Joseph of Egypt’s Canal

“This was Joseph’s artificial river (to match his granaries) which turned the Fayoum into the first man-made lake”. William Golding An interesting observation made when walking in Egypt: http://www.ancient-egypt.info/2012/05/josephs-canal-1985-walking-through.html Joseph’s Canal, 1985 | Walking Through Egypt Joseph’s Canal, 1985 William Golding …. Then we drove south for about twenty kilometres along the side of the canal in sugar cane country. I looked at this canal until it became ordinary to me. It was a canal, that was all. Idly, I asked Alaa which canal it was and he said it was the Bahr Yusuf. I was moodily and quite illogically vexed. For Joseph’s Canal is alleged by all persons like myself who prefer a good story to literal historical accuracy (whatever that may happen to be) is, I say, alleged to be the very canal that Joseph he of the coat of many colours built for Pharaoh. They say that lot say that it isn’t Joseph’s canal but a canal built by a much later Joseph. Did you ever hear anything so silly? Before I had seen it I had already made my mind that even if it wasn’t biblical Joseph’s actual ditch, his must have lain along the same line so what’s the odds? You put a canal in the best place for it so the later one was no more than a restoration of the original. I had promised myself such a thrill at seeing it; but now I had been looking at it for twenty kilometres and made it so ordinary to myself that my promised frisson was entirely lacking. But still, it was Joseph’s Canal. It was, I think, a greater, a more impressive, a wider leap of the imagination than the pyramids. There was and is a great depression in the desert on the western side of the Nile opposite Cairo. This is the Fayoum, between twenty and thirty miles square. Right back in the earliest pharaonic days someone conceived the idea of deflecting surplus flood water from the river into that depression and then here is the leap of letting it out again into the Nile when the flood was inconveniently low. But this join between the main stream and the Fayoum could not be made down by Cairo. The main stream for obvious hydrostatic reasons had to be tapped hundreds of miles to the south so that the gradient of the canal would be so gradual the water would be controllable. So there the canal is, huge in length, vast in scope and breathtaking in the sheer imaginative size of the conception. Now here it was, a canal like any other and I found I had to screw my wits up to remember what it was I was looking at. This was Joseph’s artificial river (to match his granaries) which turned the Fayoum into the first man-made lake.

Nile pyramid waterway discovered

Taken from: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01449-y Found at last: long-lost branch of the Nile that ran by the pyramids Geological survey reveals the remains of a major waterway that ancient Egyptian builders could have used to transport materials. By Freda Kreier Stretching beneath the ground near the Giza pyramid complex in Egypt lie the remains of an ancient branch of the Nile River that might once have helped ancient Egyptians to build their monuments. The highest concentration of pyramids in Egypt can be found in a stretch of desert between Giza and the village of Lisht. These sites are now several dozens of kilometres away from the Nile River. But Egyptologists have long suspected that the Nile might once have been closer to that stretch than it is today. Satellite images and geological data now confirm that a tributary of the Nile — which researchers have named the Ahramat Branch — used to run near many of the major sites in the region several thousand years ago. The discovery, reported on 16 May in Communications Earth and Environment1, could help to explain why ancient Egyptians chose this area to build the pyramids (See ‘Ancient river’). “The pyramids seem like pretty monumental work,” says Judith Bunbury, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. “But it’s less arduous if you can bring big stones up by boat rather than carrying them over land.” Wandering waterways For thousands of years, the Nile and its flood-plain have provided food, agriculture and water to Egypt’s inhabitants. The majority of the country’s population still lives in the Nile basin. But the river is prone to migrating, and in the past, populations have had to relocate to keep up. Over the last few hundred years, the Nile has moved several kilometres to the east, possibly owing to shifting plate tectonics. There is evidence that some of Egypt’s important archaeological sites do not have the same relationship to the river as they would have had at the time they that were built. There are remains of harbours and other such clues at sites between Giza and Lisht. But scientists have found it difficult to chart the scope or locations of these lost waterways. While looking for traces of ancient water, a team led by Eman Ghoneim, a geomorphologist at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, spotted what looked like a dried-up river channel several kilometres west of the Nile. The channel ran for around 60 kilometres through agricultural areas and had a similar depth and width to the modern Nile. To investigate whether the channel could be part of an ancient riverbed, the researchers collected core samples of sediment from the channel. Beneath the wet mud of the fields, they found an layer of gravel and sand consistent with that of a riverbed. Combining this sample data with satellite imagery allowed the team to map the branch’s location. They found that it would have flowed past more than 30 Old- and Middle-Kingdom pyramids dating from between 2686 to 1649 BC — thus the decision to called it the ‘Ahramat’ branch, using the Arabic word for pyramid. The Ahramat “connected all these different pyramid fields”, says Suzanne Onstine, an egyptologist at the University of Memphis in Tennessee. “Their valley temples and causeways