by
Damien F. Mackey
The
invasions of the supposed C1st BC Armenian ruler,
Tigranes
‘the Great’, have been suggested as providing the basis for
the Jewish
story of the heroine Judith.
Reader J.P’s comment on an old article of mine, “Tigranes II ‘the Great’
and ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ of Judith”: “I’m confused on whether you think this is a
legitimate understanding of Judith. I’ve read most, if not all, of your
articles on Judith = Huldah; I wonder if Judith = Salome Alexandra is a more
natural fit?”, has prompted this re-casting of the story.
Introduction
The powerful drama narrated in the Book of
Judith has spawned imitations in both BC and AD literature and in their supposed
‘histories’.
To recall only a few of many such examples to
which I have alluded before:
BC influences
(i)
Virgil’s Sinon
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).
Cunning Sinon deceiving
the Trojans
….
And then proceeding to make this radical
re-assessment of Virgil’s character, Sinon:
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.
(ii)
The Lindian Chronicle
I wrote in my university thesis, 2007 (… Volume Two, pp.
67-68):
….
Uzziah, confirming Judith’s high reputation,
immediately recognized the truth of what she had just said (vv. 28-29), whilst
adding the blatantly Aaronic excuse that ‘the people made us do it’ (v. 30, cf.
Exodus 32:21-24): ‘But the people were so thirsty that they compelled us to do
for them what we have promised, and made us take an oath that we cannot break’.
Judith, now forced to work within the time-frame of those ‘five days’ that had
been established against her will, then makes this bold pronouncement – again completely
in the prophetic, or even ‘apocalyptic’, style of Joan of Arc (vv. 32-33):
Then Judith said to them, ‘Listen to me. I am about to do
something that will go down through all generations to our descendants. Stand
at the town gate tonight so that I may go out with my maid; and within the days
after which you have promised to surrender the town to our enemies, the Lord
will deliver Israel by my hand’.
A Note. This 5-day time frame, in connection with a siege
– the very apex of the [Book of Judith] drama – may also have been appropriated
into Greco-Persian folklore.
In the ‘Lindian Chronicle’ it is narrated that when
Darius, King of Persia, tried to conquer the Island of Hellas, the people
gathered in the stronghold of Lindus to withstand the attack. The citizens of
the besieged city asked their leaders to surrender because of the hardships and
sufferings brought by the water shortage (cf. Judith 7:20-28).
The Goddess Athena [read Judith] advised one of the
leaders [read Uzziah] to continue to resist the attack; meanwhile she
interceded with her father Jupiter [read God of Israel] on their behalf (cf.
Judith 8:9-9:14).
Thereupon, the citizens asked for a truce of 5 days
(exactly as in Judith), after which, if no help arrived, they would surrender
(cf. Judith 7:30-31). On the second day a heavy shower fell on the city so the
people could have sufficient water (cf. 8:31, where Uzziah asks Judith to pray
for rain). Datis [read Holofernes], the admiral of the Persian fleet [read
commander-in-chief of the Assyrian army], having witnessed the particular
intervention of the Goddess to protect the city, lifted the siege [rather, the
siege was forcibly raised]. ….
Apparently I am not the only one who has noticed the
similarity between these two stories, for I now find this: http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/judith.html
“The Israeli scholar Y. M. Grintz has pointed out the
parallels between the theme of the book [Judith] and an episode which took
place during the siege of Lindus, on the island of Rhodes, but here again the
comparison is extremely weak”.
Yes, the latter is probably just a “weak” appropriation
of the original Hebrew account. ….
(iii)
Salome Alexandra and
Tigranes II ‘the Great’
To be discussed after this Introduction.
An AD influence
Queen Judith (var. Yodit, Gudit)
In e.g. my article:
Judith
the Simeonite and “Judith the Semienite”
(8) Judith the
Simeonite and “Judith the Semienite”
I wrote as follows:
The
history books tell of various strong female characters - whether real or not -
the
accounts of whom seem to have picked up traces of the great Jewish heroine,
Judith of Simeon. One of these, Queen Judith of Semien (NW Abyssinia),
reads
somewhat like the biblical Judith, now transported in time (AD)
and
space (Ethiopia).
