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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Rohl conjectures (long)
  • Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 13:15:15 -0400


Dear Ian,

We need to respect Bill Rea's objection not to take this too far from
Hebrew. So I won't try to argue on the Assyrian etc correspondences.
Rohl is obviously aware that this part of his argument is weak because
he is not an expert here. So I make points here mainly on the
Palestinian stuff which has clear links to the Hebrew Bible.


______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Rohl conjectures (long)
Author: <mc2499 AT mclink.it> at Internet
Date: 28/09/1999 23:36

<snip>

>Think about it. You want to pit some popular work aimed specifically at
>selling to a religious readership, ie in no sense facing a critical peer
>analysis, that shows no interest in the physical culture of the nations
>whose centuries are to be cancelled.
>
>PK: I am not trying to pit Rohl's work against anything.

You should. You accept his conjectures, yet you haven't pitted his work
against anything. This means that you take his work on belief.

PK: No, I do not accept his conjectures. Rather I hold the position
that his hypotheses should be given proper consideration by scholars.

>I am merely
>asking that its arguments be given the consideration that they deserve
>rather than ridiculed without being read.

What do they deserve when the writer has not faced his peers?

PK: I'm not sure how he should "face his peers" more than he has done.
He has written many articles in journals as well as his books. He has
had lengthy discussions with Prof Kitchen. He has prepared a PhD
thesis for the University of London, or at least he says in his book
that is about to submit it. He has faced his peers. If his peers have
then turned away from facing him (as you seem to have), that is their
problem.

<snip>

>PK: I have proposed to you a whole book full of evidence (plus lots of
>other articles referred to). And you refuse to read it! On the other
>hand I am quite happy to read the books you suggest, time and money
>allowing.

I am not happy to read just any wafty tome of conjectures. Therefore I was
after some hard facts, before considering it.

PK: How do you know the contents of a book you have not read? I accept
that part of it is rather conjectural, but other parts are full of
hard facts, as hard as the granite of Egypt they are carved into.

<snip>

..However, I would expect a writer who is dealing with an earthshaking,
iconoclastic discovery to have done a hellovalot more leg-work to
substantiate his chronological claims than what could be squeezed into a
chapter.

PK: Rohl refers to eight of his own other publications which give more
detail of his own legwork. But anyway, why is it necessary for a
theoretician to have done his own primary legwork? Is Stephen
Hawking's work on cosmology etc less valid because he has not
personally made the astronomical or particle physics observations on
which his work depends? Why should archaeology be different?

><snip>
>
>Would you read the Jesus in India books?...
>
>PK: Maybe not, but I would not dare to comment on them unless I had
>done so.

You should be able to comment on the status quo situation though. Given
what we have from the standard texts, Jesus clearly died and there was no
possibility that he was taken down alive, so under the circumstances
anything that claims that Jesus survived the cross is dead in the water.

PK: I agree with you on that point. On the other hand, I believe that
Jesus rose again from the dead (sorry, not relevant to this list!). I
don't think he then went to India but I would not dismiss the idea a
priori.

I also think a Velikovskian position is dead in the water, no matter who
proposes it. It would take a large effort to resurrect ages in chaos --
Egyptology has come a long way since Velikovsky put forward his conjecture.
(Rohl seems to be using the same basic arguments.)

PK: Rohl makes it clear that he rejects very many of Velikovsky's
arguments, while accepting a few of them.

<snip>

Thanks for the summary. I know what the archaeologists would think of this:
how on earth can one take the biblical accounts literally and use them as
historical documents to show that all the others are wrong. This is: the
biblical documents say they are wrong; how do you know? because I believe
the biblical documents are right.

In her book "Archaeology in the Holy Land", Benn, 1960/79, Kenyon records a
number of interesting finds regarding late bronze in Palestine, some of
these are from pottery sequences from Mycenae, items from Megiddo, Hazor,
Tell Beit Mirsim classified as Mycenaean IIIA (c.1400), IIIAb & IIIB.
Naturally all the sites share the same basic range of local pottery with
Jericho. Now, in a collection of ivories from a palace at Tell Beit Mirsim
an object with the cartouche of Ramses III was found. In the LB stratum at
Beth-Shan (an Egyptian stronghold in Palestine which didn't suffer a LB
destruction) a statue of Ramses III was found. Kenyon would make the Ramses
III objects at the late end of LBII.

The archaeological remains from the Palestine coast that is attributed to
the Philistines is clearly non-local, ie cannot be Canaanite, "it has been
shown that the closest parallels are in the pottery of Rhodes and Cyprus,
but in almost no case are the Palestinian vessels exact copies... The
originals from which the Palestinian types developed can be dated to the
late 13th century B.C., while new fashions which were coming into use about
1200 B.C. are not represented... The ware of the vessels does not differ
from that of the native Palestinian pots. The conclusion which is thus
suggested is that the newcomers did not bring the pottery with them, but
manufactured it in Palestine in imitation of the vessels to which they were
accustomed in their homeland."

Kenyon knows the full range of pottery sequences from Palestine and is
therefore able to know where ceramics fit into a relative chronology, but
then also where they fit in other relative chronologies. In this process
one can build up a datable chronology based not on historical accounts, but
on diachronic archaeological evidence. She knows that the Philistine
pottery can be compared with early Iron Age Palestinian pottery. Have you
ever wondered how sites certain Palestinian sites are dated to the tenth
century or the eighth? There are sites that have had very long continuous
use, such as Tell Beit Mirsim (excavated by Albright), that display the
fullest ranges of pottery sequences. These sequences can be compared with
others from more distant sites and movement of ceramics can be plotted and
compared with those in other cultures. Strong sequencing is guaranteed.
Destruction levels can therefore be related to both pottery and historical
documents. This physical evidence is very hard to argue against. One might
hope to juggle kinglists, but how does one hide the three hundred years of
pottery sequence?

Kenyon's book, though dated and bearing her religious comments, is well
worth getting hold of.

PK: Thank you for this. I think Rohl's solution to the problem would
have to be to divorce the Biblical Philistines from Kenyon's
Philistines, making the latter 9th century (?) invaders (yes, the Sea
Peoples). The Biblical Philistines he identifies with the
Indo-European rulers of the coastal cities in the Amarna period e.g.
Shuwardata of Gath (identified with David's ally Akish), Widia of
Ashkelon.

<snip>
>
>PK: As I said, Rohl gives an extensive bibliography and refers to
>several other scholars who support parts of his theory e.g. John
>Bimson re Jericho.

Peer group publication usually means, for an Egyptologist, publication in
an Egyptological journal so that one's peers can criticise the work. As I
understand it, Rohl has avoided this normal process, which would mean to me
that he doesn't think he can argue the point seriously. If the link you
posted (http://www.christiananswers.net/abr/scoop.html) represents
Kitchen's reaction to Rohl, then one has to think that Rohl is fraudulent
and knowingly avoiding his responsibilities.

PK: No, I think the TV producers played their usual tricks. The link
you posted gives Rohl's brief answers to the points which Kitchen
raised.


Cheers,


Ian

There's a site that's supposed to be in England -- www.rohl.demon.uk ? I
can't get it, but there was supposed to be some exchange between Kitchen
and Rohl there.

PK: Thanks, I'll try to find this.

Peter Kirk




  • Rohl conjectures (long), Ian Hutchesson, 09/29/1999
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: Rohl conjectures (long), peter_kirk, 09/29/1999

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