Polydore Vergil and Virgilius

This is interesting:

Figures

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Figures

This article has a follower with the status of a permanent page, which will be regularly (or I hope so) enriched with new and pertinent information :

Figures continued…

• Claudio Tolomei (1492-1556) is « Claudius Ptolemy » (his family name is Ptolemaeus or Ptolomaeus in latin). He is a versatile erudite of his times, except that he did nothing regarding geography and astronomy.

• Peter von Benewitz « Apianus » (1495-1552) is the old latin author « Appianus ». Contrary to Ptolemy, it is the Renaissance author who is a geographer and an astronomer, while his antique counterpart is an historian.

• Polydore Vergil (1470-1555) is Virgilius

There is a « Giovanni del Virgilio » who is an author from the beginning of the 14th century, without precision about the dates. He was a friend of Dante. Polydore had a brother named Giovanni Matteo Virgilio who teached at the universities of Padua and Ferrara but of whom nothing more is said.

• Agostino Chigi (1466-1520) is « Saint-Augustine ».

 Saint-Augustine… in cardinal attire

He was a incredibly wealthy banker who lived in Sienna, very involved in the church and close to the popes.

In Sienna there is the yearly horse race called the Pallio, not in Hippone (town of horses) in northern Africa. The cathedral in Sienna is called Saint-Agostino. In it, there is the funerary monument of Agostino Chigi

It is no wonder that the Roman church has since a lot to do with banking activities. The reforms of the council of Trent have concern for the question of banking : the Jubilees are abandoned and usury brought by the swiss Calvin is now accepted. It is known that the medieval church practiced the Jubilees (as in the Old Testament) until at least the 15th century.

Chigi was part of the League of Venice against France. It probably means the league against the Franks (of Charles V).

• Girolamo Savonarole (1452-1498) is « Saint-Jerome » (Fomenko said Erasmus, but it does not concur with the life of Erasmus who writes in greek).

He overruled the Medici in Florence. He is said to be a reformer. He welcomed Charles VIII king of France in Florence (in fact Charles V) and started a religious dictatorship in Florence (1494-1498). Jerome wrote the latin « translation » of the Bible. The french translation in 1530 is based upon the Vulgate of Jerome. He predicted the coming of « a new Cyrus » that woud cross Italy to bring back the order. The prophecy is said to have been fulfilled with the coming of Charles VIII of « France » (Carolus magnus of the Franks). He called the roman curia a « proud and lying whore », which shows how he remained « roman catholic » all the way. He is in fact an enemy of the jewish Temple in Rome.

Savonarole was against the use of indulgences and the sackcloth in the church. This is similar to statements made about other reformers like Loyola or Luther.

• Tommaso d’Aquino (1584-1651) is the name of a bishop of Mottola from 1648 to 1651. This is not surprinsig as his master Aristotle lived probably as Gennade Scholarius in the 16th century. His teachings influences René Descartes whos lives in the same times. The pope of his beginnings was Innocent X. The pope of the beginnings of the 13th century Thomas was Innocent IV.

• Hector Boèce (1465-1536) is the old « Boethius ». Both were called Boethius or Boèce, and both were scottish. He is one of the first disciples of Aristotle and is cited by Thomas de Aquino.

• Bartolomeo di Sebastiano Neroni (1505-1571), artist and architect : probably the architect of the antique « amphitheater of Nero », that was destroyed in remote times. There is a second amphitheatre like the Coliseum in some 17th century maps.

• Traiano Caracciolo is the template for the emperor Trajan. He was the duke of Melfi and good friend of the pope Clement VII (1478-1534).

• Tito Livio Burratini (1617-1681) is Titus Livius

He is essentially a mathematician and engineer. It is said he was involved in the history of Egypt where he lived a part of his life. It is not said he ever was a historian. His time of life concurs with a knowledge of the 17th century wars of religion, whose which the Roman jewish and christian insurrections are a reflection.

• Sallustio Bandini (1677-1760) : churchman and from Sienna, which are always good markers for an original of the « old » latin figures. Here Sallustius

• Apostolo Zeno  (1668-1750) is the greek Zeno. He is a venitian author for the theatre and a philosopher. Possibly we should search in Venice for the original of the greek figures, while the latin figures are italian, from Tuscany mostlty

• Johann Christoph Jordan (died 1748) is the antique Jordanes.

He wrote in latin and published in 1745 De Originibus Slavicis. Jordanes published in the 6th century « History of the Goths ».

It is said by Fomenko that the german historians in Russia made a new history up. To his detriment, Else Löser said August Schlözer was the one who fashioned the word « Slav » in Saint-Petersburg. Possibly it was in fact Jordan who lived before Schlözer (1735-1809). Or it is the opposite : the late Jordan (of whom very little is known) is made upon the authentic Jordanes (15th century).

It shall be said that many popular songs in Poland are sung in german in the 19th century. Yiddish is a germanic language and not at all a slavic language. So Maybe Mrs Löser was true to say that all « slavic » languages were made up.

Ancient scientists and religious authors are basically the very same Renaissance characters whose biographies have been made up lately. But the books would then be authentic. This would be the case for Ptolemy or Augustine. The books have only been parted in two halves : one for the Renaissance author, one who would be attributed to the old double.

This is probably not so for an ancient historian or a roman emperor, for obvious reasons.

The roman emperors cannot be the double of the medieval « Holy roman emperors » (from 1520 and later) because the chronology which is needed is much longer, and a simple copy of the two historical periods would be too obvious. So the roman emperors carry the names of Renaissance artists, like Neroni, or scientists. Probably the emperor Claudius is again Claudio Tolomei, whose name is said to signify « crippled » like the emperor Claudius was said to be.

Many authors have now plainly displayed – but not rightly concluded – that the biographies of many ancient roman emperors have been built upon the life of Jesus. They concluded erroneously the opposite : that Jesus was built upon Julius Caesar (Francesco Carrota), built upon the three flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus and Domitian (Joseph Atwill). But the « Lives of 12 Caesars » by Suetonius have the same elements of Jesus in them.

For an historian like Titus Livius it has been pointed that he lived in the good times to write about the Wars of religions. There are two possibilities then. Either he wrote a true history but the names of characters have been edited later to make it « ‘ancient roman ». Or it had been entirely written based upon the Wars of religions with the purpose to create an ancient history. The habit to use a Renaissance character to name the « ancient » author was kept.

I personnaly support the second hypothesis, because this process goes on very lately. The team Chronology 2.0 displayed the absolute fact that the period 27 BC-325 AD is a phantom reflexion of the period 1527-1870. Both end with a council (Nicaea the first evern, and the last at the times of Mommsen and Fustel de Coulanges, Vatican I). Ancien roman emperors of later times have been shown by Fomenko to be doubles of the « first » roman empire (Diocletian = Pompeo, Constantine = Augustus, etc.). What comes next ? The barbaric invasions by Odoacer and Theodoric, the « Ostrogoths » and « Vandals ». What do we see in 1870 ? France at war with Prussia, precisely the place named « Prusse » or « Vandalie » in a 1660 french map. The prussian leader is « Otto » von Bismarck with his emperor Willhelm-Friedrich, king of Prussia, and first to carry the title of « german emperor », long after the end of the « roman empire » in 1806.

Claudius Ptolemy and Claudio Tolomei

This is interesting:

The real Claudius Ptolemy

SEPTEMBRE 11, 2017 · 1:05↓ Sauter aux Commentaires

The real Claudius Ptolemy

The russian school of New Chronology has managed to show the true and modern identities of many of the « ancient » characters.

Plato is Gémiste Plethon (1355-1452), a byzantine scholar, known to have stood for the works of Plato, and written « Laws » , a book by the same name of an ancient work of Plato.

Aristotle is Gennade Scholarius (1400-1473). This Scholarius is supposed to have been kept in charge by Mehmet II after his conquest of Constantinople in 1453.  Why would a muslim ruler would care about the name of the orthodox patriarch ? The ottoman empire is depicted on the maps only at the times of Mehmet III near 1600, so in my own opinion, Scholarius must have really lived in these times. Mehmet III is the author of the Koran and the latest of the four « czars » found by Fomenko to have incarnated the fabricated Ivan the Terrible. He is known in Russia as Simeon Beckboulatovitch.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) is the old Vitruvius. They wrote the exact same book « The ten books on architecture », with the same title and content !

Copernicus is Aristarchus and Tycho Brahe Hipparchus.

An important identification has note been made. It is the person hidden behind Claudius Ptolemy. This is quite easy, as he shares the very same name. His name is Claudio Tolomei, born in Asciano in 1492 and dead in 1556 in Rome. In italian, the old Ptolemy is called Claudio Tolomeo !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Tolomei

In the middle ages, Ptolemy is always depicted as a bearded man, as Claudio Tolomei.

the old Ptolemy, in medieval dressing !

He was known as a multifaceted intellectual, gifted with all the talents, but he is not known as an astronomer and a geographer. This is quite curious as he lived precisely at the times when the first atlas by Ptolemy was published in France, in the beginning of 1525, from the « old » treatises (which are now all lost) by the « old » Ptolemy. The style of the maps is typically just a bit more crude than the little later maps by Abraham Ortelius and Oronce Fine. One can see here that Oronce Fine is placed among the « ancient » Ptolemy, Strabo and Pomponius Mela as the creators of geography in this map dated 1551:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458817z/

The tribes mentioned by the « old » Herodotus are mentioned on this very same map : Guaramantes, Lotophages (Lotus eaters) for example. Hyperborea is a now lost archipelago at the north pole (quite as Herodotus described it).

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Tolomei

The late Giovanni Battista Tolomei is called in the legend of the picture « Ptolemaius ».

The Tolomei family is said to have claimed to come from the old Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. This sounds quite ridiculous if this family lived in the Nile delta in the 4th century. But Egypt meant the old localisation of the empire : near Constantinople. Alexandria is probably Andrinopolis.

It is a known fact that in the middle of the 15th century, Constantinople was conquered and that many byzantine families came to live in Tuscany, notably in Florence were the Medici ruled.

