by
Damien F. Mackey
“Her
fame continued to spread, and she lived in the house her husband had left her.
Before she died, Judith divided her property among her husband's and her own
close relatives and set her slave woman free. When she died in Bethulia at the
age of 105, she was buried beside her husband, and the people of Israel mourned
her death for seven days. As long as Judith lived, and for
many years after her death, no one dared to threaten the people of Israel”.
Judith
16:23-25
Introduction
Since Judith had
already become immensely famous in the eyes of the people of Israel in her
youth, it is intriguing to read in Judith 16:23 that “her fame continued to
spread”. Even before her heroic action in the camp of the Assyrians, we
are told of this goodly woman that (Judith 8:7-8): “[Judith] lived among all
her possessions without anyone finding a word to say against her, so devoutly
did she fear God”.
Moreover she
had, according to the elder, Uzziah, shown wisdom even from her childhood (vv.
28-29): “Uzziah replied, ‘Everything you have just said comes from an honest
heart and no one will
contradict a word of it. Not that today is the first time your wisdom has been
displayed; from your earliest years all the people have known how shrewd you
are and of how sound a heart’.”
Aside from the
recognition of her renowned beauty, by
- the author (Judith 8:7; 10:4);
- the elders of Bethulia (10:7);
- the Assyrian unit and soldiery (10:14, 19);
- Holofernes and his staff (10:23; 11:21, 23; 12:13, 16, 20), we learn that even the coarse Assyrians were impressed by her wisdom and eloquence (11:21, 23).
And Uzziah,
after Judith’s triumph over Holofernes, proclaimed magnificently in her honour
(Judith 13:18-20):
… ‘May you be blessed, my
daughter, by God
Most High, beyond all women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God,
Creator of heaven
and earth, who guided you to cut off the head of the leader of our enemies!
The trust which you have shown will not pass
from human hearts, as they commemorate the power of God for
evermore.
God grant you may be always
held in honour
and rewarded with blessings, since you did not consider your own life when our
nation was brought to its knees, but warded off our ruin, walking in the right path
before our God’.
And the people all said, 'Amen!
Amen!'
And the stunned
Achior, upon seeing the severed head of Holofernes, burst out with this
exclamation of praise (Judith 14:7): ‘May you be blessed in all the tents of
Judah and in every nation; those who hear your name will be
seized with dread!’
Later, Joakim
the high priest
and the entire Council of Elders of Israel, who were in Jerusalem, came to see Judith and to
congratulate her (Judith 15:9-10):
On coming to her house, they
blessed her with one accord, saying: ‘You are the glory of
Jerusalem! You are the great pride of
Israel! You are the highest honour of our
race! By doing all this with your own hand you have deserved well of Israel,
and God has
approved what you have done. May you be blessed by the Lord Almighty
in all the days to come!’
And the people all said,
'Amen!'
‘Blessed
by God
Most High, beyond all women on earth’.
‘The
glory
of Jerusalem,
the
great pride
of Israel,
the
highest honour
of [her] race!’
What more could possibly be said!
From whence came this incredible
flow of wisdom?
We may tend to recall the Judith of
literature as being both beautiful and courageous - and
certainly she could be most forthright as well, when occasion demanded
it, somewhat like Joan of Arc (who was supposedly referred to, in her time, as
‘a second Judith’).
Yet, there is far more to it:
mysticism.
T. Craven (Artistry
and Faith in the Book of Judith), following J. Dancy’s view (Shorter
Books of the Apocrypha) that the theology presented in Judith’s words to
the Bethulian town officials rivals the theology of the Book of Job, will go on
to make this interesting comment (pp. 88-89, n. 45.):
Judith plays out her whole
story with the kind of faith described in the Prologue of Job (esp. 1:21 and
2:9). Her faith is like that of Job after his experience of God in the
whirlwind (cf. 42:1-6), yet in the story she has no special theophanic
experience. We can only imagine what happened on her housetop where she was
habitually a woman of regular prayer.
[End of quote]
Although the
women’s movement is quite recent, it has already provided some new insights and
some radically different perspectives on Judith. According to P. Montley (as
referred to by C. Moore, The Anchor Bible. “Judith”, pp. 65):
… Judith is the archetypal
androgyne. She is more than the Warrior Woman and the femme fatale, a
combination of the soldier and the seductress …
….
Just as the brilliance of a cut diamond is the
result of many different facets, so the striking appeal of the book of Judith
results from its many facets. …
[End of quote]
M. Stocker
will, in her comprehensive treatment of the Judith character and her actions (Judith
Sexual Warrior, pp. 13-15), compare the heroine to, amongst others, the
Old Testament’s Jael – a common comparison given that the woman, Jael, had
driven a tent peg through the temple of Sisera, an enemy of Israel (Judges
4:17-22) – Joan of Arc, and Charlotte Corday, who had, during the French
Revolution, slain the likewise unsuspecting Marat. “If viewed negatively – from
an irreligious perspective, for instance”, Stocker will go on to write,
“Judith’s isolation, chastity, widowhood, childlessness, and murderousness
would epitomize all that is morbid, nihilistic and abortive”.
