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Answer for yourself: Is the Biblical King Solomon actually Amenhotep III, Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt? Well let us see.
The task before us, that of identifying the historical Solomon as Amenhotep III, is made difficult for us right from the start because there exists no historical record of a king of that name outside of the Biblical record. It is only when we match in detail the Old Testament account of his exploits with the reign of Amenhotep III that it becomes clear we are dealing with the same person.
The actual name "Solomon" as used in the Bible for the character under study derives from the Semitic word "salaam" and means "safety" or "peace".
Answer for yourself: Do you remember from our other previous studies that an amazing characteristic of Amenhotep III's reign is that it was almost devoid of any military campaigns and one of relative peace and safety?
Other than a minor military operation in northern Sudan during his Year 5 (1401 BC), Amenhotep III's reign was almost entirely peaceful. He was the first ruler of the Egyptian empire who did not launch any military campaigns in western Asia. Instead, he relied on alliances and exchanges of gifts and diplomatic letters between himself and other leaders of the then-known world to create a climate of international friendship. He also furthered the cause of peace by a series of judicious marriages to "strange women" or "foreign women" in order to solidify and secure the peace between nations.
The passage about Solomon's marriage to "strange women" is followed by a warning from the Lord that "surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love" (I Kings 11:2). Shortly afterwards we are told that "it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God. . . For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcor the abomination of the Ammonites" (11:4-5).
Answer for yourself: What should this teach us?
This above diversification of worship on the part of the Biblical Solomon is in line with the other historical evidence relating to the reign of Amenhotep III. Although there are many indications that he became converted to the worship of Aten, who was to be introduced into Egypt a few decades later as a monotheistic God, he also worshipped other gods. But as we have seen this is not "polytheism" as so many Christian writers suggest since their understanding of Egyptian Religion is terribly deficient of the facts of this faith. Failing to understand correctly the Egyptian concept of the "neteroo" they label Egypt's understanding of the "All in the One" as polytheism when in fact it is the ultimate expression of "Monotheism".
The possession of a large and secure empire, and not having to fight any wars, are said to have enabled Solomon (Amenhotep III) to embark on a large number of projects an administrative reforms. According to Otto Eissfeldt, the German biblical scholar, there were five characteristic features of Solomon's reign:
Answer for yourself: Can we find the above accomplishments attributed to King Solomon also attributed in Egyptian records to the life and times Amenhotep III and if so does this help support and confirm that the Biblical King Solomon is actually Amenhotep III? The answer is "yes" to both questions.
Let us make some very important comparisons between these two men. We saw before when looking at the Biblical King David, or Tuthmose III as we know him now, that Tuthmose III was responsible for founding the the great Egyptian empire in the 15th century B.C.E. that extended from the "river of Egypt (Nile) to the Euphrates". In accomplishing this he had to have had a strong, well-trained, well-organized army equipped with the best chariots of his age, otherwise he would not have been able to establish his extended empire. However, the American Egyptologist Alan Richard Schulman has shown that the chariotry formed only a part of the army at this time. It was not until the early part of the reign of Amenhotep III that the chariotry became identified as a separate entity from the infantry, with Yuya (Joseph), as we saw earlier, the first minister we know to bear the title "Deputy of His Majesty in the Chariotry".Thus it was Amenhotep III (Solomon) who organized the chariotry as a separate unit of warfare.
Now let us examine the administrative aspects of the reign of both men. The Bible teaches us that the administrative system up to the time of King Solomon was of a tribal nature. King Solomon did away with tribal divisions and united Israel, together with other parts of the empire, in one political entity: "And Solomon had twelve officers over all Israel, which provided victuals for the king and his household: each man his month in a year made provision" (I Kings 4:7).
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that this above Biblical description of the administrative system employed by a supposed King Solomon does not belong to the Palestinian Israel but to the Egyptian empire?
From as early as 3000 BC, the Egyptian administration controlled the activities of the Two Lands of Egypt. It organized the royal court as well as the economy in the name of the king, the official owner of all the land. Palace officials were responsible for each administrative region, where there was another high official with a local bureaucracy under his control. During the empire period, and particularly during the time of Tuthmose III (David), the administrative system was reorganized to suit the needs of the age, and later further developed by Amenhotep III (the Biblical Solomon). It was then that, for the purposes of taxation, the empire was arranged in 12 administrative sections, an arrangement that the biblical narrator drew on for his account of the king the world now knows as King Solomon.