This is not exactly true : Constantinople would be conquered much later as we said, around 1600. The byzantine that came to live in Florence were not the remnants of the old rulers of Byzantium. They colonised the west. Fomenko proved the russian origin of the Etruscans and their identification with Tuscany in the 15th century. Curiously he still said that Byzantium was conquered in 1453, and did not make the two elements in sync. Another proof of this is this map, which he did not display. One can see the two words Tuscia and Etruria in the same picture. And Florence as the capital. We wan see the Etruscans towns of Veii and Care in the Tarquinii area too. At the right, we see the tribes of the Umbrii, the Sabinii and the Latii.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b5963870n/f1.item.r=thusciae.zoom

There is no year and no author upon this map. But the style is the same as the 17th century maps. And Florence, Sienna are there too.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b84947162/ by Antonio de Salamanca, 16th century.

Etruria is not mentioned, but the neighbouring people at the right are called Umbria, Sabinae and Latii. Rome is at the frontier between the Latii and Tusciae. It is already a big city.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53042014b/f1.item.r=thusciae.zoom

by Girolamo Bellarmato, 1560

same people at the frontiers. Notice the Lucus Etruriae, near the Vulsinus lacus in the south.

Maybe the family that ruled Byzantium (but this is a false and late name. The name of the country must have been Egypt) in the beginning of the 15th century was not Palaeologus, but Tolomeo.

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10722980m/

Here is the greek text of one of the main works by Ptolemy, Cosmographia.The document is said to be from the end of the 15th century. Nowhere it is said to have been compiled « according to the ancient works of Ptolemy ». It can be assumed this is an original.

Ptolemy is said to have lived between 90 and 168, at the times of roman hegemony. But the geography is closer to Herodotus (5th century BC). There are seleucids strategies all across Cappadocia. The Seleucid empire is said to have disappeared in 64 BC. (But the Seldjukid empire is alive and well in the 15th century. As we said, there is no Ottoman empire before 1600.)

Italy, Tusques, Samnites, Latins, and even Roma are mentioned. But not the « roman empire ».

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53040746f/f1.item.r=ptol%C3%A9m%C3%A9e.zoom

Here is a map by Ptolemy. We can find Lotharingia, a carolingian kingdom. This is at odds with the date of the map, published in 1541, too. Russia is an area at the east of Poland.

A little later map by Gerard de Jode mentions the « Francie orientale », another carolingian kingdom.

There are anomalies regarding the history of astronomy too. After Ptolemy in the 2d century, we have to wait the 16th century to have some new descriptions of constellations. ….

Ancient Greek Repetitions?

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

Has the list of Greek archons been duplicated?

 

  

There may be duplications in the list of ancient Greek archons.

But there may also be characters listed there who did not even belong to Greece.

I have already argued that Solon, appointed archon in the Athenian government in c. 600 BC, was in fact a non-historical figure, based largely upon the sage King Solomon of Israel:

 

Solomon and Sheba

https://www.academia.edu/3660164/Solomon_and_Sheba?sm=b

 

but whose supposed laws and reforms appear to owe much to another famous Jew of antiquity, Nehemiah. (See, on this, “Two reformers compared: Solon of Athens and Nehemiah of Jerusalem”, E. Yamauchi and G. Rendsburg).

 

Now Clark Whelton of NY has just alerted me to an article of historical revision by professor Gunnar Heinsohn: https://q-mag.org/rome-and-jerusalem-a-stratigraphy-based-chronology-of-the-ancient-world.html

Rome and Jerusalem – a stratigraphy-based chronology of the Ancient World

 

in which the author runs these intriguing parallels between supposedly separate Greek archons:

 

462 BC	A KONON becomes archon in Athens.
398 BC	A KONON tries to win Akhaemenid Artaxerxes II for Athens.

 

The pressure by KONON of Athens to stop Sparta’s assistance for Egypt’s rebellion against Akhaemenids in 395 BC is a duplication of 460 BC (time of a KONON in Athens) when the Akhaemenid Satrap Achaimenes is murdered in Egypt.

 

460 BC	Walls are built in Athens.
393 BC	Walls are built in Athens.

 

459 BC	A PHILOKLES becomes archon in Athens.
392 BC	A PHILOKLES becomes archon in Athens.
450 BC	Athenians win at Salamis (Cyprus).
384 BC	Ceasefire is negotiated at Salamis (Cyprus).
449 BC	Peace of KALLIAS strengthens “1st“Attic Maritime Alliance.
377 BC	A KALLIAS is archon in Athens; “2nd” Attic Maritime Alliance).
424 BC	OCHOS (Darius II) crowned after brief rule of predecessor.
358 BC	OCHOS (Artaxerxes III) crowned after brief rule of predecessor.
419 BC	An Archias becomes archon in Athens.
345 BC	An Archias becomes archon in Athens.

 

….

Duplicitous Ben-Hadad I of Syria

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

“Ben-hadad of Aram breaks his treaty with Baasha and enters into a military alliance with Asa. Ben-hadad attacks Baasha from the north, in the territory of

Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and other cities of Naphtali. To defend his northern territories, Baasha has to abandon his fortifications and Ramah, and Asa and Judah move in to seize the materials to put to work in their own building projects.”

 Peter Liethart

 

 

BEN-HADAD’S EL AMARNA IDENTIFICATON

 

Along with the archaeological identification of the Exodus Israelites with the Middle Bronze I people, a most solid starting-point for biblico-historical revision is, I think, Dr. Velikovsky’s connection of the El Amarna [EA] pair of kings of “Amurru”, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with, respectively, Ben-Hadad I and Hazael of Syria.

 

I have frequently built upon this sturdy foundation, having previously written (for instance):

 

We are now in the C9th BC, about 500 years after the well-documented EA period of the 18^th dynasty pharaohs Amenhotep III (c. 1390-1352 BC) and Amenhotep IV [Akhnaton] (c. 1352-1348 BC), according to the Sothic chronology, but squarely within EA according to Velikovsky’s revision.[1]

Courville had accepted Velikovsky’s basic 18^th dynasty scenario, without adding much to it. My starting point here will be with what competent revisionists in the late 1970’s to early 1980’s, who had followed Velikovsky, considered to have been a most convincing aspect of Velikovsky’s EA restructuring: namely, his identification of the two chief EA correspondents from Amurru, Abdi-ashirta and Aziru, with two successive Syrian kings of the Old Testament in the C9th BC, respectively, Ben-Hadad I (c. 880-841 BC, conventional dates) and Hazael (c. 841-806 BC, conventional dates). Thus James had written, favourably:[2]

 

With [these] two identifications [Velikovsky] seems to be on the firmest ground, in that we have a succession of two rulers, both of whom are characterised in the letters and the Scriptures as powerful rulers who made frequent armed excursions – and conquests – in the territories to the south of their own kingdom. In the letters their domain is described as “Amurru” – a term used, as Velikovsky has pointed out … by Shalmaneser III for Syria in general, the whole area being dominated by the two successive kings in “both” the el-Amarna period and the mid-9th century.

 

From Assyrian evidence it is known that Hazael succeeded to the throne between 845 and 841 BC, and thus we have a reasonably precise floruit for those el-Amarna correspondents who relate the deeds of Abdi-Ashirta and Azaru [Aziru], particularly for Rib-Addi, whose letters report the death of Abdi-Ashirta and the accession of Azaru [Aziru].

Bimson for his part, referring to the second of these two kings of Amurru, would write:[3]

 

In the first volume of his historical reconstruction, Velikovsky argues that … Aziru of Amurru, well known from the Amarna letters, should be identified with Hazael of Damascus …. The identification is well supported, and has implications for the slightly later period now being discussed.

 

The same writer, using the Hittite records for the late to post-EA period, would in fact take Velikovsky’s Syrian identification into even a third generation, his “slightly later period”, when suggesting that Aziru’s son, Du-Teshub, fitted well as Hazael’s son, Ben-Hadad II (c. 806- ? BC, conventional dates), thus further consolidating Velikovsky’s Syrian sequence for both Amarna and the mid-C9th BC:[4]

 

The Hittite treaties with Amurru also throw light on another issue raised earlier in this paper. It was noted that, according to the Old Testament, Ben-Hadad [II] was militarily active in the reign of Jehoahaz while his father Hazael was still king. It is gratifying to find this same relationship between father and son referred to in the treaty between the Hittite king Mursilis and Aziras’ grandson, Duppi Tessub.

The treaty refers to Duppi-Tessub’s father (i.e. the son of Aziras) as DU-Tessub, and if Aziras is the Bible’s Hazael, this DU-Tessub must be Ben-Hadad [II]. The meaning of the ideogram which forms the first part of his name is obscure …. But Tessub is the name of the Hittite/Hurrian Weather-god known to be the equivalent to Adad or Hadad.

Part of the treaty refers to past relations between the two powers, and says of Aziras: “When he grew too old and could no longer go to war and fight, DU-Tessub fought against the enemy with the foot-soldiers and the charioteers of the Amurru land, just as he had fought …” …. This parallel neatly supports the double identifications, Aziras = Hazael; DU-Tessub = Ben-Hadad [II].

 

These revisionists of the ‘Glasgow School’, as they became known, including Sieff, Gammon and others, were able, with a slight modification of Velikovsky’s dates, to re-set the EA period so that it sat more comfortably within its new C9th BC allocation. Thus pharaoh Akhnaton, James argued, was a more exact contemporary of king Jehoram of Judah (c. 848-841 BC, conventional dates) – and hence of the latter’s older contemporary, Jehoram of Israel (c. 853-841 BC, conventional dates) – rather than of Velikovsky’s choice of king Jehoshaphat (c. 870-848 BC, conventional dates), father of Jehoram of Judah and contemporary of king Ahab of Israel (c. 874-853 BC, conventional dates).[5] Correspondingly, Sieff determined that:[6]

 

The great famine of II Kings 8:1, found by Velikovsky to be a recurrent theme in the letters of Rib-Addi … was that of the time of Jehoram. The earlier drought of King Ahab’s time lasted 3½ years rather than 7 [cf. 1 Kings 17:1; Luke 4:25] … and was associated with the activities of Elijah, and not his successor Elisha, who figures in the famine of Ahab’s son.

 

With this relatively slight refinement in time, then the results could be quite stunning. James, for instance, found that the king of Jerusalem (Urusalim) for EA, Abdi-hiba, an obviously polytheistic monarch, who had not identified well with the pious king Jehoshaphat of Jerusalem, Velikovsky’s biblical choice, however, matched Jehoshaphat’s son, Jehoram, down to the last detail. ….

 

Whereas Ben-Hadad’s father, Tab-rimmon-Tibni, had apparently been allied with the King of Judah, Abijah-Asa, against the King of Israel, Jeroboam I-Omri (as we have read), that situation must have changed by the time that Baasha, ever inimical to Judah, was ruling Israel.

