Scholastic Mythbusters, Part II

The Fetish of Egyptian Chronology

Much of what passes for thorough and objective scholarship in our post-Christian world is nothing less than determined ignorance. The study of the ancient world is an example. It has been afflicted with a raw prejudice against the Bible and its historical accounts. However, even a superficial comparison of ancient historical documents shows immediately that the biblical historical records of events in the Ancient Near East are far fuller, and more detailed, precise, and voluminous than the records of surrounding nations.

But scholarship and the liberal academic complex have steadfastly refused to treat the biblical historical documents as genuine historical accounts. For the past three hundred years they have overwhelmingly viewed them as works of religious propaganda. The biblical records lack objectivity, we are told. They have been written, edited, redacted, and reconstructed by people with axes to grind. Consequently everything in the Bible must be second guessed.

The fact that the historical records of the Scriptures are so full and detailed is taken as an evidence that they are not genuine historical accounts. If they were, well, they would be as patchy and difficult as other non-biblical historical documents of the period. The fact that they are so clear and full is an evidence of their being edited, massaged, re-worked, and altered—for religious purposes. The argument is viciously circular.

The liberal academic complex has proceeded by asserting its own rationalistic autonomy over the biblical documents. The result has been a prevailing antipathy and blind prejudice against the historicity of the Bible for over two hundred years. As scholar after scholar after scholar has repeated the same views and expresses the same cant, over time it has become an undoubted orthodoxy. Yet the foundations of this so-called orthodoxy are worse than the Great Grimpen Mire.

One of the most persistent myths of the Academy has been to elevate the chronology of Egypt to a status of near infallibility, to which all other histories and chronologies, including the biblical chronology, must conform. The chronological structure of Egypt has been used to “rework” the histories of all other ancient near eastern peoples, such that if they do not “fit” or “agree” or “conform” to the Egyptian schema, the records are erroneous or wrong. The status of Egyptian chronology as the fundamental history has functioned like the myth of the flat earth.

This would not be such a problem if the Egyptian chronology were well founded. However, the Egyptian chronology that is widely accepted as academic orthodoxy is based upon the writings of Manetho, a Graeco-Egyptian priest of the second century BC. He presented an Egyptian history back to its beginnings, using the dates and reigns of successive Pharaoh's and their dynasties in Egypt. Manetho's chronology is the spine upon which virtually all scholarship of the ancient near east has been built for the past two hundred years. However, whilst a "complete" chronological record, with its successive dynasties, is convenient for scholars and thereby likely to prejudice them in its favour, it is of little use if the chronology itself is wrong, or is in places a fabrication.

The first issue is to reckon with is the tendency in the ancient world to produce chronological schemas for reasons of propaganda. Clearly Manetho sought to establish the prime antiquity of ancient Egypt, over against the rival (Antiochene or Syrian) claims of his day. This was important because longevity and antiquity in the ancient world established primacy, and Manetho was interested in establishing the primacy of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The chronology was used to support its imperial claims. James Jordan has argued that,

This is not just an ancient phenomenon. Not too long ago, German historians were diligently falsifying and inventing history in order to prove the seniority and superiority of the Aryan race. The rulers of England have often supported the absurd notion that the English and Saxon races are descended from the “lost tribes of Israel.” Today, the Israeli claim to the land of Palestine is grounded in events 2000 years old.

When the Greek politician Solon visited Egypt in the 6th century BC, he was chided as a citizen of such a youthful culture, and was told that Egyptian history ran back 8000 years. Herodotus was told a century later that Egyptian history ran back 11,340 years before his time.

