And Pharaoh Thutmose III as 'King Shishak of Egypt' Supplies A Further Pillar or Buttress
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The old Champollionic identification of pharaoh Shoshenq I (22nd Dynasty) as the biblical Shishak has become one of the fixed pillars of the conventional Egyptian chronology still held to this day. But with the rejection of the Sothic scheme upon which it is based, revisionist scholars have discarded this pillar. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky had led the way by replacing Shoshenq I with Thutmose III of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. He then ‘compensated’, so to speak, by identifying one of the ‘pharaohs Shoshenq’ with the biblical ‘King So of Egypt’ of 2 Kings 17:4.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]-->
Here I wish to show that Velikovsky was perfectly correct in replacing Shoshenq I with Thutmose III. However, as with his Hatshepsut as the ‘Queen of Sheba’ thesis - that I defended in the previous article<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--> - this new pillar was raised upon some fairly shaky ground, due to certain deficiencies in Velikovsky’s argument. This has prompted some revisionists to propose their own different ‘pillars’.
Indeed, Velikovsky’s twin pillars, ‘Hatshepsut’ and ‘Thutmose’, have needed to be refurbished and re-set in secure ground. Once that is done, though, they can stand, as I think they should, forever united as a formidable pair. To demonstrate this fully, however, I shall need to introduce an element that I had ignored in the previous article for simplicity: namely, the Davidic nature of the 18th Dynasty [DN18D].
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The areas of Velikovsky’s ‘Shishak’ reconstruction that revisionists appear to have identified as being the most dubious aspects of it pertain to (a) the name; (b) the geography of the campaign; (c) the identification of Thutmose III’s Karnak treasures.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->(a) <!--[endif]-->The Name
Undoubtedly, the name ‘Shoshenq’ (Shoshenk) is - despite Dr. Bimson’s criticisms of it<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]-->- a far more obvious fit for ‘Shishak’ (Heb. Ć iwĆĄaq), phonetically, than is the name ‘Thutmose’ (and perhaps than even any other pharaonic nomen). However, ‘Shishak’ was the name by which this person was known to the Jews; so it may not be a purely Egyptian one. The similar name, ‘Shisha’ (Heb. Ć iyĆĄa’), practically identical to ‘Shishak’, but lacking the final ‘k’ sound (Heb. qĂŽph), does occur as the father of two of King Solomon’s highest court officials, scribes (1 Kings 4:3). It is generally thought that ‘Shisha’ is an Egyptian name, as with one of his sons, Eli-horeph.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--> The Egyptian factor, and DN18D, will become paramount when in (c) we consider Thutmose III’s Palestinian treasures. Curiously, Shisha’s name is variously rendered as ‘Seraiah’ (2 Samuel 8:17); ‘Sheva’ (20:25); and ‘Shavsha’ (I Chronicles 18:16), which variability might indicate its foreigness.
Another close fit for ‘Shishak’ is the name ‘Shashak’ (Heb. Ć aĆĄaq) of I Chronicles 8:14, 25.
Velikovsky himself did not attempt to connect ‘Shishak’ to any of the names of Thutmose III, but merely alluded to Josephus’s information that the Egyptian conqueror’s name was ‘Isakos’, or ‘Susakos’,<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--[endif]--> and also to the Jewish tradition that ‘Shishak’ was from Shuk, ‘desire’, because the pharaoh had wanted to attack Solomon, but had feared him.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[6]<!--[endif]--> Certainly, this became an issue as Solomon aged, with his foes now seeking refuge with ‘Pharaoh’ (1 Kings 11:18-22), who is variously given as ‘King Shishak of Egypt’ (v. 40). Jewish tradition may not be so far-fetched. Ć Ć K is actually an atbash cryptogram in Jeremiah 25:26; 51:41.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[7]<!--[endif]-->
(b) The Geography of the First Campaign by Thutmose III
The layman - or even most scholars, apparently - would not think of questioning when reading Professor James Henry Breasted’s seemingly authoritative statement that Thutmose III, in his First Asiatic Campaign (22nd-23rd Regnal Year), ‘marched from Tharu, the last Egyptian city on the northeastern frontier, about the 19th of April, 1479 BC …’, and that ‘he moved to Aruna on the thirteenth of May’ of that same year.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[11]<!--[endif]--> Especially so since Breasted had used asterisks in his chronological table to denote these dates as being ‘astronomically fixed’.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[12]<!--[endif]-->
But I maintain that
(i) the dates are completely wrong;
(ii) the geography is completely wrong (including problematical etymology). And
(iii) the astronomical ‘basis’ of these dates is quite artificial!
Velikovsky would, I believe, have accepted (i) and (iii). However, he was in harmony with Breasted, (ii) geographically (and etymologically) at least, in having this campaign directed at Megiddo (the Mkty of the pharaonic Annals), in the north, whilst himself however awkwardly equating it with the biblical campaign leading to the sack of Jerusalem’s Temple and palace. According to Velikovsky, the “King of Kd-ĆĄw” (Kadesh = ‘the Holy’) of the Annals was Rehoboam of Judah (son of Solomon), but he was then stationed in Mkty (Megiddo) in the north. Admittedly, the coupling of Mkty and T3-‘3-n3-k3 in the Annals - considered to be the well-known combination of, respectively, Megiddo and Taanach - is a strong point in favour of the conventional view, at least superficially. Though Taanach is situated to the east of Megiddo, which may present a logistical problem for the textbook history, with the Egyptian army purportedly approaching Megiddo from the plain of Sharon to the west (see General Wavell’s information below on the two Sharon routes).
However, as Dr. Eva Danelius has argued most compellingly in a masterful article for the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies (SIS, UK),<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[13]<!--[endif]--> the gentle and benign topography of the Megiddo region can by no means be equated with that of the road selected by the pharaoh himself, the ‘3-rw-n3 (‘Aruna) road, which his generals regarded as being ‘inaccessible’, ‘secret’ and ‘mysterious’.
[C. R. Conder] "From the Plain of Sharon to Jordan. This line ... ascends by the broad and open valley WĂądy ‘Ărah, 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 LejjĂ»n [Megiddo] . . . . This line, which appears to be ancient … being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of WĂądy ‘Ărah.”
"Most armies coming north over Sharon … would cut across the . . . hills by the easy passes which issue on Esdraelon at Megiddo and elsewhere."
… 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. … Two routes lead across it from Sharon, of which ... the eastern debouches into Esdraelon at LejjĂ»n …. Neither road presents any physical difficulties for a mounted force. …”.
… the road dreaded by the [Egyptian] officers was the camel-road leading from Jaffa up the so-called Beth Horon ascent to Jerusalem, approaching the city from the north. In the time of David it led to the threshing-floor of Araunah [her choice for ‘Aruna] the Jebusite; in the time of Rehoboam it led to the Temple Mount which had been built at that place.
…. The expression "horse following horse", considered by Nelson to have been an Egyptian idiom, seems to have been a known characteristic for that part of the road where "it falls into narrowness": when talking about that part of the way where it climbs from the Lower Beth Horon to the Upper Beth Horon, the Talmud says that if two camels meet each other on the steps of Beth Horon, only "if they go one after the other, both can go up safely." ….
… Finally, the eastern opening of the 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-ĆĄw was not the name of a city, but of a land. ….
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 . . . the valley is wide and level ... the ascent is so gradual as to be scarcely perceptible …’.
…. 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’ ….
Nelson got time during the Great War to reassess it all:
…. This … provided him with the opportunity of discussing his thesis with some British officers who had participated in the conquest of Palestine, 1917/1918. …. ‘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 … also defeated an enemy advancing from the north towards Egypt’ ….
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 … inside the territory of Judah (Josh. 19:6). Nine days later was … 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) …. 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 †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 … he crossed the plain of Sharon, turning inland as he did so, and camped on the evening of May 10th at Yehem, a town of uncertain location, some eighty or ninety miles from Gaza, on the southern slopes of the Carmel range." ….
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 … 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 [Mkty], was in the Valley of Esdraelon.
Danelius is highly critical here also of the rate of progress attributed by Breasted to the Egyptian army, ‘80-90 miles in 10-11 days’, by comparison with that of the ‘Allied left wing [that] covered only 40 miles in 15 days along the plain’, despite the latter’s likely more favourable seasonal conditions (November as opposed to May).<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[19]<!--[endif]--> ‘It seems that neither Breasted nor any of his followers has given any thought to this vital question’, she wrote, ‘not to mention other problems of logistics’.
Etymologically speaking, only, Danelius’s choice for Y-hm (Yehem) of ‘Yamnia (Yabne in Hebrew) - a port about 40 km north of Gaza’ - is hardly more promising than was Petrie’s choice for it of Yemma, south-west of the Carmel ridge, an identification that is ‘little more than guesswork’ according to Nelson.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[20]<!--[endif]--> In view of this stalemate, perhaps, I should like to suggest, newly (but according to a Danelius-based context), and tentatively, that Yehem was Beth-lehem,<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[21]<!--[endif]--> which heads Rehoboam’s list of fortified cities (II Chronicles 11:6). The pharaoh - whose multi-pronged forces of his ‘countless army’ had set about dismantling Judah’s forts (12:3, 4) - had, I suggest, marched to Bethlehem,
where he held his war council for an eventual assault on Jerusalem from the north.
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’. Given DN18D, our pharaoh would have had another strong reason, too, for seizing Bethlehem, his ancestral town (see (c)). It had previously been a garrison of the Philistines (2 Samuel 23:14), being strategically important.
The two roads favoured by the pharaoh’s generals, ‘Zefti’, transcribed Df-ty by Breasted (but unknown in the Megiddo context), and T3-‘3-n3-k3, Danelius now identified with, respectively, Zephathah (II Chron. 14:10), and Tahunah, ‘through which the railway runs today …. Its eastern end leads on to the valley of Rephaim …’; both roads leading to the Temple Mount.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[23]<!--[endif]--> ‘Taanach’ here, though, might have some association with Rephaim itself, through Anak (Heb. ‘Anaq),<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[24]<!--[endif]--> since ‘the Anakim … are usually reckoned as Rephaim’ (Deuteronomy 2:11).
As 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.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[27]<!--[endif]--> Here, Thutmose III supposedly (in Danelius’s context) names the country,
Kd-ĆĄw, and the capital,
Mkty, whilst the El-Amarna letters supply us with the dynastic name of
BĂźt Ć ulman (i.e., ‘The House of Solomon’).
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[28]<!--[endif]-->
Whilst a ‘Kadesh’ (
Kd-ĆĄw) is geographically quite awkward in a conventional Megiddo context, Danelius, on the other hand, was able to provide a most 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",’<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[29]<!--[endif]--> as Gibeon (‘The "many waters" of Gibeon are mentioned in the Scriptures’), and the related brook of Kina (K-y-n3), unknown in the environs of Megiddo, as “the waters of lamentation" at Gibeon – an explanation for the name being found in II Samuel 2. But she will also, somewhat cumbersomely, I think, have to identify
Mkty in one case with the fort of Magedo (or Migron) just north of Jerusalem
(cf. I Samuel 14:2; Isaiah 10:28), since, at this stage, as she writes, ‘the Pharaoh camped "to the south of My-k-ty on the bank of the brook of Kina …".’ Perhaps Danelius’s thesis could be streamlined here to having
Kd-ĆĄw being Jerusalem itself, and Mkty simply being the fort of Magedo (var. Makkedo), worth so much to the pharaoh ‘
because every chief of every country that has revolted is within it’.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[30]<!--[endif]-->
I would share Velikovsky’s view that T3-‘3-n3-k3 is the most problematical name for Danelius. Velikovsky, who it must be said did not accept Danelius’s reconstruction of his thesis here - though he applauded her for being ‘a very gifted researcher and innovator’ - submitted, ‘in the spirit of constructive co-operation’, that:
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[31]<!--[endif]-->
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 …. Today its topography is completely changed. …. 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.
This last was probably Velikovsky’s strongest point. However, his acceptance of the conventional interpretation of T3-‘3-n3-k3 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.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->(b) <!--[endif]-->The Identification of the Karnak Treasures
Apart from the stunning array of vessels that Thutmose III collected from his campaign against Kd-ĆĄw, he also took an immense amount of gold and silver, and 924 chariots. Both Danelius, and more recently Patrick Clarke, have referred to the Egyptian element in the Karnak bas-relief. Thus Danelius:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[32]<!--[endif]--> ‘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.’ Clarke, in turn, refers to:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[33]<!--[endif]--> ‘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’. Moreover:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[34]<!--[endif]--> ‘… 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 is now just what we should expect from an Egyptianised and apostatising Solomon – and from DN18D. Velikovsky had rightly pointed out that Egypt, after the devastation of the Exodus event, had ceased to be mentioned in the Bible as a power for the entire duration of the Joshuan and Judges period. Its revival with the 18th Dynasty, under pharaoh Ahmose, coincided with the rise of Israel’s Monarchy under Saul (then David and Solomon). It befell Velikovsky, love him or hate him - Bible-believer, or not, God-believer, or not - to Velikovsky alone, to connect historical Egypt and biblical history. But Velikovsky did not realise the full implications of what he had discovered. The credit for this must go to Dr. Metzler, who took matters a vital step further in 1989 when he suggested in a work dedicated to ‘the former Lord High Chancellor of England’ that, not only did the 18th dynasty and the Israelite Monarchy originate at the same time, the 18th Dynasty was in fact Israelite.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[35]<!--[endif]--> That Ahmose, the progenitor of the 18th Dynasty (currently dated to 1500 BC) was the same as the biblical Ahimaatz at the time of Saul: ‘Eighteenth-dynasty Egypt may evolve as the Israelite dynasty, ushered in by King Saul’s marriage to the daughter of Ahmosis, the biblical Achima‘atz, and King David’s identity with Thutmosis I …’. In other words, the famous Thutmosides [I-III] were David’s own dynasty.
Metzler also then logically linked Ahmose’s daughter, Ah-hotep, with the biblical Achinoam, who became the wife of David; the key being that David, who destroyed Gezer, was also the biblical pharaoh who destroyed Gezer. Here is how Metzler explains it:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[36]<!--[endif]-->
When the city of Gezer was destroyed by David, who killed all its inhabitants, Achinoam was already his wife, but he was not yet King of Judah and Israel, because King Saul was still alive (1. Samuel 27, 3-11).…Hence it is technically correct that the city was conquered by the pharaoh (1. Kings 9, 16), if she is the pharaoh’s daughter who made him pharaoh by marriage. Translating Achinoam into Egyptian yields Ahhotep, for hotep corresponds to Hebrew no‘am “pleasant”. …).
Also her son’s name, Amnon (2 Samuel 3, 2), a theophoric contraction of Amon-On, and the affair he had with his half-sister Tamar are clearly Egyptian. The conflict of laws becomes obvious, when he say to her, “Come lie with me, my sister,” which would be all right in Egypt, and she answers him, “no such thing ought to be done in Israel” (2. Samuel 13, 11 and 12) ….
Since King David is Thutmosis I, King Saul must be Amenophis I. …. This is proven beyond a reasonable doubt by his wife’s name, who is known in Egyptology as Ahhotep, the daughter of pharaoh Ahmosis I, and in the Bible as Achinoam, the daughter of Achimaatz (1. Samuel 14, 50), which is absolutely identical. ….
In Velikovsky’s chronology, this pharaoh is identified as Thutmose I [ref. Ages in Chaos, iii, “Two Suzerains”] … In the revised stratigraphy considered here, we would expect to find evidence for this destruction of Gezer at some point during LB [Late Bronze] I, and sure enough we do, including dramatic evidence of burning [ref. Dever et al., Gezer I (1970, pp. 54-55 …)].
… scarabs of Thutmose III occur regularly from the start of LB II onwards, and perhaps no earlier … [this] … would suggest that Solomon’s reign saw the transition from LB I to LB II, rather than from LB I A to LB I B [as Bimson had previously thought].
Scarabs—seals of the pharaohs—and impressions of these seals in clay are as a rule found in these countries in much more recent levels than expected by the established chronology. Especially startling is the fact that the scarabs of Thutmose III are regularly found in levels supposedly five to six centuries younger ….
Logically, following Metzler, Hatshepsut’s husband Thutmose II (Okhepernere), son of Thutmose I (David), becomes Solomon himself. Hatshepsut was therefore ‘Pharaoh’s daughter’, Solomon’s wife (I Kings 9:24). From this scenario Metzler further deduced:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[39]<!--[endif]--> ‘Since King David-Thutmosis I was also the father of Queen Hatshepsut-Sheba, King Solomon refers to her in his Song of Songs (4, 10 et passim) as Achoti Kallah “my sister, my spouse!”’ In 1997 I, when writing my reply to Bimson on Hatshepsut/Sheba<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[40]<!--[endif]--> - then quite unaware of Metzler’s identification of the 18th dynasty as Israelite - had concluded that Hatshepsut’s ubiquitous ‘official’, Senenmut (Senmut), often regarded as the real power behind the throne, was Solomon himself. I argued this in some detail. It is Senenmut, rather than the fairly obscure Thutmose II, who I think the better exemplifies King Solomon in his later cosmopolitanism. More recently, I have proposed that the beautiful and virginal ‘Abishag the Shunammite’, nurse to King David (I Kings 1:3-4), was none other than the ‘Shunammite’ of the Song of Songs (6:13).<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[41]<!--[endif]--> That she was, in fact, Hatshepsut herself. It now looms as most likely, too, that the Tamar whom we met above, also beautiful and virginal, who was situated ‘at the palace’ of David when summoned by the lustful Amnon (2 Samuel 13:7), was this same Abishag (Hatshepsut). This would mean that Amnon had raped the girl even during the time when she had been nursing her father David. And Tamar’s off-handed treatment by her brothers (Amnon, but also Absalom) might explain much of the tension of the Song of Songs, the attitude of the brothers, the violence done to her by ‘the sentinels’, and young Solomon’s furtive visits to her, ‘gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice’ while she languishes, desolate, in the palace of her brother Absalom (e.g. 2:9; 3:3; 5:7; 14:8, 9; cf. 2 Samuel 13:20).
Hatshepsut, meaning ‘foremost of women’,<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[42]<!--[endif]--> would be a fitting description for Abishag, who was chosen for King David over all of the beautiful noblewomen in Israel (I Kings 1:3), she being ‘the fairest among women’ (Heb. hayyapha bannashiym) of the Song of Songs (1:8). ‘I am black but beautiful, O daughters if Jerusalem’ (v. 5). Did she even have Nubian blood in her veins? I had quite forgotten Dr. Danelius’s suggestion (I do not have the article) that the queen of Sheba had travelled to King Solomon from Seba, mentioned in Isaiah along with Ethiopia and Egypt (Isaiah 43:3).<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[43]<!--[endif]--> The other name, Tamar (Tamar[a]), may even be a hypocoristicon, inverted, of Maat-[ka]-ra, Hatshepsut’s throne name. Abishag was said to have been of Shunem, a very important place at the approximate time (e.g. El-Amarna letter 274). But she is apparently later, during Solomon’s early reign, situated in Egypt, or Seba. Later she ‘returned’ (I Kings 10:13), and became pharaoh – but Solomon (as Senenmut) never lost contact with her.
What is certain is that she, as Hatshepsut, had been designated for rulership by her father, pharaoh Thutmose I (= David); her coronation being step for step like that of Solomon’s by King David as I showed in my 1997 article.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[44]<!--[endif]--> The pharaoh (David) then gave to her the throne name, Maat-ka-ra (Tamar?). This scenario may explain why Solomon himself is thought to have undergone two accessions (cf. 1 Chronicles 23:1 & 29:22), firstly also perhaps as pharaoh (Thutmose II of about 14 years of reign), and then definitively as the King of Jerusalem. Also certain is that to have attained the hand of Abishag was to have attained the kingdom (I Kings 2:22).
Can we now biblically identify David’s scribe, Shisha? This Shisha/Shavsha must have been a very significant person, though he, unlike his fellow officials, is never accorded a patronymic (father’s name). I suggest that Shavsha (or Shabsha) was the durable warrior, Abishai (var. Abshai) - ‘Chief of the Thirty’ (2 Samuel 23:18), who were King David’s mighty men - and ever loyal to David, his uncle. Being listed as a scribe always (if Abishai) in relation to his brother, General Joab, who is given a ‘matronymic’ (‘son of Zeruiah, David’s sister), Shavsha himself would not require any further qualification. Though, as Abishai, he too is called ‘son of Zeruiah’. I tentatively suggest that Shavsha, is Shabshai (Sheba?), HebraĂŻsed to Abshai (Abishai), and that his brother, Joab, must be the courtly wise (
hkm, with a diacritical
h) counsellor,
Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah (Shammah, 1 Sam 16:9; 17:13), a ‘friend’ (rĂ©a
¢) of David’s son Amnon (2 Samuel 13:23), who counselled the latter towards the seduction of Tamar. Hill writes, referring to an apparent Egyptian connection with this Jonadab:
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[45]<!--[endif]-->
According to H. P. Miller, “after the beginning of the monarchy, it is commonly understood that the root hkm refers above all to the academic wisdom of the court ... the presence at Solomon's court of bilingual ofïŹcials with a competent knowledge of Egyptian writing must be regarded, in view of what we now know of that court and its diplomatic relations with Egypt, as absolutely beyond question; and what is true of Solomon’s court may reasonably be supposed to be true of David's also.
Granted all this, what could possibly be the biblical raison d’ĂȘtre for such a profound David-ide involvement in Egypt? As Dr. Hahn has marvellously explained with reference to 2 Samuel 7, God had chosen the Dynasty of David to become a ‘Torah to all the nations” (wasoth torath ha'adam):<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[46]<!--[endif]--> ‘…. The "torah" came to the Gentiles initially through Solomon, in the form of God’s "wisdom" (see I Kg 3-10), and was subsequently collected and associated with what we call the Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Song of Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon)’. It was through Davidic Israel that God’s word was to become known universally. And we have already found this to have been the case with the in-pouring of Davidic scriptures into 18th dynasty Egypt. The realisation of this, though, presupposed conquest, and therefore David must ‘break them with a rod of iron’ (Psalm 2:9), setting up his ‘garrisons’ in conquered territories: ‘The Lord gave victory to David wherever he went’ (e.g. 2 Samuel 8:6, 14). Similarly, Egypt ‘was made to labour with bowed head for [Hatshepsut] ...’.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[47]<!--[endif]-->
David himself, however, only really got a ‘toehold’ in Egypt, ruling there as Thutmose I for a short period. That is why Egyptian religion largely continued to go its own way, and why even Thutmose I can, under the massive weight of the unbending Egyptian protocol, come across as if a typically paganistic pharaoh. However, commentators have discerned a marked trend towards monotheism in Egypt during this same era.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[48]<!--[endif]--> Moreover, Hatshepsut’s Karnak was being set up as if ‘a Jerusalem in the south’. Baikie had commented, regarding Hatshepsut’s Psalm-like inscriptions re Karnak on her commemorative obelisks:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[49]<!--[endif]--> ‘I do not think that it is fanciful to see in these utterances the expression of something very like a genuine piety struggling to find expression underneath all the customary verbiage of the Egyptian monumental formulae’.
We do not yet fully understand Egyptian religion – and this, a fortiori, if DN18D is to be factored in. It was admittedly highly polytheistic (though also the same god had different names in different parts of Egypt), but what is deemed as magic, for instance, may be, in certain cases, scribal adroitness, as Gordon claims when discussing ancient cryptograms with reference to Proverbs 1:6 and scribal subtleties:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[50]<!--[endif]--> ‘Such apparent gibberish [as untranslatable letter sequences] is not always magical; it may constitute cryptograms or names, dates, and other items reserved for the elite …’. Now, if ever there was an adroit ‘scribe’, it was Solomon, and he, as Senenmut I believe, had a fascination with the Egyptian language and had enjoyed creating cryptograms of Hatshepsut’s throne name. For example, there is the:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[51]<!--[endif]-->
…. intact and relatively unscathed portrait statue of Senenmut Kneeling with Uraeus Cryptogram …. 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. … the cobra, arms and sun disk together hieroglyphically spell Hatshepsut's coronation or throne name, Maatkare.
So, magic may not always have been the primary factor, especially in Judaean hands.
It was Solomon in all his power who was able to begin consolidating the ‘Torah to the nations’. Unfortunately, however, he apostatised in the end, and allowed a religious syncretism to form. And this would have been the state of things in Israel when his son, ‘Shishak’, no doubt believing himself fully justified, sacked Jerusalem of all of its treasures. This means that the Temple items described during Solomon’s initial phase of Yahwism may not have been entirely as they were later, when ‘Shishak’ struck. This fact may not have been sufficiently taken into consideration in discussions on ‘Shishak’.
Clarke, who has properly translated from Egyptian the items that he has presented in his article, is quite correct in his view that some ‘authors’ tend to accept uncritically Velikovsky’s identification of the various items on Thutmose III’s Karnak wall with treasures listed by the Bible, and that:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[53]<!--[endif]--> ‘It appears that one of the major weaknesses of a number of the VIC [Velikovsky Inspired Chronology] revisionists is that they are not competent in the ancient Egyptian language, or the rules governing Egyptian art’. This has led him also to - as have other revisionists - reject Velikovsky’s location of ‘Shishak’ to the time of Thutmose III, thereby forfeiting all of those 18th dynasty-to-Bible connections of Velikovsky’s (especially when modified) as referred to in my previous article. I think that the only revisionist scholar who has managed a plausible - superficially at least - alternative scenario for this entire era is David Rohl (e.g. The Lost Testament), with Ramses II (who did at least conquer Jerusalem) as ‘Shishak’, and the El-Amarna [EA] period set at the time of Saul and David. But this scenario has no Queen of Sheba, for one, and it runs into serious anomalies as Murphie has shown,<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[54]<!--[endif]--> such as Ramses II now having the powerful king Asa of Judah (in his full strength) sandwiched right between himself and his Hittite ally, Hattusilis. Moreover, Rohl’s reconstruction, chronologically, must sacrifice the idea of the Davidic-Solomonic biblical influence upon 18th dynasty writings as pointed out in my previous article, and restore the conventional status of a pagan Egypt influencing the biblical corpus. Maccoby has written of this influence in a Velikovskian context, regarding love poetry:<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[55]<!--[endif]-->
Interesting further light on the connections between the Song of Songs and Egyptian culture is thrown by a recent book, A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Poetry, by John B. White [who] finds many significant similarities between the Songs of Songs and Egyptian love-poetry, which he dates specifically to the 18th Dynasty. … White … taking the conventional chronology for granted, assumes that the cultural influence has travelled from Egypt to Palestine, and that the Song of Songs has been modelled, partly at least, on Egyptian poetry stemming from the 18th Dynasty. On the basis of the Revised Chronology, Velikovsky argued that the renaissance of culture in the New Kingdom came, on the contrary, from Palestine, to a large extent. It is thus an interesting possibility that the Song of Songs actually influenced the development of love-poetry in Egypt. ….
Conclusion
DN18D now necessitates a complete re-assessment of the Karnak treasures of Thutmose III.
Velikovsky’s thesis on Hatshepsut as the ‘Queen of Sheba’ is further strengthened by his important identification of Thutmose III with the biblical ‘King Shishak of Egypt’. These are in fact history’s only suitable candidates for the pair. And, taking into consideration DN18D (only touched upon here), there is now much, much more at stake in rejecting this pair. For, far from King David’s having been some petty ruler of an impoverished Iron Age settlement, as archaeologist Israel Finkelstein would have him, and Solomon being non-existent, David’s Late Bronze Age dynasty had been chosen by God to rule the nations of the world. And so it did.
<!--[if !supportEndnotes]-->
<!--[endif]-->
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]--> Thus P. Ellis, ‘1-2 Kings’, The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice-Hall, N.J, 1968), 10;15: ‘The names of Elihopreh and his father, Shisha, are probably Egyptian and reflect the influence of the Egyptian bureaucracy ...’. And Holman Bible Dictionary. ‘ELIHOREPH. (ehl' ih hoh' rehf) Personal name meaning, “my God repays” ... or borrowed from Egyptian, “Apis is my God.”. .... Shisha, the name of Elihoreph's father, is the Egyptian word for scribe’. http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T1792
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[14]<!--[endif]--> Nelson, H., ‘The Battle of Megiddo’ (The University of Chicago Library, Private edition 1913: A dissertation submitted ... for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Oriental Languages and Literature), Preface to the 1920 edition, note 31.
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[21]<!--[endif]--> Unlike Hebrew, ancient Egyptian does not have the letter ‘l’ in its alphabet. In fact, one writer claims that the Nahuatl language, with ‘l’ removed from the words, corresponds to ancient Egyptian.
She remained in power for twenty years and during this time the Egyptian economy flourished, she expanded trading relations and built magnificent temples as well as restoring many others. Eventually her nephew grew into a man and took his rightful place as pharaoh. The circumstances of this event are unknown and what became of Hatshepsut is a mystery. 
