Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest

by David Rohl

Rohl shows that a readjustment of Egyptian chronology puts the findings of archaeology in a new light and leads directly to the living world of biblical narratives. Pharaohs and Kings unveils the historical reality of such biblical personalities as Moses, David, and Solomon, and such archaeological wonders as the desecrated statue of Joseph in his coat of many colors. Basis of a series on The Learning Channel in January 1996. Photos.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Egyptology, Ancient History, Egypt, Religion

425 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Gary]

By re-adjusting the generally accepted historical dates, David Rohl essentially proves the broad veracity of the historical events recorded in the Bible.
As Robert Bianchi writes in the forward: "If the era of Israel's could possibly be re dated to last phases the Late Bronze Age, then the earlier events, recorded in the final chapter of the Book of Genesis and in the book of Exodus, might be reasonably accommodated in the late 12th dynasty (the Joseph story) and in the 13ht dynasty...This was the epoch which produced, at the city of Avaris, the most extensive traces of an Asiatic/Canaanite presence ever found in the l;and of the Pharaohs's.

Thus the author provides a watertight case though painstaking and meticulous research in dating, astronomy and archaeology among a variety of sciences to prove that the Israelites were in Egypt, and did migrate to the Holy Land, and that the historic figures of Joseph, Moses and Joshua did exist, as did the Israelite kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon. The author presents the archaeological evidence.
We do not have to wait for new evidence to come to light confirming the existence of David, Solomon, and the earlier charismatic Israelite leaders, Joseph and Moses, as all we have to do is take a look at the archaeological material we already posses from the new perspective of a revised Egyptian chronology.

He documents how the town which the Ramesses II plundered and which appears to be one of the high points in the year 8 campaign into the Levant, was called Shalem, the earliest known name for the holy city of Jerusalem.

Conclusions that Rohl comes to include:

* The archaeological evidence from the Lesser Vaults of the Serapeum suggests that the length of the Third Intermediate Period may have been artificially over-extended by historians.

* The burial of Djedptahefankh in the Royal Cache indicates that the 21st and 22nd dynasties were not
chronologically sequential, as is currently believed, but partly contemporary.

* There is no compelling evidence to suggest that Ramesses II was either the biblical Pharaoh of the Oppression or Exodus.
Rameses II was in fact the King Shishak who ransacked Jerusalem during the reign of the King of Judah, Rehoboam.
This is pointed to by the identification of Ramesses II as Shishak by Egyptian artefacts, reliefs and documents.

The author successfully removes a century from the chronology of the transition period between the late 19th century and the early Third Intermediate Period.

Rohl points out the fact that the El Armana EA 256 contains the names of five of the leading players from the Book of Samuel. The letter itself was written by Ishbaal son of Saul, who in turn refers to Joab, (David's military commander), Baanah (one of Israel's chieftains), David (ruler of Hebron and son-in-law of Saul) and finally Jesse, father of David.
The author also points out that the bonded Asiatic servants recorded in the various document of the fifth dynasty are to be identified with the 'mixed multitude' of Asiatics who eventually left Egypt under the leadership of Moses (Exodus 12:38). The Israelite population descended from Jacob, formed the major part of this group and a number of Hebrew/Israelite names can be recognized within the documents of this period.
Rohl reconstructs the life of Moses from Egyptian documentation paralleling the life of the Moses of the Bible. He also uncovers, and this is mentioned in the Talmud, that the young Moses was a general of the Pharaoh's who led an Egyptian campaign against the Ethiopians in the south.
The Pharaoh of the Exodus may be identified with Pharaoh Dudimose, 36th ruler of the 13th dynasty in whose reign according to Manetho, "G-D smote the Egyptians". The death-pits found at the end of Tell el-Daba stratum G/I might provide some archaeological evidence for the disasters associated with the Tenth Plague tradition of Exodus.

Also Rohl identifies the early Hyksos invaders of Egypt with Amalekite tribesman who migrated through Sinai from northern Arabia. The Hyksos ruled Syria and are the likely ancestors of the Arabs of Syria, Jordan, Northeast Egypt, the Moslem Lebanese and Palestinian Arabs.
The identification of the Hyksos with the Amalekites is verified in the Koran.
Rohl also identifies the person of Joseph as the Grand Visier who undertook major administrative and and agricultural reforms during the late 12th century of the Middle Kingdom.
Joseph, son of Jacob, was the vizier of Egypt during the reign of Amenemhat III- the most powerful pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom- and continued in office through the reins of the first rulers of the 13th dynasty.