For King Asa has to prise Ben-Hadad away from his alliance with Baasha with a hefty payment.

Peter Liethart tells of the King of Judah’s grievous mistake here, in “The Tragedy of Asa”:

https://theopolisinstitute.com/the-tragedy-of-asa/

 

King Asa of Judah made a strong start, purging the land of idols, altars, and images, and winning a war against the ginormous Cushite army led by [Zerah]. It all unraveled in his final years. From his thirty-fifth year to the forty-first year, when his reign came to an end, Asa was plagued by war and eventually suffering from a disease.

Things start to go badly with another war. When Zerah attacked with his overwhelming force, Asa prayed, presumably toward the temple, and Yahweh heard (2 Chronicles 14:11-12). When Baasha of Israel fortifies Ramah, near the border of Israel and Judah, Asa’s response is very different.

… in the time of Asa, Baasha, who overthrew the dynasty of Jeroboam, tries to recover that lost territory, and making Ramah his base of operation.

Asa doesn’t pray. He doesn’t seek the Lord. He does go to the temple but not to worship or sing. He goes to the temple in order to strip the storages rooms of silver and gold, so that, along with treasure from his own house, he can offer a bribe to the Arameans.

The Arameans have been allied with Baasha, but Asa hopes that his treasure will entice the king of Aram to break that covenant (16:3). It works. Ben-hadad of Aram breaks his treaty with Baasha and enters into a military alliance with Asa. Ben-hadad attacks Baasha from the north, in the territory of Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim, and other cities of Naphtali. To defend his northern territories, Baasha has to abandon his fortifications and Ramah, and Asa and Judah move in to seize the materials to put to work in their own building projects.

It’s a clever move, and a successful one. It’s the kind of political manipulation by which the world runs. It’s also one of the stupidest things that a king of Judah ever does. How is it stupid? Let me count the ways.

For starters, Asa uses the treasures of the temple to buy off Ben-hadad. These are the same treasures he has just devoted to Yahweh as part of the covenant-renewal between Judah and Yahweh (2 Chronicles 15:18). Even if Asa didn’t believe that Yahweh was real, it would be dumb for him to devote treasure to the temple only to remove it. But Asa is a Yahweh-worshiper, and taking Yahweh’s stuff is really stupid. Asa consecrates silver and gold to Yahweh, making it holy, Yahweh’s possession. Then he takes the silver and gold away from Yahweh. The treasure isn’t his to use. He steals from God, commits sacrilege in order to secure a victory. He commits the sin of ma’al, trespass, a sin that always leads kings into disaster.

Asa doesn’t seem to realize the implications of what he does. Ben-hadad has been in an alliance with Baasha to attack Judah. Asa pays him off to break his covenant and attack Israel. How clever is it to cut a covenant with a partner who is willing to abandon a covenant When a better offer comes along? How reliable can Ben-Hadad be?

Asa inflicts a wound on his own realm. Asa funds an Aramean attack on the northern kingdom. He’s funding Gentiles to attack his brothers. But it gets worse: Asa is the legitimate king of the whole territory of Israel. The towns in the north that Ben-hadad attacks are as much a part of Asa’s realm as the cities that Baasha was trying to recover. Asa funds an Aramean attack on his own territory. He’s not only betrayed and stolen from Yahweh. He’s effectively renounced his own standing as Davidic king. He’s acting as if the northern territories belonged to someone else.

Asa’s disloyalty makes him stupid.

The prophet Azariah met Asa as he returned from his war with Zerah (2 Chronicles 15:1-7) with an encouraging message: “Be strong and do not lose courage, for there is a reward for your work.” In response, Asa re-initated his efforts to reform Judah’s worship. After the war with Baasha, another prophet, Hanani, meets the king. He doesn’t bring a message of encouragement but one of rebuke.

….

Ben-hadad’s very name highlights the contrast. Ben-hadad means “son of hadad,” and Hadad is the proper name of the god usually known as “Baal.” Ben-Hadad is in the same position in Aram as Asa is in Judah (William Johnstone), a son of Aram’s God. Supporting Ben-hadad isn’t just relying on a Gentile power; it amounts to a confession that Hadad is stronger than Yahweh. Asa’s political action is a breach of faith with Yahweh, a confession of faith in Hadad.

Hanani reminds Asa that the Lord delivered Judah from an immense army of Ethiopians and Libyans. The same could have happened in the war with Baasha.

Asa could have trusted God to deliver him from Baasha, but Aram itself would have been brought under his power (16:7).

Instead, Asa allows Aram to become a power that will threaten the northern kingdom for several generations. Aram’s rise to regional power depends on Asa’s gold and silver, Yahweh’s gold and silver.

Asa has been faithless in war, and Hanani warns that he will have war for the remainder of his reign. When he sought Yahweh, he had rest. When he gave treasure to Yahweh, the land was at peace. When he stole from Yahweh and allied with the son of Baal, his borders became porous and he had to fight wars the remainder of his life.

Asa began well, but his breach of faith leads to defeat, disease, and … ignominious death. Asa’s life and death is a cautionary tale, both personal and political. ….

 

 

[1] Ages in Chaos, vol. 1, ch. 6. Also, his Oedipus and Akhnaton.

[2] ‘The Dating of the El-Amarna Letters’, p. 80.

[3] ‘Dating the Wars of Seti I’, p. 21.

[4] Ibid, p. 32.

[5] Op. cit, pp. 82-84.

[6] ‘The Two Jehorams’, p. 89.

Can Amenhotep II and III be merged?

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

Similar patterns emerge, again, with the course of the reign of Amenhotep II, III –

some early military activity followed by years of peace and prosperity, allowing

for major building projects.

 

 

 

As well as Thutmose III and IV needing to be merged into just the one pharaoh, as I have done, so also, do I think, the same just may apply to Amenhotep II and III.

The first (II) is rightly considered to have been the son of Thutmose III, whilst the second (III) is thought to have been the son of Thutmose IV.

Here, though, I shall be arguing that Amenhotep II = III was the son of my Thutmose III-identified-as-IV.

 

STRONG, A SPORTSMAN, HUNTER  

 

Some patterns of similarity emerge also with Amenhotep II and III.

For example:

 

Being fathered by a predecessor “Thutmose”.

And sharing the name Aakhepeh[-erure].

 

Having as wife:

[Amenhotep II] “Tiaa (Tiya) “Great Royal Wife” Daughter of Yuya and Thuya”.

http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn18/07amenhotep2.html

[Amenhotep III] Having a Great Royal Wife, “Tiy, daughter of Yuya and Tuya”.

http://www.phouka.com/pharaoh/pharaoh/dynasties/dyn18/09amenhotep3.html

 

Having as son-successors a Thutmose, and then an Amenhotep:

[Amenhotep II] “Children Thutmose IV, Amenhotep …”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_II

[Amenhotep III (and Tiy)] “Their eldest son, Thutmosis … died as a child. This left the kingdom to their second son, Amenhotep … who changed his name and is better known as Akhenaten”.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/amenhotep-iii-biography-family-death.html

 

Well known about Amenhotep II is that he was a very physically strong sportsmen and hunter.

But so, too, was Amenhotep III: https://681308714824908458.weebly.com/hunter.html

 

…. Amenhotep III’s reign encompassed peace and because of this there was no real need to have a ‘warrior’ pharaoh to protect Egypt, so instead the role of ‘Hunter’ became more prominent. Amenhotep still needed to seem strong and powerful. Skills taught to pharaohs previously to fulfil the role of being a warrior were transferrable to the role of being a hunter. Hunting was an important role as the representation of a hunter was Ma’at.

 

Inscriptions praised the pharaoh for his physical power as a sportsman giving emphasis on his strength, endurance, skill and also his courage. Two scarabs were also issued promoting his success as a hunter. One scarab is pictured on this page from 1380BC [sic] in the 18th Dynasty. To the Right is the bottom of the scarab presenting the hieroglyphics and below is the picture of the detailed top of the artefact with markings indicating the head, wings and scorching on its legs imitating its feathering. This scarab records that the king killed 102 lions within his first ten years of his reign. He stated that he did this with only a bow and arrow. This presents his strength and power without having to win thousands of wars.

 

Historian A. Gardiner wrote in 1972 a quote the relates strongly to the topic of a hunter ‘with the accession of Amenhotep III, Dynasty 18 attained the zenith of its magnificence, though the celebrity of this king is not founded upon any military achievement. Indeed, It is doubtful whether he himself ever took part in a warlike campaign’.’ This quote is explaining further how Amenhotep III was more involved with a warrior role than a military role. He may of [have] not had war but he managed to keep his magnificence through hunting as the skills were transferrable.

 

Hunting was an important role in the 18th dynasty and specifically during Amenhotep’s reign as it was up to him to withhold the concept of ma’at.

It was significant as the role of being a warrior was not necessarily needed throughout his reign, so the role of a hunter arose to ensure that the pharaoh was presented as strong.

Amenhotep contributed to this role by creating the commemorative scarabs and recording any hunting successes. This provided the people with reassurance that their pharaoh could protect them and also it is significant because it provides historians and archeologists with evidence about the pharaoh and hunting.

 

Sometimes the strength and sporting prowess of Amenhotep II are presented as if being his main claim to fame. The following piece exemplifies the pharaoh’s outstanding sporting skills:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep2.htm

 

Notably, Amenhotep II was well known for his athletic abilities as a young man. A number of representations of him depict his participation in successful sporting pursuits. He lived in the Memphite region where he trained horses in his father’s stables, and one of his greatest athletic achievements was accomplished when he shot arrows through a copper plate while driving a chariot with the reins tied about his waist. This deed was recorded in numerous inscriptions, including a stele at Giza and depictions at Thebes. So famous was the act that it was also miniaturized on scarabs that have been found in the Levant. Sara Morris, a classical art historian, has even suggested that his target shooting success formed the basis hundreds of years later for the episode in the Iliad when Archilles is said to have shot arrows through a series of targets set up in a trench. He was also recorded as having wielded an oar of some 30 ft in length, rowing six times as fast as other crew members, though this may certainly be an exaggeration. ….

 

The Odyssey, which (like The Iliad, “Achilles” above) has borrowed many of its images from the Bible, no doubt picked up this one of Amenhotep II also and transferred it to its hero, Odysseus (Latin variant: Ulysses).

