Luke 11:30, 31

"For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation".

"The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here".

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Damien Mackey BPhil (1985), MA (1994), MA (2007) has two Master of Arts Degrees, from the University of Sydney (Australia). His first thesis ‘The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar’ [1] (preceded by the study of Hieroglyphics at Macquarie University), scrutinized the documentary and astronomical basis of the conventional Egyptian dating. Mackey’s second thesis, ‘A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background’[2](preceded by a year of ancient Hebrew study), was his attempt to develop a more acceptable alternative to the conventional chronology.

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Introduction

Patrick Clarke has recently written for the Journal of Creation two articles claiming that, contrary to Drs. Immanuel Velikovsky, Donovan Courville and David Down, and also Emmet Sweeney, the 18^th dynasty pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, could not have been, respectively, the biblical ‘Queen of Sheba’,[3] and ‘King Shishak of Egypt’.[4]

Clarke has devoted a fair space in his ‘Hatshepsut’ article to pointing out Velikovsky’s apparent deficiencies, his lack of belief in the Scriptures (“who would not call himself a Bible-believer”),[5] and his shortcomings in regard to ancient languages. But more suitably qualified scholars since (e.g. J. Bimson, P. James, D. Rohl) have also, basing themselves on Velikovsky’s

(i) rejection of Sothic theory, and

(ii) his lowering of the secular dates by several centuries,

arrived at revised systems more akin to Velikovsky’s original than to the conventional structure. Along the way, though, some of them, seemingly embarrassed by any suggestion of having been influenced by Velikovsky, will drop terms like ‘maverick’ and ‘wayward polymath’ with regard to him. Some will even claim their revision as a ‘New Chronology’.[6]

Two points here. Firstly, ‘give credit where credit is due’; and, secondly, no need today to waste precious article space pointing out Velikovsky’s well-known deficiencies.

However, to dispose satisfactorily of Velikovsky’s 18^th Egyptian dynasty reconstruction, complemented by that of Courville and others - all looming as a vast elabo-structure by now - it does not suffice for one simply to take pot-shots at three supposed ‘pillars’ (Clarke’s ‘all these pillars’[7]) supporting this combination (namely, Hatshesput/Sheba and the sub-set of Punt, and Thutmose III/Shishak). There is to be considered a significant whole (some 200 years revised), with an underlying methodology. Thus:

(a) the significant Sothic theory, with resultant ‘Dark Ages’, that all leading revisionists reject - these, coupled with the ‘collection of rags and tatters’ admission of honest conventional Egyptology. And

(b) the correlations between the early 18^th Egyptian dynasty and early Monarchy of Israel. Then, after

(c) the detailed theses of Hatshepsut, and

(d) Thutmose III, we arrive at

(e) the El-Amarna [EA] period with all of its many correlations with the Divided Monarchy (e.g. ‘Bit Šulman’, ‘House of Solomon’; ‘son of Zuchru’ and ‘son of Zichri’; captain Ianhamu as Syrian captain Naaman, the succession of Syrian kings, etc., etc).

Before some of the sharpest minds of the ‘Glasgow’ School to which Clarke refers[8] went their own ways, some teaming up but then separating, they had, by modifying Velikovsky, brought the revision of the 18^th dynasty to an impressive peak. Peter James[9] showed that an excellent fit could be achieved by newly identifying EA’s idolatrous king of Jerusalem, Abdi-hiba, with King Jehoram of Judah, rather than with his pious father, Jehoshaphat, as according to Velikovsky. And Bimson, who had written impressively on the need for a revised stratigraphy,[10] would later add a third Syrian king to Velikovsky’s EA succession of

(i) Abdi-ashirta = biblical Ben-Hadad I, &

(ii) Aziru = biblical Hazael; namely,

(iii) Du-Teshub, the post-EA son of Aziru, as Ben-Hadad II,[11] thus further consolidating Velikovsky's Syrian sequence for both EA and the mid-C9th BC.

And I still fully concur with James’s 1977/78 view re Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, that:[12]

With [these] two identifications [Velikovsky] seems to be on the firmest ground, in that we have a succession of two rulers, both of whom are characterised in the letters and the Scriptures as powerful rulers who made frequent armed excursions - and conquests - in the territories to the south of their own kingdom. In the letters their domain is described as "Amurru" - a term used, as Velikovsky has pointed out ... by Shalmaneser III for Syria in general, the whole area being dominated by the two successive kings in "both" the el-Amarna period and the mid-9th century …

- so much so that these two kings became the very foundation of my thesis on the ‘Background’ section[13] of the era of King Hezekiah of Judah.

Dr. Eva Danelius[14] would also correct Velikovsky’s unconvincing geographical reconstruction of Thutmose III’s first campaign, which Velikovsky - though identifying it as the biblical foray, Shishak’s, nonetheless had it ending up at Megiddo in the north - by her showing that it was actually directed right at Jerusalem itself.

