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  • From: Brian Roberts <formoria AT carolina.rr.com>
  • To: MarianneLuban AT aol.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Rohl's Chronology Deconstructed
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 17:13:03 -0400

Dear Marianne,


On Monday, July 26, 2004, at 04:25 PM, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

And yet his arguments against those "mainstream scholars" (who are not
exactly in agreement on chronological matters, themselves) have persuaded few
knowledgeable persons. If you are saying that these "mainstream scholars" never pay
any attention to new and persuasive arguments from their peers--you would be
very wrong, indeed.

This depends greatly upon whom a scholar considers to be a peer, or up to par, or at their level academically. It's easy for some to dismiss a Rohl or a Courville on just such those grounds.





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

Please. We all know that archaeology is based on the accident of
preservation. To say that we "ought" to find archaeological material at
such
and such a place for such and such a time, is to bypass the actual sporadic,

not to say whimsical, flyspecks of preservation that we do encounter and
suggest that what is essentially a random process - the accident of
preservation - should follow some kind of rule set that makes what we want
accessible to us several thousand years later. It just doesn't work that
way. Factors such as erosion, rebuilding, destruction on a massive scale by

enemies, and what-have-you, combine to make the whole thing a very
unpredictable process. That may not be what we want, and we may not like
it,
but those factors tell us, in essence, that if we don't like it, too bad.

This is why arguments from silence will never get anywhere, especially in
this
field. To say that "there's no positive evidence where we 'ought' to expect

it," is equally to say "there's no negative evidence where the accident of
preservation might have wiped something out, either." It would be nice of
scholars would get a handle on the fact that absence of evidence does NOT
equal evidence of absence. If you're into C programming, it would look like

this:
(absence_of_evidence) != (evidence of absence)
That's how arguments from silence ALWAYS work. What's important is for
qualified Egyptologists who, like Rohl, don't have some kind of ax to grind,

to examine the revised chronology *on its own merits* and *based strictly on

the evidence presented* and determine whether there might be something to
it.
Unfortunately, since he presented the material in popular form, first in a
television show and then in a popular book, too many scholars have just
written him off as a headline-grabbing crackpot instead of seriously
examining what he said. That's just sad.

Before someone brings it up, I really don't care one way or another whether
Saul was Labayu or whether he was Saul. None of this chronology stuff
matters to me at all, I have my own little niche off in the grammatical
corner. But the way that Rohl's material has been treated by "scholars"
betrays an attitude that really bothers me, and that's the only reason I get

involved in this type of discussion.


But these "scholars"--and I don't know why you cast doubt on them by putting
this word in quotes--don't simply say "Oh that Rohl, he is a boat-rocking
trouble-maker" but give reasoned arguments contra him. I would say that that re
ally bad treatment in the academic world is to ignore someone altogether. One
of the reasons I believe Rohl has received so much attention from other
scholars is that they have seen the potential impact his theories have on the
uninformed. Rohl wrote the above mentioned book and it was so well-produced and so
expertly laid out(graphics and whatnot) that few laymen would suspect that
claptrap could be so beautifully presented. (Most scholarly works tend to look
the opposite of "fancy" but those for "popular consumption" do--no accident
there). Plus, Rohl was very visible on television, going about like Indiana
Jones, complete with a "sidekick", Bob Bianchi. I think it is scarcely any wonder
that other scholars decided to deal with all this before it got to be "dogma"
in the eyes of too many people. But, even so, it is, to a considerable
degree. There is an entire mailing list devoted to Rohl and his theories. I once
joined it and got tremendous flack for making too many "points" against him.
The opposition I received was virulent and hardly reasoned. It was like "This
is a list of Rohl fans and we don't want your arguments." When my points were
too sensible, the moderator, who apparently worshipped Rohl (a woman) simply
did not allow them through. So I quit. And I am not the only person who had
this experience. And that, sir, is the other side of the coin of intolerance.

There are reasoned arguments on both sides of the chronology issue.





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