Hardly
the type of character to have been accorded ‘increasing fame’ amongst her
people!
Craven
again, with reference to J. Ruskin (‘Mornings in Florence’, p. 335), writes (p.
95): “Judith, the slayer of Holofernes; Jael, the slayer of Sisera; and
Tomyris, the slayer of Cyrus are counted in art as the female “types” who
prefigure the Virgin Mary’s triumph over Satan”.
Judith a
Heroine of Israel
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The way that I see it, these early
commentators had the will, if not the history/archaeology, to demonstrate the
trustworthiness of the Judith story. Then, at about the time that the
archaeology had become available, commentators no longer had the will.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What did the young Judith do to
achieve her early fame?
Well, if the
typical contemporary biblical commentators are to be believed, Judith did
nothing in actual historical reality, for the famous story is merely a piece of
pious fiction.
Here, for
instance, is such a view from the Catholic News Agency [CNA] (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/bible/introduction-to-the-old-testament/judith/):
Judith
….
Judith is often characterized
as an early historical novel. Yet ironically, its content is unhistorical. The
book begins by telling us that Nebuchadnezzer was the king of Assyria ruling in
Ninevah. But Ninevah was destroyed seven years before Nebuchadnezzer became
king. And he was king of Babylon, not Assyria. It would be similar to an author
beginning a book, "In 1776, when Abraham Lincoln was the president of
Canada..." The author of Judith clues us in that he is not telling a
typical story. While the story is replete with proper names of places and
people, many of them are not placed "correctly" and many of them are
unknown from other sources.
The book of Judith is not
trying to narrate an historical event nor is it presenting a regular historical
novel with fictional characters in a "real" setting. Rather, Judith
is iconic of all of Israel's struggles against surrounding nations. By the time
of its writing, Israel had been dominated by the Assyrians, the Babylonians,
the Persians and the Greeks. The name "Judith" means
"Jewess." The character of Judith is therefore representative of the
whole nation of Israel. In an almost constant battle against the surrounding
nations, the Israelites depended on the Lord for their survival and sustenance.
Judith represents the best hopes and intentions of the Israelites-the
vanquishing of the oppressors and the freedom of the land of Israel.
The general Holofernes, whom
Judith assassinates, represents the worst of the oppressors. He is bringing
182,000 troops against a small city in a corner of Israel to force them to
worship the head of foreign oppression: Nebuchadnezzer. The city is terribly
outmatched, but Holofernes opts for a siege rather than a battle. When the
people are at the point of despair because they have run out of water, Judith
volunteers to try an unusual tactic. She leaves the city with her maid and gets
close to Holofernes because of her beauty. She uses a series of tricks and
half-truths to find Holofernes drunk and vulnerable. Then she beheads him with his
own sword!
It is crucial to see the irony
of the story and of Judith's words. For example, the Ammonite Achior who
Holofernes rejected was supposed to share the cruel fate of the Israelites at
the hand of the Assyrians, but he is saved with the Israelites instead (6:5-9).
Judith uses the phrase "my lord" (Adonai in Heb.) several times, but
it is unclear whether she is referring to Holofernes or to God. The great
nation is defeated by a humble woman. The story is similar to the famous David
and Goliath episode. The reader should look for ironic moments where a
character's intentions or statements are fulfilled, but in the way that he or
she would least expect.
The book of Judith is divided
into basically two sections, ch. 1-7 and 8-16. The first seven chapters lay out
the "historical" background and describe the political situation
which led to Holofernes attack on Israel. It is important to understand that
the events are not historical, but they are full of details that one finds in a
good novel. Achior plays a key role by narrating Israel's history and firmly
believing in God's protection of his people (5). He eventually converts to
Judaism after the Assyrians are defeated (14:10). The second half of the book
(8-16) focuses on Judith herself and her heroic acts. Once the Assyrians
discover Holofernes decapitated body, they flee in confusion and the Israelites
rout them. Ch. 16 contains a hymn about Judith's deeds. Like Tobit, Judith is a
deuterocanonical book.
Judith is a book of the Bible
that is meant to be enjoyed. By enjoying the story and the Lord's victory over
the great nations through Judith, we can appreciate the paradoxical way God
chooses to work on earth, using the weak to conquer the strong, the poor to
outdo the rich.
[End of quote]
But this attribution
of non-historicity to the Book of Judith was not the standard Catholic approach
down through the centuries, until, say, the 1930’s. During that long period of
time, Catholic scholars generally tended to regard the book as recording a real
historical drama, whether or not their valiant efforts to demonstrate this were
convincing. The way that I see it, these early commentators had the will, if
not the history/archaeology, to demonstrate the trustworthiness of the Judith
story. Then, at about the time that the archaeology had become available,
commentators no longer had the will.
