Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 2:23 PM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> In fact, it's worse than I at first thought Karl. There is in fact mention
> of a King of Urusalem (Jerusalem). An Abdi-Heba, who grovels shamelessly to
> the Pharaoh in EA 287. I fail to see how Abdi-Heba could be identified with
> any of the Kings of Judah. This name probably means Servant of Hebat, a
> Hurrian goddess. So, I'm finding the Amarna period very unlikely to be
> contemporary with a Kingdom of Israel.
>
> James Christian
>
> There are several problems with history.

One of the problems is that kings often had several names, and/or were known
by different names in different languages. One relatively recent example
from Europe is that Charlemagne and Karl der Große were the same king, and
that example is very easy compared to many examples from the ancient world.

Another is that there was no system wide dating before the common era, when
combined with the above, often leaves us guessing as to who and when was
meant.

Now, when looking at archeology, we find that the destruction pattern of the
middle bronze age is accurately described in Joshua—either Joshua at ca.
1400 BC is dated too late, or the middle bronze age destruction of Jericho
and other cities is dated too early.

We find from archeology that in the mid 14th century BC that most of the
“cities” mentioned in the EA letters either did not exist (were abandoned
ruins) or were small, poor villages, not the rich pickings worth sending an
invasion to plunder. Either the archaeologists are incompetent, the dating
is wrong, or the EA letters describe a different era. Personally, I think
the last possibility is probably most likely.

I just read in a blog that finds connected with “King Tut” were C14 dated to
ca. 850 BC, which would fit.
http://doctor.claudemariottini.com/2009/08/immanuel-velikovsky-and-history-of.htmlI
don’t have supporting evidence independent of that comment.

With the modern reconstruction of ancient Egyptian history such a mess, with
archeology contradicting it in many ways, all I can say for certain is that
we really don’t know what happened.

So who was Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem? I’m not sure. As for Samaria, was that
the same as Sumur or Sumura of the EA letters? Possibly. I’m not a scholar
of the EA letters, and don’t plan on becoming one, but I know enough to say
that the accepted orthodoxy concerning them certainly has holes, big holes,
that need to be filled before I can accept the present orthodoxy.

Karl W. Randolph.