This (a-e above) is by now already a formidable package (and I have only just touched upon it). Some very solid ‘pillars’ indeed to be found here with a modified Velikovsky.

By contrast, the conventional chronology with its underlying stratigraphy has led to archaeologists systematically deleting ancient Israel (Moses; Exodus; Conquest; David, Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, etc.) from the history books. Late last year, the leading Israeli archaeologist, Israel Finkelstein, was quoted as saying:[15] “Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!” Not only Solomon, but all the others as well. That is because the likes of professor Finkelstein and his colleagues are always constrained by the erroneous Sothic chronology to look at the wrong strata for the Conquest, David and Solomon (Iron Age instead of Late Bronze Age in the latter case). Thanks to the conventional scheme, it is biblical history that is currently losing just about every battle.

And to set the 18^th Egyptian dynasty back to somewhere near where the text books have it, in the c. C16th-C15th’s BC, then one is forced also to return to the standard view that it was Egyptian thought that had influenced the c. C10th BC biblical writings, instead of the other way around.

Clarke refers to “Liberal Christianity” in connection with Egyptologist Budge.[16] Is it not this liberalism that always gives precedence to the pagan nations (e.g. the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians), by claiming that their myths and literature supposedly influenced the biblical texts? Thus we are told, for instance, that King David drew his inspiration for Psalm 104 from the ‘Sun Hymn’ of the heretic pharaoh, Akhnaton. All agree that these two texts are very similar in places. That is the wrong conclusion, however, if David preceded Akhnaton by more than a century as according to a Velikovskian context. Or they say that the Bible-like and sapiential writings of Hatshepsut, and the love poems of the 18^th Egyptian dynasty, had influenced King Solomon’s writings. Some of Hatshepsut's own inscriptions are clearly like those of Israel’s - especially Genesis, the Psalms and, most interestingly, the writings generally attributed to Solomon (Proverbs, Wisdom, Song of Songs). But that is just a further argument, I would suggest, in favour of the view that this great woman had visited him and had drunk in Solomon’s wisdom - Israel influencing Egypt, and not the other way around. Here are just a few examples of:

Scriptural Influences on Hatshepsut

(i) An Image from Genesis

After Hatshepsut had completed her Punt expedition, she gathered her nobles and proclaimed the great things she had done. Hatshepsut reminded them of Amon's oracle commanding her to ‘... establish for him a Punt in his house, to plant the trees of God's Land beside his temple in his garden, according as he commanded’.[17] At the conclusion of her speech there is further scriptural image ‘I have made for [Amon-Ra] a Punt in his garden at Thebes ... it is big enough for him to walk about in’. J. Baikie[18] noted that this is ‘a phrase which seems to take one back to the Book of Genesis and its picture of God walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening’. This inscription speaks of Amon-Ra's love for Hatshepsut in terms almost identical to those used by the Queen of Sheba about the God of Israel's love for Solomon and his nation.

Compare the italicised parts of Hatshepsut's

‘... according to the command of ... Amon ... in order to bring for him the marvels of every country, because he so much loves the King of ... Egypt, Maatkara [i.e. Hatshepsut], for his father Amen-Ra, Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, more than the other kings who have been in this land for ever ...’.[19]

with the italicised words in a song of praise spoken to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba ‘Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne as king for the Lord your God! Because your God loved Israel and would establish them for ever ...’ (II Chronicles 98).[20]

(ii) An Image from the Psalms

When Hatshepsut's commemorative obelisks were completed, she had the usual formal words inscribed on them. However, Baikie states that, in language that ‘might have come straight out of the Book Psalms’, the queen continues:[21]

‘I did it under [Amon-Ra's] command; it was he who led me. I conceived no works without his doing .... I slept not because of his temple; I erred not from that which he commanded. ... I entered into the affairs of his heart. I turned not my back on the City of the All-Lord; but turned to it the face. I know that Karnak is God's dwelling upon earth; ... the Place of his Heart; Which wears his beauty ...’.

Baikie goes on, unaware that it really was the Psalms and the sapiential words of David and Solomon, that had influenced Hatshepsut's prayer:

‘The sleepless eagerness of the queen for the glory of the temple of her god, and her assurance of the unspeakable sanctity of Karnak as the divine dwelling-place, find expression in almost the very words which the Psalmist used to express his ... duty towards the habitation of the God of Israel, and his certainty of Zion's sanctity as the abiding-place of Jehovah.

‘Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids. Until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the mighty God of Jacob.

- For the Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it’.’

