The Life, Death, and Modern Discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, Part III

INTRODUCTION

Following the death of the teenage pharaoh Tutankhamun, his principle advisor, Ay, became king and ruled for roughly four years. We have already looked at the circumstances surrounding Tut’s death and Ay’s ascension to the throne, so now we turn to a brief look at who Ay was, and how his own successor’s reign helped ensure that the young King Tut would be forgotten to history.


A well-preserved bust of Tut

AY’S RISE TO POWER

Ay was a commoner most likely born in the Egyptian town of Khentmin, where he commissioned the building of a small temple.


A 15-foot statue of Ramesses II's daughter (and later wife), Meritamun, at Khentmin (modern Akhmim)

Ay is believed to be the son of Yuya, a priest of the god Min and later a prominent military advisor to Amenhotep III. Ay’s sister was most likely the queen of Amenhotep III, Tiye. Yuya, as the father-in-law to Amenhotep, was honored by that pharaoh with his own tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a rare privilege for someone who was otherwise not royalty.


Yuya's chariot, found in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Prior to the discovery of Tut's tomb, the tomb of Yuya and his wife was the least disturbed of any royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.


Yuya's wooden sarcophagus


Yuya's inner and outer coffins


The death mask of Yuya's mummy


The death mask of Yuya's wife, Tjuya

No doubt thanks to the prominence of his priestly father and queenly sister, Ay appears to have moved up quickly through the social hierarchy of ancient Egypt, becoming a successful military leader and later an advisor of Amenhotep’s son and successor, Akhenaten.


A bust of Ay

Genealogically, Akhenaten would have been Ay’s nephew. There is also some evidence to suggest that Ay’s daughter was none other than Akhenaten’s principle wife, Nefertiti.


One of the most famous busts in all of ancient Egyptian art, depicting Akhenaten's powerful wife, Nefertiti

Akhenaten appears to have relied quite a bit on old “Uncle Ay,” and Ay stayed loyal to his king when Akhenaten instituted his religious revolution, outlawing the Egyptian pantheon and instituting a monotheistic worship of the sun disc god, the Aten.


Akhenaten (left) and Nefertiti, along with three of their daughters, spending a "family moment" beneath the rays of the Aten

Ay appears to have gone along with this change, and his loyalty apparently paid off for him – Ay was allowed to commission the building a tomb for himself in Akhenaten’s city of Akhetaten, and Ay was elevated to the “Overseer of All the King’s Horses,” a prominent military position within the charioteering division of the king’s army. Additionally, in his tomb at Akhetaten, one of Ay’s titles is given as “Fan-Bearer on the Right Side of the King,” a position which implied close personal associations with the king.


Ay and his wife worshipping the Aten in Ay's Akhetaten tomb


The 8-pillared hall in Ay's extensive tomb in Akhetaten

It cannot be known for certain whether Ay went along with his nephew’s monotheism out of genuine religious conviction, or whether it was simply political convenience. However, the fact that Ay helped lead Egypt’s return to the old pantheon after Akhenaten’s death would imply that Ay’s religious convictions were more politically motivated than spiritually motivated. In the opinion of many historians, Ay was simply a shrewd politician who knew how to follow the undercurrents of society and affairs of state in order to elevate his own status and power. And, of course, it worked. Ay managed to finagle his way into the kingship after Tut died.

THE REIGN OF AY

Tut’s master general, or Commander of the Armies, was a man named Horemheb, and Horemheb was apparently designated as Tut’s successor, a conclusion arrived at by the fact that Horemheb was named Tut’s “deputy” and regnal “son.” However, as we have already seen in a previous installment, Ay managed to outmaneuver Horemheb, in part by marrying Tut’s widow and claiming the throne for himself. The exact methods used by Ay to outwit Horemheb, however, are not clear.

As previously stated, Ay ruled for only about four years. By ancient Egyptian standards, he would have been an old man by the time he took the throne, and it is likely that he died a natural death, though the circumstances of his demise are not known. During his brief reign, he commissioned the building of several temples, and continued promoting the return to the old pantheon, which he, of course, had helped initialize as the principle advisor to Tut.

Following his own death, Ay was buried in a modest tomb in the Valley of the Kings (abandoning his original tomb in Akhetaten).


An unusual scene depicting Ay hunting ducks, from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings

It is uncertain whether Ay had any children of his own, but his chosen successor was a military officer named Nakhtmin who is noted on artifacts from Ay’s period as being the “King’s Son.” It is not clear, however, if this was literal or metaphorical.


Nakhtmin, the chosen successor of Ay, and likely his son

The problem, of course, is that Nakhtmin did not end up succeeding Ay to the throne.

HOREMHEB’S RISE TO POWER

Horemheb, the Commander of the Armies, and the named successor of Tut who had been outwitted for the throne by Ay, finally had his day and secured the throne from Nakhtmin after Ay’s death.


General Horemheb

Like Ay’s ascendancy, just how Horemheb pulled this off is unclear, but there can be little doubt that his position as Tut’s chosen successor played a prominent role. Furthermore, since Ay was a commoner who had managed to usurp the throne following the young Tut’s death, it is likely that the royal legitimacy of any of his own offspring would have been challenged. Ay was not of royal blood, and Ay had, himself, never been named as a royal successor, so any proclamations of succession that he made during his reign would not have been binding after his death. Horemheb was also a commoner, but had been named by a legitimate king – Tutankhamun – as a successor. These circumstances are likely what led to Horemheb’s rise to power. The fact that Nakhtmin was only a young military officer, and Horemheb was a veteran politician and master general of all the armies, no doubt played a significant role as well.

Interestingly, the statute upon which Nakhtmin was proclaimed as Ay’s successor has strong evidence of intentional damage, implying that Horemheb’s ascendancy was not entirely peaceful. But a policy of attempting to destroy all evidence of his predecessors, as we shall see, became the central policy, and most enduring legacy, of Horemheb’s reign.

THE REIGN OF HOREMHEB

Unlike his immediate predecessors, Horemheb apparently ruled for quite a long time, nearly thirty years. Almost from the very beginning, he made a systematic attempt to erase his enemy, Ay, from history.

We have already seen that the statue mentioning Ay’s named successor, Nakhtmin, was intentionally damaged. In addition to that, Horemheb ordered the desecration of Ay’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The paintings of Ay on the walls were chiseled out, along with his name, and his sarcophagus was smashed into pieces. It is likely that Ay’s mummy was also destroyed, as it has never been found. Ay’s tomb was discovered in the early 19th century, and the fragments from the sarcophagus were still on the ground, and the lid, which was intact, had been buried by debris.


A larger view of the duck hunting scene above, showing Ay in his boat, with his face and part of his body defaced


Ay's sarcophagus in his burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings. Note the repaired damage to the sarcophagus, and the defaced images of Ay in the paintings on the walls.

Horemheb also usurped Ay’s mortuary temple for himself, chiseling out Ay’s name and images, and replacing them with his own.


A bird's eye view of Medinet Habu, the holy place where the moturary temple of Ay and Horemheb was located. Some 100 years later, Ramesses III built an enormous temple here, which dominates this photo. The ruins of Ay and Horemheb's much smaller temple are located in the desert area beyond the upper right wall of the main complex.

