Sunday, March 17, 2024

Author of the Book of Judith

by Damien F. Mackey “The sacred writer of this Book is generally believed to be the high priest Eliachim (called also Joachim)”. Introduction to Judith (Douay) The Douay testimony here, that the high priest of the Book of Judith, Joakim (var. Eliakim), has traditionally been regarded as being (substantially) the author of the book, is the view that I had accepted as being most plausible in my university thesis: A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background AMAIC_Final_Thesis_2009.pdf There I wrote (Volume Two, pp. 58-59): The Author of [Book of Judith] BOJ A tradition has Eliakim (Joakim), the high priest of the story, as the author of BOJ [the Book of Judith] 1283 We already saw that the high priest was ‘a man of letters’, writing to the northern towns, including Bethulia. This would support the view of commentators that this highly pious work (BOJ), extremely scrupulous about religious observance, appears to have been written by a priest who was most faithful to the Mosaïc Law, and who evinces a remarkable knowledge of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. It would also accord with the view that BOJ was an ancient document, frequently copied. No doubt the story would have been written with an enormous amount of eyewitness input from the ubiquitous Achior, whom the high priest would presumably have met after Assyria’s defeat. Achior would then have been able to fill in Joakim on all relevant details pertaining to the Assyrian campaign and strategy, including information in regard to the secret council prior to the western invasion. Less certain is how the author would have learned that Holofernes’ consumption of wine, just prior to his death, was “much more than he had ever drunk in any one day since he was born” (12:29). It is just possible that Achior, presumably a young man like Holofernes, had grown up with the latter in the royal palace, and thus had been familiar with the prince’s habits. Sennacherib does refer to a “Bêl-ibni … who had grown up in Nineveh ‘like a young puppy’,” whom he made king of Babylon upon the demise of Merodach-baladan.1284 Comment: I have since learned that “Achior”/Ahikar (Ahiqar) had actually “reared” “Holofernes”/Nadin. Now, continuing with the thesis section: Judith herself could have told the high priest about her personal encounter with Holofernes in the Assyrian camp, when they met after the victory (15:8), just as she had recounted the entire story to Achior and the Bethulians (14:8). And Joakim himself could have added most of the rest; all the basic narrative of the Assyrian incursion into Palestine and its effect upon Jerusalem. Finally, a later scribe could have added notes and glosses, e.g. about Arioch as governor of Elam; how long Judith lived; the festival. I thus see no real obstacle in the way of the tradition that Eliakim was the author of BOJ, meaning that the original version of the book must therefore have been compiled in c. 700 BC. [C.] Moore has counterbalanced the view of some that BOJ consists of two very unequal parts (chapters 1-7 and 8-16) - that is, in regard “to their respective importance, interest, and literary quality”, not length - by his juxtaposing of this with mention of Craven’s excellent study, which makes it “clear that the book of Judith is made of a whole cloth and was intended as a balanced and proportional narrative”:1285 Craven’s study shows that the book has in each of its parts a threefold chiastic structure and a distinctive thematic repetition. More specifically, each part has as its major chiastic feature its own repeating theme: in chaps. 1-7, the theme is fear or its denial (cf. 1:11; 2:28 [twice]; 4:2; 5:23; 7:4), and men play all the leading roles; in chaps. 8-16 it is beauty, mentioned or implied, and a woman has center stage …. Thus, just as fear of the Assyrians had a “domino effect,” knocking down successive nations and peoples in chaps. 1-7, so Judith’s beauty bowled over one male after another …. Perhaps to be alternatively considered (especially if the author were the high priest), would be a contrast between (a servile) fear and its opposite, the virtue of courage (prompted by trust in Yahweh), rather than a contrast of the unrelated fear and beauty (the latter though, admittedly, being an important factor in chapters 8-16). Thus, the fear shown by men (and nations), in the first half of BOJ, is in contrast to the courage (trust) borne by the beautiful woman, in the second half. I shall focus more in the next chapter on such matters of literary interest. [End of quote] For more on the high priest Joakim of the Book of Judith, see e.g. my article: Hezekiah’s Chief Official Eliakim was High Priest https://www.academia.edu/31701765/Hezekiahs_Chief_Official_Eliakim_was_High_Priest

Not so ‘Hot Gates’ of Thermopylae

by Damien F. Mackey Morton Scott Enslin has intuitively referred to the Book of Judith’s Bethulia incident as the “Judean Thermopylae” (The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an English Translation, p. 80). Introductory Professor Paul Cartledge’s well written book about the alleged Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persians in 480 BC holds firmly to the familiar line of British writers and historians that our Western civilisation was based front and centre upon the Greeks. Thus, for instance, he writes in his book, Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (Macmillan, 2006, p. 4): “The Greeks were second to none in embracing that contrary combination of the ghastly and the ennobling, which takes us straight back to the fount and origin of Western culture and ‘civilization’ - to Homer’s Iliad, the first masterpiece of all Western literature; to Aeschylus’s Persians, the first surviving masterpiece of Western drama; to the coruscating war epigrams of Simonides and, last but most relevantly of all, to Herodotus’s Histories, the first masterpiece of Western historiography”. And this is not the only occasion in his book where professor Cartledge expresses such effusive sentiments. The problem is, however, that - as it seems to me, at least - these very foundations, these so-called ‘founts and origins’ of ‘Western culture and civilization’, had for their very own bases some significant non-Greek influences and inspirations. An important one of these non-Greek influences was the Book of Judith, traditionally thought to have been written substantially by the high-priest Joakim in c. 700 BC. Compare that to the uncertainty of authorship surrounding those major works labelled Homeric: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer The Homeric Question—by whom, when, where and under what circumstances were the Iliad and Odyssey composed—continues to be debated. Broadly speaking, modern scholarly opinion falls into two groups. One holds that most of the Iliad and (according to some) the Odyssey are the works of a single poet of genius. The other considers the Homeric poems to be the result of a process of working and re-working by many contributors, and that "Homer" is best seen as a label for an entire tradition.