The Queen Of Sheba And The Ethiopian Problem

VIEWPOINT JOURNAL OF CREATION 27(2) 2013A longitudinal line running through Jerusalem at 35 13′Ewill pass through modern Egypt in its south-eastern corner(placing 1.5% of Egyptian territory to the east of the line).The ‘Jerusalem line’ does not pass through Syria as claimed:the westernmost point of Syria, close to Latakia, is at35 47′E. The QSQE claim that “Syria sits ‘on top’ of Israel”is misleading—a difference of 35 minutes longitude at thatlatitude is significant—the westernmost point of modernSyria lies east of Jerusalem.The easternmost border of ancient Egypt was demarcated by a line of fortifications that lay along the length ofthe Bitter Lakes, a body of water that was more extensivethen than today, stretching in an almost unbroken line fromthe Mediterranean to modern-day Suez. The QSQE claimthat Egypt was south of Syria and Israel is nonsense since) was where ancientthe Sinai Peninsula (Egy. bi3wEgyptians considered Asia began. Suez (the furthest pointeast) lies at 32 33′E, some three degrees west of both Latakiain Syria 35 47′E, and Jerusalem 35 13′E. The QSQE marginof error at this latitude is approximately 240 km (150 miles).SyriaThe QSQE author wrote:“Geographically, taking the countries betweenthe longitudinal 35 and 40 lines, starting from thenorthern position of Israel and Syria (Syria sits ‘ontop’ of Israel), we find, moving latitudinally south,that the countries that lie directly south in our currentmaps are not Yemen or Southern Arabia, but part ofEgypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan. These last fourcountries are all in Africa. Yemen lies between the40 and the 55 longitudinal lines. Considering thatJerusalem is almost on the 35 line of longitude, itis impossible to find Southern Arabia as ‘directly’south of Jerusalem whichever way we look at a map[emphasis in original].”3My original point was to use Jerusalem (35 13′E) as thefixed position of Jesus’ statement in Matthew 12:42. Jesuswas speaking figuratively of something familiar to people ofthe time—‘South’ was used to indicate, in the general sense,a location south of Jerusalem rather than to the north; and‘ends of the Earth’ was a common metaphor indicating theend of terra firma and the beginning of the sea. We will comeacross the phrase ‘ends of the Earth’ later.There is no justification for using the toponym SouthernArabia—I did not use this name—this is a straw man. Modern nation names such as Yemen, Eritrea, or Sudan were notused in my paper either. By misusing longitude and latitude,the QSQE author again erects a strawman by inserting namesof nations to prove that they were not where I claimed them tobe. This sort of fallacy is practised often in the QSQE paper.In some quarters, the classical name Syria is thought to bea modification of Assyria and to date from the period of theAssyrian subjugation of ancient Aram. The toponym Syriadoes not occur in Homer (a source much relied upon in theQSQE), who refers to the region under a different toponym,Arimi (hence Aram): “By angry Jove in Arimi (εἰν Ἀρίμοις)descend.”11Strabo12 also informs us that the people of that region werecalled Arimi (Geographica). The Arimi or Arameans werea Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist peoplewhose origins are still hotly debated. Aram —אָרם theirַeponymous founder, was the fifth son of Shem and thuscannot be confused with Asshur, the eponymous founder ofAssyria, the second son of Shem.13Why Bible translators chose Syria rather than the originalAram in Judges 10:6, and onwards after that point, remainsas much a mystery as the replacing of Cush כּוּשׁ with thelater misleading Ethiopia (Isaiah 45:14). Using modernnames to explain ancient ones is unhelpful from a historicalperspective.The ‘Ethiopian’ problemThe QSQE author asks: “Did such a region as ‘Αιθιοπια’(Ethiopia) exist in the times of Solomon, Rehoboam, QueenHatshepsut, The Queen of Sheba, Thutmosis III, Sheshonk,or Shishak?”,14 and then seeks to discredit my assertion thatit did not.Sheshonk (Sheshonk I) is viewed by some scholars to bethe biblical Shishak, but that only works if the ConventionalEgyptian Chronology (CEC) is correct—and it isn’t. Later inthe QSQE, Thutmose III is claimed to be Shishak. So why introduce Sheshonk to the argument? Thutmose and Sheshonkare separated by around 