Horemheb was clearly intent on not only ruining Ay’s passage through the underworld, but also on removing Ay from history and asserting that his kingship was illegitimate.

In addition to his revenge against Ay, Horemheb appears to have been the first pharaoh to begin a systematic destruction of all the monuments and writings pertaining to the era of Akhenaten. This era is commonly called “the Amarna Period,” because Amarna is the modern name for Akhenaten’s holy city of Akhetaten. Though Horemheb was a prominent figure in the court of the heretic king, it is not clear that he ever really accepted Akhenaten’s new religion, the way Ay apparently did. Evidence suggests that Horemheb ordered the destruction of the city of Akhetaten, and he used dismantled stones from Akhetaten in his own monuments elsewhere. Furthermore, Horemheb was probably the first pharaoh to begin systematically removing the names and images of Amarna-era kings from statutes, stelas, temples, and other structures.

Horemheb, however, appears to have left Tutankhamun’s legacy alone. This is most likely due to the fact that Horemheb’s own claim to the throne came directly from Tutankhamun, so he naturally felt that Tut did not deserve to be lumped in with the likes of Akhenaten, Smenkhkara, and Ay. During Horemheb’s reign, the tombs of both Tutankhamun and an earlier 18th dynasty pharaoh named Thutmosis IV were vandalized, and Horemheb commissioned their repair.


The remarkably well-preserved face of Thutmosis IV. Thutmosis was likely the great-grandfather of King Tut. He is remembered primarily as being the first person who ever commissioned an official government restoration of the Sphinx at Giza, which was already more than 1,000 years old at the time of Thutmosis.

Unfortunately, Horemheb’s leniency toward his patron Tut did not extend to Horemheb’s own successors. Horemheb, like a number of the kings before him, died without an heir, so he named his principle advisor, Paramessu to succeed him. Paramessu had both a son and a grandson, so Horemheb, in addition to rewarding his faithful servant, also hoped to prevent the sort of succession crises that had marked the last several generations of Egyptian royal history.

THE 19th ANCIENT EGYPTIAN DYNASTY

Paramessu took the reigns of power as an old man and only appears to have lived a year or two before his death. During that time, however, he took the throne name of Ramesses, and inaugurated Egypt’s 19th ancient dynasty. His own son was named Seti, and Seti became a very powerful king who ruled for some 10-15 years. Seti’s son, in turn, would eventually become Ramesses II, or Ramesses the Great, and would reign well into his 90’s, marking the height of Egypt’s Golden Age during the New Kingdom era.


The mummy of Ramesses II. His advanced age at death (over 90) is evident in his features.


The startlingly regal mummy of Seti I, father of Ramesses II

These early 19th dynasty pharaohs continued Horemheb’s campaign to rid Egyptian history of the Amarna period heresy. By the time of Ramesses II, the city of Akhetaten lay in ruins, and even much of the historical record discussing events of the Amarna period had been destroyed. Furthermore, 19th dynasty kings did not have the same respect for Tutankhamun that Horemheb evidently had. It did not matter that the old pantheon had been restored under the boy king; Tutankhamun was from the family line of Akhenaten, and was likely his son, and as such, his legacy got caught up in the systematic destruction of Amarna period history.

In addition to chiseling out Tut’s name and image from many structures, his name, along with that of Akhenaten, Smenkhkara, Neferneferuaten, and Ay, were omitted from several “king lists” created during the times of Seti I and Ramesses II. The so-called “Abydos King List” skips right from Amenhotep III and goes straight to Horemheb.


The Abydos King List

Furthermore, at least one historical document – a text discussing a court case that occurred during the reign of Horemheb – refers to Year 59 of Horemheb’s reign. As discussed above, Horemheb is only known to have ruled for about 30 years; however, if you take the years comprised by the reigns of Akhenaten, Smenkhkara, Neferneferuaten, Tut, and Ay, then add those to the known years of Horemheb’s reign, it equals roughly 59 or 60 years. Clearly history was being rewritten to suppose that Horemheb had directly succeeded Amenhotep III.

TUTANKHAMUN’S EXISTENCE LOST TO HISTORY

As a result of all this, within 200 years of his death, Tut appears to have been forgotten by Egyptian culture. While Akhenaten’s legacy was prominent and scandalous enough to be remembered despite attempts to destroy it, Tutankhamun – as a boy king who died young and never had much chance to secure a strong legacy – was easily forgotten. Added together with the intentional attempts to destroy all memory of the Amarna period, it is not surprising that Tut was lost to history.

The fact that knowledge of Tut’s existence was lost even to later-era ancient Egyptians is evidenced by several facts. First, the tomb of Ramesses VI, who lived and died about 200 years after Tut, was built right on top of Tut’s tomb. One chamber of Ramesses VI’s tomb, in fact, comes within about 6 feet of breaking through the entryway to Tut’s tomb. Furthermore, there is evidence of Ramesses-era construction huts built right over the entrance of Tut’s tomb. Clearly the builders had no idea that the boy king’s tomb lay right beneath them as they were digging out the earth. This further suggests that the location of the tomb was not even included on construction documents that most surely would have existed for the tomb builders in the Valley of the Kings. Tut’s existence was simply forgotten.

Second, a king list from the period of the Ptolemies, in roughly 300 B.C.E., neglects to mention Tut’s name. This list, compiled by the Egyptian historian Manetho about 1000 years after Tut’s death, was used by later historians of Egypt to list the pharaohs, and Tut’s exclusion from this list was simply perpetuated. Manetho no doubt based his king list on earlier lists, such as the aforementioned Abydos King List, but if it had been known by the time of Manetho that Tut and others were left off that earlier list, the historian Manetho would surely have added them to his own documents. His failure to do this makes it clear that Tut’s existence was long forgotten by the 300’s B.C.E.

Finally, the fact that Tut’s tomb was found largely intact, and was never cleaned out by grave robbers in antiquity, is further evidence that knowledge of his existence had been lost, even to the ancients. Many of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings have been accessible to the public since ancient times. The aforementioned tomb of Ramesses VI, for instance, has thousands of individual ancient graffiti in it, with scribbled dates as early as 25 B.C.E., and leading up through the 1st century C.E., and beyond. No one entered Tut’s tomb, because no one knew it was there.

Considering that Tut was the victim of a successful Orwellian-style attempt to rewrite history, and considering that even the ancient Egyptians who came after Tut had already forgotten him, how is it that his existence was finally discovered by modern historians? And how did the rediscovery of his existence lead to the discovery of his intact tomb in the 20th century? That will be discussed in the fourth and final installment.

The Life, Death, and Modern Discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, Part II

INTRODUCTION

The young king Tutankhamun, 12th ruler of Egypt’s 18th dynasty, met a sudden and untimely end while still a teenager. The exact nature of his death is uncertain, and prevailing theories have changed over time. However, it was known almost from the time of his mummy’s discovery that he died young – this led to speculation that he had been killed, either accidentally or intentionally.

DEATH AND BURIAL

After Tutankhamun died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings – a necropolis in the hilly southwestern desert where royalty of the New Kingdom era were buried.