all oriented exactly to where the water would have been.” Riverside sites Researchers have long debated the significance of the pyramids’ locations. The waterway running right past them could have been an important factor, because it would have provided a convenient way for builders to transport materials to the sites. This theory aligns with documents from the era which state that building materials were brought in by boat, says Bunbury. Eventually, the movement of the Nile and sand blowing in from the Sahara Desert would have caused the Ahramat Branch to dry up and become unnavigable. Today, only a few stray lakes and channels remain where the major branch once ran. But knowing the ancient river’s location provides a blueprint that archaeologists can use to try and uncover more ancient Egyptian settlements, says Onstine. And the finding that Egyptians were probably using boats rather than land transportation to move materials to build the pyramids hints that they were “a lot more pragmatic than perhaps we realized before”, says Bunbury. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01449-y References 1. Ghoneim, E. et al. Commun. Earth Environ. 5, 233 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01379-7

Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered king Sennacherib

by Damien F. Mackey “One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place”. 2 Kings 19:37 Tobit 1:21 collaborates this, but without naming the two regicidal sons: “… two of Sennacherib's sons assassinated him and then escaped to the mountains of Ararat. Another son, Esarhaddon, became emperor and put Ahikar, my brother Anael's son, in charge of all the financial affairs of the empire”. Tobit 1:21 Adrammelech Emil G. Kraeling thinks that: “Sharezer was probably not a son” (“The Death of Sennacherib”, Jstor 53, No. 4, December, 1933, cf. note 32). I shall come to him after a consideration of Adrammelech, who, thanks to professor Simo Parpola, appears to have been identified as one of Sennacherib’s known sons: http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/murderersennacherib.htm THE MURDERER OF SENNACHERIB The news of the murder of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, on 20 Tebet, 681, was received with mixed feelings but certainly with strong emotion all over the ancient Near East. In Israel and Babylonia, it was hailed as godsent punishment for the "godless" deeds of a hated despot; in Assyria, the reaction must have been overwhelmingly horror and resentment. Not surprisingly, then, the event is relatively well reported or referred to in contemporary and later sources, both cuneiform and non-cuneiform, and has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate as well. In spite of all this attention, however, the most central thing about the whole affair has remained an open question: the identity of the murderer. While all our sources agree that he was one of the king's own sons, his name is not known from any cuneiform text, and the names offered by the Bible and Berossus, all of them evidently textually corrupt, have not been satisfactorily explained and are accordingly looked at with understandable suspicion. A theory favored in the early days of Assyriology, according to which these names should be viewed as corruptions of Ardior Arad-Ninlil, a son of Sennacherib known from a contemporary legal document, has gradually had to give way to an entirely different interpretation, according to which the murderer (or at least the mastermind behind the murder) was none but Sennacherib's heir-designate and successor to throne himself, Esarhaddon, who would have been forced to engineer the assassination in order to avoid being replaced by one of his brothers. The weakness of this theory is that it is in disagreement not only with Esarhaddon's own account of the course of events, which puts the blame on his brothers, but also with the traditions of the Bible and Berossus; it also involves a lot of reading between the lines. For these reasons, it has not been universally accepted either, and the case is largely viewed as unsolved for lack of clear-cut, conclusive evidence. In this paper I hope to show that the available evidence is not at all so elusive as is commonly thought, and actually suffices for determining the identity of the assassin with reasonable certainty. There is a Neo-Babylonian letter, published decades ago, which explicitly states the name of the murderer, and this name is not only known to have been borne by a son of Sennacherib but it also virtually agrees with the name forms found in the Bible and at Berossus. The text in question, R. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters (=ABL) XI no.1091 (Chicago 1911), has escaped attention because it was completely misunderstood and mistranslated by its editor, Leroy Waterman; the name has remained unidentified because its actual pronunciation has been obscured by its misleading logographic spelling. In what follows, I shall analyse both the letter and the name in detail and finally integrate the new evidence with the previously known facts in a brief reassessment of the murder and its prehistory. The beginning of ABL 1091 is lost. The first three extant lines are fragmentary, but sufficiently much of them remains to suggest that they referred to certain “Babylonian brothers” of the writer (or writers).lu From line 4' on the text can be followed better. The persons just mentioned gain knowledge of a "treaty of rebellion", and subsequently one of them requests an audience with the king. The expression for this is "to say the king's word" which, as shown by J. N. Postgate years ago, implies that the person in question applied to the king as the supreme judge and should consequently have been sent directly to the Palace. This, however, is not what happens in the present case. Two Assyrian officials appear and question the man. Having found whom his appeal concerns, they cover his