Ezekiel 29:12 - Prophecy of the Desolation of Egypt for 40 years

by VM44 104 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Larsinger58

  LEOLAIA. Hi. I'll address this as best as possible. Actually I do need to look these things up and have references.

  Actually, the Babylonian record claims they were dispersed when they fought in the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar.

  Please cite the Babylonian text that says that the Egyptians were "dispersed" from their land.

  Actually the text I had in mind is this one. I don't have the exact BM number but it is quoted from Wikipedia under "Nebuchadnezzar II'

  Following the pacification of Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar turned again to Egypt. A clay tablet, [7] now in the British Museum, states: "In the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the country of Babylon, he went to Mitzraim (Egypt) to make war. Amasis, king of Egypt, collected [his army], and marched and spread abroad."

  The text mentions "spread abroad" which I'm using interchangeably here. No pretended expertise on what is meant here, but it does say "spread abroad" which if applied to the army of Amasis would be consistent with the Biblical record that the Egptians were scattered about and abandoned Egypt at this time. This may not prove to be relevant but that is the Babylonian text citing I had reference to.

  LEOLAIA Your source on Polycrates, Herodotus, gives absolutely no hint that Amasis was ever in captivity,

  Sorry, I apologize if I gave the idea that he was in "captivity." He was in exile from Egypt and befriended Polycrates, who with him created some sort of a pack of exchange residence. So he was not in captivity in Greece but in exile with friends while dispersed or "spread abroad."

  I must begin a new and comprehensive research regarding Amasis to see if any un-revised clues slip through. But as I noted, his rule from 571 BC, 40 years after the 37th of Nebuchadnezzar (511 BCE, per my Biblical chronology where 455 BCE is 1st of Cyrus and the 23rd of Nebuchadnezzar n 525 BCE), he would have died in the 4th year of Kambyses in 543 BCE, thus had a rule of 29 years. Thus an Apis Bull dedication in year 23 of his reign would fall in year 7 of Cyrus, not during year 23 based on his original rule that would have been interrupted in his 5th of 6th year in year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. So the inscription would not be a contradition at this point.

  LEOLAIA

  There also no Egyptian archaeological and historical evidence of a 40-year "gap" during the reign of Amasis, during which Egypt was depopulated -- which surely would have been the worst disaster Egypt would have experienced in its long history. Everything indicates that reign of Amasis was a continuous and prosperous one.

  None that you/we know of, that is, except the Bible. This is particularly complex since Herodotus is biased since he was part of the propaganda of the revised chronology, but fortunately played both sides of the fence. So a close scan of his works might lead to a hint regarding this period of desolation during the 40p years after year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. But in the revised history, which removes 26 years from the timeline, we're only talking about faking 14 years of history for Amasis who later came to rule 29 years. So we'd have to find some subtle contradiction, maybe in archaeology that would suggest or support the interruption.

  In that regard the only suspicious thing so far I've found is in regard to the archaeology at Naucratis. I'll have to get the specific reference, but apparently they found a destructive level and some interruption. I won't stand by that until I look up the actual information, but as I recall it would lend itself to the circumstances of a short interruption in occupation. So when one says, "no Egyptian archaeological" information it is always understood in the context of what we personally know about. So I'll look up what I have on Naucratis and comment further.

  Thanks for your valued reflection and I will review previous discussions you noted. I'll also try to find the reference to that "occupancy" agreement between Amasis and Polycrates as a specific reference as well.

  LS
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  Larsinger58

  LEOLAIA I found a good enough article that addresses the pottery/historical issues at Naukratis. I'm totally amateur here but these excerpts caught my attention.

  http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:WY7TcSJQnIwJ:www.centuries.co.uk/naukratis.pdf+naukratis+debate&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

  You'll enjoy this scholarly review of the nagging problems with dating pottery found at Naukratis. Basically, they can't figure it out.

  Check out page 240 where there is a reference to the absence of the "Protocorinthian" pottery.

