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Escape From Planet Egypt

Part XI

After the humiliating surrender of Jerusalem to Thutmose III, who was the Pharaoh  Shishak that took Jerusalem from Solomon's son Rehoboam, our resynchronization of Biblical history begins to introduce historical sequences from adjacent kingdoms, as opposed to primarily Egyptian chronologies.

The reader will recall that in Part X, we showed the Shishak of the Scriptures was Thutmose III, the successor to Hatshepsut, the Queen of Sheba (the consort to Solomon, and the father of Rehoboam).

"And it came to pass, that in the fifth year of king Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, because they had transgressed against the LORD" (II Chronicles 12:2).

Thus, the imperative wherein the revisionist timeline "locks in" the succeeding sequences, continued after Hatshepsut visited Jerusalem – which was also called Kadesh (the Hebrew word for Holy) in the Egyptian inscriptions. In the Egyptian inscriptions at Karnak, Thutmose III described his Judaean foe as "the king of Kadesh" (i.e. the "holy king") – linking Rehoboam to the power the Pharaoh had invaded.

Even though the Karnak inscriptions plainly tell us that Thutmose III invaded the region that was Canaan, the consensus view ignores the appellation Kadesh, and tries to tell us this war was in the 15^th century BC, and it was waged against the decidedly unholy, pre-Israelite kingdoms of Canaan. 

Moreover, during the Egyptian aggression, Shishak/Thutmose's inscriptions describing the rout of Rehoboam's army boasts of an early clash at Megiddo, against the Judaean troops under the direction of the king of "Kadesh" – which is also a euphemism for the holy city of Jerusalem.

"That wretched enemy [the chief] of Kadesh has come and entered into Megiddo; he is there at this moment" (The Records of Ancient Egypt, JH Breasted, cited in Velikovsky's Ages In Chaos, page 166).

The Scriptures tell us Rehoboam's father Solomon had previously fortified Megiddo, so this was a logical place for Rehoboam to confront the invader.

"And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the Lord…and the wall of Jerusalem…and Megiddo" (I Kings 9:15).

This "levy" (read taxation) would have been the "grievous…heavy yoke" (II Chronicles 10:4), which the elders of the Northern tribes had asked Rehoboam to make "lighter" – a request which Rehoboam refused – thus causing the split between Israel and Judah.

The Egyptian records show that after Jerusalem surrendered to Thutmose III (who took all the gold and silver from Solomon's temple), the Pharaoh repeatedly came back to Judah to receive an annual tribute.

After Thutmose III died, the throne of Egypt came to Amenhotep II. As was common, whenever a great conqueror died, the vassal states paying him tribute (which included Israel, Syria, and Edom), sought their independence from the tyrant. Thus, it is not surprising to find that there are Syrian records which indicate Amenhotep II brought another Egyptian army to put down the insurrection.

Further, Amenhotep II, as a new Pharaoh, would have been anxious to establish his own reputation once Thutmose III was gone.

On the Syrian coast (which would be close to Tyre and Sidon and associated with early stages of the Phoenicians after the time of Solomon), archaeologists worked on a major find, in which ancient writings in a library were found that were thought to be from the period of Thutmose III, when Egypt dominated Syria.

Because the coastal locale (which was identified as an ancient city known as Ugarit) was adjacent to the island of Cypress, excavators were not surprised to find pottery and other indicators showing contacts with Greek elements. In what turned out to be a very significant excavation effort, the dig occurred at a place Ras Shamra. 

In the original find in 1928, tablets were discovered which were written in a cuneiform language that resembled ancient Hebrew, and because Syria is on the Northern end of what would have been Canaan in an earlier era, researchers were thrilled to discover the remains of the ancient city of Ugarit.

At this stage of our presentaton, it should be pointed out that the consensus view of linguists during the early days of archaeology (in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries) was that the Bible was actually written and compiled as late as the 7^th century BC.

This is because the researchers discount the statements in the Scriptures themselves, such as verses in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy which speak of the Hebrews recording literary information from the earliest time.

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel" (Exodus 34:27).