face and take him away. This, in itself. is perhaps not significant, for ordinary people were not permitted to look at the king face to face. But what follows is startling. The man is not taken to the king but to Arad-Ninlil, the very person he wanted to talk about, and (his face still covered) is ordered to speak out. Clearly under the illusion that he is speaking to the king, he subsequently declares: "Your son AradNinlil is going to kill you. " Things now take a drastic course. The face of the man is uncovered: he is interrogated by Arad-Ninlil: and after that he is put to death along with his comrades mentioned in the beginning of the letter. The remaining seven lines are too fragmentary to be properly understood. To bring home the significance of this letter, let me put together some basic facts. The first is that it was clearly the "treaty of rebellion" mentioned at the beginning of the text that induced the unfortunate man to appeal to the king; second, that his information concerned Arad-Ninlil; and third, that because of this information, he and all his comrades knowing about the "treaty of rebellion" instantly got killed. Accordingly, we may conclude that the assertion "Your son Arad-Ninlil will kill you" was something Arad-Ninlil did not want to become publicly known; and since this statement was meant for the ears of the king, it is evident (1) that the person Arad-Ninlil intended to kill was the king himself and (2) that Arad-Ninlil himself was the king's own son. It follows that AradNinlil was involved in a conspiracy aiming at the murder of the king, and quite obviously was the leading figure in it. Nowhere in the letter is the name Arad-Ninlil preserved completely; the last sign LÍL is broken away or damaged in all instances. But no other Sargonid prince with a name beginning with the sign ARAD is known, so the restoration of the final element can be regarded as certain. Since Arad-Ninlil is only attested as a son of Sennacherib, the king referred to in the text can only be Sennacherib. On the other hand, it is clear that the letter itself cannot have been addressed to Sennacherib. Had the writer wanted to warn the king of a threatening assassination, he would have expressed himself differently. Hence, one must conclude that the letter was written after the murder had already taken place, and therefore probably was addressed to Esarhaddon. As this king must, from the beginning, have been reasonably well informed about his father's murder, it would be absurd to assume that the purpose of the writer was simply to inform the king about the identity of the murderer. His aim was certainly different. If we consider the text more closely, it is easy to see that the writer took the leading role of Arad-Ninlil in the conspiracy as generally known: but what he is trying to make clear is that the two officials mentioned in the letter were responsible for the death of the informer and therefore by implication also involved in the conspiracy. Both men, Nabu-sum-iskun and Sillâ, are well known as officials of Sennacherib who continued in their offices through the early years of Esarhaddon: the Kuyunjik letter archiye contains many denunciations against the latter. The present letter clearly is in the same category, and by using as an argument against Sillâ his role in silencing the informer, it actually implies that the prediction "your son Arad-Ninlil will kill you" had become a fact meanwhile. Thus, the letter just discussed powerfully supports the position of the scholars who have seen in Arad-Ninlil the likeliest candidate for the murderer of Sennacherib, and in fact makes it a matter of virtual certainty. We may hence pass on to a serious reconsideration of the problem of how to satisfactorily relate the name Arad-Ninlil to the names of the murderer (Adrammelech/Adramelos/Ardumuzan) given in the Bible and the Berossus excerpts. Actually, there is hardly any problem here at all. We are now in a position to show that the traditional reading of the (logographically spelled) Assyrian name, on which the earlier comparisons were based (and which has also been used here for convenience) is incorrect and should be abolished. In particular, the theophoric element at the end of the name (d-NIN.LÍL) has to be read [Mulissu] or [Mullêsu], not *Ninlil. This reading, first tentatively suggested by E. Reiner twelve years ago and since then increasingly well documented, represents the Neo-Assyrian form of the Akkadian name of the goddess Ninlil, attested as Mulliltum in an Old-Babylonian god list. It appears to have been very wide-spread in the first millennium, and is actually attested in syllabic spellings of the very name under consideration. On the other hand, the reading of the first element (ARAD) can be determined as [arda] or [ardi] on the basis of occasional syllabic spellings in contemporary and earlier Assyrian texts. And once the reading Arda-Mulissi has been established, the names of the murderer found in the non-cuneiform sources become relatively easy to explain. The Biblical Adrammelech differs from the Assyrian name only in two respects: the metathesis or r and d, and the replacement of shin at the end of the name by kaph. The former point is negligible since r and d were virtually homographic and therefore easy to confuse in early Hebrew and Aramaic script … the second can be explained as a scribal error. It is not difficult to imagine a scribe correcting a seemingly nonsensical "meles" to "melek", a frequent final element in North-West Semitic personal names. The Berossian name forms show an even better match. The form Adramelos found in the Abydenos excerpt is virtually identical with Arda-Mulissi save for the already discussed metathesis of r and d (which may have been influenced by the familiarity of Eusebius with the Biblical form). The name Ardumuzan agrees with Arda-Mulissi up to its last syllable which can only be due to textual corruption. It is important to note