Evidentiary Archaeology - LexiLine Journal 355

In the previous post I referred to the idea that the materials in LexiLine and elsewhere posted by this author stem from the school of evidentiary archaeology, of which I am the founder, rather than from the schools of cultural history, processual archaeology or postprocessual archaeology.

We can illustrate the principle of evidentiary archaeology with a simple hypothetical example.

Let us presume that a people X initially lived in country A and that in the course of history this people moved to country B. Many thousands of years later, in the written records of people X, we find detailed accounts of the ancient magnificent reigns and exploits of their many early kings, for which, however, we find no archaeological record in country B. At the same time, we find extensive archaeological evidence of magnificent reigns of kings in country A.

Which answer below is more probable as a logical matter?

1. The kings referred to in the ancient written records of people X could be the kings of country A.
2. The kings referred to in country B actually existed in country B but somehow disappeared from the face of the earth, leaving no archaeological record.
3. The written records are a monumental fiction, for whatever purpose.

The obvious, logical answer is number 1. The kings referred to in the ancient written records of people X could be the kings of country A.

This hypothetical question actually repeats the actual real-life situation with respect to the Hebrew records of their ancient kings. The Hebrews were first in Egypt and then moved to Israel, according to the Biblical account. The Old Testament is full of detailed accounts of the reigns and exploits of many kings. Rather than examining alternative 1, however, mainstream archaeology, caught in the traps of cultural history, and processual and postprocessual archaeology, has selected option 2 (with some persons even opting for option 3). How stupid is that?

What amuses about option 2, which is the prevailing option in mainstream archaeology, is that it would also mean that people X had lost ALL memory of their sojourn in country A and the kings that ruled that country, writing only about country B. How likely is that?

For all of their fancy titles, the cultural historians and processual and postprocessual archaeologists appear to be intellectual simpletons who are unable to examine the most logical alternative, that the kings referred to in the Old Testament are those of Egypt, with all of the ramifications that such an analysis has for the history of civilization.

Why is option 1 above not being examined by mainstream archaeology?

The first major reason is the fact that the Egyptian hieroglyphs were only recently deciphered (and this has been done only partly). Prior to that time, no connection was seen between Egypt and the Hebrews, who had their own known language and their own known country.

The second major reason is that it was thus assumed that the Hebrew account of the exploits of kings applied to Israel, and not to the country which the Hebrews occupied prior to Exodus, i.e. Egypt.

This assumption was demonstrably false.

I can only shake my head in disbelief at the nonsense being churned out in mainstream archaeology in this regard and continue to point at the evidence, which clearly indicates the kings of the Old Testament are the kings of Egypt.