(Book 21):

 

Penelope now appears before the suitors in her glittering veil. In her hand is a stout bow left behind by Odysseus when he sailed for Troy. ‘Whoever strings this bow’, she says, ‘and sends an arrow straight through the sockets of twelve ax heads lined in a row — that man will I marry’.

 

The suitors take turns trying to bend the bow to string it, but all of them lack the strength.

 

Odysseus asks if he might try. The suitors refuse, fearing that they’ll be shamed if the beggar succeeds. But Telemachus insists and his anger distracts them into laughter.

As easily as a bard fitting a new string to his lyre, Odysseus strings the bow and sends an arrow through the ax heads. ….

 

Similar patterns emerge, again, with the course of the reign of Amenhotep II, III – some early military activity followed by years of peace and prosperity, allowing for major building projects.

 

Amenhotep II:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep2.htm

Some references refer to his first expedition taking place as early as his 2nd year of rule, though others provide that it was during his 7th. Still other references indicate that he made both of these campaigns. Regardless, he fought his was across the Orontes river and claims to have subdued all before him. One city, Niy, apparently had learnt their lesson under his father, and welcomed Amenhotep II. But at Tikhsi (Takhsy, as mentioned in the Theban tomb of Amenemheb – TT85), he captured seven prices, returning with them in the autumn.

They were hung face down on the prow of his ship on the return journey, and six of them were subsequently hung on the enclosure wall of the Theban temple. The other was taken south into Nubia where his was likewise hung on the walls of Napata, “in order to cause to be seen the victorious might of His Majesty for ever and ever”.

 

According to the Stele recording these events, this first campaign netted booty consisting of 6,800 deben of gold and 500,000 deben of copper (about 1,643 and 120,833 pounds respectively), as well as 550 mariannu captives, 210 horses and 300 chariots.

 

All sources agree that he once again campaigned in Syria during his ninth year of rule, but only in Palestine as for as the Sea of Galilee.

 

Yet these stele, erected after year nine of Amenhotep II’s rule, that provide us with this information do not bear hostile references to either Mitanni or Nahrin, the general regions of the campaigns. This is probably intentional, because apparently the king had finally made peace with these former foes. In fact, an addition at the end of the Memphis stele records that the chiefs of Nahrin, Hatti and Sangar (Babylon) arrived before the king bearing gifts and requesting offering gifts (hetepu) in exchange, as well as asking for the breath of life.

Though good relations with Babylon existed during the reign of Tuthmosis III, this was the first mention of a Mitanni peace, and it is very possible that a treaty existed allowing Egypt to keep Palestine and part of the Mediterranean coast in exchange for Mitannian control of northern Syria. Underscoring this new alliance, with Nahrin, Amenhotep II had inscribed on a column between the fourth and fifth pylons at Karnak, “The chiefs (weru) of Mitanni (My-tn) come to him, their deliveries upon their backs, to request offering gifts from his majesty in quest of the breath of life”. The location for this column in the Tuthmosid wadjyt, or columned hall, was significant, because the hall was venerated as the place where his father received a divine oracle proclaiming his future kingship. It is also associated with the Tuthmosid line going back to Tuthmosis I, who was the first king to campaign in Syria. Furthermore, we also learn that Amenhotep II at least asked for the hand of the Mitannian king, Artatama I, in marriage. By the end of Amenhotep II’s reign, the Mitanni who had been so recently a vile enemy of Egypt, were being portrayed as a close friend.

 

After these initial campaigns, the remainder of Amenhotep II’s long reign was characterized by peace in the Two Lands, including Nubia where his father settled matters during his reign. This allowed him to somewhat aggressively pursue a building program that left his mark at nearly all the major sites where his father had worked. Some of these projects may have even been initiated during his co-regency with his father, for at Amada in Lower Nubia dedicated to Amun and Ra-Horakhty celebrated both equally, and at Karnak, he participated in his father’s elimination of any vestiges of his hated stepmother, Hatshepsut. There was also a bark chapel built celebrating his co-regency at Tod. ….

 

Amenhotep III:

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/amenhotep3.htm

While as usual, an expedition into Nubia in year five of his reign was given grandiose attention on some reliefs, it probably amounted to nothing more than a low key police action. However, it may have pushed as for as south of the fifth cataract. It was recorded on inscriptions near Aswan and at Konosso in Nubia. There is also a stele in the British Museum recording a Nubian campaign, but it is unclear whether it references this first action, or one later in his reign.

There was also a Nubian rebellion reported at Ibhet, crushed by his son. While Amenhotep III was almost certainly not directly involved in this conflict, he records having slaughtered many within the space of a single hour. We learn from inscriptions that this campaign resulted in the capture of 150 Nubian men, 250 women, 175 children, 110 archers and 55 servants, added to the 312 right hands of the slain.

Perhaps to underscore the Kushite subjection to Egypt, he had built at Soleb, almost directly across the Nile from the Nubian capital at Kerma, a fortress known as Khaemmaat, along with a temple.

 

The Prosperity and International Relationships

 

However, by year 25 of Amenhotep III’s reign, military problems seem to have been settled, and we find a long period of great building works and high art. It was also a period of lavish luxury at the royal court. The wealth needed to accomplish all of this did not come from conquests, but rather from foreign trade and an abundant supply of gold, mostly from the mines in the Wadi Hammamat and further south in Nubia.

 

Amenhotep III was unquestionably involved with international diplomatic efforts, which led to increased foreign trade. During his reign, we find a marked increase in Egyptian materials found on the Greek mainland. We also find many Egyptian place names, including Mycenae, Phaistos and Knossos first appearing in Egyptian inscriptions.

We also find letters written between Amenhotep III and his peers in Babylon, Mitanni and Arzawa preserved in cuneiform writing on clay tablets.From a stele in his mortuary temple, we further learn that he sent at least one expedition to punt.

It is rather clear that the nobility prospered during the reign of Amenhotep III. However, the plight of common Egyptians is less sure, and we have little evidence to suggest that they shared in Egypt’s prosperity. Yet, Amenhotep III and his granary official Khaemhet boasted of the great crops of grain harvested in the kings 30th (jubilee) year. And while such evidence is hardly unbiased, the king was remembered even 1,000 years later as a fertility god, associated with agricultural success. ….

 

Estimated reign lengths vary somewhat, with 38 years commonly attributed to Amenhotep III, whilst figures for Amenhotep II can range from, say, 26-35 years:

https://www.crystalinks.com/Amenhotep_II.html

“The length of [Amenhotep II’s] reign is indicated by a wine jar inscribed with the king’s prenomen found in Amenhotep II’s funerary temple at Thebes; it is dated to this king’s highest known date – his Year 26 – and lists the name of the pharaoh’s vintner, Panehsy. Mortuary temples were generally not stocked until the king died or was near death; therefore, Amenhotep could not have lived much later beyond his 26th year.

There are alternate theories which attempt to assign him a reign of up to 35 years, which is the absolute maximum length he could have reigned. …”.

 

Complicating somewhat the matter of reign length is the possibility of co-regencies – even perhaps quite lengthy ones: (a) between Amenhotep II and his father, Thutmose III, and (b) between Amenhotep III and his son, Akhnaton.

The most extreme estimate for (a) is “twenty-five years or more” (Donald B. Redford): https://www.jstor.org/stable/3855623?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents whilst for (b): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenhotep_III#Proposed_co-regency_by_Akhenaten

“In February 2014, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities announced what it called “definitive evidence” that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least 8 years …”.

 

Apart from Asa’s (as Abijah’s) significant war with Jeroboam I, the King of Judah would also have to deal with a massive invasion from the direction of Egypt/Ethiopia: Zerah’s invasion. Dr. I. Velikovsky had aligned this biblical incident with the era of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh, Amenhotep II, son of Thutmose III.

 

This is very close to what I think must be the right biblico-historical synchronisation.

According to my own estimate, with the Shishak campaign (in King Rehoboam’s Year 5) approximating to Thutmose III’s Year 25, then the 54-year reign of Thutmose III would have extended beyond Rehoboam’s reign, his Year 17 (I Kings 14:21), and would have penetrated as far as Asa’s (identified as Abijah) (54-25-12 =) Year 17.

That Year 17 occurred probably a little after Zerah’s invasion, which Raymond B. Dillard estimates to have taken place in Asa’s Year 14 (2 Chronicles, Volume 15).

Peter James and Peter Van der Veen (below) – who will include in their calculation the 3 years attributed to King Abijah (who is my Asa) – will situate “the Zerah episode in a fairly narrow window, between the years 11 and 14 of Asa”.

 

Now, with the distinct likelihood that Amenhotep II shared a substantial co-regency with his long-reigning father, even as much as “twenty-five years or more”, as we read above, then Velikovsky may be entirely correct in his synchronising of the Zerah invasion with the reign of Amenhotep II – to which I would add that Thutmose III was also still reigning at the time.

Once again Velikovsky had – as with his identifications of the Queen of Sheba and Shishak – the (approximately) right chronology.

But once again he would – as we are going to find out – put it together wrongly.

In this particular case, Zerah, Dr. Velikovsky would actually identify the wrong (as I see it) candidate.

 

In this article I have enlarged pharaoh Amenhotep II to embrace also the one known as Amenhotep III ‘the Magnificent’. I have also enlarged Asa to embrace his supposed father, Abijah (Abijam). And I have enlarged Thutmose III, the father of my expanded Amenhotep, to embrace Thutmose IV.

 

 

Baasha as Ahab

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

Baasha’s sudden irruption onto the scene has its later ‘justification’,

I would suggest, in the far more detailed biography of Ahab.

 

  

Baasha of Israel is so Ahab-like that I feel it necessary to return to an old theory of mine,

once written up but then discarded, due to complications, that Baasha was Ahab.

 

Previously I had written on this:

 

What triggered this article was the apparent chronological problem associated with the reign of King Baasha, thought to have been the third ruler of Israel after Jeroboam I and his son, Nadab.

There is a definite problem with King Baasha of Israel, who bursts onto the biblical scene during discussion in the First Book of Kings about Jeroboam I’s wicked son, Nadab (15:27), and who, though he (Baasha) is said to have reigned for 24 years (15:33), is actually found as king of Israel from Asa of Judah’s 3rd to 36^th years (cf. 15:33; 2 Chronicles 16:1), that is, for 33 years. Thus we have the headache for chronologists of their having to account for how Baasha – although he should have been dead by about the 26^th year of King Asa – could have invaded Asa’s territory about a decade after that, in Asa’s 36^th year (2 Chronicles 16:1).