that in this name, the metathesis of r and d does not take place. In sum, it can be stated that all three names can be relatively easily traced back to Arda-Mulissi; and "then one comes to think about it, it would be very hard if not impossible to find another Assyrian name "which could provide as satisfactory an explanation for them as this one does. The identification of Arad-Ninliu Arda-Mulissi as the murderer of Sennacherib can thus be considered doubly assured. But what were his motives, and how did he end up doing what he did? My reconstruction of the course of events is as follows: In 694, Sennacherib eldest son and heir-designate Assur-nãdin-sumi is captured by Babylonians and carried off to Elam; he is no more heard of. The second-eldest son, Arda-Mulissi, now has every reason to expect to be the next crown prince; however, he is outmaneuvered from this position in favor of Esarhaddon, another son of Sennacherib. This one is younger than Arda-Mulissi but becomes the favorite son of Sennacherib thanks to his mother Naqia, who is not the mother of Arda-Mulissi. Eventually, Esarhaddon is officially proclaimed crown prince, and all Assyria is made to swear allegiance to him. However, Arda-Mulissi enjoys considerable popularity among certain circles who would like to see him as their future king rather than sickly Esarhaddon. As years pass, the opposition to Esarhaddon grows, while at the same time Arda-Mulissi and his brother(s) gain in popularity. This political development leads to a turn of events, but not to the one hoped for by Arda-Mulissi and his supporters. Foreseeing trouble, Sennacherib sends Esarhaddon away from the capital to the western provinces; yet he does not revise the order of succession. In this situation, Arda-Mulissi and his brother(s) soon find themselves in a stalemate. On the one hand, they are at their political zenith while their rival brother has to languish in exile; on the other hand, the latter remains the crown prince, and there is nothing his brothers can do about it since the position of Sennacherib remains unchanged and Esarhaddon himself is out of reach in the provinces. Supposing he were able to score military victories, his popularity would undoubtedly rise while that of his brothers might easily start to sink. The only way for them to make good of the situation, it seems, is to act swiftly and take over the kingship by force. A "treaty of rebellion" is concluded; and probably not much later, Sennacherib is stabbed to death by Arda-Mulissi or, perhaps, crushed alive under a winged bull colossus guarding the temple where he had been praying at the time of the murder. This reconstruction closely follows Esarhaddon's own account of the events. and similar interpretations have been presented earlier by others. Nebuchednezzar’s beginnings It all started, according to my revision, when Nebuchednezzar, a young official for the Great King of Assyria, Sargon II/Sennacherib, accompanied (according to Jewish tradition) the ill-fated army of Sennacherib (Judith’s “Nebuchadnezzar”) to the west. In the Book of Judith, Nebuchednezzar appears, I tentatively suggest, as “Bagoas”, purportedly a “eunuch”, serving the Commander-in-chief himself, “Holofernes”. The latter is the eldest son of Sennacherib, the Crown Prince and ruler of Babylon, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the Nadin (Nadab) of Tobit 14:10. Now King Sennacherib had various wives and apparently quite a few sons: https://www.worldhistory.org/Esarhaddon/ “Sennacherib had over eleven sons with his various wives and chose as heir his favorite, Ashur-nadin-shumi, the eldest of those born of his queen Tashmetu-sharrat (d.c. 684/681 BCE) [sic]”. Two of these sons, “Adrammelek and Sharezer”, will slay their father (2 Kings 19:37): “One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king”. Nisrok (Nisroch) here is a fairly unconvincing Hebrew attempt to transliterate Nusku (fire-god), the god whom Sennacherib (as, for example, Tukulti-ninurta), did, indeed, worship. Some identify this Nusku with Mercury (in its evening phase). Sharezer Previously I had written: “As far as I am aware, “Sharezer” has not yet been positively identified. Emil G. Kraeling thinks that: “Sharezer was probably not a son” (“The Death of Sennacherib”, Jstor 53, No. 4, December, 1933, cf. note 32)”. But there is always hope! With my Middle Kingdom folding of Nebuchednezzar so-called I into so-called II, then we find that this great Chaldean king had an Assyrian adversary with the name of Ashur-resha-ishi. While one would not expect Nebuchednezzar so-called II to be fighting an Assyrian king - given that the Assyrian kingdom is supposed to have come to an end (612 BC) around half a dozen years before Nebuchednezzar even came to the throne (c. 605 BC) - it works in my system, according to which Nebuchednezzar was Esarhaddon/Ashurbanipal. Of Nebuchednezzar’s conflict with Ashur-resha-ishi, we read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebuchadnezzar_I …. The Synchronistic History[i 12] relates his entente cordiale with his contemporary, the Assyrian king Aššur-rēša-iši I,[i 13] and subsequently the outcome of two military campaigns against the border fortresses of Zanqi and Idi that he conducted in violation of this agreement. The first was curtailed by the arrival of Aššur-rēša-iši’s main force, causing Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur to burn his siege engines and flee, while the second resulted in a battle in which the Assyrians apparently triumphed, “slaughtered his troops (and) carried off his camp.” It even reports the capture of the Babylonian field marshal, Karaštu.[9] …. This was the same as the civil war that Esarhaddon had to fight against his parricidal brothers for him to hold the throne of Nineveh. The name Ashur-resha-ishi is, I believe, extremely well represented by the biblical transliteration, Sharezer. Thus A – SHUR RESHA – ishi: Shur[r]esha = Sharezer.

