Donovan Courville

Donovan Amos Courville (April 6, 1901 in Michigan – August 1996, in Fresno, California) (Ph.D., Chemistry), was a graduate of Andrews University. He taught at Pacific Union College from 1935 to 1949 before moving to Loma Linda University from 1949 to 1970 where he was emeritus professor of biochemistry at the School of Medicine. He was a practicing Seventh-day Adventist. He authored numerous articles on bio-chemistry and poisonous marine animals.
He also maintained an interest in archaeology, Egyptology, and biblical chronology. The fruit of his biblically related study resulted in the 1971 private publication of a two-volume, 700-page work that is his main claim to fame, The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications.

A timeline showing the basic scheme advocated by Donovan Courville

The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications: A Critical Examination of the Chronological Relationships Between Israel and the Contemporary Peoples of Antiquity, to give its full title, attempts to correlate the history and chronology of Egypt as it related to the Bible.

Courville noted that if the Bible is correct about the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, there should be evidence of a calamitous catastrophe in Egyptian history at that point. Like Immanuel Velikovsky, he noted the similarities between the Ipuwer Papyrus and the Ten Plagues.

Courville lowered the era of the Hyksos to a period after the Exodus and, like Velikovsky and David Rohl, identified them with the biblical Amalekites. Like Velikovsky, he accepted that Shishak of the Bible was Thutmose III rather than the Libyan Sheshonq I. He further stated that the father-in-law of Solomon was Thutmose I. Courville also lowered the fall of Troy from about 1200 BC to the 8th century BC. He also lowered the date of Hammurabi and his dynasty to the 15th century BC. The final result of his efforts was to place the founding of Egypt (and by extension, Sumer) to around 2300 BC, after the most literal biblical date of Noah's Deluge according to James Ussher and others. The bulk of The Exodus Problem dealt with demonstrating his radically shortened version of Egyptian history.

Courville used a different methodology than Velikovsky. He believed that the Sothis King List, regarded by most Egyptologists as incomplete, was designed to list only the Pharaohs who were the primary power during Egypt's history. Other Pharaohs were either coregents or members of lesser, overlapping dynasties.

Unlike Velikovsky, Courville examined the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt. He suggested the Exodus occurred during the 6th Dynasty and 13th Dynasty, which he claimed ran parallel to each other.

Courville did not support Velikovsky's proposed "alter-ego" dynasties, which duplicated the 19th and 26th dynasties. He claimed that the reference to Israel on Merneptah's stele commemorated the fall of Israel in 721 to Assyria.

His mother's maiden name was Kroupa, he was married to Bernice, and had three daughters, Donna (b. 1923, Mrs Albert Patt), Verna (1925–1994, Mrs Turney Hitler) and Carol (Mrs Elton Morel). He trained initially for the ministry in the Seventh-day Adventist church, completing his B.Th degree in 1922, but became a chemistry teacher, gaining a doctorate in chemistry from Washington University in 1945. He taught at Pacific Union College from 1935 to 1949, then joined the Loma Linda University School of Medicine biochemistry department, where he remained until retirement in 1970.

He worked for seven years with Dr Bruce Halstead researching the chemistry for the authoritative monograph, The Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals of the World which was published by the US Government Press in 1963. The Exodus Problem was the result of similar library research and a lifelong interest in archaeology.

• Courville, Donovan (1959). The Chemical Nature of Alcohol. Washington, DC: National Committee for the Prevention of Alcoholism. 
• Courville, Donovan; Bruce Walter Halstead (1965). Poisonous and Venomous Marine Animals of the World. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 
• Courville, Donovan; Cyril B. Courville (1966). Multiple Sclerosis as a Possible Manifestation of Cerebral Embolism. Loma Linda University. 
• Courville, Donovan (1971). The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications: A Critical Examination of the Chronological Relationships Between Israel and the Contemporary Peoples of Antiquity. Loma Linda, Calif.: Challenge Books.