Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Genealogy and Character of Heroine Judith

 

Judith - Chapter 8


1 Judith was informed at the time of what had happened. She was the daughter of Merari son of Ox, son of Joseph, son of Oziel, son of Elkiah, son of Ananias, son of Gideon, son of Raphaim, son of Ahitub, son of Elijah, son of Hilkiah, son of Eliab, son of Nathanael, son of Salamiel, son of Sarasadai, son of Israel.



2 Her husband Manasseh, of her own tribe and family, had died at the time of the barley harvest.



3 He was supervising the men as they bound up the sheaves in the field when he caught sunstroke and had to take to his bed. He died in Bethulia, his home town, and was buried with his ancestors in the field that lies between Dothan and Balamon.



4 As a widow, Judith stayed inside her home for three years and four months.



5 She had had an upper room built for herself on the roof. She wore sackcloth next to the skin and dressed in widow's weeds.



6 She fasted every day of her widowhood except for the Sabbath eve, the Sabbath itself, the eve of New Moon, the feast of New Moon and the joyful festivals of the House of Israel.



7 Now she was very beautiful, charming to see. Her husband Manasseh had left her gold and silver, menservants and maidservants, herds and land; and she lived among all her possessions



8 without anyone finding a word to say against her, so devoutly did she fear God.



9 Hearing how the water shortage had demoralised the people and how they had complained bitterly to the headman of the town, and being also told what Uzziah had said to them and how he had given them his oath to surrender the town to the Assyrians in five days' time,



10 Judith immediately sent the serving-woman who ran her household to summon Chabris and Charmis, two elders of the town.



11 When these came in she said: 'Listen to me, leaders of the people of Bethulia. You were wrong to speak to the people as you did today and to bind yourself by oath, in defiance of God, to surrender the town to our enemies if the Lord did not come to your help within a set number of days.



12 Who are you, to put God to the test today, you, of all people, to set yourselves above him?



13 You put the Lord Almighty to the test! You do not understand anything, and never will.



14 If you cannot sound the depths of the human heart or unravel the arguments of the human mind, how can you fathom the God who made all things, or sound his mind or unravel his purposes? No, brothers, do not provoke the anger of the Lord our God.



15 Although it may not be his will to help us within the next five days, he has the power to protect us for as many days as he pleases, just as he has the power to destroy us before our enemies.



16 But you have no right to demand guarantees where the designs of the Lord our God are concerned. For God is not to be threatened as a human being is, nor is he, like a mere human, to be cajoled.



17 Rather, as we wait patiently for him to save, let us plead with him to help us. He will hear our voice if such is his good pleasure.



18 'And indeed of recent times and still today there is not one tribe of ours, or family, or village, or town that has worshipped gods made by human hand, as once was done,



19 which was the reason why our ancestors were delivered over to sword and sack, and perished in misery at the hands of our enemies.



20 We for our part acknowledge no other God but him; and so we may hope he will not look on us disdainfully or desert our nation.



21 'If indeed they capture us, as you expect, then all Judaea will be captured too, and our holy places plundered, and we shall answer with our blood for their profanation.



22 The slaughter of our brothers, the captivity of our country, the unpeopling of our heritage, will recoil on our own heads among the nations whose slaves we shall become, and our new masters will look down on us as an outrage and a disgrace;



23 for our surrender will not reinstate us in their favour; no, the Lord our God will make it a thing to be ashamed of.



24 So now, brothers, let us set an example to our brothers, since their lives depend on us, and the sanctuary -- Temple and altar -- rests on us.



25 'All this being so, let us rather give thanks to the Lord our God who, as he tested our ancestors, is now testing us.



26 Remember how he treated Abraham, all the ordeals of Isaac, all that happened to Jacob in Syrian Mesopotamia while he kept the sheep of Laban, his mother's brother.



27 For as these ordeals were intended by him to search their hearts, so now this is not vengeance that God is exacting on us, but a warning inflicted by the Lord on those who are near his heart.'



28 Uzziah replied, 'Everything you have just said comes from an honest heart and no one will contradict a word of it.



29 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.



30 But, parched with thirst, the people forced us to act as we had promised them and to bind ourselves by an inviolable oath.



