The Oldest Gospel?

7Q5

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Fragment 5 from Cave 7 of the Qumran Community in its entirety

Among the Dead Sea scrolls, 7Q5 is the designation for a small papyrus fragment discovered in Qumran Cave 7. The significance of this fragment is derived from an argument made by Jose O´Callaghan in his work ¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân? ("New Testament Papyri in Cave 7 at Qumran?") in 1972, later reasserted and expanded by German scholar Carsten Peter Thiede in his work The Earliest Gospel Manuscript? in 1982. The assertion is that the previously unidentified 7Q5 is actually a fragment of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6 verse 52-53. The majority of scholars have not been convinced by O'Callaghan's and Thiede's identification[1][2] and it is "now virtually universally rejected".[3][4]
O'Callaghan's proposed identification

This shows the Greek text of Mark 6:52-53. Bold characters represent proposed identifications with characters from 7Q5:[5]

ου γαρ
συνηκαν επι τοις αρτοις,
αλλ ην αυτων η καρδια πεπωρω-
μενη. και διαπερασαντες [επι την γην]
ηλθον εις γεννησαρετ και
προσωρμισθησαν. και εξελ-
θοντων αυτων εκ του πλοιου ευθυς
επιγνοντες αυτον.

for they did not
understand concerning the loaves
but was their heart harden-
ed. And crossing over [unto the land]
they came unto Gennesaret and
drew to the shore. And com-
ing forth out of the boat immediately
they recognized him.
Argument


The 7th Cave at Qumran, where 7Q5 was found.

The argument is weighted on two points.

* First, the spacing before the word και ("and") signifies a paragraph break, which is consistent with the normative layout of Mark in early copies. Secondly, the combination of letters ννησ found in line 4 is highly characteristic and may point at the word Γεννησαρετ , found three times in the New Testament.
* Furthermore, a computer search "using the most elaborate Greek texts ... has failed to yield any text other than Mark 6:52-53 for the combination of letters identified by O’Callaghan et al. in 7Q5".[6]

Several counterarguments exist.

* The spacing before the word και ("and") might be a paragraph break. But spacings of this width can be found in papyri sometimes even within words (Pap. Bodmer XXIV, plate 26; in Qumran in fragment 4Q122). Other examples in the Qumran texts show that the word και ("and") in many cases was separated with spacings - and this has in many cases nothing to do with the text's structure.
* Although the sequence ννησ is unusual in Greek, the word εγεννησεν ("begot") also contains those four letters. In fact, this conjecture was proposed by the authors of the first edition (editio princeps) published in 1962. In such case the fragment might be part of some genealogy.
* In order to identify the fragment with Mark 6:52-53, one must account for the replacement of original δ with τ in line 3, and, although such difference is not without parallel in ancient Greek where two similar meaning words might be confused, the suggested reading requires the misspelling of a prepositional prefix to create an unknown word.[7]
* As the lines of a column are always more or less of the same length, it must be assumed that the words επι την γην ("to the land") were omitted, a variant which is not attested elsewhere.[7].
* The identification of the last letter in line 2 with nu has been strongly disputed because it does not fit into the pattern of this Greek letter as it is clearly written in line 4.[8]
* The computer search performed by Thiede assumed that all the disputed letter identifications made by O'Callaghan were correct. However, a similar search performed by scholar Daniel Wallace, but allowing other possible identifications for the disputed letters, found sixteen matches [7]. If a computer search is performed with the undisputed letters of the fragment 7Q5 it will not find the text Mk 6,52-53, because the undisputed letter τ in line 3 does not fit to this text.[9]

Significance

If 7Q5 were identified as Mark 6:52-53 and was deposited in the cave at Qumran by 68 AD, it would become the earliest known fragment of the New Testament, predating P52 by at least some if not many decades.

Since the amount of text in the manuscript is so small, even a confirmation of 7Q5 as Markan "might mean nothing more than that the contents of these few verses were already formalized, not necessarily that there was a manuscript of Mark's Gospel on hand".[10] Since the entirety of the find in Cave 7 consists of fragments in Greek, it is possible that the contents of this cave are of a separate "Hellenized" library than the Hebrew texts found in the other caves. Additionally, as Robert Eisenman points out: "Most scholars agree that the scrolls were deposited in the cave in or around 68 AD, but often mistake this date...for the terminus ad quem for the deposit of the scrolls in the caves/cessation of Jewish habitation at the site, when it cannot be considered anything but the terminus a quo for both of these, i.e., not the latest but the earliest possible date for such a deposit and/or Jewish abandonment of the site. The actual terminus ad quem for both of these events, however difficult it may be to accept at first, is 136 AD."(italics his)[11] This is long after the currently accepted date range for the composition of Mark.

....

Very Biblical. Earliest Humans Now in Israel

By Daniel Estrin

The Associated Press
updated 12/27/2010 1:06:52 PM ET 2010-12-27T18:06:52


JERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists said Monday that they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern humans, and if the find is confirmed, it could upset theories of the origin of humans.

A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern humans, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old.

"It's very exciting to come to this conclusion," said archaeologist Avi Gopher, whose team examined the teeth with X-rays and CT scans and dated them according to the layers of earth where they were found.
He stressed that further research is needed to solidify the claim. If it does, he said, "this changes the whole picture of evolution."

The accepted scientific theory is that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated out of the continent starting sometime around 80,000 years ago. Gopher said if the remains are definitively linked to Homo sapiens, it could mean that modern humans in fact originated in what is now Israel.

Sir Paul Mellars, a prehistory expert at Cambridge University, said the study is reputable. He said that the find is "important" because remains from that critical time period are scarce, but that it is premature to say the remains are human.

"Based on the evidence they've cited, it's a very tenuous and frankly rather remote possibility," Mellars said. He said the remains are more likely related to modern humans' ancient relatives, the Neanderthals.


Baz Ratner / Reuters
Avi Gopher and Ran Barkai, researchers from Tel Aviv University's Institute of Archaeology, stand at Qesem Cave, an excavation site east of Tel Aviv, on Monday.
According to today's accepted scientific theories, modern humans and Neanderthals stemmed from a common ancestor who lived in Africa about 700,000 years ago. One group of descendants migrated to Europe hundreds of thousands of years ago and developed into Neanderthals, later becoming extinct. Another group stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens — modern humans.

Teeth are often unreliable indicators of origin, and analyses of skull remains would more definitively identify the species found in the Israeli cave, Mellars said.

Gopher, the Israeli archaeologist, said he is confident his team will find skulls and bones as they continue their dig.

The prehistoric Qesem cave was discovered in 2000, and excavations began in 2004. Researchers Gopher, Ran Barkai and Israel Hershkowitz published their study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.



Taken from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40820248/ns/technology_and_science-science/

The Mysterious Middle Bronze I People: The Israelites

Taken from: "Diggings":

http://www.diggingsonline.com/pages/rese/dyns/kings.htm....

Lazare also takes a swipe at the record of the Israelite slavery in Egypt and the subsequent Exodus. He wrote, "There was no migration from Mesopotamia, no sojourn in Egypt and no Exodus ... The slate was blank concerning the nearly five centuries that the Israelites had supposedly lived in Egypt prior to the exodus as well as the forty years that they supposedly spent wandering in the Sinai. Not so much as a skeleton, campsite or cooking pot has turned up." Wrong, Mr Lazare, though I excuse you on the grounds that you are correctly reflecting the opinions of the main body of archaeologists who still cling to the traditional chronology. But Dr Rudolph Cohen, recently retired Deputy Director of the Israel Antiquities Service has excavated for twenty five years in the Negev (southern Israel) including Kadesh Barnea where the Israelites stayed for 40 days while the twelve spies searched the promised land. He claims there is so much evidence for the presence of a large number of people there at the beginning of the MBI period that he is of the firm conviction that these were the migrating Israelites. In the July 1983 edition of Biblical Archaeology Review he wrote an article entitled "The Mysterious MBI People, in which he stated, "In fact, these MBI people may be the Israelites whose famous journey from Egypt to Canaan is called the Exodus." BAR p. 16. He even claims that, from the pottery they left behind, he could trace the route the Israelites took. He wrote, "It is interesting, however, to note that this migratory drift, as I have reconstructed it, bears a striking similarity to that of the Israelite's flight from Egypt to the Promised Land, as recorded in the book of Exodus." ibid. p. 28. In 1993, my Australian group and I worked with Dr Cohen in his excavations at Ein Hatzeva, south of the Dead Sea. During the course of the excavations site supervisor Egal Israel came by to see what we were finding. I asked him whether he agreed with Dr Cohen's views identifying the MBI people with the Israelite migration. Without hesitation he replied, "Of course I do, and so do all the archaeologists down here." I said, "The archaeologists in the north do not accept it." He replied, "They do not know what they are talking about." Later that year I was talking with Dr Ami Mazar and asked him what he thought of Dr Cohen's views. "They are a lot of rubbish," he snapped. So there is this conflict of opinions in Israel. The majority hold to the traditional chronology but it would not be the first time in history that a minority were right. At least readers should be aware that there are alternative views. But what about carbon dating? Does not that establish the traditional chronology? I do not know of any archaeologist who has ever altered his dates from the results of carbon 14 testing. Dates are assigned on pottery styles. Samples of organic material may be sent for testing but the results will not influence the conclusions already reached. As David Rohl says in his book, "All too often a dozen or so radiocarbon dates are included in an archaeological site report merely as scientific window dressing. This attitude is clearly reflected in a regrettably common practice: when a radiocarbon date agrees with the expectation of the excavator it appears in the main text of the site report; if it is slightly discrepant it is relegated to a footnote; if it seriously conflicts it is left out altogether ... As the senior radiocarbon scientist Professor Ingrid Olsson frankly concluded at the Gothenburg conference: 'Honestly, I would say that I feel that most of the dates from the Bronze Age are dubious. The manner in which they have been made ... forces me to be critical.'" A Test of Time p. XIX As for the evidence from Egypt, it is strikingly supportive if you look in the right place. The Biblical date for the Exodus, based on the figures in 1 Kings 6:1, is approximately 1445 BC. By the usual chronology this would be during the powerful and well-recorded eighteenth dynasty which ruled from Luxor rather than Memphis or the Delta where the Israelites were concentrated. There is no trace of Israelite slaves during this dynasty, nor of the disaster that befell Egypt as the result of the ten devastating plagues and the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. However, a revised chronology would locate the Israelite slavery during the late twelfth dynasty and the Exodus at the beginning of the thirteenth dynasty. Dr Rosalie David, Curator of the Manchester Museum wrote a book in 1986 entitled, The Pyramid Builders of Ancient Egypt. Sir Flinders Petrie excavated in the Faiyyum and sent many of his finds back to the Manchester Museum. He excavated a city called Kahun where he found evidence for many Semitic slaves. Because he had the wrong chronology neither he nor Dr David identified them as the Israelite slaves, but their presence there and subsequent disappearance puzzled them. Dr David wrote, "It is apparent that the Asiatics were present in the town in some numbers, and this may have reflected the situation elsewhere in Egypt ... Their exact homeland in Syria or Palestine cannot be determined ... The reason for their presence in Egypt remains unclear." The Pyramid Builders p. 191. "It is apparent that the completion of the king's pyramid was not the reason why Kahun's inhabitants eventually deserted the town, abandoning their tools and other possessions in the shops and houses." ibid. p. 197. "There are different opinions of how this first period of occupation at Kahun drew to a close ... The quantity, range and type of articles of everyday use which were left behind in the houses may indeed suggest that the departure was sudden and unpremeditated." ibid. p. 199. Slaves cannot say to their masters, "OK boss, sorry to leave you, but we are all going tomorrow." Yet this is about what happened at Kahun. The only plausible explanation is that these were the Israelites who packed up and left in a hurry. Curiously enough, Josephus, the Jewish historian from the first century AD, records a tradition that his ancestors in Egypt built pyramids. This has usually been dismissed with scorn, for by the conventional chronology, all the pyramids were built centuries before the first Israelite arrived in Egypt. If we accept a revised chronology, however, the oppression of the Israelites occured during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Dynasties, when rather impoverished pyramids were still being built. The pyramid at Lahun on which the slaves from Kahun were working was made of millions of bricks made of mud mixed with straw - the very building material the Bible specifies as used by the Israelites in Egypt. As for the devastating plagues and the destruction of the Egyptian army; there is in the Leiden Museum in Holland a papyrus written by a scribe named Ipuwer. Its time of origin is not known for sure but it could have been written after the Exodus. It says in part, "Nay, but the heart is violent. Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere ... Nay, but the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water ... Nay, but gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire ... Nay but men are few. He that lays his brother in the ground is everywhere ... Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognised ... The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt ... Nay, but corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume and oil. Everyone says 'there is no more'. The storehouse is bare ... It has come to this. The king has been taken away by poor men." Ipuwer Papyrus Leiden Museum. Quoted from The Ancient Egyptians, a source book of their writings pp. 94-101. These "stranger people" were the mysterious Hyksos who invaded Egypt during the thirteenth dynasty. Concerning them the Egyptian historian Manetho, quoted by Josephus, wrote, "There was a king of ours whose name was Timaus. Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that God was averse to us, and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them." Josephus against Apion 1:14. Without a battle? Where was the well-trained Egyptian army? Maybe it was at the bottom of the Red Sea. Exodus 14:22-28 So, yes, there are arguments against the reliability of the historical records of the Bible, but there are also some powerful arguments supporting them. © David K. Down 2002