Almost all scholars agree that the taxation system that the Bible says was introduced by Solomon matches precisely the system that was used in Egypt after Tuthmose III had established the new Egyptian empire. Each of the 12 areas was the responsibility of a high official and was expected to contribute sufficient tax to cover the country's needs for one month of the year.
Answer for yourself: Are the above similarities just coincidence?
Now let us focus on how these two men administered their nation. As you might imagine coping with the administrative burdens of a vast empire needed a highly developed administration. The sudden appearance of such a supposed administration in Israelite tribal society during the "United Monarchy of David and Solomon" in the 10th century BC, without any roots in the nation's previous history and followed by its sudden disappearance after Solomon's death, has been a source of puzzlement to scholars. The apparent contradiction is resolved, however, once identification of the historical David (Tuthmose III) and Solomon (Amenhotep III) makes it clear that the sophisticated administration described in the Old Testament is the administration established by these two monarchs in the 15th and 14th centuries BC to deal with the day-to-day task of ruling Egypt and its empire (Ahmed Osman, Out of Egypt, p. 71).
We find among the list of officials the priests, the scribes, the commander-in-chief of the army, the official in charge of the palace and another in charge of the tribute. All of these new offices are similar to appointments made by Amenhotep III. Even the forced labor pressed into service in Egypt for the king's building projects is said to have been imposed for the first time by Solomon (Amenhotep III) on native Israelites as well as foreigners: "And king Solomon raised a levy out of all Israel; and the levy was thirty thousand men" (I Kings 5:13). The number of senior officials argues for a large number of minor ones. I Kings 9:23 gives a figure of 550 simply to supervise labor (Ibid.).
According to the Bible, the empire inherited by Solomon became to some extent weakened during the course of his reign. He faced troubles in Edom (in southern Palestine). His influence in Syria was also weakened when Rezon is said to have seized Damascus and made himself king there.
Answer for yourself: Can we expect and do we find the same weakening of the empire of Egypt under the reign of Amenhotep III? We sure do.
These rebellions echoed in the Bible find their echo in the Amarna letters, the foreign archives of the 18th Dynasty, relating to the reign of Amenhotep III. Frederick J. Giles, the Canadian Egyptologist who made a study of them, came to the conclusion that "most of the letters that deal with the alleged collapse of the Egyptian empire during the Amarna period" come from the period of his rule. Thus the biblical account of changes in King David's (Tuthmose III's) empire during the time of Solomon can be seen to agree with historical records relating to events during the reign of Amenhotep III (Ibid.). What we are describing is the simultaneous decline of both the empire of King Solomon and Amenhotep III. Letters sent by Canaanite kings, especially Abdi-khiba of Jerusalem, speak of continuous trouble in the area of Edom and southern Palestine: "All the king's land is rebellious." These problems in southern Palestine were not so serious that they led to any weakening of the king's control in the area, but the situation in northern Syria was far more critical. Even before Amenhotep III came to the throne, the northern Mesopotamian kingdom of Mitanni, to the east of the Euphrates, defeated by Tuthmose III, had begun to reassert its influence over city states in northern Syria. Amenhotep III responded to this threat by a peace treaty with the King of Mitanni and marriage to two Mitannian princesses. He also sent the King of Mitanni thirty units of gold each year in return for his protecting the north Syrian section of the empire. However, Amenhotep III's problems in the region were not yet over. Towards the end of his reign, the king's authority over the northern part of the empire, including Damascus, was endangered by the powerful Hittite king, Suppiluliuma. He also posed a threat to Mitanni, Egypt's ally in the area. Akizzi, ruler of the northern Syrian city of Qatna, a few miles north of Qadesh, spoke of these dangers in letters to Amenhotep III: "To King Annumuria (Amenhotep III), Son of the Sun, my Lord, thus [says] this thy servant Akizzi . . . I am afraid . . . men who are destroyers serve the king of the land of the Hittites: he sends them forth..." (Ibid., p. 73).
In a following letter, Akizzi informed the king that the land of Ubi, west of Damascus, was under threat: "Just as Damascus. . . is terror-stricken at the league of the enemy, and is lifting up its hands in supplication at the feet of the king, so likewise does the city of Qatna lift up its hands" (Ibid.).