The pyramid tomb and the palace of Joseph at Tell el Daba are identified.

This book identifies a watertight case for the basic facts historiagraphed in the Bible and disprove the lies of Jew-hating revisionist historians who wish to eradicate the link of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
This highly recommended volume re-establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt the veracity of that link.

[Charles Kimball]

This is the first of David Rohl's books, and so far the only one sold in the United States. Twenty years earlier, I read Immanuel Velikovsky's reconstruction of ancient history, and thus knew that there was something wrong with the conventional chronology laid out in most history books. Are 500-800 years missing from the chronology of the Old Testament, or have that many ghost years crept into Egyptian chronology? Unfortunately, Velikovsky never finished his reconstruction, so folks like myself wondered if it could be done.

Now David Rohl has taken on the challenge, looking at archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Israel and Syria to find out what really happened. In this book, he mainly covers dynasties 12-19, plus a little of dynasties 21 & 22 in Egyptian history, so like Velikovsky's "Ages In Chaos," this may only be the beginning.

If Rohl is right, we have a letter from King Saul on a clay tablet, a picture of King Solomon from an ivory piece at Megiddo, the tomb of his Egyptian wife in Jerusalem (within easy walking distance of the Garden Tomb), the fallen walls of Jericho, Joshua's altar at Shechem, graves in Egypt of the victims of the tenth plague, and the villa and tomb of Joseph.

I couldn't put it down, and look forward to seeing how he reconstructs the rest of ancient history in future books.

[Michael Laflamme]

Satisfying! This was a good synthesis of David Rohl's ideas about Biblical chronology. In the last 20 years, there have been other complaints about the timelines of Egyptology and known events of the Bronze age and early Iron age, but no one has investigated the chronology to the extant of David and associates. For the lay person, at least 2 troubling things come to mind. For generations, archeology in general and Egyptology in particular have been the province of elite, European aristocratic and academic traditions. The idea of random elites taking archeology holidays for amusement should give modern science the willies. (Heinrich Schliemann comes to mind.) On this basis alone, some of the oldest pet ideas should rightly be subject to greater modern academic scrutiny and peer review. Now, in the 21st century, with civilization and monumental architecture being pushed farther and farther back with new discoveries and new technology, old caveats need to be re-examined. David Rohl does this masterfully.

[Joel Toppen]

Dr Rohm’s theory is explained in a way that is both easy to follow and understand. I believe he’s on to something though I don’t entirely buy all of his conclusions. This certainly merits further study.

[Regina Beard]

Pharaohs and Kings by David M. Rohl exposes the need for a re-evaluation of Egyptian chronology. Since the beginning of the science called Egyptology, sequential dating of the pharaohs has been problematic and shortsighted. The very idea that scholars in this field of study have never questioned the official historical timeline is disconcerting and unscholarly. I commend Rohl for picking up a conversation that is rarely discussed among Egyptologists. In his book, Pharaohs and Kings, Rohl uses archaeology to unravel the chaos of the official timeline, creating a “New Chronology” that is just as relevant as any other timeline offered over the previous century. 

Rohl’s thesis, “The objective of this book is to argue straightforwardly that the narratives contained in the Old Testament are consistent with the general cultural setting revealed through Egyptian and Levantine archaeology - once the correct chronology is applied” (page 38), is a hefty objective, but he convincingly demonstrates evidence along with well-reasoned speculation to prove his thesis. Granted, the speculative portions of Pharaohs and Kings are hard to accept but, with luck, perhaps even the speculations will reveal the historicity of his claims in due time. 

Of course, there are some problems that are either unclear or should be reconsidered and re-interpreted. First, Rohl’s interpretation of the mass graves found at Tell ed-Daba at stratum G/1 is puzzling. He associates the mass grave as evidence of the last plague on Egypt, the death of the firstborn sons. If the site of Tell ed-Daba is where the Israelites settled while in Egypt, then one would think that you would not find graves like this. According to Exodus 11, the Israelites were spared from the horrors of the plagues on Egypt, so there should not be any mass graves discovered there if these are indeed the same Israelites of the Exodus. Also, I was not convinced by his evidence of interpreting the names of people in the Bible with corresponding names found in Assyria, Palestine, and Egypt. The premise it that the name meanings are the same so they must be the same person. This argument is compelling, but more investigating should be done to solidify the theory.