 

While some can offer no explanation at all for this, P. Mauro, who has complete faith in the biblical record (and with good reason, of course), has ingeniously tried to get around the problem as follows (The Wonders of Bible Chronology, Reiner, p. 48):

 

Baasha’s Invasion of Judah

 

In 2 Chron. 16: 1-3 it is stated that “in the six and thirtieth year of the reign of Asa, Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah.” But the 36th year of Asa would be nine years after the death of Baasha, this being what Lightfoot referred to in speaking of “Baasha fighting nine years after he was dead.” The Hebrew text, however, says, not that it was the 36th year of the reign of Asa, as in our A. V., but that it was the 36th year of the kingdom of Asa. So it is evident that the reckoning here is from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah. Hence the invasion of Judah by Baasha would be in the 16th year of Asa, and the 13th of his own reign, as tabulated [in Mauro’s lists].

[End of quote]

 

Whilst Mauro may be correct here – and I had initially accepted his explanation as being the best way out of this dilemma – I now personally would favour quite a different interpretation; one that is far more radical, greatly affecting the early history of northern Israel. I now consider Mauro’s albeit well-intentioned explanation to be splitting hairs: the ‘reign’ and ‘kingdom’ of Asa being surely one and the same thing, and so I think that it is not, as he says, “evident that the reckoning here is from the beginning of the separate kingdom of Judah”. It clearly refers to Asa (a sub-set of Judah) and not to Judah. My explanation now would be that Baasha of Israel was in fact reigning during the 36^th year of King Asa of Judah, and that Baasha and Ahab were one and the same king. I came to this conclusion based on, firstly the distinct parallels between Baasha and Ahab; and, secondly, the parallels between their supposed two phases of the history of Israel, especially with Zimri, on the one hand, and Jehu – whom Jezebel actually calls “Zimri” (2 Kings 9:31) – on the other; and, thirdly, on the very similar words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the House of Baasha and to the House of Ahab (cf. 1 Kings 16:4; 21:24). I had previously thought, as other commentators customarily do as well – and necessarily, based on the standard chronology that has Zimri reigning some 40 years before Jehu – that Queen Jezebel was just being scornful when she had called Jehu, ‘Zimri”, likening him to a former regicide; for Jehu was indeed a regicide (2 Kings 9:23-28). But I have recently changed my mind on this and I now believe that the queen was actually calling Jehu by his name, “Zimri”.

 

So, the basis for this article will be the likenesses of Baasha and his house to Ahab and his house, and the reforming work of Jehu now as Zimri. But also the words of a prophet in relation to the eventual fall of the House of Baasha (the prophet Jehu son of Hanani), and of the House of Ahab (the prophet Elijah). From this triple foundation, I shall arrive at a re-casted history of early northern Israel that I think will actually throw some useful light on my earlier revisions of this fascinating period.

It will mean that the scriptural narrative, as we currently have it, presents us with more of a problem than merely that of aligning Baasha with the 36^th year of Asa (which will now cease to be a problem).

 

This history must be significantly re-cast.

 

What has happened, I now believe, is that these were originally two different accounts, presumably by different scribes using alternative names for the central characters, of the same historical era.

Since then, translators and commentators have come to imagine that the narratives were about two distinctly different periods of Israel’s history, and so they presented them as such, even at times adjusting the information and dates to fit their preconceived ideas.

 

So, apparently (my interpretation), some of the narrative has become displaced, with the result that we now appear to have two historical series where there should be only one, causing a one-sided view of things and with key characters emerging from virtually nowhere: thus Baasha, as we commented above, but also the prophet Elijah, who springs up seemingly from nowhere (in 17:1).

Admittedly, one can appreciate how such a mistake might have been made. The use of different names can be confusing, retrospectively, for those who did not live in, or near to, those early times. It will be my task here to attempt to merge the main characters with whom I now consider to be their alter egos, in order to begin to put the whole thing properly together again – at least in a basic fashion, to pave the way for a more complete synthesis in the future.

My new explanation will have the advantage, too, of taking the pressure off the required length of the life of Ben-hadad I, a known contemporary of Ahab’s, who must also be involved in a treaty with king Asa of Judah against (the presumedly earlier than Ahab) king Baasha of Israel (1 Kings 15:18-21). The same Ben-hadad I will later be forced to make a treaty with Ahab, after the latter had defeated him in war (20:34).

Whilst my explanation will manage to do away with one apparent contradiction, Baasha still reigning in Asa’s 36^th year when it seems, mathematically, that he could not have been, my theory does encounter a new contradiction from 1 Kings 21:22, where the prophet Elijah tells Ahab that his house will become “like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah”, as if the house of Baasha and Ahab were quite distinct and separated in time. My bold explanation for this is that the original text (21:22) would have simply threatened the house of Ahab with the same fate as that of Jeroboam’s house, but that an editor, basing himself on Jehu’s denunciation of Baasha in 16:4, thought that this too needed to be included in 21:22 as a separate issue, not realising that Baasha’s house was Ahab’s house. The way the narrative reads, with Baasha’s early arrival on the scene, he is not recorded as having done sufficient evil deeds, one might think, to have warranted so severe a condemnation from the prophet Jehu son of Hanani – until, that is, Baasha is ‘filled out’ with the wicked deeds of his alter ego, king Ahab.

 

But with Baasha now (in my scheme) completely removed from roughly the first half of king Asa of Judah’s long reign of 41 years (15:10), what will now fill that apparent void?

….

 

 

Baasha and Ahab compare quite favourably

 

 

 

Baasha’s sudden irruption onto the scene has its later ‘justification’,

I would suggest, in the far more detailed biography of Ahab.

 

 

As to reign length, we have almost a perfect match in that Baasha reigned for 24 years (I King 15:33) and Ahab for 22 (16:29).

But that becomes quite a perfect match when we further realise that Baasha reigned for 2 years at Tirzah.

Though, in conventional terms, Samaria (at the time of Baasha) was not yet a capital city, according to my revision it would already have been. And king Ahab of Israel is said specifically to have reigned for 22 years “in Samaria”.

Putting it all together, we get Baasha’s 2 years at Tirzah, and then a further 22 years (making his total 24 years); 22 years being the length of Ahab’s reign.

In other words, Baasha-Ahab (if it is the same person) reigned for 2 years at Tirzah, and then for 22 years at Samaria, a total of 24 years of reign.

 

This must have been after Ahab’s presumed father, Omri, had built Samaria (16:24).

I say ‘presumed’, because I have, in my related articles, followed T. Ishida in his view that the Bible does not mention a House of Omri, but does refer to one of Ahab, thereby allowing for me to make the tentative suggestion that Ahab was probably related to Omri only though marriage.

And that would further allow now for Ahab’s direct father to be, not Omri, but – as Baasha’s father: “Ahaziah of the house of Issachar” (1 Kings 15:27). In “Omri and Tibni” I had noted (T. Ishida’s view) the possibility of Ahab’s connection to Issachar:

 

Tomoo Ishida instead suggested that the narrative of dynastic instability in the Kingdom of Israel suggests an underlying rivalry between tribes for its throne.^[1] In the biblical narrative, the House of Jeroboam was from the Tribe of Ephraim, while the House of Baasha was from the Tribe of Issachar.^[1] The Omrides are connected in this narrative with the city of Jezreel, where they maintained a second palace. According to the Book of Joshua, Jezreel was controlled by the Tribe of Issachar. Ishida views the narrative as suggesting that the Omrides themselves were members of the Tribe of Issachar.^[1] ….

 

I would modify this, though, to say instead, not “the Omrides”, but the Ahabites “were members of the Tribe of Issachar”.

 

 

 

Judith and Huldah

Part One:

Era of Josiah merged with Era of Hezekiah

by

Damien F. Mackey

Why did king Josiah, upon the finding of the Book of the Law, send his chief ministers to consult, not the male prophets, Jeremiah and Zephaniah, but a mysterious female prophetess named Huldah (חֻלְדָּה, a Hebrew name supposedly meaning “weasel” or “mole”)? (2 Kings 22:8-20).

The situation becomes even more extraordinary in the context of my revision which merges the era of king Josiah with that of king Hezekiah, showing that the king’s servant “Asaiah” of Josiah is to be identified with the great Isaiah himself. Previously I wrote on this:

“What has king Hezekiah of Judah to do with Jeremiah? it may well be asked.

That is all explained in my most recent article:

De-coding Jonah

https://www.academia.edu/43239120/De-coding_Jonah

in which I merge the era of king Hezekiah with the era of king Josiah, Jeremiah’s era. And so we find:

Hezekiah becomes Josiah;

Hilkiah becomes Hilkiah the high priest;

Shebna the secretary becomes Shaphan the secretary;

Joah the recorder becomes Joah the recorder;

Isaiah becomes Asaiah.

And there will be more names to be added to this list”. [End of quote]

Indeed, I have since added Jeremiah as Eliakim son of Hilkiah:

Jeremiah was both prophet and high priest

https://www.academia.edu/43300977/Jeremiah_was_both_prophet_and_high_priest

Two things to be noted here.

Firstly, the prophet Isaiah (= Asaiah), to whom the king was wont to send his officials for consultation (Isaiah 37:2), is now to be found amongst those of the king’s officials consulting the woman, Huldah. And, secondly, regarding my statement “there will be more names to be added to this list”, we need a female from the era of king Hezekiah to merge with Huldah of king Josiah’s era – a female pairing to restore some balance for all of those male connections.

Can we find such an incredibly famous woman at the time of king Hezekiah?

To achieve this, which is the purpose of this present article (see Part Two), will fully serve to answer the question in my title above, “Huldah who?”

Part Two: Huldah’s identity

in reign of king Hezekiah

There is only one woman, and one woman alone, at the time of king Hezekiah of Judah, who can possibly be identified with the famous prophetess Huldah.

That is the Simeonite heroine, Judith.

Before I had realised that the era of Hezekiah had to be merged with the era of Josiah, Huldah’s era – and having already come to the conclusion that Huldah must be Judith – I had been forced, chronologically, to regard Huldah as Judith in her old age.

That interpretation, for me, accounted, perhaps, for how Huldah – traditionally a mentor of king Josiah – had been able to speak so bluntly about the pious king: ‘Tell the man …’.

2 Kings 22:15-16: “She said to them, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read’.’”

Here was an aged and famous prophetess, I had thought, bluntly speaking her mind.