A combination of
will and more scientific history/archaeology would be a really nice change.
For, today it is
very rare to find any who are prepared to argue for the full historicity of the
Book of Judith.
I, in my
university thesis, A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah
and its Background (http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/5973),
wrote regarding this situation (Preface, p. x):
I know of virtually no current
historians who even consider the Book of Judith to be anything other than a
‘pious fiction’, or perhaps ‘historical fiction’, with the emphasis generally
on the ‘fiction’ aspect of this. Thus I feel a strong empathy for the solitary
Judith in the midst of those differently-minded Assyrians (Judith 10:11-13:10).
In that thesis I
had argued (with respect to the book’s historical and geographical problems)
for what I consider in retrospect to be the obvious scenario: that the Judith
event pertains to the famous destruction of Sennacherib’s army of 185,000
Assyrians. The heroine Judith initiated this victory for Israel by her
slaying of the Assyrian commander-in-chief, which action then led to the rout
and slaughter of the army in its panic-stricken flight.
For my up-dated
version of this, see:
This is the incident that
had made Judith so famous throughout Israel in her youth – a fame that
apparently only increased as she grew older.
But Judith, even
more than being the most beautiful and courageous woman that she was, had
already, at a young age, exhibited - as we have read - amazing wisdom and even
sanctity. Her wisdom (some might say cunning) was apparent from the way that
she was able to beguile the Assyrians with her shrewd and bitingly ironic
words.
Judith was so
formidable and significant a woman and one would expect to find further traces
of her in the course of her very long life.
I believe that
Judith has been picked up in many literatures and mythologies of many nations.
Judith a Universal Heroine
Glimpses of Judith in BC Antiquity
Some ancient
stories that can be only vaguely historical seem to recall the Judith incident.
Two of these that I picked up in my thesis appear in the ‘Lindian Chronicle’
(dated 99 BC), relating to the Greco-Persian period, and in Homer’s classic, The
Iliad.
The Lindian Chronicle
Thus I wrote in my thesis (op.
cit., Volume Two, pp. 67-68):
Uzziah, confirming
Judith’s high reputation, immediately recognized the truth of what she had just
said (vv. 28-29), whilst adding the blatantly Aaronic excuse that ‘the people
made us do it’ (v. 30, cf. Exodus 32:21-24): ‘But the people were so thirsty
that they compelled us to do for them what we have promised, and made us take
an oath that we cannot break’. Judith, now forced to work within the time-frame
of those ‘five days’ that had been established against her will, then makes
this bold pronouncement – again completely in the prophetic, or even
‘apocalyptic’, style of Joan of Arc (vv. 32-33):
Then Judith said to them,
‘Listen to me. I am about to do something that will go down through all
generations to our descendants. Stand at the town gate tonight so that I may go
out with my maid; and within the days after which you have promised to
surrender the town to our enemies, the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand’.
A Note. This 5-day time frame,
in connection with a siege - the very apex of the [Book of Judith] drama - may
also have been appropriated into Greco-Persian folklore.
In the ‘Lindian Chronicle’ it
is narrated that when Darius, King of Persia, tried to conquer the Island of
Hellas, the people gathered in the stronghold of Lindus to withstand the
attack. The citizens of the besieged city asked their leaders to surrender
because of the hardships and sufferings brought by the water shortage (cf.
Judith 7:20-28).
The Goddess Athena [read
Judith] advised one of the leaders [read Uzziah] to continue to resist the
attack; meanwhile she interceded with her father Jupiter [read God of Israel]
on their behalf (cf. Judith 8:9-9:14). Thereupon, the citizens asked for a
truce of 5 days (exactly as in Judith), after which, if no help arrived, they
would surrender (cf. Judith 7:30-31). On the second day a heavy shower fell on
the city so the people could have sufficient water (cf. 8:31, where Uzziah asks
Judith to pray for rain). Datis [read Holofernes], the admiral of the Persian
fleet [read commander-in-chief of the Assyrian army], having witnessed the
particular intervention of the Goddess to protect the city, lifted the siege
[rather, the siege was forcibly raised]. ….
[End of quote]
Apparently I am
not the only one who has noticed the similarity between these two stories, for
I now find this (http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/judith.html):
“The Israeli scholar Y. M. Grintz has pointed out the parallels between the
theme of the book [Judith] and an episode which took place during the siege of
Lindus, on the island of Rhodes, but here again the comparison is extremely
weak”.
Yes, the latter
is probably just a “weak” appropriation of the original Hebrew account.
I have written a
lot along these lines of Greek appropriating, e.g.:
Similarities to The Odyssey of the Books of Job and
Tobit
Whereas the
goddess Athena may have been substituted for Judith in the Lindian Chronicle,
she substitutes for the angel Raphael in the Book of Tobit.
I made this
comparison in “Similarities to The Odyssey”:
The ‘Divine’ Messenger
From whom the son, especially, receives help
during his travels. In the Book of Tobit, this messenger is the angel Raphael
(in the guise of ‘Azarias’).
