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  • From: "Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: conquest etc.
  • Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 23:50:26 -0500


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





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