Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarianneLuban AT aol.com]

In a message dated 8/22/2004 11:29:23 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peterkirk AT qaya.org writes:


> >>1. What's the conventional wisdom on the length of Sheshonq I's reign?
> >>Manetho gives him 21 years, and the Silsileh quarry inscription is dated 
> to
> >>his 21st year. However Wente and Redford claim that he ruled 33 years.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >
> >While there were four kings named Sheshonq, I presume you mean Sheshonq 
> >II. 
>  
> >The length of his rule is certain open to question.  Clayton just assigns 
> him 
> >"c. 890".
> 

Ooops--right.  Memory did not serve.  Anyway, the TIP is not my specialty.  I 
never write anything about it or do any research on this era.  It is Sheshonk 
I.

> >
> >  
> >
> > ...
> >
> >
> >Yes, there is the triumphant relief at Karnak, partially damaged, showing 
> the 
> >Canaanite town he captured.
> >  
> >
> 
> I presume that you mean "towns" in this last sentence, and are referring
> to the same Sheshonq who is commonly identified with the biblical
> Shishak (hence the subject line), and discussed in detail in David
> Rohl's "A Test of Time" under the name "Hedjkheperre Shoshenk I". Isn't
> this the Sheshonq whose victories are listed on this relief? But why
> does Rohl call him Shoshenk I and date him to 945-924 even in his
> "conventional chronology" which he takes from Kitchen. Or are you
> referring to a different ruler, Hekakheperre Shoshenk II in Rohl's
> spelling, 890-889 in his "conventional chronology"? Which of them is
> named in the Silsileh quarry inscription? As the latter seems to have
> ruled only one year, he cannot have had a 21st year.
> 
> Incidentally, Rohl lists six Shoshenks in this table, four in the 22nd
> dynasty and two in the 23rd, and argues in his Appendix A for a seventh one.
> 
> Anyway, how is the Karnak relief independent evidence of his date? Since
> there is no mention of a capture of Jerusalem in this relief (or the
> part of it which survives), it cannot even be used as a speculative
> synchronism with Shishak's sack of Jerusalem recorded in the Bible. And
> it would be rather inconsistent for anyone who has rejected as
> unreliable the date in 1 Kings 6:1 ("In the 480th year after the
> Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign
> over Israel,...") to put very much reliance on 1 Kings 14:25 ("In the
> fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem").


Now, checking in Clayton--as I should have done to begin with--he only lists 
four Sheshonqs.   Rainer Hannig, however, who has a very respected Egyptian 
lexicon in German, lists five.  About the rest I have no comment.