by
Damien F. Mackey
Recently,
I have seen proposed for candidates of the biblical “Shishak”:
Seti
I; Ramses II; Ramses III; and Merenptah.
The most
recent effort that I have read is Fred Harding’s 2020 article (book):
Shishak
Mystery Solved
Shishak Mystery Solved!: The
Evidence is Beyond Doubt : Harding, Fred: Amazon.com.au: Books
"In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, King
Shishak of Egypt marched against Jerusalem." (1 Kings 14:25) Nearly all
Egyptologists identify Shishak with Shoshenq I of the 22nd dynasty (943 BC -716
BC) and this is still the majority position. However, it is a position which is
based on old-school chronology that stems way back to 1828 when Jean-François
Champollion (1790-1832) identified the person called Shishak in the Bible as
the pharaoh known to history as Shoshenq I. As the two names sounded similar,
'Shishak' was identified by Champollion as Pharaoh Shoshenq I. Shoshenq's identification was also based on
Champollion's interpretation of reliefs he viewed on a wall of the Bubastite
Portal at Karnak in that year. If you recall, it was Champollion, who only six
years before, succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphs on the Rossetta Stone in
1822. When Champollion travelled to Egypt, the only time he did so, he visited
the temple complex at Karnak which consists of a vast mix of decayed temples,
chapels, pylons, and other buildings near Luxor, in Egypt. However, it was the
scenes inscribed on the walls of the Bubastite Portal in hieroglyphs which
captured Champollion's attention. Among the 150 hieroglyphic name-rings on the
Bubastite Portal, each represented as a bound and tethered Asiatic captive and
representing the names of the towns conquered by Sheshonq during his northern
campaign, one of them caught Champollion's eye. This was name ring 29. To him
it appeared to say, "Ioudahamalek", which Champollion interpreted to
mean "Judah the Kingdom". As far as Champollion was concerned, what
other proof was needed. Here it was in black and white, so to speak, that
Shoshenq I had fought against Judah and therefore must have captured Jerusalem.
The identity that Shoshenq and Shishak of the Bible had therefore been
confirmed in the most satisfactory manner. "From henceforth, anybody who
was anybody in Egyptology agreed with Champollion, that is until William
Max-Muller (1862-1919) who was one of the last students of the famous
Egyptologist Georg Ebers (1837-1898), took a closer look.
In 1888 Max-Muller pointed out that ring 29 should
be read as "Yad-ha-Melek" which, when translated, means "Hand of
the King." Suddenly, the "proof" that Judah was listed on the
Bubastite Portal had become untenable. Yet despite this error, which modern
scholars like Peter James, David Rohl and Kevin A. Wilson have made known
through their books, the status quo that Shoshenq I and Shishak are one and the
same has been maintained to the present day. So who was Shishak? The answer to
this mystery is not as difficult as it appears to be. I can say this with
self-assurance because if one simply looks for the clues that are in plain
sight in the Biblical text and put them together, the solution becomes
inescapable. Nobody, as far as I am aware has used the methodology presented
herein, at least not in the way I am about to show you. I therefore would like
to invite you to join me in solving this mystery by using a methodology
hitherto not tried before and one which truly identifies who Shishak was, and I
can tell you without a shadow of doubt, he was not Shoshenq I.
Fred Harding
will identify “Shishak” as pharaoh Ramses, so-called III, of Egypt’s so-called Twentieth
Dynasty.
His
article/book is generally well written and, like various other attempts to
identify “Shishak”, does manage to raise some compelling points in its favour.
One huge
problem with it, though, is that there is no evidence that this particular pharaoh
ever conquered Jerusalem, which must be key to any “Shishak” attempt.
Moreover I,
personally, believe that Ramses III is not properly known at all - that he was,
in fact, the same pharaoh as Ramses II ‘the Great’:
Ramses
so-called III more than just a resemblance of Ramses II ‘the Great’
(6) Ramses so-called III more
than just a resemblance of Ramses II ‘the Great’
Obviously,
this, if so, would change a lot of things.
And I also
think that the Nineteenth/Twentieth dynasties of Egypt really need to be
considered within the context of the so-called Twenty-Fifth Dynasty:
Intrinsic
relationship of Seti and Ramses ‘the Great’ to the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty
(6) Intrinsic relationship of
Seti and Ramses 'the Great' to the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty
Whatever one may think of Fred Harding’s hopeful reconstruction, one could never accuse him
of a lack of conviction. In this regard, Fred Harding reminds me of Fr. Dwight
Longenecker, who is absolutely convinced that he has accurately identified the
biblical Magi, as Nabateans.
I don’t mind this sort of infectious enthusiasm.
In neither case, though, Fr. Longenecker’s or Fred Harding’s,
do I think that the author’s utter certainty will ultimately manifest itself in
conclusion validity.
In my revised system, with King Solomon locked in
chronologically and historically as Senenmut (Senmut) of Egypt’s Eighteenth
Dynasty, during the reign of the female, Hatshepsut, the only
plausible candidate for the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt”, who looted the
Temple of Yahweh about five years after Solomon’s death, is Thutmose III, who
co-reigned with, and who succeeded, Hatshepsut.