31 You are a devout woman; pray to the Lord, then, to send us a downpour to fill our storage-wells, so that our faintness may pass.'



32 Judith replied, 'Listen to me, I intend to do something, the memory of which will be handed down to the children of our race from age to age.



33 Tonight you must be at the gate of the town. I shall make my way out with my attendant. Before the time fixed by you for surrendering the town to our enemies, the Lord will make use of me to rescue Israel.



34 You must not ask what I intend to do; I shall not tell you until I have done it.'



35 Uzziah and the chief men said, 'Go in peace. May the Lord show you a way to take revenge on our enemies.'



36 And leaving the upper room they went back to their posts.



...



Taken from: http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=18&bible_chapter=8




Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Judith a Type of Virgin Mary's Crushing of Serpent' s Head


The Blessed Virgin Mary is the one woman in the entire Bible who makes the claim, “All generations to come shall call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). And why is that? Well, Catholics believe it is because she was preserved from all time from sin by a special privilege of God. God got to create His own mother on earth.


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The beautiful harp music rendition of Ave Maria you hear playing in the background comes from the beautiful Sally Fletcher, with her permission. If you would like to purchase a copy of it and other beautiful harp music by this wonderful person, click here.



Since original sin (The sin of Adam) is passed down through the womb from one generation to the next, God made Mary free from original sin so that Jesus would also be free from it. This Catholic dogma is called the Immaculate Conception of Mary. This doctrine does not mean that Mary doesn’t need a Savior; in fact, in her Magnificat speech, she says that “her soul rejoices in God my savior” (Luke 1:47). All this means is that she was prevented from falling into the snake pit of sin by the grace of God, rather than being saved from it after sinning, like the rest of us. Catholics believe that this was prefigured in Genesis 3:15, where God told Adam and Eve that He “Will put enmity” between the devil and “THE WOMAN”. Since Eve was in compliance with the devil, and not at enmity, THE WOMAN could not refer to her, but rather a future “WOMAN” who would have enmity (lifelong hatred) with Satan. The entire Genesis 3:15 verse reads as follows from the RSV:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."



Mary and Scripture

THE Woman Since women don’t have “seeds”, but eggs, this is very peculiar wording. Most biblical scholars believe that “the seed” is Jesus Christ”, and that He bruised satan’s head at the place of the skull, called Golgotha, at the crucifixion. If that is so, then Catholics believe that “THE WOMAN” could only refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Jesus, her “seed”. This is why Jesus always referred to Mary as “Woman”, rather than Mom or Mother. Mary can be viewed as a parallel to the Tabernacle of the Lord, as constructed by Moses in Exodus 40 and Luke Chapter 1. In Exodus 40:34-35, when the Tabernacle was completed, we learn the following:





"Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud overshadowed it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.





" In Luke 1:35, the Bible says:



"And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you,and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;therefore the child to be born will be called holy,the Son of God."



In both cases, the word used to "overshadow" is "episkiasei".



Catholics also view Mary as the New Testament Ark of the Covenant. The Old Testament Ark of the Covenant contained three items – The Word of God in the form of stone tablets (the 10 Commandments), manna (bread) from Heaven, and the rod of Aaron that resprouted and came back to life (Hebrews 9:4). Just so, the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary contained Jesus Christ – The living Word of God (John 1:1), the bread of life (John 6:48), and the ruler with a rod of iron who also came back to life (Rev.12:5). At the Annunciation of Mary, Gabriel told her that the power of the most high would “overshadow” her (Luke 1:35). The term “overshadow” is significant, because it was also used to refer to the cherubim “overshadowing” the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant (Hebrews 9:5). The Ark was made with pure gold (Exodus 4ff), and was very holy, which parallels the Catholic teaching that Mary is also pure and holy. The Ark of the Covenant was so holy, that no ordinary person could even touch it. Uzzah reached out to steady it, and was instantly struck dead (2 Samuel 6:7). There are many parallels between the mention of the Ark in 2 Samuel 6 and Mary in Luke 1:



•David heads to the hills of Judah in 2 Samuel 6:2-3; Mary heads to the hills of Judah in Luke 1:39.

•David dances for joy in front of the Ark (2 Samuel 6:14); the unborn fetus John the Baptist leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice (1 Luke 44).