In 1887 an Egyptian peasant woman discovered a collection of cuneiform tablets at Tell El-Amarna in Middle Egypt. They were located in a room of a palace buried in sand. They contained the archives of the Asiatic campaigns of the Pharaoh Akhnaton in the mid-fourteenth century BC. Amarna had been newly built as Akhnaton's capital. The tablets were letters of correspondence to Amenhotep III, the father of Akhnaton (Amenhotep IV), and to Akhenaten himself. A very few were to Tutankhamen, his successor and son-in-law. They were written by Canaanite scribes who were located in Palestine, Phoenicia, and southern Syria. They were mostly in the Akkadian language, "full of canaanitisms in grammar and vocabulary." Occasionally a letter was written in Canaanite with scattered Akkadian formulas and ideograms. They described mostly a state of anarchy then in Palestine. The Amarna letters reveal a state of unrest at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, with a constant threat of invasion from the Hittites to the north. The Amarna letters testify to considerable rivalries and hostilities among the city-states. Canaan was politically organized in a system of petty kingdoms - usually referred to as city states. None of the city-states enjoyed self-rule, but owed their allegiance to Egypt. The Amarna letters indicate around 15-17 major city-states. These varied in size, but were all fairly small. King Ribaddi of Byblos wrote frequently; 70 of the surviving letters were written by him. Egyptian power in Palestine collapsed during the reign of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), and letters from Ribaddi no longer arrived at the court.The Amarna letters, alluding to unrest in the reign of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III also throw some light on the biblical account which states: "King Solomon gave to Hiram (the king of Tyre) twenty cities in the land of Galilee" (I Kings 9:11). Notice with me that Egypt is no longer the governing power over these cities which formally were under Egyptian rule. The name of Tyre's king in these letters is not Hiram, but Abimilichi. From his letters we know that:
These measures were done because the power of Egypt had so drastically fallen in this time that they were unable to govern these territories in Palestine as they had previously. These historical records show that Egypt had previously taken control of Canaan but that law and order had deteriorated; local princes and tribal chiefs were trying to overthrow their Egyptian rulers. Later we see the son of Amenhotep III, Akhnaton, so preoccupied with other matters such as vigorously pursuing a program to reform the religion of Egypt that few if any efforts were made to control these territories slipping from their power. With his mind and energies devoted to that enterprise, and to the establishment of his new city at Amarna, he may have had little time to tend to the affairs of the empire. Furthermore, he had antagonized the powerful Egyptian priesthood; they were intent on removing him from power. Amidst this unsettled period Habiru tribes were on the move in Canaan. So what we see here is that both men, Solomon and Amenhotep III, were besieged by political and military demise of their empires at the same time in Palestine which is but one more puzzle piece that helps us identify King Solomon with Amenhotep III.
It is a fact that both King Solomon and Amenhotep III were "master builders". Solomon is said to have been a master creator of spectacular buildings. He built "the house of the Lord, and his own house, and Millo (the filling material used to enlarge the surface area of Jerusalem on the top of the mountain), and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer" (I Kings 9:15), and "Beth-horon the nether, And Baalath and Tadmor in the wilderness... And all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion" (I Kings 9:17-19). Further reference to this mass of building work, including "store cities, which he built in Hamath", is to be found in II Chronicles 8:4-6. From these biblical accounts we can conclude that Solomon built:
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that Egyptian records indicated that Amenhotep III did considerable reconstruction work on these same cities of Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer which the Bible records were reconstructed by King Solomon?
We have archaeological evidence in the case of only three of the places listed - Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. All were among the western Asiatic cities conquered by Tuthmose III in the middle of the 15th century B.C.E. This has been confirmed by archaeological digging, which has produced evidence of each city's destruction in the right strata for this period. In addition, in all three cases evidence has been found of large-scale reconstruction work half a century later during the reign of Amenhotep III. New royal palaces, temples, ordinary houses and fortifying walls were established just as the Bible records was also done by King Solomon. In each case a local ruler was appointed, paying tribute to Pharaoh and enjoying the support of an Egyptian garrison.
Answer for yourself: Are you aware that in the very areas where the Bible says King Solomon ruled that we have found Egyptian objects, including a cartouche of Amenhotep III, which was found in the strata belonging to this period in various cities in Palestine? Is this another coincidence or is this just more evidence that Amenhotep III is the Biblical Solomon?
Now this next "tid-bit" is very interesting. One of the major building achievements attributed to Solomon was the new royal house, reputed to have taken 13 years to complete. This great palace is said to have been constructed to the north of the ancient city of Jerusalem and south of the temple area.
Answer for yourself: Is there a problem with this? Yes simply we cannot find any evidence of this structure ever having been built north of the ancient city of Jerusalem and south of the temple area.