[ …. On previous occasions I have suggested that parts of The Iliad had appropriated key incidents to be found in the Book of Judith, with ‘Helen’ taking her cue from the Jewish heroine, Judith. Accordingly, I have written: “As for Judith, the Greeks appear to have substituted this beautiful Jewish heroine with their own legendary Helen, whose ‘face launched a thousand ships’. Compare for instance these striking similarities (Judith and The Iliad): The beautiful woman praised by the elders at the city gates: "When [the elders of Bethulia] saw [Judith] transformed in appearance and dressed differently, they were very greatly astounded at her beauty" (Judith 10:7). "Now the elders of the people were sitting by the Skaian gates…. When they saw Helen coming … they spoke softly to each other with winged words: 'No shame that the Trojans and the well-greaved Achaians should suffer agonies for long years over a woman like this - she is fearfully like the immortal goddesses to look at'" [The Iliad., pp. 44-45]. This theme of incredible beauty - plus the related view that "no shame" should be attached to the enemy on account of it - is picked up again a few verses later in the Book of Judith (v.19) when the Assyrian soldiers who accompany Judith and her maid to Holofernes "marveled at [Judith's] beauty and admired the Israelites, judging them by her … 'Who can despise these people, who have women like this among them?'" Nevertheless: 'It is not wise to leave one of their men alive, for if we let them go they will be able to beguile the whole world!' (Judith 10:19). 'But even so, for all her beauty, let her go back in the ships, and not be left here a curse to us and our children'. The dependence of The Iliad upon the Book of Judith may go even deeper, though, to its very main theme. For, previously I had written: “Achilles Many similarities have been noted too between The Iliad and the Old Testament, including the earlier-mentioned likenesses between the young Bellerophon and Joseph. Again, Achilles' being pursued by the river Xanthos which eventually turns dry (Book 21) reminds one of Moses' drying up of the sea (Exodus 14:21). Was there really a person by the name of Agamemnon? [See Is Homer Historical? in Archaeology Odyssey, May/Jun 2004, pp. 26-35]. The interview of Professor Nagy of Harvard says ‘no, there wasn't’. Achilles’ fierce argument with Agamemnon, commander-in-chief of the Greeks, at Troy - Achilles' anger being the very theme of The Iliad [Introduction, p. xvi: "The Iliad announces its subject in the first line. The poem will tell of the anger of Achilleus and its consequences - consequences for the Achaians, the Trojans, and Achilleus himself"] - is merely a highly dramatized Greek version of the disagreement in the Book of Judith between Achior [a name not unlike the ‘Greek’ Achilles] and the furious Assyrian commander-in-chief, "Holofernes", at the siege of Bethulia, Judith's town”. And the famous Trojan Horse? I continued: “If the very main theme of The Iliad may have been lifted by the Greeks from the Book of Judith, then might not even the Homeric idea of the Trojan Horse ruse to capture Troy have been inspired by Judith's own ruse to take the Assyrian camp? [According to R. Graves, The Greek Myths (Penguin Books, combined ed., 1992), p. 697 (1, 2. My emphasis): "Classical commentators on Homer were dissatisfied with the story of the wooden horse. They suggested, variously, that the Greeks used a horse-like engine for breaking down the walls (Pausanias: i. 23. 10) … that Antenor admitted the Greeks into Troy by a postern which had a horse painted on it….Troy is quite likely to have been stormed by means of a wheeled wooden tower, faced with wet horse hides as a protection against incendiary darts…". (Pausanius 2nd century AD: Wrote `Description of Greece'.)]. What may greatly serve to strengthen this suggestion is the uncannily 'Judith-like' trickery of a certain Sinon, a wily Greek, as narrated in the detailed description of the Trojan Horse in Book Two of Virgil's Aeneid. Sinon, whilst claiming to have become estranged from his own people, because of their treachery and sins, was in fact bent upon deceiving the Trojans about the purpose of the wooden horse, in order "to open Troy to the Greeks". I shall set out here the main parallels that I find on this score between the Aeneid and the Book of Judith. Firstly, the name Sinon may recall Judith's ancestor Simeon, son of Israel (Judith 8:1; 9:2). Whilst Sinon, when apprehended by the enemy, is "dishevelled" and "defenceless", Judith, also defenseless, is greatly admired for her appearance by the members of the Assyrian patrol who apprehend her (Judith 10:14). As Sinon is asked sympathetically by the Trojans 'what he had come to tell …' and 'why he had allowed himself to be taken prisoner', so does the Assyrian commander-in-chief, Holofernes, 'kindly' ask Judith: '… tell me why you have fled from [the Israelites] and have come over to us?' Just as Sinon, when brought before the Trojan king Priam, promises that he 'will confess the whole truth' – though having no intention of doing that – so does Judith lie to Holofernes: 'I will say nothing false to my lord this night' (Judith 11:5). Sinon then gives his own treacherous account of events, including the supposed sacrileges of the Greeks due to their tearing of the Palladium, image of the goddess Athene, from her own sacred Temple in Troy; slaying the guards