Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

What follows is what I have learned from several historians, not all from
academia.

Throughout the ANE there is a “dark age” between two to four centuries long.
For ancient Greece, it was from about 1100 BC to around 800 BC. In some
areas, the dark age was initiated by an invasion, but in others archaeology
cannot find it because there is no evidence of abandonment of a site, nor
any evidence whatsoever of cultural change. Only the presupposition of a
dark age that by theory had to have been there allows one even to claim that
such had happened.

Ignore Egyptian history, remove that dark age so that all dates are
centuries later than presently dated, then ancient archaeology and history
line up. Then you don’t get the fiction that empty ruins and/or minor
villages are major cities, as you now have with the Amarna age being the
14th century BC.

As for the dates after that “dark age”, they will remain pretty much
unchanged, In fact, I have reason to believe that Alexander the Great was
born about a decade earlier than the consensus places him.

But where I have done most reading concerns ancient Canaan/Israel. There we
have the archaeological record that exactly parallels the historical record
given in Joshua and Judges, except dated centuries earlier. That same
archaeological record makes it impossible that the Amarna letters were
written from that place at that time. Either we have to say that the updated
Menetho history is right and the Bible but myths and the archaeologists
incompetent, or that the Bible is correct and we need only to adjust the
archaeological dates to bring them in line and the Egyptian history is not
worth the paper it is written on, or a few other options, but what we cannot
say is that the present dates with its empty ruins and/or minor villages are
the time and places where the Amarna letters were authored. That dawg don’t
hunt.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 1:56 PM, James Spinti <JSpinti AT eisenbrauns.com>wrote:

> Karl,
>
> The subject of dating in the ancient world comes up with amazing
> frequency on the ANE list. I would suggest that you search the archives
> there (both from the old ANE list hosted by U of Chicago, and the new
> ANE-2 list on Yahoo). Bob Whiting, of the University of Helsinki, is an
> expert on Assyrian dating and the underpinnings thereof. You don't need
> to take his word for the conclusions; he gives the data for you to
> explore it yourself. His conclusions are based on the king lists and
> limmu-lists that have been discovered. Of course, a knowledge of
> Akkadian is helpful (but not necessary).
>
> There simply isn't a way to move the Amarna period as late as you wish.
> Amarna happens to be one of the best documented time periods in the
> ancient world. The texts mention the Hittite empire, which we know was
> destroyed c. 1200 BCE based on archaeological evidence (more recent
> findings have actually dated it more exactly, but I don't recall the
> year right now, probably around 1190 BCE). This doesn't depend on
> Egyptian chronology at all; it leans more on Greek/Aegean stuff. I doubt
> you want to move Greek chronology forward that far, or you will end up
> with Alexander being at the time of Jesus!
>
> James
>
> ________________________________
> James Spinti
> Marketing Director, Book Sales Division
> Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 30 years
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>
>