The Bible, after mentioning this one time, makes no further biblical mention of it and many believe that it might have been constructed following King Solomon's death. Troubling is the fact that although Jerusalem has been extensively excavated there are no remains of such a palace that can be found to this day.
Answer for yourself: Can this temple of King Solomon (Amenhotep III) be found in Egypt? It sure can. When we compare the biblical description of Solomon's royal palace with the great palace of Amenhotep III at Thebes, it becomes clear that they are both the same temple and that the temple in Thebes is the very same royal residence described by the biblical narrator.
From the account in I Kings 7:2-12 we can see that Solomon's palace consisted of five elements
The foundations were of costly stones while pillars of Lebanon cedarwood supported the roofs.
Up to the time of Amenhotep Ill, although Thebes was the religious and administrative capital of Egypt, the main royal residence was at Memphis, on the west bank of the Nile a few miles to the south of the Great Pyramid of Giza. With the vast wealth of his empire at his disposal and no wars to fight, Amenhotep III embarked on the construction of a great royal complex at Thebes. His own palace was ready in the 8th year of his reign (1398 B.C.E.), but the whole complex was not completed until towards the end of his third decade (1375 B.C.E.). The area of the palace was excavated between 1910 and 1920 by the Egyptian Expedition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York. From the result of these excavations we can see that, although they form part of a much larger complex, the five elements ascribed to Solomon's palace are to be found in Amenhotep III's palace at Thebes.
Answer for yourself: Are the above similarities just coincidences?
Amenhotep III is known to have built many temples, both in Egypt and in Canaan. He began his building program in the second year of his reign. The sites of his temples for different deities (neteroo), including himself, were at Hermopolis, opposite Amarna (the new capital that would be founded by his son, Akhenaten), two temples at Karnak to the north of Thebes, the great Luxor temple in Thebes itself, three temples in Nubia, his mortuary temple north of his palace complex in western Thebes, and temples in almost all the Canaanite cities that had Egyptian garrisons.
According to the Bible, much precious material was used in the construction of Solomon's temple. This is equally true of the mortuary temple that Amenhotep III built at western Thebes. The king himself has given a description of it on the other side of the stele known as the Israel Stele, which came from this temple and was used later by Merenptah, the fourth king of the 19th Dynasty, to give an account of the Libyan war in the 5th year of his reign.
On the subject of the riches used by Amenhotep III in his construction of temples, Donald B. Redford of Toronto University says in his book Akhenaten the Heretic King: "The recorded figures of metals and precious stones that went into the Montu temple (one of the Karnak temples) is quite staggering: 3.25 tons of electrum (alloy of gold and silver), 2.5 tons of gold, 924 tons of copper, 1,250 pounds of lapis lazuli, 215 pounds of turquoise, 1.5 tons of bronze and over 10 tons of beaten copper. Such was the return on Egypt's investment in an empire!"
It is time to draw all our puzzle pieces together for a summary statement. We have seen the evidence from both historical and archaeological sources describing various buildings during the reign of Amenhotep III that matches the buildings attributed to Solomon, who ruled four centuries earlier than the present composition of the Old Testament would have us believe. Now we can see why, despite diligent efforts by biblical scholars, historians and archaeologists, no single piece of evidence has been found in Palestine to support what has become known as the period in the 10th century B.C.E. of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon. It simply cannot be found in the historical record of this planet in the 10th century B.C.E. but it surely can be found under different names in the 15th century in Egypt. The absence of such evidence does not mean that they are not historical characters, but that scholars have been confused by the nature of the biblical account and have been seeking their evidence in the wrong century and the wrong nation.
The 18th Dynasty was the golden age for Egypt. Sleeping in the background was a hidden secret of major proportions; namely that through the "seed of the promise" given to Sarah and Abraham would come one to rule on the throne of Egypt and inherit the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. We have traced this "seed" from Isaac through Jacob and through Joseph and his daughter, wife of Amenhotep III, to the very throne in their child Akhenaten (the Biblical Moses).
Along the way we have seen how in this article that Amenhotep III, known in ancient times as the "King of Kings" and "Ruler of Ruler's," was a Pharaoh of Egypt's glorious 18th Dynasty (Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, p. 35). He, just like King Solomon, inherited a vast empire whose influence extended quite literally from the Nile to the Euphrates (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 202). In contrast to the empire of Solomon, the empire of Amenhotep is indisputable (Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, p. 43). The buildings, monuments, documents, art, and numerous other vestiges of his reign are ubiquitous and unparalleled (with the possible exception being those left by the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh, Ramses II).