Daniel’s Mad King was Nebuchednezzar, was Nabonidus

by Damien F. Mackey “In this paper, I look to the Ancient Near Eastern cuneiform sources as evidence in confirmation that the «Mad King» of Daniel 4 is historically based on the figure of Nabonidus, rather than the biblical Nebuchadnezzar”. Amanda M. Davis Bledsoe With reference to Amanda Davis Bledsoe’s conventional article (2012): The Identity of the “Mad King” of Daniel 4 in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Sources (5) The Identity of the “Mad King” of Daniel 4 in the Light of Ancient Near Eastern Sources | Amanda Davis Bledsoe - Academia.edu which, without the benefit, or even apparent awareness, of any requisite revision, follows the usual track, which I believe is up a garden path. I wrote to her as to what I consider to be the necessary correction (14th May, 2024): Keeping it simple, the "Mad King" of Daniel 4 was so like Nabonidus because the latter WAS Nebuchednezzar 'the Great', whose son Belshazzar (Baruch 1:11, 12) was Belshazzar son of Nabonidus, was King Belshazzar of Daniel 5. The Writing is there on the Wall. Let us follow through a part of Amanda Davis Bledsoe’s article, with some comments added: The fourth chapter of the book of Daniel recounts a story of a Babylonian king who has a frightening dream, which only a Jewish exile is able to interpret for him. In his dream, and in the subsequent narrative, he is transformed into an animal-like being who lives away from human society for a period of seven years. Ultimately both his wits and his throne are restored to him and he praises the God of the Jews. The bizarre events of this passage make it one of the most puzzling in the entire Hebrew Bible. For generations, scholars have struggled to link Daniel 4 with historical evidence from the reign of the Neo-Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BCE), with whom it is explicitly associated. However, with the discovery and publication of numerous cuneiform sources from the ancient Near East, many scholars have reconsidered this passage in Daniel, looking instead to the events of the reign of the last Neo-Babylonian king, Nabonidus (556–539 BCE). …. Mackey’s comment: Nothing to see here. Nabonidus was Nebuchednezzar so-called II. In this paper I show how the editors of Daniel reworked this Nabonidus tradition [sic], attributing it to Nebuchadnezzar in order to promote their theological ideals. I begin by looking at the background of Daniel 4, examining descriptions of both Nebuchadnezzar’s and Nabonidus’s reigns. Next I survey the connections between the events of Daniel 4 and other sources, including a stela discovered at Harran documenting Nabonidus’s sojourn to Teima … records documenting the lineage of the Neo-Babylonian kings, various other cuneiform inscriptions relating to the reign of Nabonidus … and descriptions of Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 5. …. In the final section of this paper, I use these sources to illustrate the Danielic editors’ purpose in incorporating the Nabonidus tradition into the narrative of Daniel 4 and possible reasons for their attribution of this material to Nebuchadnezzar. …. Mackey’s comment: All very scholarly – but a trip right up the garden path. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: 1. Context of Daniel 4 1.1. Nebuchadnezzar According to Mesopotamian cuneiform sources, Nebuchadnezzar II was the son of Nabopolassar (626-604 BCE), who inaugurated the Neo-Babylonian period. Mackey’s comment: Actually just Nebuchednezzar, as Nebuchednezzar so-called I was the same king. No Nebuchednezzar II. Middle Babylonia folds into Neo Babylonia: The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar (9) The 1100 BC Nebuchednezzar | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Nabopolassar was an Assyrian, Sennacherib, not a Babylonian. Nebuchednezzar (as Esarhaddon) was Sennacherib’s successor but not his biological son. He was a Chaldean, and it was he, not Nabopolassar, “who inaugurated the Neo-Babylonian period”. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: During Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, he twice conquered Jerusalem (597 and 586 BCE), forcing a significant portion of the population to relocate to Babylon. …. In addition to external conquest, his reign was marked by substantial building activity throughout his kingdom, as more than sixty epithets have been found detailing his restoration of temples or sanctuaries. …. He is credited with specific restorations and building projects within the capital city, including work on Etemenanki (the ziggurat of Babylon, sometimes associated with the infamous Tower of Babel), the creation of five walls to enclose Babylon, and the construction of the royal gardens. …. Mackey’s comment: According to Dr. Stephanie Dalley, the ‘Hanging Gardens’ were not in Babylon, but were located in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh: Chronologically ‘Landscaping’ King Nebuchednezzar’s “Hanging Gardens” (9) Chronologically 'Landscaping' King Nebuchednezzar's "Hanging Gardens" | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Convention apparently headed up another (Hanging) Garden path. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: Though he is mentioned in more secondary sources (including the Hebrew Bible, Apocryphal and Rabbinic books, and the works of classical and medieval authors) than any other Neo-Babylonian king, «Nebuchadnezzar’s own contemporary cuneiform sources are largely incomplete and provide us with relatively little information about the important events of his reign». …. Mackey’s comment: Yes, that is true in the narrow, one-dimensional context in which Amanda Davis Bledsoe operates, but the historical King Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’ needs to be filled out with substantial alter egos, such as Esarhaddon; Ashurbanipal; Ashurnasirpal; Ashur-bel-kala; and, of course, Nabonidus. Especially when his 43-year reign is aligned with the approximately 43-year reign of Ashurbanipal does that “relatively little information about the important events of his reign” become greatly magnified. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: Consequently, are left primarily with descriptions of the king’s deeds that likely bear no resemblance to the actual events. …. However, what the secondary sources do provide us with are a picture of a popular leader who ruled his kingdom without any significant break from tradition, maintaining his kingly and religious duties while extending the kingdom through warfare with surrounding nations. …. There is no evidence that he was ever absent from Babylon for any extended period of time, aside from that required for his numerous military conquests. Upon his death Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by numerous short-reigning kings, including his son, Amel-Marduk (562–560 BCE) … his brother-in-law Neriglissar (probably by violent means) (560–556 BCE), and Neriglissar’s minor son, Labashi-Marduk (556 BCE). …. Mackey’s comment: The received king-lists, and late documents, have it all wrong: Chaotic King Lists can conceal some sure historical sequences https://www.academia.edu/59734684/Chaotic_King_Lists_can_conceal_some_sure_historical_sequences Keeping it all as simple as it really was, the “violent” death of Amēl-Marduk, son of Nebuchednezzar, was the same as the violent death of Labashi-Marduk, who was the same as King Belshazzar, son of Nebuchednezzar, who died a violent death. Nebuchednezzar was succeeded in the Chaldean dynasty only by his son (Amēl-Marduk = Labashi-Marduk = Belshazzar), who, in turn was succeeded by Neriglissar, the aged Darius the Mede (Daniel 5:30-31): “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two”. Why complicate it? 1.2. Nabonidus Nabonidus, who was not related to the previous kings by blood or marriage … seized the throne from the weak Labashi-Marduk. Mackey’s comment: Wrong sequence. Nebuchednezzar had died several years earlier. It was Neriglissar, Darius the Mede, “who … seized the throne”. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: There are more cuneiform documents which detail the reign of Nabonidus than any other Neo-Babylonian king … though they must be viewed with a critical eye considering most were created as propaganda either in strong support of or against Nabonidus. From these texts it is clear that, like Nebuchadnezzar, Nabonidus completed extensive building projects throughout Babylon. …. Mackey’s comment: Very true that these documents “must be viewed with a critical eye”! King Nabonidus was the same great builder of Babylon as was Nebuchadnezzar (including Daniel’s “Nebuchadnezzar”), as was Esarhaddon. All one and the same king. Amanda Davis Bledsoe continues: However, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, Nabonidus was a very controversial figure. He is said to have broken from the earlier customs in every way: he disregarded his religious and festal duties; he neglected his rule in Babylon residing instead in the desert oasis of Teima; and he abandoned the capitol city to Cyrus’s approaching army. He was even said to have been so unpopular that when the Persian army invaded Babylon the city willingly opened its gates to Cyrus and fell without a battle. …. Thus, many of the ancient sources are extremely critical of Nabonidus, naming him as a betrayer of the kingship and religion of Babylon. Mackey’s comment: The composite Nebuchednezzar was as “controversial” as it gets. It is difficult to think of a more paranoid, superstitious, idolatrous, vindictive ruler.