The Valley of the Kings

Tut’s tomb is smaller than most royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings; its size is more in keeping with the tomb of a prominent advisor, or a royal family member. Additionally, only the burial chamber is painted – unlike most other royal tombs that have paintings on all the chamber walls. These facts, along with his untimely death, indicate that Tut was probably buried in haste, and was not buried in a tomb of his own commissioning.

The paintings on the tomb indicate that there were eight official mourners for the deceased pharaoh, and that Tutankhamun’s principle advisor, Ay, presided over the funerary proceedings. Ay is depicted performing the “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony on Tutankhamun.


Ay, at right, performing the Opening of the Mouth ceremony on Tut's mummy

This was a religious ritual that symbolized the breathing of life into the deceased. The same wall also depicts the spirit of the king (his “ka”) being welcomed by the goddess Nut and the green-skinned god of the underworld, Osiris.


Full image of the rear wall. Ay and Tut at right. Nut greeting Tut in the center. Tut and his ka embracing Osiris at far left.

Another painting in the tomb depicts Tut’s sarcophagus begin transported to burial on a sledge accompanied by three advisors, one of whom may have been the general of Tut’s armies, Horemheb. According to one source (http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/), this is an unusual type of scene, and was more common in private tombs than royal tombs.

Other paintings show Tut, accompanied by the jackal-headed Anubis, standing before the goddess Hathor.


Anubis at left, Tut in the center, and Hathor at right offering an ankh to Tut

Still another shows Tut being welcomed by Isis, Hathor, and Anubis. Additionally, one wall is decorated with a series of apes, representing a passage from the Amduat – an Egyptian funerary text. This text told of the sun god’s passage through the 12 hours of the night before his rebirth at dawn. The Egyptians believed their kings would make this passage in a solar boat, and the apes represented the first hour of the 12-hour passage.


The baboons of the first hour. Note Tut in his solar boat at the top left.

The fact that only the first hour was depicted in art is indicative of the haste with which Tut was evidently buried, and the limitations of the small tomb.


A shot showing three walls of the tomb. At right are the eight mourners, pulling Tut's coffin on a sledge

Tutankhamun did not have any surviving children; he was buried along with two mummified daughters, both apparently stillborns. His wife, however, seems to have outlived him by several years, and there is an intriguing mystery about just what happened to her in the wake of his death. This mystery may also serve as a clue to determine how Tutankhamun, himself, met his end.

WAS TUT MURDERED?

As I mentioned above, many historians have speculated that Tutankhamun was murdered. The most recent and prominent of these historians is American Egyptologist Bob Brier, who wrote a best-selling book called “The Murder of Tutankhamun: A True Story” in 1998, followed by several television documentaries discussing the same subject. Buy the book here.



Brier’s theory was largely based on a 1960’s X-ray exam of Tut’s skull which indicated the pharaoh had suffered head trauma. This was based on a bone fragment that was discovered in the rear of the cranium – a fragment apparently broken off from some other spot in the skull. Furthermore, an expert used by Brier to analyze the X-ray film suggested that there was evidence of a subdural hematoma at the base of the skull. This sort of injury occurs with a major blow to the head. The bone fragment, according to Brier and his expert, came from the site of this trauma.


The pointer indicates the spot of the alleged subdural hematoma. The bone fragment in question is in the upper left corner of the dark skull cavity.

However, the presence of a subdural hematoma and a bone fragment – while indicating a probable cause of death – does not tell us whether it was intentional or accidental.

However, other historical evidence also suggests foul play, and it was this evidence, together with the 1960’s radiological data, that led Brier to speculate on a murder plot surrounding Tutankhamun.

THE HITTITE LETTER

Among the historical evidence suggesting foul play, the most prominent is an ancient correspondence that has come to be known as the Hittite Letter. This letter, and the story surrounding it, comes to us from the capital of the Hittite empire, Hattusa. The correspondence was sent to the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I, and was sent from a widowed Egyptian queen, called Dakhamunzu in the Hittite annals. This name – Dakhamunzu – is believed to be a Hittite translation of the Egyptian title “Tahemetnesu” – the Royal Wife.

In the letter, this Egyptian queen informs the Hittite king that her husband has died without any male heirs. The implication is that she is fearful about what will happen to her without any sons to protect her. She goes on to say that she knows the Hittite king has many sons, and she asks him to send one to her, so she can marry him. She finishes by saying that she is afraid that she will be forced to marry “one of her subjects.”

The Hittite king received this letter with great suspicion. According to Hittite chronicles, he sent an envoy to Egypt to meet with the queen and determine if the story was legitimate. When the envoy returned, confirming the queen’s story, the king sent one of his sons, a prince named Zannanza. Zannanza, however, was ambushed at the borders of Egypt and murdered.

Most Egyptologists believe the queen in question was Tutankhamun’s widow, Ankhesenamun.


Bust of Queen Ankhesenamun

The time period fits, as does the content of the letter. King Tut died without any obvious heirs, leaving his wife without a royal protector. Furthermore, other kings of the era – such as Amenhotep III and Akhenaten – clearly had successors in line for the throne.

Putting the evidence together, an intriguing scenario begins to form. Without a son to take the throne and bring her under his protection, Ankhesenamun appears to have been fearful that she would be forced to marry one of her subjects. This may seem odd at first glance, but it is clear that no widowed Egyptian queen would have been forced to marry a common laborer or farmer, even under the direst of circumstances. Most historians believe Ankhesenamun was referring to one of Tut’s advisors – a man of power and influence, but still a non-royal commoner (thus, one of her “subjects”). Bob Brier believes this person was Tut’s principle advisor, Ay.


One of the few surviving busts of Ay

According to Brier’s theory, Ay had his heart set on succeeding Tutankhamun to the throne, and there could have been no better way to legitimize his claim than by marrying Tutankhamun’s young widow. Ankhesenamun, however, seems to have been repulsed by this idea, so she appealed to the Hittite king to send her a royal prince. Brier believes Ay got wind of Ankhesenamun’s treachery and had the Hittite prince murdered when he arrived in Egypt.

After that, it appears that Ankhesenamun was left without much choice; she apparently married Ay and helped to legitimize his claim to the throne. This is testified to by an artifact discovered in the 1930’s listing Ay and Ankhesenamun as the royal couple.


A ring depicting Ay and Ankhesenamun married

Shortly after Ay became pharaoh, Ankhesenamun disappears from the historical record, and Ay’s own tomb depicts another woman as his principle wife.

This evidence, when connected back to the radiological evidence of a subdural hematoma and bone fragment in Tut’s mummy, makes Ay a prime suspect for also murdering Tut. Ay, the king’s principle advisor and a shrewd politician, would have made most of the important decisions during the young pharaoh’s reign. This taste of unrestricted power may have tempted Ay to use his own influence to arrange Tutankhamun’s assassination. Afterward, he pressured Tut’s widow to marry him, in order to seal his claim on the throne. When she tried to subvert this by asking the Hittite king for a princely husband, Ay stepped in and murdered the prince before he could reach Ankhesenamun. After marrying Tut’s widow and securing the throne, Ay had her killed as well. In the aforementioned painting in Tut’s tomb, where Ay is shown performing the Opening of the Mouth ceremony on Tut’s mummy, Ay is depicted already wearing a royal crown. This is unusual, and is yet more evidence for Brier and others that Ay may have been involved in duplicity regarding Tut’s death. In his book, Brier even goes so far as to suggest that Ay was responsible for the murders of Tut’s predecessors, Smenkhkara, Neferneferuaten, and even Akhenaten (although there is no historical evidence to suggest any of these pharaohs was murdered).