on the heights of the citadel and then daring to touch the sacred bands on the head of the virgin goddess with blood on their hands. For these 'sacrileges' the Greeks were doomed. Likewise Judith assures Holofernes of victory because of the supposed sacrilegious conduct that the Israelites have planned (e.g. to eat forbidden and consecrated food), even in Jerusalem (11:11-15). Sinon concludes – in relation to the Trojan options regarding what to do with the enigmatic wooden horse – with an Achior-like statement: 'For if your hands violate this offering to Minerva, then total destruction shall fall upon the empire of Priam and the Trojans…. But if your hands raise it up into your city, Asia shall come unbidden in a mighty war to the walls of Pelops, and that is the fate in store for our descendants'. Whilst Sinon's words were full of cunning, Achior had been sincere when he had warned Holofernes – in words to which Judith will later allude deceitfully (11:9-10): 'So now, my master and my lord, if there is any oversight in this people [the Israelites] and they sin against their God and we find out their offense, then we can go up against them and defeat them. But if they are not a guilty nation, then let my lord pass them by; for their Lord and God will defend them, and we shall become the laughing-stock of the whole world' (Judith 5:20-21). [Similarly, Achilles fears to become 'a laughing-stock and a burden of the earth' (Plato's Apologia, Scene I, D. 5)]. These, Achior's words, were the very ones that had so enraged Holofernes and his soldiers (vv.22-24). And they would give the Greeks the theme for their greatest epic, The Iliad”. But all of this is as nothing when compared to what I have found to be the multiple: Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and Tobit https://www.academia.edu/8914220/Similarities_to_The_Odyssey_of_the_Books_of_Job_and_Tobit this Semitic literature presumably well pre-dating the fairy-tale Greek efforts. Unsatisfactory Foundations “It concerns a supposed night attack by loyalist Greeks on Xerxes’s camp in the very middle of the Thermopylae campaign with the aim of assassinating the Great King”. Herodotus So much concerning the truth of the supposed Battle of Thermopylae rests with Herodotus, whose Histories are thought to come closest of all to being a primary source for the account. “He and [the poet] Simonides” are, according to professor Paul Cartledge, the “principal contemporary Greek written source for Thermopylae”. And, on p. 224: “… Herodotus in my view remains as good as it gets: we either write a history of Thermopylae with him, or we do not write one at all”. One problem with this is that Herodotus was known as (alongside his more favourable epithet, the “Father of History”) - as professor Cartledge has also noted - the “Father of Lies”. Where does Greek history actually begin? The history of Philosophy - of whose origins the Greeks are typically credited - begins with shadowy ‘Ionian Greeks’, such as Thales of Miletus, whose real substance I believe resides in the very wise Joseph of Egypt. Likewise the legendary Pythagoras. For an overview of all of this, see my: Re-Orienting to Zion the History of Ancient Philosophy https://www.academia.edu/4105845/Re-Orienting_to_Zion_the_History_of_Ancient_Philosophy Already I have de-Grecised such supposedly historical characters as Solon the Athenian statesman (who is but a Greek version of the Israelite King Solomon, and whose ‘laws’ appear to have been borrowed, at least in part, from the Jew, Nehemiah); Thales; Pythagoras; Empedocles, an apparent re-incarnation of Moses (Freud). And I have shown that Greek classics such as The Iliad and the Odyssey were heavily dependent upon earlier Hebrew literature. The ancient biblical scholar, Saint Jerome (c. 400 AD), had already noted, according to Orthodox pastor, Patrick H. Reardon (The Wide World of Tobit. Apocrypha’s Tobit and Literary Tradition), the resemblance of Tobit to Homer’s The Odyssey. The example that pastor Reardon gives, though, so typical of the biblical commentator’s tendency to infer pagan influence upon Hebrew literature, whilst demonstrating a definite similarity between Tobit and the Greek literature, imagines the author of Tobit to have appropriated a colourful episode from The Odyssey and inserted it into Tobit 11:9: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=12-02-036-f#ixzz2f1euwlrb “The resemblance of Tobit to the Odyssey in particular was not lost on that great student of literature, Jerome, as is evident in a single detail of his Latin translation of Tobit in the Vulgate. Intrigued by the literary merit of Tobit, but rejecting its canonicity, the jocose and sometimes prankish Jerome felt free to insert into his version an item straight out of the Odyssey—namely, the wagging of the dog’s tail on arriving home with Tobias in 11:9—Tunc praecucurrit canis, qui simul fuerat in via, et quasi nuntius adveniens blandimento suae caudae gaudebat—“Then the dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before, and coming as if it had brought the news, showed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail.” …. No other ancient version of Tobit mentions either the tail or the wagging, but Jerome, ever the classicist, was confident his readers would remember the faithful but feeble old hound Argus, as the final act of his life, greeting the return of Odysseus to the home of his father: “he endeavored to wag his tail” (Odyssey 17.302). And to think that we owe this delightful gem to Jerome’s rejection of Tobit’s canonicity!” Reardon, continuing his theme of the dependence of Tobit, in part, upon, as he calls it here, “pagan themes”, finds further commonality with Greek literature, especially Antigone: “Furthermore, some readers have found in Tobit similarities to still other pagan themes, such as the legend of Admetus. …. More convincing, I believe, however, are points of contact with classical Greek theater. Martin Luther observed similarities between Tobit and Greek comedy … but one is even more impressed by resemblances that the Book of Tobit bears to a work of Greek tragedy—the Antigone of Sophocles. In both stories the moral stature of the heroes is chiefly exemplified in their bravely burying the dead in the face of official