Sheba

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150 WESTERN ARABIA AND THE SHEBA-MENELIK CYCLE Sea ports serving Thebes rather than continuing northwards to the Nile Delta and the Levant. It was during this joint reign that written Egyptian was standardized and a code of conduct drawn up for the monarchy, the Instructions for Merikare. Sesostris III (ca. 1836-1818 B.C.E.), continuing the work of bringing uniformity and central control, created a standing army and centralized bureaucracy, and also established fortresses with garrisons. He, too, was active in extending control in the south and on the Asian frontier. If the Hebrew had been brought under Egyptian control in this period they would most likely have been within striking distance of Thebes, either in Nubia or Hijaz. The Egyptians never developed a systematic administrative system outside their homeland, let alone in a colonial settlement; but place names in western Arabia such as Yathrib, Medina’s former name, indicate a substantial presence, most likely a military one. Salibi lists twenty locations in western Arabia named after ancient Egyptian gods, six named after “two lands” (t’wy) the name of Egypt itself, and others bearing the Semitic name for Egypt, msrm (Arabic) and msrym (Old Testament Hebrew). Many of these place names are centered on the Khamis Mushait area of Asir province in Saudi Arabia. Saudi television had often displayed Egyptian artifacts discovered in this area but ceased doing so once Salibi’s book linked them to Israelite history. If captivity and the Exodus occurred in Arabia, it is likely the Egyptian garrisons withdrew soon after Moses led the Hebrew to freedom. The Egyptians later appear to have launched raids or punitive expeditions against western Arabia. Unlike other ancient empire builders, the Egyptians were disinterested in establishing permanent control and colonies outside their home area. Salibi places the main thrust of Sheskonk’s military campaign against western Arabia, not Palestine. If the captivity commenced ca. 1600 B.C.E. it would have been associated with the Delta-based Hyksos dynasty (ca. 1630-1523 B.C.E.) when a wave of new technology swept into Egypt from Asia, introducing new techniques and improvements in bronze-making, weaponry, weaving, and pottery. Horse-drawn chariots made their debut. This was a time for an influx rather than an exodus. The aftermath of the reign of Akhenaton (ca.1379 – 1362 B.C.E.) was marked by chaos, as the new dynasty erased his heretical religious beliefs. His new capital was abandoned and Ramses I (1292-1290 B.C.E.) re-established the old capital in the Delta. Dynastic and religious disputes, combined with a change in the political and economic geography, would have made it easier for the Hebrew to break free if they
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 151 were under Egyptian control in a peripheral area. This points to Nubia or Hijaz. As mentioned earlier, Salibi believed that the Exodus passed along the Red Sea coastal strip before ascending the Tehama defiles near Taif. In 1997, archaeological remains in the coastal plain of western Yemen revealed that, contrary to previous conclusions, the area was occupied between about 1400 and 800 B.C.E. Edward Keall, director of the Canadian Archaeological Mission of the Royal Ontario Museum, commented: “We don’t know what was keeping people in this terribly marginal desert area.” What he found extraordinary was that, sometime between 2400 and 1800 B.C.E., this unknown people had constructed enormous granite megaliths. Three were still standing, each eight feet in height and approximately twenty tons in weight. His report stated that about fifteen others were scattered around the area including a twenty-foot-long megalith rising from the ground at a slant. Keall was at a loss to explain why monuments of this magnitude had been placed in such a desolate place. The pillars, which date from a time that includes the Exodus, stand below a volcanic area and are in the path where Salibi places the Exodus. It is also of interest to note that the book of Exodus 24 states that the Israelites erected pillars to represent the twelve tribes. Preliminary findings, however, point to occupation by a Bronze Age people. The area was then abandoned and remained uninhabited between 800 B.C.E. and A.D. 800. The Tehama (or Sarwat) escarpment is Salibi’s location for H-yrdn, (the Jordan of the Old Testament). In his latest book on Arabian Israel, Salibi discusses in detail the probable position of Mt. Nebo, Moses’ vantage point as he gazed on the Promised Land he would never enter. Salibi points out that if the Palestinian site of Mt. Nebo is accepted, it is quite extraordinary that the Old Testament description makes no mention of the Dead Sea, which is a short distance southwest. Salibi’s four books have a mass of speculative detail not only on the true location of Old Testament sites but also on biblical symbolism. The amount of detail in Salibi’s work enabled critics to attack possible small inaccuracies in an attempt to destroy the thesis as a whole. Salibi had not only pointed out geographical controversies in the Masoretic text but also made suggestions for other sections. In one place in the Song of Solomon, where the conventional translation is “O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff ... ,” Salibi deemed the correct version to be “O my dove in Jarf Sala, behind Madrajah,” indicating a willingness to take the Old Testament text as a geographical guide even when poetry alone was involved. Following The Bible Came From Arabia, Salibi’s next book was
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Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholar
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QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
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CHAPTER ONE Sheba, Zionism, and the
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CHAPTER TWO The Search for Evidence
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CHAPTER THREE Writing the Old Testa
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Sheba

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