•David says “How can the Ark come to me”? (2 Samuel 6:9); Elizabeth says, “How is this that the Mother of my Lord has come to me”? (1 Luke 43).

•David and the Ark stayed for 3 months (2 Samuel 6:11); Mary stayed for 3 months (1 Luke 56).

So if Jesus is “The Word Made Flesh”, then Mary is “The Ark Made Flesh”. All of these parallels between the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the New Testament is a branch of scripture study known as “typology”. In other words, events and people in the New Testament are prefigured by events and people in the Old Testament.





One such typology revolves around Revelation 12 and Genesis 37:9. In Genesis, Joseph says,



"Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me."



In Revelation 12:1, the scripture reads,



“And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.”



The obvious parallel is that the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars in Joseph’s dream represent his 11 brothers and all of Israel, while THE WOMAN in Revelation is adorned with these symbols of Israel. So who is the “WOMAN”? The first clue is the term “a great portent”. In Isaiah 7:14 in the Old Testament, it says,



“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son and his name shall be called Emmanuel.”



The great portent of Revelation and the sign of Isaiah are one and the same – A Virgin who will give birth to the leader of Israel, Jesus Christ. That woman is the Blessed Virgin Mary. The writer of the book of Revelation, St. John the Apostle, was given by Jesus on the cross to Mary as her son, and Mary was given to John as his Mother, in John 19:26-27. This means that John knew Mary better than anyone, except for Jesus, and he is trying to tell us all something about her status in heaven. In the preceding verse, Revelation 11:19, John tells us that he sees the Ark of the Covenant. In the next verse, Revelation 12:1, he describes the Ark for us as “A woman clothed with the sun”, a term that could only mean the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary. The rest of Revelation 12 talks about the enmity prefigured in Genesis 3:15 between the devil and THE WOMAN, and how satan can’t get to her. In Revelation 12:17, it says that we are her children if we follow the commandments and bear testimony to Jesus.



Mary is also seen as the new Eve. Whereas Eve listened to the devil Lucifer and obeyed him, bringing sin and damnation into the world, Mary listened to the angel Gabriel and obeyed him, thus bringing grace and salvation into the world in the form of Jesus Christ. Mary and Jesus are forever linked together, just as Adam and Eve are. Eve came forth from the side of Adam; Jesus came forth from the womb of Mary. Eve was created immaculately and sinned; Mary was created immaculately and stayed sinless. Thus Mary and her obedience to God overcame Eve’s disobedience to God.



There are many biblical types of Mary in the Old Testament. Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1 is very similar to Hannah’s canticle in 1 Samuel 2. Judith cutting off the head of the Army General Holofernes in Judith 13:8 to save Israel reminds us that Mary will help to bruise the head of the serpent.



The Blessed Virgin Mary is also seen as the Queen Mother. In the Old Testament, the Kings' mother was the queen. The Kings in the Old Testament, like Solomon, had so many wives that it would have been hard to choose one over the other, so the mother of the King became the Queen. Bathsheeba, David's wife, was King Solomon's Queen Mother. In 1 Kings 2, Adonijah approaches the Queen Bathsheeba to ask her to intercede on his behalf with King Solomon. When she asks her son for Adonijah's favor, King Solomon says "Make your request, my mother; for I will not refuse you". This is a parallel to the New Testament, John 2, when Mary intercedes on behalf of the wedding couple to Jesus about the wine that has run out. Solomon didn't refuse his Queen Mother in the Old Testament, and Jesus didn't refuse his Queen Mother in the New Testament. Neither does he refuse her now.



To learn more about Old Testament "types" (foreshadowings) of Mary, click here



Catholics believe that saints in Heaven, and especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, are still active in their roles to assist mankind in spiritual warfare. We know from James 5:16 that the prayers of the righteous are powerful, and we know from Matthew 22:32 that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. In Revelation 5:8, it says that 24 elders in heaven present our petitions to God in the form of incense, which means that there are intermediaries in heaven who hear and present our prayers to God. If the dead rich man in hell can intercede for his brothers on earth with Abraham (Luke 16:27-28), how much more can Mary in heaven intercede for us here on earth with her son Jesus! Mary said in Luke 1:46 that her soul magnifies (To magnify means to enlarge, to make clearer, and to bring into focus) the Lord (her soul is still very much alive, as are all souls ever created by God). And since no one on earth was ever closer to Jesus in body, heart, and mind (Jesus got his flesh and blood from Mary), who better to intercede for us on our behalf than Mary? Giving honor and devotion to Mary (not worship) actually magnifies the Lord. To give honor to an artist's greatest creation (Mary) honors the creator (Jesus) !