  "The chronology of the Protocorinthian/Corinthian transition, however, was a much disputed point, with some scholars arguing a date c. 580 BC. Payne refuted this by reference to Selinus, whose foundation Thucydides gave as 628 BC. As Protocorinthian was absent from the site, but Early Corinthian well represented, Payne set the transition between these styles c. 625 BC, where it has effectively remained ever since."

  And... Page 241

  "In a series of articles cles they challenged the prevailing archaeological chronology of the 8th to 5th centuries BC, offering reductions (at points) as great as 80 years."

  This is what you expect with a close look at the incorrect chronology.

  Sometimes things like radiocarbon-14 dating or a more reliable timeline like the Egyptian timeline during the 18th Dynasty will contradict with the revised Greek timeline.

  Basically, as I noted, the distortion at the time of Cyrus is 82 years too early, that is, 455 vs 537 BCE. The NB Period is 26 years too short in the revised timeline so that from the time of Nebuchadnezzar there is a distortion of 57 years. The archaeologists can't though reconcile the history with their findings.

  But a missing pottery transition period would tend to suggest the city was not occupied for a substantial enough period to show up this missing transition period.

  At any rate, it goes without saying that if the timeline for this period was revised that there will be confusion in trying to date the actual archaeological evidence, both related to relative chronology as well as absolute chronology and that is what we are seeing.

  Of course, this is very preliminary and I have to finish the article about "Naukratis Revisited", but it is safe to say that we can't claim there are "no Egyptian archaeological" evidence supporting the 40-year non-occupation, which now I would clearly see includes Naukratis. Further, Amasis' close association with the Greeks would support that he fled to Greece during those 40 years and supported them financially, in particular, Polycrates.

  Enjoy the article and, again, I'm in the "discovery phase" here so will not be coming to any conclusions too soon, but so far, so good.

  LS
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  Larsinger58

  LEOLAIA tHANKS...

  "But regardless of whether it is Puto-Iaman or Put and Iaman, such references replace the initial but inaccurate reading of the text as referring to soldiers who "spread abroad".

  As noted, I'm offering no area of expertise here and so will not doubt your conclusion here, which I also would easily agree with. As you stated, the outcome of the battle was not stated so the Biblical account of the desolation still remains uncontradicted in regards to this specific text.

  Thanks for the research note. I hope others are finding this fascinating.

  LS
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  Larsinger58

  THANKS DOUG

  When you go to:

  http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/TBJHOKIJBBFLP99EO/p55#lastPost

  you will arrive at the "last post" of a long-running debate between Alan and Thirdwitness (and his ilk) on this very subject.

  You will need to back-peddle ("prev post") to locate where the debate on that aspect commenced.

  Doug

  This doesn't really relate to my chronology which is Biblical, which contradicts both 607 BCE and 587 BCE. That debate was of a JW trying to make 607 BCE work. I didn't quite understand the problem with Jeremiah and a dead Nebuchadnezzar though, other than two opposing factions applying their contradictory "absolute" vs "relative" dates. Jeremiah and Baruch were deported during the last deportation from Egypt in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar, which is when the 70 years began per the Bible and Josephus.

  But what can you do when you have a third interpretation? You'll be in agreement and at odds with both on certain points!

  LS
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  Larsinger58

  I FOUND WHAT I WANTED, ARCHAEOLOGICALLY AT NAUKRATIS.

  How can I say this? Subjectively, when you do research sometimes you discover conflict that will make things inconclusive. The varying theories about how to date Greek pottery is sufficiently inconclusive as to never be able to contradict the Biblical record for this period. So that's #1.

  The scarab factory: Naukratis was an Egyptian center for the Greeks during the time of Amasis. But it was occupied before Amasis became king. Confirming this, of all things, was a commercial Egyptian "scarab factory" thought to be run by Phoencians. Mixed in with the scarabs was also Greek pottery. Thus it would appear that this was a Greek enclave as is historically noted, set up by Apries for the Greeks, though it is clear the Phoenecians were there making scarabs before this as many scarabs from the reign(s) of Psammetichus II and/or Apries were found there.

