Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Banyai Michael" <banyai AT t-online.de>]

Niels Peter Lemche wrote:

> But to be serious, since it seems so difficult to understand: The Thera
> eruption happened arond the time proposed. I cannot recollect from recent
> discussions the exact date, and it has been moved a little to and fro, also
> depending on the evidence from Greenland. never mind, it resulted in a
> tsunami that hit Crete some hours later, but as far as I got it from some
> other mail, this was not the end of the Minoan civilization as imagined only
> a few years ago when people talked about a tsunami of a hundred meters; now
> it is down to something maneable, was it 10-30 m? What effect the tsunami
> according to the last mentioned calculation would have had in the Levant is
> questionable, it would probably hardly be noticeable. So to relate Thera to
> the crossing of the Yam Suf makes no sense (even with the giant tsunami of
> the past, its effect along the Levantine coast would be almost impossible to
> measure). 
>
> But apart from all thse kinds of speculation, it demands a coincidence:
> Moses and his people turning up at the right spot at exactly the right
> moment..it's too much of a coincidence for a historian to be serious about
> it. So nothing ad hominem here, but certainly an argumentation that make the
> position of the opposite party look pretty, should we say unwarranted. If Mr
> Banyai think that this is ad hominem, he will probably consider any attack
> on his ideas 'ad hominem'.
>
> NPL

I would have wished the discussion restricted to the problems described in 
my first email, otherwise I would have to give detail over questions 
whether Moses broke his leg or not during his Sinai trip.
But let it be.
For the first we should be able to agree where the Yam Suf were... Later 
times saw in Yam Suf the Red Sea, overtly already that late redactor who 
introduced that stupid overall 40 year pattern also in the Judges.
An earlier version probably identified Yam Suf with the Bardawil lake, 
since the name of Baal-Zaphon occurs in that region.
The shallow Bardawil lake was maybe by the time still connected with the 
Nile as well as with the sea.
Before the recurence of a tsunami ordinarilly the sea retreats by a couple 
of meters to return later much higher and with greater violence. The first 
act in such a scenario would lay dry for short higher banks on the ground 
of the lagoon eventually permiting to switch on the other side.
Whether Moses was on the right spot at the moment or not, this can decide 
but the chronology. Matching chronologies are the kind of coincidences we 
always wish.
Wether the crossing of the sea is but a baroque addition to the story or 
not has no influence on the rest. However I am happy to announce, such a 
wonder occurs only once and not regularilly in the Pentateuch.
BTW, I can propose as a mind exercise to retrocalculate a date for the 
Exodus ensueing from following suppositions made on hand of Ipuwers 
hypothetical identification of 15-th Abib with the Egyptian New Years Day 
(Sothis). Clearly is 1 Abib the 1-st day of the current Egyptian civilian 
month at that time.
This gives a set of data with a periodicity of 120 years: either 1742, or 
1622, or 1502... Since Ipuwer must be dated into the MBII 1742 and 1622 fit 
best.
1622 being close as well to the Thera eruption date as estimated recently 
1628-1626 as with the data of Judges.
Dear Prof. Lemche, you shouldn´t think I made my decision and take on that 
ground the Pentateuch for OK. But I am used to make mind experiments and 
used to follow them to their very last consequences. One calls this 
reductio ad absurdum. But this functions perfectly only in mathematics.
Therefore I am trying to derive mathematical consequences from a 
hypothesis. Logic is tricky. A is not always same as A. But numbers behave 
always the way expected. 1622 is always 1622.
I expected therefore other objections from you. For example, were comes 
this discrepance between the modern and the biblical calendar from? Or why 
does Josephus give other equivalations of hebrew months as expected from my 
calendaristic supposition?

Best,
Banyai Michael