480 years: surely the QSQE is notsuggesting they are the same person, which is implied inthe question? The QSQE case needs the reader to accept theidea of contemporaneous characters which is essential to thesuccess of the idea—yet the difficulty of bridging the gulfbetween contemporary and identical characters remains.From the section of my (PHQS) paper headed Josephus—achild of his time, Austin cites a small portion:“So for Josephus to mention Ethiopia as alreadyexisting in Hatshepsut’s time generally suits thesupporters of the VIC. However, there was in fact nosuch thing as ‘Ethiopia’ at the times of Hatshepsut/Solomon.”A look at the larger context is helpful. I made thepoint that:“The region now known as Ethiopia was the probablelocation for Punt, a land with which Egypt eventuallyhad trading interests. But the VIC needs to have Puntbe, instead, Israel—to the north. So for Josephus tomention Ethiopia as already existing in Hatshepsut’stime generally suits the supporters of the VIC. However,there was in fact no such thing as ‘Ethiopia’ at the timesof Hatshepsut/Solomon. So for Josephus to use this termactually highlights that his title for the Queen was inerror here [emphasis added].”1557

JOURNAL OF CREATION 27(2) 2013 VIEWPOINTPerhaps I should have made my point clearer in my paperby indicating that there was no such nation state as modernEthiopia in the timeframe required. This does not let theauthor of the QSQE off the hook—his claim that he “couldnot find any proof of this” indicates one of two things: heeither did not read my paper with care or simply chose toignore inconvenient truths. The 1,128 words in the sectionJosephus—a child of his time explain clearly enough.By discussing Josephus as being ‘a child of his times’, Ipointed out that:“Greco-Roman records render Cush incorrectlyas either Nubia or Ethiopia, but earlier sources,whether biblical or Egyptian, always referred tothis geographical location as Cush. The Septuagint(the 3rd Century BC translation of the OT into Greek,possibly one of the sources relied on by Josephus) alsounhelpfully translates Cush as ‘Aethiopia’.”Multi-century Homer errorThe QSQE stated:“In fact I found it quite possible that Ethiopia didexist in the times of Hatshepsut/Solomon. In checkingHomer’s two poems, Iliad and Odyssey which wereapparently16 written or authored about the 8th centuryBC or before, it was found that Αιθιοπια (Greek) iswritten as such about five times and is seen in thepoems, already as an established country ready forwar, etc. Even if these poems were ‘legendary’ or‘mythical’, I do not believe that Homer would writeconcerning a non-existent region.”Herodotus estimated that Homer lived 400 yearsbefore his own time, which would place Homer at around850 BC. The consensus is that the Iliad and the Odyssey datefrom around the 8th century BC. Over the past few decades,some scholars have argued for a 7th century BC date. Taplinbelieves that the conclusion of modern researchers is thatHomer dates to 750 to 650 BC.17 Solomon, by comparison,is securely dated to the 10 th century BC, along with theQueen of Sheba. With the consensus ruling that Homer is8th century or later, the mathematics of Homer being a nearcontemporary of Solomon are wrong. The QSQE assumedthat Herodotus was correct about Homer’s placement in thehistorical timeline, but Herodotus has been shown wrong onmany accounts due to the sources he used sometimes beingcorrupted. The claim that only 19 years existed betweenSolomon and Homer is incorrect, the consensus claimsaround two centuries—the earliest recording of Αιθιοπια didnot appear in Homer’s text until at least 2–3 centuries afterthe time of Solomon and Sheba. As I am about to discuss,the country was in fact a far larger region.58Let ancient witnesses speakΑἰθιοπία appears twice in Homer’s Iliad and three timesin the Odyssey. Herodotus specifically used the name forall the lands south of Egypt.18 Previously, Homer made aninteresting observation regarding Αἰθιοπία:“Howbeit Poseidon had now departed for the distantEthiopians, the Ethiopians that are sundered in twain,the uttermost of men, abiding some where Hyperion[one of the 12 Titans of Greek mythology] sinks andsome where he rises.”19In the surviving accounts of that time, Αἰθιοπία inthe Greek view of things was situated in a vast regioncovering much of Africa