by
Damien F. Mackey
“When Josephus named Nebuchadnezzar as
builder of the [hanging] garden, both he and his readers would have been
confused between Nineveh and Babylon, and between Sennacherib and
Nebuchadnezzar, because at the time they were reading his account, the Book of
Judith was already in circulation”.
What a terrific book! I read it in one go.
I am referring to Stephanie Dalley’s The Mystery of the
Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced (OUP, 2013).
Apart from her unscrambling of the Classical texts on the subject of the Seven
Wonders of the World, and being able to conclude that it was not Nebuchednezzar
II the Chaldean, but rather the Assyrian king Sennacherib, who created the
‘hanging’ gardens that became so famed in antiquity, Dalley provides an
abundance of important information on Assyro-Babylonian technology, art and
architecture.
Despite the necessary technicalities, this
book, written by a most disciplined researcher - “a world expert on ancient
Babylonian language” - is easy to read and enjoyable.
In Chapter 6, “Confusion of Names”, Dalley
makes this important point (p. 107):
Several confusions have been identified. It would be satisfactory
if we could account for them, to strengthen yet further the argument that the
Hanging Garden was built by Sennacherib in Nineveh rather than by
Nebuchadnezzar or Semiramis in Babylon. Four distinct pairs of names are
relevant for tracing the story of the legendary garden: ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ named
for Sennacherib, the city name ‘Babylon’ used for Nineveh, the river
‘Euphrates’ named instead of the Tigris, and ‘Semiramis’ confused with other
queens and with ‘Nitocris”. For each of them an explanation can be given.
When reading Dalley’s account here of name
confusion, I was immediately reminded of the situation right at the beginning
of the Book of Judith, about which I have written much. And, indeed, the point
has not been missed on Dalley either. For she writes on the next page (p. 108),
referring to Judith as a “late” text (but I would prefer to say a late copy of
the original):
Sennacherib was evidently confused with Nebuchadnezzar in several
late texts. In the opening words of the Book of Judith the two kings are
confused: ‘It was the twelfth year of Nebuchadnezzar who reigned over the
Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh’. When Josephus named Nebuchadnezzar as
builder of the garden, both he and his readers would have been confused between
Nineveh and Babylon, and between Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar, because at the
time they were reading his account, the Book of Judith was already in
circulation.
For my own reconstruction of the Book of
Judith’s magnificent drama as belonging entirely to the C8th BC time of
Sennacherib of Nineveh, and not to the C6th BC Nebuchednezzar II of Babylon,
see e.g. my articles:
Book of Judith
Suggests Sargon as Sennacherib
and
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
https://www.academia.edu/36576110/_Nadin_Nadab_of_Tobit_is_the_Holofernes_of_Judith
Part Two:
Assyrian king may have
been a ‘Nebuchednezzer’
“Several rulers have had a goodly
number of scholars supporting their identification with Judith’s
“Nebuchadnezzar”, notably, Ashurbanipal of Assyria; Artaxerxes III, Ochus, of
Persia; Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, of Syria; and Demetrius I, Soter, also of Syria”.
Carey
A. Moore
So
difficult have commentators found it to secure an historical locus for
the events described in the Book of Judith that the almost universal tendency
today - for those who give the book at least some sort of credence as a
recording of historical events - is to relegate the book to the category, or genre,
of ‘historical fiction’, as, for instance, some kind of literary fusion of
all the enemies (Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Syrian, etc.) with whom
ancient Israel had ever had to contend.
R. H. Charles,
for one, has proposed the likelihood of this particular genre to account
for the Book of Judith: “But if the book is historical fiction, as it
seems to be, we need not expect to explain all its statements. The writer
selected such incidents as suited his purpose, without troubling about
historical accuracy … The details are not meant to be historical” (The
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament).
Such a
view is perhaps not entirely surprising, considering that whoever might aspire
to show the historicity of the book tends to stumble right at the very start,
with verse 1:1: “It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who
ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad
ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana”.
At
first appearance, we have here:
(i)
A great Babylonian king, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’, ruling over
(ii)
an Assyrian capital city, ‘Nineveh’ [that had ceased to exist several
years before Nebuchednezzar II the Great’s rule] and whose contemporary rival,
‘Arphaxad’ [a historical unknown], was apparently
(iii)
a Mede. For, as we learn a bit further on, in verse 5, the ruler of
‘Nineveh’ will make war on the Medes [who were in fact the allies of
Nebuchednezzar II the Great]. And, to complete this potpourri, Nebuchadnezzar’s
commander-in-chief, introduced into the narrative in chapter 2, will be found
to have a name that is considered to be
(iv)
Persian, ‘Holofernes’, as will be thought to be the case also with his
chief eunuch, ‘Bagoas’.
No
wonder, then, that earlier commentators had sought for the book’s historical locus
in periods ranging over hundreds of years.
