Latest News
NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Simcha Jacobvici
Exodus
The Biblical Exodus has been linked by some with the time of the destruction of Atlantis. J. G. Bennett has firmly identified the 2nd millennium BC eruption of Thera with the destruction of Atlantis(f) and in turn, the effect of the volcanic fallout on the Egyptian nation generating the Plagues of Egypt recorded in Exodus.
The fixing of the date of the biblical Exodus is still debated, compounding the broader problem of synchronising the Bronze Age chronologies of the eastern Mediterranean. The early arguments were usually the preserve of biblical scholars(t). However, a wider audience became aware of some of the difficulties when Immanuel Velikovsky published Ages in Chaos [039] and offered some solutions. Since then further revisions have been proposed by Peter James and David Rohl, but the Exodus date is still not definitively fixed(m)(y)(z). On top of all that, other events that should provide reliable chronological ‘anchors’, such as the Trojan War or the eruption of Thera continue to generate dispute as well.
Dr Hans Goedicke, a leading Austrian Egyptologist, expressed a similar view regarding an Exodus link in a 1981 lecture, leading to quite a media stir(c). Ian Wilson, best known for The Turin Shroud, has calculated that the volcanic plume from the Theran eruption would have been clearly visible from the Nile Delta [979.112].
Film-makers Simcha Jacobvici and James Cameron collaborated on the 2006 two-hour documentary The Exodus Decoded, in which, among other matters, it claims that the biblical Exodus took place a couple of hundred years before the generally accepted date(aa). A review in The Jerusalem Post(ab) noted that none of the arguments made in the film were accepted by mainstream archaeology and that Jacobovici freely admitted his lack of academic credentials.
Riaan Booysen believes(b) that two Exodus events can be linked with three possible Theran eruptions and has identified the Israelites as the Hyksos. Ralph Ellis has also linked the biblical Exodus with the expulsion of the Hyksos and devoted a short book[0656] to the idea.
Russell Jacquet-Acea, an American researcher, has written a three-part paper on dating the biblical Exodus, that includes the radical suggestion that there were three exoduses from Egypt(m)(n)(o).
Immanuel Velikovsky and others believed that the controversial Ipuwer Papyrus provides evidence in support of the biblical Exodus as well as the ‘Plagues of Egypt’(d). In 2018, Anne Habermehl delivered a paper to a creationist conference in which she concluded: “that the Ipuwer Papyrus displays strong extra-biblical evidence for the historicity of the Exodus in its description of a chaotic Egypt that would have resulted from the biblical 10 plagues.”(i).
Emilio Spedicato links the biblical Exodus with the explosion of Phaëton in 1447 BC, without any reference to the destruction of Atlantis, which, based on his interpretation of Plato’s text, he associates with a much earlier catastrophe(a). He also associates these events with the Flood of Deucalion as well as some people migrations that “took place essentially at the same time”(x).
Alfred de Grazia offers a radical interpretation of the Exodus in God’s Fire [1538], in which he saw the Exodus as a highly organised, rather than an opportunistic event. He also attributed some level of electrical knowledge to Moses, whom he credits with the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, if not the ‘invention’ of Yahweh himself!
Perhaps the most extreme Exodus theory has been presented by Finkelstein & Silberman, who have claimed that “the saga of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt is neither historical truth nor literary fiction” [280.70]. However, the same disbelieving Finkelstein is now going on a search for the Ark of the Covenant(e)!
Flavio Barbiero has now produced an extensive paper(g) in which he precisely dates the Exodus to the night between the 14th and 15th of July of 1208 B.C. (2/3 July of today).
It is important to point out that the historical reality of the Exodus is now being scrutinised as never before, generating growing scepticism. Both Jewish and Christian scholars have expressed serious doubts(s).
