If worldwide catastrophes occurred (caused cosmically or otherwise), we should expect to find mention of them in ancient texts of the people affected.
We should also expect to find them in the records of a particular people who were known to be closely associated with them at that time.
Historic records
It was found that ‘The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage’ (also known as the ‘Papyrus Ipuwer’), a text considered to be from the end of the Old Kingdom by some, but from the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt by Velikovsky and others, appeared to tell of the same events as the disasters and plagues that befell Egypt at the time of the Exodus – although the end of the Middle Kingdom was supposed to have existed several hundred years prior to the biblical date for the Exodus.
However, when events so similar in detail are found, but in each people’s past they appear to be hundreds of years apart, then we should consider whether the orthodox dating is correct.
The conclusion that Velikovsky came to was that the dates assigned to the New Kingdom (and earlier) pharaohs of Egypt were wrong and should be drastically reduced.
This reduction in chronology affected neighbouring Mediterranean states which were dated archaeologically by their links with Egypt, by removing the enigmatic ‘dark ages’ which occur in Greek and Anatolian archaeology under orthodox dating.
Egyptian dynasties were brought forward in time c. 500 years by Velikovsky, but by only c. 300 years or 200 years by other revisionists.
Under three main revisions, the biblical ‘Shishak’, who sacked the temple of Solomon, has been identified respectively with either Thutmose III of the 18th Dynasty, Ramesses II of the 19th Dynasty, or Ramesses III of the 20th Dynasty. Others would alter, slightly, each of the above revisions and identifications, while some have suggested far more drastic revisions in Egyptian chronology than Velikovsky.
One biblical archaeologist has shown that a great deal of evidence from the biblical record and archaeology in Palestine indicates that a lowering of Egyptian chronology is necessary and evidence from other disciplines show similarly.
For a comprehensive history and list of names dealing with the revision of ancient history, see Ancient History revisions.