  But this is confusing and the archaeologists don't want to deal with it. Thus they claim the Greek pottery found with the scarabs occurred artificially by Arabs mixing it all up while looking for treasures.

  At any rate, the factory was closed down when Amasis took over. There are no scarabs from his reign from the factory.

  Meaning?

  Meaning this supports the Biblical history that shortly after Amasis came to the throne, he enaged in battle with the Babylonians and they shut down Egypt for 40 years, including Naukratis and that scarab factory. It was closed down for 40 years. Amasis during this time was in exile in Greece and contributed greatly to them. When he returned after 40 years, the factory was not restarted. But he did re-invite Greeks to the city.

  How does this support the 40-year desolation?

  Because there would have been no reason if Amasis gave this city to the Greeks, who were already there in the first place, that the factory would be shut down. Reasonably, the factory would have simply continued and began making scarabs of Amasis. Why would he shut down a thriving enterprise already established as a foreign exchange center if was going to continue as one? Shutting down the scarab factory thus makes no sense. But it does make sense if Amasis was shut out of Egypt after the 37th of Nebuchadnezzar and Egypt became desolate. Thus the reference in Herodotus of his giving Naukratis to the Greeks either occurred 40 years after this or simply doesn't recognize the 40-year gap. The Greeks did reestablish themselves, but not the factory.

  In the meantime, because of the revisionism, archaeologists can't get a handle on whether or lower or rise the pottery dating, some up to 80 years, so they don't know what's going on. How can they? They are trying to match revised history with pottery evidence.

  In the meantime, there is a missing pottery period at Naukratis for some reason. No protocorinthian period pottery is found there. So there is an archaeological gap noted that is also puzzling.

  So I'm basically done. This is enough not to worry about any archaeological contradiction in support of the revised timeline, the contradictions and confusion itself being explained by the revisionism. All these clues and they can't figure out the Greeks revised the timeline.

  Oh well. That's their problem. The Bible is true. This has been fun!

  Thanks, everyone, for contributing!

  LS
• 

  PSacramento

  Lars,

  Just to be clear, you are of the opinion that the Babyloninas, Assyrians, Egyptians and the Greeks, all revised their timeleines?
• 

  Larsinger58

  Lars,

  Just to be clear, you are of the opinion that the Babyloninas, Assyrians, Egyptians and the Greeks, all revised their timeleines?

  Well, actually, no. Technically, we know the Egyptians tried to blot out certain kingships. Like it is very well known that Akhenaten and King Tut were left out of the dynasty list of later pharaohs, so yes the Egyptians did some attempted changes. And there is evidence of some Assyrian kings taking credit for the same battles or stealing a 10 years here and there to lengthen their reigns. So technically, yes for the Assyrians and Egyptians, which is easily confirmed. But no for the Babylonians that I specifically know of, that is, during their own rule. After they became subject to the PERSIANS and GREEKS, then history was revised. However, the Persians were in charge of Babyonian, Assyrian and Egyptian records at one point giving them power to revise those documents. Later the Greeks were in charge of all these records and thus were able to reach back and revise records as well.

  So it's a complex question. If you asked whether the Babylonians themselves changed their records, you'd get one answer. If you ask whether someone else changed the Babylonian records, you'd get another answer.

  So let's get right to it. Did the Babylonians themselves change their records? No. The Persians did. That's why all the critical historical documents like the Babylonian Chronicle, Cyrus Cylinder and Nabonidus Chronicle are dated in the Persian and may even as late as the Seleucid Periods.

  So it is easier to just insert the critical revisionism of the period under focus, which is the Neo-Babylonian Period. So, in answer to your question, the Persians changed the Bablonian records, removing 26 years from the NB kings in order to expand the reigns of some of their own kings in 2 phases. In each phase, they influenced Greek historians to propagandize those changes. Those historians are Herodotus, who is called the "father of history" and Xenophon.

  But note what the major Greek historians are writing about? Persia! Cyrus! Herodotus' history is about the "Persian Wars" and Xenophon devoted an entire book, his Cyropaedia, about Cyrus and Persian history. Thus you see the Persian (assisted by the Jews, of course) influence through their money of this criticial time in history.

  So if you asked if the Greeks revised their timeline, technically the answer is yes, since Herodotus and Xenophon were Greek historians. But the fact is, they were reflecting the propaganda of the revised Persian history, one that covered up the fact that Xerxes and Artaxerxes I were the same king.

  So remember. You can have thousands of years of rather reliable, straightforward history, then in the last couple of years some court official trying to impress their king or needing to revise records for political reasons can do so. So what comes down to us is ONLY what the revisionists have decided to leave us.

  LS
• 

  Larsinger58

  Lars,

  Just to be clear, you are of the opinion that the Babyloninas, Assyrians, Egyptians and the Greeks, all revised their timeleines?

  You ask a very important question since it introduces a concept of some really complicated and involved ongoing conspiracy or common practice of revising history. So it is important that I simply basically tell you what happened rather than let your imagination run wild until it goes into denial.

  Basically, the Persians revised the history we have of the NB Period and the Persian Period. It was done in two phases. The first phase simply added 30 years to the reign of Darius I so that he was an extra generation older than Xerxes, who was now claiming to be Artaxerxes, the grandson of Darius I. Xerxes and Artaxerxes were the same king. The Persian kings all used double names. To compensate for some of this, they revised the Babylonian records, removing 26 years from the Neo-Babylonian kings. That was fine and well until Artaxerxes died. When he did, he claimed all 41 years of rule. The first 21-year rule as Xerxes was calculated separately. Then, Thucycides wrote his history of the Peloponnesian Wars. Because there were links to Persian history, it clearly showed the overlap of the 41-year rule of Artaxerxes with that of Xerxes. The PPW ended around the time of the death of Darius II.

  So seeing the exposure, Artaxerxes II hired the Greek historian Xenophon to revise Thucydides to reflect more years and to clear up any contradictions. Thucydides came up with a revision that added an extra 57 years to the Greek timeline. Two simple changes. 1) He added the typical 30-year generation between the Persian and the Peloponnesian Wars, a period that was originally just 20 years. And he found a great eclipse substitutes if he moved the beginning of the Peloponnesian Wars back from 403 BCE to 431 BCE. That pushed the timeline back an additional 28 years, adjusted down to 27 years. This pushed the entire timeline back 57 years, even the previously adjusted timeline the Persians had made. Xenophon got Plato and Aristotle and Plato's students to help with the project. They were all in on this phase of the conspiracy.

  That is why the Neo-Babylonian timeline is 57 years earlier than it should be. For instance, year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar now dated to 568 BCE should be year 511 BCE. That is entirely due to the Greek Period revision by Xenophon, Plato and Aristotle.

  Next came the astronomical text revisions. Continued.

  LS
• 

  Larsinger58

  Lars,

  Just to be clear, you are of the opinion that the Babyloninas, Assyrians, Egyptians and the Greeks, all revised their timeleines?

  THE ASTRONOMICAL TEXTS History entered the Seleucid Period as revised by and reflected by Xenophon, who is the only Greek historian whose complete works survive. Thus when it comes to revisionism, it is very easy to see who the revisionists are, since they are the ones whose history we inherit. Of course, Xenophon is more than obvious since we see him revising the history of Socrates and he does write a book about Persian history, also Greek history, and he is the publisher and editor/redactor of Thucydides.