(iii) An Image from Proverbs

In another related verse of the Punt reliefs about Amon-Ra leading the expedition to ‘the Myrrh-terraces ... a glorious region of God's Land’, the god speaks of creating the fabled Land of Punt in playful terms reminiscent of Solomon's words about Wisdom's playful rôle in the work of Creation (Proverbs 8:12, 30-31). In the Egyptian version there is also reference to Hathor, the personification of wisdom:[22] ‘... it is indeed a place of delight. I have made it for myself, in order to divert my heart, together with ... Hathor ... mistress of Punt …’.

(iv) Images from the Song of Songs

In the weighing scene of the goods acquired from Punt (i.e. Lebanon, see below), Hatshepsut boasts:[23]

‘[Her] Majesty [herself] is acting with her two hands, the best of myrrh is upon all her limbs, her fragrance is divine dew, her odour is mingled with that of Punt, her skin is gilded with electrum, shining as do the stars in the midst of the festival-hall, before the whole land’.

Compare this with verses from King Solomon's love poem, Song of Songs (also called the Song of Solomon), e.g. ‘My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh; Sweeter your love than wine, the scent of your perfume than any spice; Your lips drip honey, and the scent of your robes is like the scent of Lebanon’ (4:10-11; 55). (cf. 4:6, 14; 5:1, 5).

This Hatshepsut’s saturation with Davidic and Solomonic scriptural imagery is further strong support for the Egyptian queen’s visit to Jerusalem.

About the Woman Herself

Contrary to the claims by Bimson and Clarke, I think that there is no grammatical obstacle to Velikovsky's view (be it correct or not) that ‘Sheba’ was actually the queen’s personal name. The construct state is used in various places in Hebrew for an ‘Apposition’ - a proper name or a description of a proper name.[24] According to Velikovsky, ‘Sheba’ was probably a nickname for Hatshepsut in the close relationships that existed between the 18th Dynasty and the House of David (and one might include here the influence of Bath-sheba). It does seem that Jewish, Greek and Latin traditions all concur that ‘Sheba’ was the queen’s name. Jewish writer, Dr. Ewald (Ed) Metzler, has written in this regard:[25]

In Jewish tradition, Sheba has always been understood as the proper name of a queen, not as her land of origin, and from Josephus Flavius we learn that she was the ruler of Egypt and Ethiopia, as Queen Hatshepsut was, who is the only woman to have remained on the throne of Egypt for an extended period of time. The central hieroglyph in her name is Sheps meaning “noble seated on chair”, and corresponding to Hebrew Shebet “sit” whence Sheba or to Shabat “rest” whence Regina Saba, as Saint Jerome calls her [one could also include here the Septuagint’s Basilissa Saba].

And Metzler adds that (as Velikovsky had already noted): ‘In Ethiopian tradition, her name is Makeda, which is derived from Hatshepsut’s prenomen Maatkare [Makera]’.

Bimson had argued, though - and Clarke would affirm this - that the biblical description had an Arabian, not Egyptian, flavour, with camels, gold, spices and precious stones. But, again, all the monarchs who came to hear Solomon's wisdom brought ‘silver and gold ... myrrh, spices ...’ (cf. I Kings 10:25 & II Chronicles 10:24). Ever since the time of Joseph, an Arabian camel train had operated between Egypt and northern Palestine, carrying similar types of gifts (Genesis 37:25). The New Testament evidence that Solomon’s visitor was a ‘Queen of the south [who] came from the ends of the earth ...’ (cf. Matthew 12:42 & Luke 11:31) supports an Egypto-Ethiopian identity. Clarke queries the use of the term ‘Ethiopia’, distinguishing it from ‘Cush’.[26] In the Book of Daniel, I had written in 1997,[27] the phrase ‘of the south’ was used with various rulers to designate rulership over Egypt and Ethiopia (cf. Daniel 11:5, 6, 9, 11, 25, 40). Call it Cush, then. But, even so, the geography is still obviously Egypt, most importantly, and territory south of that. The basic orientation is Egypt, not Arabia!

Still, Bimson had suggested that the biblical queen was from Yemen in Arabia. Likewise, Clarke has her from “somewhere around modern-day Yemen”.[28] G. van Beek,[29] however, has described the geographical isolation of Yemen and the severe hazards of a journey from there to Palestine. And none of the numerous inscriptions from this southern part of Arabia refers to the famous queen. Civilisation in southern Arabia may not really have begun to flourish until some two to three centuries after Solomon's era, as Bimson himself had noted[30]- and no 10th century BC Arabian queen has ever been named or proposed as the Queen of Sheba. If she hailed from Yemen, who was she?

Creating a Vacuum

Clarke is certainly right that:[31] ‘The chronology debate is a serious issue’. But he is also mindful that: ‘There is always the risk that believers may base their thinking more on secular history rather than the Bible’. He is ‘very sympathetic’ towards revisionists. And in his Shishak article, Clarke tells:[32] ‘I support the need for chronological revision …’. It will be very interesting, though, to see for whom Clarke opts in the future as Shishak, now that he has rejected Thutmose III as a candidate. And with what secular history will he align the Monarchy of Israel? And, with what biblical era, EA?

