Video from Study of Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Ancient Egypt's New Chronology by Egyptologist Dr. Rohl
"New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History in 1995. It contradicts mainstream Egyptology by proposing a major revision of the established Egyptian chronology, in particular by re-dating Egyptian kings of the Nineteenth through Twenty-fifth Dynasties, bringing forward conventional dating by up to 350 years. David Rohl's published works A Test of Time (1995), Legend (1998), The Lost Testament (2002), and The Lords of Avaris (2007) set forth Rohl's theories for re-dating the major civilizations of the ancient world. A Test of Time proposes a down-dating (bringing closer to the present), by several centuries, of the New Kingdom of Egypt, thus needing a major revision of the conventional chronology of ancient Egypt. Rohl asserts that this would let scholars identify some of the major events in the Hebrew Bible with events in the archaeological record and identify some of the well-known biblical characters with historical figures who appear in contemporary ancient texts. Lowering the Egyptian dates also dramatically affects the dating of dependent chronologies, such as that currently used for the Greek Heroic Age of the Late Bronze Age, removing the Greek Dark Ages, and lowering the dates of the Trojan War to within two generations of a ninth-century-BC Homer and his most famous composition: the Iliad. The New Chronology, one of several proposed radical revisions of the conventional chronology, has not been accepted in academic Egyptology, where the conventional chronology or small variations of it remains standard." from video introduction.
Could it be that Egyptologists of today are wrong about the accepted Egyptian Chronology?
Well Yes!!
There is obviously A LOT about history we don't know and is not clear.
The debate about the exodus is ongoing. But if we look at what David Rohl and others have to say does this help clarify the Exodus?
There is no doubt many within Egyptology who do not want the possibility of "The Exodus" being a historical fact.
An Opposing View from 2001
This article was first published in the Summer 2001 issue of Bible and Spade.
In his book Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest (1995a; it was first published in England as A Test of Time: The Bible - From Myth to History [1995b]), David Rohl purports to have produced a better correlation between the findings of archaeology and the Bible by revising Egyptian chronology. One is tempted to dismiss Rohl as simply another crackpot and get on with more important issues. Rohl, however, cannot so easily be brushed aside. As opposed to most who attempt to revise ancient history, Rohl has some scholarly training - he has studied Egyptology and ancient history at University College, London. Moreover, the lay public, largely as the result of a three-part video series based on his book, have become enamored with his supposed Biblical correlations.
Rohl describes the current state of affairs in Biblical archaeology as follows:
...archaeological excavations in Egypt and the Levant, ongoing for the best part of the last two centuries, have produced no tangible evidence to demonstrate the historical veracity of the early biblical narratives. Direct material support for the traditional history of the Israelite nation, as handed down in the books of Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, is virtually non-existent (7).
This statement is, of course, grossly exaggerated and inaccurate, as even a cursory review of the many books on archaeology and the Bible will reveal. By making such a statement, Rohl has set up a straw man which he can now proceed to knock down by means of his new chronology. In actual fact, however, the cure is worse than the sickness, as the new chronology produces no correlations whatsoever!.. from the article in Associates for Biblical Research
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