Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Ian,

I am glad to see that you are actually reading Rohl's "A Test of 
Time". I certainly don't claim it is perfect, it is flawed in many 
ways. But that does not invalidate its central thesis; and even if the 
central thesis of redating is wrong, the subsidiary theses of 
identifications of biblical and archaeological events and persons may 
stand.

Meanwhile, if it is the consensus of list members that they do not 
want this to be a forum for speculative historical reconstructions, I 
will stop posting such materials, and expect others, especially L.M. 
Barre but also Ian, to refrain from posting theirs. Then we can go 
back to Hebrew. But if other speculations are acceptable, so are 
Rohl's. See also my recent posting about the acceptability of 
Copernicus' writings.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Stop with the Rohl material.
Author:  <MC2499 AT mclink.it> at Internet
Date:    10/02/2000 18:03


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 t
hat Gulate is a woman's name when he wants this name to refer to Goliath...

PK: Not true. See note 20 to chapter 10 where Rohl shows clearly that 
he knows that the Gulatu in EA 292 & 294 is female.

... He wan ts 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 
Perip
heral Akkadian. This simply cannot be "David" written under Canaanite 
conditions
.

PK: You probably know more Akkadian than Rohl, or me. But Rohl 
suggests that David's name in Hebrew was originally something like 
"Daduya" = "beloved of YHWH" and then "Dad", with the form "David" 
being later. Could these forms have been written "Tadua" in Akkadian? 
Actually Rohl writes "Dadua" when he quotes EA 256. Which is correct, 
"Tadua" or "Dadua"?

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 t
he 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",...
 
PK: See chapter 10 note 12, where Rohl writes "We have chosen to 
accept the original reading of Bi-en-e-ni-ma as given by Knudtzon 
(1915, p.816) rather than Moran's Bi-en-e-li-ma (1987, p.309). The 
syllable 'li' is interchangeable with 'ni' in Akkadian."
 
 ... 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 t
heir jobs). Does Rohl want to rewrite the OT/HB and send David to Egypt? 
Sure, w
hy not? -- he's played so free with the facts so far.

PK: I think Mutbaal's "Just ask Benenima. Just ask Dadua. Just ask 
Yishuya." must be taken as a rhetorical flourish rather than a serious 
request to ask questions. Anyway, did Mutbaal know that Yanhamu was in 
Egypt? They weren't in contact by telephone or E-mail! More likely he 
sent all his (very) snail mail to Yanhamu's HQ in Canaan and it was 
then forwarded to him wherever he happened to be.

He gives the outdated usage of the term Habiru as advocated by Albright fifty 
ye
ars ago and shown to be inadequate: this is beside the fact that his 
hypothetica
l Saul figure, who should be Habiru in his story, isn't. He has 
misrepresented t
he situation regarding Lab'aya, by inventing a nickname for Saul. He has 
shown n
o analysis of the different states of affairs between the situation in 
Palestine
 under clear Egyptian rule as demonstrated in the Amarna letters and the 
situati
on of Saul who is portrayed dealing with Philistines.

In fact, there is only one name in all this that is actually close in his 
recons
truction, 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 
Mutb
a'lu.

PK: I guess Rohl would argue that the original name was indeed 
Mutba'lu, but was later corrected to Ishbaal (and then Ishbosheth) 
when the form "Mut" went out of use, and perhaps because of the 
unfortunate alternative meaning "death".

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 
maj
or player. (This is straight primary evidence.)

PK: Sorry, what is the "straight primary evidence" which gives an 
absolute date for these Assyrians? Surely there must be some 
interpretation (even if rather straightforward) involved in this? 
Anyway, as I said above, many aspects of Rohl's arguments, including 
those I have posted to this list in recent weeks, do not depend at all 
on Rohl's absolute datings.

Please, list moderators, do we have to sit and accept this type of stuff? I 
thou
ght we were trying to deal with matters in a scholarly way, not have 
questionabl
e 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 
show
n to even read the standard literature on the subjects.


Ian




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