{Although it may have been that Huldah was merely quoting verbatim the words that the Lord himself had directed her to speak}.

Huldah appeared to me to have had the same sort of bluntness that Judith had exhibited when addressing the elders of “Bethulia” (e.g., Judith 8:11-13):

‘… you were wrong to speak to the people as you did today. You should not have made a solemn promise before God that you would surrender the town to our enemies if the Lord did not come to our aid within a few days. What right do you have to put God to the test as you have done today? Who are you to put yourselves in God’s place in dealing with human affairs? It is the Lord Almighty that you are putting to the test! Will you never learn?’

And I had compared Judith, in this regard, with the forthright and outspoken Joan of Arc:

Judith of Bethulia and Joan of Arc

https://www.academia.edu/8815175/Judith_of_Bethulia_and_Joan_of_Arc?sm=b

With Josiah’s era now to be merged into the era of Hezekiah, though, there must take place a major chronological reconsideration. Instead of Huldah’s statement belonging to an historical phase significantly later than the victory of the young (or young-ish) Judith over the Assyrian commander-in-chief (on this, see my):

“Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith

https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judith?sm=b

the Huldah incident must now be regarded as pre-dating by some several years Judith’s victory.

This would mean that Huldah was quite young when she uttered her words, making it even more extraordinary that king Josiah had chosen to send his chief ministers, including the great Isaiah (= Asaiah), all males, to consult the gifted woman.

In this way, we might understand Isaiah’s praise of Judith when he, a fellow Simeonite, said of her, as Uzziah, that Judith’s wisdom was known ever since she was a child (Judith 8:28-29):

“Then Uzziah answered Judith,

‘Everything you have said makes good sense, and no one can argue with it. This is not the first time you have shown wisdom. Ever since you were a child, all of us have recognized the soundness and maturity of your judgment’.”

Uzziah (= Isaiah) also calls Judith here ‘a deeply religious woman’ (v. 31).

This, therefore, must go a long way towards explaining why the woman Huldah (= Judith) was consulted by king Josiah’s most eminent male officials – even over the great Isaiah himself.

So, adding to our former merger:

Hezekiah becomes Josiah;

Hilkiah becomes Hilkiah the high priest;

Shebna the secretary becomes Shaphan the secretary;

Joah the recorder becomes Joah the recorder;

Isaiah becomes Asaiah;

Eliakim son of Hilkiah becomes Jeremiah son of Hilkiah,

Judith becomes Huldah.

This last identification is not without several difficulties pertaining to genealogy and geography that will need to be addressed now in Part Three.

Part Three:

The heroine’s husband

Happily, we know something about Judith’s husband, about Huldah’s husband.

But is the former husband the same person as the latter husband?

Whereas Judith’s husband seems to have been situated in “Bethulia”, identified as Bethel-Shechem in the north, Huldah, and presumably her husband, appears to dwell in Jerusalem, in the south.

The apparent geographical problem, at least, can easily be accounted for with reference to Isaiah and his father, Amos, the father-son combination of, respectively, Uzziah and Micah, of the Book of Judith. Like Judith, these men were Simeonites, and were no doubt related to her. They spent large portions of their time in the northern Bethel, but were also often found residing in Jerusalem as advisers to a succession of kings of Judah.

Jewish legend even has Amos as the “brother” (no doubt a marriage relationship) of king Amaziah of Judah.

Judith’s husband, “Manasseh, who belonged to her tribe and family”, had died only about three years before the Assyrians invaded Israel (Judith 8:2-5):

Her husband Manasseh, who belonged to her tribe and family, had died during the barley harvest. For as he stood overseeing those who were binding sheaves in the field, he was overcome by the burning heat, and took to his bed and died in his town Bethulia.

So they buried him with his ancestors in the field between Dothan and Balamon. Judith remained as a widow for three years and four months at home where she set up a tent for herself on the roof of her house. She put sackcloth around her waist and dressed in widow’s clothing.

He had left Judith a very wealthy woman (v. 7): “Her husband Manasseh had left her gold and silver, men and women slaves, livestock, and fields; and she maintained this estate”.

And Judith never married again (16:21-24):

After this they all returned home to their own inheritances. Judith went to Bethulia, and remained on her estate. For the rest of her life she was honored throughout the whole country. Many desired to marry her, but she gave herself to no man all the days of her life after her husband Manasseh died and was gathered to his people. She became more and more famous, and grew old in her husband’s house, reaching the age of one hundred five. She set her maid free. She died in Bethulia, and they buried her in the cave of her husband Manasseh; and the house of Israel mourned her for seven days. Before she died she distributed her property to all those who were next of kin to her husband Manasseh, and to her own nearest kindred.

That is all that we learn about Manasseh.

We also need to take into account the fact that names in the Book of Judith have become confused over time. See e.g. my article:

Book of Judith: confusion of names

https://www.academia.edu/36599434/Book_of_Judith_confusion_of_names

Thus Manasseh, for instance, may be found elsewhere in the Scriptures under a different name.

Perhaps, for example, the name “Manasseh” has been derived (in Greek) from a name like Meshelemiah, Meshillemith, Meshillemoth, Meshullam, Meshullemeth, all being “related names” to Shallum, the husband of Huldah.

Shallum was renowned in Jewish legends. We read of Huldah and Shallum in the article, “Huldah”: https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/biblical-proper-names-biographies/huldah

HULDAH (Heb. חֻלְדָּה; “weasel”), wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the “wardrobe keeper” of the king; one of the five women in the Bible referred to as nevi’ah, “female prophet”) and the only woman prophet in the book of Kings (ii Kings 22:14–20). She was consulted by *Josiah when he sent to “inquire of the Lord” concerning the Book of the Law discovered during the restoration of the Temple. She prophesied God’s ultimate judgment upon the nation. However, this judgment was to be postponed until after Josiah’s peaceful death because of the king’s acts of repentance. Inasmuch as Josiah’s death was not peaceful hers may be a genuine predictive prophecy. Most of her prophecy is molded by the authors of the Book of Kings in Deuteronomistic style. It is of interest that women prophets are well-attested in roughly contemporary Neo-Assyrian sources.

[Tikva S. Frymer /

1. David Sperling (2^nded.)]

In The Aggadah

She was one of the seven prophetesses (by rabbinic count) mentioned by name in the Bible. After Josiah found the copy of the Torah in the Temple, he consulted Huldah rather than Jeremiah, because he felt that a woman would be more compassionate and more likely to intercede with God on his behalf (Meg. 14b).

Since Jeremiah was a kinsman of the prophetess, both being descended from Joshua and Rahab, the king felt no apprehension that the prophet would resent his preference for Huldah (ibid.). While Jeremiah admonished and preached repentance to the men she did likewise to the women (pr 26:129). In addition to being a prophetess, Huldah also conducted an academy in Jerusalem (Targ., ii Kings 22:14). The “Gate of Huldah” in the Temple (Mid. 1:3) was formerly the gate leading to Huldah’s schoolhouse (Rashi, ii Kings 22:14). Huldah’s husband Shallum, the son of Tikvah, was a man of noble descent and compassionate. Daily he would go beyond the city limits carrying a pitcher of water from which he gave every traveler a drink, and it was as a reward for his good deeds that his wife became a prophetess. Huldah’s unattractive name which means “weasel” is ascribed to her arrogance when she referred to Josiah as “the man” (ii Kings 22:15) and not as king.

[Aaron Rothkoff]

Bibliography:

Ginzberg, Legends, index. add. bibliography: M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, ii Kings (1988), 295; S. Parpola, Assyrian Prophecies (State Archives of Assyria vol. ix; 1997), xiviii-lii”. [End of quotes]

Huldah’s husband must have been very old (article, “Shallum”, Jewish Encyclopedia):

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13490-shallum

“…. Even at the time of the prophet Elisha, Shallum was one of the most eminent men (“mi-gedole ha-dor”) in the country. Yet he did not think it beneath his dignity to lend personal aid to the poor and the needy. It was one of his daily habits to go outside the gates of the city in order that he might give water to thirsty wanderers. God rewarded him by endowing him and his wife Huldah with the gift of prophecy. Another special reward was given him for his philanthropy, for it is he who is referred to in II Kings xiii. 21, where one who was dead awoke to life after being cast into Elisha’s sepulcher and touching the prophet’s bones. A son was granted him, who became distinguished for exceeding piety—Hanameel, Jeremiah’s cousin (Jer. xxxii. 7; Pirḳe R. El. xxxiii.)”.

This brings us to a deeper problem, genealogy.

Whereas Judith’s husband, Manasseh, would appear to have been a Simeonite, as he “belonged to her tribe and family”, Shallum was clearly a Levite. He was “son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings 22:14).

They, apparently, “lived in Jerusalem, in the New Quarter”.

Shallum’s ancestors, Tikvah and Harhas, were Kohathite Levites (I Chronicles 6:33, 37): “From the Kohathites ….  the son of Tahath [Tikvah], the son of Assir [Harhas] …”.

My tentative explanation would be that Manasseh was Shallum, a Kohathite Levite, hence related to the prophet Jeremiah, whose ancestors had set up home in the city of Shechem. “The hill country of Ephraim gave the Kohathites Shechem, which was a city of refuge …”. (Giver of Truth Biblical Commentary-Vol. 1: Old Testament, pp. 405-406). There, Shallum had married into the family of Simeon, as the Ephraimite (?) father of Samuel may have married a Levite. “It is possible that Elkanah was an Ephraimite who married Hannah, ostensibly a woman from the tribe of Levi” (Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel, p. 64). Shallum, or Manasseh, may have married a daughter of Judith’s ancestor, Merari.

Judith may have been a wife of Shallum’s old age, his second wife.

Shallum, or Manasseh, “belonged to her tribe and family”, but only, I suggest, through marriage.

“Before [Judith] died she distributed her property to all those who were next of kin to her husband Manasseh, and to her own nearest kindred”.

Shallum may also have possessed a field in Anathoth (Jeremiah 32:7).

 

 

Hadrian a reincarnation of Augustus

 

When reading through Anthony Everitt’s 392-page book, Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome (Random House, NY, 2009), I was struck by the constant flow of similarities between Hadrian and Augustus – which the author himself does nothing to hide.

 

Here are some of them:

 

Pp. 190-191:

 

Ten years into his reign, Hadrian announced to the world that, speaking symbolically, he was a reincarnation of Augustus.

 

P. x:

 

… Augustus, whom Hadrian greatly admired and emulated.