Walter R. Mattfeld wrote in a 2021 paper “My research on the Exodus has concluded that it is fiction, but a myth or fiction which has behind it real events which can be recovered via archaeological findings. My research endeavors are to identify the possible real events that came to be recast or reinterpreted as the Bible’s fictional Exodus. In other words, What’s behind these events that is recoverable via archaeological findings? Basically, I see two historical events, grounded in archaeological data, as behind the Exodus: (1) The Hyksos Expulsion of circa 1530 BC (2) The Iron Age I settlements that suddenly appear in Edom, Moab and Canaan 1200 BC to 1100 BC.These two events are separated in time by roughly 300 years.“ (w)
William Austin is just one of many who have devoted years to a study of the Exodus dating controversy. The result of his labours is Before the Exodus, a 500-page offering and a condensed version of From Noah to Moses now available on the academia.edu website(u) together with a number of other papers.
“If and when the Exodus occurred is one of the most controversial topics in biblical scholarship. Religious fundamentalists believe it is absolutely true. Skeptics doubt it occurred at all, and neither has any means to prove their case! My approach to the problem has been to assume that much of the controversy is due to an erasure of factual Israelite history in the Old Testament account. It is very difficult to read the Old Testament, then to scroll through Egyptian history and say, “Aha! There’s the Exodus. Read the Bible here; read the papyrus there… See, it all matches. Case closed.” It is very difficult, or it would have been done. This is not to say that the Exodus didn’t occur, it just didn’t occur exactly as recorded in the Old Testament of Christian Bibles.”
Gérard Gertoux noted that estimates for the date of the Exodus ranged from 2150 to 650 BC and so to narrow such an extensive range, he embarked on a forensic study of the problem. In a book(p), The Pharaoh of the Exodus: Fairy tale or real history? [1890] and a 22-page paper(h)(h2) he identified Pharoah Seqenenre Taa, who died on 10 May 1533 BC, as the Pharoah of the Exodus.
Unfortunately, the biblical Exodus has generated several controversies; was it a historical reality, its precise date, the route taken and the identity of the pharaoh of the Exodus? Regarding the last, Rameses II is linked by many with the Exodus, while others have nominated Tutankhamun (Collins & Ogilvie-Herald [1898]), Dudimose (Velikovsky(j), Rohl [229]), Amenemhat IV (Habermehl(k)) Ramesess V (Aboulfotouh(l)) and to these, we may add many others who have been proposed(k). This debate has a long way to go yet.
A more recent (April 2022) article by Jonah Cohen highlights the range of individuals proposed as the pharaoh of the Exodus and suggests that the mystery may not be solvable!(q) Another 2022 article by Gerald Eising opted firmly for Amenhotep II(r).
As you can see the actual date of the Exodus is disputed, but the difficulties don’t end there. Moses the charismatic leader of the Israelites has generated a separate set of problems. Ahmed Osman is just one commentator who has has identified Moses as the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten [1849]. Graham Phillips, among others, claims that Moses was two different people, living at different times [0034]! Immanuel Velikovsky has linked Akhenaten with Oedipus in Greek mythology [2041]. D.M.Murdock concluded [2058] that Moses cannot be discovered in history, whether as Akhenaten or another historical personage. Compounding all this confusion is the idea that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch and yet, in it, he managed to describe his own death and burial!!
