Nexus - 0109 - New Times Magazine-pages

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CHRONOLOGY PAST THE OF THE How Wrong Have We Been? T he great Middle Eastem em- tion with horror, as it would mean revising it would have under the prosperous rulership pires of the past were Egyptian, the history of all the ancient empires; but of David and Solomon. At the end of the Babylonian, Hittite and Assyrian, with the Velikovsky’s revised chronology is far from Middle Bronze Age, Palestine was depopu- kingdom of Israel caught between them at the arbitrary and is a comerstone in his theory lated as recorded in Biblical accounts. crossroads of the region. Muchis now known that the solar system has been wimess to As shown below, the evidence for a re, about all these peoples, the way they lived planetary catastrophes within the memory of vised interpretation of the history of Pales- and were buried, but there is still controversy human beings - the last as recent as 687 BCE. tine is very strong. Current archaeological about the dating of the reigns of their respec- The extended chronology of Egypt is theories are that the Israelite occupation of tive kings and dynasties - a controversy that largely based on the list of dynasties passed Palestine was not a military invasion as re- calls many of our notions of human history on from Manetho, a priestof the third century corded by the Bible; instead it was a foreign into question. BCE who wrote in Greek. Immanuel infiltration or even just movement within The first inhabitants of the Middle East Velikovsky and other scholars are of the Palestine itself. This would mean that some were Stone Age nomads who eventually opinion that there was considerable overlap- of the original residents of Palestine ulti- settled in cities and learned to smelt metals. | ping of some of the Egyptian dynasties, when mately came to identify themselves as the Copper began to replace stone and by the one dynasty ruled the northern delta region Israelites and that the Jews were not descen- early Bronze Age its use was widespread. and another ruled in the south, but Manetho dants of Abraham, royal prince of Ur as is The beginning of this age corresponds to the didn't or couldn't identify which ones when recorded in the Old Testament. This is re- first dynasty of Egypt. From then the Middle, he compiled his list from earlier sources. garded as heresy by many. Late Bronze and the Iron Ages bought us to Traditional Dates Archaeological ages and conditions Revised dates and the present era. In these later ages known and people who that existed according to the survey people who occu- history allows dates to be assigned, but there are thought to have pled Palestine by are many question marks against the dates eccupled Palestine the revised dates traditionally given to the earlier ages. Israelites § §|§|§ [FS OVS ise Return from exile Although the Assyrians kept chronologi- 1200 BCE 559 BCE cal records back to 1,200 BCE (Before Cur- Canaanites Israel In exile : 1550 750 rent Era) and the Babylonians to about 1,000 = Israel’s monarchy BCE there are no absolute dates for Egypt 1850 1000 beyond about 700 BCE. At that time © “ Israelite Judges Hezekiah ruled in Israel, Tirhakah in Egypt } 2100 1400 and Sennacherib in Assyria. As dates earlier 3100 “ — than this given for the other empires in the region are synchronised with Egypt, there are no absolute dates for them either. If the dates given to the. Egyptian dynasties and tulers are wrong then our whole chronology of the past is also wrong. Diagram of a tell (not to scale) illustrating the archaeological strata If some or all of the dynasties between, | . the nineteenth and the twenty-third did exist Carbon Dating Dating In Chaos at the same time as other dynasties, as sug- gested by Dr. Donovan Courville, then most of the added centuries can be accounted for. | When the idea of analysing the Immanuel Velikovsky was the | It may be that the reason for the lack of | remaining carbon 14 left in artifacts first to PIOpose, forty years ago, that information on these dynasties is that they and dating them by calculating the time there is a difference of 600 ycars between the did notrule the entire Nile valley themselves, needed for the carbon that was lost, was first Biblical chronology of the Old Testament butonly one part of it. Manetho, writing over tested the results were remarkable. Egyptian and the accepted dates of early Egyptian a thousand years later, was probably un- artifacts were used and down to 700 BCE the history (See NEXUS #7). He was studying aware of any instances of shared power. test dates and the dates already given were the Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt and Recent excavations in Palestine also approximately the same. However, beyond could not understand why there was no provide difficulties with the conventional 700 BCE the dates were found to be 600 equivalent record in Egyptian history of such reconciliation of the recorded histories of years out when compared to dates already a major event, and found that the two records Israel and Egypt. There is no evidence of a assigned to these objects. could be brought together if the 600 years new people occupying Palestine at the time | Because the dates of these artifacts were were to be deducted from Egyptian chronol- conventionally assigned to the Exodus. assumed to be ‘known’ the experimenters ogy around the middle of the first millenium During the Middle Bronze period (the mid- concluded that some unknown factor must BCE. Archaeologists reacted to this sugges- first millenium BCE) Palestine flourished as affect the testing. It was agreed that carbon “ “ re Velikovsky Update n Carbon Dating Dating In Chaos