In The Odyssey, it is the goddess Athene
(in the guise of ‘Mentes’).
Likewise Poseidon (The Odyssey)
substitutes for the demon, Asmodeus (in Tobit).
It may also be due to an ‘historical’ mix up that
two of Judith’s Assyrian opponents came to acquire the apparently Persians name
of, respectively, “Holofernes” and “Bagoas” (http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/judith.html):
“Holofernes and Bagoas are to be identified with the two generals sent against
Phoenicia, Palestine and Egypt by Artaxerxes III towards 350 [BC]. The names
are certainly Persian, and are attested frequently …”.
Greco-Persian history is still awaiting a proper
revision.
“The Iliad”
Earlier in my thesis (pp. 59-60) I had written in
similar vein, of Greek appropriation, regarding the confrontation between the
characters in the Book of Judith, “Holofernes” and “Achior”:
Achior had made an unexpected apologia
on behalf of the Israelites. It had even come with this concluding warning
to Holofernes (5:20, 21):
‘So now, my master and lord … if they are not a
guilty nation, then let my lord pass them by; for their Lord and God will
defend them, and we shall become the laughing-stock of the whole world’.
These words had absolutely stunned the soldiery
who were by now all for tearing Achior ‘limb from limb’ (5:22). Holofernes,
for his part, was enraged with his subordinate. Having succeeded in
conquering almost the entire west, he was hardly about to countenance hearing
that some obscure mountain folk might be able to offer him any meaningful
resistance.
Holofernes then uttered the ironic words
to Achior: ‘… you shall not see my face again from this day until I
take revenge on this race that came out of Egypt’ (6:5); ironic because, the
next time that Achior would see Holofernes’ face, it would be
after Judith had beheaded him.
Holofernes thereupon commanded his
orderlies to take the insolent Achior and bind him beneath the walls
of Bethulia, so that he could suffer, with the people whom he had just
verbally defended, their inevitable fate when the city fell to the Assyrians
(v. 6).
After the Assyrian brigade had managed to secure Achior
at Bethulia, and had then retreated from the walls under
sling-fire from the townsfolk, the Bethulians went out to fetch him
(6:10-13). Once safely inside the city Achior told them his story, and
perhaps Judith was present to hear it. Later she would use bits and pieces of
information supplied by Achior for her own confrontation with Holofernes,
to deceive him.
[End of quote]
In a footnote (n. 1286) to this, I
had proposed, in connection with The Iliad:
This fiery confrontation between the
commander-in-chief, his subordinates and Achior would be, I suggest -
following on from my earlier comments about Greco-Persian appropriations -
where Homer got his idea for the main theme of The Iliad: namely the
argument at the siege of Troy between Agamemnon, supreme commander of the
Greeks, and the renowned Achilles (Achior?).
And further on, on p. 69, I drew a comparison
between Judith and Helen of Troy of The Iliad:
The elders of Bethulia, “Uzziah,
Chabris, and Charmis - who are here mentioned for the last time in the story as
a threesome (10:6)” … - are stunned by Judith’s new appearance when they meet
her at the town’s gate (vv. 7-8): “When they saw her transformed in appearance
and dressed differently, they were very greatly astounded at her beauty and said
to her, ‘May the God of our ancestors grant you favour and fulfil your plan
…’.”…. Upon Judith’s request (command?), the elders “ordered the young men to
open the gate for her” (v. 9). Then she and her maid went out of the town and
headed for the camp of the Assyrians. “The men of the town watched her until
she had gone down the mountain and passed through the valley, where they lost
sight of her” (v. 10).
“Compare this scene”, I added in (n. 1316), “with
that of Helen at the Skaian gates of Troy, greatly praised by Priam and the
elders of the town for her beauty. The Iliad, Book 3, p. 45”.
We recall that Craven had grouped together
“Judith, the slayer of Holofernes; Jael, the slayer of Sisera; and Tomyris, the
slayer of Cyrus …”. Whilst Judith and Jael were two distinct heroines of
Israel, living centuries apart, I think that Tomyris, the slayer of Cyrus must
be -given the ancient variations about the death of Cyrus - a fictitious character.
And her story has certain suspicious likenesses, again, to that of Judith.
Tomyris and Cyrus
I have added here a few comparisons
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrus_the_Great#Death):
Death …
The details of Cyrus's death vary by account. The
account of Herodotus from
his Histories provides the second-longest detail, in which Cyrus met
his fate in a fierce battle with the Massagetae, a tribe from the
southern deserts of Khwarezm
and Kyzyl Kum in the
southernmost portion of the steppe
regions of modern-day Kazakhstan
and Uzbekistan, following
the advice of Croesus to
attack them in their own territory.[68]
The Massagetae were related to the Scythians in their dress and
mode of living; they fought on horseback and on foot. In order to acquire her
realm, Cyrus first sent an offer of marriage to their ruler, Tomyris, a proposal she
rejected.