prohibition and at the risk of official punishment. In both cases a venerable moral tradition is maintained against a political tyranny destructive of piety. That same Greek drama, moreover, provides a further parallel to the blindness of Tobit in the character of blind Teiresias, himself also a man of an inner moral vision important to the theme of the play”. [End of quote] In light of all this - and what I have given above is very far from being exhaustive - and appreciating that those conventionally labelled as ‘Ionian Greeks’ may actually have been, in their origins, Hebrew biblical characters, then just how real is Herodotus of Ionian Greece (Halicarnassus)? And, can we be sure that the Histories attributed to him have been (anywhere nearly) properly dated? His name, Herod-, with a Greek ending (-otus), may actually bespeak a non-Greek ethnicity, and, indeed, a later period of time (say, closer to a Dionysius of Halicarnassus, C1st BC). Xerxes But, whatever may be the case with Herodotus, his classical version of “Xerxes” seems to have been based very heavily upon the Assyrian Great King, Sennacherib - another Book of Judith connection, given my view that Sennacherib was the actual Assyrian ruler of Nineveh named “Nebuchadnezzar” in Judith. E.g. 1:1: “In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnez′zar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nin′eveh …”. Emmet Sweeney has marvellously shown this in the following comparisons (The Ramessides, Medes and Persians): SENNACHERIB XERXES Made war on Egypt in his third year, and fought a bitter war against the Greeks shortly thereafter. Made war on Egypt in his second year, and fought a bitter war against the Greeks shortly thereafter. Suppressed two major Babylonian rebellions. The first, in his second year, was led by Bel-Shimanni. The second, years later, was led by Shamash-eriba. Suppressed two major Babylonian rebellions. The first, in his third year, was led by Bel-ibni. The second, years later, was led by Mushezib-Marduk. The Babylonians were well-treated after the first rebellion, but savagely repressed after the second, when they captured and murdered Sennacherib’s viceroy, his own brother Ashur-nadin-shum. The Babylonians were well-treated after the first rebellion, but savagely repressed after the second, when they captured and murdered Xerxes’ satrap. After the second rebellion, Sennacherib massacred the inhabitants, razed the city walls and temples, and carried off the golden stature of Marduk. Thereafter the Babylonian gods were suppressed in favour of Ashur, who was made the supreme deity. After the second rebellion, Xerxes massacred the inhabitants, razed the city walls and temples, and carried off the golden stature of Bel-Marduk. Thereafter the Babylonian gods were suppressed in favour of Ahura-Mazda, who was made the supreme deity. Though I do not deny for a moment that Persia had a King Xerxes, a shortened version of Artaxerxes, the “Xerxes” of the Greeks is, however, purely fictitious. Diodorus of Sicily, C1st BC (presuming he did actually write later than Herodotus), will contribute to the fiction by including a Judith element (not mentioned by Herodotus) to the tale of “Xerxes” at Thermopylae. It is, in my opinion, just a re-run version of the assassination of “Holofernes”, admixed, perhaps, with the regicide of Sennacherib. Professor Cartledge has written of it (op. cit., p. 232): “It concerns a supposed night attack by loyalist Greeks on Xerxes’s camp in the very middle of the Thermopylae campaign with the aim of assassinating the Great King”. Based on the Book of Judith Drama Morton Scott Enslin has intuitively referred to the Book of Judith’s Bethulia incident as the “Judean Thermopylae” (The Book of Judith: Greek Text with an English Translation, p. 80). Comparisons between Book of Judith and the Battle of Thermopylae In both dramas we are introduced to a Great King, ruling in the East, who determines to conquer the West with a massive army. Scholars have wondered about the incredible size of the Persian army. “Almost all are agreed that Herodotus’ figure of 2,100,000, exclusive of followers, for the army (Bk VII. 184-85) is impossible” wrote F. Maurice in 1930 (“The Size of the Army of Xerxes in the Invasion of Greece 480 B. C.”, JHS, Vol. 50, Part 2 (1930), p. 211). Sennacherib’s Assyrian army of 185,000 was likely - discounting, as an unrealistic translation, the one million-strong army of “Zerah the Ethiopian” - the largest army ever to that time (and possibly even much later) to have been assembled. Apart from Kings, Chronicles and Isaiah, the same figure is referred to again in Maccabees, and in Herodotus’ Histories. The figure is not unrealistic for the neo-Assyrians, given that King Shalmaneser so-called III is known to have fielded an army of 120,000 men. (Fragments of the royal annals, from Calah, 3. lines 99–102: “In my fourteenth year, I mustered the people of the whole wide land, in countless numbers. I crossed the Euphrates at its flood with 120,000 of my soldiers”). Invading from the East, the armies must of necessity approach, now Greece, now Judah, from the North. Having successfully conquered everything in their path so far, the victors find that those peoples yet unconquered will speedily hand themselves over to their more powerful assailants. This process is known as ‘Medizing’ in the classical literature. In the Book of Judith, the all-conquering commander-in-chief, “Holofernes”, will receive as allies those who had formerly been his foes. And these, like the treacherous ones in the Thermopylae drama, will prove to be a thorn in the flesh of the few who have determined to resist the foreign onslaught. The armies arrive at a narrow pass, with defenders blocking their way. Thermopylae in the Herodotean account – “Bethulia” (best identified as Shechem) in the biblical Book of Judith. Dethroned Spartan King Demaratus, now an exile in Persia, will answer all of Xerxes’s questions about the Greek opposition, promising the King “to tell the whole truth—the kind of truth that you will not be able to prove false at a later date”. Most similarly Achior, probably born in Assyrian exile, will advise “Holofernes” about the Israelites, promising his superior (Judith 5:5): ‘I will tell you the truth