Critics who only take pot-shots at Velikovsky’s ‘pillars’, but who do not offer any sort of substitute system, are creating the sort of vacuum which allows free rein to the conventionalists and which must bewilder readers. Neither Bimson,[33] nor Rohl with Ramesses II as his Shishak[34] - and I suspect that Clarke will run into the very same problem - can propose any appropriately situated woman to take Hatshepsut’s place as the Queen of Sheba, who, surely, must have been a woman of some significance. Alasdair Beal, editor of SIS in 1997, wrote of the effect that Bimson’s 1986 critique had had on readers:[35]

Probably few articles caused more disappointment in SIS circles than John Bimson's 1986 ‘Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba’, which presented strong evidence and argument against Velikovsky's proposal that the mysterious and exotic queen who visited King Solomon was none other than the famous Egyptian female pharaoh. This removed one of the key identifications in Velikovsky's Ages in Chaos historical reconstruction and was a key factor in the rejection of his proposed chronology by Bimson and others in favour of the more moderate ‘New Chronology’. It also took away what had seemed a romantic and satisfactory solution to the mystery of the identity and origins of Solomon's visitor, leaving her once more as an historical enigma. ….

Such efforts that offer no replacements cause ‘disappointment’ amongst readers who at least know enough to mistrust the conventional system. It is not even sufficient to do as some have done after having tossed aside certain ‘pillars’, and pick in isolation a few historical characters as biblical candidates (e.g. for Shishak). One needs at least to replace any set of discarded ‘pillars’ with a revised system, complete with a basic stratigraphy, that can accommodate major biblical events and persons - most notably, the Conquest (and Jericho), but also David and Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and King Shishak, and later ‘So King of Egypt’ (2 Kings 17:4). And definitely one must be able to find a suitable place for the very long-reigning (66-67 years) Ramesses II of Egypt’s 19^th dynasty.

In 1997, about a decade after Bimson’s critique, I wrote an article for SIS,[36] in which I acknowledged the excellent points that Bimson had made, but I also endeavoured to answer them. I fully concurred with Bimson that the Punt expedition could not have been the same as the biblical visit. Whereas the latter was made by a ‘queen’, Hatshepsut was then no longer a queen. She was now in her 9^th year as Pharaoh. The title of Clarke’s article is thus suggestive by its juxtaposing of Pharaoh Hatshepsut and the biblical Queen.

The Punt Expedition

Bimson, from an in situ study of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s Punt inscriptions at Deir el-Bahri, concluded for various reasons - and rightly so - that these texts could not be referring to the celebrated visit by the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon in Jerusalem. Clarke has again raised some of these objections. Bimson's analysis of the Punt expedition constituted his most formidable argument against Velikovsky's thesis. However, on the basis of P. Dorman's chronology of Hatshepsut's era,[37] I suggested that the Punt expedition was a venture entirely separate from the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem, undertaken years later, after Hatshepsut had made herself Pharaoh. Its chief purpose was to obtain myrrh trees for the garden (or park) surrounding the temple of Amon-Ra at Deir el-Bahri, to provide a continuous supply of this rare plant in Thebes. Hatshepsut, recalling the magnificent parks and gardens she had seen in Jerusalem, wanted to create the same for her capital city. Hatshepsut would also have noticed Solomon's magnificent fleet (I Kings 10:11), and the parks and gardens in Jerusalem with their exotic myrrh trees (Song of Songs 5:1; 6:2). Presumably these were what later inspired her Punt expedition. Furthermore, Bimson had noted most significantly that Hatshepsut herself did not accompany this trip, as the Queen of Sheba obviously had hers. The purpose of the Punt venture was not to partake of the wisdom of the King of Jerusalem - we have found above that she had already done that years before.

And the miserable ‘gifts’ given by the Egyptian party to the reception committee at Punt, ‘an axe, a poignard in its sheath, two leg bangles, eleven necklaces and five large rings’,[38] obviously bore no comparison with the lavish gifts brought by the Queen of Sheba: ‘The poverty and meanness of the Egyptian gifts’, wrote Mariette, ‘are in striking contrast to the value of those which they receive’.

The Egyptian inscriptions show Punt as a land of trees - e.g. the c-s tree that A. Nibbi equates with the pine.[39] This is consistent with the view that Punt was Phoenicia/Lebanon; Lebanon being the most noteworthy place for trees in the ancient Near East. Solomon had a free hand building in Lebanon (I Kings (9:19, 20), where he used forced labour. The Song of Songs refers to a ‘mountain of myrrh’, apparently in Lebanon (cf. 4:6 & 4:8). Solomon's palace was actually called ‘The House of the Forest of Lebanon’, because it was ‘built upon three rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars’ (1 Kings 7:2). All this priceless timber could have been obtained from the Phoenicians.

