Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

My understanding of Akkadian is that we have a fairly good model of the
stages of its development representing various stages in its development and
that it is the Middle-Assyrian stage of development that we see in the
Amarna letters. Surely, therefore it is the archaeological and historical
model of Assyriology that gives us that dating of its usage. At least I
would expect it to be. I'm going to have to look into this a bit further.
Are you suggesting that our entire framework of Assyriology dating also
depends on Manetho's testimony? If that be the case then I would be forced
to admit that that would present compelling problems to our whole historical
framework.

James Christian

2010/2/19 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
> >
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