  But then, likely around the time of Berossus who was very much into astronomy, it was noticed the many original astronomical texts from the Neo-Babylonian Period reflected the original chronology. So these texts had to be destroyed if the new conventional timeline was to remain in place. Simple as that. Tens of thousands of astronomical texts thus are missing. But, of course, they soon discovered there were lots of coincidental eclipses and other events that were occurring during the revised history. So this was taken advantage of when possible. For instance, the entire Assyrian Period is linked to a single solar eclipse occurring in the month of Simanu. That original event was in 709 BCE celebrating a predicted solar eclipse. When 57 years were added to the timeline that eclipse no longer worked and would have been removed from the historical record except another eclipse 54 years earlier in 763 BCE also occurred in the month of Simanu if the year was calculated to begin early. So it was left on the books because where was a satisfactory substitute event.

  As well, with all those astronomical records, some records were copied and the new timeline applied to certain years. That is how we get the VAT4956, which copies astronomical events from year 568 BCE and applies year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar to the new text. Historians are fooled by this thinking this is a legitimate "copy" of an original document. They don't realize it is reflecting the revised date. It doesn't dawn on them that is why there are no original Babylonian astronomical texts and the critical ones we have, the VAT4956 and the Strm. Kambyses 400 are"copies" from 200+ years later! That's why you can't use them for critical challenge of any chronology as they are first suspected of being revised documents.

  Thus that is what we have today. Revised historical records by the Persians and later on revised astronomical texts during the Seleucid Period to match the history revised by the Persians via Xenophon during the reign of Artaxerxes II.

  So in fact, it really only took a few people in charge with the governments blessing to make these changes. Plus whoever had the money could easily buy up records they wanted to revise or destroy. The Persians had the political incentive to need to do this and the money to pay for getting it done.

  LS
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  Larsinger58

  Lars,

  Just to be clear, you are of the opinion that the Babyloninas, Assyrians, Egyptians and the Greeks, all revised their timeleines?

  JEWISH REVISIONISM Finally, we must consider the Jews. The Jews have their own history books, of course, especially the Bible. They were active during the Persian Period when Xerxes decided to become Artaxerxes. So it is of note that the Jews were very cooperative. This would be no different than being at war with some country and as a loyal citizen you needed to lie about government secrets. Thus the Book of Daniel became a problem because it gave some history about Persia and identified Artaxerxes as the king who invaded Greece. So that book was suppressed. Also canonical Ezra/Nehemiah reflected Nehemiah returning with Zerubbabel in the 1st of Cyrus but living down to the reign of Darius II. That didn't work with the expanded Persian Period which would make him close to 150 years of age at his death. So Ezra/Nehemiah, originally in one book called "Esdras" was suppressed and a revised version of the book of "Esdras" created. So the Jewish revised documents are a dead giveaway what changes were being made during the Persian Period.

  But it gets more interesting. Since the history of Nehemiah as cupbearer to Artaxerxes was suppressed, a folkloric hisotory of Nehemiah surfaced. Nehemiah was a "eunuch" (i.e. celibate gay) depicted as being infatuated with the handsome Xerxes/Artaxerxes. When he asked to return to help his people he is described as sitting on the kings lap and batting his eyes at the king. He was just as hysterical and funny as some of the exaggerated effeminate gay characters on some of the popular TV sitcoms. This was "sanitized" when Nehemiah's character was split between a man and woman, the beautiful "Esther" who became Artaxerxes' legimate wife, and Mordecai, Nehemiah's Babylonian name. Thus the Book of Esdras became semi-historical and placed after "Esdras" being called "Esdras IV."

  But, the Jews revised this book in the 3rd Century AD because it showed Esther married to Artaxerxes in the LXX, which now contradicted with the resurfaced canonical Ezra/Nehemiah. So the Jews are noted to be the last revisionists when they revised the Book of Esther to reflect her as married to "Ahasuerus" instead of "Artaxerxes" (LXX). Thus this politically revised history was still influencing revisionism even after Christ.

  And in the middle of all this is Josephus who has to try and be popular and yet also reflect the Biblical timeline, so depending on the work, he claims Evil-Merodach ruled for 18 years or 2 years, or that the desolation of Jerusalem was for 70 years or 50 years, etc. It's not that he's a bad historian as much as having to be politically correct and balance Biblical history with revised secular history.

  LS