Accordingly, Velikovsky had referred to Mariette's view that Hatshepsut's fine building betrayed ‘a foreign influence’, possibly from ‘the land of [Punt]’.[40] If the Puntites were the Phoenicians - and (according to the Bible) Phoenician craftsmen had assisted Solomon in his building of Yahweh's Temple - then it is most interesting that Mariette had observed that Hatshepsut's temple ‘probably represents ... a Phoenician influence’.[41] From this, Velikovsky had concluded that the design of the latter was based on the Jerusalem model.

According to the Bible, the Queen of Sheba made at least the latter part of her journey to Jerusalem by camel train, probably taking the same route as had the Ishmaelite traders who had carried Joseph off to be sold in Egypt. Contrary to Velikovsky, she did not come to Jerusalem via the Red Sea and Solomon's port of Ezion-geber. The gifts she brought were of enormous value but Solomon allowed her to take them all back with her (II Chronicles 9:12).

Bimson - whilst favouring Velikovsky's chronological view that Hatshepsut's Punt expedition dated to about the time of King Solomon - had argued that the expedition had travelled southwards on the Red Sea, to NE Africa (modern Eritrea). Clarke gives ‘Ethiopia [as] the probable location of Punt…’.[42] Bimson claimed that myrrh trees were to be found there, and he explained how the fauna and flora of the Punt reliefs reflected a NE African location.[43] Interestingly, in Solomon's own naval expeditions to Ophir (which certainly were southward bound voyages on the Red Sea) his servants brought back mainly gold (1 Kings 10: 11), and there is no mention at all of myrrh trees.

I would consider the logistics of the Punt expedition in the light of points raised by Nibbi,[44] especially her insistence that the Egyptians did not travel on the open seas. This helps solve a problem with which both Velikovsky and Bimson had grappled: namely, that the Punt reliefs provide no evidence that the Egyptian fleet had at any stage been transported overland, from the Nile to the Red Sea. And this affects Clarke also, of course, with his Punt as Ethiopia. This led Bimson to assume that something must have been left out of the reliefs.[45] In my scenario this would no longer be a problem, as the Red Sea was not involved at all. If Hatshepsut's fleet had never left the Nile, there would have been no need for overland transportation of boats. I suggest that Hatshepsut's expedition was northward bound, for Lebanon, but it was an expedition ‘on water and on land’. The fleet simply sailed northwards to the Nile Delta. There, Nehesi and his small army disembarked and marched northward through friendly territory to Lebanon. ‘Sailing in the sea, beginning the goodly way towards God's Land, journeying in peace to the land of Punt ...’; the naval leg being only the ‘beginning’ of the trip to Punt.

Early Egyptian expeditions to Punt were generally connected with a place they called kpn; commonly thought to be Byblos on the Phoenician coast. Nibbi[46] has disputed this and has identified this kpn with a port in northern Egypt. She first mentions Canopus but prefers El Gibali in Sinai. Canopus, though, would have been an ideal place for the Egyptian fleet to have dropped anchor, close to the Mediterranean.

Hatshepsut stressed that the travelling was peaceful.

Any maritime venture would have needed the co-operation of the Phoenicians, making King Hiram of Tyre a third important power. And Velikovsky had claimed that King Hiram’s men had figured in Hatshepsut’s Punt inscriptions as ‘the chiefs of Irem [Hiram]’.[47] The Phoenician ports were international marts where all sorts of exotic merchandise could be acquired - all that Hatshepsut did in fact acquire from Punt. I suggest that Hatshepsut's fleet would have laid anchor at the mouth of the Nile, awaiting the outcome of Nehesi’s negotiations with the Puntite/ Phoenicians, who then transported the goods via barges or rafts to Egypt, to be loaded on to Hatshepsut's ships. It is clear from Hiram's own words to Solomon (I Kings 5:8-9) that the Phoenicians did transport cedar and cypress timber in this fashion to southern ports.

It seems that, today, everyone wants to create his own ‘New Chronology’. This article urges those who at least take the Bible seriously to pause and consider all that has gone before, to modify by all means wherever the evidence demands, but to be extremely wary about barging off in a completely new direction that means abandoning some by now very well established biblical and historical connections.

[1] This thesis can be accessed at: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1632

[2] This thesis can be accessed at: http://hdl.handle.net/2123/5973

[3] ‘Why Pharaoh Hatshepsut is not to be equated to the Queen of Sheba’, Journal of Creation, 24/2, August 2010, pp. 62-68.

[4] ‘Was Thutmose III the biblical Shishak? – Claims of the ‘Jerusalem’ bas-relief at Karnak investigated’, Journal of Creation, 25/1, April 2011, pp. 48-56.

[5] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 62.

[6] Nothing wrong with that, of course, but some advertising would give the false impression here of making a brand new and original start.

[7] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 63.