Ever since
reading Dr. I. Velikovsky’s Ages in Chaos (I, 1952) in the
early 1980’s, I have embraced at least that part of his thesis therein (Chapter
4, “The Temple in Jerusalem”) that identifies pharaoh Thutmose III as the
biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” (I Kings 14:25-28):
In the fifth year of King
Rehoboam, Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the
treasures of the temple of the Lord and
the treasures of the royal palace.
He took everything,
including all the gold shields Solomon had made. So King Rehoboam made bronze
shields to replace them and assigned these to the commanders of the guard on
duty at the entrance to the royal palace. Whenever the king went to the Lord’s Temple, the guards bore the
shields, and afterward they returned them to the guardroom.
At first I had
simply accepted Dr. Velikovsky’s entire reconstruction uncritically, but then later,
I - after having read various searching critiques of it - came to the
conclusion that Dr. Velikovsky’s thesis stood in need of some fairly extensive
modification.
My constant,
or anchor, throughout all of this, though, is that Queen Hatshepsut was “the
Queen of Sheba” and that Thutmose III was “Shishak king of Egypt” - all as
according to Dr. Velikovsky.
However, I
have also come to believe that Thutmose III himself - just like I have said
above about Ramses II/III - has been seriously short-changed by the
Egyptologists, and that he needs to incorporate also Thutmose so-called IV:
Enlarging
‘Shishak’?
Thutmose IV
may be Thutmose III procrusteanised, cut off really short
(6) Thutmose IV may be Thutmose
III procrusteanised, cut off really short
Revisionists
who have looked to test the worth of Dr. Velikovsky’s “Shishak” thesis have
focussed upon, probably, three aspects of it: (i) the name; (ii)
the geography; and (ii) the booty.
As well, there
is the ever present issue of (iv) the chronology, with a
requisite archaeology.
As regards
(iv) chronology (and the archaeology is also a matter for
serious consideration), I fully accept that only Thutmose III - interwoven with
Hatshepsut and Senenmut (Solomon) – can be the biblical “Shishak”.
The (i) name may, I
think, have a simple explanation, as I have previously noted:
More than likely … the name “Shishak” was the name by which young
Thutmose III was known to king Solomon and his court in his close relationship
with his relative, Hatshepsut-Sheba. Solomon had officials, secretaries, whose
father was named “Shisha” (I Kings 4:1-3):
So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.
And these were his chief officials:
Azariah son
of Zadok—the priest;
Elihoreph and
Ahijah, sons of Shisha—secretaries ….
[End of quotes]
In this same article I had
pointed to the fact that the Bible, when actually naming a pharaoh, was wont to
use either the ruler’s nomen or praenomen, so
that any efforts to identify a biblical pharaoh through that ruler’s,
say, suten bat name, or a nebty name, may be
barking up the wrong tree. One may search high and low, unsuccessfully (I
suggest), to find a “Shishak”-like pharaonic nomen or praenomen.
Dr. Velikovsky
may thus have been basically correct regarding (i) the name by
his not actually attempting to connect “Shishak” to any of the Egyptian
names of pharaoh Thutmose III.
He merely alluded to Flavius Josephus’s information
that the Egyptian conqueror’s name was “Isakos”, or “Susakos”, and also to the
Jewish tradition that ‘the name “Shishak” was from Shuk, “desire”,
because the pharaoh had wanted to attack Solomon, but had feared him’.
So far, then,
I am in accord with Dr. Velikovsky regarding the pharaoh’s name, and,
essentially, too, in the case of his revised chronology.
My revised
chronology, in fact, will fully support, and augment, his.
“It is thought that after
the death of Neferure, which perhaps occurred in
the eleventh year of
Hatshepsut’s reign, [Senenmut] may have embarked upon an alliance with
Tuthmosis III which led Hatshepsut to discard him in
the nineteenth year of her
reign, three years before the disappearance
of the queen herself”.
Nicolas Grimal
With his (a) Hatshepsut as the biblical Queen of
Sheba; and his (b) Thutmose III as the biblical pharaoh Shishak king of Egypt, Dr.
Velikovsky had gone for the jackpot. He had looked to identify Hatshepsut’s
famous Punt expedition with the Queen of Sheba’s visit to King Solomon.
And he had looked to identify Thutmose III’s most
detailed and famous military campaign, his First (in Year
22-23), with Shishak’s assault upon Jerusalem.
But big is not always the best – though I think
that Dr. Velikovsky basically got it right with that First Year
campaign of Thutmose III.
Byzantine Christians in search of an appropriate
Mount Sinai had hit upon the impressive mountain, Jebel Musa, and had likewise,
for the mountain of the Ark’s landing, opted for the tall, snow-capped Mount
Ararat in Turkey.
Both pursuits, so I now think, sorely missed the
mark.
In retrospect, Dr. Velikovsky, too, was clearly
wrong about Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition. By then, her Year 9 as Pharaoh,
Hatshepsut was no longer a queen.
Moreover, Hatshepsut did not even personally
accompany the Punt expedition. And the miserable token gifts that Egypt gave to
the Punt-ites could hardly be likened to the lavish gifts that the Queen of
Sheba had brought to King Solomon.