about these people who live in the mountains near your camp. I will not lie to you’. A traitorous Greek, Ephialtes, will betray his country by telling the Persians of another pass around the mountains. Likewise, the turncoat local Edomites and Moabites will advise the Assyrians of a strategy better than the one that they had been intending. Conclusion The so-called Battle of Thermopylae never happened. No band of a mere 300 ever held the line against a massive Persian army. The classical Xerxes is a complete fiction. “Thermopylae: the Battle that changed the word”, in fact “changed” nothing. Now, the Battle of the Valley of Salem at “Bethulia” (Shechem), on the other hand, changed a heck of a lot. For (Judith 16:25): “As long as Judith lived, and for many years after her death, no one dared to threaten the people of Israel”. Also a Seleucid and more battles of Thermopylae “Thermopylae is a mountain pass near the sea in northern Greece which was the site of several battles in antiquity, the most famous being that between Persians and Greeks in August 480 BCE”. Mark Cartwright The OTHER (supposed) Battles of Thermopylae: https://steemit.com/history/@iaberius/the-other-battles-of-thermopylae are given here as follows: • 353 BC Battle of the Thermopylae. It took place during the Third Sacred War. Phocis and Thebes clashed over Delphi's control. The Phocians made heroic resistance in the Thermopylae against the ally of the Thebanians, King Philip II of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great. • 279 BC Battle of Thermopylae. An alliance of the Greeks (Beotians, Phocians, Etholians, Megarenses and Athenians) defended the passage against the invasion of the Breno's Celts. Breno tried to use the hidden path used by Persian army two thousand years earlier, but the Greeks were prepared this time. A garrison defends the rough road, so Breno deviates to Delphi. In a second attempt, he succeeds in passing thanks the fog. However, the Greeks had been evacuated in the Athenian ships. Every one of the contingent goes to defend their city. • 191 BC Battle of Thermopylae. In this battle, the Seleucids clashed Romans, who came to Greece as allies of Macedonians. Marco Acilio Glabrio surrounded with his troops the army of King Antiochus III. They used the old mountain pass, and thus won the battle. • 267 AD Battle of Thermopylae. Several barbarian tribes assaulted the Roman Empire. First, they looted the Balkans, and then they extended their raid for Greece. One of these people, the Heruli, arrived at Thermopylae passage, where they tried to stop them without success. As a result, they devastated the entire Attica and the Peloponnese peninsula. Even the city of Sparta was plundered. Regarding the supposed Seleucid one of Antiochus (so-called) III, we read: http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_thermopylae_191.html The battle of Thermopylae of 191 B.C. ended the Greek phase of the war between Rome and the Seleucid emperor Antiochus III. Antiochus had crossed into Greece from Asia Minor at the head of small army, hoping to find allies amongst the Greeks. He had been disappointed in this expectation – only the Aetolian League, who had invited him into Greece in the first place, offered him troops, and even then not as many as he had hoped. The Romans responded by sending an army to Greece, commanded by the consul M. Acilius Glabrio. He was more successful in finding allies, most notably gaining the support of Philip V of Macedonia, who only a few years before had been crushingly defeated by the Romans at Cynoscephalae (Second Macedonian War). Between them Philip and the Romans quickly recaptured all of Antiochus’ conquests in Thessaly. Antiochus decided to defend the pass of Thermopylae, where the greater Roman numbers would not be so telling. This position allowed him to remain in communication with Aetolia, and protected the crucial naval base at Chalcis. Antiochus defended the pass himself, with his 10,500 men, posting his slingers on the heights above the pass and his phalanx behind strong earthworks. The Aetolians were given the task of guarding his left flank, leaving 2,000 men at Heraclea in Trachis and posting 2,000 men in the forts that guarded the Asopus gorge and the mountain tracks that the Persians had used. Unfortunately for Antiochus the Romans had read the history books. They may have had as many as 40,000 men, and so on the night before the Roman attack they could afford to send 2,000 men around his western flank. On the day of the battle the Romans began with a frontal assault on his position. The first attack failed under a hail of missile weapons from the heights, and even when a second attack broke through the first Seleucid line, they were held off by Antiochus’ dug-in phalanx. The turning point of the battle came when the Roman flanking force appeared behind Antiochus’ position, and defeated the Aetolian troops guarding the col of Callidromus. The Seleucid army in the pass broke and fled, suffering heavy losses in the retreat. Antiochus was only able to rally 500 men at Elatea. He then retreated to Chalcis, before setting sail for Ephesus and Asia Minor. The war in Greece continued across the summer of 191, and saw Philip V recover some of the areas he had lost to the Aetolians after the Second Macedonian War. The Aetolians were then given permission to appear to the Senate, effectively suing for peace. At the same time the Romans turned their attention to an invasion of Asia Minor, winning a major naval battle at Corycus before winter ended the campaign of 191.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Achior a true Israelite

