Reflections on Biblical Histories: A Revised Chronology

© 2006 Robert N. Palmer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 3/6/2006

ISBN: 1-4208-1239-4 (e)

ISBN: 1-4208-1240-8 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4208-5718-5 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-4208-1239-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004098892

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Problems encountered with Chronology

Background on the Old Testament Writings

Genesis translation(s) and interpretations; the first two chapters

Thoughts on Noah, the Ark, and the Flood

Abraham

Sodom and Gomorrah’s Destruction

Joseph, son of Jacob

Concerning Moses

On the Destruction of Jericho by Joshua

Time of the Judges

Saul and David

Solomon’s place

Solomon’s son, Rehoboam

Israel

Who was taken in the 722 BCE Captivity of Samaria?

The Hebrews; a General Summary of their History

Regarding Jesus

Historical Outline for Biblical Figures

The Ba’als and Astaroths

Biblical record of the period of the Judges

Biblical record of the Kings of the Hebrews

Wandering List

The Captivity of Israel?

Transliteration and translation of the Tel Dan Inscription:

Assyrian kings

Babylonian King List

Quick look-up guide to figures mentioned in Bible

Hittite kings

Kings of Mitanni

Egyptian Kings

List of Antediluvian kings (kingdoms)

List of Postdiluvian Kings

A General Chronogy of Jesus

Sources and/or Bibliography

This work is written as a response to Father Ogden’s inquiries and Professor Joseph Hearn’s Challenge; And dedicated to the Lord God Almighty, creator of all that is; to the Lord Joshua of Nazareth, the Christ; and to Micajah.

Acknowledgments and Special Thanks to:

Both the Houston, Texas and San Bernardino, California Public Libraries.

Avraham Biran of The Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, Israel.

Richard Shand at rshand@wimsey.com.

St. Thomas University campus Library, Houston, Texas.

The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

The Israel Museum of Jerusalem, Israel.

The National Geographic Society, Department of Research: C.l. Stroud.

The Oriental Institute Museum, University of Chicago: K. Wilson and E. Teeter.

The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago: Research Archivist - Bibliographer: Chuck Jones.

The San Bernardino Valley College Library; Stack section, California.

The California State University of San Bernardino, John M. Pfau Library.

The Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program: L. Siebert.

The Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History: Anthropology Outreach: P. Ann Kaupp.

Introduction

And this shall be the sign that this will come to pass. When the descendants of error are shut in, wickedness will depart from before righteousness as darkness departs from before the light, and as smoke is destroyed and is no longer, so will wickedness be destroyed forever. And righteousness will be revealed like the sun, the fixed order of the world; and all who hold back the wondrous mysteries will be no longer. Knowledge will fill the world, and folly will be there no more forever. - The Book of Mysteries, Dead Sea Scrolls.

For the most part the history of the Hebrews is considered to be wrapped in mystery. The story of Creation, Adam and Eve, and of Noah in the book of Genesis is thought of as being more allegorical narratives rather than being historical. Perhaps the reasoning of the interpreters is the true fault of the first portion of this narrative of the Hebrew origins being placed more towards myth. The ancient Hebrews themselves within the last five and twenty hundred years may have misinterpreted their own writings, due to the change of understanding of the original words. This is something which is done all too often when people read books containing words and phrases that have been written just a few decades before, to a few hundred. For the most part this is done continually on a daily basis in today’s world. This is one of the reasons that standard instruction is so important in the schools of our age.

Strangely enough, it was just as important to the Hebrews throughout their history, from the time of their origins to the present. Somewhere along the way though parts of their history suffered. However, the scraps that remain still are intact overall. The (Old) Testament contains the most important parts of their history and gives examples of their literature from ancient times, which became a religious and ethical tool for the priests to teach even the simplest of the people, the Hebrew heritage and the relationship with the Almighty God.

The origin of the Hebrews to many is still a puzzling problem. For those who are familiar with their history, as it has been traditionally taught, there are many problems that arise. Many archaeologists within the past two hundred years with their excavations throughout the Near and Middle East of numerous ancient cities from Biblical times, have found both artifacts that seem to confirm and yet confuse the scholar’s thoughts on the traditional history as known. Many finds of the 19th century, in fact, that were controversial and shed light against the traditionally accepted history have been altered or down played. The name of an ancient country near Mt. Ararat, in the area of Turkey and Armenia, which bordered the Black Sea, called Chaldea was changed to Van. An Egyptian record of the Hebrew Exodus was translated and published in a book dealing with Egyptian Myths because its date was too ancient and it was not recognized as the Hebrew Exodus because it did not specifically mention them within the group of slaves. This also would go against the traditionally taught time for the famous occurrence. These monumental finds are examples of to what extent some institutions went to in order to kept the traditions regarding the Hebrews as they are.

