Scholars' Attitudes Towards the New Chronology In November 1998 a four-part version of the 'Pharaohs and Kings' television series was broadcast in Holland on the EO channel. The additional material used in this longer version of the original English language production consisted of interviews with various European academics who were for and against the New Chronology theory. The broadcast in Holland generated considerable public interest and, as a result, other scholars were asked to comment on what they had seen by the national press. The following quotations speak eloquently enough to need no reply. The quotes were published in an article entitled: 'A Rebel in the Desert' (Een Rebel in de Woestijn – David Rohl en het archeologisch bewijs voor Bijbelverhalen) which appeared on 12th December 1998. Professor H. M. Kuitert (Theologian): “It is totally uninteresting what this man (D. Rohl) says. The value of the biblical stories is not based on their being historically true. Some of them really do have a historical basis, but in most cases they reflect a strong epical character, in such away the question concerning their historicity must be left aside. … It is indeed questionable whether the story of the Exodus as we have it today, really happened the way we are told. Probably a certain group did leave Egypt, but that a whole nation left Egypt is only accepted by few historians.” Professor B. Becking (Old Testament scholar at Utrecht): “David Rohl? Never heard of him. Is he another of those idiots trying to mess up the accepted chronology? Well let us allow every fantasist to pursue his/her own interests. There exists no debate about his theories. We, however, occupy ourselves only with serious matters.” Dr. A. Egberts (Egyptologist at Leiden): “It's great for the masses but is nothing for Egyptologists. We can quickly get rid of him. For me David Rohl is an Egyptologist, who has published a popular book with an exciting viewpoint. A big publishing house publishes it. A documentary series then is added in order to propagate it. To the big masses his explanations sound extremely plausible. Yet Egyptologists punch a hole in it without effort. … Because of his reduction of the dates of the Third Intermediate Period, the beginning of the so-called New Kingdom must now also be shifted down. But that date is pretty settled, partly by Egyptian dates based on natural occurrences, such as Nile inundations, times of harvest and bird migration. As far as I know Rohl does not take account of these issues. … As there is such an enormous supply of new work done, one must pick and chose. New theories are being put forth constantly, and one cannot take everything seriously. … One can debate about the identification of Ramesses with Shishak, but Rohl's explanation sounds very complicated. One has to ask oneself whether or not the traditional view is more logical in the end.” H. Hagoort (Evangelische Omroep): “The strength of the documentary series is that the question of the reliability of the Bible is being looked at in a very different way and with a fresh perspective. David Rohl goes for a totally new approach. We broadcast the series, because we know that the debate about the historical value of God's Word occupies many people. … From our side there exists no spirit of triumph, as if we wanted to say: look we are right. We realize that it's influence in the academic world is not very great. Many find Rohl's ideas too radical. It does away with what is known, and people usually don't like that. The documentary however may cause discussion about the historical reliability of the Bible.” J. Dijkstra (Specialist on the relationship between Egypt and Canaan, University of Groningen): 'We have to be careful not to immediately reject new theories. One can also treat Rohl's story in a more positive light. His work focuses on the dark areas of scholarship. Those exist and those I believe will always remain. We dare not behave as if the race has been run. In certain areas academic evidence is very thin indeed. … It is quite acceptable that some dynasties were contemporaneous. That this causes a shift of several hundreds of years, however, I cannot accept. … For me Ramesses remains the one who built the great city of Raamses, as part of his impressive building projects. One can also not derive from the biblical text whether or not Shishak really reached Jerusalem and plundered its treasures. In 1 Kings 14:25-26 it is written that he marched against that city. The 'he'-figure in the text, who took the treasures from the house of the Lord, could equally as well have been Rehoboam. It is possible that he had sent some sort of tribute to pharaoh Shishak in order to redeem the city and avoid an attack. Such was for instance the case with king Hezekiah. … I expect that within a few decades from now, his work will have lost its attractive pull. His views narrow the academic perspective. He restricts himself to Egyptian and biblical sources and builds on them his historical argumentation. He then ignores many other issues. This I believe causes problems. … When Rohl argues that he has found the statue of Joseph, he misses his goal. Well, indeed scholars do agree that the statue represents a semitic official. But it really goes too far to identify this statue with Joseph. There are many more known examples of men of Palestinian-Asiatic background, who made career in Egypt. Joseph's case was in that respect not exceptional…. Look, this material remains confusing and we can discuss it. The further away one gets before Christ's birth, the margin of uncertainty grows bigger. Absolute truth is hard to find. Academic research in this areas is much like a jigsaw puzzle of which we possess about ten per cent of the pieces and of which the perfect model does not exist.”

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