The prayer, The Hail Mary, combines the words of Gabriel and Elizabeth with a petition at the end to pray for us. “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee” are the words of Gabriel. These words indicate that Mary was full of grace BEFORE Jesus was in her womb. And no one can be full of grace and have any room left over for sin; otherwise she wouldn’t be “full” of grace. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus” are the words of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. These words from scripture indicate that Mary is blessed more than any other woman, because Jesus is inside of her. Jesus said that you shall know a tree by its fruit, and since Jesus is the fruit of her womb and is sinless and holy, so must Mary be, since she is the tree which bore the fruit (Jesus), although she certainly is not God. The last part of the prayer is a petition to Mary to “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death”.



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Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:1-



“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men.”



So asking for intercessory prayer is a very biblical thing to do, especially from a holy person like Mary (James 5:16).



So how can Mary hear thousands of prayers said to her daily from all over the world? Isn’t she just a human being and not God? Catholics believe we share in God’s divinity when we are in heaven. Why? Because of the words of Peter, in 2 Pet.1:3:



"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence 4: by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature."



We see from these verses of Peter that saints in heaven are partakers in the divine nature, which includes hearing prayers. Saints in heaven have no power of their own. All of their power comes from Christ Jesus, who shares it with them. We know that they witness for us, because of the words of St. Paul, in Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” Witnesses testify to a judge on behalf of the accused, and Paul here is saying that the saints in heaven are our witnesses. Notice that Paul didn't say that they were mere spectators; he called them WITNESSES. Asking these witnesses, especially Mary, to help us with our problems is a very good thing to do. Some people make the mistake of thinking that praying to a saint equals worshipping that saint like he/she is a god, but “to pray” simply means “to ask”, not “to worship”. And since all of their power comes from the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, it is not like conjuring up the dead and seeking hidden knowledge, which is expressly forbidden in Deuteronomy 18:10-11. After all, Jesus appeared with the very dead Moses and Elijah during the Transfiguration (Luke 9:30). Since Jesus never sinned, and conjuring up the dead as an occult practice is a sin, we see here that there is a true distinction between praying to saints for their intercession and calling up the dead to seek arcane knowledge.





There have been many private revelations of Mary, including the two most famous ones at Lourdes France (1858), and at Fatima Portugal in 1917. While none of these private revelations are binding on the faithful as dogma, there have been many documented miracles at Lourdes. Here she proclaimed to St. Bernadette that she is “The Immaculate Conception”. The predictions of Mary to the three shepherd children at Fatima, made during the year of the atheistic Russian Revolution, have all come to pass. They include that another worse war (WWI was already in progress in 1917) would come to pass if men didn’t reform their lives; that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world, and that an attempt on the life of a future Pope would be made. Pope John Paul II was indeed shot on May 13, the exact date of the first apparition to the children in 1917. Here she proclaimed herself to be the “Our Lady of the Rosary”, and she specifically asked everyone to say the rosary for peace. Her main messages have been for people to repent, to do penance for sinners, to pray a lot, and to reform their lives. She also showed the three shepherd children a short vision of the damned in hell, which scared them very much. Mary asked us all to pray for the poor sinners, because without OUR prayers, many will go to hell instead of heaven. So start praying for the conversion of everyone trapped in pornography, adultery, love of money, fornication, greed, lust, the occult, etc. Pray today and everyday specifically for these people. Mary asked us all to do it, so begin today



In 1984, Pope John Paul II followed the instructions of Mary at Fatima and dedicated the entire world, including Russia, to her Immaculate Heart. Soon after, a Catholic workers’ union in Poland (Solidarity) rose up and defeated the Communist Party in Europe, which began as an atheistic workers’ party in Russia (Bolsheviks).



