Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 8/17/2004 3:19:08 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
kwrandolph AT email.com writes:


> > …  And, hearken Rohlites---the chronology of ancient Egypt is scarcely 
> > off by more than a few years --because Manetho, considered by the 
> > ancients 
> to be 
> > a great authority, said so.  
> 
> Talk about “fundamentalism” … lol!

Whoah there, Nellie!  What do you really know about Manetho?  The man was 
widely quoted and was said to "have reached the pinnacle of erudition".  
Being an 
expert on him, I have come to believe that this is so.  This historian had 
many things going for him, some of which I will list:

1.  He knew the Egyptian language (as well as Greek) and could read it.
2.  He was into science (as it was then) and wrote works on that as well as a 
history of Egypt up to his time.
3.  He evidently had sources that are unknown to us.  When Manetho compiled 
his kinglist, he included rulers that are omitted from earlier kinglists that 
have survived for various reasons.  But we know these people existed, anyway, 
from their monuments--and so did Manetho.  He was a completely honest scholar 
and had no axe to grind whatsoever, unlike Apion, for example.
4.  Although there is nothing from him showing anti-Semitism, Manetho, the 
pagan, had no reason to be a Biblical apologist like subsequent Jewish and 
Christian chronographers.  That is a very good thing, because Manetho then 
was free 
to tell what he knew without having to make it conform to the HB.  For me, 
the greatest loss to Egyptology is that no original copy of Manetho's history 
in 
three books survives.  All we get are copies of his kinglist, redacted by 
those with a Biblical agenda and theories about the exodus.  In fact, it was 
the 
strong belief in an exodus that motivated these people to mess up Manetho in 
order to fit a given theory.  This is only too obvious.  Josephus, as much as 
he tries to debunk Manetho, still gives us more of his writing than anyone 
else--and doesn't manage to debunk him at all.  Contrarywise, Josephus 
demonstrates that Manetho was a much more honest scholar than himself--the 
fundamentalist.  Read my book and I guarantee you you'll quit laughing.