Much of Rohl’s interpretation of the biblical narratives are impressive for a scholar who claims to not be a Christian; although, I do take issue with a couple of statements made, especially about the age of the Patriarchs. There is no evidence to suggest that Moses was not 80 years old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Rohl’s flippant opinions about the years mentioned in the Bible are concerning. There is no evidence to suggest that the information is wrong (except the point about how long the Israelites were in Egypt) simply because it is a “round” number. There is a lot of symbolism that takes place when discussing numbers in the biblical narratives but, at the same time, they are not rounded numbers either. Also, on page 321, Rohl says that Jacob is Abraham’s son, which is incorrect. Isaac was Abraham's son; Jacob is Isaac’s twin son (Esau being the other twin). When dealing with genealogy, attention to details such as this is crucial, especially when laying out a controversial thesis. If Rohl is wrong on simple biblical genealogy, is he also wrong about the Egyptian genealogy? Also, if you are wrong on the minute information, then you could be wrong about the big picture.

[Ashley Cunningham]

Rohl has a fascinating premise: the dating system for Ancient Egypt and for its dynasties and historical events, as currently used by modern historians, is wrong and thus messes up our understanding of Israel's (and later also Judah's) history and its ties to Egypt. And while he offers up some interesting evidence (I admittedly don't know much about Ancient Egypt and can't thus can't critique him there), I did find some problems in his line of thinking.

The biggest one was that Rohl is not a Christian and thus doesn't view the Bible as the inspired Word of God. So, he has no qualms about shortening Israel's time in Egypt by two hundred years (Barry Setterfield, in my opinion, has done a better job at calculating potential years for Biblical event), which is a pretty big gap in time and would definitely mess up his chronology, especially for the arrival of Joseph and later for Jacob and the rest of the family. His attitude towards the Israelites also feels a bit condemning, especially when talking about how they invaded and took over Canaan in their bloody conquests, which is not surprising given the general modern attitude of historians towards Israel and their twisting of the Bible (I got a taste of this recently in my world history class).

Needless to say, Rohl did put forth some interesting physical and linguistic evidence for his theory, which did give me much to think about. However, I wish that he had made the writing and organization of the book clearer. He didn't go in strict chronological order and sometimes jumped around (especially in regards to Israel's history), which was a bit confusing; it would have been easier to follow if he had started from the latest date and then gone straight backwards. Rohl did tend to be rather technical, especially in regards to him talking about archaeological sites and physical proof, and it went a bit over my head; there is a way to explain things to readers who are not familiar with the technical aspects, but unfortunately Rohl didn't go that route. A final writing problem was that Rohl ended the book rather abruptly and offering no conclusion or even an overview (which he did several times throughout the book) to remind the reader of what he has been proposing throughout the book; if high school and college papers need conclusions, then so do books like this.

Again, the book had some fascinating ideas, but I don't think I'm fully convinced of Rohl's work. I do think, however, that we do need to take another look at the Egyptian timeline and find a better way to sort out the country's history, especially in regards to its interactions with the rest of the Mediterranean during those years.

[Maurice Williams]

In "Pharaohs and Kings," David Rohl tackles a problem that has long troubled Egyptologists: the correct dating of events in ancient Egyptian history.

When Champollion deciphered a hieroglyphics text written on the Rosetta Stone, he gave the world the key to Egyptian history as the Egyptians themselves wrote it. As time went by, scholars found practically no confirmation of Biblical history in the Egyptian texts. Scholars had identified four events in Egyptian history to known dates. Based on these "four Pillars," historians tried to date other events in Egyptian history. Then they tried to match dates with events about Egypt mentioned in the Bible. The dates matched so poorly that many historians viewed the Biblical accounts as pure myth. Some scholars began to have doubts about the accuracy of the intermeshed dates. In 1952, Immanuel Velikovsky wrote his "Ages in Chaos" in which proposed that Egyptian history is out of synchronization with biblical history some six hundred years. He claimed that scholars were looking in the wrong century for confirmation of events mentioned in the Bible.

Forty-three years later, David Rohl, a professional Egyptologist, published "Pharaohs and Kings." Rohl devoted twenty years of research on the four pillars of Egyptian history. His work focused on recent archaeological discoveries, particularly a catch of mummified Apis bulls. Apis bulls were considered by the Egyptians, to be the sacred dwelling place of gods. When the bulls died, they were carefully mummified. Rohl was able to construct an unbroken line of dates for the bulls and for the pharaohs who reigned when the bulls lived.