An Archaeology for Abraham and its Effect on Conventional Chronology

by

Damien F. Mackey

I have often referred to, or quoted from, Dr. John Osgood’s important article, “Times of Abraham” (Ex Nihilo T.J., Vol. 2, 1986, pp. 77-87), in which he archaeologically nails Abram’s four Mesopotamian contemporaries (as named in Genesis 14:1) - in relation to En-geddi - to the Late Chalcolithic/Ghassul IV phase of Palestine. Osgood had concluded that one of the caves in the region, called the “Cave of the Treasure”, was where the local Amorites had stashed their possessions, as itemised by Pessah Bar-Adon who published details of this cave: “… axes and chisels; hammers; ‘mace heads’; hollow stands decorated with knobs, branches, birds, and animals such as deer, ibex, buffalo, wild goats, and eagle; ‘horns’ … smooth and elaborately ornamented 'crowns'; small baskets; a pot; a statuette with a human face; sceptres; flag poles; an ivory box; perforated utensils made … from hippopotamus tusks; and more”. (Bar-Adon, P., 1980. The Cave of the Treasure, Exploration Society, Jerusalem. As cited by Osgood, p. 82.)
Bar-Adon, Osgood said, queried the reasons for the articles in this context as if somebody had left them there and had intended to return, but was not able to:
"What induced the owners of this treasure to hide it hurriedly away in the cave? And what was the event that prevented them from taking the treasure out of its concealment and restoring it to its proper place? And what caused the sudden destruction of the Chalcolithic settlements in the Judean Desert and in other regions of Palestine" ….

(Bar-Adon, P., 1962. Israel Exploration Journal, 12: 218-9).
Osgood firstly after that showed how this En-geddi culture linked with Ghassul IV, sill in Palestine (op. cit., ibid.):
The remarkable thing about this culture also was that it was very similar, if not the same culture, to that found at a place in the southern Jordan Valley called Taleilat Ghassul (which is the type site of this culture), and also resembles the culture of Beersheba. The culture can in fact be called 'Ghassul culture' and specifically Ghassul IV.
The Ghassul IV culture disappeared from Trans Jordan, Taleilat Ghassul and Beersheba and the rest of the Negev as well as from Hazezon-tamar or En-gedi apparently at the same time. It is remarkable when looked at on the map that this disappearance of the Ghassul IV culture corresponds exactly to the areas which were attacked by the Mesopotamian confederate of kings. The fact that En-gedi specifically terminates its culture at this point allows a very positive identification of this civilization, Ghassul IV, with the Amorites of Hazezon-tamar.
If that be the case, then we can answer Bar-Adon's question very positively. The reason the people did not return to get their goods was that they had been destroyed by the confederate kings of Mesopotamia, in approximately 1,870 B.C. [Osgood’s date, not mine] in the days of Abraham.
Now as far as Palestine is concerned, in an isolated context, this may be possible to accept, but many might ask: What about the Mesopotamian kings themselves? Others may ask: What does this do to Egyptian chronology? And still further questions need to be asked concerning the origin of the Philistines in the days of Abraham, for the Philistines were closely in touch with Abraham during this same period (Genesis 20). So we must search for evidence of Philistine origins or habitation at approximately the end of the Chalcolithic (Ghassul IV) in Palestine. All these questions will be faced.
Then, next, Osgood showed how Ghassul IV in turn connected up archaeologically with Mesopotamia (ibid., pp. 82-84):

THE MESOPOTAMIAN COMPLEX OF
CHEDORLAOMER
Ghassul IV corresponds in Mesopotamia to the period known as the Jemdat-Nasr/Uruk period, otherwise called Protoliterate (because it was during this period that the archaeologists found the first evidence of early writing). Ghassul IV also corresponds to the last Chalcolithic period of Egypt, the Gerzean or pre-Dynastic period …. Let us look, therefore, at both of these geographically and archaeologically, and see what we find.
Uruk is so called because it refers to a culture associated with the archaeological site called Warka (Uruk of Mesopotamian history or biblical Erech - Genesis 10:10) in the land of Sumer or biblical Shinar … and we note that one of the kings of the Mesopotamian confederacy came from Shinar, namely Amraphel,
Jemdat Nasr is a site in northern Sumer, northeast of Babylon …. It is a site that was found to have a pottery with similarities to the culture of Elam and corresponding in time to the later phases of the Uruk culture.
We have in Mesopotamia, therefore, archaeological evidence that there was a period in which the Uruk culture, and an Elamite culture typified by Jemdat Nasr, were in some sort of combination, and this corresponds to the period in Palestine when the Ghassul culture disappeared. The writing of this period does not allow us to recognise at this point any particular kings from contemporary records for it is undeciphered, but all that is known archaeologically is in agreement with the possibility of a combine of nations of the description of Genesis 14 existing. Considering the war-like attitudes of Sumer and Elam in later years this is all the more remarkable, for no other period of Sumer/Elamite relationship accepts the possibility of such a semi-benevolent relationship.
Archaeology in Iran, in the plain of Susiana, has demonstrated a resurgent Elamite culture contemporary with Jemdat Nasr in Mesopotamia and this fits the biblical suggestion of a dominant Chedorlaomer (Genesis 14). ….
[End of quote]
Having determined all of this, Osgood now turns his attention towards Egypt: (ibid., pp. 84-85):
BUT EGYPT!

At this stage there will be many objections to the hypothesis here presented, for it is totally contradictory to the presently held Egyptian chronology of the ancient world. However, I would remind my reader that the Egyptian chronology is not established, despite claims to the contrary. It has many speculative points within it. Let us continue to see if there is any correspondence, for if Abraham was alive in the days of the Ghassul IV culture, then he was alive in the days of the Gerzean culture of pre-Dynastic Egypt, possibly living into the days of the first Dynasty of Egypt.
The correspondence between this period in Palestine and in Egypt is very clear, and has been solidly established, particularly by the excavations at Arad by Ruth Amiram … and at Tel Areini by S. Yeivin. ….
Such a revised chronology as here presented would allow Abraham to be in contact with the earliest kings of Dynasty I and the late pre-Dynastic kings, and this would slice a thousand years off the presently held chronology of Egypt. To many the thought would be too radical to contemplate. The author here insists that it must be contemplated. Only so will the chronology of the ancient world be put into proper perspective. Long as the task may take, and however difficult the road may be, it must be undertaken.
In order to support the present revised chronology here held, the author sites another correspondence archaeologically, and this concerns the Philistines and Egypt.
[This section by Osgood, some of whose argument I shall be modifying and also developing further on, comes from ibid., pp. 85-86]:

THE PHILISTINE QUESTION

Genesis 20 makes it clear that Abraham was in contact with the Philistines, yet the accepted chronological record presently held does not recognise Philistines being in the land of Philistia at any time corresponding with the days of Abraham. Yet the Bible is adamant.
The Scripture is clear that the Philistines were in Canaan by the time of Abraham … or at least around the area of Gerar between Kadesh and Shur (Genesis 20:1), and Beersheba (Genesis 21:32) …. A king called Abimelech was present, and his military chief was Phicol (Genesis 21:22).
The land was called the Land of the Philistines (Genesis 21:32). According to Genesis 10:14, the Philistines were descendants of one Egyptian ancestor, Casluhim, but apparently they dwelt in the region occupied by Caphtor which was apparently the coastlands around the delta region. Now many attempts have been made to associate Caphtor with Crete, but the attempt is strained and unsubstantiated.
[Bill Cooper, in After the Flood (pp. 191 & 193), has suggested instead that Capthor’s descendants pertain to the Kaptara of the Assyrian inscriptions, whilst Anamim, another son of Mizraïm, are the adjacent A-na-mi; both in Phoenicia, not Crete].
Here, now, I shall temporarily interrupt Osgood’s very interesting discussion, to give my own views on Abimelech, on the Philistines, and on some of the sons of Mizraïm.
In a recent article of mine:
Does the Bible Name Abram’s “Pharaoh”?
Yes it does.
I concluded that the toledôt (Toledoth) theory of Genesis enables for us actually to identify the “Pharaoh” encountered by Abram (later Abraham) and Sarai (later Sarah) upon their entry into the Promised Land. For Abraham’s history was written by two of his sons, Ishmael and Isaac, who give their different accounts of the famous encounter between Abram and Sarai, on the one hand, and Pharaoh, on the other. Whilst Ishmael, whose mother was the Egyptian woman, Hagar, tells the story from an Egyptian perspective, hence he calls the king, “Pharaoh”, Isaac, a Hebrew, calls him by the Hebraïsed personal name, “Abimelech”.
I then took this identification a step further, and identified Abimelech with one of Mizraïm’s (or Egypt’s) sons, Lehabim (thought to have been the founder of the Libyans). From Osgood’s argument we would know that it would be most likely for Abram to have been a contemporary of the next generation after Mizraïm. Now, though Lehabim and Abimelech would normally be considered as being two entirely different names, I think that one can see how a Hebrew (such as Isaac) might Hebraïse the (probably originally) Mesopotamian name, Lehabim, to Abim-[e]lech, or Abimelek.
Interestingly, a reader of the above-mentioned article, Ken Griffith, whilst initially rejecting my identification of Abimelech with Lehabim on the grounds of these two Genesis names having different meanings, later concluded that it might be correct after all, because, as he found, a chiastic structure of this part of the Book of Genesis amazingly brings “Pharaoh” and “Abimelech” into a parallel convergence. As if the Holy Spirit had locked in the answer to the query: What was the name of Abram’s “Pharaoh”?
That makes me very confident that my conclusion on this has been a sound one.
It is most unlikely then, if Abimelech were Lehabim, that Abimelech were an actual Philistine. For it was not from Lehabim (my Abimelech), the presumed third son of Mizraïm, that the Philistines arose, but from Casluhim, Mizraïm’s sixth son (Genesis 10:13-14). They were brother peoples of course. And, for the most part, Abimelech is not called a Philistine. We first encounter him as “Pharaoh” of Egypt (12:15), I believe; then, under the name of Abimelech, as “King Abimelech of Gerar” (20:2); then simply as “Abimelech” (21:22), though now residing in “the land of the Philistines” (v. 32). Finally, we meet him as “King Abimelech of the Philistines” (26:1, 8). Not an actual Philistine, I suggest, but a king ruling over “the land of the Philistines”.
When, why, and how did “Pharaoh” Abimelech make the move from Egypt to southern Palestine? That, I believe, is tied up with Abram’s defeat of the Mesopotamian coalition led by Chedorlaomer. And I am now going to attempt to identify similarly, from the Book of Genesis (as in the case of Abimelech/Lehabim), the two leading Mesopotamian kings of Genesis 14:1: namely, Amraphel and Chedorlaomer.
It needs to be noted here that three of the coalitional kings, Khedorla’omer, Ariokh, and Tidhal (i.e., Chedorlaomer; Arioch and Tidal), have in fact been historically identified in the Spartoli Collection; whilst king Hammurabi of Babylon (once thought to have been the other coalitional member, Amraphel himself - and some still do claim this) also refers to the main protagonist, Chedorlaomer. I quoted this in my above-mentioned article, in this section:
Biblical Amraphel Was Not Abraham But Lived Much Earlier
Taken from "The Wars of Gods and Men":
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/sitchinbooks03_05.htm
thus:
"....The second discovery was announced by Vincent Scheil, who reported that he had found among the tablets in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Constantinople a letter from the well-known Babylonian King Hammurabi, which mentions the very same Kudur-laghamar!
When I wrote this I was thinking - in line with some ancient views - that the elusive Amraphel may have been Nimrod himself (some say his father, Cush), who, I had estimated, had grown old and had therefore allowed his subordinate, Chedorlaomer, to take the lead. I have accepted the identification of Nimrod with the historical Enmerkar of the Uruk I dynasty (and I was wondering if Chedorlaomer might perhaps have been e.g. Enmerkar’s presumed son, Lugalbanda – the two are actually coupled together in an epic). But now I am looking at an entirely different scenario: one that again involves Abimelech (Lehabim).
Here is what I think Genesis 14 may be about.
Genesis 14:1: In the days of King Amraphel of Shinar ….
Here the author, who may perhaps be drawing upon an historical record, prefaces, with a general date, the account of the invasion of Palestine by the Mesopotamian kings. It happened, we are told, at the time of King Amraphel. But Amraphel himself plays no apparent part in what follows. Instead it is “King Chedorlaomer of Elam” who emerges most prominently. “Twelve years [the kings of Pentapolis] had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled” (v. 4). So, it was Chedorlaomer, and not Amraphel, who was the current master of Palestine. This all leads me to suggest that Amraphel, a ‘brother’ to the coalition, was our friend “Pharaoh” Abimelech in Egypt, whose origin however was, as the text says, “of Shinar”, and that the coalitional leader, Chedorlaomer, was one of his brothers. When Mizraïm left the land of Shinar to settle in Egypt (as his other name “Egypt” would suggest - and indeed the name “Mizraïm” has become synonymous with Egypt), his son Lehabim and others must have accompanied him there. We are now in the next generation, and this Lehabim (Abimelech) has become the ruler of Egypt. But at least one of the Mizraïmites must have gone eastwards to Elam, rather than westwards. He, I believe, appears in this Genesis text by the name of “Chedorlaomer”; but I suspect that he must be the “Casluhim” from whom arose the Philistine nation. This may be a reason why Bill Cooper can find no positive trace of Casluhim (op. cit., p. 192). We have read that he, as Kudur-laghamar was a real historical personage. As we can see, this Elamite name has two elements. I suggest that the Genesis writer simply truncated both elements of this disagreeable name, Chedor-laomer/Kudur-laghamar, to yield the more manageable Kud-lagham, or Kuslaham, hence Kasluhim (or Casluim).
This would mean that the origins of the Philistines, through Casluhim, were in fact Elamite, eastern. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky in his Peoples of the Sea, had discerned such a similarity in appearance between the Peleset (Philstines) of the time of Ramses III, and the Pereset, thought to be Persians, that he radically transferred Ramses III to the Persian period. In my university thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background (2007), I made the following comment on this (pp. 352-353 of Volume One):
Velikovsky had brought some surprising evidence in support of his sensational view that Ramses III had actually belonged as late as the Persian period, with his identification of the Peleset arm of the ‘Sea Peoples’ – generally considered to indicate Philistines – as Persians.[1] This Velikovsky did through comparisons between the Peleset, as shown on Ramses III’s Medinet Habu reliefs, and depictions of Persians for instance at Persepolis, both revealing a distinctive crown-like headgear. And he also compared Ramses III’s references to the Peleset to the naming of Persians as P-r-s-tt (Pereset) in the C3rd BC Decree of Canopus.
My explanation though for this undeniable similarity would be, not that Ramses III had belonged to the classical Persian era, but that the ‘Indo-European’ Persians were related to the waves of immigrants, hence to the Mitannians (who may therefore connect with the Medes), but perhaps to the Philistines in particular. ….
[End of quote]
The name, “Amraphel”, might perhaps derive from Lehabim, Rehabim – Imrab[el]. If Amraphel can be equated with the name “Hammurabi”, as many claim, then I think that my suggestion may not be too far fetched. My only explanation for why either of Abraham’s sons might have used this new designation for the king, as “Amraphel”, would be that this section of Genesis may have been lifted from an historical document.
So, we have the incident of Genesis 14 taking place at the time of Pharaoh Abimelech/Amraphel, who, as Lehabim, was related to the leader of the invasion, Chedorlaomer, as Casluhim, but who himself (Amraphel) played no obvious part in it. He may have supplied some troops as Egypt was wont to do. Then, after his brother was defeated, and the Elamite rule over Palestine had ceased, Abimelech/Amraphel had moved in to fill the vacuum. He then perhaps re-located to Gerar, and came to rule over the Philistines, or Casluhim-ites, who had been stationed there.
He, Pharaoh Abimelech, a Sumerian who had conquered Egypt, would now be the ideal person for identification with the mysterious Pharaoh Narmer (of apparent Mesopotamian connection: The king's stance is similar to Mesopotamian pictures of royalty and points to the influence Mesopotamia seems to have had on Egypt even in these early times. http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/narmer/index.html) of this very same archaeological (Gerzean) period, as attested at Arad (see following quote) or perhaps Narmer was Chedorlaomer (same ‘mer’ element in name), if Chedorlaomer had also controlled Egypt.
I resume Osgood’s discussion (op. cit., pp. 85-86):
…. We have placed the end of the Chalcolithic of the Negev, En-gedi, Trans-Jordan and Taleilat Ghassul at approximately 1870 B.C., being approximately at Abraham's 80th year. Early Bronze I Palestine (EB I) would follow this, significantly for our discussions. Stratum V therefore at early Arad (Chalcolithic) ends at 1870 B.C., and the next stratum, Stratum IV (EB I), would begin after this.
Stratum IV begins therefore some time after 1870 B.C. This is a new culture significantly different from Stratum V.
Belonging to Stratum IV, Amiram found a sherd with the name of Narmer (First Dynasty of Egypt) … and she dates Stratum IV to the early part of the Egyptian Dynasty I and the later part of Canaan EB I. Amiram feels forced to conclude a chronological gap between Stratum V (Chalcolithic) at Arad and Stratum IV EB I at Arad. …. However, this is based on the assumption of time periods on the accepted scale of Canaan's history, long time periods which are here rejected.
The chronological conclusion is strong that Abraham's life-time corresponds to the Chalcolithic in Egypt, through at least a portion of Dynasty 1 in Egypt, which equals Ghassul IV through to EB I Palestine. The possibilities for the Egyptian king in the Abrahamic narrative are therefore:
1. A late northern Chalcolithic king of Egypt, or
2. Menes or Narmer, be they separate or the same king (Genesis 12:10-20).
Of these, the chronological scheme would favour a late Chalcolithic (Gerzean) king of northern Egypt, just before the unification under Menes.
Thus the Egyptian Dynastic period would start approximately 1860 B.C. Clearly, if this were the case, by this scheme the Philistines were in Canaan already, and must therefore have at least begun their migration in the late Chalcolithic of Egypt and Palestine.
Therefore, we need to look in southwest Canaan for evidence of Egyptian (cum Philistine) migration, beginning in the late Chalcolithic and possibly reaching into EB I (depending on the cause and rapidity of migration), in order to define the earliest Philistine settlement of Canaan from Egyptian stock. Is there such evidence? The answer is a clear and categorical YES.
Amiram, Beit-Ariah and Glass … discussed the same period in relationship between Canaan and Egypt. So did Oren. ….
Of the period Oren says:
"Canaanite Early Bronze I-II and Egyptian late pre-Dynastic and early Dynastic periods". …. He says of the findings in Canaan:
"The majority of Egyptian vessels belong to the First Dynasty repertoire while a few sherds can be assigned with certainty to the late pre-Dynastic period." (emphasis mine) …. He continues:
"The occurrence of Egyptian material which is not later than the First Dynasty alongside EB A I-II pottery types has been noted in surface collections and especially in controlled excavations in southern Canaan. This indicates that the appearance and distinction of the material of First Dynasty in northern Sinai and southern Canaan should be viewed as one related historical phenomenon." (emphasis mine) ….
The area surveyed was between Suez and Wadi El-Arish. EB I-II had intensive settlement in this area.
He continues further:
"Furthermore, the wide distribution of Egyptian material and the somewhat permanent nature of the sites in Sinai and southern Canaan can no longer be viewed as the results of trade relations only. In all likelihood Egypt used northern Sinai as a springboard for forcing her way into Canaan with the result that all of southern Canaan became an Egyptian domain and its resources were exploited on a large scale." (emphasis mine) ….
And again:
"The contacts which began in pre-Dynastic, times, were most intensive during the First Dynasty Period ….
Ram Gopha … is bolder about this event or phenomenon, insisting on it being a migration:
"Today we seem to be justified in assuming some kind of immigration of people from Egypt to southern Canaan. . ." ….
Further:
"...the Egyptian migration during the First Dynasty period may be seen as an intensification of previously existing relationships between the two countries. These relations had already begun in the Ghassulian Chalcolithic period but reached sizable proportions only in the Late Pre-Dynastic period" (first phases of Palestinian EB 1). (emphasis mine) ….
[My comment] What this could mean in my context is that, after the defeat of the Mesopotamian collation, which had controlled Palestine, the Casluhim-ites, th brother Lehabim-ites (Abimelech) moved into the vacuum. Or, as Oren says: “In all likelihood Egypt used northern Sinai as a springboard for forcing her way into Canaan with the result that all of southern Canaan became an Egyptian domain and its resources were exploited on a large scale."
Osgood continues:
The testimony is clear. Excavation at Tel Areini identifies such an Egyptian migration and settlement starting in the Chalcolithic period. …. There was definitely a migration of Egyptian people of some sort from northern Egypt into southern Palestine, and particularly the region that was later known as Philistia." ….
The testimony of Scripture is clear that there were Philistines who came from Egypt into Palestine in the days of Abraham. This revised chronology identifies such a migration in the days of the Ghassulians, who I insist, perished during the early days of Abraham's sojourn in Canaan. This period must then be grossly redated in accordance with biblical expectations, instead of evolutionary assumptions.
Osgood concludes this wonderful paper with the following (p. 87):
SUMMARY
In summary, Abraham entered the land of Canaan at approximately 1875 B.C.. In his days there was a settlement of Amorites in En-gedi, identified here with the Ghassul IV people. This civilization was ended by the attack of four Mesopotamian monarchs in a combined confederation of nations, here placed in the Uruk-Jemdat Nasr period in Mesopotamia. They were a significant force in ending the Chalcolithic of Palestine as we understand it archaeologically, and Abraham and his army were a significant force in ending the Jemdat Nasr domination of Mesopotamia, and thus the Chalcolithic of Mesopotamia, by their attack on these four Mesopotamian monarchs as they were returning home. Egypt was just about to enter its great dynastic period, and was beginning to consolidate into a united kingdom, when from northern Egypt a surge of Egyptian stock, including the Philistines, moved north into southern Palestine to settle, as well as to trade, identified in a number sites in that region (most notably in the strata of Tel Areini, Level VI then V) as the Philistines with who Abraham was able to talk face to face. The biblical narrative demands a redating of the whole of ancient history, as currently recognised, by something like a one thousand year shortening - a formidable claim and a formidable investigation, but one that must undertaken.
AMAIC, Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception, Egypt conventional chronology revised chronology, Dr John Osgood Times Abraham Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Ruth Amiram S Yeivin En-geddi Beersheba Pessah Bar-Adon

