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Introduction

Some Bad Archaeology is just so outrageously Bad that it can only be examined charitably by assuming that its proponents are slightly confused. How else can you explain the complete lack of critical judgment, the belief in ancient fairy stories, the utter absence of logical thought they display? Either that, or they have a particular agenda, usually driven by a religious viewpoint.

Creationism

Of all the forms of Bad Archaeology, creationism is perhaps the worst: its practitioners are frequently not of the honest-but-deluded category but are cynical manipulators whose principal interest is in the power they wield over their disciples and congregations. It’s not the creationist Bad Archaeologists who are confused, but their deluded followers. Creationism was the first hurdle that developing Good Archaeology overcame, back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The time has come to expose the dishonest charlatans who promote it for the evil frauds they really are.

Immanuel Velikovsky

Immanuel Velikovsky proposed an amazingly dynamic history of the solar system, with Venus and Mars originating as comets ejected by Jupiter, each having a close encounter with earth and participating in major events in human history (or the history of the ancient Hebrews, at least). This was all to support his reconstructed chronology of the Middle East during Bronze and Iron Ages, which involved down-dating Egyptian chronology to fit in with Biblical chronology, which he seems to have regarded as authoritative and unquestionable. However, he did not fall into the creationist camp: he was quite happy to reject the pre-flood chronology of Genesis.

Ahmed Osman

An Egyptian writer, Ahmed Osman, has identified Tjuya, the father-in-law of pharaoh Akhnaton, with the Biblical patriarch Joseph, Akhnaton himself with Moses and Akhnaton’s successor, Tut‘ankhamun, with Jesus of Nazareth. He uses verses from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Qur‘an and ancient texts to make his case. The identifications have not found favour with Egyptologists or Biblical historians. Why?

The New Chronology

Following in the footsteps of Immanuel Velikovsky, historian David Rohl has attempted to revise ancient Egyptian and other Middle Eastern chronology, largely to bring it into line with the Bible, which includes identifying an obscure Hyksos ruler with the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and identifying the mortuary statue of his son, Joseph. Although he does not specifically say that his reconstructed chronology was done for religious reasons, it is clear that he is desperate to harmonise other ancient documents with the Hebrew Bible.

This page was last updated on 17 August 2007
Written by Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews and James Doeser