For Brier, Ay was the classic villain willing to wait many years for his prize, and willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to achieve his cunning and well-crafted goal.

Whatever the case, Ay lived only a short time, ruling for about four years before his death.

ANALYSIS OF THE MURDER THEORY

While Brier’s theory is certainly intriguing and makes for a great story, his ideas are probably more fiction than fact.

First of all, much of the evidence drawn from the Hittite Letter and the Hittite annals is speculative – we do not know for certain that the author of the letter was, in fact, Ankhesenamun. Secondly, even if she was the author, we do not know if her fears were actually the result of pressure from Ay, or simply that she feared being caught up in the tribulation that was surely to follow the death of a pharaoh without an heir. It may simply have been that she feared being forced to marry a commoner – any commoner, even a royal advisor – which, after having first been the daughter of a pharaoh, and later the wife of a pharaoh, would have been understandably horrifying for her. Finally, even if Ankhesenamun was the author, and even if her fears were due to pressures from Ay, that does not mean that Ay was responsible for Prince Zannanza’s murder, and it certainly does not mean that Ay arranged the assassinations of Tutankhamun and his predecessors.

In the end, Brier’s conclusions are, at best, speculation based on very circumstantial evidence. In Brier’s defense, however, he openly admitted at the time of the book’s publication that his “charges” against Ay would not hold up in a modern court of law, but were simply speculations based on the evidence.*

But what about the radiological evidence of trauma to Tut’s skull? That was, after all, a key aspect to Brier’s theory. Unfortunately for Brier (as we shall see), and actually resulting, in part, from the hype surrounding Brier’s theory, a more detailed study of the mummy using CT technology took place in 2005, about seven years after Brier’s book was published.

MODERN RADIOLOGICAL STUDIES ON TUTANKHAMUN’S MUMMY

The CT study in 2005 conclusively dismissed the earlier studies and found no significant evidence of trauma to Tut’s skull.


Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, by Tut's mummy as it enters the CT scanner

The researchers did not find evidence to support Brier’s own conclusions about a subdural hematoma, and the team concluded that the bone fragment was from damage that occurred post-mortem, possibly even in the 20th century. Their conclusion on this point was primarily based on the fact that no other evidence of head trauma existed to explain the fragment, and the fragment itself was not covered in embalming materials, as it would have been if it had been loose inside the skull during mummification.

Additionally, the team found no evidence of any disease process in the body, and asserted that: “Judging from his bones, the king was generally in good health…There are no signs of malnutrition or infectious disease in childhood…”

The 2005 researchers, instead, concluded that Tutankhamun died from a massive fracture to his left femur.


Tut's legs, side by side, in an enhanced CT image. The view is roughly centered on the knees. The arrow points to the fracture, which moves from that spot down to the right.

This fracture had been noted before, but had been dismissed by earlier researchers as having occurred after death – either during embalming or during excavation in the 20th century. The CT study, however, indicated that it occurred very shortly (no more than several days) before death and had become infected with gangrene, almost certainly leading to Tut’s demise. Speculation is that the young king may have been thrown from a horse or injured in a chariot accident. Falling from a great height could also have caused the same injury, but such a fall would almost certainly have broken the pelvis as well, and Tutankhamun’s pelvis was intact.

While ruling out murder by blunt force trauma to the head, and concluding that Tut likely died from a leg fracture, the team admitted that their examination could not evaluate other possible murder scenarios, such as poisoning.

Other interesting information was gained from this CT examination. Of note is that Tutankhamun had an overbite, which was a trademark of many of his royal ancestors and provides a genetic link between Tutankhamun and his predecessors. Additionally, the teenage Tut also had an impacted wisdom tooth, which may have caused him discomfort. Finally, it was found that Tutankhamun had a slightly cleft palate and an elongated skull.


Enhanced CT images of Tut's head (bottom). Note the elongation, depicting a dolichocephalic skull

This is significant not just for historical purposes, but also because it connects him to an unidentified mummy found in another tomb in the Valley of the Kings – a tomb called KV55.

TOMB KV55

KV55 was discovered in 1907, about fifteen years before the discovery of Tut’s tomb. The artifacts found in KV55 indicate a connection with Tut’s 18th dynasty, and it is commonly believed that the tomb was built to hold the mummy of Queen Tiye, the wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten (if it is true, as discussed in the first installment, that Akhenaten was Tutankhamun’s father, then Tiye would have been Tut’s paternal grandmother).


Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III, and probable grandmother of Tut

The sealed door of the tomb actually had Tutankhamun’s name on it, causing its earliest excavators to believe they had found the boy king’s tomb. The mummy found inside KV55 was male, leading many to suggest that the body was that of Queen Tiye’s son, Akhenaten, whose mummy has otherwise never been found. The theory is that Akhenaten’s body was moved, from its tomb in the city of Akhetaten to his mother’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, for protection long after his death. What happened to Tiye’s mummy is a mystery.

Curiously, this mummy also had a cleft palate and an elongated skull, like Tut. Surviving art of Akhenaten and his family routinely depicts them with very long, almost distorted, heads. It is assumed that these stylized images are simply exaggerations of a known familial trait. If that is true, then this is simply more evidence that the unknown mummy from KV55 is, indeed, Akhenaten, and that Akhenaten was, in fact, Tutankhamun’s father. Of course, the wrench in all this is that a lot of evidence (though not all) suggests that the mummy in KV55 was only about 20 years old – far too young to be Akhenaten, but perhaps just about right to have been his brother and direct successor, Smenkhkara – Tut’s uncle. So the mystery simply deepens. In the end, it is all speculation. What can be certain is that the mummy in KV55 is genetically related to Tutankhamun and his predecessors, and may, itself, be pharonic.

Tutankhamun clearly lived during a time of great social and religious upheaval. The reign of his predecessor, Akhenaten, and the effects that Akhenaten’s religious revolution had on Egyptian society, were certain to reverberate down through the ages, much as modern British people still remember the treachery of Oliver Cromwell and the failed British Commonwealth. While Tut’s own reign was apparently inconsequential, the circumstances of his ascendancy, and the circumstances of his demise, were clearly significant events in Egyptian society. Yet, it is a fact that King Tut was lost to history. By the time Egyptology began to emerge as a valid post-Enlightenment science in the 19th century, knowledge of Tut’s existence had been lost. His tomb, his monuments, his statues, his pictures, even his name, were all absent from the historical record. We now know that even the ancient Egyptians, in centuries after his death, had forgotten his existence.

To understand why, we must next turn to the reign of Horemheb, Tut’s principle military advisor, and the man who took the throne after Ay’s short kingship.


