Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 16.01 13/02/00 +0100, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
>Did Kitchen ever make a review of it?

Here's a little on Kitchen regarding his participation in Rohl's video:

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One of the experts who appeared in Rohl's videos is Egyptologist Dr.
Kenneth Kitchen, a conservative evangelical scholar. Kitchen says he was
interviewed in his Liverpool England home by Rohl on May 17, 1995, for
seven hours. Kitchen only appears in Rohl's three-video series for a total
of about three minutes. Professor of Egyptology at the University of
Liverpool, Kitchen was not at all happy with Rohl's finished product. Sour
grapes? Probably not. Angry that he did not get more air time? I doubt it.

Kitchen later said he had great reservations about giving the interview
because he understood Rohl's arguments all too well. “The easy way out,” he
said, “was simply to say, ‘You are 98% rubbish—go away’ which would be
academically justified” (personal communication). But for all experts to
respond that way would allow Rohl to go forward with no detractors. So
Kitchen agreed to the interview.

According to Kitchen, most of the interview was spent with Kitchen
demonstrating to Rohl why his theories are wrong and do not work. In
retrospect, Kitchen said he later realized that Rohl was only looking for
sound bites, not new information. "It is clear, now, that he had most of
his filming already in the can by May 17th, and his book virtually ready
for press" (personal communication).

In particular, Kitchen said he demonstrated evidence which directly
contradicted Rohl's views. With Rohl's main focus on Egyptian chronology,
Kitchen's specialty, he provided Rohl with primary evidence from several
vital genealogies of the 21st and 22nd Egyptian dynasties. In addition, he
presented continuous lines of high priests for Amun (in Thebes) and Ptah
(in Memphis) going through both dynasties. Kitchen said Rohl communicated
he was unaware of this material. Furthermore, Kitchen answered Rohl's two
great anomalies in Egyptian chronology—the cache of royal reburial near
Deir el-Bahri and the lack of Apis bull burials for the 21st Dynasty.

Finally, Kitchen provided parallels in the Assyrian King List, The Assyrian
Eponym List and the Babylonian King list, with crosslinks illustrated by
the synchronous history and Chronicle P. Additional links to New Kingdom
Egypt and Hatti, plus markers showing which kings of Assyria successively
built in the national shrine at Assur, also bolstered Kitchen's case.

As a coup de grace, Kitchen brought out what he called "one totally damning
little text" (personal communication) from Deir el-Medina in west Thebes.
It precisely dated the Nile inundation at a specific time, an occurrence
which takes place only once every 1460 years. As far as Kitchen is
concerned, Rohl's proposed "corrections" of ancient Near Eastern
chronologies was dead in the water (Kitchen 1995: xlii-xlvi).

Gary Byers

From:  http://www.christiananswers.net/abr/scoop.html

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Ian