Are Hebrews unique in having created a fictional version of their own
past? An important article by Catherine Frisk on Veterans Today well evaluates the
current state of our knowledge, and we here quote extensively
from it.
Was the Temple of Solomon destroyed in 586 BC – and are Jews about to
knock down the Islamic Temple on the Rock to re-build it? That could trigger
WW3.
But did that temple ever exist, in Jerusalem – indeed, did King Solomon
ever exist?
Is the whole Jewish dream of a Greater Israel stretching from the Nile
to the Euphrates, just history stolen from the Egyptians? Were the Hebrews just
obscure hill tribesmen, who centuries later developed a talent for fictional
history?
King David and King Solomon are the big names here, and did they have a mighty
kingdom three thousand years ago – or not?
Israeli Zionists claim they
have the right to build a third temple in line with “scriptural prophecies” to
follow the tradition of the first and second ones built in ancient times.”
Over and above the political implications of this story,
historians and archaeologists are having a problem with this whole concept,
first and foremost because it appears that there never was a first temple,
neither was “king David” the powerful ruler he is claimed to be. Little to no
evidence after 70 years has been found for the building of the first temple,
either inside of Jerusalem or in references to it in surrounding countries.
This is indeed the problem.
The concept of a
“Greater Israel” historically does not apply to Judea but to Egypt that ruled
from the Nile to the Euphrates river.
Here
we’re talking about the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, which had the greatest
empire ever known, including what is now Syria and Israel. We especially focus
upon Amenhotep III in the 14th century BC. He was the father of
Akhenaten, the ‘rebel’ pharaoh who invented monotheism. King Solomon ‘in all
his glory’ was probably that pharaoh.
...any
land promised to Abraham for grazing rights by “god,” who in all likelihood was
the Pharaoh of Egypt…
Abraham
gets the big promise from the deity, of land that he will have.
The agreement was
cemented due to Joseph’s marriage to the Egyptian princess Asinath and his high
status in the house of the “god” as steward to the king and master of the
horse. Due to the family bond that now existed between the royal house of Egypt
and Joseph the grazing rights bequeathed to Abraham now became legal tender and
land rights, which Joshua the the great grandson of Joseph apportioned to each
of the twelve tribes.
Joseph historically enters into the
land of Egypt and becomes Vizier (chief advisor) to the Pharaoh. This is where
real history begins in the Book of genesis: Egyptian records corroborate that
historic event. (..)
I was not surprised
during the “Arab Spring” that one of targets of the looting that went on in the
Cairo Museum at the time, was the mummies of Yuya
and Tuya, who many scholars have identified as the Biblical Joseph
and his wife Asinath.
It
is a terrible thing, if the mummy of the man Joseph, buried in the Valley of
the Kings, has been damaged – so well
has it been preserved for thirty-three centuries..
The
time spent in the wilderness coincides with the battles that were fought
between the Egyptians and the Hittites between the rule of the military
generals Horemheb and Ramses 11.
This period is the beginning of the
19th dynasty, and is indeed the period of the Exodus etc., (from
Ahmed Osman’s researches)
Moses and Joshua
converted them to the monotheism that they had adopted from Ahkenaten. It is
highly possible that the battles recorded in the Bible by Joshua, were in fact
the battles fought by the Egyptians against the Hittites across the land of
Palestine.
She
is here expressing the view first put forward by Sigmund Freud in his Moses and Monotheism, that Moses
absorbed his monotheism from Akhenaten. A different view is here advocated, that they were the same person: Akhenaten became Moses.
Comparisons with
Egyptian texts suggest that many of the passages in Psalms and Proverbs were
copied from similar Egyptian poetry during the time of Amenhotep III.
Yes indeed, especially the Psalm 104
which expresses Akhenaten’s vision of One God (Aten = Adon, ‘Adonai’ = my God).
All the evidence so
far points to the first temple never having been built and that the kings of
Judea were minor chieftans whose loyalty was subject to the countries that
surrounded them.
The
concept of a “Greater Israel” historically does not apply to Judea but to
Egypt, and although Abraham and Joseph were given land rights, they were still
subjects of the Pharaoh.
Monotheism after all,
was an Egyptian concept conceived by Akhenaton and adopted by Moses and Joshua,
including the ten commandments which were copied and duplicated from the
“Egyptian Coming Forth of Day.” Their “god” was similar to the Egyptian
Amen-Ra. And Hebrew prayers ended with the word Amen. Their ancestor Joseph had
also once been part of the royal household.
Throughout
history the Egyptians, unlike the Canaanites in Gehenna or the Babylonians,
were not known for blood sacrifice in either human or animal form… Here is one
example of many of Egyptian influence. Archaeologists
Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Egyptian Artifacts In Israeli Cave:
“Archeologists, working in an underground cave in southern
Israel, found 3,000-year-old Egyptian artifacts left behind by
robbers…“Egyptian authority was not only manifested in political and military
control, but was a strong cultural influence that contributed to shaping
society,” Dr. Amir Golani from IAA said, according to the Jerusalem Post,
adding: “Along with an administration of Egyptian officials in Israel, a group
of the local elite evolved in the country who adopted many of the Egyptian
customs and their artistry.
No
archaeological evidence has yet been found for the building of the first temple
in Jerusalem. This could be due to one of two factors. 1. Either it was never
built and the texts referring to it and Solomon were copied from Egyptian
texts, which leads us to Amenhotep III, or 2. It was completely destroyed right
down to its foundations and nothing remained. No evidence, no proof, means no
legal claim to the temple Mount.
“A
stunning parallel to Solomon’s Temple has been discovered in northern Syria.
The temple at ‘Ain Dara has far more in common with the Jerusalem Temple
described in the Book of Kings than any other known building.
Again in spite of the war
in Syria, the destruction of their antiquities, the damage done to their
ancient temples, no documentation has been found, no correspondence between the
Kings of Judea and the surrounding nations, no artifact and no evidence of a
temple built in Jerusalem according to the dimensions given in the Biblical
texts or of the whereabouts of the treasures of that temple and the Ark Of The
Covenant in particular. There are many who think that there never will be. In
every ancient civilization other than Judea, archaeological evidence, textual
references and the remains of temples back up historical and religious records.
The temple in Jerusalem so far has no such reference either inside of Jerusalem
or outside of it.
Its
fiction, a fictional tale. Hebrews never laid siege to the big cities of Syria.
Unless something emerges in
the future, the conclusion that we have to come to is that the texts were
either Egyptian describing an Egyptian temple during the time of Amenhotep III
that was situated in Northern Syria, as the poetry and prose of Proverbs and
Psalms suggests, or that the temple was Syrian built by the Mitanni
if
there was an Ark of any type, it was the house of the “god” who was worshiped
in the Syrian temple, similar to the Egyptian Arks that housed their gods and
was not necessarily the repository of the ten commandments or the monotheistic
god of Moses and Joshua. All things considered so far, the Ark Of The Covenant
was never in the temple in Jerusalem. It was kept in the Tabernacle temple in
the hills of Ephraim and after the Assyrian invasion was transported to the
island of Elephantine. The Ark never returned to Israel nor was it installed in
the “second temple,” built in Jerusalem.
The first Bishop of the
early Christian church was James the Righteous, the brother of Jesus who in the
opening paragraphs of his epistle makes no mention of the “King of
the Jews” but instead says:
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the
twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”