[1] Peoples of the Sea, ch. II: “Persians and Greeks Invade Egypt”.

Sargon II and Sennacherib Need to be Merged as One

Dear Norman

Do you realise that (if I have read you properly) you have Sennacherib's beginnings (as co-regent) at the beginning of the reign of Sargon II, who recorded: "At the beginning of my royal rule, I... the town of the Samaritans I besieged, conquered. ... for the god ... who let me achieve this my triumph ... I led away as prisoners 27,290 inhabitants of it and equipped from among them soldiers to man 50 chariots of my royal corps ..."?

Now, given that I was able to align Sennacherib's campaigns in perfect order against Sargon's regnal year wars, then why not conclude the obvious: that Sennacherib was Sargon II?

My best regards
Damien Mackey.
I wrote this in response to Norman's article,

A Fresh Look at The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.doc
747K View as HTML Scan and download

The Hebrew Bible as an Inspiration for Mainstream Greek Philosophy

Answer to Matthew Buckley
on the Origins of Plato

To re-introduce this topic as discussed in the previous MATRIX, we commence with this further comment by Matthew Buckley, this time querying the AMAIC’s view that so-called ‘Greek philosophy’ was actually of Semitic (biblical) origins:

…. I have not had much of an introduction before to your other theses on the identities of various historical personages. I must admit to being somewhat sceptical of the Plato [as based on the prophet Daniel] theory. I think you would need more than a few parallelisms to make such a case. I think the historical evidence would be in favor of the fact that Plato and Aristotle were living breathing Greeks, the latter being Alexander’s tutor in Macedonia ....

Matthew.
(His e-mail of 25 March 2010)

This article is the follow-up to our recent MATRIX article,
Church Fathers Were Right About Jewish Origins of Greek Philosophy,
about which we had intended to write more, anyway, but now the project has been given a prod, and a more definite focal point, thanks to Matthew’s comment above. Here we intend, after a brief recall of the Patristic witness in favour of our thesis - now to include the testimony of St. Justin Martyr - to provide, as Matthew has asked, some Platonic “parallelisms” with the prophet Daniel.

THE HEBREW BIBLE AS AN INSPIRATION
FOR MAINSTREAM GREEK PHILOSOPHY



An AMAIC Paper for
Consideration and Discussion

“The belief that the philosophers of Greece, including Plato and Aristotle, plagiarized certain of their teaching from Moses and the Hebrew prophets is an argument used by Christian Apologists of Gentile background who lived in the first four centuries of Christians”.

Introduction

As we have recalled on prior occasions, our P.J. Wiseman-based interpretation of Genesis 1 had absolutely no effect on Catholic readers (apart from a few colleagues) until we had added the testimony of such Catholic ‘heavies’ as Sts. Augustine, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, that seemed to allow for the interpretation of the ancient document as a revelation of a creation already effected. Indeed, Wiseman himself had quoted St. Augustine in favour of this particular view of his. Now, with our proposed reconstruction of the history of philosophy as having Semitic, not Greek origins, we have endeavoured right from the start this time to employ the testimony of the Fathers, Sts. Clement, Ambrose and Augustine, once again, as a support. Thus, as in the case of Genesis 1, what we are proposing is not actually a novelty, but rather, as in the words of P.J. Wiseman, “… to restore a common-place truth to its first uncommon lustre”. The Fathers though, as we previously suggested, were not able to nail their original intuition because of the chronological uncertainties of their time.
In our previous MATRIX article we had supported St. Clement of Alexandria’s view that Plato’s writings had taken their inspiration from the Hebrew writing of Moses, and St. Ambrose’s belief that Plato had learned from the prophet Jeremiah in Egypt; a belief that was initially taken up by St. Augustine, who added that Greek philosophy generally derived from the Jewish Scriptures.
And, although St. Augustine later retracted his acceptance of St. Ambrose’s view, realising that it was chronologically impossible for Jeremiah (c. 600 BC) to have met Plato anywhere, considering the c. 400 BC date customarily assigned to Plato, we had, on the other hand, looked to turn this around by challenging the conventional dates, and by proposing an identification of the original Plato as Baruch, an Israelite, the young priest-scribe contemporaneous with Jeremiah. This reconstruction, if legitimate, has enabled us to take the testimony of the Fathers a positive step further. From the Book of Jeremiah we had learned that Jeremiah and Baruch went together to Egypt. But we then enlarged the person of (i) Baruch (just as we had done with his old colleague, Jeremiah) by adding to him the alter egos also of (ii) young Elihu from the Book of Job (Job being Jeremiah, we say), and also (iii) the great prophet Daniel.
The obscure name ‘Plato’, we had suggested, had arisen from an element in Daniel’s given name in Babylonian captivity, Balatu (i.e. the first element in the name Belte-shazzar). [In this article we are going to add further to our (i-iii), (iv) Ezekiel].
The fairly brief partnership between the aged Jeremiah and the young Baruch we had claimed to have been the original matrix for the similarly famous, but brief, association of Socrates with Plato. The scribal work of Baruch, and his unfailing support of his old mentor (i.e. once he, as Elihu, had swung around from his former criticism) during Jeremiah’s trial, imprisonment and virtual martyrdom, was the foundation, we had argued, for some of the most famous written recordings by Plato (once he had experienced metanoia) of the life of Socrates, his imprisonment, trial and martyrdom. Again, much of Plato’s most famous work, the Republic, with its themes of justice and righteousness, arose, we had suggested, from the intense dialogues of the Book of Job {and the Book of Jeremiah} of identical themes, to which Elihu (Baruch) had paid the closest attention - and who, being a skilled scribe, might easily therefore have recorded all of the dialogues found in the Book of Job.
Since then we have learned that St. Justin Martyr had, even earlier than the above-mentioned Church Fathers, espoused this view of the Greek philosophers borrowing from the biblical Hebrews. And Justin Martyr too had, like Plato, written an Apology, in Justin’s case also apparently (like Plato) in regard to a martyrdom. Thus we read (http://beityahuwah.blogspot.com/2005/08/plato-stole-his-ideas-from-):

Plato Stole his ideas from Moses: True or False ….

