"An overall view of the new relationship between Egyptian history and the Bible. The left column gives the New Chronology of Egypt whilst the right column has the biblical chronology which has been calculated using the chronological data provided in the books of I Kings, Judges and Exodus."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 331

"There were three basic cross-links made by 19th century Egyptologists to synchronise Israelite and Egyptian history.

·"The sacking of Thebes in 664 BC by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as punishment for a revolt led by Pharaoh Taharka of the 25th Dynasty of kings in Egypt. Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other sources make this a very firm date, fixing the history of Egypt after this time. This date is beyond contention.

·"The identification of Pharaoh Shishak (who is recorded in I Kings 14:25,26 and II Chronicles 12:2-9 as having conquered Jerusalem when Rehoboam was king of Judah) with Pharaoh Shoshenk I of the 22nd Dynasty.

·"The identification of Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great, a 19th Dynasty ruler) as the pharaoh of the oppression of the Israelites in Egypt.

"The absolute dates for Shishak/Shoshenk I were calculated from the biblical chronology, i.e. counting back regnal years to Rehoboam, the son and successor of Solomon. From this date, the date for Ramesses II was calculated by counting back the regnal lengths of the pharaohs between Ramesses and Shoshenk I. Other Egyptian kings were spread to fill in the gaps between these dates and other data, e.g. from the Ebers Calendar and Leiden Papyrus used to support the chronology.
"The problem then arose that when archaeologists searched for materials from the periods, Late Bronze Age to Iron Age IIC, there was little or no evidence of any kind to lend credence to the early biblical account right up to the division of the monarchy. This means that for many years, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and large parts of Kings and Chronicles were relegated to the realm of mythology rather than historical fact."
     - John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"

"If we reflect on how easy it is to challenge the historicity of not only a David or Solomon but of events in the reigns of Hezekiah or Josiah ... the very substance of any historical project that attempts to write a history of the late second or early first millennium BC in Palestine on the basis of a direct integration of biblical and extra biblical sources ... must appear not only dubious but wholly ludicrous."
     - Professor Thomas L. Thompson of Copenhagen University (1992)

(2) Shoshenk/Sisak

"Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but Jeroboam fled to Egypt, to Shishak the king, and stayed there until Solomon's death."
     - I Kings 11:40

"Shoshenk I, founder of the 22nd Dynasty is to be identified with the biblical 'Sishak, king of Egypt' who, according to I Kings 14:25-26 and II Chronicles 12:2-9, came to Jerusalem and despoiled the Temple of Solomon in the Year 5 of Rehoboam. This event is datable to 925 BC using the widely accepted biblical chronology of Edwin Thiele."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 123

"After Rehoboam's position as king was established and he had become strong, he and all Israel [Judah] with him abandoned the law of the LORD. Because they had been unfaithful to the LORD, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. With twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen and the innumerable troops of Libyans, Sukkites and Cushites [that is, people from the upper Nile region] that came with him from Egypt, he captured the fortified cities of Judah and came as far as Jerusalem."
     - II Chronicles 12:1-4

According to the Shoshenk campaign city list, however, "the main campaign route did not enter the kingdom of Judah but rather skirted its northern border. Only one of the towns mentioned as being fortified by Rehoboam [II Chronicles 11:5-12] is listed as captured - the other fourteen are not mentioned at all. The real target of Shoshenk's campaign was the Jordan valley, the Jezreel valley and the Negev.
"If Shoshenk I is to be equated with the biblical Shishak, why did he attack his ally Jeroboam in Israel while meticulously avoiding an incursion into the territory of his enemy, Rehoboam king of Judah?"
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), pp. 126-127

On the triumphal relief at Karnak "Jerusalem, target of Shishak's campaign according to the Bible, is missing. although the inscription is heavily damaged, it is certain that the list is arranged into geographical sequences which allow no space for the name Jerusalem."
     - Kenneth A. Kitchen, "Sishak's Military Campaign in Israel Confirmed", Biblical Archeology Review, May/June 1989

"The problems faced by the Hittite scribes writing the Egyptian name in their own script would not have been far removed from those faced by; the biblical redactor who gave us the name Shisak. There are many biblical examples where we see the Egyptian 's' (Heb. sin) rendered as 'sh' (Heb. shin). Just as Egyptian 'Askelan' is biblical 'Ashkelon' (and Arabic 'salam' is Hebrew 'shalom'), so with the biblical name 'Shishak.' We should expect it to represent an Egyptian original something like 'Sisak.'"
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 162

(2) Ramesses II/Shisha

"Come, let [me] tell you many things as far as the fortress of the Ways [of Horus]. I begin for you with the Dwelling of Sysw!"
     - Inscription atop the north pylon of the Ramesseum at Thebes