Thus,
according to Charles (op. cit.):
“Attempts have been made to identify the Nebuchadnezzar of the story with
Assurbanipal, Xerxes I, Artaxerxes Ochus, Antiochus Epiphanes: Arphaxad with
Deioces or Phraortes”.
Carey
A. Moore gives a similar list of candidates for the Book of Judith’s “Nebuchadnezzar”:
Although
a large number of Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Syrian kings have been
suggested by scholars as the particular pagan king in question …. Several
rulers have had a goodly number of scholars supporting their identification
with Judith’s “Nebuchadnezzar”, notably, Ashurbanipal of Assyria; Artaxerxes
III, Ochus, of Persia; Antiochus IV, Epiphanes, of Syria; and Demetrius I,
Soter, also of Syria.
To
which Moore adds this intriguing point: “Ironically, the two Babylonian kings
with the actual name “Nebuchadnezzar” (i.e., Nebuchadnezzar II and
“Nebuchadnezzar IV”) have won virtually no supporters …”.
Apparently
Nebuchednezzar I, whom I have identified with Sargon II/Sennacherib:
is
chronologically – in conventional terms – much too far out of range to be
seriously considered as a candidate for the ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ of the Book of
Judith.
Leahy
has pointed to the following seeming “Historical Inaccuracies” in the book:
… (i)
Nabuchodonosor [Nebuchadnezzar] bears the title ‘king of the Assyrians’ and is
said to reign in Nineveh. But the historical Nabuchodonosor was king of the
Neo-babylonian empire from 604 to 562 B.C. The Assyrian empire had then ceased
to exist and so also had Nineveh which was destroyed in 612 B.C. (ii) The
Assyrian monarchy is assumed to be still in existence, yet the following
passages seem to assign the events narrated to the period following the
Babylonian captivity – 4:3 (LXX) reads, ‘For they were lately come up from
captivity … and the vessels, the altar and the house were sanctified after
their profanation’; 5:18 f. (LXX) reads, “they were led captive into a land
that was not theirs, and the temple of their God was cast to the ground (εγενήϑη
εις εδαφος) … and now they are returned to their God, and are come up from
the dispersion where they were dispersed, and have possessed Jerusalem where
their sanctuary is’; 5:22 f. (Vg)
reads,
‘many of them were led away captive into a strange land. But of late returning
… they are come together … and possess Jerusalem again, where their sanctuary
is’. Moreover other passages (e.g. 4:5) imply that there was no king
reigning, for the supreme authority, even over the Northern Kingdom, was vested
in the high-priest assisted by the Sanhedrin (ή γερουςία cf. LXX 4:8;
15:8). (iii) None of the known Median kings was named Arphaxad. (iv) Holofernes
was a Persian as his name implies, and we should not expect a Persian in
command of the Assyrian armies.
Another
proponent of the historical fiction genre for the Book of Judith is
Montague, whose explanation Moore has quoted in the context of whom he calls
“present-day scholars who regard Judith as having “a certain historicity””:
The
author, writing resistance literature under the rule of a foreign power, has
used the Assyrians as types of the Greeks and used Nebuchadnezzar as a coded
symbol for Antiochus the Illustrious, the Greek Seleucid king who persecuted
the Jews. … the author reworked for this purpose a story whose historical
nucleus went back two centuries, to the Persian period. … Thus, we can
conclude that the book of Judith is historical in two senses: one, there is a
historical nucleus which gave rise to the Judith tradition, though this
nucleus is now difficult to recover; the other, the story witnesses to the
way believing Jews of the post-exilic period understood the challenge of their
existence when pressured by tyrants to abandon their sacred traditions.
[italics added] (Books of Esther and Judith, p. 8).
But see
e.g. my:
“Once
scholars stopped regarding Judith as a purely historical account, they started
looking for a more accurate characterization of its literary genre”, writes
Moore, who adds:
Starting
with Martin Luther, who characterized Judith as a poem, “a kind of allegorical
… passion play,” … scholars have had continued difficulty in establishing the
precise genre of the story. To say that the book is a fictional account where
historical and geographical details serve a literary purpose, while somewhat
helpful, is not precise enough. In other words, exactly what kind of fiction is
it?”
“Perhaps
the most popular hypothesis among scholars”, according to Moore, “has been
what
might be called the two-accounts theory”:
… that
is, the book of Judith consists of two parts of unequal length: (1) a
“historical” account of a pagan’s war in the East and/or his subsequent
invasion of the West (chaps. 1-3); and (2) the story of Judith’s deliverance of
her people (chaps. 4-16). While these two sections of the Judith-story are
sometimes thought to reflect the same historical period, more often scholars
have thought otherwise, especially those scholars who view the story of Judith
itself as being essentially fictitious.
