Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net>]

Marianne wrote :

<For David Rohl to maintain that the Lebayu of
>the Amarna Letters is none other than Saul is, in my opinion, a ridiculous
>assertion.
>
>
Peter responded:

<I'm not sure of all the grounds on which you consider Rohl's conclusion
<ridiculous.

Dear Peter,

Rohl's identfying King Saul with Labayu, places Saul and the events in his
life in a Late Bronze Age setting (ca. 1560-1200 BCE). Mainstream
scholarship understands Labayu to be a contemporary of  Pharaoh Akhenaten
who reigned ca. 1350-1334 BCE according to Clayton (p. 120. Peter Clayton.
_Chronicles of the Pharaohs_. Thames & Hudson. London. 1994).

The biblical chronology suggests for the mainstream scholars that Saul
reigned ca. 1050-1020 BCE,  _not_ some two hundred years earlier. Saul is
understood by the mainstream to be an Iron Age monarch (ca. 1200-1000 BCE),
_not_ a Late Bronze Age ruler as maintained by Rohl.

If Rohl is correct that Saul is Labayu, then the places mentioned in
association with Saul's wars against the Philistines (cf. 1 Samuel, chapters
6-14) "ought" to possess archaeological evidence of being in existence in
Late Bronze Age times and _not_ the Iron Age (1200-1000).

My investigations into the archaeological findings on the various towns
mentioned in the Saul narratives concluded that these towns did _not_ exist
in the days of Akhenaten and Labayu, they existed ONLY in Iron Age times,
after the arrival of the Philistines who arrived ca. 1175 BCE as the Pelest
in the days of Pharaoh Ramesses III who reigned ca. 1182-1151 BCE. Ergo,
Rohl's "alternate chronology" needs some more "work." For the data cf. the
below article

http://www.bibleorigins.net/RohlsChronologyDeconstructed.html

Reagards, Walter
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
mattfeld12 AT charter.net
www.bibleorigins.net