[8] Ibid., Postscript, p. 67.

[9] ‘The Dating of the El Amarna Letters’, SIS Review, Vol. II, No. 3 (1977/78), pp. 80-85.

[10] ‘Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?’, SIS Review VoI.VII-3, 1978, pp. 16-26.

[11] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, SIS Review, Vol. V, No.1 (1980/81), p. 21.

[12] Op. cit., p. 80.

[13] I.e. ch’s. 3-4 & 9-10 of Volume One.

[14] ‘Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem?’, SIS Review, Vol. II, No. 3 (1977/78), pp. 64-79.

[15] By R. Draper, ‘Kings of Controversy’, National Geographic (David and Solomon, December 2010), p. 85.

[16] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 66, n. 49.

[17] Breasted, J., Records, Vol. ll, Sec. 295.

[18] A History of Egypt, A. & C. Black Ltd., London, 1929, Vol. 11, p. 74.

[19] Dorman, P., The Monuments of Senenmut, Kegan Paul, London, 1988, p. 99.

[20] This particular phraseology, spoken in honour of a royal person, must have been a convention of the time because it also resembles the way that Hiram of Tyre greeted King Solomon (e.g. 2 Chronicles 2:11-12).

[21] Op. cit., p. 89.

[22] Ibid., p. 70.

[23] Breasted, op. cit., p. 74.

[24] See Kautzsch, E. (ed.) Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, # 130. ‘Wider Use of the Construct State’ and # 131, ‘Apposition’.

[25] Archives for Mosaical Metrology and Mosaistics, AMMM Vol. II, No. 1, Chapter VI: ‘Conflict of Laws in the Israelite Dynasty of Egypt’. http://moziani.tripod.com/dynasty/ammm_2_1.htm

[26] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 64.

[27] ‘Solomon and Sheba’, C&C Review, Soc. for Interdisciplinary Studies [SIS], 1997:1, pp. 4-14.

ibid., pp. 4-14.

[28] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 65.

[29] Solomon and Sheba, ch. l, ‘The Land of Sheba’, p. 41.

[30] ‘Hatshepsut’, p. 22.

[31] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 62.

[32] ‘Shishak’, p. 55.

[33] Who wrote a very strong critique of Velikovsky in ‘Hatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba’, C&C Review (SIS) Vol. VIII, 1986, pp. 12-26.

[34] The Lost Testament. From Eden to Exile, Century, London, 2002.

[35] ‘Editor’s Note’, C&C Review, Soc. for Interdisciplinary Studies [SIS], 1997:1, p. 4.

[36] Mackey, D., op. cit.

[37] Refer back to n. 19.

[38] A. Mariette, as quoted in E. Naville’s The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Introductory Memoir, p. 1.

[39] Ancient Byblos Reconsidered, DE Publications, Oxford, 1985, p. 60.

[40] As referred to in G. Maspero's The Struggle of the Nations, p. 241, n.2.

[41] Refer back to n. 36.

[42] ‘Pharaoh Hatshepsut’, p. 64.

[43] ‘Hatshepsut’, pp. 16-21.

[44] Op. cit.

[45] ‘Hatshepsut’, p. 18.

[46] Op. cit., pp. 59-72.

[47] Ages in Chaos, Vol I, 1952, pp. 107-135.

And Pharaoh Thutmose III as 'King Shishak of Egypt' Supplies A Further Pillar or Buttress

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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.[1]

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[2] - 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].

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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.

(a) The Name

Undoubtedly, the name ‘Shoshenq’ (Shoshenk) is - despite Dr. Bimson’s criticisms of it[3]- a far more obvious fit for ‘Shishak’ (Heb. Šiwšaq), 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. Šiyša’), practically identical to ‘Shishak’, but lacking the final ‘k’ sound (Heb. qôph), 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.[4] 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. Šašaq) 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’,[5] and also to the Jewish tradition that ‘Shishak’ was from Shuk, ‘desire’, because the pharaoh had wanted to attack Solomon, but had feared him.[6] 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. ŠŠK is actually an atbash cryptogram in Jeremiah 25:26; 51:41.[7]

If, on the other hand, the name ‘Shishak’ is to be sought amongst the pharaonic titles, then one might consider Birch’s suggestion that it may derive from Thutmose III’s Golden Horus name, Djeser-khau (dsr h_’w):[8] ‘... the (Golden) Horus names of Thutmose III comprise variations on: Tcheser-khau, Djeser-khau … (Sheser-khau?) …’. The name means ‘holy-of-diadems’.[9] Should anyone object to the dropping of a final name element, then we have the example of Shoshenq I referring to himself on scarabs by the hypocoristicon, (or ‘nickname’), ‘Shosh’.[10]

(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 (22^nd-23^rd 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.[11] Especially so since Breasted had used asterisks in his chronological table to denote these dates as being ‘astronomically fixed’.[12]

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-šw” (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),[13] 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’.