(See: Red Sea)
(a) https://interval.louisiana.edu/conferences/2007_Stenger/Slides_of_talks/mose8-6.pdf
(b) https://riaanbooysen.com/misc/167-book-announcement (link broken) See (v)
(c) Archive 2490 | (atlantipedia.ie)
(e) https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2017/02/new-search-begins-for-the-ark-of-the-covenant/
(f) https://www.systematics.org/journal/vol1-2/geophysics/systematics-vol1-no2-127-156.htm
(g) https://www.q-mag.org/a-precise-chronology-of-exodus.html
(h) (99+) (PDF) Absolute chronology of Exodus | Gerard GERTOUX – Academia.edu
(i) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329770320_The_Ipuwer_Papyrus_and_the_Exodus
(j) The True Story of Moses and the Pharaoh According to Velikovsky (hermetics.org)
(q) Who was the Exodus Pharaoh? (jns.org)
(r) Who was the Pharaoh of Exodus? – Tidings
(s) https://aroyking.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/has-archaeology-proven-that-the-biblical-exodus-is-a-myth/
(t) https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_exodus_date.html
(u) https://www.academia.edu/20426570/The_Hebrew_chronology_from_Noah_to_Moses_corrected_for_half-years
(v) Microsoft Word – Addendum to Thera_and_the_Exodus -Nov_2020.docx (riaanbooysen.com)
(w) (99+) The Archaeological Evidence for the Exodus being a Myth | Walter R. Mattfeld – Academia.edu
(x) The-Deucalion-catastrophe.pdf (atlantis.fyi)
(y) bmh_exodusdate_kmtsummer94.pdf (biblemythhistory.com)
(z) Talk Reason
(aa) https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Documentary-sets-new-date-for-Exodus *
(ab) Documentary sets new date for Exodus – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com) *
Tarshish
Tarshish is a city referred to about a dozen times in the Bible and has been widely accepted as another version of Tartessos. Josephus, the Jewish historian who wrote during the 1st century AD, was confident that it referred to Tarsus in Cilicia, Turkey, the birthplace of St. Paul. The Septuagint Bible uses Karkendonos where it refers to Tarshish in Isaiah 23:1, which was the Greek form of the name for North African Carthage. This could imply that the founders of Carthage and Tarsus were the same. We know that Carthage was founded by Tyrians and we also know that Cilix, a Tyrian, gave his name to Cilicia when he settled it. Andis Kaulins has claimed that Carthage was possibly built on the remains of Tartessos (i)!
Immanuel Velikovsky was of the opinion that “Tarshish was the name employed by the writers of the Old Testament to designate Crete as a whole, or its chief city Knossos.” as explained in a paper by his former associate Jan Sammer(m).
In 2008, Rainer Kühne published a paper titled Tartessos-Tarshish was the model for Plato’s Atlantis in which he identifies Tartessos as Tharshish, locates it in the Donana Marshes of southern Spain and suggests that it lasted from the tenth to the sixth centuries BC(p).
Utica was a Phoenician port city on the northern coast of what is now Tunisia. It no longer exists and its site is now some miles inland because of silting. It is also one of a number of suggested locations for Tarshish(f).
Tarshish/Tartessos is thought by many others to be alternative names for Atlantis. There is a consensus that it was a coastal city in Southern Spain, near modern Cadiz. Despite the efforts of many, its location is still unknown, which can probably be explained by the fact that the coastline has altered considerably over time. Adolf Schulten, who was convinced that Tartessos was Atlantis, spent many years searching, unsuccessfully, for Tarshish in Andalusia. Louis Millette is a modern writer who supports this identification but has offered little by way of evidence.
>>On March 20, 2011, The Jerusalem Post reported(s) that according to filmmaker Simcha Jacobvici, “it is generally acknowledged that the Biblical Tarshish is what the historians call Tartessos, which was in southern Spain. In the Tanach, Tarshish is a great city with a huge navy, with silver and gold. Jonah sails towards Tarshish. Solomon has naval expeditions with Tarshish. Tarshish disappears from the Biblical record. Tartessos disappears from the historical record.” Says Jacobovici, “Tarshish is Atlantis itself.”<<
In 1927, Edwin Björkman devoted a third of his book, Search for Atlantis [181] to a discussion of Tarshish and its possible connection with Atlantis.
Other locations have been suggested, such as Tharros in Sardinia, Troy and even Malta where Tarxien may be considered an echo of Tarshish. Tharros sometimes referred to as a ‘second Carthage’ had its port located as recently as 2008(d). The suggestion that Tharros was Tarshish was based on their similar-sounding names and the reference to Tarshish in the Phoenician inscription on the ‘Nora Stone’ discovered at Nora on the south coast of Sardinia in 1773.