Prophet Nahum and resistance to Assyria

by Damien F. Mackey “The LORD has given a command concerning you, Nineveh: ‘You will have no descendants to bear your name. I will destroy the images and idols that are in the temple of your gods. I will prepare your grave, for you are vile’.” Nahum 1:14 The writings of the prophet Nahum so resemble those of Isaiah that I concluded in my postgraduate university thesis (2007) that this was one and the same mighty prophet. Nahum as Isaiah In my section, Books of Isaiah and Nahum (Volume Two, pp. 98-102), I painstakingly compared most of the Nahum text with Isaiah, including in the Hebrew, and found example after example of either identical, or like, passages. My conclusion that Nahum was the Simeonite Isaiah: God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon (4) God can raise up prophets at will - even from a shepherd of Simeon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu may be supported by the tradition (e.g. Pseudo-Epiphanius, De Vitis Prophetarum) that the prophet Nahum was a Simeonite. Moreover the Hebrew name, Nahum (נַחוּם), from the verb to comfort, could have been applied to the prophet at a later stage of his life, for the latter part of the Book of Isaiah (beginning with Chapter 40) is all about Israel being comforted: Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted (8) Prophet Nahum as Isaiah Comforted | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Assyrian Names Isaiah, who will write abundantly on Assyria – but usually never favourably – will tend to refer to its leaders impersonally, such as “the Assyrian” (Isaiah 10:5-19): “Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! or allegorically (14:12-27): How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! In my thesis (Volume Two, p. 77), I wrote on this famous Oracle: In regard to this poem’s historical basis, Boutflower is helpful when favourably recalling Sir Edward Strachey’s “belief that the king of Babylon, against whom the “parable” of Isa. xiv was hurled, was a king of Assyria” … a king of Assyria, that is, who ruled over Babylon. … Boutflower was convinced that this was Tiglath-pileser III …. Others have not been able to unravel so skillfully as did Strachey the intertwining of Babylon and Assyria in this Oracle. Thus Moriarty: … “Some think this oracle … of ch. 14, was originally applied to Assyria and only later referred to Babylon”. Strachey’s view is, I believe, the correct one. …. The first notable exception in Isaiah will be the famous verse, Isaiah 20:1: “In the year that the Turtan, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it …”. Until the advent of modern archaeology in the C19th AD, this was the only known reference to Sargon (II), so no one knew who he actually was. By Chapter 36, though, Isaiah - probably by now copying from historical records (cf. 2 Kings 18:13) - begins to name the Assyrian king by his personal name, “Sennacherib” (36:1): “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them”. Chapters 36-38 are pre-occupied with this phase of crisis for the kingdom of Judah. Nahum’s Father With biographical and patronymical details being almost entirely absent from the Book of Nahum, we need to turn to the Book of Isaiah to find out who the father was: namely, Amos (Amoz) (1:1). He, too, has multi-identifications, most notably as Micah (also the Simeonite prophet, Zephaniah/Sophonias). Micah and his son, Isaiah, are a prophetical combination, going “barefoot and naked”, when Samaria is threatened (Micah 1:8), and when Sargon II sent his general against Ashdod (Isaiah 20:2). The combination is found named again in Judith 4:14-15: “… the magistrates of their town [“Bethulia], who in those days were Uzziah son of Micah, of the tribe of Simeon …”. Micah (= Amos), a Simeonite, now deceased, was the father of Uzziah (Isaiah). But what were these southern Judeans doing now in the north, in “Bethulia” (Bethel), which is Shechem? Nahum as Hosea (Uzziah) Simeonites had gone north as early as the days of King Asa of Judah: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/asas-religious-reforms “Note that Simeon’s territory originally lay in the south, surrounded by Judah’s tribal allotment (Josh. 19:1–9), but for reasons not entirely known to us, many Simeonites moved north”. This would presumably have made it more companionable for the Simeonite, Amos, to go northwards at the Lord’s command (Amos 7:14-15): “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the LORD took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’.” He is actually found, as Micaiah, prophesying during the reign of King Ahab of Israel. At some stage, Amos’s son, Isaiah (Nahum) must have followed his father to Bethel, for we find him, too, in the north, now as the prophet Hosea: Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet? (9) Did Isaiah and Hosea ever meet? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu There he married, Gomer, a typically ‘adulterous’ product of the northern kingdom (Hosea 1:2-3). Never a dull moment in the life of our composite Nahum! Hosea is found as Uzziah in the Book of Judith, a man of great standing. For this Uzziah was entitled both ‘the prince of Judah’ and ‘the prince of the people of Israel’ (Douay version of Book of Judith). The rabbis of the Talmud tell that his father, Amos, was the brother of King Amaziah of Judah. The Book of Judith, probably written by the High Priest, Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, the great prophet, “the high priest Joakim” of the book (Judith 4:6) - rather than by Isaiah - is, of course, all about the conflict with the Assyrians. It, in fact, provides the key to what happened to Sennacherib’s army of 185,000. And Uzziah was there front and centre (right in the front row seat) to witness it. But he is overshadowed by that extraordinary heroine, probably a relative, Judith. Judith the “daughter of Merari” (Judith 8:1; 16:6) may well connect patronymically with Isaiah as Hosea “son of Beeri” (Hosea 1:1), whether this ancestor be another name for Amos, or a maternal ancestor, or a connection through marriage. I have never been able to be sure about this. Since M and B are frequently interchanged in W. Semitic, the name Beeri, I think, could easily merge into Merari. The Book of Hosea, likewise, is full of references to Assyria, as to its hostile advances in both the northern and the southern kingdoms. Assyrian Names The prophet Hosea actually names the two successive kings of his early time, in hypocoristicon form, as “Shalman” (Shalmaneser) and “Yareb” (Sennacherib): While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon (9) While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Due, though, to the present state of the Book of Judith: The Book of Judith: confusion of names (8) Book of Judith: confusion of names | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu we have a mix of Chaldeo-Persian names for the King of Assyria, “Nebuchadnezzar”, who is Sargon II/Sennacherib; his Commander-in-chief, “Holofernes”, who, thanks to input from Tobit (14:10), we can ascertain was Nadin/Nadab, hence Sennacherib’s eldest son, Ashur-nadin-shumi: “Nadin” (Nadab) of Tobit is the “Holofernes” of Judith (4) "Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Finally, the Commander-in-chief’s first officer, “Bagoas”, may even have been a young Nebuchednezzar: An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? (4) An early glimpse of Nebuchednezzar? | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Nahum as Jonah Once again we gain benefit from the Book of Tobit (14:4), which variously gives “Jonah” or “Nahum” (NRSV), thus enabling for another unexpected connection: Nahum was Jonah. Assyrian Names The Book of Jonah will give us nothing personal in this regard, merely referring in 3:6 to “the king of Nineveh”. I have determined him to be Esarhaddon, in his many guises, including as Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’: De-coding Jonah (4) De-coding Jonah | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The Book of Nahum is similarly impersonal in this regard, giving only phrases such as “a wicked counseller” (1:11) – explained as “literally, a councilor of Belial; i.e. of worthlessness”; and “King of Assyria” (3:18).