* My “criticism” of Brier in this essay should not be taken as a general criticism of Brier as an Egyptologist. In fact, I have great respect for Brier’s work (he is known in some circles as “Mr. Mummy”), particularly in his role as a “champion” for Ancient Egypt, helping to bring the study of Egyptology to “the masses,” so that even amateur enthusiasts like me can study and learn about this fascinating culture.

Bastille Day

Celebrated each year on July 14th, Bastille Day commemorates the day in 1789 when the Bastille prison was stormed by insurgents, sparking the French Revolution. Bastille Day is for the French what Independence Day is for Americans.

France was a tinderbox in the summer of 1789. The cost of supporting the colonies in the American Revolution had drained the government of money, and heavy taxation of the bourgeoisie had raised the ire of many French people. In response to this, the Third Estate – the group who represented the bourgeoisie in government – reformed itself into the National Constituent Assembly, promising to form a constitutional government. This was naturally opposed by the powerful First and Second Estates – those groups which represented the nobility and clergy, and constituted only 3% of France’s total population. The sheer strength in numbers of the National Assembly, however, forced the First and Second Estates, as well as the king, to capitulate, and its authority was finally recognized.

The National Assembly spent the summer of 1789 rousing support among the populace. Paris, in particular, was feverish with the revolutionary spirit. The French had seen the success of the colonists in America against their monarchical oppressors; the French felt that they, too, could bring down their tyrannical overlords.

On July 11th, Louis XVI made what would prove to be a fatal mistake when he gave into the suggestions of his council and reorganized his cabinet. Among those who were ousted was the finance minister Jacques Necker, who had been particularly sympathetic to the cause of the National Constituent Assembly. This move outraged average Frenchmen and women; they saw it as a decisive step by the royalists toward putting down the growing liberation movement. Their fears were further encouraged by the arrival of royal troops in Paris, where the National Assembly was meeting. Groups of armed Frenchmen began forming, roused to action by various spirited leaders and bourgeois revolutionaries, often bearing busts of Necker as they called the people to arms. Over the next few days, skirmishes and riots broke out, and Paris began to descend into anarchy.

By the 14th, the revolutionaries had gathered some 30,000 weapons, but had very little ammunition or gunpowder. They knew, however, that munitions were being stored in the Bastille prison – that ancient symbol of royal tyranny and oppression.

Constructed during the Hundred Years’ War in the 14th century, the Bastille was already 400 years old by the time of the French Revolution. Dark and imposing, with eight towers and 80-foot walls, it was built entirely of stone blocks, more a fortified castle than a prison. In fact, it had initially been just that – a military stronghold to defend Paris. Not until the reign of Louis XIII in the early 17th century did the Bastille become a state prison.

Though the prison was large, its general inmate population was small – less than 50 prisoners at any one time. In July of 1789, only seven prisoners were being held there – four convicted of forgery, two listed as “lunatics,” and one man imprisoned for writing pornography. What mattered to the revolutionaries, however, was not so much the prisoners inside the Bastille, but the ammunition and gunpowder stored there. Furthermore, as a symbol of old France and the monarchy, the Bastille was an obvious target for rioters enraged at the transgressions of the king.

Sometime around mid-morning on July 14th, about 600 rioters began surrounding the prison, demanding its complete surrender, including its inmates and military stores. Despite its bulk, the Bastille was only guarded by about 120 soldiers. These troops were led by a French commander named Bernard-Rene de Launay. De Launay began negotiations with spokesmen for the rioters, but his attempts to make terms with them were refused.

In the early afternoon, the crowd outside, growing hot and restless with the passing hours, began attacking the closed drawbridge, cutting its chains and storming into the inner courtyard. Many of the rioters were armed, and a 3-hour gun battle ensued, with a number of the attackers being killed. The rioters, however, were reinforced by deserting French soldiers who brought cannons with them. By 5:30 that afternoon, De Launay, realizing there was no hope of holding out, surrendered the fortress to the rioters, and the Bastille fell into the hands of the revolution. Despite surrendering completely, De Launay and several of his officers were beaten, killed, and beheaded, and their heads paraded through the streets of Paris.

Within a matter of months, the Bastille was completely dismantled, Louis XVI was ousted from his opulent palace at Versailles, and the revolution – which would last for a decade – was well underway.

On the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, great celebrations were held in Paris, commemorated in a famous painting by Claude Monet. Within two years, in 1880, the day was selected as the French National Holiday, and it has been celebrated in France ever since, most notably with a massive parade along the Champs Elysees and an evening of fireworks.

The Life, Death, and Modern Discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, Part I

Buy the entire series for your Kindle reader from Amazon.com, only $1.99.  Includes updates from the most recent medical studies of Tut's family line, which have ultimately answered the question of Tut's lineage:





INTRODUCTION

Tutankhamun (“toot-onk-ah’moon”) – more widely known as “King Tut” – ruled during Egypt’s turbulent 18th dynasty, dying around 1325 B.C.E. He was, in fact, one of the most insignificant kings in all of ancient Egyptian history. This, of course, is highly ironic, considering that Tutankhamun has become, for modern folks, the most famous of all the kings of ancient Egypt. We have Howard Carter’s astonishing and quite accidental discovery of Tut’s tomb in 1922 to thank for this.

This story will be told in a series of four installments, the first covering Tut’s life and lineage, the second discussing Tut’s death and its implications, the third covering the history of how Tut’s existence was lost from historical knowledge, and the fourth detailing the discovery of his identity, and ultimately his tomb, in the early 20th century.

In an attempt to make the confusing names a bit easier to follow, here is a “cast of characters” appearing in this real-life drama (the pharaohs are listed in the order in which they ruled):

Pharaoh Amenhotep III

Pharaoh Akhenaten

Queen Nefertiti, principle wife of Akhenaten

Queen Kiya, secondary wife of Akhenaten

Meritaten, oldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

Queen Ankhesenamun, third daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, wife of King Tut

Pharaoh Smenkhkara

Pharaoh Neferneferuaten

Pharaoh Tutankhamun

Hittite Prince Zannanza

Pharaoh Ay

Pharaoh Horemheb

THE FACTS OF TUTANKHAMUN’S LIFE

Tut’s life – like the lives of most ancient Egyptian figures – is more mystery than established fact. Egyptologists know he became pharaoh as a child, was married to a royal princess named Ankhesenamun, and died at roughly 18 years of age.

Tut and his wife, depicted on Tut's throne.

It is also known that Tutankhamun was preceded on the throne by the infamous Akhenaten, the great heretic king who rejected all of Egypt’s traditional gods, and instituted a sort of early monotheism, worshipping only the sun disc god, the Aten.

Akhenaten worshipping the sun disk god.

As part of this religious revolution, Akhenaten moved Egypt’s capital city from Thebes to a place called Akhetaten. Akhetaten was the heretic king’s own creation, built in the desert as a sort of ancient Mecca or Jerusalem – a holy city dedicated to the Aten.

The ruins of Akhetaten.

As can be imagined, Akhenaten’s actions constituted an enormous upheaval in Egyptian customs and way of life. The powerful priesthood was rendered irrelevant, and it became illegal to worship any god but the Aten. It was, indeed, a period of great religious persecution.

