Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

The problem is that the letters were written by the King himself. Surely, he
would use his own name in correspondence.

James Christian

On 8 May 2010 21:04, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
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