The Exodus, Joseph, Jericho … Harmonized With Eqyptian Chronology

Posted in Biblical on June 18th, 2007 by dhawkinsmo

Rohl_CoverA BOOK REVIEW

From the back cover … “In Pharoahs and Kings, Egyptologist and ancient historian David Rohl presents a revolutionary theory that challenges the modern skeptical view of Old Testament history. Rohl demonstrates that archaeologists have been looking in the right places for evidence of the Israelites–but in completely the wrong time. Pharoahs and Kings reveals the true historical setting of the biblical epics, providing astonishing archaeological evidence for the existence of the Old Testament’s most charismatic personalities.

Highlights (Rohl’s page numbers in parentheses) …
* Champollion identified Shishak with Shoshenk I based on an incorrect reading of Name Ring 29 on Shoshenk I’s campaign city list (p. 122)
* Although this was pointed out as early as 1888 by Max-Muller, the identification of Shoshenk I with Shishak had not been challenged by Egyptologists until Rohl. (p. 122)
* Rohl makes an excellent case that the Conventional Chronology (Kitchen’s TIP chronology) is off by several hundred years (p. 11)
* Rohl points out several serious problems with dendrochronological ‘calibration’ of Carbon 14 dating which lends support to the several hundred year adjustment he proposes (App. C)
* In Rohl’s corrected New Chronology, we find much evidence for Israel’s activities (assumed to be missing by conventionalists), including …

* A Papyrus dated to the generation just prior to the birth of Moses listing slaves with Hebrew names–Menahem, Issachar, Asher, and Shiprah (one of the names of a Hebrew midwife listed in Exodus 1:15-21) (p. 276)
* Manetho wrote that that in the reign of Dudimose (the Pharoah of the Exodus under the New Chronology), ‘a blast of God smote us’ (i.e. the Egyptians) (p. 283)
* The 13th Dynasty of Egypt ended abruptly with the reign of Dudimose and we are told by Manetho that a foreign power took over the rule of Egypt. This would make sense if Dudimose’s army had just been destroyed as related in the Book of Exodus.
* The archaeology of Avaris (northern city in the land of Goshen) shows that, at approximately at this time, there was a terrible catastrophe–shallow burial pits all over Avaris into which victims had been hurriedly cast. (p. 279)
* The palace and cult statue of Joseph the Vizier of Egypt (p. 327)
* Evidence for the fallen walls and burned city of Jericho in the correct time period thus vindicating Garstang and refuting Kenyon (p. 299)

CHAMPOLLION’S BIG MISTAKE
Jean Francois Champollion has been called ‘the Father of Egyptology.’ David Rohl, in his book Pharoahs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, relates that the Conventional Chronology of Egypt, such as that presented by Professor Kenneth Kitchen is based upon certain key assumptions received from Champollion, one of which, Rohl says, has never been questioned before his time. This key assumption is that the Egyptian Pharoah, Shoshenk I whose name is found on the Egyptian monuments is one and the same as ‘Shishak,’ the Pharoah who plundered Solomon’s temple according to the Bible (II Chron. 12). (Rohl, p. 10) But where did this assumption come from? It came from Champollion when he made his first (and only) visit to Egypt. Rohl writes (p. 122) … Read more »

The Almost Incredibly Correct Historical Memory of the Bible

Posted in Biblical on June 15th, 2007 by dhawkinsmo

Neslon_Glueck

6/15/07 – NEW FORMAL DEBATE ON GENESIS. Also see the end of this article for a rebuttal of some accusations on the accompanying Formal Debate “Peanut Gallery” by a poster named Occam’s Aftershave.

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Dr. Nelson Glueck, one of the world’s foremost archaeologists of the 20th century speaks on the historicity of the Bible in his book, Rivers in the Desert …

“As a matter of fact, however, it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries. They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible’s almost incredibly correct historical memory.

The whereabouts of Solomon’s long-lost port city of Ezion-geber was for centuries an unfathomable mystery, because no one paid attention to the Biblical statement that it was located “beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom” (I Kings 9:26; 10:22). And that is exactly where we found it, in the form of the small, sanded-over mound of Tell el-Kheleifeh on the north shore of the Gulf of Aqabah, which is the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Memory of its location had been snuffed out like the flame of a gutted candle. Read more »

Apes and Humans Not So Close After All

Posted in Creation/Evolution on June 7th, 2007 by dhawkinsmo

“The conclusion is the old saw that we share 98.5% of our DNA sequence with chimpanzee is probably in error. For this sample, a better estimate would be that 95% of the base pairs are exactly shared between chimpanzee and human DNA.”

Roy J. Britten, California Institute of Technology, “Divergence between samples of chimpanzee and human DNA sequences is 5%, counting indels,” PNAS | October 15, 2002 | vol. 99 | no. 21 | 13633-13635
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/21/13633%20

For quite some time now, Darwinists have been quoting this “old saw” … “See how close chimps and humans are? Of course we share a common ancestor! Quit thumping your Bibles and start paying attention to Science!”

To which I reply, “Creationists are not thumping their Bibles. It seems that it is rather some Darwinian activists who are doing the ‘bible thumping’ and their ‘bibles’ include Darwin’s Origin of Species., atheist activist Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion among others.”

This preliminary study by Britten was confirmed by his later study with 3 colleagues and with a much larger sample 6 months later (Britten, et al. 2003) and by a Nature article in 2005. Interestingly, Britten wrote in his 2003 study that

Thus the 5% human-chimp difference already published (1) is likely to be an underestimate, possibly by more than a factor of 2.

Hmmm … so it’s possible that our differences are as high as 10%!! Read more »