Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [71]
The traditional response is that the Canaanites were so bad they had it coming to them. Throughout the Torah, stories of Canaanites frequently demonized these people, just as the Philistines would be demonized when they later became Israel’s chief adversary. It is much easier to destroy others—or put them in chains—if you convince yourself that they are godless, pagan, heathen, or morally bankrupt. Most European “discoverers” or settlers of the Americas, from Christopher Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors to the English in Virginia and Massachusetts, were convinced that the Native Americans they encountered were godless heathens. Slaveholders were convinced that Africans were pagan savages. The Germans were convinced that the Jews were the source of all their troubles. It is a very short leap from condemning another race or culture as “immoral” to justifying their enslavement or worse.
BIBLICAL VOICES
“And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you; all have come to pass for you….” (Josh. 23:14)
Having fulfilled his role of bringing the tribes into Israel and dividing the Promised Land among them, Joshua died at the age of 110.
MILESTONES IN BIBLICAL TIMES II
1568 BCE TO 1000 BCE
Prehistoric dating is often speculative and subject to substantial scholarly debate and revision. The following dates are generally used by a broad range of historians in a variety of books and publications. However, there are alternative dates suggested for some of these events. Among the most controversial is the radically different chronology suggested by Charles Pellegrino in his recent book Return to Sodom and Gomorrah. By pushing the date of the eruption of the volcano at Thera back to 1628 BCE (see 1470 below), Pellegrino creates a chronology that differs by a few hundred years from the traditional view of ancient Near East history. Accepting Pellegrino’s view has a significant impact on the dating of the dynasties of Egypt, the Exodus, the fall of Jericho, and a number of other biblical events discussed in this book.
1568/5 Ahmose I (Amosis, Amasis) expels the Hyksos from Egypt and begins the 18th Dynasty, or New Kingdom.
1545 Amosis I dies after twenty-year reign; his son succeeds as Amenhotep I.
1525 Amenhotep I dies after twenty-year reign; his successor will be known as Thutmose (Thutmosis) I.
• Thutmose I restores the Temple of Osiris at Abydos and builds the first tomb in the Valley of Kings.
1512 Thutmose I is deposed; his bastard son will reign as Thutmose (Thutmosis) II with his wife (and half-sister) Hatshepsut.
1504 Thutmose II dies; Hatshepsut rules as queen and regent for her infant nephew Thutmose (Thutmosis) III.
c. 1480 Thutmose III comes of age and begins a thirty-three-year reign in which Egypt will reach the heights of its power. The title “Pharaoh,” or “Great House,” will come into use under him. He attempts to obscure all references to his aunt Hatshepsut by building walls around her obelisks at Karnak.
1470 Volcanic eruption at Thera destroys Minoan civilization based on Crete. Seismic waves 100 to 160 feet high temporarily drop water level on eastern shores of Mediterranean; Egyptian lands are inundated by seawater from seismic waves; famine ensues. Many surmise that this culture provided the basis for the myth of the Lost City of Atlantis.
1450 Thutmose III dies; his son Amenhotep II invades Judea and Mesopotamia.
1419 Amenhotep II dies after thirty-four-year reign; succeeded by son Thutmose (Thutmosis) IV.
1400 Iron Age begins in Asia Minor as methods for smelting are devised.
1386 Thutmose IV dies and is succeeded by son Amenhotep (Amenophis) III the last great ruler of the New Kingdom.
1349 Amenhotep III dies after a thirty-eight-year reign. He is succeeded by his son, Amenhotep IV (also called Akhenaten, Ikhnaton, Akhnaton). During this period Egypt weakens when Hittites build an empire extending south from Anatolia (modern Turkey)