The Brit-Am organisation, which seeks to identify the ten lost tribes of Israel has published an extensive series of papers about Tarshish(n). Responding to a question about Atlantis and Tarshish they wrote – “Atlantis does seem to have existed and does appear to have been somewhere in the Atlantic coastal area. Tarshish is a good candidate or at the least would have had some contact with Atlantis.”(o)
Quite a variety of locations have been offered as the site of Tarshish(f)(k).
Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1832), a British cartographer and geographer was of the view that “Tartessus was a territory established by adventurous traders who settled in the Iberian peninsula after moving from the ancient city of Tarsus in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).” [1761]
It is accepted that biblical silver was sourced from ‘Tarshish’, initially assumed to be Tartessos in Spain. Recent studies employing lead isotope tests, when applied to Phoenician silver hoards(g) revealed that both Spain and Sardinia were possible sources. However, it might be argued that the Nora Stone may give Sardinia a somewhat stronger claim.
A contribution to a historum.com forum offers additional support for the idea of a Sardinian Tarshish(r).
A more radical idea was put forward in 2012 by the Spanish researcher, José Angel Hernández, who proposed that the Tarshish of the Bible was to be found in the coastal region of the Indus Valley and that Tartessos was a colony of the Indus city of Lhotal and had been situated on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar!(a)(b) This view is apparently supported by biblical references (1 Kings 9:26, 22:48; 2 Chr. 9:21) that note that the ‘ships of Tarshish’ sailed from Ezion-Geber on the Red Sea’s Gulf of Aqaba!
Jim Allen, who has been the leading supporter for decades of the idea of Atlantis being situated in the northern Andes, has also proposed that Tarshish had been a South American city. “The more probable site of Tarshish however lies on an island at the entrance to the Pilcomayo River opposite Asuncion, since satellite photos show that at this point the Pilcomayo forks into two arms exactly as per the ancient text, creating an island between the arms of the river. Moreover also in accordance with the ancient text, the river discharges into a broad bay – the Bay of Asuncion and this part of the Paraguay River also comprises shallows and sandbanks.”(l) This demonstrates that Allen saw Atlantis and Tarshish as separate entities.
However, if Tarshish was another name for Atlantis and according to the bible it existed at the time of Solomon, circa 1000 BC, we are confronted with a contradiction of Plato’s 9,000 years elapsing since the destruction of Atlantis and the visit of Solon to Sais. King Jehoshaphat reigned around 860 BC and planned to send a fleet to Tarshish, just 200 years before Solon, so the likelihood of Tarshish being Atlantis is a rather remote possibility.
A recent suggestion by a Dutch commentator, Leon Elshout, places the biblical Tarshish in Britain(h) an idea supported by a Christadelphian website(j).
(a) https://joseangelh.wordpress.com/category/mito-y-religion/
(b) https://joseangelh.wordpress.com/category/arqueologia-e-historia/
(c) https://www.academia.edu/5812547/Tharros_the_megalithic_city
(f) https://www.notjustanotherbook.com/tarshish.htm
(h) https://roodgoudvanparvaim.nl/8-tarshish-as-great-britain-and-the-paradox-with-atlantis/
(i) Pillars of Heracles – Alternative Location (archive.org)
(j) Incredible Archaeological Find Proves Tarshish Is Britain! (archive.org)
(k) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarshish#Sardinia
(l) http://www.geocities.ws/myessays/LocationofTarshish.htm
(m) https://www.varchive.org/nldag/tarshish.htm
(n) https://www.britam.org/Questions/QuesTarshish.html
(o) Scroll down to Question 2 in (n)
(p) https://vixra.org/pdf/1103.0040v1.pdf
(q) tarshishtarsus (bibleorigins.net)
(r) https://historum.com/t/the-nuragic-civilization-of-sardinia-was-it-tarshish.127443/
(s) https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-news/the-deepest-jewish-encampment *