From: Hermit (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Tue May 07 2002 - 12:10:34 MDT
Kharin from my consensus prehistoric timeline now slightly extended into the historic era (a lot more detail to come):
9000 BCE: Beginning of the Neolithic (New Stone) age.
7500 BCE: "Wet Holocene" period; northern Africa (the Sahara) green and wet but beginning to desiccate
5000 BCE: Neolithic Age: Beginnings of agriculture, the domestication of animals, pottery, villages.
4500 BCE: Use of gold, silver, copper, and the wheel (for transportation and pottery)
3500 BCE: Bronze Age: Beginnings of civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia (Sumerians); cities, irrigation, political systems, writing.
3000 BCE: Kingdom of Assyrians founded on the Tigris river. bureaucracy, surplus, warehousing, taxes, accounting, gold mines
2800 BCE: Pyramid of Djoser erected near Cairo; Gilgamesh king of Uruk.
2700 BCE: Building of great pyramids in Egypt; Ur graves show fine arts, distant trade for gold, gems, spices
2500 BCE: Extremely rapid desertification of Northern Africa. Walled cities in Egypt and Mesopotamia suggest insecurity
2430 BCE: earliest record of slaves being sold in Mesopotamia
2300 BCE: Invasion of the Tigris-Euphrates valley and Sumerian cities by Sargon, king of the Akkads. Sargon unites Mesopotamia around capital Akkad
2200 BCE: Serious drought in Middle East. Disappearance of the Saraswati. Collapse of Harrapan civilization.
2000 BCE: Amorite invasions of the Tigris-Euphrates valley; beginning of Old Babylonian period. Uruk reaches 60k pop. Sumerian revival in the Tigris-Euphrates valley.
2000-1600 BCE: Brutal climate change in North Africa
c1800 BCE: Sumerian King List compiled; first Chinese dynasty; Height of Minoan civilization on Crete; Hebrews moving westward from Ur in Mesopotamia.
1792 BCE: Hammurabi becomes king of the Babylonians until 1750 BCE
1628 BCE: Thera explodes
1600 BCE: Beginning of power of Mycenaean civilization in Greece. Major famines throughout the near-East.
1550 BCE: Kassites overthrow the Old Babylonians in the Tigris-Euphrates valley.
1500 BCE: Development of first real alphabet by Phoenicians. Minoan civilization begins to wane.
1400 BCE: Destruction of Minoan civilization.
1362 BCE: end of Akhnaton's 17-year reign (conventional dating)
1300 BCE: Expansion of the Assyrian kingdom.
1250 BCE: Trojan War
1208 BCE: oldest known asserted mention of "Israel"
c1200 BCE: migrations caused by drying climate? (deforestation???)
1150 BCE: Disaster in Mycenaean civilization; Greece much weakened as a power.
1000 BCE: Beginning of Greek migrations to Ionia (west coast of Asia Minor). Height of Phoenician civilization; major traders in the Mediterranean.
c950 BCE: Supposed time of the mythical kings of Israel, David and Solomon. Israel not yet monotheistic
922 BCE: Hebrews divide into kingdoms of Israel and Judah (N/S).
800 BCE: no bible texts yet; ritual sacrifice of 1st born (Morlech?)
800 BCE: Greek city-states develop; Greek alphabet.
776 BCE: Olympic games.
753 BCE: Traditional date of the founding of Rome.
c750 BCE: J's Eden, Eve, and Adam; Hosea anticipates(?) ten commandments; Approximate date of Iliad (in Ionia); Height of Assyrian Empire; Gilgamesh written down in Assyrian language in Nineveh.
725 BCE: Approximate date of the Odyssey; may have been written as late as 700.
c730 BCE: Hesiod's myths of creation
722 BCE: The height of the Assyrian [Babylonian] empire begins; Assyrians eventually conquer nearly all of the near east; Assyrians destroy northern kingdom (Israel still not yet monotheistic)
700 BCE: touchstone makes uniform coinage possible, starting in Lydia
622 BCE: Hilkiah sends 'book of the law' (Deuteronomy?) to Josiah
594 BCE: Solon's reforms in Athens. Sappho (born about 612) the poet active on Lesbos. Thales the philosopher active in Miletus (in Ionia).
586 BCE: Capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar [the Babylonian]; beginning of Hebrew Exile in Babylon.
560 BCE: Peisistratus becomes tyrant in Athens.
559 BCE: Rise of Persian Empire under Cyrus; 550: he conquers Media: 546: Lydia;
545 BCE: the Greek cities of Ionia, dies 530.
551 BCE: Death of Zoroaster (628-551)
539 BCE: Hebrews return from exile in Babylon. Beginning of Achaemenid Empire in Iran
509 BCE: Traditional date of the overthrow of kings at Rome.
508 BCE: Democratic constitution set up at Athens by Cleisthenes. Active in Athens during the fifth century are Aeschylus (525?-456?), Sophocles (496?-406?), Euripides (480?-406), Herodotus (484-420?), Thucydides (471-400?), Socrates (469-399), Aristophanes (448-380?).