Compare e.g. (http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context):
“Holofernes declares his intention of having sexual intercourse with Judith
(12:12). Judith responds to his invitation to the banquet by saying “Who am I,
to refuse my lord?”, clearly a double entendre! Holofernes, at the sight of
Judith, is described as “ravished.” But he does not get any further with Judith
than Cyrus would with Tomyris, for Judith, upon her return to the camp, will
proclaim (13:15-16):
‘Here’, she said, ‘is the head of Holofernes, the
general of the Assyrian army, and here is the mosquito net from his bed, where
he lay in a drunken stupor. The Lord used a woman to kill him.As the Lord
lives, I swear that Holofernes never touched me, although my beauty deceived
him and brought him to his ruin. I was not defiled or disgraced; the Lord took
care of me through it all’.
Wine will also play a vital part in
the Cyrus legend, though in this case the defenders [i.e., the Massagetae -
replacing the Israelites of the original story], rather than the invader, will
be the ones affected by the strong drink:
[Cyrus] then commenced his attempt
to take Massagetae territory by force, beginning by building bridges and
towered war boats along his side of the river Jaxartes, or Syr Darya, which separated
them. Sending him a warning to cease his encroachment in which she stated she
expected he would disregard anyway, Tomyris challenged him to meet her forces
in honorable warfare, inviting him to a location in her country a day's march
from the river, where their two armies would formally engage each other. He
accepted her offer, but, learning that the Massagetae were unfamiliar with wine
and its intoxicating effects, he set up and then left camp with plenty of it
behind, taking his best soldiers with him and leaving the least capable ones.
The general of Tomyris's army, who was also her son Spargapises, and a third of
the Massagetian troops killed the group Cyrus had left there and, finding the
camp well stocked with food and the wine, unwittingly drank themselves into
inebriation, diminishing their capability to defend themselves, when they were
then overtaken by a surprise attack. They were successfully defeated, and,
although he was taken prisoner, Spargapises committed suicide once he regained
sobriety.
It is at this point that Tomyris
will be stirred into action, more as a warrior queen than as a heroine using
her womanly charm to deceive, but she will ultimately - just like Judith -
swear vengeance and decapitate her chief opponent:
Upon learning of what had
transpired, Tomyris denounced Cyrus's tactics as underhanded and swore
vengeance, leading a second wave of troops into battle herself. Cyrus the Great
was ultimately killed, and his forces suffered massive casualties in what
Herodotus referred to as the fiercest battle of his career and the ancient
world. When it was over, Tomyris ordered the body of Cyrus brought to her, then
decapitated him and dipped his head in a vessel of blood in a symbolic gesture
of revenge for his bloodlust and the death of her son.[68][69]
However, some scholars question this version, mostly because Herodotus admits
this event was one of many versions of Cyrus's death that he heard from a
supposedly reliable source who told him no one was there to see the aftermath.[70]
Herodotus’s claim that this was
“the fiercest battle of … the ancient world”, whilst probably not befitting the
obscure Massagetae, is indeed a worthy description of the defeat and rout of
Sennacherib’s massive army of almost 200,000 men.
But this was, as Herodotus had also
noted, just “one of many versions of Cyrus's death”. And Wikipedia adds some
variations on this account:
Dandamayev says
maybe Persians took back Cyrus' body from the Massagetae, unlike what Herodotus
claimed.[72]
Ctesias, in his Persica,
has the longest account, which says Cyrus met his death while putting down
resistance from the Derbices
infantry, aided by other Scythian archers and cavalry, plus Indians and their
elephants. According to him, this event took place northeast of the headwaters
of the Syr Darya.[73]
An alternative account from Xenophon's
Cyropaedia contradicts the others, claiming that Cyrus died peaceably
at his capital.[74]
The final version of Cyrus's death comes from Berossus, who only reports
that Cyrus met his death while warring against the Dahae archers northwest of the
headwaters of the Syr Darya.[75]
[End
of quote]
Scholars may be
able to discern many more Judith-type stories in semi-legendary BC ‘history’.
Donald Spoto, in Joan. The Mysterious Life of the Heretic Who Became a
Saint (Harper, 2007), has referred to the following supposed
warrior-women, a re-evaluation of whom I think may be worth considering (p.
73):
The Greek poet Telesilla was
famous for saving the city of Argos from attack by Spartan troops in the fifth
century B.C. In first-century Britain, Queen Boudicca [Boadicea] led an
uprising against the occupying Roman forces. In the third century Zenobia,
Queen of Palmyra (latter-day Syria), declared her independence of the Roman
Empire and seized Egypt and much of Asia Minor.
[End of quote]
But there are a plethora of such
female types also in what is considered to be AD history.
Glimpses of Judith in (supposedly) AD Time
Before I go on to
discuss some of these, I must point out - what I have mentioned before, here
and there - a problem with AD time, especially its so-called ‘Dark Ages’ (c.