"...The 'Dwelling of Sysw' was a residence of Ramesses II on the main route across the northern Sinai in the Levant..."
"The hyposoristic form [abbreviation] of his name - Sysw (perhaps vocalised Sysa - and thus Shisha[k] in Hebrew) - was the original basis of the name which man centuries later became enshrined in a foreign text as Shishak."
If a pun, "the name Shishak may be derived from the Hebrew name Shashak, meaning 'assaulter' or 'the one who crushes -under foot or under wheel]' - a most descriptive synonym for Ramesses the Great who 'crushes the rebels on top of the hills'."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), pp. 160, 162-163

"It is remarkable that to identify the pharaoh of the oppression with Ramesses II, the period of the Judges must be reduced by 200 years, which is directly opposed to the biblical narrative. In Judges 11:26, Jephthah (one of the last of the Judges) states that the timespan from the first settlement in Transjordan during the Conquest to his own time, is 300 years. Also in I Kings 6:1, the time from the Exodus to the building of the temple by Solomon in 966 BC is recorded as 480 years, complementing the Judges date. These both place the Exodus around 1450 BC but Ramesses II reigned in the 13th Century (1279 - 1213 BC) under the conventional chronology. Genesis 47:11 also states that Jacob and the Patriarchs settled in the region of Ramesses'. This, however, is centuries before there was a pharaoh named Ramesses, let alone one who built a great city named after him. These early Egyptologists overlooked or ignored the biblical evidence in favour of equating Ramesses II with the pharaoh of the oppression."
     - John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"

"The town which the king (Ramesses II) plundered (Egy. Khefa) in Year 8 - Shalem."
     - Inscription atop the north pylon of the Ramesseum at Thebes

"Shalem was the ancient name of the city of Jerusalem - indeed the 'City (or foundation) of Shalem' is precisely what 'Jerusalem' means."
"...It was Ramesses and not Shoshenk who campaigned against the capital of Rehoboam's mountain kingdom. This event took place in the pharaoh's eighth regnal year, according to the Ramesseum inscription - and we can further date that event to 925 BC through Thiele's biblical chronology."
"Professor Kitchen, having made a detailed study of all the war reliefs of Ramesses II....has determined...that Ramesses entered the central hill country of Judah and reached Jerusalem....Ramesses also had the resources to muster a very large army on the scale of the 'twelve hundred chariots and sixty thousand cavalry and countless hordes of Libyans, Sukkim and Cushites' of II Chronicles 12:3. There is considerable evidence to show that Ramesses recruited foreign mercenaries in his army and, during his reign, Egypt dominated the territories of both the Libyans and Kushites." In contrast Shoshenk I was "a delta king of Libyan origin who had no political or military control over the lands of Kush beyond Nubia."
Ramesses II is "the only pharaoh known to have recorded a defeat of Jerusalem (=Shalem)."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 149, 150, 163

Details from the Ashkelon Wall at Karnak reveal Israelite warriors wearing the ankle length tunics of town dwellers, which is inconsistent with the fact that the Israelites were essentially pastoralists during the time of Moses and Joshua. In addition, in the "Israel blocks" of the wall, a representation of a battle scene with Thutmose IV (who ruled a century before Ramesses II) shows Asiatic enemies with chariots - which evidently were not used by the Israelites until the time of King Solomon.

"Dr. Euan Mackie, Keeper of the Hunterian Museum, gave details of the results from a joint program run between the British Museum and the University of Los Angeles, which for the past seven years has been dating the reeds found in the walls" of Egyptian buildings using Radiocarbon 14 dating.
"Rama Roy was built at the time of Ramesses II and so should have yielded a date between 1291 and 1224 [according to the conventional chronology]. In fact, it was dated at around 1005. Ramesseum also built around the time of Ramesses II yielded a similar date of about 1058 while Medinat Habu associated with Ramesses III was dated much earlier, at about 870."
     - Jerome Burn, "Velikovsky Spawns More Controversy", New Scientist, April 20 1978

Bristle pine cone correction allows for a 200 or 300 year discrepancy in the dates.

Archaeological Conundrums

"One so far inexplicable aspect of the finds from the Serapeum is the complete lack of stelae for the whole of the 21st Dynasty and for the first half of the 22nd Dynasty. Of the three hundred and eleven stelae found in the Lesser Vaults (including the seventy-three recently unearthed) not one single inscription can be attributed to the kings from Smendes to Takelot I - a period assumed to have lasted around one hundred and ninety-five years. A time span of this length should have provided at least ten or eleven burials (the average age of the bulls being eighteen years)."

"The archaeology of the Lesser Vaults spans a time period beginning with the burial of an Apis in the thirtieth year of Ramesses II, conventionally dated to 1250 BC. The period ends with the interment of the Apis bull which died in the twentieth year of Psamtek. The last burial is conventionally dated to 644 BC after which the Lesser Vaults are closed."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), pp. 56, 57

Rohl says that excavations of the Lesser Vaults produced evidence for a maximum of twenty-three Apis burials. Since the average life-span of an Apis bull has been determined at eighteen years, the duration of the Lesser Vaults burials can be estimated at 396 years. However, according to conventional chronology (1250 minus 644), the duration should be 606 years, a discrepancy of 210 years. Three Apis bulls may be accounted for by three graves recently excavated beneath the other vaults which would reduce the discrepancy to 160 years.