and a large part of the ANE. Thephrase sundered in twain points to these Ethiopians asbeing so widespread that they were even separated intotwo groups; a fact noted by Herodotus, who distinguishesbetween straight-haired (Asian) and curly-haired (African)Ethiopians:“The eastern Ethiopians—for two nations of thisname served in the army—were marshalled withthe Indians. They differed in nothing from the otherEthiopians, except in their language, and the natureof their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians have straighthair, while they of Libya [here he is talking about all ofAfrica] are more woolly-haired than any other peoplein the world.”20Both Homer and Herodotus, though separated bycenturies, agreed that this ‘Ethiopia’ was a vast regionsplit into two parts by something. The question of whatthat ‘something’ was is answered from the above accountsand by looking at a map of the general region. The westernEthiopians occupied much of Africa and a body of water,known today as the Red Sea, separated them from theeastern Ethiopians. Herodotus adds still more problems tothe country of Ethiopia concept. He writes of:‘‘ the long-lived Ethiopians, who dwell in thatpart of Libya [Africa] which is by the Southern sea .”21Maps made in antiquity (see figure 2) up to the 1800sreveal a consensus as to how widespread the AfricanEthiopians were, even to naming the Southern sea (themodern South Atlantic/Indian Ocean as the Æthiopian(Ethiopian) Sea. The Æthiopian Sea (Mare Æthiopicum inLatin) was the name given to the southern part of the AtlanticOcean in classical geographical works from ancient timesup to the 19th century. This name has nothing to do withmodern Ethiopia and is now obsolete. Several 16th-centurymaps show the name of the Northern Atlantic Ocean asSinus Occidentalis, while the central Atlantic, southwestof present-day Liberia, appears as Sinus Atlanticus and theSouthern Atlantic as Mare Aethiopicum. John Seller in his

VIEWPOINT JOURNAL OF CREATION 27(2) 2013Figure 2. Map of Pomponius Mela, c. ad 40.Atlas Maritimus22 divided the Atlantic Ocean into two partsby means of the equator. He called the northern portion ofthe Atlantic “Mar del Nort” and the southern part “OceanusÆthiopicus”. These ancient geographer sources furtherconfirm that the author of QSQE is completely wrong abouthis ‘Ethiopia’.Rather unwittingly the QSQE author has conceded mypoint:“I do not believe that Homer would write concerninga non-existent region [emphasis added].”As I have already indicated, Ethiopia, the nation state,did not exist in the days of Solomon—a gigantic regionspanning most of the African continent, and a significantpart of the Levant, did.Ethiopia is the width of Africa and extends intoSouthern AfricaContinuing the theme of this ‘Ethiopia’ being split in two,we find misuse of Matthew 12:42 rebounds on the author ofQSQE, again from the pen of Homer:“Now Neptune had gone off to the Ethiopians, whoare at the world’s end, and lie in two halves [here ismention of the separation of the Ethiopians again], theone looking west and the other east.”23Homer uses the term world’send / ends of the earth in this passage. Matthew 12:42—written inGreek—renders Jesus’ words as τωνπεράτων της γης (lit. ‘the limits/ends of the earth’). Jesus, in referring to the Queen of the South (akathe Queen of Sheba), used the sameterm as Homer. The evidence I havepresented here indicates that the Hellenist Greek concept of Ethiopia wasa region that encompassed almost allof Africa, a significant portion of theArabian Peninsula, and even had ahuge oceanic region named after it.If the central claim of the QSQE, thatthe Queen of Sheba ruled over (thethen) Ethiopia is true, the extent ofher kingdom was the largest known inthe history of mankind. There shouldbe evidence from all over the Africanand ANE continents that this queen,whatever her epithets, ruled there asa contemporary of Solomon. Apartfrom the present-day Yemen, nothing has been discovered that suggestsa Sheba kingdom of the magnitudenoted above.Sailing to PuntThe final discussion centres on the QSQE’s statement:“Concerning the ‘Sailing’ to the land of Punt fromEthiopia by Queen Hatshepsut [emphasis in original]” (p. 81.)Most of the statement is italicized, which makes it appear this is a direct quote from a reliable source. No sourceis mentioned.