Danelius, developing much of her argument (far too detailed to do justice to here) through the poignant tale of the young Harold H. Nelson, to whom Breasted had assigned for his doctoral thesis the preconceived task of interpreting the Egyptian Annals ‘in the light of the geography of the environs of Megiddo’,[14] gave such examples of the topography of Megiddo as these:[15]

[C. R. Conder] "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 [Megiddo] . . . . This line, which appears to be ancient … being one of the easiest across the country, owing to the open character of Wâdy ‘Ârah.”

"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 Lejjûn …. Neither road presents any physical difficulties for a mounted force. …”.

The ‘Aruna road, on the other hand, compared most favourably indeed, etymologically and topographically, Danelius claimed, with the steep and narrow pass directed towards Jerusalem:[16]

… 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-šw was not the name of a city, but of a land. ….

Despite the fortuitous combination of ‘Megiddo’ and ‘Taanach’, the key pass of ‘Aruna is not well represented etymologically by Wadi ¢Ara, as Danelius tells:[17]

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’ ….

Problematically, too, Breasted had actually doctored up the Egyptian account, to enable it to accord with his geographical and chronological purposes:[18]

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

¹⁶in 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).[19] ‘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.[20] 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,[21] 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.

Velikovsky had put this challenge to conventional scholars regarding the forts of Judah:[22]

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.[23] ‘Taanach’ here, though, might have some association with Rephaim itself, through Anak (Heb. ‘Anaq),[24] since ‘the Anakim … are usually reckoned as Rephaim’ (Deuteronomy 2:11).

As to Mkty, the capture of which was compared by Thutmose to ‘the capture of a thousand cities’,[25] this, Danelius claimed, was Jerusalem itself, for:[26] ‘Among the names enumerated as designating Jerusalem is Bait-al-Makdis … corresponding to Beith-ha-Miqdash in modern Hebrew pronunciation’.

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.[27] 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., ‘The House of Solomon’).[28]

Whilst a ‘Kadesh’ (Kd-šw) 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",’[29] 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-šw 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’.[30]

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:[31]

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.

(b) The Identification of the Karnak Treasures

‘… 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 18^th 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 18^th dynasty and the Israelite Monarchy originate at the same time, the 18^th Dynasty was in fact Israelite.[35] That Ahmose, the progenitor of the 18^th 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:[36]

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. ….

Velikovsky had (rightly in a Metzler-ian context) identified King David’s era as that of Pharaoh Thutmose I, as Bimson tells when providing an appropriate stratigraphy:[37]

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].

Archaeologically, the location of the abundant Thutmose III scarabs has proven a complete nightmare for the conventional scholar, as Velikovsky has shown in various places, e.g.:[38]

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:[39] ‘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[40] - then quite unaware of Metzler’s identification of the 18^th 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).[41] 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’,[42] 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).[43] 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.[44] 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?), Hebraïsed 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’ (réa¢) 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:[45]

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 ofﬁcials 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’être 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):[46] ‘…. 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 18^th 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] ...’.[47]

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.[48] 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:[49] ‘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:[50] ‘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:[51]

…. 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’.

The same ‘Davidising of the nations’ was going on in other places, too, such as Syria and Mesopotamia. See my Hammurabi articles.[52]

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:[53] ‘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 18^th 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,[54] 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 18^th 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:[55]

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 18^th 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.

[1] Velikovsky, I., Ages in Chaos: From the Exodus to King Akhnaton, Vol. I (Sidgwick & Jackson), 1952, ch. iv: ‘Sosenk (Shoshenk)’.

[2] Mackey, D., ‘Why Hatshepsut can be the ‘Queen of Sheba’, 2011.

[3] Bimson, J., ‘Shoshenq and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity’, SIS Review, vol. viii (UK, 1986), pp. 36-46.

[4] 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

[5] The Septuagint gives the name as Susakim.

[6] Op. cit., ch. iv.

[7] C. Gordon refers to this in Riddles in History (Crown, NY, 1974), p. 56, in a fascinating discussion of scribal cryptography in Ch. II: ‘Ancient Cryptograms’.

[8] Birch. K., ‘Shishak Mystery?', C&C Workshop (SIS), No. 2 (1987), p. 35.

[9] According to A. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar. Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, 3^rd edn. rev. (Ashmoleum Museum, Oxford, 1994), p. 72.

[10] According to K. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100-650 BC), 2^nd edn. (Aris & Phillips, Warminster, 1986), p. 374, n. 751.

[11] Breasted, H., A History of Egypt, 2^nd edn. (Chas. Scribner’s Sons, NY, 1924), Bk. V, p. 285, 287.

[12]Ibid., Annex, ‘Chronological Table of Kings’.

