This vividly illustrated book is written by David Down, who considers himself to be an archaeologist, and John Ashton a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute who specializes in food and nutrition research. It is currently being sold at Adventist Book Centers across North America together with their magazine Archaeological Diggings. The central hypothesis of the book and of many articles in the magazine is that readers will “see how the discrepancies in biblical and secular chronologies are easily reconciled” (back cover). Most Bible students would agree that this is a noble goal. The authors attempt to resolve these issues by suggesting a new understanding of Egyptian chronology. But, in fact, there is little that is new in their proposal. Ashton and Down seek to accomplish this daunting task by simply mixing the chronologies of David Rohl, Peter James, Immanuel Velikovsky, and Donovan Courville–chronologies which are, in fact, not in agreement with each other. Unfortunately, in doing so, the authors have already led readers down a road that will neither provide secure correlations with the Bible nor a sound basis for understanding history. This short review can only address a few of the many problems and issues encountered in the proposed chronology.

Egyptology. According to the chronology of Rohl (as adopted by Ashton and Down, pp. 174-175) Ramses II is to be dated 350 years later than conventional chronology, i.e., to the time of Solomon. Rohl equates Ramses II with the Shishak of Scripture who invades Jerusalem in 925 B.C. (1 Kings 14:25-26). But this correlation fails for several reasons. It is impossible to collapse 350 years of well documented history. One cannot simply eliminate dynasties and say this is a “simple solution.” There are major consequences to such shifting. Ramses II’s son Merenptah gave us the first mention of Israel outside of the Bible. He claims to have invaded Canaan sometime before his fifth year. Down and Ashton state that Merenptah is referring to the invasion in 722 B.C. by Sargon, king of Assyria (2 Kings 17:6; p. 178). But this is impossible. It is Merenptah himself who claims to have defeated Israel. There is no reference to Assyria anywhere in this text. Instead Merenptah claims, “Israel is laid waste, its seed is not.” Israel at that time was an enemy of Egypt. The Merenptah stela containing this reference is accompanied by reliefs at Karnak clearly depicting the king himself going forth in battle against the cities of Ashkelon, Gezer, Yenoam, and the people of Israel. Captives are brought back to Egypt. Importantly, Gezer is captured by Merenptah. But if Ashton and Down’s chronology is followed, Gezer would be captured after the Bible describes it had been presented as a dowry to Solomon’s wife, an Egyptian princess (1 Kings 9:15-16; see Hasel, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994): 45-61; idem., Domination and Resistance [Leiden: Brill, 1998] 257-271; idem., Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 116 (2004) 75-81). No trained Egyptologist or Assyriologist would conceive of attributing Merenptah’s campaign to the Assyrians hundreds of years later. In fact, just on the wall opposite the Merenptah reliefs at Karnak, a certain Shoshenq I of the XXII Dynasty is described as invading Judah and Israel in 925 B.C. He left a victory stela at Megiddo in Israel and mentions several of the key cities in Judah and Israel by name as he commemorates his campaign at Karnak. This is the clearest synchronism to Shishak of the Bible. There is little need to look elsewhere (see Kitchen, Third Intermediate Period of Egypt [Aris & Phillips, 1996]).

Assyriology. From Mesopotamia we have fixed dates from 910-612 B.C. given in the so called Eponym Lists (Millard, The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire, 910-612 BC, Helsinki, 1994). At the tenth year of Assurdan II the list states that a solar eclipse occurred in the month Shivan (May/June). The tenth year of Assurdan III is dated to 763 B.C., and a solar eclipse did actually occur in Mesopotamia on June 15, 763 B.C. But Rohl’s proposed new chronology leaves no room for the Assyrian kings Salmanassar I, Tukulti-Ninurta I, and Tiglath-Pileser I, who together covered a period of 106 years. In the years attributed to them by the new chronology Assyria was ruled by other kings. From Tiglath-Pileser I till Assurdan II the Assyrian royal list names nine other kings. Most of them were succeeded by their sons; at least there were six generations of kings, who in the conventional chronology ruled from 1077 to 935 B.C., i.e., 142 years. In all, the new chronology fails to fill in a period of 270 years for Assyrian history.

Archaeology. According to the Bible, the Philistines were a major source of conflict during the reign of Saul and David. As an archaeologist I have worked extensively at several Philistine sites such as Ashkelon and Ekron. Rohl does not say much about the Philistines, and for good reason. The Philistines utterly destroy his revised chronology and, by extension, that of Ashton and Down. In fact Ashton and Down cite no sources on the Philistines after 1985. Yet the most important and revolutionary work on the Philistines has been done since that time– in the last 20 years. According to the revised chronology of Rohl, the Philistines would come onto the scene around 800 B.C. during the redated reign of Ramses III, but Ashton and Down here insert Velikovsky’s date placing the Philistines all the way down to the Medo-Persian empire in the time of Esther. Either way, Saul and David would have absolutely no one to fight, including Goliath, because they lived literally hundreds of years before the Philistines came into existence.

Rohl dates the occupation at Jericho following the Middle Bronze to the Late Bronze IIB period. He then equates this phase to the rebuilding of Jericho by Hiel of Bethel (1 Kings 16:34). But this is incorrect, the next occupational phase at Jericho following the Middle Bronze dates to the Iron I period. There is, in fact, no evidence for occupation at Jericho in the Late Bronze IIB period.

It must be emphasized that Unwrapping the Pharaohs was written by amateurs who have no formal training in archaeology, much less Egyptology. Today, the data from the ancient Near East that bears on these questions requires careful training so that the discipline has become increasingly specialized. Scholars not only study several complex ancient languages and the material these cultures produced but also zero in on specific time periods and geographical areas. In any discipline, theories and hypotheses must be evaluated on the basis of known facts, in this case weighing the results of two centuries of research. In addition, archaeological research annually uncovers new, valid data that illuminates the history of the Bible, but the understanding of that history is wholly dependant upon the backbone of history-chronology. Sadly, despite such exciting and truly new confirmation that could have been cited and illustrated in this handsome volume, the “new” chronologies of Rohl, James, Velikovsky, and Courville advocated in this book fail to take these into account and ignore cogent critiques by trained experts in the field. Rather then providing correlations that are “easily reconciled,” this book and the magazine Archaeological Diggings (which it advocates) causes major confusion and difficulties for biblical correlations and the understanding of ancient history.