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b-hebrew - Stop with the Rohl material.

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  • From: Ian Charles Hutchesson <MC2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>, <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • Subject: Stop with the Rohl material.
  • Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 18:03:02 +0100 (CET)


This list I would have thought was no place to persistently purvey the
material that Rohl has put forward. The material is highly suspect. He cannot
even tell that Gulate is a woman's name when he wants this name to refer to
Goliath. He wants you to believe that David is mentioned in one letter when
the name, Tadua, is written by local scribes who know how to represent local
names in Western Peripheral Akkadian. This simply cannot be "David" written
under Canaanite conditions.

At the same time this letter from Mutba'lu was addressed to Yanhamu, an
Egyptian high functionary who has travelled to many cities throughout the
Levant. As it was addressed to Yanhamu (and found amongst the Amarna achives,
Yanhamu was at the time in Egypt. He was often in Egypt as evinced in other
letters. If Yanhamu was in Egypt then so was Tadua and Bin-Elima (note,
"-Elima" is the correct form and not as reported in Rohl, "-Enima", but then
had it been the way Rohl wants it, he would still have to face the fact that
Canaanite scribes know how to do their jobs). Does Rohl want to rewrite the
OT/HB and send David to Egypt? Sure, why not? -- he's played so free with the
facts so far.

He gives the outdated usage of the term Habiru as advocated by Albright fifty
years ago and shown to be inadequate: this is beside the fact that his
hypothetical Saul figure, who should be Habiru in his story, isn't. He has
misrepresented the situation regarding Lab'aya, by inventing a nickname for
Saul. He has shown no analysis of the different states of affairs between the
situation in Palestine under clear Egyptian rule as demonstrated in the
Amarna letters and the situation of Saul who is portrayed dealing with
Philistines.

In fact, there is only one name in all this that is actually close in his
reconstruction, and that is Yashuya. Had our Canaanite scribes wanted to
write Ishbaal they would have, but they didn't, so obviously Mutba'lu's name
was in fact Mutba'lu.

His historical efforts have been falsified by the Amarna letters, which tie
the Amarna Age strongly to the reigns of Burna-Buriash and the that of
Ashur-uballit who was leading his re-nascent Assyria to become a major player
in Mesopotamia in that epoch and not three hundred years later when Assyria
was already the major player. (This is straight primary evidence.)

Please, list moderators, do we have to sit and accept this type of stuff? I
thought we were trying to deal with matters in a scholarly way, not have
questionable materials -- we must remember that no-one in the field of
Egyptology gives any credence to the Rohl theories -- shoved down our throats
no willingness is shown to even read the standard literature on the subjects.


Ian







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