St. Louis de Montfort says that the fastest and quickest way to reach Jesus is to be dedicated to Mary, as her role is lead you to her Son. Jesus came into the world the first time through the womb of Mary. It seems like Jesus is coming into the world the second time through the Immaculate Heart of Mary! Pope John Paul II’s motto was “Totus tuus”, or “Totally yours”. John Paul II dedicated his entire papacy to Mary, knowing well that it would be the shortest and quickest route to Jesus.



Catholics view Mary as the person who will defeat satan on earth. But she will not do it alone. Everyone who is consecrated to Jesus through Mary will help her in her God given mission to defeat the enemy. As the Archangel Gabriel once said - "HAIL FULL OF GRACE !"



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Fatima Prayers Prayers taught to the children at Fatima



Pardon Prayer



O My God, I believe, I adore, I trust, and I love you! And I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not trust, and do not love you.



Prayer of Reparation



O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore thee profoundly. I offer thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of thee the conversion of poor sinners.



Eucharistic Prayer



Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my god, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament!



Sacrifice Prayer



O my Jesus, it is for love of you, in reparation for the offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and for the conversion of poor sinners.



Rosary Decade Prayer



O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.





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Taken from: http://www.catholicbible101.com/theblessedvirginmary.htm








Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Review of Time & Prophecy - Hezekiah - part 4 - Sargon is Sennacherib

 