499 BCE: Greek cities in Ionia revolt from Persia, with help from Athens; revolt is put down in 494.
490 BCE: First Persian expedition to mainland Greece; defeated by Athens at the Battle of Marathon.
480 BCE: Second Persian expedition to Greece (under Xerxes); defeated by Greek alliance at the sea-battle of Salamis (480) and land-battle of Plataea (479).
478 BCE: Formation of Delian League under the leadership of Athens to free Ionia and Greek island city-states.
456 BCE: Treasury of Delian League moved to Athens; League now called the Athenian Empire.
431 BCE: Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta; will last sporadically for almost 30 years.
415 BCE: Athenian expedition to conquer Sicily; the expedition and almost the entire navy of Athens completely destroyed in 413.
404 BCE: Athens surrenders to Sparta.
399 BCE: Trial and execution of Socrates. Active in Athens during the fourth and third centuries are Plato (427-347), Aristotle (384-322), Epicurus (342-270), Zeno the Stoic (320-250).
338 BCE: Battle of Chaeronea, near Thebes; conquest of mainland Greece by Philip II of Macedonia.
336 BCE: Accession of Alexander the Great of Macedon, followed by his conquest of Persia (including Phoenicia, Egypt, Babylon), Bactria (Turkestan), Afghanistan and northwest India.
323 BCE: Death of Alexander and division of his empire among his generals. After various struggles the Seleucid dynasty takes over Persia, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Syria; the Ptolemies hold Egypt, Phoenicia, and Palestine. Athens and most other Greek states continued (on and off) under Macedonian rule.
264 BCE: First Punic War between Rome and Carthage (including defeat and capture of Regulus [255]); Carthage defeated and forced to accept terms in 241.
218 BCE: Second Punic War; Carthaginian general Hannibal defeats Roman armies three times in Italy; finally defeated by Scipio Africanus in North Africa in 201.
149 BCE: Third Punic War; Carthage destroyed by Scipio Aemilianus (146). Carthage was leveled and her fields sewn with salt.
146 BCE: After several wars against the Macedonian kings Rome takes over Greece. Rome now unchallenged ruler of most Mediterranean countries.
133 BCE: Reforms of the Gracchi in Rome lead to a century of civil dissension.
100 BCE: Active in Rome in the first century BCE are Cicero (106-43: consul 63), Julius Caesar (100-44: dictator 46, dictator for life (which didn't last long after this appointment) 44), Lucretius (98?-55?), Vergil (70-19), Horace (65-8), Octavian (63 BCE-14 CE: rules as Augustus 27 on).
63 BCE: Roman conquest of Jerusalem.
At the time Solomon was supposedly around, Rameses II and Hattusil III were fighting over the Palestine - presumably there would be some mention in their otherwise remarkable complete court documents if there were other than hills in-between them... The most likely reason was that the Jews were simply another Iron-age Canaanite hill tribe - probably worshiping Hadad during the period... the bull, serpent and smoking pillar gods all came much later - and long before they were taught monotheism and Yehouah by the Persians who lent Cyrus to Israel as David. Part of that massive myth-making was the invention of the temple.
When examining the bible myths, we should bear in mind that Abraham was supposedly a superior Mesopotamian immigrant with God's permission, encouragement and assistance to invade Canaan and exterminate its unworthy, idolatrous inhabitants. In this way, the Persians obtained a useful proxy in their ongoing rivalry with Egypt (which neatly explains the mythical persecution of the Jews by the Egyptians).
And of course, considering the vast degree of support by right wing but wrong headed Christians for the Jews to remain committed to this extermination process, we have to take our hats of to those wiley Persian mememakers - although one might perhaps also suggest that the Bush dynasty's implacable opposition to Iraq is, at least to an extent, blowback from their highly successful myth propagation efforts.
Today, the "minimalist" (i.e. those who reject the bible as historical unless alternative sources or archeological evidence corroborates it) consensus position is that Abraham, Isaac, Moses and Joshua were undoubtedly myths, that the Israelites never were in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land of Canaan in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes of Israel. King David and King Solomon were also mythical and far from being the hub of an ancient civilization, Jerusalem was an insignificant hill village until after the return from their Babylonian exile.
Sources:
"The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Text", Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, 0684869128 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684869128/thechurchofvirusA)
The above is a highly accessible book and well worth reading. Israel Finkelstein is the chairman of the Archaeology Department at Tel Aviv University, and archaeology historian and Neil Asher Silberman is a respected Ha'aretz journalist. The book takes the "minimalist" concensus position, documenting archeological research and abandoning ties to biblical mythology. It makes the work unpopular, but greatly improves the quality of scholarship.
"A History of Ancient Judah and Israel", J M Miller and J Hayes, 066421262X (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/066421262X/thechurchofvirusA)
"Structuralist Interpretation of Biblical Myth", Edited by E Leach and D A Laycock, 0521254914 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521254914/thechurchofvirusA)
As this last shows (published in 1983), this is hardly a new idea <grin>
"King David was a nebbish", Mermaid (Laura Miller) (http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=45;action=display;threadid=20815;start=0). Originally at http://salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon/index.html but link now broken.
---- This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25464>
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