The Bible provides us with a complete
chronology for Hebraic history... Like any document, it is not error-proof
(at least in its actual form). Yet, one must never forget its sacred
nature. Because of its religious content, many simply discard the
historical value of the document... On the other hand, precisely
because of this sacred nature, the text was always recopied with matchless
care, thus reducing greatly the number of actual transmission errors...
So, historically speaking, the Biblical chronology can be considered trustworthy
(as long as it can be backed up by archeology, of course).
Do we have a similar document for Egyptian history?
The answer is no. We do possess
some very helpful king lists, providing us with a very helpful "skeleton",
but nothing comparable to the Bible. The most complete lists we have
are 1) the Turin Papyrus and 2) the various epitomes of Manetho's History
of Egypt (now lost). All these lists give us names of kings and their
reign lengths. But they also divide these kings into groups (like
Manetho's 30 dynasties). While archeology did confirm most of the
data contained within those lists, it also showed that many of the groups
were in fact contemporaries (i.e. more than one ruler at the same time).
And the lists do not give us many hints on exactly how each group was related
to the others. So, the actual chronology of Egypt was developed by using
mostly archeological material, which is a good thing for "artifact rich"
periods, but proves very cumbersome for more obscure eras. So, in
order to establish an absolute date for an event well documented, but happening
before or between obscure eras, Egyptologists had to use methods independent
of the king-lists.
Going back in time from now, the first really
obscure period of Egyptian history is that conveniently called the "Third
Intermediate Period" (or TIP). After this period (i.e., from 664
BC to the present day) all events in Egypt can be absolutely dated very
accurately thanks to many documents both from Egypt itself and from neighboring
countries (including the Bible). Before that, Egyptologists developed
3 major pillars, "fixed points" from which all their dates are ultimately
derived.
.
1) 945 BC = year 20 of Shoshenq I (TIP)
This one is based on the identification of king Shoshenq, the most
powerful king of the 22nd dynasty, as the Biblical "Shishak King of Egypt"
mentioned in the first book of Kings and the second book of Chronicles.
But the identification is not as secure as Kenneth A. Kitchen, the leading
expert on the TIP chronology believes... A quick glance at the "JEROBOAM
- Prince of Egypt" lecture from Mike
Sanders' Bible Mysteries Pages should convince you of how unstable
that crucial link is. To cut a long story short, the Egyptian Shoshenq
campaigned throughout Palestine, destroying mostly cities of the northern
kingdom of Israel (and very little of Judah) while the Biblical Shisak
captured all Judaean fortresses (and received heavy tribute from Jerusalem)
but did not attack Israel (his ally).
2) 1537 BC = year 9 of Amenhotep I (New Kingdom)
3) 1872 BC = year 7 of Senousert III (Middle
Kingdom)
These two are the "Heart and Soul" of the chronology of their respective
era (New and Middle Kingdoms). Indeed, while the internal chronology
of each is relatively well known, the intermediate periods forbid any "easy"
absolute dating, as said above. Now, Egyptologists thought these
two dates were solid, being based on sound astronomical data... Now
being myself a physics (and astronomy) student, I can assure you that this
isn't the case at all. Let's see why.
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