“If, as Clarke states, ‘The region now known asEthiopia was the probable location for Punt’, andQueen Hatshepsut lived somewhere close to, or in,the Upper or Lower Egypt region, why does Clarkeseem to agree with Breasted that there was a sailing tothe land of Punt? It is reasonable to question whetherthe ‘Punt’ was in Africa because of the need of shipsand particularly the trouble Hatshepsut took with her‘sailing’ arrangements.”What I actually wrote was:“It is well known to most scholars of antiquity thatmuch of what authors during the Classical Period, suchas Josephus, had to say about Egypt and the AncientNear East in general, when they covered events not intheir own time or their recent past, carries errors, bothgreat and small. Scholars do not ignore these classical59

JOURNAL OF CREATION 27(2) 2013 VIEWPOINTFigure 3. Map of Africa, 1669, by Richard Blome.sources, but they are studied with considerable caution,and conclusions are primarily based on the more ancientsources. So, the general rule among scholars is thatacceptance of any such details from the later classicalsources must be deferred unless they are confirmed bythe more ancient evidence. Thus Josephus’ reference tothe queen of Egypt and Ethiopia may be considered areasonable substitution for the biblical ‘Queen of Sheba’only when a contemporary record covering this mattersupports it. For supporters of the VIC, this is bad news;there is no such record. But there is more. The regionnow known as Ethiopia was the probable location forPunt, a land with which Egypt eventually had tradinginterests. But the VIC needs to have Punt be, instead,Israel—to the north.”2At no time, in any of my papers, do I indicate that theQueen of Sheba sailed anywhere. All evidences point to theSabeans using land-based caravan routes from the earliesttimes. It is Austin and all Velikovskians who think that she60was queen of a state called Ethiopia, and, by extension, Egypt.The reason I agree with Breasted? Like all Egyptologists, itis recognized that Egyptians sailed southwards to Punt manytimes throughout Egypt’s long history. However, in PHQS,I mention ‘sailing’ just once. It is not my thoughts that werepresented, rather those of Velikovsky who cites Breasted:“Sailing to the land of Punt according to thecommand of the Lord of gods, Amon, Lord of Thebes,Presider over Karnak, in order to bring for him themarvels of every country, for he so much loves the Kingof Upper and Lower Egypt .”24,25On the same page (p. 81) in QSQE we read:“All Queen Hatshepsut would have had to do if ‘theprobable location for Punt’ was in Ethiopia was to getfrom ‘somewhere close to Ethiopia’ to Ethiopia. Even ifSheba/Hatshepsut lived in Southern Arabia, and ‘Punt’was in Ethiopia, all the queen had to do was cross anarrow channel [emphasis in original].”

VIEWPOINT JOURNAL OF CREATION 27(2) 2013Sounds so simple, and that is the problem. Listen toanother ancient hostile witness—Strabo:“Now the early writers gave the name Ægypt to onlythe part of the country that was inhabited and wateredby the Nile, beginning at the region of Syenê [modernAswan] and extending to the sea; but the later writersdown to the present time have added on the eastern sideapproximately all the parts between the Arabian Gulf[the modern Red Sea] and the Nile (the Æthiopiansdo not use the Red Sea at all) [emphasis added].”26According to a witness of the time, it seems thatthe Ethiopians, which must include the QSQE’s Sheba/Hatshepsut, didn’t do sea travel, which makes the QSQE claimthat ‘all the queen had to do was cross a narrow channel’invalid, and Velikovsky’s Sheba/Hatshepsut journey by seato Ezion Geber even more so.It is clear that the author of “‘The Queen of the South’is ‘the Queen of Egypt’” is mistaken in regard to the location and extent of the region known as Æthiopia/Ethiopia.Subsequently, any attempted creation of alter egos betweenHatshepsut and the Queen of Sheba fails also. Unfortunately,the author demonstrates substantial lack of competency inthis complex subject throughout the remainder of the QSQE.His invocation of the text of the famous Merneptah Stele insupport of his thesis also falls embarrassingly flat; for a correctunderstanding of the text, I refer him to my recent paper TheStele of Merneptah—assessment of the final ‘Israel’ stropheand its implications for chronology.27Audi alteram