We have seen how the cities of Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer have now been extensively excavated and see that a stratum containing large palaces, temples and strong fortifications was found in each of these cities. We have seen also that the name of Solomon was not found, but the cartouche of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III was located instead (Ahmed Osman, House of the Messiah, p.212). We also mentioned how that in Jerusalem it has not been possible to excavate the temple mount yet extensive excavations in the city, including the areas adjacent to the temple mount have not revealed the existence of a Solomaic palace complex (Osman, House of the Messiah, 216). Also we made mention of the excavation of the Millo and how it has revealed (due to pottery found in the Millo) that its original construction was also contemporary with the Egyptian 18th Dynasty of Amenhotep III (A. Osman, The House of the Messiah, p. 200-201, 213; Rohl, Pharaohs and Kings, 181.) To be consistent with the pattern of other great Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the ancient Near East (Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Hittite), it would be expected that numerous documents, art, and inscriptions on buildings or public monuments would have been left by such a great king as King Solomon or by his descendants later in honor of him yet no article of any kind bearing his name has ever been found (Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 304, 309). The entire reign of Amenhotep III was devoted to monumental construction throughout Egypt, Canaan, and Syria (Aldred, Akhenaten, 147). We saw that both King Solomon and Amenhotep III were master builders. In addition to the ancient world's most glorious temple at Luxor, Amenhotep built many other temples of similar design throughout Egypt and in the rest of his empire, including the Canaanite garrison cities of Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, Lachish and Beth-shean. Let us not forget the temple in Jerusalem as well. According to Egyptian records, Amenhotep's father Thutmose IV and grandfather Amenhotep II deported over 80,000 Canaanites. The Canaanite inhabitants of Gezer were specifically included in this deportation. It was during Amenhotep III's reign that Gezer and other major Palestine cities were refortified as royal Egyptian garrisons, and endowed with fine temples and palaces. The Bible states that in Solomon's day, the Pharaoh of Egypt captured the Canaanite city of Gezer and presented it to his daughter as a dowry upon her marriage to Solomon (1 Kings 9:16-17). The network of Egyptian 18th Dynasty garrison cities also included Jerusalem. If construction by Amenhotep III at Gezer, Hazor, Megiddo and other garrison cities is any indication, then a magnificent temple undoubtedly was also built by Amenhotep III on Jerusalem's venerated Temple Mount (A. Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 218; Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 270.) Let us not forget that Jerusalem had been "holy" for Egypt since Tuthmose III took the Ark of Amun-Ra and put in on Mount Moriah. Thus the need for a Temple on that spot. The structure adjacent to Jerusalem's Temple Mount, known traditionally as "Solomon's stables," is consistent with the architecture of Amenhotep's garrison cities (Osman, House of the Messiah, 218.) Archaeology has also confirmed that chariots were kept in these cities during his reign in groups of between thirty to one hundred and fifty each (Ibid., p. 207).
The ancient mining operations at Timna in the Negev desert, known as "Solomon's mines," "are earlier than Solomon by some three hundred years [in the conventional chronology]," dating once again to the time of Amenhotep III (Mazar,Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, p. 397). Copper from Timna, gold from the Sudan, other precious metals, jewels and high quality stone were used in great abundance in Amenhotep's temples, just as they were in Solomon's.
The Biblical Solomon's greatest satisfaction is said to have been the challenge of completing grand projects (Ecclesiastes 2:4-11). The same was said of Amenhotep III. A royal Egyptian text of the period reads, "Lo, His Majesty's heart was satisfied with making very great monuments, the like of which had never come into being since the primeval age of the Two Lands" (Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, p. 43. Quoted from Leipzig, Urkunden des Agyptishcen Altertums, IV, 1648). Only an enormously wealthy king of a long established empire could have built so splendidly and in so many widely distributed locations in the ancient world. Amenhotep III was arguably the ancient world's wealthiest king. The completion of such magnificent projects required management of a considerable and constant source of labor and revenue extending over a period of many decades.
The administration and taxation system of Amenhotep with its 12 districts is identical to that of Solomon as described in the Bible [1 Kings 4:2-7,27; 5:13; 9:23] (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 210). Amenhotep also dedicated himself to rediscovering the wisdom, mysteries and traditions of earlier Egyptian Dynasties (Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 151, 162, 164; Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, p. 52.) A strong relationship has been established between the "Proverbs of Solomon" in the Bible and the "Maxims of Amenhotep III" found in Egypt (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 222, quoting from Bright, A History of Israel, p. 199.)
