Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "kwrandolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 7:41 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Jericho, Rameses, & San Fransisco


> Dear David:

But I'll butt in as usual,
>
> I read a book a while back attributing Beitek (sp?) claim that the
> site of the Hyksos capital, Avaris, was built on the site of an
> Egyptian port that had a pre-Hyksos name of pi-Rameses.

On what evidence? Textual? Archaeological? Why would a city be called
pi-Rameses before the reign of the first king by that name? Or does this
theory also know of a king Rameses that nobody else does?

 That Israel
> called it by its pre-Hyksos name indicates that they had come to
> Egypt before the Hyksos. After the Hyksos were expelled, the site
> remained unimportant until the time of Rameses I or thereabouts.
>
> Thus there is no need to posit either a late date of Jacob's arrival
> in Egypt nor that later writers were writing anachronistically.
>
> Years ago I came to the conclusion that Exodus occurred during the
> time of the Hyksos who were concerned that Israel would pose a danger
> to them. Israel called the Hyksos pharaoh "Egyptian" because he ruled
> Egypt (the same way later writers called the Mongol rulers "Chinese"
> or in more recent times the Manchus).

This last part is possible.

The fly in my understanding is
> that the traditional dates for the Hyksos is earlier than the Exodus,
> but then I learned that other writers more learned than I also
> question the traditional dates, making my understanding a possibility.

ONE MINUTE HERE! You write as if the date of the Exodus is fixed and known,
while that of the Hyksos is only a "tradition" which is still debated. WHile
it is true that Egyptologists do still debate chronology, the dabate is
about decades, not centuries. The Exodus, however, is not even proven to
have BEEN a historical event, not to mention its chronology.

>
> If the traditional dates are off by two or more centuries as some
> have claimed, that would put the beginning of the iron age at the
> time of King David. Tanakh mentions that David ran extensive iron
> works.

Where?

That would explain how Israel, a small, weak country with a
> history of being a vassal nation to its neighbors, could suddenly
> become a world power under David: he had wrested the secret of
> tempering iron into steel from the Philistines and armed his soldiers
> with steel while his enemies were all still armed with bronze.

What evidence is there that the 11th century Philistines used iron or steel?
And if they did, than David's learning the "secret" would make him only as
technologically advanced as they were, not more advanced.

>
> While my understanding is not the statements of an expert (my main
> interest being lexicography) I don't see how it can be ruled out.

How about lack of evidence?

Yigal