Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Tilde Binger" <binger.hougaard AT get2net.dk>]

Please pardon my bursting in from lurkdom.
And please pardon my (probably) stupid question :
>From the discussion going on, it seems as if Rohl is simply using the
material found in Peter James (et al) "Centuries of Darkness". That is
supposedly a scholarly book, and whereas the questions the authors ask in
that book are very pertinent, I'm less than impressed with the way they
evaluate the biblical material, viz. basically as being more believable than
dendrochronology and C-14 datings.
Naturally any reconstruction of chronology must be just that, but to
re-order the entire chronology of the ANE, including re-dating the
inevitable synchronisms between the various states and the chronological
sequences of pottery, in order to make the bible and the archaeology of
Israel/Palestine fit together seems to be a bit drastic. This is - more or
less - what is done in the above book, and from what I can infer, more or
less what Rohl does.
So, to me the second, stupid question is : Why should this be necessary ? I
can see the necessity in a context of a faith that wants stories to be true,
but in a scholarly context where the object presumably should be to discuss
the data at hand, no matter how inconvenient ?
And the final stupid question with regard to Rohl : how can a book be
considered to be a serious work, deserving scholarly attention, when it used
to be sold on the web under the headline "The book that was banned by the
British Museum", meaning that BM wouldn't sell it because it was too much
fiction and too little fact ?

Greetings
T. Binger
University of Aarhus