Chronologically, therefore, Dr. Velikovsky was out
by a fair bit on this one. (Though still ‘light years’ closer than are the
conventionalists).
Now, what I shall be proposing here is that Dr.
Velikovsky was perfectly correct, chronologically, but wrong geographically and
topographically, by identifying Thutmose III’s First Year campaign
as the Shishak event.
Chronologically I have - with my identification of
Senenmut as King Solomon - locked in Thutmose III’s First Year campaign
as being very close to the 5th year of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam
(when Shishak had attacked), with my acceptance of P. Dorman’s view that
Senenmut had faded from the Egyptian scene (hence died?) in Hatshepsut’s
(also Thutmose III’s) Year 16.
{Peter F. Dorman, The Monuments of Senenmut: Problems
in Historical Methodology, London: Kegan Paul Ltd., 1988}
However,
whilst various historians do indeed favour Year 16 as being the last for
Senenmut, others would extend this, even as far as Year 19. Thus Nicolas
Grimal, for instance, who has written (A History of Ancient Egypt, Blackwell,
1994. My emphasis):
It
is thought that after the death of Neferure, which perhaps occurred in the
eleventh year of Hatshepsut’s reign, [Senenmut] may have embarked upon an
alliance with Tuthmosis III which led Hatshepsut to discard him in the
nineteenth year of her reign, three years before the disappearance of
the queen herself.
The First Year campaign,
that I have long held to have been the Shishak event, unfortunately does not
appear, in Dr. Velikovsky’s context, to match up with it geographically and
topographically.
I am hopeful that I have now sorted out this
problem in e.g. my articles:
The Shishak Redemption
(57) (DOC) The
Shishak Redemption | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Yehem near
Aruna - Thutmose III’s march on Jerusalem
(6) Yehem near Aruna - Thutmose
III's march on Jerusalem
And what about the impressive booty? For that, see
last section.
Regarding the four (i-iv) key Shishak issues that
we identified previously:
1.
Name;
2.
Geography;
3.
Booty;
4.
Chronology
(archaeology)
I would estimate that Dr. Velikovsky was well on
the right track with (1), and also with (4). Later revisionists, like Dr. John
Bimson (“Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised
Stratigraphy?”, SIS Review VoI.VII-3,
1978), had endeavoured to add an appropriate (4) archaeology (Late Bronze Age)
to the Velikovskian chronology:
Although
an exhaustive study of the LBA contexts of all scarabs commemorating Hatshepsut
and Thutmose III would be required to establish this point, a preliminary
survey suggests that objects from the joint reign of these two rulers do not
occur until the transition from LB I to LB II, and that scarabs of Thutmose III
occur regularly from the start of LB II onwards, and perhaps no earlier ….
Velikovsky’s
chronology makes Hatshepsut (with Thutmose III as co-ruler) a contemporary of
Solomon, and Thutmose III’s sole reign contemporary with that of Rehoboam in
Judah ….
Therefore,
if the revised chronology is correct, these scarabs would suggest that
Solomon’s reign saw the transition from LB I to LB II, rather than that from LB
I A to LB I B. ….
[End of quote]
Dr. Velikovsky’s hopeful
attempt to identify the Karnak pieces with items
from the reign of King
Solomon (Temple and palace) has been seriously
compromised by
misidentifications.
Credit is due to Dr.
Immanuel Velikovsky for his having identified (in Ages in Chaos, I,
1952) the biblical “Shishak king of Egypt” with the mighty Thutmose III of
Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty. Had he not done this, we would still be like
those poor souls in Plato’s Cave groping about in conventional darkness, being
unable to find access to clarifying light.
As a pioneer,
though, it was probably inevitable that Dr. Velikovsky would provide solutions
that would later need some modification.
Now, the
Karnak bas-reliefs that tend to be coupled with that First Year
campaign were eagerly embraced by Dr. Velikovsky as illustrating the
magnificent treasures plundered from Solomonic Jerusalem. But Dr.
Velikovsky’s hopeful attempt to identify the Karnak pieces with items from the
reign of King Solomon (Temple and palace) has been seriously compromised by
misidentifications. Most unfortunate of all, perhaps, was his misidentification
of one of the Karnak objects with the Ark of the Covenant itself.
This has been exposed by Creationist Patrick Clarke
in his article: “Was Thutmose
III the biblical Shishak?— Claims for the ‘Jerusalem’ bas-relief
at Karnak investigated”: https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j25_1/j25_1_48-56.pdf
Clarke takes several objects identified by
Velikovsky and shows that they cannot be what Velikovsky claimed them to have
been. I have checked each one of these using A. Gardiner’s Egyptian
Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs, and have found them to be
exactly as Patrick Clarke has written.
However, it
should be noted that Patrick Clarke has examined only a very few items: the
supposed Ark of the Covenant; some priestly garments; a fire altar; lamps;
showbread, and found Dr. Velikovsky to be wanting in each of these cases. That
does not discount some of the many other articles that appear on the bas-relief
from pertaining to Solomonic Jerusalem.
Serious
revisionists ought to make a (re-)fresh start on investigating this.
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