partem28If Velikovskians are as secure in their beliefs as they claimto be, they should easily be able to see off counter viewssuch as mine without resorting to the sorts of fallacious and,at times, quite inappropriate tactics that, I have to say, havebeen rampant within the QSQE. That the other side demandsa hearing is in itself not the problem, but the debate needs totake place on a fair and scholarly playing field, minus out-ofcontext citations, strawman fallacies and the like.The fact that many historians, archaeologists and Egyptologists question Velikovsky’s ideas (including several who, likeme, share the goal of a downwards revised chronology) is initself an interesting fact, which any inquisitive mind ought tobe informed about. Yet some Velikovskians still continue toreact to my relatively modest challenge (which is ultimatelyintended to be in the interests of a solid synchronism withthe truth of the Bible, as I hope to show through continuingpapers), in a manner smacking somewhat of panic.It might be a good idea if, rather than attacking anyonewho appears to denigrate their idol, Velikovskians spend timelooking at their chronological model and ask the honest question, ‘Could Velikovsky in fact have been wrong all along?’References1. Taylor, C.V., The Times of the ‘Great Kings’ of Persia, J. Creation (formerlyEx Nihilo Technical Journal) 3(1):129, 1988.2. Clarke, P., Why Pharaoh Hatshepsut is not to be equated to the Queen of Sheba,J. Creation 24(2):62–68, 2010; creation.com/images/tj/j24 2/j24 2 62-68.pdf.3. Austin, D., ‘The Queen of the South’ is ‘the Queen of Egypt’, J. Creation26(3):79, 2012.4. Young, E.J., The Prophecies of Daniel, Eerdman’s Publishing, 1949.5. Calvin, J., A Commentary on Daniel, Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1966.6. Mauro, P., The Seventy Weeks and the Great Tribulation, Bible Truth Depot,Swengel, PA, 1944.7. Clarke, ref. 2, p. 62.8. Herodotus, The Histories, book III, section 9. The Erythraean Sea (ΕρυθράΘάλασσα; Erythra Thalassa; Erythra actually means ‘red’) mentioned hereby Herodotus was comprised of three bodies of water; what is nowadays calledthe Red Sea, the western half of the Indian Ocean, and, crucially, the modernPersian/Arabian Gulf. It was into this latter body of water that the Corys flowed(see Rose, J.I., New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian GulfOasis, Current Anthropology, vol. 51(6), The University of Chicago Press,p. 852, December 2010); the Gulf was a fertile plain until marine ingressionoccurred as the ice-sheets retreated at the end of the Glacial Maximum of thepost-Flood Ice Age. All three modern bodies of water have undergone manyname changes since the days of Herodotus.9. Clarke, P., Reply to David Down’s: Is Hatshepsut the biblical ‘Queen of Sheba’?J. Creation 24(3):39, 2010.10. See note in: Whiston, W., The Works of Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of theJews, Nelson & Brown, p. 226, 1831.11. Cowper, W., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (4 vols.), Joseph Buckingham,Iliad, Book II, line 913, 1814.12. Strabo (64 bc – ad 24) was a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian.13. See the genealogical chart of Shem in: Cooper, B., After the Flood, New WinePress, 1995, p. 171.14. Austin, ref. 3, p. 80.15. Clarke, ref. 2, p. 64.16. ‘apparently’; adverb (sentence modifier); it appears that; as far as one knows;seemingly. Collins English Dictionary–Complete and Unabridged, HarperCollins, 2003.17. Taplin, O., (the chapter on Homer), The Oxford History of the Classical World,Oxford University Press, p. 50, 1993.18. Herodotus, Histories, Book II, lines 29–30; Book III, 114; Book IV, 197.19. Homer, The Odyssey done into prose, by Butcher, S. & Lang, A., (translators),Benedicton Classics, 2001.20. Herodotus, Histories, Book VII, line 70.21. Herodotus, Histories, Book III, line 17.22. Allaby, M., Oceans: A Scientific History of Oceans and Marine Life, Facts onFile, New York, p. 5, 2009.23. Homer, ref. 19, Book I, lines 30–3

Austin's 2012 Viewpoint in this Journal, "'The Queen of the South' is 'the Queen of Egypt'"3 r e t f heae ( r QSQE) is that the Queen of Sheba was a queen of both Egypt and Ethiopia. QSQE bases its biblical proof that the Queen of the South refers to a Queen of Ethiopia on a very small part of the Book of Daniel (11:5, 6, 8-11).