Judith Types Emerging
Throughout ‘History’?
Donald Spoto has named a few of these “types” - {but many
more names could be added here} - in his book, Joan. The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a Saint
(Harper, 2007). Spoto, likening Joan of Arc to an Old Testament woman, has a
chapter five in which he calls her “The New Deborah”.
….
Africa had its rebel queen Gwedit, or Yodit, in the tenth
century.
….
In the name Yodit (Gwedit) above, the name Judith can, I
think, be clearly recognised.
The latter is the same as Queen Judith of Semien (960 AD):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudit
Gudit (Ge'ez: ጉዲት, Judith) is a semi-legendary, non-Christian, Beta Israel queen (flourished c. 960) who laid waste to Axum and its countryside, destroyed churches and monuments,
and attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling Axumite dynasty ….. Her deeds are recorded in the
oral tradition and mentioned incidentally in various historical accounts.
Information about Gudit is contradictory and
incomplete.
Paul B. Henze wrote, "She is said to have
killed the emperor, ascended the throne herself, and reigned for 40 years.
Accounts of her violent misdeeds are still related among peasants in the north
Ethiopian countryside." ….
[End of quote]
Interesting that Judith the
Simeonite has a “Gideon” (or Gedeon) in her ancestry (Judith 8:1):
“[Judith] was the daughter of Merari, the granddaughter of Ox and the
great-granddaughter of Joseph. Joseph’s ancestors were Oziel, Elkiah, Ananias, Gideon,
Raphaim, Ahitub, Elijah, Hilkiah, Eliab, Nathanael, Salamiel, Sarasadai, and
Israel” … and the Queen of Semien, Judith, was the daughter of a King Gideon.
That the latter is virtually
a complete fable, however, is suspected by Bernard Lewis
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=314380:
Bernard Lewis (1): The Jews of the Dark
continent, 1980
The early history of the Jews of the Habashan
highlands remains obscure, with their origins remaining more mythical than
historical. In this they areas in other respects, they are the mirror image of
their supposed Kin across the Red sea. For while copious external records of
Byzantine, Persian, old Axumite and Arab sources exist of the large-scale
conversion of Yemen to Judaism, and the survival of a large Jewish community at
least until the 11th century, no such external records exist for the Jews of
Habash, presently by far the numerically and politically dominant branch of
this ancient people.
Their own legends insist that Judaism had
reached the shores of Ethiopia at the time of the First temple. They further
insist that Ethiopia had always been Jewish.
In spite of the claims of Habashan nationalists,
Byzantine, Persian and Arab sources all clearly indicate that the politically
dominant religion of Axum was, for a period of at least six centuries
Christianity and that the Tigray cryptochristian minority, far from turning
apostate following contact with Portugese Jesuits in the 15th century is in
fact the remmanent [sic] of a period of Christian domination which lasted at
least until the 10th century.
For the historian, when records fail,
speculation must perforce fill the gap. Given our knowledge of the existence of
both Jewish and Christian sects in the deserts of Western Arabia and Yemen it
is not difficult to speculate that both may have reached the shores of Axum
concurrently prior to the council of Nicaea and the de-judaization of hetrodox [sic]
sects.
….
What I am finding is that the kingdom of “Axum”
(or Aksum) - in legends that seem to transpose BC history into AD time - can
play the part of the ancient kingdom of Assyria.
Reader J.P. has added this interesting
suggestion:
“[Salome Alexandra] was the last reigning monarch over the unified
Hasmonean dynasty. If the theory is correct, Judith jumps to the end of the OT
as the final book chronologically. When reading it in that light, it seems much
more “natural”. (Among a few points in its favor is that the prayer of Judith
which has been interpreting as praising Simeon the Patriarch’s shameful and
wicked actions at Shechem becomes a praise of Simeon Maccabees, Salome
Alexandra’s grand-sire age a character who relieves similar praise in Sirach.
King Tigranes II (Tigran) ‘the Great’
Encyclopaedia
Iranica introduces the C1st BC King Tigranes II (Tigran)
‘the Great’ as follows: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tigran-ii
TIGRAN II, THE GREAT, king of Armenia (r. 95-55 BCE).
Tigran (Tigranes) II was the most distinguished member of the so-called
Artašēsid/Artaxiad dynasty, which has now been identified as a branch of the
earlier Eruandid dynasty of Iranian origin attested as ruling in Armenia from
at least the 5th century B.C.E.
…. During
Tigran’s reign Armenia briefly reached its widest extension in the vacuum of
power resulting from the final decline of the Seleucids, the still incomplete
consolidation of the Parthian empire, and the absence as yet of Rome’s full
commitment to an expansionist policy in the East. Despite considerable
information, Tigran’s achievements have been difficult to reconstruct and
evaluate, because of the almost exclusively classical sources, whose treatment
of him, as the son-in-law and supporter of Rome’s greatest enemy Mithradates VI Eupator (r. 120-63 BCE) of Pontus, is
invariably hostile, and the much later and anachronistic account in the
Armenian History of Movsēs Xorenac’i.
The beginning of Tigran II’s reign in 95BCE was
not auspicious. He apparently succeeded his father Tigran I, of whom nothing is
known beyond a few possible copper coins, rather than his uncle, as has
sometimes been argued. ….
[End of quote]
Unfortunately, there seems to be a fair
amount of obscurity here, “Tigran’s achievements have been difficult to reconstruct
and evaluate”, “the much later and anachronistic account …”, “his father Tigran
I, of whom nothing is known beyond a few possible copper coins …”. Just aass we read above:
Yet, the military activities of Tigranes have
been proposed as the model for the story of Judith, which can also be thought -
again wrongly, I suggest - to have been Maccabean influenced:
Book
of Judith not a Maccabean Product
(8)
Book of Judith not a Maccabean Product
And so we read of the theories of Samuel
Rocca and Gabriele Boccaccini on this http://www.4enoch.org/wiki4/index.php?title=Category:Salome_Alexandra--history_(subject:
In 2005 Samuel Rocca first suggested that
the story of Judith could contains echoes of the crisis generated by the
invasion of the Armenian King Tigranes the Great.
The argument was taken up in 2009 by
Gabriele Boccaccini who drew attention on the Armenian and Roman sources that
seem to confirm the chronological and geographical details provided in the Book
of Judith about the military campaign of the new "Nebuchadnezzar,"
Tigranes the Great.
[End of quote]
Based on what we read about Queen Gudit,
and also the striking literary similarities between Virgil’s Sinon and Judith –
and the same can be said for aspects of Helen of Troy and Judith, as shown
elsewhere – Tigranes ‘the Great’ would be as fictitious as is Sinon, Helen and
Gudit.
He comes across like those poorly known
so-called ‘philosophers’ of antiquity based on real ancient sages, their almost
empty ‘bibliographies’ accompanied by the phrase: “Little is known about …”.
Thus, as we have already read: “Tigran’s achievements have been difficult to reconstruct
and evaluate”, “the much later and anachronistic account …”, “his father Tigran
I, of whom nothing is known beyond a few possible copper coins …”.
Further exacerbating the situation is that “… the so-called Artašēsid/Artaxiad dynasty … branch of
the earlier Eruandid dynasty” replaced “the final decline of the Seleucids”,
just as had, supposedly, the fictitious Seljuk Turks. On this see e.g. my
article:
Maccabeans and
Crusaders Seleucids and Saltukids Seljuks
(8) Maccabeans and Crusaders
Seleucids and Saltukids Seljuks
Surely, Tigranes is based upon the Assyrian
“Holofernes” of the Book of Judith, which itself was not a correct name. See
e.g:
Book of Judith: confusion of names
(8)
Book of Judith: confusion of names
His true historical identification (and,
yes, this was a real history) was:
“Nadin”
(Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith
(8)
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
Nadin being Sennacherib’s oldest son,
Ashur-nadin-shumi.