 

P. 145:

 

Flatterers said that [Hadrian’s] eyes were languishing, bright, piercing and full of light”. …. One may suspect that this was exactly what Hadrian liked to hear (just as his revered Augustus prided himself on his clear, bright eyes).

 

P. 190:

 

… the true hero among his predecessors was Augustus.

For the image on Hadrian’s signet ring to have been that of the first princeps was an elegantly simple way of acknowledging indebtedness …. Later, he asked the Senate for permission to hang an ornamental shield, preferably of silver, in Augustus’ honor in the Senate.

 

P. 191:

 

What was it that Hadrian valued so highly in his predecessor? Not least the conduct of his daily life. Augustus lived with conscious simplicity and so far as he could avoided open displays of his preeminence.

 

P. 192:

 

Both Augustus and Hadrian made a point of being civiles principes, polite autocrats.  

….

Whenever Augustus was present, he took care to give his entire attention to the gladiatorial displays, animal hunts, and the rest of the bloodthirsty rigmarole. Hadrian followed suit.

 

P. 193:

 

Hadrian followed Augustus’ [consulship] example to the letter – that is, once confirmed in place, he abstained.

….

Hadrian’s imitation of Augustus made it clear that he intended to rule in an orderly and law- abiding fashion … commitment to traditional romanitas, Romanness. It was on these foundations that he would build the achievements of his reign.

Like the first princeps, Hadrain looked back to paradigms of ancient virtue to guide modern governance. Augustus liked to see himself as a new Romulus …. Hadrian followed suit ….

 

P. 196:

 

[Juvenal] was granted … a pension and a small but adequate farmstead near Tibur ….Hadrian was, once again, modelling himself on Augustus, who was a generous patron of poets ….

 

P. 202:

 

[Hadrian] conceived a plan to visit every province in his wide dominions. Like the first princeps, he liked to see things for himself….

 

P. 208:

 

Hadrian introduced [militarily] the highest standards of discipline and kept the soldiers on continual exercises, as if war were imminent. In order to ensure consistency, he followed the example of Augustus (once again) … by publishing a manual of military regulations.

 

P. 255:

 

[Eleusis] … at one level [Hadrian] was merely treading in the footsteps of many Roman predecessors, among them Augustus.  

 

P. 271:

 

… with his tenth anniversary behind him … the emperor judged the time right to accept the title of Pater Patriae, father of his people. Like Augustus, and probably in imitation of him, he had declined the Senate’s offer for a long time ….

 

P. 277:

 

{Hadrian] was soon widely known throughout the Hellenic eastern provinces as “Hadrianos Sebastos Olumpius”, Sebastos being the Greek word for Augustus ….

 

P. 322:

 

The consecration ceremony was modeled on the obsequies of Augustus.

 

Part Two:

 

Here are some more comaprisons from the same book:

 

P. 31:

 

Augustus’ constitutional arrangements were durable and, with some refinements, were still in place a hundred years later when the young Hadrian was becoming politically aware.

 

P. 58:

 

In Augustus’ day, Virgil, the poet laureate of Roman power, had sung of an imperium sine fine. A century later he still pointed the way to an empire without end and without frontiers.

 

P. 130:

 

… [Hadrian] depended on friends to advise him. Augustus adopted this model ….

 

P. 168:

 

So far as Hadrian was concerned [the Senate] offered him the high title of pater patriae ….

He declined, taking Augustus’ view that this was one honor that had to be earned; he would defer acceptance until he had some real achievements to his credit.

 

P. 173:

 

So military and financial reality argued against further enlargement of the empire. … Augustus, who had been an out and out expansionist for most of his career ….

… the aged Augustus produced a list of the empire’s military resources very near the end of his life. …. Hadrian may well have seen a copy of, even read, the historian’s [Tacitus’] masterpiece.

P. 188:

 

… all the relevant tax documents were assembled and publicly burned, to make it clear that this was a decision that could not be revoked. (Hadrian may have got the idea for the incineration from Augustus, for Suetonius records that … he had “burned the records of old debts to the treasury, which were by far the most frequent source of blackmail”).

 

P. 198:

 

His aim was to create a visual connection between himself and the first princeps, between the structures that Augustus and Agrippa had left behind them and his own grand edifices …. Beginning with the burned-out Pantheon. ….

Hadrian had in mind something far more ambitious than Agrippa’s temple. …. With studied modesty he intended to retain the inscribed attribution to Agrippa, and nowhere would Hadrian’s name be mentioned. 

 

Mackey’s comment: Hmmmm

 

P. 233:

 

It can be no accident that the ruler [Hadrian] revered so much, Augustus, took the same line on Parthia as he did – namely, that talking is better than fighting.

 

P. 324:

 

As we have seen, until  the very end of his reign, Augustus was an uncompromising and bellicose imperialist. Dio’s prescription [“Even today the methods that he then introduced are the soldiers’ law of campaigning”] fits Hadrian much more closely, and he must surely have had this example in mind when penning these words.  

 

Part Three

“This is the chief thing: Do not be perturbed, for all things are according to the nature of the universal;

and in a little time you will be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrian and Augustus”.

 

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

 

The names “Augustus” and “Hadrian” often get linked together.

For instance, for Hadrian – as we read here: “Augustus was an important role model”:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/themes/leaders_and_rulers/hadrian/ruling_an_empire

 

Rome’s first emperor, Augustus (reigned 27 BC–AD 14), had also suffered severe military setbacks, and took the decision to stop expanding the empire. In Hadrian’s early

reign Augustus was an important role model.

He had a portrait of him on his signet ring and kept a small bronze bust of him among the images of the household gods in his bedroom.

Like Augustus before him, Hadrian began to fix the limits of the territory that Rome could control. He withdrew his army from Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, where a serious insurgency had broken out, and abandoned the newly conquered provinces of Armenia and Assyria, as well as other parts of the empire. ….

Hadrian was even “a new Augustus” and an “Augustus redivivus”.

Thus Anthony R. Birley (Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, p. 147):

Hadrian’s presence at Tarraco in the 150th year after the first emperor was given the name Augustus (16 January 27 BC) seems to coincide with an important policy development. The imperial coinage at about this time drastically abbreviates Hadrian’s titulature. Instead of being styled ‘Imp. Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Augustus’, he would soon be presented simply as ‘Hadrianus Augustus’. The message thereby conveyed is plain enough: he wished to be seen as a new Augustus. Such a notion had clearly been in his mind for some time. It cannot be mere chance that caused Suetonius to write in his newly published, Life of the Deified Augustus, that the first emperor had been, ‘far removed from the desire to increase the empire of for glory in war’ — an assertion which his own account appears to contradict in a later passage. Tacitus, by contrast, out of touch – and out of sympathy – with Hadrian from the start, but aware of his aspirations to be regarded as an Augustus redivivus, seems subversively to insinuate, in the Annals, that a closer parallel could be found in Tiberius. ….

“In Hadrian: The Restless Emperor, Anthony Birley, according to a review of his book, “brings together the new … story of a man who saw himself as a second Augustus and Olympian Zeus”.

Architecture

Hadrian is often presented as a finisher, or a restorer, of Augustan buildings. For example: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/ocw/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=20867&printable=

The Pantheon is one of the few monuments to survive from the Hadrianic period, despite others in the vicinity having also been restored by him (SHA, Hadrian 19). What is unusual is that rather than replacing the dedicatory inscription with one which named him, Hadrian kept (or more likely recreated) the Agrippan inscription, reminding the populace of the original dedicator. At first this gives the impression that Hadrian was being modest, as he was not promoting himself. Contrast this with the second inscription on the façade, which commemorates the restoration of the Pantheon by Septimius Severus and Caracalla in 202 CE (CIL 6. 896). However, by reminding people of the Pantheon’s Augustan origins Hadrian was subtly associating himself with the first emperor. This helped him legitimise his position as ruler by suggesting that he was part of the natural succession of (deified) emperors. It is worth noting that Domitian had restored the Pantheon following a fire in 80 CE (Dio Cassius 66.24.2), but Hadrian chose to name the original dedicator of the temple, Agrippa, rather than linking himself with an unpopular emperor. In addition, the unique architecture of the Pantheon, with its vast dome, was a more subtle way for Hadrian to leave his signature on the building than an inscription might have been – and it would have been more easily ‘read’ by a largely illiterate population.

Thomas Pownall (Notices and Descriptions of Antiquities of the Provincia Romana of Gaul),

has Hadrian, “in Vienne”, purportedly repairing Augustan architecture (pp. 38-39):

That the several Trophaeal and other public Edifices, dedicated to the honour of the Generals of the State, were repaired by Augustus himself, or by his order, preserving to each the honour of his respective record of glory, we read in Suetonius …. And it is a fact, that the inhabitants of Vienne raised a Triumphal Arc, to grace his progress and entry into their town. The reasons why I think that this may have been afterward repaired by Hadrian are, first, that he did actually repair and restore most of the Monuments, Temples, public Edifices, and public roads, in the Province: and next that I thought, when I viewed this Arc of Orange, I could distinguish the bas-relieves and other ornaments of the central part of this edifice; I mean particularly the bas-relief of the frize, and of the attic of the center, were of an inferior and more antiquated taste of design and execution than those of the lateral parts; and that the Corinthian columns and their capitals were not of the simple style of architecture found in the Basilica, or Curia, in Vienne, which was undoubtedly erected in the time of Augustus, but exactly like those of the Maison carrée at Nimes, which was repaired by Hadrian.

La Maison Carrée de Nîmes

Edmund Thomas will go a step further, though, and tell that the Maison carrée belonged, rather, to the time of the emperor Hadrian (Monumentality and the Roman Empire: Architecture in the Antonine Age, p. 50):

Also worth mentioning is the so-called ‘Temple of Diana’ at Nîmes. It was roofed with a barrel-vault of stone blocks, unusual for western architecture, and its interior walls, with engaged columns framing triangular and segmental pediments … resemble those of the ‘Temple of Bacchus’ at Baalbek …. It seems to have formed part of the substantial augusteum complex built around a substantial spring …. The date of the building is much disputed; but the resemblance to the architecture of Baalbek and the association of Antoninus Pius with Nemausus [Nîmes], may be indications of the Antonine date formerly suggested. …. Indeed, the famous ‘Maison Carrée’ in the same city, usually

regarded as an Augustan monument, has recently been redated to the same period, when the town was at its height, and may even be the ‘basilica of wonderful construction’ founded by Hadrian around 122 [sic] ‘in honour of Plotina the wife of Trajan’ ….

