Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Dear Niels,

You didn't wait very long for a response before complaining you didn't 
receive one. Not all of us are on line all the time or able to respond 
straight away.

But I find what you are saying here an offensive caricature of my 
method. We have a written account of the destructions of certain 
cities. Try to forget for the moment that this account is in the Bible 
and suppose that it is on some tablet dug up in Mesopotamia. The 
account does not clearly identify either the time of the destructions 
or the exact places. Someone, maybe centuries ago, suggested (but 
without any real proof) a possible dating and identification of the 
cities. Later on archaeologists dug up those cities and found they 
were not destroyed at those times. Does that make the account 
necessarily inaccurate? No, all it does is make those suggested 
identifications inaccurate.

It is perfectly reasonable for anyone to suggest other 
identifications. This is apparently what Dr. John Bimson has done, and 
his scholarship was recognised in the award of a doctorate for his 
work. If there is some other identification in which the account ties 
up with the archaeological data, then either the account is 
historically accurate or it corresponds coincidentally with the data. 
The latter is unlikely if there are several correspondences, and this 
will suggest that the account does have some historical value. That is 
not presumed in advance, but neither is its historicity written off 
because the first attempt to fit it to the facts has failed.

Meanwhile are you really claiming (as you seem to in the middle of a 
passage where you seem to have become carried away by your rhetoric) 
that Beitin and el-Jib were founded later than any possible time for 
Joshua? If so you are directly disagreeing with Rohl's table which 
shows them both as extant in MB IIB. And not just with Rohl. A.R. 
Millard writes in "New Bible Dictionary" that "Excavations at el-Jib, 
some 6 miles north of Jerusalem, during 1956, 1957 and 1959 have 
revealed remains of cities of the Early and Middle II Bronze Age..." 
(s.v. Gibeon) and "The modern Tell Beitin... seems to have been 
established early in the Middle Bronze Age." (s.v. Bethel). Do you 
actually dispute these data?

Incidentally, I am quite prepared to consider solutions in which it is 
the Israelite dates which are changed and the Egyptian ones are fixed, 
rather than Rohl's attempts to redate Egyptian history in a way which 
conveniently matches the Bible (though he relies on other strong 
evidence, not just the dates in Kings, for his redating). I just 
expect good evidence for the traditional dating and not just the sort 
of gut reaction which one sometimes sees to challenges to long held 
theories. Rohl and Kitchen disagree, and I will leave the veteran 
expert and the younger challenger to slug this one out before 
committing myself.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: conquest etc.
Author:  <npl AT teol.ku.dk> at Internet
Date:    27/01/2000 16:12


Why does everyone persist in saying that Ai must be et-Tell and then 
use this as an excuse to rubbish the account in Joshua? There are 
plenty of other tells in the neighbourhood which could have been the 
site of the story in Joshua. Rohl and presumably Bimson suggest 
Khirbet Nisya, which was abandoned at the end of MB IIB. Rohl's table 
also shows Gibeon, el-Jib as being extant in MB IIB and abandoned at 
the end of that period. The other sites whose destruction at the end 
of MB IIB are listed by Rohl are: Jericho; Hebron (el-Khalil); Arad; 
Debir; Lachish; Hazor; Bethel (Beitin). I cannot confirm these data, 
but does anyone wish to dispute them?

Peter Kirk



Because there are few other tells in the neighborhood that will make an Ai. 
And it is the old game--for people who have in advance decided that the 
Bible must be true as far as historical events go--if a place can not be a 
place--Biblewise--it is in another place. This trick has ben played over and 
over again. bethel is not Bethel (Beitin), because it was founded later than 
Joshua, Gibeon is probably not Gibeon because it was founded, and Ai is of 
course not Ai because it did not exist anymore. The evidence of the Bible 
always comes first, and anything else has to adjust to i; it can never be 
the oppisite, or Peter Kirk mention an example that is different, and 
finally answer my questions instead of presenting more rhetoric.

Moving around with chronology is another trick as if ANE chronology is such 
a mess. Read about chronology, the state of the art, e.g. in Finegan or in 
CANE or in other places. There have been black spots and some still remains 
but in general, it can be controlled. So however you prefer it, the Amarna 
period belongs to the 14th century. You can move around with it within a 
couple of decades, and the picture painted of Palestine in the letters from 
Palestine in the Amarna period does not conform with the one painted by the 
Bible, and so forth.

And again: What about the challenge: Is Kitchen a radical scholar because he 
will not accept chronologies that moves around with his beloved Egyptians 
(no irony here) in such a wilfull way?

I am still waiting for a response.

NPL