Biblical Hebrew Forum

[jimstinehart AT aol.com]

Rob:

Scholars split between Year 14 and Year 12 as the date of the Great Syrian 
War in western Syria, with the majority view since 1990 probably being Year 
14.  K.A. Kitchen, writing in the early 1960s, tentatively suggested Year 12, 
but there are good reasons why his dating is often rejected (as is his 
peculiar 8-year co-regency theory, which no one accepts).  Much of Year 12 at 
Amarna was spent having a grand durbar, which was a foreign tribute festival, 
and having elaborate, gorgeous portrayals of that durbar done in two nobles’ 
rock tombs at Amarna.  It’s hard to believe that these triumphalist 
portrayals of foreign tribute were being done at Amarna precisely when 
Suppiluliuma was conquering all of northern Syria in Year 12!  

One major aspect of Amarna Letter EA 155 that you cite is almost certainly a 
mistranslation.  "Behold, I go away with all thy ships and my whole city" is 
said to apply to both Abimelek and Zimredda, but there’s no way that those 
rival princelings in Lebanon were both fleeing.  Wm. Moran’s later 
translation is now preferred, which sees this phrase as the princelings 
preparing boats for Egypt, not as “going away” with their ships.

The bottom line is that I go with the many scholars who favor a Year 14 date 
for the Great Syrian War in western Syria, which matches Genesis 14: 5 
perfectly, rather than following Kitchen’s old, outdated view from the early 
1960s:  

(1)  “[T]he Great Syrian campaign falls at the latest in years 14/15, but 
conceivably as early as year 12….”  Wm. J. Murnane, “The Road to Kadesh” 
(1990), p. 126.  

(2)  “At some point in the reign, the Hittite King, Suppiluliuma, conducted a 
major campaign in north Syria, seizing Egyptian vassal states.  This is 
probably to be dated between years 12 and 14 of Akhenaten’s reign.”  Robert 
Morkot, “Historical Dictionary of Ancient Egyptian Warfare” (2003), p. 5.

The following statement of yours is peculiar:  “Please name a scholar, 
any scholar, who places the Great War in Year 14. I can find no one, but it 
is 
possible I missed someone so please enlighten me.”  See Murnane and Morkot 
quoted above.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois