Thutmose III as “Shishak”

 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

 

 

Champollion’s Shoshenk

as “Shishak”

 

 

 

Jean François Champollion was obviously a prodigious talent to whom we owe the first translations of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. But he was also a pioneer, hence susceptible to some early miscalculations. His identification, with Megiddo, of Thutmose III’s Mkty, was, as far as Sir Henry Breasted was concerned, as if set in stone.

 

 

 

The most interesting candidates, as far as I am concerned, who have been put forward for the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (I Kings 14:25), are: Shosenk I; Thutmose III; and Ramses II.

 

Shoshenk I, because he was the choice of Champollion, and because this identification is still, to this day, purportedly a biblically-based pillar of Egyptian chronology – namely, the 5^th year of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, tied to the 21^st year campaign of Shoshenk I.

Thutmose III, because he alone is, according to my revision - with his co-ruler Hatshepsut as a contemporary of Solomon’s (following Velikovsky) - historically appropriate for “Shishak”.

Ramses II, who is David Rohl’s candidate for “Shishak” (A Test of Time: The Bible - From Myth to History, 1995) - because Rohl presents a very good argument in support of his case.

 

Who “Shishak” is not

 

Dr Elizabeth Mitchell, who has written for Answers in Genesis an article in which she pleads, “Will the Real Shishak Please Stand Up?”, has followed this up further on in the article with the amusing heading (https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/ancient-egypt/will-the-real-shishak-please-stand-up/):

 

“Will the Wrong Shishak Please Sit Down?

 

So how did the chronological confusion come about? Jean Champollion, the brilliant translator of the Rosetta Stone, unwittingly gave support to inconsistent chronology when he erroneously identified Pharaoh Shoshenq as the Shishak of the Bible. Champollion found an inscription about Shoshenq, founder of the 22nd Dynasty, at the temple of Karnak. Because the names sound similar, Champollion assumed that Shoshenq was Shishak. Then, with the biblical date for Rehoboam as a starting point, chronologists used Manetho’s list to outline the next three centuries of Egyptian history.

Many Bible scholars have trusted traditional chronology even when it disputes the Old Testament.

Manetho’s list is problematic enough, being full of discrepancies, duplications, and overlaps, but the starting point Champollion thought he’d found was incorrect. The two problems with identifying Shoshenq as Shishak involve military strategy and phonics. According to the Karnak inscriptions, Shoshenq attacked the northern part of Israel, not Rehoboam’s Jerusalem or Judah. As we said earlier, Jeroboam was Shishak’s friend and probably his ally. If Shoshenq were Shishak, then Shoshenq attacked his friend and ignored his enemy. Furthermore, the phonetics of these two pharaohs’ names only sound similar in transliterated form, not in the original languages.

Because of this faulty identification of Shoshenq with Shishak, Egyptologists ignored the rest of the biblical facts relating to the geography and characters involved. Then, because dates determined by combining the Shoshenq-Shishak error with a misplaced acceptance of Manetho’s work almost magically match traditional information about the confusing Third Intermediate Period, many Bible scholars have trusted traditional chronology even when it disputes the Old Testament.

We should take a lesson from this bit of history. Champollion, with the best of intentions, a brilliant mind, a track record for great discoveries, and a belief in biblical history, stumbled. He began with the Bible and developed what seemed to be a perfect match. But when further analysis produced discrepancies with the Bible, the biblical Egyptologists of the time dropped the ball. They held on to their original interpretations of the evidence even when it forced clear discrepancies with the Bible.

In creation ministry, we also sometimes discover that models or arguments once popular among Christians, when examined more closely, actually conflict with new discoveries or, even more importantly, with Scripture. This website even maintains a section of arguments creationists should avoid. All evidence needs to be viewed through biblical glasses. We need to always be like the Bereans, who were commended because they “searched the Scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11), measuring all we “know” according to God’s Word and not being too stubborn to change any unscriptural ideas we may have”.

 

Professor James Henry Breasted considered the warlike Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III (c. 1480-1425 BC, conventional dating), to have been “the Napoleon of Egypt” (Ancient Times, I, Ginn and Co., 1914, p. 85). Now, Thutmose III has been confidently dated according to the ‘Sothic’ scheme of things to the C15th BC. Dr. Eva Danelius (whose research will be the inspiration for much of this present series) gives a brief summary of this astronomical scheme in her ground-breaking article, “Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?” (SIS Review, Vol. II, No. 3, 1977/78, pp. 64-79). She wrote:

 

“The scheme commonly applied is that of a calendar tied to the fixed star called Spdt in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek, and Sirius by the Romans - the English "Dog Star". The star becomes visible in Egypt about the time when the Nile begins to rise - the most important event for a country the pro­ductivity of whose fields depended on the annual Nile Flood. After having tied the calendar to a fixed star, it became poss­ible, through most complicated mathematical and astronomical observations and operations in combination with Egyptian texts, to secure so-called "astronomically fixed dates" for some pharaohs. In this way the reign of Thutmose III, includ­ing that of Thutmose II and Queen Hatshepsut, was "astronomically fixed" as from May 3, 1501 to March 17, 1447 BC …”.

 

For a more detailed analysis of the Sothic dating method, see my:

 

The Fall of the Sothic Theory: Egyptian Chronology Revisited

 

http://www.academia.edu/3665220/The_Fall_of_the_Sothic_Theory_Egyptian_Chronology_Revisited

 

This artificial system has yielded (as we have already learned) wildly inaccurate dates for Eighteenth Dynasty figures such as Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, who were, in actual fact, C10th BC figures.

Ramses II and his fellow Nineteenth Dynasty Egyptian rulers have also been well mis-dated. (And yet biblical historians try to tie Ramses II to the Pharaoh of the Exodus).

In the case of 22^nd dynasty Shoshenk I, he, in his C10th BC location, conventionally speaking, will be found later on to be somewhat closer (than were his 18^th and 19^th dynasty counterparts) to his rightful chronological place. 

 

By far the majority of scholars are prepared - with so much seemingly weighty scientific argument behind the Sothic theory - simply to fall into line with its chronological conclusions. And so these would not quibble with the blatant conclusion of Professor Breasted that Thutmose III’s First Campaign, in his 22^nd-23^rd Year, occurred during April/May of 1479 BC.

 

A record of the pharaoh’s many campaigns, including this first one, have been inscribed upon the wall of the Temple of Amun.

According to  http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/annals-thutmosis-iii

 

“… around 1437 BC, Thutmosis [Thutmose] had the story of his campaigns in Syria and Palestine inscribed on the walls of one of the sanctuaries of the great temple of Amun at Karnak. At the beginning of the first horizontal line that stands at the top of the wall, one can read the pharaoh’s dedication of this inscription to Amun: “His Majesty commanded that there be recorded on a stone wall in the temple he had renovated ... the triumphs accorded him by his father, Amun, and the booty he took. And so it was done”.

Moreover: “The narrative is organized by year (hence the name "annals"), and each entry gives the course of the campaign, together with accounts of booty brought back and of the supposedly voluntary tribute paid by Nubia and by various countries of the Near East in recognition of the pharaoh's might”.

 

According to Breasted, the ‘Napoleonic’ pharaoh, in the 22^nd year of his long reign (54 years), embarked upon a military expedition into Syria, in order to fight against a coalition of Syrian princes under the leadership of the “King of Kd-šw”, who had revolted against Egypt. Kd-šw has been identified as the city of Qadesh, or Kadesh.

Pharaoh Thutmose III emerged from this campaign with a great victory and immense spoils from the conquered territories. Dr. Eva Danelius takes up the story, and how Megiddo got into the picture (“Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, Vol. II, No. 3, 1977/78, pp. 64-79):

 

“… the greater part of Thutmose's report is dedicated to the fight for a city My-k-ty (now read Mkty), its siege and final surrender. In their search for a city written this way in hieroglyphs, Egyptologists decided that My-k-ty must be the transcription of the name Megiddo, a city in the Plain of Esdraelon well known from the Old Testament.

…. According to common consent, Thutmose III was the first pharaoh to conquer Megiddo”.

 

Regarding Champollion’s identification of “Shishak” with Shoshenk I, Dr. J. Bimson, in 1986, would turn this right on its head in his article, “Shoshenq and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity” (Chronology and Catastrophism Review, vol. VIII, pp. 36-46). Despite the superficial similarity of the names, the fact is that Shoshenq I (as is generally agreed), never attacked Jerusalem (which “Shishak” most certainly did).

Commenting on this, John Ashton and David Down write in “Unwrapping the Pharaohs”: https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/ancient-egypt/the-third-intermediate-

 

“Shoshenq does not relate that he invaded Israel or that he conquered Jerusalem. He simply writes a list of cities that he is presenting to the god Amun, and Jerusalem is not among them. …. If Shoshenq had conquered Jerusalem and taken all the fabulous treasures out of the temple there, he would certainly have made a big deal of it. Some have pointed out that some of the inscription has been damaged and perhaps Jerusalem was mentioned among the damaged section, but Jerusalem would have been the prize and would have been mentioned at the beginning of the inscription, which is still intact. …”.

 

I summarised some of Dr. John Bimson’s argument as follows in my university thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf

 

 

‘King Shishak of Egypt’

 

My Egypto-biblical re-alignment will be fully in accordance with Velikovsky insofar at least as he had removed one of the most fundamental pillars of the conventional Egyptian chronology: namely, that Shoshenq I was ‘Shishak’. Whether Velikovsky was also correct in his identifying of the biblical ‘King So of Egypt’ with one or other Libyan Shoshenq462 will still need to be determined.

 

Just How Important is Shoshenq I in the Conventional Scheme?

 

Bimson has claimed that the present identification of Shoshenq I with ‘Shishak’ is so firmly fixed in the minds of the conventional historians that it constitutes a “major obstacle” standing in the way of their acceptance of the revised scheme of ancient history.463 Ever since Champollion proposed this identification, he says, it has been well nigh universally accepted by the scholarly community, becoming “axiomatic among Egyptologists and biblical scholars alike”.

Superficially, the link appears impressive enough. Apart from the fact that (i) Shoshenq I is conventionally dated to the approximate time of ‘Shishak’, it seems (ii) his name is similar to ‘Shishak’, and (iii) Shoshenq is known to have campaigned in Palestine.

The reality, however, is very much different from the appearance!

I will provide sufficient synchronisms later in this Part III to indicate that Shoshenq I does not by any means correspond chronologically with ‘Shishak’.”

 

Mackey’s comment: My reconstruction of Shoshenk I as it was in my thesis will differ significantly from what it will be in this series.

My thesis continues:

 

And I can add to this the pertinent observation that historians - as a result of their dating Shoshenq I, as ‘Shishak’, to the time of Rehoboam of Judah (c. 925 BC) - find themselves having to look, for [biblical king of Egypt] ‘So’, at the time, say, of pharaoh Tefnakht (c. 727-716 BC, conventional dates), a TIP ruler of the 24th dynasty. But since it is immediately apparent that the name ‘Tefnakht’ is entirely inappropriate for ‘So’, proponents of this view must then resort to such far-fetched explanations as this one mentioned by Grimal:464 “Some scholars have treated [So] as a mistaken Hebrew spelling for the city of Sais, in which case - by a process of metonymy - Hosea would have been appealing to King Tefnakht [who reigned from there]”. 2 Kings 17:4, however, clearly identifies ‘So’ as “King … of Egypt”; hence the name does not pertain to a city, such as Saïs.

Kitchen moreover has listed a number of reasons why he thinks that Tefnakht is unsuitable for ‘So’.465

Gardiner has looked more realistically to identify “So with the Sib’e, turtan of Egypt, whom the annals of Sargon state to have set out from Rapihu (Raphia on the Palestinian border) together with Hanno, the King of Gaza, in order to deliver a decisive battle”.466

Though such a view would need to address why one whom the Second Book of Kings had entitled ‘King’, prior to the fall of Samaria, had become, some half a dozen or so years later, a mere Egyptian official (turtan); albeit an important one.

 

Name (Linguistic) Arguments

 

The vocalisation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs as Shoshenq is based upon the spelling of the name Shushinqu (or Susinku) in Assyrian records from the C7th BC. We find experts ranged on both sides in regard to whether the two names Shoshenq and Shishak are sufficiently close to confirm their identity. Gardiner, for instance, plainly felt that the Hebrew name was incompatible with the hieroglyphic original.467 Kitchen468 has on the other hand defended the plausibility of the Hebrew rendering. More recently, Bimson469 has accepted Gardiner’s estimation that the name fit is not entirely compelling; whilst Bimson’s critic, Shea,470 has fully supported Champollion’s identification.

….

The most problematical linguistic aspect for the likes of Kitchen and Shea is the second vowel in the name Shishak, about which Bimson has this to say:471

 

“... there is the omission of the ‘n’ from the Hebrew name. Kitchen points to several instances of the ‘n’ being dropped from cartouches of the name Shoshenq during the 22nd Dynasty ....

 

Two of these involve the prenomen Hedjkheperre, i.e. the prenomen borne by the Shoshenq normally identified as the biblical Shishak; and two other instances are associated with his known relatives. It is therefore possible that the Hebrew name Shishak represents this abbreviated form of the Egyptian.

However, Kitchen’s case would be stronger if there were instances of the ‘n’ being dropped in non-Egyptian sources. The Assyrian Shushinqu preserves it, and it is retained in the Greek form employed by Manetho and his excerptors…. Should we therefore expect the Hebrew scribes to omit the ‘n’? Probably not”.

 

With Velikovsky’s Shoshenq (Sosenk) = ‘So’, any linguistic difficulty is greatly reduced, at least, since the whole of ‘So’ is contained in the first syllable of the pharaonic name.

And we should not be surprised about the abbreviation of the name ‘Shoshenq’ to ‘So’, since, according to Kitchen:472 “Abbreviations of private names are common from the New Kingdom onwards”. More specifically, Kitchen tells here of Shoshenq’s name having been actually shortened to ‘Shosh’ on scarabs.

Moreover, Hebrew shin (שׁ) and samek (ס) are reasonably close in pronunciation. The difference between the sh (שׁ) and s (ס) sounds could simply be one of dialect as is apparent from the celebrated case in Judges 12:6 where the Ephraïmites were distinguishable from the Gileadites in their inability to pronounce the password, Shibboleth (שִׁבֹּלֶת), which the Ephraïmites rendered as Sibboleth (סִבֹּלֶת).

 

Shoshenq’s Activity in Palestine

 

Whilst the linguistic argument in favour of Champollion’s choice of Shoshenq as ‘Shishak’ has at least something to recommend it, the same cannot be said I think for Shoshenq’s most misunderstood actions in Palestine, as recorded on the Bubasite Portal at Karnak. Shoshenq I’s activities in Palestine just cannot be made to fit the bold campaign by ‘Shishak’ against Jerusalem!

By today’s standards Champollion’s understanding of Shoshenq’s Bubasite list was, as Bimson has noted, quite unsophisticated. Instead of his recognising all of the name-rings

on Shoshenq’s inscription as being the names of towns and cities in Palestine, he believed that the list included “the leaders of more than thirty vanquished nations”.473

Among the names Champollion read No. 29 as ‘Ioudahamelek’, which he took to be the name ‘Judah’ (Heb. יְהוּדָה) followed by ‘the kingdom’474 – though, more preferably, it would be ‘the king’ preceded by definite article (Heb. : הַמֶּלֶךְ)a . Consequently, Champollion translated this name-ring as “the kingdom of the Jews, or of Judah” (cf. Hebrew ha(m)malcûth).

He thus concluded that Judah was among the many “nations” that the pharaoh claimed to

have conquered.

Champollion’s reading of name No. 29 was subsequently challenged by Brugsch, who made a new and detailed study of the list. Brugsch identified names both before and after

No. 29 as belonging to Israel as well as to Judah, and therefore felt that its position in the

list contradicted Champollion’s reading.475 The now generally accepted view, according to Bimson, is that proposed by Müller:476 namely, that No. 29 stands for a place, Yadha(m)melek. Whilst this location has not yet been identified, its position in the list would definitely seem to suggest that it refers to a location in the NW coastal plain of Israel, far from Jerusalem. This fact, however, does not appear to have weakened acceptance of the identification of Shoshenq with ‘Shishak’.

….

A considerable number of names in the Bubasite list had come to be identified with towns in Israel and Judah, establishing that Shoshenq’s forces had campaigned in Palestine. Unlike in the campaign of ‘Shishak’, however, the kingdom of Israel too was attacked according to Donner.478

In regard to certain ‘explanations’ that “Rehoboam might have captured various towns in Israel, or that the pharaoh was simply prepared to override friendship with Jeroboam for the sake of political gain, these”, says Bimson, “are either flatly contrary to Scripture (1 Kings 12:21-4), or completely unattested therein”.479 “Such conjectures are necessary”, he adds, “only because of the identification of Shoshenq I with Shishak. It is entirely consistent with the Bible’s portrayal of Shishak as Jeroboam’s ally that it contain no reference whatsoever to an Egyptian invasion of Israel”.

 

Jerusalem Not Listed by Shoshenq

 

Scholars for and against Champollion’s reconstruction, alike, have generally concluded that Jerusalem is not even mentioned in Shoshenq’s Bubasite list. Velikovsky, for instance, claimed that:480 “Neither Jerusalem, Hebron, Beer-Sheba, Bethlehem, nor any other known place was among the names on the list; nor was Jaffa, Gath, or Askelon”.

And Bimson has regarded “Shoshenq’s failure to include Jerusalem in his list of cities ...” as being far more serious than any other problem raised by the opponents of the conventional view; “a major stumbling block”.481

But even the proponents of the Shoshenq = ‘Shishak’ view are puzzled by this apparent omission. Judah’s wealthy capital features in the Scriptures as being the prime target of the biblical pharaoh’s expedition; but when we turn to Shoshenq’s inscription, as Hermann says:482 “It is remarkable that Jerusalem does not seem to be mentioned on it, and does not therefore belong among the places seized ...”. Kitchen also thinks it extremely unlikely that Jerusalem ever featured in any of the sections of the bas-relief now damaged.483

Shea, on the other hand, claims to have found Jerusalem and its environs described in various of Shoshenq’s name rings.484 ….

 

David Rohl, admittedly, does make a very good fist of trying to match Ramses II with Shishak. But, as we shall read in the following critique, this ‘new’ version of Shishak runs into some insurmountable problems, thus placing “the New Chronology … under considerable threat”. Rohl, like James (Centuries of Darkness, 1990), still manages to score telling points against convention, but his mid-way revision leaves him wandering in something of a no man’s land. Dale Murphie (recently deceased) has provided the following rather devastating “Critique of David Rohl’s A Test of Time” (C and C Review, 1997:1, p. 31):

 

“According to David Rohl, ‘The evidence from the Egyptian monumental reliefs, artefacts and documents points to the identification of Ramesses II as the historical counterpart of the biblical Shishak, conqueror of Jerusalem’ [Test of Time, I, p. 170: ‘Conclusion 8’]. The evidence certainly points to Ramesses II having been in the Judaean capital but is this conclusion the only option? ….

Having sketched Ramesses II into the Shishak position, Rohl takes on the conventional view that Shoshenq of Dynasty XX [sic] was the biblical Shishak. His argument is cogent, convincing and compelling. Even Kenneth Kitchen, reigning champion of the Third Intermediate Period (TIP) dogma, must surely come under pressure to yield ground, opening the way to a dramatic TIP revision. The great advance here is that David demonstrates Shoshenq is not Shishak - and the book is worth its price for this gem alone - but he does not actually prove Ramesses II is Shishak. He merely establishes that this would be the case if his input data are comprehensive and accurate. I suggest they are neither.

In Rohl’s historical scheme, this is a paramount issue. He gives three full chapters (4-6), plus his Preface as reinforcement, to the proposition that Ramesses II is Shishak. If he is mistaken here, the New Chronology comes under considerable threat. It is worth examining the general milieu into which Rohl thrusts Ramesses II, to see how snugly he fits. There seem to be a number of problems, stemming from biblical evidence that the regional power of Egypt became diminished and the Judaean state re-established full independence in this very period.

Firstly, given Ramesses’ 67 year reign, he would only have reached Year 22 when Asa of Judah, grandson of Rehoboam, ascended his throne. The significance of this date is that only one year previously Ramesses concluded his famous treaty with the Hittite King, Hattusilis. At this stage, with Egypt and the Hatti entering a long period of unprecedented harmony, consider the remarkably provocative actions of miniscule Judah. This tiny nation, under her new king, flouted the Egyptian/Hatti pact (which provided for mutual aid in just such an event), by starting the greatest fortress building phase of its entire history and developing a standing army of 540,000 men [II Chronicles 14:6-8] – and where did this military build up take place? Not in some distant corner of Egyptian/Hatti territory, away from prying eyes, but right in the demilitarised zone between the two powers, where all might see and not be under the slightest doubt that Judah meant business”.

 

And that is not the end of the problem for Rohl.

Murphie continues:

 

“To compound this difficulty, the Hebrew annals declare that in Asa’s 10^th Year [II Chronicles 14:9-15] (Ramesses’ 31^st year in the New Chronology) Judah was invaded from the south. However the biblical record says the foe was neither Ramesses nor Hattusilis (as would be expected in Rohl’s scenario) but another character entirely: Zerah the Ethiopian. Would Hatti and Egypt stand back to allow this fourth party with a massive army (suggested as from Arabia rather than Nubia) to invade their territory? Moreover, Zerah’s expedition suffered a major thumping at the hands of the Judaean upstart, enhancing Asa’s reputation throughout the region. Still the New Chronology has us believe that Ramesses and Hattusilis did nothing! Even if Zerah was acting in some way as agent provocateur of one of the major players (logically Egypt) in an attempt to take out the Judaean Maginot Line of fortresses, how could Ramesses have tolerated Asa’s humiliation of his agent?

If Ramesses II was Shishak, there never was a time when, nor a place where, such a result for Asa could have been more inappropriate or unlikely. …”.

 

Briefly here, also, Murphie touches on the inadequacies of Rohl’s chronology in relation to the Queen of Sheba:

 

“At the beginning of this time frame Shishak is tied chronologically to another celebrity who, like Zerah, simply cannot be ignored. On p. 178 Rohl mentions the Egyptian princess, bride of Solomon, but pays little attention to the contemporary visit of the Queen of Sheba, to whom he assigns 2 lines on p. 32 and a patronising comment about Velikovsky on p. 402. By aligning Dynasty XIX with the middle to near end of the United Monarchy of Israel, the New Chronology lacks a suitable candidate for Solomon’s celebrated visitor. It is not good enough to stay with the received opinion that she was a denizen of the south-west regions of Arabia Felix, when Josephus [Antiquities of the Jews, VIII, vi, 5] informed us that she was the Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia …. Further, the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast (The Book of the Glory of the Kings), discussing their Queen’s visit to Solomon, delivers her name as Makeda, almost identical to the royal name of Dynasty XVIII Queen Hatshepsut Makera, used repeatedly in the Dier [sic] el-Bahri mortuary complex inscriptions of her trading mission to Punt, placing the events in Dynasty XVIII”.

 

 

Kings Rehoboam and Jeroboam I

 

 

“Also, Jeroboam son of Nebat rebelled against the king. He was one of Solomon’s officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah”.

 

I Kings 11:26

 

 

 

Jeroboam and “Shishak”

 

Jeroboam [I] is not - unlike King Solomon’s other adversaries, Hadad the Edomite and Rezon son of Eliada - actually referred to as a satan (שָׂטָן), but as ‘lifting up his hand against the king’ (וַיָּרֶם יָד, בַּמֶּלֶךְ).

 

Thus we read (vv. 27-39):

 

“Here is the account of how [Jeroboam] rebelled against the king: Solomon had built the terraces and had filled in the gap in the wall of the city of David his father. Now Jeroboam was a man of standing, and when Solomon saw how well the young man did his work, he put him in charge of the whole labor force of the tribes of Joseph.

About that time Jeroboam was going out of Jerusalem, and Ahijah the prophet of Shiloh met him on the way, wearing a new cloak. The two of them were alone out in the country, and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. Then he said to Jeroboam, ‘Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and give you ten tribes. But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.

But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have made him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes. I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name. However, as for you, I will take you, and you will rule over all that your heart desires; you will be king over Israel. If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you. I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever’.’”

 

Jeroboam was obviously a man of great talent, making an impression, first on King Solomon, and, then, on Pharaoh Shishak.

Solomon, realising that the great man had become a danger (v. 40), “tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon’s death”.

 

Pharaoh Shishak can only be, according to my estimations, the very long-reigning (54 years) Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

We had calculated that Thutmose I was the biblical “Pharaoh” during King Solomon’s early reign, who had given his “daughter” to King Solomon in an “alliance”. He reigned into approximately the first decade of King Solomon’s reign.

Thutmose I was succeeded by Thutmose II of uncertain length of reign – but perhaps similar to his predecessor, about 13 years.

The “Queen of Sheba”, who had visited and married Solomon, then left to marry Thutmose II.

She was Queen Hatshepsut.

These were political marriages, for the purpose of linking powerful kingdoms such as Israel and Egypt.

When Thutmose II died, Thutmose III came to the throne, for almost the last two decades of Solomon’s reign. “According to custom”, Queen Hatshepsut “began acting as Thutmose III’s regent, handling affairs of state until her stepson came of age. …. After less than seven years, however, Hatshepsut took the unprecedented step of assuming the title and full powers of a pharaoh herself, becoming co-ruler of Egypt with Thutmose III”.

http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/hatshepsut

 

Although King Solomon had been, as Senenmut (Senmut) a mighty force in Egypt, in close association with Hatshepsut, his influence there, at the time when Jeroboam fled to Shishak, must have been well on the wane, with a maturing Thutmose III now in the ascendancy.

In my article “Solomon and Sheba” I had written on this:

 

“Thutmose III in the Ascendant

 

Thutmose, far from having engaged in damnatio memo­riae, actually placed a statue of Senenmut in his Karnak temple and was ‘willing to see honor done to him, at least posthumously’ …. Thutmose III's apparent respect for his mentor might explain why such a military-minded Pharaoh left it 5 years after Solomon's death before invading Jerusalem and sacking the Temple … (as the biblical ‘Shishak’).

However cracks in their relationship surfaced near the end of Solomon's life when Jeroboam, chosen by God ‘to tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon’, feared for his life and fled to ‘Shishak’ in Egypt, where he remained until Solomon's death (I Kings 11:26, 31, 40). Perhaps during the last few years of Hatshepsut's reign, with Solomon in decline, Thutmose Ill began to assert his independence. He may have realised that it would fall to him to rectify Egypt's economic problems. He accomplished this after Hatshepsut's death, by embarking upon a series of mighty military conquests.

 

Senenmut's Decline and Death

 

‘Senenmut's continuing goodwill at court seems to have continued unabated during most … of Hatshepsut's floruit’ …. Hatshepsut died in about Regnal Year 21. …. There have been all sorts of intriguing guesses about Senenmut's demise. Schulman … who estimated Senenmut's age at over 50 in Regnal Year 16, thinks ‘it would not at all have been surprising for [Senenmut] to have died from natural causes at a relatively old age, without our having to suppose a fall from the royal favour which resulted in his death’.”

 

Evidence for Solomon’s weakening would be that, whereas, before, he had been able to slay his adversaries (e.g., Adonijah, Joab, Shimei), he was not able to do away with Jeroboam, who would, after Solomon’s death, go on to rule strongly “for twenty-two years” (I Kings 14:20).

 

That Jeroboam was prized by Shishak - as Hadad the Edomite earlier had been, by “Pharaoh” - is apparent from the fact that Shishak gave him an Egyptian princess for a wife, Ano, according to the LXX (I Kings 12:24):

 

“And Jeroboam heard in Mizraim {gr.Egypt} that Solomon was dead; and he spoke in the ears of Shishak {gr.Susakim} king of Mizraim {gr.Egypt}, saying, Let me go, and I will depart into my land; and Shishak {gr.Susakim} said to him, Ask any request, and I will grant it thee. And Shishak {gr.Susakim} gave to Jeroboam Ano the eldest sister of Thekemina his wife, to be his wife: she was great among the daughters of the king, and she bore to Jeroboam Abia his son: and Jeroboam said to Shishak {gr.Susakim}, Let me indeed go, and I will depart. And Jeroboam departed out of Mizraim {gr.Egypt}, and came into the land of Sarira that was in mount Ephraim, and thither the whole tribe of Ephraim assembles, and Jeroboam built a fortress there”.

 

The Hebrew text lacks any mention of an Egyptian wife given to Jeroboam (I Kings 12:1-2): “Rehoboam [son of Solomon] went to Shechem, for all Israel had gone there to make him king. When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt”.

 

As I have said before, the revision, when properly aligned, can be fruitful, whereas the conventional system is sterile. Regarding Jeroboam’s Egyptian wife, Dr. I. Velikovsky thought to have found historical evidence for her (Ages in Chaos, ch. iv: “Princess Ano”, pp. 180-181):

 

“In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York there is preserved a canopic jar bearing the name of Princess Ano [his ref. No. 10.130.1003]. The time when the jar originated has been established on stylistic grounds as that of Thutmose III. No other references to a princess of such name is found in any Egyptian source or document”.

 

Of course this data suited perfectly Dr. Velikovsky’s revision, according to which Shishak (Susakim) was Thutmose III (p. 181): “The existence of a princess by the name of Ano in the days of Thutmose III lends credence to the information contained in the Septuagint and gives additional support to the identification of Shishak or Susakim of the Septuagint with the pharaoh we know by the name Thutmose III”.

 

Jeroboam and the cow-goddess Hathor

 

Jeroboam I will ultimately be disgraced and will fall from grace. I Kings 14:9-11 tells of it:

 

‘You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.

Because of this, I am going to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam. I will cut off from Jeroboam every last male in Israel—slave or free. I will burn up the house of Jeroboam as one burns dung, until it is all gone. Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds will feed on those who die in the country. The Lord has spoken!’

 

That fearful prophecy, uttered by Ahijah, would be fulfilled in the next reign.

In a marvellous article, “Aaron, Jeroboam, and the Golden Calves” (JBL, Vol. 86, No. 2, Jun., 1967, pp. 129-140), authors Moses Aberbach and Leivy Smolar will list “thirteen points of identity” between the accounts of Aaron and the Golden Calf (Exodus 32) and Jeroboam and his Golden Calves (I Kings 12:38 f.).

Might we take it even further, that Jeroboam’s “golden calves” were, like Aaron’s creature, vestiges from former contact with Egypt?

Dr. Eva Danelius has, indeed, established a firm Egyptian religious connection for Jeroboam I in “The Sins of Jeroboam Ben-Nabat” (The jewish quarterly review, vol. LVIII, no. 3, 1968):

 

“…. Faced with the fact, that Jeroboam's "calves" were representations of a cow-goddess-the next question is that for the prototype to them, or her.

Naturally, attention is first focussed on Egypt-the country which had extended such ample hospitality to the exiled Jeroboam, where he had married, and where his son had been born. The search is not in vain : a cow like the heifers described by Josephus : a reddish young animal, made, not molten, covered with gold, in a small shrine of her own, a cow inscribed with the name of a Pharao-who was considered a -has indeed been found: it is the famous Hathor cow from the Hathor shrine in the temple at Deir el-deity43Bahari.

The magnificent temple at Deir EI-Bahari was erected in a bay of the cliffs on the west side of the Nile at Thebes, by the great queen Hatshepsut of the famous XVIIIth dynasty. In the winter, 1906, Mr. Naville, during his excavations of the XIth dynasty temple which preceded that of Hatshepsut, discovered the shrine of Hathor. The shrine was built by Thutmoses III, Hatshepsut's husband, and successor to the throne. Within it stood a great life-size image of the cow-goddess. "Never before had a cult-image of this … size and beauty been found intact within its shrine".

“. . . Hathor is a goddess who comes out of a mountain-therefore a cave was cut in the rock. . . The shrine is a cave about 10 ft long and 8 ft high" (it is 5 ft across) it is hewn in a rock. . . it has been lined allround with slabs of sandstone . . . the roof is a vault consisting of two stones abutting against each other and cut 45in the form of an arch. There never was any pavement; the cow stood on the rough rock".

"The cow is of sandstone. She is of natural size and in her shape a perfect likeness of the cows of the present day. Her colour is a reddish brown, with spots which look like a four-leaved clover. . . in some texts, these spots are replaced by stars . . . It seems that there are animals with this particular colour and spots. Probably this was the sign that they were the incarnation of the goddess, just as some particular … marks distinguished the Apis Bull . . .

"Hathor is the goddess of the mountain. She comes out of her cave and goes towards the river to the marshes . . . In the Book of the Dead, immediately at the foot of the mountain out of which she comes, we … see quite a forest of high papyrus plants . . ."

"The head, neck, and horns of this cow were certainly originally covered with gold: faint traces of it may be seen in the nostrils and on the horns; but the gold must have been very thin, like the very delicate coating which covers some statuettes, and which is metal beaten so thin that the sculpture is made with the same care as if the coating did not exist. It is the case with the cow. . ."

"According to the judgement of experts, this cow is perhaps one of the finest representations of an animal … that antiquity has left us.

On the neck of the cow is the cartouche of Amenhotep II, son and successor of Thutmoses III.

The XVIIIth dynasty were fervent worshippers of Hathor, and so were many of its successors. The sculpture of Deir EI-Bahari was certainly not the only one of its kind, some of which must have been seen by Jeroboam. We know, too, that from the days of the Old Kingdom Egyptian princesses from the harim of the Pharao had been priestesses to Hathor and especially devoted to this goddess-and Jeroboam's wife Ano might have been one of them. The possibility must be considered, therefore, that Jeroboam during his stay in Egypt accepted the worship of Hathor, the heavenly cow, the Great Lady, Mistress of Heaven and Earth. He seems to have decided already then and there, to introduce her service in his native land, should the prophecy of Ahija the Shilonite ever come true”.

 

The Greeks

 

The contemporary tomb of Rekhmire, like that of Senenmut, features Aegean emissaries, whose specific ethnicity and lands of origin are debated.

According to: https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/grace-journal/12-2_23.pdf

 

“… Introduction  of  a  new  term--The  terms  Keftlu and "Islands

 

“In the midst of  the  Great  Green" are found  In conjunction  in  the  tomb of the Vizier Rekhmire  during  the  reign  of Thutmose Ill.   Historically , one may infer that the new term, "Islands in the midst  of  the  Great Green" was designed to describe the Mycenaeans, who first  ca me  In touch with  Egypt during the time of Thutmose  III”.

 

A massive problem, of course, is the conventional archaeology with its Dark Ages for Greece. Previously I had noted:

 

“Thanks to historical revisions … we now know that the ‘Dark Age’ between the Mycenaean (or Heroic) period of Greek history (concurrent with the time of Hatshepsut) and the Archaic period (that commences with Solon), is an artificial construct. This makes it even more plausible that Hatshepsut and Solomon were contemporaries of ‘Solon’. The tales of Solon's travels to Egypt, Sidon and Lydia (land of the Hittites) may well reflect to some degree Solomon's desire to appease his foreign women - Egyptian, Sidonian and Hittite - by building shrines for them (I Kings 11: 1, 7-8)”.

 

John R. Salverda, in a letter to me, suggested that the Greeks may have derived “Europa” from the name, Jeroboam:

 

“…. Exiles from Jeroboam’s kingdom founded colonies in Mycenaean lands, including Greece (where the “virgin Israel” was likely even known by a feminine corruption of Jeroboam’s name “Europa”); Where a famous set of twins fought in the womb, and one of the twins (Acrisius) set up a twelve tribe “Amphictyon” to maintain a special temple. This Greek temple was located at a place known as “Pytho” (a likely transliteration of the term “Bethel,” also called Delphi) thought to be named for “Python” (a possible corruption of “Beth-Aven” or without the slur “Beth-On”), where Apollo (Identified by the Greeks with the Egyptian Horus) slew the great serpent (as Horus did Seth/Apophis). As the Bethel shrine was turned into a copy of the Jerusalem Temple, so the Pyhtian temple of Apollo shares many detailed coincidences with the Judean Temple. The “omphalos” as the “Eben Shetiyah” (the respective “center stones” of the Earth), the Adyton as the Holy of Holies (the sanctuary of forbidden entry), the goat sacrifice (complete with special treatment for the entrails), the fumigation (sweet smelling incense), and ritual bathing (in specifically “living water”) … there are many other corresponding ritualistic and anecdotal features shared by these two temple schemes too numerous to outline in this forum! Well, before going on too long, notice all of the “Egyptian” motifs in this narrative. …”.

 

 

What is certain is that Solomonic archaeology emerges in abundance when all of the seemingly disparate elements of ancient history are brought together, as indeed now they must be.

These, we have found, are:

 

The supposed C18th BC world of Iarim-Lim (now King Hiram), and the archaeology of Alalakh (tying in with the Philistines);

The contemporaneous Shamsi-Adad I (now Hadadezer) - son of Uru-kabkabu (Rekhob) - and his ‘sons’, with Iasmakh-Adad as a potential Hadad the Edomite;

The Era of Hammurabi (perhaps Huram-abi) and Zimri-Lim (Rezon), son of Iahdulim (Eliada). The Solomonic-like architecture at Mari.

 

The supposed C15th BC (actually only about a generation later than the above) world of Idrimi (Hadoram) at Alalakh, rightly situated as a contemporary of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III of Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt.  

 

Senenmut (Solomon) in Hatshepsut’s Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt. Late Bronze II Age.

Not Iron II where the current archaeologists mistakenly look for King Solomon.

This is the age of those Minoan and Aegean Greeks depicted in the reliefs of Senenmut and Rekhmire.

 

The so-called (c. 600 BC) age of Solon of Athens (Solomon), whose laws are actually Jewish - some being even as late as those of Nehemiah. See e.g. E. M. Yamauchi’s, “Two Reformers Compared: Solon of Athens and Nehemiah of Jerusalem" (Bible world, New York: KTAV, 1980. pp. 269-292).

 

Rehoboam not so “young”

 

I Kings 14:25-26:

“In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the Temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon had made”.

 

and correspondingly we read from:

 

2 Chronicles 12:2-4, 9:

“Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem. …. When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the Temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made”.

 

Fatefully, and wrongly - as we have found - the conventional history has (following Champollion) synchronised this most significant biblical event with the main Palestinian campaign of pharaoh Shoshenk (Shoshenq) I of Egypt’s 22^nd (so-called Libyan) dynasty.

We have, though (in this case following Velikovsky) constructed a totally different scenario.

In our revision, Senenmut’s (who was King Solomon) floruit in Egypt would correspond approximately to the mid-to-late phase of Solomon's reign = Years 1-16 of Thutmose III.

Hatshepsut's reign is dated by the regnal years of Thutmose III.

Prior to this period, King Solomon had completed his great building projects in Jerusalem, and, towards its end, he fell away from pure Yahwism into a decadent phase, building shrines to pagan gods for his foreign wives (I Kings 1:18). In perfect accord this, N. Grimal says that Senenmut “was a ubiquitous figure throughout the first three-quarters of Hatshepsut's reign. He oversaw some of the most famous temples and shrines built during the co-reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, and [princess] Neferure’s name also figures in some of these. …”.

Solomon’s (Senenmut’s) fade out near to Year 16 of Thutmose III (Shishak), give or take, corresponds very well indeed, mathematically, with the latter’s ‘First Campaign’ of Years 22-23, that being (according to this revision) the 5^th year of king Solomon’s son, Rehoboam.

 

King Rehoboam’s immaturity early during his reign would make one think that he was only young. Indeed, his son Abijah will refer to Rehoboam as if he had been (2 Chronicles 13:7): ‘Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them’.

The Hebrew word na‘ar (נַ֙עַר֙), translated here as “young” needs to take into account the fact that (I Kings 14:21): “Rehoboam son of Solomon … was forty-one years old when he became king …”. The common word, na‘ar, also used by a reluctant prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:6): ‘“Alas, Sovereign Lord’, I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am too young”, must also include the sense of disposition, of temperament.

 

However, King Rehoboam, who had formerly told the people: 10-11): ‘… My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. … whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke: my father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions’, was wise enough to humble himself during the invasion of Shishak king of Egypt (2 Chronicles 1:6): “The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, ‘The Lord is just’.”

 

Dr. Eva Danelius recreates the scene at the time in a revised context (“Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”: http://saturniancosmology.org/files/egypt/thutmos.htm

 

“The Empire of the Hebrews, which David had taken such great pains to build, fell to pieces immediately after the death of his son King Solomon. Hadad seems to have returned and conquered Edom even before King Solomon's death - or, at all events, immediately thereafter (I Kings 11:22). Jeroboam was sent for and called back to his native Ephraim by the elders of the ten Northern tribes to be made "King over all Israel". Rehoboam, Solomon's son and successor, was left with his native tribe of Judah alone (I Kings 1:13; 12:20).

Rehoboam had lost an empire. Now he did everything possible to ensure the safety of the tiny kingdom with which he was left. Anticipating an invasion, Rehoboam put his country into a state of defence (II Chron. 11:5-12): he closed off all the roads and defiles leading up into "the high rocky fortress of Judaea" (23) with a semi-circle of fifteen fortresses, he "put captains in them, and store of victual, and of oil and wine . . . shields and spears, and made them exceeding strong", to withstand a prolonged siege.

Rehoboam was well advised to do so, being surrounded by enemies of the House of David: in the south Edom, in the west the lands of the five Philistine kings, and in the north the Israelites, who had just successfully rebelled against him. The only road which he kept open was that which led via Jericho and the fords of the Jordan to the Ammonites, to whom he was related through his mother (I Kings 14:21), and from whom he could hope for help against a foreign invader.

Curiously enough, the Bible does not mention any fortress which would protect Judah's northern border against Israel. This gap is filled by Josephus, who reports that Rehoboam, after completing the strongholds in the territory of Judah, constructed walled cities in the territory of Benjamin, which bordered Judah to the north ….

While the king of Judah prepared for defence, the Pharaoh prepared for an attack.

The Egyptian pharaoh who conquered Jerusalem during Rehoboam's reign has been identified with Sheshonk I, who had a list of Palestinian cities inscribed on the Temple walls at Karnak. The list is most fragmentary, and it is doubtful whether it refers to a campaign at all. Most of the discernible names refer to localities in northern Palestine, which, in Shishak's time, belonged to the Kingdom of Israel. The name "Jerusalem" does not appear at all. Some scholars maintain, therefore, that the main attack was not launched against Judah, but against Israel, which suffered serious destruction …. This contention, however, can only be upheld by scholars who are willing to sacrifice the reliability of the Bible (and of Josephus) - which this writer refuses to do ….

The Masoretic Text which has come down to us was written by Judaeans hundreds of years after the Kingdom of Israel had ceased to exist. The Judaeans hated this kingdom and its first king, Jeroboam the heretic. The redactors of the text would have been only too glad to report that Jeroboam was punished for his heresy, that it was his land that was conquered, his capital which was plundered, and the temple at Beth-El that was despoiled. - There is not a word of this, but definite proof to the contrary.

While Rehoboam was feverishly preparing his country for war, Jeroboam indulged in entirely peaceful activities. He built a royal palace at Shechem in the hope of making it his capital. He built a second one at Pnuel …. And he embarked on a religious revolution which weakened the military capacity of his country considerably …. During all those years, Jeroboam was certainly as well aware of the military preparations going on in Egypt as was his southern neighbour the king of Judah. It seems that Jeroboam judged the situation correctly, as far as his kingdom was concerned: no unfriendly act of the Pharaoh against Israel is as much as hinted at by the Chronicler, who reports:-

And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him. And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the Lord ... And he took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah, and came to Jerusalem ... So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king's house; he took all ... (II Chron. 12:1-2, 4, 9)

An even more detailed account has been preserved by Josephus, who closes with the words: "This done, he [i.e. the Pharaoh] returned to his own country." Neither source mentioned any hostility against Israel”.

 

Velikovsky had put out this challenge to conventional scholars regarding the forts of Judah:

 

“The walled cities fortified by Rehoboam (II Chronicles 11:5ff.) may be found in the Egyptian list. It appears that Etam is Itmm; Beth-zur – Bt Sir; Socoh – Sk. Here is a new field for scholarly inquiry: the examination of the list of the Palestinian cities of Thutmose III, comparing their names with the names of the cities in the kingdom of Judah. The work will be fruitful”.

 

This was coupled with his pointed remark that, among the 119 cities listed by Thutmose III, there were many cities “which the scholars did not dare to recognize: they were built when Israel was already settled in Canaan”.

 

 

What sort of a name is “Shishak”?

 

 

Dr. Velikovsky himself did not actually attempt to connect “Shishak” to any of the Egyptian names of pharaoh Thutmose III, but merely alluded to Josephus‘s information that the Egyptian conqueror’s name was “Isakos”, or “Susakos”, and also to the Jewish tradition that the name “Shishak” was from Shuk, “desire”, because the pharaoh had wanted to attack Solomon, but had feared him.

 

A right chronology

 

Criticisms of Dr. I. Velikovsky’s choice (in Ages in Chaos, I, 1952) of pharaoh Thutmose III for the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” tend to focus on four crucial areas: (i) chronology (naturally, since Velikovsky has Thutmose III about 500 years later than does the conventional estimate); (ii) the name; (iii) the relevant campaign against Jerusalem; and (iv) the booty.

Conventionally, Shoshenk I of the 22^nd (so-called “Libyan”) dynasty is considered to be the right candidate, given that he has been dated to the time of kings Solomon and Rehoboam; his name is phonetically like “Shishak”; and he is known to have campaigned in Judah.

 

Though it is now widely thought that pharaoh Shoshenk I did not at any stage attack Jerusalem (as “Shishak” most certainly did).

 

Inevitably, Velikovsky’s vital (for posterity) Eighteenth Dynasty reconstruction, snugly aligned against the United (and later Divided) Monarchy of Israel, must lead him to the conclusion that the long-reigning (54 years) pharaoh Thutmose III was the same ruler as the biblical Shishak. Demonstrating this to be the case in all its major details, though, has turned out to be more elusive, not only for Velikovsky, but for those who have followed him here.

I, for my part, am convinced that Velikovsky was entirely correct in this identification of his (though not in his reconstruction of the whole biblico-historical scenario) and I have added a possible extra dimension to the revision by introducing Senenmut (Senmut) as King Solomon.

As previously noted, Senenmut’s floruit in Egypt would correspond to the mid-to-late phase of Solomon’s reign. In perfect accord with this, N. Grimal says that Senenmut “was a ubiquitous figure throughout the first three-quarters of Hatshepsut's reign”.

Solomon’s (Senenmut’s) fade out near to Year 16 of Thutmose III (Shishak), give or take a year or two, corresponds very well indeed, mathematically, with the latter’s First Campaign of Years 22-23, that being (according to this revision) the 5^th year of king Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, when Shishak came up against Jerusalem and its Temple.

 

Name “Shishak” for revisionists

 

Reconciling the name, “Shishak”, with the mighty Eighteenth dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III, was one of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s pressing tasks towards establishing this proposed biblico-historical synchronism as a sturdy pillar of his historical revision. Other major challenges relating to this were to connect the geography of Thutmose III’s First Campaign to the brief biblical accounts about “Shishak king of Egypt”; and to demonstrate that the inscribed Karnak treasures from this campaign could be matched to those of the Solomonic reign (his palace and the Temple of Yahweh).

 

Admittedly the name Shoshenk (var. Shosenq, Soshenq) is, phonetically speaking - and despite Dr. Bimson’s useful criticisms of it in his “Shoshenq and Shishak” - a far more obvious fit for “Shishak” (Heb. Šiwšaq: שִׁישַׁק) than is the name “Thutmose” (and perhaps than any other pharaonic nomen).

The various names known for pharaoh Thutmose III are provided here by Phouka:

http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn18/05thutmose3.html

 

Horus Name	Kanakkht Khaemwaset
Nebty Name	Wahnesyt
Golden Horus Name	Djeserkhau Sekhenpehti
Praenomen	Menkheperre "Lasting are the Manifestations of Re"
Nomen	Thutmose" Born of the god Thoth"
Manetho	Misphragmuthosis, Mepharamuthosis
King Lists
Alternate Names	Totmes, Thutmos, Thumoses, Tuthmoses

 

It needs to be kept well in mind, however, that “Shishak” was the name by which this person was known to the Jews; so it may not necessarily even have been an Egyptian name.

A similar name, “Shisha” (Heb. Šiyša‘:שִׁישָׁא) - practically identical to “Shishak” but lacking the final k sound (Heb. qôph) - does occur in the First Book of Kings as the father of two of King Solomon‘s highest court officials, scribes (4:3).

It is generally thought that “Shisha” is an Egyptian name, as with one of this man’s sons, Eli-horeph.

Curiously, Shisha’s name is variously rendered in the Old Testament as “Seraiah” (2 Samuel 8:17); as “Sheva” (20:25); and as “Shavsha” (I Chronicles 18:16), which variability might perhaps indicate its foreignness.

 

Another very close fit for the name “Shishak” is the biblical name “Shashak” (Heb. Šašaq) of I Chronicles 8:14, 25.

{ŠŠK is actually an atbash cryptogram in Jeremiah 25:26; 51:41}.

 

So, “Shishak” may simply have been the name by which the pharaoh was known to the Israelites. And, in the context of King Solomon’s close (even intimate) connection with Hatshepsut, as Senenmut, then Israelite familiarity with the young Thutmose III, as well, becomes inevitable.

 

Velikovsky himself did not actually attempt to connect “Shishak” to any of the Egyptian names of pharaoh Thutmose III, but merely alluded to Josephus’s information that the Egyptian conqueror’s name was “Isakos”, or “Susakos”, and also to the Jewish tradition that the name “Shishak” was from Shuk, “desire”, because the pharaoh had wanted to attack Solomon, but had feared him. Certainly, this became an issue as King Solomon aged, with his foes now seeking refuge in Egypt, now with “Pharaoh” (1 Kings 11:18-22), and now with “King Shishak of Egypt” (v. 40).

 

If, on the other hand, the name “Shishak” is to be sought amongst those pharaonic titles of Thutmose III, then one might consider K. Birch‘s suggestion that it could derive from Thutmose III’s Golden Horus name, Djeser-khau (dsr h‘w) [“Chase a Cow”, as some have rendered it]. Birch has written: “... the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau … (Sheser-khau?) …”. (“Shishak Mystery?”, C and C Workshop, SIS, No. 2, 1987, p. 35).

This Golden Horus name means “holy-of-diadems”.

 

Whilst Birch’s ingenious explanation, and the others, may all have merit, my own particular preference, at this point of time at least, is that the name, “Shishak”, was, not an Egyptian name at all - or certainly not a pharaonic one - but was one of those Israelite-applied names in vogue in King Solomon’s court along the lines of “Shisha” and “Shashak”.

 

David Rohl, admittedly, does make a very good fist of trying to match Ramses II with Shishak. But, as we have read, this ‘new’ version of Shishak runs into some insurmountable problems, thus placing “the New Chronology … under considerable threat”. Rohl, like Peter James (Centuries of Darkness), still manages to score telling points against convention, but his mid-way revision leaves him wandering in something of a no man’s land.

 

Overall Velikovsky’s revision (his Ages in Chaos series) has, despite its flaws, paved the way for relieving ancient history of its troublesome “Dark Ages” (c. 1200-700 BC).

Moreover, it has spelled the end of the “Sothic” astronomical theory upon which artificial bed the lengthy dynastic history of Egypt has been so uncomfortably spread out. Its worth has become apparent from the plethora of biblico-historical synchronisms - so lacking in the Sothic scheme - that have sprung up in association particularly with the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Unfortunately, some of the best minds associated with the necessary modification of Velikovsky’s revision, most notably those connected with what has come to be known as the “Glasgow School” of the late 1970’s to 1980’s - the likes of Peter James, John Bimson and Geoffrey Gammon - eventually abandoned those well-established Eighteenth Dynasty synchronisms and went off in search of their ‘new’ chronologies.

There is an interesting exchange between one who had persisted with the “Glasgow” findings, Michael Reade, and Bimson, formerly of that school, who had not (C and C Review 1999:2, pp. 38-40):

 

“FORUM

 

A further synchronism between Palestine and

Egypt by Michael G. Reade

 

Ten potential synchronisms between Palestine and Egypt during the period 1000-600 BC (approx.) were listed in the article ‘Shishak, the kings of Judah and some synchronisms’ [I]. A further such synchronism can be derived from John Bimson's article 'Dating the wars of Seti I' [2]. This one has the special advantage of being independent of Dr. Velikovsky's proposals in Ages in Chaos [3], which dominate the first four of the ten synchronisms and which seem to be particularly distrusted by some people. Dr. Bimson's article rather plainly shows that Seti I's campaigns in Palestine were synchronous with the time of Jehoahaz (of Israel). Jehoahaz ruled Israel during years 23-37 of Joash of Judah … though he is elsewhere credited with 17 years of rule (II Kings 13: I). ….

 

Notes and references

 

1. Reade, MG, 'Shishak, the Kings of Judah and some synchronisms', C&CR 1997:2, pp. 27-36.

2. Simson, Dr J, SISR V:l, pp. 11-27,1980/81.

3. Velikovsky, Dr I, Ages in Chaos, Abacus (pub. Sphere Books), 1973, first pub. 1952 in USA.

…”.

“A response to Michael Reade

by John J. Bimson

 

Michael Reade is leaning heavily on my 'Dating the Wars of Seti I' (SISR V:I, 1980/81, pp. 11-27), written almost twenty years ago. He goes so far as to state that my article 'rather plainly shows that Seti I's campaigns in Palestine were synchronous with the time of Jehoahaz (of Israel)'. Unfortunately I no longer stand by the conclusions of that article and want to state clearly why I do not believe any further arguments should be based on it. A little history may help to clarify the picture.

By the late 1970s it became obvious to a number of us who were testing Velikovsky's chronology that his separation of the 18th and 19th Dynasties was not viable. However, at that stage we were still persuaded that his redating of the 18^th Dynasty had a lot to be said for it. The next logical step was therefore to test the possibility of adopting Velikovsky's dating of the 18th Dynasty and letting the 19th and 20^th Dynasties follow it consecutively (as in the conventional scheme). This experiment was reflected in some of the papers presented at the SIS international conference held in Glasgow in 1978 [I] and consequently the alternative revision became known as the 'Glasgow Chronology'. The paper to which Michael Reade refers was an attempt to test and develop that revised chronology.

However, doubts about the Glasgow Chronology soon emerged. On the Egyptian side, we could not find room to accommodate the Third Intermediate Period; in my own field, the archaeology of Palestine, it became clear that sufficient compression of the Iron Age would be difficult to achieve; Peter James's work on the Hittites raised parallel

problems; and so on ... After further research and soulsearching, those of us most closely engaged with this problem (myself, Peter James and Geoffrey Gammon) reluctantly admitted that our alternative to Velikosvky's scheme could not be brought to completion. In short, the evidence was now forcing us to question Velikovsky's dating of the 18th Dynasty. Hence the postscript (dated Oct. 1982) which Peter James added to his Glasgow paper shortly before its publication: 'The writer would like to add that he now feels somewhat higher dates than those experimented with in this paper are required by the evidence'. ….

 

Notes and References

 

1982. See papers by Geoffrey Gammon, John Bimson and Peter James in Ages in Chaos? Proceedings of the Residential Weekend Conference, Glasgow, 7-9 April 1978 (SISR VI: 1-3), 1982. …”.

 

I have, like Reade, found myself still continuing favourably to embrace “Glasgow” modifications despite the fact that its authors would no longer associate themselves with their early findings. And I have also, similarly to Reade, written of the “Glasgow” school as having ‘thrown out the baby with the bathwater’ - for Reade will, in his response to Bimson, use the like phrase, ‘thrown in the sponge’:

 

“Michael Reade replies

 

I am happy to assure Dr Bimson that I still stand by what I wrote in C&CR 1997:2 (top of p. 33): 'I shall not attempt to adjudicate the extent to which either Velikovsky's proposals or the 'New Chronology' are 'right' or 'wrong'. I doubt whether it is even possible in the present state of the evidence'. My immediate object is to test the proposition that the founders of the Glasgow chronology may have thrown in the sponge before it is really necessary.

…. At the risk of being condemned to be burnt at the stake as an incorrigible heretic, however, I am willing to test the possibility of major revisions of this pattern, which could indeed permit this compression. Dr Bimson and his friends betray their own timidity in this respect when they speak of bringing down the chronology of Egypt by 250 or 350 years. This implies a shift of the existing order (en bloc) - a logical impossibility - whereas what I am envisaging is gross interference with the traditional order, which looks to be a house of cards erected on insecure foundations. It is high time these foundations were re-examined but this will obviously be a long and a slow business, involving testing a great many scenarios which must at least start out as very speculative. …”.

 

I fully agree with Reade’s sentiments, if not his own personal efforts at historical revisionism. Whereas Velikovsky had proposed - in what is now appearing more and more to have been a rather flawed reconstruction - that Hatshepsut’s contemporary, Thutmose III, was the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”, who sacked the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem in the 5^th year of king Rehoboam (I Kings 14:25), according to the ‘New Chronology’, ably led by David Rohl, Ramses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty was this Shishak. With Velikovsky’s anchors of Hatshepsut/Queen Sheba and Thutmose III/Shishak now thrown away, the ‘New Chronology’ immediately suffers from its not being able adequately to replace these Eighteenth Dynasty candidates with suitable Nineteenth Dynasty ones. This is especially true in the case of the Queen of Sheba - there is simply no appropriate royal woman to take her place! 

 

 

His Campaign against Jerusalem

 

 

“The topographical facts have been verified on the spot by a highly competent scholar … H. H. Nelson, … whose only adverse criticism was that the narrowness of the road had been somewhat exaggerated”.

 

Sir Alan Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs.

 

 

 

Professor Breasted’s preconceptions

 

Gardiner, here on p. 192, is referring to Thutmose III’s First Campaign, undertaken in his Years 22-23, after Hatshepsut had passed away.

No wonder, then, if this was Gardiner’s reading of H. Nelson’s view - not to mention that of the pharaoh’s officers - that Egyptology is such a mess.

Gardiner was rather more accurate when he famously lamented (on p. 222): “What is proudly advertised as Egyptian history is merely a collection of rags and tatters”.

 

Professor James Henry Breasted considered the warlike Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Thutmose III, to have been “the Napoleon of Egypt” (Ancient Times, I, Ginn and Co., 1914, p. 85). And it is to that pharaoh’s records that we now turn, because they concern Breasted and his reconstruction of the so-called “Battle of Megiddo”.

 

Thutmose III has been confidently dated according to the ‘Sothic’ scheme of things to the C15th BC. So, the majority of historians would not quibble with Breasted’s bold conclusion that Thutmose III’s First Campaign occurred during April/May of 1479 BC. According to Breasted, Thutmose III, in his Year 22, embarked upon a military expedition into Syria, in order to fight against a coalition of Syrian princes under the leadership of the “King of Kd-šw”, who had revolted against Egypt.

 

Kd-šw has been identified as the city of Qadesh, or Kadesh.

 

Pharaoh Thutmose III emerged from this campaign with a great victory and immense spoils from the conquered territories. Dr. Eva Danelius (“Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, Vol. II, No. 3, 1977/78, pp. 64-79), tells of this and of the very poor condition of part of the Egyptian Annals:

 

“A hieroglyphic text, carved into the wall of a famous and much frequented Temple about 3,000 years ago, does not sur­vive undamaged. And this is how Breasted described it when he started working on it around the turn of the century:

 

"They [the Annals] are in a very bad state of preservation, the upper courses having mostly disappeared, and with them the upper parts of the vertical lines of the inscription." ….

 

Detailed information about the length of the various gaps is provided by Sethe, who worked on a critical edition of the Egyptian original during the same years that Breasted worked on its translation into English. Gaps noted by Sethe vary from a few centimetres to more than 1.75 metres! …. In addition, even the signs which remained were sometimes damaged and their reading open to question. Add to this the enormous dif­ficulty of translating an Oriental text into a European lan­guage which differs from it fundamentally in its vocabulary, syntax etc. and its evaluation of events, and it will be under­stood how questionable all these translations actually are. No wonder, therefore, that the more important of these inscrip­tions induced every new generation of Egyptologists to try and produce a more complete rendering of the original.

Another pitfall for the translator is the licence to fill gaps not overly long with words which might have stood there, according to his - very subjective - ideas. Such words might have been taken from similar inscriptions where they have been preserved; or the translator/interpreter simply counts the number of missing "groups" and tries to fill the gap as best he can with fitting words of a similar length. Though these inser­tions by the translator have to be put in brackets as a warning to students, it happens only too often, especially when pro­vided by a famous teacher, that in the end they are treated with the same respect as the original.

….

For Breasted, the identification of the fortress [My-k-ty or Mkty] conquered by Thutmose with Biblical Megiddo was a fact not to be doubted. And his interpretation of the - very fragmentary - text was determined by this fact. …”.

 

Dr. Danelius has done some marvellous critical work whilst following the First Campaign of Thutmose III through the eyes of professor Breasted. She will point out some glaring discrepancies along the way, leading to her introduction of Harold Nelson and his doctoral thesis with its own criticisms of the conventional scenario. I take up Danelius’s account, adding my own comments here and there. Let us commence at the beginning:

 

“The story, as told by Breasted, starts in the 22nd year of Pharaoh's reign, "fourth month of the second season", when he crossed the boundary of Egypt (Records, § 415). There had been a rebellion against the Pharaoh in the city of Sharuhen, known from the Bible: the city had been allocated to the tribe of Simeon, inside the territory of Judah (Josh. 19:6). Nine days later was "the day of the feast of the king’s coronation", which meant the beginning of a new year, year 23. He spent it at the city "which the ruler seized", G3-d3-tw, understood to be Gaza (§ 417) (33). He left Gaza the very next day ¹⁶ in power, in triumph, to overthrow that wretched foe, to extend ¹⁷"the boundaries of Egypt, according †[… L.P.H.: conventional representation of brief Egyptian form for “(may he have) life, prosperity, health”, an honorific customarily applied to the Pharaoh. – Ed.] to the command of his father the valiant†¹⁸ that he seize. Year 23, first month of the third season, on the sixteenth day, at the city of Yehem (Y-hm), he ordered [GAP - one word] ¹⁹ consultation with his valiant troops ... (§§ 418-420)

….

The attentive reader will have observed that there is no gap in the middle of line 18. Nevertheless, Breasted inserted before the words "at the city of Y-hm" in brackets: "(he arrived)" (§ 419). In his History of Egypt he goes much more into detail: "Marching along the Shephela and through the sea-plain, he crossed the plain of Sharon, turning inland as he did so, and camped on the evening of May 10th (34) at Yehem, a town of uncertain location, some eighty or ninety miles from Gaza, on the southern slopes of the Carmel range." (pp. 286/7)

Not a word of all this appears in the Egyptian text. All that the text says is that the Pharaoh spent one night at a city which has been identified with Gaza, and that nine days later he held a consultation with his officers at another place of which we know absolutely nothing. All else is guesswork. Its only justification, in the eyes of the translator, lies in the fact that it brings the army to the place where it should be if the location of the city to be conquered, My-k-ty, was in the Valley of Esdraelon. Quod erat demonstrandum”.

 

It is highly worrying when an authority takes it upon himself to ‘improve’ upon an ancient text. I also found similarly in my thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah

and its Background

 

http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973

 

that Assyriologists had done the same in the case of adding the name “Sargon” where they had presumed it ought to have been (Volume One, Ch. 6, p. 137):

 

“Another seemingly compelling evidence in favour of the conventional chronology, but one that has required heavy restoration work by the Assyriologists, is in regard to Sennacherib’s supposed accession. According to the usual interpretation of the eponym for Nashur(a)-bel, (705 BC, conventional dating), known as Eponym Cb6, Sargon was killed and Sennacherib then sat on the throne: ….

 

The king [against Tabal....] against Ešpai the Kulummaean. [......] The king was killed. The camp of the king of Assyria [was taken......]. On the 12th of Abu, Sennacherib, son [of Sargon, took his seat on the throne].

 

Tadmor informs us about this passage that: “Winckler and Delitzsch restored: [MU 16 Šarru-ki]n; ana Ta-ba-lu [illik]”. That is, these scholars took the liberty of adding Sargon’s name”.

 

 

Once we know that there has been some tampering with a text, in favour of one’s own preferred conclusion, then we can only wonder what further additions or deletions have occurred?

 

Dr. Danelius now proceeds on to the “war counsel” of the great pharaoh and his generals:

 

“Details of this highly dramatic warcounsel have been pre­served in the following 30 lines of the text, which are given here in Breasted’s translation (beginning at the end of line 19), but without his restorations and additions:-­

 

… saying as follows: That [GAP] enemy ²⁰ of Kd-šw has come (35) to My-k-ty;*he [GAP] ²¹at this moment. He has gathered to himself the chiefs of [GAP] countries ²²on the water of Egypt (36), as far as N-h-ry-n [GAP of 23cm.] ²³the H3-rw, the Kdw, their horses, their troops [GAP of ca. 23cm.] ²⁴thus he speaks, "I have arisen to [LONG GAP] (37) ²⁵"in My-k-ty Tell ye me [LONG GAP]" ²⁶"They spoke in the presence of his majesty "How is it to go [GAP] ²⁷on this road which threatens to be narrow? (38) While they [GAP] ²⁸ say that the enemy is there waiting [LONG GAP] ²⁹way against a multitude. Will not horse come behind horse [GAP] ³⁰man likewise? Shall our vanguard be fight­ing while our [GAP: rearguard?] is yet standing yonder ³¹in ‘3-rw-n3 not having fought? (39) There are [GAP] two roads: ³³one road, behold, it [GAP] come forth at ³⁴ T3-‘3-n3-k3, the other behold, it is to ³⁵the way north of Df-ty, so that we shall come out to the north (40) of My-k-ty. ³⁶"Let our victorious lord proceed upon [GAP] he desires [GAP] ³⁷cause us not to go by a difficult (41) road [GAP]. ³⁸[ONLY TWO WORDS PRESERVED:] … messengers ... design ³⁹they had uttered, in view of what had been said by (42) the majesty of the Court, L.P.H.:† ⁴⁰As Re loves me, as my father Amon favours me, as 1 am rejuve­nated ⁴¹with satisfying life, my majesty will proceed upon the road of ‘3-⁴²rw-n3. Let him who will ⁴⁴among you, go upon those ⁴³roads ye have mentioned, and let him who will ⁴⁴among you, come in the following of my majesty. Shall they think among those ⁴⁵enemies whom Re detests: ‘Does his majesty proceed upon ⁴⁶another road? He begins to be fearful of us,’ so they will think,” ⁴⁷They spoke before his majesty: “May thy father Amon [GAP], ⁴⁸ Behold, we will follow thy majesty everywhere [GAP] go, ⁴⁹as a servant is behind his master. (§§ 420-423)

 

This was indeed an amazing story – Thutmose’s generals rising almost in mutiny against their commander, the Pharaoh, “the Mighty Bull, Living Horus", as he calls himself in his inscriptions. And, even more astonishing, the Pharaoh seemed to understand their reluctance to enter this road of ill omen: he neither blamed them, nor did he punish them, but left the decision to them. Upon which the officers decided to follow their master.

Breasted identified this defile, the road called "Aruna" in Egyptian records, with the Wadi ‘Ara which connects the Palestine maritime plain with the Valley of Esdraelon (43). It was this identification which aroused my curiosity, and my doubt”.

 

And “doubt” Dr. Danelius well might.

 

As it turns out, the Wadi ‘Ara is neither etymologically nor topographically (pace Gardiner) appropriate for the dreaded “Aruna” pass of the Egyptian Annals:

 

“If it is true that "the geography of a country determines the course of its wars" (44), the frightful defile, and attempts at its crossing by conquering armies, should have been reported in books of Biblical and/or post-Biblical history. There is no mention of either. Nor has the Wadi ‘Ara pass ever been con­sidered to be secret, or dangerous.