[13] Danelius, E., ‘Did Thutmose III Despoil the Temple in Jerusalem?’, SIS Review, vol. ii, no. 3 (1977/78), pp. 64-79.

[14] 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.

[15] Op. cit., pp. 68-70.

[16] Ibid., p. 71.

[17] Ibid. p. 69.

[18] Ibid., p. 67.

[19] Ibid., p. 73. Though Turkish resistance would also need to be taken into consideration here.

[20] Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie: History of Egypt II, p. 327. Quoted by Nelson, op. cit. note 31, p. 7.

[21] 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.

See: http://www.earthmatrix.com/linguistic/ancient_egyptian_hieroglyphs.htm

[22] Op. cit., p. 163.

[23] Op. cit., ibid.

[24] The T3 element in the Egyptian here means ‘the’ or ‘this’.

[25] Breasted, H., Ancient Records of Egypt: The eighteenth dynasty, II (The University of Chicago Press, 1906), § 432.

[26] Op. cit., pp. 73-74.

[27] Astour, M. Hellenosemitica (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1965), p. 13.

[28] See Velikovsky’s ‘The Šulman Temple in Jerusalem’, SIS Review, vol. ii, no. 3, 1977/78, pp. 85-86.

[29] See Gardiner, op. cit., Sign-list N 36.

[30] Breasted, Records, ibid.

[31] Velikovsky, I., ‘A Response to Eva Danelius’, SIS Review (UK), Vol. II, No. 3 (1978), p. 80.

[32] Op. cit., p. 69. With ref. to Walter Wreszinsky: Atlas zur Altägyptischen Kulturgeschichte, II, Teil (Leipzig, 1953).

[33] Clarke, P., ‘Was Thutmose III the biblical Shishak? – Claims of the ‘Jerusalem’ bas-relief at Karnak investigated’, Journal of Creation, 25/1 (April 2011), p. 51.

[34] Ibid., p. 55.

[35] Metzler, E., ‘Conflict of Laws in the Israelite Dynasty of Egypt’, Archives for Mosaical Metrology and Mosaistics, vol. ii, no. 1 (2003). http://moziani.tripod.com/jerusalem/sheba.html

[36] Ibid., pp. 14-17. [Mackey’s comment: Ancient Egyptian: hotep: ‘Be at peace; be peaceful, to rest, to be happy, to become content, to repose, be pleased’].

[37] Bimson, J., ‘Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?’, SIS Review, vol. vi, issues 1-3 (1978), p. 17.

[38] Velikovsky, I., ‘Scarabs of Thutmose III’, New Evidence for Ages in Chaos. Emphasis added.

http://www.varchive.org/ce/newev.htm

[39] Op. cit., p. 14.

[40] Mackey, D., ‘Solomon & Sheba’, C&C Review, Soc. for Interdisciplinary Studies [SIS], 1997:1.

[41] Mackey, D., ‘The House of David’, http://www.specialtyinterests.net/david_abishag.html

[42] Tyldesley, op. cit., p. 99.

[43] Danelius, E., "The Identification of the Biblical 'Queen of Sheba' with Hatshepsut, 'Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia'", Kronos, vol. 1 No.3 & (Part II), Kronos vol.1 No.4 (1975).

[44] ‘Solomon & Sheba’, p. 10.

[45] Hill, A., ‘A Jonadab Connection in the Absalom Conspiracy?’, JETS 30/4 (December 1987), pp. 387-390.

[46] Hahn, S., A Father Who Keeps His Promises (Charis 1998, ch. 11), pp. 212-216.

[47] Breasted, History, p. 271.

[48] See e.g. Cambridge Ancient History, II, Part I, (2nd ed., Cambridge, 1973), p. 323.

[49] Baikie, J., A History of Egypt (A. & C. Black Ltd., London, 1929), Vol. 11, p. 89. Emphasis added.

[50] Op. cit., p. 68.

[51] See S. Parchin’s ‘Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh’, Art History (The New York Times Company, 2011), at: http://arthistory.about.com/library/weekly/sp/bl_hatshepsut_rev.htm

[52] Mackey, D., ‘Hammurabi as King Solomon’, http://www.specialtyinterests.net/hammurabi.html and other articles at this site on Hammurabi and Zimri-Lim.

[53] Op. cit., ibid.

[54] Murphie, D., ‘Critique of David Rohl’s A Test of Time’, C&C Review, SIS, 1997:1, pp. 31-33.

[55] Maccoby, H., ‘The Queen of Sheba and the Song of Songs’, SIS Review, Vol. IV, No. 4 (Spring, 1980), Postscript, p. 100.

Hatshepsut the biblical Queen of Sheba

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Verifying the Historicity of 'the Queen of the South' Confirms Jonah

And Metzler adds that (as Velikovsky had already noted): ‘In Ethiopian tradition, her name is Makeda, which is derived from Hatshepsut’s prenomen Maatkare [Makera]’.