by Damien F. Mackey “… Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites” (Judith 5:5), should read, instead, “… Achior, leader of all the Elamites”. Not that Achior was ethnically an Elamite, but because king Esarhaddon had assigned him to govern Elam. For Achior was the same person as the famous Ahikar, governor of Elam, of whom the blind Tobit tells (2:10): “… Ahikar took care of me for two years before he went to Elymais [Elam]”. Although Biblical critics claim to find whom they call “enlightened pagans” all through the Bible (Old and New Testaments), I am not so sure that they always get this right. I took a sample of characters: MELCHIZEDEK; RAHAB; RUTH; ACHIOR; JOB and concluded - in some cases following other researchers - that none of these was in reality a pagan character. Keeping it very simple by way of summary here: MELCHIZEDEK was, according to Jewish tradition, the great Shem, righteous son of Noah. Whilst that does not make him a Hebrew (Israelite/Jew), which tribal concepts did not exist at that early stage, he, truly blessed as he was (cf. Genesis 9:26-27), was not, as is commonly thought, an enlightened Canaanite (hence pagan) king. Melchizedek was the eponymous Semite (Shem-ite), a master of Canaan (9:26). RAHAB the prostitute, in the Book of Judges, was truly enlightened (Hebrews 11:31): “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient”, but she, actually Rachab, may need to be distinguished from (the differently named) Rahab of Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 1:5). RUTH was a Moabite only geographically, but not ethnically, otherwise she would have encountered this ban from Deuteronomy 23:3-4: No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. ACHIOR. The same comment would thus apply to Achior ‘the Ammonite’, presuming that he truly was an Ammonite. He wasn’t. Achior needs some special extra treatment (see further on). JOB was, in my firm opinion, Tobias, the son of Tobit, a genuine Israelite from the tribe of Naphtali, in Ninevite captivity. I suspect that his given pagan name in captivity was the Akkadian ‘Habakkuk’ (also shortened to Haggai), the prophet of that name. And I suspect, too, that others could be added to the list, as Israelites, not pagans. The Magi, for one. See e.g. my article: A Nativity Shining Light of relevance to Israelite Magi (13) A Nativity Shining Light of relevance to Israelite Magi | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Delilah, a presumed Philistine. Whilst she may not deserve the epithet, “enlightened”, Delilah most probably was an Israelite - as brilliantly explained by George Athas: https://withmeagrepowers.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/samson-and-delilah-the-israelite-woman/ Achior, his conversion and circumcision Various significant misconceptions abound about this important character, ACHIOR. First of all, Achior of the Book of Judith (and the Douay Tobit) was not an Ammonite. The Book of Judith, as we now have it, suffers from an unfortunate confusion of names (people and places), making it most difficult to make sense of it. “… Achior, the leader of all the Ammonites” (Judith 5:5), should read, instead, “… Achior, leader of all the Elamites”. Not that Achior was ethnically an Elamite, but because king Esarhaddon had assigned him to govern Elam. For Achior was the same person as the famous Ahikar, governor of Elam, of whom the blind Tobit tells (2:10): “… Ahikar took care of me for two years before he went to Elymais [Elam]”. To confuse matters even further, the Book of Judith has a gloss (1:6), in which Achior/Ahikar is now called “Arioch”: “Rallying to [the king] were all who lived in the hill country, all who lived along the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Hydaspes, as well as Arioch, king of the Elamites …”. As noted, had Ruth been a Moabite, or Achior an Ammonite – as is commonly thought – then the Deuteronomical ban against these two nations (23:3-4) would disallow either from being received into the Assembly of Israel – which, in fact, Achior was, after the triumphant Judith had shown him the head of his Commander-in-chief, “Holofernes” (Judith 14:6-7, 10): When [Achior] came and saw the head of Holofernes … he fell down on his face in a faint. When they raised him up he threw himself at Judith’s feet and did obeisance to her and said, ‘Blessed are you in every tent of Judah! In every nation those who hear your name will be alarmed’. …. When Achior saw all that the God of Israel had done, he believed firmly in God. So he was circumcised and joined the House of Israel, remaining so to this day. The unfortunate misconception that Achior was an Ammonite, who converted to the House of Israel despite the Deuteronomical ban, is one of the primary reasons why the Jews (Protestants) have not accepted the Book of Judith into their scriptural canons. The confusion of names (people and places), as already mentioned, is another reason. But this, too, can be rectified. Tobit himself tells us precisely who was this Ahikar (Achior) (Tobit 1:21-22): But not forty days passed before two of Sennacherib’s sons killed him, and when they fled to the mountains of Ararat, his son Esarhaddon reigned after him. He appointed Ahikar, the son of my brother Hanael, over all the accounts of his kingdom, and he had authority over the entire administration. …. Now Ahikar was chief cupbearer, keeper of the signet, and in charge of administration and accounts under King Sennacherib of Assyria, so Esarhaddon appointed him as second-in-command. He was my nephew and so a close relative.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Ramses II’s confrontations with Assyria’s Sargon II and Chaldea’s Nebuchednezzar

by Damien F. Mackey According to the typical conventional estimation of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty: https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/ancient-history/anc-ramses-ii-reading/#:~:text=Ramses%20II%20also%20formed%20alliances,coast%20of%20Egypt's%20Nile%20Delta. …. When Seti I died in 1279 BCE, Ramses II was only about 20 years old. He succeeded his father to the throne and became Pharaoh of Egypt. During his early reign, Ramses II faced many challenges. There were rebellions in Canaan and Libya. The Hittites were also a constant threat, as they continued to try and expand their empire. In order to protect Egypt's borders, Ramses II needed to build up his army. He did this by conscripting soldiers from all over Egypt and training them to be loyal and disciplined soldiers. Ramses II also formed alliances with other countries in the region, such as Babylon and Assyria. …. [End of quote] Checking the standard Assyrian king lists, the beginning of the reign of Ramses II would fall right withing the long reign (32 years) of king Adad-nirari I (1295-1264 BC): https://www.livius.org/sources/content/anet/564-566-the-assyrian-king-list/ My Assyrian