600-900 AD), akin to what revisionists have found to have occurred with the
construction of BC time, especially its so-called ‘Dark Ages’ (c. 700-1200 BC).
Whilst I intend to write much more about this in the future, I did broach the
subject again in my article:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously
Mangles History. Part Two: From Birth to Marriage
and some of this will have a direct
bearing upon Judith (see Axum and Gudit below).
But here is a different summary of
attempts to expose the perceived problems pertaining to AD time, known as the
“Phantom Time Hypothesis”, by a writer who is not sympathetic to it (http://www.damninteresting.com/the-phantom-time-hypothesis/):
by Alan Bellows
When Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz
introduces his paper on the “phantom time hypothesis,” he kindly asks his
readers to be patient, benevolent, and open to radically new ideas, because his
claims are highly unconventional. This is because his paper is suggesting three
difficult-to-believe propositions: 1) Hundreds of years ago, our calendar was
polluted with 297 years which never occurred; 2) this is not the year 2005, but
rather 1708; and 3) The purveyors of this hypothesis are not crackpots.
The Phantom Time Hypothesis
suggests that the early Middle Ages (614-911 A.D.) never happened, but were
added to the calendar long ago either by accident, by misinterpretation of
documents, or by deliberate falsification by calendar conspirators. This would
mean that all artifacts ascribed to those three centuries belong to other
periods, and that all events thought to have occurred during that same period
occurred at other times, or are outright fabrications. For instance, a man
named Heribert Illig (pictured), one of the leading proponents of the theory,
believes that Charlemagne was a fictional character. But what evidence is this
outlandish theory based upon?
It seems that historians are
plagued by a plethora of falsified documents from the Middle Ages, and such was
the subject of an archaeological conference in München, Germany in 1986. In his
lecture there, Horst Fuhrmann, president of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
described how some documents forged by the Roman Catholic Church during the
Middle Ages were created hundreds of years before their “great moments”
arrived, after which they were embraced by medieval society. This implied that
whomever produced the forgeries must have very skillfully anticipated the
future… or there was some discrepancy in calculating dates.
This was reportedly the first
bit of evidence that roused Illig’s curiosity… he wondered why the church would
have forged documents hundreds of years before they would become useful. So he
and his group examined other fakes from preceding centuries, and they “divined
chronological distortions.” This led them to investigate the origin of the
Gregorian calendar, which raised even more inconsistency.
In 1582, the Gregorian
calendar we still use today was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII to replace the
outdated Julian calendar which had been implemented in 45 BC. The Gregorian
calendar was designed to correct for a ten-day discrepancy caused by the fact
that the Julian year was 10.8 minutes too long. But by Heribert Illig’s math,
the 1,627 years which had passed since the Julian calendar started should have
accrued a thirteen-day discrepancy… a ten-day error would have only taken 1,257
years.
So Illig and his group went
hunting for other gaps in history, and found a few… for example, a gap of
building in Constantinople (558 AD – 908 AD) and a gap in the doctrine of
faith, especially the gap in the evolution of theory and meaning of purgatory
(600 AD until ca. 1100). From all of this data, they have become convinced that
at some time, the calendar year was increased by 297 years without the corresponding
passage of time. ….
[End of quote]
As with the pioneering efforts of Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos) to reform BC time, some of this early work in AD revisionism may turn out to be extreme and far-fetched. But I would nevertheless agree with the claim by its proponents that the received AD history likewise stands in need of a massive renovation.
In my series on
Mohammed - {who, I am now convinced, was not an historical personage, but a
composite of various biblical (pseudepigraphal) characters, and most notably
(for at least the period from Birth to Marriage), was Tobias (= my Job), son of
Tobit} - I drew attention to a very BC-like “Nehemiah”, thought to have been a
contemporary of Mohammed.
Moreover, the
major incident that is said to have occurred in the year of Mohammed’s birth,
the invasion of Mecca by Abrahas the Axumite, I argued in the “Biography of the
Prophet Mohammed”, was simply a reminiscence of Sennacherib’s invasion and
defeat:
… an event that is said to
have taken place in the very year that Mohammed was born, c. 570 AD, the
invasion of Mecca by Abraha[s] of the kingdom of Axum [Aksum], has all the
earmarks, I thought, of the disastrous campaign of Sennacherib of Assyria
against Israel.
Not 570 AD, but closer to 700 BC!
Lacking to this Qur'anic
account is the [Book of] Judith element that (I have argued in various places)
was the catalyst for the defeat of the Assyrian army. ....
But, as I went on to say, the
Judith element is available, still in the context of the kingdom of
Axum - apparently a real AD kingdom, but one that seems to appropriate ancient
Assyrian - in the possibly Jewish heroine, Gudit (Gwedit, Yodit, Judith),
ostensibly of the mid- C10th AD. Let us read some more about her.