The belief that the philosophers of Greece, including Plato and Aristotle, plagiarized certain of their teaching from Moses and the Hebrew prophets is an argument used by Christian Apologists of Gentile background who lived in the first four centuries of Christians.

According to St. Justin Martyr, an important second century AD Christian apologist:

“... Moses is more ancient than all the Greek writers. And whatever both philosophers and poets have said concerning the immortality of the soul, or punishments after death, or contemplation of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind, they have received such suggestions from the prophets as have enabled them to understand and interpret these things. And hence there seem to be seeds of truth among all men; but they are charged with not accurately understanding [the truth] when they assert contradictories. …”.

[St. Justin] appears to be making the claim that Plato who has “exerted a greater influence over human thought than any other individual with the possible exception of Aristotle” (Demos, 1927.vi} was dependent for his understanding of freewill and responsibility on Moses. The saying "the blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless .... {Joann. Mdcccxlii,224}" was taken from Moses by Plato and uttered it ...".

[End of quote]

This is all quite the opposite of what our western education has told us. For let us now read of the type of indoctrination according to which we have been ‘educated’, that gives all the credit to the Greeks. Alistair Sinclair, in his book What is Philosophy? An Introduction (Dunedin Academic Press Ltd., 2008), has regurgitated the typically Western-biased view of the origins of philosophy so familiar to us:

P. 15 Philosophy as a western phenomenon

The great philosophers were all western philosophers because philosophy developed as a distinct subject in ancient Greek culture. The word ‘philosophy’ was popularized by Pythagoras but it was Plato who delineated the role of the philosopher and distinguished it from the role of the sophist.

…. Philosophy is essentially a western phenomenon because of the individualistic nature of the great philosophers. Each of them is one of a kind. Eastern thinkers in contrast tended to be more embedded in the prevailing religion and culture in which they had lived. They were more like cult figures than individualists obstinately ploughing their own fields.

Moreover, classical Greek philosophy in particular applied reason to the material world in a way that is not found in the speculative systems of India, the mysticism of Taoism, or the gentlemanly precepts of Confucianism. The ancient Greeks believed that reason was an essential feature of human beings and not just the prerogative of philosophers. It was fashionable among the Greeks to be lovers of truth who were possessed with a passion for knowledge of all kinds. Otherwise, they would have had no lasting interest in philosophers or their offerings. Such singlemindedness in the pursuit of philosophy has been a particular characteristic of western culture. It was not found anywhere else in the world until recent times. ....

P. 22 Pythagoras (c. 570-500 BCE)

The name of Pythagoras outshines that of any other early Greek philosophers, and rightly so since the whole science of mathematics originates in his work and that of his successors. He was reputedly born on Samos and his interest in mathematics may have been stimulated by early visits to Babylonia and Egypt ....
Certainly he brought to the study of mathematics something of an oriental adoration.

P. 33

‘The European philosophical traditions consist of a series of footnotes to Plato’ ... so said [Professor] A.N. Whitehead.
[End of quotes]

So much propaganda in the space of so few pages! We submit, however, that virtually none of this is true. That the whole received history of ancient philosophy needs to be re-written along the lines that the Church Fathers had glimpsed, as having originated from the Hebrews. Upon Thales, one of the so-called ‘seven sages of antiquity’, is bestowed the honorific title, “First Philosopher”. He, supposedly an Ionian Greek, that is, from western Asia, was actually, as we have argued elsewhere, the great biblical Patriarch Joseph, distorted by Greek legends. The name ‘Thales’ is likely a corruption of Joseph’s name in Egypt, Ptah-(hotep), the wise and legendary Old Kingdom scribe who, like Joseph, lived to be 110. He is also the genius, Imhotep, builder of the famous Step Pyramid of Saqqara: what we have considered to be a material icon of his father Jacob’s dream of a staircase unto heaven (Genesis 28:12).
Mark Glouberman has ironically, in “Jacob’s Ladder. Personality and Autonomy in the Hebrew Scriptures”, exalted the supposed rational triumph of the ‘Greek’ Thales, “Western rationality’s trademark mastery over the natural world”, over the “earlier [religious] mode of thought” of the Hebrews. “...Thales forecast the bumper crop by observing climatic regularities, not by interpreting dreams of lean kine and fat, nor by deciphering the writing on the wall ...”. Glouberman calls this a “Hellenic Götterdämmerung” (Mentalities/Mentalités, 13, 1-2, 1998, p. 9).
Contrary to all this, we submit that the earliest philosophers, or ‘lovers of wisdom’, were the Proverb-makers of Biblical (and perhaps Egyptian and Babylonian) lore. Thus Sinclair gets closer to the point when he concedes that Pythagoras may have been intellectually stimulated “by early visits to Babylonia and Egypt” and his bringing “to the study of mathematics something of an oriental adoration”. In fact the mystical Pythagoras makes a strange kind of rational Greek, we think. His name, too, like that of Thales, betrays its having originally been Egyptian, again based on the theophoric, Ptah. (We suggest something like Ptah-udjahorres for Pythagoras). Whereas Thales was allegedly the first philosopher, Pythagoras is said to have been the first user of the word, “philosophy”. But we should now (contrary to our previous estimate) distinguish Thales and Pythagoras as being two separate philosophers, respectively, Joseph and Baruch/Daniel (hence the connections with “Babylonia and Egypt”). This latter prophet of Israel was so great a man in fact that two famous philosophers have had to be created by the Greeks to accommodate him, namely:

(i) Pythagoras, for his fame and activities in Egypt (as Baruch, or Ptah-udjahorres), and
(ii) Plato, basically for his fame and activities in Babylonia (as Daniel, or Balatu).

Having said all this, we are now ready to draw those “parallelisms” for which Matthew Buckley has asked between Plato and key images of the Book of Daniel. Here we intend, prompted by Matthew Buckley, to take some of the most picturesque and famous images from the Book of Daniel and see if we can find an echo of these in the life and writings of Plato. Given the amount of filtering of the original Daniel - as we would anticipate that there was at least a double filtering, firstly from the Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaïc) recording of him through Mesopotamia (Babylon), then, secondly, from Mesopotamia through Greece - then we could no longer expect the highly processed and much re-worked sage to be a perfect reflection of Daniel. But we might expect, nonetheless, to find a pale but yet discernible image of this Daniel in Plato. The four items that we have selected for comparison with Plato are:

· King Nebuchednezzar’s Statue of Four Diverse Metals representing kingdoms (Daniel 2);
· King Belshazzar and the ‘Writing on the Wall’ (Daniel 5);
· Daniel’s Vision of the Four Beasts (Daniel 7).
· The Messianic Prophecy (Daniel 9).

Once we have briefly considered these, we shall pass on to a few other famous ones associated with Ezekiel, one of Daniel’s proposed alter egos. These latter we dealt with in a fair amount of detail in an article on which our MATRIX one was based, The Platonic Elihu Of The Book Of Job (read at: http://bookofdaniel.blog.com/ or at http://westerncivilisationamaic.blogspot.com/).

Image One: King Nebuchednezzar’s Statue of Four Diverse Metals

Daniel, like Joseph in Egypt, was an interpreter of dreams (another Platonic feature). But, whereas the seemingly benign Pharaoh had actually told Joseph of what his dreams had consisted, King Nebuchednezzar had demanded that his wise men both recall the Dream and then interpret it: a seemingly impossible task, and one well beyond the powers of the Chaldean sages. But Daniel was up to it (Daniel 2:31-33): ‘You were looking, O king, and lo! there was a great statue, its brilliance extraordinary; it was standing before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of that statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. …’.
Such was the Dream. Daniel then interpreted it for the king as representing successive kingdoms, with Nebuchednezzar’s present Chaldean kingdom being the head of gold.