Judith
Long Considered
to
have been Historical
According
to Leahy, on the other hand, there is a very long tradition of historicity
associated with the Book of Judith:
(a)
Jewish and Christian tradition and all commentaries prior to the sixteenth
century regarded the book as historical; (b) the minute historical,
geographical, chronological and genealogical details indicate a straightforward
narrative of real events; (c) the author speaks of descendants of Achior being
alive in his time (14:6), and of a festival celebrated annually up to his day
in commemoration of Judith’s victory (16:31).
And
Pope thinks that the variants in the present text indicate a most ancient original:
“With regard to the state of the text it should be noted that the extraordinary
variants presented in the various versions are themselves a proof that the
versions were derived from a copy dating from a period long antecedent to
the time of its translators”.
Moore
continues on with certain arguments in favour of the Book of Judith
historicity, beginning with this general remark: “The book purports to be a
historical account. Moreover, it has all the outward trappings of one,
including various kinds of dates, numerous names of well-known persons and
places, and, most important of all, a quite believable plot”. All of
this data - what Leahy called “the minute historical, geographical,
chronological and genealogical details [that] indicate a straightforward
narrative of real events” - was what impressed upon me (back in the early
1980’s, my first recollection of having read the Book of Judith) that here was
an account of a real history (albeit an anciently written one). Moore again:
Typical
of genuine historical accounts, Judith includes a number of quite specific
dates …:
the
twelfth year … of Nebuchadnezzar (1:1)
In
[Nebuchadnezzar’s] seventeenth year (1:13)
in the
eighteenth year on the twenty-second day of the first month (2:1)
and
exact periods of time:
feasted
for four whole months (1:16)
stayed
there a full month (3:10)
blockaded
them for thirty-four days (7:20)
hold
out for five more days (7:30)
a widow
… for three years and four months (8:4)
It took
the people a month to loot the camp (15:11)
For
three months the people continued their celebrations in Jerusalem (16:20)
Substantially,
the details in the Book of Judith find their place, as I have argued, in the
era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. 700 BC), largely in the conflict between the
neo-Assyrians and the Jews, e.g.:
"Nadin" (Nadab) of Tobit is the "Holofernes" of Judith
though
names have been confused and certain later foreign elements appear to have been
interpolated. I put down these anomalies and interpolations largely to
copyists’ mistakes and ignorance (historical and geographical) on the part of
the later editors and translators.
This
last is not just an excuse. The so-called ‘pseudepigraphal’ books of Tobit and
Judith were extremely popular down through the centuries and were copied many
times, with mistakes inevitably creeping in.
In the
light of such explanations, let us try to restore to pristine condition that
extremely problematical beginning to the Book of Judith, whilst locating it to
what I believe to be its proper historical setting (1:1, 5):
It
was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the
Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad ruled over the
Medes in Ecbatana.
…
Then King Nebuchadnezzar made war against King Arphaxad in the great plain that
is on the borders of Ragau.
“Twelfth
year”. Sargon II (my Sennacherib), king of Assyria, had, in his “twelfth year”,
successfully waged an eastern war against a stubborn opponent,
Merodach-baladan. Sargon tells us: “In my twelfth year of reign (Merodach-baladan)
.... For 12 years, against the will (heart) of the gods, he held sway over
Babylon ...”.
Moreover,
I have proposed in my “Nebuchednezzar I” article (referred to above) that the
so-called ‘Middle’ Babylonian king, Nebuchednezzar I, was in fact Sargon
II/Sennacherib as ruler of Babylon. Sennacherib in fact began to rule
Babylon even before his rule over Assyria had commenced.
This,
if correct, would immediately account for one of the Book of Judith’s most
controversial details, having a king named ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ ruling over the
Assyrians at Nineveh!
Given
this premise, then the Book of Judith’s Arphaxad, with whom the Assyrian
king fought in his Year 12, can only be Merodach-baladan of Babylon (cf. 2
Kings 20:12; Isaiah 39:1). Merodach-baladan’s rule over Chaldea and the
Chaldeans seems to be reflected in the name, ‘Arphaxad’ (Ur-pa-chesed), i.e., ‘Ur
of the Chaldees’. And that is confirmed by what we are told in verse 6:
“Thus, many nations joined the forces of the Chaldeans”, including the
“Elymeans” (Elamites), perennial allies of Babylon against Assyria.
Thus we
can probably now isolate, as copyists’ mistakes, “Medes” and “Ecbatana” in 1:1,
and also the associated “Ragau” mentioned in 1:5.
Arphaxad/Merodach-baladan did not ‘rule over the
Medes’, at least not primarily, as the current translations of Judith 1:1 would
have it. And this seems to be underlined by the fact that verse 6 identifies
his army as Chaldean, without any mention here of the Medes.
Possibly,
then, Judith 1:1 can be historically reconstructed as follows:
It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar
[Nebuchednezzar I], who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh.
In those days Arphaxad [Merodach-baladan] ruled over the Medes [Chaldeans] in
Ecbatana [Babylon] ….
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