Judith the Simeonite and Gudit the
Semienite
Interesting that
Judith the Simeonite has a Gideon (or Gedeon) in her ancestry (Judith 8:1):
“[Judith] was the daughter of Merari, the granddaughter of Ox and the
great-granddaughter of Joseph. Joseph’s ancestors were Oziel, Elkiah, Ananias, Gideon,
Raphaim, Ahitub, Elijah, Hilkiah, Eliab, Nathanael, Salamiel, Sarasadai, and
Israel”, and the Queen of Semien, Gudit (or Judith), was the daughter of a King
Gideon.
That the latter,
Gudit, is probably a fable, however, is suspected by the following
writer (http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=314380):
Bernard Lewis (1): The
Jews of the Dark continent, 1980
The early history of the Jews
of the Habashan highlands remains obscure, with their origins remaining more
mythical than historical. In this they areas in other respects, they are the
mirror image of their supposed Kin across the Red sea. For while copious
external records of Byzantine, Persian, old Axumite and Arab sources exist of
the large-scale conversion of Yemen to Judaism, and the survival of a large
Jewish community at least until the 11th century, no such external records
exist for the Jews of Habash, presently by far the numerically and politically
dominant branch of this ancient people.
Their own legends insist that
Judaism had reached the shores of Ethiopia at the time of the First temple.
They further insist that Ethiopia had always been Jewish. In spite of the
claims of Habashan nationalists, Byzantine, Persian and Arab sources all
clearly indicate that the politically dominant religion of Axum was, for a
period of at least six centuries Christianity and that the Tigray
cryptochristian minority, far from turning apostate following contact with
Portugese Jesuits in the 15th century is in fact the [remnant] of a period of
Christian domination which lasted at least until the 10th century.
For the historian, when
records fail, speculation must perforce fill the gap. Given our knowledge of
the existence of both Jewish and Christian sects in the deserts of Western
Arabia and Yemen it is not difficult to speculate that both may have reached
the shores of Axum concurrently prior to the council of Nicaea and the
de-judaization of heterodox sects. Possibly, they coexisted side by side for
centuries without the baleful conflict which was the lot of both faiths in the
Mediterannean. Indeed, it is possible that they were not even distinct faiths.
We must recall that early Christians saw themselves as Jews and practiced all
aspects of Jewish law and ritual for the first century of their existence.
Neither did Judaism utterly disavow the Christians, rather viewing them much as
later communities would view the Sabateans and other messianic movement. The
advent While Paul of Tarsus changed the course of Christian evolution but
failed to formally de-Judaize all streams of Christianity, with many surviving
even after the council of Nicaea.
Might not Habash have offered
a different model of coexistence, even after it’s purported conversion to
Christianity in the 4th century? If it had, then what occurred? Did
Christianity, cut off from contact with Constantinople following the rise of
Islam, wither on the vine enabling a more grassroots based religion to assume
dominance? While such a view is tempting, archaeological evidence pointing to
the continued centrality of a Christian Axum as an administrative and economic
center for several centuries following the purported relocation of the capital
of the kingdom to Gonder indicates a darker possibility.
The most likely scenario, in
my opinion, turns on our knowledge of the Yemenite- Axum-Byzantine conflict of
the 6th century. This conflict was clearly seen as a religious, and indeed
divinely sanctioned one by Emperor Kaleb, with certain of his in scriptures
clearly indicating the a version of “replacement theology” had taken root in
his court, forcing individuals and sects straddling both sides of the
Christian-Jewish continuum to pick sides. Is it overly speculative to assume
that those cleaving to Judaism within Axum would be subject to suspicion and
persecution? It seems to me likely that the formation of an alternative capital
by the shores of lake Tana, far from being an organized relocation of the
imperial seat, was, in fact, an act of secession and flight by a numerically
inferior and marginalized minority (2).
Read in this light, the fabled
Saga of King Gideon and Queen Judith recapturing Axum from Muslim invaders and
restoring the Zadokan dynasty in the 10th century must be viewed skeptically as
an attempt to superimpose on the distant past a more contemporary enemy as part
of the process of national myth making. What truly occurred during this time of
isolation can only be the guessed at but I would hazard an opinion that the
Axum these legendary rulers “liberated” was held by Christians rather than
Muslims. ….
[End of quote]
Judith and Joan of Arc
Perhaps the heroine
with whom Judith of Bethulia is most often compared is the fascinating Joan
[Jeanne] of Arc. Spoto again, in his life of Joan, has a chapter five
on Joan of Arc that he entitles “The New Deborah”. And Joan has also been
described as a “second Judith”. Both Deborah and Judith were celebrated Old
Testament women who had provided military assistance to Israel. Spoto, having
referred to those ancient pagan women (Telesilla, etc.), as already discussed,
goes on to write (p. 74):
Joan was not the only woman in
history to inspire and to give direction to soldiers. .... Africa had its rebel
queen Gwedit, or Yodit, in the tenth century. In the seventh appeared
Sikelgaita, a Lombard princess who frequently accompanied her husband, Robert,
on his Byzantine military campaigns, in which she fought in full armor,
rallying Robert’s troops when they were initially repulsed by the Byzantine
army. In the twelfth century Eleanor of Aquitaine took part in the Second
Crusade, and in the fourteenth century Joanna, Countess of Montfort, took up
arms after her husband died in order to protect the rights of her son, the Duke
of Brittany. She organized resistance and dressed in full armor, led a raid of
knights that successfully destroyed one of the enemy’s rear camps.