In addition to the projects already mentioned, Amenhotep also built a completely new palace complex in Thebes. The new royal residence included all of the elements contained in the palace complex of Solomon which are described in the Bible (1 Kings 7:2-12) (Osman, House of the Messiah, 214).
Amenhotep, like Solomon, was relentless in his pursuit of women for his harem, especially beautiful foreign women of both royal and common backgrounds alike (Redford, Akhenaten the Heretic King, 37). Amenhotep's harem included two princesses from Babylon, two princesses from Syria, two princesses from Mitanni, and like Solomon's harem, it included a princess from each of the seven nations listed in 1 Kings 11:1 (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 204). As the mightiest king of the Middle East, Amenhotep did not send any of his own daughters to other kings in exchange, nor did any other Pharaoh of this dynasty (or likely any other throughout Egypt's history). He specifically denied a request by the king of Babylon for an Egyptian wife. Importantly, the Bible emphasizes Solomon's Egyptian bride, but does not mention that Solomon had any Hebrew wives.
The court of Amenhotep III was an extremely liberal one, and reflected every possible excess of an affluent and secure kingdom. Eroticism in art and court life reached its height during the reign of Amenhotep. The famous "nude dancing girls" mural dates to Amenhotep's reign. As with Solomon, Amenhotep denied himself nothing "his eyes desired" and "refused his heart no pleasure" (Ecclesiastes 2:10). However, the last years of Amenhotep's thirty-eight year reign were not pleasant ones. The long years of indulgence had taken their toll and he had many ailments. As a compassionate gesture, his Mitanni brother-in-law sent him an idol of the goddess Ishtar (i.e., Asherah) (1 Kings 11:5).
The "inescapable conclusion" is that the story of Solomon was patterned specifically after the life of Amenhotep III (Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 223) .The name Solomon itself, which literally means "peace" or "safety" points to Amenhotep III whose long and pervasive reign in the 14th Century B.C. did not include any major military campaigns, but was characterized by unprecedented stability throughout the Near East (Ibid. p. 202). After the Egyptian 18th Dynasty, the region between the two great rivers was not controlled by a single power again until the Assyrian empire of Ashurbanipal (the grandson of Sennacherib) who invaded Egypt and pillaged Thebes in the 7th Century B.C., and the 6th Century B.C. empire of Cyrus, who also conquered Egypt and made it a Persian province (Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, p. 364; Osman, House of the Messiah, p. 88.) There is no evidence of any empire at any time controlling this region whose capital was Jerusalem (Ibid.).
Solomon is said to have had "a thousand and four hundred" chariots (1 Kings 1:26). This represents a prodigious army by ancient standards, and one which could only have been amassed over a long period of time by an established civilization. Yet we are told that only five years after the great King Solomon's death, the Egyptian Pharaoh Shishak and his allies invaded Judah and captured its fortified cities with little or no military resistance (2 Chron. 12). The Bible adds that Jerusalem itself was spared only after delivering up the entirety of King Solomon's accumulated wealth to Shishak. The rapidness with which Solomon's empire was established, as described by the Bible, and the ease with which it shortly thereafter submitted to a foreign power is also not consistent with the pattern set by other great ancient civilizations.
Well there you have it. The evidence has been presented. The identities of Amenhotep III and King Solomon have been contrasted and the puzzle pieces sorted out and compared and to any "thinking believer" it should be obvious that the depiction of King Solomon is but a cover for Amenhotep III. Let us not forget that the "seed" of the promise to Sarah and Abraham has returned to Egypt through Joseph and with Divine providence we have Joseph marrying Tuya, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, and from their union we get Tiye, his daughter, who marries Amenhotep III (1405-1367 B.C.E.) who had earlier married Sitamum, his sister, in order to inherit the throne, as was Egyptian custom. It is here the "Hebrew bloodline" renters Egyptian royalty with the offspring of Amenhotep III and Tiye (daughter of Joseph) and the promise to Sarah and Abraham is almost fulfilled for in the child of Amenhotep III, the Biblical Moses, Amenhotep IV, otherwise known as the Biblical Moses, will Egypt experience a religious revolution that will impact the whole world. But it is such a world that this Moses, half-blooded heir to the throne of Egypt, will be thrown and we pick up the story next with the "seed of the promise"; none other than Akhenaten.
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