Tutankhamun appears to have grown up in the North Palace of Akhetaten, part of the royal household (just how he was related will be discussed later).

Ruins of the North Palace at Akhetaten.

However, when Tut came to the throne at about age 9, he did away with his predecessor’s religious upheavals and reinstituted the old pantheon of gods. As part of this reversion back to traditional Egyptian religion, Tutankhamun moved the capital back to Thebes and began a campaign to build new temples to the old gods. His birth name had actually been “Tutankhaten” – a reference to the monotheistic sun disc god – but Tut changed his name in Year 2 of his reign, replacing “aten” with “amun.” Amun was the principle god of the traditional pantheon. The same was true of his wife, Ankhesenamun, whose birth name had ended with “aten” instead of “amun.” It was a move by the royal couple to show that they were not in line with the religion of the heretic king who preceded them. Unfortunately, as will be seen in a later installment, Tutankhamun would ultimately pay part of the penalty for his predecessor’s sins.

It is important to note that because Tutankhamun was so young when he came to the throne, his principle advisors would have been functionally running the kingdom for him, and making all the decisions. Thus, most every “official” transaction during his kingship was performed by others. It has been suggested that Tut himself may have had very little say in reinstituting the old religious traditions. Instead, these political moves would have been orchestrated by those acting in his name. The two major players in this situation were Ay and Horemheb – the former being the equivalent of a prime minister, and the latter being a prominent military leader. Both had also served in the court of Akhenaten, and both had their eye on the kingship, as we shall see.

Although Tutankhamun is depicted in art wearing the khepresh – the traditional blue war crown of the pharaohs – there is not much evidence that Tut ever actually fought in a military campaign.

Statue of Tut wearing the Blue War Crown.

He is depicted in art hunting lions and other dangerous animals, and there is at least one scene depicting him in battle with Syrians and Nubians (the Syrians coming from modern day Palestine and the Nubians from modern day Ethiopia).

Tut in battle against the Syrians.

These battles with Syria and Nubia are corroborated by similar battle scenes in the tomb of Tut’s general, the aforementioned Horemheb. However, most historians do not believe Tut himself would have taken part in these campaigns, because of his age.

After a relatively uneventful reign of about ten years, Tutankhamun died suddenly, of uncertain causes, and was buried hastily in a small tomb in the Valley of the Kings – a tomb that was most likely originally intended for someone else.

SPECULATION ON LINEAGE

Many historians believe that Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten, by one of that king’s secondary wives, Queen Kiya.

Queen Kiya, possibly Tut's mother.

This, however, is not certain. It is possible that Tut was a half-brother or nephew of Akhenaten. What we do know is that Akhenaten was the son of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, had six daughters – one of whom would later become the wife of King Tut – and was succeeded directly by two shadowy pharaohs named Smenkhkara and Neferneferuaten. The origins and identities of these two pharaohs are unclear, however they seem to have been co-regents, and only reigned for a few years before Tut took over. Speculation about the specifics of these two rulers is widespread and remarkably divergent (there are even disagreements about whether they were male or female), so it is best to simply assert that we know very little about them, where they came from, or what they did. That they were genetically related to Akhenaten and Tutankhamun is about the only thing most historians agree on.

Based on what I have read, the following is a likely (although certainly not final) scenario: Amenhotep III had two surviving sons, the elder being Akhenaten, and the younger being Smenkhkara. Upon Amenhotep’s death, Akhenaten took over, did away with the traditional gods, and forced everyone into monotheism. He is known to have had six daughters with his principle wife, Nefertiti. Of these six, Meritaten is the oldest and most prominent. One of Akhenaten’s secondary wives, Kiya, however, bore him a son – the future King Tut. Because succession was not always clear or well-established in ancient Egypt – the way it is in most monarchies today – there was some question as to whether Tut was the rightful heir to Akhenaten’s throne, since he was a son only by a secondary wife. Akhenaten’s brother, Smenkhkara, was the principle leader of this “anti-Tut” contingency. Since Tutankhamun was only a toddler at the time, Smenkhkara more or less pronounced himself pharaoh and took over the reigns of leadership. To legitimize his position, he married his niece Meritaten, Akhenaten’s oldest and most prominent child. As a result, their reign became a sort of co-regency, with Meritaten taking the throne name Neferneferuaten. Their reign, however, lasted only two or three years, cut short either by the natural deaths of both, or by a coup led by supporters of Tutankhamun. Whatever the reason, after their deaths, the path for Tut’s kingship was unimpeded, and he became the 12th pharaoh of Egypt’s 18th dynasty.

It should be quite clear by now just how many theories there are, and how little we can really know for certain when it comes to King Tut’s lineage. It all becomes a big jumble of strange names and incestuous marriages (for instance, some evidence suggests Tut’s wife, Ankhesenamun, was first married to her own father, Akhenaten, and bore him a child). What can be said for certain is that Tutankhamun was related somehow to Akhenaten and no doubt to Smenkhkara, and that Tutankhamun’s wife was the third daughter of Akhenaten, and probably Tutankhamun’s own half-sister.

The story of Tutankhamun’s death and the intrigue that surrounded it – both in how Tut died, and in what happened, politically, after his death – is perhaps even more captivating than the story of his life. These issues will be discussed in the next installment.

A Brief Response to R. Douglas Geivett's Article: "The Epistemology of Resurrection Belief"

R. Douglas Geivett is, by all accounts, a respected philosophy professor at Biola University in California, and his body of work, among other things, covers the philosophy of religion and epistemology. Epistemology, in lay terms, is the study of the foundation, nature, and validity of human knowledge. Applied to religion, epistemology studies what we can know about God and the stories of the Bible, and how our knowledge of the world impacts our religious views. Geivett is, by his own assertion, a Christian and a theist in the classical sense of those terms. In regards to the resurrection, he states: “As I see it, the best causal explanation for a bodily resurrection is a miracle – an act of God.”

In the book “The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright in Dialogue,” edited by Robert B. Stewart and including not only a dialogue between the two historians in the title, but also a series of essays by various religious scholars, Geivett presents an article discussing the epistemology of beliefs about the resurrection. In this article, Geivett discusses the merits of Wright and Crossan’s individual methods and conclusions, and makes the argument that while Wright appears to approach his scholarship with a “worldview neutral” approach, Crossan’s approach is somewhat biased by his own beliefs – that is, Crossan’s work is not entirely “metaphysically neutral.”

To put this in perspective, we must first take a very brief look at who Wright and Crossan are, and what Geivett means by “metaphysically neutral.”

N.T. Wright is the current Bishop of Durham in the Anglican Church, and is a very well-respected and noted New Testament scholar. He is also, as might be imagined considering his professional position, a classical theist.