Of all of the peoples of the ancient civilizations around the world that we have come to know about, from the time of the 3rd millennium BCE, none has had a greater role at the shaping of the modern world than that of the Hebrews. It was the Hebrews that came up with and perfected an Alphabet of twenty-two, or so, letters, sometime in the second millennium BCE, which is the basis of almost all languages used in today’s world. Though the Phoenicians of the first millennium are usually given the credit. And it was from the Hebrews, that a sect that came to be called Christian originated. The background of the Christian religion, its commandments, its stories of the creation and the flood, its concept of a single God as law - giver and judge, and two thirds of its Bible, came from this People. The Hebrew concepts of morality and political theory have influenced greatly the foundations of many modern nations. Because of this the Hebrew writings and their history are very important.

On the subject of the Old Testament, there has already been much said and written. However, what I have found is different than what I originally thought I would find. In other words I was not expecting to find much outside the popularly taught information pertaining to the subject. Whether in a local Protestant church Bible study, or in the discipline of higher criticism. My search into the Bible, to wit, an in-depth study using various disciplines to view the information within it surprisingly lead me to areas in the research that resulted in different findings than what has been traditional taught and excepted in the Universities, the Synagogues, and Churches of all the Modern Christian Denominations. Not too long ago, in the eighteenth century, Jewish scholars noticed some discrepancies in their sacred writings, long overlooked, or previously explained and forgotten before, or during this generation. One would wonder why it took so long, if there was a true discrepancy? This is explained in the Background information later.

Scholars have displaced the Jewish, or Hebrew, histories for centuries due to problems in interpretation and subsequent traditions of the sacred writings. This has forced the histories into the realm of myth and/or legend by the well to do scholars and their methods. A place where they do not belong! After years of study and research I had been able to reconstruct the overall time frames, especially for the best known characters and events from all available sources.

There have been many people before me that have argued the point whether or not the Old Testament is reliable in the area of historic accuracy pertaining to the rise of man from his creation to the details given specifically for the Hebrew peoples themselves, to the start of the Christian Era. Long afterwards in years to come it will still continue to be so. This work is not intended to be a complete analysis of the Biblical histories. It is; however, intended to give indication in some areas to show that even though the Bible is the word of God; written by man, but inspired by the spirit of truth; may contain some errors. Though the majority of errors are in the understanding of the writings not the scriptures themselves!

These errors occurred by way of the passing of time. With the understanding of the some words contained in body of the scriptures having undergone alterations in meaning. Also that some information had been changed at certain times to find favour with an outside cultural influence, or in opposition to a group from within.

This has occurred within the last twenty six hundred years, with three major changes before the last six hundred. The most tragic though is that which has occurred outside the written word contained in the Bible - in the realm of oral traditions taught in the higher schools of education, rather than evidence of the written record and the physical evidence which supports that record.

Various scholars of Biblical and general archaeology within the last hundred and fifty years have provided the path for me on the way to enlightenment. The Reverend Sayce with his details of both his exploits and that of his contemporaries to Paolo Matthiae in his work, which included backgrounds on various archaeological digs in Asia Minor area starting from the eighteenth century, and the role of William F. Albright.

The perspectives on the subject matter given here are perhaps different from what many would expect. In the approach to the study of the Biblical histories more than just the specialized religious disciplines were needed. Much information contained had to be sought out in areas of geology, anthropology, zoology, biology, astronomy, and of course ancient histories. Church history was used to help find changes in related evidence and to locate the ancient writings along with historic records from many cultures like those that were once located in the famed Alexandrian Library. Many of the historic writings that I was looking for were contained in the writings of some of the early Church Fathers dealing with the subject of the Biblical record.

Since my youth the views of the interpretations seemed to be in conflict and all the questions that I had went unanswered or were given uncertain responses by the experts in the Bible. Many times the answers I would receive had nothing to do with the questions that I had asked and they were intended to divert or dismiss the subjects altogether. I left so many authorities puzzled over the reasons for the inquiries I made to them. Many of the questions were ignored and left unanswered. It was more due to what their understanding of where the questions would lead to, rather than their lack of knowledge pertaining to the subject in question. Unlike many who in turn gave up, I continued looking and asking questions, having hope that the information I sought could be found.

In 1980 my quest took to improving skills and studying methods of the various disciplines. This after a eleven year period which contained four years in field study in geology within the United States and close to three years of cultural and physical anthropology studies in Asia, mostly during off duty time while in the Military.