Greetings all,

I have mentioned several times now, that there is evidence that Sargon and Sennacherib are indeed the same person. I do not claim that their reigns overlapped each other, but I believe that Sargon (the Assyrian name) came to be called Sennacherib (the Babylonian name) much as Tiglathpileser (Assyrian) came to be called PUL by the Babylonians. I have given evidence from the Eponym and Assyrian King lists; and I have given evidence from scripture. But there is more.
This part is just a few snippets from from Damien Mackey’s internet article called ‘Sargon is Sennacherib’. IT is a fairly long article, but I wanted you all to see at least a couple of his major points. The rest of this section is all from his article:
What had struck me, however, was that Sargon's 12th and 15th year campaigns were worded very similarly to Sennacherib's first two campaigns.
Sargon: "In my twelfth year of reign, Marduk-apal-iddina [Merodach-baladan] and Shuturnahundu, the Elamite ... I ... smote with the sword, and conquered ..."
Sennacherib: "In my first campaign I accomplished the defeat of Merodach-baladan ... together with the army of Elam, his ally ....".
And:
Sargon: "Talta, king of the Ellipi ... reached the appointed limit of life ... Ispabara [his son] ... fled into ... the fortress of Marubishti, ... that fortress they overwhelmed as with a net. ... people ... I brought up."
Sennacherib: "... I turned and took the road to the land of the Ellipi. ... Ispabara, their king, ... fled .... The cities of Marubishti and Akkuddu, ... I destroyed .... Peoples of the lands my hands had conquered I settled therein". Added to this was the possibility that they had built their respective 'Palace Without Rival' close in time, because the accounts of each were worded almost identically [2]. Eric Aitchison alerted me to the incredible similarity in language between these two accounts: Sargon: "Palaces of ivory, maple, boxwood, musukkani-wood (mulberry?), cedar, cypress, juniper, pine and pistachio, the "Palace without Rival"2a), for my royal abode .... with great beams of cedar I roofed them. Door-leaves of cypress and maple I bound with ... shining bronze and set them up in their gates. A portico, patterned after a Hittite (Syrian) palace, which in the tongue of Amurru they call a bit-hilanni, I built before their gates. Eight lions, in pairs, weighing 4610 talents, of shining bronze, fashioned according to the workmanship of Ninagal, and of dazzling brightness; four cedar columns, exceedingly high, each 1 GAR in thickness ... I placed on top of the lion-colossi, I set them up as posts to support their doors. Mountain-sheep (as) mighty protecting deities, I cunningly constructed out of great blocks of mountain stone, and, setting them toward the four winds ... I adorned their entrances. Great slabs of limestone, - the (enemy) towns which my hands had captured I sculptured thereon and I had them set up around their (interior) walls; I made them objects of astonishment". Sennacherib: "Thereon I had them build a palace of ivory, maple, boxwood, mulberry (musukannu), cedar, cypress ... pistachio, the "Palace without a Rival"2a), for my royal abode. Beams of ceda .... Great door-leaves of cypress, whose odour ... I bound with shining copper and set them up in their doors. A portico, patterned after a Hittite (Syrian) palace, which they call in the Amorite tongue a bit-hilani, I constructed inside them (the doors) .... Eight lions, open at the knee, advancing, constructed out of 11,400 talents of shining bronze, of the workmanship of the god Nin-a-gal, and full of splendour ... two great cedar pillars, (which) I placed upon the lions (colossi), I set up as posts to support their doors. Four mountain sheep, as protecting deities ... of great blocks of mountain stone ... I fashioned cunningly, and setting them towards the four winds (directions), I adorned their entrances. Great slabs of limestone, the enemy tribes, whom my hands had conquered, dragged through them (the doors), and I set them up around the walls, - I made them objects of astonishment".
……
Conventional Theory's Strengths
(i) Primary
I can find only two examples of a primary nature for the conventional view.
By far the strongest support for convention in my opinion is Esarhaddon's above-quoted statement from what is called Prism S - and it appears in the same form in several other documents as well - that he was 'son of Sennacherib and (grand)son of Sargon'. Prism A in the British Museum is somewhat similar, though much more heavily bracketted [6]:
[Esarhaddon, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, viceroy of Babylon, king] of [Sumer] and Akkad, [son of Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king], king of Assyria, [(grand)son of Sargon, the great king, the mighty king], king of Assyria ....
The first document, Prism S, would be enough to stop me dead in my tracks, were it not for other evidences in support of my proposed merger.
The other, quasi-primary evidence is in regard to Sennacherib's accession. One reads in history books of supposed documentary evidence telling that Sargon was killed and that Sennacherib sat on the throne. Carl Olaf Jonsson gives it, bracketed again, as follows [7]:
For the eponym Nashur(a)-bel (705 BC) one of the Eponym Chronicles (Cb6) adds the note that the king (= Sargon) was killed, and that Sennacherib, on Ab 12, took his seat on the throne.
What one notices in all of the above cases of what I have deemed to be primary evidence is that bracketting is always involved. Prism S, the most formidable testimony, has the word "(grand)son" in brackets. In Prism A, the entire titulary has been square bracketed, which would indicate that Assyriologists have added what they presume to have been in the original text, now missing. And, regarding Sennacherib's accession, Jonsson qualifies the un-named predecessor king with the bracketted "(= Sargon)".
It was customary for the Assyrian kings to record their titulary back through father and grandfather. There are two notable exceptions in neo-Assyrian history: interestingly, Sargon and Sennacherib, who record neither father nor grandfather. John Russell's explanation for this omission is as follows [8]:
In nearly every other Assyrian royal titulary, the name of the king was followed by a brief genealogy of the form "son of PN1, who was son of PN2," stressing the legitimacy of the king.
As Tadmor has observed, such a statement never appears in the titulary of Sennacherib. This omission is surprising since Sennacherib was unquestionably [sic] the legitimate heir of Sargon II. Tadmor suggests that Sennacherib omitted his father's name either because of disapproval of Sargon's policies or because of the shameful manner of Sargon's death ....
This may be, but it is important to note that Sargon also omitted the genealogy from his own titulary, presumably because, contrary to this name (Sargon is the biblical form of Šarru-kên: "the king is legitimate"), he was evidently not truly the legitimate ruler. Perhaps Sennacherib wished to avoid drawing attention to a flawed genealogy: the only way Sennacherib could credibly have used the standard genealogical formulation would have been with a statement such as "Sennacherib, son of Sargon, who was not the son of Shalmaneser", or "who was son of a nobody", and this is clearly worse than nothing at all.
That there was some unusual situation here cannot be doubted. And the bracketing that we find in Esarhaddon's titulary may be a further reflection of it. By contrast, Esarhaddon's son, Ashurbanipal, required no such bracketing when he declared: I am Assurbanipal ... offspring of the loins of Esarhaddon ...; grandson of Sennacherib ..." [9].

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Professor Robert Temple Could Not Be More Right About 'the Vicious Academic World'


Taken from Robert Temple’s Egyptian Dawn. Exposing the Real Truth Behind Ancient Egypt (Century 2010).