In the Royal cache of mummies discovered in a hidden tomb in the Valley of the Kings were remains of some of the greatest pharaohs in Egyptian history - including Thutmose III and Ramesses II. The royal mummies were reburied in the tomb towards the end of the 21st Dynasty (Year 10 of Siamun), according to dates on ink dockets and labels in the mummy wrappings. According to conventional chronology this would have been in 969 B.C.E. In the midst of the crammed corridor, however, was found the body of Djedptahefankh which had been wrapped in Year 11 of King Shoshenk, thirty-four years after the Royal Cache had been sealed."

"The burial of Djedptahefankh in the Royal Cache indicated that the 21st and 22nd Dynasties were not chronologically sequential, as is currently believed, but partly contemparary."

"When Alexandre Lézine undertook his survey of the royal burial ground at Tanis, just after the Second World War, he began to uncover some rather perplexing features relating to the architectural structures he was investigating. These features seemed to suggest to him that the tomb complex of Psusennes I died in 991 BC whilst the reign of Usermaatre Osorkon II came to an end one hundred and forty-one years later in 850 BC."
"Given that the former was a king of the 22nd Dynasty and the latter was a king of the 21st Dynasty, the archaeological evidence from Tanis tends to confirm that the two dynasties were contemporary for the considerable number of years. The order of burial of the two kings indicates that the number of years currently allocated to the TIP should be reduced by at least one hundred and forty-one years."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 98, 107

"The archaeological conundrums...shorten the entire length of the Third Intermediate Period (TIP) of Egypt (conventionally dated 1069-664 BC) by 200 years. In essence, there were a lot more co-regencies and parallel dynasties than was previously thought."
     - John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"

Three important long genealogies "provide an alternative means not only of assessing the length of the early TIP but also of establishing in which century Ramesses II ruled the Black Land."
     - David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 139

·The graffito genealogy of Khnemibre in the Wadi Hammamat. The genealogy lists twenty-two generations of Royal Architects from Year 26 of Darius I (496 B.C.E.) back to Rahotep, vizier of Egypt during the first half of the reign of Ramesses II. Estimating from the list gives circa 936 B.C.E. for the beginning of the reign of Ramesses II - a shortfall of ten generations according to orthodox chronology.

·The statue genealogy of Nespaherenhat in the Cairo Museum. "Applying the traditional chronology, the Nespaherenhat genealogy would be short of eight generation between Merenptah [19th Dynasty] and Osorkon I [22nd Dynasty]."

·The Memphite genealogy of the High Priests of Ptah, now in Berlin. Six generations appear to be "missing for the period from the late 19th Dynasty to the early part of the 21st Dynasty."

"These all indicate that the length of the TIP has been artificially overestimated in the original piecing together of the Egyptian chronology."
     - John Fulton, "A New Chronology - Synopsis of David Rohl's book 'A Test of Time'"

"According to the generally accepted account, the fall of the central empire [of the Hittites] is dated at the end of the 13th century BC and was followed by a Dark Age of 400 years, a period from which few records exist. Then in a strange 'afterglow' of the Hittite civilization reappeared in the south almost unchanged in the sites dated by Assyrian chronology."
Peter James, a specialist in ancient studies, "suggests that if the dating of the central empire is reduced by 400 years...then the mysterious Dark Ages disappear and the two parts of Hittite remains become contemperaneous."
     - Jerome Burn, "Velikovsky Spawns More Controversy", New Scientist, April 20 1978

The eruption of Thera according to many historians occurred around 1500 B.C.E. and can be placed in the same time frame as the early 18th dynasty through the dating of ceramics and pumice. According to Rohl's revised dating of the Tel Amarna Tablets, however, the early 18th dynasty reigned almost 350 years after the eruption. Can this evidence be refuted and is there counter-evidence that the eruption of Thera actually happened during the 13th Dynasty (which would be the correct time frame according to the New Chronology)?

Order directly on-line from Amazon Books David M. Rohl'sA Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History is sold in North America as Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest

Recommended Site

Bible Mysteries      Lectures on the OT revealed by archaeology and modern scholarship The Gospel According to Egypt      Amazing parallels between ancient Egypt and Israel based on Osman and Rohl Living in Truth - Archaeology and the Patriarchs      Charles Pope's engrossing exploration into the true identities of the Patriarchs Trismegistus alias Akhnaton, Moses and Oedipus      Dr. William Theaux's intriguing theory builds on Osman, Velikovsky and others

Hyperlinks

·The Enigmatic Fate of the Ark
·The Exodus
·The Fall of Jericho
·Ghostly Lights
·Hebrew Peoples In Egypt
·Joseph and Khufu
·The Merneptah Stela
·The Tel Amarna Tablets
·The Temple of Solomon
·Tree Ring and C14 Dating