Chronology

Chronology

Donovan Courville - Introduction

Donovan Courville defined a revised chronology in his two volume work, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications. It was published in 1971 but now sadly appears to be out of print. A summary of part of his reasoning follows.

Courville suggests there are only two logical approaches to the problem of reconciling standard chronology and Bible chronology. These are

	abandon any thought that the Bible is historically reliable.
	or
	recognize that there is something fundamentally in error with the traditional views regarding Egyptian chronology, and therefore with those nations whose history is tied to Egypt.

It is hardly reasonable to do the first without thoroughly examining the second.

Courville's investigations with regard to the second approach are wide ranging and detailed. He lists a number of criteria which must be met if a new chronology of Ancient Egypt is to be devised which will successfully accommodate the Exodus. He then goes on to develop a chronology, taking these points into account.

He describes how historians have interpreted the various King Lists which have been recovered from Egypt. He argues that accepting Manetho's list as a continuous sequence of Pharaohs has led to many of the anomalies which now exist.

Courville turns to another list, the Sothis List, which is generally regarded as incomplete. He suggests it is only incomplete in that it does not list any Pharaoh whose period of rule overlaps that of another who is greater in power. In other words, it is a list of the kings who were the primary power during Egypt's history.

This implies that there must have been co-regencies and parallel dynasties. Courville is not the first to make this suggestion. He is anticipated by many centuries by Eusebius. Eusebius is no final authority, but if his statements receive significant support from other sources then they should not be swept aside as useless. He wrote

"But if the number of years is still in excess, it must be supposed that perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time; for they say that the rulers were kings of This [Thinis], of Memphis, of Sais, of Ethiopia, and other places at the same time."

If nothing more, this statement shows that some of the ancients believed in the contemporaneity of some of the early Egyptian dynasties.

There is plenty of evidence of co-regencies during Egypt's history. There is also some generally accepted evidence of parallel dynasties. Courville argues that these have been more extensive than generally believed.

Comarison of Manetho's list and Courville's Interpretation of the Sothis List.

Suppose Pharaoh A rules for 30 years, but 5 years before his death he takes his son, Pharaoh B, as co-regent. After Pharaoh A dies, Pharaoh B rules another 15 years.

If Courville is correct in interpreting the lists then each list would credit the kings' reign lengths differently.

	Pharaoh A	Pharaoh B	Total
Manetho	30 years	20 years	50 years
Sothis List	30 years	15 years	45 years

Suppose Dynasty X, based around Thebes in Upper Egypt, had 10 kings whose total reign was 180 years, and 40 years into the dynasty, Dynasty Y broke away and ruled in a secondary capacity from Memphis, in Lower Egypt, involving 7 kings.

Again using Courville's reasoning

	Dynasty X	No. of Kings	Dynasty Y	No. of Kings	Total Kings	Total Years
Manetho	180 years	10	140 years	7	17	320
Sothis List	180 years	10	0 years	0
10	180

The Sothis List would not credit any of the years of Dynasty Y because the years of their reign were credited to Dynasty X.

It is quite clear that if Egyptian history is based on Manetho's King List there will be many more kings and many more years than if the history is based on the Sothis List. This difference is the fundamental argument in Courville' chronology.

A major portion of Courville's The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications deals with demonstrating parallel dynasties and co-regencies, but before this he discusses some of the problems involved in chronology, and makes suggestions concerning the Pharaoh of the Exodus.

Links to further Courville pages in this site