The Babylonian priest Berossus presents us a dynasty of 86 kings who reigned for no less than 33,091 years. His contemporary, Manetho, produced a similar claim regarding the earliest, divine rulers of Egypt. Manetho expert W. G. Waddell suggests that "the works of Manetho and Berossus may be interpreted as an expression of the rivalry of the two kings, Ptolemy and Antiochus, each seeking to proclaim the great antiquity of his land." [Loeb edition: Manetho, p.x]

Everyone admits that these are fictional exaggerations, but when it comes to Manetho's dynasties, the admission is not so forthcoming. The reason for this blindness is not hard to discern. It lies in the presuppositional hostility of secular scholarship for the Bible. If Manetho cannot be trusted, scholarship must rely much more heavily on the Bible, and that is not regarded as acceptable. . . .

We shall let W. G. Waddell, the editor of Manetho, have the last word: "But there were many errors in Manetho's work from the very beginning: all are not due to the perversions of scribes and revisers. Many of the lengths of reigns have been found impossible: in some cases the names and sequence of kings as given by Manetho have proved untenable in the light of monumental evidence. If one may depend upon the extracts preserved in Josephus, Manetho's work was not an authentic history of Egypt, exact in its details, as the Chaldaica of Berossus was, at least for later times. Manetho introduced into an already corrupted series of dynastic lists a number of popular traditions written in the characteristic Egyptian style. No genuine historical sense had been developed among the Egyptians, although Manetho's work does illustrate the influence of Greek culture upon an Egyptian priest." [Loeb edition, Manetho, pp.xxv-xxvi]

In other words, Manetho's chronology is likely to be notoriously unreliable, particularly with its claims to ancient lineage. Yet scholarship has insisted on using it as the chronology to which all other histories of the Ancient Near East must conform.

Secondly, the histories of all other nations in the Ancient Near East are required to conform to the accredited Egyptian history. Thus, in the case of Israelite history, the standard method of the Academy is to date the Exodus by attempting to fit it into the accepted orthodoxy Egyptian chronology. And guess what--there is nothing in the standard Egyptian chronology that would be consistent with the events of the Exodus (devastating plagues, a slave people leaving, the Egyptian army and its Pharaoh being destroyed) occuring at the time they were supposed to have happened. However, since the Manetho chronology is sacrosanct amongst scholars, they have concluded that the biblical account is wrong, fanciful, mythical, and the work of religious propaganda.

Moreover, the imposition of the Manetho chronology upon all other histories of the region has meant that the dating of events in ancient Greece, Mynos, and Syria is problematic. Recorded events in those other civilisations, such as natural catastrophes (earthquakes, tidal waves, and famines) are compared with the Egyptian chronology and history, and the dating of these events is skewed (usually placed far back in time and made much older than the actual events themselves).

Thirdly, the Manetho chronological schema, in seeking to "prove" the ancient lineage of Egyptian, Ptolemaic civilisation, overlooks the fact that royal lines often bestow multiple names and titles on their kings. For Manetho, each name or title usually meant a distinct person, successively reigning. English history gives apt examples. The Prince of Wales often becomes the king of England. Prince Charles will become King Charles. But for Manetho, in arranging his chronology, this would represent two different people, two different reigns, and possibly in different dynasties. In English history we have two James: the Sixth (of Scotland) and the First (of England). For Manetho, these would be two different Pharaohs.

It was common in the ancient world to endow multiple names and titles on royal persons. It is not uncommon in the modern world. For example, in the case of Swedish royalty, the name of a particular Swedish sovereign could be:

Carl-Gustaf Bernadotte
Crown prince Carl-Gustaf
Duke of Jamtland
King of Sweden
Carl XVIth Gustaf
King Carl-Gustaf
Holder of the Serafim Order
Chief of State
(Lennart Moller, The Exodus Case: A Scientific Examination of the Exodus Story, and a Deep Look into the Red Sea. [ Copenhagen: Scandinavia Publishing House, 2000], p. 78)

If Manetho's method had been employed, each of these would have become separate persons, part of a long dynasty, or possibly in different dynasties. This has led to the insertion of hundreds of years into the orthodoxy Egyptian history which are mythical. They never existed.