Quite a few scholars that I have contacted throughout the years seemed to be more concerned with the theoretics, that they had themselves never really closely investigated the subject matter that they were pushing as either fact or myth. This was apparent with my contacts of those within Religious Studies, especially Higher Criticism, at numerous universities. Many of my contemporaries seem unaware of the backgrounds of the previous scholars before them and know little of the overall history of Archaeology, not to mention Biblical Archaeology. They seem to lack the knowledge of not only Church history, but also basic ancient world histories to boot. This is not their fault entirely, as many of the schools of higher education seem to have gone the route of theorizing on subjects rather than teaching actual knowledge on them. After all it is up to the students themselves to learn. It had become quite apparent when many of the scholars that I have been in contact with seemed to have had no idea of the existence of the evidence that I put before them, and would ask where on earth did I find it. In reply I asked for the answer to my question.

In looking into the record of Archaeology, many times in the past there have been scholars and field researchers that believed what the evidence before them meant, but could only give allusions to others what was there. Look close to their writings and you can find the hints, closer and you can see more than that, but as always though proceed with caution and never read into a document something that’s not there.

In the field of Anthropology for a role model to strive after I would not have to look outside my own family ancestry. The Universities of Harvard and Iowa State are familiar with the son of David C. Russell; their own Dr. Frank Benjamin Russell. He was not a procurer of ancient artifacts, but rather he was an ethnologist. Though separated by fifty years we have many things in common; physical appearance, artistic ability, our search for knowledge and truth that exceeds the bounds of the accepted. In many respects I have gone down the path of Religious Studies to fulfill the interests Frank had concerning the Bible. Frank was very familiar with Darwin’s theories and conclusions, after the many years of searching for evidence to hopefully help prove them. After all the theory of evolution was derived from a paper dealing with economics written by a political economist in 1798 by the name of Thomas Malthus. Malthus himself was influenced by the works of William Godwin. Darwin’s theories concerned for the most part mainly plants, as strong evidence for animals could not be found. His observation concerning plants and animals along with their distribution is that man has placed and breeded both, since his (man’s) first travels.

Many people of today believe that the sequence of creationism, and for the theories of evolution, had been based on the Bible. A Greek philosopher during the sixth century BCE, by the name of Anaximander was the first to suggest the sequence of an evolutionary nature closely resembling the Genesis narrative. His series of forms started with the first life form coming from the mud - warmed by the sun’s rays, then to be followed by plants, then animals, and climaxed by the formation of humans. And as in all evolutionary systems since that time it has been proposed that humans are newcomers on earth, in relation to other life forms. This is not to be found in the biblical narrative, where man is the first life form created after the earth is formed. [Modern science has a problem with simple or complex life forming on any planet due to the destructive nature of the sun’s radiation. In that no primitive life form would be able to come into existence because of it.]

In 1981 my prayers were answered in meeting up with an Eastern Orthodox priest of the Aramian and/or Coptic persuasion. It was noted at that time I already had an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the Bible and it’s meanings on several different levels. The priest had thought that I had already gone to a Christian seminary because of the depth of our first discussions. Hermeneutics, as well as other courses taught to me by private instruction was a breeze! In exchange for institutional education I paid a sizable tuition comparable to the master degree earned and also became an ordained member of the clergy.

While studying the Egyptian histories and that of the Hebrew, I found some remarkable coincidences in two major periods in the time frame. Unlike many students and scholars blindly accepting the rationalized excuses or theories dealing with literary borrowing, I began deeper research. What I found was that literary borrowing could not have occurred until the historic record could be brought to light. This means that only in the last two hundred years has it been possible for the Jewish people to access the Egyptian records needed to embellish the stories, such as that of king David in the Bible; as Dr. Osman has cited in his works.

It must be remembered that except where the precise means and circumstances in which a story was transmitted are known, the results of tradition criticism are open to question and must be treated with extreme caution. A popular error committed these days. Only when the critic has access to all the sources, which were used by the author, or editor can his findings be absolutely certain. The critic can not just claim an oral tradition long before the writings because he does not have access to the needed information. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls were very important to textual criticism because it gives us a Hebrew text of the Old Testament which is a thousand years older than anything we had before. The majority of source critics have concluded that most all of the early material for the histories of the period of the judges and kings had in fact been taken from royal annuals and other trustworthy contemporary recorded sources. This appears to be the case for the Pentateuch as well.

Werner Weinburg, of the Hebrew Union College, in his essays concerning the morphological studies of the Hebrew language, focused on the changes from the 1st century CE through the time of the Masorites to the Tiberians. His work has been enlightening dealing with the phonetic traditions of the Sephardic and Tiberian vowel signs and the difficulties that emerged with these two phonetic systems. Before he dove into the morphological aspects, he first set down general information on the etymology and phonology of the language itself. This type of information is essential when one is studying the modern Hebrew texts used in most of today’s Universities.

