Notes
1
André Lemaire, “‘House of David’ Restored in Moabite Inscription,” Biblical Archaeology
Review 20/3 (May/June 1994), pp. 30–37; Bryant G. Wood, “Bible Personages in Archaeology:
Jabin, King of Hazor,” Bible and Spade, Summer 1995, pp. 91–92.
2
Kenneth A. Kitchen, “A Possible Mention of David in the Late Tenth Century BCE, and Deity
*Dod as Dead as a Dodo?” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 76 (1997), pp. 29–44;
Hershel Shanks, “Has David Been Found in Egypt?” Biblical Archaeology Review 25 (Jan–Feb
1999), pp. 34–35.
3
Thiele’s date for the fifth year of Rehoboam, and thus the invasion of Shoshenq (2 Chr 12:2),
was 925 BC. However, his placing Solomon’s death after Tishri 1 of 931 BC, instead of before
Tishri 1, produced problems in the reigns of Solomon through Athaliah that he apparently
recognized but was never able to resolve. See Rodger C. Young, “The Parian Marble and Other
Surprises from Chronologist V. Coucke,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 48 (2010), pp.
227–28, including no. 8.
4
For an extensive discussion of the credibility of Kitchen’s reading, see Clyde E. Billington and
Bretta Grabau, “David’s Fortress at Khirbet Qeiyafa and Shoshenq’s Invasion,” Bible and Spade
28:3 (Summer 2015), pp. 65–68.
5
Niels Peter Lemche, “On Doing Sociology with Solomon,” in Lowell K. Handy, ed., The Age
of Solomon: Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p. 312.
6
Michael G. Hasel, “New Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa and the Early History of Judah,” in
James Hoffmeier and Dennis Magary, eds., Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? (Wheaton IL:
Crossway, 2012), p. 488.
7
Yosef Garfinkel, Katharina Streit, Saar Ganor, and Paula J. Reimer, “King David’s City at
Khirbet Qeiyafa: Results of the Second Season Radiocarbon Dating Project,” Radiocarbon 57.5
(2015), p. 887.
8
Ibid.
9
Edwin R. Thiele, “The Chronology of the Kings of Judah and Israel,” Journal of Near Eastern
Studies 3 (1944), pp. 137–86.
10
Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 B.C.) (Warminster:
Aris & Phillips, 1973), p. 72.
11
In all of his writings on the subject, Kitchen has accepted Thiele’s date of 925 BC for the fifth
year of Rehoboam. By equating this to the 20th year of Shoshenq’s campaign as celebrated on the
Bubastite Portal, he refined the dates of Shoshenq I, and consequently all of the 21st and 22nd
Dynasties, to a finer degree than was possible from the Egyptian data alone. It is regrettable that
in one of his later writings on the subject, “How We Know When Solomon Ruled,” Biblical
Archaeology Review 27:4 (Sept-Oct 2001) pp. 32–37, 58, Kitchen made it appear that the dates of
Solomon are secure partly because of their agreement with Egyptian dates. By manipulation of the
Egyptian data, Kitchen arrived at 925 BC (Thiele’s date) for the synchronism of 2 Chr 12:2. But
he wrote that for the Egyptian data “over a span of centuries such variations lead to discrepancies
of several years,” showing that in reality he regarded the biblical data as secure and precise, while
the Egyptian data could not be determined that accurately. Once again, precise Egyptian dates are
derived from the biblical chronology, and not vice versa.
12
Christopher Rollston, “The Equation of Biblical Pharaoh ‘Shishaq’ with Pharaoh Ramesses
II: A Philological and Epigraphic Dismantling of Egyptologist David Rohl’s Proposal,” in
Alphabets, Texts and Artifacts in the Ancient Near East: Studies Presented to Benjamin Sass, Israel
Finkelstein, Christian Robin, and Thomas Römer eds. (Paris: van Dieren, 2016), p. 378, no. 4.
13
Rodger C. Young, “When Did Solomon Die?” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
46 (2003), pp. 589–603.
14
Billington and Grabau, “David’s Fortress,” p. 63.
15
Josephus, Against Apion 1:107–108/1.17.
16
Josephus, Antiquities 8:55/8.2.8.
17
Young, “The Parian Marble and Other Surprises,” pp. 232–36. Rodger C. Young and Andrew
E. Steinmann, “Correlation of Select Classical Sources Related to the Trojan War with Assyrian
and Biblical Chronologies,” Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament 1.2 (2012),
226–27; online at http://jesot.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JESOT-1.2-Young-Steinmann.pdf.
See especially the argument on pages 231–32 that the records in the Parian Marble were selected
from the state archives of Athens.
18
Josephus, Antiquities 9.283/9.14.2.
