Product Description

The author continues his quest to reach the historical kernal lying at the heart of some of the greatest unsolved problems and mysteries of Old World history and archaeology. This work aims to reveal the historical truth which lies at the heart of the Book of Genesis.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #213081 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 540 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Egyptologist and archaeologist David Rohl sets out to discover the historical truth which lies at the very heart of the Book of Genesis, but what Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation ends up being is a new Rohl-legend about the beginning of ancient Near Eastern civilisation--with many gaps.

The book is divided into three parts. Firstly, Rohl proposes that Eden and its garden was between Lakes Van and Urmin and the Caspian Sea, with Nod on its east. Then he claims the ancestors of the Sumerians migrated in the 6th millennium BC from this "Eden" to Mesopotamia, establishing Sumerian culture there, and identical with biblical Shem. The Mesopotamian and biblical Flood, he sets in the late 4th millennium BC. In part three, Rohl brings Sumerian traders to East Africa (Punt & Sudan--"Kush"), and Egypt, becoming founders of Pharaonic Egypt, using cultural links c.3000BC.

Rohl needlessly burdens the book with the "new chronology" from his Test of Time of 1995, which is known to be 100 per cent wrong (along with the biblical "identifications") from a mass of contrary factual evidence. Rohl's story is also weakened by unsustainable guesswork on supposed language-links, artificial identifications of early biblical and Mesopotamian characters, etc. It's a lively "read", but much of it is likely to prove fictional, not historical. --Kenneth Kitchen

Customer Reviews

The most plausible account of Near East history yet!
An enthralling, and yet scholarly account of the origins of civilisation. David Rohl's logic cannot be faulted, and he adduces much evidence to support his views. Where he does speculate, he is upfront about it, and let's face it, who doesn't have to speculate about what happened over 4000 years ago? David Rohl presents overall, I think the most likely reconstruction of Biblical History

entertaining
David Rohl is bravely attempting to rewrite our views of early human civilization. Unlike Graham Hancock who was a respected journalist before becoming a revisionist, Mr. Rohl was a music producer. Perhaps this is the reason for the vitreollic response of "official" egyptologists to his work. If one is prepared to sift through the evidence, and then realistically compare it to the "conventional wisdom" on the subject, the result is that Rohl's thesis is at least as convincing as the one put forward by traditionalists. Although this book is less well supported with hard evidence than his previous work, as a profesional scientist, I found his arguments based on his evidence very reasonable. This book is well worth reading. As far as I am aware, there is at least as much conflicting evidence presented by traditionalists such as Professor Kenneth Kitchen (whose area of expertise is the same period of time Rohl would have us re-evaluate in his previous book - hence the review you might also come across of this current work, and the American Mark Lerner. Perhaps it is wise for we "lay people" to be furnished with all the available interpretations of the data?

Dr. Shaun M. Heale

facinating; but arguments not as strong as in a Test of Time
A thought provoking and well researched book, however, I found the arguments less compelling than those contained within a Test of Time as I didn't feel that they had the same strength and there was less cross-correlation (not surprising as we are in effect dealing with pre-history). I felt that there was too much conjecture and the conclusions are subjective rather than proven (I was reminded of the Eric von Daniken 'could this be ... type of phrase.) The theory does, however, merit much more research and would be overpowering if proven.

I would very much like to see a TV series exploring it.