsut greater attention being given to the
greatest of all the gods, Amun, and to his barque (ark)-like vessel which was
carried around by priests bearing poles on their shoulders? Thus Joyce
Tyldesley (Hatchepsut the Female Pharaoh,
1998, pp. 106-107):
The Red
Chapel, now known more commonly by its French name of Chapelle Rouge, was a
large sanctuary of red quartzite endowed by Hatshepsut to house the
all-important barque of Amen. Amen's barque, or barge, known as Userhat-Amen
(Mighty of Prow is Amen), was a small-scale gilded wooden boat bearing the
enclosed shrine which was used to protect the statue of the god from public
gaze. .... When Amen, on the holy days which were also public holidays, left
the privacy of his sanctuary to process through the streets of Thebes, he
sailed in style concealed within the cabin of his boat-shrine which was
carried, supported by wooden poles, on the shoulders of his priests. When Amen
was not traveling the barque rested in its own sanctuary or shrine.
The sacred
barque had always played a minor role in Egyptian religious ritual, but during
the early New Kingdom it had become an increasingly important part of theology,
and most temples now gave great prominence to the barque sanctuary.
That
strongly reminds one of the Ark of the Covenant, of great age, before which
David danced (2.Samuel 6:14). David had re-emphasized the order that the
awe-inspiring Ark was to be carried by “no one but the Levites” (1 Chronicles
15:2). The 'boat' aspect may even hark back to the time when baby Moses (little
Horus in the Egyptian version) was enclosed by his mother in an ark (teba) and floated on the river (Exodus
2:3).
Both the
Israelite and Egyptian versions of the ark were oracular. Both ideally went
forth before their armies into battle (1 Samuel 14:18). Thutmose III (the biblical
"Shishak king of Egypt") will, after Hatshepsut's death, have that
ark of Amun proceed before his own mighty army.
No comments:
Post a Comment