In regards to the resurrection, Wright believes that the best conclusion to draw from the available historical evidence is that Jesus really was resurrected bodily from the dead. No other conclusion can best explain the available evidence. As Geivett points out, however, Wright resists the urge to attribute this resurrection necessarily to God – even though Wright, as a theist, no doubt believes God was responsible. In Geivett’s opinion, Wright refrains from attributing the resurrection to God because the answer to the question of how Jesus came to be resurrected requires adherence to a specific worldview – in this case, classical theism. Obviously, if one believes in God, then the clear assumption would be that God was responsible for Jesus’ resurrection. But since, in Geivett’s opinion, Wright’s resurrection scholarship strives for “worldview neutrality” (that is, he attempts to keep his own theistic beliefs out of his professional scholarship), Wright does not ever make this “God raised Jesus bodily” assertion directly, and instead ends his arguments at what can be known from the objective evidence at our disposal. Thus, he believes the evidence suggests Jesus was raised physically from the dead, but does not openly assert that God was necessarily responsible for it, because the objective historical evidence, by itself, cannot support this otherwise subjective assertion.

John Dominic Crossan, like N.T. Wright, is a very well-respected New Testament scholar who has published dozens of books and articles, and is an Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University, having spent most of his professional career there. Unlike Wright, Crossan is not a classical theist, and is probably better described as a “progressive non-theist Christian” – that is, he considers himself a Christian in that he follows and attempts to emulate the life of Christ, but does not believe in a theistic god, or in the divinity of Jesus.

Crossan’s conclusions about the resurrection follow a groundbreaking method of using not only canonical and non-canonical textual evidence, but also the evidence of 1st century secular history, anthropology, archaeology, geography, and human psychology. In other words, Crossan’s method employs contextual background as well as textual evidence. Using these methods, Crossan asserts that the resurrection was naturalistic in origin, resulting from the firm conviction of the earliest Christians that they had experienced the resurrected Jesus. Crossan believes these early Christians experienced apparitions, or visions, of Jesus similar to visions of dead friends and relatives that many people, even in modern times, experience. These early Christians interpreted these apparitions the only way that a 1st century person could interpret them – as literal appearances by a resurrected Jesus. In other words, they did not have post-Enlightenment understandings of the world to help them see that these were just manifestations of their grieving minds. An empty tomb may also have contributed to their mistaken interpretation (although Crossan only “concedes” an empty tomb for the sake of argument – his own belief is that Jesus was not likely buried in a tomb).

In Geivett’s opinion, however, Crossan’s methodology is not worldview neutral (that is, his method is biased), because Crossan himself is not a theist. For Geivett, it stands to reason that Crossan, as a non-theist, would ultimately conclude non-theistic origins for the resurrection of Jesus. He states this quite explicitly in his article:

No wonder Crossan disagrees with Wright about the nature of the resurrection. No wonder he concludes that Jesus did not literally rise bodily from the dead. For what is denied by his metaphysical commitments precludes the possibility of a literal bodily resurrection of Jesus by God…[Crossan’s] verdict as a New Testament historian does not [diverge] from his worldview commitments at all. It is not metaphysically neutral.

There are two problems that I have with Geivett’s criticism of Crossan (although, in his defense, Geivett claims that his assertions are “by no means a criticism of Crossan’s methods,” since historians have no choice but to sometimes allow their own beliefs to “inform their historical judgment” when the evidence has gaps).

My first issue should already be obvious to anyone who has been following my train of thought in this essay. How is it that Crossan, as a non-theist, is biased in his non-theistic interpretations of the resurrection, but Wright, as a theist, is somehow not biased in his theistic interpretations of the resurrection? It would seem that Geivett is applying a double standard to Crossan – which may stand to reason since Geivett, as a classical theist, naturally disagrees with Crossan’s conclusions. Geivett attempts to reconcile this problem by the argument I illustrated above in regards to Wright’s resurrection theology: Wright, despite being a theist, does not go so far as to assert that God must have been responsible for raising Jesus bodily from the dead. In the name of neutrality, Wright leaves such an assertion – which requires subjective belief rather than objective evidence – out of his conclusion. Regardless of that (because it is beside the point, in my opinion), I am by no means convinced that the “best” explanation of the available data is that Jesus was physically and literally raised from the dead (which is what Wright concludes). Therefore, I would argue with Geivett that Wright’s conclusion is, in fact, informed by his own theistic beliefs, inasmuch as Crossan’s conclusion is informed by his own non-theistic beliefs.

The problem here, in addition to being an apparent double standard on the part of Geivett, is that Geivett’s entire argument is philosophical in nature, and therefore is not grounded in reasonable reality. If Crossan’s conclusions are biased by his non-theistic beliefs, then the same argument could be made to suggest that non-goblinists are biased when they conclude there are no goblins in their garden. Is there such a thing as a theistic Christian who denies the divine aspects of the resurrection, or a non-theist who affirms the divine aspects of the resurrection? I certainly do not know of any, because such positions would be contradictory by their very nature. Even Geivett seems to agree with this when he says, “But what else could explain the phenomenon of a bodily resurrection [other than God]? I can’t think of a single other plausible explanation.” Then later, “Suppose you don’t believe in God. What’s the likelihood that you would…conclude that Jesus had risen bodily…? I’d say not likely at all.”

My second issue with Geivett’s criticism of Crossan’s method is that he seems to be putting the cart before the horse, or, to use another silly metaphor, placing the chicken before the egg. Geivett seems to assume that Crossan is, and always has been, a non-theist, and that his conclusions, therefore, are biased by those non-theistic worldviews. This might be a reasonable argument, if it were true that Crossan had always been a non-theist. I do not claim to know every detail of Crossan’s personal spiritual journey, but I do know that it is very common within religious scholarship for scholars to enter the field as traditionally-believing Christians, and to end up becoming, after looking at the evidence neutrally, non-theists, agnostics, or progressive Christians. I have made the argument before that this sort of biblical scholar – the kind that starts off as a traditional believer, follows the evidence where it leads, and ends up rejecting traditional belief – is by definition the most “unbiased” type of scholar. Of course, the reverse would also be true – a scholar who starts off as an agnostic or non-theist, follows the evidence where it leads, and then becomes a traditional believer, would also be “unbiased.” However, I do not personally know of a single religious scholar that this path applies to.

In regards to Crossan, I do know that he began his career as a theologian – a priest in the Anglican Church. He later left the priesthood and began developing his aforementioned non-theistic conclusions about the nature of Jesus and God. This would imply, then, that Crossan began his career as a classical theist, ended up rejecting this position after careful, unbiased study, and became the non-theist progressive that he is today. If this is true – and I think it is – then Geivett’s assertion that Crossan’s methods are biased by his non-theism is completely without merit. Crossan’s methods were and are unbiased, which is why he ended up rejecting the traditional beliefs of his younger years, and now accepts a more naturalistic explanation for the resurrection.

I agree with Geivett when he says that we should “take care to recognize, as far as possible, the real limits of our knowledge and understanding.” I also agree with him when he acknowledges that any historian must sometimes apply personal worldviews when evaluating historical data. What this means, in the end, is that no historical conclusion – especially in the field of New Testament scholarship – is ever completely without personal bias. We all bring our own beliefs and ideas to the table when we begin to study the available evidence for the stories of Jesus. Recognizing this inherent human non-neutrality is, I believe, one of the most important steps in opening the door to meaningful and mutually valuable dialogue in the field of religion.

Logic Fallacies and Biblical Scholarship

In a recent essay, I introduced the Straw Man argument, which is a type of logic fallacy involving the misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, and the subsequent attack of that misrepresented caricature.