Biblical criticism has been of use in interpreting the Old Testament and defending its integrity against those who question its truth. All too often have there been those who mar the area of historical criticism by introducing unjustified rationalistic assumptions. This is usually done by using an argument that begs the question and by using a modern example of transmission that naturally falls short. Then applying it subjectively - begging the reader to accept the argument as is and apply it to the history in question so as to mislead the reader - But not having used any evidence from the time of the record that is being disputed! So that the work generates followers who support the assumption with no real evidence supplied beyond the authors one-sided argument applied astutely.

What I found is that in recently recovered writings, unearthed within the last two hundred years to the present, that there are similar type stories or related events to that which are mentioned in the scriptures. An increasing number of modern scholars have stated that the Hebrews had borrowed their histories from these writings, and it would be all over and done with if this were true! But how could the Hebrews have used the writings or information from other cultures that of which had been buried and forgotten hundreds to thousands of years before the time that these scholars say the Hebrews did the literary borrowing? And why is it that none of the surrounding cultures knew their histories as well as the Hebrews knew theirs? Any Egyptologist can tell you that Manetho was considered the authority on the Egyptian histories. That is for a few centuries after his time. And we know that only some of his histories were based upon any Egyptian written records. This leads us toward a conclusion that the Hebrews kept written histories and did not rely upon an oral tradition for transmission of the past events from one individual to another, whereby avoiding alterations to the said events over a length of time from the occurrence!

In fact the compiled histories contained in the Old Testament show that where the names of the Egyptian kings within them could not be verified at the time with existing Egyptian records, the editor left the name out and replaced it with the title ‘pharaoh’ for those kings. Still keeping the other information about them in, so that in a future date if the names could be verified, then they could be put back in. This is also echoed by statements from the works of Josephus, a Jewish priest and scholar, who had access to the source materials of the Hebrew writings around during his life time.

Within the Bible and some sources outside of it, times mentioned between individuals, and of individuals themselves show that the currently taught time periods for the Hebrews is far from being accurate. In the scriptures, besides the four hundred plus years from Jacob’s moving into Egypt to Moses, and the period of the forty years of wandering; there is the six hundred years mentioned in the time of the Judges and the eight hundred years or so of the period of the kings, from Saul to Joachin. This gives us a period of time somewhere around eighteen hundred and seventy years! This when counted back from Joachin in 587 BCE, would place Jacob’s entry into Egypt somewhere back around 2,457 BCE, at the very least!

Scholars seemed to have overlooked that the Bible, whether we are taking about the Old or New Testaments, were never meant to be used as an exclusive historical text outside the religious presentation related, but rather a general teaching instrument for the people, that recorded the origin of their religious festivals as to why they are observed when they are, moral codes of conduct, and other religious writings that show how their God interacts with them. The Old Testament books are found to be written from historical records and literature that are detailed and complete. These are mentioned as sources in the many books of the Old Testament, so if the reader wanted to learn more about certain events, the reader could find the information in the book or books actually used to make up the sacred texts.

In New Testament times from 16 BCE to 125 - 130 CE, the effect of Christianity is found to be far reaching. In the later portion of the 1st century CE in what would later become known as China, a man of foreign origin founded one of China’s most renown philosophies, the Tao, or the Way. Strangely enough this man’s name was of Hebrew origin and is found listed as one of the seventy disciples of Joshua of Nazareth. During the first years that the disciples of Christ spread out throughout the world, teaching the gospel, they called themselves the followers of The Way. This is one of the more interesting areas of Biblical studies involving the influences on other cultures.

Problems in ancient history encountered

I have always had a fascination with ancient history. Perhaps it was the confusion and differences of opinions between historians and the abundance of key periods of time created or lost in ancient civilizations as a result. The modern archaeologist may have run into difficulties due to the fact that several of the kings of ancient times were interested in the past of not only their own people, but of neighboring cultures as well. Some of these ventures have effected efforts of today’s excavations, in that many sites had been ‘robbed’ of valuable artifacts that could have helped in giving us a better understanding of the periods of those cultures.

Some archaeologists have come to some faulty reasoning due to a lack of knowledge pertaining to the recent histories of the area that they had excavated. In one area of the Middle East, archaeologists of the early 1800’s were dumb founded because they could not find any metals or other items in the city they uncovered. Nor was there any evidence of the site being occupied for what they thought to be thousands of years prior to the excavation, due to the lack of datable material in the strata covering the site. Little did they know, that the reason the local people knew there was a ancient city buried there was because only a hundred years before, their grandfathers and fathers buried the city to keep it from being used by a group of invading Mongols in the 1700’s. This may explain why Dr.