19
Josephus, Against Apion 1.112/1.17.
20
Ibid, 1.113–126/1.17,18.
21
Ibid, 1.156-159/1.21.
22
Pompeius Trogus, 18.6.9.
23
J. Liver, “The Chronology of Tyre at the Beginning of the First Millennium B.C.,” Israel
Exploration Journal 3 (1953), pp. 113–20; J.M. Peñuela, “La Inscripción Asiria IM 55644 y la
cronología de los reyes de Tiro,” Sefarad 14 (1954), pp. 1–39; E. Lipiński, “Ba‘li-ma‘zer II and
the Chronology of Tyre,” Rivista degli studi oreintali 45 (1970), pp. 56–65; Frank M. Cross Jr.,
“An Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 208
(1972), pp. 13–19; Alberto R. Green, “David’s Relations with Hiram: Biblical and Josephan
Evidence for Tyrian Chronology,” in Carol L. Meyers, ed., The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth:
Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday (Philadelphia
PA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1983), pp. 373–91. William H. Barnes, Studies in the
Chronology of the Divided Monarchy of Israel (Atlanta GA: Scholars Press, 1991); Young and
Steinmann, “Correlation,” pp. 224–25.
24
Peñuela, “La Inscripción Asiria,” pp. 29–30, no. 167.
25
Pompeius Trogus, 18.6.9.
26
Young and Steinmann, “Correlation.”
27
Cross, “Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” p. 18.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid, 17 no. 11.
30
Barnes, Studies, pp. 38–45.
31
Josephus, Against Apion 1:108/1:17, 1:126/1.18.
32
Cross, “Interpretation of the Nora Stone,” 17 no. 11; Barnes, Studies, p. 31.
33
Also, the argument is made in Young and Steinmann, “Correlations,” that, as with Zakar-Baal
of Byblos (see footnote 38), the date of interest to Tyrian accountants would have been when they
shipped the dressed stone and rafts of logs to Israel, not the date on which the customer started
using the material. Log rafts would not be launched into the Mediterranean in the winter or early
spring, but in the summer previous to the laying of the foundation. 1 Chronicles 28, 29:1–8 and 2
Chronicles 2 relate the extensive gathering of materials before construction began on the Temple.
34
Rodger C. Young, “Three Verifications of Thiele’s Date for the Beginning of the Divided
Kingdom,” Andrews University Seminary Studies 45 (2007), pp. 163–89.
35
Josephus, Antiquities 8.62/8.3.1.
36
H. Jacob Katzenstein, The History of Tyre from the Beginning of the Second Millenium [sic]
B.C.E. until the Fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 538 B.C.E. (Jerusalem: Goldberg’s Press,
1973), pp. 79–80. A second edition of this book in 1997 had only five changes, four of them related
to the naming of a further Tyrian king named Milkiram in a proposal by A. Lemaire.
37
Ibid, p. 81.
38
In spite of this evidence that Katzenstein gives for the Tyrian source of Josephus’s citations,
it is very puzzling that he rejects the historicity of any citation connecting Tyre with the building
of Solomon’s Temple. On pages 82 and 83, he expresses the opinion that Josephus invented these
connections. “We cannot accept Rowton’s suggestion that the building of Solomon’s Temple was
mentioned in the official archives of Tyre…There is no legitimate connection between the
founding of Tyre and the building of the temple in Jerusalem.” But the interest in keeping such
records by Phoenician merchant-princes is well illustrated in the story of the Egyptian Wen-Amon
and Zakar-Baal, prince of Byblos, that took place about a century before the time of Hiram (ANET,
27a). Zakar-Baal retrieved scrolls from his archives to show to Wen-Amon the business
transactions between his (Zakar-Baal’s) ancestors and the pharaohs of Egypt. One of the
commodities that Zakar-Baal wanted from Egypt was 500 rolls of parchment, for which the main
use was probably to record more of the state business. If Tyre had sent great quantities of dressed
stone and cedar to aid in the construction of Solomon’s temple, then it can be assured that an
inventory of what was sent, and what was received in exchange, would have been recorded in the
city’s archives.
Katzenstein’s skepticism in this matter seems strange indeed, since there are several passages in
Antiquities and Against Apion that refer explicitly, and at considerable length, to this subject, all
purported to come from Tyrian records. Why then this prejudice against the historicity of these
passages? Was it because they substantiate the biblical account, and acceptance by the academy
requires that scholars must somewhere demonstrate that they are not to be reckoned among those
who seek to verify the Bible?
39
Young, “Parian Marble and Other Surprises,” pp. 232–38. See my translation of Coucke’s
article at http://www.rcyoung.org/articles/ coucke.pdf.
40
Josephus, Antiquities 10.146/10.8.4.