Joseph and Tamar Comparisons

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

A parent’s favourite, given a special cloak, sold out by brothers, mocked, sexually harrassed, emerging from the desert on a spices-laden camel train, imprisoned, though much admired, capable of good management, ruling in Egypt as second only to Pharaoh.

These are just some of the similarities that Tamar at the time of King David shared with Joseph.  

This article presupposes my multi-identifications of Tamar as developed in:

The vicissitudinous life of Solomon’s pulchritudinous wife

https://www.academia.edu/41459720/The_vicissitudinous_life_of_Solomons_pulchritudinous_wife

 

“Conclusion 2: Abishag, of uncertain name, the same as Tamar (her given Hebrew name), hailing from Shunem, was hence “the Shunammite” of King Solomon’s Song of Songs. Ethnically, she may have been Egypto-Canaanite, which thought will lead to the consideration … that she was also Velikovsky’s Hatshepsut = “Queen of Sheba”.”

 

Some of the Comparisons

 

Joseph, beloved of his father (Genesis 37:3): “Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than any of his other sons …”, was hated by his brothers (v. 4): “ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him”.

 

The “Shunammite” was (Song of Solomon 6:9): “… the favourite of her mother, perfect to the one who gave her birth”, but mis-treated by her brothers (1:6): “My mother’s sons [brothers] were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards”.

 

Joseph’s father “made an ornate robe for him” (Genesis 37:3).

 

Tamar “was wearing an ornate robe, for this was the kind of garment the virgin daughters of the king wore” (2 Samuel 13:18).

 

The exact same Hebrew words to describe “ornate robe”, or “coat of many colours”, are used in the case of Joseph and of Tamar, ketonet passim (כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים).

 

Jacob sent Joseph to his brothers (Genesis 37:13): ‘As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them’.

‘Very well’, he replied.

 

 David sent Tamar to her ‘brother’, Amnon (2 Samuel 13:7, 8): “David sent word to Tamar at the palace: ‘Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him’. 

So Tamar went …”.

 

From “Hebron ….” (Genesis 37:14).

 

Six of Tamar’s ‘brothers’ were born to David at “Hebron” (I Chronicles 3:1-4).

 

Joseph asks a man at Shechem (Genesis 37:16): ‘I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?’

 

Similarly the Shunammite asks her beloved (Song of Solomon 1:7): ‘Tell me, you whom I love, where you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday’.

 

Joseph’s brothers “plotted to kill him” (Genesis 37:18).

 

Tamar was a pawn in a conspiratorial plot by Absalom and his adviser to kill Amnon (see above article).

 

“So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing” (Genesis 37:23).

 

“Tamar … tore the ornate robe she was wearing” (2 Samuel 13:19).

 

Joseph’s brothers “looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead” (Genesis 37:25).

 

Were they “flock of goats”-like? 

(Song of Solomon 4:1): ‘Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead”.

 

“Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt” (Genesis 37:25).

 

(I Kings 10:1, 2): “… the Queen of Sheba … came … to … Jerusalem with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices …”. 

 

“Judah said to his brothers, ‘… after all, he is our brother’.” (2 Genesis 37:26, 27).

 

“Her brother Absalom said to [Tamar], ‘…. Be quiet for now, my sister; he is your brother’.” (2 Samuel 13:20).

 

“… his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver” (Genesis 37:28).

 

“Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon; he let out his vineyard to tenants. Each was to bring for its fruit a thousand shekels of silver” (Song of Solomon 8:11).

 

“… the Ishmaelites … took [Joseph] to Egypt” (Genesis 37:28).

 

‘I liken you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariot horses’ (Song of Solomon 1:9).

 

“Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes. He went back to his brothers and said, ‘…. Where can I turn now?’ (Genesis 37:29, 30).

 

‘What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel’ (2 Samuel 13:13).

 

“Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him …” (Genesis 37:34-35).

 

“The king stood up, tore his clothes and lay down on the ground; and all his attendants stood by with their clothes torn” (2 Samuel 13:31).

 

Given the above similarities, it would be no accident that the narrative concerning Joseph is suddenly interrupted by Genesis 38, the account of Judah and another “Tamar” who is treated with some disrespect by Joseph’s brother, Judah.

 

“Joseph found favour in his eyes and became his personal attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned” (Genesis 39:4).

 

“Abishag … took care of the king and waited on him …” (I Kings 1:4).

“And Achitophel said to Absalom. ‘Go in unto thy father’s concubines, which he hath left to keep the palace …’ (2 Samuel 16:21).

 

“Now Joseph was well-built and handsome …” (Genesis 39:6).

 

“… Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David” (2 Samuel 13:1).

“… they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful young woman and found Abishag, a Shunammite” (I Kings 1:3).

‘O thou fairest among women …’ (Song of Solomon 1:8).

“… Hatshepsut still described herself as a beautiful woman, often as the most beautiful of women …” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatshepsut).

 

“… after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, ‘Come to bed with me!’” (Genesis 39:7).

 

“In the course of time, Amnon … grabbed her and said, ‘Come to bed with me’ …” (2 Samuel 13:1, 11).

 

{So Judah with the other Tamar ‘Come now, let me sleep with you’ (Genesis 38:16), before his having to concede: ‘She is more righteous than I …’ (v. 26) – something Amnon would fail to do in the case of the other Tamar}.

 

“But he refused. ‘…. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’” (Genesis 39:8, 9).

 

‘No, my brother!’ she said to him. ‘Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing’ (2 Samuel 13:12).

 

‘When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house’ (Genesis 39:15).

 

“Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornate robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went” (2 Samuel 13:19).

 

“When his master heard the story his wife told him … he was furious” (Genesis 39:19).

 

“When King David heard all this, he was furious” (2 Samuel 13:21).

 

“Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined’ (Genesis 39:20).

 

“[Amnon] called his personal servant and said, ‘Get this woman out of my sight and bolt the door after her’.” (Genesis 39:17).

“And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman” (39:20).

 

“When two full years had passed …” (Genesis 41:1).

 

“Two years later …” (2 Samuel 13:23).

 

                                                  

Following Isaiah

by

Damien F. Mackey

The long-lived prophet Isaiah has a Hebrew name (ישעיה) which means:

“Yah Is Salvation”, or “Salvation Of The Lord”.

He was the “son of Amos [Amoz]” (Isaiah 1:1), who is generally considered to have been the same as the prophet Amos.

Isaiah witnessed for Yahweh during the reigns of this succession of kings of Judah (1:1):

“Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah”.

Whilst these kings ruled in Jerusalem, other kings ruled contemporaneously in Israel.

Jeroboam II, for instance, being one of these as we shall see.

Probably following the footsteps of his father Amos, whom Yahweh had called from Judah to witness at Bethel, in the northern kingdom (Amos 7: 10, 15), Isaiah, at some stage, headed northwards.

We know him in this guise as the prophet Hosea, of an almost identical-meaning Hebrew name (הושע):

“Salvation”.

Hosea, as well as witnessing for Yahweh during the very same succession of Judaean kings as had Isaiah (Hosea 1:1): “Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah”, also included in his listing the above-mentioned “Jeroboam [II] … king of Israel.

The messages of Isaiah, Hosea, are very similar.

Also, the names of the children of Isaiah, of Hosea, as well as that of the father, were meant to be signs and symbols, “a sermon to the nation” according to one commentator.

The prophet was not confined to the north, of course.

He would have returned to Jerusalem at least for the great feast-days.

On one occasion he famously encountered King Ahaz of Jerusalem (Isaiah 7).

Unfortunately this stubborn king took no notice of Isaiah’s sage advice.

Isaiah was in Jerusalem again at times during the reign of the pious, reforming king, Hezekiah, whom I have identified with the pious, reforming king, Josiah.

For example, when King Hezekiah was grievously ill (2 Kings 20), the prophet predicted 15 more years of life for the king (v. 6), and prescribed an efficacious cure for his illness (v. 7).

Now Isaiah may feature in Jerusalem again – and this is the new identification I am proposing for him – as “Asaiah, the king’s attendant” (2 KIngs 22: 12), who was sent by King Josiah (my Hezekiah) as part of a delegation to that mysterious prophetess, Huldah (v. 14).

She would, like Isaiah had done, predict a good outcome for the king because he had humbled himself before Yahweh in the midst his trials.

Isaiah is back in Bethel (or “Bethulia”) – which is the key (strategic) northern city of Shechem – when Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi – the “Holofernes” of the Book of Judith – invades the land with an 185,000-strong Assyrian army.

Isaiah is here called Uzziah, and he has apparently been given command of this most important of cities. For Uzziah is the chief magistrate of Bethulia.

More than that he is, according to the Douay Book of Judith, “the prince of Juda[h]”, and “the prince of the people of Israel” (Judith 8:34; 13:23).

His royal connections may have arisen form the his father Amos’s having been (according to Jewish Talmudic legend) the brother (in marriage?) of King Amaziah of Judah, and hence a member of the royal family.

Uzziah’s father and, finally, his tribe, are given in Judith 6:15: “Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon”. That makes Micah, Amos, and so it is little wonder that the prophet Micah has been called “Amos redivivus”.

Micah hailed from Moresheth (Micah 1:1), in Judah.

These were the glory days, with Israel’s great victory over the seemingly invincible Assyrians!

Micah, who had witnessed successfully during the reign of King Hezekiah (Jeremiah 26:18), would have died before the Judith incident.

But Isaiah lived into the next reign, that of Manasseh, when legend has him martyred.

He is, I believe, referred to in the Book of Jeremiah as having been chased down into Egypt by the minions of King Jehoiakim (who is my Manasseh), and murdered. Jeremiah calls him Uriah (or Urijah).

And we finally learn where Isaiah may have resided when in Judah, Kiriath Jearim (Jeremiah 26:20-23):

(Now Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord; he prophesied the same things against this city and this land as Jeremiah did.  When King Jehoiakim and all his officers and officials heard his words, the king was determined to put him to death. But Uriah heard of it and fled in fear to Egypt. King Jehoiakim, however, sent Elnathan son of Akbor to Egypt, along with some other men. They brought Uriah out of Egypt and took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him struck down with a sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.) Here Isaiah’s “father” is called by yet another name, Shemaiah. But this character may in fact have been an earlier important Simeonite ancestor named Shemaiah (I Chronicles 4:37).