Similarly Plato, but in far less dramatic circumstances once again, proposes this very same sequence of metals; but he applies them to classes of men, not kingdoms. Plato does not actually call this a Dream, but “a fairy story like those the poets tell about”. Here is how it goes (The Republic, Bk. 3, 415):

‘You are, all of you in this land, brothers. But when God fashioned you, he added gold in the composition of those of you who are qualified to be Rulers (which is why their prestige is the greatest); he put silver in the Auxiliaries, and iron and bronze in the farmers and the rest. Now since you are all of the same stock, though children will commonly resemble their parents, occasionally a silver child will be born of golden parents, or a golden child of silver parents, and so on. Therefore the first and most important of God’s commandments to the Rulers is that they must exercise the function as Guardians with particular care in watching the mixture of metals in the characters of their children. If one of their own children has bronze or iron in its make-up, they must harden their hearts, and degrade it to the ranks of the industrial and agricultural class where it properly belongs: similarly, if a child of this class is born with gold or silver in its nature, they will promote it appropriately to be a Guardian or an Auxiliary. For they know that there is a prophecy that the State will be ruined when it has Guardians of silver or bronze’.
[End of quote]

A somewhat counterfeit western version of a sparkling golden semitic original!
Surely King Nebuchednezzar himself was being entirely ‘Platonic’ in his command for the selection of the ‘golden boys’ of Israelite youth for education towards their holding a position in the king’s court! Similarly, too (cf. use of “promote” and “degrade” in Plato above), Nebuchednezzar “honoured those he wanted to honour, and degraded those he wanted to degrade” (Daniel 5:19).
Note, too, the “prophecy” in Plato above (Nebuchednezzar’s Dream entailed a prophecy of future history) that “the State” - currently the golden head - can “be ruined” by the “silver” and “bronze” entities.
Image Two: King Belshazzar and the ‘Writing on the Wall’
Now we think that the evil Chaldean king, Belshazzar, might find echo in the person of Meno, in Plato’s Meno. He is not a king there, but a man of some power, nonetheless, a friend of the ruling family of Thessaly, and he has connections interestingly with the king of Persia (read Media?). W. Guthrie tells of Meno as follows (Plato. Protagoras and Meno, Penguin, 1968, pp. 101-102):

… The character of Meno, as a wealthy, handsome and imperious young aristocrat, visiting Athens from his native Thessaly, is well brought out in the dialogue itself. He is a friend of Aristippus, the head of the Aleuadae who were the ruling family in Thessaly, and his own family are xenoi (hereditary guest-friends) of the Persian king .... He knows the famous Sophist and rhetorician Gorgias .... From Gorgias he has acquired a taste for the intellectual questions of the day, as seen through the eyes of the Sophists, whose trick question about the impossibility of knowledge comes readily to his lips. Xenophon tells of his career as one of the Greek mercenaries of Cyrus and gives him a bad character, describing him as greedy, power-loving, and incapable of understanding the meaning of friendship. .... There were rumours that Meno entered into treacherous relations with the Great King [of Persia], but he appears to have been finally put to death by him after the failure of the expedition, though possibly later than his fellow-prisoners.

[End of quote]

‘Bad character’, ‘greedy’, ‘power-loving’ ‘unloyal friend’, ‘connected with a Persian (Median) king’, but then ‘slain and replaced by the king of the Persians (Medes)’, all of this fits perfectly the wicked King Belshazzar and his replacement, violently, by Darius the Mede (see Daniel 5:30-31). Belshazzar’s greed and his love of power and flattery are clearly manifest in the biblical description of his great feast; one of the most celebrated feasts in history and in the Old Testament (Daniel 5:1-4).
Obviously Meno could not match the same sort of opulence and grandeur as we read of in Belshazzar’s Feast; but Socrates does say of Meno – and this is immediately before Socrates begins to write in the sand: “I see that you have a large number of retainers here” (Meno, 82).
We can gain some impression of King Belshazzar’s own treacherous nature from Daniel’s pointed address to him (vv. 18-23). Daniel would on this occasion have had the full attention of the whole company since these words of his were spoken just after King Belshazzar and his court had witnessed the terrifying apparition of the Writing on the Wall whilst in the midst of their blasphemous celebration. Here is the description of it - and does it have a resonance anywhere in Plato’s Meno? (vv. 5-9):

[As they were drinking the wine and praising their gods]:
Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote. Then the king’s face turned pale, and his thoughts terrified him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the diviners; and the king said to the wise men of Babylon, ‘Whoever can read this writing and tell me its interpretation shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around his neck, and rank third in the kingdom’. Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar became greatly terrified and his face turned pale, and his lords were perplexed. ....
[End of quote]

This fascinating life and death encounter we think inspired the whole drama of the (albeit pale by comparison) Meno. Instead of the miraculous Writing on the Wall of the Chaldean king’s palace, though, we get Socrates’ writing in the sand. Instead of the words that name weights and measures, indicating the overthrow of a great kingdom, we get a detailed lesson in geometry. Instead of the stunned and terrified Chaldean king, we get Meno, who tends to be similarly passive in the face of the Socratic lesson. Instead of the exile, Daniel, we get Meno’s slave boy seemingly providing a confirmation of the matter, under the skilful prompting of Socrates.
Now Meno, supposedly focussing on the subject of virtue, tells of what he knows of Socrates’ enigmatic reputation, and it, too, like Daniel’s, has connection with “magic” (see quote above & 4:9), and Meno himself feels numb and weak, just like Belshazzar, so lacking in virtue (or moral goodness as in Plato’s version) (Meno, 80):

Meno. Socrates, even before I met you they told me that in plain truth you are a perplexed man yourself and reduce others to perplexity. At this moment I feel that you are exercising magic and witchcraft upon me and positively laying me under your spell until I am just a mass of helplessness. If I may be flippant, I think that not only in outward appearance but in other respects as well you are exactly like the flat sting-ray .... Whenever anyone comes into contact with it, it numbs him, and that is the sort of thing that you seem to be doing to me now. My mind and my lips are literally numb, and I have nothing to reply to you. Yet I have spoken about virtue hundreds of times, held forth often on the subject in front of large audiences, and very well too, or so I thought. Now I can’t even say what it is. In my opinion you are well advised not to leave Athens and live abroad. If you behave like this as a foreigner in another country, you would most likely be arrested as a wizard.

Socrates. You’re a real rascal, Meno.
[End of quote]

On the occasion of Socrates’ writing in the sand, which we think must have originated from the Writing on the Wall in the Book of Daniel, we have as the audience, Meno (whom we are equating with King Belshazzar), and his “large number of retainers” (Belshazzar’s large court), and the writing about to be effected due to a query from Meno. And, in a sense to interpret it, we get, not Daniel a former exiled slave, but Meno’s own slave boy, a foreigner (like Daniel) who however speaks the native language (like Daniel). The issue has become the immortality of the soul and whether it pre-exists the body, as manifest in someone’s being able to recall knowledge. Socrates will attempt to demonstrate this supposed pre-knowledge using the young slave boy – but perhaps this, too, is built upon Daniel’s God-given ability to arrive at an entirely new knowledge without any human instruction (as in the case of his recalling of Nebuchednezzar’s Dream).
Such apparently is how the life and death biblical account becomes gentlemanly and tamed, and indeed trivialised, in the Greek version! Daniel is not a passive slave, like the boy, supposedly recalling pre-existent knowledge, but an Israelite sage, a sure Oracle to kings under the inspiration of the holy Spirit of God. This all gives the lie to Alistair Sinclair’s view of the “individualistic nature of the great philosophers”, presumably Greeks. “Each of them is one of a kind”, as opposed to the - as he thinks - rather bland and conformist Hebrews.
The Writing on the Wall contains, like Socrates’ writing in the sand, division, and measure, but adds weighing. There is nothing Protagorean or Sophistic here. God, not man, is indeed the measure of kings and kingdoms according to the biblical account (vv. 24-28):

‘So from [God’s] presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed: Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: Mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; Tekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; and Peres [the singular of Parsin], your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians’.
[End of quote]

Fr. L. Hartman (C.SS.R), commenting on “Daniel” for The Jerome Biblical Commentary (26:22), connects the Mene (or half of it) to King Belshazzar (upon whom we are arguing this Meno was based).
We can take this further in our context and propose that even the very name, Meno, has arisen from the Mene of the biblical Writing on the Wall.
Image Three: Daniel’s Vision of the Four Beasts

The scribal Daniel tells of the Dream (his own) that he wrote down (Daniel 7:1-4):

In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream and visions of his head as he lay in bed. Then he wrote down the dream: I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then, as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being. ….
[End of quote]

Needless to say these beasts are up to no good.
Now Plato seems to have absorbed these same composite beasts, and lion-man image, and located them in his ‘imperfect societies’ (Republic, Bk. 9, 588). Thus:

‘Let us show him what his assertion really implies, by comparing the human personality to one of those composite beasts in the old myths, Chimaera and Scylla and Cerberus and all the rest’.
‘I know the stories’.
‘Imagine a very complicated, many-headed sort of beast, with heads of wild and tame animals all around it, which it can produce and change at will’.
‘Quite a feat of modelling’, he replied; ‘but fortunately it’s easier to imagine than it would be to make’.
‘Imagine next a lion, and next a man. And let the many-headed creature be by far the largest, and the lion the next largest’.
‘That’s rather easier to imagine’. ….
[End of quote]

Image Four: The Messianic Prophecy

We simply need to recall here what Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote (as previously quoted in the September 2009 MATRIX), but we would correct the typical view that the sages to whom he refers were “Greeks”. Fulton Sheen had written: “Even the Greeks were in on the coming of Christ too. The play write and soldier Aeschylus, who lived some 500 years before Christ, wrote in his Prometheus, “Look not for any end, moreover, to this curse until God appears, to accept upon His Head the pangs of thy own sins vicarious.” And Plato and Socrates spoke of the Logos and of the Universal Wise Man “yet to come”.”

That is the end of our four comparisons between Daniel and Plato. We have already argued that Jeremiah and Daniel (both enlarged) were the original Socrates and Plato. But who, then, was the original Aeschylus, who here is credited with having, like Daniel, a half a millennium-long-range awareness of the coming of Christ?
The name ‘Aeschyl-us’, is, we suggest, a Greek attempt to render the Hebrew name, Ezechiel (Ezekiel). And thus here we are advancing the view that Daniel - whom we have argued previously was actually a priest - was also the same person as Ezekiel, a priest contemporary of Daniel’s. But if we now make this connection of Daniel with Ezekiel (with Aeschylus, the “Father of Tragedy”), then we can add (only briefly here) some other very startling comparisons between the Bible and Plato. The obvious one is the already-mentioned long-range Messianic prophecy. But we can also now include a comparison between Ezekiel’s famous vision of the Glory of God and the wheels within wheels (3:12-21) with Plato’s famous description of the Spindle of Necessity in his “Myth of Er” (The Republic, Bk. 10, 615). See our Plato’s Usage of Key Images From Daniel.
Again, commentators have noted many points of likeness between Plato’s account of Atlantis, in his Timaeus, and Ezekiel’s description of the coastal city of Tyre (26-28). E.g. (http://atlantissolved.com/identityevidence.cfm); and they have also compared the mathematics of Plato and Ezekiel, e.g. http://www.ernestmcclain.net/

And we are quite confident that there will emerge many more comparisons between Plato and our composite prophet of Israel (which includes the person of Mordecai, by the way).