Another type of logic fallacy is the Ad Hominem fallacy, which involves an attempt to discredit the person making an argument, rather than discrediting the argument itself. “Ad hominem” is a Latin phrase meaning “against the person.”

Ad Hominem arguments have many incarnations, and I frequently get a version of this fallacy when discussing issues related to biblical scholarship and traditional Christian beliefs. It typically happens when I write an essay discussing particulars of the Gospel stories, and it usually goes something like this: “You don’t even believe the stories in the Gospels are literal history, so how can you quote from those stories to make your point?” This is a version of the Ad Hominem fallacy because it ignores the salient points of whatever argument I am making, and instead attempts to refute my arguments by suggesting that I, as a non-literalist, am not at liberty to quote Biblical texts to support an assertion, and any such assertions I make must, by necessity, be rejected. As I mentioned above, I have been confronted with this argument many times, by both Christian friends and strangers.

I recently posted an essay on my blog, and a shortened version on an internet religion forum, about the “sinless” nature of Jesus. In the essay, I questioned whether Jesus really lived a sinless life, as is often asserted within traditional Christianity. I illustrated seven areas in the Gospels were it appears that Jesus engaged in what any modern Christian would consider sinful behavior, including one passage where Jesus quite openly and quite explicitly lies to his disciples. My overall thesis was to demonstrate how a literal reading of the Gospels creates enormous spiritual and intellectual puzzles, and how one cannot simultaneously believe in the sin-free nature of Jesus, and also read the Gospel stories literally.

More simply, here is the crux of the problem that my essay was attempting to address:

Assertion A: All humans are inherently sinful by nature because of the Fall of Adam and Eve.

Assertion B: Humans cannot help but sin because it is part of their imperfect nature. They have no hope of being “good” without God.

Assertion C: Jesus was fully God, but was also fully human, subject to the same temptations and frailties that humans are subject to.

Assertion D: Jesus did not sin.

If A, B, and C are all true, then D cannot also be true. If D is true, then either A and B are false, and/or C is false. That was the point of my essay, and I used passages from the Gospel accounts to illustrate this.

I feared that the old Ad Hominem argument might be employed by some of my readers, so I attempted from the very start to fend them off by stating in one of the opening paragraphs: “Since most people who believe Jesus was sinless also read and interpret the Bible’s stories literally, I will be approaching this subject from a direct and literal reading of the stories. In other words, for the purposes of this essay, I will be assuming that all the Gospel stories attributed to Jesus represent literal historical actions by Jesus.”

Unfortunately, this was apparently not enough.

One of my “internet” friends, a Calvinist who is a reader of my blog and is also a member on the religion forum where I debate, made the following comment: “If you deny the veracity of scripture, why should anyone take you serious when you quote certain portions of it as true? It seems we have to accept certain propositions that [Scott] tells us are true and reject the ones [Scott] tells us aren’t true.” Although we have polar opposite views on all things religious, I have a great respect for this person’s intellect, attitude, and expressive abilities. However, I was disappointed by this comment, because it is so obviously a fallacious line of reasoning.

A critic does not have to believe in the historicity of a story in order to evaluate its content. Traditionalists assert the Gospels give historically accurate accounts. They also assert that Jesus was sinless. By their own standards, these two propositions cannot be true. That was the spirit of my argument in the essay in question. What I believe personally is completely irrelevant.

In order to refute the Ad Hominem argument of my friend, I came up with an analogy to demonstrate the irrationality of such an argument. The analogy goes like this:

Bill Jones writes a series of books called The Smith Chronicles starring a man named Joe Smith and his relative, Tom Smith. In the first book, Joe Smith lives in an old Victorian mansion on a large estate. In one scene, there is a horrendous forest fire nearby, which sparks trees in Joe’s yard, which in turn set his own house on fire. The house burns to ashes and Joe is forced to move in with his cousin, Tom. In the second book, Joe Smith lives a long and glorious life, and his whole life is spent in a beautiful Victorian mansion. After his death, the mansion is handed down to his own son, Tom, and Tom Smith raises his family there in the decades after Joe’s death.

Now, there are some people who think The Smith Chronicles are real history. They do not realize they are reading novels. They come up with creative ways to reconcile the problems between the stories. Most notably, they suggest that in the second story, the implication is that Joe Smith must have eventually rebuilt the mansion. The first story simply leaves this part out. As for the contradiction between “son” and “cousin,” these are just words that imply that Tom Smith was a relative of Joe. Or, barring that, the Tom Smith of the second book just happens to have the same name as Joe’s cousin, who stars in the first book.

Other people, however, recognize that the literalists are missing the whole point. Why try to reconcile these issues? They are just novels, meant for entertainment. Bill Jones was not trying to write literal accounts of real events.

On an internet religion forum, a skeptic decides to give the literalists some food for thought.

Skeptic: “Reading those stories literally misses the entire point and causes all sorts of intellectual conundrums. In story one, Joe’s trees catch fire, and his house burns down and he moves in with his cousin, Tom. The story tells us this happened. But in story two, Joe lives in the same house the whole time, there is no fire, and he later passes it down to his son (not his cousin), Tom. Obviously something is wrong here. Reading these stories literally causes all sorts of factual issues, which forces literalists to come up with convoluted and creative ways to reconcile them. Only when one realizes that theses stories are fiction, written for the purpose of entertainment, does one come to finally understand the deeper meaning.”

In this analogy, the skeptic does not believe the stories are literally true, but to make his point, he has to assume a literal reading of the stories, to show why they are nonsense if you read them as literal historical fact. His point, then, is to suggest that there is a better way to understand them.

However, the skeptic gets a response to his efforts.

Literalist: “Oh, well, you don’t even believe the stories are true, yet you’re trying to make a point by assuming they are true. You can’t just pick and choose. Either you accept it or you don’t. But if you don’t accept it, then don’t make arguments where you are quoting words from the stories to make your point.”

Do you see how this analogy is pertinent to the Ad Hominem argument of my opponents who suggest I do not have a right to quote from Jesus’ teachings in making a point? My own personal beliefs are irrelevant. All that matters is that the traditionalist – to whom my essay is directed – does believe the words are literal. If the words are literal, then Jesus cannot have been without sin. That is the point.

This analogy, I believe, also illustrates the lengths to which literalists will go to reconcile textual issues. Just as the “Smith literalists” attempted to sweep the contradictions between the two books together into a nice, tidy package, so Bible literalists will frequently argue that textual contradictions are not contradictions at all, but are simply “different facts” focused on by different authors. Thus, when Matthew tells us magi visited baby Jesus in a home in Bethlehem, and Luke tells us shepherds visited baby Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem, these are not contradictions, but rather different emphases by the authors: Matthew emphasized the weeks and months after Jesus’ birth, and Luke emphasized the night of Jesus’ birth. This, of course, is irrelevant to the point at hand.

I would like to think that this essay will finally put to rest the Ad Hominem fallacies against my arguments when I quote scripture to make a point. However, I recognize that these sorts of logic fallacies are common, and it is always easier to attack the person giving a sound argument than to attack the argument itself (this is also what leads to the Straw Man fallacy – a caricature of a person’s position is easier to attack than the position itself).