This orthodoxy was initially unable to be challenged from within. It was a severe career-limiting move. The first challenges in recent times have come from outside the liberal academic complex, from non-specialists who came to the problem with more open minds. The first of these was Immanuel Velikovsky, whose book Ages in Chaos (London: Sidwick and Jackson Ltd, 1952) was a reconstruction of ancient history from Exodus to King Akhnaton. He discussed documentary Egyptian evidence of a time of plagues, death, devastation, and a slave people in ancient Egypt from the Egyptian records themselves (but of course, according to the conventional academic prejudice, far earlier than the time of the Exodus.) He also drew amazing parallels between the Tel-el-Amarna correspondence between Egypt and Syria and northern Israel and the biblical accounts in the time of Elijah and Elisha--yet according to the conventional prejudice, the el-Amarna correspondence was centuries earlier.

The issue was taken up later by another non-specialist--Donavan A Courville in The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications. (Loma Linda, CA: Challenge Books, 1971) However, these were not credited within the Academy--and were consigned to the realm of idiosyncracy. Thousands of accredited and professional scholars could not be wrong.

In recent years, however, some scholars from within the Academy have begun to revolt. It has been lead by Peter James (Peter James, I. J. Thorpe, Nikos Kokkinos, Robert Morkot and John Frankish, Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology. (London: Jonathan Cape, 1991)

The publisher's blurb had this to say:

The Old World has confronted archaeologists with many riddles, perhaps the most tantalising of which is the Dark Age, an economic and cultural recession so devastating it lasted for 400 years from 1200 to 800 BC. Or did it? The dates for the Near East and Mediterranean are derived from the highly regarded chronology of ancient Egypt, but could not that itself have been miscalculated? This is the pioneering theory proposed by Peter James in an intricate piece of scholarly detective work.

Deciphering the clues from papyri and pottery, he and his team of experts search layer by layer through the excavated treasures of a vast area from Spain to Iran and from Denmark to Sudan, until they reach Egypt, the root of the labrinthine riddle. It is here that they unearth 250 years of ‘ghost history’. Once these are eliminated, fresh perspective is thrown not only on the reality of the Dark Age, but also on the Trojan War, the foundation of Rome, the origin of the Greek alphabet and the Golden Age of King Solomon. Centuries of Darkness is a masterpiece of archaeological reasoning which will revolutionise our view of the ancient world.

But the Academy fights on. The issue here is, assuming the fundamental truth of the Biblical historical records (which we do) why is it that for two centuries scholars have insisted on their unreliability and cling to the authority of Manetho, building up fantastical histories in a completely circular fashion?

The reason is that the more anti-Christian rationalist scholars assert their objectivity and independence, the more they are made subject to fables, myths, and wishful thinking. Man remains a creature: weak, limited, conditioned, derived, and dependant. This includes his rational faculties and abilities. The more he asserts his autonomous independence, the more he becomes unconscious of (or refuses to acknowledge) his limited and finite and conditioned capacities. That, in turn, produces prejudiced and perverted thinking in virtually every area of life. This is why the Bible declares that the Unbeliever is blind.

As we argued in our first post, there is little doubt that one of the reasons the Puritans are hated and ridiculed to this day is due to their faith in the Living God. Whole worlds of myth and untruths have been built up around them by scholars who are willingly conforming to the prejudices of their day. They want the myths to be true. The need the myths to be true.

A similar phenomenon has occurred with respect to ancient history. Since the Scriptures from the outset are assumed not to be true, something else must be. The mind of autonomous man is more fundamental than the Word of God. Scholarship quickly descends into mythmaking, but with a breathtaking insistence upon their impartiality and detachment at the same time! The reality is that if two hundred years of "experts" had taken the time and care to examine their initial assumptions and pre-commitments to the Manetho chronology, as well as their prejudice against the Old Testament, and candidly put these on display for debate and critique, this would never have happened.

All the while the emperor has had no clothes. When scholars turn away from self-conscious dependance upon the Living God, He gives them over to fables and lies.