Through his studies, Rohl was able to date when the biblical Joseph arrived in Egypt. Rohl found evidence that Joseph arrived around 1662 B.C. when Amenenhat III was pharaoh. It was Amenenhat III who appointed Joseph to administer the storage and distribution of grain. Rohl found the tomb of Joseph and also found a statue of Joseph at the tomb. With a reliable date for Joseph, Rohl concluded that the Exodus happened between 1417 to 1450 B.C., when Dudimose was pharaoh.

This Fascinating book by David Rohl has beautiful photos and illustrations, and informative charts that take the reader through the evidence that caused Rohl to come to his conclusions. This book is a "must read" for anyone interested in ancient Egypt and the interaction between the Egyptians and the Israelites.

[David Barker]

This is an excellent discussion about the need to revise conventional Egyptian chronology, and once certain revisions are made, the synchronizations between Egyptian and Biblical histories match up much better. Excellent photography and research.

He wrote: "Many people continue to hope that evidence will come to light confirming the existence of David, Solomon and even the earlier charismatic leaders of Israel such as Joseph and Moses. However, it is my belief that it is no longer necessary to wait for such evidence—all we need do is take a look at the archaeological material we already possess from the new perspective of a revised Egyptian chronology." (p. 34)

[Johanna]

This was a very good book. I gave it four stars for the same reason I gave Mere Christianity a four....it was difficult to read. Often times I had to go back and re-read but it was worth it in the long run.

[J.R. Hardesty]

Interesting reading, but his premise is not without problems. It has not fared well in reviews by egyptologists. Still, it's worth reading. Well illustrated.

[The other John]

I recently listened to an interview with Dr. Rohl on the Humble Skeptic podcast, and wanted to read his book, Exodus: Myth or History? to dig a bit deeper. Unfortunately, that book was not in the local library systems and the asking price for the paper copy was way out of my price range. However, SPL did have a copy of this earlier book by Dr. Rohl, which covers a lot of the stuff he talked about.

In Pharaohs and Kings: A Biblical Quest, Dr. Rohl challenges the standard chronology of ancient Egypt and ancient Israel that had been established by scholars. He describes how that chronology is based on four key anchor points, then explains why he thinks three of those four are erroneous. Next Dr. Rohl establishes the basis for revising that chronology, based on linguistic and archaeological evidence. Finally, he presents archaeological discoveries that, now dated with the new chronology, fit in with historical accounts from the Bible of Solomon, Saul, David, Moses, and Joseph. (This is the part that grabbed my interest when I listened to the podcast.)

Not being that much into history, many details presented in the book went over my head. But the gist of his logic and arguments were fairly well presented. In the discussion, Dr. Rohl pointed out a number of assumptions that went into establishing the old chronology. Then, as he presented his new chronology and the physical evidence of the Biblical narrative, I noticed that he was making his own educated guesses. Having played historian with researching my family tree, I recognize that those guesses are a legitimate tool in trying to piece together history.

All in all, I enjoyed reading the book. I recognize I'm very willing to accept Dr. Rohl's conclusions, as they would corroborate my own beliefs. But the book also offered a picture of how people were living "back in Bible times". Go check it out.

[Rob Perry]

I was quite disappointed in David Rohl's book. While I don't doubt the need for revisions to the dates in which some Pharaoh's reigned, Rohl presented his theories as facts while readily admitting more research is needed.
A far better book on the chronology of the Egyptian Dynasties is John Ashton and David Down's book, Unwrapping the Pharaohs, in which they question some of Rohl's numerous assumptions.
I further was disappointed that a large section of the book was dedicated to Rohl reworking of the Biblical dates for some of the Kings of Israel in an attempt, based on flimsy evidence, to align certain kings into his preconceived New Chronology for the Pharaohs. He then went on to say (in 1995) he planned to rework the Assyrian chronology of their Kings' reigns. Let's hope he never got around to doing that.

[Edward Dervar Jr]

Read a long time ago and also viewed the two DVD set of Pharaohs and Kings many times. I believe David's evidence makes a strong case against the conventional time line but the establishment won't buy it.

[Todd Kirby]

Very intriguing research. Rohl provides evidence that the entire Egyptian Third Intermediate Period is off by about 150-200 years due to kings who served concurrently instead of sequentially. He uses not only archaeological data, but also astronomical information and data from early Egyptian historians.

[Georgene]

I've read a lot of Biblical, Egyptian and Middle Eastern history. I was a Middle Eastern Studies and Anthropology major in college (back when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth, according to my children). I found this book heavy going, but very much worth reading!

[Ian Muttoo]

Enjoyed reading this one again!