Revision Adad-nirari I in my revision, on the other hand, belongs to the first half of the C8th BC, approximately half a millennium after his conventional placement (above). I explained my radical revision and re-identifying of a relevant set of Assyrian kings as follows in e.g. my article: Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences (5) Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu …. Marc Van de Mieroop will give one perfect sequence (as I see it) of four Middle Assyrian kings, who, nevertheless, need to be folded into the Neo Assyrian era, where Van de Mieroop has these four kings listed again, but now in the wrong sequence. I refer to his “King Lists” towards the end of his book, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 -323 BC. The following I would consider to be a perfect Assyrian sequence of kings (p. 294): Adad-nirari [I] Shalmaneser [I] Tukulti-Ninurta [I] Assur-nadin-apli [I] where Tukulti-Ninurta = Sennacherib and Assur-nadin-apli = Ashurnasirpal = Esarhaddon. This sequence accords perfectly with the neo-Assyrian sequence given in Tobit 1: “Shalmaneser”; “Sennacherib”; “Esarhaddon”. But on p. 295, the same four kings will become skewed, as follows: Adad-nirari [II] Tukulti-Ninurta [II] Ashurnasirpal [II] Shalmaneser [III] …. [End of quote] If Ramses II were a ruling contemporary of Adad-nirari (I/II) – [and I don’t believe that he was, though he came close to it] - then he would have begun to reign in the first half of the C8th BC. My Egyptian Revision This is complex. It is spelled out in articles of mine such as: The Complete Ramses II (6) The Complete Ramses II | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (Ramses II and his Time, 1978) had identified Ramses II with Necho II of Egypt’s Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. In Dr. Velikovsky’s scheme of things, Ramses II was a contemporary of King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. The Nahr el-Kalb inscription juxtaposes a statue of Ramses II alongside a statue of Esarhaddon. - Conventional scholars presumably might argue that Ramses II is worn because he (c. 1280 BC, conventional dating) is much older than Esarhaddon (c. 680 BC, conventional dating). - Dr. I. Velikovsky, who made Ramses II a contemporary of Nebuchednezzar (c. 580 BC, conventional dating), would have considered Ramses II as ruling later than Esarhaddon. - I (Damien Mackey) have Ramses II as an older contemporary of Esarhaddon’s predecessor, Sargon II/Sennacherib. Esarhaddon, for his part, likely scratched out his foe, Ramses II, from the Nahr el-Kalb inscription. This last point, Ramses II’s being contemporaneous with the Assyrian king, Sargon II/ Sennacherib, now needs to be explained. Assyria encountering Egypt In approximately 720 BC (conventional dating) Sargon II, very early in his reign, chased away Egypt’s young turtan (commander), Si’be. Egypt’s Turtan, Si’be This Egyptian military commander has been enormously difficult for scholars (whether they be conventional or revisionist) to identify. Was he: Ramses III; or Psibkhenno (I had liked Dr. Rohl’s attempt here due to its close transliteration); or Shabako; or Shebitku; or the biblical “So king of Egypt” (2 Kings 17:4)? Or some, or all, of these? As I had observed in my article: Identifying neo-Assyrian era Egyptian names, “So”, Si’be and the pharaoh Shilkanni (3) Identifying neo-Assyrian era Egyptian names, “So”, Si’be and the pharaoh Shilkanni | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu …. Sir Alan Gardiner had looked to identify [the biblical] “So with the Sib’e, turtan of Egypt, who the annals of Sargon state to have set out from Rapihu (Raphia on the Palestinian border) together with Hanno, the King of Gaza, in order to deliver a decisive battle” (Egypt of the Pharaohs, 1961, p. 342). That conclusion was also, as we have read, the view of Charles Boutflower. Whilst I, too, have wondered if this might be the correct interpretation, such a view would need to address why one whom the Second Book of Kings had entitled ‘King’, prior to the Fall of Samaria, had become, some half a dozen or so years later, a mere Egyptian official (turtan, general); albeit an important one. Dr. Kenneth Kitchen has confidently held that So is an abbreviated form of Osorkon (IV) of the Twenty-Second (Libyan) Dynasty (The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt: 1100-650 BC, 1972). Revisionist, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky, had also thought to locate King So to the period of the Twenty-Second (Libyan) Dynasty, as one of the pharaohs Shoshenq (or Sosenk) – a good name fit in its abbreviated form (So-senk = So). Others prefer for So pharaoh Tefnakht[e] of the Twenty-Fourth Dynasty. …. [End of quote] As noted here, Si’be, as a military commander, is unlikely to have been a pharaoh. Sargon II will distinguish “Pharaoh (Pir’u) king of Egypt [Musri]”. Actually, all Ramses III; Psibkhenno; Shabako; Shebitku; the biblical “So king of Egypt” will be found to be very close to the mark. For only two Egyptian persons are represented amongst these names: namely (1) Ramses II and (2) his son, Khaemwaset. Thus, as argued in “The Complete Ramses II” article: Ramses II, whose son is Khaemwaset, is Ramses III, whose son is Khaemwaset; Ramses II is Psibkhenno (Psusennes) Ramses; Ramses II is Shabako (Sabacos = Psibkhenno); Ramses II is “King So [Sabacos] of Egypt”. Khaemwaset is Shebitku Khaemwaset. I, reluctant to let go of Dr. Rohl’s linguistic connection of Si’be with Psib-khenno, eventually, however, decided that, whilst the latter was a pharaoh, the former had to be a subordinate. Psibkhenno Ramses was Ramses II, and his turtan, Si’be, was his famous son, the highly talented (Shebitku) Khaemwaset. Sargon II will allude to Shebitku Khaemwaset (now as a sub-pharaoh to his father) in the Tang-I Var inscription. Here Sargon calls him, not Si’be (Sibu), but Shabataka. Dan’el Kahn writes of it in his article, “Was there a Co-regency in the 25th Dynasty?: file:///C:/Users/Damien%20Mackey/Downloads/85102-Artikeltext-228805-1-10-20211210.pdf …. According to the inscription, king Shebitku (=Shabatka) extradited Iamani to Sargon. The inscription can be dated quite certainly to 706 BC, not long before the death in battle [sic] of Sargon