"From the Plain of Sharon to Jordan. This line ... ascends by the broad and open valley Wâdy ‘Ârah. crossing the watershed at Ain Ibrahim, which is about 1200 feet above the sea. Thence the road descends, falling some 700 feet in 3 miles to Lejjûn, where it bifurcates . . . This line, which appears to be ancient, is of great importance, being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of Wâdy ‘Ârah.”

This was written years ago, by C. R. Con­der (45), long before a modern highway was laid through.

Conder’s view is shared by later writers: "Most armies coming north over Sharon … ­would cut across the . . . hills by the easy passes which issue on Esdraelon at Megiddo and elsewhere." – thus, a famous historian and geographer (46).

The last army which actually crossed by this pass on its way from the south was the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Allenby, in September 1918. General Wavell evalu­ates the difficulties of the crossing when discussing the oper­ational plan for the final onslaught: “There was no obstacle to rapid movement along either the Plain of Sharon or Plain of Esdraelon. The crux of the ride would be the passage of the mountain belt which divides these two plains ... the width of this obstacle is about seven miles. Two routes lead across it from Sharon, of which ... the eastern debouches into Esdraelon at Lejjûn or Megiddo ... Neither road presents any physical difficulties for a mounted force. On the other hand, either is easy of defence and would be hard to force against opposition”. On September 19th, 1918, a brigade with armoured cars was sent ahead to seize the defile leading to El Lejjûn. It was undefended, and on the following night "the 4^th Cavalry Division passed the Musmus Defile (Wadi ‘Ara pass) during the night, after some delay due to a loss of direction by the leading brigade, and reached the plain at El Lejjûn by dawn. (47)”

 

 

Testimony of Harold H. Nelson

 

It is at this point that Danelius introduces into her discussion the somewhat ill-fated young scholar, Harold H. Nelson - to whom Sir Alan Gardiner had referred - whose task it was, as Danelius puts it, “to verify a foregone conclusion of Breasted”:

 

“During the same years in which Breasted wrote his reconstruction of the campaign, a German team under Schuhmacher started to excavate at Tell el-Mutesellim. The excavation was led carried out during the years 1903 to 1905. Unfortunately, “At the spot excavated by Schuhmacher, absolutely nothing has been found which could provide any further information” (concerning identification of the mound with that besieged, and conquered by Thutmose III), states the report (48).

Schuhmacher’s excavation was much too limited to permit final judgement. Breasted, quite rightly, refused to give up so easily. He wanted specific proof for his identification, and suggested to one of his students, Harold H. Nelson, that he dedicate his doctoral thesis to the problem. Nelson was not given freedom to look for the frightening defile among the mountains of Palestine: Breasted confined him to a specific region: “This study is confined almost entirely to an effort to interpret the Annals of Thutmose III in the light of the geography of the environs of Megiddo", explains Nelson in his preface (49). In other words, the “scientific investigation” had to verify a foregone conclusion of Breasted – it was “prove or perish” for the unhappy young man.

For the sensitive reader, the resulting dissertation is a moving testimony of an intelligent and honest young student who tried desperately to harmonise the theory of his venerated teacher with the observations made on the spot, which simply did not fit”.

 

Danelius is not exaggerating here.

The conventional reconstruction of this campaign now begins to get very messy, with the situation on the ground being quite incompatible - ‘simply not fitting’ - with the data recorded in the Annals. The hard road that pharaoh Thutmose III had chosen, that made his officers extremely nervous, cannot be equated with the relatively peaceful and easy one that is the Wadi ‘Ara. Nor are the names etymologically compatible:

 

“Nelson travelled the Wadi ‘Ara pass in 1909, and again in 1912. He described it in detail: "… the road enters the Wadi ‘Ara which is there … flat and open . . . All the way to a quarter of a mile above ‘Ar‘arah the valley is wide and level and cultivated up the slopes on either side ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible and it is possible to drive a carriage as far as the top of the pass." The road follows an ancient Roman road which descends along a smaller way. “This latter gradually contracts as it proceeds till about half a mile above the mouth of the valley, it reaches its narrowest point, being not more than 10 yards wide. A little further on the road … opening out rapidly to a couple of 100 yards, emerges upon the plain of Lejjûn”. Nelson comes to the conclusion that: “Of course such a road could be easily defended by a comparatively small number of men, but, on the other hand, an invading army could readily keep pos­session of the hills on either hand which are neither steep nor high above the valley … a watcher posted on the hill above Lejjûn could descry an approaching army at least a mile above the mouth of the pass”. (50)

As an afterthought, Nelson warns not to be deceived by the Arabic name (wadi) ‘Ara: “Etymologically, it seems hardly possible to equate (Egyptian) ‘Aruna with (Arab) ‘Ar‘Arah (51).

Neither the physical appearance of the road as described by Nelson, nor its use as an international highway justify its identification with a road described as “inaccessible”, “secret” or “mysterious” in the Egyptian records”.

Neither did it make sense tactically speaking:

 

“Nelson’s difficulties did not end here. According to the timetable drawn up by Breasted, the Egyptian army emerged from the pass in the afternoon, set up camp, and spent a quiet night, to go forth to battle the next morning (52) – all this in full view of the army of the Asiatics!

Nelson is unable to understand the behaviour of the Allies, or why they should have "thrown away the advantage afforded by the narrowness of the pass ... to strike Thutmose under circumstances so favourable to the success of the Allies. Our meagre sources must leave us forever ignorant of the reasons of the Allies for thus throwing away their greatest chance of victory . . . It is astonishing how little military wisdom the Asiatics seem to have displayed …. The great opportunity [of successful resistance] they seem deliberately to have neg­lected." (53).

The theme given to Nelson was "The Battle of Megiddo", and this became the title of the dissertation. It seemed, how­ever, that there was no battle. "On the actual conflict which took place there is not a vestige of information. To judge from the Annalist's narrative it would seem that the Asiatics fled without striking a blow ... why the Asiatics fled is not plain. They probably mustered a considerable force." (54) And finally, why was the city not taken by storm? "Just why Thutmose did not make such an attempt at once is hard to sur­mise …" (55).

Habent sua fata libelli - books have their own fate, and Nelson's was no exception”.

 

That Sir Alan Gardiner was quite wrong in writing that H. Nelson’s “only adverse criticism was that the narrowness of the road had been somewhat exaggerated”, is apparent from what Danelius describes next – Nelson’s ultimate complete disillusionment with the project.

 

“Whilst Breasted appeared satisfied with the outcome, Nelson claimed that he “would gladly have re-written the whole manuscript” in retrospect.

Somehow, he managed to satisfy Breasted; he passed his examination, and his study was printed before the outbreak of World War I. He immediately returned to Beirut for the cuts of' the illustrations and maps, when war caught up with him. During the whole of the war he was confined behind the Turk­ish lines in Syria; only in the Year 1920 did he manage to sec­ure the material needed.

This unexpected turn of events provided him with the opportunity of discussing his thesis with some British officers who had participated in the conquest of Palestine, 1917/1918. Nelson refers to the outcome of these meetings in the Preface to the 1920 edition of' his thesis: "Had the University of Chicago regulations governing the publication of theses permitted, I would gladly have re-written the whole manuscript in the light of the recent campaign of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Lord Allenby in the same region in which Thut­mose III, nearly 3,500 years earlier, also defeated an enemy advancing from the north towards Egypt", but "I cannot make use of certain valuable suggestions made by those who cam­paigned in Palestine in 1917-18 …".

Nelson never rewrote his dissertation. Armed with the pre­cious study, Breasted approached John D. Rockefeller Jr and persuaded him to finance a renewed excavation of Tell el-­Mutesellim for a five-year period. Clarence S. Fisher was to be the director, and he came to Palestine in 1925 to start the preparations for the dig. A comfortable house was built for the members of the expedition, and in 1926 excavation was started, lasting until 1939.

Results, as far as the Thutmose campaign was concerned, were as negative as those of Schuhmacher’s excavation. Con­cerning identification of the mound with the city besieged and conquered by the Pharaoh, the excavators relied only and sol­ely on Nelson's dissertation: "There can now be no doubt concerning the identification of Tell el-Mutesellim as Megiddo (Armageddon). What little doubt might have remained ... was entirely dispersed by Nelson's translation of and commentary on the account of the Battle of Megiddo given in the annals of Thutmose III, which are recorded on the walls of the temple of Amon at Karnak." (56)

And so, during the last 50 years, the doctoral dissertation of the young student became the unanswerable proof of the how, when and where of Thutmose III’s First Palestinian Campaign (57) …”.

 

Nelson for his part, however - according to Danelius - “no longer identified himself with his findings” as published in his thesis:

 

“However, there were at least two scholars who had their doubts about the localisation of the event. One was Nelson himself, the other the late P. L. O, Guy, who directed the excavations at Tell el-Mutesellim dur­ing^-the years 1927 to 1935.

Harold Nelson, when asked by the Librarian of the Cairo Museum, the late Joseph Leibovitch, for a print for his private library, parted with his last copy of his doctoral thesis. He stressed this fact, adding that he no longer identified himself with his findings as expressed in the study (58). ….

 

1. L. O. Guy was serving as Chief Inspector with the Department of Antiquities of the Mandatory Government of Palestine, when Breasted asked him to accept the leadership of the Megiddo excavation which Fisher had had to give up for health reasons. Guy was a Scotsman who had fought with the British Army in World War I in Europe and in the Middle East. Guy did not share Breasted’s enthusiasm. Time and again Breasted appeared at the Guy’s home in Jerusalem till Guy finally agreed to accept the offer to head the biggest and most richly endowed excavation in Mandatory Palestine (59).

 

Guy died in 1952. His wife, who had lived with him at Megiddo and shared work on the site, continued working with the Department of Antiquities of the State of Israel. Mrs Guy most willingly answered all my questions. Again and again she stressed the fact that nothing, absolutely nothing, had been found during their nine years of digging which would throw any light on the story of Thutmose’s campaign.

One brief work concerning post-World War II digs at the mound. All of these were small affairs undertaken to clarify special problems. The riddle of the stratification of the layers from the 10th and 9th centuries BC was investigated anew (60), and so "was that of the area around the temples. Among the various soundings carried out in the area, the only ones investigating ruins which could be ascribed to Late Bronze Age I - the time of Thutmose III, according to conventional chronology - were those carried out by a team from the Heb­rew University of Jerusalem, under the direction of the (late) architect I. Dunayevski (61). They led to the conclusion that: "At the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the temple with the wide walls appeared, developing at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age to the temple with two towers at the entrance, a type of temple whose sources, like those of its predecessors, must be sought in the north." (Emphasis added.) Similarities were observed with the temple at Byblos in LB I, that at Shechem and stratum Ib at Hazor, in LB II.

The report does not mention any Egyptian finds”.

 

“... the road enters the Wadi ‘Ara which is there ... flat and open ... All the way to a quarter mile above ‘Ar'arah the valley is wide and level ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible ...”.

 

H. H. Nelson.

 

 

A Leap from Gaza to Carmel ridge

 

Breasted’s reconstruction of the campaign almost seems to spirit the Egyptian army from Gaza all the way north to the Carmel ridge.

 

To discuss this, Danelius (op. cit.) returns to the beginning:

 

“Let us stop here and survey the situation. To recapitulate: the one undisputed place reached by the Egyptian army was Gaza. From there on, every "identification" has been pure guesswork. This is especially true for the "identification" of Y-hm, which was supposed to have been near the entrance to Wadi ‘Ara (and identified, eventually, with Jemma, a nearby Arab village). In order to reach this place, the army which had just crossed the Sinai desert would have continued marching for 10 days, covering about 90 English miles (89). So far Breasted, and his followers to this day.

Experience has shown that an army which includes cavalry and chariots drawn by horses cannot progress that quickly in a country where drinking water is in short supply during the dry season, May to November. It seems that neither Breasted nor any of his followers has given any thought to this vital ques­tion, not to mention other problems of logistics. In this respect, the dispatches sent by General Allenby to the Secretary of State for War during the advance of the Forces in the Philistine Plain are a veritable eye-opener. Gaza had fallen on November 7th 1917. Two days later: "By the 9th, the problem became one of supply ... the question of water and forage was a very difficult one. Even where water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in wells and not on the surface, and consequently ... the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow and difficult," writes Allenby (90). The very next day, November l0th: "The hot wind is an additional trial, particularly to the cavalry already suffering from water shortage". (This was near Ashdod, in the Philistine Plain) "Owing to the exhaustion of their horses on account of the lack of water", two mounted brigades "had to be with­drawn into reserve", on November 11th.

There is no reason to suppose that nature was kinder to Thutmose’s troops in May, the month with the greatest number of days with the destructive hot wind blowing from the desert, than to the Allied troops in November. Allenby's advance, too, was considerably slower than that demanded in Breasted's calendar for the advance of the Pharaoh's army: the Allied left wing covered only 40 miles in 15 days along the plain (91), while Breasted suggested 80-90 miles in 10-11 days.

These observations may justify a totally different interpretation of the events during the 10 or 11 days from the day Thutmose left Gaza to the council of war at Y-hm. According to the unanimous understanding of Egyptologists, the text of the Annals leaves no doubt that the entrance into Gaza was a peaceful one. There is no hint of any resistance by the inhabitants. ….

The place named immediately after Gaza is Y-hm. Petrie suggested an identification with the modern Arab village Yemma, south-west of the Carmel ridge, an identification that is "little more than guesswork" according to Nelson (94). [Danelius opted instead for Y-hm as the Egyptian equivalent of Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew), a port about 40 km north of Gaza: “Today, Yamnia/Yabne lies about 7 km inland from the Mediterranean, from which it is sepa­rated by a broad belt of sand dunes. The plain around it is strewn with the remnants of Bronze Age and Iron Age set­tlements, among them a harbour town at the mouth of a little river which bypasses the city. Needless to say, possession of a harbour would facilitate the problem of supply and help con­siderably in its solution”].

 

Problematical Taanach and Megiddo

 

The seemingly most inconvenient (for Dr. Danelius) combination now encountered in the Egyptian Annals of the place names T3-‘3-n3-k3 and My-k-ty, rendered Taanach and Megiddo, really had given me pause to wonder whether one could possibly reject the conventional interpretation of the geography of Thutmose III’s First Campaign. For Taanach and Megiddo lie well to the north of where Dr. Danelius had focussed her campaign geography.

“Taanach is almost always named in company with Megiddo, and they were evidently the chief towns of that fine rich district which forms the western portion of the great plain of Esdraelon”.

http://biblehub.com/topical/t/taanach.htm

Joshua 12:21: “The king of Taanach The king of Megiddo”; Judges 5:19: “At Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo; 1 Kings 4:12: “Baana the son of Ahilud; [to him pertained] Taanach and Megiddo”; and so on.

 

But names can be duplicated in different regions of Israel. The southern Simeonite location of “Bethul” (Joshua 19:4), for instance, re-emerges in “Bethulia” in the north (Judith 4:6).

Moreover, both the meaning and the ethnic origin of the name, “Taanach”, are uncertain (http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Taanach.html): “It's unclear what the name Taanach might mean, where it comes from or even from which language”.

 

Still, this apparently fortuitous combination, Taanach and Megiddo, is by far, to my mind, the strongest point in favour of the conventional reconstruction of Thutmose III’s First Campaign.

And, if it were not for its complete topographical - and probably also logistic - incompatibility with the description of the region as provided by the pharaonic account, I might have had seriously to consider adopting the geographical scenario as interpreted by professor Breasted. (Though, importantly, see below: 3. The Taanach Road)

Indeed, Dr. Velikovsky had accepted this combination as indicating the well-known northern Taanach and Megiddo, and he would later, in a letter to Dr. Danelius, point to it as an apparent weak point in her reconstruction.

Thus Velikovsky wrote (http://saturniancosmology.org/files/egypt/thutmos.htm):

 

“A Response to Eva Danelius

….

Dr Velikovsky sent comments to Dr Danelius after reading her paper, and has requested that some of these be printed here:-

 

My view of the paper of Dr Danelius is given here extracted from a personal letter to her, dated March 14, 1977. Dr Danelius is a very gifted researcher and innovator, and she herself carries the responsibility for challenging Breasted and all others: I do not wish that any authority I may carry should overshadow the discussion of my work.

Your paper on Hatshepsut* is an important contribution. With your paper on Thutmose III and Megiddo I am not in accord. I would still follow Breasted as to the position of Megiddo, and these are my considerations in short:

It seems to me that things went this way: When Jeroboam, upon the death of Solomon, returned from Egypt, he did not succeed immediately in taking over the entire area of the northern tribes. Megiddo was one of the fortresses (the main) built by Solomon, and it withstood the secession. Four or five years thereafter, Thutmose III moved into Palestine, and as his first step he "took the fenced cities which pertained to Judah" (II Chronicles 12:4). Rehoboam hurried to defend Megiddo. Thutmose did not put siege to Jerusalem: he wished first to eliminate the strategically-dominating stronghold that was a thorn in his plan. After a pitched battle outside of the gate, in which the King of Kadesh participated, he was hoisted to the fortress - after a while the King of Kadesh (Rehoboam) went out of the fortress and "humbled himself"; Jerusalem was not besieged: already at the walls of Megiddo the surrender and the loot of the Temple and the palace of Jerusalem were agreed upon.

This was about -940. Megiddo was not handed over by Thutmose to Jeroboam, but was kept as a fortress enclave in the land that was a divided vassalage (North-South), with an Egyptian-appointed commander.

In the letters of el-Amarna, Biridia (Biridi) is the commandant referred to as Biridri in the Annals of Shalmaneser III. The commandant of Megiddo (which he calls in the letters Mikida and Magiida, called Mykty by Thutmose in his Annals one hundred years earlier), Biridri has under him at the battle of Karkar charioteers of Ahab, and Syrians, and a thousand Musri soldiers (Egyptians).

Also the name of the brook (Taanak) referred to by Thutmose III next to Megiddo:

"One of the roads - behold it is to the east of us, so that it comes out at Taanach. The other - behold, it is to the north side of Djefti, and we will come out to the north of Megiddo ..."

Taanach is also next to Megiddo in the Bible (I Kings 4:12). Your equation of Taanach with the Tahhunah ridge does not strengthen your thesis.

Now as to the approach to Megiddo being a narrow pass - by what it is now, it cannot be judged what it was almost three thousand years ago. There could have been artificial mound-fortifications the length of the pass. Think, for instance, of Tyre of the time of Shalmaneser III or Nebuchadnezzar (who besieged it for 13 years), or even of the days of Alexander, when it withstood a protracted siege. Today its topography is completely changed.

The story as I see it explains what you see as insurmountable difficulties. I was asked what I think of your essay, and before I let it be known, I tell you this in the spirit of constructive co-operation.

 

[* E. Danelius: "The Identification of the Biblical 'Queen of Sheba' with Hatshepsut, 'Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia' as proclaimed by Immanuel Velikovsky - in the Light of New Archaeological Discoveries", Kronos I:3, pp. 3-18. and I:4, pp. 8-24.]”.

 

We read in the Annals of the apparent close proximity of T3-‘3-n3-k3 to My-k-ty: “… behold, it [GAP] come forth at ³⁴ T3-‘3-n3-k3, the other behold, it is to ³⁵the way north of Df-ty, so that we shall come out to the north (40) of My-k-ty”.

 

Etymologically speaking, only, Dr. Danelius’s choice for Y-ḥm (Yehem) of the port of “Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew)” was hardly more promising than was Petrie’s choice for it of Yemma, south-west of the Carmel ridge, an identification that was “little more than guesswork” according to Nelson.

But the information more recently supplied by Hans Goedicke, in The Battle of Megiddo (Halgo, Inc., 2000, pp. 96-97), that some of the conquered enemies of Thutmose III had apparently travelled to Egypt by boat, with their tribute, would be an argument in favour of Danelius’s approximate location for Y-ḥm, at least, if not necessarily of her actual choice for the site. Thus Goedicke wrote (pp. 96-97):

 

“… a group of people from among the chiefs that has been caught in Megiddo had to travel to Egypt. This journey was certainly not due to a desire to see Egypt or to participate in a triumphal display à la Aïda. The necessity to travel to Egypt is final evidence that Thutmosis III was not present at Megiddo at the time of the surrender but had already returned to Egypt …. The determinative [a boat] after ḫntyt, “to go south”, could be taken as an indication that the journey was under-taken by boat. While this might be the easiest way to get to Egypt, it opens the question where such a maritime link would have started. There are hardly any indications that Thutmosis III at this point in his reign controlled the Levantine Coast … and the big harbor towns located there, with the possible exception of Byblos. However, to transport through Byblos would have been a difficult task to accomplish”.

 

Goedicke will add to this, on p. 118: “According to the geographical list the itinerary of the king did not touch upon any of the harbors on the Levantine littoral, so that Sethe’s rendering of mnit as “harbor” has no absolute support”.

 

Three Possible Roads Leading to Mkty

 

These roads, ‘Aruna; Zefti and Taanach (Breasted’s ʽʼ-rw-nʼ; Ḏf-ty; and Tʼ-ʽʼ-nʼkʼ), are found mentioned in the Annals by Thutmose’s officers at the War Council:

 

“They spoke in the presence of his majesty, ‘How is it, that [we] should go upon this road … , which threatens to be narrow …? While they [come] and say that the enemy is there waiting, [hold]ing the way against a multitude. Will not horse come behind [horse and man behind] man likewise? Shall our [advance-guard] be fighting while our [rear-guard] is yet standing yonder in Aruna …. not having fought? There are yet two (other) roads: one road, behold, it [will] - us, for it comes forth at Taanach … the other, [behol]d, it will [bring us upon] the way north of Zefti …, so that we shall come out to the north of My-k-ty. Let our victorious lord proceed upon [the road] he desires; (but) cause us not to go on a difficult… road’.”

 

Let us (following Dr. Danelius and H. Nelson) consider each one in turn.

 

1. The ‘Aruna Road

 

The problematic route we must first deal with is the road to ‘Aruna, the one Harold H. Nelson had so much difficulty harmonizing with the Wadi ‘Ara leading to Megiddo in the north. It had been suggested that, instead, this road to ‘Aruna is the same as that described in the papyrus Anastasi I.

 

“Behold, the ... is in a ravine 2000 cubits deep (600 feet?), filled with boulders and pebbles ... Thou findest no scout, that he might make thee a way crossing ... thou knowest not the road. Shuddering seizes thee, (the hair of) thy head stands up, and thy soul (life) lies in thy hands. Thy path is filled with boulders and pebbles, without a toe hold for passing by ... The ravine is on one side of thee, and the mount rises on the other. Thou goest jolting, with thy chariot on its side, afraid to press thy horse (too) hard. If it should be thrown toward the abyss, thy collar-piece would be left uncovered and thy girth would fall”.

 

Nelson commented on this, “Deep gorges as these are scarcely found in Palestine at all and certainly not in the region of Megiddo”.

 

“But such a defile cannot vanish from the map”, Dr. Danelius has rightly observed: “It should be found not only in books on historical geography but also in the Bible. It so happens that the name ‘Aruna has been preserved in written Hebrew - letter for letter- though with a slightly different pronunciation”. So claimed Danelius. “It is the so-called thrashing floor of ‘Arauna the Jebusite' (2 Samuel 24:16, 18-24), the location where later the Temple of Yahweh was built”, as she says. “In other words, the dreaded road was the camel road leading from Jaffa up the so-called ‘Beth-Horon’ ascent to Jerusalem, approaching the city from the north”.

 

For our purposes, then, learning more about the geographical conditions of (a) the Wadi ‘Ara Pass, on the one hand, and (b) the ‘Arauna Pass (Beth Horon Ascent) becomes important.

C. Conder provided this description of the Wadi ‘Ara [‘Ara] (The Survey of Western Palestine, Mem. II, Sheet VIII, 40):

 

“From the Plain of Sharon to Jordan. This line ... ascends by the broad and open valley Wady ‘Arah, crossing the watershed at Ain Ibrahim, which is about 1200 feet above the sea. Thence the road descends, falling some 700 feet in three miles to Lejjun, where it bifurcates ... This line, which appears to be ancient, is of great importance, being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of Wady ‘Arah'.”

 

H. Nelson, who travelled the Wadi ‘Ara pass in 1909, and again in 1912, provided this detailed description:

 

“... the road enters the Wadi ‘Ara which is there ... flat and open ... All the way to a quarter mile above ‘Ar'arah the valley is wide and level ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible ... a watcher posted on the hill above Lejjun could descry an approaching army at least a mile above the mouth of the pass”.

 

We have read previously that Nelson had strong reservations about equating the northern pass with the one described in the Annals, his problems being of a geographical, topographical and etymological nature, and also pertaining to an inexplicable military strategy.

Danelius will, unlike both the conventional view and Velikovsky’s - that have Mkty as Megiddo - identify Mkty with Jerusalem, and Kd-šw with its land: “The surroundings of Jerusalem were called … ‘Kd-sw’ [Kadesh … , ‘Jebel el Kuds’ or ‘Har Kodsho’, the Holy Mount]. In other words ‘Kd-sw’ was not the name of a city but of the nearby surrounding land”.

 

Similarly, Velikovsky had thought that Kd-šw must have been Jerusalem.

 

I fully support Dr. Danelius in her equating the steep ‘Aruna pass with the Beth Horon approach to Jerusalem. The Beth Horon Ascent, she wrote, “was always a focal point of battles and attempts to stop troops trying to reach Jerusalem”.

The most famous incident that took place here is the first one:

 

a) Joshua 10:10-14 where Joshua prayed and the sun stood still;

b) 1 Maccabees 3:23, 24 and 7:26-50; revolt against the Syrians;

c) The Roman general, Gaius Cestius Gallus (66 AD), took this route and encamped his army at Gibeon, where the Jews attacked. Though Gallus checked them, a large part of the Roman rearguard was cut off by the Jews as they were mounting towards Beth-Horon. But the real disaster overtook the Romans during their retreat, after they had become involved in the defiles and had begun the descent. Josephus wrote: “... but when they were penned up in their descent through narrow passages ...”.

d) In November 1917 the British tried in vain to force the road. It was the only occasion during general Allenby's campaign that the ominous words, ‘successfully withdrew’, appeared in the daily dispatches.

 

Breasted was correct in having ‘Aruna lying in the midst of the mountains, but the mountains were not the Carmel heights but rather the mountains of Ephraim and those of Benjamin.

 

1. The Zefti Road

 

The location translated as ‘Zefti’, Danelius wrote, is the biblical Zephathah, from 2 Chronicles 14:10: “Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Maresha”. This is the place where Asa won his battle against Zerah the Ethiopian. Maresha was the Judean border fortress facing Philistia. Zephathah may have been on the other side of the fence. The road runs north for about 6 miles then turns northeast at the very location which is considered to be the one where David met Goliath. The defile then splits into several wadis, one of which reaches the ridge around Bethlehem in the south, while the other joins the more northerly defile which leads to a point north of My-k-ty, as suggested by the Egyptian officers of Thutmose. Even though the hieroglyphics are commonly translated as ‘My-k-ty’, others (Gauthier) read ‘Makta’. It is interesting to note, however, that in the latter 19th dynasty inscriptions, the last element ‘ti’ of the name is written ‘sh’, ‘s’, or ‘tsh’. Among the names referring to Jerusalem are:

 

1. a) Bait-al-Makdis or Makdis
2. b) Miqdash 10th century Arab writer Muqadassi the Jerusalemite in his description of Syria.

 

Therefore ‘My-k-ty’ could be read ‘My-k-sh’ or ‘My-k-tsh’, Makdis or Miqdash according to the 19th Dynasty information.

 

3.      The Taanach Road

 

This one is highly problematical as already discussed.

Though the problem may possibly be one of professor Breasted’s own making. Breasted gives two versions of it: Records II, 421, Tʼ-ʽʼ-nʼkʼ, and 425, Tʼ-ʽʼ[-nʼkʼ], in which the latter part of the name is missing.

And that would perhaps leave open the possibility of a different name.  

 

The geography of the Holy Land is extremely unclear in certain instances, and one of these, apparently, as we are now going to find, is Joshua 16:4-8:

 

“So Manasseh and Ephraim, the descendants of Joseph, received their inheritance.

This was the territory of Ephraim, according to its clans:

The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon and continued to the Mediterranean Sea. From Mikmethath on the north it curved eastward to Taanath Shiloh, passing by it to Janoah on the east. Then it went down from Janoah to Ataroth and Naarah, touched Jericho and came out at the Jordan. From Tappuah the border went west to the Kanah Ravine and ended at the Mediterranean Sea. This was the inheritance of the tribe of the Ephraimites, according to its clans”.

 

There is a collection of names here that could be relevant to our study: Beth Horon; Taanath (-Shiloh) and Kanah. That this Joshuan text may have become “corrupted”, thereby causing “a big jump geographically”, is apparent from the uncertainties expressed here by P. Pitkänen (Joshua: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Q7tvG_w6uQEC&pg=PA300&lpg=PA300):

 

The location of Ataroth-Addar is unclear.

At first sight, the border behaves somewhat strangely here, and the text may well have been corrupted (cf. Boling and Wright 1982: 402) The expression hăyamah hămĭkmetat mĭṣapon is unclear in this context. Albeit the location of Michmethath is not clear (see ABD 4:815), it is otherwise said to be close to Shechem in Joshua 17:7, and there thus seems to be a big jump geographically from Upper Beth Horon to Michmethath in the boundary description. Taanath Shiloh may be located at Khirbet Ta‘na et-Tahta or Khirbet Ta‘na el-Foqa.

…. Janoah may be located at Yanun or Khirbet Yanun nearby (see ABD 3:640).

The location of Naarah is unclear (see ABD 4:969).

Kanah is usually identified with the Wadi Qanah, although this is not certain (see ABD 4:5).

 

“Not certain”, “unclear”, “border behaves … strangely”, etc., etc.

There is a worrying lack of precision regarding the identification of virtually every site referred to in this text. One of the few knowables here is “Upper Beth Horon”, with which we have associated the ‘Aruna pass taken at last by Thutmose III.

 

When Thutmose began his entrance into the dangerous road we find in his inscriptions the following account: “My majesty proceeded northward under (the protection of my) father, Amon-Re, lord of Thebes, [who went] before me, while Harakhte [strengthened my arms] ---- (my) father, Amon-Re, lord of Thebes...”.

Dr. Danelius wrote on this:

 

“This is the only instance I know of in Egyptian records where we are told that statues or images of the gods were carried into battle, as the Hebrews carried the ark.

What kind of fear had thus gripped the pharaoh that he felt it necessary to take this precaution? ... Why did he take it here, and only here, once in a lifetime? ... The answer to the riddle should be of a kind which explains, too, why Thutmose judged his successful ascent through the Aruna road as one of the outstanding achievements of his military career. ... The answer offered here belongs to a realm shunned by science in an age in which techniques have replaced metaphysics, and rationality rules supreme. At the time we are dealing with, religion, including a contact with a higher Being outside oneself, was a reality and part of life. That is why the answer should be sought there. ...”.

 

The two roads favoured by the pharaoh’s generals, ‘Zefti’, transcribed Ḏf-ty by Breasted (but unknown in the Megiddo context, according to Danelius), and ‘T3-‘3-n3-k3’, Danelius now identified with, respectively, Zephathah (II Chron. 14:10), and Tahunah (Tahhunah), “through which the railway runs today …. Its eastern end leads on to the valley of Rephaim …”; both roads leading to the Temple Mount.

As to Mkty, the capture of which was compared by Thutmose to “the capture of a thousand cities”, this, Danelius claimed, was Jerusalem itself, for: “Among the names enumerated as designating Jerusalem is Bait-al-Makdis … corresponding to Beith-ha-Miqdash in modern Hebrew pronunciation”.

{As M. Astour has shown, it was typical ancient practice to designate the country, the capital, and even the tribal or dynastic name, e.g. Gurgum, its capital Marqas, and its dynastic name, Bit-Pa’alla. Hellenosemitica}.

 

Here Thutmose III, supposedly (in Danelius’s context), names the country, Kd-šw, and the capital, Mkty, whilst the El-Amarna letters supply us with the dynastic name of Bît Šulman (i.e., “House of Solomon”).

Generally speaking, Danelius was able to provide a logical account of the Egyptian tactics, identifying the city of which “only the last letter - n - has been preserved, together with the ideogram designating "a channel filled with water",” as Gibeon (“The "many waters" of Gibeon are mentioned in the Scriptures”), and the related brook of Kina (K-y-n3, Breasted’s Ḳy-n’), unknown in the environs of Megiddo, as she claimed, as “the waters of lamentation” at Gibeon – an explanation for the name being found in II Samuel 2.

 

Velikovsky’s acceptance of the conventional interpretation of T3-‘3-n3-k3 as Taanach near Megiddo meant his inheriting the same formidable topographical problem with which Nelson had had to grapple. Danelius’s general location (at least) of ‘Taanach’ is, I think, far preferable. Scholars say Thutmose did not follow the northern route through Zephath, neither did he take the southern route from Gath to Taanach, instead he took a route in between, through ‘Aruna and the ‘Nahal Iron’, which is called in Arabic Wadi ‘Ara.

But a visitor to this Wadi ‘Ara will realize at once that there is nothing dangerous or overly steep about this route toward Megiddo. It is incomprehensible why the officers of the king would almost start a mutiny not wanting to take that supposedly dangerous road.

Comparing Breasted’s account of events in his History of Egypt and Records will reveal that he was wont to take liberties to ‘make’ Thutmose III arrive at the pre-supposed Megiddo, ignoring other possibilities completely. The Nahal Iron is certainly not ‘inaccessible’, ‘secret’, or ‘mysterious’ as the Annals describe the actual route taken by the Egyptian army.

 

It seems that Egyptologists want the Egyptian army to pass through the easier, broader route, rather than to enter upon the narrow way. But, as Jesus Christ has warned (Matthew 7:13-14): ‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it’.

Thutmose III achieved his goal, most brilliantly, by risking the narrow way that was the most difficult of the three possibilities, despite the advice of his officers to pursue an easier course, and so ‘cause us not to go on a difficult… road’.

 

It is the difference between genius and ordinariness.

 

 

No “Battle of Megiddo” was required

 

 

“That the Ḳina valley should be held by the Syrians would be a most obvious military precaution, but if the restoration be correct – and it is hard to conceive any reasonable alternative – it is impossible to understand why the Ḳina force supinely allowed the Egyptian army to emerge virtually unopposed from the ‘Aruna pass, or why an adequate detachment was not posted in the mouth of the pass itself”.

 

R. O. Faulkner, “The Battle of Megiddo”.

 

 

 

A Nonsensical Military Strategy

 

Here is the fuller account of the “Shishak” incident as we find it in 2 Chronicles 12:1-12:

 

“After Rehoboam’s position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the Law of the Lord.  Because they had been unfaithful to the Lord, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem.

Then the prophet Shemaiah came to Rehoboam and to the leaders of Judah who had assembled in Jerusalem for fear of Shishak, and he said to them, “This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak’.”

The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, ‘The Lord is just’.

When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the Lord came to Shemaiah: ‘Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak. They will, however, become subject to him, so that they may learn the difference between serving me and serving the kings of other lands’.

 When Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem, he carried off the treasures of the Temple of the Lord and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord’s temple, the guards went with him, bearing the shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.

Because Rehoboam humbled himself, the Lord’s anger turned from him, and he was not totally destroyed. Indeed, there was some good in Judah”.

 

It is not surprising that the biblical account, and that of the pharaoh, would offer two different perspectives. The Bible is not much interested in giving world histories. If the ancients wanted to read more about the life and deeds of King Rehoboam, for instance, then they need only follow this lead from (v. 15): “As for the events of Rehoboam’s reign, from beginning to end, are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer that deal with genealogies?”

Moreover, “There was continual warfare between Rehoboam and Jeroboam”.

 

But we cannot read about it in the Scriptures - nor, sadly, anywhere else today.

 

Whilst the biblical scribes were, however, extremely interested in the fate of Jerusalem and its king, what most occupied the attention of pharaoh Thutmose III, on the other hand, were the extremely belligerent actions of the “Chief of Qadesh”.

But, according to Drs. Velikovsky and Danelius, this “Chief of Qadesh” was in fact Rehoboam.

 

Though I have had various opinions on Mkty, I would now consider that it might refer to Maktesh (Makhtesh), as in Zephaniah 1:11: “Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Kana`an are undone! All those who were laden with silver are cut off”.

Recall Danelius’s suggestion that “My-k-ty’ could be read ‘My-k-sh’ or ‘My-k-tsh’, Makdis or Miqdash …”.

It appears to be associated with the Fish Gate (http://biblehub.com/topical/m/maktesh.htm): “Maktesh. A quarter of Jerusalem so named, it is supposed, on account of the configuration of the ground and associated (Zechariah 1:10, 11) with the "fish gate" and MISHNEH … or "second quarter".” Regarding the Fish Gate, however, Edward Lipiński was of the opinion that: “Its exact location is uncertain” (Itineraria Phoenicia, p. 519).

 

Egyptologist R. Faulkner published an article of the exact same title as Harold Nelson’s thesis, “The Battle of Megiddo” (1942), in which he lauded Nelson’s thesis as “admirable” and his “sketch-maps … indispensable to the student”. Faulkner gave as his justification for re-visiting the subject, not “any difference of opinion on topographical questions”, but “because a study of the hieroglyphic text … has led to somewhat different conclusions on various points regarding the operations”.

Here I would like to recall some of what Faulkner had picked up (in JEA, Vol. 28, Dec., 1942, pp. 2-15). Faulkner applies his expertise in Egyptology to clarify certain points in the Egyptian Annals. On pp. 7-8 (note t), for instance, he queries the Syrian tactics:

 

“So restored by Sethe and tentatively accepted by Nelson, Megiddo, 36-7, where ḳ‘ḥ is rendered ‘corner’ instead of ‘bend’. If the restoration be adopted the wings (lit. ‘horns’) of the Syrian army, a Nelson has seen, must be understood as detached forces holding Taanach and the Ḳina valley respectively, while between them will have been a strong central reserve which could be rushed to whichever point was threatened (see Map I); it is not to be credited that the Syrian army was strung out in a continuous line along four miles of road and mostly fronting on to impassable hills”.

 

Faulkner now finds himself confronted with the same sort of strange military tactic on behalf of the Syrians (Nelson’s “Allies”) as had puzzled Nelson before him (my emphasis):

 

“That the Ḳina valley should be held by the Syrians would be a most obvious military precaution, but if the restoration be correct – and it is hard to conceive any reasonable alternative – it is impossible to understand why the Ḳina force supinely allowed the Egyptian army to emerge virtually unopposed from the ‘Aruna pass, or why an adequate detachment was not posted in the mouth of the pass itself. It is true that in the broken lines which follow there is a hint of a skirmish in the mouth of the pass, as if a small body of the enemy had been found (see note v), but clearly there was no serious attempt to dispute the exit of the Egyptian army. If the restoration ‘the valley of Ḳina’ be wrong, then the dispositions of the Syrian High Command must have been incredibly inept; if it be right, then the refusal of the commander of the Ḳina force to act can have been due only to either utter incompetence, cowardice or treachery”.

 

Or, if I am right in what I have written previously, following Dr. Eva Danelius, then the “Syrian” army was not actually in the vicinity of Megiddo at all, hence the need to reconsider the topographical and military details of the Annals for the First Campaign of Thutmose III.

 

Faulkner continues on in this same vein (on p. 9):

 

“By taking the ‘Aruna road, [Thutmose III] not only chose the shortest way to his objective, but also came out on his enemy’s right flank. If the Syrians failed to block his egress from the hills, as was indeed the case, they were left with no choice but to conform to the Egyptian movements – in other words, the initiative passed completely into the hands of [Thutmose]. In fact, they were defeated not by hard hitting, but by being outmanoeuvred, a result that was partly due to reluctance to engage, and probably partly due to a defective Intelligence service; they apparently had no inkling of [Thutmose’s] route until he actually appeared in the Ḳina valley.

….

It is hard to believe that the Syrians had not established even a small guard-post in the mouth of the pass. If indeed there were resistance, it could not have been serious and was easily brushed aside; it is abundantly clear that at no time … was any part of the main Syrian force engaged.

….

At this point we meet a serious difficulty regarding the date of the battle. All previous commentators have assumed that the Egyptian army spent the night of the 19^th at ‘Aruna and marched on Megiddo on the 20^th, but from ll. 56 ff. (Urk. iv, 652-3) it is clear that the Egyptians left ‘Aruna on the 19^th (see, too, note n) and went into camp in the Ḳina valley the same evening. They were then informed that battle would be joined the next day, yet according to the annalist, the clash did not take place till the 21st. What happened on the 20^th? It is impossible to believe that for a whole day the two armies sat and looked at one another, and it is equally hard to credit that the whole of the 20^th was taken up with preliminary manoeuvring. Besides, there is the clear order given on the evening of the 19^th, ‘Prepare ye, make ready your weapons, for One will engage with yon wretched foe in the morning’. In view of these considerations, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that either the scribe who wrote up the narrative from his rough field notes, or the sculptor who transferred it to the temple wall, made a mistake in the date, and that for ‘day 21’ we should read ‘day 20’.”

 

The textbook reconstructions of pharaoh Thutmose III’s First Campaign are really serving to lead students ‘up the garden path’ by ‘substituting’, for the fearsome ‘Aruna pass of the Egyptian annals, the relatively benign Wadi ‘Ara route towards Megiddo.

The geography is all wrongside up, the timeline does not appear to fit, and the battle tactics do not seem to make any military sense whatosever!

Faulkner continues (pp. 11-13):

 

“Nelson restores ‘cross [the valley of the Kina]’. This restoration is decidedly suspect, for it suggests that the whole army was still within the Ḳina valley. This is very doubtful, for a little farther on we read that the Egyptian northern wing was to the north-west of Megiddo, while their southern wing rested on a hill somewhere near the Ḳina …. The crucial question is, when did the Egyptian army take up this position?

…. the signal to ‘deploy’ … [Thutmose received] … a report that the southern and northern troops were safe …. Such a report would be quite meaningless if the whole army were still massed in the Ḳina camp, as there would be no ‘southern’ or ‘northern’ troops”.

 

It becomes glaringly apparent from all of this that a completely new scenario is now required to accommodate the quite specific geographical details of the Egyptian Annals for this most important First Campaign of Thutmose III.

 

The ‘Wretched Foe of Qadesh’

 

Whilst Qadesh (Kadesh) on the Orontes is the usually accepted identification for the Kd-šw of the Egyptian Annals, it is not the one favoured by Goedicke (The Battle of Megiddo, p. 28):

 

“Because of the extensively publicized battle of Ramesses II with the Hittite King Muwatallis at Qadesh on the Orontes … there seems to be a conflation between two events involving the derivation from qadesh, “sanctuary”. The area and its political authority of concern to Thutmosis III is what is known as Qadesh Naphtali, located only 9 kilometers southeast of Megiddo”.

 

We have seen that Velikovsky had equated Thutmose III’s “Qadesh” with Jerusalem itself. For Velikovskian modifier, Dr. Eva Danelius, this Qadesh was a land rather than a city (op. cit.): “… the eastern opening of the [‘Aruna] road lies in a district called “Jebel el Kuds” in Turkish times, “Har Kodsho” by the Hebrews, both names meaning the same: “The Mount of the Holy One”, “'The Holy Mount”. In other words Kd-šw was not the name of a city, but of a land. …”.

 

Faulkner has described “the King of Kadesh [as] the head and front of the opposition to Tuthmosis [Thutmose III]” (“The Battle of Megiddo”, p. 15), and this opinion would generally be supported. H. Goedicke, for instance, has written similarly (The Battle of Megiddo):

 

“The promulgated casus belli is the actions attributed to the ‘chief of Qadesh.” They consist of prolonged improper treatment of Egyptian subjects in his jurisdiction and the rejection of messages or messengers sent about it. The term ḥ᷾ḏ3 which is used for it is probably more inclusive than the frequent reference “to plunder” [ref. R.O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary, 164], but also more extended than “to act criminally” in an exact legal sense …. It is precisely the lack of legality which ḥ᷾ḏ3 seems to indicate, so that the rendering “to act lawlessly” appears appropriate …. In the prevailing political setting ḥ᷾ḏ3 conveys here the lack of a legal basis of the “Chief of Qadesh” but not necessarily belligerence”.

 

Despite the troublemaker’s prominence, the precise identification of his city of Kd-šw (Qadesh or Kadesh), as given in Thutmose III’s Annals, is uncertain. This is apparent from the fact that - as we have discovered in this series - historians have variously assigned to that city (or country) different locations (e.g., Qadesh on the Orontes; Qadesh of Naphtali; or even Jerusalem el-kuds, “the Holy”, itself).

The designation is commonly taken to mean “holy” or “sanctuary”. Goedicke again (p. 28): “The “Chief of Qadesh” appears to have been the leader in a confederation of city-states, presumably due to a central sanctuary located at Qadesh …”.

And he himself favours Qadesh Naphtali for Kd-šw.

 

Creationist P. Clarke, who, though a revisionist, has strongly criticised Dr. Velikovsky and his followers regarding their identification of Thutmose III with the biblical “Shishak”, is of the majority view that Kd-šw was the Qadesh on the Orontes (“Was Jerusalem the Kadesh of Thutmose III’s 1^st Asiatic campaign? – topographic and petrographic evidence”, Journal of Creation, 25 (3), 2011, p. 52):

 

“This [Clarke’s proposed identification of the king of Qadesh] actually illuminates a major point of contention among revisionists (of which I am one – see endnote 1): Velikovsky claimed Kadesh was Jerusalem and that the city was plundered during this first campaign. Other revisionists accept the claim of Thutmose that he attacked and devastated his Kadesh (Qidshu) seven years after the year 23 campaign: he then crushed another uprising at Kadesh during his 17^th campaign. Figure 4 … shows the important Beqa and Orontes sites, including some of the region’s Egyptian garrisons; … the location of Thutmose’s Kadesh (Qidshu) is easy to establish.

If Kadesh was Velikovsky’s Jerusalem and Thutmose III was his Shishak, that would mean that Jerusalem was assaulted three times by the same king of Egypt; this is very different to the Bible account where Shishak came just once to plunder, went home, and was never mentioned again. This is not an argument from silence but from ‘conspicuous absence’; given the pre-eminence of Jerusalem in biblical history, it would be odd indeed for the Bible to only refer to one attack by this ruler if there were in fact three”.

 

I do not necessarily agree with Clarke’s statement that the Bible would enumerate every single attack, given the historical telescoping (admitted by many scholars) involved, for instance, in the biblical accounts of Sennacherib’s campaigns. To give an example of this from my thesis (Volume Two, p. 11):

 

“…. Isaiah taunts Sennacherib with a prediction that could hardly have been uttered about the time of the Assyrian army’s encirclement of Jerusalem (37:33): “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it. ...’.” Most of these things that Isaiah says the Assyrian king will not do, Sennacherib did in fact do during his Third Campaign! …”.

 

Either the great prophet Isaiah got it completely wrong, or there were in fact - as argued in my thesis - two Assyrian campaigns against the kingdom of Hezekiah.

 

The Egyptian Kd-šw appears universally to be transliterated as “Kadesh”, or “Qadesh”, despite Clarke’s further criticism of “Velikovsky’s rendering of the Hebrew qodesh קֹ֫דֶשׁ … [as] kadesh [as a] linguistic faux-pas” given that the first consonant of the Egyptian word “is a 2-consonant sound, transliterated and pronounced as qd”. On Clarke’s own admission, the Egyptian Kd-šw is “properly translated into English as Qadesh”.

 

Who Was the Ruler of Qadesh? Velikovsky had asked this very same question, and had answered it, idiosyncratically, by designating this ruler as king Rehoboam of Jerusalem (his “Kadesh”). Goedicke refers to Epstein’s more conventional identification, whilst, however, disagreeing with it (op. cit., p. 30, n. 130): “Claire Epstein, “‘That Wretched Enemy of Kadesh’.” JNES 22 (1963), 242-246, by assuming that Thutmosis’ opponent was the ruler of Kadesh on the Orontes and a vassal of the Mitanni, identified him as Durusa, who had nothing to do with the area in question”.

 

Clarke, following Epstein and N. Na’aman, will conclude, “he was Durusha, king of Kadesh” (op. cit., p. 51).

 

I would have to agree with Goedicke, that, at least, “Kadesh on the Orontes and … Durusa … had nothing to do with the area in question”.

 

Now, H. Goedicke’s reconstruction of Thutmose III’s First Campaign would suggest that northern Israel was, apart from Megiddo, largely unaffected at the time.

And so, indeed, was Qadesh on the Orontes. On p. 117, for instance, Goedicke writes:

 

“The account of the First Campaign of Thutmosis III is concluded with a global reference to the events following the Battle of Megiddo. Thutmosis III extended his sojourn by conducting an inspection tour through the area where he was now recognized as sovereign. The places touched upon during this tour are mentioned in his great geographical list ….According to it Thutmosis III travelled into the Beqaʿ Valley, but stopped before reaching the Orontes Valley with Qadesh in its center. In addition, he visited the upper Jordan Valley and the Syrian plain”.

 

Because of their strategic importance, the cities of the Upper Jordan Valley were the first to be conquered by invading armies who dared not leave “Ijon, Dan, [and] Abel-beth Maachah” to threaten their supply lines (see 1 Kings 15:20; 2 Kings 15:29; Genesis 49:17).

But, according to Goedicke (p. 123), commenting upon Breasted’s view that “chiefs” (wrw) of the country R-m-n-n were chiefs of Lebanon:

 

“There is no indication whatsoever that Thutmosis III during his First Campaign ever got to the Lebanon proper. Further, there is no knowledge that Thutmosis then or later built a fortress/garrison there …. These points … all speak against an equation of R-m-n-n with the Lebanon. …”.

 

Despite the strange tactics that the conventional reconstructions must elicit, Goedicke would write (Intro, p. 1): “The ‘Battle of Megiddo’, “is the towering event in the reign of Thutmosis III …”. (P. 5) “[It] established Thutmosis III as sovereign over the Levant”.

 

The standard textbook reconstruction of it is, I believe, terribly flawed.

 

We recall Nelson’s description: “... the road enters the Wadi ‘Ara which is there ... flat and open ... All the way to a quarter mile above ‘Ar'arah the valley is wide and level ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible ... a watcher posted on the hill above Lejjun could discern an approaching army at least a mile above the mouth of the pass”.

Hence Nelson had, as we learned, strong reservations about equating the northern pass with the one described in the Annals, his problems being of a geographical, topographical and etymological nature, and also pertaining to an inexplicable military strategy.

Dr. Danelius had told of it:

 

“The theme given to Nelson was "The Battle of Megiddo", and this became the title of the dissertation. It seemed, however, that there was no battle. "On the actual conflict which took place there is not a vestige of information. To judge from the Annalist's narrative it would seem that the Asiatics fled without striking a blow... why the Asiatics fled is not plain. They probably mustered a considerable force." (54) And finally, why was the city not taken by storm? "Just why Thutmose did not make such an attempt at once is hard to surmise..." (55)”.

 

Thutmose III came up against the market-place area of Jerusalem and the Temple of Yahweh. Having ousted his foes, he then laid siege to the city which was now occupied by a coalition of “northern princes”, probably including Syrian allies. We do not know the extent of Jeroboam’s northern kingdom at the time. Towns belonging to King Amaziah of Judah later, for instance, had stretched “from Samaria to Beth Horon”, according to 2 Chronicles 13.

So, it was not always a case of a clear division between north and south.

 

The Aftermath

 

According to Goedicke (Battle of Megiddo, p. 101), the enemy chiefs were reinstated.

 

P. 103: “… they continued to be independent on the local level, but at the same time acknowledging the king as their sovereign”.

P. 102. “Not only are there no more statements about military encounters after the surrender of Megiddo [sic], but the text itself does not report capture or plundering of other cities, as has generally been assumed”.

P. 110. Heavy impost on chief of Qadesh.

P. 103. “Although there is no specification as to his personal fate after the surrender of Megiddo [sic], his realm is territorially curtailed”.

 

Thutmose III, as “Shishak”, did not invade the northern kingdom of Jeroboam, who was dutifully paying tribute and probably had the full support of Egypt.

Despite objections, the pharaoh did not attack anything north of the kingdom of Judah in his all-important First Campaign.

 

In my opinion, there are absolutely no satisfactory replacements for the pair Queen Hatshepsut/ Queen of Sheba and ThutmoseIII/Shishak!

These, I believe, must be recognised as two sturdy pillars of revisionism.

 

 

Re-visiting the Karnak Treasures

 

 

Patrick Clarke writes, “… the subject is described as ‘white bread’ (ta hdj): the full description being: ta hdj hnk f kat; ‘dedication offering of white bread’. From where does Velikovsky derive his idea that 169 is of colored stone (malachite)”?

 

Patrick Clarke, “Was Thutmose III the biblical Shishak?”

 

 

 

Plunder Taken by Thutmose III

 

According to Dr. I. Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, I, p. 155):

 

“The treasures brought by Thutmose III from Palestine [Israel] are reproduced on a wall of the Karnak temple. The bas-relief displays in ten rows the legendary wealth of Solomon. There are pictures of various precious objects, furnishings, vessels, and utensils of the Temple, of the palace, probably also of the shrines to foreign deities. Under each object a numerical symbol indicates how many of that kind were brought by the Egyptian king from Palestine: each stroke means one piece, each arch means ten pieces, each spiral one hundred pieces of the same thing. If Thutmose III had wanted to boast and to display all his spoils from the Temple and the Palace of Jerusalem by showing each object separately instead of using this number system, a wall a mile long would have required and even that would not have sufficed. …”.

 

But was Velikovsky entirely right about this? Not in the opinion of Creationist, Patrick Clarke (“Was Thutmose III the biblical Shishak?—Claims for the ‘Jerusalem’ bas-relief at Karnak investigated”: http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j25_1/j

Clarke argues here that Velikovsky got all of this badly wrong. That Velikovsky - and those who have followed him in this (Clarke’s “VIC”) - lacking the necessary Egyptological knowledge, have wrongly identified the items that appear on the Karnak bas-relief. Consequently Clarke writes (p. 51): “It appears that one of the major weaknesses of a number of the VIC revisionists is that they are not competent in the ancient Egyptian language, or the rules governing Egyptian art”.

 

That is understandable, of course.

Not everyone can be a specialist in such arcane knowledge.

 

I had listed previously, as what I considered to be the “four crucial areas” of focus by critics regarding Velikovsky’s “Shishak” reconstruction: (i) chronology; (ii) the name; (iii) the relevant campaign against Jerusalem; and (iv) the booty.

The latter (iv) had been considered by many revisionists as being a strong point of Velikovsky’s argument – as had Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition, in the case of his Queen of Sheba reconstruction. But Dr. Bimson, as we found, blew the Punt expedition right out of the water as far as its qualifying for the biblical incident of the visit to Jerusalem by the biblical queen. And, likewise, Patrick Clarke appears to have seriously damaged Velikovsky’s proposed identifications of Thutmose III’s Karnak treasures with items from King Solomon’s Jerusalem.

 

Now, whilst I shall be agreeing with Clarke’s conclusions about the few items that he does in fact discuss - using his knowledge of Egyptian hieroglyphics against the Velikovskian thesis - that will in no way affect my previous findings in this series indicating that Thutmose III was most definitely the biblical Shishak.

Similarly, Dr. J. Bimson’s important argument (in “Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba: A Critique of Velikovsky’s Identification and an Alternative View”, SIS Review 8, 1986), in which Bimson completely shipwrecked Velikovsky’s romantic idea that Hatshepsut’s maritime expedition to Punt was the same as the visit by the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s Jerusalem, does not affect the now well-founded identification of Hatshepsut with the Queen of Sheba.

 

With the wise King Solomon as a mentor, it would not be surprising, too, if Thutmose III himself had exhibited skills as a Lawmaker. After all his campaigns came to an end and steady streams of imposts, gifts and tribute were received, the scribes of the king turned their attention to the ‘Wise Administration’ of the king (Records, Sec. 568):

 

“Behold, my majesty made every monument, every law, (and) every regulation which I made, for my father, Amon-Re, lord of Thebes, presider over Karnak, because I so well knew his fame. I was wise in his excellence, resting in the midst of the body; while I knew that which he commanded to do, of the things which he desired should be, of all things which his ka desired that I do them for him, according as he commanded. My heart led me, my hand performed (it) for my father, who fashioned me, performing every excellent thing for my father [Amon]”.

 

It sounds rather Solomonic, doesn’t it?

Cf. e.g. I Kings 3:10-13:

 

“The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, ‘Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings’.”

 

Other of Thutmose III’s statements would suggest that the pharaoh was quite at home when it came to giving moral guidance and a philosophical foundation of government.

 

The Egyptian records, according to H. Breasted (Records, II, Sec. 435), specify:

 

“.... 340 living prisoners; 83 hands; 2,401 mares; 191 foals; 6 stallions; ... young ...; a chariot, wrought with gold, (its) pole of gold, belonging to the chief of `M-k-ty' (as the land around Jerusalem was called); .... 892 chariots of his wretched army; total, 924 (chariots); a beautiful suit of bronze armor, belonging to the chief of Jerusalem; .... 200 suits of armor, belonging to his wretched army; 502 bows; 7 poles of (mry) wood, wrought with silver, belonging to the tent of that foe. Behold, the army of his majesty took ...., 297 ...., 1,929 large cattle, 2,000 small cattle, 20500 white small cattle”.

 

Given the significant cultural interchange on practically every level between Israel and Egypt at this time, it is hardly surprising that the likes of Dr. Danelius, and more recently P. Clarke, have referred to the Egyptian element in the Karnak bas-reliefs. Thus Danelius (“Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?”, SIS Review, vol. ii, no. 3, 1977/78):

 

“The problem of the provenance of the spoil is further aggravated by the observation that some of the objects pictured in murals were unquestionably of Egyptian workmanship … pieces of furniture decorated with the royal uraeus, the serpent of the pharaohs; vessels are formed like the lotus flower, symbol of Upper Egypt; others are decorated with the ram’s head of the Egyptian god Amun, and those of other Egyptian animal-gods”.

 

Not surprising at all, I would say, from a King Solomon who had apostatised under pressure from foreign influences (I Kings 11:1-4).

Clarke, in turn, refers to (op. cit., ibid.): “The frieze of ureai (a bas-relief of rearing cobras) [that] represents potent occult magic, for the cobra-goddess Wadjet was considered a deadly protectress of the king in both life and death”, and this description (e.g. ‘cobra’, ‘uraeus’, and ‘magic’) resonates well with the following description of the statue of a kneeling Senenmut (http://arthistory.about.com/library/weekly/sp/bl_hatshepsut_rev.htm):

 

“The intact and relatively unscathed portrait statue of Senenmut Kneeling with Uraeus Cryptogram was carved from a grayish green stone called metagraywacke. As he gently kneels, Senemut holds a large cryptogram or emblem with hidden meaning. A cobra's head supports a solar disk and cowhorns. The serpent rests on two upraised arms, the hieroglyphic symbol for the ka or soul. In its entirety, this mysterious composite image was meant to support life and protect one from evil magically. Also, the cobra, arms and sun disk together hieroglyphically spell Hatshepsut's coronation or throne name, Maatkare. Possibly after her demise or by priests hostile to the cult of Amun, Senemut's name was carefully and intentionally erased from the sculpture's inscriptions. …”.

 

Clarke continues (op. cit., p. 55):

 

“… the offerings on the Thutmose bas-relief were not at all unusual, being quite normal in this period … [the high priest] Hapuseneb listed:

 

“ … a shrine of ebony and gold …offering tables of gold and silver, and lapis lazuli … vessels … necklaces … two doors of copper …’’. . .

 

Hapuseneb also mentioned that there was a ‘great name’ upon the doors “Okhepernere [Thutmose II]-is-Divine-of-Monuments”. Everything listed was Egyptian, right down to dedications on doors; this consistency in offerings which covers three Pharaohs’ reigns overturns Velikovsky’s argument”.

 

But this just what we should expect now, I believe, in a revised context.

Hatshepsut’s husband, pharaoh Thutmose II was the above-mentioned “Okhepernere”, the son of Thutmose I.

 

Firstly, may I make a general comment regarding the plunder taken by Thutmose III.

Clarke, on pp. 48 and 49, considering the Hebrew word qol (קוֹל), will make these (typically Creationist) ‘global’ statements:

 

“Since this Egyptian ‘took everything’ (Heb. כֹּל qol), … included in his looted inventory would have been the Ark of the Covenant, along with many other valuable items of precious metals and gems mentioned in the biblical narrative. God allowed Shishak to plunder his people for their disobedience. ….

…. Velikovsky believed that the Ark [of the Covenant] was left unwanted in Jerusalem and did not depart until the Babylonian exile. …. But the Hebrew word qol indicates that the Temple and palace were stripped bare; “all” meaning “everything that one has; entire possession”.

 

Previously, though, I have had cause to disagree with this view as espoused by ‘Creationists’.

They, making much of the fact that the Genesis Flood narratives use language that they say unequivocally indicates totality and universality - and indeed they surely do when read at face value, from a modern (western) point of view - are forced to situate Noah and his family in the same sort of vast global environment, virtually, as now inhabited by 3^rd millennium man. Ham et al. (op. cit., pp. 141-143), for instance take such Hebrew phrases from the Flood narrative translated as e.g. “all flesh”, “all the earth”, “every living thing”, “under the whole heaven”, etc., as clearly implying a global Flood. Though they do note (ibid., p. 143), at least in regard to the word ‘all’ (Hebrew kol), here, that:

Some have argued that since ‘all’ does not always mean ‘each and every’ (e.g. Mark 1:5) the use of ‘all’ in the Flood account does not necessarily mean the Flood was universal. That is, they claim that this use of ‘all’ allows for a local flood.

Again, the co-authors are adhering to a true literary principle - applicable to both ancient and modern writings - when they insist that the meaning of any word (such as ‘all’) needs to be determined according to its [geographical] context; that: “From the context of ‘all’ in Luke 2:1, for example, we can see that ‘all the world’ meant all the Roman Empire”. D. Hochner … though, having also considered these same sorts of ‘total’ Hebrew phrases in the Flood narrative, concludes that the Flood was not global. Here is what Hochner has to say, for instance, about the key word “earth”/“land” (Heb: eretz/erets):

Erets (#776 in Strong's), the Hebrew word that [is] translated "earth" throughout the flood account and it does not require a world-wide meaning. This word translated "country" (140 times) and "land" (1,476 times!) in the Bible. Many of them are often of limited land areas.

Hochner then proceeds to produce a list of Old and New Testament usages of this word, eretz, to show that its meaning is often localized, and certainly never globalized in our modern sense. To give just one of his examples (his point e):

… Acts 11:28 speaks of a similar famine throughout all the world, yet it is not likely it really meant over the whole globe including the New World.

One encounters again, later in the Old Testament, a phrase very reminiscent of the Flood narrative, namely, ‘spread over the face of the earth’ (Numbers 22:5,11): ‘A people has come out of Egypt; they have spread over the face of the earth’, complains the Moabite king, Balak, of the Israelites on their way to cross the River Jordan. But how far ‘spread over the face of the earth’ were the Israelites at this particular point in time? A few verses earlier (22:1) we are told just how far: “The Israelites …camped in the plains of Moab across the Jordan from Jericho”.

Not very far at all according to a global context!

Thus, certain Semitic geographical phrases that would seem to us to imply ‘total’, or ‘global’, do not necessarily mean that!

 

I have my own personal copy of Sir A. Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar (Oxford, 1973), and, whilst not professing to be a fluent reader of the hieroglyphs, I have been able at least to verify that the following matchings by Clarke are all correct.

 

On p. 49, Clarke tells that what has been presented by VIC as the Ark of the Covenant (fig. 76), is actually in Egyptian nbw hbny pds n mnkht, which translates “a gold and ebony clothes chest”.

 

Most important are the gold shields, since 1 Kings 14:26 specifically mentions that ‘Shishak’ “took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made”. Velikovsky claimed to have identified these, as Clarke say (p. 53), “… shields made of “beaten gold” in row seven of the bas-relief”. But Clarke goes on to tell that, except for Figures 127 and 128 there, “all the objects in the row are clearly marked as being silver”, with Fig. 127 being “described as nbw w hen n mnw (my gift of a gold chest)”; and the rest being basins, not shields, “which are rendered differently in Egyptian art”.

 

On p. 50, Clarke tells that Velikovsky claimed that collars in row 4 of the bas-relief (54-57) are evidence of priestly apparel, some having “breastplates”. But Clarke says that they are not “breastplates”, but just a functional ornament. In a vertical column between items 80 and 81-88, the hieroglyphs describe their use, he says: “Jewellery for the Appearance Festival of the god”. “Such collars, called usekh … were worn by royalty and the privileged elite”.

 

Pp. 50-51. Here we meet the uraeus, referred to by Danelius, but that we also found adorning statues of Senenmut (our Solomon). Dr. David Down of whom Clarke is also critical, had claimed in his DVD “Unwrapping the Pharaohs”, that “it looks like a fire altar”. But Clarke replies that: “The frieze of ureai (a bas-relief of rearing cobras) represents potent occult magic, for the cobra-goddess Wadjet was considered a deadly protectress of the king in both life and death. There is no example from Scripture for such an artefact being found in either the Temple or residence of Solomon and the claim that it is a ‘fire altar’ is not tenable”.

But it is exactly what we would expect from Solomon in his late career as Senenmut. Recall what we included above: The serpent rests on two upraised arms, the hieroglyphic symbol for the ka or soul. In its entirety, this mysterious composite image was meant to support life and protect one from evil magically.

P. 51. Here Clarke quotes Velikovsky as identifying figure 35 (and by association 36-38) as being “candlesticks with lamps”. “One of them (35)”, writes Velikovsky, “has three lily lamps on the left and three on the right”. But Clarke claims that, here, “Velikovsky missed an important detail …’. [He includes Dr. David Down here, too]. A text accompanies figure 35 on the bas-relief, he says which reads … nbw-ddt (gold bowl). Clarke also compares it with Wreszinski’s Fig. 35 for clarification. “Six Nile lotus blossoms and a human figurine cannot be equated to branches and almond blossoms no matter how hard one tries”, Clarke says, before concluding: “… the bowl (Egy. ddt) is not the same as altar (Egy. khawt)”.

 

52. “Row seven on the bas-relief may contain predominantly silver objects but the choice of Egyptian text for 138 leaves no doubt about its nature: ‘white … bread’. Velikovsky’s ‘silver bread’ is deduced only by its position in the register. Had it really been silver its label would have included the Egyptian … hdj nb, where the two hieroglyphs combined translated as hdj white, and nb gold”.

 

Pp. 52-53. “As for 138”, Clarke writes, “the subject is described as ‘white bread’ (ta hdj): the full description being: ta hdj hnk f kat; ‘dedication offering of white bread’. From where does Velikovsky derive his idea that 169 is of colored stone (malachite)”?’, Clarke asks.

 

The likes of Bimson and Clarke have done a real service to the revision by applying their specialist knowledge to the Velikovskian theses, and showing where these are inadequate or just plain wrong. Others have sometimes followed Velikovsky into these traps, either due to too much idealism or just plain laziness.

Clarke has given a good lesson in why revisionists really need to scrutinise everything that is presented to them, and not just take matters for granted. The Karnak booty of Thutmose III will need to be more thoroughly and scientifically investigated.

 

Unfortunately, neither Bimson nor Clarke has been able to find any compelling substitutes for those ‘twin pillars’ of the Velikovskian revision, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, whom they have completely discarded – having ‘thrown out the baby with the bathwater’ in my opinion.