Answer to a Reader on Times of Abraham

A quick question as well. Do you have any comment regarding whether there is an archaeological evidence perhaps by way of reference etc to Abraham being in Egypt?

Abraham has proved to be particularly elusive, perhaps because he was nomadic, which does not lend itself to history/archaeology in the way that, e.g., Joseph would, having been an integral part of an impressive Egyptian civilisation for so many years. Abraham is often thought to have belonged to the nomadic Middle Bronze I (MBI) people. Bad move. These were the Israelites exodusing out of Egypt into Palestine.So Abraham must precede MBI. Dr. John Osgood of Creation Ex Nihilo (now Answers in Genesis) has done perhaps the best digging deep work on Abraham, “Life and Times of Abraham”. Osgood would locate him in early Early Bronze. But one of Osgood’s key finds is that the 4 Mesopotamian kings who attacked En-geddi at the time of Abraham had to have attacked Chalcolithic En-geddi (Genesis 14), as the only other two major settlements there were Roman and Byzantine – obviously far too late for Abraham. There must then be some overlap between the Stone Ages and the Archaeological Ages. So that is one clincher, Chalcolithic Palestine for Abraham. David Rohl and I, quite independently, arrived at two same conclusions for Abraham. That the four Mesopotamian kings, Amraphel and co., belonged to the Ur III Dynasty. And that Abraham’s (rather Abram’s) pharaoh was the 10th dynasty’s Khety III/IV Nebkaure. Since we both concluded the same on a very difficult matter, I thought it must be right. Well, Khety still may be (10th dynasty for Abram may fit nicely with my placement of Joseph during the 11th dynasty, which I also parallel with the 1st and 3rd dynasties), but I no longer accept Abram alongside Ur III, with Amraphel as Ur III’s Amar-Sin (despite Rohl’s very good linguistic analysis of this). Ur III I now think was much later than Abram. At the time of David and Solomon. Amraphel has often been identified with the great Hammurabi. There is definitely a name likeness, but the era is way out according to my research. Ironically, I think that the name Hammurabi may equate to Abraham, but was worn by Solomon (as ruler of Babylon), I argue, not Abraham. I am now wondering if Amraphel could prhaps be the great Nimrod himself, whom Rohl has well identified with Enmerkar of the Uruk I dynasty. This is one of the strongest theses, I think, of Rohl’s, who is always very good and interesting, but still often misses the precise target. He is particularly adept at pointing out the problems of the conventional history and archaeology, the deconstuction work. But today we need good constructors. As to the person of Abra(ha)m himself, I still have no idea; though we can claim to have found Joseph and Moses, David and Solomon, etc.But we’ll get him eventually. Basically, Abraham has to belong to the late Stone Ages/pre- to early dynastic, Early Bronze.

A Useful Article on Biblical Archaeology

Apologetics Press :: Scripturally Speaking





Dating in Archaeology: Challenges to Biblical Credibility
by Garry K. Brantley, M.A., M.Div.




[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series on “Dating in Archaeology.” Part I is titled “Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon and Tree-Ring Dating.”]



“Biblical historical data are accurate to an extent far surpassing the ideas of any modern critical students, who have consistently tended to err on the side of hypercriticism” (1949, Albright, p. 229).

“Archaeologists now generally agree that their discoveries...have produced a new consensus about the formation of ancient Israel that contradicts significant parts of the biblical version” (Strauss, 1988).

These statements represent the conflicting messages that characterize the field of archaeology. In Albright’s era, archaeologists’ interpretations of field excavations ordinarily corroborated biblical information. It was common for prominent archaeologists such as Nelson Glueck to confidently affirm: “...no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference” (1959, p. 31).

Prior to the 1970s, interpretations of archaeological explorations generally heightened the Bible’s credibility (Davis, 1993, 19[2]:54-59). Since then, however, the amiable relationship between archaeology and the Bible has deteriorated dramatically. It is commonplace for the new generation of archaeologists to spurn the historical credibility of the biblical narrative (see Dever, 1990, 16[3]:52-62).

Archaeology, therefore, presents a challenge to those who contend for the integrity of the Scriptures. How are we to respond? On what basis do many archaeologists repudiate the historicity of the biblical text, and how reliable are their methods? To answer these and other questions we must have a basic understanding of the science of archaeology.



A “MOUND” OF EVIDENCE



An archaeologist is not a modern “Indiana Jones” searching for exotic treasures in booby-trapped caverns. His expeditions are carefully-planned pursuits, including a highly-trained staff of scientists from various disciplines.

Though much surface exploration occurs, we often associate archaeology with excavation. Most excavations involve a “tell,” which is the Arabic word for “mound.” More descriptively, the word traces back to the Babylonian tillu, which meant “ruin heap” (Albright, 1949, p. 18). Similar to the Indian mounds of North America, tells are artificial hills composed of the cultural remains (e.g., pottery, tools, weapons, statues) from different settlements on the same site.

Stratification—the Making of a Tell

The cross section of a tell resembles a layer cake, with each layer representing an occupational level. These mounds were not formed merely by the natural drifting of sands, or by the gradual accumulation of debris. Though these were factors, catastrophes such as war, fire, or earthquake destroyed a settlement. Then, new settlers leveled the ground, and rebuilt on the same site. The layer of debris from the previous city formed a stratum, which generally measured from about one to five feet thick (Free, 1969, pp. 6-7). This caused the ground level of the new settlement to be several feet higher than the previous one. Also, the cultural remnants of the older settlement lay underneath the new.

Over the years, this process was repeated until several successive strata were formed, and the mound rose higher. As the height of the mound rose, the occupational area generally decreased (though sometimes the reverse occurred; Albright, 1949, p. 17). When the site was finally abandoned, wind and rain leveled the top and eroded the sides, until a city wall or other structure halted the erosion process. The shape of these mounds resembles a truncated cone (see Unger, 1954, pp. 19-21). Most important biblical sites have this characteristic form, which trained archaeologists readily recognize.

Excavation and Dating

Once a tell has been identified, then comes the arduous and fastidious task of excavation. There is more to excavating one of these mounds than merely removing each successive occupational layer, since artifacts from one stratum can intrude into another level. Archaeologists, therefore, have developed methods that help them identify artifacts with their proper stratum (see Kenyon, 1957a, pp. 75-80; LaSor, 1979, 1:237-240). These methods also assist them in developing a sequential chronology of the tell, since artifacts from the top layer represent the most recent civilization and the bottom layer represents the oldest. But how do they assign specific dates to these levels?

Often, and especially for ancient dates, radiocarbon and dendrochronology (i.e., tree-ring dating) are employed, whose deficiencies have been well-documented (see Major, 1993). For more recent dates, archaeologists generally rely on a sophisticated dating system based upon pottery, which is used extensively in Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Sir Flinders Petrie (1853-1942), the famed Egyptologist, first introduced this method, and William Albright, the distinguished American archaeologist, refined it further. Pottery serves well for dating purposes for at least two reasons: (1) it was relatively inexpensive, and thus plentiful; and (2) pottery styles underwent frequent changes (see LaSor, 1979, 1:241-242; Laughlin, 1992; Wood, 1988). This system associates the marked changes of pottery styles with different archaeological ages (see Figure 1).

From Paleolithic to Ottoman Period

Figure 1: Cross section through an idealized tell showing pottery types, and successive layers of settlement from ancient to modern times. The evolutionary-based archaeological timescale on the right comes from Silberman (1989).

How do pottery types date the strata from which they are unearthed? Suppose workers discover a cooking pot with relatively straight sides, a row of holes just below the rim, and a rope decoration below the holes. According to pottery typology, this kind of vessel was dominant in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000-1500 B.C.; Laughlin, 1992, 18[5]:73). Thus, if a sufficient amount of such vessels is found in a level of a tell, an archaeologist will date the stratum between the years 2000-1500 B.C.



ARCHAEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY



This pottery-based dating scheme has proved to be helpful in assigning general dates to occupational levels of a mound. Further, the dates determined by this scheme often coincide with biblical chronology. For instance, excavators at Shiloh have dated a destruction level on that site at 1050 B.C., which corresponds with the battle of Ebenezer recorded in 1 Samuel 4 (cf. Jeremiah 7:12; Albright, 1949, p. 228). Such finds (and there are many) confirm the historical data of the biblical text. However, archaeologists’ interpretations based upon this dating scheme often conflict with biblical chronology. Consider two examples.



The Age of the Earth



First, there is a discrepancy between the archaeological and biblical estimations of the Earth’s age. The chronologies supplied with the genealogies from Adam to Abraham prohibit the Earth from being as old as the archaeological timescale indicates. While it is true that genealogical rec~ords occasionally may contain gaps, this does not negate the force of the chronologies attached to them. If Seth were, for example, a distant relative of Adam, nevertheless, Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born (Genesis 5:3). We cannot dismiss a priori biblical chronology simply by assuming genealogical gaps.

The archaeological timescale indicates a Paleolithic era which dates back to 700,000 years ago. Further, archaeologists generally recognize a Neolithic settlement at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) which dates to about 8000 B.C. (Wood, 1990, 16[2]:45). Since the Flood would have destroyed any orderly remains of antediluvian civilizations, the remnants of ancient societies preserved in mounds (as those at Jericho) most likely accumulated after the Flood (Vaninger, 1985a, 20:34). Such a timetable forces the Creation back several thousand more years than allowed by biblical chronology.

Conquest of Canaan

Second, biblical and archaeological dates of some historical events are in conflict. A classic example of this chronological tension is the conquest of Canaan. The Bible indicates that 480 years transpired between the exodus and the fourth year of Solomon’s reign (1 Kings 6:1). We can date his reign with reasonable confidence at 971-931 B.C., which places the date of his fourth regnal year at 967 B.C. This would place the date of the exodus at 1447 B.C. Allowing for the 40 years of wilderness wandering prior to the Israelites’ invasion of Canaan, the initial stages of the conquest occurred around 1407 B.C.

However, archaeologists generally believe that the Israelites entered Canaan about 1230-1220 B.C., nearly 200 years later than the biblical date (Bimson, 1987, 13[5]:40-42). Again, excavations at Jericho, the first fortified city conquered by the Israelites (Joshua 2-6), are at the heart of this controversy. John Garstang was the first to employ modern pottery chronology to explore this biblical site. He uncovered a residential area in the southeast slope of the tell, which he called “City IV.” This city had been destroyed by a violent conflagration. Based on pottery in the destruction debris, and other artifacts in the nearby cemetery, he associated City IV with the first city Israel defeated in the conquest. Garstang dated this destruction level to the late 15th or early 14th century B.C., and he believed that the invading Israelites caused the destruction, in harmony with the biblical record (Joshua 6:24; Wood, 1987, p. 7).

Kathleen Kenyon critiqued Garstang’s work in 1951, and did additional excavation at this site during 1952-1958. Kenyon disagreed with Garstang’s date of the destruction level, and placed it at c. 1550 B.C., many years before the biblical date of the conquest. She further contended that in 1400 B.C. there was no fortified city for Joshua’s army to conquer, and that the archaeological evidence does not agree with the biblical description of a large-scale military incursion contemporary with the destruction of Jericho (Kenyon, 1957b, p. 259). Kenyon based her conclusions largely upon the absence of pottery typically used around 1400 B.C.

Subsequently, scholars have critiqued Kenyon’s work and have vindicated the conclusions of Garstang, and, by implication, the biblical chronology (Wood, 1990; Livingston, 1988; see also Jackson, 1990). Kenyon’s conclusions, however, caused Jericho to become the classic example of the difficulties with correlating the biblical account of the conquest with the archaeological record. Pottery stands at the center of the interpretive and dating discrepancies of the conquest.



PROBLEMS WITH ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODS



How should we respond when archaeologists’ interpretations are at variance with biblical facts? The following principles might be helpful as we struggle with the increasing antagonism toward the Scriptures from the field of archaeology.

Evolutionary Assumptions

As a rule, archaeologists endorse evolutionary assumptions that the Earth is ancient and that man developed gradually—both physically and intellectually—over millions of years. Kenyon attributed the development of the Jordan Valley to vast terrestrial movements two million years ago (Kenyon, 1957b, p. 23). Albright discussed in detail the “...artistic evolution of Homo sapiens,” which first began around 30,000 to 20,000 B.C. (1942, pp. 6-10). Allegedly, as man slowly “evolved,” he learned how to manufacture tools from stones, and gradually developed the ability to make pottery. With his discovery of fire, he learned to fashion tools from copper and iron. Thus, archaeologists assume that centuries transpired before man graduated from stone tools and weapons to metallic implements.

This, however, is an assumption that is plainly at odds with biblical revelation. Man was highly intelligent from the dawn of Creation, and possessed the ability to manufacture tools and musical instruments (indicative of artistic ability) from metals (Genesis 4:20-22). Further, the descendants of Noah retained the technical ability for making tools and weapons, which would allow for rapid cultural recovery and restoration after the Flood (see Vaninger, 1985b, 22:67). The tower of Babel is an eloquent, and infamous, witness to the postdiluvians’ technical abilities (Genesis 11).

In addition, the divinely prompted dispersion from Babel would account for the cultural disparity between ancient Egypt and Mesopotamian cultures. Researchers have found virtually no evidence of unsophisticated cultures in Egypt; advanced civilization in that region veritably explodes onto the historical scene. In contrast, Mesopotamia exhibits a clear cultural development from simple societies to more advanced civilization (Vaninger, 1985a, 22:38). This has puzzled archaeologists for many years. But, the ancient dispersion could account for these disparate cultural developments.

Evidence indicates that an aggressive transfusion of culture from the Near and Middle East into Egypt occurred in ancient history, which directly corresponds to biblical information (cf. Genesis 11:8-9; Albright, 1949, pp. 71-72). Those who migrated to Egypt obviously carried with them both culture and technology more advanced than those possessed by the people who remained in the Mesopotamian region. Accordingly, highly developed civilizations, and cultures which used stone implements, were contemporary; they were not separated by millennia. Even today, some cultures remain isolated from advanced technology, and continue to employ implements generally associated with the so-called Stone Age (see Livingston, 1992, 5[1]:7). Thus, evidence of settlements using stone tools does not demand an ancient Earth.



Paucity of Evidence



Second, we must recognize that archaeological evidence is fragmentary and, therefore, greatly limited. Despite the amount of potsherds, bones, ornaments, or tools collected from a given site, the evidence reflects only a paltry fraction of what existed in antiquity (Brandfon, 1988, 14[1]:54). Unearthed data often are insufficient, inconclusive, and subject to biased interpretation. The current debate about the time of the conquest is a case in point. Archaeological data alone are inadequate to determine the exact date, or cause, of Jericho’s destruction. Therefore, we should listen with cautious skepticism when archaeologists appeal to evidence that conflicts with the biblical text.

Presuppositions of Archaeologists

Third, the paucity of archaeological evidence provides fertile soil for imaginative—and often contradictory—conclusions. We must not overlook the matter of subjectivity in interpretations. Regarding this matter, Jesse Long Jr. correctly stated that “...presuppositions and assumptions determine interpretive stance and often color conclusions” (1992, 134[12]:12). He further added that “...the new archaeological consensus [regarding discoveries contradicting significant parts of the biblical version—GKB] may be more a reflection of philosophical assumptions than the concrete evidence of sherds and stones” (1992, 134[12]:12).



Inexact Science



Finally, archaeology is an imprecise science, and should not serve as the judge of biblical historicity. The pottery dating scheme, for example, has proved to be most helpful in determining relative dates of strata in a tell. But, at best, pottery can place one only within the “chronological ball park.” John Laughlin, a seasoned archaeologist, recognized the importance of potsherds in dating strata, but offered two warnings: (1) a standard pottery type might have had many variants; and (2) similar ceramic types might not date to the same era—some types may have survived longer than others, and different manufacturing techniques and styles might have been introduced at different times in different locales. Further, he mentioned the fact of subjectivity in determining pottery typology: “...in addition to its observable traits, pottery has a ‘feel’ to it” (1990, 18[5]:72). Therefore, we must recognize archaeology for what it is—an inexact science with the innate capacity for mistakes.



CONCLUSION



There are many archaeological evidences, both artifactual and literary, which have undermined liberal interpretations of the biblical text, and supported its credibility. However, archaeology, like other natural sciences, has its limitations. William Dever, for example, observed that although archaeology as a historical discipline can answer many questions, it is incapable of determining “why” something occurred (1990, 16[3]:57). The destruction level at Jericho, for instance, which many date to the early 15th century B.C., corroborates the biblical text, but it cannot prove that a transcendent God caused its walls to fall. We must turn to sacred history for causative details. However, the physical evidence does support the historicity of the biblical narrative—certainly something we would expect of a divinely-inspired volume. Further, archaeology often serves to illuminate biblical texts. The literary discoveries at Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit), for example, have enhanced our knowledge of Baalism, shedding considerable light on biblical allusions to this pagan cult (see Brantley, 1993).

Indeed, archaeology is most helpful in biblical studies, often confirming and illuminating biblical texts. We must be aware, however, of its limitations, and deficiencies. The dating methods employed (e.g., radiocarbon, dendrochronology, pottery, and others) are imperfect, and are always based upon certain assumptions. Further, we should be aware of the current anti-biblical trend among many archaeologists. As with any scientific discipline, we need not sift God’s Word through the sieve of archaeological inquiry. Archaeological interpretations are in a constant state of flux and often wither as grass, but God’s Word abides forever.



REFERENCES

Albright, W.F. (1942), Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press).

Albright, W.F. (1949), The Archaeology of Palestine (Hardmondsworth, England: Penguin Books).

Bimson, John (1987), “Redating the Exodus,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 13[5]:40-68, September/October.

Brandfon, Fredric (1988), “Archaeology and the Biblical Text,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 14[1]:54-59, January/February.

Brantley, Garry K. (1993), “Pagan Mythology and the Bible,” Reason & Revelation, 13:49-53, July.

Davis, Thomas (1993), “Faith and Archaeology: A Brief History to the Present,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 19[2]:54-59, March/April.

Dever, William (1990), “Archaeology and the Bible: Understanding Their Special Relationship,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 16[3]:52-62, May/June.

Free, Joseph (1969), Archaeology and Bible History (Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press).

Glueck, Nelson (1959), Rivers in the Desert (New York: Grove Press).

Jackson, Wayne (1990), “The Saga of Ancient Jericho,” Reason & Revelation, 10:17-19, April.

Kenyon, Kathleen (1957a), Beginning in Archaeology (New York: Praeger).

Kenyon, Kathleen (1957b), Digging Up Jericho (New York: Praeger).

LaSor, W.S. (1979), “Archaeology,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 1:235-244, revised edition.

Laughlin, John (1992), “How to Date a Cooking Pot,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 18[5]:72-74, September/October.

Livingston, David (1988), “Exodus and Conquest,” Archaeology and Biblical Research, 1[3]:13-17, Summer.

Livingston, David (1992), “Was Adam a Cave Man?,” Archaeology and Biblical Research, 5[1]:5-15, January/February.

Long, Jesse C. Jr. (1992), “Archaeology in Biblical Studies,” Gospel Advocate, 134[12]:12-14, December.

Major, Trevor (1993), “Dating in Archaeology—Radiocarbon and Tree-Ring Dating,” Reason & Revelation, 13:73-77, October.

Silberman, Neil Asher (1989), “Measuring Time Archaeologically,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 15[6]:70-71, November/December.

Strauss, Stephen (1988), quoted in: Long, Jesse Jr. (1992), “Archaeology in Biblical Studies,” Gospel Advocate, 134[12]:12-14, December.

Unger, Merrill (1954), Archaeology and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan).

Vaninger, Stan (1985a), “Archaeology and the Antiquity of Ancient Civilization: A Conflict with Biblical Chronology?—Part I,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 22:33-39, June.

Vaninger, Stan (1985b), “Archaeology and the Antiquity of Ancient Civilization: A Conflict with Biblical Chronology?—Part II,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 22:64-67, September.

Wood, Bryant (1987), “Uncovering the Truth at Jericho,” Archaeology and Biblical Research, pp. 7-16, premier issue.

Wood, Bryant (1988), “Before They Were Sherds,” Archaeology and Biblical Research, 1[4]:27ff., Autumn.

Wood, Bryant (1990), “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?—A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 16[2]:45-57, March/April.


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