Joan [of Arc] was not a queen,
a princess, a noblewoman or a respected poet with public support. She went to
her task at enormous physical risk of both her virginity and her life, and at
considerable risk of a loss of both reputation and influence. The English, for
example, constantly referred to her as the prostitute: to them, she must have
been; otherwise, why would she travel with an army of men?
Yet Joan was undeterred by
peril or slander, precisely because of her confidence that God was their
captain and leader. She often said that if she had been unsure of that, she would
not have risked such obvious danger but would have kept to her simple, rural
life in Domrémy.
[End of quote]
I think that,
based on the Gudit and Axum scenario[s], there is the real possibility that
some of these above-mentioned heroines, or ancient amazons, can be identified
with the famous Judith herself - gradually being transformed from an heroic Old
Testament woman into an armour-bearing warrior on horseback, sometimes even
suffering capture, torture and death - whose celebrated beauty and/or siege victory
I have argued on many occasions was picked up in non-Hebrew ‘history’, or
mythologies: e.g. the legendary Helen of Troy is probably based on Judith, at
least in relation to her beauty and a famous siege, rather than to any military
noüs on Helen’s part.
In the name
Iodit (Gwedit) above, the name Judith can be, I think, clearly recognised.
The
wisdom-filled Judith might even have been the model, too, for the interesting
and highly intelligent and philosophically-minded Hypatia of Alexandria. Now I
find in the Wikipedia article, “Catherine of Alexandria” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Alexandria),
that the latter is also likened to Hypatia. Catherine is said to have lived 105
years (Judith’s very age: see Book of Judith 16:23) before Hypatia’s death.
Historians such as Harold Thayler Davis believe that Catherine (‘the pure one’)
may not have existed and that she was more an ideal exemplary figure than a
historical one. She did certainly form an exemplary counterpart to the pagan
philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria in the medieval mindset; and it has been
suggested that she was invented specifically for that purpose. Like Hypatia,
she is said to have been highly learned (in philosophy and theology), very
beautiful, sexually pure, and to have been brutally murdered for publicly
stating her beliefs.
Interestingly,
St. Joan of Arc identified Catherine of Alexandria as one of
the Saints who appeared to her and counselled her.
Who really
existed, and who did not?
Judith of
Bethulia might be the key to answering this question, and she may also provide
us with a golden opportunity for embarking upon a revision of AD time. For
there are also many supposedly AD queens called “Judith” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Judith):
Queen Judith may
refer to at least some of these:
- Judith of Babenberg (c. late 1110s/1120 – after 1168), daughter of Leopold III, Margrave of Austria and Agnes of Germany, married William V, Marquess of Montferrat
- Judith of Bavaria (925 – June 29 soon after 985), daughter of Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria and Judith, married Henry I, Duke of Bavaria
- Judith of Bavaria (795-843) (805 - April 19 or 23, 843), daughter of Count of Welf and Hedwig, Duchess of Bavaria, became second wife of Louis the Pious
- Judith Premyslid (c. 1057–1086), daughter of Vratislaus II of Bohemia and Adelaide of Hungary, became second wife of Władysław I Herman
- Judith of Brittany (982 – 1017), daughter of Conan I of Rennes and Ermengarde of Anjou, Duchess of Brittany, married Richard II, Duke of Normandy
- Judith of Flanders (October 844 – 870), daughter of Charles the Bald and Ermentrude of Orléans, married Æthelwulf of Wessex
- Judith of Habsburg (1271 – May 21, 1297), daughter of Rudolph I of Germany and Gertrude of Hohenburg, married to Wenceslaus II of Bohemia
- Judith of Hungary (d.988), daughter of Géza of Hungary and Sarolt, married Bolesław I Chrobry
- Judith of Schweinfurt (before 1003 – 2 August 1058), daughter of Henry, Margrave of Nordgau and Gertrude, married Bretislaus I, Duke of Bohemia
- Judith of Swabia (1047/1054 – 1093/1095), daughter of Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor and Agnes of Poitou, married Władysław I Herman, successor to Judith of Bohemia
- Judith of Thuringia (c. 1135 - d. 9 September after 1174), daughter of Louis I, Landgrave of Thuringia and Hedwig of Gudensberg, married Vladislaus II of Bohemia
'Woe
to the nations that rise up against my people!
The
Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment;
he
will send fire and worms into their flesh;
they
shall weep in pain forever'.
Judith
16:17
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