Pp. 399-400:

"[On the Atlantic Culture] …. Countless authors, ancient and modern, have commented upon the Atlantic cultures, but these remarks have rarely been given proper attention Perhaps the reason for this is that there is no academic disci¬pline or academic department concerned with 'Atlantic culture'. As soon as the archaeologists of one region of the world begin to discuss it, they feel uncomfortable, because they are 'straying beyond their boundaries'. There is nothing that makes an academic more nervous than that, because it opens him up to criticism by his colleagues. The academic world is a vicious world, where no mercy is ever shown, and where the slightest slip from 'consensus behaviour' can endanger an academic's entire career. It is only people like myself, who do not depend upon the favour and approval of peers for a livelihood, who can say what they like and stray over as many boundaries as they please. With every passing year, the competition for jobs within the academic community becomes more intense, the level of fear rises and the timidity of discourse increases. One of these days, the academic world will just seize up like a sea of ice, with no movement at all, and all opinions will remain perfectly rigid. Then everybody will be safe. …".

Pp. 430:

"…. Alessandra Nibbi's ideas are so extraordinarily interesting and rele¬vant that at one point I considered attempting an extended survey of them here, and compiling a comprehensive bibliography for her as I have done for Patrick O'Mara (whom she frequently published in her journal). If it were not for the activities of a few polite and genteel 'trouble-makers' like Nibbi and O'Mara, Egyptology would become totally petrified and incapable of ever generating a new insight. Thus, people like Nibbi and O'Mara should be encouraged enthusiastically, because they poke the corpses of the 'walking dead', the orthodox scholars who never deviate by a hair's-breadth from consensus opinions, and make them awaken from their sleepwalking and stir slightly. However, I have had to abandon my noble idea of surveying Nibbi's ideas, however important they are in terms of what I have been discussing, because the task would be too vast, and this book would never end. I shall content myself therefore with quoting only one of her many, many articles, which appeared in her own journal in 1995, as her comments are so shocking in the light of what we have been considering: ... we are given [in a book she has just quoted] a resume from the Egyptological textbooks on the 'Libvans' without considering the fact that there is a great deal of uncertainty and assumption in piecing together the Egyptological material, and no clarity at all concerning the geographical background of these people, which cannot have been the desert.... We must accept the Roman use of this term which applied to all the area immedi¬ately to the west of the Nile . . . Thus the term westerner is more appropriate than Libyan for the people we are discussing. . . More recent studies of 'Libyan' people have been reluctant to separate them from the area that is Libya today and rarely attempt to identify them from any evidence. We even find references to 'ethnically Libyan pharaohs', whatever that may imply: At the seminar which formed the basis of Anthony Leahy's Libya and Egypt c. 1300)-750 B.C. (1990), no attempt was made to define 'Libyan'. Scholars depended considerably on Leahy's earlier article on the Libyan period in Egypt which attempts to identity the foreign ‘Libyan' Dynasty in Egypt as rule by men of 'Libyan extraction', even though 'the retention of their ethnic identity is obscured by the evidence’. …".

Thursday, August 25, 2011

"Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish ..."




Rasputin said...
 
To Damien:
Your thesis on the Revised History of Hezekiah was brilliantly argued and should have resulted in a PHD so that your gift in complicated historical revisionism could have been more further developed. In this thesis, you covered an incredible amount of data but unfortunately one examiner has prevented you from achieving your full academic potential. The university will be poorer for not having awarded you a well deserved PHD for I surmise that you would have made hundreds of other connections in ancient history that would have shed more light in a field that is strewn with a great deal of confusion. Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology. I think the works of Velikovsky, Courville and Mackey and others will eventually unseat the modern Pharisees and Sadduccees who hold sway over the old orthodoxy which is dying as the revisionists get their ideas out in the internet. I hope that you are actively engaged in further research and I suspect you realize that the Hebrew Chronology which influenced three of the major religions in history is more critical than the Egyptian documents that are carved in stone as almost nothing in the Egyptian Chronology matches that of the Hebrews. Keep up the great research.
Damien Mackey's response:
Great post, Rasputin. I am sure that your prophetic words will one day become a reality: "Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology". For much more of this kind of thinking, going way beyond Egypt, see "Other AMAIC sites" as listed in right hand column at: http://amaic1.blog.com/
August 25, 2011 5:36 PM