While Tobit and Hosea name Shalmaneser and Sennacherib, both of them fail to name Sargon

by Damien F. Mackey “Now the terrors of war will rise among your people. All your fortifications will fall, just as when Shalman destroyed Beth-arbel. Even mothers and children were dashed to death there”. Hosea 10:14 The prophet Hosea names two Assyrian kings, “Yareb” (5:13) and “Shalman” (10:14), whose identities Heath D. Dewrell has completely nailed, so I believe, in the Abstract to his article, “Yareb, Shalman, and the Date of the Book of Hosea” (2016): https://www.jstor.org/stable/43900899 …. This article examines two enigmatic figures mentioned in the Book of Hosea – King Yareb and Shalman. I suggest that the former is to be identified as the Assyrian king Sennacherib and the latter as Shalmaneser V. This has significant implications for the date of the core of the Book of Hoshea; it requires a date at least two decades later than the current scholarly consensus. …. For conventional minded scholars the whole thing is a bit of a puzzle. Thus F. C. Eiselen writes, in “Shalman”: https://www.biblestudytools.com/encyclopedias/isbe/shalman.html A name of uncertain meaning, found only once in the Old Testament (Hosea 10:14), in connection with a place-name, equally obscure, "as Shalman destroyed Betharbel." Shalman is most commonly interpreted as a contracted form of Shalmaneser, the name of several Assyrian kings. If this explanation is correct, the king referred to cannot be identified. Some have thought of Shalmaneser IV, who is said to have undertaken expeditions against the West in 775 and in 773-772. Others have proposed Shalmaneser V, who attacked Samaria in 725. This, however, is improbable, because the activity of Hosea ceased before Shalmaneser V became king. Shalman has also been identified with Salamanu, a king of Moab in the days of Hosea, who paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser V of Assyria; and with Shalmah, a North Arabian tribe that invaded the Negeb. The identification of BETH-ARBEL (which see) is equally uncertain. From the reference it would seem that the event in question was well known and, therefore, probably one of recent date and considerable importance, but our present historical knowledge does not enable us to connect any of the persons named with the destruction of any of the localities suggested for Beth-arbel. The ancient translations offer no solution; they too seem to have been in the dark. [End of quote] Less “in the dark” may we be if we, like Heath D. Dewrell has considered necessary, re-date the core of the Book of Hosea. But we also need a revised Assyria, according to which the reign of Sennacherib, Yareb (erib), immediately follows that of Shalmaneser, with no extra Sargon in between, because Sargon II was Sennacherib: Sargon II and Sennacherib: More than just an overlap (5) Sargon II and Sennacherib: More than just an overlap | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu This conventionally shocking conclusion is reinforced, however, by the Book of Tobit, a man who actually served the great Assyrian king, Shalmaneser - so he knew what he was writing about - whose immediate successor was Sennacherib (Tobit 1:15): “When Shalmaneser died, his son Sennacherib succeeded him as emperor”. No Sargon mentioned there either - because Sargon was Sennacherib. We also need to multi-identify Shalmaneser, for example as the highly important Tiglath-pileser so-called III. By so doing, it may facilitate our understanding of Hosea 10:14, connecting Shalman(eser) with the destruction of Beth-arbel, “a place-name, equally obscure”, “uncertain”. My tentative suggestion for the “obscure” town would be Tiglath-pileser’s taking of Abel-Beth Maacah (2 Kings 15:29), with Beth-arbel as Abel-Beth (Maacah?).