Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

You just made a circular argument.

The reason for the dates of the Akkadian language use is based on Manetho,
and now you say that the reason we can trust the Manetho dates is based on
the dates for the use of Akkadian.

It has been believed that the Egyptian dating was the most accurate,
therefore all other dates were made to conform to that. For example, the
dating of Ugarit is based on its connections with 19th dynasty Egypt. But
when comparing the Egyptian dates to archeology, then problems started
appearing. Therefore, if Egyptian dates all must be realigned to fit with
archeology, then all the dates connected with the Egyptian dates need to be
realigned as well. And that includes when was the use of Akkadian.

Which brings back the question, who was king So of Egypt, who was strong
enough that Hosea, king of Samaria, thought he could depend on him to rescue
him from Assyria 2 Kings 17:4? Was he Shoshenq? Did Shishaq = Thutmosis II
or Raamses II?

Karl W. Randolph.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 1:52 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> But it's not just the Shishak Shoshenq link that makes the chronology fit.
> The fact that the Amarna letters found at Akhenaten's new capital Akhetaten
> are written in Akkadian speaks volumes. To date Akhenaten's reign we merely
> need to look at when Akkadian was used as a lingua franca and we already
> have a rough dating independent of Manetho and archeologically verifiable.
> Akkadian was used as the lingua franca in the late Near Eastern bronze age.
> i.e. pre 1200 BCE. The general dating of Akhenaten to 1300's seems to agree
> with this phenomenon. I find it extremely difficult to envisage how we could
> date Akhenaten to as late as 8th/9th centuries and still expect the find of
> Akkadian letters to be explicable.
>
> James Christian
>