Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Dear Binger,

Thank you for your contribution. I have answered you separately re 
Centuries in Darkness. Rohl does look at C-14 dating and 
dendrochronology, and basically rejects them as unreliable. I think he 
is too quick in doing this, but I am not an expert. Rohl also has 
unanswered questions (and admits it) re correspondences with Assyria.

As for your second question, it comes down to: Why should Rohl seek 
for truth? The best answer is "because it's there"! As a scholar and 
Egyptologist, or would-be scholar and Egyptologist, he has found 
inconsistencies in the conventional chronological framework and has 
tried (as part of a research programme together with others) to solve 
these inconsistencies. Whether he has succeeded or not is a question 
for his peers, though it seems they are not taking him too seriously 
because they have too much invested in the status quo.

Then the third question. Rohl can hardly be blamed for the marketing 
strategy of his publishers and/or other booksellers. That 
advertisement is still on the web, I found it yesterday. But the main 
question is, why did the British Museum "ban" his book, i.e. 
presumably choose not to sell it? (It has not been rejected by the 
British Library!) Perhaps simply because its approach is too popular. 
More likely because the Egyptologists of the BM do not accept Rohl's 
theories, again perhaps because they have too much invested in the 
status quo. Or perhaps they were pressurised by those who throw names 
like "Velikovsky" around, when Rohl's theories have little to do with 
Velikovsky. Who knows? Try asking the BM. I don't think it 
unreasonable for them to choose to sell the books which correspond to 
the theories presented in their museum, so as not to confuse their 
visitors. On the other hand, that should not be taken as indication 
that any other book is unscientific.

On the other hand, I have no patience with those who try to impose 
censorship in the name of scholarship. True scholarship should have 
nothing to fear from fringe theories, it should be prepared to answer 
them in a rational way and accept for proper academic investigation 
any points which cannot be convincingly repudiated immediately. On 
this basis Rohl's arguments certainly require proper academic 
investigation rather than attempted censorship.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Chronology (was : Rohl)
Author:  <binger.hougaard AT get2net.dk> at Internet
Date:    29/09/1999 02:38


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

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