In the book of Numbers, which details a great deal of information when the Israelites were still wandering in the wilderness (long before they entered the promised land of Canaan), extensive written records were perpetuated  by the priesthood. As these ordinances included instructions for marriage and divorce, hygiene, and sundry aspects of the law, the priest was told to record the details.

"And the priest shall write these curses in a book" (Numbers 5:23).

Years before the twelve tribes entered Canaan, the LORD told Moses to have the Israelites inscribe their lineage as a record of who came out of Egypt.

"Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, and of all their princes according to the house of their fathers, twelve rods: write thou every man's name upon his rod" (Numbers 17:2).

Once again, there are many references to recorded writings of Israel (including the record of what happened during their journeys as well as the voluminous laws of Moses), and they were to be kept by the priesthood, long before Israel ever entered into the land of Canaan.

"[All kings] shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites" (Deuteronomy 17:18).

However, the scholars continually pushed all writing of the Hebrews to later and later periods – eventually concluding that even the arcane verses related to genealogy were compiled hundreds of years after Saul, David, and Solomon!

When the documents describing life in ancient Ugarit were found at Ras Shamra, in one of several languages deciphered, the scholars recognized a cuneiform version of Hebrew in the tablets which were excavated. However, as we've repeatedly pointed out, ancient accounts from adjacent nations are all synchronized with the seriously flawed Egyptian timeline.

Further, since the Egyptian timelines are misdated by an average of 400-700 years, and the undiscerning experts had pushed the writing and compilation of the Scriptures to a period as late as the Babylonian captivity, they assumed the writing found at Ras Shamra was recorded in a form of pre-Hebrew used by the Canaanites years before the Israelite invasion of the 15^th century BC.

Since Ugarit had a coastal port facing the island of Cypress, and dating of ancient history excavated at Cypress is also linked to the flawed Egyptian timeline, it was assumed the Ugaritic texts must be from the 14^th or 15^th century BC.

This meant the Canaanites would have had a far more advanced society much earlier than thought, and the Hebrew language of the Israelites must have actually been derived from the Hebrew-like language of Canaan, before the Israelites even escaped from Egypt!

"The new view, predominant since the excavations at Ras Shamra, also regards many social, religious, and cultural elements of the Scriptures as copies, but of Canaanitic originals" (The Cuneiform Texts Of Ras Shamra-Ugarit, FSA Schaeffer, page 59, 1939).

Evidence that contradicted the dating of this "new view" was abundant, but the Spiritually undiscerning scholars brushed aside any dissenting views. For example, one of the poems found at Ras Shamra, entitled the Poem of Keret, described an invasion of that coastal region by a huge army led by a figure named Terah.

Since Terah was the name of Abraham's father, various scholars, straining to justify the dating of the Ugarit documents as applying to a pre-Israelite land of Canaan, tried to claim this was a reference to Abraham's father. 

Obviously, the fact that the Terah described in the Ras Shamra writings had a massive military (stated to be in the hundreds of thousands) was clearly inconsistent with the scant description of Abraham's father in Genesis. 

Incredibly, the same Poem of Keret also mentioned two of the twelve tribes of Israel – Asher and Zebulon. Far-fetched explanations then ensued explaining how Terah – the father of Abraham – could be found in the same generation as the two Israelite tribes, which were the offspring of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah!

Evidence placing the Ras Shamra documents in the 9^th and 8^th centuries BC  was quickly dismissed, as the scholars were delighted to find what they thought was proof that the oldest Scriptures in the Bible were derived from an earlier, heathen source.

Once again, the Ras Shamra documents describe the period immediately following that of the Egyptian dominion over Syria, Palestine, and Edom under Thutmose III. Our last chapter showed Thutmose III was the Pharaoh Shishak who subjugated Jerusalem under Solomon's son Rehoboam. But since the error wherein mainstream scholarship has the time of Thutmose III in the 15^th century BC, and they synchronize the Ras Shamra records to the time of Thutmose III, the Syrian Ras Shamra documents are also misdated.  

