Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Walter, I actually agree with almost everything you wrote here.

Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 1:30 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] 1446 BCE Exodus ? Aper = Apiru ?


> Yigael wrote :
>
> Since there is NO direct Egyptian evidence of the Exodus (or even of the
> > Israelites' sojourn in Egypt!) and NO biblical clues that would help us
> "tie
> > in" to known Egyptian history (such as the actual name of a Pharaoh -
and
> > the city of Rameses could well be an anachronism), and since I suspect
> that
> > numbers like that in 1 kings 6:1 are typological, I have no way of
dating
> > the Exodus. As a historian, all I can hope for is to date the
Israelites'
> > appearance (by whatever means) in Canaan. All of the evidence for that
> seems
> > to point at about 1200: the Merneptah inscription, the destruction of
many
> > Canaanite cities (though admittedly not all of those mentioned in Josh.
> > 1-12), the arrival of the Philistines and other "sea peoples", the many
> > small settlements that dot the hill country etc. Moreover, the stories
of
> > the Judges seem to fit Iron I Israel, NOT late Bronze Canaan.
>
> Dear Yigal,
>
> I understand your dilemma, and that of your colleagues. The biblical
> chronology suggests an Exodus in 18th Dynasty times but the "details"
> accompanying the event suggest the 19th Dynasty. If Israel arrived ca.
1406
> BCE why no settlements until 1200-1000 BCE ?
>
> My own research has led me to conclude that _no ONE single date_ can
> accomodate ALL the anomalies which surface in the archaeological record.
>
> Did archaeology "find" fallen walls at Jericho ? Yes. Did archaeology find
> Jericho terribly torched ? Yes. The problem ? The falls fell in the Early
> Bronze Age ca. 2300 BCE and the city was consumed in a terrific
> conflagration in the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1550 BCE. Was a place called
> Heshbon found in Transjordan ? Yes, its tell Hesban, founded no earlier
than
> Iron I. Did it ever possess mighty walls worthy of it being styled the
> "capital" of Sihon the Amorite ? Yes, in the 8th century BCE. Did
> archaeology find a site called Elealeah near Heshbon ? Yes, its El-al,
again
> founded no earlier than Iron I.
>
> For me, the bible is preserving REAL historical kernels, but they are in
> "different" archaeological ages. How can this be ? Until Sir Flinders
Petrie
> developed pottery chronologies, tying them to Egyptian cartouches, no-one
> had the faintest idea how old any site was in the Ancient Near East. The
> Hebrews certainly did NOT have access to Petrie's pottery typologies so
they
> would have had _no idea how old any tell was_ within Canaan or
Transjordan.
> They lived at Jericho in the 8th-6th century according to the pottery
> evidence. Perhaps they noticed the fallen walls and the burn layers about
> the city as they dug into it, leveling it, to found Iron Age II Jericho ?
> They may have drawn the conclusion from the physical remains they were
> unearthing as they built the basements or floors for their homes, that
their
> ancestors had encountered a city who's walls had fallen and then it was
> torched. They certainly could not distinguish a fallen Early Bronze Age
wall
> of ca. 2300 BCE from a Late Bronze Age ca. 1550 BCE torched city.
>
> I feel confident in predicting the day will _never come_ that ONE date can
> "be set" for the Exodus that will accomodate ALL the archaeological
> anomalies. Certainly real events are being preserved here, Jericho's walls
> DID FALL and she was horribly BURNED, but the events as attested by
> archaeology are not in the same era.
>
> Regards, Walter
> Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
> mattfeld12 AT charter.net
> www.bibleorigins.net
>
>
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