II. in the summer of 705 BC. …. Thus, the Tang-i Var inscription indicates that Shebitku was already king of Kush in 706 BC. This new date is at least four years earlier than has generally been thought. Frame continued and claimed that this is a "piece of information which will require Egyptologists to revise their current chronology for Egypt's twenty-fifth Dynasty", and added: "This would raise difficulties for the current Egyptian chronology". …. Egypt’s King, Šilkanni Ann E. Killebrew, writing from a conventional point of view in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology, tells of the exchange between pharaoh Šilkanni and Sargon II: "With the Assyrian army in the region, Silkanni, the king of Egypt (Osorkon IV), felt compelled to send Sargon twelve magnificent horses as a gift. These were probably Kushite horses from the Dongola Reach area, already an important horse-breeding center at this time" (pg 240; also citing Heidorn). Since the Nineteenth Dynasty ruled Kush (Ethiopia) it would not surprise if: “These were probably Kushite horses from the Dongola Reach area, already an important horse-breeding center at this time". But it would surprise me if Šilkanni was, as according to the conventional estimate, Osorkon. Despite the admittedly apt name comparison of Šilkanni with Osorkon, I think that the even better fit would be Psibkhenno (Psibkhanni), who is my Ramses II. To match, the names Psibkhanni and Šilkanni one need only swap the letters b and l. The Šilkanni incident would have occurred about 4 years before the Tang-I Var inscription incident when Shebitku had joined his father as a co-ruler of Egypt/ Ethiopia. Conclusion Sargon’s (Sennacherib’s) Egyptian contemporaries were: Ramses II/Shabako (Pi’ru; Šilkanni), and his son Shebitku Khaemwaset (Si’be; Shabataka). The biblical “So King of Egypt” was likewise Ramses II, but at the time of Sargon II’s predecessor, Shalmaneser. Ramses II knew two great Assyrian kings, Shalmaneser and Sargon II/Sennacherib. What of Esarhaddon? He was Chaldean, not Assyrian. Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky was correct in identifying Ramses II as a contemporary of King Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean. Previously I concluded that: • Pharaoh Ramses II ‘the Great’ was a younger contemporary of Shalmaneser; and he was • an older contemporary of Sargon II/Sennacherib. Ramses II was also to be identified as: Ramses III; Psibkhenno (Šilkanni); Shabako; “So king of Egypt” His famous son, Khaemwaset, was all of: Khaemwaset, son of Ramses III; Si’be (turtan); Shebitku Khaemwaset; Shabataka (Tang-i Var) Sargon II/Sennacherib, for his part, was also Tukulti-ninurta (and, as identified elsewhere) Shamsi-Adad (not I of that name). The reign of Ramses II was so long (66-67 years), however, that it - having spanned the latter part of the reign of Shalmaneser and the entire reign of Sargon II/ Sennacherib - still had some approximately three further decades to run after that. Now, according to Tobit 1, whose neo-Assyrian sequence I firmly follow, Sennacherib was succeeded by Esarhaddon, he being the king whose statue appeared alongside that of Ramses II at Nahr el-Kalb. Unlike convention and Dr. Velikovsky, I had Esarhaddon as a younger contemporary of Ramses II. I explained this above: The Nahr el-Kalb inscription juxtaposes a statue of Ramses II alongside a statue of Esarhaddon. - Conventional scholars presumably might argue that Ramses II is worn because he (c. 1280 BC, conventional dating) is much older than Esarhaddon (c. 680 BC, conventional dating). - Dr. I. Velikovsky, who made Ramses II a contemporary of Nebuchednezzar (c. 580 BC, conventional dating), would have considered Ramses II as ruling later than Esarhaddon. - I (Damien Mackey) have Ramses II as an older contemporary of Esarhaddon’s predecessor, Sargon II/Sennacherib. Esarhaddon, for his part, likely scratched out his foe, Ramses II, from the Nahr el-Kalb inscription. This last point, Ramses II’s being contemporaneous with the Assyrian king, Sargon II/ Sennacherib, now needs to be explained. …. [End of quote] My Esarhaddon is also different in other ways from the conventional and Velikovskian versions of him. For one, I do not believe that Esarhaddon was a biological son of Sennacherib, the Assyrian, but was a Chaldean, thereby commencing a new dynasty. And, secondly, I have identified Esarhaddon (as Ashurbanipal) as Nebuchednezzar the Chaldean: Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar (6) Esarhaddon a tolerable fit for King Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Dr. Velikovsky’s thesis in Ramses II and His Time (1978), that Ramses II was a contemporary of Nebuchednezzar, accords perfectly with my own reconstruction, insofar as I have Ramses II as a contemporary of Esarhaddon, my Nebuchednezzar. Despite my manifold identifications of Ramses II (as given above), I have not followed Dr. Velikovsky, though, in his view that Ramses was the same as pharaoh Necho of Egypt’s Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, also a contemporary of Nebuchednezzar. In my article, “The Complete Ramses II”, I had identified Ramses II, instead, as Tirhakah of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, who is also Piankhi. Two more mighty identifications of Ramses II to be added to the list. Nor have I been able to accept Dr. Velikovsky’s ingenious thesis that Nebuchadnezzar was Hattusilis, the Hittite emperor, who famously made a treaty with Ramses II. The Chaldean dynasty consisted only of Nebuchednezzar and his son, Belshazzar. The latter, who is also Amēl-Marduk, is referred to in Baruch 1:11, 12: … and pray for the life of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and for the life of his son Belshazzar, so that their days on earth may be like the days of heaven. The Lord will give us strength and light to our eyes; we shall live under the protection of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and under the protection of his son Belshazzar, and we shall serve them many days and find favor in their sight. Ramses II was thus a contemporary also of the second Chaldean king, Belshazzar, but only while Belshazzar was yet a prince. King Belshazzar was subsequently succeeded by the Medo-Persian king (Daniel 5:31).