Queries & Comments

Queries and Comments Spring 2025

Letters to Pharaoh

IN ALICE MANDELL’S ARTICLE “Letters to Pharaoh,” a caption refers to “Akhenaten’s famous religious reforms, which placed the sun-god Aten at the head of the Egyptian pantheon.” I think it would be more accurate to say that Akhenaten’s theology dispensed with the traditional Egyptian pantheon.

Edmund S. Meltzer
Stevens Point, Wisconsin

There is historical evidence that Akhenaten did not abolish the whole pantheon but rather put Aten first and stressed his personal, father-son relationship to the deity, bolstering the idea of his divine kingship. Some scholars argue that rather than monotheism, Akhenaten’s reformed religion was a monolatry, meaning that only one god, Aten, was allowed to be worshiped, in preference to all others. Our subscribers may refer to this article: Donald B. Redford, “The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh,” BAR, May/June 1987—Ed.

Sensational Inscriptions Pushback

CHRISTOPHER ROLLSTON’S article “Too Good to Be True?” dealing with the Mt. Ebal inscription gave only one opinion over a possible remarkable find. With such an important discovery, BAR should have invited the original discoverers to explain their interpretation. The article accuses fellow archaeologists of fraud. Can the discoverers show alternative evidence? How did they come up with the inscription? If they are wrong, they need a chance to defend their integrity or admit their mistake. Such an important find deserves a more balanced presentation.

Randy Beumer
Modesto, California

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Documentary Hypothesis

I WAS GRATIFIED to read Jeffrey Stackert’s column “What Happened to the Documentary Hypothesis?” in which he references BAR contributor Richard Elliott Friedman. But regarding Pentateuch discontinuities, Friedman’s most fascinating example is from his book Who Wrote the Bible? (San Francisco, 1987), where he makes it evident that Aaron and the Israelites are made to anachronistically reuse a phrase from latter-day King Jeroboam’s adulation of his two golden calves (1 Kings 12:28), in their worship of Aaron’s golden calf (Exodus 32:4, 8). The phrase is, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt” (“gods” being plural, even though there was only one calf in Exodus).

In line with this, does it make sense that Aaron would have the Israelites worshiping an idol(s) in the very presence of God in the pillar of cloud and fire that had actually enabled their miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea a mere two months before—and which was now encamped with them?

Mahlon Marr
Peoria, Arizona

Uncultured Philistines

THE PHILISTINE ARTICLE by Aren Maeir (“Gath of the Philistines”) avoided the question of why or how the “Philistines” came to be considered uncultured. How about shedding some light on this issue.

Michael Cajero
Tucson, Arizona

Interestingly, archaeologists can testify that Philistine culture of the early Iron Age was in many ways superior to that of the pre-monarchic Israelites. It was the later biblical authors who created the image of Israel’s feared enemy as uncultured villains, on purely ideological grounds.—Ed.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Missives to the Egyptian Court

Too Good to Be True? Not Necessarily So!

The Philistines Are Coming!

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