Returning again to
http://www.4enoch.org/wiki4/index.php?title=Category:Tigranes_the_Great--history_(subject) we read this:
Tigranes the Great is quite a neglected figure
in Biblical and Judaic Studies. Only Armenian scholarship has preserved vivid
memory of his military campaigns, in which Judea also was subdued. As an
example of the way in which the relationship between Tigranes and Queen
Alexandra is retold in modern Armenian culture, we may read the passage in
Armen’s biography (1940):
“As the king’s forces poured into southern
Phoenicia, Jews were alarmed at the proximity of such vast hosts to Judea.
Queen Alexandra of Jerusalem, and the Jewish leaders already visioned Armenian
cuirassiers riding into the sacred city, and once more the recollection of
Babylonian captivity intensified their present panic.
The undimmed prestige of Tigranes as a
conqueror, who moved peoples, among them Jews from Syria, to populate his
native territories, made him appear as a new Nebuchadnezzar, while the prospect
of singing the songs of Zion on the banks of Euphrates and Tigris to satisfy
the disdainful curiosity of their enslavers terrified them. For “how shall we
sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land!” Trembling Jewish ambassadors met
Tigranes in Phoenicia, they “interceded with him, and entreated him he would
determine nothing that was severe about their queen and nation.” ….
Queen Salome Alexandra
She is as similarly dubious historically as
is Tigranes:
Josephus refers to the queen
exclusively by her Greek name, Alexandra (Ἀλεξάνδρα), recording no Hebrew
equivalent in either the War or the Antiquities.
…. Her Semitic name is preserved in two Dead Sea Scroll fragments — 4Q331
(1-ii-7) and 4Q332 (2-4) — as Shelamzion, and historian Lester Grabbe notes that the variant
Greek forms "Salina" and "Salome" likely represent attempts
to render the same underlying Hebrew name, Šĕlamṣiyon. …. Rabbinic
literature ignores
the Greek name entirely, referring to her throughout by various Semitic forms.
….
According
to historian Tal Ilan, she likely received the
name "Alexandra" upon marrying Alexander Jannaeus. ….
Family
Josephus records nothing of
Salome Alexandra's parentage; since he treats her as a legitimate Hasmonean
monarch without describing her as having married into the dynasty, historian
Kenneth Atkinson suggests she may herself have been of Hasmonean descent.
….
We read further of the striking
similarities between the Judith account and Queen Salome against Tigranes in
Rocca’s article, “The Book of Judith, Queen Salome Alexandra, and Tigranes of
Armenia”:
https://www.academia.edu/4732361/The_Book_of_Judith_Queen_Salome_Alexandra_and_Tigranes_of_Armenia
Tigranes did not stop at Seleucid Syria. The Armenian King was
ready to move against Judaea. For the Eastern potentate to face a small
kingdom, moreover under the leadership of a woman, would have been nothing more
than a promenade! He thus came against Judaea. According to Josephus, the queen
and the nation were terrified! It was then that Queen Salome Alexandra opted
for a diplomatic solution. She sent ambassadors to Tigranes. It seems that the
ambassadors, with the help of many expensive gifts, persuaded Tigranes not to
move against Judaea, for the time being at least. Queen Salome Alexandra had
then the time to organize an army to face the Armenian despot.
But she was not going at war alone. She cleverly bought enough time to allow
her Roman ally, Lucullus to move against Tigranes, striking at the Armenian
heartland. Thus as soon as Seleucid Ptolemais fell to the Armenian horde,
Tigranes received the bad news that Lucullus, pursuing Mithridates was lying
waste Armenia. Tigranes had to go home. …. The Hasmonean [sic] Queen and
her subjects could now breath freely. This important episode makes up the main
part of the Book of Judith.
[End of quote]
The whole story reads to me suspiciously like a
pinch from the Hebrew Book of Judith.
13th July
Our Lady of Fatima
No comments:
Post a Comment