However, the Scriptures describe an invasion of the same land – not in the 15^th century BC, but in the 9^th or 8^th century BC – the time period following the time of Thutmose III and Rehoboam (the son of Solomon) – which we examined in Parts IX and X of the present work.

After Thutmose III of Egypt (the Shishak of the Scriptures) and Rehoboam of Jerusalem died, the vassal states of Syria, Judah, and Edom rebelled against the Egyptians. The Bible tells us Abijah, the son of Rehoboam of Judah, ruled briefly in Jerusalem after Rehoboam's demise.

We then hear nothing of the Egyptian hegemony over Judah, as the Scriptural narrative shifts back to details of the conflict between the two houses of Israel.  

"And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam" (II Chronicles 13:2).

Since Jeroboam was a puppet of the Pharaoh in his breakaway rule over Israel in the North (then called Samaria), it appears that Jeroboam and his 10 tribes faced Abijah and the Southern kingdom of Judah without any Egyptian assistance.

The Word of God tells us that just before a great battle ensued between the two houses of Israel, Rehoboam's son Abijah issued a passionate warning to their relatives, the fighting men of Samaria.

"Hear me, thou Jeroboam, and all Israel…the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever…yet Jeroboam…hath rebelled against his lord. And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial [Baal]" (II Chronicles 13:4-6).

Abijah's anger at Jeroboam is barely restrained as he sternly tells his opponents that God is going to fight on behalf of Judah, and the Israelites from the Northern tribes are going to die if they fight against the LORD.

The Spiritual dimension comes through loud and clear, as the Jewish king rebukes the Israelite tribes for following Baal.

"Have ye not cast out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands?"

"…there be with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods. But as for us, the LORD is our God…And, behold, God himself is with us for our captain" (II Chronicles 9: 9, 8, 10).

It's worth reminding the reader that Jeroboam was in exile in Egypt when Solomon was pursuing him, so the sin of Jeroboam (in which he set up alternative places of worship in an effort to keep the Israelites from going to Jerusalem to worship), prominently featured the imagery associated with the golden calf of Egypt.

"Then the men of Judah gave a shout: and as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass, that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah" (II Chronicles 13:15).

The wicked Jeroboam never recovered from this decisive defeat, but Abijah only ruled for 3 years, so it is evident that Egypt was in a dynastic transition as they were not in a position to come to the aid of their surrogate. In fact, as Abijah's son Asa took the throne of Jerusalem, the Scriptures indicate that Egypt was still not a threat at that time.

"And Abijah slept with his fathers…and Asa his son reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years" (II Chronicles 14:1).

Asa's reign was much longer, and the Egyptians appear to have regathered their military abilities under a son of Thutmose III, who the Egyptian inscriptions identify as Amenhotep II. This Pharaoh was not the designated heir of Thutmose III, as the king's firstborn and his mother apparently died unexpectedly – a fact which might explain why Egypt did not intervene on behalf of Jeroboam in the North.

Further, Amenhotep's mother was a minor wife who was named Merytre-Hatshepsut. Since she was named after Hatshepsut, who was the Nubian Queen of Sheba, and Egyptian inscriptions show Amenhotep II as a dark man, we now find him in the Scriptures in the time of Asa (the grandson of Rehoboam), where he is named Zerah the Ethiopian:

"And there came out against them Zerah the Ethiopian with an host of a thousand thousand, and three hundred chariots; and came unto Mareshah. Then Asa went out against him, and they set the battle in array in the valley of Zephathah at Mareshah" (II Chronicles 14:9,10).

Thus, we remember the Keret writing found in the Syrian Ras Shamra documents (which detail the time immediately following Thutmose III, the contemporary of Rehoboam), as they tell of a large invasion by a military figure named Terah.

This means the Terah of the Ras Shamra documents was the Zerah of the Scriptures. Furthermore, since the Egyptian inscriptions point to Amenhotep II as a black Pharaoh, and the Scriptures tell us Zerah was an Ethiopian, we have again synchronized the Egyptian records with the Biblical – by showing the Egyptian timeline in question is not from the 15^th century BC, but the 9^th.

– James Lloyd

To Be Continued

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